photo challenges

CFFC: Metal: From Chicago to Europe

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Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge currently is about Earth elements and this week it is metal.

Decor at the Moorings
Artwork in a St. Charles park
Grate at the Chicago Art Institute
My son-in-law’s cymbals
This was taken in Chicago but I have no idea what it is! The abandoned water bottle adds a nice touch, though.
Gate, Schoenbrun Palace, Vienna
Fence, Vienna
Wine brewing tanks, Austria
Old engine? Regensberg, Germany, along the riverfront
Door lock, Marksburg Castle, Germany
Hanging pot, Marksburg Castle
Display at Overlord Museum, Omaha Beach, France
Beautiful window grate, near Musee d’Orsay, Paris
The iconic Eiffel Tower, Paris!

CFFC: Bridges to…Adventures

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It’s been awhile since I have participated in Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge, but I am back in time to contribute to this week’s bridges!

Point Defiance Park, Tacoma, WA
Budapest, Hungary (over the Danube River)
Looking down from the top of the Melk Abbey, Austria
Regensberg, Germany
Cologne, Germany with its famous cathedral spires in the distance. On this bridge, many lovers had put…
thousands of love locks!
One of many canal bridges, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Pegasus Bridge, Normandy, France

Bridge over the moat at Caen Castle, Normandy, France
Maisons-Alfort, suburb of Paris
Covered bridge in Madison County, Iowa
Des Moines, Iowa

SquareOdds: Odd Cars (and Other Vehicles)

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I haven’t had the time to use my computer much less blog! I’m involved in so many things, I guess. That is why I am grouping my “odds” in subjects so I can post several at once, for Becky’s February Squares: SquareOdds.

Unfortunately, I can’t find my photo of a car with eyelashes, or it would be in here! But have you ever seen a VW in a tree? Maybe someone in Bethlehem (Israel) put it there to be considered “art”!

Baby car hitches a ride on mama car in some small Iowa town – they’re ready to go! Pretty spiffy, though!

An abandoned van in the desert along Route 66 between San Bernardino and Kingman.

I just had to take a photo of this ironic bumper sticker. It’s one of the best I’ve seen! Also this car has an odd number of bumper stick-ons! I don’t know who this car belonged to, but it was parked in the parking lot behind a high school in Sedona, Arizona.

Now here are some real oddities: outer space cars?? You will find them in Baker, California!

Here’s a side view of the above, although I could not make it square. Galaxy Peace Patrol? Sort of ironic that it is “armed” with missiles!

This is a picture of my absent car – it left a snowy outline of its space, because the driveway was shoveled around it. It’s an odd picture – I don’t know why I took it!

SquareOdds: Odd Faces

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I haven’t been on my blog much lately, so I’ve missed many days of Becky’s Square Odds this month, even though I love to participate! So, instead of just one oddity, here are several odd faces (including some faux faces)!

This carving is on the back of a chair at Oude Kerk (Old Church) in Amsterdam.
I found this guy looking around on Northwestern University campus, next to Lake Michigan.
How often do you see a dog with sunglasses, hanging out a car window?
A goat’s face on top of Little Goat restaurant in Chicago
At a sculpture park in Des Moines, Iowa
Two faces sculpted by the same artist


Not a real face, but this orchid sure looks like it is hamming it up for the camera!
Unusual “face” on a building in Germany
With a gaping mouth, this “face” is on a rock face (pun intended!) in Arches National Park
A stressed face on a hot day in Vienna

CBWC: Plastics

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The topic of Cee’s Black & White Challenge this week is plastic. So many things are made of plastic these days that one could probably find something plastic in almost any photo taken in human-made situations! Plastic takes up to 500 years to decompose and even then, it is reduced to microscopic pellets that enter the digestive systems of fish, birds, mammals, and eventually, humans. So here are some photos of plastic things, which eventually will be discarded, end up in a landfill somewhere or the ocean and…well, you know.

This is the top of a bottle with a hole for the straw that comes with it. The top without a hole was lost!
I am pretty sure that the dinosaurs on display at the Brookfield Zoo were (at least in part) made of plastic!
My niece turned 50 and this was put on her cake.

Alzheimer’s Awareness at The Moorings. The fitness instructor (she’s under the arch!) blew
up all these purple balloons herself! I’m pretty sure she had a machine.
A pinwheel turning in the wind.
A plastic container with rolls of licorice inside.

Please, when possible, RECYCLE (look for the numbers 1-5 in the recycling triangle symbol & check your community’s recycling program to find out which numbers they’ll take), REUSE whenever you can, and REDUCE the plastic items you buy or acquire (difficult to do, I know) – one way to do this is bring your own cloth or woven plastic reusable bags to the store when you shop so you don’t use the plastic bags supermarkets tend to put your groceries in.

Square Odds: Mushrooms Can Be Odd

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Becky has a new month of squares in February – Square Odds, and this is my first chance to participate! I make up for the days I missed with multiple mushroom oddities! I have a large archive of mushroom photos – I am fascinated by them, although I don’t like to eat them!

These mushrooms look like a pair of ears!
They’re not just odd looking, there is an odd number (3) in this cluster!
Is there a hole in the middle of this shroom?
I captured several specimens like this in northern Wisconsin after a very rainy spring.

CFFC: Which Way Thru the Seasons

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Cee’s series featuring other challenges this week has the theme Which Way. This challenge includes streets, walkways, waterways – any “way” on which people travel.

Winter, spring, summer or fall – there’s always something interesting to experience on roads and sidewalks in every season.

Snowplow path
Downtown Mt. Prospect after dark in February
Springtime at Chicago Botanic Garden
What would spring be without those dotted masses of dandelions?!
Late summer stroll in a Tacoma park
Late June in a Wurzburg park (Germany)
Street musicians hope for tips from passersby in downtown Nuremberg
Red carpet in Cabourg, France
November on Clearwater Park walking/biking path (Mt. Prospect)
Shadowy street, October in Chicago