Concepts. Syncopation and Transition

When I studied design, my favourite task was conceptual composition or the art of composition (the only branch of modern art I can actually tolerate), which is also the basis of creative photography.
What I love most about illustrating a concept is the intellectual game that it provides — as with solving creative puzzles, it takes a lot of lateral thinking, and the more disparate the ideas you manage to associate seem, the smarter you look.

Syncopation — a shift of accent in a passage or composition that occurs when a normally weak beat is stressed, in other words, a shift of attention to the secondary subject (in this case from the object to its shadow).

Syncopation. Shadow of a glass vase. (© LightColourShade. All rights reserved)

Flowering Banana and Banana Palm

Banana (Musa acuminata, Musa balbisiana or hybrids Musa acuminata × balbisianais, depending on their genomic constitution) is a herbaceous plants of the genus Musa, family Musaceae, native to tropical South and Southeast Asia, likely to have been first domesticated in Papua New Guinea.

The banana plant is the largest herbaceous flowering plant, in other words, it's a grass that decided to think big. The plants are normally tall and fairly sturdy and are often mistaken for trees, but their main or upright stem is actually a pseudostem that grows 6 to 7.6 metres (20 to 24.9 ft) tall, growing from a corm. Each pseudostem can produce a single inflorescence, also known as the banana heart that will in turn grow into a single bunch of bananas. After fruiting, the pseudostem dies, but offshoots may develop from the base of the plant. Many varieties of bananas are perennial.

Banana flower (Musa acuminata) close-up
(© LightColourShade. All rights reserved)

Flowering Bushes: Spanish Broom, Cistus, Henbit Deadnettle, Potato Bush, Augustusbossie

Spartium junceum (the sole species in the genus Spartium), known as Spanish Broom or Weaver's Broom, is a perennial, leguminous shrub native to the Mediterranean region in southern Europe, southwest Asia and northwest Africa, where it grows in sunny sites, usually on dry, sandy soils.

Spartium junceum, Spanish Broom, Weaver's Broom flowering bushes
(© LightColourShade. All rights reserved)

Flowering Trees. Parkinsonia Aculeata (Jellybean Tree)

Parkinsonia aculeata is a species of flowering tree in the pea family, Fabaceae. Common names include Mexican Palo Verde, Parkinsonia, Jerusalem Thorn, and Jellybean Tree. It is native to the southwestern United States (western Texas, southern Arizona), Mexico, the Caribbean, South America south to northern Argentina, and the Galápagos Islands. The tree has a lovely pastel hazy appearance due to the small leaves and long thin stems.
It grows 2 to 8 m (6.6 to 26 ft) high and sheds leaves in dry or cold weather, leaving the green petioles and branches to photosynthesize. The branches grow sharp spines 7–12 mm (0.28–0.47 in) long. The fragrant yellow-red flowers grow from a long slender stalk in groups of eight to ten.

Parkinsonia aculeat (Jellybean tree) flowers
(© LightColourShade. All rights reserved)

Allium ampeloprasum

Allium ampeloprasum is a member of the onion genus Allium. The wild plant is commonly known as (Broadleaf) Wild Leek.
Elephant garlic (Allium ampeloprasum var. ampeloprasum) is a plant belonging to the onion genus. It is not a true garlic, but actually a variant of the species to which the garden leek belongs. However, its bulbs taste more like garlic than leek.
Additionally it's cultivated as an ornamental plant in flower gardens, as it also discourages pests.

Allium ampeloprasum flower. (© LightColourShade. All rights reserved)

Random Picks. Time, Seeds and Regular Hexagons

'As the waves make toward the pebbled shore, so do our minutes hasten to their end.' — William Shakespeare

Reflections in a clock. (© LightColourShade. All rights reserved)

Feral Cats and French Bulldog

I love alley cats, together with birds and stray dogs, they are the closest thing to wild animals of considerable size that those of us living in the "civilized" world can get in contact with.

Sitting on the fence.

Cat on a fence. (© LightColourShade. All rights reserved)

Sea Holly (Eryngium Maritimum)

The Sea holly (Eryngium maritimum) belongs to the family Apiaceae and is native to most European coastlines. Its burr-shaped flower resembles a flowering thistle, though it's metallic blue, rather than mauve. The protected dune plant grows to a height of 20 to 60 cm.

In Elizabethan times in England, these plants were believed to be a strong aphrodisiac.

"Let the sky rain potatoes;
let it thunder to the tune of Green-sleeves,
hail kissing-comfits and snow eringoes [sea-holly],
let there come a tempest of provocation..."

—Falstaff, Act 5, scene v, "The Merry Wives of Windsor", William Shakespeare

Sea holly (Eryngium maritimum) flowers. (© LightColourShade. All rights reserved)

Artisan Crafts

I'm always warmed by the sight of old handicraft and the associated way of life, so much cosier and friendlier than modern hustle and bustle.

Antigue two-pan balance scale and wheat flour. (© LightColourShade. All rights reserved)

Lost Wedding Ring

Matrimony, like a dip in the sea, first stimulates, then chills. But once out of the water the call of the ocean lures the bather to another plunge.

Golden wedding ring lost on a sandy beach and seashell
(© LightColourShade. All rights reserved)

All Flesh is Grass

The voice said, “Cry!” And he said, “What shall I cry?” “All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field." — Isaiah 40:6

There's something very romantic about the grass undulating, swaying, and blowing in the wind.

Ammophila (synonymous with Psamma P. Beauv.) is a genus consisting of two or three very similar species of grasses: Marram Grass, Bent Grass, and European Beachgrass.
Ammophila arenaria grows in the coastal zones of Europe and North Africa, and is the dominant species on sand dunes where it is responsible for stabilising and building the foredune by capturing blown sand and binding it together with the warp and weft of its tough, fibrous rhizome system which can grow laterally by 2 meters (7 feet) in six months. One clump can produce 100 new shoots annually.

Mediterranean dune vegetation. Ammophila arenaria, Pancratium maritimum,
Carpobrotus chilensis. (© LightColourShade. All rights reserved)

Hybrid White Duck and Feral Rock Pigeon Posing

This cuties were just eager to be photographed.

Domestic duck hybrid portrait. (© LightColourShade. All rights reserved)

Sea Algae

Floating algae often seem to have taken on a life of their own as they drift with currents and adopt strange shapes.

Algae in transparent sea water. (© LightColourShade. All rights reserved)

Shades of White

When I studied classical painting I learned that there's no such thing in nature as absolutely pure white and black colours (which is also true for any other hue), but rather the play of tones, tints and shades created by the indirect light bouncing of  surrounding objects. It may be cold or warm, depending on the environment lighting and colour scale of the scene itself.

Shades of white. White quartz pebble on ceramic.
(© LightColourShade. All rights reserved)

Palm Trees.

To me palm trees represent hot weather, tropics, seaside, warm parts of the world, holidays, in other words the closest thing to paradise we can find in this world.

Palm trees on the beach
(© LightColourShade. All rights reserved)

Birds of Prey: Eagles, Owls and Falcons

The other day I happened on an exhibition of birds of prey. Sad as it is to see birds in captivity, it gave me the chance to take a close-up look at these magnificent predators that I would hardly otherwise ever get to see in the wild.

The Golden Eagle (Aquila chrysaetos) belongs to the family Accipitridae. Once widespread across the Holarctic, it has disappeared from many of the more heavily populated areas, but is still present in Eurasia, North America, and parts of Africa.

Captive Golden Eagle (Aquila chrysaetos). (© LightColourShade. All rights reserved)