This has been a different and unusual week for me in many ways. So many thoughts swirl about my head at the moment, full of the twists and turns of every day living and the way life can turn on a dime, just like that, with even the most simplest of actions or the quietest of words spoken by another.
Taking part in the Weekly Photo Challenge this week has been a revelation for me, and not just because I got to share all about my obsession with old windows, shutters and doorways. I’ve realised that having a weekly challenge like this will enable me to focus on a better writing structure which is just what I need to keep me on my writing path.
I will share more about this in tomorrow’s post.
Meanwhile, a few of you have suggested that I might want to think about sharing more ‘travel’ posts and photographs and so I am very much looking forward to Mondays now as my new ‘Weekly Photo Challenge’ day. All part of the new discipline!
I love having a new project to ‘get my teeth into’ and I’ve been so excited and thrilled to see all the interest in my first-ever photo challenge post, thank you all for coming over to my summerhouse and taking a peek through the window!
Which brings me onto – yet more windows! Yes, it is quite the coincidence that the Daily Post chose windows as its theme for the photo challenge this week and here I have bleated on and on all about my window obsession (hope I’m not boring you with it by now) but wouldn’t you know it, I have come across another photo challenge except that this one runs with ‘windows’ as its theme every week.
For some time I have followed my lovely friend Jude (Heyjude!!) over at her amazing travel and photographic blog Travel Words (she is one of my wonderful ‘Spamgate’ friends!) and she recently shared a post called A Lingering Look at Windows. Do pay her a visit if you would like to see some of her stunning photographs and read about her many and varied travels.
Jude shared a link to Dawn’s blog ‘The Day After‘ in which she hosts a weekly challenge inviting anyone who might be interested to post photos of any windows that they might find particularly inviting, curious, picturesque or just plain photogenic. Any window that tells a story in fact. You can read more about Dawn’s ‘Lingering Look at Windows’ challenge by clicking here.
Having caught the ‘challenge’ bug and thinking I would stick to just one, when I went over to Dawn’s blog and saw the weekly window theme I was hooked. Even though it seems that I’m taking on even more than I need to at this stage, this is actually a good thing and it helps me greatly. It stirs me up!
Again, more on this tomorrow (and don’t worry, I will still be posting in my ‘normal’ way for what it’s worth!)
Dawn’s challenge runs from Thursday to Thursday so what better day than today to start. I hope to take part every Thursday after this.
So for my first ‘Lingering Look at Windows’ challenge I would like to share this photo which I took from the inside of a farmhouse near Tocane in Southwestern France where we stayed with friends back in August, 2009. We were cooling off inside as it was a good 38C (100F) outside.
The beauty of the way the light bounced off the heavy, dark wood of the window panes, very typical of French homes, and the way it filtered through the muted softness of the voile panel so loosely hung there really grabbed me.
Farmhouse near Tocane in the Dordogne region of Southwestern France 2009
(c) Sherri Matthews 2014
This photo is very reminiscent of my time living in California, when it would be blisteringly hot outside with that big-country wide-open sky stretching as high as the heavens and which contrasted so heavily with the dark-cool of having to retreat indoors, radiating as it did from the cold, granite tiles underfoot and the surrounding pale walls.
The white heat and the cream, muted light. The eternal stillness of this moment as I took this shot leaves me alone with my memories of another life once lived and which whispers to me still.
A View From My Summerhouse 
Beautiful post x windows are so emotive they make a wonderful theme x I might join you on the challenge!
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Thank you once again Brenda! Windows are a wonderful theme, I love it as you can tell 🙂 You should join in, I’m really looking forward to taking part and I hope to see you there too! x
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There is something so hopeful about a window–it lets in the light!
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Yes it does, and what a beautiful light too 🙂
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You are the queen of challenges, Sherri! What a charming window. For me, windows have always reminded me of endless opportunities out in the world.
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Ha ha! You know me Jill…very well it seems 🙂 Endless opportunities indeed…!
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I’m with you on your first paragraph 100% – I could write it word for word and it would be totally true for me too. You’re a brilliant photographer Sherri – I love that moody, magical window. x
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Just goes to show that it doesn’t matter where we live on this old earth of ours, we all face the same human challenges! Thanks so much Jo, I’m really chuffed that you like this photo so much! Yes, moody and magical it is 🙂 x
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Welcome to the challenge Sherri – I look forward to seeing your windows, and thank you very much for the write-up [blush] – I LOVE your window with the voile floating in the breeze. Funnily enough I took a similar photo of the window in my bathroom this week as the sun was shining through the linen and lace casting shadows on the wall, and I just had to photograph it.
I thoroughly agree with you that challenges provide a structure and focus to blogging, and one reason why I merged my blogs into Travel Words as now I can simply post an image if time is short or be wordier if appropriate. I look forward to seeing your interpretation on the challenges 🙂
Jude xx
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Thanks so much Jude – you are my inspiration as you know! Your photo sounds delightful, I
hope you are going to post it!
I am really excited about these challenges and the discipline that they will bring me. I do believe this is my breakthrough for all my writing challenges!
I’m really looking forward to sharing these challenges with you too, here’s to Monday 🙂 xx
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Do you ever take part in the Daily Prompt? It is really for writers, but they included photographers last year and I found it really good when I started out to look at my photos in a different way.
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I love the window-pic!!! The ‘challenge bug’! So so 😉
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Yep, I caught the ‘challenge bug’, hey hey!! Thanks so much Ilka 🙂
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I see the window is closed but the sheer curtain appears to billow. A wonderful photo, Sherri.
