Welcome to Friday Foto Flogging, a place to share your photos and photography news. We were inspired by the folks at European Tribune who post a regular Friday Photoblog series to try the same on this side of the virtual Atlantic. We also thought foto folks would enjoy seeing some other websites so each week we’ll introduce a different photo website.
This Week’s Theme: Gates, Doorways, and Passages (h/t Knucklehead).
Website(s) of the Week: Critics Allege Wildlife Photo of the Year Was Faked, Steve Casimiro’s The Adventure Life.
AndiF’s Open Says Me
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Gate
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Door
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Passage (they hope)
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olivia’s gates, doors, passages
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Jan 8 Theme: Aphorisms and Quotes (h/t keres).
Info on Posting Photos
When you post your photos, please keep the width at 500 or less for the sake of our Bootribers who are on dial-up. If you want to post clickable thumbnails but aren’t sure how, check out this diary:
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Previous Friday Foto Flogs
Passage (they hope) really tickled me with the looks of expectancy! The shaded path looks quite inviting, olivia, as does the covered bridge tunnel. There’s a 2-lane covered bridge near here that we used to stop and cool off in when we were kids out for bike rides on hot summer days.
Thanks to you both (and all the great photographers who post here) for the fun, entertainment & education over the past year in the FFF’s!
Hi ID. I like the idea of getting cool under the bridge. 🙂
Thanks to you too for all the wonderful photos. I esp love the photos you take and post of your community. You and Fs live in such a lovely part of the country, and it’s great that we get to see some of it in both your posts.
Hope you have a happy new year.
This is a really nice group. It’s cool how you have the camera looking through the spiral.
Thanks, it gives a sort of optical illusion as the spiral is flat.
“The spiral is flat” almost reads like a coded message. I really liked the spiral gate handle. Then after reading boran2’s comment and your reply, I found myself looking much more closely at it and found it even more delightful!
Happy New Year Bob.
Fantastic shots — I agree w/ b2: that top post is very eye-catching. Great framing and love the trailing moss in the background (just love that moss ;-), a combination of hard metal and soft greens.
I really like the scrolling framework against the concrete and blue sky in the last shot. That’s gorgeous. Where is that?
And the second one looks like a swan’s head … w/ a curly beak. 🙂
Thanks Olivia, The last shot was taken at Viscaya, in Miami.
I love your top shot. The passage through the trees with the dusting of snow really highlights the natural arch.
Slipping in here to agree with BobX. I really like the frosted archway. I am sure there is some woodland magic occurring within 😉
Thanks Bob and tampopo.
tampopo – yep, lots of magic from these characters … 😉
Thanks for all the great images! Happy New Year to you both!
Same here, I’ll pass it on.
That spiral shot is fantastic — perfect framing and wonderful background.
Thanks Andi.
What is “proper supervision” anyways?
neuschwanstein…aka “the fairy tale castle” by the mad king ludwig
[apologies for the low quality scan]
cold pathway
and from new years eve… blue moon rising
clik images to enlarge
happy new year! from me and
Wow d, that blue moon shot is amazing – love it!
Great detail in the fairy tale castle.
Happy New Year to you and Ms Bu … 🙂
Happy New Year dada & friend! I always enjoy seeing your photos here. They often invite me to see the world a bit differently than my usual “auto-pilot” perspective.
Oh I want to go to that fairy castle.
Once in a blue moon indeed.
Gate to passages unseen
Gate to Big Muddy
Gated passage
Old doorway
Older doorway
photo by my brother
Passage to Dixie
A chapter in life passage
Love ’em! You put together a great group — especially gated passage.
And I’m glad you enjoyed my pathetic dogs. 🙂
Great set ID … love your take on the theme. 🙂 The firetruck ‘limo’ is too cute. 🙂 Great detail on the gates and doors.
Really nice set. The flood gate especially.
ID — I agree that these are particularly wonderful photos. Your titles are also very good 😉
Thanks! I was going to venture out yesterday for some new door photos, but when I woke up and saw the temp was 12F, well, I decided to dig through the archives this time instead.
lol … good plan. Have to keep those shutter fingers healthy and frost-free … 🙂
a couple of pics from Germany:
the gate on the old bridge in Heidelberg:
the door of a building in Osnabrueck’s old town on a snowy winter day:
passage – on my way home waiting at Cologne’s main station for a connecting train:
happy new year everyone!
The diagonal lines on the middle photo do a wonderful job of pulling the eye into the image. And I like the way you “captured” the sunlight in the gate in the top image.
Happy New Year to you as well Sven. 🙂
I’m w/ Andi – love the lines in the door and window in the second photo. Really eye-catching.
