I have always been attracted to strong patterns in my photography. The play of shadows across a surface, close-ups of textures that reveal more than our eyes first see, colors and shapes that contrast and compete. So, for this week’s Sunday Stills photography challenge, Lines and Squares, it wasn’t difficult to find a few photos in my files that fit the theme.
For more Lines and Squares, visit Terri Webster Schrandt’s blog, Second Wind Leisure. She has some great examples of her theme as well as links to images by other participants.
While you’re at it, why don’t you submit a few of your own?
Retirementally Challenged 
whoa! these are all great. I love the Lou Ruvo Center the best – the building almost looks like its made out of Mother of Pearl.
Isn’t that amazing? It was designed by Frank Gehry and has a metal-clad skin.
What Pam said! Exactly my sentiments.
I just happened to see it out of the corner of my eye while driving through Las Vegas. I, of course, had to see it close up.
These are fabulous. The center for brain health seems a little cruel, however.
I’m not surprised that its architecture wouldn’t appeal to everyone. But, fortunately, the brain research center uses its unique architecture as a effective marketing tool. They do amazing research into chronic brain diseases and have found the building helps them attract donors.
Interesting photographs!
Thank you, Kate!
I can’t say I bring any expertise in photography, but these images elicited an ‘oh wow!’ response from me, and a desire to see more.
Thank you! These photo challenges are a great prompt to dig through my files and go out hunting for more picture-taking opportunities. Thanks so much for your visit and comment!
Wow! These are spectacular photos, Janis. I love the palms!
Thank you! I think nature wins over steel when it comes to design.
I agree!
I like these photos. Great perspective and cool design. Nothing like this around here so it’s fun to see what you see.
Photography encourages me to look up and down and all around as I am out walking. You’d be surprised at what interesting things you can find in your home town.
Oh I agree. I see the things, just never manage to have a camera with me!
I am loving the Nevada building. The world needs more creative architects.
Isn’t it great? Gehry’s buildings are amazing. He designed the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, which this building reminded me of. He has incredible buildings all over the world, including in Spain and Germany, and the Dr. Chau Chak Wing Building in Sydney, Australia (that’s the closet one I could find to you).
Thanks for the information regarding the building in Sydney. One city we have not visited for quite a few years.
Your gorgeous photos are mind-bending!
Thank you… that building sure is mind-bending, huh?
Indeed it is!
You are a really talented photographer. These pics are amazing.
Thank you!
Wow, Janis, your images are really amazing with their abstract lines! I’m attracted to this, too! You need to enter more photography challenges, your photography is extraordinary!
That’s so nice, Terri! I hope to participate more in your weekly challenges; it’s fun to see what everyone comes up with (I’m already starting to think pink 🙂 ).
Love it, that’s fantastic, Janis!
Good eye and very nice photos. Thanks for sharing them Janis.
Thank you, Natalie!
Love these images. What a concept for that Lou Ruvo Center. Nice to see our SF Transamerica Building in there too.
I love the Transamerica building… so iconic to San Francisco.
I am a passionate fan of geometric patterns and shapes of all kinds. Therefore, I really enjoyed your amazing photos. Especially I liked the spiral staircase, a masterpiece of a photo.
Thank you, Peter! I love that old lighthouse. They built a new one that was better located for its purpose but, fortunately, the old one still stands.
Hey, did I do something wrong?! Did you boot me off of your subscribers’ list? I didn’t receive an email notice about this post but had been thinking about you so I thought I’d check. It’s a great thing that I did. I add an enormous “WOW!!!” along with all the other commenters. Your work is truly stunning. (Although I must admit, the image of the Centre for Brain Health seriously messed with my own brain’s health.) 😀
Oh no! I wonder why that happens? I promise that I didn’t boot you off 🙂. The Gehry building is incredible… I almost didn’t believe my eyes when I first saw it. They do good work there!
Amazing pictures. I would love to be a better photographer but I can’t see adding another hobby to my already too large list. I will enjoy your art instead. 😊
You are pretty busy with the hobbies you have so I can understand not wanting any more. I think photography appeals to me because it is more immediate (unlike cross-stitching, for instance). I’m not the most patient person 🙂.
Great pics
Thank you!
Wonderful photos and visually luscious reminder to look at our surroundings in new ways. I think that is really good for us so we don’t sink into complacency. Go outside and train the eye to see things that we might otherwise look past – the light and shadows so prevalent in every object, leaf, flower, drop of ocean spray.
