Author: andy townend

castronuño

Image | | andy townend

Farewells can be shattering, but returns are surely worse
– Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin

It’s been a while since I posted here, more than four months to be (almost) precise.

A lot has happened in that time.

It’s time to return, to re-engage.

So, rather than write pages and pages explaining my absence, I thought I would share some photos from a walk by the river, yesterday, in Castronuño.

A few small slices of life, under the Spanish sun.

Presented, more or less in the order that they were shot.

Be seeing you.

As you sow, so shall you reap

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farewell wordpress wpc

Image | | andy townend

Like many people, I suspect, I am saddened to see the unannounced demise of the WordPress weekly photo challenge. In the early days of this site the weekly prompts from the WordPress team often offered a much needed spur to action, and helped me find my voice and new inspiration.

The WordPress team, and their occasional guests, created a cherished sense of community. They will be missed.

How to choose a favourite? Not exactly Sophie’s Choice I know, but hey guys, you may be ripping out the soul from your blogging platform. Why not at least have issued some kind of warning, canvassed opinion, or even sought out those willing to carry the torch?

So, I publish again one of my first photo for this esteemed challenge, and if you’d like to see the whole set from andytownend then here you go.

And, I wonder.

See also my posts on belgradestreets, salamancastreets and belgianstreets…

lines

Image | | andy townend

his way had therefore come full circle
or rather had taken the form of an ellipse or a spiral
following as ever no straight unbroken line
for the rectilinear belongs only to geometry and not to nature and life

― hermann hesse, the glass bead game

for wordpress weekly photo challenge ‘lines’

*shot with Nikon d700 and nikkor 85mm f/1.4 d lens with manual focus at f/1.4 ISO1800 and 1/200s, cropped and transformed into mono in lightroom cc*

lloviendo

Image | | andy townend

a poem, some unedited rain, and a slice of plath

salamancastreets

i woke to the sound of rain
― sylvia plath, the bell jar

see me

the face

in the rain

see me

the fingers

on the pane

see me

before

i am

wiped

away

*one of a series of shots made in salamanca with my ancient olympus om10, with zuiko 50mm f/1.8 lens, and loaded with ilford xp2 super ISO 400 film*

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plaza

| andy townend

Another shot at this week’s WordPress prompt on the theme of ‘I’d rather be’ which features the streets of Salamanca, words by Murakami and some unedited mono photos from me and my trusty old Olympus OM10.

salamancastreets

“Look at the rain long enough, with no thoughts in your head, and you gradually feel your body falling loose, shaking free of the world of reality. Rain has the power to hypnotize.”
― Haruki Murakami, South of the Border, West of the Sun

We often spend time wondering who, where, or perhaps what we are.

What we’d rather be.

Maybe, our lives would be better if we simply accepted who we are, where we are.

And what we have.

Let the rain wash over us, cleanse us.

Make us whole again.

And maybe then, we’d rather not need to be anything that we are not.

Already.

A thoughtful piece for this week’s WordPress Weekly Photo challenge which posed the rhetorical question ‘I’d rather be’

And, in an odd way, the fact that each of these shots was captured, in Salamanca’s Plaza Mayor, with a 35 year old Olympus OM…

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I’d rather be

Image | | andy townend

‘what was the thing, who was the one?
i’d tell you if I had the chance
all over the city, the suburbs and towns
i’m begging someone, please look up’
– lyrics from ‘everybody wants to sin’ sarah blasko

for wordpress weekly photo challenge ‘i’d rather be’

*shot in salamanca, españa, with 35 year old olympus om10 and zuiko 50mm f/1.8 lens in aperture priority mode with ilford xp2 super iso400, developed by ilford, after I dropped it on a cold tiled floor and bent the filter ring, gotta love film…*