View allAll Photos Tagged Predictable
THE ANIMAL CRUSADE
One day all the sties and burrows opened
And out came the cave-bear the mammoth the seafaring
cormorant, that poetic diving bird, the white-headed vulture
the rock-goat from the mountains, the sea unicorn
You could see by their snouts that they meant business
You could hear by their flapping wings and their burr
They had thrown off their humility, cast down their yoke
once imposed by Adam’s secretive hero
the one with the garden
They were, to cut a long story short, fed up
And the morals of the shotgun had been cast off
the flayed skin of flight had faded
The viper walked tall and the swine wore polaroid glasses
that lent him pleasant looks. The beavers
gnawed down telegraph poles and so cut off any form of communication
Predictably enough, the lion led the way black black
as black gold and gold-coloured as deep black
It was a magnificent procession, blinding to the eye
At the back the unicorn reported as missing, the dodo the passenger pigeon
as well as various viruses and the elated spermatozoids
So the holy animals
travelled the holy world
And do you know how or why?
Oh no, they just went travelling, they didn’t have a flag!
Sometimes ripped up laws out of sheer happiness
or bled a city dry
Now and then trampled on a Jesus
or struck down a prophet or a princess
They were beginning to get tired
Haste no longer necessary
The one day’s deities left the fire
H.H. ter Balkt
Translation: Willem Groenewegen
A very common bird in our region seen almost everywhere in the countryside. The birds are quite agile and active even during the hot summers. I am not sure if they have any natural predators apart from raptors - never seen a picture or in real life a Bee-Eater being killed - these birds are incredibly agile and would be tough for any bird to get them.
In the grassland, there were several fallen tree branches that offered terrific perches and these birds landed on them along with Silverbills and sunbirds that gave us great shots! The birds are always seen in small groups. They are also predictable that they like Shrikes hunt from the same perch and come back to it.
In the right light, the bird's colors were amazing - bright and standing out. It was preening for a while, stretching and relaxing.
Thanks in advance for your views and feedback - much appreciated.
Taken for two of Our Daily Challenges: predictable and disturbing (April showers are certainly predictable and disturbing (to me anyways, I am not a fan of lots of rain lol)
Listening to the rain hitting my window this morning made me think of this Creed song "Rain". We are supposed to have a wet and rainy week but it's a good thing that rain doesn't last forever... April showers bring May flowers....right??? There needs to be some payoff for this shitty weather! ;)
Also taken for Window Wednesdays. HWW!
From the website:
www.nps.gov/places/000/grotto-geyser.htm
A popular performer, Grotto Geyser splashes 15 feet (5 m) from 1.5 hours to a day. The weirdly shaped cone may have resulted from siliceous sinter covering trees. Situated on the bank of the Firehole River, Riverside Geyser is one of the most picturesque and predictable geysers in the park.
During its 20-minute eruptions, a 75-foot (23 m) column of water arches gracefully over the river. Eruptions are about six hours apart. Watch for water flowing over the edge of the cone beginning 90-120 minutes before an eruption. Grotto Geyser has an average temperate of 200.1°F (93.4°C), an average pH of 9.1, and an average conductivity of 2300 uS/cm.
Thank you for taken your time to visit me, comments or faves are always much appreciated!
They are still here. These are not predictable year by year - sometimes numerous, sometimes not at all. This was a big "winter finch" year in many places, I know, including here in San Diego County. So I am trying to get decent photos while the opportunity lasts!
North Peak, Cuyamaca Mountains, California.
Feb. 6, 2021
Nothing will get your heart pumping and patriotic juices flowing like seeing a F-22 Raptor thundering by you at 600 miles an hour!! This bad boy was the finale of Friday's 2 1/2 hour Air Show at EAA Oshkosh 2015, and predictably, the crowd went wild.
I processed this with my typical Apple Aperture editing, then ran it through a few filters at picmonkey.com... I hope you enjoy the result!
I really ought to become a bit more adventurous at bluebell time. There are plenty of quiet intimate woodlands in the area, many of them explored and reported back on over morning coffee by my colleague Katie before I packed work in for good. I made mental notes of all of her weekend wanderings and resolved to go and act upon the secrets that had been so generously shared with me. While I see plenty of fantastic images from the more widely visited hotspots, I prefer to hide in a little known backwater where only a few locals tread. Even Katie's recommendations lie as yet untouched by my boots and tripod, in favour of the spot that I've visited with unerring predictability for the last seven springtimes and the last seven autumns. One day I really ought to try another location.
