Ray Zhang – Street of Colour and Mountainside Blossoms

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Ray Zhang
Street of Colour and Mountainside Blossoms

Ray Zhang is a senior in high school and he has an unquenchable love for photography. His work has been published in the Blue Marble Review and recognized by the Scholastic Art and Writing Association. His photographs, ‘Street of Colour’ and ‘Mountainside Blossoms’, were taken with an iPhone during his pre-pandemic trip to western China. Ray believes the most important aspect of photography is capturing people’s genuine nature and lifestyles.

Ray Zhang, Street of Colour, photograph, 2019

Ray Zhang, Mountainside Blossoms, photograph, 2019

Bob Ward – Seaside Conversations

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Bob Ward
Seaside Conversations

Among the many pleasures to be savoured on holiday, a leading one must be conversations, often with the strangers you happen to meet informally. Those are occasions when you enrich each other’s being and are able to do so because there is no pressure to rush off anywhere in pursuit of some arid goal that’s been imposed on you. Arising from this, I’ve taken an interest in how people often become truly themselves when engaged in conversation. These photographs are records of people simply talking to each other. They were taken in Wells-next-the-Sea, UK on either a Canon D20 or D7 SLR camera.

Bob Ward, Asking Directions, photograph, 2022.

 

Bob Ward, Reminiscing, photograph, 2022.

Bob Ward – Birds in Flight

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Bob Ward
Birds in Flight

In addition to being a poet, Bob Ward is also an avid photographer. This set of photos for AQ33 includes herring gulls and pinked-footed geese. The herring gulls were photographed while trailing a ferry boat on its way from Vancouver to Victoria Island in May 2007. The camera used was a Canon EOS 20D. Pink-footed geese are regular winter visitors to North Norfolk UK, where Ward lives. There may be as many as 70,000 of them, which like feeding on the waste leaves left by the sugar beet harvest. In flight, they flock in distinctive V-shaped skeins and at times they fill the sky. The photo of the geese taken in January 2020 with a Nicon Coolpix automatic camera.
 

Bob Ward, Herring Gulls 2, photograph, 2007


 

Bob Ward, Herring Gulls 3, photograph, 2007


 

Bob Ward, Pink-footed Geese, photograph, 2020

AKaiser – Sky series: Gloria

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AKaiser
Sky series: Gloria

AKaiser writes: ‘Catching light would be a way to consider my photographic work. You could say I am rather obsessed by it and stop myself more and more to try to capture shades and shadow, foreground and depth ground, at any hour. I’d like to think that my photos reveal further nuances the longer one gazes upon them, as became apparent to me as I stood in and breathed with the live moment, attending.

Both my visual and written work are attempts to hone attention on the stepped over, the unseen, the unidentified. I am a walker and rambler, a journeywoman trying to be awake in the present moment, to translate this stroll, both expansive and detailed, wide and concise, into my work.’

AKaiser, Sky series: Gloria, photograph, 2021.

Rink Foto – Red Sky over San Francisco

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Rink Foto
Red Sky over San Francisco

Rink Foto has been covering San Francisco for approximately 50 years. He took this photo of a darkened, red-orange sky above the Castro Theatre in the city’s Castro District at 11 a.m. on 9 September 2020. The darkened sky and obscured sun, just visible in the photo’s upper-right corner, were the result of wildfires in Northern California and Oregon, which are seen as indicators of climate change. (Notice also the cars driving with their headlamps on for extra visibility and the theatre marquee that reads: ‘Stay Healthy and Safe. We’ll Be Back Soon’).

Rink Foto, Red Sky over San Francisco, photo, 2020

Pat Seman – Photos from Crete

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Pat Seman
Photos from Crete

                                          There is a land called Crete…
                                          handsome country, fertile, thronged with people
                                         well past counting, boasting ninety cities
                                                            the Odyssey, Book 19, line 194

One such city was Tylissos, not far from the palace of Knossos, where Odysseus found shelter when he was blown ashore by a fierce storm on his way to Troy.

Pat Seman, Tylissos, photograph, 2016

      But the place in Crete that has drawn me back repeatedly is Ancient Eleftherna, site of one of the island’s most important ancient city-states. It lies on the slopes of Mount Ida, the birthplace of Zeus, amongst swathes of olive trees, carobs and oaks, its high ridge looking over the distant sea.
      Here excavation is still on-going. Recent finds include a tomb housing the cremated remains of warriors from Homeric times, brimming with opulent grave gifts of jewellery and weapons. And a cremation site with funerary pyres, which conform in every detail to Homer’s description of the pyre built for Patroclus in the Iliad.

