Annalia S.'s photos

My brother's next door neighbor is an elderly gentleman somewhere around 97 or 98 years old. He grew up on a farm and as far back as I can remember (my brother now lives in the house that used to be my parents') he was the go-to person in the neighborhood for anything you needed to know about planting, growing, and generally caring for a vegetable garden. Since his wife died, a few years back, he also takes care of the flowers in the front yard, with equally spectacular results. Please meet his beautiful pink hollyhocks, thriving in the summer sun. Hope everyone is enjoying their Sunday!

summery colors in Florence's Piazza del Duomo. Happy Fence Friday and a colorful weekend you all!

Happy Wall Wednesday, everyone! Sorry for posting late .... busy day =O

Happy Bench Monday, folks! Posting late on Sunday, as usual, because I won't have time to tomorrow. Wishing everyone a good week ahead.

River plants live on the very edge of two worlds, their lives precariously balanced on a tight rope. A few centimetres farther and the water would drown them, a bit more rain and the river would gnaw at their roots and carry them away on the current, half a step more inland and the rocky banks would no longer provide enough moisture. As summer comes to an end, their beauty is poised on the brink. Soon the rains will come, swelling the river and moving that line of transition between land and the watery world. Their short lived paradise and their miraculous little lives will end with the season and many months will go by before their children - if they were lucky enough to take root on the right spot, that magical place of transition - will bring it back.

Old ironwork with sunflower decorations and, for once, a wide open gate! In the pip, the other half of the gate showing off its red color against an equally colorful rose bush. Happy Red Fence Friday and wishing everyone a colorful weekend!

Seen from a small village above Ponte nelle Alpi, the Piave River valley snakes its way upstream towards the distant Cadore Dolomites. The first time I left my native mountain valley for an extended period of time I was 17 years old, embarking on a 1 year stay as an exchange student in the US. The organization tried to match the students with host families residing in an area that would be somewhat similar, in terms of natural landscape, to their home environment. So I was sent to Colorado. But someone didn't take the time to check the actual location on a map and I found myself nowhere near the Rocky Mountains, but rather in the flat, endless plains of the prairie. Beautiful in its own right as the prairie is, it was dramatically different from where I came from. In whichever direction you looked, there were few or no landmarks and even trees grew only along the banks of the river courses. The rest was an immense expanse of sandy-bluish coloured grasses, rippled here and there by the wind that swept unhindered through the plains. I was (sort of) prepared for the language and cultural disconnect, but not for the utter sense of dislocation caused by the simple fact that, all of a sudden, I could no longer orient myself, pinpoint my location in the world so to speak, in reference to the mountains. I felt ungrounded and lost and realised, for the first time, how much the Dolomites, with their familiar peaks, meant to my sense of where, and perhaps also who, I was in the world. I remember this as perhaps the first of many "certainties" that one must learn to put in perspective while growing up and coming to terms with the fact that much of what we regard as "fixed" is actually relative to culture, language, place and time. Nevertheless, to this day, returning home, opening my window in the morning on a landscape of familiar childhood land marks, gives me a sense of peace and security I experience nowhere else.

Happy Wall Wednesday! Wild flowers against the wall of the former church of Santa Maria dei Battuti (see PIP), now part of the municipal historical archive structure. Built between 1300 and 1400, it's one of the oldest buildings of the town of Belluno.

Happy Bench Monday, everyone! Have a great week!

Happy Ceramic Cat Fence Friday! Wishing everyone a great weekend! P.S. It might not look like it, but this was not an easy shot to take!. This shop window is next to a very busy narrow sidewalk at the open market place. I was wearing my mask and my bike helmet, had to keep an eye on my bike that I had not locked and was crouching down to get a good point of view, all while dodging the masses that kept squeezing by me ... Uff! (for Isabel: Sorry about the cat theme ...)

This is Belluno, the town where I was born and raised. It lies at the foot of the Dolomites and on the confluence of the Piave River with one of its affluents, the Ardo. I took this after dining out with my family and I had left my purse with my sister in law to take a short walk with my youngest nephew to the town's oldest bridge spanning the Piave. When I told him I would have liked to photograph the scene but that the light would not last long enough for me to go get my purse and come back, he offered to run to his Mom and get me what I needed. Being a teenager, of course he came back with my phone instead of my camera :D In the PIPs: houses in one of the oldest sections of town and a glimpse of the bell tower designed by architect Filippo Juvara.

Happy Bench Monday, everybody! I will be gone all week, so thank you in advance for visits and comments. Will try to catch up when I get back.

I took this way before I knew there was an HFF group, so I offer it as proof that fences have always captured my attention :)) HFF, everyone, and have a great weekend! Next week I will be away and with no access to Ipernity, so here's good wishes for next Friday as well!

Last of some attempts at conceptual photography I made a couple of years ago where I tried to represent the unbearable pressure we are putting on this planet that is our home (and that of countless other creatures), the rapacious attitude we display towards its resources and the threat to the ecological balance we have become. The only explanation this one needs is that the side of the scale representing the pressure of human activities on the ecological balance is drawn on a piece of cardboard and weighted down from behind with the same scale weight I used in the previous photo. The drawings are child like not only because I am not able to do much better, but also because I wanted to hint at the importance of bringing up children to be aware of these issues. Unfortunately, they are the ones who will inherit our mess ...

The release of the UN report on climate change got me to go dig out some attempts at conceptual photography I made a couple of years ago where I tried to represent the unbearable pressure we are putting on this planet that is our home (and that of countless other creatures), the rapacious attitude we display towards its resources and the threat to the ecological balance we have become. As in the previous one, I used a "stress relieving ball" coloured to resemble the Earth with a band ornamented with child-like drawings of earth's creatures. On top of it is an old iron scale weight that my husband brought back from one of his work trips (it's from Iran). My husband's arm, clad in black to blend into the background, is invisibly supporting the whole thing from the back. Again I used the natural light from our kitchen window.

The release of the UN report on climate change got me to go dig out some attempts at conceptual photography I made a couple of years ago where I tried to represent the unbearable pressure we are putting on this planet that is our home (and that of countless other creatures), the rapacious attitude we display towards its resources and the threat to the ecological balance we have become. In this one I used a "stress relieving ball" coloured to resemble the Earth with a band ornamented with child-like drawings of some of earth's creatures. Then I got my husband to squeeze his hand into an old glove of my mother's (that I thought had the right kind of bloody color and reminded me of the tight fitting gloves a thief might wear) then asked him to position his hand as if he were grabbing the "earth". The light is natural light from our kitchen window. The other two are in the clickable PIPs.

There is no public bench on this stretch of the Argingrosso riverside park, but, clearly, someone thinks there SHOULD be one! Happy Bench Monday and have a colorful week, everyone!

Finally found time to process some abstracts I took back in the spring of my husband's collection of "stuff that comes in handy for repairs". I went on a visit to his "cave" (aka our garage) to ... ehm ... provide guidance as to the appropriateness of reducing the mind boggling accumulation of stuff, but ended up having a ball photographing it. I think we are hopeless! :D In the main photo: bolts collection In the PIP: lock washers collection