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Viewed as a near failure in the eyes of the War Office in 1936, this model was ultimately to evolve into perhaps the most illustrious and longest serving model in the history of British military motorcycling, not to mention becoming the most numerous type produced for the War Office itself
The military model M20 was produced by BSA in several variations until 1942, when the type was largely standardized, undergoing only minor modifications thereafter until the end of the Second World War. The very earliest examples supplied, the K-M20 models from the 1939 production year, were generally a type constructed from a combination of standard and de-luxe model components with the addition of certain military specified fittings.
This one was used by the 2nd Battalion Welsh Guards for Armoured reconnaissance, Guards Armoured Division, NW Europe 1944-45
9/365 ... It might also be put as lack of inspiration. Or even better - lack of courage to try those things I do have in mind yet don´t seem to be capable of turning them into reality :).
Anyway, this is a - what´s its name in English? Bouncing ball?
For me photography is like being a child again. Enjoying those little things or seemingly ordinary moments that become a habit, a sort of stereotype to most adults. Kids aren´t like that - they never stop wondering and even a silly thing can lead to a crazy adventure. Picking up a camera and falling for photography, as crappy as I may be at it, was one of the luckiest moments of my life, no doubt. Now I shall never stop seeing the beauty around because even when my camera isn´t with me, it taught me to notice world again :).
As keen as I am on taking some less static shots, this sure helps me to learn how to work with light so grateful for that at least.
(for 29. 3. 2010)
Ordinarily an image that I would have ignored, but as the secrets of PS become apparent, this had possibilities. It was a not-so-sharp Monarch, in front of the pale taupe stucco of the house. I thought the plain BG could be enhanced with a texture (and be easy to work with). After finding Kim Klassen's "Beach Texture" , I used the dry brush filter in PS and was happy with my first digital painting. Let's say that there's no way I could do this on canvas and with a brush.
The family Monarch business is in full swing! I have 36 viable chrysalis's, 17 caterpillars of various sizes and three eggs. Things are much calmer than last week when I was worried that the milkweed plants wouldn't grow fast enough to prevent the cats from starving. This is the first November in recent memory when Roger, the kids and I haven't been out hunting for sources of pesticide free milkweed. The more we plant, the more eggs the females lay :-)
Please, throw a few milkweed seeds around your garden next spring. Or check out the the Monarch Larva Monitoring Project site. Better yet, do both :-D
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Member of the Flickr Bird Brigade
Activists for birds and wildlife
“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”
― Mahatma Gandhi
beautiful sunset in DK
Abellio ScotRail Class 385, 385022 with 385103 arriving into Polmont working 1R44 1108 to Glasgow Queen Street, service had started at Edinburgh Waverley, taken 12th March 2019
Graffiti (plural; singular graffiti or graffito, the latter rarely used except in archeology) is art that is written, painted or drawn on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from simple written words to elaborate wall paintings, and has existed since ancient times, with examples dating back to ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, and the Roman Empire (see also mural).
Graffiti is a controversial subject. In most countries, marking or painting property without permission is considered by property owners and civic authorities as defacement and vandalism, which is a punishable crime, citing the use of graffiti by street gangs to mark territory or to serve as an indicator of gang-related activities. Graffiti has become visualized as a growing urban "problem" for many cities in industrialized nations, spreading from the New York City subway system and Philadelphia in the early 1970s to the rest of the United States and Europe and other world regions
"Graffiti" (usually both singular and plural) and the rare singular form "graffito" are from the Italian word graffiato ("scratched"). The term "graffiti" is used in art history for works of art produced by scratching a design into a surface. A related term is "sgraffito", which involves scratching through one layer of pigment to reveal another beneath it. This technique was primarily used by potters who would glaze their wares and then scratch a design into them. In ancient times graffiti were carved on walls with a sharp object, although sometimes chalk or coal were used. The word originates from Greek γράφειν—graphein—meaning "to write".
The term graffiti originally referred to the inscriptions, figure drawings, and such, found on the walls of ancient sepulchres or ruins, as in the Catacombs of Rome or at Pompeii. Historically, these writings were not considered vanadlism, which today is considered part of the definition of graffiti.
The only known source of the Safaitic language, an ancient form of Arabic, is from graffiti: inscriptions scratched on to the surface of rocks and boulders in the predominantly basalt desert of southern Syria, eastern Jordan and northern Saudi Arabia. Safaitic dates from the first century BC to the fourth century AD.
Some of the oldest cave paintings in the world are 40,000 year old ones found in Australia. The oldest written graffiti was found in ancient Rome around 2500 years ago. Most graffiti from the time was boasts about sexual experiences Graffiti in Ancient Rome was a form of communication, and was not considered vandalism.
Ancient tourists visiting the 5th-century citadel at Sigiriya in Sri Lanka write their names and commentary over the "mirror wall", adding up to over 1800 individual graffiti produced there between the 6th and 18th centuries. Most of the graffiti refer to the frescoes of semi-nude females found there. One reads:
Wet with cool dew drops
fragrant with perfume from the flowers
came the gentle breeze
jasmine and water lily
dance in the spring sunshine
side-long glances
of the golden-hued ladies
stab into my thoughts
heaven itself cannot take my mind
as it has been captivated by one lass
among the five hundred I have seen here.
Among the ancient political graffiti examples were Arab satirist poems. Yazid al-Himyari, an Umayyad Arab and Persian poet, was most known for writing his political poetry on the walls between Sajistan and Basra, manifesting a strong hatred towards the Umayyad regime and its walis, and people used to read and circulate them very widely.
Graffiti, known as Tacherons, were frequently scratched on Romanesque Scandinavian church walls. When Renaissance artists such as Pinturicchio, Raphael, Michelangelo, Ghirlandaio, or Filippino Lippi descended into the ruins of Nero's Domus Aurea, they carved or painted their names and returned to initiate the grottesche style of decoration.
There are also examples of graffiti occurring in American history, such as Independence Rock, a national landmark along the Oregon Trail.
Later, French soldiers carved their names on monuments during the Napoleonic campaign of Egypt in the 1790s. Lord Byron's survives on one of the columns of the Temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounion in Attica, Greece.
The oldest known example of graffiti "monikers" found on traincars created by hobos and railworkers since the late 1800s. The Bozo Texino monikers were documented by filmmaker Bill Daniel in his 2005 film, Who is Bozo Texino?.
In World War II, an inscription on a wall at the fortress of Verdun was seen as an illustration of the US response twice in a generation to the wrongs of the Old World:
During World War II and for decades after, the phrase "Kilroy was here" with an accompanying illustration was widespread throughout the world, due to its use by American troops and ultimately filtering into American popular culture. Shortly after the death of Charlie Parker (nicknamed "Yardbird" or "Bird"), graffiti began appearing around New York with the words "Bird Lives".
Modern graffiti art has its origins with young people in 1960s and 70s in New York City and Philadelphia. Tags were the first form of stylised contemporary graffiti. Eventually, throw-ups and pieces evolved with the desire to create larger art. Writers used spray paint and other kind of materials to leave tags or to create images on the sides subway trains. and eventually moved into the city after the NYC metro began to buy new trains and paint over graffiti.
While the art had many advocates and appreciators—including the cultural critic Norman Mailer—others, including New York City mayor Ed Koch, considered it to be defacement of public property, and saw it as a form of public blight. The ‘taggers’ called what they did ‘writing’—though an important 1974 essay by Mailer referred to it using the term ‘graffiti.’
Contemporary graffiti style has been heavily influenced by hip hop culture and the myriad international styles derived from Philadelphia and New York City Subway graffiti; however, there are many other traditions of notable graffiti in the twentieth century. Graffiti have long appeared on building walls, in latrines, railroad boxcars, subways, and bridges.
An early graffito outside of New York or Philadelphia was the inscription in London reading "Clapton is God" in reference to the guitarist Eric Clapton. Creating the cult of the guitar hero, the phrase was spray-painted by an admirer on a wall in an Islington, north London in the autumn of 1967. The graffito was captured in a photograph, in which a dog is urinating on the wall.
