Wasn't very happy with how much damage the chip in my previous Ivy-Bridge shot (flic.kr/p/2jhRmyV) experienced so I tried again. This one experienced much less damage, but I had a hard time getting the colours to look good while also preserving details in all areas, so I prioritized details. This is very close to what it actually looked like, so It's not a camera problem, just a light positioning issue.

The top left corner chipped during cleaning, not during the process of exposing the die. Also a few small pieces of dust managed to get onto the chip while I was taking photos, but I removed them in post as best as I could. If you are using this for analyzing the architechture or something reach out for the original.

I have been a fan of Chinon camera gear from many years. I just recently hunted this one down on eBay, and I absolutely love it so far. The "S" in the name is for spot metering! It's also what Chinon called a "twin program" model. P1 is for shooting fast moving scenes (prioritizing faster shutter speeds as possible), and P2 is for non-moving subjects or slow moving subjects (it prioritizes greater depth of field). That's pretty cool and I may play with it, although I'm most likely to keep shooting in A or M mode as I typically do. Build quality seems great, and the film advance is very smooth (ball bearings?). It has an all plastic shell, but I read somewhere it does have a metal chassis under the hood. Oh, and it's very comfortable to hold thanks to the nice size hand grip. The grip doubles as the battery chamber, holding 3 AAA batteries. I'm also quite pleased about that - it's great that it uses relatively cheap and easy to find batteries.

Photo taken with a Nikon D200 and AF-S DX Micro Nikkor 40mm f/2.8G.

Highrise construction towers above the trees on the High Line, an elevated railway line owned by the City of New York, today the High Line is a 1.45-mile-long linear public park maintained, operated, and programmed by Friends of the High Line, in partnership with the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation, on Tuesday, September 15, 2015. High Line was opened in 1934 and moved goods to and from Manhattan’s largest industrial district until 1980. The third and final phase officially opened to the public on September 21, 2014. The High Line's green roof system with drip irrigation is designed to allow the planting beds to retain as much water as possible; because many of the plants are drought-tolerant, they need little supplemental watering. When supplemental watering is needed, hand watering is used so as to tailor the amount of water to the needs of individual species and weather conditions, and to conserve water. High Line is independently funded from U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service (USFS). Urban forestry and green spaces are priority areas for USFS. With 80 percent* of the nation's population in urban areas, there are strong environmental, social, and economic cases to be made for the conservation of green spaces to guide growth and revitalize city centers and older suburbs. Urban forests broadly include urban parks, street trees, landscaped boulevards, public gardens, river and coastal promenades, greenways, river corridors, wetlands, nature preserves, natural areas, shelter belts of trees and working trees at industrial brownfield sites. Urban forests are dynamic ecosystems that provide needed environmental services by cleaning air and water helping to control storm water, and conserving energy. They add form, structure, beauty and breathing room to urban design, reduce noise, separate incompatible uses, provide places to recreate, strengthen social cohesion, leverage community revitalization, and add economic value to our communities. Urban forests, through planned connections of green spaces, form the green infrastructure system on which communities depend. Green infrastructure works at multiple scales from the neighborhood to the metro area up to the regional landscape. This natural life support system sustains clean air and water, biodiversity, habitat, nesting and travel corridors for wildlife, and connects people to nature. Urban forests, through planned connections of green spaces, form the green infrastructure system on which communities depend. Urban and Community Forestry (UCF) is a cooperative program of the US Forest Service that focuses on the stewardship of urban natural resources. UCF provides technical, financial, research and educational services to local government, non-profit organizations community groups, educational institutions, and tribal governments. The program is delivered through its legislative partners, the state forestry agencies in 59 states and US territories. Forest Service cooperative programs are currently being redesigned to make more effective use of federal resources. Programs will be focused on issues and landscapes of national importance and prioritized through state and regional assessments. Over the next five years an increasing percentage of funding will be focused on landscape scale projects. Three national themes provide a framework for this work: conserve working forest landscapes; protect forests from harm; and enhance benefits associated with trees and forests. More information and upcoming webinars on December 9, 2015 | 1:00pm-2:15pm ET; January 13, 2016 | 1:00pm-2:15pm ET; and February 10, 2016 | 1:00pm-2:15pm ET can be seen at *http://www.fs.fed.us/ucf/program.shtml. USDA Photo By Lance Cheung.

