Weekly Photo Challenge: Windows

These images would seem a mismatch, were it not for the weekly photo challenge. We were lucky to meet Todd Saunders earlier this year at his studio in Austin, Texas. He crafts neon artwork with a retro, pop art style. Todd also collects roadside iconography and fairground relics (if you have a clown phobia, don’t ask to go in the backyard). His studio has one of the most instantly recognisable walls in Austin. It is tempting to abandon thoughts of windows and post about Todd instead, but… (masters the impulse)… that’s best left for another day when I can do him justice.

For today, I’ll just point out the weird effect created by photographing the luchador mask through a window and superimposing power lines, blue sky, clouds and a tree. If we could see thoughts, they might look something like this. I love the distressed effect of the metal too.  

Back to the challenge. There’s something very decorative about windows with shutters, but my eye was captured by the interplay of architecture and nature on this window in Switzerland. The vine climbing up the wall and dripping from the window ledges may be delicate, but it seems to have dislodged the left hand shutter at the top. The one below is not looking too secure either.

I feel as if I know something about the person who lives here. They must have plants in their life, no matter what. The terracotta pots create a topiary effect in miniature, with standard lavender bushes flanked by green balls. The pots are neatly arranged in saucers, on little plant stands and are somehow being watered. It’s someone’s little piece of heaven on earth.

I like mullioned windows too. I wish I knew more about the history of this house. It looks old, but I wonder whether the building is all original, or whether it has been extended?

This is typical of the English style of gardening – neatly trimmed hedges coexist happily with a scattering of flowers in the lawn, while a traditional flower border softens the lines. A few plants have escaped under the hedge (or some have been smothered out by it). There’s symmetry, but symmetry acts as a motif or a starting point, rather than being the whole story.

My fourth photo fills the brief literally, showing windows from a hotel window. I seem to remember a bit of clambering was required! Sherborne Abbey towers over a row of shops. You could never call this row of buildings higgledy piggledy, though there are square, rectangular and arched windows. The street has a rhythm that indicates thoughtful town planning and the cream paint against the honey coloured stone unifies everything.

Finally, a horticultural curiosity. Gardeners often screen summer sun off their greenhouses by covering the windows with a thin, chalky type of paint. I was delighted to spot this caricature of a happy looking gardener with a spade, finger drawn on the shading at Levens Hall Gardens. The garden itself is a similar mix of whimsy, horticultural care and tradition.

If these shots have left you craving more windows, take a look at some of the other submissions for the weekly photo challenge.