January 31 - Broken

This enormous bronze sculpture of a face in the Boboli Gardens in Florence is designed to look old and broken, as if it is part of an enormous classical figure, long broken and decaying, however it is a relatively new work (1998) by Polish sculptor Igor Mitoraj called 'Tindaro Screpolato' (Tindareus cracked.) It is the only modern work in the gardens which are classical, terraced gardens with interesting water features and even an intricate grotto, hidden away at the end of one of the paths.

January 30 - Bright

Inspired by Ron's sunrise maybe? Driving home a while ago just had to stop by the roadside and capture this spectacular sunset.

Playing with the macro settings inside a pink rose with the light behind gave lovely bright colours. Not the most technically perfect shot but it is bright :)

January 29 - Boy

This portrait of my nephew's son was taken on impulse as he stood against one of the shed doors on my sister-in-law's farm. No posing, he was just waiting there for his grandfather and it just looked right.

January 28 - Bounds

Two interpretations of 'bounds' today - our kangaroos aren't all the size of the big bloke I posted the other day and they bound around our property, coming down to the river every morning and sleeping in the shade under the trees during the day. This little female was sitting around on one of the walking tracks in the forest nearby - she was so quiet I was able to get close enough to capture her portrait - no photo of her bounding away a minute later though!

Fences mark the bounds of a property or space and this is a fence around one of thestockyards on the farm. The timbers are over 100 years old. Red lichen has grown over the gate, which makes it quite photogenic.

January 27 - body

Sculptors love the human body in all its shapes and sizes - two images from Italy here

First the 'Pieta' - Michelangelo was only 24 when he sculpted this masterpiece and it is breathtaking. Unfortunately it must be kept behind thick glass as it has been damaged previously by a hammer-wielding nutter and had to be restored. The only benefit of this for a photographer is that you can actually get a photo without a bunch of tourists getting in the way :) but there is no way a photo through bulletproof glass can do the sculpture justice - and there is a window and some brightly coloured brown and yellow marble behind, so I covered the window, desaturated the image and added transparent soft light and multiplier layers, then the smallest amount of glow filter. It softens the image and highlights the figures instead of that complicated background.

The other photo I like (don't jump!!) - although it looks as if Christo and Jeanne-Claude have done a hit-and-run wrap, it is actually one of many statues along the top of a building in Modena which were wrapped as part of a restoration process.

January 26 - Boats

a Russian warship moored in the harbour at St Petersburg was an interesting subject for the camera. The whole boat and detail of one of the anchors and the plimsoll line... OK - no correspondence entered into as to whether it's a boat or a ship - it floats :)

January 26 - AUSTRALIA DAY

An Australia Day bonus post - some iconic Aussie animals and birds - an eastern grey kangaroo that stopped outside our back door for a look inside (scary, check out those muscles!) - some sulphur-crested cockatoos having a chat in the eucalyptus tree and an inquisitive emu.

January 25 - Blur

Photographing birds means timing is everything. One second you have the perfect composition, then you press the shutter and all that is left in the image is a tail ... or nothing! Sometimes the flight has unexpected outcomes - serendipitous images where the blur becomes the capture and all is good. This flock of galahs took off just as I snapped the picture. Outside their nest in a tree by the river, a pair of galahs are surprised by an eastern rosella - just passing through - and a brown cuckoo-dove took off in a flap from the roadway as we approached.

January 24 - Blossom

It's summer here now, so I have returned to spring for a moment to post this photo of apple blossom. No tweaks to the background colour either, apart from a little extra contrast, that's just how it came from the camera. Late afternoon light.

January 23 - Blessing

New babies are a blessing, but no bird photos today ;) the word brought to mind a beautiful little sculpture I saw in rural France of the holy mother and child, the baby reaching out as if blessing. Taken in available light, not B&W or desaturated, just a snapshot as I was walking past, this is the only photo I have of the figures.

January 22 - Big and small

Big and small ... the olive backed oriole down by the river has 3 chicks in her nest - so tiny compared to her, yet soon they will be fledged and grown. (you just knew it would be another bird photo didn't you!) so to make up for all the birds - mother and foal grazing in the paddock have almost identical markings :)

January 21 - best friend

Can't help but post some more bird photos for you today

At the coast on Sydney's northern beaches (Collaroy plateau) in winter I came across these gorgeous rainbow lorikeets. They are often quite friendly birds and will allow you to get close if you move slowly and don't startle them. This pair are obviously 'best friends' (though I do wonder what he said...) and allowed me a short series of photos before they flew away.

January 20 - Beginnings

Beginnings ... you just knew I was going to stay with my birds didn't you?

