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Torrenieri, Tuscany, Italy
Honorable Mentions - Heroes of the week
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This is the famous Isle of Staffa off the west coast of Mull and one of my occasional forays into landscape photography. The reason it is famous is because of its amazing geology comprising basalt columns, but also because of Fingal's Cave, itself made famous by Felix Mendelssohn. Mendelssohn visited Staffa in 1829 and was inspired to compose an overture (The Hebrides opus 26, aka Fingal's Cave) after listening to the echoes in Fingal's Cave: www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcogD-hHEYs The cave on the right with the tourists is Fingal's Cave, and you can see the basalt columns looking like a broken honeycomb side-on. The cave became known as Fingal's Cave after the eponymous hero of an epic poem by 18th century Scots poet-historian James Macpherson. In Irish mythology, the hero Fingal is known as Fionn mac Cumhaill (Finn MacCool), and it is suggested that Macpherson rendered the name as Fingal (meaning "white stranger") through a misapprehension of the name which in old Gaelic would appear as Finn. The legend of the Giant's Causeway has Finn building the causeway between Ireland and Scotland as he was challenged to a fight by the Scottish giant Benandonner. Finn accepted the challenge and built the causeway across the North Channel so that the two giants could meet. The basalt columns of the Giant's Causeway in County Antrim, and those of Staffa are part of the same ancient lava flow. Around 50 to 60 million years ago, during the Palaeocene, this area was subject to intense volcanic activity, when highly fluid molten basalt intruded through chalk beds to form an extensive volcanic plateau (the Thulean Plateau). As the lava cooled, contraction occurred. Horizontal contraction fractured in a similar way to drying mud, with the cracks propagating down as the mass cooled, leaving pillar-like structures, which also fractured horizontally. In many cases, the horizontal fracture resulted in a bottom face that is convex, while the upper face of the lower segment is concave, producing what are called "ball and socket" joints. The size of the columns was primarily determined by the speed at which lava cooled. The extensive fracture network produced the distinctive columns seen today.
Such a beautiful night after 5 days of clouds and rain, but the good news is, no flooding! So, after we had friends over for breakfast and the purged the garage some, we cooked steaks over a fire and then enjoyed sitting by it for the remainder of the night.
The nature of the beast is
You want it
Nature of the beast is
I do too
Let's unleash and cut the creature loose
Oh, it's the nature of the beast in you
taken @ sunny's - pose - W40
maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Sunny%20Photo%20Studio/213...
The lights of North Sydney reflecting on Sydney Harbour. This is another photo that has been saved from deletion by a few minor tweaks in Lightroom
The Great Wall of China at Badaling
If you ever go to Beijing and from there to the Great Wall of China, as I did with four of my friends be prepared for the hawkers. From Mao’s red book to post cards to kites you will be approached and you will be pressured into buying it, and the prices will lower for every half hour they spend trying to convince you. The most amusing of these run-ins was at the Great Wall at Badaling. In fact, it is a bit surprising that the couple trying to sell us post cards were not in the picture as they were our constant companions for the duration of our stay. I suppose they were probably beside or behind me, just out of reach of my lens. It got to the point that we were dodging them and doing football style dekes to escape. The important part was that we were all laughing, hawkers and tourists alike, and that I never gave in and actually purchased the bloody things. It was a matter of principal at that point.
wemasque.blogspot.ca/2014/08/seven-years-not-in-south-kor...
The area that was to become West Palm Beach was settled in the late 1870s and 1880s by a few hundred settlers who called the vicinity "Lake Worth Country." These settlers were a diverse community from different parts of the United States and the world. They included founding families such at the Potters and the Lainharts, who would go on to become leading members of the business community in the fledgling city. The first white settlers in Palm Beach County lived around Lake Worth, then an enclosed freshwater lake, named for Colonel William Jenkins Worth, who had fought in the Second Seminole War in Florida in 1842. Most settlers engaged in the growing of tropical fruits and vegetables for shipment the north via Lake Worth and the Indian River. By 1890, the U.S. Census counted over 200 people settled along Lake Worth in the vicinity of what would become West Palm Beach. The area at this time also boasted a hotel, the "Cocoanut House", a church, and a post office. The city was platted by Henry Flagler as a community to house the servants working in the two grand hotels on the neighboring island of Palm Beach, across Lake Worth in 1893, coinciding with the arrival of the Florida East Coast railroad. Flagler paid two area settlers, Captain Porter and Louie Hillhouse, a combined sum of $45,000 for the original town site, stretching from Clear Lake to Lake Worth.
