View allAll Photos Tagged AS
As I came around the bend I thought I saw a Robin digging around the leaves, nope, it was a Varied Thrush.
As everyone was standing at a crowdly viewpoint, this one was nearly empty, we could enjoy this place completely silent : perfect. .
September 2019 - Sunset 🌄
As is the case with most birds this guy is watching me. He sits on this branch which is right next to his nest and he pounces on bugs that fly past. Imagine the dexterity to do that!
As close as I could get that morning
#10: Konica Minolta Acura ARX-05 Acura DPi, DPi: Ricky Taylor, Filipe Albuquerque
IMSA SportsCar Weekend
Road America
August 6 - 8, 2021
World Copyright: Peter Burke
As I said before we really do get some pretty impressive clouds when we get a storm. Much better than the normal dull grey sky you usually get when it rains!
One cold windy night
In the dark patches of clouds moving in orderly
I squeeze my fist till become white
The stars leave scars in the sky
---
Sigma 17-50mm F2.8 EX DC OS HSM with Nikon D7100
Bonlanden Filderstadt, Region Stuttgart
EXIF
1/80
F6.5
Bridge-Camera
Canon Powershot
SX60
M
Exposure Mode
Manual
Infinity Focus
ISO 250
The Dixie Walesbilt Hotel, known as the Grand Hotel in later years, is one of a small number of skyscrapers built in the 1920s that still stand today and is a prime example of how optimistic people were during the Florida land boom. Built in 1926, it found financing through a stock-sale campaign in the local business community, costing $500,000 after it was completed(which equates to about $6 million today.)
The building architecture, masonry vernacular with hints of Mediterranean-Revival, is also a good example of the time is was built. It was designed by two well-known architects at the time, Fred Bishop who designed the Byrd Theatre in Virginia, and D.J. Phipps, whose designed both the Wyoming County Courthouse and Jail and the Colonial Hotel in Virginia.
The hotel was constructed using the “three-part vertical block” method, which became the dominant pattern in tall buildings during the 1920s. Three-part buildings are composed of a base, shaft and a cap, all noticeably visible.
The hotel opened as the “Walesbilt” in January 1927, shortly after the land boom had started to collapse and two years before the Great Depression began. It’s also best to note that the hotel opened around the same time the Floridan Hotel in Tampa opened, another hotel built during the Florida land boom.
In 1972, the hotel was purchased by Anderson Sun State and renamed the “Groveland Motor Inn”. The firm completely renovated the hotel and used it to host visitors to the area who were interested in Green Swamp, land sectioned off for land development. At the time there was heavy speculation in the land because of it’s close proximity to Walt Disney World and were selling for around $5,000 an acre at the time. That ended after a state cabinet designation of the swamp as an area of critical state concern, placing the land off-limits to any large land developments. The firm filed for foreclosure and the hotel was auctioned off in 1974. Despite RCI Electric purchasing the hotel, it remained empty for many years afterwards.
n 1978, the hotel was signed over to the Agape Players, a nationally known religious music and drama group, who would assume the mortgage and would pay the costs to make improvements to meet city fire and safety standards. The hotel was renamed the “Royal Walesbilt” and after extensive improvements were made, it became the headquarters for the Agape Players; using it as a teaching facility and the base from which the group launched their tours. In addition, they operated a restaurant, an ice cream parlor on the lobby floor and a “Christian hotel” on the upper floors, catering mostly to groups. The Agape Players disbanded in 1985 and put the property up for sale
Victor Khubani, a property investor from New York acquired the property and renamed the hotel “Grand”. The hotel closed briefly in December 1988, due to a variety of code violations and causing the owner to later pay $14,000 in fines. On August 31, 1990 it was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places, possibly for tax exemption reasons. In October 1991, The State Fire Marshall’s Office gave the owner one year to install a new sprinkler system and in May 1993, the code enforcement board gave Khubani until March to complete the work.
In March 1994, the hotel closed due to multiple code violations and was to remain closed until a new fire sprinkler system was installed. To reopen, the fire escapes and elevator, which did not function, would have to be repaired as well. In 1995, the hotel was auctioned off to a redevelopment firm, which dismantled part of the interior for reconstruction, which was never completed.