But you see the woodland without a name has it all for me in abundance. A stream runs right through the mostly beech filled wilderness, a network of small paths cutting through the swathes of spring bluebells and wild garlic. While the struggle to produce images under those watchful trees continued to mystify me, the familiarity brought by the continual visits, coupled with the way the light filters through the forest on a sunny evening helped me to begin to make sense of that eternal woodland photography challenge. The time spent within these few acres has brought some of the happiest moments or pure abandon, even when the art of delivering a compelling image remained so aloof. I recently watched a hiking programme during which our intrepid adventurer was introduced to something called "forest bathing" in the nearby Helford Passage, a practice which entails simply opening your senses to the sights, smells and sounds around you and letting go of everything else. Well you might imagine what I thought - although I really had no idea that what I'd been doing for years had a name. But if I find a group of seemingly entranced celebrities sitting on tree stumps gazing into nothingness on my next visit I will not be impressed.
This particular area of the woods also managed to hide from me for a number of years, until a search for wild garlic brought me here twelve months ago. While a substantial patch of the white stuff lay in another part of the wood, it never seemed to catch that dappled light I wanted, so further exploration was on the agenda. Eventually I stumbled across the stream into a colourful corridor white I'd never come to in spring before. At the edge of the trees, sunlight bled softly through the canopy and spread itself across so many thousands of tiny white and purple flowers. It took a couple of visits before I went home with something that I was happy enough to share, and from then the new spot became one I'd return to in the future.
And so I did, three times in a span of five days last week, each time heading to this exact spot and hoping the evening light would do what I hoped for. Each time I'd find myself waiting for as much as an hour for the light, and each time I saw not a single person in this quiet corner of perfection. It makes me wonder how on earth that narrow path even exists. This shot came from the second of those three visits, on an evening when an unrelenting breeze forced the ISO beyond where I'd normally want to take it, but the light was just how I hoped it would be at that moment.
The bluebells in the wood were especially good this season, smothering the forest floor, full of vitality and packed with a scent I'd never noticed before. But I really need to spread my wings a little next time and venture into new spaces to continue this strange affair with woodland photography; ever challenging, often frustrating, but always especially rewarding when a moment delivers a shot worth sharing.
Dunia | Bliss
youtu.be/IhG5eEoK20o?si=XKRDiTj3QlQXpPKR
Child of the desert
I was born into desolation.
…An empty desert…
With a hollow breeze that blows to make a change by only moving tiny grains of sand.
Mounds of the minutiae move covering lost points with sand mounds failing to understand the damage done.
I was born into desolation.
From a tree branch that breaks through unfertile land.
Where water was once worshiped.
But the lack thereof has now become a normalcy.
The reality of this mutilation quakes the very ground.
Iron monsters found reigning over the region,
Trampling over its victims and raging for anonymous reasons.
Their presence and actions have become pertinent and predictable just like the change of tide or changing seasons.
I was born into desolation
I was born into desolation
The widowed tree lifts me
The final child of its produce to gain view of another land that one day can bare fruit.
All that can be seen however is the iron monsters from here all the way to the horizon all prepared to bare tooth.
The iron monsters ravage with no morals
And their actions only bring one truth…
I was born into desolation.