I love the framing of the first photo – the view of the activity, buildings, etc. through the bridge gate – and the lighting, light to shade.
I like the gate and Moravian stars in the background. Nice Shots.
A bit of stuff from my gate hunting.
I have many more to post but even hundreds more to shoot.
Here`s what I catch glimpses of on a daily basis, always promising myself to remember it, to shoot later.
STATE OF THE UNION
My friend painted his garage door right after 911
It was a perfect banner of solidarity, now it`s in tatters.
CARVED DOOR

(with details)
PALM TREE
(stainless steel & glass)
TEAK GATE
ROCK STEEL & TIMBER
SILVER RAVEN FARMS
(signpost at a gate)
GATE TO GATE
(main gate & side yard gate)
MAX HEADROOM
OLIVIA NEWTON JOHN
PORTALS
OCEAN TO WILD
WILD TO OCEAN
ELEGANT ENTRY
(with details)
THUNDER BAY
THUNDER BAY ENTRY
GATE WITH SIDE YARD
OPEN GATE
PASSAGE GATE
OLD COURTYARD GATE
OCEANSIDE GATEWAY
(designed & built by Knucklehead)
SEA OF LOVE
Titled “Sea Of Love” on my blog, I posted it as a mystery lady.
Now you can see it`s origin.
FINAL GATE OF 2009
This was definitely worth waiting for. Wow, wow, wow. I hate to pick a favorite but OCEANSIDE GATEWAY is irresistible — I’m so glad you were able to get a picture of it. You do such beautiful work.
I really like the lines of the second OLIVIA NEWTON JOHN photo.
AndiF,
I was prevented from going into an area where some of my other gates are, because of high water.
If you remember, I said I`d have to cross a rather large creek.
I`ll get to them over another route soon though.
I was at Olivia Newton John`s when they were building her house.
I was good friends with her then husband Matt Latanza. I was to build the stairway to the beach, (one of my specialties).
I do love that gate. Exquisite form.
Oh gosh – these are magnificent. I love the way you’ve presented them, w/ information and details. Just wonderful. It’s hard to pick favs from this set Head … 🙂
The carved door details are amazing. I love the Oceanside Gateway – wow, wow, wow. And also the greenery growing over the Old Courtyard Gate.
Olivia,
These are but a small sample of the gates here.
I did pass up many of them, as they were open.
As opposed to gated communities which I abhor, I love the personalized gates of individual homes.
Some people don`t even like gates, but I`ve seen inner-city doors, from the inside, with five locks on them.
I`ll enjoy the gates, thank you.
Plus I have my name on many of them, although only one is pictured.
Also, Thank You.
Outstanding!
Thank You Boran2,
I had a nice time stopping whenever I saw another one.
Gate hunting season is not over for me yet.
Here’s another vote for Oceanside Gateway and special mention for State Of The Union, a great visual story of the Bush years in a single frame. Here’s hoping this year will be kind to you and your family and that your partner has recovered and is feeling good again.
Indianadem,
That`s exactly what I meant to represent with that image.
My wife/partner in crime Teri is coming along fine, but it will be a while before I can send her out on solo missions.
Thank you.
I do have to come back & peruse the whole diary to look at the gates of perception.
a perfect metaphor for the decade we’ve just survived.
kudos, head…the whole set’s a pleasure.
Thanks dada,
I love the instant recognition of what I was conveying.
I try & not interject politics in images on a photoblog.
This one though has “plausible deniability”, since it is a door.
Now where have I heard that term before? Hmmmn.
Fantastic as always, but this time you’ve outdone yourself. Gonna’ be hard to follow that up! Teak Gate’s clean lines are beautiful simplicity. Rock steel timber is intimidatingly formidable.
BobX,
Thank you.
Now I could only follow with a pictorial tour of the scenes beyond the gates, so I believe you are correct.
That, for the most part, won`t happen.
I should have been shooting my projects while I was on them.
Your photos are terrific!
Though I really am glad to see the work of artisans, and as beautiful as they are, I find the gates to be rather sad. So I prefer the doors and the “Oceans to Wild” and “Wild to Ocean.”
Tampopo,
I do understand your feelings about gates, but I`m much more concerned about being kept out of areas that belong to the people, & the lack of transparency the “rulers” hide behind.
I didn`t shoot many of the local gates because they were open.
I`ve also seen many doors, in the cities I`ve been to, with multiple locks on the doors.
But like you, I most enjoy the natural portals to beauty, in the images you mentioned,… the creek.
