The Epic Conflict Expanded Universe
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Off I-90 near Snoqualmie Pass in Washington is Keechelus Lake, a natural lake that has an earth dam on its eastern shore that was built in the early 1900's to control the flow of water going into the Yakima River, which is a tributary to the Columbia River. Most of what I could find online seems to speculate that the trees on the western (note: There's actually stumps all around the lake, but the majority are on the western side.) side of the lake were cut down, rather than have them die when the dammed lake is full of water. Apparently the cold water over so many years has preserved, or petrified the stumps. I think they're beautiful, and yet somewhat disturbing at the same time. I've been wanting to photograph them for several years, so my last time through the area I parked and took some pictures. I'll be posting a closer view of the stumps sometime soon. For now here's a shot of the western stump area, the lake isn't shown, but is out of the frame to the left.
Switzerland, May 2021
My best photos are here: www.lacerta-bilineata.com/ticino-best-photos-of-southern-...
My latest ANIMAL VIDEO (warning, it's a bit shocking): www.youtube.com/watch?v=4T2-Xszz7FI
You find a selection of my 80 BEST PHOTOS (mostly not yet on Flickr) here: www.lacerta-bilineata.com/western-green-lizard-lacerta-bi... (the website exists in ESPAÑOL, FRANÇAIS, ITALIANO, ENGLISH, DEUTSCH)
ABOUT THE PHOTO:
So this photo is a bit of a novelty for me - at least here on Flickr, but it's also a journey back in time in a sense. I've always loved b/w and sepia photography; already as a very young teenager I would go out into the woods with an old Pentax Spotmatic (which I had nicked from my father) whenever it was a foggy day to shoot b/w compositions of sunbeams cutting through the ghostlike trees.
I used films with a sensitivity of at least 1600 (for those of you who remember what that means 😉 ), and the resulting photos had an incredibly fine grain which I loved; I blew them up to the size of posters and hung them on the walls of my teenage man-cave next to Hendrix, Jim Morrison and Slash.
But then I abandoned photography altogether for 20 years, and when I finally picked up a camera again, it was one of the digital kind. Now neither film nor grain played any role in my photographic endeavours - let alone b/w compositions: because the reason I fell in love with shooting pictures once more was the rare and incredibly colorful lizard species that had chosen my garden as its habitat.
It's this species - the Lacerta bilineata aka the western green lizard - that my photo website www.lacerta-bilineata.com/ and also my Flickr gallery are dedicated to, but I've since expanded that theme a bit so that it now comprises the whole Lacerta bilineata habitat, which is to say my garden and its immediate surroundings and all the flora and fauna I find in it.
I like that my gallery and the website have this clear theme, because in order to rise to the challenge of portraying all aspects of a very specific little eco system (which also happens to be my home of sorts), it forces me to constantly explore it from fresh angles, and I keep discovering fascinating new motives as my photographic journey continues.
Which brings me to the horse pasture you see in this photo. This playground for happy horsies lies just outside my garden, and it normally only interests me insofar as my green reptile friends claim parts of it as their territory, and I very much prefer it to be horseless (which it thankfully often is).
Not that the horses bother the reptiles - the lizards don't mind them one bit, and I've even seen them jump from the safety of the fly honeysuckle shrub which the pasture borders on right between the deadly looking hooves of the horses to forage for snails, without any sign of fear or even respect.
No, the reason I have a very conflicted relationship with those horses is that they are mighty cute and that there's usually also foals. The sight of those beautiful, happy animals jumping around and frolicking (it's a huge pasture and you can tell the horses really love it) is irresistible: and that inevitably attracts what in the entire universe is known as the most destructive anti-matter and ultimate undoing of any nature photographer: other humans.
Unlike with the horses, the lizards ARE indeed very much bothered by specimens of loud, unpredictable Homo sapiens sapiens - which makes those (and by extension also the horses) the cryptonite of this here reptile photographer. It's not the horses' fault, I know that, but that doesn't change a thing. I'm just telling you how it is (and some of you might have read about the traumatic events I had to endure to get a particular photo - if not, read at your own risk here: www.flickr.com/photos/191055893@N07/51405389883/in/datepo... - which clearly demonstrated that even when it's entirely horseless, that pasture is still a threat for artistic endeavours).