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Visitors can take their time to enjoy an elevated view of New Youk City from High Line an elevated railway line owned by the City of New York, today a 1.45-mile-long linear public park maintained, operated, and programmed by Friends of the High Line, in partnership with the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation, on Tuesday, September 15, 2015. High Line was opened in 1934 and moved goods to and from Manhattan’s largest industrial district until 1980. The third and final phase officially opened to the public on September 21, 2014. The High Line's green roof system with drip irrigation is designed to allow the planting beds to retain as much water as possible; because many of the plants are drought-tolerant, they need little supplemental watering. When supplemental watering is needed, hand watering is used so as to tailor the amount of water to the needs of individual species and weather conditions, and to conserve water. High Line is independently funded from U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service (USFS). Urban forestry and green spaces are priority areas for USFS. With 80 percent* of the nation's population in urban areas, there are strong environmental, social, and economic cases to be made for the conservation of green spaces to guide growth and revitalize city centers and older suburbs. Urban forests broadly include urban parks, street trees, landscaped boulevards, public gardens, river and coastal promenades, greenways, river corridors, wetlands, nature preserves, natural areas, shelter belts of trees and working trees at industrial brownfield sites. Urban forests are dynamic ecosystems that provide needed environmental services by cleaning air and water helping to control storm water, and conserving energy. They add form, structure, beauty and breathing room to urban design, reduce noise, separate incompatible uses, provide places to recreate, strengthen social cohesion, leverage community revitalization, and add economic value to our communities. Urban forests, through planned connections of green spaces, form the green infrastructure system on which communities depend. Green infrastructure works at multiple scales from the neighborhood to the metro area up to the regional landscape. This natural life support system sustains clean air and water, biodiversity, habitat, nesting and travel corridors for wildlife, and connects people to nature. Urban forests, through planned connections of green spaces, form the green infrastructure system on which communities depend. Urban and Community Forestry (UCF) is a cooperative program of the US Forest Service that focuses on the stewardship of urban natural resources. UCF provides technical, financial, research and educational services to local government, non-profit organizations community groups, educational institutions, and tribal governments. The program is delivered through its legislative partners, the state forestry agencies in 59 states and US territories. Forest Service cooperative programs are currently being redesigned to make more effective use of federal resources. Programs will be focused on issues and landscapes of national importance and prioritized through state and regional assessments. Over the next five years an increasing percentage of funding will be focused on landscape scale projects. Three national themes provide a framework for this work: conserve working forest landscapes; protect forests from harm; and enhance benefits associated with trees and forests. More information and upcoming webinars on December 9, 2015 | 1:00pm-2:15pm ET; January 13, 2016 | 1:00pm-2:15pm ET; and February 10, 2016 | 1:00pm-2:15pm ET can be seen at *http://www.fs.fed.us/ucf/program.shtml. USDA Photo By Lance Cheung.

“Peel-up” benches are a signature element of High Line an elevated railway line owned by the City of New York, today the High Line is a 1.45-mile-long linear public park maintained, operated, and programmed by Friends of the High Line, in partnership with the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation, on Thursday, September 17, 2015. High Line was opened in 1934 and moved goods to and from Manhattan’s largest industrial district until 1980. The third and final phase officially opened to the public on September 21, 2014. The High Line's green roof system with drip irrigation is designed to allow the planting beds to retain as much water as possible; because many of the plants are drought-tolerant, they need little supplemental watering. When supplemental watering is needed, hand watering is used so as to tailor the amount of water to the needs of individual species and weather conditions, and to conserve water. High Line is independently funded from U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service (USFS). Urban forestry and green spaces are priority areas for USFS. With 80 percent* of the nation's population in urban areas, there are strong environmental, social, and economic cases to be made for the conservation of green spaces to guide growth and revitalize city centers and older suburbs. Urban forests broadly include urban parks, street trees, landscaped boulevards, public gardens, river and coastal promenades, greenways, river corridors, wetlands, nature preserves, natural areas, shelter belts of trees and working trees at industrial brownfield sites. Urban forests are dynamic ecosystems that provide needed environmental services by cleaning air and water helping to control storm water, and conserving energy. They add form, structure, beauty and breathing room to urban design, reduce noise, separate incompatible uses, provide places to recreate, strengthen social cohesion, leverage community revitalization, and add economic value to our communities. Urban forests, through planned connections of green spaces, form the green infrastructure system on which communities depend. Green infrastructure works at multiple scales from the neighborhood to the metro area up to the regional landscape. This natural life support system sustains clean air and water, biodiversity, habitat, nesting and travel corridors for wildlife, and connects people to nature. Urban forests, through planned connections of green spaces, form the green infrastructure system on which communities depend. Urban and Community Forestry (UCF) is a cooperative program of the US Forest Service that focuses on the stewardship of urban natural resources. UCF provides technical, financial, research and educational services to local government, non-profit organizations community groups, educational institutions, and tribal governments. The program is delivered through its legislative partners, the state forestry agencies in 59 states and US territories. Forest Service cooperative programs are currently being redesigned to make more effective use of federal resources. Programs will be focused on issues and landscapes of national importance and prioritized through state and regional assessments. Over the next five years an increasing percentage of funding will be focused on landscape scale projects. Three national themes provide a framework for this work: conserve working forest landscapes; protect forests from harm; and enhance benefits associated with trees and forests. More information and upcoming webinars on December 9, 2015 | 1:00pm-2:15pm ET; January 13, 2016 | 1:00pm-2:15pm ET; and February 10, 2016 | 1:00pm-2:15pm ET can be seen at *http://www.fs.fed.us/ucf/program.shtml. USDA Photo By Lance Cheung.