Where the doors once were. Ruins of a convict era coal mine complex, Tasmania.

Southern Passage. Raised duck-board trail to South Cape Bay, the southern most part of Tasmania.

Passage back in time. Remnant Gandwanaland rain forest in NZ.

Gated community (of puppies), aka the puppy stockade.

Passage to ?

Oh the puppy stockade is just too horrifying to contemplate. 😉
But I could contemplate the passage to ? for hours.
And that southern passage looks like a fine journey to take.
The puppy stockade is the front fence of a very large (about a half acre) purpose-built puppy yard – which means there’s ots more room to romp than there used to be. The ‘stockade’ appearance comes from the ingenious use of seventy wattle saplings (that needed thinning anyway) woven with the remaining fencing wire. This kept us from having to buy another roll of mesh, plus, site-sourced materials have the lowest impact.
I wasn’t sure Luna would figure out this obstacle, since she couldn’t see a way out. But I held up the canvas the first few times ’til she got the hang of it. She’s still the slowest Agility Dog ever.
LOL, love the last one … Is that Luna? Did she find her way through?
Wonderful set keres – the bridge looks interesting … does it move/sway etc.? And I like the disappearing Cockle Creek trail.
That is Luna, and see above for how I trained her to go through the Chute.
I don’t remember that foot bridge swaying much. It’s in the Abel Tasman National Park on the north end of the South Island of New Zealand.
Happy New Year to you both! Are there any new small furry rascals for you in the new year?
That face behind the puppy stockade looks rather sad or hopeful for early release, perhaps. The first three all look worthy of enjoyable exploration.
No new furries, but there are feathered additions in the form of five new ducklings, with yet another clutch on the way.
Luna only looks unhappy because I’m on the other side of the fence. She’s always worried that she’ll be left behind when I go out the front without her.
And Happy New Year to all!
Happy New Year to you and yours! Tell estHer thanks for all the extraordinary photos and thanks to you as well!
Very nifty effect — the pattern seems almost alive.
I’ll tell you what this was. estHer shot a reflection of the street in a shop window and I cropped it down for neatness.
I was wondering what was giving it those neat overtones.
Hi LEP, Happy New Year to you and your family!
Great patterns here w/ the lines and blocks and I like how the metal matches up diagonally – on the street and in the distance w/ the gate.
Sedona, Arizona trailhead.
Gateway to great rocks.
That is awesome. 🙂
Happy New Year!
Did you see any ETs hanging around that big mesa? I heard Sedona was a good spot for unusual activity;-)
Happy new year, ID! No saucers or little green men were seen. Maybe next time.
Love your desert pics.
On New Years?? (no offense to Knucklehead ;p)
Really, I don’t have (m)any recent gate, doorway & passage photos to share so I thought I’d share some snark and some pics from last night.
Happy New Year everyone!
LOL, Happy New Year ss! Great to see your festive shots — nicely captured! I love the little gold stars in the second photo.
Ya know….in a manner of speaking, those three pictures are all gates, doorways and passages…
…to 2010!!!
;p
LOL, well put.
lol, most definitely!
Happy New Year stand strong! I’ve really enjoyed your photos here!
Definitely a passage. And quite a gorgeous one at that.
I’m new to this site and just wanted to say how much I like this feature and enjoyed seeing everyone’s photos–many of which were wonderful. I can’t contribute any myself since I don’t have a camera.
Welcome Lou (may I call you Lou?). We’re a fairly friendly lot, with participators, admirers, and lurkers all welcome. I live in Tasmania, Australia, so my posts can sometimes seem out of sync with others. Which is to say that if you post to me and I don’t reply, I’m probably asleep.
Again, welcome, and if you like photos keep an eye out for the Thursday Dog Blog (which may get posted Wednesday your time – which is Thursday my time).
No Camera!?! How can anyone live without a camera?????
Thanks for the warm welcome! OK to call me Lou.
Would you believe I’m low-tech? when I was working I used to use a digital camera to take photos of houses (I worked for Realtors) but that was around 2000 so my familiarity with the new digital cameras is zero and I wouldn’t know how to transfer my pics to the computer.
Go get a camera and we’ll walk you through it. Really, we’re a very tech savvy bunch. Any little name brand point and shoot will be sufficient. Both Andi and Olivia can direct you to free photo web hosting site and tell you how to use them. I think there’s even a tutorial floating around somewhere. Andi?
As keres said, we’d all be glad to help you out. Also, in the main diary there’s a section called “Info on Posting Photos” which has a link to a tutorial on how to post photos and there are also links to several free photo hosting sites.