On November 5, 1894, 78 people met at the "Calaboose" (the first jail and police station located at Clematis St. and Poinsettia, now Dixie Hwy.) and passed the motion to incorporate the Town of West Palm Beach in what was then Dade County (now Miami-Dade County). This made West Palm Beach the first incorporated municipality in Dade County and in South Florida. The town council quickly addressed the building codes and the tents and shanties were replaced by brick, brick veneer, and stone buildings. The city grew steadily during the 1890s and the first two decades of the 20th century, most residents were engaged in the tourist industry and related services or winter vegetable market and tropical fruit trade. In 1909, Palm Beach County was formed by the Florida State Legislature and West Palm Beach became the county seat. In 1916, a new neo-classical courthouse was opened, which has been painstakingly restored back to its original condition, and is now used as the local history museum.
The city grew rapidly in the 1920s as part of the Florida land boom. The population of West Palm Beach quadrupled from 1920 to 1927, and all kinds of businesses and public services grew along with it. Many of the city's landmark structures and preserved neighborhoods were constructed during this period. Originally, Flagler intended for his Florida East Coast Railway to have its terminus in West Palm, but after the area experienced a deep freeze, he chose to extend the railroad to Miami instead.
The land boom was already faltering when city was devastated by the 1928 Okeechobee hurricane. The Depression years of the 1930s were a quiet time for the area, which saw slight population growth and property values lower than during the 1920s. The city only recovered with the onset of World War II, which saw the construction of Palm Beach Air Force Base, which brought thousands of military personnel to the city. The base was vital to the allied war effort, as it provided an excellent training facility and had unparalleled access to North Africa for a North American city. Also during World War II, German U-Boats sank dozens of merchant ships and oil tankers just off the coast of West Palm Beach. Nearby Palm Beach was under black out conditions to minimize night visibility to German U-boats.
The 1950s saw another boom in population, partly due to the return of many soldiers and airmen who had served in the vicinity during the war. Also, the advent of air conditioning encouraged growth, as year-round living in a tropical climate became more acceptable to northerners. West Palm Beach became the one of the nation's fastest growing metropolitan areas during the 1950s; the city's borders spread west of Military Trail and south to Lake Clarke Shores. However, many of the city's residents still lived within a narrow six-block wide strip from the south to north end. The neighborhoods were strictly segregated between White and African-American populations, a legacy that the city still struggles with today. The primary shopping district remained downtown, centered around Clematis Street.
In the 1960s, Palm Beach County's first enclosed shopping mall, the Palm Beach Mall, and an indoor arena were completed. These projects led to a brief revival for the city, but in the 1970s and 1980s crime continued to be a serious issue and suburban sprawl continued to drain resources and business away from the old downtown area. By the early 1990s there were very high vacancy rates downtown, and serious levels of urban blight.
Since the 1990s, developments such as CityPlace and the preservation and renovation of 1920s architecture in the nightlife hub of Clematis Street have seen a downtown resurgence in the entertainment and shopping district. The city has also placed emphasis on neighborhood development and revitalization, in historic districts such as Northwood, Flamingo Park, and El Cid. Some neighborhoods still struggle with blight and crime, as well as lowered property values caused by the Great Recession, which hit the region particularly hard. Since the recovery, multiple new developments have been completed. The Palm Beach Mall, located at the Interstate 95/Palm Beach Lakes Boulevard interchange became abandoned as downtown revitalized - the very mall that initiated the original abandonment of the downtown. The mall was then redeveloped into the Palm Beach Fashion Outlets in February 2014. A station for All Aboard Florida, a high-speed passenger rail service serving Miami, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach, and Orlando, is under construction as of July 2015.
Credit for the data above is given to the following website:
A quick shot of the Orion Nebula (M42), one of my favourite celestial objects and a really satisfying target. I've been waiting a year for an opportunity to image this nebula again, this time with a polar alignment and guiding to enable much longer exposures than the 15 second subs I took last time and with a lower ISO to reduce noise. The next project with this is to either stitch two shots together or, better still, rotate the camera in order to fit both the Orion Nebula and the nearby Running Man Nebula into one frame.
13 x 4 minute exposures at 400 ISO
8 x dark frames
10 x flat frames
21 x bias/offset frames (subtracted from flat frames only)
Total exposure time - 52 minutes
Guided with PHD
Processed in Nebulosity, Maxim DL and Photoshop
Equipment
Celestron NexStar 127 SLT
GoTo AltAz mount with homemade wedge
Orion 50mm Mini Guide Scope
ZWO ASI120 MC guiding camera
Canon EOS 700D DSLR
[Wikipedia] The Orion Nebula (also known as Messier 42, M42, or NGC 1976) is a diffuse nebula situated in the Milky Way, being south of Orion's Belt in the constellation of Orion. It is one of the brightest nebulae, and is visible to the naked eye in the night sky. M42 is located at a distance of 1,344 ± 20 light years and is the closest region of massive star formation to Earth. The M42 nebula is estimated to be 24 light years across. It has a mass of about 2000 times the mass of the Sun. Older texts frequently refer to the Orion Nebula as the Great Nebula in Orion or the Great Orion Nebula.