Early morning on the High Line an elevated railway line owned by the City of New York, today the High Line is a 1.45-mile-long linear public park maintained, operated, and programmed by Friends of the High Line, in partnership with the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation, on Tuesday, September 15, 2015. High Line was opened in 1934 and moved goods to and from Manhattan’s largest industrial district until 1980. The third and final phase officially opened to the public on September 21, 2014. The High Line's green roof system with drip irrigation is designed to allow the planting beds to retain as much water as possible; because many of the plants are drought-tolerant, they need little supplemental watering. When supplemental watering is needed, hand watering is used so as to tailor the amount of water to the needs of individual species and weather conditions, and to conserve water. High Line is independently funded from U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service (USFS). Urban forestry and green spaces are priority areas for USFS. With 80 percent* of the nation's population in urban areas, there are strong environmental, social, and economic cases to be made for the conservation of green spaces to guide growth and revitalize city centers and older suburbs. Urban forests broadly include urban parks, street trees, landscaped boulevards, public gardens, river and coastal promenades, greenways, river corridors, wetlands, nature preserves, natural areas, shelter belts of trees and working trees at industrial brownfield sites. Urban forests are dynamic ecosystems that provide needed environmental services by cleaning air and water helping to control storm water, and conserving energy. They add form, structure, beauty and breathing room to urban design, reduce noise, separate incompatible uses, provide places to recreate, strengthen social cohesion, leverage community revitalization, and add economic value to our communities. Urban forests, through planned connections of green spaces, form the green infrastructure system on which communities depend. Green infrastructure works at multiple scales from the neighborhood to the metro area up to the regional landscape. This natural life support system sustains clean air and water, biodiversity, habitat, nesting and travel corridors for wildlife, and connects people to nature. Urban forests, through planned connections of green spaces, form the green infrastructure system on which communities depend. Urban and Community Forestry (UCF) is a cooperative program of the US Forest Service that focuses on the stewardship of urban natural resources. UCF provides technical, financial, research and educational services to local government, non-profit organizations community groups, educational institutions, and tribal governments. The program is delivered through its legislative partners, the state forestry agencies in 59 states and US territories. Forest Service cooperative programs are currently being redesigned to make more effective use of federal resources. Programs will be focused on issues and landscapes of national importance and prioritized through state and regional assessments. Over the next five years an increasing percentage of funding will be focused on landscape scale projects. Three national themes provide a framework for this work: conserve working forest landscapes; protect forests from harm; and enhance benefits associated with trees and forests. More information and upcoming webinars on December 9, 2015 | 1:00pm-2:15pm ET; January 13, 2016 | 1:00pm-2:15pm ET; and February 10, 2016 | 1:00pm-2:15pm ET can be seen at *http://www.fs.fed.us/ucf/program.shtml. USDA Photo By Lance Cheung.

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Sainte-Chapelle, the radiant Gothic chapel in the middle of Paris, has been a "bucket list" photo destination of mine for years. It's hidden within the Palais de Justice and underneath the shadow of its more famous, larger cousin: Notre Dame.

Gothic cathedrals are famous for their heavy stone structures and foreboding decorations. The purpose of all that masonry is to provide support for enormous windows. Nowhere is this more evident than Sainte-Chapelle: it seems the entire structure is made of garishly-saturated stained glass.

