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This is where i went for 3 days last couple a weeks~ Andamooka.
"Andamooka is a town located approximately 600 km north of Adelaide in the South Australian outback. Opal was discovered in the region in the late 1920s,and the town developed out of the scattered miners' camps which established in the area. The Andamooka Opal was discovered in and named after Andamooka.
The town has a population of around 500 to 600 people, depending upon the season. The town's main industry was opal mining for many years, however since the establishment of the nearby Olympic Dam copper-uranium mine and the town of Roxby Downs in the 1980s, some residents of Andamooka are now employed in the mine or in Roxby Downs, and many others are retired." From en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andamooka,_South_Australia
Palmdale, CA
6/12/17
WMmaster626 and I headed out to Palmdale in search of many different trucks. In regards to Front Loaders, we were hoping to find the Cal City Volvo EDGE and/or this ex New Jersey Mack MR Wittke/Leach. While eating lunch earlier in the day we saw the Mack drive by but we were unable to find it after we finished lunch fast. Eventually a few hours later while looking for ex WM of the Desert Autoreaches, we came across the New Jersey Mack again, and it did not disappoint. The driver Luis was great and he sure knew how to rev the Mack and make it sound amazing. Currently, there are still several N.J. logos all over the Wittke/Leach body. One of the logos being 70,000 GVW which is a much larger GVW than what California trucks can legally hold in California. There was also a "N.J.D.E.P. 17273 40 CU. YDS" sticker on the body.
WMmaster626 found out that after Trenton demoed this MR Wittke/leach for less than 1 year, it was sent to Palmdale. The MR is LNG powered and it was part of a demo project in N.J. where the truck was filled with LNG from a nearby landfill in Pennsylvania.
Thank you Luis for putting on a great show and thank you to WMmaster626 for finding out all the information about this MR Wittke/Leach. Thanks to Waste Management of AV (Palmdale) for bringing this truck 2,700 miles from Trenton N.J. to Palmdale California.
Unfortunately since WMmaster626 and I filmed this ex New Jersey truck, it has been taken out of service and has been retired. WMmaster626 and I will getting more ex WM of the Desert Autoreach footage before those trucks are retired.
Last November I had a weekend between events in San Francisco and LA, so I headed out of San Francisco on a Friday afternoon and took the slow scenic route down Pacific Coast Highway intending to stop at a few favorite spots along the way to LA. It was extremely hazy all day to the point of making photography pretty hopeless. However, for a few brief moments at sunset the haze turned golden and made for some interesting golden light.
I've always liked the way the sun shines through the feathery edges of whatever these long grasses are that grow along the Pacific coast but I've never managed to quite get them right on camera. On the Atlantic coast, I'd call them "Sea Oats" but I'm not sure these are the same plants, these seem taller and more feathery. The light was just starting to turn and I could see from the highway that these feathery grasses were starting to catch the light as I drove near Pigeon Point lighthouse. Since I've shot here before I knew of a good vantage point over the lighthouse with the grasses in the foreground so I quickly pulled the car in and made a mad dash through the nettles and mud to get to the spot in time. There was one other photographer nearby who probably thought I was nuts since it wasn't that close to sunset yet. But I knew what I wanted and I could see that the light wasn't going to last long.
So my very own Rumplestiltskin moment as the terrible Pacific haze turned this Oceanside "straw" to gold for a few minutes. Shot with Pentax K-1 and Pentax 24-70mm, which has really become my go to lens since I acquired it last April, such a useful range for landscape work.
A stolen shot taken while queuing in NYC. Have a great day!
Uno scatto rubato facendo la fila a NYC
Many thanks for your visit!!
I suggest to view large on slideshow
© All rights reserved
the millender center and the ren cen in detroit... a leftover shot from the mini-photo safari downtown last weekend.
Georges Michel (12 January 1763 - 7 or 8 June 1843) - Seascape (ca. 1835) - exhibition “Monet and the Impressionists in Normandy. Masterpieces from the Peindre en Normandie Collection "- Palazzo Mazzetti (Asti)
“Monet e gli impressionisti in Normandia" La mostra ripercorre, a partire dai primi decenni dell’Ottocento, i momenti più importanti di questa corrente artistica.
