Lens-Artists Challenge #331: Resilience

Lens-Artists Challenge #331: Resilience

Oh my, I nearly missed this one. What with playing with 100-year-old folding cameras, or loading 35mm film into Rapid canisters to make half-frame images in the cutest camera ever, and the inevitable real world stuff, it was only this morning that I realised it was Saturday and I hadn't posted my images for the Lens-Artists Challenge. 

This week, in the first themed Challenge of 2025, Anne of Slow Shutter Speed is hosting the Challenge and her theme for the week is, 'Resilience' (https://annegeephoto.com/2025/01/11/lens-artists-challenge-331-resilience/). 'Resilience,' says Anne, 'refers to the ability to successfully adapt to stressors, maintaining psychological well-being in the face of adversity', and she asks us to, 'find how your photographs portray resilience. How do they speak to you?'

Just off the main road to Oliveira do Bairro is our local Lidl. This was built at the end of a small industrial area that I reckon was supposed to expand with more out of town shops that never materialised. Between Lidl and the main road is a patch of scrubland that has grown wild, including this one tree that over the years has been buffeed by tge wind. Of course, I couldn't resist taking the Gameboy and making an infrared digital aerochrome of the tree.

In the main square of the seaside town of Vagueira, which has appeared in other challenges, is a 15m tall sculpture of a sardine, a national delicacy, on a fork. Around the square have been planted a number of trees that over the years have been twisted and bent by the wind that blows through the square,  strengthened by the fact that the building around the square produce an unnatural wind tunnel.

When I first came to live in Portugal, the road from the railway station to the main road was little more than a dirt track. A couple of years later the local council built a proper road through to Oiã's industrial estate. The road was lined with trees, which due to the limitations of their planting, there's not much space between the trees and the pavement around them, haven't really grown that much. Buffeted by the wind, the trees have been pushed to an angle, yet still every year they sprout leaves and flower.

So here, I hope, are a few examples of resilience from the Gameboy. Thank you to Anne for suggesting this subject, next week Ritva will be setting the theme, so I hope you will join in. Themes for the Lens-Artists Challenge are posted each Saturday at 12:00 noon EST (which is 4pm, GMT) and anyone who wants to take part can post their images during the week. If you want to know more about the Challenge, details can be found here (https://photobyjohnbo.com/about-lens-artists/), and entries can be found on the WordPress reader using the tag 'Lens-Artists'.

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