Thursday Doors is a weekly feature allowing door lovers to come together to admire and share their favorite door photos from around the world. Feel free to join in on the fun by creating your own Thursday Doors post each week and then sharing it, between Thursday morning and Saturday noon (North American eastern time), by using the blue link-up button below.
The Doors of Orvieto – Part #1
The ancient town of Orvieto was the first place we visited after meeting up with our friend Manja – aka The Unofficial Queen of Italian Doors.
If you’re a regular part of our Thursday Doors crowd then some of these will look familiar as you may have seen them on her blog in previous posts.
We walked around for a bit, exploring as we made our way towards the town square.
The gorgeous old architecture and the number of beautiful old doors was a treat to behold.
I tried to make the best of the shadows and sharp contrasts thanks to harsh mid-afternoon light.
Only much later in the day did I notice a few nasty smudges on my lens that made a number of my Orvieto shots salvageable 😦
Luckily I was able to save most of them, but sadly few if any will ever be frame-worthy.
Most of them are bearable though, but I cringe because smudges suck. Aside from cropping them out, there’s really nothing that can be done about them!
My fave smudge-free shot from this batch
Despite being hungry and a little tired, I got more than a bit excited after getting my first good glimpse of the Duomo that dominates the town square.
But let’s see what else we find on the way there.
More cringe!
Nice even light thanks to some streets being in total shadow…
A nice ghost door, and Manja’s furry friend Fonsie surely having flashbacks, “Hey, haven’t I smelled this place before?”
And the payoff! One of the most beautiful church facades you could imagine.
We’ll take a closer look at the Duomo and a whole bunch more Orvieto doors next week.
In the meantime the lesson of the day boys and girls is: remember to check your lens for smudges BEFORE you enter a 1000+ year-old town.
As always, thank you so much for looking 🙂
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Norm 3.0 
As always Norm love the doors!! 💕 💕 💕
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What marvelous doors! The ghost doors look like they’ve been ghosts for centuries. Thank you SO MUCH for sharing your trip. And thank you for sharing your smudgy mishap. If a photographer of your caliber can oopsie, I feel a little less hopeless. 🙂
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Thanks Marian. You’re never too experienced to have a momentary lapse. I almost always double check these things and the one time I don’t it comes back to bite me 😀
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Great impressive doors.
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Grazie 🙂
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Wow! Just wow!! Stone door surround is always beautiful.
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Grazie 🙂
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😀
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Great collection Norm!! I do love your favorite smudge free shot too! The tones on the door are awesome. I never think to check for things like smudges. I’m finally beginning to remember to bring clothes, especially if I’m shooting in the rain! That church!! It definitely gives tons of other ones a run for their money! 🙂
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Thanks Amy. I’m usually pretty good with my pre-shoot check list but this time the one thing I didn’t double check was the one that did me in 😀
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You did well to capture those beautiful doors in such strong sunlight, Norm. That last photo is fabulous, I’ve never seen a church with such a colourful facade.
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Thanks Jean. A church facade with that much vibrant colour was a first for me.
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beautiful doors and doorknockers.
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I totally agree 🙂
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Absolute beauties. Don’t see any smudges and don’t care if there are any. Gorgeous post!
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You’re too kind Angela, thanks 🙂
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Quite a collection! My favorite is the door below the mail boxes. I even love the paving in that street . I was going to say cobblestone but I am not sure. Such history here.
Pat
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Yes I think I’d call those cobblestones 🙂
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Beautiful town, Ovieto! I look forward to seeing more of your photos next week!
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Thank you 🙂
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We could sure use some bottled up Italian sunshine about now! Nice to see warm sunny places for sure 🙂
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Oh yes indeed!
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Your favorite smudge-free shot is mine as well. Love the mailboxes, too! The church at the last, holy majesty of color and light!
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Yeah, just on the outside that church rivaled a lot of the ones we saw in Rome. And to think that it’s almost 800 years old…
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Norm, Beautiful doors! The pic of the dog in front of the plastered up door gave me pause. Could he once go home through that door?
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Thanks for the kind words and thanks for joining us this week.
In future please remember that your link goes on our link-up list and not in the comment s section. Just click on the little blue froggie button near the end of my post and add your link there. That way we can find everyone`s posts all in one place. Cheers 🙂
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Here is my collection of Doors from Cannes, France
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Thank you and welcome to Thursday Doors. I went ahead and added your link to our link-up list. In future simply click on the blue froggie button at the ed of my post and add your link there. That way everyone’s can be found in one place and it keeps my comments clean of links.
By the way I went over and commented on our post but it looks like it might have been caught up by the WP spam filter.
We meet here every Thursday. Feel free to join in whenever you have doors you want to share – cheers 🙂
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I didn’t see a smudge! My old eyes… 🙂
MAILBOX DOORS! There are just too many awesome doors to take in. You could have spent your entire trip just taking pictures of doors!
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Mailbox doors is one of the worst smudge culprits! Look at the blurring in the upper right third of the last box on the right.
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I’ll look again… There will be squinting involved, I’m sure. 🙂
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Just one lonely door an old cabin in the woods.
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Thanks Mike 🙂
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The front of the church is incredible! I noticed (and remembered in some larger Gothic churches in Holland the do the same) they have both side entrances open and keep the main entrance open only for special occasions. What a plethora of doors! It seems the frame surrounding the door make the door a more substantial feature! my favorite is the one after the mail boxes (the color and the work on the arch part.
