Texture adds something wonderful to a photo, drawing you into the image and creating impact. Texture can highlight details on the surface of an object; macro photography often works with texture in such detail that it is not immediately apparent and not necessary to recognize what the object is. The beauty is in the detail. Texture in relationship with other elements in a photograph can create drama, and it can also provide information about the object being photographed. Here are a few textural photographs I snapped on my travels through the US.
The dramatic patterns in stone of Zion National Park’s Checkerboard Mesa
A San Fransisco rooftop
The splayed end of a fallen redwood in California
A closeup of the spectacular colours of Utah variscite
More of Utah’s rocky wonders in closeup
Peridot up close and personal
Contrast (in tone or colour), curves (more curves!) and patterns are interesting components of textural photography. I’d love to see your take on the theme.
If you’d like to join in, create your own post between now and next Friday, title it “Travel theme: Texture” and put a link to this page in your blog post to make it easy for others to find your post. Don’t forget to check back in next Friday for a new travel theme.
Where's my backpack? 
Superb pics Ailsa – love the textures of the very first hill & the peridot is amazing – having only seen it in jewellery earlier 🙂
Thanks Kavi, I’d never seen peridot like that either, it was really beautiful.
Zion is fast becoming your signature leitmotif Ailsa – and for good reason. Absulutely stunning photograph – scene, and image. Wow!
Haha, you’re absolutely spot on, Wanderlust, Zion made a lasting impression upon me. It was utterly spectacular, and fabulous fun to photograph. Thanks for the compliment. xxx
The shot deserves more than my compliments … 🙂
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Ooh, Elissa, these are lovely. The snow on pines shot is wonderful, I can feel the chilly air from here. Love it! xxx Ailsa
I´m loving this theme, Ailsa. I love textures in my life, in my home furnishings, in my food AND in my photographs!
Hurrah, can’t wait to see what textures you come up with for this week’s theme, Marianne! xxx Ailsa
Here it is, Ailsa 🙂 http://eastofmalaga.net/2012/09/14/travel-theme-texture/
Ooh, delicious, Marianne. Looking forward to reading more about your visit to La Concepción Gardens. 🙂
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Lovely photos! Looking forward to post my texture photos, already have some in the back of my mind.
Excellent, scrapydo, looking forward to your post!
Here is my link to Texture http://scrapydo.wordpress.com/2012/09/16/travel-theme-texture/
Haha, wonderful, scrapydo, the elephant dung made me laugh out loud, but the kapok tree photo is fabulous! 🙂
Thanks, I thought the dungy one would let some people smile. It is texture! 🙂
Lovely theme this week @Ailsa, I found the texture also on other objects. Here’s mine http://campanulladellaanna.wordpress.com/2012/09/14/travel-theme-texture/ Happy weekend 😛
Ooh, great choice with both the strawberries and the pine cones, Della Anna, wonderful texture in both. Excellent shots! 🙂
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Oh, another fantastic theme! Thank you Ailsa. Here’s my entry. Hope you all like it!
http://laavventura.wordpress.com/2012/09/14/travel-theme-texture/
Oh, Jennifer, the hats are wonderful, the William Shatner quote is brilliant and the figs are perfect. Wonderful texture. Really enjoyed your post! xxx Ailsa
The ‘hats’ are actually traditional Sardinian baskets. But they would look good as a hat too! 😉
Haha, love it!
Beautiful textures, Ailsa. I love that fallen Redwood pic, and the variscite and peridot are absolutely stunning. Thanks for the lovely new theme. I’ll see what I can come up with. 🙂
Hurrah, looking forward to seeing what you come up with, ad! xxx
Great photos!
Thanks naimavanswol, If you’ve got any photos with texture, I’d love to see them! xxx
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Needlessly to say, Ailsa your pictures rock… even the ones without the rocks 😉 This time, I want to catch some worms 😉 so here’s my early submission…..
ps. if i don’t get the worms, I’ll come back with a vengeance [within the week]… happy as a clam 😀
Aha, excellent, s1ngal, I knew you’d rise to the challenge, great texture shots, you deservedly get the early worms! I love that you’re on high alert for the weekly theme, have fun with your camera! Love it. xxx
Lovely theme Ailsa and great texture shot ! I like it !
Here my point of view…
Thanks Max, both of your shots are excellent, the red leaf surrounded by frost is fabulous, and I can’t stop looking at the palm branch shot, it’s wonderful! xxx Ailsa
Thank you Ailsa. Your’re always very kind.
