Learning in the u3a movement

Lockdown proved to be a good time to work on abstract photography and in the spring we had a lot of sunshine. The photo only needed one fork, two bits of white paper, bright sunlight and 30 seconds to turn the photo upside down.

Cropping the Original twice left me with this photo. I was trying to add to the Natural Shadows created by the trees and leaves by placing "The Shadows Greatest Hits" LP in the foreground. I wanted more symmetry by having the LP placed centrally but didn't look at the photos on the day I took them. I wanted to have another attempt today but was thwarted by the sun not creating strong enough shadows until mid-afternoon by which time a visitor had decided to park a car while visiting the area which would have spoilt the mainly natural look I wanted. An American friend of mine had pointed me towards a book which inspired some of his landscape paintings and used the height of trees etc. to create letter shapes which seemed to make art or photos look more attractive. I was thinking the tree trunks and the grass roughly had a "U" shape although the bottom of U is rather thick.

I took this shot when Cardiff U3A's Photography Group (Morning) had the theme of 'something beginning with S'. I thought the shadow of steam would be a double whammy.

I chose an assortment of smallish glasses with different cut patterns or twisted stems which all caught the light and interrupted the uniformity of their shadows. I played about with different arrangements on a sheet of white cartridge paper and waited for the sun to appear from amongst the clouds. Just before finishing the session I lifted one corner of the paper and liked the whacky distortion of the shadows that resulted.

A few members of our photography group took a socially distanced walk in a local park for a photoshoot. It was a bright sunny day and I was struck by this stinging nettle casting its shadow on a recently cut log.

In a meadow on a sunny day out, I was drawn by their striking illuminated colour, to focus on taking photographs of poppies. I took some photos of this poppy from above and was impressed by how it was the ‘exact’ same shape as a traditional remembrance poppy. When I was home and viewing the photos that I took from the side, I ‘saw’ shadows of ‘soldiers’ at the heart of the poppy

This simple, almost monochromatic image, shows the shadows of the rhinoceros ornaments somehow transformed into the heads of two tweeting birds in silhouette!

A lovely sunny day and with the light passing through this yellow beaker balancing the forks across the top made a very interesting image.

One late afternoon a few days ago I saw the last rays of sun streaming through the trees and across the road. I quickly took this photo of my shadow.

During Covid 19, I have taken my daily walking exercise in the nearby local countryside. This always has the benefit of observing natural beauty, and the opportunity to take photographs of anything interesting or unusual. The attached photograph was taken on one of the walks at Rivington Pike, which also has two reservoirs, but as you can see I was not on my own, I was following my shadow, instead of it following me!!

This shadow is of the bridge to Foul Anchor, a village much more attractive than its name suggests. Foul Anchor is part of Cambridgeshire but is an enclave within Lincolnshire and effectively a river island. Photo taken 26th July 2020

I photographed these shadows at about 3pm when the sun was just reaching the point of creating long but still defined shadows of the ornate wrought iron work.

Bright sunlight produces shadows everywhere.

I had the idea of an 'out of frame' subject. The egg (artwork courtesy of my partner, Angela) is threatened by a balloon whisk which is indicated by its shadow. Hence a humorous picture with something menacing as an element.