Since then, the hotel has deteriorated, becoming an eyesore to many of the residents of Lake Wales and nicknamed “The Green Monster” for the greenish color it has acquired from over the years. In 1995, it was even jokingly mentioned to become a sacrifice to “the bomb”, an economic boom that occurred in parts of Florida where movie production companies would pay cities to blow up buildings for their movies. In 2007, the city foreclosed on the structure for more than $700,000 in unpaid code fines, with hopes in finding someone to restore it.
Development firm, Dixie-Walesbilt LLC announced plans to restore the hotel, signing into an agreement with the city of Lake Wales in February 2010. By the agreement, the city would retain ownership of the building until a defined amount of work had been accomplished. The work must be completed within 16 months and the amount of money invested must succeed at least $1.5 million. The building would then be handed off the Dixie Walesbilt LLC, where they may continue with private funding or other methods to for debt funding.
Ray Brown, President of Dixie Walesbilt LLC, planned to invest $6 million into the renovation, with original plans to put retail stores on the ground floor and using the upper floors for as many as 40 condominiums.
On June 2, 2011, the city of Lake Wales agreed to deed the building off to Ray Brown in a 4-1 vote, after meeting the requirements of the redevelopment agreement. Though Brown submitted a list of costs to the city totaling $1.66 million, Mayor Mike Carter wasn’t satisfied with the results so far, pointing out that Brown failed to repair the windows and repaint the building. Previous owners had put tar on the building and then painted over it, so much of Brown’s investment went to stripping the tar off the exterior walls.
To repaint the building, Brown would also have to resurface the hotel with hydrated lime to replicate the original skin as well as the window frames would need to be constructed of Douglas fir, red cedar and gulf cypress. According to Brown, previous owners who renovated the building rarely removed the building original elements. They carpeted over intricate tile flooring, stuck tar paper above skylights and placed modern drinking fountains in front of the originals. He estimated about 98 percent of the building is still in it’s original form.
Restoration of the building’s exterior began in January 2015 and included surface repair, pressure washing, paint removal, chemical treatment, and a comprehensive resurfacing of the exterior.
While the original plans were for turning the building into condominiums, that has since changed and current plans call for operating the building as a boutique hotel. The hotel will feature geothermal cooling as opposed to traditional air conditioning, a permanent art gallery as well as theme gallery showings throughout the year, and the best WiFi/internet in the city. The project is expected to be completed in 18 to 24 months.
Credit for the data above is given to the following websites:
www.cityoflakewales.com/505/Dixie-Walesbilt-Hotel
www.abandonedfl.com/dixie-walesbilt-hotel/
© All Rights Reserved - you may not use this image in any form without my prior permission.
As is tradition when the first major winter storm of the season lines up for the midwest, here's a groin-grabbingly cold shot from the archives.
A GP40 and Jordan Spreader work west as a ground blizzard (where snow already on the ground blows around and causes trouble) in north-central Iowa begins to subside; strong northerly winds shut down the roads and railroads alike - the interstates opened just in time that morning for me to make the trek down from the Twin Cities.
The Lake Wales Ridge, sometimes referred to as the Mid-Florida Ridge, is a sand ridge running for about 100 miles south to north in Central Florida. Clearly viewable from satellite, the white sands of the ridge are located in Highlands County and Polk County, and also extend north into Osceola, Orange, and Lake Counties. It is named for the city of Lake Wales, roughly at the midpoint of the ridge. The highest point of the ridge is Sugarloaf Mountain, which at 312 feet (95 meters) is also the highest natural point in peninsular Florida. (The highest point of land, at 371 ft (113 m), is a manmade mining tank west of Bartow.) Iron Mountain, the location of Bok Tower, marks another well-known high point on the ridge, attaining an elevation of 295 ft (90 m). A northern unconnected extension of the Lake Wales Ridge exists in western Putnam County near the town of Grandin.
Origins
Florida's ancient sand islands stretch for over 100 miles down the middle of central Florida. Glacial changes and the rising and falling of the oceans caused dramatic transformations on the Florida peninsula. Covered almost completely by water two million years ago, only a series of small islands existed. It is the remnants of those islands that make up today's Lake Wales Ridge. Although the waters have receded, the islands continue to support distinctive life forms found nowhere else. Today several communities are located inside the Lake Wales sand ridge, with the glaring white sands visible in many neighborhoods.
