There is this place down by the water front near my house, and its all quiet and nobody ever goes down there exept me, but it reminds me of the place where Frodo and Sam leave the rest of the Fellowship (cant remember what its called-mental blank). Its so peaceful yet kind of menacing, and i always used to go there to write my story. You have to slide down a steep slope to get to it though, so the council decided to block it off. I WAS NOT HAPPY! :mad: However i guess it will still live in memory in this thread. :(

I am sorry you have lost your Parth Galen(? . Hope you enjoy your time here.

I found Dunharrow and the Barrow Downs...
 

...both located on the Isle of Skye in Scotland. These pictures are from the internet, not my own, cause I'm having trouble with my technology.

This place really reminded me of Dunharrow, not so much for its physical inaccessibility but more for the forbidding way the hills loom over you. And of course the look of the hills/mountains is perfect - if they were just a little more tall and steep, that's exactly how I imagined Dunharrow to look like.

https://www.isleofskye.com/images/Wa...ideShow/02.jpg

https://www.visitscotland.com/cms-im...e/the-quiraing

http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/g...heula592-1.jpg

And this place, called the Fairy Glen, has a Barrow-Downs feel to it. For one thing, it has a lot of hills. For another, it has a lot of stones. Some small stones are placed in spirals by fairies when no one sees. But many stones of various shapes and sizes poke out here and there. Though none of them actually cap the peaks of the hills or are big enough to match the description, they create a similar feeling. They clearly are there at random, but their placement just looks not quite random enough, creating the feeling of allure and mistrust and the same time. Perfect for the Downs, no?

https://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/skye/1_7/1_7_3l.JPG

https://www.isleofskye.com/images/Gu...iry-Glen-1.jpg

Nice!
 

Nice places, Galadriel! :)

I'd love to explore your Dunharrow and Downs, G55! The pictures look like a hiker's dream (at least for this hiker).

A friend sent me this today. Not a swan-ship, but hey, at least it's white.


https://i.imgur.com/r8PjVAOl.jpg

It might seem preposterous, but pictures like this are now connected to early 5th Age Gondor in my imagination, despite being taken from an anime television series that has nothing to do with that particular place and time.

https://i.ibb.co/FmgjfWN/790.jpg

To be honest, I love to fantasize as if such places were located somewhere in Osgiliath (the capital of the Reunited Kingdom according to my fanfiction story), or perhaps in Dol Amroth. I'm not sure if anyone else is interested, but I've been able recently to find the corrent ideas to complete my fanfiction story, as a side effect of the exchange of messages with the members of this forum, Inziladun and Galadriel55, that took place in another thread and turned out to be really beneficial for the purpose of my project. So I can afford now to fantasize about it confidently which seems like a vacation to a peaceful fantasy realm full of pinky ponies.

Visualizing Middle-Earth is a common phenomenon among fans. To some, it is highly personal, leading many to be vocal about their dislike of illustrations by artists published in Tolkien calendars, etc. One thing that many people enjoyed about the LoTR movies was the scenery and many of the sets which corresponded to their views about what places in Middle-Earth looked like. John Garth published a book, The Worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien dedicated to a review of places that Tolkien had lived or visited that he suggests inspired the imagery of Middle-Earth. While Garth may go a bit too far regarding his attempts to find Tolkien's "sources," some photographs in his book do seem to portray some of Tolkien's inspirations, for example of Rivendell.

Personally I mostly visualised specific locations, not always in great detail, often it is more about visualising an atmosphere than specifics. Some capture that atmosphere better than other (Ted Nasmith often gets the closest, but a lot of Alan Lees work gets it as well), but I seldom outright dislike illustrations of places.

Characters on the other hand... I get much more worked up about character illustrations.

Today I found Middle-earth in an ophthalmology clinic. (Photos not mine, but I found the same product online).

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/X1MAA...rK/s-l1600.jpg

What's that word in the corner of the prisms box? Shall we take a closer look?

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/2-cAA...JrL/s-l500.jpg

Yup! Beren's Instruments. :D

I suppose playing around with a Silmaril helps with understanding the physics of light refraction.