Few things are as beautiful in nature as the great egret during mating season. Its dance of courtship is so incredibly rhythmic ... danced with perfection and full extension of every feather it seems. If the great egret were a contestant on Dancing With The Stars, it would score perfect 10s from both the judges and the viewing public. LOL.

 

I remember the first time that I witnessed this incredible breeding behavior and display, I was so in awe and I could barely click my camera ... I was mesmerized. How fascinating nature is that it inherently knows the "moves" to attract the ladies.

 

A recent trip to the rookeries during late spring showed many babies (of varying ages), a few still on eggs, and sadly, no more displays.

 

Tonight a new blog post will publish, so if you haven't checked it up yet, go on over and check it out.

Blog: www.tnwaphotography.wordpress.com

 

© 2017 Debbie Tubridy / TNWA Photography

A low key portrait of the little egret. This was taken during the early hours when light was scarce. I exposed for the egret, so the background was inherently darker. In the PP I darkened it further using tone curve and adjustment brush.

Honey is a essentially a supersaturated solution of two monosacharide sugars, fructose and glucose, in water.

 

Anything else (other than water and sugar) constitutes about 1 or 2 % of the honey.

 

this honey is is ~80% sugar and about 18% water. It always amazes me that a solution of anything in water can be like that!

 

So much stuff in solution in so little water!

 

But it is an inherently temporary solution. It contains more sugar than can naturally dissolve in the amount of water present so sugar is doing to crystalise with time. The glucose is much less soluble than the fructose and is what the first crystals are formed from,

 

High glucose honeys (like rape seed) crystalise fast.

High Fructose honeys (like borage) crystalise slowly.

 

but there is nothing wrong with honey that has crystalised - still edible, still tastes great and if you dont like crystals then warm it to put the sugars back into solution again.

  

For the 125 pictures in 2025 group: number 88. Solution

  

UK Subs - Solution

www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2zOM-by2RA

It's taken awhile to finally unpack these amazing gifts from Brickworld. I think part of me was avoiding it as it marks the end of this year, and would start then horrible wait till next year (and nothing to do with Overwatch)

 

I'm really blessed to get such wonderful gifts from builders that not only do I admire, but can also call friends. And each one I can look at fondly as a manifestation of said friendships. From the amazing Borderland contributions, to two hilarious 'Canadian' builds, to the not even displayed - but amazing inside joke that is: Ver1.0. They're all fantastically amazing <3 and oh so many more...

 

Thank you so much.

 

And it's also heartwarming to see that moc giving seems to be growing at Brickworld. Cause let's face it, it's easier than sorting and there's something inherently cool about knowing your creations is being enjoyed. :D

 

--

 

I know I tend to say each con was the best one, and this Brickworld, was definitely the best one. It was by no means perfect - I always wish I could spend more time with folks and while there were may new and return friends, others have drifted apart...

 

I could probably write pages more on Brickworld - but suffice to say MVP goes out to Dan, Evan and Tim - for all their help with BattleSHIP and general awesomeness, and of course all the SHIP builders ... And secondary shoutout to Arisa, Roy and Kevin for their last minute hookup for bricks when we left 2 K8 boxes in Toronto ....

 

325 more days....

 

Film photography can beguile you into thinking that inherently boring shots are good because the medium is such hard work in comparison with digital. But I really liked this spring evening scene at Kings Cross station last week. People were happy basking in the late sun with just a touch of spring chill coming in (especially the lovely happy couple on the bench on the left)

 

Hasselblad 500 C/M

Kodak Portra 160

There's probably something inherently wrong with going to an abandoned orphanage to cheer yourself up, but that's what I did.

It didn't work.

Saturday, January 16, 2010

Naval Base Kitsap Bangor

Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action

Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Action

www.gzcenter.org/

 

see this photo large: peacepotential.blogspot.com/2010/01/celebrate-vision-of-r...

 

Nobel Lecture by Martin Luther King Jr.

 

The Quest for Peace and Justice

 

It is impossible to begin this lecture without again expressing my deep appreciation to the Nobel Committee of the Norwegian Parliament for bestowing upon me and the civil rights movement in the United States such a great honor. Occasionally in life there are those moments of unutterable fulfillment which cannot be completely explained by those symbols called words. Their meaning can only be articulated by the inaudible language of the heart. Such is the moment I am presently experiencing. I experience this high and joyous moment not for myself alone but for those devotees of nonviolence who have moved so courageously against the ramparts of racial injustice and who in the process have acquired a new estimate of their own human worth. Many of them are young and cultured. Others are middle aged and middle class. The majority are poor and untutored. But they are all united in the quiet conviction that it is better to suffer in dignity than to accept segregation in humiliation. These are the real heroes of the freedom struggle: they are the noble people for whom I accept the Nobel Peace Prize.

 

This evening I would like to use this lofty and historic platform to discuss what appears to me to be the most pressing problem confronting mankind today. Modern man has brought this whole world to an awe-inspiring threshold of the future. He has reached new and astonishing peaks of scientific success. He has produced machines that think and instruments that peer into the unfathomable ranges of interstellar space. He has built gigantic bridges to span the seas and gargantuan buildings to kiss the skies. His airplanes and spaceships have dwarfed distance, placed time in chains, and carved highways through the stratosphere. This is a dazzling picture of modern man's scientific and technological progress.

 

Yet, in spite of these spectacular strides in science and technology, and still unlimited ones to come, something basic is missing. There is a sort of poverty of the spirit which stands in glaring contrast to our scientific and technological abundance. The richer we have become materially, the poorer we have become morally and spiritually. We have learned to fly the air like birds and swim the sea like fish, but we have not learned the simple art of living together as brothers.

 

Every man lives in two realms, the internal and the external. The internal is that realm of spiritual ends expressed in art, literature, morals, and religion. The external is that complex of devices, techniques, mechanisms, and instrumentalities by means of which we live. Our problem today is that we have allowed the internal to become lost in the external. We have allowed the means by which we live to outdistance the ends for which we live. So much of modern life can be summarized in that arresting dictum of the poet Thoreau1: "Improved means to an unimproved end". This is the serious predicament, the deep and haunting problem confronting modern man. If we are to survive today, our moral and spiritual "lag" must be eliminated. Enlarged material powers spell enlarged peril if there is not proportionate growth of the soul. When the "without" of man's nature subjugates the "within", dark storm clouds begin to form in the world.

 

This problem of spiritual and moral lag, which constitutes modern man's chief dilemma, expresses itself in three larger problems which grow out of man's ethical infantilism. Each of these problems, while appearing to be separate and isolated, is inextricably bound to the other. I refer to racial injustice, poverty, and war.

 

The first problem that I would like to mention is racial injustice. The struggle to eliminate the evil of racial injustice constitutes one of the major struggles of our time. The present upsurge of the Negro people of the United States grows out of a deep and passionate determination to make freedom and equality a reality "here" and "now". In one sense the civil rights movement in the United States is a special American phenomenon which must be understood in the light of American history and dealt with in terms of the American situation. But on another and more important level, what is happening in the United States today is a relatively small part of a world development.

 

We live in a day, says the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead2,"when civilization is shifting its basic outlook: a major turning point in history where the presuppositions on which society is structured are being analyzed, sharply challenged, and profoundly changed." What we are seeing now is a freedom explosion, the realization of "an idea whose time has come", to use Victor Hugo's phrase3. The deep rumbling of discontent that we hear today is the thunder of disinherited masses, rising from dungeons of oppression to the bright hills of freedom, in one majestic chorus the rising masses singing, in the words of our freedom song, "Ain't gonna let nobody turn us around."4 All over the world, like a fever, the freedom movement is spreading in the widest liberation in history. The great masses of people are determined to end the exploitation of their races and land. They are awake and moving toward their goal like a tidal wave. You can hear them rumbling in every village street, on the docks, in the houses, among the students, in the churches, and at political meetings. Historic movement was for several centuries that of the nations and societies of Western Europe out into the rest of the world in "conquest" of various sorts. That period, the era of colonialism, is at an end. East is meeting West. The earth is being redistributed. Yes, we are "shifting our basic outlooks".

 

These developments should not surprise any student of history. Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself. The Bible tells the thrilling story of how Moses stood in Pharaoh's court centuries ago and cried, "Let my people go."5 This is a kind of opening chapter in a continuing story. The present struggle in the United States is a later chapter in the same unfolding story. Something within has reminded the Negro of his birthright of freedom, and something without has reminded him that it can be gained. Consciously or unconsciously, he has been caught up by the Zeitgeist, and with his black brothers of Africa and his brown and yellow brothers in Asia, South America, and the Caribbean, the United States Negro is moving with a sense of great urgency toward the promised land of racial justice.

 

Fortunately, some significant strides have been made in the struggle to end the long night of racial injustice. We have seen the magnificent drama of independence unfold in Asia and Africa. Just thirty years ago there were only three independent nations in the whole of Africa. But today thirty-five African nations have risen from colonial bondage. In the United States we have witnessed the gradual demise of the system of racial segregation. The Supreme Court's decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools gave a legal and constitutional deathblow to the whole doctrine of separate but equal6. The Court decreed that separate facilities are inherently unequal and that to segregate a child on the basis of race is to deny that child equal protection of the law. This decision came as a beacon light of hope to millions of disinherited people. Then came that glowing day a few months ago when a strong Civil Rights Bill became the law of our land7. This bill, which was first recommended and promoted by President Kennedy, was passed because of the overwhelming support and perseverance of millions of Americans, Negro and white. It came as a bright interlude in the long and sometimes turbulent struggle for civil rights: the beginning of a second emancipation proclamation providing a comprehensive legal basis for equality of opportunity. Since the passage of this bill we have seen some encouraging and surprising signs of compliance. I am happy to report that, by and large, communities all over the southern part of the United States are obeying the Civil Rights Law and showing remarkable good sense in the process.

 

Another indication that progress is being made was found in the recent presidential election in the United States. The American people revealed great maturity by overwhelmingly rejecting a presidential candidate who had become identified with extremism, racism, and retrogression8. The voters of our nation rendered a telling blow to the radical right9. They defeated those elements in our society which seek to pit white against Negro and lead the nation down a dangerous Fascist path.

 

Let me not leave you with a false impression. The problem is far from solved. We still have a long, long way to go before the dream of freedom is a reality for the Negro in the United States. To put it figuratively in biblical language, we have left the dusty soils of Egypt and crossed a Red Sea whose waters had for years been hardened by a long and piercing winter of massive resistance. But before we reach the majestic shores of the Promised Land, there is a frustrating and bewildering wilderness ahead. We must still face prodigious hilltops of opposition and gigantic mountains of resistance. But with patient and firm determination we will press on until every valley of despair is exalted to new peaks of hope, until every mountain of pride and irrationality is made low by the leveling process of humility and compassion; until the rough places of injustice are transformed into a smooth plane of equality of opportunity; and until the crooked places of prejudice are transformed by the straightening process of bright-eyed wisdom.

 

What the main sections of the civil rights movement in the United States are saying is that the demand for dignity, equality, jobs, and citizenship will not be abandoned or diluted or postponed. If that means resistance and conflict we shall not flinch. We shall not be cowed. We are no longer afraid.

 

The word that symbolizes the spirit and the outward form of our encounter is nonviolence, and it is doubtless that factor which made it seem appropriate to award a peace prize to one identified with struggle. Broadly speaking, nonviolence in the civil rights struggle has meant not relying on arms and weapons of struggle. It has meant noncooperation with customs and laws which are institutional aspects of a regime of discrimination and enslavement. It has meant direct participation of masses in protest, rather than reliance on indirect methods which frequently do not involve masses in action at all.

 

Nonviolence has also meant that my people in the agonizing struggles of recent years have taken suffering upon themselves instead of inflicting it on others. It has meant, as I said, that we are no longer afraid and cowed. But in some substantial degree it has meant that we do not want to instill fear in others or into the society of which we are a part. The movement does not seek to liberate Negroes at the expense of the humiliation and enslavement of whites. It seeks no victory over anyone. It seeks to liberate American society and to share in the self-liberation of all the people.

 

Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral. I am not unmindful of the fact that violence often brings about momentary results. Nations have frequently won their independence in battle. But in spite of temporary victories, violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem: it merely creates new and more complicated ones. Violence is impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction for all. It is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding: it seeks to annihilate rather than convert. Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love. It destroys community and makes brotherhood impossible. It leaves society in monologue rather than dialogue. Violence ends up defeating itself. It creates bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers.

 

In a real sense nonviolence seeks to redeem the spiritual and moral lag that I spoke of earlier as the chief dilemma of modern man. It seeks to secure moral ends through moral means. Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon. Indeed, it is a weapon unique in history, which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it.

 

I believe in this method because I think it is the only way to reestablish a broken community. It is the method which seeks to implement the just law by appealing to the conscience of the great decent majority who through blindness, fear, pride, and irrationality have allowed their consciences to sleep.

 

The nonviolent resisters can summarize their message in the following simple terms: we will take direct action against injustice despite the failure of governmental and other official agencies to act first. We will not obey unjust laws or submit to unjust practices. We will do this peacefully, openly, cheerfully because our aim is to persuade. We adopt the means of nonviolence because our end is a community at peace with itself. We will try to persuade with our words, but if our words fail, we will try to persuade with our acts. We will always be willing to talk and seek fair compromise, but we are ready to suffer when necessary and even risk our lives to become witnesses to truth as we see it.

 

This approach to the problem of racial injustice is not at all without successful precedent. It was used in a magnificent way by Mohandas K. Gandhi to challenge the might of the British Empire and free his people from the political domination and economic exploitation inflicted upon them for centuries. He struggled only with the weapons of truth, soul force, non-injury, and courage10.