Films like Style Wars in the 80s depicting famous writers such as Skeme, Dondi, MinOne, and ZEPHYR reinforced graffiti's role within New York's emerging hip-hop culture. Although many officers of the New York City Police Department found this film to be controversial, Style Wars is still recognized as the most prolific film representation of what was going on within the young hip hop culture of the early 1980s. Fab 5 Freddy and Futura 2000 took hip hop graffiti to Paris and London as part of the New York City Rap Tour in 1983
Commercialization and entrance into mainstream pop culture
Main article: Commercial graffiti
With the popularity and legitimization of graffiti has come a level of commercialization. In 2001, computer giant IBM launched an advertising campaign in Chicago and San Francisco which involved people spray painting on sidewalks a peace symbol, a heart, and a penguin (Linux mascot), to represent "Peace, Love, and Linux." IBM paid Chicago and San Francisco collectively US$120,000 for punitive damages and clean-up costs.
In 2005, a similar ad campaign was launched by Sony and executed by its advertising agency in New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Miami, to market its handheld PSP gaming system. In this campaign, taking notice of the legal problems of the IBM campaign, Sony paid building owners for the rights to paint on their buildings "a collection of dizzy-eyed urban kids playing with the PSP as if it were a skateboard, a paddle, or a rocking horse".
Tristan Manco wrote that Brazil "boasts a unique and particularly rich, graffiti scene ... [earning] it an international reputation as the place to go for artistic inspiration". Graffiti "flourishes in every conceivable space in Brazil's cities". Artistic parallels "are often drawn between the energy of São Paulo today and 1970s New York". The "sprawling metropolis", of São Paulo has "become the new shrine to graffiti"; Manco alludes to "poverty and unemployment ... [and] the epic struggles and conditions of the country's marginalised peoples", and to "Brazil's chronic poverty", as the main engines that "have fuelled a vibrant graffiti culture". In world terms, Brazil has "one of the most uneven distributions of income. Laws and taxes change frequently". Such factors, Manco argues, contribute to a very fluid society, riven with those economic divisions and social tensions that underpin and feed the "folkloric vandalism and an urban sport for the disenfranchised", that is South American graffiti art.
Prominent Brazilian writers include Os Gêmeos, Boleta, Nunca, Nina, Speto, Tikka, and T.Freak. Their artistic success and involvement in commercial design ventures has highlighted divisions within the Brazilian graffiti community between adherents of the cruder transgressive form of pichação and the more conventionally artistic values of the practitioners of grafite.
Graffiti in the Middle East has emerged slowly, with taggers operating in Egypt, Lebanon, the Gulf countries like Bahrain or the United Arab Emirates, Israel, and in Iran. The major Iranian newspaper Hamshahri has published two articles on illegal writers in the city with photographic coverage of Iranian artist A1one's works on Tehran walls. Tokyo-based design magazine, PingMag, has interviewed A1one and featured photographs of his work. The Israeli West Bank barrier has become a site for graffiti, reminiscent in this sense of the Berlin Wall. Many writers in Israel come from other places around the globe, such as JUIF from Los Angeles and DEVIONE from London. The religious reference "נ נח נחמ נחמן מאומן" ("Na Nach Nachma Nachman Meuman") is commonly seen in graffiti around Israel.
Graffiti has played an important role within the street art scene in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), especially following the events of the Arab Spring of 2011 or the Sudanese Revolution of 2018/19. Graffiti is a tool of expression in the context of conflict in the region, allowing people to raise their voices politically and socially. Famous street artist Banksy has had an important effect in the street art scene in the MENA area, especially in Palestine where some of his works are located in the West Bank barrier and Bethlehem.
There are also a large number of graffiti influences in Southeast Asian countries that mostly come from modern Western culture, such as Malaysia, where graffiti have long been a common sight in Malaysia's capital city, Kuala Lumpur. Since 2010, the country has begun hosting a street festival to encourage all generations and people from all walks of life to enjoy and encourage Malaysian street culture.
The modern-day graffitists can be found with an arsenal of various materials that allow for a successful production of a piece. This includes such techniques as scribing. However, spray paint in aerosol cans is the number one medium for graffiti. From this commodity comes different styles, technique, and abilities to form master works of graffiti. Spray paint can be found at hardware and art stores and comes in virtually every color.
Stencil graffiti is created by cutting out shapes and designs in a stiff material (such as cardboard or subject folders) to form an overall design or image. The stencil is then placed on the "canvas" gently and with quick, easy strokes of the aerosol can, the image begins to appear on the intended surface.
Some of the first examples were created in 1981 by artists Blek le Rat in Paris, in 1982 by Jef Aerosol in Tours (France); by 1985 stencils had appeared in other cities including New York City, Sydney, and Melbourne, where they were documented by American photographer Charles Gatewood and Australian photographer Rennie Ellis
Tagging is the practice of someone spray-painting "their name, initial or logo onto a public surface" in a handstyle unique to the writer. Tags were the first form of modern graffiti.
Modern graffiti art often incorporates additional arts and technologies. For example, Graffiti Research Lab has encouraged the use of projected images and magnetic light-emitting diodes (throwies) as new media for graffitists. yarnbombing is another recent form of graffiti. Yarnbombers occasionally target previous graffiti for modification, which had been avoided among the majority of graffitists.
Theories on the use of graffiti by avant-garde artists have a history dating back at least to the Asger Jorn, who in 1962 painting declared in a graffiti-like gesture "the avant-garde won't give up"
Many contemporary analysts and even art critics have begun to see artistic value in some graffiti and to recognize it as a form of public art. According to many art researchers, particularly in the Netherlands and in Los Angeles, that type of public art is, in fact an effective tool of social emancipation or, in the achievement of a political goal
In times of conflict, such murals have offered a means of communication and self-expression for members of these socially, ethnically, or racially divided communities, and have proven themselves as effective tools in establishing dialog and thus, of addressing cleavages in the long run. The Berlin Wall was also extensively covered by graffiti reflecting social pressures relating to the oppressive Soviet rule over the GDR.
Many artists involved with graffiti are also concerned with the similar activity of stenciling. Essentially, this entails stenciling a print of one or more colors using spray-paint. Recognized while exhibiting and publishing several of her coloured stencils and paintings portraying the Sri Lankan Civil War and urban Britain in the early 2000s, graffitists Mathangi Arulpragasam, aka M.I.A., has also become known for integrating her imagery of political violence into her music videos for singles "Galang" and "Bucky Done Gun", and her cover art. Stickers of her artwork also often appear around places such as London in Brick Lane, stuck to lamp posts and street signs, she having become a muse for other graffitists and painters worldwide in cities including Seville.
Graffitist believes that art should be on display for everyone in the public eye or in plain sight, not hidden away in a museum or a gallery. Art should color the streets, not the inside of some building. Graffiti is a form of art that cannot be owned or bought. It does not last forever, it is temporary, yet one of a kind. It is a form of self promotion for the artist that can be displayed anywhere form sidewalks, roofs, subways, building wall, etc. Art to them is for everyone and should be showed to everyone for free.
Graffiti is a way of communicating and a way of expressing what one feels in the moment. It is both art and a functional thing that can warn people of something or inform people of something. However, graffiti is to some people a form of art, but to some a form of vandalism. And many graffitists choose to protect their identities and remain anonymous or to hinder prosecution.
With the commercialization of graffiti (and hip hop in general), in most cases, even with legally painted "graffiti" art, graffitists tend to choose anonymity. This may be attributed to various reasons or a combination of reasons. Graffiti still remains the one of four hip hop elements that is not considered "performance art" despite the image of the "singing and dancing star" that sells hip hop culture to the mainstream. Being a graphic form of art, it might also be said that many graffitists still fall in the category of the introverted archetypal artist.