L’impressionismo è un movimento pittorico nato a Parigi nella seconda metà dell’800. Nasce ufficialmente il 15 aprile 1874 in occasione della mostra tenuta nello studio del fotografo Nadar da un gruppo di artisti respinti dal Salon di Parigi, il tempio della pittura ufficiale. La mostra ha un esito disastroso e provoca feroci polemiche. Ispirandosi al titolo del dipinto Impression, soleil levant di Claude Monet, il critico d’arte Louis Leroy defisce ironicamente questi pittori impressionisti. Gli impressionisti lasciano gli atelier per lavorare all’aperto nelle campagne, nelle periferie, nelle piazze. Utilizzano cavalletti portatili e colori a olio in tubetti, fabbricati per la prima volta in questi anni. Lo scopo è cogliere l’impressione visiva della realtà; da qui la necessità di un’esecuzione rapida, senza disegno preliminare, senza ritocchi e sfumature. Il fondamento della tecnica impressionista è lo studio della luce e del colore; per conferire la massima luminosità ai dipinti gli impressionisti accostano direttamente sulla tela i colori puri; aboliscono l’uso del nero per realizzare le ombre, che vengono rese combinando diversi colori. Spesso gli impressionisti rappresentano il medesimo soggetto in diversi momenti del giorno per mostrare come la luce, nel suo continuo divenire, trasformi cose e colori.
"Monet and the Impressionists in Normandy" The exhibition traces the most important moments of this artistic movement starting from the first decades of the nineteenth century.
Impressionism is a pictorial movement born in Paris in the second half of the 19th century. It was officially born on April 15, 1874 on the occasion of the exhibition held in the studio of the photographer Nadar by a group of artists rejected by the Paris Salon, the temple of official painting. The exhibition has a disastrous outcome and causes fierce controversy. Inspired by the title of the painting Impression, soleil levant by Claude Monet, the art critic Louis Leroy ironically defines these impressionist painters. The Impressionists leave the ateliers to work outdoors in the countryside, in the suburbs, in the squares. They use portable easels and oil paints in tubes, manufactured for the first time in these years. The aim is to capture the visual impression of reality; hence the need for rapid execution, without preliminary drawing, without retouching and nuances. The foundation of the Impressionist technique is the study of light and color; to give maximum brightness to the paintings, the Impressionists put pure colors directly on the canvas; they abolish the use of black to create shadows, which are made by combining different colors. Often the Impressionists represent the same subject at different times of the day to show how light, in its continuous evolution, transforms things and colors.
If you are not French, it’s likely you haven’t ever heard the word “Saintonge”, and have no clue what it means. If you are French, it’s probably the same thing. Unless, that is, you are a fan of Romanesque, in which case you know that Saintonge, that small region of France centered around the town of Saintes (hence the name), not far from the Atlantic Ocean, just North of Bordeaux... features the highest density of Romanesque churches of all the country!
I had never visited that area of France, and so in the middle of October 2021, I took that long overdue trip and stayed two weeks in Saintes, driving left and right daily to photograph all the most significant Romanesque churches... and unfortunately leaving out many others, as they are so thick on the ground!
Being by nature a human activity, even the best and purest of arts can, in time, overdo itself and teeter upon the brink of baroque, exaggeration and overabundance. Built around 1160, about ten years after its magnificent neighbor in Rétaud (which we have seen a few days ago), the Notre-Dame church in Rioux is largely regarded among specialists as having gone slightly over the top in terms of outside decoration.
I have seen the exact same thing with the enclos paroissiaux (“parish enclosures”) in Brittany: the desire to do better and grander than the neighbors, combined with the existence of generous financial means, often leads to an overdoing of things in which the spiritual appears to be drowned in a wave of refinement and superficiality.
This almost exaggerated decoration is often cited as one of the chief reasons why this church was only listed as a Historic Landmark in 1903, while its neighbor in Rétaud was listed in 1862. In the late 1950s, François Eygun, Director of Historic Antiquities, wrote: “This is no more the elegant richness, but the exaggeration of a quality pushed beyond the limits of the reasonable and into bad taste.”
We, visitors of the 21st century, may take a more lenient approach... or maybe it is our own taste that has been distorted over the years by lack of backbone, cheap and self-fulfilling enjoyment (read: selfies!) and reality TV... I will let my viewers decide.
Strangely enough, the façade is probably the most understated part of this church. The top part of the bell tower is from the 15th century, but all the rest shows a remarkable restraint, with only the Virgin in a mandorla and abstract motifs on the voussures around and over the main door.
My exhibition opens tomorrow, Im so happy, but already Im wanting something more, to show my work further afield, London, or another great city.