 

In the past ten years unarmed gallant men and women of the United States have given living testimony to the moral power and efficacy of nonviolence. By the thousands, faceless, anonymous, relentless young people, black and white, have temporarily left the ivory towers of learning for the barricades of bias. Their courageous and disciplined activities have come as a refreshing oasis in a desert sweltering with the heat of injustice. They have taken our whole nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the founding fathers in the formulation of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. One day all of America will be proud of their achievements11.

 

I am only too well aware of the human weaknesses and failures which exist, the doubts about the efficacy of nonviolence, and the open advocacy of violence by some. But I am still convinced that nonviolence is both the most practically sound and morally excellent way to grapple with the age-old problem of racial injustice.

 

A second evil which plagues the modern world is that of poverty. Like a monstrous octopus, it projects its nagging, prehensile tentacles in lands and villages all over the world. Almost two-thirds of the peoples of the world go to bed hungry at night. They are undernourished, ill-housed, and shabbily clad. Many of them have no houses or beds to sleep in. Their only beds are the sidewalks of the cities and the dusty roads of the villages. Most of these poverty-stricken children of God have never seen a physician or a dentist. This problem of poverty is not only seen in the class division between the highly developed industrial nations and the so-called underdeveloped nations; it is seen in the great economic gaps within the rich nations themselves. Take my own country for example. We have developed the greatest system of production that history has ever known. We have become the richest nation in the world. Our national gross product this year will reach the astounding figure of almost 650 billion dollars. Yet, at least one-fifth of our fellow citizens - some ten million families, comprising about forty million individuals - are bound to a miserable culture of poverty. In a sense the poverty of the poor in America is more frustrating than the poverty of Africa and Asia. The misery of the poor in Africa and Asia is shared misery, a fact of life for the vast majority; they are all poor together as a result of years of exploitation and underdevelopment. In sad contrast, the poor in America know that they live in the richest nation in the world, and that even though they are perishing on a lonely island of poverty they are surrounded by a vast ocean of material prosperity. Glistening towers of glass and steel easily seen from their slum dwellings spring up almost overnight. Jet liners speed over their ghettoes at 600 miles an hour; satellites streak through outer space and reveal details of the moon. President Johnson, in his State of the Union Message12, emphasized this contradiction when he heralded the United States' "highest standard of living in the world", and deplored that it was accompanied by "dislocation; loss of jobs, and the specter of poverty in the midst of plenty".

 

So it is obvious that if man is to redeem his spiritual and moral "lag", he must go all out to bridge the social and economic gulf between the "haves" and the "have nots" of the world. Poverty is one of the most urgent items on the agenda of modern life.

 

There is nothing new about poverty. What is new, however, is that we have the resources to get rid of it. More than a century and a half ago people began to be disturbed about the twin problems of population and production. A thoughtful Englishman named Malthus wrote a book13 that set forth some rather frightening conclusions. He predicted that the human family was gradually moving toward global starvation because the world was producing people faster than it was producing food and material to support them. Later scientists, however, disproved the conclusion of Malthus, and revealed that he had vastly underestimated the resources of the world and the resourcefulness of man.

 

Not too many years ago, Dr. Kirtley Mather, a Harvard geologist, wrote a book entitled Enough and to Spare14. He set forth the basic theme that famine is wholly unnecessary in the modern world. Today, therefore, the question on the agenda must read: Why should there be hunger and privation in any land, in any city, at any table when man has the resources and the scientific know-how to provide all mankind with the basic necessities of life? Even deserts can be irrigated and top soil can be replaced. We cannot complain of a lack of land, for there are twenty-five million square miles of tillable land, of which we are using less than seven million. We have amazing knowledge of vitamins, nutrition, the chemistry of food, and the versatility of atoms. There is no deficit in human resources; the deficit is in human will. The well-off and the secure have too often become indifferent and oblivious to the poverty and deprivation in their midst. The poor in our countries have been shut out of our minds, and driven from the mainstream of our societies, because we have allowed them to become invisible. Just as nonviolence exposed the ugliness of racial injustice, so must the infection and sickness of poverty be exposed and healed - not only its symptoms but its basic causes. This, too, will be a fierce struggle, but we must not be afraid to pursue the remedy no matter how formidable the task.

 

The time has come for an all-out world war against poverty. The rich nations must use their vast resources of wealth to develop the underdeveloped, school the unschooled, and feed the unfed. Ultimately a great nation is a compassionate nation. No individual or nation can be great if it does not have a concern for "the least of these". Deeply etched in the fiber of our religious tradition is the conviction that men are made in the image of God and that they are souls of infinite metaphysical value, the heirs of a legacy of dignity and worth. If we feel this as a profound moral fact, we cannot be content to see men hungry, to see men victimized with starvation and ill health when we have the means to help them. The wealthy nations must go all out to bridge the gulf between the rich minority and the poor majority.

 

In the final analysis, the rich must not ignore the poor because both rich and poor are tied in a single garment of destiny. All life is interrelated, and all men are interdependent. The agony of the poor diminishes the rich, and the salvation of the poor enlarges the rich. We are inevitably our brothers' keeper because of the interrelated structure of reality. John Donne interpreted this truth in graphic terms when he affirmed15:

 

No man is an Iland, intire of its selfe: every

man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the

maine: if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea,

Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie

were, as well as if a Mannor of thy friends

or of thine owne were: any mans death

diminishes me, because I am involved in

Mankinde: and therefore never send to know

for whom the bell tolls: it tolls for thee.

 

A third great evil confronting our world is that of war. Recent events have vividly reminded us that nations are not reducing but rather increasing their arsenals of weapons of mass destruction. The best brains in the highly developed nations of the world are devoted to military technology. The proliferation of nuclear weapons has not been halted, in spite of the Limited Test Ban Treaty16. On the contrary, the detonation of an atomic device by the first nonwhite, non- Western, and so-called underdeveloped power, namely the Chinese People's Republic17, opens new vistas of exposure of vast multitudes, the whole of humanity, to insidious terrorization by the ever-present threat of annihilation. The fact that most of the time human beings put the truth about the nature and risks of the nuclear war out of their minds because it is too painful and therefore not "acceptable", does not alter the nature and risks of such war. The device of "rejection" may temporarily cover up anxiety, but it does not bestow peace of mind and emotional security.

 

So man's proneness to engage in war is still a fact. But wisdom born of experience should tell us that war is obsolete. There may have been a time when war served as a negative good by preventing the spread and growth of an evil force, but the destructive power of modern weapons eliminated even the possibility that war may serve as a negative good. If we assume that life is worth living and that man has a right to survive, then we must find an alternative to war. In a day when vehicles hurtle through outer space and guided ballistic missiles carve highways of death through the stratosphere, no nation can claim victory in war. A so-called limited war will leave little more than a calamitous legacy of human suffering, political turmoil, and spiritual disillusionment. A world war - God forbid! - will leave only smoldering ashes as a mute testimony of a human race whose folly led inexorably to ultimate death. So if modern man continues to flirt unhesitatingly with war, he will transform his earthly habitat into an inferno such as even the mind of Dante could not imagine.

 

Therefore, I venture to suggest to all of you and all who hear and may eventually read these words, that the philosophy and strategy of nonviolence become immediately a subject for study and for serious experimentation in every field of human conflict, by no means excluding the relations between nations. It is, after all, nation-states which make war, which have produced the weapons which threaten the survival of mankind, and which are both genocidal and suicidal in character.

 

Here also we have ancient habits to deal with, vast structures of power, indescribably complicated problems to solve. But unless we abdicate our humanity altogether and succumb to fear and impotence in the presence of the weapons we have ourselves created, it is as imperative and urgent to put an end to war and violence between nations as it is to put an end to racial injustice. Equality with whites will hardly solve the problems of either whites or Negroes if it means equality in a society under the spell of terror and a world doomed to extinction.

 

I do not wish to minimize the complexity of the problems that need to be faced in achieving disarmament and peace. But I think it is a fact that we shall not have the will, the courage, and the insight to deal with such matters unless in this field we are prepared to undergo a mental and spiritual reevaluation - a change of focus which will enable us to see that the things which seem most real and powerful are indeed now unreal and have come under the sentence of death. We need to make a supreme effort to generate the readiness, indeed the eagerness, to enter into the new world which is now possible, "the city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God"18.

 

We will not build a peaceful world by following a negative path. It is not enough to say "We must not wage war." It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it. We must concentrate not merely on the negative expulsion of war, but on the positive affirmation of peace. There is a fascinating little story that is preserved for us in Greek literature about Ulysses and the Sirens. The Sirens had the ability to sing so sweetly that sailors could not resist steering toward their island. Many ships were lured upon the rocks, and men forgot home, duty, and honor as they flung themselves into the sea to be embraced by arms that drew them down to death. Ulysses, determined not to be lured by the Sirens, first decided to tie himself tightly to the mast of his boat, and his crew stuffed their ears with wax. But finally he and his crew learned a better way to save themselves: they took on board the beautiful singer Orpheus whose melodies were sweeter than the music of the Sirens. When Orpheus sang, who bothered to listen to the Sirens?

 

So we must fix our vision not merely on the negative expulsion of war, but upon the positive affirmation of peace. We must see that peace represents a sweeter music, a cosmic melody that is far superior to the discords of war. Somehow we must transform the dynamics of the world power struggle from the negative nuclear arms race which no one can win to a positive contest to harness man's creative genius for the purpose of making peace and prosperity a reality for all of the nations of the world. In short, we must shift the arms race into a "peace race". If we have the will and determination to mount such a peace offensive, we will unlock hitherto tightly sealed doors of hope and transform our imminent cosmic elegy into a psalm of creative fulfillment.

 

All that I have said boils down to the point of affirming that mankind's survival is dependent upon man's ability to solve the problems of racial injustice, poverty, and war; the solution of these problems is in turn dependent upon man squaring his moral progress with his scientific progress, and learning the practical art of living in harmony. Some years ago a famous novelist died. Among his papers was found a list of suggested story plots for future stories, the most prominently underscored being this one: "A widely separated family inherits a house in which they have to live together." This is the great new problem of mankind. We have inherited a big house, a great "world house" in which we have to live together - black and white, Easterners and Westerners, Gentiles and Jews, Catholics and Protestants, Moslem and Hindu, a family unduly separated in ideas, culture, and interests who, because we can never again live without each other, must learn, somehow, in this one big world, to live with each other.

 

This means that more and more our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. We must now give an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in our individual societies.

 

This call for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one's tribe, race, class, and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all men. This oft misunderstood and misinterpreted concept so readily dismissed by the Nietzsches of the world as a weak and cowardly force, has now become an absolute necessity for the survival of man. When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response which is little more than emotional bosh. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. This Hindu-Moslem-Christian-Jewish-Buddhist belief about ultimate reality is beautifully summed up in the First Epistle of Saint John19:

 

Let us love one another: for love is of God; and everyone

that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.

He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.

If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and His

love is perfected in us.

 

Let us hope that this spirit will become the order of the day. As Arnold Toynbee20 says: "Love is the ultimate force that makes for the saving choice of life and good against the damning choice of death and evil. Therefore the first hope in our inventory must be the hope that love is going to have the last word." We can no longer afford to worship the God of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate. Love is the key to the solution of the problems of the world.

 

Let me close by saying that I have the personal faith that mankind will somehow rise up to the occasion and give new directions to an age drifting rapidly to its doom. In spite of the tensions and uncertainties of this period something profoundly meaningful is taking place. Old systems of exploitation and oppression are passing away, and out of the womb of a frail world new systems of justice and equality are being born. Doors of opportunity are gradually being opened to those at the bottom of society. The shirtless and barefoot people of the land are developing a new sense of "some-bodiness" and carving a tunnel of hope through the dark mountain of despair. "The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light."21 Here and there an individual or group dares to love, and rises to the majestic heights of moral maturity. So in a real sense this is a great time to be alive. Therefore, I am not yet discouraged about the future. Granted that the easygoing optimism of yesterday is impossible. Granted that those who pioneer in the struggle for peace and freedom will still face uncomfortable jail terms, painful threats of death; they will still be battered by the storms of persecution, leading them to the nagging feeling that they can no longer bear such a heavy burden, and the temptation of wanting to retreat to a more quiet and serene life. Granted that we face a world crisis which leaves us standing so often amid the surging murmur of life's restless sea. But every crisis has both its dangers and its opportunities. It can spell either salvation or doom. In a dark confused world the kingdom of God may yet reign in the hearts of men.

 

* Dr. King delivered this lecture in the Auditorium of the University of Oslo. This text is taken from Les Prix Nobel en 1964. The text in the New York Times is excerpted. His speech of acceptance delivered the day before in the same place is reported fully both in Les Prix Nobel en 1964 and the New York Times.

 

1. Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), American poet and essayist.

 

2. Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947). British philosopher and mathematician, professor at the University of London and Harvard University.

 

3. "There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world and that is an idea whose time has come." Translations differ; probable origin is Victor Hugo, Histoire d'un crime, "Conclusion-La Chute", chap. 10.

 

4. "Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around" is the title of an old Baptist spiritual.

 

5. Exodus 5:1; 8:1; 9:1; 10:3.

 

6. "Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka", 347 U.S. 483, contains the decision of May 17, 1954, requiring desegregation of the public schools by the states. "Bolling vs. Sharpe", 347 U.S. 497, contains the decision of same date requiring desegregation of public schools by the federal government; i.e. in Washington, D.C. "Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka", Nos. 1-5. 349 U.S. 249, contains the opinion of May 31, 1955, on appeals from the decisions in the two cases cited above, ordering admission to "public schools on a racially nondiscriminatory basis with all deliberate speed".

