Large rock outcrops
Pick a Word,  Themed galleries

Gallery: pick a word (June)

June 24, 2022 / 28 Comments

Not for nothing is this blog subtitled ‘travel snapshots’. In it I try to blend my two passions of travelling and photography, often both in the same post! I can be wordy, but sometimes it’s better to be succinct and let the photos do the talking. Well, most of the talking; being me, I can’t resist a few words to accompany each!

In that spirit I’ve decided to join Paula’s monthly Pick a Word challenge. Five words, five photos inspired by those words.

BOULDERY

Large rock outcrops

Brimham Rocks, Yorkshire

The landscape at Brimham Rocks was created by an immense river that flowed here 100 million years before the first dinosaurs walked the earth. The river washed sand and grit into a huge delta that covered what is now Yorkshire. When the glaciers of the last ice age retreated, the melting ice caused ripples in the rock surface and gradually sculpted the solid rock into peculiar shapes. Rain and wind further eroded the rocks to create bizarre formations.

PERCHED

Blue and pink bird on a dead tree

Lilac-breasted Roller, Botswana

The pretty Lilac-breasted Roller (Coracias caudatus) is one of my favourite African birds. This particular one, in Chobe National Park, perched so nicely for me for ages.

SURGING

Water flowing over falls

Aysgarth Falls, Yorkshire

These falls, in Wensleydale, are in three sections; these are the Upper Falls. They are not very deep, and the water was brown when I took this photo, rich with peat from the moors above thanks to recent heavy rains. These falls have attracted artists over the centuries; Turner painted them, and Wordsworth waxed lyrical about them, as did John Ruskin. More recently they were the setting for some scenes in Kevin Costner’s Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.

SWIRLING

Men in swirling white robes and red turbans

Dancers at Mehrangarh Fort, Jodhpur, Rajasthan

This performance was part of the Jodhpur RIFF, the Rajasthan International Folk Festival. It is a traditional Rajasthani Gair dance. The men wear pleated skirts that fan out as they swirl. They move first in a clockwise then anti-clockwise direction, beating their sticks known as khanda to create the rhythm.

VAULTED

Vaulted ceiling painted pink and green

The ceiling of the Nicholaikirche in Leipzig

Johann Sebastian Bach was musical director at this church and several of his works premiered here, including the St John Passion. The church more recently played a significant part in the Monday Demonstrations, the peaceful political protests against the government of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) that started in Leipzig in September 1989. They took place every Monday evening after the weekly Friedensgebet (prayer for peace) in the church, which supported the protestors. The demonstrations swelled and spread to other cities. They contributed significantly to the fall of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 1989, and eventually to the end of the GDR regime.

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