Banksy is one of the world's most notorious and popular street artists who continues to remain faceless in today's society. He is known for his political, anti-war stencil art mainly in Bristol, England, but his work may be seen anywhere from Los Angeles to Palestine. In the UK, Banksy is the most recognizable icon for this cultural artistic movement and keeps his identity a secret to avoid arrest. Much of Banksy's artwork may be seen around the streets of London and surrounding suburbs, although he has painted pictures throughout the world, including the Middle East, where he has painted on Israel's controversial West Bank barrier with satirical images of life on the other side. One depicted a hole in the wall with an idyllic beach, while another shows a mountain landscape on the other side. A number of exhibitions also have taken place since 2000, and recent works of art have fetched vast sums of money. Banksy's art is a prime example of the classic controversy: vandalism vs. art. Art supporters endorse his work distributed in urban areas as pieces of art and some councils, such as Bristol and Islington, have officially protected them, while officials of other areas have deemed his work to be vandalism and have removed it.
Pixnit is another artist who chooses to keep her identity from the general public. Her work focuses on beauty and design aspects of graffiti as opposed to Banksy's anti-government shock value. Her paintings are often of flower designs above shops and stores in her local urban area of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Some store owners endorse her work and encourage others to do similar work as well. "One of the pieces was left up above Steve's Kitchen, because it looks pretty awesome"- Erin Scott, the manager of New England Comics in Allston, Massachusetts.
Graffiti artists may become offended if photographs of their art are published in a commercial context without their permission. In March 2020, the Finnish graffiti artist Psyke expressed his displeasure at the newspaper Ilta-Sanomat publishing a photograph of a Peugeot 208 in an article about new cars, with his graffiti prominently shown on the background. The artist claims he does not want his art being used in commercial context, not even if he were to receive compensation.
Territorial graffiti marks urban neighborhoods with tags and logos to differentiate certain groups from others. These images are meant to show outsiders a stern look at whose turf is whose. The subject matter of gang-related graffiti consists of cryptic symbols and initials strictly fashioned with unique calligraphies. Gang members use graffiti to designate membership throughout the gang, to differentiate rivals and associates and, most commonly, to mark borders which are both territorial and ideological.
Graffiti has been used as a means of advertising both legally and illegally. Bronx-based TATS CRU has made a name for themselves doing legal advertising campaigns for companies such as Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Toyota, and MTV. In the UK, Covent Garden's Boxfresh used stencil images of a Zapatista revolutionary in the hopes that cross referencing would promote their store.
Smirnoff hired artists to use reverse graffiti (the use of high pressure hoses to clean dirty surfaces to leave a clean image in the surrounding dirt) to increase awareness of their product.
Graffiti often has a reputation as part of a subculture that rebels against authority, although the considerations of the practitioners often diverge and can relate to a wide range of attitudes. It can express a political practice and can form just one tool in an array of resistance techniques. One early example includes the anarcho-punk band Crass, who conducted a campaign of stenciling anti-war, anarchist, feminist, and anti-consumerist messages throughout the London Underground system during the late 1970s and early 1980s. In Amsterdam graffiti was a major part of the punk scene. The city was covered with names such as "De Zoot", "Vendex", and "Dr Rat". To document the graffiti a punk magazine was started that was called Gallery Anus. So when hip hop came to Europe in the early 1980s there was already a vibrant graffiti culture.
The student protests and general strike of May 1968 saw Paris bedecked in revolutionary, anarchistic, and situationist slogans such as L'ennui est contre-révolutionnaire ("Boredom is counterrevolutionary") and Lisez moins, vivez plus ("Read less, live more"). While not exhaustive, the graffiti gave a sense of the 'millenarian' and rebellious spirit, tempered with a good deal of verbal wit, of the strikers.
I think graffiti writing is a way of defining what our generation is like. Excuse the French, we're not a bunch of p---- artists. Traditionally artists have been considered soft and mellow people, a little bit kooky. Maybe we're a little bit more like pirates that way. We defend our territory, whatever space we steal to paint on, we defend it fiercely.
The developments of graffiti art which took place in art galleries and colleges as well as "on the street" or "underground", contributed to the resurfacing in the 1990s of a far more overtly politicized art form in the subvertising, culture jamming, or tactical media movements. These movements or styles tend to classify the artists by their relationship to their social and economic contexts, since, in most countries, graffiti art remains illegal in many forms except when using non-permanent paint. Since the 1990s with the rise of Street Art, a growing number of artists are switching to non-permanent paints and non-traditional forms of painting.
Contemporary practitioners, accordingly, have varied and often conflicting practices. Some individuals, such as Alexander Brener, have used the medium to politicize other art forms, and have used the prison sentences enforced on them as a means of further protest. The practices of anonymous groups and individuals also vary widely, and practitioners by no means always agree with each other's practices. For example, the anti-capitalist art group the Space Hijackers did a piece in 2004 about the contradiction between the capitalistic elements of Banksy and his use of political imagery.
Berlin human rights activist Irmela Mensah-Schramm has received global media attention and numerous awards for her 35-year campaign of effacing neo-Nazi and other right-wing extremist graffiti throughout Germany, often by altering hate speech in humorous ways.
In Serbian capital, Belgrade, the graffiti depicting a uniformed former general of Serb army and war criminal, convicted at ICTY for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including genocide and ethnic cleansing in Bosnian War, Ratko Mladić, appeared in a military salute alongside the words "General, thank to your mother". Aleks Eror, Berlin-based journalist, explains how "veneration of historical and wartime figures" through street art is not a new phenomenon in the region of former Yugoslavia, and that "in most cases is firmly focused on the future, rather than retelling the past". Eror is not only analyst pointing to danger of such an expressions for the region's future. In a long expose on the subject of Bosnian genocide denial, at Balkan Diskurs magazine and multimedia platform website, Kristina Gadže and Taylor Whitsell referred to these experiences as a young generations' "cultural heritage", in which young are being exposed to celebration and affirmation of war-criminals as part of their "formal education" and "inheritance".
There are numerous examples of genocide denial through celebration and affirmation of war criminals throughout the region of Western Balkans inhabited by Serbs using this form of artistic expression. Several more of these graffiti are found in Serbian capital, and many more across Serbia and Bosnian and Herzegovinian administrative entity, Republika Srpska, which is the ethnic Serbian majority enclave. Critics point that Serbia as a state, is willing to defend the mural of convicted war criminal, and have no intention to react on cases of genocide denial, noting that Interior Minister of Serbia, Aleksandar Vulin decision to ban any gathering with an intent to remove the mural, with the deployment of riot police, sends the message of "tacit endorsement". Consequently, on 9 November 2021, Serbian heavy police in riot gear, with graffiti creators and their supporters, blocked the access to the mural to prevent human rights groups and other activists to paint over it and mark the International Day Against Fascism and Antisemitism in that way, and even arrested two civic activist for throwing eggs at the graffiti.
Graffiti may also be used as an offensive expression. This form of graffiti may be difficult to identify, as it is mostly removed by the local authority (as councils which have adopted strategies of criminalization also strive to remove graffiti quickly). Therefore, existing racist graffiti is mostly more subtle and at first sight, not easily recognized as "racist". It can then be understood only if one knows the relevant "local code" (social, historical, political, temporal, and spatial), which is seen as heteroglot and thus a 'unique set of conditions' in a cultural context.
A spatial code for example, could be that there is a certain youth group in an area that is engaging heavily in racist activities. So, for residents (knowing the local code), a graffiti containing only the name or abbreviation of this gang already is a racist expression, reminding the offended people of their gang activities. Also a graffiti is in most cases, the herald of more serious criminal activity to come. A person who does not know these gang activities would not be able to recognize the meaning of this graffiti. Also if a tag of this youth group or gang is placed on a building occupied by asylum seekers, for example, its racist character is even stronger.
By making the graffiti less explicit (as adapted to social and legal constraints), these drawings are less likely to be removed, but do not lose their threatening and offensive character.