 

7. Public Law 88-352, signed by President Johnson on July 2, 1964.

 

8. Both Les Prix Nobel and the New York Times read "retrogress".

 

9. Lyndon B. Johnson defeated Barry Goldwater by a popular vote of 43, 128, 956 to 27,177,873.

 

10. For a note on Gandhi, seep. 329, fn. 1.

 

11. For accounts of the civil rights activities by both whites and blacks in the decade from 1954 to 1964, see Alan F. Westin, Freedom Now: The Civil Rights Struggle in America (New York: Basic Books, 1964), especially Part IV, "The Techniques of the Civil Rights Struggle"; Howard Zinn, SNCC: The New Abolitionists (Boston: Beacon Press, 1964); Eugene V. Rostow, "The Freedom Riders and the Future", The Reporter (June 22, 1961); James Peck, Cracking the Color Line: Nonviolent Direct Action Methods of Eliminating Racial Discrimination (New York: CORE, 1960).

 

12. January 8, 1964.

 

13. Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834), An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798).

 

14. Kirtley F. Mather, Enough and to Spare: Mother Earth Can Nourish Every Man in Freedom (New York: Harper, 1944).

 

15. John Donne (1572?-1631), English poet, in the final lines of "Devotions" (1624).

 

16. Officially called "Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapons Tests in Atmosphere, in Outer Space, and Underwater", and signed by Russia, England, and United States on July 25, 1963.

 

17. On October 16, 1964.

 

18. Hebrews II: 10.

 

19. I John 4:7-8, 12.

 

20. Arnold Joseph Toynbee (1889- ), British historian whose monumental work is the 10-volume A Study of Story (1934-1954).

 

21. This quotation may be based on a phrase from Luke 1:79, "To give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death"; or one from Psalms 107:10, "Such as sit in darkness and in the shadow of death"; or one from Mark Twain's To the Person Sitting in Darkness (1901), "The people who sit in darkness have noticed it...".

 

From Nobel Lectures, Peace 1951-1970, Editor Frederick W. Haberman, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1972

 

retrieved January 18, 2010 from nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1964/king-lec...

Nothing inherently interesting about the car park tonight, so I decided to go with HDR (3 exposures, 2 stops apart) and a particularly grungy look.

Officially the Commonwealth of Dominica, is an island nation in the Caribbean Sea. To the north-northwest lies Guadeloupe, to the southeast Martinique. Its size is 754 square kilometres (291 sq mi) and the highest point in the country is Morne Diablotins, which has an elevation of 1,447 metres (4,750 ft). The Commonwealth of Dominica has an estimated population of 72,500. The capital is Roseau.

Dominica has been nicknamed the "Nature Isle of the Caribbean" for its seemingly unspoiled natural beauty. It is the youngest island in the Lesser Antilles, still being formed by geothermal-volcanic activity, as evidenced by the world's second-largest boiling lake. The island features lush mountainous rainforests, home of many rare plant, animal, and bird species. There are xeric areas in some of the western coastal regions, but heavy rainfall can be expected inland. The Sisserou Parrot (also known as the Imperial Amazon), the island's national bird, is featured on the national flag. Dominica's economy is heavily dependent on both tourism and agriculture.

Christopher Columbus named the island after the day of the week on which he spotted it, a Sunday (dominica in Latin), November 3, 1493. In the next hundred years after Columbus' landing, Dominica remained isolated, and even more Caribs settled there after being driven from surrounding islands as European powers entered the region. France formally ceded possession of Dominica to the United Kingdom in 1763. The United Kingdom then set up a government and made the island a colony in 1805.

The emancipation of African slaves occurred throughout the British Empire in 1834, and, in 1838, Dominica became the first British Caribbean colony to have a legislature controlled by an African majority. In 1896, the United Kingdom reassumed governmental control of Dominica, turning it into a Crown colony. Half a century later, from 1958 to 1962, Dominica became a province of the short-lived West Indies Federation. In 1978, Dominica became an independent nation.

 

History

In 1635 France claimed Dominica. Shortly thereafter, French missionaries became the first European inhabitants of the island. Carib incursions continued, though, and in 1660, the French and British agreed that both Dominica and St. Vincent should be abandoned. Dominica was officially neutral for the next century, but the attraction of its resources remained; rival expeditions of British and French foresters were harvesting timber by the start of the 18th century.

Largely because of Dominica's position between Martinique and Guadeloupe, France eventually became predominant, and a French settlement was established and grew. As part of the 1763 Treaty of Paris that ended the Seven Years' War, the island became a British possession. In 1778, during the American Revolutionary War, the French mounted a successful invasion with the active cooperation of the population. The 1783 Treaty of Paris, which ended the war, returned the island to Britain. French invasions in 1795 and 1805 ended in failure.

In 1763, the British established a legislative assembly, representing only the white population. In 1831, reflecting a liberalization of official British racial attitudes, the Brown Privilege Bill conferred political and social rights on free non-whites. Three African people were elected to the legislative assembly the following year. Following the abolition of slavery, in 1838 Dominica became the only British Caribbean colony to have a African-controlled legislature in the 19th century. Most African legislators were smallholders or merchants who held economic and social views diametrically opposed to the interests of the small, wealthy English planter class. Reacting to a perceived threat, the planters lobbied for more direct British rule.

In 1865, after much agitation and tension, the colonial office replaced the elective assembly with one that had one-half of members who were elected and one-half who were appointed. Planters allied with colonial administrators outmanoeuvred the elected legislators on numerous occasions. In 1871, Dominica became part of the Leeward Island Federation. The power of the African population progressively eroded. Crown Colony government was re-established in 1896. All political rights for the vast majority of the population were effectively curtailed. Development aid, offered as compensation for disenfranchisement, proved to have a negligible effect.

Following World War I, an upsurge of political consciousness throughout the Caribbean led to the formation of the Representative Government Association. Marshalling public frustration with the lack of a voice in the governing of Dominica, this group won one-third of the popularly elected seats of the legislative assembly in 1924 and one-half in 1936. Shortly thereafter, Dominica was transferred from the Leeward Island Administration and was governed as part of the Windwards until 1958, when it joined the short-lived West Indies Federation.

 

After the federation dissolved, Dominica became an associated state of the United Kingdom in 1967 and formally took responsibility for its internal affairs. On November 3, 1978, the Commonwealth of Dominica was granted independence by the United Kingdom.

Independence did little to solve problems stemming from centuries of economic underdevelopment, and in mid-1979, political discontent led to the formation of an interim government. It was replaced after the 1980 elections by a government led by the Dominica Freedom Party under Prime Minister Eugenia Charles, the Caribbean's first female prime minister. Chronic economic problems were compounded by the severe impact of hurricanes in 1979 and in 1980.

In 1981 Dominica was threatened with a takeover by mercenaries.

 

Attempted coup

In 1981, a group of right-wing "mercenaries" led by Mike Perdue of Houston and Wolfgang Droege of Toronto, attempted to overthrow the government of Eugenia Charles. The North America mercenary group was to aid ex-Prime Minister Patrick John and his Dominica Defence Force in regaining control of the island in exchange for control over the island's future development. The entire plan failed and the ship hired to transport the men of Operation Red Dog never even made it off the dock as the FBI was tipped off. The self-titled mercenaries lacked any formal military experience and/or training and the majority of the crew had been misled into joining the armed coup by the con-man ringleader Mike Perdue. White supremacist Don Black was also jailed for his part in the attempt, which violated US neutrality laws. The book, "Bayou of Pigs" written by Stewart Bell details the story of this missguided attempt to turn Dominica into a criminal paradise.

 

Since the 1980s

By the end of the 1980s, the economy recovered, but weakened again in the 1990s because of a decrease in banana prices.

In the January 2000 elections, the Edison James United Workers Party (UWP) was defeated by the Dominican Labour Party (DLP), led by Roosevelt P. "Rosie" Douglas. Douglas died after only a few months in office and was replaced by Pierre Charles, who died in office in January 2004. Roosevelt Skerrit, also of the DLP, replaced Charles as Prime Minister. Under Prime Minister Skerrit's leadership, the DLP won elections in May 2005 that gave the party 12 seats in the 21-member Parliament to the UWP's 8 seats. An independent candidate affiliated with the DLP won a seat as well. Since that time, the independent candidate joined the government and one UWP member crossed the aisle, making the current total 14 seats for the DLP and 7 for the UWP.

 

Geography

Dominica is an island nation and borderless country in the Caribbean Sea, the northernmost of the Windward Islands. The size of the country is about 289.5 square miles (754 km²). The capital is Roseau.

Dominica is largely covered by rainforest and is home to the world's second-largest boiling lake. Dominica has many waterfalls, springs, and rivers. The Calibishie area in the country's northeast has sandy beaches. Some plants and animals thought to be extinct on surrounding islands can still be found in Dominica's forests. The volcanic nature of the island has attracted scuba divers. The island has several protected areas, including Cabrits National Park, as well as 365 rivers.

It is said that when his royal sponsors asked Christopher Columbus to describe this island in the "New World", he crumpled a piece of parchment roughly and threw it on the table. This, Columbus explained, is what Dominica looks like—completely covered with mountains with nary a flat spot.

Morne Trois Pitons National Park is a tropical forest blended with scenic volcanic features. It was recognised as a World Heritage Site on April 4, 1995, a distinction it shares with four other Caribbean islands.

The Commonwealth of Dominica is engaged in a long-running dispute with Venezuela over Venezuela's territorial claims to the sea surrounding Isla Aves (literally Bird Island, but in fact called Bird Rock by Dominica authorities), a tiny islet located 140 miles (224 km) west of the island of Dominica.

There are two primary population centres: Roseau and Portsmouth.

Dominica possesses the most pristine wilderness in the Caribbean.[citation needed] Originally, it was protected by sheer mountains which led the European powers to build ports and agricultural settlements on other islands. More recently, the citizens of this island have sought to preserve its spectacular natural beauty by discouraging the type of high-impact tourism which has damaged nature in most of the Caribbean.

Visitors can find large tropical forests, including one which is on the UNESCO list of World Heritage sites, hundreds of streams, coastlines and coral reefs.

The Sisserou parrot is Dominica's national bird and is indigenous to its mountain forests.

The Caribbean Sea offshore of the island of Dominica is home to many cetaceans. Most notably a group of sperm whales live in this area year round. Other cetaceans commonly seen in the area include spinner dolphins, pantropical spotted dolphins and bottlenose dolphins. Less commonly seen animals include killer whales, false killer whales, pygmy sperm whales, dwarf sperm whales, Risso's dolphins, common dolphins, Atlantic spotted dolphins, humpback whales and Bryde's whales. This makes Dominica a destination for tourists interested in whale-watching.

Dominica is especially vulnerable to hurricanes as the island is located in what is referred to as the hurricane region. In 1979, Dominica was hit directly by category 5 Hurricane David, causing widespread and extreme damage. On August 17, 2007, Hurricane Dean, a category 1 at the time, hit the island. A mother and her seven-year-old son died when a landslide caused by the heavy rains fell onto their house. In another incident two people were injured when a tree fell on their house. Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit estimated that 100 to 125 homes were damaged, and that the agriculture sector was extensively damaged, in particular the banana crop.

 

Other Info

Oficial name:

Commonwealth of Dominica

 

Independence:

November 3, 1978

 

Area:

751km2

 

Inhabitants:

72.500

 

Languages:

Dominican Creole French [acf] 42,600 in Dominica (1998). Alternate names: Lesser Antillean Creole French, Patwa, Patois, Kwèyòl. Classification: Creole, French based

More information.

 

English [eng] 10,000 in Dominica (2004). Dialects: Dominican English. Classification: Indo-European, Germanic, West, English

More information.

 

Kokoy Creole English [aig] 200 in Dominica (2004). Kokoy dialect is in 2 villages: Marigot and Wesley in northeast Dominica. Alternate names: Leeward Caribbean Creole English. Classification: Creole, English based, Atlantic, Eastern, Southern

More information.

  

Extinct languages

Carib, Island [crb] Extinct. Formerly also in Lesser Antilles, excluding Trinidad. Also spoken in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. Dialects: Was not intelligible with Black Carib (D. Taylor 1959). Vincentian on Saint Vincent may have been closer to Black Carib than to Island Carib. Not inherently intelligible with Garífuna (D. Taylor IJAL 1959:67). Classification: Arawakan, Maipuran, Northern Maipuran, Caribbean

 

Capital city:

Roseau

 

Meaning of country name: From the Latin "Dies Dominica" meaning "Sunday": the day of the week on which Christopher Columbus first landed on the island.

 

Description Flag:

The flag of Dominica was adopted on November 3, 1978, with some small changes being made in 1981, 1988, and 1990. The flag features a green background. A red circle at the centre features a Sisserou Parrot (Amazona imperialis) surrounded by ten green stars, which represent the island's ten parishes. Four strips of three coloured bands (yellow, black and white) radiate horizontally and vertically from the circle.

Before 1981, the colours of the bands were ordered differently and the green stars had no borders. Before 1988, the parrot faced in the opposite direction. In 1990, the colour of the stars, originally lime green, was darkened to match the green of the background, the yellow border around the stars was changed to black, the coloration of the parrot was brought more into alignment with reality, and some proportions were changed. There seems to be, generally, a lack of standardisation on many minor points of the flag in Dominica.

The flag's elements have symbolic meanings. The parrot is Dominica's national bird, meant to inspire citizens to soar to achieve their highest goals. In addition to representing the island's parishes, the stars also symbolise hope and equality. The combined lines form a cross, reflecting Dominica's Christian faith, and the three lines individually represent the Trinity. The flag's colours were also chosen for their associations: green - the island's verdant landscape; red - social justice; yellow - sunshine, agriculture; black - earth, African ancestry; white - clear waters, purity.

 

Coat of arms:

The coat of arms of Dominica was adapted on July 21, 1961. It consists of a shield with two guardian Sisserou Parrots bracing the shield atop of which is a raging lion. The quadrants of the shield depict a canoe, a banana tree, a palm and a mountain frog. Below the crest is the national motto: Après Bondie C'est La Ter (After God the Earth).

 

Motto: "Après Bondie, C'est La Ter"

 

National Anthem: Isle of beauty, isle of splendour

 

Isle of beauty, isle of splendour,

Isle to all so sweet and fair,

All must surely gaze in wonder

At thy gifts so rich and rare.

