Autumn Anywhere
View allAll Photos Tagged Normalizes
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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August 12: We couldnt get a decent connection both here in the house and in the office. According to our ISP 2 Pacific submarine cables are down and are thus affecting the performance of the internet service in the Philippines. Promise to catch up when service normalizes. Cheers everyone.
Aug 12 9pm: Tried making a comment and it is taking me about 5 mins per comment.. just too much...
Aug 13 6:42am: Connection appears to have normalized. Will catch up this morning. Great day to everyone.
Aug 13 5pm. Cant get a decent speed. Can upload page but cant see the pictures. Geeesh!
Aug 13 11pm: No hope.. Will sleep.. Try again to catch up tomorrow.
Please click here to view this large on black.
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.
✈️ : Endless, Haraiki Bay
A solitary deer grazes peacefully on a distant shore in a world of green...
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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...;-)
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
Kotor bay, Montenegro, view from a new road above, of Perast village and the islands. I feel a needed break from stress all around, the doctor will advise on Wednesday. Bad news means my leg goes in the cast again, good news means physical therapy starts, if the news is bad, I will need psychological therapy as well before things normalize.
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.
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.
Ideology represents the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence. - Louis Althusserl
Swydd Caerhirfryn/ Lancashire ▪️"The earliest and the most architecturally ambitious Catholic church in Blackpool. Built by E. W. Pugin at the expense of Miss Tempest of Broughton Hall, and originally served by the Society of Jesus. Its most striking and original feature is the large octagon, added by Peter Paul Pugin in the late nineteenth century.The church was built in 1854 at the expense of Miss Monica Tempest of Broughton Hall, near Skipton, who stipulated that the church should be served by the Society of Jesus. The foundation stone was laid on 7 June 1856 by the Rt Rev Dr Goss, Bishop of Liverpool. The architect was Edward Welby Pugin, son of
A. W. N. Pugin. The original church quickly became too small for the ever-increasing number of worshippers, and in 1890 was extended under the direction of Peter Paul Pugin, younger brother of Edward." --- taking-stock.org.uk/building/blackpool-sacred-heart/ ▪️▪️▪️▪️▪️"The US has joined the UK in adding the activist group Palestine Action to its list of designated terrorist organizations.
The UK proscribing Palestine Action was already arguably the most insane attack on free speech in recent western history, and now it’s the official position of the US government as well. Western support for Israel is poisoning our entire civilization.
The US has also made the unprecedented move of adding the Italian tech support collective Autistici/Inventati to its list of banned terrorist groups, not because they’ve been accused of any crimes, but explicitly because the company allows people to communicate with each other while staying “anonymous, untraceable, and beyond the reach of the law.” Americans are now strictly forbidden from any transactions with the banned company.
In this dystopia, mass surveillance is now so normalized that you can be designated a terrorist for helping people avoid being surveilled." - open.substack.com/pub/caitlinjohnstone/p/youre-a-terroris...
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.
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.
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
“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
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.
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
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.
Llundain/ London ▪️▪️▪️▪️▪️"Israeli settlers taking over Palestinian homes and attacking families to scare them into leaving are part ot a normalized 59 year-old project to ethnically cleanse the West Bank of Palestinians." - Sari Bashi, DAWN Fellow. Executive Director, Public Committee Against Torture in Israel.
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.
With his mural, artist Jamie Janx Johnston wants to normalize the fact that men seek help and encourage suicide prevention among men.
Avec sa murale, l’artiste Jamie Janx Johnston souhaite normaliser le fait que les hommes demandent de l’aide et encourager la prévention du suicide chez les hommes.
Montreal, Canada
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."
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**
"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!
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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.
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
Corky hates being put in the cat carrier. I don't know why, other than it appears to be a "cat thing." All of our cats have hated the experience.
Kate decided to try to normalize it with Corky by giving her treats every day and putting them INSIDE the bag. Now Corky spends some time in the bag every morning...waiting.
Kate thinks she's tricked Corky. But I'm not sure who is getting suckered.
The World Renowned Frazier Studio
Elgin, Illinois, USA
May 29, 2026
Some of my albums:
.....