Habitat
These relic sand dunes created over thousands of years by the dynamic movements of sea, ice and wind now provide refuge for rare and endangered plants and animals. Although consisting of a variety of habitats from low and wet bayheads to high and dry sandhills, the ridge is most famous for its scrub habitat. Wildlife and plants once isolated on these islands evolved extremely unusual characteristics. This forest in miniature consists of clusters of shrubs scattered between patches of open sand. The lack of canopy cover and very deep porous sands create a hot, dry, desert like habitat. Due primarily to a long period of isolation, plants and animals that live on the Ridge have developed ways to deal with their harsh environment.
One of the scrub's best known residents is Florida's only endemic bird, the Florida scrub-jay. When walking through scrub areas, small scrub lizards often race off in the distance — perhaps an adaptation for crossing the hot sand quickly. Many animals of the scrub spend much of their lives underground to escape the hot Florida sun as well as to avoid predators. The gopher tortoise digs a burrow underground that may be up to ten feet deep and up to 30 feet long. More than 360 species may share the gopher's burrow. Other small animals such as the sand skink leave only "S"-shaped tracks as it "swims" just beneath the surface of the sand. It is the only known sand-swimming skink in North America and occurs in only seven counties in Florida.
Most of the vegetation in the Lake Wales Sand Ridge consists of (or has evolved into) scrub plants with thick waxy coated leaves that are drought tolerant. The leaves of the sand live oak are thick and leathery, rolled in at the edges to help retain as much water as possible during the blazing hot days of summer. Species of Opuntia, Yucca, Scrub plum, and scrub Serenoa repens palm dot the landscape and are well adapted to the hot sun and fast draining soils.
In the early twentieth century parts of the ridge were converted to citrus groves. More recently, some of the citrus groves, particularly in the north of the ridge, have been redeveloped for residential housing. Today several areas of the Ridge are protected National Wildlife Refuges and State Forest.
Credit for the data above is given to the following website:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Wales_Ridge
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabal_palmetto
© All Rights Reserved - you may not use this image in any form without my prior permission.
As Jaime Lannister takes the stage at the Bijou Planks, his is not a simple performance, it is a tour de force soliloquy of impassioned artistry and substance.
...
...
Or... Lannister got on stage and just ranted and raved for a very long time, as Lannisters are wont, until the audience was booing and throwing popcorn, pebbles and the inevitable anvil.
(It was the latter. We were there.)
__________________________
A year of the shows and performers of the Bijou Planks Theater.
Loyal Subjects
Game of Thrones
Jaime Lannister
In my search for trees at the river's edge (for a photo club assignment on trees this month) I took a late evening trip to Bellac in the Haute Limousin this evening and found myself photographing as night fell. I stumbled across this scene where the houses come down to edge of the river Vincou.
Camera: Nikon D600
Lens Nikkor 24-120 mm zoom at 30 mm
Exposure: ƒ/22; 20 secs; ISO 320
Time: 19:31
File ref: 20160207-DSC_4006©ELN
As pessoas mais felizes não tem as melhores coisas.
Elas sabem fazer o melhor das oportunidades
que aparecem em seus caminhos.
A felicidade aparece para aqueles que choram.
Para aqueles que se machucam
Para aqueles que buscam e tentam sempre.
E para aqueles que reconhecem
a importância das pessoas que passaram por suas vidas.
Clarice Lispector
As this is my 1000th photo on Flickr i thought i would rewind and reload my 1st picture..Thanks to you all for your comments ,faves and views over the past 23 months....i hope you are not fed up of my pictures as there are many more to come....hope i am still enjoying the game at my 2000th upload.
Der Niesen sieht aus, als ob er selbst leuchtete. Ich liebe diese Lichtspiele und Wolkenstimmungen nach Sonnenuntergang.
Photographed in South Africa from a safari vehicle, no cover
Impala are ubiquitous in most parts of Africa...so they're easy to sometimes overlook as a photo subject. But one should look closer at the distinctive markings and the rich colors of their coat along with their graceful movements...they really are quite an attractive animal.
=>Please click twice on the image to view the largest size<=
Thank you for your visit!
==========================
From Wikipedia: The impala or rooibok (Aepyceros melampus) is a medium-sized antelope found in eastern and southern Africa. Active mainly during the day, the impala may be gregarious or territorial depending upon the climate and geography. Three distinct social groups can be observed: the territorial males, bachelor herds and female herds. The impala is known for two characteristic leaps that constitute an anti-predator strategy. Browsers as well as grazers, impala feed on monocots, dicots, forbs, fruits and acacia pods (whenever available).