The Orion Nebula is one of the most scrutinized and photographed objects in the night sky, and is among the most intensely studied celestial features. The nebula has revealed much about the process of how stars and planetary systems are formed from collapsing clouds of gas and dust. Astronomers have directly observed protoplanetary disks, brown dwarfs, intense and turbulent motions of the gas, and the photo-ionizing effects of massive nearby stars in the nebula. [Wikipedia]
The Monument and Preserve encompass three major lava fields and about 400 square miles (1,000 km2) of sagebrush steppe grasslands to cover a total area of 1,117 square miles (2,893 km2). All three lava fields lie along the Great Rift of Idaho, with some of the best examples of open rift cracks in the world, including the deepest known on Earth at 800 feet (240 m). There are excellent examples of almost every variety of basaltic lava, as well as tree molds (cavities left by lava-incinerated trees), lava tubes (a type of cave), and many other volcanic features.
Boromir’s Death
The final scene of my LotR series depicts the tragic death of Boromir after the breaking of the fellowship.
It's been an amazing journey through Middle Earth in the last weeks and I'm really thankful for your amazing support with kind comments and messages!
Don't forget to check out the first half of the series by Xenomurphy! Thanks for inviting me to this collab and helping a ton with the photo editing.
The builders for the second movie will be revealed at later time, so keep in eye on my stories to see how our #LotRvignettes continue.
We are building a LEGO Lord of the Rings vignette series:
◾Book 1: Xenomurphy
◾Book 2: Jonas Kramm
◾Book 3: Jonas Kramm
◾Book 4: Marcel V.
◾Book 5: ForlornEmpire
◾Book 6: Grant Davis
Can't pretend any longer that I haven't struggled to get out of late, particularly with the poor evening light we've been having in London so here's an old fave of mine, shot at my local vintage furniture shop, re-edited for my exhibition earlier this year. Apologies for to anyone who liked this earlier, had to delete the first post because I posted the wrong edit! :-)
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Thanks for your interest
Panorama of an acacia tree and sand dune catching the last rays of the setting sun... Namib Naukluft National park, Namibia... 16th April 2015... sunset.
Nikon D800, Nikkor 70 - 200 mm at 105 mm, ISO of 100, aperture of f/9 with a 1/80th second exposure.
Day 250. I spent a lot of time trying to get this right today. Did you know water drops have a mind of their own? They do not go where you want them to. In the end I just sprayed down the whole flower until I got a few decent drops to gather where I wanted them on the stem. I'm very pleased with the end result as this was my first time trying water drop refraction on a stem.
I used both of my trusty speedlights again today for this shot.
I’m really feeling strange today. I don’t know. It feels like I’m in slow motion. Plus my face is in pain, doesn’t that sound strange? I got attacked by a mosquito at in my sleep. I react really badly to them. So my eye was swollen shut and my chin was huge. Now I have a dopey looking Katie Holmes eye and a Jay Leno chin. Attractive huh? I’m hiding it all well in this picture at least! Blah. I hate Mondays.
In two days I will be in Paris. I can't wait to visit the original City of Lights and see the tower that inspired so many clones.
This image captures the iconic modern skyline of London, dominated by The Shard, the tallest building in Western Europe. The dramatic sky in the background enhances the futuristic architecture of the buildings. On the left, the distinctive, egg-shaped London City Hall seamlessly blends into the surroundings. The River Thames adds a calm, reflective quality to the scene, while the green trees provide a touch of nature amidst the urban landscape.
Kemasik Beach, Terengganu Malaysia.
Poetry Of The Natural World
feel it | love it | enjoy it
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All images are exclusive property and may not be copied, downloaded, reproduced, transmitted, manipulated or used in any way without expressed, written permission of the photographer.
Italy, Venice, Italy, illustrator drawing a sketch of the Canal Grande at the corner of the vegetable market near the Ponte Rialto.
The lagoon city hides many picturesque places offside the tourist roads. If the buildings would be straight, painted & well maintained, I think Venice without this patina, the gondolas & gondolieri, channels, little bridges & the at all-time busy Canal Grande; all these main ingredients altogether express the romantic charm of Venice.
