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Der Himmel über Berlin.

Ich wünsche Euch einen heiteren Sonntag und einen guten Start in den Monat August.

Seid weiterhin achtsam-haltet Abstand-tragt Maske, das ist noch immer "das Gebot der Stunde" sagen wir in Deutschland und das wird sich erst normalisieren wenn es eine wirksame Impfung für alle Menschen gibt und alle Menschen auf userem Planeten Erde ihn auch erhalten.

Bitte verwenden Sie keines meiner Fotos, ohne meine schriftliche Zustimmung, sie sind ©Copyright geschützt. Sie erreichen mich über Flickr, Danke!

 

The sky over Berlin.

I wish you a cheerful Sunday and a good start into the month of August.

Continue to be mindful, keep your distance, wear a mask, this is still "the order of the day" as we say in Germany and this will only normalize when there is an effective vaccination for all people and all people on our planet earth receive it.

Please do not use any of my photos without my written permission, they are ©Copyright protected. You can reach me via Flickr, thanks!

 

Le ciel au-dessus de Berlin.

Je vous souhaite un joyeux dimanche et un bon début de mois d'août.

Continuez à être attentif, gardez vos distances, portez un masque, c'est toujours "l'ordre du jour" comme on dit en Allemagne et cela ne se normalisera que lorsqu'il y aura une vaccination efficace pour tous et que tous les habitants de notre planète Terre la recevront.

Veuillez ne pas utiliser mes photos sans mon autorisation écrite, elles sont protégées par le droit d'auteur. Vous pouvez me joindre via Flickr, merci !

☼My works are often BEST VIEWED LARGE

 

Over the last 3 months Tana shed her undercoat completely. Last month we found out she has Hypothyroidism and will be on meds for the rest of her life. She also thinned out a lot in her tail and back legs. Vet says it can take up to a year for her fur to normalize.

It is strange seeing a long outer coat, flat to her body. She is happy and more perky at times, so all is not bad, just strange.

 

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Photo shop and Nature ARTISTS:

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New contests on the 1st and 15th

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This was the original message that was being said. Please be careful as things start to normalize. This monster isn't over yet...

Be safe all front line workers. No matter who you are, Doctors, nurses, housekeeping, support services, ambulance, fire, police, truck drivers, gas station attendants, Grocery store workers, Pharmacies.. the list is huge......THANK you for all you do. Hospital staff aren't the only front line workers.

 

🎼: We Are the World ~

 

✈️ : Endless, Haraiki Bay

A solitary deer grazes peacefully on a distant shore in a world of green...

________________________

 

For those of you wondering (as was I) why this photo turned out so very green, a quick trip to Wikipedia (bless them) explained it all quickly and precisely. To satisfy your curiousity, I attach the following enlightening (no pun intended) explanation of green:

 

Spectral coordinates:

Wavelength 495–570 nm

Frequency ~575–525 THz

 

Color coordinates:

Hex triplet: 00FF00

sRGBB (r, g, b) (0, 255, 0)

Source sRGB approximation to NCS S 2060-G[a]

B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte)

 

Now you know...;-)

===

•ᴵᴾᴴᴼᴺᴱ 7+

•ᶜᴬᴹᴱᴿᴬ+

•ᴱᴺᴸᴵᴳᴴᵀ ᴾᴴᴼᵀᴼᶠᴼˣ

•ᴿᴺᴵ ᶠᴵᴸᴹˢ (Kodachrome Generic v.4 Normalized), ᴬᴰᴶᵁˢᵀᴹᴱᴺᵀˢ

===

Halloween night, a blue moon rose over the prairie just after sunset. I had spent an hour at the local seniors centre handing out treats and photographing the trick-or-treaters, then drove out to the park to wait for this extremely rare moonrise. Two full moons in a calendar month, the second falling on Halloween, is a rare event that hasn't occurred in North America since 1866.

 

Out in the park, the only people I saw were my friends Pat and Maurice. Pat said, "Will you be able to see it through the clouds?" There were some bands of thin cloud just above the horizon. I told her they would just improve the atmosphere.

 

When the moon finally appeared, it was deep orange. I looked at it carefully, because I didn't want to inadvertently "normalize" it in post processing. As it rose higher, its brightness increased, I had to continually adjust the exposure, and with the increased contrast, land details faded away into darkness. It was a good way to close out the month of October.

 

I drove home. No one had vandalized my house. This night can bring out the worst in people. It's the only night of the year when the Post Office lobby is locked. Some years ago, the morning after Halloween, friends of mine who run a country inn in an old, renovated convent that they purchased for that purpose, found a live goat in their lobby. Pretty funny, but now they lock their doors, too, on this strange and unpredictable night.

 

Photographed in Grasslands National Park, Saskatchewan (Canada). Don't use this on websites, blogs, or other media without explicit permission ©2020 James R. Page - all rights reserved.

I took two frames of this scene but did not intend to make a panorama. When I loaded up to my computer, I thought I could stitch them in Lightroom even though their white balance and exposure were off from each other. As a result, I got a panorama with two tones. I decided to use the left frame as a reference to normalize the white balance since I noticed that there was at least one car in white color parked on the road. It would have looked weird if I used the right frame. By doing that, the hills on the right frame turned from yellow to green and that was perfect for me.

The word autumn comes from the ancient Etruscan root autu- and has within it connotations of the passing of the year.It was borrowed by the neighbouring Romans, and became the Latin word autumnus. After the Roman era, the word continued to be used as the Old French word autompne (automne in modern French) or autumpne in Middle English, and was later normalized to the original Latin. In the Medieval period, there are rare examples of its use as early as the 12th century, but by the 16th century, it was in common use.