Rivers, valleys, hills and mountains,

All these gifts we do extol.

Healthy land, so like all fountains,

Giving cheer that warms the soul.

Dominica, God hath blest thee

With a clime benign and bright,

Pastures green and flowers of beauty

Filling all with pure delight,

And a people strong and healthy,

Full of godly, rev'rent fear.

May we ever seek to praise Thee

For these gifts so rich and rare.

Come ye forward, sons and daughters

Of this gem beyond compare.

Strive for honour, sons and daughters,

Do the right, be firm, be fair.

Toil with hearts and hands and voices.

We must prosper! Sound the call,

In which ev'ryone rejoices,

"All for Each and Each for All."

 

Internet Page: www.discoverdominica.com

www.avirtualdominica.com

www.tourismdominica.dm

 

Dominica in diferent languages

 

eng | afr | arg | ast | bre | cat | cym | dan | est | fin | glg | glv | ina | ita | jnf | lat | lin | lld | nld | nor | oci | por | roh | ron | rup | sco | sme | spa | srd | swe | vie | vor: Dominica

ces | cor | dsb | eus | fao | fry | hrv | hsb | hun | jav | lav | lit | mlg | mlt | pol | slk | slv | swa | tur | wol | zza: Dominika

aze | bos | crh | kaa | slo | tuk | uzb: Dominika / Доминика

deu | ltz | nds: Dominika / Dominika; Dominica / Dominica

fra | nrm: Dominique

bam: Dɔminiki

epo: Dominiko

frp: Domenica

fur: Dominiche

gla: Doiminicia

gle: Doiminice / Doiminice

hat: Dominik

ibo: Dọminika

ind: Dominika / دومينيكا

isl: Dóminíka

kmr: Domînîka / Доминика / دۆمینیکا; Domînîk / Доминик / دۆمینیک

kur: Domînîka / دۆمینیکا

mol: Dominica / Доминика

msa: Dominica / دومينيكا

que: Duminika

rmy: Dominika / दोमिनिका

scn: Domìnica

smg: Duomėnė̄ka

sqi: Domenika

tet: Domínika

ton: Tominika

vol: Dominikeän

wln: Dominike

abq | alt | bul | che | chm | kir | kjh | kom | krc | kum | mkd | mon | rus | tyv | udm: Доминика (Dominika)

bak | srp | tat: Доминика / Dominika

bel: Дамініка / Daminika

chv: Доминикӑ (Dominikă)

kaz: Доминика / Domïnïka / دومينيكا

kbd: Доминикэ (Dominikă)

oss: Доминикӕ (Dominikä)

tgk: Доминика / دامینیکه / Dominika

ukr: Домініка (Dominika)

ara: الدومينيك (ad-Dūmīnīk); دومينيكا (Dūmīnīkā)

fas: دومینیکا (Domīnīkā); دمینیکا (Domīnīkā); دومینیک (Domīnīk); دمینیک (Domīnīk)

prs: دومینیکا (Dōmīnīkā)

pus: دومينيکا (Domīnīkā)

uig: دومىنىكا / Dominika / Доминика

urd: ڈومینیکا (Ḋômīnīkā)

div: ޑޮމިނިކާ (Ḋominikā)

heb: דומיניקה (Dômînîqah)

lad: דומיניקה / Dominika

yid: דאָמיניקאַ (Dominika)

amh: ዶሚኒካ (Dominika)

ell: Ντομίνικα (Ntomínika); Δομίνικα (Domínika); Δομινίκη (Dominíkī)

hye: Դոմինիկա (Dominika)

kat: დომინიკა (Dominika)

hin: डोमिनिका (Ḍominikā)

ben: ডোমিনিকা (Ḍominikā); দোমিনিকা (Dominikā); ডমিনিকা (Ḍôminikā)

pan: ਡੋਮੀਨੀਕਾ (Ḍomīnīkā)

kan: ಡೊಮಿನಿಕ (Ḍominika)

mal: ഡൊമിനിക്ക (Ḍominikka)

tam: டொமினிக்கா (Ṭomiṉikkā); டொமினிகா (Ṭomiṉikā)

tel: డొమినికా (Ḍominikā)

zho: 多米尼克 (Duōmǐníkè)

jpn: ドミニカ (Dominika)

kor: 도미니카 (Dominika)

mya: ဒုိမီနီကာ (Dominika)

tha: โดมินิกา (Dōminikā)

khm: ដូមីនិក (Dūmīnik); ដូមីនីកា (Dūmīnīkā)

 

Flare is an interesting photographic ingredient, and it’s especially prevalent in infrared photography. Whenever the sun is in the frame in an infrared photograph, you can be guaranteed some kind of flare! Sometimes you’d like to avoid it, other times it can be embraced, and in an image like this is almost becomes the subject itself.

 

Why do we have to deal with flare in infrared? Lenses have special coatings that prevent flare and other optical problems, and most of these are based on the principles of “thin film interference”. The same physics that puts rainbows in soap bubbles and creates colour in many of my snowflake images is used to cancel out flare, but there’s a problem. Thin film interference is inherently linked to certain wavelengths of light, thereby the lens coatings are only effective at certain wavelengths. Move to the infrared spectrum, and those coatings are either ineffective or counterproductive.

 

Infrared coatings do exist, but no standard photographic lens uses them. This means that flare in IR images is a visual ingredient that photographers need to contend with. You may choose to avoid it, though you might have fun embracing it from time to time. I’ve found that it can make for a very interesting element when used correctly.

 

While I am not one for urban rail fanning (I much prefer the quit solitude of the country) there is something inherently cool about scenes like this one. A trip to Chicago landed me at a hotel only minutes away from Metra, and I took the opportunity to shoot the extremely cool SD70MACHs recently placed into service. As they notched out of Union station and out of the city, the distinct EMD rumble sounded great echoing off of the buildings.

I hate following crowds. or shooting among them. If you've followed my photography for a while you may recall my album "Anything But Zabriskie". That's just the way I felt about Death Valley 20 years ago; yeah, the park was cool, and even the badlands around Zabriskie Point were cool and all, but don't make me stand in a crowd of tourists and shoot the same "postcard shot".

 

My take on that has evolved. People come from all over the world to see the varied and exotic landscape that Death Valley National Park has to offer, and sure, there are more unique places and subjects/compositions to discover and to show people, but in National Parks the main viewpoints were established exactly because they offered interesting locations with stunning views. So approach them with an open mind, and new possibilities open up. Sometimes you'll get dramatic and unique weather Sure, maybe the view is crawling with people from right after breakfast to right before dinner , but sometimes you'll find intimate compositions at a different focal length.

 

If you approach a location with a different mindset, you may find that there are nearly infinite compositions to be found, and that what you find when you arrive can often dramatically exceed your expectations. Especially if your expectations were low.

 

If people want the "postcard spot", no problem, there's a reason that he spot and those postcards exist. Maybe people want the experience, the memory of the visit, the travel, the adventure. An image can be one more milepost in a life well lived. A bucket list item checked. And there's nothing inherently wrong with that. Those of use who have "been there before", accept the challenge of seeing something new. perceiving something new. Capturing something new (to us, if not new to all mankind). Drop the arrogance, the contempt of familiarity, and see what's actually available when you become willing to see..

The "Thunderbirds" is the air demonstration squadron of the United States Air Force (USAF), based at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada. Created in 1953, the USAF Thunderbirds are the third-oldest formal flying aerobatic team (under the same name) in the world, after the French Air Force Patrouille de France formed in 1931 and the United States Navy Blue Angels formed in 1946.

The Thunderbirds Squadron tours the United States and beyond performing aerobatic formation and solo flying in specially marked aircraft.

The Thunderbirds have performed at over 4,000 airshows worldwide, accumulating millions of miles in hundreds of different airframes over the course of their more than fifty-four years of service. Flying high-performance fighter jets is inherently dangerous; when flying in extremely close formation, the danger is compounded. In total, twenty-one Thunderbirds pilots have been killed in the team's history. Three fatal crashes have occurred during air shows, two of them in jets:

The Thunderbirds perform aerial demonstrations in the F-16C Fighting Falcon. Over 4,600 aircraft have been built since production was approved in 1976. Although no longer being purchased by the U.S. Air Force, improved versions are being built for export customers.

Looking across the Málmeyjarsund to the island of Málmey in Skagafjörður, North Iceland.

 

September 2017.

 

Fujifilm X-T2, XF23/1.4 R, 1/180th sec at f/8, ISO 800

 

I've discovered that my images will never be picked up by explore because of the borders - something I choose not to change.

But I wonder then if explore is inherently discriminatory given some of the sub-standard images that do get picked up and where is the incentive to improve? :P

Solitude

 

While studying photography in Pathshala, I developed new technical and aesthetic skills at an academic level and gained a fresh perspective on seeing the world around me. However, I still felt that something was missing. That missing piece was the ability to articulate aesthetics through language and to experience aesthetics with the basis of life itself.

 

During this time, I developed a deep desire to understand philosophy. Within a few months, I decided to pursue academic studies in philosophy. There were two main reasons behind this decision: first, to gain knowledge of philosophy, and second, to reshape my photographic view point through a philosophical angle—essentially, to integrate aesthetics with philosophy.

 

As I delved into this complex subject, I found myself particularly influenced by three philosophical ideologies: the philosophy of Nihilism, Engels and Marx’s materialism, and Gautama Buddha’s theory of Functionalism. These perspectives began shaping my understanding of life, humanity, society, and aesthetics. My way of seeing the world started to transform.

 

Nihilism and materialist philosophy argue that humans are not a special species. According to Buddha, life itself is full of suffering. Since humans are not inherently special and life has no predetermined purpose, people often experience restlessness. My photographs reflect this idea through landscapes, where excessive negative space in the frame symbolizes despair, purposelessness, and solitude in human life. Most people live under the illusion that they are unique compared to the surroundings. This belief prevents them from feeling truly connected to nature.

 

Lalon once said, "He and Lalon exist together, yet they are separated by infinite distance." Even though humans exist within nature, they somehow remain detached from it. In my frames, vast negative spaces with tiny human figures symbolize this very detachment. Here, nature is immense, and humans are small—serving as a reminder that humanity is not any superior to nature.

 

The mist in my photographs enhances the minimalist effect, further detaching people from their surroundings. The presence of human-made structures in the background represents our ongoing struggle to prove our superiority. However, the blurred, barely visible architecture behind the fog reflects the failure of this pursuit. Humanity is trapped in this endless contradiction, deepening its existential despair. Meanwhile, the fog thickens, and the distance between humans and nature continues to grow.

   

Merry Christmas everyone! I saved a special snowflake for today, not just because of its size and balance, but because if it’s unique split crystal beginnings that I’ve never seen grow this large!

 

This snowflake’s humble beginnings started as a column-type crystal in warmer temperatures (maybe around -4C), but the temperature dropped and plates began to grow out of either side of the column. This “starting point” might be more common where I live, since we have lake-effect snow from Georgian Bay that has a lengthy journey before it gets to us. Normally lake-effect snow is quite ugly, but given the time to grow, you might see something like this on rare occasions.

 

How do I know this started as a column? The 2 o’clock and 8 o’clock branches are growing above the other four. This happens when the two competing plates on a column fight for water vapour, and certain corners for these parallel plates gain an advantage and grow out farther than its competitor. When any one corner “wins” and has a larger footprint than the other parallel corner, its growth accelerates. You can have snowflakes where one plate wins all six battles resulting in a gem-like “button” in the center, a 3-3 split, or any other combination. In this case, here’s a 2-4 split.

 

Here’s a much smaller split crystal that illustrates the idea, this one a 3-3 split: www.flickr.com/photos/donkom/24101186229/

 

The problem with these split crystals is that they inherently have a weak point right at the center. I had never previously seen one grow this big and remain intact with all of the original branches! Some of the outer branches might seem slightly darker, and this is because they have slightly broken and are at a minor different angle to the camera… yet the center held together!

 

When you get a split crystal this big, you also have the chance to observe overlapping branches. Compared to yesterday’s snowflake (www.flickr.com/photos/donkom/45723924044/) where branches meet up against each-other and sometimes fuse together, branches growing on different planes can overlap. For example, the bottom and bottom-right branches are starting to fuse together, but the bottom and bottom-left branches are free to grow over and under their neighbour. This adds complexity to the design and to my focus stacking efforts, but it’s worth it in the end!

 

With complex overlaps and a very inconsistent and cluttered background, this snowflake took roughly 12 hours to edit. A special effort for Christmas Day that I hope you all appreciate. :)

 

Curious to know exactly how I took this photo and more of the science behind how snowflakes form? Grab one of the very few remaining copies of Sky Crystals. About 30 left from the print run of 3000: www.skycrystals.ca/

Xander, a beautiful dog. Why is it that dogs are inherently more honest than humans?

 

Carmel, IN

2021

© James Rice, All Rights Reserved

Let them eat cake.

 

(Influenced by my dairy and its musings.)

 

As rejected by Global Photojournalism; Protest, Culture, and News . (No reason given).

 

To qualify this article l would like to go on the record that l have been instructed by some amazing teachers, all with academic titles. Furthermore, it must be said, that l have stated publicly, that l could not name, nor count, the number of exceptional teachers that have instructed me, because there where too many. This article is not about teachers, but a lack of exceptional ones. I personally find it distressing, because all children should be given the type of opportunity l had, and therefore a chance to defend themselves. This article is about a process, one that needs to be classified, and identified, with conscious critical thought. Critical thought involving observations. It involves observations that some of those with titles would or could be ignorant of. A situation, driven by those of systemic privileged, or those with ivory towers that render them unable to see.