Nollaig, Sràid a' Mhargaidh Ùir , Inbhir Áir - Christmas, Newmarket Street, Ayr
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"Pan ddywedaf fod hil-laddiad 'yn anfesuradwy', rwy'n sôn am erchyllter sy'n mynd y tu hwnt i'r niferoedd aruthrol o feirwon ac o glwyfedigion a fu eisoes. Mae'n cwmpasu dinistrio pob cyflwr angenrheidiol i fywyd, dinistrio a gafodd ei gynllunio a'i drefnu ac sy'n ymestyn i bob tymor. Yng Ngasa, y gaeaf hwn, nid newid syml yn y tywydd yw'r gaeaf, eithr arf i achosi dioddefaint torfol, arf sy'n cael ei dargedu gyda gofal manwl. (...) Mae meddygon Palesteinaidd wedi adrodd am blant bach yn rhewi i farwolaeth yn y gwersylloedd i bobl a symudwyd o'u cartrefi. Y dydd o'r blaen, cadarnhaodd Gweinyddiaeth Iechyd Gasa fod baban pythefnos oed wedi marw o ganlyniad i'r oerfel a'r gwlybaniaeth. Mae'r wyddoniaeth yn syml: dyw cyrff na chawson nhw faeth digonol, ac a gollodd fraster a chyhyrau, ddim yn gallu cynhyrchu'r gwres sy ei angen i oroesi 'r oerfel a'r lleithder hwn. Mae'r Cenhedloedd Unedig yn rhybuddio bod y perygl o hypothermia 'wedi codi', gyda babanod 'mewn perygl mawr iawn.' Mae hyn beth cyfarwydd, wrth gwrs, ac yn rhywbeth y modd ei rag-weld, ond nid tra bo Israel yn rheoli'r ardal." - Deaglan O' Mulrooney
▪️
"When I speak of a genocide being 'immeasurable', I'm speaking of a horror that transcends the already staggering numbers of the dead and maimed. It encompasses the calculayted, systematic destruction of every condition necessary for life, extended into every season. In Gaza, this winter is not a simple change in the weather, it's a weapon of mass suffering, and it's being deployed with precision.(...) Palestinian doctors have reported infants freezing to death in displacement camps. Just the other day, Gaza's Ministry of Health confirmed a two-week-old infant succumbed to the cold and wet. The science is simple: malnourished bodies, already depleted of fat and muscle, cannot generate the heat needed to survive this cold and damp. The UN warns the risk of hypothermia is 'heightened', with babies in 'very high danger'. This is of course all well known, predictable, and entirely preventable but not whilst Israel controls the area..
open.substack.com/pub/thespectaclemag/p/the-suffering-in-...
With the rescheduling brought on by PSR, or whatever it is the NS labels it, 201 is now a night train thru here no longer allowing a predictable morning run down the Valley and past the N&W relics found along the way.
Resident birds of the subcontinent and found throughout the year, but not so common here. This was shot last winter near a dry lake on the outskirts of the city. That lake hosted 1000's of birds including a few species of ducks, godwits, swallows, stints, sandpipers and a variety of other waders. The place had amazing activity and was an excellent place for bird photography.
During one of those days, around 7-8 Spoonbills landed there and were foraging in the shallow lake scooping up the various aquatic creatures like worms, crustaceans, insects etc.. These spoonbills - I suspect - are locally migratory since their sightings are not that regular or predictable. And it is one of those large birds that many of us enjoying sighting and watching.
Thank you so much in advance for your views, feedback and faves.
151 165 of private EVU SaarRail leads a loaded hot bottle train DGS 91309 out of the steel works at Dillingen. The mill at Dillingen is the last surviving blast furnace in Saarland and now supplies raw iron for the arc mill in Voelkingen as well. Saar Rail has the contract for the bottle trains and internal plant operations at Voelkingen. The train shuttles back and forth between the two plants all day with a fairly predictable schedule, making for a productive day of railfanning.
This NS 210 in February had quite the assortment of power, with NS 229's set leading 209's. Since both mentioned southbounds had SD60M's trailing last and facing north, the lead motor on 210 was pretty predictable. I set up at the downtown Jacksonville drawbridge where my wait was rewarded.
The Labrador Effect
Back to my post from yesterday for HSoS.
First of all, I would like to thank all the lovely Flickrities for the wonderful comments on yesterday's topic - title wanted - , everyone could have been right.
In my tags I announced that there would be a second photo, actually I should have posted it the other way around, but then the story would be a lie :)
On an autumn walk I suddenly heard a noise and it was anything but heavenly. The little rascal growled violently and it sounded like this: "Don't dare to come closer, or my huge friend will hug you" :-) and indeed, there he was! I then went on quickly ;-))
Can you see it? It wasn't predictable, the Labrador Effect ;-)))
Thanks for visiting and time to watch, happy Sunday , stay healthy, all!
PS
The two dogs are very happy and live and guard on a small horse farm, with adjoining small pond, a paradise for anglers. I'm only sad myself because I couldn't stroke them.
Old Faithful, a cone geyser in Yellowstone, erupts predictably about every 90 minutes, reaching up to 55 meters (180 feet).
Despite having a Corman line just down the road from me, I had been wanting to shoot the bigger Corman operation in Kentucky for a while now. After going to Indiana earlier in the week, the trek down to Lexington proved to be fruitful. We had quite a bit of good luck finding trains in daylight. We struck out on catching the Versailles job, the Alcan trains made for predictable chases. One of the only bummers was that the 5409 seemed to be the only tunnelmotor running, with three others in what appeared to be temporary storage by the shop.