Louisiana,
You plug a little cable in the camera (it comes with), plug the other end in the computer, click a few things & there you have it.
Point & Shoot cameras are relatively cheap these days & quite easy to use.Plus many here can help with any questions, I`m sure.
Not that we’re ganging up on you, or anything. That would be right unneighborly. It’s just that everyone brings something different to the foto flogging, and we’re just sure that you’d have something interesting for the rest of us to see. 🙂 Besides, how else will we get to see your pets?
Welcome to the Flog. We’re delighted to have you here with or without pictures. But I can’t help but point out that even the most inexpensive point-and-shoot can take wonderful pictures.
And if you want to see more pictures, we have links to old Friday Foto Flogs in the diary. Lots and lots to look at.
Hi there! Welcome…as the others have said it’s nice to meet you. Definitely feel free to contribute – you don’t have to post photos to participate in friday flogging – but we’ll be looking forward to when you get your camera … 😉 (That’s basically how I got started – w/ the encouragement of a lot of ppl here!)
My pics of ‘passages’ can’t compare to BooMan’s this week, but I do my best.
May the New Year offer each of us a wealth of great images & an abiding openness of vision.
I like the misty quality that filters so many of your photos. The woods are sometimes similar here and the atmosphere seems familiar to me. For the new year, I wish you peace seasoned liberally with serenity.
Be well.
Thanks very much, ID! A bit of peace & serenity is definitely welcome.
Agree w/ ID – love that fog/mist often seen in your photos. It does evoke a peaceful feeling.
I love the seedbarn and the pathgate … w/ the hole in the wire of the gate. Do we go along the path on right or do we go through that hole and explore to the left. 🙂 And the last photo is wonderful, complete w/ a self-portrait of sorts in the window reflection and sun spot … lovely.
Thanks again for encouragement, Miss O. Always highly appreciated!
BTW, you wouldn’t want to go through the gate & explore to the right. There’s a very large hole there left behind by a vanished barn, now full of brush & junk.
Best to follow the well-worn path, in this case.
Dyslexia strikes again! Explore to the right = explore to the left.
Pooh — well, the path does look nicer. Better for strolling. 🙂
They might have trouble competing with a newborn but very little else. Your pictures are always so evocative. Great combination of gate and passage in the second picture. I love the sense of (cramped) place in the bottom one and the patterns in the second from the bottom (though I can’t figure out what it is).
The bottom pic is of a room that was an emotional touchstone for many years. It’s really loaded.
I took the shot on my first visit after the house was sold.
Great set! I really like the stone wall photo. The wall meandering and the center tree forking into the sky makes for an interesting composition.
What is in the picture below the stone wall? This would have made a good “What Is It? photo.
One of our neighbors has devised their home & garden in the traditional Japanese manner. Apparently this garden ‘focus’ — a dividing wall between two distinct environments — is traditional too. If you look closely you can see the door in it.
Thanks to everyone for generous thoughts!
Very nice images of a mood.
The twilight zone.
Love em all.
Thank you, ‘Head!
Indeed, the Twilight Zone is definitely where I live.
🙂
I really like your door photo — the colors, the slanting shadows and the shadow that takes one’s eyes right up the steps and in — wonderful!
Thanks Tampopo. The door is part of an old abandoned cabin in the woods. I always like thinking about the lives of the people who lived there — one of my favorite details is that the steps have “Janey ’48” inscribed on them.
Seconded!
Getting the backstory is great, too.
is one of my favorite flogs yet! Great pics, everyone.
Thanks are especially due to Knucklehead who had the idea for this great theme.
AndiF,
Yeah, me & my bright ideas.
I had to go all over to get the shots I posted, but it was a nice adventure. Luckily, I got a time extension.
Now let`s be thankful to AndiF & Olivia, for providing us with the space to post these thematic photo essays.
And a big welcome to Louisiana.
Andif,
The shadowed door is terrific.
The colors lend themselves well to the dilapidation of light & form.
Thanks Head. Next up I’ll have to take a picture of the old three-holer outhouse. 🙂
That sounds like the three skunks that went to church & sat in their own pew.
A 3-holer? Oh, the lives of the
effluentaffluent;-)Olivia,
I love the path from light to dark forest mystery, but I would, being a northern woodsman.
The bridge is similar to my image, although I was the troll under it.
I remember a trip through vermont, New Hampshire, Maine & New Brunswick, where we went to cross as many covered bridges as we could.
That was in the fifties though, but I`ve been fond of them since.
Hi Head … this is the last one standing in Ontario … in Montrose. 🙁
Perhaps a bridges theme sometime?
Great idea!
I concur.