Elsewhere, activists in Russia have used painted caricatures of local officials with their mouths as potholes, to show their anger about the poor state of the roads. In Manchester, England, a graffitists painted obscene images around potholes, which often resulted in them being repaired within 48 hours.
In the early 1980s, the first art galleries to show graffitists to the public were Fashion Moda in the Bronx, Now Gallery and Fun Gallery, both in the East Village, Manhattan.
A 2006 exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum displayed graffiti as an art form that began in New York's outer boroughs and reached great heights in the early 1980s with the work of Crash, Lee, Daze, Keith Haring, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. It displayed 22 works by New York graffitists, including Crash, Daze, and Lady Pink. In an article about the exhibition in the magazine Time Out, curator Charlotta Kotik said that she hoped the exhibition would cause viewers to rethink their assumptions about graffiti.
From the 1970s onwards, Burhan Doğançay photographed urban walls all over the world; these he then archived for use as sources of inspiration for his painterly works. The project today known as "Walls of the World" grew beyond even his own expectations and comprises about 30,000 individual images. It spans a period of 40 years across five continents and 114 countries. In 1982, photographs from this project comprised a one-man exhibition titled "Les murs murmurent, ils crient, ils chantent ..." (The walls whisper, shout and sing ...) at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.
In Australia, art historians have judged some local graffiti of sufficient creative merit to rank them firmly within the arts. Oxford University Press's art history text Australian Painting 1788–2000 concludes with a long discussion of graffiti's key place within contemporary visual culture, including the work of several Australian practitioners.
Between March and April 2009, 150 artists exhibited 300 pieces of graffiti at the Grand Palais in Paris.
Spray paint has many negative environmental effects. The paint contains toxic chemicals, and the can uses volatile hydrocarbon gases to spray the paint onto a surface.
Volatile organic compound (VOC) leads to ground level ozone formation and most of graffiti related emissions are VOCs. A 2010 paper estimates 4,862 tons of VOCs were released in the United States in activities related to graffiti.
In China, Mao Zedong in the 1920s used revolutionary slogans and paintings in public places to galvanize the country's communist movement.
Based on different national conditions, many people believe that China's attitude towards Graffiti is fierce, but in fact, according to Lance Crayon in his film Spray Paint Beijing: Graffiti in the Capital of China, Graffiti is generally accepted in Beijing, with artists not seeing much police interference. Political and religiously sensitive graffiti, however, is not allowed.
In Hong Kong, Tsang Tsou Choi was known as the King of Kowloon for his calligraphy graffiti over many years, in which he claimed ownership of the area. Now some of his work is preserved officially.
In Taiwan, the government has made some concessions to graffitists. Since 2005 they have been allowed to freely display their work along some sections of riverside retaining walls in designated "Graffiti Zones". From 2007, Taipei's department of cultural affairs also began permitting graffiti on fences around major public construction sites. Department head Yong-ping Lee (李永萍) stated, "We will promote graffiti starting with the public sector, and then later in the private sector too. It's our goal to beautify the city with graffiti". The government later helped organize a graffiti contest in Ximending, a popular shopping district. graffitists caught working outside of these designated areas still face fines up to NT$6,000 under a department of environmental protection regulation. However, Taiwanese authorities can be relatively lenient, one veteran police officer stating anonymously, "Unless someone complains about vandalism, we won't get involved. We don't go after it proactively."
In 1993, after several expensive cars in Singapore were spray-painted, the police arrested a student from the Singapore American School, Michael P. Fay, questioned him, and subsequently charged him with vandalism. Fay pleaded guilty to vandalizing a car in addition to stealing road signs. Under the 1966 Vandalism Act of Singapore, originally passed to curb the spread of communist graffiti in Singapore, the court sentenced him to four months in jail, a fine of S$3,500 (US$2,233), and a caning. The New York Times ran several editorials and op-eds that condemned the punishment and called on the American public to flood the Singaporean embassy with protests. Although the Singapore government received many calls for clemency, Fay's caning took place in Singapore on 5 May 1994. Fay had originally received a sentence of six strokes of the cane, but the presiding president of Singapore, Ong Teng Cheong, agreed to reduce his caning sentence to four lashes.
In South Korea, Park Jung-soo was fined two million South Korean won by the Seoul Central District Court for spray-painting a rat on posters of the G-20 Summit a few days before the event in November 2011. Park alleged that the initial in "G-20" sounds like the Korean word for "rat", but Korean government prosecutors alleged that Park was making a derogatory statement about the president of South Korea, Lee Myung-bak, the host of the summit. This case led to public outcry and debate on the lack of government tolerance and in support of freedom of expression. The court ruled that the painting, "an ominous creature like a rat" amounts to "an organized criminal activity" and upheld the fine while denying the prosecution's request for imprisonment for Park.
In Europe, community cleaning squads have responded to graffiti, in some cases with reckless abandon, as when in 1992 in France a local Scout group, attempting to remove modern graffiti, damaged two prehistoric paintings of bison in the Cave of Mayrière supérieure near the French village of Bruniquel in Tarn-et-Garonne, earning them the 1992 Ig Nobel Prize in archeology.
In September 2006, the European Parliament directed the European Commission to create urban environment policies to prevent and eliminate dirt, litter, graffiti, animal excrement, and excessive noise from domestic and vehicular music systems in European cities, along with other concerns over urban life.
In Budapest, Hungary, both a city-backed movement called I Love Budapest and a special police division tackle the problem, including the provision of approved areas.
The Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 became Britain's latest anti-graffiti legislation. In August 2004, the Keep Britain Tidy campaign issued a press release calling for zero tolerance of graffiti and supporting proposals such as issuing "on the spot" fines to graffiti offenders and banning the sale of aerosol paint to anyone under the age of 16. The press release also condemned the use of graffiti images in advertising and in music videos, arguing that real-world experience of graffiti stood far removed from its often-portrayed "cool" or "edgy'" image.
To back the campaign, 123 Members of Parliament (MPs) (including then Prime Minister Tony Blair), signed a charter which stated: "Graffiti is not art, it's crime. On behalf of my constituents, I will do all I can to rid our community of this problem."
In the UK, city councils have the power to take action against the owner of any property that has been defaced under the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 (as amended by the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005) or, in certain cases, the Highways Act. This is often used against owners of property that are complacent in allowing protective boards to be defaced so long as the property is not damaged.
In July 2008, a conspiracy charge was used to convict graffitists for the first time. After a three-month police surveillance operation, nine members of the DPM crew were convicted of conspiracy to commit criminal damage costing at least £1 million. Five of them received prison sentences, ranging from eighteen months to two years. The unprecedented scale of the investigation and the severity of the sentences rekindled public debate over whether graffiti should be considered art or crime.
Some councils, like those of Stroud and Loerrach, provide approved areas in the town where graffitists can showcase their talents, including underpasses, car parks, and walls that might otherwise prove a target for the "spray and run".
Graffiti Tunnel, University of Sydney at Camperdown (2009)
In an effort to reduce vandalism, many cities in Australia have designated walls or areas exclusively for use by graffitists. One early example is the "Graffiti Tunnel" located at the Camperdown Campus of the University of Sydney, which is available for use by any student at the university to tag, advertise, poster, and paint. Advocates of this idea suggest that this discourages petty vandalism yet encourages artists to take their time and produce great art, without worry of being caught or arrested for vandalism or trespassing.[108][109] Others disagree with this approach, arguing that the presence of legal graffiti walls does not demonstrably reduce illegal graffiti elsewhere. Some local government areas throughout Australia have introduced "anti-graffiti squads", who clean graffiti in the area, and such crews as BCW (Buffers Can't Win) have taken steps to keep one step ahead of local graffiti cleaners.
Many state governments have banned the sale or possession of spray paint to those under the age of 18 (age of majority). However, a number of local governments in Victoria have taken steps to recognize the cultural heritage value of some examples of graffiti, such as prominent political graffiti. Tough new graffiti laws have been introduced in Australia with fines of up to A$26,000 and two years in prison.
