Weekly Photo Challenge: Color

Sometimes, you need no words to express the beauty of life and all it brings.

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Forward

Are you the adventurous type? Do you look forward to new challenges in life, be it simple things or some unknown fear of heights  that you want to conquer? Challenges are part of daily living and it’s up to us to meet them with a smile hoping that  everything would be okay in the end. Three years ago, the whole family went to enchanted Kingdom as part of the family day  celebration of  Bank of the Philippine Islands where I used to work and where my daughter and son-in-law are presently working as bank officers. I am  afraid of heights (until now). My knees always wobble at the thought of  all those head-spinning rides but my kids  enjoy them. They’ve been to Enchanted Kingdom more than I can count.

And they always say, the thrill is in the ride. Yeay…way to go….forward!

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Home

There is a saying that goes, home is where the heart is. And sometimes our heart lies in simple things, appreciating the beauty of what is around us.

Silence is golden. And our cat is enjoying the silence of resting in our small garden with the morning sun and the occasional chirps of birds around.

The joys of friendship, just being there for each other and at peace with the world while enjoying a good swing in our garden hammock.

There is no better way to spend one’s time than enjoying good books on a lazy afternoon.  Reading is a treasured hobby that I would always enjoy.

Having a good cup of morning coffee with hot pan de sal. What more could you ask for?

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Beyond

Here are my own interpretations of what the word Beyond means to me in pictures. Come to think of it, I always look forward  to this weekly photo challenge because somehow you get to look  once more at some pictures which at the time you took were just pleasing to your eyes and senses. Sometimes though, they acquire a meaning and you wish you could capture the essence of each view and place you see.

Beyond this mountain is my provincial home which I haven’t visited  in quite a while. My old memories of this places is tied up to the river running below this mountain where we used to catch fresh-water fish during the early parts of rainy months. And yes, the impromptu picnics  beside  the river and taking a long soak after.  Fresh, unpolluted running water and lovely river stones that sometimes my cousins and I used to bring home  for our Piko games.

The cool mountains of Tanay. I remember taking this shot three weeks after my six-sessions of chemotherapy ended.  It was a kind of litmus test how far I can go without tiring myself after such a life-changing treatment.  I miss this place, I hope someday I would be able to come back here.

What lies behind closed doors, do you know? Dreams! Pockets of happy days!  Actually, I was fascinated by the stained-glass door. I seldom see this kind of window and door treatments except in places where they value old-age decor.

There is always something that fascinates me in discovering places and looking beyond.  I took this in Caleruega, the hanging bridge was simply irresistible. And beyond this is a vast garden and an upward climb to a hill that gives a wonderful view of the Batulao mountains in Batangas. It’s one of my favorite places to visit.

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Illumination

“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.” – Plato

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Green

It’s always a delight to discover new things in our garden in Patar. How fascinating it is to see these different varieties of tropical plants growing in one corner. Ferns and palms and a sprinkling of other blooms which I don’t have in my small garden.

Sometimes, I sigh in frustration that I could not identify the names of these plants.I am quite clueless, but I simply love the different shades of greens in this set. Then  I learned that Anahaw is our national leaf, hooray!

 

 

They call this Livistona , a family of palms.

A footstool palm or anahaw.

That’s all there is to it, I think. There are around 1,200 varieties of ferns so it’s a lost cause for me to identify all these. My sis-in-law takes charge of our garden in the province. These are just some of the evergreens that we have there.

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Silhouette

Silhouette 

And I thought that silhouette shots are poorly done so I didn’t give them much thought until today. I did some silhouette shots while experimenting with light and shadows. It was a hit or miss, mostly  the latter 🙂

Nuestra Senóra de Candelaria Church in Mabitac, Laguna. This is the bell tower of the old church. I took this  during our Visita Iglesia in the towns of Laguna.

One of my favorite places….Caleruega.

I was actually fascinated by the cloudless blue sky with our old avocado tree in the background.

Transfiguration Chapel, a part of the beautiful landscape of Caleruega in Nasugbu, Batangas. This is one of my favorite destinations.

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Happy

This may come a little late but since I am  searching for the best photos to define the Weekly Photo Challenge which is entitled Happy, I opted to upload new shots here which I took early this morning at the garden. Yes, it is such a nice surprise seeing new blooms and feasting your eyes on something you didn’t really expect to see.  And being happy means  exactly that. Fancy seeing my Gardenia sprouting buds at this time of the year. Gardenia usually bear flowers during the months of May and June. Maybe, it’s nature’s way of telling me, “I’ll give you a surprise today to make you happy.”  And to my surprise too, I saw new buds of my  lone Amazon lily,  a promise of another day to document its lovely bloom!

And yes, this is the first time that I used the image gallery of WordPress. Just click on each picture and you’ll see it in full.

Happiness is really how you make it and simple things could make you happy! St. Augustine says, “Indeed, man wishes to be happy even when he so lives as to make happiness impossible.”

 

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Weekly Photo Challenge:Growth

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” – anais nin

It’s always a thrill to find some nice subjects that would represent how one would interpret the weekly photo challenge here at WordPress.  Some would be just symbols but it’s also quite a thrill to literally point your camera  at something  that means exactly how one views the subject at hand. Growth – an ampalaya plant just out from its bud and a oregano just starting to sprout new leaves. They’re both growing nicely  in  our backyard.

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Dreaming

Dreaming of green landscapes and wide empty spaces.

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