  

Boston, Massachusetts in autumn

Before the 16th century, harvest was the term usually used to refer to the season, as it is common in other West Germanic languages to this day (cf. Dutch herfst, German Herbst and Scots hairst). However, as more people gradually moved from working the land to living in towns, the word harvest lost its reference to the time of year and came to refer only to the actual activity of reaping, and autumn, as well as fall, began to replace it as a reference to the season.

 

The alternative word fall for the season traces its origins to old Germanic languages. The exact derivation is unclear, with the Old English fiæll or feallan and the Old Norse fall all being possible candidates. However, these words all have the meaning "to fall from a height" and are clearly derived either from a common root or from each other. The term came to denote the season in 16th century England, a contraction of Middle English expressions like "fall of the leaf" and "fall of the year".

 

During the 17th century, English emigration to the British colonies in North America was at its peak, and the new settlers took the English language with them. While the term fall gradually became obsolete in Britain, it became the more common term in North America.[citation needed]

 

The name backend, a once common name for the season in Northern England, has today been largely replaced by the name autumn

Humans are driven by a perpetual and restless desire of power. - Thomas Hobbes

When I shoot from a blind, it's sometimes very dark, with a canopy of green leaves which will alter the color of the birds. My goal is to try and capture a bit of light to hi-light the birds, normalize the whites and bring their true colors back.

Reprocess of the Pac Man Nebula using BlurXterminator and James Lamb's SHO Normalization V3

It's been a while since Black Friday felt like Black Friday. While there may be some new things thrown into like right now like vaccinations, life is normalizing and frankly nearly back to normal, well that is if you overlook the exorbitant prices for everything, food, housing, life. At least it's the most Jolly I've been in a few years.

 

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Sunny's Photo Studio - Pose: Cold Days

 

Hair: Rama Salon - Verity

Dress: Candy Doll - Riya

 

Counting Crows - A Long December

A long December and there's reason to believe

Maybe this year will be better than the last

I can't remember the last thing that you said as you were leaving

Now the days go by so fast

And it's one more day up in the canyons

And it's one more night in Hollywood

If you think that I could be forgiven

I wish you would

The smell of hospitals in winter

And the feeling that it's all a lot of oysters

But no pearls

All at once you look across a crowded room

To see the way that light attaches to a girl

And it's one more day up in the canyons

And it's one more night in Hollywood

If you think you might come to California

I think you should

Drove up to Hillside Manor sometime after two a.m.

And talked a little while about the year

I guess the winter makes you laugh a little slower

Makes you talk a little lower about the things you could not show her

And it's been a long December and there's reason to believe

Maybe this year will be better than the last

I can't remember all the times I tried to tell myself

To hold on to these moments as they pass

And it's one more day up in the canyon

And it's one more night in Hollywood

It's been so long since I've seen the ocean

I guess I should

 

When I shoot from a blind, it's sometimes very dark, with a canopy of green leaves which will alter the color of the birds. My goal is to try and capture a bit of light to hi-light the birds, normalize the whites and bring their true colors back.

 

“What desire can be contrary to nature since it was given to man by nature itself?”

― Michel Foucault, Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason

This is the enormous (and close) Andromeda galaxy shot only through narrow band filters. (I really should put a little picture of the moon in these just to give a sense of the scale, the moon would only be as big as the bright core, if our eyes were sensitive enough and the skies dark enough this would be a huge object in the sky)

I spent a a long time figuring out how to process this. I could see some faint structures outside the galaxy that I hadn't expected I would be able to reach, but every attempt to bring those out resulted in a mess. Typically narrow band images are only lightly used when shooting galaxies. They are more for getting details on faint nebula close by in our own Milky Way. I had never attempted to process an entire galaxy this way. The immediate problem is that the normal light still contributes to most of the narrow band light somehow. I don't understand why yet. After several failed attempts it occurred to me to normalize the narrowband data with the regular color channels and then subtract the regular color from the narrowband. After searching for this technique it turns out this indeed is how some people do it. So subtract natural green from Oiii and natural red from Sii and Ha.

First surprise was what looks to be a surrounding slip stream in Ha. And then the detail in the core... and the off center spike coming out of the core. Finally also just at the edge of the dynamic range is a hint of the blue arc to the top left, this blue arc was only discovered in 2023. All this is low resolution as it's barely in the data.... but I was not expecting any of it to show up yet.

The plan now is to quadruple the amount of light in Oiii and Ha to see if I can get some more detail above the noise level. Unfortunately the moon will be in the way for the next two weeks... and these uncommon clear nights likely won't go on indefinitely ;)

 

Overview

This energized-gas image of the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) filters out the overwhelming starlight and focuses only on the faint emission from ionized gas. In this view, Andromeda’s sprawling spiral structure is largely invisible, replaced by wisps, arcs, and filaments of glowing hydrogen and oxygen. These emission features reveal the energetic processes shaping Andromeda’s interstellar medium and halo.

 

General Emission Structures Visible in Narrowband

H II Regions: Patches of star-forming activity across the spiral arms, lit by clusters of hot O- and B-type stars. In an energized-gas image these appear as knots and filaments scattered through the disk.

 

Filamentary Halo Gas: Long, faint filaments of both Hα and O III are visible surrounding the galaxy, showing that Andromeda’s halo is not empty but threaded with ionized material.

 

Superbubbles and Shells: Several circular or arc-like shells can be traced, likely inflated by clustered supernovae and massive-star winds within the disk.