Now, I find many of the most interesting Sainte-Chapelle photographs were taken when just light enough outside to illuminate the windows, but dark enough to necessitate the interior chandeliers to be lit. Given you are not allowed to bring a tripod into the chapel, that means that most of the work I've seen of the chapel either lacks dynamic range, detail, or is butchered by overly-aggressive post-processing.

Years ago, during my last visit to Paris, I had missed the opportunity to tour the chapel. Knowing I had a few free hours in Paris upcoming, I immediately prioritized bringing a camera to the chapel and I decided to rent a new Sony A7r III for two purposes: to compare it to my standby D800, and to see if the in-body image stabilization (IBIS) that the camera boasts was truly able to offer multiple stops of stabilization.

I received a Sony A7r III (I'm sure I was the first person to use this particular camera) and a Novoflex Nikon G to Sony FE adapter on a Thursday and by Saturday I had shoved it along with a tripod and my D800 and associated lenses into a duffel and was on my way to the airport.

The first visit I made was during the daytime hours on a Sunday, the place was relatively empty and the sunlight was both intense and direct. It shone through the glass and cast shades of purple and blue throughout the chapel. Though the photographs (and more importantly, the experience of visiting) were beautiful - I had a different image in my mind.

Under these well-lit conditions, there was little difference between the Nikon and the Sony - chalk that up to the ability to stop down and still achieve a low ISO with either camera. The Nikon was far more pleasant to use (perhaps a function of familiarity), however, and therefore I ended up taking more images and ended with a better set.

When the skies opened up a day later and stormy weather began to roll over Paris, I had a short window of time available before meetings and I decided to try again. I trudged through the rain to wait in line once more. This time, I was rewarded with near perfect lighting conditions - the thunderstorm had created precisely the atmosphere I was seeking.

Inside the chapel, I worked to capture most angles with both cameras - I wasn't interested in a scientific comparison, but in a real-world test of image quality in the field. This is about comparing the in-the-moment experiences and qualitative impressions of both systems captured while using both heavily under time pressure and in difficult lighting.

Another long flight back and I sat in front of the computer to compare results. A couple of conclusions:

1) On overall image quality, and particularly dynamic range, the Nikon D800, for being many years old, can still hold its own against the latest and greatest offerings.

2) For those of us accustomed to DSLRs - the OVF and ergnomics are superior to the more compact, mirrorless options. This is purely subjective and, as advantages go, short-lived. Photographers who buy into mirrorless will feel the opposite way once their muscle memory is accustomed to their cameras. Kudos to Sony for making something I could rent and learn and use effectively in a weekend - but it's tiny and cramped and all a bit, well... unsubstantial.

3) Nikon owners don't have automatic adapters yet (or at least I didn't) and therefore are still reliant on manual focusing and manual aperture control - if you're thinking of switching you can use your Nikkor lenses, but don't expect to enjoy it.

4) 42MP is a truly marginal improvement over 36MP - if you're a D800 user lusting after more resolution, you're either eyeing the D850 or (more accurately) a 100MP back or future camera to see another step-change the likes of which you experienced moving to the D800

5) The Sony A7r III produces truly amazing images - on par or better with the best DSLRs. This bit is obvious and has been shown over and over again in qualitative and quantitative tests.

6) The Sony's IBIS gave me at least 1-2 stops improvement over the Nikon - producing sharp images at ~1/8 of a second and below. When you consider that IBIS systems in general degrade image quality (the sensor is moving, after all) and that 42 megapixels is a brutal judge of sharpness - that I could reliably shoot below 1/10th of a second and produce sharp images is truly remarkable. The top image is 6 frames shot handheld and stitched - all of them were taken in quick succession and have no issues with blur or hand shake. Amazing.

7) The Sony's dynamic range and therefore the ability to draw out shadows and pull back highlights in post was at least as good as the D800 - an awesome parlor trick for those of us who grew up on film and early digital no matter how old.

8) I have no idea if the A7r III has a focusing advantage or even how it operates with an autofocus lens.

9) It's not that much smaller. If you're trekking through the back-country then the size matters, but the much-touted smaller form factor comes with as many costs as benefits. I have a Leica Q, so maybe that disqualifies me from commenting on size (as I already have a camera that solves for the size/quality maximum) - but if you're a DSLR user, I wouldn't buy this for the size advantage. After all, a good lens (and you'll need one to benefit from that sensor) isn't going to clock in any smaller on the Sony than the Nikon

10) There are a mix of Nikon and Sony images on this page - you can't tell them apart unless you look at the EXIF - and both are years ahead of mobile image quality. As good as it is, the iPhone photo below (shot in RAW and processed with Adobe Lightroom Mobile) is clearly inferior to the "big camera" images. Mobile cameras were, at one point, "catching up" with DSLR image quality, but we've now entered into a time where that gap is opening again.