If you've not been to Lexington before, you'll find that the RJ Corman name is on just about everything. They're even sponsoring the Fourth of July fireworks this summer with the main event at their display engines by their yard in downtown.
THE ANIMAL CRUSADE
One day all the sties and burrows opened
And out came the cave-bear the mammoth the seafaring
cormorant, that poetic diving bird, the white-headed vulture
the rock-goat from the mountains, the sea unicorn
You could see by their snouts that they meant business
You could hear by their flapping wings and their burr
They had thrown off their humility, cast down their yoke
once imposed by Adam’s secretive hero
the one with the garden
They were, to cut a long story short, fed up
And the morals of the shotgun had been cast off
the flayed skin of flight had faded
The viper walked tall and the swine wore polaroid glasses
that lent him pleasant looks. The beavers
gnawed down telegraph poles and so cut off any form of communication
Predictably enough, the lion led the way black black
as black gold and gold-coloured as deep black
It was a magnificent procession, blinding to the eye
At the back the unicorn reported as missing, the dodo the passenger pigeon
as well as various viruses and the elated spermatozoids
So the holy animals
travelled the holy world
And do you know how or why?
Oh no, they just went travelling, they didn’t have a flag!
Sometimes ripped up laws out of sheer happiness
or bled a city dry
Now and then trampled on a Jesus
or struck down a prophet or a princess
They were beginning to get tired
Haste no longer necessary
The one day’s deities left the fire
H.H. ter Balkt
Translation: Willem Groenewegen
I feared my trip to the Lakes in the second week in November this year was going to late form the intense autumn colours, I was wrong. Look at these beautiful colours that greeted me on my apporach to climb Mellbreak. In my defence I do thing autumn was late to burst onto the scenes this year, this time last year there a dusting on the fells and the colour had almost gone. Once upon a time the seasons were a little more predictable, when I was a lad autumn half term was called blackberry week, you’d struggle now to find many blackberries in late October now. As one of my music hero’s sang (while I can still talk about him) “The time they are a changin”. To paraphrase, “Good night, and in case I don’t see ya, good morning, good evening and happy new year”.
Having been given permission back out onto the main, the engineer on the "Rosario Local" throttles up his two SD40s while the brakeman waits to re-line the derail once the short train is clear. They've just finished switching Nustar Asphalt, which can be seen in the far right of this shot. This track is part of the pre-1966 AT&SF alignment, which generally followed the Rio Galisteo from near its confluence with the Rio Grande towards Lamy.
This was the culmination of a one year long desire and about a four hour wait. I had seen this shot in my head ever since beginning my time qualifying out of Albuquerque, but it was either "they don't run up here anymore" or (once regular, predictable service resumed) I was always working when this job was working. Everything fell together today though, and it was worth waiting for!
A Sharp-shinned Hawk chases a Pileated Woodpecker in a David and Goliath type scenario, in which the raptor seems to have “eyes bigger than its stomach” as the saying goes. But the predator didn’t have much to lose, and might have succeeded in its hunt. It did not in this instance, seeming to be more of an irritant to the large woodpecker, which eventually flew off. But the Sharp-shinned Hawk also had a go at several smaller woodpeckers in the shape of Northern Flicker, and although it didn’t get a meal there either, at the least it was keeping its pursuit skills sharp. I was fortunate to get this image, as I tried a series without even bringing the viewfinder to my eye, and predictably most were out-of-focus or caught the birds behind a tree trunk. But this one frame was acceptable and conveys the drama of the moment. This interaction unfolded in Carburn Park, Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
[There has been no manipulation to bring these two birds into this close juxtaposition — this is how it happened in real life, which involved a fast, twisting pursuit that I managed to capture.]
Not posted a Macro Monday shot for a long while, but I was taking shots in our newly-developing garden 3 or 4 days ago and thought that this might fit the bill if a little predictable :)
Macro Mondays - Patterns in Nature
Leica M Mono, Voigtlander AS 2.8/90 at F5.6. Though I have roughed up the image in PP, I had left it to the light and the camera to define the vista. Therefore, this is an "arranged" and "planned" image though the final result was not quite predictable. However, my intervention went a lot further: out of the four shots I took I chose this one as the "most interesting". So, you are not simply seeing what the camera saw, you see what I want you to see.
Road closures, specifically I-82 at the Oregon/Washington State line have me shutdown due to weather, snow and wind.