 

Major Narrowband Features

O III Arc

A vast, low-surface-brightness arc of doubly ionized oxygen stretches well beyond the stellar disk. Deep imaging suggests this could be part of a large superbubble or a remnant of past starburst-driven winds, marking the interaction between Andromeda’s disk and its extended gaseous halo.

 

Andromeda Spike

A striking linear feature of energized gas, nicknamed the Andromeda Spike, emerges from near the galaxy’s core but is slightly off-center from the nucleus. Its origin is debated: some models link it to a jet-like outflow from central activity, while others interpret it as shock-excited gas along a structural filament in the disk.

 

Hα Slipstream

Along the outer regions of the disk lies a diffuse hydrogen-alpha slipstream, a channel-like streak of ionized hydrogen. This may be evidence of galactic winds carrying gas outward, or the signature of tidal interaction between M31 and its companions (notably M32 or M110).

 

Astrophysical Context

These narrowband features show that Andromeda is not a quiescent spiral but an active environment where stellar winds, supernovae, and possibly nuclear outflows inject energy into the surrounding medium. The O III arc points to large-scale halo interaction, while the Spike may represent nuclear feedback on a galactic scale. The Hα slipstream demonstrates the continuing role of feedback and tidal dynamics in redistributing gas. Together, they hint at how galaxies recycle material between their disks and halos over cosmic time.

 

Sources of Text

Jenniskens & Désert (1994) – Early detections of extended diffuse ionized gas around M31.

Keel et al. (2012) – Narrowband imaging and analysis of the linear Andromeda Spike structure.

Ferguson et al. (1996, 2005) – Studies of ionized gas in M31’s extended halo.

Modern deep amateur narrowband imaging (2010s–2020s) – Documentation of the O III arc, Hα slipstream, and faint halo filaments in long-exposure mosaics.

 

Acquisition

25 hours total integration:

 

1x Canon 200mm f/2.8

2x Askar ACL200: 200mm f/4

3x ZWO ASI533MM Mono Camera at -20C

Guided on ZWO AM5

3nm Chroma filters:

sii 44x5m, 11x10m @f4

ha 104X5m, 13x10m @f4

oiii 105X5m @f2.8

Captured with N.I.N.A. processed with PixInsight, Ps

 

There are forms of oppression and domination which become invisible - the new normal.

 

Michel Foucault

The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think like than those who think differently. - Friedrich Nietzsche

Long time not seen the "Chinese Railways" K3/4 "Trans-Siberian Express" Beijing - Ulaanbaatar - Moscow international train passed through Mongolia today (February 26, 2025) as a trial run after 5 years. As for this route, the train service was suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions from January 2020 until now. Hopefully, train service will be normalized as soon as before, in April and May 2025!

 

2TE116UM-013, train K3 Beijing - Ulaanbaatar - Moscow, Bumbat pass and Honhor loop.

The Trans-Mongolian Railway ©2025

Power is always dangerous. Power attracts the worst and corrupts the best.

 

Edward Abbey

Capel y Methodistiaid Calfinaidd/ Calvinistic Methodist Chapel ---- ger y / near to Felin-wen, Carmarthenshire ▪️▪️▪️▪️▪️"While kids in Gaza starve under siege, McDonald’s Israel handed out free meals to IDF troops. Your money doesn’t just buy fries, it’s feeding apartheid, with every bite helping to normalize the slaughter."

Interesting encounter !

 

La voyageuse : Gatineau bizarro

 

Jean-François Lacombe

 

La voyageuse explore Gatineau à travers des images qui révèlent un aspect « bizarro » de la ville. Elle met en lumière des lieux souvent négligés, tels que des terrains vagues, des ruines contemporaines et des espaces urbains marqués par des graffitis. Ces sites marginaux illustrent les défis contemporains et l'imaginaire collectif qui façonnent l'identité de Gatineau.

 

Elle invite les spectateurs à observer la nature qui reprend ses droits, la dégradation des structures abandonnées, et la poésie qui en émane, contrastant avec la modernité qui cherche à uniformiser l'espace urbain. La voyageuse encourage l'appréciation de ces espaces populaires, parfois kitsch, qui racontent notre relation au territoire.

 

Ces interstices du quotidien offrent une perspective alternative à un Gatineau planifié et « normalisé », soulignant que cette vision unique fait également partie de la réalité de la ville. Les participants sont invités à partager leurs propres découvertes de lieux marginaux avec le hashtag #gatineaubizarro sur les réseaux sociaux.

  

The traveler explores Gatineau through images that reveal a "bizarro" aspect of the city. She highlights often overlooked places, such as vacant lots, contemporary ruins, and urban spaces marked by graffiti. These marginal sites illustrate the contemporary challenges and the collective imagination that shape Gatineau's identity.

 

She invites viewers to observe nature reclaiming its space, the wear of time on abandoned structures, and the strange poetry that emanates from them, contrasting with the modernity that seeks to standardize urban space. The traveler encourages appreciation of these popular, sometimes kitschy spaces that tell the story of our connection to the territory.

 

These interstices of daily life offer an alternative perspective to a planned and "normalized" Gatineau, emphasizing that this unique vision is also part of the city's reality. Participants are invited to share their own discoveries of marginal places using the hashtag #gatineaubizarro on social media.

When I shoot from a blind, it's sometimes very dark, with a canopy of green leaves which will alter the color of the birds. My goal is to try and capture a bit of light to hi-light the birds, normalize the whites and bring their true colors back.