Thank you for this,
Susan Graced
You are so right! I love finding those little details that I might have missed were I not paying attention. I also like how our visual world changes as the sun works its way across the sky.
Wow! You get around!!! I love the architectural photos, but probably my favorite (for sentimental reasons) is the one from San Miguel de Allende. We visited there years ago with our exchange student from Mexico. She lived with us for 11 months, then we visited her family in Mexico. What a wonderful experience!
San Miguel is so beautiful! We were there for about seven weeks and enjoyed it very much.
Hi Janis! Nice photos! I do appreciate the “art” of such images but don’t normally see them when I’m out and about. I’ll bet there is some interesting psychological reasoning behind why we “choose” to see certain things over another…or then again, maybe it is just habit. At any rate, I enjoyed your photos. ~Kathy
Interesting… I know that I’m detail-oriented and analytical by nature so that may have something to do with it. I think it’s also habit too, in that we can train ourselves to look at things in a different way if we want to. I’m glad you enjoyed the pics!
The second pix wiggled while I scrolled down…cool!
😎
Love these design pix…very inspirational.
Wiggled, huh? Not sure how that happened… but you’re welcome 🙃
Hi Janis, I enjoy reading and seeing photos from the various photography challenges. It does make me pay attention and notice my surroundings in a different way. No words for the Center for Brain Health, except WOW! I suspect these photos were in various files, yet remembered in your mind. Another major WOW for me is the lighthouse. Hmmm, I might think about this for a future challenge:)
I hope you decide to join in the challenge (I like Terri’s but there are a lot of them in the blogosphere). It’s fun to share and see how others interpret the week’s theme.
Janis – Those were great pictures and breathtaking in that they almost made you dizzy viewing the photos by the angles you shot them. The spiral staircase of the lighthouse was amazing – at least the steps seemed wider than the lighthouse I was in where the steps were narrow and very steep and I was leery going up or down. But you captured that spiral perfectly. Years ago, when our law firm went through a merger, the acquiring firm in Richmond, Virginia wanted parts of our Detroit, Michigan office revamped so they hired a local architect and contracting firm to do that. They decided that the employees using an elevator or the fire escape stairs to get from the 10th to the 11th floor was silly and they put in a spiral staircase. None of the women would use it – not only were there offices at the base of the staircase, it was deadly in heels since the steps had no back, were very steep and the architect put the railing on the opposite side. A few of us tried it, clinging to the rail for dear life (like I did at the lighthouse). The only employees who used the silly staircase were the young attorneys who were sure-footed in their wide brogues. 🙂
Wow, that’s an interesting story! Definitely design over function. I hope some lessons were learned from that design fail. I’m guessing the architect was a man… another great reason for having diversity in the workplace.
Ha ha – it would have been a functional spiral staircase at least. You know the “home Firm” deserved that to happen as they had someone from Virginia make the arrangements then hired Detroit construction contractors, but did not allow a local architect to oversee the project. So they were there one time … likely in a hurry. They wanted the entire Detroit office remodeled. We had renovations for at least a year – drywall dust everywhere. And that silly staircase. The managing partner came to visit after the renovation – flew in from Richmond and was pretty horrified, but they left it as is. My boss/I left and went out on our own shortly thereafter and the Detroit office was closed in 2004 as it was not considered profitable (after all those renovations) … such a waste!
oh wow you have some amazing lines here. Stunning photography
if you do happen to take any more lines and they are in the square format then do pop across to https://beckybofwinchester.com/2019/10/01/october-line-squares-1/ as this was the original lines&squares.
Terri borrowed the theme for Sunday Stills to encourage link ups between challenges 🙂 the Square Photography gang would love to meet you too. We are around for the whole of October!
Thanks for visiting! I’ll check your site out.
Beautiful pictures, Janis. You really got all the buildings at just the right angle. Wow, that building in Vegas (Ruvo Center) — crazy!!! – Marty
Thanks, Marty! That building was surreal… it sort of reminded me of a Dali painting. I was able to go inside and it was just as crazy!
You have a great eye for composition! Great photos Janis. The Lou Ruvo building looks so interesting!
Thank you! That building was way more interesting than the fakey, glitzy buildings found on the Las Vegas strip.
You just summed up my feelings about Vegas – ‘fakey’.
Well observed patterns and great geometric compositions.
Thank you! I’ve visited (and followed) your site. We have similar tastes in image subjects.
Thank you very much! Indeed, we do.
Wow, Janis, these are stunning! Each and everyone. I started writing down the ones I loved, but, each one grabbed my attention as strongly as the last. The Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health deserves comment not just for your fine image of it, but I just love the building design melded with its purpose!