After these beach selfportraits, Ive half a mind to try a body of work entirely with the sea.
As luck would have it Im headed to the coast this weekend - to shoot a wedding, perhaps I can snatch a moment for myself too.
In my garden, La Ceja, Colombia.
Calceolaria herbeohybrida
(Slipper flower / Zapatito de Venus)
Calceolaria is a genus of plants in the Calceolariaceae family, sometimes classified in Scrophulariaceae by some authors. This genus consists of about 388 species of shrubs, lianas and herbs, and the geographical range extends from Patagonia to central Mexico, with its distribution centre in Andean region.
Calceolaria species have usually yellow or orange flowers, which can have red or purple spots. The Calceolaria Herbeohybrida group, also called C. herbeohybrida Voss, is a group of ornamental hybrids known only in cultivation, called florists slipperwort.
It all started back in November, 2001, when the newly launched schooner SULTANA and the PRIDE OF BALTIMORE II, took a casual sail together on the Chester River the weekend before both vessels “downrigged” for the winter. The combination of a stiff breeze, the fall colors at their peak, and thousands of waterfowl flying overhead, made it a day few onboard either vessel would soon forget. “We’ll have to do this again next year,” remarked both Captains – and so Downrigging Weekend was born.
Now in its 16th year, Sultana’s Downrigging Weekend Tall Ship and Wooden Boat Festival has evolved into one of the largest annual Tall Ship gatherings on the East Coast.
Our Daily Challenge ... in my imagination.
Is this little bird really building its nest in my cup or am I imagining it? Maybe it's a dream ... might explain the mono colour!
Back in June on mine Wordpress blog, I posted a article about my winning photograph for the month of May, 2011 in “The Cazenove and Loyd Leica Travel Photographer Competition 2011″. Now that competition has come to an end all 12 monthly winners go to the Grand Final. The photographer with the most votes at the end of this period (between 11th and 23rd of January 2012) will be awarded the Grand Prize and the title of “cazenove+loyd Leica Travel Photographer of the Year 2011”. So, I’m asking all my friends, please vote and post it to your facebook or twitter to get more votes.
leica.cazloyd.com/photo-comp/vote-for-the-winner
This is the winning photograph, taken in Durbar Square Kathmandu, Nepal.
Really big THANKS to EVERYONE!!!
This duck couple appeared in our local ocean water when it was very turbulent due to the high wind. There were many new breeds of ducks out that day, but I have not been able to identify these. For some strange reason we are getting a lot more water fowl.
I wondered if they were a Common Goldeneye Duck Pair, but the female has a white ring around her neck and does not fit the profile. The male should have some white stripes and does not fit either.
In the style of Henri Rousseau
Explore, Wow! Thanks for all the Faves and kind words.
This is an AI generated image.
PicLumen FLUX.1 -schnell
Abandoned in Idaho
Camera: Tachihara 4x5 Field Camera (1979)
Film: Zebra Dry Plates ISO 2
Process: Process: Kodak HC-110 (1+31) 5:00 Min @ 20°C
Scanned: Epson V700 Photo
My thoughts are with all those affected by yesterday's horrific killings in Paris. A sad, sad day, indeed.
This is the fourth, and I think it will be the last, photo of one of two Common Loons seen at Emerald Lake, British Columbia, on 11 July 2015. Rather a distant shot, but I didn't dare crop it any closer than I did. That day, I had a wonderful day out with friend Sandy, driving westwards from Calgary and eventually reaching the next province, British Columbia (B.C.). Sandy had two destinations in mind - a stop at the Spiral Tunnels and then to explore the forest around Emerald Lake. I had only been to B.C. a handful of times in 37 years, so this was an absolute treat.
"The lake is enclosed by mountains of the President Range, as well as Mount Burgess and Wapta Mountain. This basin traps storms, causing frequent rain in summer and heavy snowfalls in winter. This influx of moisture works with the lake's low elevation to produce a unique selection of flora. Trees found here are more typical of B.C.'s wet interior forests, such as western red cedar, western yew, western hemlock and western white pine. The alluvial fan on the northeast shore produces wildflowers in abundance during late June and early July.
Due to its high altitude, the lake is frozen from November until June. The vivid turquoise color of the water, caused by powdered limestone, is most spectacular in July as the snow melts from the surrounding mountains.