11) None of these images were possible anywhere near this quality 10 years ago. This is the bit that's exciting - despite diminishing returns - digital tech is still opening up new frontiers in what you can capture. That goes double for the "low quality" iPhone image - if I'd brought film with me, the iPhone would blow it out of the water.

Was the image quality noticeably better under tougher conditions with the Sony? Yes. Would I switch to Sony mirrorless? Not yet. Would I rent again for a situation like this? Yes - I may even leave the DSLR home next time and save a little carry-on room for a warmer jacket.

This technology is real - Nikon and Canon (who may have fallen permanently behind) need to continue to over-deliver on their DSLRs - the D850 probably keeps me in the Nikon fold if I need to replace my 800 in the coming years.

APPROXIMATE RELEASE DATE: 2022

IMPORTANT NOTES: This outfit is a reissue of the 1987-2011 Camp Gowonagin Uniform. The only major difference between the original version and this reissue is the addition of shoes and socks. This new release also does not include the whistle (which was added to the outfit in 2001).

PERSONAL FUN FACT written by my sister: Gosh, this looks awful familiar. Apart from the fact that my childhood Molly (pictured here) looks a lot less unkempt, this could be a photo from 2001, when I got my Molly her Camp Gowonagin uniform. This outfit looks pretty much just like mine did when it was new (well, this one is also mine, obviously), except I didn't have to buy these saddle shoes separately (and they are better made, in my opinion--which I explain more on the photo of all my saddle shoes and on the picture of this off the doll) and it even came with the socks...which would've been VERY nice of them to have done when I was a kid, as I lost one of Molly's original socks sometime in the 90s. (Between the saddle shoes always falling apart and the missing socks, my doll typically wore her camp outfit with her tennis shoes and either her party socks or no socks.) Anyway, because I got my childhood Molly her camp outfit (and so many of her other fashions) so very long ago, I can't remember exactly when I got it--though the fact that mine came with the whistle tells me I got it in 2001 or later, after they discontinued the Capture the Flag Gear set. Because I know I had it before I moved to the bedroom upstairs, it means I also had it before fall 2003. I'm pretty sure I've had my original camp outfit since 2001. Either way, this is basically the same, just 20 years less used. I had a real job getting Molly into it for this photo. Even after I changed her out of her bloomers into more form fitting panties, it's still tight! But I think my childhood outfit was extremely tight when it was new as well. When they reissued some of Molly's original fashions in 2022, my wallet felt pangs--dieting pangs. It knew it would be a lot thinner in the near future. Of course, I prioritized the party pinafore, because I ALWAYS wanted a second one for Emily to model. But being an American Girl clothes hoarder (general doll clothing hoarder really), Shelly and I agreed we must rebuy the school and camp outfits too! My childhood clothes being about 20 years old and me having FIVE Mollys...it made total sense to rebuy these items. (Poor American Girl--they simply didn't get enough of our family's money the first time around.) For our Christmas order, I felt it made more sense to order clothes that weren't, well, replicas of ones we already owned first. So, we decided to wait for my "birthday" to order this. Now, my birthday isn't until February, and we ordered Molly's clothes before Christmas 2022. The sales were just to good to resist! I'm really glad I was able to get this for my Mollys. It looks a lot crisper than my childhood one and, also, given that I have so many Molly dolls, extra clothes are a bonus!

twilight of the flowering bulbs

This is one of my three season borders at home. The bulbs here are two weeks later than they are in our nations capital owing to lying in a colder geographic region of the country. It was the first of only two pictures I took yesterday. I would wager that the bulbs are at their peak now and that I will see petal wilt soon. I find myself spending more time on my ornamental beds this year than I have in the past. It is not that I neglect them but that I have prioritized them beneath the plants that feed us. I think it might be that we are actually experiencing a true spring this year. We had snow around this time last year. It did not last but it did fall and blanket the ground. That is obviously disheartening for a gardener.