Calves are suckled for four to six months; young males—forced out of the all-female groups—join bachelor herds, while females may stay back.
The impala is found in woodlands and sometimes on the interface (ecotone) between woodlands and savannahs; it inhabits places near water.
Ecology and behaviour:
The impala is diurnal (active mainly during the day), though activity tends to cease during the hot midday hours; they feed and rest at night. Three distinct social groups can be observed – the territorial males, bachelor herds and female herds. The territorial males hold territories where they may form harems of females; territories are demarcated with urine and faeces and defended against juvenile or male intruders. Bachelor herds tend to be small, with less than 30 members.
The impala is an important prey species for Africa's large carnivores, such as cheetahs, leopards, wild dogs, lions, hyenas, crocodiles and pythons. The antelope displays two characteristic leaps – it can jump up to 3 m (9.8 ft), over vegetation and even other impala, covering distances of up to 10 m (33 ft); the other type of leap involves a series of jumps in which the animal lands on its forelegs, moves its hindlegs mid-air in a kicking fashion, lands on all fours (stotting) and then rebounds. It leaps in either manner in different directions, probably to confuse predators.
AfrSA-0I7A7985fFlkrD
As soon as I saw the new Games Workshop Tau crisis suits in white and dark red combo, I knew that I need to rebuild my current version.
In the end I realised why stop there, so I created a second Crisis suit and I don't think I will stop there.
I have some more Ideas how to make them look better, so both of the models can be classified as WIP.
P.s
Sorry for the crappy pictures, my old camera isn't the best one, plus my setup didn't have any extra lamps ..
Camera: Hasselblad 503CX
Lens: Hasselblad Carl Zeiss 80mm F2.8 T* Planar
Film: Ektar 100
牠是我看過最細小的貓兒；比我的腳掌還小的牠，一步一步的，慢慢的，有點不穩但卻堅定的向前走著，沒有理會眼前的路人。我看見彷彿被風吹走的牠，又擔心又憐惜；就像在永定看見小狗時一樣失敗，身上沒有一點可以吃的給牠，呆看著的，心怕牠會不會比附近的唐狗追趕，會不會有頑童欺負牠等等……但牠仍是頭也不回，沒有向人撒嬌，沒有走過來看看你再在你腿邊轉圈或坐下，就是獨個兒走著，就像是知道回家的路；但，也許貓兒本身在自然下就是這樣長大的，世界本來就沒有溫室。
因為當時只在擔心牠會怎樣了，結果也只拍了這一張。看著這張照片，弱小的牠其實顯得十分勇敢。最低限度，比我勇敢得多，無畏得多了。
As I photographed this bench from various angles I spotted a dog walker and was able to capture the two together. The dog clearly knows the route and leads the way leading me to believe that this is a routine that doesn't change much. That perhaps the bench is never used by this person. How do routines prevent us from getting the most out of life. Is the man really there with his dog or is he thinking about something else? The practice of mindfulness is about totally being in the moment. Isn't that why we do photography?
Vintage&Cool Items!
Post Contains: Nova, Since 1975, Tameless, Legal Insanity, Izzie's, Diamante, and ComeSoon
credits: www.lextalks.wordpress.com
Please feel free to follow me on Flickr by adding me as a contact www.flickr.com/relationship.gne?id=24366212@N07 so I can follow all your new uploads.
I also curate a photogrpahic magazine on Flipboard. Do drop into Charles' Photographic Scrapbook at flip.it/Fo0Ng.
Alternatively follow me on Twitter @CharlesPuckle
(c) Charles Puckle
Explore: Jul 18, 2008 #392. Senate House, University of Cambridge. The "White House" of Cambridge turns black in this uncropped sunset capture.
Yesterday morning I parked myself in Cafe Nero (as usual) with a large black coffee (as usual) and the Observer (as usual). It made me think about how often I get into routines... Some - like the one that involves me, my newspaper and a black coffee - are just wonderful, whilst others can be a pain.
It was a lovely morning and the sun was shining with real intensity through the old sash windows and in to the building. The shot was taken at the very top of the stairs, with the camera on the floor. The building used to be Reigate's town hall but now it's rented out by the council after a lengthy but tasteful refurbishment programme.