The first European to set sight on Emerald Lake was guide Tom Wilson, who stumbled upon it by accident in 1882. A string of his horses had gotten away, and it was while tracking them that he first entered the valley. The lake had an impression on even the most seasoned of explorers: "For a few moments I sat [on] my horse and enjoyed the rare, peaceful beauty of the scene." It was Wilson who gave the lake its name because of its remarkable colour, caused by fine particles of glacial sediment, also referred to as rock flour, suspended in the water. However, this was not the first time Wilson had dubbed a lake 'Emerald'. Earlier that same year he had discovered another lake which he had given the same moniker, and the name even appeared briefly on the official map. This first lake however, was shortly renamed Lake Louise." From Wikipedia.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerald_Lake_(British_Columbia)
Our trip started just after 7:00 am, to get a good, early start, especially before the temperature soared. The drive from Calgary to Emerald Lake takes about 2 and a half hours and is a 218.5 km drive via Trans-Canada Hwy/AB-1 W. We took a quieter route home at the end of the day. Rain arrived just in time for this drive home and, by the time I got back to my car in Calgary, the rain was really heavy and a few of the roads were beginning to flood very quickly. It was raining again this morning. I was kind of hoping for a few rainy days, as I suddenly have a build-up of quite a few very major, very urgent things to deal with and I didn't want to be tempted to go out with my camera.
Shortly after we began our walk though the forest along the right hand side of the lake, we heard a commotion coming from the water. When we found a place to see through the trees, we could see two beautiful Common Loons and a female duck with several babies, possibly Common Mergansers. My guess would be that the Merganser mother kept chasing away the Loons, creating a lot of splashing. This distant photo of one of the Loons was taken at the end of our walk. It was in the smaller section of the lake at Emerald Lake and we noticed it when we were walking along the boardwalk/bridge. It was swimming towards us and I managed to get one quick shot. Then it swam under the boardwalk and was disappearing into the distance by the time I took this shot. This photo also shows why this lake is named Emerald Lake : )
Also, at the beginning and the end of our "hike", we watched a family of Violet-green Swallows that were nesting. Not sure how many young ones there were, but I saw three. Though we do get these birds in Calgary, I've never seen one properly - just when a mass of Swallows swarms over the Bow River and someone calls out "Violet-green!" The adults flew to feed their babies at top speed and barely stayed a second at the nest hole. I was just thrilled to see one of these birds - thanks, Sandy, for your patience, allowing me to try and get a few photos! Thanks, too, for such a great day, as usual!
It’s not age that limits deep connection, it’s the walls we build. A young heart remains open, curious, and willing to leap. That’s how childhood bonds are formed, and how adult ones can be, too.
Pamela Cox
The bonds we create with others are significant, but the most important connection we can establish is within ourselves. Sometimes, we need to let go of the dreams we formed as children or young adults and start anew, using the experience and foundation we’ve built while growing up. When I refer to growing up, I specifically mean our forties. I believe that in our forties, we truly discover what we love; before that, it's mostly a process of research and information gathering.
P.S. I didn't exactly choose or want the direction where life took me… but if that's what I've got, I'm gonna ROCK it!
Keep in touch on:
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Got a bit weary of Italian shots...thought a change of pace might be nice.. :)
This was taken on Orchard Road, Singapore City, Singapore
Thanks everyone for the comments in the previous posts! I mentioned that I was getting tired of Flickr and a friend MomentsforZen MomentsForZen asked why. Well, honestly, it seems to have lost it\'s "personal" touch (as personal as it may have been :P)...kind of like G+...the exposure of the shots seemed to have dimmed, not only to the contacts but also within the groups. Adding to the groups seem to be a pain in the rear now. I know these are probably small things, but they kind of add up. However, I\'m not gone yet and really appreciate all the encouragement! Probably starting to sound a bit like an smug egomaniac about now, so I\'ll stop :P
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As always, comments/notes/crituques and favourites (just hit F ) will be very much appreciated!
For the best view, hit L .
Some people who\'s work I admire are tagged in this picture. Please visit their stream!
Click here to see the rest of my HDRs (High Dynamic Range Photos)!
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Shot details:
3 handheld shots with varying exposures (-1, 0, +1) each taken with: Canon 5D Mark III; Canon 17-40mm f/4,
Post processing:
1. Merged in Photomatix
2. Selective curves to accentuate back and foreground of the buildings
3. Added in local contrast, saturation and "structure" in PS6
4. Exported to jpeg using Lightroom
Beauty in the garden.