Fiastra is one of the small villages on the slopes the Sibillini Mountains partially destroyed by the 2016's earthquake. Everyday life is slowly normalizing, still many houses remains uninhabited and in the evening streets resembles those of a ghost village.

As a composition I find it rather boring since the ultrawide lens pushes everything in the background leaving a huge amount of void space in the foreground. I liked the fact that the sea acts as a mirror after the wave normalization due to the long exposure and this is the reason I uploaded it.

 

Two filters were used: an ND400 filter stacked with a polarizer. The photo was processed in LR where vignetting was removed and dark parts were recovered.

 

Before vs After

Central thesis: “1. There is no practice except by and in an ideology; 2. There is no ideology except by the subject and for subjects”

 

“No class can hold State power over a long period without at the same time exercising its hegemony over and in the State Ideological Apparatuses” Louse Althusserl

A couple of weeks ago, someone (not sure who it was who did it first) managed to uncover this clip of Carl Sagan talking about how Star Wars was too white way back in the 70s and I thought it was remarkable. Sagan delivers his message with a very calm intelligence that was way ahead of its time in America (and how sad that is!)

 

I was a child of the 80s but I didn't really start questioning why the majority of the films (and t.v. shows with only a couple of notable exceptions) back then featured primarily white actors even though that isn't what my community looked like. Back then, if you had one main character that was not white, like Ernie Hudson in Ghostbusters, this was considered pretty much mind blowing progressive. I'm not sure why this didn't strike me as strange at the time but what it was suggesting on a very deep level is that the experiences of white people are the only ones that matter and are worth showing, exploring, and devoting energy and money to. If you can't find yourself in a story, then you won't feel that story was meant for you. If you can't find yourself in any stories...then it must seem a lot like a whole force or system set against you.

 

I think we've made some progress with this though we still have a great ways to go. One of the things that has probably helped is having a lot of great international films come through because you can't really watch a film like Parasite and then think that most of American box office hits can even compare. But, I think it's also really important to have conversations about what still needs to change in American cinema so that all voices are represented and heard-so that people of color are represented as directors, writers, actors, actresses, cinematographers, editors, and more.

 

There are a growing number of people (look at Texas and Nashville) who are so afraid of discussing racism and are so wiling to be a force of white supremacy that they have banned talking about it in schools. (They seem so terrified that white children will feel bad that they'd rather continue the racism that exists for all of the other kids). They won't even have the conversation. There are also quite a few people who have convinced themselves that considering this topic (truly considering it) is still too radical for them and gets in the way of them actually enjoying all of the levels of racism they've grown to feel comfortable with as it has been steadily normalized for them. They just want to enjoy their popcorn and their sleazy cinema-is that too much to ask?

 

But, when we don't ask these questions about not only what we're watching (or reading or buying) then we aren't really paying attention to what we are consuming in any way and what we are actually supporting. So, let's continue to ask those questions. They might not be easy but I'd like to think humanity is worth it.

 

We might not all be connected to the film industry but we can make choices that support cinema that represents all stories.

 

Here's that clip:

 

www.themarysue.com/carl-sagan-star-wars-too-white/

 

**All photos are copyrighted**

 

I did not expect this to be a deal or I would have taken more time normalizing the alignments. These two images are 30 minutes apart. This is the first day this lotus blossom opened and it was first facing WNW in the shadow of the house. 30 min. later the blossom was opened a bit more and it was now facing ENE facing into the rising sun. That's almost 180º difference. True, it didn't grow any but the flower stalk definitely twisted. Water garden excitement!!

"Trees are the earth's endless effort to speak to the listening heaven…"

~ Rabindranath Tagore

 

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I did create a panorama of 5 photos from this viewpoint, and created something a little different. Enjoy!

 

Press L to view in LIGHTBOX.

Press F to favorite.

Press G to add to a group.

Press C to make a comment.

I shall then suggest that ideology 'acts' or functions' in such a way that it recruits' subjects among the individuals (it recruits them all), or transforms' the individuals into subjects (it transforms them al) by that very precise operation which I have called interpellation or hailing, and which can be imagined along the lines of the most commonplace everyday police (or other) hailing: 'Hey, you there! - Louis Althusser

The best Christmas gift isn't some object wrapped in beautiful paper. The best Christmas gift is love -- families and friends wrapped in love and not beautiful paper.

 

On a broader scale, the country I call home, America, is no longer America the Beautiful, but instead a deeply divided and caustic culture. One where we've normalized insults, angry rhetoric, hatred, and division. We've built fences with barbed wire, physically and emotionally, that divide us into two hate-filled camps.

 

On Christmas Day, if I had my wishes, it would be this: that families would heal up and wrap each other in love; and that people would extinguish their hatred, tear down their fences, and make this America the Beautiful once again.

 

What a message that would send echoing around the world.

Saint-Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad. It is situated on the River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city had a population of 5,601,911 residents as of 2021, with more than 6.4 million people living in the metropolitan area. Saint-Petersburg is the fourth-most populous city in Europe, the most populous city on the Baltic Sea, and the world's northernmost city of more than 1 million residents.

 

The Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments constitute a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Saint Petersburg is home to the Hermitage, one of the largest art museums in the world, the Lakhta Center, the tallest skyscraper in Europe, and was one of the host cities of the 2018 FIFA World Cup and the UEFA Euro 2020.