Was looking at what to post and decided I and maybe you needed something not winter.
This shot is from October 2017 and taken near the Santiam Rest Area near Jefferson Oregon. The Santiam River is to the left about 200 feet out of the picture, but the path here takes you along the rivers banks.
I've pulled some nice pictures from this rest area and the woods nearby, all easy walking distance from the parking lot. Maybe enough for it's own album. Might do that today if I'm stuck here much longer.
I have food, diet coke, slow but mostly useable internet, so I'm in good shape. Getting paid to stay safe, I like that. Hope everyone's having a cozy Sunday.
More to worry about. The earth's outer liquid iron core seems to be moving and that can cause magnetic polar reversal, the current moving of the magnetic North and weaking magnetic fields that also protect us from our Sun's radiation.
While we should be concerned about Climate change, (Well at the moment I'm ready to go back to Global warming.) I'm also wondering how much the declining Earth's magnetic polar fields could be affecting all kinds of things. Apparently the North and South poles regularly switch positions,
This is from British Geological Survey
"How often do reversals occur?
As a matter of geological record, the Earth's magnetic field has undergone numerous reversals of polarity. We can see this in the magnetic patterns found in volcanic rocks, especially those recovered from the ocean floors. In the last 10 million years, there have been, on average, 4 or 5 reversals per million years. At other times in Earth's history, for example during the Cretaceous era, there have been much longer periods when no reversals occurred. Reversals are not predictable and are certainly not periodic in nature. Hence we can only speak about the average reversal interval."
Here's a Wikipedia link if you're interested and looking for one more thing to possibly worry about.
Do not fear the judgment of unknown painters and paint your canvas following your colors and your dreams,
not everything is predictable and obvious, you are the artist of your life, the canvas is yours so use all the brushes you need and paint your way...
never leave it in the hands of others.
A welcome sight today was Class 5 45231 with a Driver Training train for LSL. This was the first of three days booked running for the 5 and was predictably in gloomy conditions and with not a good selection of coaches in tow. Even so, I had to go out as it was fairly local and I had not seen steam for just over 3 months.
The scene here at Chester near to the Northgate Locks is fairly unchanged since steam days although there was a lot of debris on the trackside which has been removed in PS.
"Each day is born with a sunrise
and ends in a sunset, the same way we
open our eyes to see the light,
and close them to hear the dark.
You have no control over
how your story begins or ends.
But by now, you should know that
all things have an ending.
Every spark returns to darkness.
Every sound returns to silence.
And every flower returns to sleep
with the earth.
The journey of the sun
and moon is predictable.
But yours,
is your ultimate
ART.”
― Suzy Kassem
This photo has been stuck in my mind for weeks now. I had to go back and make it happen. It was worth it.
The docks around the Oslo Opera House have been rebuilt with human rocks. Despite all modern ingenuity, the result is rather boring and predictable. Economic considerations are prominent.
The historic Belvedere Palace in Łazienki Park has traditionally been the residence of the Polish president in the 20th century, a function it served from 1918 to 1995 and then once again from 2010-2015. Built-in 1694 but thoroughly remodeled in 1818, the building is predictably off-limits. It is a wonder of Neo-Classical design, complete with tympanum and oversized Corinthian columns.
Christina Milian - When You Look At Me
www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxRIjRSzxGo&pp=QAA%3D
" Tell me who do you think you see
You're standing in your corner looking out on me
You think I'm so predictable
Tell me who do you think I am
Looks can be deceiving
Better guess again
Tell me what you see
When you look at me
You're probably thinking that I want those things
Cash, cars, diamond rings
Thinkin' on my side the grass is green
But you don't know where I have been
I could be a wolf in disguise
I could be an angel in your eyes
Never judge a book by its cover
I could be a crook or your lover
I could be the one or the other
If you'd look beneath you'd discover
You just don't know me! ..."
Taken in Dairy Farm Nature Park in Singapore.
Having left the air- conditioned hotel and ventured out into the hot and very humid real world Singapore to go looking for birds, I quickly discovered the challenge presented by a cooled camera lens.
Condensation was so intense that it was nearly an hour before I could get a clear image! And, predictably, that first morning hour saw many lost opportunities…
It was certainly predictable that my Monday flower greeting would be delivered by a spring flower. And that is just the right thing to do.
But this crocus here is a special one. Because it does not grow in the middle of its fellow crocuses in a wide flower meadow.