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Fantastic pictures and textures, Ailsa… So colorful! Thanks for sharing! Here’s my “homemade” contribution for this week’s travel theme – a traveler’s hobby!
http://wp.me/p1oMvI-1tb
Love it, 3rd Culture Children, those little button flowers are darling. The Mom card is fantastic. So a question – did you have a special machine to cut out the patterns around the edges? It’s so delicate.
Wow! Another set of fabulous images for another great theme! You are amazing Ailsa!
Would this post work? http://theurgetowander.com/2012/01/22/more-from-the-chongqing-region/
Here are more images from the Furong caves that I featured in that earlier post: http://theurgetowander.com/2012/09/14/travel-theme-texture/
Wow, Madhu, is there anywhere you haven’t visited? Incredible, you never fail to surprise me with your posts. The Furong Caves look amazing.
Cannot WAIT to go through all my photos for some fun stuff for this challenge! And to think our original destination this year was Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico (changed horses in the middle of the stream and ended up in Canada). Loved the redwood photo – I have oodles of that type of shot, not to mention scenery, and a few up-close studies of stuff.
Looking forward to your entry, LubbyGirl – I bet Canada was fun. Where did you go?
First we went to Fox Creek and did a little camping/visiting with family, then to Edmonton and did a little gawking at the West Edmonton Mall, then to Revelstoke (love that place), and then to Lake Louise and Golden and Kelowna and so forth and so on…just a little road trip. 🙂
Sounds like a whole lot of fun! I bet Revelstoke was stunning. 🙂
It is such a lovely little town. I’d go there every year if it didn’t mean missing other adventures. Too bad I can’t retire and just TRAVEL!! 🙂
Cool shots. Always thought that mesa was impressive
It was really spectacular, Phil. I’d already seen Arches and Bryce by the time I visited Zion, so I wasn’t expecting to be quite so bowled over, but I was, it was stunning! 🙂
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Great theme and photos! Here are ours: http://windagainstcurrent.com/2012/09/14/travel-theme-texture/
Brilliant, Vlad, I can almost feel their skin from your photos, that top one in particular. 🙂
I love these theme. Here are my travel photos of land meeting sea.
Great choice of photos, Pat, that top one is fabulous with the huge layers of rock streaming down into the ocean. Wonderful. xxx
Thanks. They are some of my favorites so it was fun to put them together under this theme.
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Here’s mine: http://cinova.wordpress.com/2012/09/15/travel-theme-texture/
Ooh, all wonderful, cinova, but the mushrooms are just delightful. Really wonderful post! xxx Ailsa
Having just returned from a quick trip, that had to include because of proximity beach and bayou visits, I know I have some recent snaps just right for this week’s theme. But, I love texture, so I may need to devote a few hours to looking through my archives for additional photos. What a great way to spend a rainy afternoon “recuperating” from hours driving.
Your photos are gorgeous. Especially like te green and blue rock.
Oooh, can’t wait to see your bayou posts, and looking forward to seeing your take on this theme too Anne. Happy recuperating! xxx Ailsa
Gorgeous Ailsa, I love the variscite and peridot 🙂 thanks for the challenge and her is my entry.
http://lucidgypsy.wordpress.com/2012/09/14/travel-theme-texture/
I love it, Gilly, if that sewing machine could talk, I bet it would have some crazy stories to tell. Wonderful shot, and fabulous use of texture! 🙂
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Thanks for this week’s theme. Here is my brick-y offering…
Wonderful, sinpolaris – seeing buildings being demolished can be quite powerful. It is terribly poignant to see traces of the lives that were lived there in earlier times. Great shot, and I love the Dr Who quote in your older post about McDonalds and BurgerKings just showing up. 🙂
Nice theme and nice photos!
Here my entry:
Love it, badflea, wonderful shots of Geoje city, that top one in particular is fascinating. I find it very hard to imagine living like that, all crammed together in huge, identical blocks, like a battery farm for humans.
Glorious! I absolutely love that opening shot.