Lapwing plovers lay their eggs on the ground, then defend their 'territory' by swooping and screaming at anything that comes close, including people and cattle. When they hatch, the babies are just fluffballs on little stick legs - so cute. Their mama sits down and they snuggle underneath her feathers for warmth and protection. I'm lucky to have watched several seasons of plover-raising and though we don't always find the nest, we do get to meet the babies once they have hatched, though the latest arrivals always scamper to get under mum if they see me...

and just one more for today - these kurrajong seeds in their hairy pod-nests carry the beginnings of large shady trees with beautiful creamy-outside, rosy-inside bell-flowers. Random fact for you - the iconic Belltrees station ('ranch' for those of you in the USA) in the Upper Hunter Valley of NSW was named after these beautiful trees. http://www.hunterriverexplorer.com.au/articles/belltrees-station.html

January 19 - Beauty

Beauty - finally we start on B!

As usual I'm going to be a little obscure because 'beauty' surely is in the eye of the beholder. Here are some faces that maybe only a parent could love :) baby thrush, wagtails and orioles ... and a brush turkey teen who is beautiful in unexpected ways...

The oriole baby is currently growing in its nest near the river behind our house, I think there are at least two hatchlings, but yesterday was the first time a little head popped up for me on my daily photo excursion. The parents are feeding the little ones what seems like massive quantities of insects and I am looking forward to watching them grow and taking some special photos.

January 18 - Awful

Walking the Polblue track in the Barrington Tops on a clear summer's day we smelt something truly awful - the source was this fabulous stinkhorn fungi 'clathrus archeri'. Getting closer to take a photo intensified the foetid smell, but photographers are well known for taking on a challenge - holding my breath for the time it took to grab this image ;). Be happy that your computer has no 'smellavision'.

January 17 - automobile

So... I was wondering whether to save some of these for 'Iconic' - the horse motif is one of the more recognisable when it comes to cars, but automobile is the word of the day and an impressive collection at Marinello had us captivated for some time as we imagined ourselves driving one or more of the vehicles on display. When I received the list of words for the days I figured that 'in the details was a bit of a theme for the year rather than the first 'word' so instead of images of the beautiful hand-built cars here are some details - scrutineering stickers on an old racer, the iconic stallion on the grille, engines that you can almost hear the roar of...

January 16 - Athletic

Athletic - hmmm, could go with some waterskiiers, runners or gymnasts, but when I think of athleticism I think of the birds and animals here - so the images of the day are a huge wedge-tailed eagle balancing on the wire fence of our orchard so that he could snack on a fruit bat that had died there, a friendly brushtail possum who climbed around the vines near our campsite in the Border Ranges NP recently and some galahs who spent ages entertaining me with their gymnastic abilities until I just had to grab a camera and photograph them.

January 15 - ART

This one is late - a weekend of pruning and digging and planting meant an early bedtime yesterday but the results were impressive. I could recycle yesterday's garden sculpture as art(!?) This topic makes my head spin because Art is everywhere - photography, weaving, painting, sculpture - I love art from found objects like yesterday's discovery, or coloured leaves arranged in a pond, shells hung by fishing line on trees at a beach or raked patterns in the sand that will disappear as the tide comes in - so many choices...

In the end I decided to go back to childhood art - here is a selection of cats - I hope you like them :-)

January 14 - Arranged

Busy day clearing out an overgrown garden - lots of fun outside and also in taking turns looking after baby. An 'arrangement' of building blocks frames a study in concentration - and outside an arrangement of two metal rings found buried under the ground stands in the garden - a bit of a stretch for today's word but the best I can do - aching muscles demand a bath and a nice glass of red - reward for work well done.

January 13 - Architecture

Architecture - so many things spring to mind - we have some fabulous old sheds here built with huge logs that still show the axe work and massive bolts that we also find rusting in the paddocks at times, remnants of even older buildings. Travels have left me with images of famous and not-so-famous buildings by creative (and not-so-creative) architects and of course in Australia we have the famous Sydney Opera House - moored in her harbourside surroundings, but a walk with my camera gives me some spectacular architecture - by the birds nesting outside our home.

These mud condominiums are built by tiny birds called Fairy Martins - each year they take over the gables of our home's second storey to make their constructions. At present the parents are raising their babies, returning regularly with insects. If you look closely, a baby is waiting at the entrance of one of the nests.

The second nest is hanging about a metre (3 feet) over the river behind our house. At present this mama olive backed oriole is sitting on her eggs, but soon she will also have hungry moths to feed. Her construction has survived a flash-flood several nights ago which brought water to its underside and just yesterday some gale-force winds whipped her around but didn't spill bird or eggs. This morning she is sitting comfortably in the warm sun, sometimes shouting at the magpie-larks who are getting too close for her comfort. I am staying back, letting the zoom on my canon do the work of getting close enough for this photo.

...and then there's our bower birds - not a nest, this bower is the male's architectural offering to his love, where he places blue objects to attract her so that he can dance and sing for her pleasure. I took this photo a couple of months ago as they are also now raising babies but I can't find their nest.

Last but not least - these wagtail babies are very snug in their nest, woven and rounded and protected by grapevines - but the parents let me know where to look by creating a fuss whenever I was close ;-) I waited until they had gone to search for food, set my camera for some close-ups, lifted the leaves and snapped a few images.