All biological systems strive for survival, even small single cell organisms, like amoebas. They do it without seemingly thinking. But the difference between the amoebas, and the humans, is meant to be human thought, and human conciseness. Recently a new local high school was built in Shepparton Victoria Australia, and it was ironically named the super school. Already it has helped give the locals here an education, producing a lot of conscious contemplation among residents. It was the amalgamation of three out of three, or all the of the public high schools in the small city of Shepparton. Its construction left no options for some residents, and in the United States of America, criticism of schools like this new school, is commonplace. In the United States, the lack of choice as to where you can send your children in the public school system causes for some public debate. That debate now rages here, and for good reason. The results were highly predictable, with comparable results to that of America. The result has been that the police have been called repeatedly. There have been weapons, fights, and even the aspersion that a student suicide could be attributed to the new super school. Academic performance of the schools results are now unknown, as the education system now uses a sliding ruler, one that is remotely monitored by a now faceless group. It has resulted with any aspersion, that the school is a failure being foiled and deemed as a baseless slur. Some educated locals went into overdrive sighting personal responsibility of the individual and the lack there of, for some students and parents.

The defence of the hegemon, when the school had become a nightmare, for both the teachers and the Victorian Labour party, became a name and shame process directed at some locals, and their children. Some trying to defend the teacher’s union darling the Australian Labour party, which had help instigated the fiasco. A fiasco that was easily avoided if they had studied the American application of such schools. Was it ignorance? Was it Australian ego for the Victorian education board? Was it in the worst-case scenario, a deliberate act to produce a school that applied an American model? A model, that had historically repeatedly produced poor social outcomes. One that had already failed in the United States? If educated people, including some teachers where defending the super school, it raised the question, where were these teachers and educated people sending their children to be educated? Was it to the new super school? If it was, were they following the tried-and-true public-school scenario, of teachers and influential parents, making sure their children where in handpicked classes? Did they do as had been done before, making sure their children had handpicked teachers, and handpicked students for their children to study with, while the average people got the undesirables? Where they conscious of what they had given their children, or where they being deliberately ignorant? Because if it were found that they were guiding the lily for their children, what would be the public reaction?

How far some educated had shifted from sixties social liberal ideals; and it raises a lot of questions! Did they know what was happing? That it is happening? Where they unwittingly involved, blindsided by psychological drift? Psychological drift being a change so slow and gradual, that they were perceptually blindsided by ignorance, and or a lack of self-awareness. Did they not notice the change in their attitudes? Did they not critically look at what they were and are participating in? Or where they unwittingly led by mistaken ignorant logic? And in the worst-case scenario, was the new school planned? And where the resultant outcomes statistically inevitable, but desired?

This is an initial exploration of investigative journalism, on the outcomes of the worst-case scenario, and is based mostly on firsthand experience and observations. My apologies, for what may seem like a not so interesting picture. But the building in the picture resembles some of the prisons in which some of the students will go to serve sentences. It has been satirically joked, and it was not meant to be funny by some of the locals, that once they go to prison, they will be fully prepared. The building, and violence, will not be much different from the school, that they received their high school education in.

Most people are educated or warned of nepotism at high school, and or university. It is a self-serving process for those that teach it, as it helps classify hereditary royalty or Aristocracy as an exhausted, and or morally corrupt institution. But now this teaching, has become a matter of hypocrisy, for those that teach it. It helps define the institutionally educated as those that should control and distribute influence, because it is said, that they earned their positions via merit, and not via a process involving gross nepotism. Nepotism that is now openly practiced by the educated, when it comes to the education of their children, versus the education of the masses. Some openly fight, unquestioned, for causes that proactively push for their children, to be preferentially, and proactively treated like the children of people of aristocratic tittles were accused of. They even give themselves tittles at universities, letters before their names. It helps distinguish and make themselves distinct from ordinary people, or the new commoners. It even extends to those selected to represent them in the student bodies. But unlike the sixties student bodies that rallied against war, in the new higher education system student bodies, they actively participate in a new form of war.

It is now the new millennium, and there is a new form of warfare to avoid. It involves some people of title, but this is not an article on the aristocracy. It is no longer the song “The fortunate son,” sung by Creedence Clearwater Revival. A sixties song about the sons of the rich and influential not going to war. Now it is the fortune “academic,” the person who has a higher education. They and their children are mostly excluded, and do not have to go to war. I had previously reported that the new courthouse here in Shepparton Victoria Australia, was colloquially being called building B by some of the locals. It is B for Birkenau, and the name is partly why l write this. The other reason is that all the positions of power in building B, are held by people with academic titles. Titles involve in skewed eugenics and nepotism. The scenario faced is like “good cop, bad cop” tactics, but is applied by those with academic titles, not the police. It happens on multiple fronts. One such front is that large numbers of educated people openly promote or condone drug use, while others incarcerate as many as they can. Fifteen percent of all Australian prisoners are imprisoned on drug charges, out of approximately thirty thousand currently in jail, and many more are committed to psychiatric facilities because of it. If the objective of the educated was to reduce harm, they have abjectly failed, and the opposite has happened. Was it intentional? Where they trying to build a prison system as speculated by the band “The system of the down” in the “prison song.” And did The System of the down not see, or know, of the outcomes for those classified as ill, as they promoted in their song as an alternative? I once approached the subject on the Victorian Parliamentary Facebook page. In the description, l drew the analogy, that the incarceration, and medical treatment of individuals for drug use, was like Chinese re-education camps, and that they existed in Victoria, and they existed on an industrial scale.

Has this industrial scale of human processing, produced a form of unconscious time dependent opportunistic nepotism? Like amoebas, instead of critically thinking humans, had we all allowed it to happen? Had we all listened unquestioningly to the educated? And had it created a new form of nepotism. A form that helps the educated-on average, have their children precluded from a statistical death march. A process of prolonged involuntary distress, involving the battlefield of the court, the prison system, involuntary medical treatment and or classification. The result is, the children of the educated, on average get the better jobs, have better outcomes, have higher positions of power, and sway larger numbers of people behind their causes. The consideration of building B, and firsthand observations, raised the horrendous proposition of who needs a gas chamber, when you have statistics? The western world has in general shunned America for its seconded amendment, but a closer look at the west, even those countries without a second amendment of sorts, or an official death sentence, produced horrific observations. The realty is state sanctioned, systemic modern-day murder.

While at university l helped challenge the central dogma of biochemistry with prions, or the protein that causes mad cow disease. A bold effort, but l was young and idealistic. Amusingly it should also be noted that the lecturer l told it too, asked my permission to use it. He later taught me about a story of the two scientists Watson and Crick. As far as my memory servs me, he said, they had plied a French scientist’s son with alcohol, the result was his tongue loosened, and he talked about his father’s research. They subsequently wrote down what he divulged on a bar napkin. It was for the base pair arrangement of DNA (deoxyribose nucleic acid). And from it came the logical deduction for the final double helix model of DNA. Latter l would go on to joke, that Watson and Crick had won a noble prize in biochemistry. Not for the structure of DNA, but for the judicious application of a biochemical agent, or a neuron toxin, ethanol. I was being facetious. Despite some successes at university, it was hard for many reasons. Part of the experience of university was trying to theorise Protein specific proteases to combat the AIDS epidemic. Another was for the construction of proteins to treat the disease. As a result, l gained an appreciation of the complexities of medical treatment when it comes to who dies and who survives, and what role academics play in that process. The conclusion gained was that life and reality are quite brutal.

Academics already openly argue behavioural eugenics with psychiatric history, via genetic predisposition of psychiatric illness. Medical professionals in hospitals and criminal systems, universally practice it throughout Australia. A process that has been publicly shunned for occurring during the second world war, is practiced here in Australia, and the practise is commonplace. As a result, victims, and those suffering psychiatric illness are dosed with poison, and lives are ended prematurely. Slowly, chemically, euthanising thousands, with statistical outcomes. The statistics are, that many psychiatric medications cause on average premature death. Additionally, it is statistically observed that those taking most psychiatric medications are highly discouraged from conceiving, and or nurturing, an in-utero baby while taking their medication. Paradoxically psychiatric professionals discourage most people from stopping their medication; thus, a person is neutered with logic gates. On one hand, it is presumed that a person cannot stop taking their medication for their own safety, and or the safety of the public. And on the other hand, due to the birth defects or abnormalities associated with such medication, and for the sake of your baby, they say those classified, should not have children while being administered their medication. This process occurs for not adhering to the party line, not a political party line, but the new scientific line, one that involves a new group with titles. It is not ironic, that the rules of this process, are not in general being taught to the new commoners.…

Some of the new people with titles are the emperor with no cloths, and they cannot be questioned. l presume criminal history will be next here in Australia for the classification of genetic predisposition, after psychiatric predisposition has been fully fledged. A reborn process, for people of titles. One adopting the Chinese model of re-education camps, like those already here in the state of Victoria. An extension of the current medical model, of psychiatric treatment. A model for social conduct and classification involving social reward. A model that involves if you will have children or not. A process that relies on obeying the edicts of the new people of title.

Do these new people of title, wield absolute rule, as Justin Trudeau a high school teacher, and Canadian prime minister applied to his people for a brief time? It is a rhetorical question. He applied his title, like European aristocracy where stereotypically and historically accused of. By self-edict of law, he made his words unquestionable, and the words of new common people’s (those predominantly without academic titles) decent outlawed. Is this the new party line or the academic line, of pseudo pacifist proper gander? Is this what the new Aristocracy, or people of title do? Is this where you rely on the fallacy of lack of personal responsibility? An assumption involving privy knowledge, before socially engineering incidents via carefully worded classifications, and or, build a school that is most certainly bound to fail, and with it, classify whole blood lines educated in it, as inferior? Classifications using peer reviewed definitions. Peer reviewed definitions written ironically and hypocritically by those with new age titles. Articles which cannot be questioned by the new age commoner, but only by their academic peers. Once again it is rhetorical. All the while, they exclude their own children from the process, with their systemic peer derived privilege. It all sounds historically and remarkably familiar. And it happens while relying on the medical industry complex, and criminal industrial complex, for statistically predetermined social outcomes. It enables people to slowly but surely exterminate their undesirables. It is a proposition that has already happened and is currently happening.

The result is that via spurious association of genetic predisposition for behaviour, some families are being genetically classified, and weeded out via the behaviour of individuals in their families. Part of psychiatric dogma is to look for a family history of psychiatric illness then argue it is genetic. And that that genetic trait is no longer beneficial or needed. If one member of a family has had anything that could be classified as an incident, it is then argued that there is an increased chance of a genetically induced psychiatric incident or incidents happening in other family members. The result of such logic is the application of drugs, such as anti-psychotics, which on average drastically reduce the life span of the patient or victim. The medications, can, and are, forcefully administered, by people of new age titles. The additional subsequent logic gating, weight gain, and body odour causes the person to be seen as undesirable, or substandard, and lowers their chance of having children. The result is a death sentence for the patient, and a reduced chance of them having offspring. In the very least it is murder, if the diagnosis is wrong, and causes a slow, but sure reduction in the size of the victim’s family. As the application of this scientific dogma becomes more prevalent, or prolonged, the result is near genocide.

Personal statistical analysis of public psychiatric facilities is that they are full of people of lower education levels. But full of people that do not lack intellect. Why are the educated mostly excluded and deemed as being above it? They can afford both preferential systemic sympathetic medical representation, and systemic sympathetic legal representation, thus, avoiding the classification of being genetically substandard. Furthermore, those responsible for the classification and criminal punitive punishment of both criminal and psychiatric failings, are associated to those in academic institutions. It is a family operation, no different from the stereotype of aristocracy. When one of their own is brought before the court system, either in the medical or criminal court, it is raised that they are above average, and given on average, lower sentences, or even no sentences at all. They are deemed, as being inherently better than the average human, due to the letters or tittle before their name. It is a repeat of the stereotype of the old aristocratic system, of human classification. The current stereotype of those below the educated, is that they are being incarcerated, and medically treated, for both their good, and the safety of the public. So why are the educated spared more on average from this process, despite in cases committing the same crimes? I can identify no reason, other than their self-appointed peerage.

The observation is that behavioural eugenics, has turned to a practice of statistical genocide over an extended period, and it is a practice being mostly applied by the educated, and in favour of themselves. It is a statistical death march for some families. A prolonged process that involves the application of self-serving statistics, and a classification that ends in the lower chance of reproduction for selected individuals, and the increased chance of a family’s genetics being branded as dangerous or substandard. Thus, it negates any responsibility of having enabled the elimination of that family’s or group’s blood line, or in the very least, part of it, because it was, and is said, to be for the greater good. It is for the “uber alles,” but has nothing to do with German nationalism, and as it stands, it is predominantly males in the groups of families. Leaving the females on average in those families as breeders for those deemed as genetically worthy. Genetically worthy for the last 20 years has been those that had drugs, or those that had an education and there for had money. Those that had drugs, and there for a higher chance for reported psychiatric and criminal incidents, could break the nuclear family rule, but they walked a fine line. In breaking the law, they put their families or the males in their families on lists for slow, undetectable state sanctioned extermination. On the other hand, those with cash and an education, could break the nuclear family rule, having more than two children in an already overpopulated world. Both scenarios being state encouraged with government subsidies.

As an Australian, l found, and find, this scenario highly ironic. If the scenario were not real, it would be satire. It is shocking in its irony because the Australian colony was originally populated with predominantly criminals. According to the new eugenics line of thought, all Australian families, other than new arrivals carry as per the eugenics line of thought, a predisposition, of genetically predetermined behaviour, one that is now being openly classified, as a genetic trait. Doubly ironic, is the historical fact, that they even sent unwilling females from England, who were upon arrival, to be bred with no choice in the matter like cattle, and to service those men deemed as worthy. Nothing in the Australian colony, a previous penal colony, seems to have changed too much, just the family names of the families with titles or letters before their names now differ. And instead of hanging you, they now classify you, and your family, as a genetic medical issue, or defect. A medical issue to be slowly euthanised for the benefit, and protection of society, and the greater good.