But back to the photo. So one morning during my vacation back in May I got up quite early. It had rained all night, and now the fog was creeping up from the valley below to our village just as the sky cleared up and the morning sun started to shine through the trees.
And just as I did when I was a teenager I grabbed my camera and ran out to photograph this beautiful mood of ghostlike trees and sunbeams cutting through the mist. There had already been such a day a week earlier (which is when I took this photo: www.flickr.com/photos/191055893@N07/51543603732/in/datepo... ), but this time, the horses were also there.
Because of our slightly strained relationship I only took this one photo of them (I now wish I had taken more: talk about missed opportunities), and otherwise concentrated on the landscape. It was only later when I went through all the photos on my computer that I realized that I actually really liked those horses, even despite the whole composition being such a cliché. And I realized another thing: when I drained the photo of all the color, I liked it even better - because there was almost a bit of grain in it, like in the photos from my youth.
Since then I have experimented quite a bit with b/w and sepia compositions (some of which I will upload here eventually I guess), but this photo here is the first one that helped me rediscover my old passion. I hope you like it even though it builds quite a stark contrast with the rest of my tiny - and very colorful - gallery. But in the spirit of showing you the whole Lacerta bilineata habitat (and also in the spirit of expanding my gallery a bit beyond lizards and insects), I think it's not such a bad fit.
As always, many greetings to all of you, have a wonderful day and don't hesitate to let me know what you think 😊
La cascada de Goðafoss también tiene un patrimonio histórico muy vinculado al de la Islandia medieval y esto es lo que le dio el nombre de "cascada de los dioses". Caídas de los dioses
Hacia finales del siglo X, el cristianismo comenzó a extenderse en la isla y entró en competencia con el paganismo. Para evitar cualquier conflicto entre
los islandeses, en el año 1000 los Althing decidieron adoptar una religión oficial.
Dejó la decisión al legislador pagano Þorgeir Þorkelsson, a quien tanto paganos como cristianos consideraban sabio y justo.
Después de retirarse por un día y una noche, decide que Islandia debe convertirse al cristianismo.
Þorgeir luego regresa a casa en el norte y, al pasar frente a la caída de Godafoss, decide dar el ejemplo arrojando los ídolos de los dioses antiguos (Odin y Thor en particular) al agua, ¡de ahí el nombre de Goðafoss! (Godafoss )
The light of a fervent soul.
The darkness feeding an endless chasm.
Consuming and sweeping the landscape.
Nourishing the soul with a warm hope.
Hope for an endless tomorrow. The essential timeless conflict. Let it happen.
Without it, what are we?
The first photo from the "Boundless Summer Sunset" series.
Jackson Pollock might have been proud of what a turbulent conflictive sea produced with a small heart in the middle.
Kalahari Game Reserve
Botswana
Southern Africa
Happy Caturday !!
The lion (Panthera leo) is a species in the cat family Felidae.
A lion pride consists of a few adult males, related females and cubs. Groups of female lions typically hunt together, preying mostly on large ungulates. The species is an apex and keystone predator, although they scavenge when opportunities occur.
Typically, the lion inhabits grasslands and savannas but is absent in dense forests. It is usually more diurnal than other big cats, but when persecuted it adapts to being active at night and at twilight.
It has been listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List since 1996 because populations in African countries have declined by about 43% since the early 1990s. Habitat loss and conflicts with humans are the greatest causes for concern. – Wikipedia
Abandonded hotel in Croatia - The Grand Hotel. Built in 1919 it was part of the "Army" resort of Kupari just south of Dubrovnik. The whole resort was looted and then phosphorus bombed during the Homeland War of Independence and has been abandonded ever since.