Caught the light at the right time.
Taken during the May Day Bank Holiday weekend. It seemed to herald the start of summer, and this bloom fully opened during the weekend.
Another find by my wife on her day trip was a Garfield the Cat statue in the gardens at the Minnetrista Center. This is the first one that I know of outside of Grant County.
The Dresden Frauenkirche is a Lutheran church in Dresden, the capital of the German state of Saxony. An earlier church building was Catholic until it became Protestant during the Reformation.
The old church was replaced in the 18th century by a larger Baroque Lutheran building. It is considered an outstanding example of Protestant sacred architecture, featuring one of the largest domes in Europe. It was originally built as a sign of the will of the citizens of Dresden to remain Protestant after their ruler had converted to Catholicism. It now also serves as a symbol of reconciliation between former warring enemies.
Built in the 18th century, the church was destroyed in the bombing of Dresden during World War II. The remaining ruins were left for 50 years as a war memorial, following decisions of local East German leaders. The church was rebuilt after the reunification of Germany, starting in 1994. The reconstruction of its exterior was completed in 2004, and the interior in 2005. The church was reconsecrated on 30 October 2005 with festive services lasting through the Protestant observance of Reformation Day on 31 October. The surrounding Neumarkt square with its many valuable baroque buildings was also reconstructed in 2004.
The Frauenkirche is often called a cathedral, but it is not the seat of a bishop; the church of the Landesbischof of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Saxony is the Church of the Cross. Once a month, an Anglican Evensong is held in English, by clergy from St. George's Anglican Church, Berlin.
A church dedicated to 'Our Lady' (Kirche zu unser Liebfrauen) was first built in the 11th century in a Romanesque style, outside the city walls and surrounded by a graveyard. The Frauenkirche was the seat of an archpriest in the Meissen Diocese until the Reformation, when it became a Protestant church. This first Frauenkirche was torn down in 1727 and replaced by a new, larger church with a greater capacity. The Frauenkirche was re-built as a Lutheran (Protestant) parish church by the citizenry. Even though Saxony's Prince-elector, Frederick August I, had converted to Catholicism to become King of Poland, he supported the construction which not only gave an impressive cupola to the Dresden townscape but also reassured the Saxonians that their ruler was not going to force the principle cuius regio, eius religio upon them.
The original Baroque church was built between 1726 and 1743, and was designed by Dresden's city architect, George Bähr, who did not live to see the completion of his greatest work. Bähr's distinctive design for the church captured the new spirit of the Protestant liturgy by placing the altar, pulpit, and baptismal font directly centre in view of the entire congregation.
In 1736, famed organ maker Gottfried Silbermann built a three-manual, 43-stop instrument for the church. The organ was dedicated on 25 November and Johann Sebastian Bach gave a recital on the instrument on 1 December.
The church's most distinctive feature was its unconventional high dome, 96 metres high, called die Steinerne Glocke or "Stone Bell". An engineering feat comparable to Michelangelo's dome for St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, the Frauenkirche's 12,000-ton sandstone dome stood high resting on eight slender supports. Despite initial doubts, the dome proved to be extremely stable. Witnesses in 1760 said that the dome had been hit by more than 100 cannonballs fired by the Prussian army led by Friedrich II during the Seven Years' War. The projectiles bounced off and the church survived.
The completed church gave the city of Dresden a distinctive silhouette, captured in famous paintings by Bernardo Bellotto, a nephew of the artist Canaletto (also known by the same name), and in Dresden by Moonlight (1839) by Norwegian painter Johan Christian Dahl.
In 1849, the church was at the heart of the revolutionary disturbances known as the May Uprising. It was surrounded by barricades, and fighting lasted for days before those rebels who had not already fled were rounded up in the church and arrested.
For more than 200 years, the bell-shaped dome stood over the skyline of old Dresden, dominating the city.
Burials include Heinrich Schütz and George Bähr.
On 13 February 1945, allied forces began the bombing of Dresden in World War II. The church withstood two days and nights of the attacks, and the eight interior sandstone pillars supporting the large dome held up long enough for the evacuation of 300 people who had sought shelter in the church crypt, before succumbing to the heat generated by some 650,000 incendiary bombs that were dropped on the city. The temperature surrounding and inside the church eventually reached 1,000 °C. The dome finally collapsed at 10 a.m. on 15 February. The pillars glowed bright red and exploded; the outer walls shattered and nearly 6,000 tons of stone plunged to earth, penetrating the massive floor as it fell.