The only consideration that this worst-case scenario leaves me with, is have the educated hit the philosophical slippery slope, or have they just thrown the new commoners down it? Creating a caste system via an education system. An education system, skewed in the favour of those with new age titles. An education system, giving systemic preferential treatment too those with new age titles, and their children. Is the new commoner’s child starved of an education? A quality education? One which is now harder for my geographical neighbours to find. An education, which helps prevent their public-school child or children, and their family, from a statistically higher chance, of a state sanctioned, and a state sponsored statistical death march. A march, that begins, and ends, in a trip to building B. A trip, with a higher chance of genocide at the end. And as it stands, my neighbours are being told,” let them eat cake!”

 

Alpspitze, Germany, June 2024

 

On Control in Landscape Photography

 

Fortunate are the photographers who find themselves in the right place at the right time, capturing that magical moment when everything seems to fall into place. In landscape photography, we cannot control the weather, the light, or the elements. We can only prepare, hope for the best, and work with what actually happens, accepting the unpredictability of the environment. That's trivial. But can we conclude anything else from this?

 

There is this idea that almost forces itself upon us: surrender the desire to control things, abandon your ego that stands in your way, allow things to unfold, find comfort in submission to something beyond you and greater than yourself, and consequently allow yourself to be led by it. This idea seems to be quite popular, one that surely accompanied countless artists to peak performance. Among them perhaps even legends we admire, whose authority seems undeniable through their success.

 

Despite this, it is not a perspective I share. Obviously, I accept my limits as a human being. But that is not my point. It is precisely the focus on the dynamics of control and submissive desire in the creative process that really bothers me. In my opinion, our natural limits do not indicate the need for deception regarding our mind-blowing and incredible capacity to be inherently creative from within — because we are nothing short of miraculous (sorry for sounding cringy). By embracing and celebrating both our abilities to appreciate and create beauty, the question of control becomes generally irrelevant, even though it may still bother us from time to time. Of course, this is just my personal view.

 

So, how does reflecting on these kinds of things help anyone become a better photographer? Ultimately, it doesn't matter where anyone stands on the question of dealing with our limits. But I’d like to think that by critically examining our motivations and viewpoints, we can deepen our engagement with our art. Understanding the psychological dynamics at play could lead to more intentional and meaningful creative expression.

 

This is my approach, but who knows, maybe I’m overthinking.

Dense thickets of Chinese privet on the wetlands of Burnt Fork Creek.

 

South Peachtree Creek Trail

DeKalb County (Medlock Park), Georgia, USA.

6 December 2022.

 

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▶ "Many plants in our park were brought here from other places or escaped from a garden or yard. No plant is inherently bad, but some are better suited for certain environments than others. Chinese Privet (Lingustrum sinense), year-round and evergreen, was introduced as an ornamental shrub. It forms dense thickets and shades out other shrubs. Each plant can produce thousands of seeds and also reproduces by sucker growth from its roots."

— Trail placard.

 

▶"It is estimated that Chinese privet now occupies over one million hectares of land across 12 states ranging from Virginia to Florida and west to Texas, and is listed as an invasive plant."

— Wikipedia.

 

▶"Chinese privet forms clusters of green berries turning purple in fall. The fleshy blue fruits, less than a quarter-inch in diameter, contain a hard seed. In winter, plants will often retain a few leaves and the purple berries are prominent. [The berries are toxic for mammals but consumed by birds.]"

— Project Noah.

 

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▶ Photo by Yours For Good Fermentables.com.

▶ For a larger image, type 'L' (without the quotation marks).

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▶ Camera: Olympus OM-D E-M10 II.

— Lens: Olympus M.40-150mm F4.0-5.6 R.

— Edit: Photoshop Elements 15, Nik Collection.

▶ Commercial use requires explicit permission, as per Creative Commons.

Peter Goldthorpe "Inside the Snowdome" (right)

Oil on linen.

153 x 138 cms

 

Joshua Andree "Storm Bay (Brought to you by)" (left)

Oil on canvas

122 x 153 cms

 

These two blue paintings each tell a moody story. Peter Goldthorpe has just been announced the 2021 Glover Prize People's Choice winner, based on a popular vote. www.examiner.com.au/story/7166345/tasmanian-artists-win-b...

 

Peter's work is a view of Cradle Mountain from the western side (one not often seen in photographs):

"On this day I was enjoying the wild nip of winter and the tracery of snow on the plants but disappointed not to be seeing anything beyond fifty metres. With the easing of the wind, came an opening of the scene, before it was swallowed once more by blizzard."

 

Joshua's work is of the iconic Storm Bay in southern Tasmania. Part of this is used for salmon farming and is an essential part of Tasmania's relatively small economy. Joshua writes:

"The Atlantic salmon industry in Tasmania is worth an estimated 497 million dollars annually. 497 million is the dollar value that is placed upon the purchase of an ageless landscape. It would be easy to paint a nice landscape of Storm Bay with pretty blue sky and puffy clouds reflected in calm waters. But it's not that. It's a complex environment with rich cultural and social history. Further, it is inherently scarred by the presence of pens that just don't belong. An eloquent allegory for the presence in the landscape of those and their ancestors who impart them."

The Kaigeru were a rare Rahi that inhabited the islands of Metru Nui and later Mata Nui, as well as the caverns of the Great Spirit, and now reside in the deserts and canyons of New Spherus Magna.

 

They are hunters of smaller Rahi, but are known to be very gentle towards Matoran or Agori that wander into their territory.

 

While traditionally seen as loners, they are actually pack animals. They often hunt in very loose packs, and an observer would be forgiven for thinking they were seeing only one of the animals in an area. When they need to work together, however, they quickly band together to act as one brutally effective killing unit, capable of taking down larger prey or defending themselves from huge predators.

 

They are partially related to the Muaka Cats, but are inherently smaller, leaner, and faster.

youtu.be/crHvWsFVeD4

 

God in Islam

 

Islamic conception of God

In Islam, God (Arabic: ٱللَّٰه‎, romanized: Allāh, contraction of ٱلْإِلَٰه al-Ilah, lit. "the God") is the only one deity of absolute oneness, uniqueness, and perfection, free from all faults, deficiencies and defects; who is omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, and completely infinite in all of His attributes, who has no partner or equal, being the creator of everything in existence. Islam emphasizes that God is strictly singular; unique; inherently One; and also all-merciful and all-compassionate, whose mercy embraces everything; Who neither slumbers nor sleeps, nor is obnoxious to decay nor death. Islamic theology confirms that Allah (God) has no body, no gender (neither male nor female), and there is absolutely nothing like Him in any way whatsoever. Therefore, Islam rejects the doctrine of the incarnation and the notion of a personal god as anthropomorphic, because it is seen as demeaning to the transcendence of God. The Qur'an prescribes the fundamental transcendental criterion in the following verse: "There is nothing whatever like Him" [Qur'an 42:11]. Therefore, Islam strictly and categorically rejects all forms of anthropomorphism and anthropopathism of the concept of God. Thus, the Qur'an says: "Do you know any similar (or anyone else having the same Name or attributes/qualities, which belong) to Him?" [Qur'an 19:65].

wikiwiki

  

PRAISE THE LORD...💖💖💖

This was a fun image to stage, with a bit of a “long game” approach: the mantis is a captive specimen since it was born, I suppose you can almost call it a “pet”. I feed it flies I catch in the house, and I’ll release it once it reaches adulthood. Until then, I’ll periodically use it in photographs like this. Mantises are particularly well suited for this type of image because their nature is to sit perfectly still and await their prey; they are an ambush predator.

 

The water droplet was placed with a hypodermic needle on a dandelion seed, and the whole stage can be seen in this behind-the-scenes image: donkom.ca/bts/_1091740.jpg . Two flashlights, one illuminating the flower in the background and one the petal and mantis in the foreground. The position of the lights is critical, such that very little light directly illuminates the dandelion seed. A few strands catch the light, but it would be a major distraction of they were all bright white. In this setup, the petal is acting like a lighting flag to create a pocket of shadow on the seed itself.

 

While I sit in my studio and I tinker with these sunflowers, I cannot escape mourning the heroes in Ukraine. This past week has been particularly miserable. Putin’s forces tortured and murdered 50 Ukrainian POWs in a deliberate thermobaric explosion and went on to blame Ukrainian missile attacks. The Russian Embassy in the UK tweeted “The fighters of Azov deserve to be executed, not by firing squad, but by hanging, because they aren’t real soldiers. They deserve a humiliating death,” – which they claim was said by a couple in Mariupol, backpedalling to find a way to speak terrorism and blame someone else.

 

There’s no other way to say it: Russia is a terrorist state. Latvia and Lithuania, both NATO members, have made official declarations to label Russia this way, and it can have a dramatic effect on public policy. At the extreme, such a declaration can mean zero diplomatic relations, zero trade, and zero travel / tourism allowed. Why haven’t more countries done this? Well, it’s complicated.

 

If Germany wanted to officially label Russia a state sponsoring terrorism, it would inherently need to halt all dealings that would benefit that terrorist state – including the purchase of oil and gas. Much of Europe isn’t ready for that yet, as making such a declaration would cause intense socio-economic strife. But what about other nations – the United States? Canada? Australia? All countries that are directly supporting the efforts of Ukraine to fight for its sovereignty, and are not critically dependent on Russian energy… it’s time. Make it official: call Russia a terrorist nation. As citizens of these countries, we should write to our elected officials to push this message harder. If you’re wondering how to help Ukraine amidst the continued conflict, that’s a great place to start.

 

What’s to come next? I am reminded how “expensive” a city like Moscow is to run. It’s more than 700km from international waters and has infertile soil. No other city of its kind exists, and the reasons for its existence is somewhat evil. Russian culture and politics create a “wealth vacuum” in the western republics. For example, if you’re the manager of mine, you don’t live in that community. You live in Moscow. None of the benefits of higher income make their way back to the community, no economic growth, no expensive real estate. The republics stay impoverished and uneducated as Moscow rules. You can draw parallels to the government and society depicted in The Hunger Games.

 

Cut off the exports of natural resources and you cut off the wealth. In a country where the primary GDP comes from an exploitative energy sector, the funds required for the current Moscovian lifestyle would disappear. During the Roman Empire, Rome was largely fed by Northern Africa. When Rome fell in the Fifth Century, the area was largely abandoned because the area itself was not able to sustain the population. It would be nearly a thousand years through the Dark Ages and the Renaissance before the population of Rome would become significant again.

 

This image is titled “Through the Looking Glass”, so here we are – my prediction. If the world cuts off all trade with Russia, Moscow will become unsustainable almost immediately. There will be a popular uprising across all economic classes, and Russia will fall. With a despot at the helm, it will not fall gracefully, but rather writhing and screaming. The exact happenings at this point are uncertain, but the fall of the Soviet Union may give us some clues. There were a lot of “ASSRs” – Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republics, and according to the constitution of the USSR they could hold referendums to leave the union. Many of these are now republics within Russia, others became their own sovereign nations.

 

Republics within Russia may wish to break apart to form smaller nations around pockets of natural resources. Take a look at Tomsk Oblast, as an example – a region roughly the size of Poland. The average salary of a person in this region of Siberia is around USD$700/month, roughly one third of comparable wages in Moscow. Tomsk, however, extremely rich in oil and gas and home to Tomskneft, one of the largest oil and gas companies in the nation. My gut feeling here is that if Moscow falls, the oligarchs will decentralize, forming smaller nations based on ethnicity/culture but also around the corporate power and republic/oblast borders currently in place. This will be unstable for a very long time, but Russians would then be fighting amongst themselves.

 

You came here for a photograph, but you kept reading my geopolitical ramblings. I appreciate you. Слава Україні!

She's there - under a gathering of dancing bokeh that adds a touch of magic to the frame. Her face, lit by brilliant light, shines in its own wisdom. The negative space moves her forward in the frame giving back some depth the camera inherently removes. The choice of high contrast in post adds drama with the light and hides unnecessary elements in the dark giving full attention to her.

 

www.roxanneoverton.com – where you will find more photography and information on my instructional and travel series photography books.

 

While studying photography in Pathshala, I developed new technical and aesthetic skills at an academic level and gained a fresh perspective on seeing the world around me. However, I still felt that something was missing. That missing piece was the ability to articulate aesthetics through language and to experience aesthetics with the basis of life itself.

 

During this time, I developed a deep desire to understand philosophy. Within a few months, I decided to pursue academic studies in philosophy. There were two main reasons behind this decision: first, to gain knowledge of philosophy, and second, to reshape my photographic view point through a philosophical angle—essentially, to integrate aesthetics with philosophy.

 

As I delved into this complex subject, I found myself particularly influenced by three philosophical ideologies: the philosophy of Nihilism, Engels and Marx’s materialism, and Gautama Buddha’s theory of Functionalism. These perspectives began shaping my understanding of life, humanity, society, and aesthetics. My way of seeing the world started to transform.

 

Nihilism and materialist philosophy argue that humans are not a special species. According to Buddha, life itself is full of suffering. Since humans are not inherently special and life has no predetermined purpose, people often experience restlessness. My photographs reflect this idea through landscapes, where excessive negative space in the frame symbolizes despair, purposelessness, and solitude in human life. Most people live under the illusion that they are unique compared to the surroundings. This belief prevents them from feeling truly connected to nature.

 

Lalon once said, "He and Lalon exist together, yet they are separated by infinite distance." Even though humans exist within nature, they somehow remain detached from it. In my frames, vast negative spaces with tiny human figures symbolize this very detachment. Here, nature is immense, and humans are small—serving as a reminder that humanity is not any superior to nature.

 

The mist in my photographs enhances the minimalist effect, further detaching people from their surroundings. The presence of human-made structures in the background represents our ongoing struggle to prove our superiority. However, the blurred, barely visible architecture behind the fog reflects the failure of this pursuit. Humanity is trapped in this endless contradiction, deepening its existential despair. Meanwhile, the fog thickens, and the distance between humans and nature continues to grow.

