Treasure Hunt

This week’s Lens-Artists Challenge is a treasure hunt. I’ve been enjoying a dig through my archives to try and find shots for all the items, some more recent than others.

Sunrise or sunset

This photo was taken one morning a couple of weeks back, on my phone, while preparing lunches in the kitchen. The sky was so beautiful I had to stop and take a quick photo. Makes being up early for work a little better when you get to see this from your window!

Sunrise from my kitchen window

Something cold or hot

I’ve gone for something hot. This picture is of a female Black Darter dragonfly obelisking at Cors Caron. This is what dragonflies do when it’s really hot – they point their tail to the sun and lift it high. This reduces the amount of their surface area the sun is hitting so they can cool down. If you know about this behaviour, this image clearly tells you it was hot that day!

Obelisking

A bird

This shot actually covers two items – it’s a bird (more specifically a Herring Gull) and in the background a seascape. This was taken on a trip to Cardigan Island Coastal Farm Park back in the summer. It was also rather hot on that day, but you can’t really tell that from the photo!

Gull on a fence post

A dog

It’s cheating a little, but the name of this flower is a Dog Rose, so perhaps it will count for dog?!

Dog Rose

If not, here’s an actual dog instead! This is Bella the dog who lives at the riding centre my daughter goes to.

Bella the dog

A funny sign

Well, the sign itself isn’t all that funny, what with warning about danger of electrocution, but I find the little sparrow funny, sat there unfazed by the danger. There’s a big yellow sign, and barbed wire, but he’s just sat there chilling in the sunshine 🙂

Bird on a wire

A bicycle

I nearly gave up on this one. I don’t often take pictures of people and bikes and the like. I live in a village and mainly I’m photographing nature. But I dredged right back to 2012 and found this shot from the Edinburgh Fringe Festival which has a bike in it, just behind the man balancing and juggling with fire! Not perhaps the main focus of this image, but it’s there.

Edinburgh Fringe performer

A seascape or mountain landscape

Well, I already claimed that my bird photo contained a seascape, but if that wasn’t good enough, here’s a landscape, featuring a lovely Llama guarding her sheep friends. The hills are the Preseli hills, and the picture was taken at Dyfed Shire Horse Farm in Pembrokeshire (one of our favourite places to visit). Oh, does this count as an animal you rarely see as well? I mean, I see them quite often as I’m a regular there, but they’re not that common.

Llama guard

A rainbow

I found this photo I took back in 2014 of a lovely rainbow over a field of sheep in my village. It makes the photo much more interesting, having such lovely colours in the sky.

Sheep under the rainbow

A church

This one’s from 2016. I was on a walk around the village and decided to photograph the village church through the hedge. It adds a nice soft frame to the photo, and makes it a little mysterious.

Framed church

A musical instrument

Since I had already delved into photos from way back, this one was easier than I first imagined. This one is again from the Edinburgh Fringe Festival which I visited back in 2012. We have a variety of instruments here: saxophone, guitar and double bass. If I remember rightly they were very good. I guess this gets me a bonus as it contains street performers! 🙂

Edinburgh Fringe musicians

A boat

I was wondering if I had some shots of the sea with boats passing, but then I came across this very old photo taken in 2010 while on a narrowboat holiday. This little steam boat came chugging past, very different from the usual boat traffic we were seeing!

Steam boat

A plane

I’m reaching a bit here, but see that line on the right of this sunset photo (double points!) – that’s a trail from a plane passing over, far far away!

Sunrise with plane trail

It’s more noticeable on this photo which was taken after the sun had finished setting. I like how it’s highlighted in pink with the last of the sun’s pink glow.

Pink plane trail

Waterfall

Finally we reach the last item. Not the most dramatic of waterfalls, but it will do 🙂 I was experimenting here with shutter speed, trying to take a slow shot, smoothing the water pouring down. It’s not perfect, but it wasn’t a bad attempt!

Smooth water

And finally…

One final photo, for bonus points – an expressive portrait of one or more people. Well, this is one person and a pony, and I think you can really feel the emotion here, so I would call it an expressive portrait. This one was actually taken a little earlier today – my daughter and her favourite riding school pony Squirrel ❤

This is the best kind of treasure, I think.

❤ LOVE ❤

Thank you

Thank you for reading, I hope you have enjoyed my wander through the archives on this treasure hunt! Now I’m off to see what everyone else has found 🙂