No. This little guy is not making it easy for himself by choosing a place on the edge of a path made of concrete slabs behind a border (also made of concrete) as his location. And as unfavorable as the conditions may be, he has not only managed to put down roots here. No. As you can see, it is in full bloom.
And here, far away from competition, he can be sure that enough bees will find him and thus ensure his pollination.
And once again nature shows us what possibilities and perspectives we can have.
I am convinced that it feels much safer on the meadow. As one among many. But what is the price I might have to pay for that? In addition to the fact that I may never really be perceived as an individual, I am largely dependent on my environment. This means that my opportunities to really develop further are very limited.
That doesn't mean giving up everything from one day to the next. As always, it's all about balance. After all, our crocus is still a crocus.
But I invite you to think outside the box (or outside the bed) from time to time and to pay less attention to what the others on the meadow would think of your decisions and goals.
And so I wish you an innovative week and contact with the little rebel that lies within each of us.
Es war bestimmt vorherzusehen, dass mein montäglicher Blumengruß von einer Frühlingsblume überbracht wird. Das bietet sich ja auch gerade an.
Doch dieser Krokus hier ist ein besonderer. Denn er wächst nicht mitten unter seiner Artgenossen auf einer weiten Blumenwiese.
Nein. Dieser kleine Kerl macht es sich nicht einfach, in dem er einen Platz am Rande eines Weges aus Betonplatten hinter einer Begrenzung (ebenfalls aus Beton) zu seinem Standort gemacht hat. Und so ungünstig die Rahmenbedingungen auch sein mögen, hat er es nicht nur geschafft hier Wurzeln zu schlagen. Nein. Wie Ihr sehen könnt steht er in voller Blüte.
Und hier, weit weg von Konkurrenz kann er sich sicher sein, dass ihn ausreichend Bienen finden und somit für seine Bestäubung sorgen.
Und wieder einmal zeigt uns die Natur auf, was wir für Möglichkeiten und Sichtweisen haben können.
Ich bin davon überzeugt, dass es sich auf der Wiese deutlich sicherer anfühlt. Als einer unter vielen. Doch was ist der Preis den ich dafür unter Umständen bezahlen muss ? Neben der Tatsache, dass ich womöglich nie wirklich als Individuum wahrgenommen werde bin ich zu einem großen Teil von meiner Umfeld abhängig. Was dazu führt, dass meine Möglichkeiten mich wirklich weiter zu entwickeln sehr eingeschränkt sind.
Das bedeutet jetzt nicht von jetzt auf Gleich alles im Stich zu lassen. Wie immer kommt es auch hier auf die Balance an. Unser Krokus ist schließlich immernoch ein Krokus.
Doch ich lade Euch ein von Zeit zu Zeit außerhalb der Box (oder außerhalb des Beetes) zu denken und bei Euren Entscheidungen und Zielen weniger darauf zu achten, was die anderen auf der Wiese wohl davon halten würden.
Und so wünsche ich Euch eine innovative Woche und Kontakt zu dem kleinen Rebell, der in jedem von uns steckt.
more of this on my website at: www.shoot-to-catch.de
After uploading all of the ladybirds species seen last week, I just had to finish this week in my predictable way!!
Middleton Lakes - Warwickshire (May 18)
Hope everyone has a good and safe weekend!
I adore our neighbor cat Gracie Jo, even though she has a prickly personality. She won't let me touch her, but she has been a great model for photographs for the six years I've known her and I think we understand each other.
Yesterday our friend/neighbor, who is Gracie Jo's "owner", was carried off in an ambulance and we're waiting to hear about his condition. As Sally and I are assigned in his will to take custody of Gracie Jo when he dies, we seemed to obvious choice to take care of her right now, while he's hospitalized. Even for him, her movements are unpredictable, but I have managed to feed her once yesterday, and a nice big meal today. She has rubbed against my leg each time, but--predictably--swatted me when I tried to touch her head.
Taking leave. When traditional relationships with sense, sound, rhythm and predictability have been left behind or radically reinterpreted. When exile and misunderstanding have forced you to rethink your affiliations. When you long for new beauty and excitement. When saying goodbye is so incredibly hard. Leica M8, Elmar (collapsible) 50/2.8 at F 5.6.
A pair of OC Super 7's lead a short MMT local through the cut east of Jewett, Ohio, on the morning of March 29, 2017. This was one of the last MMT's to run before the railroad flipped a bunch of things around, and now there's no predictability to when anything east of Coshocton will run.