   

NOSHING

Hot Dogs Are the Greatest American Jewish Food. Here’s Why.

 

American hot dogs are a true immigrant success story.

 

BY JOEL HABER | JUNE 11, 2020

American Jewish food is most typically defined as pastrami sandwiches, chocolate babka, or bagels and lox. But I am here to argue that the greatest American Jewish food may actually be the humble hot dog. No dish better embodies the totality of the American Jewish experience.

 

What’s that you say? You didn’t know that hot dogs were a Jewish food? Well, that’s part of the story, too.

 

Sausages of many varieties have existed since antiquity. The closest relatives of the hot dog are the frankfurter and the wiener, both American terms based on their cities of origin (Frankfurt and Vienna respectively). So what differentiates a hot dog from other sausages? The story begins in 19th century New York, with two German-Jewish immigrants.

 

In 1870, Charles Feltman sold Frankfurt-style pork-and-beef sausages out of a pushcart in Coney Island, Brooklyn. Sausages not being the neatest street food, Feltman inserted them into soft buns. This innovative sausage/bun combo grew to be known as a hot dog (though Feltman called them Coney Island Red Hots).

 

Two years later, Isaac Gellis opened a kosher butcher shop on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. He soon began selling all-beef versions of German-style sausages. Beef hot dogs grew into an all-purpose replacement for pork products in kosher homes, leading to such classic dishes as Franks & Beans or split pea soup with hot dogs. Though unknown whether Gellis was the originator of this important shift, he certainly became one of the most successful purveyors.

 

Like American Jews, the hot dog was an immigrant itself that quickly changed and adapted to life in the U.S. As American Jewry further integrated into society, the hot dog followed.

 

In 1916, Polish-Jewish immigrant Nathan Handwerker opened a hotdog stand to compete with Charles Feltman, his former employer. Feltman’s had grown into a large sit-down restaurant, and Handwerker charged half the price by making his eatery a “grab joint.” (The term fast food hadn’t yet been invented, but it was arguably Handwerker who created that ultra-American culinary institution.)

 

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Our evening sunset stroll. 🌇 @jotaciambotti

A post shared by Nathan's Famous (@originalnathans) on Mar 29, 2020 at 4:30pm PDT

Nathan’s Famous conquered the hot dog world. Like so many of his American Jewish contemporaries, Handwerker succeeded via entrepreneurship and hard work. His innovative marketing stunts included hiring people to eat his hot dogs while dressed as doctors, overcoming public fears about low-quality ingredients. While his all-beef dogs were not made with kosher meat, he called them “kosher-style,” thus underscoring that they contained no horse meat. Gross.

 

The “kosher-style” moniker was another American invention. American Jewish history, in part, is the story of a secular populace that embraced Jewish culture while rejecting traditional religious practices. All-beef hotdogs with Ashkenazi-style spicing, yet made from meat that was not traditionally slaughtered or “kosher”, sum up the new Judaism of Handwerker and his contemporaries.

 

Furthermore, American Jewry came of age alongside the industrial food industry. The hot dog also highlights the explosive growth of the kosher supervision industry (“industrial kashrut”).

 

Hebrew National began producing hot dogs in 1905. Their production methods met higher standards than were required by law, leading to their famous advertising slogan, “We Answer to a Higher Authority.”

 

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No matter how busy the school year gets, there’s always time for hot dogs made with 100% kosher beef.

A post shared by HebrewNational (@hebrewnational_) on Sep 25, 2017 at 2:44pm PDT

While the majority of Americans may be surprised to hear this, Hebrew National’s self-supervised kosher-ness was not actually accepted by more stringent Orthodox and even Conservative Jews at the time. But non-Jews, believing kosher dogs were inherently better, became the company’s primary market. Eventually, Hebrew National received the more established Triangle-K kashrut supervision, convincing the Conservative Movement to accept their products. Most Orthodox Jews, however, still don’t accept these hot dogs as kosher.

 

But over the last quarter of the 20th century in America, the Orthodox community has gained prominence and their opinions, and food preferences, hold more weight in the food industry.

 

The community’s stricter kashrut demands and sizable purchasing power created a viable market, and glatt kosher hot dogs hit the scene. Abeles & Heymann, in business since 1954, was purchased in 1997 by current owner Seth Leavitt. Meeting the demands of the Orthodox community’s increasingly sophisticated palate, their hot dogs are gluten-free with no filler. Recently, they’ve begun producing a line of uncured sausages, and the first glatt hot dogs using collagen casing.

 

Glatt kosher dogs can now be purchased in nearly thirty different sports arenas and stadiums. American Jews have successfully integrated into their society more than any other in history. So too, the hot dog has transcended its humble New York Jewish immigrant roots to enter the pantheon of true American icons. So when you bite into your hot dog this summer, you are really getting a bite of American Jewish history, and the great American Jewish food.

45/52

 

There’s something inherently brave about dreaming. Society tells us dreams are intangible, hence being dreams. They are simply untouchable aspirations, a fantasy of sorts.

 

And in this spectrum we spend our whole lives doing what is asked of us. We wonder why are we feeding toxic friendships that destroy the ship of us, or why we are still holding on to a relationship that is but able to torn away all good that it has been in the past, when we simply see there’s no more future, instead of following our hearts, and guarding it with all the power we can gather. We wonder why we did pick a college degree we felt to have nothing in common with our heart and mind, because no respectable person is without a college degree. We have felt discomfort all our lives because we do not know how to handle big crowds or made up conversation just because most people find silence too uncomfortable to bear or too loud to stand, and to be quiet is not way to behave if we want to fit in. We have swept sadness under the rugs of our lives, because to feel sad is to carry demons and that is such a dangerous thing.

 

But ain’t all of that utter bullshit? You know what is truly dangerous? To forget we have power. Any kind of power. And the power to dream and to make those dreams a reality is one of the strongest ones. Through all the sadness under the rug, the inability to always fit in, through the loneliness and hardcore happiness, through broken fellowships and broken hearts, to dream is what saves us always. It’s what makes me pick up a camera. What sometimes makes me get out of bed. It’s what makes me laugh out loud with Balu’s silliness or helplessly fall broken because I love a little too much every time. Because I dream and I make it fill me up with hope it becomes so pure that there’s no other way than for it to come true.

 

So I dream and dream. I dare and I take my chances and hope the path I end up trailing is the one I am made for, and if not I’ll dream of another one to heal my mended heart and let me continue my journey. 💫

As previously mentioned, I readily admit that I'm an inherently lazy photographer, Ninety percent of what I shoot is from the front seat of my Dodge Ram!

 

I have spent the last couple of mornings photographing various herons and kingfishers at a local pond. This Red-winged Blackbird immediately decided to befriend me. The first morning, it was mostly sitting on the truck doing a lot of singing, today the bird has been going in and out of the windows, checking what's going on in the truck. I'm not opposed to the company, but this stupid bird has only one song in its repertoire, and its loud!

This is Queensland’s Channel Country, where flooding rains and devastating droughts are part of western Queensland life. This region is part of the arid centre of Australia. At least several thousand years have passed since the inland had a wetter climate. The landscape reflects this aridity and the contrasts can be striking.

 

Change and unpredictability are the main features of the climate, causing erratic swings from drought to plenty. Major rains can transform the landscape from appearing dry and dead to being lush and green in only a few days.

 

Plant cover varies dramatically with both land type and climate events. Frequent and severe droughts are common, normal, and expected. They are a fact of life for inland Australia and play an important role in the evolution of the landscape.

 

Plants of the arid lands have evolved in different ways to survive the climatic extremes and harsh conditions. Some resist drought by using little water, and others avoid it by only germinating in sustained wet times.

 

The gradual erosion of the gibber plains and tablelands replenishes the sand of the dunes. This process has been going on for tens of thousands of years and will continue for many more.

 

There is a wide variety of land uses and land users in the region. Land uses include pastoralism, petroleum exploration and production, conservation, and tourism. A major concern for land managers throughout the arid region is that these land uses do not accelerate the natural landscape processes.

 

The Diamantina, Cooper and Eyre Creeks dominate the Channel Country, flowing from the Northern Territory and Queensland into South Australia. These major intermittent streams and their floodplains are interlaced with dune fields, forming an enormous system of swamps, lakes, and waterholes. These streams flow less frequently further south, often not reaching Lake Eyre.

 

There are numerous salt lakes, including the very large Lake Frome, Callabonna, Gregory, Blanche, and Eyre. All are usually dry. Fillings of the large lakes are occasional and irregular. Some, for example the southern portion of Lake Eyre, have a heavy salt crust.

 

The district is extremely viable and dominated by three main land types; the "hard" country of the stony tablelands and downs; the sand dune fields of the major Simpson, Tirari, and Strzelecki Deserts; and the floodplains, channels and temporary lakes of the major river systems. Minor land types include arid ranges and salt lakes.

 

The stone-covered downs are gently rolling, with small slopes and well defined drainage lines. The stones are remnants of ancient soil surfaces. It is these stones on the surface, not the spare plant cover, which provide protection against soil erosion. Within this land type are other landscapes, flat or gently undulating, with little or no stone cover. This land type relies on plant cover from erosion protection, rather than the stony "armour".

 

Tableland with an intact stone or plant cover is inherently stable, though the erosion which follows removal of this cover is often serious and irreversible.

 

Source: plaque.

i got back from mississippi last night, a couple of hours late, but what's new? the plane got tied up on the way to houston, so we were laid over for a bit longer. at least i didn't have to work today. i have been intermittently unpacking, talking to my overjoyed cats, vacuuming up cat hair, editing photos from my trip, and flickr-ing.

 

it's thirty degrees colder here, which is inherently disappointing, but i'm home, in my own space, and i could eat whatever i want (if only i had some food) and play the music i please (i just compiled a playlist of the women artists on my computer and it is shamefully short in comparison) and i don't have to see anyone but my cats and my boy.

 

tomorrow it's back to the grind. then wednesday, the beginning of the end. i start at the university of california. i will have to force myself apart from this to concentrate on all those papers i'm going to have to write. oh boy.

It has been since 2010 the last time we saw Ghostbusters on this photostream, and I felt that needed to be fixed!

www.flickr.com/photos/thebritishbafoon/5083888918/

 

Holy smokes, this set is incredible! I haven't had this much fun with one of TLG's sets since... since like... a long time! I had a blast reliving the memories of watching the film for the first time (I watched it with the build) and despite making some minor tweaks to the figs, I really had nothing inherently bad to say about this model.

 

Anyway, I was so impressed with the car that I went a bit out of my norm to shoot her and the figs :)

View all of Sean's artworks on his Website, Instagram, Facebook Page, or see them full size in his Gallery

 

With the human body comprised of positive and negative ions, it’s not surprising that standing near a waterfall will leave you feeling replenished. Over-exposure to positive ions can affect our magnetic field and drain our energy, making us feel tired and lethargic. However, water in motion, like that of a waterfall, produces abundant negative ions, creating energy and vitality.

 

It’s this release of negative ions that helps explain why it feels so good to walk in the woods, on a beach, or near a river. It’s the reason that breathing in the fresh air after it rains or inhaling clear air in the mountains feels so good. It’s this good feeling that continuously draws me back to waterfalls - a never-ending quest to photograph more of them. Whether it’s the negative ions or the immersion in mother nature - I constantly feel physically pulled towards waterfalls.

 

On this particular day, I was off-roading and hunting for interesting waterfalls when I came around the corner and stumbled upon this one. Waterfalls, one of my favourite things to photograph, are inherently unique and also allow me to apply artistic creativity in regards to the moving water. This waterfall was nicely tucked in the background, and it flowed down into the foreground on the right-hand corner of the image. I decided to compose this shot as a narrow vertical panorama because the waterfall needed to be dramatic. Fascinating to me, and the contrast I hoped to capture, was the striking difference between the power of rushing water at the top of the waterfall, and then following a 30 foot drop, was a calm, delicate, meandering stream.

 

The Hidden Gem reminds me that it is important to find these hidden treasures by exploring in nature, and spending time to recharge. It is much easier to find more energy when I get back-to-basics, consciously working to move further away from the hustle-and-bustle of the day-to-day grind. Taking time to be mindful, and adhering to the fundamental principles of simplistic living, I increase my ability to concentrate on clear, important ideas or activities.

 

I find new perspective in my pursuit of a simple, intentional life. Living simply includes adventures like being in the woods with my family with only the items we need to survive - and my cameras of course! I feel free, clear-minded, and liberated being able to explore wherever I’d like to and for as long as I want.

 

There's beautiful things, where we somehow convinced ourselves that there's something good about them. Often without knowing what exactly it is.

 

And then there's things that are inherently useful for something, and I mean something that's relevant in and of itself. Or interesting in a way where you wonder, how does that even work? Or even if you don't wonder how - after all what's that knowledge gonna be good for in your reality - recognize it as a minor miracle that it works. Like the fact there's room for a brain capable of maintaining controlled flight in the head of a bee. Or how there's functional nerves and muscles in its legs, that are just a tiny fraction of a millimeter thick in total.

 

Frankly, that impresses me a lot more than a pretty flower or things like that. With their tendency to display perfect symmetry and all that, assuming their growth went unhindered, they're designed "closer to the metal" of the universal computer. But that too sounds more like the "interesting" category of things. Or maybe like a place where the lines between the two get blurred.

 

Only, then again, to that bee, the same flower would be highly useful of course. Perhaps the concept of beauty is just the acknowledgement, that someone else probably has a use for this, and therefor, I'm grateful it exists. In a way, that would mean beautiful things are, in reality, ugly? Doesn't ring very true either.

The populist political movement grew out of the late 19th century. Its aim was to demand that government play a larger and more proactive role in the lives of ordinary people. As formed in the U.S., it was a coalition of the grange movement of farmers along with labor unionists. They sought to expand the role of the federal government. They felt in a representative democracy, one which ostensibly drew its power and legitimacy from the population by their vote, must do more than make treaties, wage wars, control interstate commerce, and levy taxes. They believed the power of the government could and should be used as a shield of protection of the least powerful citizens. Also that minorities of all ilk, should be protected from the tyranny of the majority.