When shooting the Royal Tern colony my favorite subject is the conflict between the terns and the Laughing Gulls. Usually, the conflict lasts only seconds and to get a decent shot, light, distance and the position of the birds all has to line up. The struggle often starts when the tern nears the colony. To find its chick it has to circle around, calling and listening for the chick’s call in the din of all the other birds doing the same thing. The gulls are always watching and will often mob one of the terns bringing in seafood. Most of the time the tern is agile enough to quickly avoid the gull(s) but on occasion, one or more gulls will get close enough make a grab for the fish. They don’t attack the tern but target the fish in its bill. When the flighting gets close in, as shown here, the gull wins. The terns have the agility but the gulls are fast, heavier and just plain tougher. In this shot, one gull attacked from below and another from the top. Whichever gull gets the fish, the other gull will try to steal it from him. It’s a gull vs gull world out there. (Royal Tern: Thalasseus maximus; Laughing Gull - Leucophaeus atricilla). (Sony a1ii, 100-400 lens, 340mm, f/6.3, 1/4000 second, ISO 2000)
This is an image photographed by my friend Michael Williams and I thought unusual enough to be displayed. After looking at many images in this sequence, this knock down drag out conflict was obviously about dominance with mating as the end result. You have to admire the way their feathers bristle showing their high state of excitement.
Click twice to enlarge.
Part 4/6 of the Nuclear photoseries with Vitani!
Check out her last photo here:
www.flickr.com/photos/167266264@N04/50037563307/in/datepo...
I just finished reading the second book written by a dear Flickr friend, Paul Fraser.
His first book "Mark's Garden" is a heart touching memoire.
Strange Conflicts is a fictional story inspired by the author's real life experiences. It tells the story of a father's devotion to his son who suffers from autism and severe epilepsy. When the son's seizures become overwhelming, the story shifts into a different and painless world where new adventures await.
CSX H761-20 is northbound through Perrysburg as it rounds the curve approaching CP Perry through the mid-morning remnants over an overnight snowfall that left freshly greening Spring trees flocked with white. Perrysburg, OH 4/21/21
not one of my best shots but showing how fearless the oyster catchers are sending the much larger marsh harrier on its way
Boy & Erik Stappaerts, 2 Conflict Paintings + Color Method in 7 Layers, in Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten Antwerpen
On 05/01/20 I happened to see this Grackle and Red Bellied Woodpecker squaring off in the feeder. I had my camera sitting there ready to go. As I started to push the shutter they got into it...I was trembling as I clicked away...and I am going to admit that I started crying after it was over...got 111 clicks in...and I thought I could not get any luckier than photographing and filming that Rose Breasted Grosbeak.
Please do not use without my explicit permission
© All Rights Reserved
Walter C Snyder
This was my 7th shot. I am presenting it with a vertical crop as it is the birds that deserve the attention.
Oh yeah, before I forget...I did not take this as a good sign...Conflict...hope it's all show like these two characters...no one was harmed.
It will be difficult for you to believe that this is one of the most militarized zone in the world ! Where two nuclear power nations are locked in decades old conflict ! Here in Gurez valley India - Pakistan looks eye ball to eye ball !
"Sirji you are within enemy range , they are watching your movement . After eight pm do not venture out , Ambush laaga hai !" Hand finds the cold of steel ; seeking vain reassurance !
"Every bullet has a name written on it ; if your name is there, it will find you ! We can retaliate but we can't save you Sirji !" Life is too fragile in conflict zone !
In a small marsh area, these two Green herons found themselves. The one on the top gave up after a while, of flapping it's wings and staring at the lower heron, and went to the opposite side of the marsh.
Dundee, showing the Tay Bridge of 1887, a replacement for an earlier (1878) structure that was heavily damaged by a storm on 28 December 1879. Thirteen spans of the two mile long bridge collapsed, taking a train with it. There were no survivors, but there are conflicting reports as to how many people were actually on the train.
This view shows four (and a bit) of the 'High Girders", the spans that allowed the clearance required by the Admiralty when the bridge was built. Crossing the spans on the left is an Inter7City train, a reduced length version of the InterCIty 125 or HST trains that were the backbone of express trains through much of the UK for forty years from the mid 1970s. These trains are expected to be replaced during 2027/28, bringing to an end well over fifty years of service. The rear of the train is the best part of two miles/three kms away.
In front of the bridge piers are the stumps of the first bridge piers.
a few shots of the barn owl under attack by a kestrel after its well earned catch and it was nice to see that the barnie made it back with its catch