👉 One World one Dream,
🙏...Danke, Xièxie 谢谢, Thanks, Gracias, Merci, Grazie, Obrigado, Arigatô, Dhanyavad, Chokrane to you & over
16 million visits in my photostream with countless motivating comments
Pictured just a few minutes after sunrise, the low sun has bathed the Cobb End of Lyme Regis in golden light. The land in and around Lyme Regis is extremely unstable which means there are limited areas where it is safe to build. This has effectively cut the town in two, with the Church End to the east and the Cobb End to the west. The seaside promenade which dates back to the Georgian period connects them, with a park occupying the formerly unstable land above the promenade. This is out of shot to the right. In recent years there has been a huge investment to stabilise this land so that it does not slip down towards the sea.
OCHS Class of '98 10 year reunion held at Mellwood Arts & Entertainment Center in Louisville Kentucky on August 30, 2008.
Some of these pictures were taken at O'Shays in Louisville, Kentucky after the inital meetup at the Mellwood Arts Center.
The following photos were taken by Amy Aubrey (Winters).
Car: Triumph Dolomite 1850 HL.
Year of manufacture: 1976.
Date of first registration in the UK: 12th August 1976.
Place of registration: Worcester.
Date of last MOT: 16th August 2019.
Mileage at last MOT: 34,179.
Date of last change of keeper: 1st June 2022.
Number of previous keepers: 8.
Date taken: 3rd October 2022.
Album: Carspotting 2022
A lovely little waterfall in the upper section of Glen Helen captured on a damp summer morning. Taken super wide angle at 14mm with my circular polariser making those lush forest colours pop. I’ve not been very active photography wise for the majority of the summer, as my priorities have been elsewhere (spending time with my 7-month-old photography apprentice!). I’ve not taken a single photo is 2 months!!?? However, as the nights begin to draw in, the sunrises get that little easier to wake for, the autumn colours begin to show themselves and the weather gets a bit more interesting, my urge to be back out shooting will return. Cannot wait! 😁
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Impressions of the colours and shapes in the leaf canopy above the path of one of my "therapeutic" walks. I love the range of colours and the lacey texture of the decomposing leaves against the sky and the shapes of the branches
Texture:
Gunung Lambak, an inselberg with an elevation of 510m, is the house mountain of Kluang town in Johor, Malaysia. It is considered to be a good mountain trekking location for beginners and with its location being close to Singapore, it is also often popular not just with the locals, but with day trippers from neighbouring Singapore as well.
There are also mini waterfalls along the various paths in Gunung Lambak. These mini waterfalls often help to give a respite from the swelling heat and humidity of the local tropical weather in the Kluang area.
Please do not use this image on websites, blogs or other media without my explicit permission. PhotOvation Akshay © - All Rights Reserved. Visit PHOTOVATION.PICFAIR.COM
Saint Augustine, Florida U.S.A. - Summer - July 4th, 2017
(St. Augustine is the oldest city in the United States - 1513)
(three more 'bridge photos' in the comments)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridge_of_Lions
Honey Run Falls
Honey Run
Honey Run Park
Ohio
This past weekend myself and several friends got the opportunity to shoot the old haunted Licking County Jail in Newark, Ohio. The jail, located about 30 miles east of Columbus, I decided to take advantage of the close proximity I would be to Honey Run Falls located about 45 minutes to the north east of the city. That 45 minute drive seemed like an eternity. but when we arrived it was quite clear the side trip was quite worth the effort. Over the years I've seen numerous photographs of this falls and I believed it wasn't very tall, about 10 ft or so, but imagine my surprise when I arrived to a 25 ft beauty! I think the most interesting thing to me was that the falls is located in, what I would call, a micro environment. The surrounding area is open pastures with spotty patches of hardwoods, but at the falls were towering hemlocks atop what looked to be an exposed area of sandstone. Another surprise was the well groomed park the falls was in; a fairly spacious parking lot, obvious well maintained trails, a gorgeous bridge across the creek and to my amazement no evidence of recent graffiti. Surprising for a waterfall located less than 100 ft from a busy road. Although beautiful, I doubt I'll be back any time soon due to it's remote location which is nearly an hour drive from I-71, but you never know what the future holds, I may be back sooner than I think.
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Standing in the middle of the pier at Tybee Island, GA, I snapped this photo which is actually three photos combined into this HDR. This was taken first thing in the morning which provided the great sun light seen on the inside of the pier columns.
Three bracketed photos were taken with a tripod mounted Nikon D5000 and combined with Photomatix to create this HDR image. Additional adjustments were made in Photoshop CS4.
"For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." ~Jeremiah 29:11
Loch Coire Lagan
Isle of Skye
An oldie for today - this was taken from 2/3 of the way up a very steep scree slope heading to the black cuillin ridgeline in southern skye. Down below, the peaceful small loch was one of our favourite places visited in 2010. This shot would have been much better photographed as an exposure blend but at the time I chose to use filters which couldn't hold back the sky enough I think. Hiking back to Glen Brittle in the dark was an experience too! ps. Marianne is just visible if you strain hard to see her down below!