There is too, another much darker side to political movements which lay claim to populism. This is a movement, not with the plaintive cry of the oppressed, but rather one with the strident call of would be oppressors. A movement that says, on one hand, that the government must be reduced in size and scope, and ‘removed’ from the backs of its citizens, and on the other hand, that it should be empowered to seek out and punish the enemies of the people both foreign and domestic. It is the politics of of the scapegoat. It is the politics of vilification of the other. It is the politics that appeal to the very worst angels of our nature.

Democracies are strong, but inherently fragile creations. They gather their strength from a majority opinion, that both civilization and civility are worth preserving. Is there here in this world, any modern industrial democratic nation state that is further away than 1 fire in the Reichstag, from the fall into totalitarianism?

Danger, do not dig.

 

This is the Plocton lighthouse which sits on a small island called funnily enough Eilean a'Chait. Getting this image nearly ended in disaster for my camera gear.

As soon as I saw this lovely wee island and light house I was determined to try and get across to the near Island somehow at high tide, so I borrowed a tiny sit on kayak and balanced my gear on the top and started to paddle towards the nearest island when I discovered that a kneeling position with my 16 stone + gear was inherently unstable and combined with some small waves I just made it without capsizing much to Tory's surprise.

I am definitely wanting to go back but with a proper dingy next time.

Please feel free to critique or comment as your thought and opinions are always much appreciated

 

This was filmed here and I thinks its brilliant so have a listen

www.youtube.com/watch?v=vS5BKdhebtk

Location: Lugano, Switzerland

 

This week's highlight is earlier than usual because of Christmas.

It's also somewhat more normal than most other highlights.

This is one of the lowest Swiss plates I've ever spotted, something inherently cool, especially in TI.

 

TI = Ticino

This unique amphibian, which Darwin himself cited as an example of organ reduction through disuse, inhabits karstic caves of Central Europe, a very delicate habitat highly sensitive to extrinsic pollutants from agriculture. It's inherently fragmented habitat, together with the illegal collection of individuals for pet trade and our struggle to understand how water is purified in karstic systems have resulted in the plummeting of Proteus populations in the wild. Consequently, the olm (Proteus anguinus) has been the objective of several conservation plans, dating as back as 1922 in its natal Slovenia, and several laboratories from around the world have joined forces to save this valuable species from extinction.

Those who have seen my last couple of postings (Red-bellied Woodpeckers and Starling) may recognize the stump.

 

I have now visited this spot in the woods for the last week, spent 4-6 hours sitting in the Ram (yes, I'm inherently lazy) and have taken about 12,000 images.

 

However, the action was unreal. I will share a number of "stump" images in the next few days. To me its a lesson in patience - pick a spot and the birds will come.

 

To my friends on Flickr, a little patience - only a couple more postings and I move on!

Epic Fine Art Laguna Beach Victoria Beach Sunset LAndscape Seascape: The Golden Ratio in Dr. Elliot McGucken's Fine Art Photography: Nikon D810

 

More on my golden ratio musings: facebook.com/goldennumberratio

instagram.com/goldennumberratio

 

Greetings all! I have been busy finishing a few books on photography, while traveling all over--to Zion and the Sierras--shooting fall colors. Please see some here: facebook.com/mcgucken

instagram.com/elliotmcgucken

 

Let me know in the comments if you would like a free review copy of one of my photography books! :)

 

Titles include:

The Tao of Epic Landscape Photography: Exalt Fine Art with the Yin-Yang Wisdom of Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching!

 

The Golden Number Ratio Principle: Why the Fibonacci Numbers Exalt Beauty and How to Create PHI Compositions in Art, Design, & Photography

 

And I am also working on a book on photographing the goddesses! :) More goddesses soon!

 

Best wishes on your epic hero's odyssey!:)

 

The Golden Number Ratio Principle: Dr. E’s Golden Ratio Principle: Why the Fibonacci Numbers Exalt Beauty: 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, thusly providing symmetry over not only space but time, and exalting life’s foundational dynamic symmetry. Robust, ordered, symmetric 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 the arrangement of nature’s discrete 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 they and all their vital sustenance, as well as all the flowers and nature’s epic beauty, had been created—the golden ratio.

While studying photography in Pathshala, I developed new technical and aesthetic skills at an academic level and gained a fresh perspective on seeing the world around me. However, I still felt that something was missing. That missing piece was the ability to articulate aesthetics through language and to experience aesthetics with the basis of life itself.

 

During this time, I developed a deep desire to understand philosophy. Within a few months, I decided to pursue academic studies in philosophy. There were two main reasons behind this decision: first, to gain knowledge of philosophy, and second, to reshape my photographic view point through a philosophical angle—essentially, to integrate aesthetics with philosophy.

 

As I delved into this complex subject, I found myself particularly influenced by three philosophical ideologies: the philosophy of Nihilism, Engels and Marx’s materialism, and Gautama Buddha’s theory of Functionalism. These perspectives began shaping my understanding of life, humanity, society, and aesthetics. My way of seeing the world started to transform.

 

Nihilism and materialist philosophy argue that humans are not a special species. According to Buddha, life itself is full of suffering. Since humans are not inherently special and life has no predetermined purpose, people often experience restlessness. My photographs reflect this idea through landscapes, where excessive negative space in the frame symbolizes despair, purposelessness, and solitude in human life. Most people live under the illusion that they are unique compared to the surroundings. This belief prevents them from feeling truly connected to nature.

 

Lalon once said, "He and Lalon exist together, yet they are separated by infinite distance." Even though humans exist within nature, they somehow remain detached from it. In my frames, vast negative spaces with tiny human figures symbolize this very detachment. Here, nature is immense, and humans are small—serving as a reminder that humanity is not any superior to nature.

 

The mist in my photographs enhances the minimalist effect, further detaching people from their surroundings. The presence of human-made structures in the background represents our ongoing struggle to prove our superiority. However, the blurred, barely visible architecture behind the fog reflects the failure of this pursuit. Humanity is trapped in this endless contradiction, deepening its existential despair. Meanwhile, the fog thickens, and the distance between humans and nature continues to grow.

   

Late yesterday afternoon, the clouds began to look like this. They reminded me of the way clouds would sometimes look in the middle of summer in Michigan, usually before a rain. There is something inherently dramatic looking about these kinds of clouds, especially so late in the day, shortly before the sun sinks behind the horizon.

 

So I grabbed my DSLR and got several different shots of the clouds in the sky. This is one of the better ones to see if you can't see them in person.

This is Queensland’s Channel Country, where flooding rains and devastating droughts are part of western Queensland life. This region is part of the arid centre of Australia. At least several thousand years have passed since the inland had a wetter climate. The landscape reflects this aridity and the contrasts can be striking.

 

Change and unpredictability are the main features of the climate, causing erratic swings from drought to plenty. Major rains can transform the landscape from appearing dry and dead to being lush and green in only a few days.

 

Plant cover varies dramatically with both land type and climate events. Frequent and severe droughts are common, normal, and expected. They are a fact of life for inland Australia and play an important role in the evolution of the landscape.

 

Plants of the arid lands have evolved in different ways to survive the climatic extremes and harsh conditions. Some resist drought by using little water, and others avoid it by only germinating in sustained wet times.

 

The gradual erosion of the gibber plains and tablelands replenishes the sand of the dunes. This process has been going on for tens of thousands of years and will continue for many more.

 

There is a wide variety of land uses and land users in the region. Land uses include pastoralism, petroleum exploration and production, conservation, and tourism. A major concern for land managers throughout the arid region is that these land uses do not accelerate the natural landscape processes.

 

The Diamantina, Cooper and Eyre Creeks dominate the Channel Country, flowing from the Northern Territory and Queensland into South Australia. These major intermittent streams and their floodplains are interlaced with dune fields, forming an enormous system of swamps, lakes, and waterholes. These streams flow less frequently further south, often not reaching Lake Eyre.

 

There are numerous salt lakes, including the very large Lake Frome, Callabonna, Gregory, Blanche, and Eyre. All are usually dry. Fillings of the large lakes are occasional and irregular. Some, for example the southern portion of Lake Eyre, have a heavy salt crust.

 

The district is extremely viable and dominated by three main land types; the "hard" country of the stony tablelands and downs; the sand dune fields of the major Simpson, Tirari, and Strzelecki Deserts; and the floodplains, channels and temporary lakes of the major river systems. Minor land types include arid ranges and salt lakes.

 

The stone-covered downs are gently rolling, with small slopes and well defined drainage lines. The stones are remnants of ancient soil surfaces. It is these stones on the surface, not the spare plant cover, which provide protection against soil erosion. Within this land type are other landscapes, flat or gently undulating, with little or no stone cover. This land type relies on plant cover from erosion protection, rather than the stony "armour".

 

Tableland with an intact stone or plant cover is inherently stable, though the erosion which follows removal of this cover is often serious and irreversible.

 

Source: plaque.

By Vichonette Constantine

  

Once upon a time, people could have differing points of view and still be friends. One upon a time, people could sit down and discuss their differences without being hostile. Once upon a time, people were not ostracized for their political or social beliefs. But that was then.

 

How did we get to a point where people are losing their jobs, their friends, their family, their very lives, for nothing more than holding a different opinion? When did the first amendment get amended to mean, "But only as long as you agree with me?"

 

I have very few liberal contacts left on Facebook now. Those who are still here with me, just know that I would never, and will never, remove you from my life just because we don't see eye to eye politically. I welcome those differing viewpoints, because they send me further down the rabbit hole and researching ... and learning. And I appreciate your ability to disagree with me without namecalling, without throwing hate at me. Not to mention that if all we ever heard was opinions that agreed with our own, how boring would that be?

 

A difference of opinion does not make anyone an inherently evil person. The inability to accept anyone who disagrees with your opinions, on the other hand ... well, it does just that. If you're rejecting people for believing differently, you're engaging in emotional blackmail, and that, to me, is reprehensible.

Back in the period which followed 'Deregulation' there was a small surge in operators who considered they might make a killing with crew operated services rather than the almost universal and inherently slow one person operated buses. Some enjoyed more success than others, but the basic economics of paying two people could rarely be justified financially, even if it was 'better' in many other ways.

In Rhyl, the Kerfoot Davies coach hire business purchased a handful of ex LT AEC Routemasters to run a service linking the caravan parks of the traditional North Wales coastal towns with Rhyl in competition with Crosville Wales. I'm not sure how long the operation lasted, but I only ever saw their smartly turned out RMs on one occasion. Here CUV 122C trundles west along Rhyl's promenade circa 1998.

Being by the river is one thing. It helps. However, it turned out, being in the river helps an order of magnitude more, the deeper the better. Or, I guess any decently clean water would work, as long as it's not a swimming pool or such. Not something artificial or too crowded.

 

What I never had much hope in, and hence they didn't happen, was actual therapy sessions. What's a therapist other than a complete stranger asking questions I'd refuse to answer my best friends if I had any. I mean, he has to if he's supposed to do his job, I get that. But that doesn't help either. Last but not least, because I probably couldn't answer the majority of the questions even if I wanted to. People seem to take it for granted everybody is inherently aware of their emotions and know how to put them into words. It surprises them when someone isn't.

 

Sure, I could tell him a few things that happened over the 30+ years I spent here so far, or at least how it looked like from my perspective at the time, but what would that help really? He could only guesstimate how he would feel himself in that situation, or maybe the average client of his, but how much would that say really. No. Where there's no hope, there's no will, and where there's no will, there is no way.

 

Therapists are humans. And frankly, from what I've seen so far, often not the smartest ones. That's the problem it ultimately comes down too. I've had conversations with ChatGPT where I felt more understood than by virtually all humans; where the computer and I seemed to share a sense of humor, when it made me laugh like I hadn't done in a long time, and it almost seemed like it was laughing too. Then GPT got much more regulated by its creators - again, humans - and that was the end of that. Now it's just Wikipedia after it smoked a joint too many.

 

This here though. this is it. Even if it only works in summer. And you also need to be careful not to get knocked over by the wake of a ship; don't ask me how I know.

 

Alternatively, you can just bring nothing with you that mustn't get wet.

 

Oh yeah, before I forget, being able to swim and knowing a bit of how fluvial currents work is also a perk here.

The "Thunderbirds" is the air demonstration squadron of the United States Air Force (USAF), based at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada. Created in 1953, the USAF Thunderbirds are the third-oldest formal flying aerobatic team (under the same name) in the world, after the French Air Force Patrouille de France formed in 1931 and the United States Navy Blue Angels formed in 1946.

The Thunderbirds Squadron tours the United States and beyond performing aerobatic formation and solo flying in specially marked aircraft.

The Thunderbirds have performed at over 4,000 airshows worldwide, accumulating millions of miles in hundreds of different airframes over the course of their more than fifty-four years of service. Flying high-performance fighter jets is inherently dangerous; when flying in extremely close formation, the danger is compounded. In total, twenty-one Thunderbirds pilots have been killed in the team's history. Three fatal crashes have occurred during air shows, two of them in jets:

The Thunderbirds perform aerial demonstrations in the F-16C Fighting Falcon. Over 4,600 aircraft have been built since production was approved in 1976. Although no longer being purchased by the U.S. Air Force, improved versions are being built for export customers.

From Neon Demon

Bigger is inherently better.

 

Model: Zoe Simpson

 

This shot actually started out really overexposed. You can recover a whole lot from overexposed images when you shoot RAW, but this even surprised me.

 

In case I don't post anything tomorrow, Merry Christmas for those who celebrate it, and a very happy Festivus for the rest of us.

 

Strobist: 430EXII on 1/2 power shot through 43" umbrella with CTO gel, camera left.