 

The name day of Peter I falls on 29 June, when the Orthodox Church observes the memory of apostles Peter and Paul. The consecration of the small wooden church in their names (its construction began at the same time as the citadel) made them the heavenly patrons of the Peter and Paul Fortress, while Saint Peter at the same time became the eponym of the whole city. When in June 1703 Peter the Great renamed the site after Saint Peter, he did not issue a naming act that established an official spelling; even in his own letters he used diverse spellings, such as Санктьпетерсьбурк (Sanktpetersburk), emulating German Sankt Petersburg, and Сантпитербурх (Santpiterburkh), emulating Dutch Sint-Pietersburgh, as Peter was multilingual and a Hollandophile. The name was later normalized and russified to Санкт-Петербург (Saint-Petersburg).

 

The historic architecture of Saint-Petersburg's city centre, mostly Baroque and Neoclassical buildings of the 18th and 19th centuries, has been largely preserved; although a number of buildings were demolished after the Bolsheviks' seizure of power, during the Siege of Leningrad and in recent years. The oldest of the remaining building is a wooden house built for Peter I in 1703 on the shore of the Neva near Trinity Square. Since 1991 the Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments in Saint Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast have been listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.

Saint-Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad. It is situated on the River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city had a population of 5,601,911 residents as of 2021, with more than 6.4 million people living in the metropolitan area. Saint-Petersburg is the fourth-most populous city in Europe, the most populous city on the Baltic Sea, and the world's northernmost city of more than 1 million residents.

 

The Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments constitute a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Saint Petersburg is home to the Hermitage, one of the largest art museums in the world, the Lakhta Center, the tallest skyscraper in Europe, and was one of the host cities of the 2018 FIFA World Cup and the UEFA Euro 2020.

 

The name day of Peter I falls on 29 June, when the Orthodox Church observes the memory of apostles Peter and Paul. The consecration of the small wooden church in their names (its construction began at the same time as the citadel) made them the heavenly patrons of the Peter and Paul Fortress, while Saint Peter at the same time became the eponym of the whole city. When in June 1703 Peter the Great renamed the site after Saint Peter, he did not issue a naming act that established an official spelling; even in his own letters he used diverse spellings, such as Санктьпетерсьбурк (Sanktpetersburk), emulating German Sankt Petersburg, and Сантпитербурх (Santpiterburkh), emulating Dutch Sint-Pietersburgh, as Peter was multilingual and a Hollandophile. The name was later normalized and russified to Санкт-Петербург (Saint-Petersburg).

 

The historic architecture of Saint-Petersburg's city centre, mostly Baroque and Neoclassical buildings of the 18th and 19th centuries, has been largely preserved; although a number of buildings were demolished after the Bolsheviks' seizure of power, during the Siege of Leningrad and in recent years. The oldest of the remaining building is a wooden house built for Peter I in 1703 on the shore of the Neva near Trinity Square. Since 1991 the Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments in Saint Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast have been listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.

Saint-Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad. It is situated on the River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city had a population of 5,601,911 residents as of 2021, with more than 6.4 million people living in the metropolitan area. Saint-Petersburg is the fourth-most populous city in Europe, the most populous city on the Baltic Sea, and the world's northernmost city of more than 1 million residents.

 

The Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments constitute a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Saint Petersburg is home to the Hermitage, one of the largest art museums in the world, the Lakhta Center, the tallest skyscraper in Europe, and was one of the host cities of the 2018 FIFA World Cup and the UEFA Euro 2020.

 

The name day of Peter I falls on 29 June, when the Orthodox Church observes the memory of apostles Peter and Paul. The consecration of the small wooden church in their names (its construction began at the same time as the citadel) made them the heavenly patrons of the Peter and Paul Fortress, while Saint Peter at the same time became the eponym of the whole city. When in June 1703 Peter the Great renamed the site after Saint Peter, he did not issue a naming act that established an official spelling; even in his own letters he used diverse spellings, such as Санктьпетерсьбурк (Sanktpetersburk), emulating German Sankt Petersburg, and Сантпитербурх (Santpiterburkh), emulating Dutch Sint-Pietersburgh, as Peter was multilingual and a Hollandophile. The name was later normalized and russified to Санкт-Петербург (Saint-Petersburg).

 

The historic architecture of Saint-Petersburg's city centre, mostly Baroque and Neoclassical buildings of the 18th and 19th centuries, has been largely preserved; although a number of buildings were demolished after the Bolsheviks' seizure of power, during the Siege of Leningrad and in recent years. The oldest of the remaining building is a wooden house built for Peter I in 1703 on the shore of the Neva near Trinity Square. Since 1991 the Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments in Saint Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast have been listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.

You Are Not Alone - Michael Jackson

 

Everything Is AWESOME!!! - The LEGO® Movie - Tegan and Sara

 

LEGO has dropped Shell Oil under pressure from environmental activists Greenpeace who released a video titled "LEGO: Everything is NOT awesome." Greenpeace pointed out that Shell is set to spend billions drilling in the Arctic over the next decade and are using toys as a way to normalize their brand and make children more sympathetic to them.

 

LEGO: Everything is NOT awesome.

 

BiG THANKS to EVERYONE for your personal comments and also your support from selected groups.

Awards are always encouraging and especially appreciated from those add my work to their collection of 'faves'.

 

Cheerz

I'm off ( in so many ways), but this morning in another attempt to do what has to be done do straighten, tighten, loosen, and normalize (all at once) my spine. Oh, to be like a mockingbird, once more to sing voluntarily.

 

I hope to be able to mock the mockingbird once more immitating a cat and a car horn at the same time. I'll keep you informed and retell you stories of these beautiful clowns ... and the sooner the better.

