October colors on lilac leaves. Looks like nature placed hearts on the grass to get my attention.
Since I am sharing close-ups, mostly of flowers I’ve decided also to participate in Cee’s Flower of the Day challenge.
Once again, Rose, in its glory.
Since I am sharing close-ups, mostly of flowers I’ve decided also to participate in Cee’s Flower of the Day challenge.
A unknown flower to me, but it is, a beautiful and delicate. I’ve so many flower photos, that I have not shared. These are taken from my trop to Sri Lanka.
Since I am sharing close-ups, mostly of flowers I’ve decided also to participate in Cee’s Flower of the Day challenge.
Rose, flower is a flower and beautiful in its own right. As is hydrangea, both in pink tones
Since I am sharing close-ups, mostly of flowers I’ve decided also to participate in Cee’s Flower of the Day challenge. This time I am just posting shots of roses.
I love to have fresh flowers at home, I picked some roses this time.
I always ,first pick out a photo when I start write a blog post , I decide what I want to share, and then maybe write few words to accompany it and come up with a title. I keep repeating the title as I am bad as coming up with them.
I mean, flower is a flower and beautiful in its own right. And I want to believe, that so are most of my photos that I choose to share. They should speak for themselves. Not that they always do, but I can make believe ☺
Since I am sharing close-ups, mostly of flowers I’ve decided also to participate in Cee’s Flower of the Day challenge. This time I don’t have violets, but some of the carnations have violet color.
I love to have fresh flowers at home, I picked some small carnations this time, because they stay looking good for a long time. I take photos of them to pass time and in the process get few nice shots. Edit them see what I can create from them.
Autumn iis about letting go of summer and preparing for winter. Greens give way to dead stems and yellow drooping leaves. Darkness slowly takes over the time of light, but how beautiful it can be at the beginning of autumn🍂
What clouds, I loved the contrast of the dark clouds against the autumn color by the road as we drove in to the rain and finally to the otherside of it towards the raindow.
I had to go out and take new photos of the berries I saw few days ago, they looked so lovely an I just I had to try to get new better shots of them.
I am not a fan of the season, it is in the top three thou, but the autumn colors are amazing every year.
I found this nature’s artwork in my backyard, fern and a some other plants made a beautiful contrast. You just have to look for it closely to find it. . Sunday greetings to you all!
Today, I saw this lovely deer ,from the window facing my backyard, posing on the hill. It would have been nice to go outside and take the photosthere, but it would have run away, if I’d gone and opened the door. So, I took these through the window, taking this to consideration they came out ok.
It stood there on the hill for a while, looked around and finally turning and walked away. Just to lay down and rest on the hill behind a fallen tree, so that only the ears were visible.
I took this opportunity to share some new stuff, I took these yesterday as the season changed in a day.
Sunday we had temperatures of 26C and over night summer ended and autumn temperetures came on us. It was 16C and it felt cool, not cold.
My husband had a week earlier cut these sunflowers from the field for me. Yesterday tthese sunflowers looked like how I felt about the seanson change. From Happy to Sad just like that.
I am in a slump, you know, I want to do things, I paln to do things, it is my intention and then, I do nothing. Here is one thing I decided to do, and finaly did. A post,
I took these yesterday at Porkkala Marina, we had a lovely brunch there and saw of this wonderful old sailboat, sitting at the dock wathing the ripples on the water. So peaceful…
Let the photos speak, not that many words needed. After rain.
What a week!
I am no IT Guru, in anyways and it has been obvius as I have now taken my new computer to use. I set it up myself, added all the safety programs I had previously, I also have once again uploaded my editing tools that I use. Unfortunately all the edits I had in my lightroom on the old computer were lost, and as my new back up, that I just bought broke, which had all my new photos and their edits. I now have to do them again, that includes my Crete photos, fortunately I had those all so on the compurer and was able to send them as a zip file to myself, so I did loose them altogether.
Today I had an interview for a job as a team interview, and a new problem came up with the sound… I so love and hate this technology.
Anyways, what I am trying to say is, I am now back in action. All I have to do is edit all my photos again, (practice,makes you better if not perfect! 🙂 ) That I have taken this year, and that I am able to access. Some are now lost for good. Now on, I am going to do a back up monthly, or maybe I should do it as soon as I add new photos and have edited them. What are the chances that I will loose back up and computer at the same time…
Here are few love locks from Tampere, I shot them week ago 🙂
Some atmosphere photos from Chania old town lanes and the harbor area from an other perspective
Some atmosphere photos from Chania and buildings at the Venetian harbor. The first set I took with my mobile and the other with my camera where I was able to adjust the settings and zoom better and was able to get more moody shots.
This post is all about the first sunset we saw in Chania at the Venetian harbour, it was so lovely that we later in the week came back for an other one. Well we came for dinner too and shopping, walking in the small alleys in old town. The first set I took with my mobile and the other with my camera where I was able to adjust the settings and zoom better and was able to get more moody shots.
Our first visit to Chania it is a breathtaking city on the north-west coast of the island of Crete. The city is historically significant In the town of Chania, ancient Greek, Byzantine, Venetian, and Ottoman buildings coexist in the landscape of the city. We visited the Virgin Mary Metropolitan Church, on our way to the Venetian Harbour, “It is worth walking and watching, and at sunset you can get some really nice shot. Those I will share in the next post.
Papadiana is a lovely small village located 60 km south of Chania and close to the village of Sougia. With few inhabitants (population 14 as I found out as I googled the area) that deal mostly with agriculture, Papadiana has traditional architecture with stone houses and narrow streets.