Video from this day can be found here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzVZDFUAUF4
Most of the older farm houses had gourd birdhouses hung around them to attract Purple Martins which are supposed to help with mosquito control.
This image started out and went in a new direction for me! I have always admired these drawing-like looks, but didn't know how to accomplish them. This one came on my computer with complete serendipity. I wasn't even trying to accomplish this - I just wanted to make a very bland photo interesting and usable. I would welcome any instruction from those who know how to achieve this look in a more orderly & predictable fashion than I went through.
A common bird around our neighbourhood and the countryside - sometimes a pest. However, they are great for flight shot practice. The birds are fast fliers, but predictable though making them great for practice. These are often the target of Falcons this season (Winter), so we often watch these birds movements to check for Falcons around.
Shot this bird on a dam next to a reservoir when it was flying above the water outlet. The pigeon foraged on the ground was heading to its flock . There were several Starlings and Mynas which were busy carrying food to their nests. And on the other side above the water, several Brahminy Kites and another raptor were hunting for smaller birds and/or fish.
Thanks in advance for your views, faves and feedback. Much appreciated.
A resident wader bird sighted through the year in fields, edges of waterbodies and in the countryside. They are one of the larger lapwings and a full adult is around 35 cms long. They are very easy to id and quite distinctive in plumage, color and patten of flight.
We refer to these as "alarm birds" since they scream out loud when we get closer to other birds during photography alerting them often. The birds are also a common prey of raptors since they are easy to target and have a predictable flight pattern. They nest on the ground in the fields and the chicks are often targes of Black Kites, Foxes, dogs and even raptors. But they do breed in large numbers and hence sighting a chick isn't hard.
Many thanks in advance for your views, faves and feedback.
During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, two former espee GP40-2s makes their presence known as they try their hardest to get their behemoth of a 111 car manifest moving out of Gary & Western #3. This is IHB Job BA2's fairly predictable midmorning routine - returning to Blue Island with local outbound traffic from the plethora of industries around East Chicago. Winter was showing its true first colors this morning, temperatures in the low 30s with extremely dark and depressing skies... my favorite! And only the best for shooting the Harbor.
A great day for moody shooting in the morning, and returning home to catch up on my reading of Poe's literature.
Like #1, this image was shot from the south end of the pond at the back of our property. I'm standing in a bit of shade that covers the bottom of the image, but the middle of the pond and the north end are in little to no shade. Predictably, the autofocus picked up the ripples rather than the reflections, which was perfect for me, because it was the ripples that caught my attention. I like the patterns they make, and the way they distort the reflected trees and sky, and the way the whole thing makes for a rather abstract image.
A trio of SD40-2s speed past the Ensign with an empty ballast train in tow. The station sign alone accounting for much of Ensign.
I had been looking at this spot for a while on maps and it looked alright—a lot better than it did in person, unfortunately. There was some sort of storm water pond here that I thought would make an interesting shot but it was, predictably, pretty dry; no idea why I expected anything else. So, with not many other options, I settled for an absolutely slammed shot coming in at, accounting for the crop sensor, 410mm; the hyper-wedge, if you will. If anything, I’ve always thought that the name Ensign was quite neat and capturing a bright red locomotive next to the sign seemed fitting since the town was named after the Canadian Red Ensign.
Once a predictable morning job that ran into sweet morning light, Union Pacific Train LPS15 (Local, Janesville, Wis.–Crystal Lake, Ill., and return) is now a nocturnal affair, although still the sort of operation by one could set one's watch. During the long days of summer, the fading rays of light nicely silhouette the train against a watercolor sky.
Searchlight signaling, functioning code line, and the soothing whine of EMD prime movers overtaking chirping crickets. Doesn't get much better than that.
Fuji X-Pro1. This is my last take of this series on photography as wallpaper creation. There is nothing wrong with wallpapers as such. In photography, however, it raises fundamental questions of what photography is about. Is it a visual expression of what you already know? Does the image, then, confirm your expectations? If so, the basic structure of wallpaper photography is repetition. What is excluded is otherness, surprises and, perhaps, a subject that refuses to become your "object" and "predictable". If repetition is not your photographic avenue, then something else must come to the fore. For lack of a better term I call it "invasion". You are visually, mentally and often emotionally invaded by something you neither "are" nor "have". And your image would be a response to this.