Thank you! The history behind the design (and choice of architect) for the building was interesting. They do important work there.
I’m sure they do!
Janis, these are awesome. I particularly love the space needle park photo. That clear blue sky is the perfect backdrop for this image.
Seattle has a reputation of being cloudy and rainy… but that was a sparkling day!
Those are amazing photos! How have I managed to follow your blog for so long and not realize what a talented photographer you are?
Thank you, Ann! The response here has certainly encouraged me to share more of my photos.
These photos are striking, Janis. Such interesting buildings and you captured them beautifully.
Thank you, Christie!
I love your pics! Especially the staircase. Beautiful Janis.
Thank you!
Such great photographs and Lines! that first one of the building in Vegas is incredible!
Thank you!
Wonderful observations.
Thank you!
You have an incredible eye, Janis. All of your photos are extraordinary, but the shadows in the two examples from La Paz are especially stunning to me. I was also pleased to see that you included the Pyramid Building in my beloved San Francisco.
San Francisco has so many beautiful buildings, but that was the first modern one that I was aware of (when I was young) that was a shape other than a rectangle. I always wanted to see what the offices on the tops floors looked like… do they have sloping walls?
I grew up just a few miles north of SF, and remember when the Pyramid was being built. I was 12 when they finished it in 1972. I have seen pictures of the top (48th) floor, which is a conference room with slanted walls that can be rented out. Above the 48th floor, the tower is hollow with a stairwell and ladders up to the aircraft beacon at the point. I can only imagine the views from the tippy top. Coincidentally, yesterday while visiting the city of Rotterdam in the Netherlands, we went into the famous “cube houses” where the interior walls slant about 55 degrees. The sensation inside was weird and slightly nauseating.
How interesting, thank you! I just googled a picture of the cube houses… I can see why they might give you a bit of vertigo.
You highlighter patterns and detail on several of my favorite buildings and I don’t think I have paid quite enough detail when admiring them. The photos are spectacular!
Thank you, Debra! I sometimes get so focused on the details, I forget to watch where I’m going.
Incredible photos. Visually opulent. I used to walk by the Transamerica building all the time while working in the San Francisco financial district for many years. So that photo is a bit close to my heart. Interesting how the “Pyramid” design was considered ridiculous when first conceived and now it’s an icon and a treasure!
I remember when some looked at the design as a bit too way out there… even for San Francisco 🙂
Janis, I do like your theme based pictorials. I feel like I am leafing through an article in “Architects’ Digest,” entitled “Different shapes in design.” Keith
Hi Keith. I like these photo “challenges” because they encourage me to explore photo opportunities and re-visit my files. I’m glad you enjoy them too!
I see another pattern that you’ve captured: the blending of the human-made and the nature-made. I can’t help but admire the moments of beauty and harmony you captured as in “Palms trees and steel reaching for the sky”, the or pattens of light and shadow in Mexico and and San Diego, or the pattern of the vines and the stones. Beautiful. Thank you for sharing!
Yes! I loved how human-made straight lines contrast with natural forms. Both are beautiful… although I think I’m partial to the rougher edges 🙂 Thank you for your comment!
Agreed: both are beautiful, and when their contrast enhances rather than clashes, its magnificent! What do you mean by rougher edges? As in?
Just not human-made.
Wonderful selection and examples for the theme, Janis. The first two shots really resonated with me, but my favorite is the spiral staircase in the Old Point Loma Lighthouse. I’m a fan of shooting up stairways like that as well and have a good example – that I still remember – of the purple staircase in the lighthouse of Hope Town, Abacos, Bahamas. And, who would have thought I’d get this emotional seeing your San Diego photo of palm trees (and building) under a blue sky!? Darn, we do miss it and the nice weather…
You’d be such a happy-camper here now, Liesbet; we are enjoying a lovely fall. I’d love to see that staircase image from the Bahamas (purple!)… I hope you share it sometime.
Janis, I love all these shots especially the university windows! The lines and patterns you’ve captured are fabulous! Perfect for the prompt 🙂
Thank you! Those shadows fascinated me… if I had been there some other hour of the day, the shadows would have been less dramatic and I may have not even noticed.
Janis, these are fascinating photos. What I love about photographing the world around us is that it prompts me to really stop and look at what interests me about a scene. You certainly have an artist’s eye.
Jude
Hi Jude! That’s my feeling too… it encourages me to pay attention to more than just what’s up ahead. And, thank you for the compliment… especially coming from an artist like you!