Melbourne is a prominent graffiti city of Australia with many of its lanes being tourist attractions, such as Hosier Lane in particular, a popular destination for photographers, wedding photography, and backdrops for corporate print advertising. The Lonely Planet travel guide cites Melbourne's street as a major attraction. All forms of graffiti, including sticker art, poster, stencil art, and wheatpasting, can be found in many places throughout the city. Prominent street art precincts include; Fitzroy, Collingwood, Northcote, Brunswick, St. Kilda, and the CBD, where stencil and sticker art is prominent. As one moves farther away from the city, mostly along suburban train lines, graffiti tags become more prominent. Many international artists such as Banksy have left their work in Melbourne and in early 2008 a perspex screen was installed to prevent a Banksy stencil art piece from being destroyed, it has survived since 2003 through the respect of local street artists avoiding posting over it, although it has recently had paint tipped over it.
In February 2008 Helen Clark, the New Zealand prime minister at that time, announced a government crackdown on tagging and other forms of graffiti vandalism, describing it as a destructive crime representing an invasion of public and private property. New legislation subsequently adopted included a ban on the sale of paint spray cans to persons under 18 and increases in maximum fines for the offence from NZ$200 to NZ$2,000 or extended community service. The issue of tagging become a widely debated one following an incident in Auckland during January 2008 in which a middle-aged property owner stabbed one of two teenage taggers to death and was subsequently convicted of manslaughter.
Graffiti databases have increased in the past decade because they allow vandalism incidents to be fully documented against an offender and help the police and prosecution charge and prosecute offenders for multiple counts of vandalism. They also provide law enforcement the ability to rapidly search for an offender's moniker or tag in a simple, effective, and comprehensive way. These systems can also help track costs of damage to a city to help allocate an anti-graffiti budget. The theory is that when an offender is caught putting up graffiti, they are not just charged with one count of vandalism; they can be held accountable for all the other damage for which they are responsible. This has two main benefits for law enforcement. One, it sends a signal to the offenders that their vandalism is being tracked. Two, a city can seek restitution from offenders for all the damage that they have committed, not merely a single incident. These systems give law enforcement personnel real-time, street-level intelligence that allows them not only to focus on the worst graffiti offenders and their damage, but also to monitor potential gang violence that is associated with the graffiti.
Many restrictions of civil gang injunctions are designed to help address and protect the physical environment and limit graffiti. Provisions of gang injunctions include things such as restricting the possession of marker pens, spray paint cans, or other sharp objects capable of defacing private or public property; spray painting, or marking with marker pens, scratching, applying stickers, or otherwise applying graffiti on any public or private property, including, but not limited to the street, alley, residences, block walls, and fences, vehicles or any other real or personal property. Some injunctions contain wording that restricts damaging or vandalizing both public and private property, including but not limited to any vehicle, light fixture, door, fence, wall, gate, window, building, street sign, utility box, telephone box, tree, or power pole.
To help address many of these issues, many local jurisdictions have set up graffiti abatement hotlines, where citizens can call in and report vandalism and have it removed. San Diego's hotline receives more than 5,000 calls per year, in addition to reporting the graffiti, callers can learn more about prevention. One of the complaints about these hotlines is the response time; there is often a lag time between a property owner calling about the graffiti and its removal. The length of delay should be a consideration for any jurisdiction planning on operating a hotline. Local jurisdictions must convince the callers that their complaint of vandalism will be a priority and cleaned off right away. If the jurisdiction does not have the resources to respond to complaints in a timely manner, the value of the hotline diminishes. Crews must be able to respond to individual service calls made to the graffiti hotline as well as focus on cleanup near schools, parks, and major intersections and transit routes to have the biggest impact. Some cities offer a reward for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of suspects for tagging or graffiti related vandalism. The amount of the reward is based on the information provided, and the action taken.
When police obtain search warrants in connection with a vandalism investigation, they are often seeking judicial approval to look for items such as cans of spray paint and nozzles from other kinds of aerosol sprays; etching tools, or other sharp or pointed objects, which could be used to etch or scratch glass and other hard surfaces; permanent marking pens, markers, or paint sticks; evidence of membership or affiliation with any gang or tagging crew; paraphernalia including any reference to "(tagger's name)"; any drawings, writing, objects, or graffiti depicting taggers' names, initials, logos, monikers, slogans, or any mention of tagging crew membership; and any newspaper clippings relating to graffiti crime.
As usual there is a bit of a story. The eagle's nest on Ada Island is doing fine. Last night the crows gathered in large numbers before heading off for the night. The female eagle was distressed by their numbers (this was our conclusion) and head out to give them a piece of her mind.
Canon AS-6 (1986)
aka Aqua Snappy, USA and Acty, Japan
Features:
A fully automatic, compact and lightweight underwater camera.
The camera can withstand underwater depths down to 10 meters.
It features a 35mm f/4.5 lens, electronically-controlled aperture and fully automatic program EE, and automatic film transport.
The basic kit included the accessory base and sports finder. The close-up kit added the close-up lens and close-up frame. The complete kit included a film case and waist bag.
The camera and accessories are orange.
Depicted here is the camera with Accessory Base AS and Sports Finder AS attached.
Specifications:
Type: Fully automatic 35mm Lens-Shutter, fixed-focus waterproof (down to 10 m) camera
Picture Size: 24 x 36 mm
Focusing: Fixed
Lens: 35mm f/4.5 (5 elements in 5 groups) or 33.6mm f/4.5 when underwater.
Shutter: Electromagnetic programmed shutter and aperture. EV 10 (f/4.5 at 1/40 sec.) - 15 (f/11 at 1/250 sec.). No self-timer.
Viewfinder: Reversed Galilean viewfinder with projected frames. Image center mark, battery check and camera-shake warning provided. 0.45x magnification.
EE: CdS cell for fully automatic program EE. Metering range of EV 10 - 15 (at ISO 100). Film speeds ISO 100 and 400 (with DX code)
Built-in Flash: Guide No. 9 (at ISO 100 in meters). Mechanical automatic flash.
Power Source: Two 1.5 V size-AA batteries
Film Loading and advance after opening camera back, align film leader at mark then close the camera back for auto loading. Auto film advance with built-in motor.
Frame Counter: Counts up. Resets automatically when camera back is opened.
Film Rewind: Automatic with built-in motor.
Dimensions and Weight: 138 x 77 x 52 mm, 385 g (with batteries)
Masjid As Salam is one of the mosques in Malaysia that is built on top of a lake making a perfect location to take photograph. It is located at Puchong, Selangor, Malaysia.
All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2013 Muhammad Hafiz bin Muhamad.
All images are exclusive property and should not be copied, downloaded or any other use without expressed, written permission of the photographer.
If you're interested in this picture, contact me via mhafiz.muhamad@gmail.com
I added a few things to make this TLC lot more likely to find a new home...couldn't stand offering a headless body or a doll wearing slacks and no top, etc. I'm wondering now if I should actually offer it all individually instead of as a lot... Any advice is welcome!
Greetings mate! As many of you know, I love marrying art, science, and math in my fine art portrait and landscape photography!
The gold 45 revolver lingerie is designed in accordance with the golden ratio! More about the design and my philosophy of "no retouching" on the beautiful goddesses in my new book:
www.facebook.com/Photographing-Women-Models-Portrait-Swim...
"Photographing Women Models: Portrait, Swimsuit, Lingerie, Boudoir, Fine Art, & Fashion Photography Exalting the Venus Goddess Archetype"
If you would like a free review copy, message me!
And here's more on the golden ratio which appears in many of my landscape and portrait photographs (while shaping the proportions of the golden gun)!
www.facebook.com/goldennumberratio/
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The dx4/dt=ic above the gun on the lingerie derives from my new physics books devoted to Light, Time, Dimension Theory!
www.facebook.com/lightimedimensiontheory/
Thanks for being a fan! Would love to hears your thoughts on my philosophies and books! :)
http:/instagram.com/elliotmcgucken
instagram.com/goldennumberratio
Beautiful swimsuit bikini model goddess!