 

The northern mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos) is a mockingbird commonly found in North America. This bird is mainly a permanent resident, but northern birds may move south during harsh weather. This species has rarely been observed in Europe. This species was first described by Carl Linnaeus in his 1758 10th edition of Systema Naturae as Turdus polyglottos. The northern mockingbird is known for its mimicking ability, as reflected by the meaning of its scientific name, "many-tongued mimic". The northern mockingbird has gray to brown upper feathers and a paler belly. Its tail and wings have white patches which are visible in flight.

Saint-Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad. It is situated on the River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city had a population of 5,601,911 residents as of 2021, with more than 6.4 million people living in the metropolitan area. Saint-Petersburg is the fourth-most populous city in Europe, the most populous city on the Baltic Sea, and the world's northernmost city of more than 1 million residents.

 

The Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments constitute a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Saint Petersburg is home to the Hermitage, one of the largest art museums in the world, the Lakhta Center, the tallest skyscraper in Europe, and was one of the host cities of the 2018 FIFA World Cup and the UEFA Euro 2020.

 

The name day of Peter I falls on 29 June, when the Orthodox Church observes the memory of apostles Peter and Paul. The consecration of the small wooden church in their names (its construction began at the same time as the citadel) made them the heavenly patrons of the Peter and Paul Fortress, while Saint Peter at the same time became the eponym of the whole city. When in June 1703 Peter the Great renamed the site after Saint Peter, he did not issue a naming act that established an official spelling; even in his own letters he used diverse spellings, such as Санктьпетерсьбурк (Sanktpetersburk), emulating German Sankt Petersburg, and Сантпитербурх (Santpiterburkh), emulating Dutch Sint-Pietersburgh, as Peter was multilingual and a Hollandophile. The name was later normalized and russified to Санкт-Петербург (Saint-Petersburg).

 

The historic architecture of Saint-Petersburg's city centre, mostly Baroque and Neoclassical buildings of the 18th and 19th centuries, has been largely preserved; although a number of buildings were demolished after the Bolsheviks' seizure of power, during the Siege of Leningrad and in recent years. The oldest of the remaining building is a wooden house built for Peter I in 1703 on the shore of the Neva near Trinity Square. Since 1991 the Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments in Saint Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast have been listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.

A Mirror Image (in a plane mirror) is a reflected duplication of an object that appears almost identical, but is reversed in the direction perpendicular to the mirror surface. As an optical effect it results from reflection off from substances such as a mirror or water. It is also a concept in geometry and can be used as a conceptualization process for 3-D structures.

 

Two-dimensional mirror images can be seen in the reflections of mirrors or other reflecting surfaces, or on a printed surface seen inside-out. If we first look at an object that is effectively two-dimensional (such as the writing on a card) and then turn the card to face a mirror, the object turns through an angle of 180° and we see a left-right reversal in the mirror. In this example, it is the change in orientation rather than the mirror itself that causes the observed reversal.

Another example is when we stand with our backs to the mirror and face an object that's in front of the mirror. Then we compare the object with its reflection by turning ourselves 180°, towards the mirror. Again we perceive a left-right reversal due to a change in our orientation. So, in these examples the mirror does not actually cause the observed reversals.

 

Saint-Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad. It is situated on the River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city had a population of 5,601,911 residents as of 2021, with more than 6.4 million people living in the metropolitan area. Saint-Petersburg is the fourth-most populous city in Europe, the most populous city on the Baltic Sea, and the world's northernmost city of more than 1 million residents.

 

The Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments constitute a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Saint Petersburg is home to the Hermitage, one of the largest art museums in the world, the Lakhta Center, the tallest skyscraper in Europe, and was one of the host cities of the 2018 FIFA World Cup and the UEFA Euro 2020.

 

The name day of Peter I falls on 29 June, when the Orthodox Church observes the memory of apostles Peter and Paul. The consecration of the small wooden church in their names (its construction began at the same time as the citadel) made them the heavenly patrons of the Peter and Paul Fortress, while Saint Peter at the same time became the eponym of the whole city. When in June 1703 Peter the Great renamed the site after Saint Peter, he did not issue a naming act that established an official spelling; even in his own letters he used diverse spellings, such as Санктьпетерсьбурк (Sanktpetersburk), emulating German Sankt Petersburg, and Сантпитербурх (Santpiterburkh), emulating Dutch Sint-Pietersburgh, as Peter was multilingual and a Hollandophile. The name was later normalized and russified to Санкт-Петербург (Saint-Petersburg).

 

The historic architecture of Saint-Petersburg's city centre, mostly Baroque and Neoclassical buildings of the 18th and 19th centuries, has been largely preserved; although a number of buildings were demolished after the Bolsheviks' seizure of power, during the Siege of Leningrad and in recent years. The oldest of the remaining building is a wooden house built for Peter I in 1703 on the shore of the Neva near Trinity Square. Since 1991 the Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments in Saint Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast have been listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.

Saint-Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad. It is situated on the River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city had a population of 5,601,911 residents as of 2021, with more than 6.4 million people living in the metropolitan area. Saint-Petersburg is the fourth-most populous city in Europe, the most populous city on the Baltic Sea, and the world's northernmost city of more than 1 million residents.

 

The Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments constitute a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Saint Petersburg is home to the Hermitage, one of the largest art museums in the world, the Lakhta Center, the tallest skyscraper in Europe, and was one of the host cities of the 2018 FIFA World Cup and the UEFA Euro 2020.