Examples of urban forestry in New York City are seen from and on the High Line, an elevated railway line owned by the City of New York, today it is a 1.45-mile-long linear public park maintained, operated, and programmed by Friends of the High Line, in partnership with the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation, on Thursday, September 17, 2015. High Line was opened in 1934 and moved goods to and from Manhattan’s largest industrial district until 1980. The third and final phase officially opened to the public on September 21, 2014. The High Line's green roof system with drip irrigation is designed to allow the planting beds to retain as much water as possible; because many of the plants are drought-tolerant, they need little supplemental watering. When supplemental watering is needed, hand watering is used so as to tailor the amount of water to the needs of individual species and weather conditions, and to conserve water. High Line is independently funded from U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service (USFS). Urban forestry and green spaces are priority areas for USFS. With 80 percent* of the nation's population in urban areas, there are strong environmental, social, and economic cases to be made for the conservation of green spaces to guide growth and revitalize city centers and older suburbs. Urban forests broadly include urban parks, street trees, landscaped boulevards, public gardens, river and coastal promenades, greenways, river corridors, wetlands, nature preserves, natural areas, shelter belts of trees and working trees at industrial brownfield sites. Urban forests are dynamic ecosystems that provide needed environmental services by cleaning air and water helping to control storm water, and conserving energy. They add form, structure, beauty and breathing room to urban design, reduce noise, separate incompatible uses, provide places to recreate, strengthen social cohesion, leverage community revitalization, and add economic value to our communities. Urban forests, through planned connections of green spaces, form the green infrastructure system on which communities depend. Green infrastructure works at multiple scales from the neighborhood to the metro area up to the regional landscape. This natural life support system sustains clean air and water, biodiversity, habitat, nesting and travel corridors for wildlife, and connects people to nature. Urban forests, through planned connections of green spaces, form the green infrastructure system on which communities depend. Urban and Community Forestry (UCF) is a cooperative program of the US Forest Service that focuses on the stewardship of urban natural resources. UCF provides technical, financial, research and educational services to local government, non-profit organizations community groups, educational institutions, and tribal governments. The program is delivered through its legislative partners, the state forestry agencies in 59 states and US territories. Forest Service cooperative programs are currently being redesigned to make more effective use of federal resources. Programs will be focused on issues and landscapes of national importance and prioritized through state and regional assessments. Over the next five years an increasing percentage of funding will be focused on landscape scale projects. Three national themes provide a framework for this work: conserve working forest landscapes; protect forests from harm; and enhance benefits associated with trees and forests. More information and upcoming webinars on December 9, 2015 | 1:00pm-2:15pm ET; January 13, 2016 | 1:00pm-2:15pm ET; and February 10, 2016 | 1:00pm-2:15pm ET can be seen at *http://www.fs.fed.us/ucf/program.shtml. USDA Photo By Lance Cheung.

The RG Menzies Building 2 at the Australian National University (ANU) is a striking example of modernist architecture, designed with an emphasis on functionality and openness. Completed in the early 1970s, the building features brutalist-inspired elements, including exposed concrete surfaces, bold geometric forms, and large windows that allow natural light to permeate the interior. Its design prioritizes flexibility, with spacious, adaptable workspaces and an overall layout that fosters a collaborative academic environment. It was sesigned by architects John FD Scarborough and Partners in association with Collard Clarke and Jackson, 1963.

As long as the Capital planet as a whole is well defended and any outside treats are prioritized… the local sector police forces can rule their “thiefdoms” as they see fit, which is usually by corruption and coercion with criminal gangs and local triads, mafias and rich “mercenaries”

This especially applies to the lower levels, the deeper down towards the planet core you come the less rule-based the justicium and law enforcement get…

As no one really know how many levels down the urban network reaches and frankly where it ends being urban structures and architecture and where ancient sewers, natural cavities or mutant handdigged dens stop being urban, very few actually know how the system works down there…

Since the capital planet governmental system works a bit like an old feudal state, where a system of servitude where an overlord is only in contact with the underlings directly below him and at lower levels this underling is the overlord of lesser thiefdoms and so on…

Internal battle among the legal branches is common, border disputes, illegal economic revenues or sometimes even personal feuds can start a local war, most often between on sector block and another of the same…

But often these escalate by the nature of the informal system in place, i.e. a “feudal lord” calls up on his allies when under attack from an enemy law enforcement, in turn its opponent calls up on his allies and all the sudden a flurry of different armies partake in this Block sector conflict, Police forces and mutant bands supported by triads and mafia fights openly on the street…

Sometimes bands or gangers in their own turn are at a local conflict and end up on the same side, which in its turn can be uneasy and sometimes result in minor street feuds…

