This week, Ann-Christine takes us on a round-about tour of circles (sorry, not sorry for the pun). >grin< In her challenge post, she didn’t just limit her theme to circles, she writes, “In fact, I found so many lovely circular items, old and new, that I decided this challenge would be about Circular Wonders. For you to interpret the way you find most interesting!” You can read her entire challenge post here. I start my response with the opening photo that appears to morph from an arc to a circular center. It was entirely circular all of the way down the spiral staircase, but close-up lens distortion gave the final image an interesting curvature.

Of course, I had to include something aviation-related in my response. If I could have photographed any of these balloons from above, you’d have seen a round circle. From this angle, the characteristic teardrop arch is prominent. On the date of this photograph, over 500 balloons were launched in the span of a few minutes. A mass ascension is a well-choreographed release that ensures the safety of all participants.

On one of our trips to Albuquerque, we found ourselves in a hot air balloon drifting over the city. As we sailed across the New Mexico landscape, our pilot brought out his bubble kit. It was fun and interesting to capture photos of the bubbles as they drifted quickly away from our moving airship.

At the Missouri Botanical Garden, a gated area features a rose garden. The gates and fence created some interesting arcs. As I stood in front of one of the gates looking into the garden thinking about how I might compose the image, someone in a bright red shirt happened to walk by the opposite gate. The moment I saw him, I knew my composition. I waited until he crossed the very center of the gate and snapped the image. To emphasize the subject, I decided to remove all but the reds in the photograph. I then cropped the image to include only the foreground gate.

A few years ago, I spent some time photographing sunflowers in a field near our home in Fargo. One piece of kit that I don’t use often enough is my lensball. I mounted it on a tripod and captured the setting sun in the field of golden flowers. As the image in the lensball is upside down, a rotation in post-processing puts the tripod mount at the top of the photograph. For those who have heard that sunflowers follow the sun throughout the day, that is not completely true. When sunflowers are young and growing, they do follow the sun as it moves across the sky. Once their heads get heavy with seeds, however, the stalks no longer have the strength to rotate.

My final examples for this challenge feature architecture. One of my favorite bridges is the Rainbow Bridge in Fort Morgan Colorado. This reinforced concrete bridge was the longest of its type when built in the 1920s. The name relates to the multiple arches that support the bridge deck. The South Platte River span has been replaced by a much less attractive concrete pier bridge just west of the Rainbow Bridge. Too narrow to accommodate increasing traffic on the highway, the Rainbow Bridge is now rated for pedestrian use only.

In reviewing the many images of domed ceilings I’ve taken over the years, I selected this one to represent in the challenge. In addition to the concentric circles always found in rotunda designs, I found the ring of lights in the chandelier reinforces the theme of the challenge even to the point of the circles of light within the circles inside the frosted glass covers.

For my final image, I found this photograph capturing the arc in the ceiling of Union Station. Punctuated by small circular windows and large arched windows at either end, the classical design features several smaller arches that cap the ceiling support pillars. One final circle to note in the image is the station clock at the base of the window arch. You can view the entire gallery of my images on my Flickr site here.

Thanks, Ann-Christine, for a fun challenge topic. It made me reach back into my mind to recall where I might find examples that fit the theme. Next week, Patti takes over as host with a new theme. Please visit her Pilotfish site and follow here. If you’d like to post your own challenge responses but aren’t sure how to get started, check here.

John Steiner