Golden Ratio Lingerie Model Goddess LTD Theory Lingerie dx4/dt=ic! The Birth of Venus, Athena, and Artemis! Girls and Guns!
Would you like to see the whole set? Comment below and let me know!
Follow me!
I am working on several books on "epic photography," and I recently finished a related one titled: The Golden Number Ratio Principle: Why the Fibonacci Numbers Exalt Beauty and How to Create PHI Compositions in Art, Design, & Photography: An Artistic and Scientific Introduction to the Golden Mean . Message me on facebook for a free review copy!
www.facebook.com/goldennumberratio/
The Golden Ratio informs a lot of my art and photographic composition. The Golden Ratio also informs the design of the golden revolver on all the swimsuits and lingerie, as well as the 45surf logo! Not so long ago, I came up with the Golden Ratio Principle which describes why The Golden Ratio is so beautiful.
The Golden Number Ratio Principle: Dr. E’s Golden Ratio Principle: The golden ratio exalts beauty because the number is a characteristic of the mathematically and physically most efficient manners of growth and distribution, on both evolutionary and purely physical levels. The golden ratio ensures that the proportions and structure of that which came before provide the proportions and structure of that which comes after. Robust, ordered growth is naturally associated with health and beauty, and thus we evolved to perceive the golden ratio harmonies as inherently beautiful, as we saw and felt their presence in all vital growth and life—in the salient features and proportions of humans and nature alike, from the distribution of our facial features and bones to the arrangements of petals, leaves, and sunflowers seeds. As ratios between Fibonacci Numbers offer the closest whole-number approximations to the golden ratio, and as seeds, cells, leaves, bones, and other physical entities appear in whole numbers, the Fibonacci Numbers oft appear in nature’s elements as “growth’s numbers.” From the dawn of time, humanity sought to salute their gods in art and temples exalting the same proportion by which all their vital sustenance and they themselves had been created—the golden ratio.
The Birth of Venus! Beautiful Golden Ratio Swimsuit Bikini Model Goddess! Helen of Troy! She was tall, thin, fit, and quite pretty!
Read all about how classical art such as The Birth of Venus inspires all my photography!
www.facebook.com/Photographing-Women-Models-Portrait-Swim...
"Photographing Women Models: Portrait, Swimsuit, Lingerie, Boudoir, Fine Art, & Fashion Photography Exalting the Venus Goddess Archetype"
Golden Ratio Fine Art Lingerie Bikini Swimsuit Model Goddess LTD Theory Lingerie dx4/dt=ic! The Birth of Venus, Athena, and Artemis!
09/52 - 52 Weeks of 2018
"Product advertisement"
This was a bit harder than I expected. I knew I wanted a bit of a challenge. I figured I would try to highlight a local/regional brand (this is a microbrew from Lakeland, which is about midway between Orlando and Tampa). I could have done a wine bottle, but those can be a bit cliche (even though they aren't exactly easy to light well). I learned aluminum cans aren't easy to light either.
This gave me an opportunity to play around with my off camera flash and some modifiers, but I just didn't have decent space to move and position them as they probably should have been. And unfortunately I don't really have the time to play around some more this weekend. I do have a few other ideas, but maybe for a later date. Also, I learned how to remote capture directly to the laptop, so that really helped.
AS GG1 4861 and sister slowly pass through Waverly yyard, the crew of a caboose spent quality time on the rear platform, Feb 1977
Properly known as the Tank Infantry, Mark I, Matilda I (A11) - quite the mouthful! It was a British infantry tank of WWII but is not to be confused with the later model Tank Infantry Mk II (A12), also known as the "Matilda II".
The development, of the design by Carden at Vickers-Armstrongs Ltd, began in 1935. It resulted in a small two-man vehicle with a low hull and a small cast turret in which its only weapon, a .303-calibre or .50-calibre Vickers machine-gun, was mounted. Designed for quick delivery, the A11 used many stock parts from other vehicles: a Ford V8 engine, a Fordson gearbox, a steering mechanism similar to the one used in Vickers light tanks, and suspension adapted from the Mk IV Dragon artillery tractor that was itself based on the Vickers 6-Ton Tank Model E. The overriding objective was economy: development spending was limited to £15,000 and individual tanks cost about £5,000.
The 65mm thick armour was intended to enable the tank to operate in the fire-swept zone between opposing armies. Clearly those responsible for the Matilda I’s specification thought that any future war would resemble WWI! Although the hull and turret were well protected against contemporary anti-tank weapons, the tracks and running gear were completely exposed. In addition, the lack of a gun with any anti-tank ability severely limited its utility on the battlefield; its slow 8 mph speed also meant it couldn't get away from enemy tanks! Besides operating the machine gun, the commander had to direct the driver and operate the wireless. There being no room in the turret for the wireless, it was placed in the hull and the commander had to duck down inside to operate it - clearly ergonomics was a science yet to arrive...
The first order of 60 tanks was placed in April 1937, and the tank remained in production until August 1940 and a total of 140 were manufactured. The first production vehicles were delivered in February 1939. The first vehicles were issued to the 4th, 7th and 8th Battalions of the Royal Tank Corps. The Matilda I (55) and Matilda II tanks fought together in France as part of the 1st Army Tank Brigade of the BEF in the Battle of France. 4 RTR participated in the famous but abortive attack against Rommel’s 7th Panzer Division near Arras on 21 May 1940. After initial British successes, the Germans found that the 88mm Flak 18 gun could pierce the Matilda I’s armour, firing in the anti-tank role.
When the BEF returned to the UK, nearly all their armour was left behind. Matilda Mk Is in the UK were withdrawn from operational service and used for training. Recent evidence suggests that among the large number captured in France, some were employed by the Germans as internal security vehicles, probably in Poland. Three are preserved at the Bovington Tank Museum. One is in running condition, one is on display (and shown above) and the third is a severely damaged wreck that was used as a gunnery range target.
Processed in Lightroom and Photoshop, this is a much-improved version of an image I posted many years ago.
As dusk descends Appleby LMS Jubilee 45596 Bahamas makes a spirited departure having taken on water. 1Z61 Carlisle - Oxenhope 09.02.19
As you can see we visited the zoo today. It is really a challange to take pictures through a chain link fence. So if some look distorted in areas you will know why.
Explore 7/29/08 #441 Thank you everyone!
Yes, SkyTrain has three Marks of train. The Mk I 1980s design is about to be phased out, so better get your pics while you can. I recommend the overlook just east of Stadium-Chinatown Station to start.
Otherwise, thought on a "Transit Tuesday" - 26 March 2019 - I'd post some TransLink photos from a December 2018 visit to Vancouver, BC. More TransLink photos up at flic.kr/s/aHsm7C29uK :-)
PHOTO CREDIT: Joe A. Kunzler Photo, AvgeekJoe Productions, growlernoise-AT-gmail-DOT-com
Selo munido do escudo (parte do brasão) e logotipo oficial. Elemento incluído na documentação oficial divulgada na assembleia geral (sábado 9 de Maio de 2015, Tomar).
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I was originally enrolled into the GETTY IMAGES collection as a contributor on April 9th 2012, and when links with FLICKR were terminated in March 2014, I was retained and fortunate enough to be signed up via a second contract, both of which have proved to be successful with sales of my photographs all over the world now handled exclusively by them.
On November 12th 2015 GETTY IMAGES unveiled plans for a new stills upload platform called ESP (Enterprise Submission Platform), to replace the existing 'Moment portal', and on November 13th I was invited to Beta test the new system prior to it being officially rolled out in December. (ESP went live on Tuesday December 15th 2015 and has smoothed out the upload process considerably).
