View allAll Photos Tagged CRAVITY
While the elephant flapping its ears, the water splashed on my face, at that moment, under the hot sun, I wish I can just jump into the water..............
I've stopped posting regularly and I miss it! I'm back in uni and all my energy goes towards that :(
This is my final year and I want to fly..
Here is a shot I took in the summer for Think Locally.
Hope you're all well :)
Ps. Bonus shot from this on my facebook page :)
This was taken in the fall of 2020, as the pandemic stretched on but before we had vaccinations available. Travel was still quite restricted so to satisfy my craving for some adventure and some photography, I loaded my kayak and headed to the Black River where I had previously explored some of the oldest trees on the US east coast, a large stand of Cypress trees in the Black River of Eastern NC. I was hoping to find some color, similar to what I had seen in Lake Caddo and Louisiana bayou in previous years. It was getting a little late in the season, in to early Nov. but I found some leaves were still on the trees. This particular branch on a lovely old tree reminded me of an elderly woman trying on a colorful but threadworn old skirt to remind herself of more carefree days. I could tell she must've been a spectacular beauty in her heyday. Or perhaps I was just going a bit stir crazy and my imagination was running amok. Probably that.
The story of the mist on the water is an amusing one. Paddling with an expensive camera on ones lap is a precarious undertaking and inevitably water splashes on the lens. It was cold and my attempts to clean the water off the lens before the shot left a good smear of condensation on part of the lens. In a happy discovery it turns out that this is a pretty effective technique for simulating mist. So completely unintentionally I got the misty still dark water imsge I've always craved on these paddling trips. The bit of misty effect helps but the star of this is without a doubt the old grande dam cypress with her colorful skirt. Paddling among these magnificent old trees is a mystical experience, with or without any actual mist (sorry couldn't help the bad pun).
As a final note, I haven't posted in a long time. It's been a busy year but it's mostly because momentum is a curious thing. Once you stop for a while it's hard to get started again. I've had the intention of doing so many times this past year and just failed to get over the hurdle. Hopefully now that this one is out of the way the next one will be that much easier for me. To all my long-time Flickr friends I wish you the very best of holiday seasons greetings!
In my daily life, I far and away favor lusher landscapes with trees, bountiful greenery and plentiful flowering plants, and I have no doubt that evolution plays a role to this day in these hard-wired affinities that I share with much of humanity.
But why then do I so intrinsically crave time, and find such a sense of comfort and renewal, in the arid reaches of the American west (like here at Factory Butte in southern Utah) where the lack of plant life leaves the elements unchecked for millennia to carve the exposed landscape into masterworks of unhidden form? I can't explain it well, but I just know that I love it, and I can't wait to get back out there.
Thanks for viewing!
Grasping for something to hold onto. A rock. Something stable. A lifeline. It’s hard living on the edge. Sometimes the wind picks up and I find myself battling to stay up. Battling to stay above the rising water. My head screaming for silence, for release. It would be so easy to give in. So easy to go under. To stop fighting. To submit. Some days I crave it in the pit of my stomach. A niggling ache. But that one ounce of strength I have left helps me to climb up onto the rocks and out of the water for a moment. I get time to recover before the next onslaught and the voice subsides. I cant complain because these explorer eyes get to see so much more. New horizons. New worlds. More than you could imagine. I’ve made friends with loneliness.
Thankyou so much to Bell for the really lovely testimonial. <3
I took a photo of a hornet on a buddleia bloom in my garden and used a 'tiny planet' filter for this effect in post processing. Although this is not a 'bee' it reminded me of the spin we are in in the world and we cannot survive with bees (whose habitat is declining)
Interesting facts about Hornets:
Hornets are one of mother nature’s pest controllers. With a craving for insects such as aphids, hornets help rid the world of unwanted garden pests which damage resources within an agricultural setting.
Hornets are known to have a rich diet of sugar and protein among other things.
Sugar – Like other types of wasps, hornets have a real sweet tooth and crave sugary things such as fruit and fizzy drinks.
Sap – Hornets love tree sap! You can often find them using their mandibles to pull back the bark from trees to get to the sticky golden substance.
Protein – Just like other insects within the Vespidae family, their young live off protein which the workers forage for in the form of insects and other animals. In return, the larvae releases a sweet syrup which the adults lap up.
Hornets love bees!
Bees are one of a hornet’s favorite things. Not only are they a great source of protein for their future queens, but they provide a sweet, golden, sugar goodness which hornet’s love – honey!
Nearly 5 times the size of a European honey bee, it only takes a small number of giant hornets to wipe out an entire honey bee colony. Their sheer size and power means that one giant hornet can kill roughly 40 bees a minute.
However, Japanese honey bees have developed a cunning tactic to stop these predators from wiping out their colony. As a hornet scout approaches the hive, the honey bees attack her before she can release any pheromones to attract her team mates. A honey bee’s sting and bite is no match for a hornet, so instead they swarm around the lonesome hornet, vibrating their bodies at a tremendous rate. The vibration from the bees causes the temperature to drastically rise, roasting the hornet alive.
This technique is the result of evolution over hundreds of years. Honey bees from the rest of the world have yet to discover this defense mechanism, making them prime targets to giant hornets as they make their way across the globe.
Cold blows the wind to my true love,
And gently falls the rain.
I never had but one true love,
And in greenwood he lies slain.
I’ll do as much for my true love
As any a young girl may.
I’ll sit and mourn all on his grave
For twelve months and a day.
And when twelve months and a day had passed,
The ghost did rise and speak,
“Why do you sit all on my grave
And will not let me sleep?”
‘Tis I, ’tis I, thine own true love
That sits all on your grave
I ask one kiss from your sweet lips
And that is all that I crave.
My breast is cold as the clay;
My breath is earthly strong.
And if you kiss my cold, clay lips,
You’re days will not be long.
Go fetch me water from the desert sand
And blood from out the stone.
Go fetch me milk from a fair maid’s breast
That young man has never known
How oft on yonder grave, Sweetheart
Where we were wont to walk—
The fairest flower that I e’re saw
Has withered to a stalk.
When shall we meet again, sweetheart?
When shall we meet again?
When the oaken leaves that fall from the trees
Are green and spring up again,
Crave
Caught earlier in the morning: www.flickr.com/photos/apbench/4938374875/
Benched by P. in Calgary, AB.