 

The name day of Peter I falls on 29 June, when the Orthodox Church observes the memory of apostles Peter and Paul. The consecration of the small wooden church in their names (its construction began at the same time as the citadel) made them the heavenly patrons of the Peter and Paul Fortress, while Saint Peter at the same time became the eponym of the whole city. When in June 1703 Peter the Great renamed the site after Saint Peter, he did not issue a naming act that established an official spelling; even in his own letters he used diverse spellings, such as Санктьпетерсьбурк (Sanktpetersburk), emulating German Sankt Petersburg, and Сантпитербурх (Santpiterburkh), emulating Dutch Sint-Pietersburgh, as Peter was multilingual and a Hollandophile. The name was later normalized and russified to Санкт-Петербург (Saint-Petersburg).

 

The historic architecture of Saint-Petersburg's city centre, mostly Baroque and Neoclassical buildings of the 18th and 19th centuries, has been largely preserved; although a number of buildings were demolished after the Bolsheviks' seizure of power, during the Siege of Leningrad and in recent years. The oldest of the remaining building is a wooden house built for Peter I in 1703 on the shore of the Neva near Trinity Square. Since 1991 the Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments in Saint Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast have been listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.

Saint-Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad. It is situated on the River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city had a population of 5,601,911 residents as of 2021, with more than 6.4 million people living in the metropolitan area. Saint-Petersburg is the fourth-most populous city in Europe, the most populous city on the Baltic Sea, and the world's northernmost city of more than 1 million residents.

 

The Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments constitute a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Saint Petersburg is home to the Hermitage, one of the largest art museums in the world, the Lakhta Center, the tallest skyscraper in Europe, and was one of the host cities of the 2018 FIFA World Cup and the UEFA Euro 2020.

 

The name day of Peter I falls on 29 June, when the Orthodox Church observes the memory of apostles Peter and Paul. The consecration of the small wooden church in their names (its construction began at the same time as the citadel) made them the heavenly patrons of the Peter and Paul Fortress, while Saint Peter at the same time became the eponym of the whole city. When in June 1703 Peter the Great renamed the site after Saint Peter, he did not issue a naming act that established an official spelling; even in his own letters he used diverse spellings, such as Санктьпетерсьбурк (Sanktpetersburk), emulating German Sankt Petersburg, and Сантпитербурх (Santpiterburkh), emulating Dutch Sint-Pietersburgh, as Peter was multilingual and a Hollandophile. The name was later normalized and russified to Санкт-Петербург (Saint-Petersburg).

 

The historic architecture of Saint-Petersburg's city centre, mostly Baroque and Neoclassical buildings of the 18th and 19th centuries, has been largely preserved; although a number of buildings were demolished after the Bolsheviks' seizure of power, during the Siege of Leningrad and in recent years. The oldest of the remaining building is a wooden house built for Peter I in 1703 on the shore of the Neva near Trinity Square. Since 1991 the Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments in Saint Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast have been listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.

explored :)

 

Hello Flickr Friends! I am so sorry for not being able to visit your wonderful streams lately. I’ve been very busy lately and will continue to be busy for a while as I need to catch up on so many things…

 

I was not going to post anything today and for the rest of this month but I just thought I’d thank you all for your friendship! I will still, however, try as much as I can to post even at least once a week when things start to normalize.

 

So here you go… this is for all of you… please don’t feel obliged to comment as it is very likely that I may not be able to return the favor. But for those who would do so, they will be greatly appreciated.

 

Miss you all! God bless… :)))

 

p.s. i will check my flickrmail regularly :)

I find many phases of a person's life interesting. But when I look through my archive, it's often the same themes that appeal to me. I find photographing teenagers particularly exciting. They are so dynamic and unpredictable. And not as normalized as we adults are. They often do not adhere to the social norms. And that can make a street photo very exciting.

Here we have a wonderful teenager love scene. Oh how beautiful. This reminded me directly of my youth in 1986, when I was 17 years old and had only girls in my head.

There are very few photos of me that I have shot in Germany. But this one was taken at the edge of the ice rink at the Christmas market in Essen.

Freetown Christiania, also known as Christiania, is an intentional community and commune of about 850 to 1,000 residents, covering 7.7 hectares (19 acres) in the borough of Christianshavn in the Danish capital city of Copenhagen.

 

Christiania has been a source of controversy since its creation in a squatted military area in 1971. Its cannabis trade was tolerated by authorities until 2004. Since then, relations between Christiania and Danish authorities have been strained. Since the beginning of the 2010s, the situation has been somewhat normalized and Danish law is now enforced in Christiania.

(Wikipedia)

I decided to once again show the portrait of my great-grandmother. She was born in Austria-Hungary. She lived in the First World War, the founding of Czechoslovakia, the establishment of a free republic, the rise of Hitler, the Second World War, the "liberation" by the Red Army (she was German, the Jewish of her family died in concentration camps), the expulsion of Germans from the borderlands, the Communist coup 1948, the nightmare of 50s, the occupation of Czechoslovakia by the Soviet Union, and the years of totalitarian "normalization". She died at the age of 94. Her life was the history of the cruel twentieth century.

 

1980, Praktica LTL, 50 mm, Orwo S NP 15

47 of 365

 

In keeping with my photo of a game/toy on a weekend theme here are some Jenga blocks for you!

 

I have been awfully busy of late. I apologize if I haven't been able to visit any of your streams but when things normalize I shall give it a go. I miss everyone and the conversations we make in the comments. Thanks for stopping by still.

 

Happy Sunday!

 

EXPLORED #441 (September 8, 2008)

Saint-Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad. It is situated on the River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city had a population of 5,601,911 residents as of 2021, with more than 6.4 million people living in the metropolitan area. Saint-Petersburg is the fourth-most populous city in Europe, the most populous city on the Baltic Sea, and the world's northernmost city of more than 1 million residents.

