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Lens-Artists Challenge #290 – Circular Wonders

San Diego’s Point Loma Lighthouse spiral staircase.

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.

Mass ascension at the Albuquerque Balloon Festival.

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.

Bubbles from a balloon.

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.

Gates in the Missouri Botanical Garden at Saint Louis.

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 lensball sunflower field.

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.

Multiple arcs on the Fort Morgan Bridge.

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.

Domed rotunda in the Colorado Capitol Building.

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.

Union Station in Washington DC.

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

66 comments

  1. It’s such a clever construction that it’s amazing how many domed ceilings there are throughout the world, John, and all beautiful. I love circular stairwells too, and lensball images have that surprise factor (yours is a beauty) but I think I’m most taken with bubbles. Must be the child in me.

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  2. Wonderful set of images John, but oh my gosh that spiral staircase is just so amazing. I just finished a jigsaw puzzle with one. It is one of my dream images.

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  5. Excellent collection, John. The bubbles are such a great capture! Favourites this week would be all your architecture shots, the Capitol maybe more so, so many circles on that one and a terrific angle 🙂

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  10. What excellent examples! I love the way you’ve photographed that spiral staircase in the lighthouse and also the dome of the capitol building. Both shots benefit from your off-centre composition 🙂 And you’ve reminded me that I don’t use my lens ball enough either!

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  12. You found such clever and beautiful circular wonders John. My favorite has to be the staircase. What makes i special is that you have a person going down and show the floors as the staircase continues down. And the rotunda; simply beautiful.

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  13. Well John, I must say this is one of my favorites ever of your posts (altho there are many to choose from!!) Each of your images is wonderful and perfect for the challenge. Like many others I loved the bubble image, and your sunflowers thru the lensball is beautiful. I also loved your perspective on the spiral staircase. Really terrific response!

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  14. This might just be one of my favorite posts of yours! And I just noticed Tina said the same thing. All of the images were unique and so fitting for this theme.A lot of time and thought went into this. Yes, all of your posts are carefully thought out, but there are so many surprises with this one. The bubbles and sunflowers are treasures and I love the red shirt at the rose garden. The bridge.I never knew. When my youngest daughter lived in Sidney, Nebraska (she worked at Cabela’s Headquarters), we would fly into Denver and drive.Fort Morgan was a great midway stop. Would have loved the bridge walk. Absolutely stunning photos-All of them!!

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  16. Wow!
    The stairs in the first, hot air balloons filling up the blue sky, the architectural ceiling. Such amazing wonders.
    But the most interesting one is definitely the bubbles 🙂

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  19. John, from the opener, you gave us wonderful images. Each photo was simply stunning. My favorites are the dizzying spiral staircase, the Colorado Capitol, and Union Station. Great photos!

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  21. Just love the dome shot with the diminishing circles. They really pull the eye into and upward in the dome. Union Station is one of my favorite buildings. It’s where I catch Amtrak when I travel by train.

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  22. I am sorry to say (grin) that I must chime in with Tina and Donna – this must be one of my absolute favourites of your posts! From beginning to end I was awed with mouth open. These pictures are living the description of circular wonders. The staircase, the bubbles (never seen anything like it…) and the capitol with all the circular lights – just to mention a few…. Amazing.

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  25. Oh, John! When I saw the first shot I thought “I know this place, I took a photo very much like it!” Then there’s the Chihulli sun on the gate at the Missouri Botanical Gardens, which I visited last October! What a cool shot you have made of it. Mostly, I love the bubbles floating by as you float in a hot air balloon. Way fun!

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