When a block fight turns so major that a larger number of blocks are involved, then local production falls and at such times the companies that rule the planet will negotiate a peace… since too much conflict is bad for the economy of the federation as a whole…

Since the board is made up of the largest companies, they are often not objective in the negotiation and sometimes it will result in company wars, this happens quite seldom, since all companies know this is really bad for business, so they have a complicated system where wealth and property decides how many votes they get and if a company war has started, then the Capital High lord businessman is awoken from his self-induced slumber in a cryostate…

Why the companies abide to his law no one knows? Perhaps he has some sort unknown power that can cause the companies much harm, this is only guesses, since all this happens far away from where any common person has ever been close to set his/her/its propulsion mechanism…

Here is a picture that shows the start of the 03335a-55577b Megablock War, where elite Police from Block 03335 and city law mercenaries 55577 fight with an allied Mega-police Robot…

The conflict started because the 55577 Police governor was beaten by the 03335 superintendent in a (at the start) friendly game of poker…

Two layers of the horizon show the great divide between the rich and poor. Unfortunately, the maxim of “the rich becoming richer, and the poor, poorer” is very much applicable to our fledging nation. Hopefully, the new set of government officials to be elected in less than 2 months will prioritize/address poverty alleviation and the nagging unemployment/ underemployment problem.

It is good to have an end to journey towards; but it is the journey that matters in the end.

Ursula K. Le Guin

I had a very healthy discussion today about politics and about which law needs to be prioritized by our leaders. Yes people needs change and i am too.

Change that would somehow come from ourselves as well, we cant blame all to the government. In fairness to them there are numerous amount of laws that helped us like cheaper medicine and rice distribution were normalized not to mention the imported cheap ones that many families enjoyed.

What pissed me is the reality that the officials( not all ) goes blind with wealth that they tend to forget what it needs to be done. I am not saying that they didnt do anything but corruption is very visible already and it pains us taxpayers that even our pension plan during retirement could not even pay for our medications.

I have reached 199 uploads so therefore this is my 2nd to the last post already since i dont have a pro account.

Peace to you all and god bless Philippines.

In June 2020, after experiencing a devastating spring due to COVID, New York State announced that certain businesses could begin partially opening again. New York City’s response included a program called Open Restaurants, which allowed restaurants to use sidewalks and parking spaces for outdoor, socially distant dining. Owners quickly built temporary enclosures in the streets in front of their businesses to try and recover from months of shutdown. Small stretches of Brooklyn in early 2021 display the variety and feel of these enclosures. Hopefully, the Open Restaurants initiative will help these businesses to survive and may even lead to a more permanent reorienting of streets to prioritize people over cars.

The Constantia Uitsig Sauvignon Blanc 2025 is a vibrant expression of the Constantia Valley’s unique cool-climate terroir. Situated on the slopes of Table Mountain, the estate benefits from decomposed granite soils and the cooling sea breezes from nearby False Bay. These geographical factors are critical to this vintage, locking in the natural acidity and creating a structural backbone of distinct minerality. The 2025 vintage reflects a "classic" Constantia profile, prioritizing freshness and tension over heavy fruit weight.

On the palate, this vintage strikes an elegant balance between green, herbaceous notes and bright tropical zest. You can expect a nose bursting with aromas of green melon, fresh fig, and lime, which open up to delicate undertones of passion fruit and blackcurrant. The winemaker typically vinifies the majority in stainless steel to preserve this aromatic purity, but often ferments a small component in concrete tanks. This technique, combined with three months of lees aging, gifts the 2025 wine a textured mid-palate and a refined complexity that distinguishes it from simpler, purely fruit-driven Sauvignon Blancs.

This is a wine built for immediate enjoyment, offering a crisp, lingering finish that cleanses the palate. Its high natural acidity and "flinty" character make it an exceptional food partner. It pairs perfectly with fresh goat cheese (Chevin), oysters, or a summer salad with asparagus and peas. For a heartier option, it cuts beautifully through the richness of fried calamari or a creamy lemon-butter sauce on grilled white fish.