 

The Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments constitute a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Saint Petersburg is home to the Hermitage, one of the largest art museums in the world, the Lakhta Center, the tallest skyscraper in Europe, and was one of the host cities of the 2018 FIFA World Cup and the UEFA Euro 2020.

 

The name day of Peter I falls on 29 June, when the Orthodox Church observes the memory of apostles Peter and Paul. The consecration of the small wooden church in their names (its construction began at the same time as the citadel) made them the heavenly patrons of the Peter and Paul Fortress, while Saint Peter at the same time became the eponym of the whole city. When in June 1703 Peter the Great renamed the site after Saint Peter, he did not issue a naming act that established an official spelling; even in his own letters he used diverse spellings, such as Санктьпетерсьбурк (Sanktpetersburk), emulating German Sankt Petersburg, and Сантпитербурх (Santpiterburkh), emulating Dutch Sint-Pietersburgh, as Peter was multilingual and a Hollandophile. The name was later normalized and russified to Санкт-Петербург (Saint-Petersburg).

 

The historic architecture of Saint-Petersburg's city centre, mostly Baroque and Neoclassical buildings of the 18th and 19th centuries, has been largely preserved; although a number of buildings were demolished after the Bolsheviks' seizure of power, during the Siege of Leningrad and in recent years. The oldest of the remaining building is a wooden house built for Peter I in 1703 on the shore of the Neva near Trinity Square. Since 1991 the Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments in Saint Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast have been listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.

Golden Canyon, Death Valley NP.

Ein weiteres, älteres Bild aus einer früheren USA-Reise. Ohne allzu politisch werden zu wollen, schließe ich mich der Meinung vieler meiner Foto-Freunde an, ich denke, ich werde vorerst auch erstmal nicht nach USA reisen. Ich habe dort einst viele tolle Leute kennengelernt, ich schätze meine amerikanischen Flickr-Kontakte wirklich sehr, aber als Nicht-AFD-Wähler (manch einer würde also pauschal "Kommunist" sagen😂 (nichts liegt mir ferner als das😁😂) ), warte ich erstmal ab, bis sich dort drüben die Lage wieder ein wenig normalisiert. Dann steht die USA wieder ganz oben auf meiner Liste, wo ich gerne mal wieder hin möchte.

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Golden Canyon, Death Valley NP.

Another, older picture from a previous trip to the USA. Without wanting to get too political, I agree with the opinion of many of my photography friends, I think I will not travel to the USA for the time being. I met a lot of great people there once, I really value my American Flickr contacts, but as a non-AFD (ultra-nationalism political party) voter (some would say to me "communist" across the board😂 (nothing is further from my mind than that😁😂) ) ), I'll wait until the situation over there normalizes a bit. Then the USA will be at the top of my list of places I'd like to go to again.

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Please darken your room and

turn the brightness of your display all the way up,

lay back, press L button and

enjoy this picture in full screen size ;-)

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . looks muuuch better. PROMISE !

.

Thanks for your visit, 1000 thanks for commenting

Thanks for watching the picture before FAVing 😉

2021-05-30, Day 1 hiking

Morning sunlight finds it way to the floor of Buckskin Gulch as it bounces off curvaceous canyon walls, Paria Wilderness, Utah.

 

We arrived at the Paria Contact Station to retrieve our group's permit in late afternoon after traveling 30-40 miles on narrow, washboard gravel roads. The mechanic recently informed me that these persistent travel choices mean the van's front-end will soon need rebuilding. Regardless, I was somewhat dismayed when the ranger informed me that the Paria River was dry - except for a few springs, no water at all until just before Lee's Ferry - and that large groups of people had been using the upper-river campsites irresponsibly so that they now smell like human sewage. On top of this wonderful news, as we drove south to Wire Pass it was clear that the number of people seeking to experience upper-Buckskin Gulch has ballooned in recent years. Combined with the fact that a fire burned the area several years ago, we were collectively left with a wrenching impression of human impact as we sought a place to pull over and camp before heading down the canyon on the morrow.

 

The wisdom of pushing forward was called into question once again that night when one of our party was wracked with an intense bout of diarrhea and vomiting. It was unclear whether the source was food poisoning or something more pernicious, and we all wondered whether, in the morning, the afflicted teenager would be able to begin walking the 14 miles to that night's camp and water.

 

The morning light and some breakfast seemed to help the sick member of the group, and along with a number of Instagrammers and their selfie sticks, we navigated the sandy wash toward Buckskin Gulch until the narrow places began to rise up and the path sank into the clefts between curvaceous canyon walls. The brain has a tendency to normalize what it is experiencing, but here the exquisite, cathedral-like beauty of the place and the excitement of being there were not easily tamped.

 

As we followed the seams of golden light further down the canyon, we discovered that after 5 or 6 miles the number of people dropped exponentially. Apparently, a 10-12 mile out-and-back day hike is the natural limit for most folks. Interestingly, the spectre of death reminded us at several turns of the harsh, difficult, near-waterless nature of this part of the canyon: we found a dead rattlesnake, several dead young fledgling ravens, and a young coyote that had apparently fallen into the slot and perished. There was a small, young, live rattlesnake coiled in a particularly narrow place as well, and thankfully the dog was unharmed as he blundered blissfully past its defended position. However, the mutt was not at all pleased when we navigated an area choked with fallen boulders that required lowering him via his pack harness. I do wonder whether he ever questions why he is so willing to follow us into these luminous cracks in the earth.

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