This is a real photograph taken with a real, physical camera, and not created by AI.
© 2026 Jim Frazier All Rights Reserved.
20260529cz7-42391366x768
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
Although the Second Russian Civil War is often dubbed a frozen conflict insofar as no major territorial shifts have been recorded for many years, the war is very much still active as piecemeal gains are made and then lost along the Ob-Irtysh River, which serves as the unofficial demarcation between East and West Russia. Because of the breadth of this river system, most of the incursions between the two Russias are relatively small in scale and require extensive amphibious capabilities as practically all major bridges have been destroyed, extensively damaged, or heavily securitized to the point that they're a no man's land. In effect, the Russian Civil War is now fought between artillery batteries and low footprint special operations forces as both sides attempt to expand their protracted industrial bases to maybe someday get a technological or numerical advantage over the other. To this end, the military design bureau of the Omsktransmash engineering firm, KBTM, designed the BMP-K as a highly specialized vehicle meant to traverse the Ob-Irtysh quickly while delivering enough firepower to disrupt West Russian outposts before dashing back over the water.
Indeed, the BMP-K is relatively unique as most 8x8 wheeled vehicles in Russian and Soviet military history have been given the BTR designator. However, the BMP-K is actually a highly modified BMP-2 chassis, demonstrating East Russia's difficulty in manufacturing wholly clean-slate designs after the war-induced brain drain to West Russia and beyond. Nevertheless, the iterative design process has proven effective enough as the BMP-K (the K standing for kolosnyy, or wheeled) sports plenty of changes to make it one of the most advanced amphibious vehicles in service today. Along with a highly hydrodynamic hull and stabilizing fins along the wheels wells, the vehicle possesses a pump-jet system not too dissimilar from that found on the American Seadragon prototype considered to replace the Marine Corps' outmoded fleet of AAV-7s. This choice of propulsion indicates that East Russia is still capable of keeping up with the innovation curve of great powers, albeit in a reduced, sporadic, and perhaps slower capacity. Additionally, the old BMP-2 turret has been in some ways simplified into a semi-remote system, meaning the weaponry and sensors are now highly automated although a traditional turret basket is maintained for skeuomorphic reasons. Theoretically, a console placed anywhere in the vehicle would be able to operate the turret with ease. Other changes are a bit more superficial. For instance, the turret now sports storage boxes on the front and rear for the crew to carry spare parts and assorted tools, mirroring the appearance of the now-retired Finnish BMP-2MD.
Since the BMP-K is essentially an amphibious, armed speedboat, many in the West have been surprised to see it not serving in East Russia's patron organization, the Union of Songun Republics, to help apply pressure to Taiwan and other insular states aligned with the United States. This surprise is unwarranted, however, once one realizes that many of the innovations made to the BMP design were for riverine and basic littoral operations. The vehicle is still incapable of handling higher sea states due to its size, making it an inappropriate addition to the USR's various arsenals. That being said, the BMP-K is a common sight in West Russia as East Russia engages in what many have dubbed a hole-punching strategy to the stale conflict. East Russian spin-offs of the Spetsnaz, such as the fabled Promyshlenniki unit (often translated as "Fur Trappers" by English outlets), make nighttime squad- or platoon-sized raids into West Russian holdings along the Ob and Irtysh rivers to disrupt command outposts, destroy supply depots, and seize prisoners to use as leverage for the intermittent negotiations that continuously fail to conclude the war and reunite the Russian people. Described differently, the Promyshlenniki punch small holes into West Russia but the overarching image is maintained and restored not too long thereafter, freezing the conflict. Yet, by ritualizing this behavior, East Russia normalizes its existence as a global actor and achieves small diplomatic gains once a critical mass of POWs can be exchanged and made into a media event. This is perhaps the most the East Russians can hope for while its partners in the USR continue to contest the broader West Pacific.
"In general, a stable bound state is said to exist in a given potential of some dimension if stationary wavefunctions exist (normalized in the range of the potential). The energies of these wavefunctions are negative."
Wikipedia
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.
As shot as: www.flickr.com/photos/79387036@N07/32518340037/in/photost... but in a more normalized panorama format.
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 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)
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.
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.
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.