autofantasia's photos with the keyword: gardens

Following on from the shots I took for this week's Sunday Challenge I thought some of you might enjoy seeing this panorama of the first walled garden at Thornton Hall. Created from 11 individual images and stitched together in Photoshop it gives a good idea of what this great place is like to visit. Please view large for best effect or better still go to See All Sizes where you can select from various options. The original file was absolutely massive as is the case with these creations, so I created a smaller JPEG version for uploading, but even that is fairly big at 18,527 x 4,520 and is over 57 MB in size. So you may well need to zoom out on your browser a little bit to find a happy medium of detail and viewability. www.thorntonhallgardens.co.uk

For this week's Sunday Challenge , for which the subject was rain , which to be honest we've not had an awful lot of this summer. Thankfully, on the day my wife and I had planned to visit Thornton Hall Gardens on the outskirts of Darlington it was somewhat overcast and we did indeed get some rain. Nothing that heavy mind you, more drizzle than anything else, but sufficient to add some moisture to the plants. The garden in question was open for charity, something they do several times a year, and it is well worth visiting. So much so that we actually went twice this week as we found there was so much to see that the initial half-day we'd allocated wasn't sufficient to get around and do everything justice. In addition to the gardens they have a small tea room and sell a limited number of plants, many of which they themselves have grown. So, if you like your gardens, are ever in the area and fancy supporting a few good causes at the same time I can thoroughly recommend a visit. You will find a few more of the images that I took for this challenge in the Notes should you care to check them out and if you want to learn more about Thornton Hall Gardens please follow the link below: www.thorntonhallgardens.co.uk Please view on black for best effect.

For this week's Sunday Challenge , for which we were asked to find an S-curve . We were told if we were really struggling we could simply photograph the letter S , but ideally we were to find something that resembled the S-curve . Sounded straightforward, but when it came to getting a suitable subject like many I found it to be a more difficult challenge than it first appeared. In the end I managed to come up with a couple, both taken this week at Newby Hall in North Yorkshire. This ornate bit of stonework was found on a wall within the grounds, whilst the one in the Notes is of a Willow tree that I noticed had a bizarre S-like twist to the trunk. Apologies for the late posting and being behind with comments, but the Bank Holiday weekend has been very busy ... so a big thank you to Chris for keeping the 'door' open so that I could still post an entry this week!

Another one taken recently at Newby Hall in North Yorkshire. I was admiring one of the many large conifers when I spotted this intruder, which appeared to have spotted an opportunity to take up residence in the upper canopy. Ran it through the 'processing room' to try and emphasise the small, but beautiful stowaway, which I hope you'll enjoy seeing as much as I did. Please view on black for best effect.

Some hosta plants as encountered recently at Newby Hall in North Yorkshire. I liked the unexpected and random addition of the solitary pink petal. Please view on black for best effect.