How could you not take great “Pleasure” in devouring this apple strudel? It was both photographed and consumed — the sacrifices I make for a good picture — at the Hotel Sacher in Vienna. Sacher is more famous for its chocolate cake but I preferred this.

Please also vote for my entry in last weeks challenge, “Children.” I’m entry number 215.

This weeks PhotoFriday was a tricky one for a couple of reasons. Firstly I don’t have very many pictures of “Children” or even anything child-like. Secondly, most of the pictures that I do have I wouldn’t want to use. Thirdly, most of those that didn’t fall into the previous two categories I’ve already used for previous challenges!

In the end I settled on this image I took in southern Vietnam. I got the impression that they don’t get a huge number of tourists around there. They were very curious of us but also very nervous and wouldn’t come much closer than what you see in the picture.

When I think of “Nightlife,” this weeks PhotoFriday theme, I think of music and dancing. I have quite a few images of live music but perhaps the best I have that emphasises the “life” in “nightlife” is the above shot from our holiday in Canillas de Albaida, Spain.

Please also vote for my entry in last weeks challenge, “Cleanliness.” I’m entry number 158.

I should probably apologise in advance for the puns.

This weeks PhotoFriday is “Cleanliness.” I came up with a number of ideas, a few of which I tried, most of which didn’t work. Then I decided that the various liquids kept under the kitchen sink might be suitable since they tend to be used to keep things clean. While fairly colourful it wasn’t quite enough. It needed something else.

One of the phrases I’d been thinking of was “Cleanliness is next to godliness.” Ours is not the kind of household to have a copy of the Bible or Qur’an to hand so I had to improvise. This may require changing the phrase to “Cleanliness is next to godlessness” but it works. Kind of.

I had a really hard time finding a suitable image for this weeks PhotoFriday theme, “Lightness.” I note that a few people have submitted sunsets or sunrises. Nice, but that’s light not lightness.

I visited Iceland over Christmas and remember the constant flickering of candles and open fires and the cheer of the locals despite the long hours of darkness. This image, therefore, represents lightness both in terms of the candles and the spirit of all in the parade. (That sort of sounds cheesy when you write it down but I’m being genuine when I say it!)

“Surfaces,” this weeks PhotoFriday theme, is kind of an odd subject, I mean in some sense almost everything is or has a surface. But what I liked about the Getty Museum in Los Angeles is that the whole building was strange shapes and surfaces, something that I tried to get across in this image. Which I thought made it a decent candidate for this weeks challenge.

Please also vote for my entry in last weeks challenge, “Distant.” I’m entry 189.

I saw this car a few weeks ago and thought that the crumpled headlight was interesting. I went back a day or so later and took a few pictures. I thought this might make a good entry for this weeks PhotoFriday theme, “Damaged.”

Please also vote for my entry in last weeks challenge, “Slowly.” I’m entry number 181.

I flipped through lots of images for this weeks PhotoFriday theme,
“Slowly,” but I thought that this image fitted the bill and was a little different from most of the photos already posted. It’s of a line of camels slowly plodding towards our camp in Wadi Rum, Jordan.

I didn’t post an entry for last weeks PhotoFriday. (Indeed I was so busy that I didn’t even vote for my own entry in the challenge the previous week! No wonder I didn’t win.)

There are quite a lot of options for a theme like “Square,” but in the end I decided on this one of a square access hatch covered in graffiti. I’m not sure whether “Earth Liberation Front” is a serious organisation or not but the name amused me.

It was taken in Corniglia, one of the towns of the Cinque Terre.

Please also vote for my entry in the last challenge of last year, “Best of 2009.” I’m entry number 188.

How do you define the “Best of 2009“? That’s this weeks PhotoFriday theme so that’s what I had to work with. It’s hard enough when you have a specific theme but something so broad makes it tricky. Best could mean personal favourite. Or most talked about. Most favourited on Flickr? Most views? Highest rated? (By some measure.)

In the end I went for the above shot, taken in Spain, because it ticks a number of boxes. It’s a bit different from the kind of thing I normally end up with; a few people commented on it; the simplicity makes it one of my favourites; and, finally, I’ve not used it for PhotoFriday yet this year!