“I reckon you should hold onto that Sigma. It’s regarded as a cult lens nowadays.” Lee had given his verdict. I’d been in the middle of a clearout, shifting some of my old camera equipment to make way for the new. Of course when I say new, I don’t mean “new” new. Heaven forfend that I should part with such enormous sums. I mean I got it on eBay, or I did a part exchange with one of the online used camera gear sellers.
The item under discussion was a lens I’d bought several years earlier, at a time when the first adopters were beginning to get bored with their new toy and trickling the second hand market with them. Ever in search of a bargain, and ever careful to make a purchase that wouldn’t require me to lie about the price to Ali, I’d found one that had a slight issue. “Focuses and works perfectly,” it said, “but holding filters can be a problem because I dropped it and there are two cracks in the filter thread.” This was clearly a case where a degree of honesty from the seller was the only option. It seemed an inexpensive UV filter had averted a complete disaster and otherwise saved the lens, something that's happened to me as well for that matter. I reasoned that as long as it worked ok I’d get around the downside, and at two hundred pounds less than all the others on sale on your favourite auction site with “offers considered” mentioned in the description, I made an offer, which after a bit of further negotiation was duly accepted.
Lee already had one of course, and was raving excitedly about it. Those of you who know him won’t be surprised to learn that he soon sold it on; I’ve tried to keep track of the number of camera systems he’s owned, but my abacus blew a gasket several years ago on that front. Mine soon arrived, with those diametrically opposing cracks. It carried a pleasing glass filled heft about it, that none of the others in my bag had in those early days of my photography exploits. It was true that I’d quite often find myself rummaging about in the undergrowth for a filter that had taken a nosedive at the vital moment, but the quality of the images was undeniable. I used it regularly, salivating over the bokeh at the 1.8 end on my 50th birthday trip to Barcelona. There was no doubt that it was a very good lens, the best I had by a distance.
And then a few years later, just before that summer trip to Iceland I got carried away with a splurge on a full frame camera and professional lenses on the back of an humungous promotion at work. Obviously they weren’t brand new, but you knew that already didn’t you? The trouble was that the Sigma lens I’d now owned for three years or more only fitted the crop body (ironically I did buy this camera brand new), which I’d decided to retain as back up, although by default it was going to see less action than before. Which also meant that lens was going to spend most of its life in its bag not seeing daylight.
One evening in the pub after an outing we devised a splendid hack. A rubber wristband advertising the name of a well known purveyor of stout in Dublin fitted the end of the barrel perfectly; to which was added a step up ring, permanently and conveniently converting the thread size to match that of the new lenses. Suddenly the filters seemed more content to stay where I’d put them and outings with the lens and filters became more predictable. But the irretrievable fact remained that with two fantastic lenses, either one alone more than covering the focal range of this one that it wouldn’t get used very often.
And sadly it doesn’t, although every time it gets an outing I’m reminded that it needs to be used more regularly. I always think of it as my woodland lens, the one I resort to when the bluebell season comes around. Here for example, it seemed to diffuse that light so beautifully that a shot I wasn’t expecting to make it past the cutting room floor appears in my Flickr feed. I enjoyed the green swirl that comes in from the bottom left to encircle the fern. Wish I could have moved to the left a bit to frame it under the leaning trunk, but I wasn't going to start trampling those precious bluebells. At moments like this, the little used lens earns its place in the collection, even though without it I could also probably move on the crop body and buy another full frame as a back up for when what I like to call an “Aldeyjarfoss Moment” takes place. You’ll have to dig through my Iceland archive for that one, but suffice to say I had a camera malfunction at a remote and exquisite waterfall I may in truth never have the chance to visit again. Although I’ll do a better job there next time.
So of course I relented on selling the lens and kept it close for its infrequent adventures. It seems it’s worth more than what I paid for it now, even with those cracks on the thread, but I’ll hang onto it anyway. It still has that comforting solidity and weight that makes it a fully paid up resident in the collection. And with it remains the faithful crop body, almost the only item owned from new, and with barely six thousand shots on the clock, most of them taken before its more expensive rival arrived in the bag to hoover up the attention like a marauding shark.
Incidentally I’m still waiting for the Guinness family to get in touch with a sponsorship deal. Maybe it’s because my Irish heritage is in County Cork where they drink the Murphy’s instead. Or perhaps they’re expecting me to use the lens a bit more often first. Either way, if any of them are reading, please do write in and we’ll talk turkey.