It is surrounded by lush greenery and wild mountainsides. Most vegetation comprises of olive groves that give pure virgin oil, for which Crete is famous.
We drove through this small village and noticed a sign on the side of the road, Old mill, we took the turn and found this idyllic place at the end of this gravel road. When we saw the mill it it had a 1860 A.C. sign on it.,
It has been a tiring three weeks, but I finally think I have beaten the flu. There seems to be lots of it going around. Maybe I can now get back to certain flow to get may Grete photos posted. But here is just a small summer greeting from my summer place.
Lakeside blues and cool water topped with ice-cream, can you top that? Summer!
Sweet strawberries, the season first for me and they were so tasty and sweet, one of my favorite treats of summer, fresh strawberries and new potatoes.
Although Crete isn’t the homeland of oranges and lemons, citrus fruits play a huge role in the Cretan diet. If I saw many olive trees I did see some orange and lemon trees as well. Ancient Greeks used to believe that the Earth goddess, Gaia, gave citrus fruits as a gift to Zeus and Hera on their wedding.
The special microclimate in the area of Chania, as well as the abundant water available from the Cretan White Mountains, contribute to the growth of juicy oranges. I heard said that…
“In fact, these oranges are among the most delicious in the world.”
The small village of Sougia in the south-west of Crete has managed to remain unaffected by the growth of tourism in Crete. It is still a peaceful haven, with a long beach, we stopped there for a while and had lunch at a one of the beach side taverns.
In front of the village lies a lovely quiet long beach with coarse sand and crystal clear deep water. The beach starts from the small harbor of Sougia (west) at exit of Lissos Gorge and stretches to the east for 1.5km. This part of the long beach is not organized. Instead, the beach in front of the village offers umbrellas, showers, sports and a lifeguard tower. Along the beach there are plenty of tamarisk trees where you can find shade.
Moussaka was the dish I tasted here, and it was very good. I tasted it in an other place later and I have to say this was so much tastier.
Recipe for Moussaka: Components 3-4 aubergines 3 potatoes (optional) 0.7 kg of ground lamb or beef 1-2 onions around a glass of red wine 400 g tomatoes from cans or 5 larger grated fresh tomatoes olive oil Spices: ½ teaspoon of cinnamon, 2 tablespoons of oregano ½ teaspoon of ground cloves, salt, pepper, a pinch of sugar (or mix for moussaka) Bechamel sauce: 600 milk 85 g flour 85 g butter salt pepper, 25 g of grated hard cheese (eg Greek kefalotiri or Italian equivalent) 1 egg
This is going to be the one of many posts, so sorry 🙂 beforehand for the nearly same named posts.
Common trees in Crete are the tamarisk , oak-, chestnut-, pine-, cypress– and the evergreen plane tree (Platanus ). It is quite often found in the village squares, offering its shade to people. A huge plane tree, or platanos in Greek, can be seen at Topolia village in west Crete “Monument of Nature” after a day on the road we did not go to see it but we did stop in the village. I will post some photos of it later.
It is believed that 55 to 65 percent of the cultivated land on Crete is given over to olive groves, which contain approximately 30 million trees, so that the groves cover one-fifth to one-quarter of the island. And I felt it, I am surprisingly allergic to the bloom of Olive trees and at the end of May early June there was still some in bloom.
This is going to be the one of many posts, so sorry 🙂 beforehand for the nearly same named posts.
On the mountain roads we on more than one occasion ran into these goats with bells on their necks letting us know they were there. So this post is dedicated to the goats we saw 🙂
Shepherding is one of the oldest proffesion in Crete. Bells for sheep and goats were used all over Greece and Crete of course.
The bells were the pride of the shepherd and they were used to monitor the sheeps and goats. The quality of each bell as well as their combination was very important so that the flock will sound harmonious.
The Cretan bells are hammered bells with thin sheet metal and consequently have a low weight. In addition, they are plated with bronze and bronze which protects them from seawater.
The sounds of sheep-bells allow sheperds to know whether an animal is grazing, drinking water, or trying to get away from something or even to locate animals that have been lost.
All traditional hand-made sheep bells sound different. These goats below we saw at Anatolikos Selinos.
This is going to be the one of many posts, so sorry 🙂 beforehand for the nearly same named posts.
After our trip as well as having back up issues, which are now solved, I got a summer flu. Not happy about it, it certainly has me tired.
I still am now aiming to get some pictures published. I will try to cover as much as I can, in the end I did not take all that many photos as I would usually take, but still I was able to capture some beautiful places and things. The flowers bloomed as it was early summer, the hills and trees were still green. I had not many expectations beforehand so I was nicely surprised of what this island had to offer.
The first picture above is from Mousoura area, at least that is what came as the location in my mobile photos, I took shot with my camera and also with the mobile so I would have the locations to remember. The village in these photos, if I remember correctly, is mountain village Lakkoi surrounded by the beautiful mountains of that area
This is going to be the one of many posts, so sorry 🙂 beforehand for the nearly same named posts.
“Abstract art is uniquely modern. It is a fundamentally romantic response to modern life – rebellious, individualistic, unconventional, sensitive, irritable.” – Robert Motherwell
“You can`t look at abstract art without thinking.” – Patricia Cole
“The longer you look at an object, the more abstract it becomes, and, ironically, the more real.” – Lucian Freud
Ritva Sillanmäki Photography 