Black and white photo of tiny fungi growing out of lichen
Pick a Word,  Themed galleries

Gallery: pick a word (September)

October 6, 2022 / 50 Comments

A picture is a poem without words

Horace

That would seem to be a good motto for a photography blog. But I like to write (and talk!) almost as much as I like to take photos. So my posts are usually a mix of the two, and I leave my readers to decide whether the pictures or the text say the most.

But as I’ve said before, it’s good for me now and then to be challenged to keep it brief. Paula’s monthly Pick a Word challenge does just that. Five words, five photos inspired by those words. I may not stick only to her five words, although I try to be succinct while also giving a bit of context to my choices. But just in case you want more words I’ve included some links to posts where I say more about these various locations.

Paula was a little later than usual publishing her September word list, so I think I can get away with also being late with this response!

BOUNDED

Looking over a stone wall at some sheep in a field

Dry stone walls and sheep in Wensleydale, Yorkshire

Dry stone walls criss-cross the hillsides in the Yorkshire Dales, marking the boundaries of the fields where sheep graze. We visited Wensleydale mainly for its waterfalls but like all the dales it has wonderful scenery throughout.

FUNGI

Tiny fungi growing out of lichen

Toadstools in Emmetts Garden, Kent

I spotted these little beauties on the Woodland Walk at Emmetts Garden one autumn a few years ago. It’s hard to sense the scale in this photo but the largest was barely a centimetre across, and that’s lichen they’re growing from.

GEOMORPHOLOGIC

Coastline with dark rocks and rock arch

Rock arch at Arnarstapi on the Snaefellsnes Peninsula in Iceland

I had to double-check the meaning of this word. I knew ‘geomorphic’ of course and I’d come across the study known as ‘geomorphology’ but I didn’t know it in its adjectival form. As I’d suspected, it means ‘pertaining to geological structure’. And it would be hard to find any country more packed with examples of geological structure, and activity, than Iceland!

MUSICAL

Small girl in colourful traditional dress playing a stringed instrument

At a kindergarten musical performance in Chongjin, North Korea

This five or six year old girl is playing a traditional Korean instrument known as a gayageum in a performance staged for tourists at her kindergarten. Like all the children performing that day she was excellent despite her very young years, unnervingly so.

SCATTERED

Huge stone heads on a grassy hillside

At Rano Raraku on Rapa Nui

Huge half-finished moai are scattered across the slopes of Rano Raraku, an extinct volcano on Rapa Nui (Easter Island). This is where the iconic statues were created, carved from its rock and sculpted, before being transported to their final location. When the moai culture came to an end, all work ceased and nearly 400 in varying states of completeness were abandoned here.

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