The altar, a relief depiction of Jesus' Agony in the Garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives by Johann Christian Feige, was only partially damaged during the bombing raid and fire that destroyed the church. The altar and the structure behind it, the chancel, were among the remnants left standing. Features of most of the figures were lopped off by falling debris and the fragments lay under the rubble.
The building vanished from Dresden's skyline, and the blackened stones would lie in wait in a pile in the centre of the city for the next 45 years as Communist rule enveloped what was now East Germany. Shortly after the end of World War II, residents of Dresden had already begun salvaging unique stone fragments from the Church of Our Lady and numbering them for future use in reconstruction. Popular sentiment discouraged the authorities from clearing the ruins away to make a car park. In 1966, the remnants were officially declared a "memorial against war", and state-controlled commemorations were held there on the anniversaries of the destruction of Dresden.
In 1982, the ruins began to be the site of a peace movement combined with peaceful protests against the East German regime. On the anniversary of the bombing, 400 citizens of Dresden came to the ruins in silence with flowers and candles, part of a growing East German civil rights movement. By 1989, the number of protesters in Dresden, Leipzig, and other parts of East Germany had increased to tens of thousands. On 9 November 1989, the Berlin Wall "fell" and the inner German border dividing East and West Germany toppled. This opened the way to German reunification.
During the last months of World War II, residents expressed the desire to rebuild the church. However, due to political circumstances in East Germany, the reconstruction came to a halt. The heap of ruins was conserved as a war memorial within the inner city of Dresden, as a direct counterpart to the ruins of Coventry Cathedral, which was destroyed by German bombing in 1940 and also serves as a war memorial in the United Kingdom. Because of the continuing decay of the ruins, Dresden leaders decided in 1985 (after the Semperoper was finally finished) to rebuild the Church of Our Lady after the completion of the reconstruction of the Dresden castle.
The reunification of Germany, brought new life to the reconstruction plans. In 1989, a 14-member group of enthusiasts headed by Ludwig Güttler, a noted Dresden musician, formed a Citizens' Initiative. From that group emerged a year later The Society to Promote the Reconstruction of the Church of Our Lady, which began an aggressive private fund-raising campaign. The organisation grew to over 5,000 members in Germany and 20 other countries. A string of German auxiliary groups were formed, and three promotional organisations were created abroad.
The project gathered momentum. As hundreds of architects, art historians and engineers sorted the thousands of stones, identifying and labeling each for reuse in the new structure, others worked to raise money. IBM provided a key element by contracting with RTI International, a nonprofit research institute in Research Triangle Park NC to create an interactive virtual reality representation of the Church. The VR drew donations large and small, helping to make the project possible.
Günter Blobel, a German-born American, saw the original Church of Our Lady as a boy when his refugee family took shelter in a town just outside Dresden days before the city was bombed. In 1994, he became the founder and president of the nonprofit "Friends of Dresden, Inc.", a United States organization dedicated to supporting the reconstruction, restoration, and preservation of Dresden's artistic and architectural legacy. In 1999, Blobel won the Nobel Prize for medicine and donated the entire amount of his award money (nearly US$1 million) to the organization for the restoration of Dresden, to the rebuilding of the Frauenkirche and the building of a new synagogue. It was the single largest individual donation to the project.
In Britain, the Dresden Trust has Prince Edward, Duke of Kent as its royal patron and the Bishop of Coventry among its curators. Dr. Paul Oestreicher, a canon emeritus of Coventry Cathedral and a founder of the Dresden Trust, wrote: "The church is to Dresden what St. Paul's is to London". (Referring to St. Paul's Cathedral.) Additional organizations include France's Association Frauenkirche Paris and Switzerland's Verein Schweizer Freunde der Frauenkirch.
Rebuilding the church cost €180 million. Dresdner Bank financed more than half of the reconstruction costs via a "donor certificates campaign", collecting almost €70 million after 1995. The bank itself contributed more than seven million Euros, including more than one million donated by its employees. Over the years, thousands of watches containing tiny fragments of Church of Our Lady stone were sold, as were specially printed medals. One sponsor raised nearly €2.3 million through symbolic sales of individual church stones.
Funds raised were turned over to the "Frauenkirche Foundation Dresden", with the reconstruction backed by the State of Saxony, the City of Dresden and the Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Saxony.