Pat Seman, Eleftherna Acropolis, 1, photograph, 2017

      The archaeologists plan to eventually return the warrior’s remains to their place of rest in the sheltered valley where they had lain in peace for so many centuries.

Pat Seman, Eleftherna Acropolis, 2, photograph, 2017

Bob Ward – Classical European Architecture

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Bob Ward
Classical European Architecture

Bob Ward Roman temple, Nimes, France, photograph, 2016

Roman Temple, Nimes, France
When the Romans forced their way into France the people of Nimes chose to co-operate with rather than challenge the invaders. In consequence the city retains many features from that time, notably this Roman Temple, which is one of the best preserved of its kind.

Bob Ward, Roman Aqueduct, Pont du Gard, South France, photograph, 2016

Pont du Gard, southern France
The Romans were brilliant engineers as evidenced by this huge aqueduct built in the 1st C. CE. It spans the River Gardon and looks good to last well into the future.

Bob Ward Norwich Cathedral Spire from Cloisters, photograph, 2019

Norwich Cathedral, UK
Founded soon after the Norman conquest of England. The cathedral spire, one of tallest in Britain, is seen here through an archway in the cloisters. It provides a nesting site for peregrine falcons. Among the many notable features of the cathedral are the roof bosses, which vividly depict biblical scenes. Edith Cavell’s simple grave lies within the cathedral precinct.

Bob Ward Norwich Cathedral Cloisters, photograph, 2019

The Norwich Cathedral Cloisters
Many of the roof bosses mentioned above are situated in these cloisters. Along the walls are many fine murals and heraldic memorials.

Bob Ward, Detail from Il Duomo, Firenze, photograph, 1993

Florence Cathedral (detail), Italy
This building, completed in the 15th C. CE, is a key work arising from the Italian renaissance, which claimed to be reviving the classical values and style. The immense dome constructed by Brunelleschi consists of an inner and an outer shell. It is possible to reach the look-out point at the summit by wending a way between the two layers, an awesome experience.

Pat Seman – Covid and Amsterdam Photos

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Pat Seman
Covid and Amsterdam Photos

For 33 years, Pat Seman has lived in a street that ends at the Amstel River. Every morning she walks along the river and sometimes takes photos with her Samsung smartphone, an SM-G930F. Since Covid, the river path has become much busier with people of all ages exercising, walking, and jogging. As a result, the grass verges have been worn away, as well as the usual spring flowers. River cafes have also been closed; their terraces empty. Seman took the photos of the social distancing poster and electronic message board in March 2020. Her photo of the ice-covered Amstel is from February 2021, contrasted with one a month later, at the beginning of spring.

Pat Seman, City of Amsterdam Social Distancing Poster, photograph, 2020

Pat Seman, Electronic Social Distancing Poster, photograph, 2020

Pat Seman, View of the Amstel, February 2021, photograph, 2021

Pat Seman, View of the Amstel, March 2021, photograph, 2021

Matthew Wood – Tour de Lockdown

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Matthew Wood
Tour de Lockdown

Walking brings a meditative escape to what is my busy work life in Children’s Social Care. Photography allows me to appreciate and live in that meditative moment. Tour de Lockdown was photographed on what a year ago would have been a bridge bustling with commuters, tourists, and vehicles. Though it is an eerie scene now, more so with the lighting and mist, it expressed the positive with life cycling into another year as it were. I admit I do enjoy photographing the beauty of bleakness.

Matthew Wood, Tour de Lockdown, photography, 2020

Bryan R. Monte – English Lake District Photos

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Bryan R. Monte
Lake District Photos

During my English Lake District holidays, I have had the opportunity to visit literary and historical sites, and my friend, the writer Neil Hughes. The District’s suddenly changeable weather, from bright and sunny one moment to cloudy and stormy the next, has always amazed me and sometimes caught me off guard.
      As a result of this picturesque landscape and its chimeric weather, I always keep a camera at the ready. Below are photos taken with a Canon SK 130 IS in natural light. The first is of clouds descending on a landscape with Two Wanderers Along Coniston Water. The second is of clouds, landscape, and a bit of Lake Windermere taken from a window Reflection, Wordsworth House, Rydal Mount.

Bryan R. Monte, Two Wanderers Along Coniston Water, photograph, 2014

 

Bryan R. Monte, Reflection, Wordsworth House, Rydal Mount, 2014