With visits now in excess of 17.607 Million to my FLICKR site, used primarily these days as a fun platform to reach friends and family as I have now sold my professional gear and now take a more leisurely approach to my photographic exploits, I would like to say a huge and heartfelt 'THANK YOU' to FLICKR, GETTY IMAGES and everyone who drops by.
***** Selected for sale in the GETTY IMAGES COLLECTION on November 24th 2016
CREATIVE RF gty.im/618819568 MOMENT OPEN COLLECTION**
This photograph became my 2,316th frame to be selected for sale in the Getty Images collection and I am very grateful to them for this wonderful opportunity.
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Photograph taken at 11:01am at an altitude of Seventeeen metres, on Friday 27th September 2014 off the West Coast Road 14, on the shoreline of French Beach Provincial Park.
The park is a Fifty nine Hectare provincial park in British Columbia, Canada. Located on Vancouver Island, between Sooke and River Jordan, the park has spectacular views of the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
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Nikon D800 24mm 1/4000s f/2.8 iso100 RAW (14 bit) Handheld AF-C Continuous focus mode with 3D-tracking enabled. Manual exposure. Matrix metering. Auto white balance.
Nikkor AF-S 14-24mm f/2.8G ED IF. Nikon MB-D12 battery grip. Two Nikon EN-EL batteries. Nikon DK-17M Magnifying Eyepiece. Nikon DK-19 soft rubber eyecup. Digi-Chip 64GB Class 10 UHS-1 SDXC. Lowepro Transporter camera strap. Lowepro Vertex 200 AW camera bag. Nikon GP-1 GPS unit.
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RAW (TIFF) FILE SIZE: 103.00MB
PROCESSED (JPeg) SIZE: 28.39MB
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PROCESSING POWER:
HP 110-352na Desktop PC with AMD Quad-Core A6-5200 APU processor. AMD Radeon HD8400 graphics. 8 GB DDR3 Memory with 1TB SATA storage. 64-bit Windows 8.1. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. WD My Passport Ultra 1tb USB3 Portable hard drive. Nikon VIEWNX2 Version 2.10.3 64bit. Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit
Buffy Fish Owl (Ketupa ketupu)
The buffy fish owl (Bubo ketupu), also known as the Malay fish owl, is a species of owl in the Strigidae family.
The four fish owls were previously generally separated in the genus Ketupa. mtDNA cytochrome b sequence data is equivocal on which genus name is applied for them, and today they are commonly lumped with the horned and eagle-owls (Bubo) – which they also resemble osteologically very much – for sake of convenience. Depending on whether some little-studied tropical eagle-owls are closer to the fish-owls than to the typical eagle-owls, Ketupa might be a valid genus if these as well as the fishing owls (formerly Scotopelia) are included in it, although there are a number of osteological differences that suggest that fishing and fish owls are not directly related to each other.
Distribution and habitat
It is found from southern Burma and central India to the south and east to Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, peninsular Thailand, the Malay Peninsula, the Riau Archipelago, Sumatra Brunei, Cocos (Keeling) Islands, Indonesia down to Java, Bali and Borneo. One specimen was recorded at Cocos (Keeling) Island off Australia, 1,050 km (650 mi) outside its regular range. Its natural habitat is wet tropical forests and other woody areas near water, including wooded banks of rivers, lakes and fish ponds and rich paddies. It can survive well close to human habitations but can also be found in desolate mangrove forests and other less-inhabited or uninhabited areas. It mainly lives in lowlands but can be found at up an elevation of 1,600 m (5,200 ft).
Description
The buffy fish owl is a fairly large owl but is the smallest of the four species of fish owl. In total length, this species can range from 38 to 48 cm (15 to 19 in). Body mass can range from 1,028 to 2,100 g (2.266 to 4.630 lb), with an average weight of 1,224 g (2.698 lb). This species is yellowish-brown overall, with considerable variegating with pale buff. The feathers are edged tawny and the wings and tail are broadly barred yellowish and dark brown. The wings are distinctly rounded in shape when this species is seen in flight. The underparts are a yellow-brown, rich buff or fulvous color with broad blackish shaft-stripes. The legs are long and unfeathered. This species slightly overlaps in range with the brown fish owl, but that species is slightly larger and coniserably more brown in overall color with stronger barring and vermiculations below. The tawny fish owl may also marginally overlap with the buffy fish owl in range and is also larger with a much richer tawny color with a more barred tail, a whiter face and about two-thirds of its tarsi feathered. Like all fish owls, the buffy fish owl has prominent ear tufts but they hang to the sides of the head rather than sit atop and are scraggly looking. This species has been attributed with a range of vocalizations. Among these recorded have included hissing sounds and a rattling kutook, repeatedly rapidly about seven times. Also recorded has been a ringing, loud pof-pof-pof and a high, hawk-like hie-e-e-e-e-keek series of notes. The buffy fish owl is rather noisy before breeding and pairs may engage in bouts of duetting for several minutes at a time.
Compared to eagle owls of similar length, fish owls tend to be even shorter in tail length and even heavier in build, have relatively larger wings (the tawny and Blakiston's being particularly chunky in shape), have considerably longer legs, and have a rough texture to the bottom of their toes. At least the latter two features are clear adaptations to aid these owls in capturing fish. Diurnal raptors who feed largely on fish have similar, if not identical, rough texture under their toes, which helps these birds grasp slippery fish. Unlike diurnal raptors who capture fish such as the osprey (Pandion haliaetus) as compared to most terrestrial raptors, the fish owls have large, powerful, and curved talons and a longitudinal sharp keel sitting under the middle claw with all having sharp cutting edges that are very much like those of eagle owls. Also, unlike fish-eating diurnal raptors will not submerge any part of their body while hunting, preferring only to put their feet into the water, although fish owls will hunt on foot, wading into the shallows. Unlike most owls, the feathers of fish owls are not soft to the touch and they lack the comb and hair-like fringes to the primaries, which allow other owls to fly silently in order to ambush their prey. Due to the lack of these feather-specializations, fish owl wing beats make sounds. The lack of a deep facial disc in fish owls is another indication of the unimportance of sound relative to vision in these owls, as facial disc depth (as well as inner ear size) are directly related to how important sound is to an owl's hunting behavior. Also different from most any other kind of owl, the bill is placed on the face between the eyes rather below it, which is said to impart this fish owl with a "remarkably morose and sinister expression". Similar adaptations, such as unwillingness to submerge beyond their legs and lack of sound-muffling feathers are also seen in the African fishing owls, which do not seem to be directly related. Due to their neat replacement of each other in range, at one time the tawny and buffy fish owls were considered the same species but there are a number of physical, anatomical, habitat and behavioral distinctions between them.
Ecology and behavior
During the daytime, these owls shelter, often singly, in quite dark places, such as densely foliaged trees. Buffy fish owls are easily disturbed, quite the opposite of the highly stoic tawny fish owl, often being wide-awake before being spotted by a human observer. The largest part of its diet appears to consist of fish, crabs and frogs followed by reptiles, toads and crayfish. Their diet is not extensively studied but appears to be basically the same as those of the brown and tawny fish owls. Rats, mice and large insects are also sometimes taken and even bats have been captured by this species. A small handful of prey has been identified to genera or species in Java: goldfish (Carassius auratus), the gold-ringed cat snake (Boiga dendrophila), puff-faced water snake (Homalopsis buccata), young false gharials (Tomistoma schlegelii), fruit bats (Cynopterus ssp.), centipedes (Scolopendra ssp.), black rats (Rattus rattus) and red junglefowl (Gallus gallus bankiva), some of this prey such as the cat snake and junglefowl being of a fairly large size. Like the brown fish owl but unlike most owls, this species has been recorded consuming carrion, including the remains of a crocodile and a Sunda stink badger (Mydaus javanensis). The buffy fish owl does not produce firm pellets as do most owls. Instead bones and frog and insect remains are ejected in pieces and fall to the ground below roost. Prey remains have only been found within the nest, never around or below the nest as is commonly recorded in other owls. The buffy fish owl hunts mainly from the bank, swooping down much in the manner of a fish eagle but never getting its feathers wet. It also walks into shawllow streams and brooks, additionally snatching their main foods in such locations.