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I love the mailboxes too. That was a fun shot to take, now if only it wasn’t smudged 😀
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Hardly! If you wouldn’t have said anything, I would not have noticed:)
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Wonderful sharing for us. Thank you. I loved the 3rd door down that looked to have a smaller door in a door, maybe for children. Beautiful shots as always.
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I had kinda overlooked the door within the door – good eye.
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Beautiful place. I could feel it through you post that how lovely and vibrant it must be. It gave me some sort of vibes which took me to some different era and something felt deeply but unexpressable.
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Thank you for the kind words 🙂
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More beautiful Italian doors! I sometimes forget to clean my lens too… thanks for the reminder to take this first, important, and simple first step. I think the mailboxes were my favorite.
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Yes those mailboxes are great – thanks 🙂
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The church definitely! My husband is a card carrying member of the ABC club.
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Yes, the church is amazing.
The ABC club???
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Ah Italy, absolute door heaven. Sorry to read you had smudge issues, so very frustrating. When I took a photography course last winter, our instructor talked about the importance of cleaning your lens before & after a shoot. I must admit, I am not always diligent in this regard but our experience definitely confirms why it is so important!
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Thanks Lynn. I’m usually pretty vigilant with my pre-shoot checklist: check the lens, charge up and bring spare batteries, bring extra memory cards, attach the shoe for the tripod if I know I’m going to be using it.
On this day I guess I was all excited about being in door heaven that I skipped a very important step 🙂
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Forgot to say…great shot of those iron mail boxes all in a row… the necessary made beautiful.
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Grazie!
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Ghost doors? Entrances no longer used?
Those two metal doors near the end…reminds me of the movie, “Man in an Iron Mask”. Hmmm….house in an iron mask 🙂
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Ghost Doors = doors that are no longer doors, i.e. door openings that have been bricked up or plastered over, but you can still tell there used to be a door there 😉
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That reminds me of how I learned the meaning of “at death’s door.” We were on an ancestry trip in Ohio and visited a little church with a graveyard next to it. On the wall facing the graveyard, it was clear that there had been a door there which had been bricked over. This door would have been used to take the deceased to the graveyard, which is where the expression “at death’s door” came from. Apparently many churches had doors like this at one time,
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Never heard that expression before. Thanks 🙂
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I wouldn’t have noticed the smudges and the photos are much too good to even worry them. You have a wonderful, eclectic collection of doors and details here, Norm, one that brought joy to my morning. What a great trip that must have been!! As for the light issues, I run into the same problems when I’m in Arizona. But who would go and not want sunshine? Quite the conundrum! 🙂
janet
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Thanks Janet. I’m glad you liked them.
Mid-day light is always harsh. It’s not great for landscape or wider architecture shots but It can be used to bring out texture by emphasizing the contrast between shadow and light. Arizona also has some of the best golden hour light I’ve ever photographed too.
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Lesson understood. Photos still remarkable and beautiful. What an amazing place to visit.
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It really is. As always my only regret now is not spending more time there,.But you can’t be everywhere and there’s only so many hours in a day, right?
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Very good series, congratulations!
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Thank you 🙂
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I have had the “oh, what’s that on the lens?” experience too many times, Norm. Thanks for the reminder. And thanks for sharing these beautiful doors. I love the arched doors set into the arched stone entrances. So much brilliant craftsmanship on display. I would love to go back in time and be an apprentice on one of those jobs.
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Thanks Dan. Yes I’d love to see how they accomplished so much with the techniques of the day.
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Lovely collection! You found some beauties in old buildings.
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And just imagine: we barely covered 1/3 of the old town 🙂
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I look forward for what to come.
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Smudges on the lens is so frustrating and disappointing when discovered after the fact – as are water marks caused by blowing snow ,which I recently discovered 😕 I’d say you still managed to capture some great shots.
My favourite is the 4th one from the bottom. It seems to me very unusual to see a doorway flanked with different columns. The door itself is very unusual too – it appears that it likely pushes inwards?
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Smudges, water marks, low batteries, full memory cards: I have a whole checklist but for some reason I was so distracted with excitement I forgot to check the lens before starting 😀
Yes your fave is a “push” door.
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Eee, bestia! 😀 Good to see him on another blog! 😉 So sorry about the smudges but if you wouldn’t mention them, I’d never notice. Yes, the midday light is truly harsh over here, as if it wants to say to a photographer: “Who’s the real winner?” And also: “Go have lunch instead!” All great doors, of course. I remember seeing you spotting and shooting the row of mailboxes, and thinking: yep, Italy is not wasted on this guy. Thank you for the high title, I hope the official Queen never drops by. 😀
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Well you know what they say: we are always our own worst critic. I cringe every time I look at any of the shots with smudges. I know I was just distracted and having fun in my discoveries so I wasn’t paying close enough attention to the camera.
No, I’d say that Italy was not wasted on me 😉
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My mother keeps telling me I should go to Orvieto, and I can see why. That church is stunning and I look forward to more pictures of it. Beautiful doors are almost guaranteed in these old Italian towns and they never seem to disappoint. Bright light and smudged lens…the curse of photography.
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You mother is a wise lady then 🙂
Yes, if you get the chance go to Orvieto and plan on spending at least a full day, if not two. We were only there for an afternoon and it wasn’t nearly enough to do the place justice.
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Hi Norm, the linkup doesn’t seem to be working today – I’ve been able to add mine, but clicking it or tree other one in the list only take me to n InLinkz page
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What a wonderful place! Heaven for doors 🙂
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Heaven for doors is right. We only spend part of an afternoon there and there is so much to see.
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