The new golden tower cross was funded officially by "the British people and the House of Windsor". It was made by the British silversmith company Grant Macdonald of which the main craftsman on the project was Alan Smith whose father was one of the bomber pilots responsible for the destruction of the church.
Using original plans from builder Georg Bähr in the 1720s, the Dresden City Council decided to proceed with reconstruction in February 1992. A rubble-sorting ceremony started the event in January 1993 under the direction of church architect and engineer Eberhard Burger. The foundation stone was laid in 1994, and stabilized in 1995. The crypt was completed in 1996 and the inner cupola in 2000. Seven new bells were cast for the church and rang for the first time for the Pentecost celebration in 2003. The exterior was completed ahead of schedule in 2004 and the painted interior in 2005. The intensive efforts to rebuild this world-famous landmark were completed in 2005, one year earlier than originally planned, and in time for the 800-year anniversary of the city of Dresden in 2006.
The church was reconsecrated with a festive service one day before Reformation Day. The rebuilt church is a monument reminding people of its history and a symbol of hope and reconciliation.
As far as possible, the church – except for its dome – was rebuilt using original material and plans, with the help of modern technology. The heap of rubble was documented and carried off stone by stone. The approximate original position of each stone could be determined from its position in the heap. Every usable piece was measured and catalogued. A computer imaging program that could move the stones three-dimensionally around the screen in various configurations was used to help architects find where the original stones sat and how they fit together.
Of the millions of stones used in the rebuilding, more than 8,500 original stones were salvaged from the original church and approximately 3,800 reused in the reconstruction. As the older stones are covered with a darker patina, due to fire damage and weathering, the difference between old and new stones will be clearly visible for many years after reconstruction.
Two thousand pieces of the original altar were cleaned and incorporated into the new structure.
The builders relied on thousands of old photographs, memories of worshippers and church officials, and crumbling old purchase orders detailing the quality of the mortar or pigments of the paint (as in the 18th century, copious quantities of eggs were used to make the color that provides the interior with its almost luminescent glow).
When it came time to duplicate the oak doors of the entrance, the builders had only vague descriptions of the detailed carving. Because people (especially wedding parties) often posed for photos outside the church doors, they issued an appeal for old photographs and the response – which included entire wedding albums – allowed artisans to recreate the original doors.
The new gilded orb and cross on top of the dome was forged by Grant Macdonald Silversmiths in London using the original 18th-century techniques as much as possible. It was constructed by Alan Smith, a British goldsmith from London whose father, Frank, was a member of one of the aircrews who took part in the bombing of Dresden.[8] Before travelling to Dresden, the cross was exhibited for five years in churches across the United Kingdom including Coventry Cathedral, Liverpool Cathedral, St Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh, and St Paul's Cathedral in London. In February 2000, the cross was ceremonially handed over by The Duke of Kent, to be placed on the top of the dome a few days after the 60th commemoration of D-Day on 22 June 2004. The external structure of the Frauenkirche was completed. For the first time since the last war, the completed dome and its gilded cross grace Dresden's skyline as in centuries prior. The cross that once topped the dome, now twisted and charred, stands to the right of the new altar.
Builders decided not to reproduce the 1736 Gottfried Silbermann organ, despite the fact that the original design papers, description, and details exist, giving rise to the Dresden organ dispute ("Dresdner Orgelstreit"). When installed, the Silbermann organ had three manuals with 43 ranks and over the years had been remodeled and expanded to five manuals with 80 ranks. Daniel Kern of Strasbourg, Alsace, completed a 4,873 pipe organ for the structure in April 2005 and it was inaugurated in October of that year. The Kern organ contains all the stops which were in the Silbermann organ and attempts to recreate their sounds. The Kern work contains 68 stops and a fourth swell manual in the symphonic 19th century style which is apt for the organ literature composed after the baroque period.
A bronze statue of reformer and theologian Martin Luther, which survived the bombings, has been restored and again stands in front of the church. It is the work of sculptor Adolf von Donndorf from 1885.
There are two devotional services every day and two liturgies every Sunday. Since October 2005, there has been an exhibition on the history and reconstruction of the Frauenkirche at the Stadtmuseum (City Museum) in Dresden's Alten Landhaus.
for Macro Mondays: trick or treat
On Hallowe'en in Canada people dress up in scary costumes and decorate their homes with ghosts and pumpkins carved with a scary grin. The trick is to make people think there's something frightening going on. What is more frightening than the fangs of a skull piercing your flesh?
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