Eggs have mainly been found in February through April, less commonly into May through July, as in western Java, and even in September through January in the Malay Peninsula. The buffy fish owl frequently nest on top of a large fern (Asplenium nidus), but nests have also been recorded in the fork a tall bough covered in ferns and moss, on orchid beds and in tree holes. More rarely, rocky sites have been used as nesting sites, even behind waterfalls. The nest is usually merely a scrap into the surface of a fern with no structure or lining, as owls do not build nests. Abandoned bird nests built by other species have been used, including those of Brahminy kites (Haliastur indus). Only one egg has ever been recorded in a buffy fish owl nest, giving them the smallest clutch size of any owl alongside the spot-bellied eagle owl (B. nipalensis), which has only ever been recorded with a single-egg clutch. The egg is round, oval and dull white. The average dimensions of eggs in western Java was 57.4 mm × 47 mm (2.26 in × 1.85 in). Incubation of the eggs lasts 28-29 days and fledgling occurs after six weeks. This species is generally faring well for a large raptorial bird and has been inadvertently aided by commercial fisheries and ornamental ponds, which they visit by night to hunt. Sometimes, they incure persecution from owners of such ponds for taking stock.
[credit: en.wikipedia.org/]
This Two seconds long exposure was taken standing on the banks of the River Cray at an altitude of Twenty five metres at 06:07am on Thursday 22nd March 2018, in the golden hour around sunrise, (Sunrise was at precisely 05:59am),off Rectory Lane in the grounds of Foots Cray Meadows, over the River Cray in Bexley, Kent, England. In the distance is Five arches bridge.
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Nikon D850 38mm 2 seconds long exposure f/14.0 iso100 RAW (14 bit uncompressed) Image size L 8256 x 5504 FX). Colour space Adobe RGB. Handheld. AF-C focus 51 point with 3-D tracking. Area mode single. Manual exposure. Matrix metering. Auto 0 white balance. Nikon Distortion control on. Vignette control Normal.
Nikkor AF-S 24-120mm F4G ED VR. Phot-R ultra slim 77mm UV filter. Nikon EN-EL15a battery. Matin quick release neckstrap. My Memory 32GB Class 10 SDHC. Lowepro Flipside 400 AW camera bag. Nikon GP-1 GPS module.
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Manfrotto 055Xprob Carbon Fiber Tripod 3 Sections. Manfrotto 327RC2 Magnesium Ball Head. Manfrotto quick release plate 200PL-14. Jessops Tripod bag.
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LATITUDE: N 51d 25m 36.60s
LONGITUDE: E 0d 7m 55.10s
ALTITUDE: 25.0m
RAW (TIFF) FILE: 130.00MB (NEF 94.1MB)
PROCESSED (JPeg) FILE: 42.00MB
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PROCESSING POWER:
Nikon D850 Firmware versions C 1.01 (16/01/2018) LD Distortion Data 2.017 (20/3/18)
HP 110-352na Desktop PC with AMD Quad-Core A6-5200 APU 64Bit processor. Radeon HD8400 graphics. 8 GB DDR3 Memory with 1TB SATA storage. 64-bit Windows 10. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. WD My Passport Ultra 1tb USB3 Portable hard drive. Nikon ViewNX-1 64bit (Version 1.2.11 15/03/2018). Nikon Capture NX-D 64bit (Version 1.4.7 15/03/2018). Nikon Picture Control Utility 2 (Version 1.3.2 15/03/2018). Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit.
As a child of the '50s, I fondly recall my mother, her friends, my aunts, etc., hardly ever leaving the house without a hat. It was simply part of her attire. It is a look that I try to re-capture whenever possible.
I know the look seems out-of-place in the second decade of the 21st century, but I like making fashion statements. In fact, I received any number of very nice comments on this day. Perhaps I will be on the cutting edge of a new fashion trend :)
As part of Adelaide's celebration of the Australian Bicentenary the conservatory was constructed in 1987 and opened in late 1989. The building was designed by local architect Guy Maron and has won awards for its design, engineering and landscaping. It is 100 metres (328 ft) long, 47 metres (154 ft) wide and 27 metres (89 ft) high making it the largest single span conservatory in the southern hemisphere. The conservatory houses at risk or endangered tropical rainforest plants from northern Australia, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and south Pacific Islands. The conservatory is often referred to as "The Pasty" (or "The Crystal Pasty") by locals, because of its resemblance to a massive semicircular stuffed pastry.
AS-365N2 Dauphin-2 D-HOAR of NHC Northern Helicopter performed an ILS-approach at Eelde on 10 december 2013. © Bert Visser
exposureoflife.com/2011/03/it-was-as-if-time-stood-still/
Now! it's for real I'm gonna have My first photo exhibition, it's gonna be held together with My very good friend Rod Clemen, I'm really looking forward to it (like a kid waiting for presents at Christmas eve).
The title of the exhibition is "Pripyat - 25 years after the Chernobyl accident", we are gonna show photos of what the city looks like today.
The opening is held on Tuesday April 26th at the Copenhagen Main Library, from 5.30PM till 8.00PM, around 6.00PM the Danish band Svartbag (you can find their MySpace page here) are gonna play live music to a slide show of photos from Pripyat. that's gonna be pretty awesome, I'm working on the slide show as we speak.
If you are in Copenhagen April 26th, please drop by and say hello that would really make us happy.
∞
Today's photo is a HDR from the usual 5 RAW exposures. The photo was shoot in Yosemite National Park in California, USA, the favorite shooting place of the late and great Ansel Adams
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I really liked a photo I took of Bubba. Illona then took it and did her magic with it, bringing out details, especially Bubba's coat and his eyes. I used that photo to do this graphic portrait of my sweet boy. I finally got my Wacom tablet, so I painted half of this painting with my mouse and half with my new stylus. It is SO much easier with the stylus...and a lot of fun!
Members of the Canadian contingent along with their Commonwealth allies exit Wellington Barracks to join the coronation procession for His Majesty King Charles III during Operation GOLDEN ORB in London, United Kingdom on May 6, 2023.
Photo: Master Corporal Matthew Tower, Canadian Forces Combat Camera, Canadian Forces Photo
Des membres du contingent canadien et leurs alliés du Commonwealth quittent la caserne Wellington pour rejoindre le cortège du couronnement de Sa Majesté le roi Charles III au cours de l’opération GOLDEN ORB à Londres, au Royaume Uni, le 6 mai 2023.
Photo : Caporal-chef Matthew Tower, Caméra de combat des Forces canadiennes, Forces armées canadiennes
I found these identically dressed clones on the street this afternoon. They are all wearing clothes from Abercrombie and Fitch (as well as Hollister, a subsidiary company), the glasses, and grande or tall coffees from Starbucks. I showed this photo to a woman at a store they had just passed and we laughed.
Note, none of the guys are wearing green. No, I didn't want to pinch any of them.
Artista: We Came As Romans
Evento: Imperial Never Say Die Tour
Fotografo: Emanuela Giurano
Data: 03 Novembre 2010
Venue: HMV Forum
Città: Londra
Based loosely on this panal
Troilus and Cressida begins seven years into the long Trojan war. Troilus, the youngest son of King Priam (King of Troy) tells Pandarus that he is in love with Cressida, the daughter of Trojan priest Calchas. He does not want his father, King Priam nor his brother Hector to know this. He also believes fighting over Helen is pointless. Privately, Pandarus lets Cressida know about Troilus' affections, both laughing at his looks. Pandarus even encourages Troilus to pursue Cressida, knowing she is not interested... However, despite her mocking words, Cressida does start to fall in love with Troilus.
Time is like a fashionable host
That slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand,
And with his arms outstretched, as he would fly,
Grasps in the comer: welcome ever smiles,
And farewell goes out sighing.
Troilus and Cressida, 3. 3