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Tess, you always see something unique in a photograph and also in the written word…thanks so much for that, glad you enjoyed 🙂
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Sheesh, Sherri. Do I? Must be the nit picker in me. Ha ha. But you are most welcome.
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Ha Ha!! Nah, you’re no nit picker. But you are incredibly observant which makes for a great writer.. x
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I was sure my sense of observation had become l.a.z.y…
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Well, now you know that is certainly not the case 🙂
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^_^
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Sigh… “another life once lived”. I find that so evocative. From time to time I feel myself getting tearful when I think of all the lives I will never lead, which is silly really. But I do find a strange mystery in the way we inhabit our lives so fully, when it could have been or actually once was another, different life.
In the end I just think about how nice it is to be able to read about and imagine other lives, and that’s how it feels when I read your posts and see your pictures.
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What lovely and evocative words you share here, thank you so much Denise. I do love the way photographs capture a ‘moment’ and no matter what changes after that moment, nothing can ever change what is there, in colour (or black and white!) imprinted for ever. Another life lived…
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Whoo – hoo – good luck with your challenges, Sherri – you are a busy bee – like Jill said yesterday – what are you on?!!
Love this French window, don’t know the exact location but also love the Dordogne. We’re off down thataway in the summer, so I must dust off my lenses and get down to it. Photos can be so inspirational for creative writing and I think I’ve neglected this for a long time. Thanks for bringing the attention back and good luck with your challenges 😉
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Ha Ha!! I wish I knew!! Maybe I’ve finally lost it after all… 😉
I do find photography is truly inspirational for creative writing, you are right!
Thanks so much Jenny, go glad that you are enjoying these challenge posts!
Oh how lovely that you get to go there in the summer. We are hoping to visit with our friends again too at some point. I’ll keep a look out for you, mon amie 🙂
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Great post Sherri… I do love the look of the photo.. very well done…
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Thanks so much Bulldog, glad you enjoyed this post 🙂
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Great photo, Sherri. Good luck with the challenge!
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Thanks very much Rachel 🙂
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As a low energy soul, I hesitate to say that I live in fear of those who live for challenges. Thus permit me to say that I look forward to benefiting from the fruits of your labours.
Nice photo. }:-)>
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Ha Ha!!! Thanks Nav! Be my guest although I’m sure you are not as low energy as you pretend to be… 😉
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Just getting in the car to drive to yoga tires me. };-)>
Thanks, Sherri.
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You know Nav, I do know how that feels 🙂
Hope the Yoga is helping…assuming you get to the classes? 😉
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Someone is motivating me. Yes, I am getting to classes, and it is good for me.
Thankfully, black is slimming.
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Great! And yes, thank God for black, I’m all for it…
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My three favorite words in this post–‘the eternal stillness’–applies to so many things, Sherri.
I love the picture, too, and wish you the very best with the challenge!
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Ahh, thanks so much Marylin – I think I’ve found my breakthrough 🙂
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Lovely window image, Sherri… look forward to seeing more in future weeks!
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Hello Suej, thank you so much for visiting and for your very kind comment. So glad you enjoyed this post, I look forward to sharing this challenge with you too 🙂
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Take a look at my entry for this week! http://suejudd.com/2014/01/17/lingering-look-at-windows-londons-flat-glass/
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Will do, coming over now 🙂
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🙂
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I really love the way the curtain looks below the clasp. Like wisps of smoke! Very cool photo…
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So glad you enjoyed this photo, thanks so much 🙂
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I’m so glad you’ve caught the challenge bug too, Sherri. Love this window pic. I can just imagine how much cooler it was inside the farmhouse. 38C is rather brutal, and I wouldn’t want to be out in that heat. 🙂
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I certainly have Sylvia, and thank you so much! Yes, it was lovely inside the farmhouse. In the heat of the day, just far too hot to sit outside but simply divine in the evenings to be able to sit outside until late and not feel chilly in the slightest… 🙂
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That brain fog has definitely cleared and is letting the light in, just like your window. Beautiful, evocative photo Sherri, reminds me of a painting by Helen White, of light coming through gossamer curtains – http://scatteringthelight.com/2013/10/27/the-dance-of-dark-and-light/ And I love that last paragraph – the moment of ‘eternal stillness’ and ‘another life once lived’.
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Andrea, thank you so much for your lovely comment and also for this link to Helen’s post, I just went over there to look at it and I left a comment. I couldn’t really add to what you so elequently wrote but I, as you, felt the incredible tranquility and utter delicacy of the beauty of her paintings. The dance of dark and light…beautiful.
I love what you wrote here about the brain fog clearing and the light coming in, just as with the window. Your words always encourage me greatly, you have such a descriptive talent with your writing and I am particularly touched that you enjoyed not only the photograph but also the last paragraph. This means a great deal, again, thank you.
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You’re very welcome, Sherri.
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🙂
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Welcome to the challenge club. 🙂 You will find that you can speak eloquently through your photos as well.
The window you posted here looks warm and inviting. 🙂
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Thanks Imelda! I have always enjoyed photography so I decided to take up this challenge 🙂
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A wonderful story and the window is so romantic I just love it.
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Thanks so much Dawn, I’m so pleased that you enjoyed this ‘lingering look at windows’ challenge post. I am really enjoying taking part in your window challenges, although I was unable to post on Thursday as I have been without my laptop all week and only just now catching up. Aaaaaaarghh, hated being without it….. Still, I am up and running again now (but very behind!) but hopefully back to normal asap and looking forward to posting next Thursday’s challenge 🙂
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Post any time Thursday thru Thursday.
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Thanks Dawn.
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