Thanks Jo, Zion was such an incredible place to photograph, the scale was so vast it was hard to know where to begin. xxx
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Couldn’t resist another: http://windagainstcurrent.com/2012/09/14/travel-theme-texture-take-two/
Oh Vlad, they’re so beautiful. I’m so sad we had almost no snow last winter in New York, it really turns into a winter wonderland after heavy snowfall, doesn’t it? That shot of the mall makes me want to rush out and throw snowballs. 🙂
Nice! GORGEOUUUUS Zion picture, MAN OH MAN I cannot WAIT to get out there once I’m off parole, I’ve spent hundreds of hours growing up and as a teenager and in my early 20s in Arizona, but never once as a conscious, memory-retaining human have I been to southern Utah–just zipped through northern Utah on I-80 (duty called! And, as it turned out, prison “/ )
Ailsa, the MOMENT I saw the word texture I thought: REDWOOD BARK. So I’m pleased to see my beloved redwoods in your post. You know there’s gonna be at least one in mine. Time to get to work! =)
Jan
Jan, you are going to love it when you get to visit again, Arches and Bryce were both wonderful, but Zion stole my heart. Looking forward to your entry. xxx
I hope to have/rent something in which I can car camp (e.g. pickup truck w/ camper shell) and spend several weeks or longer out there, just hiking and photographing and exploring and writing =)
Ailsa, did you see that my entry was already posted? Hope you like it! ❤
Jan
Just got to it now, Jan – working my way through in order of posting. Lovely shots, the Anza-Borrego Desert offered up some fabulous texture! Love your idea of car camping, sounds like the perfect way to explore!
Sorry, I wasn’t trying to rush you at all! I think our comments crossed paths in the techno-timewarp =) And thank you, I feel like anything less would be inadequate and frankly insulting to southern Utah’s boundless glory 😉
Agreed – it’s most definitely a place to savour, such a stunning part of the world. 🙂
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I really liked the tile rooftop and Periodot. My textures post is modern art textures. Hope you like it.
A wonderful series, c & c, The Potter is so filled with character and that tortoise is adorable! xxx Ailsa
I’m so sorry, Ailsa (you don’t care), I lied…I couldn’t help myself…all Anza-Borrego Desert! That place is something magical…
–Love and Liberation–
Jan
Haha, maybe no redwoods, Jan, but some fabulous textural photographs nonetheless – the towering rocks, that shot of the Borrego Badlands at sunset and oh, that ocotillo plant are my favourites, really wonderful! xxx
Thank you so much! =D I feel some redress at the ocotillo picture because it was taken with a sub-par (or rather MORE sub-par) camera than most of my stuff and so it’s not as sharp as I wish it was, but the subject is so incredibly strange and beautiful that I still felt it was worth posting!
It really is such a fascinating plant, most definitely worth posting!
❤ I can't wait to do a Pictorial Highlight on Joshua Tree, I went there only a single time but it was in May and the ocotillo and cacti were flowering like CRAZY!! ❤
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Great theme this week. Here is my entry: https://ohmsweetohmdotme.wordpress.com/2012/09/14/travel-theme-texture/
Ooh Allan, picture perfect – I can almost feel the bark of that wonderful Madrone, great shot. xxx
Thanks for the topic this week.
I love your photos Ailsa!
I’m almost as obsessed with textures as I am with signs. Here’s my contribution: http://sasieology.wordpress.com/2012/09/14/travel-theme-texture/
Fabulous, Sas, that third shot is particularly stunning – on the way back from my recent trip to Utah we were contemplating travelling through Death Valley but opted for the Mohave instead when people told us we were crazy to even think about Death Valley in August. Next time for sure – it looks incredible!
Here we go again with stunning and exciting objects – my favorite is the last – the peridot – love the color and the texture.
Me too, viveka, I couldn’t get over how quirkily beautiful it looked 🙂
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I could stare at this shot for hours, Sue, the textures are so dramatic. I love it! xxx Ailsa
Oops, you forgot to post the link earlier (I found it through the pingback) – still smiling at the turtle 🙂
Great theme!
Thanks teedeevee. I love your moss-covered tree, and the close up of the aged wood is gorgeous. I’m just putting the link to your post here for others to check it out too. Lovely shots. xxx Ailsa
http://teedeevee.wordpress.com/2012/09/15/travel-theme-texture/
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Different textures in the city:
Ooh, I love all of these, Shaanthz, but that top one is really striking, where was it taken? Gorgeous! xxx Ailsa
Thanks Ailsa. The first picture is from the St. John the Divine Cathedral on Amsterdam Avenue. You must see it if you haven’t done so – it is magnificent. I added a brief description to the post. Love your textures – it makes me want to take a much-needed break.
Aha, I knew it looked familiar but I just couldn’t place it. I was up at St. John the Divine photographing their peacocks not too long ago (posted on my other blog at http://ailsapm.wordpress.com/2012/02/17/not-your-average-peacock/ ) Really wonderful shot. And I hope you get to take a much-needed break very soon! 🙂
Thanks Ailsa. I’ll make sure I get some pictures when I take the break.