BOX DATE: 1998

MANUFACTURER: Mattel

BODY TYPE: 1966; twist 'n turn waist; ballerina arms; bend & snap legs

HEAD MOLD: No date; Disney; pierced ears

PERSONAL FUN FACT: This doll is absolutely, undeniably heavenly. I don't think there are even words in the English language that accurately capture the true essence of her splendor. I have been obsessed with this Broadway Belle doll since I first learned she existed. That was back in 2011, when I first started dabbling into collecting dolls again. I had taken a five year break from my plastic friends, but had finally found my way back to them. This gal was not featured in my "Disney Dolls Identification & Price Guide" book. However, she turned up on eBay searches, when I was cruising the web for things to buy. I was lost for words, and had to catch my breath each time I saw her. I'm not sure why I didn't track one down sooner. I can't recall if they were expensive, or if I prioritized other things more. I did spend a considerable amount of time and money hunting down Aladdin stuff that first year. Anyways, I was besotted with Belle, and I couldn't believe my luck when she showed up at my doorstep one December morning, in 2022. Someone sent my sister and me a Christmas gift as a surprise. Inside the enormous box was a plethora of plastic friends (many were Disney). When I lifted this Belle out of the package, she stole my breath away. She was PERFECT...she even still had her hair net on. Clearly this lady had only been displayed. I would have bought the entire box in the wild just for her. That's why we dubbed the bin the "Broadway Belle Box." She is even more captivating in person, and impeccably made. I did have to launder her clothes and wash the doll (I was careful not to muss up her curls when shampooing them). Due to her age and unknown origins, I had to give her a day at the spa. She does have a little UV damage on her neck, which is quite common with these collector dolls (probably from being displayed). But it does not detract from her beauty. It is also far less noticeable in person--it pulls more orange in photos.

In June 2020, after experiencing a devastating spring due to COVID, New York State announced that certain businesses could begin partially opening again. New York City’s response included a program called Open Restaurants, which allowed restaurants to use sidewalks and parking spaces for outdoor, socially distant dining. Owners quickly built temporary enclosures in the streets in front of their businesses to try and recover from months of shutdown. Small stretches of Brooklyn in early 2021 display the variety and feel of these enclosures. Hopefully, the Open Restaurants initiative will help these businesses to survive and may even lead to a more permanent reorienting of streets to prioritize people over cars.

This Day of the Chase I was off to a bit of a slow start. I inadvertently overslept and the first several runbys/shots things were very disjointed, obviously, as I struggled to get my feet under me.

As I entered the town of Fair Oaks, I found myself slightly ahead of the train and I was prioritizing getting though and out of town ahead of the train. I saw a RR-xing sign ahead and was a bit confused because I didn't think the tracks that Big Boy was running on crossed the Highway again so soon.

Turned out that there was a diamond with a UP Memphis Sub here. I screeched to a halt immediately after the grade crossing and jogged over to check things out. One spot at the end of the photo line remained and I had just enough time to set up both video and stills before the symphony of clattering across the diamonds started up. No one in my shots and no one talked on the video...and it was all pretty much luck.

The sounds of the train hitting the diamond was just the shot in the arm I needed to get things going right again on the day! Watch the video here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQ4jNCKUiUc

-Union Pacific 4-8-8-4 Big Boy #4014

-UP Train PSLNL, Heartland of America Tour

-UP (ex-Cotton Belt) Jonesboro Sub, CP CB172 Fair Oaks

-UP (ex-MoPac) Memphis Sub, CP Y316 Fair Oaks

-Along US49/US63, Fair Oaks, AR

-September 14, 2024

TT1_8190_edited-1

It's been a while, I know.

A smile always is put on my face when I get new contacts or new comments on here while I'm gone. Thank you for that.

My life is busy, new job, new everything. Time anymore is prioritized elsewhere. However, I still am finding the direction I want to go with my photography. Because it makes my heart happy. My creative juices flow and it's always fun.

Thanks for all the support

-Kari

Oh, and be sure to keep in contact with me through facebook.

/karielainephoto

1

That the Government must tell the truth about the climate and wider ecological emergency, it must reverse all policies not in alignment with that position and must work alongside the media to communicate the urgency for change including what individuals, communities and businesses need to do.

2

The Government must enact legally binding policies to reduce carbon emissions to net zero by 2025 and take further action to remove the excess of atmospheric greenhouse gases. It must cooperate internationally so that the global economy runs on no more than half a planet’s worth of resources per year.

3

We do not trust our Government to make the bold, swift and long-term changes necessary to achieve these changes and we do not intend to hand further power to our politicians. Instead we demand a Citizens’ Assembly to oversee the changes, as we rise from the wreckage, creating a democracy fit for purpose.

4

We demand a just transition that prioritizes the most vulnerable people and indigenous sovereignty; establishes reparations and remediation led by and for Black people, Indigenous people, people of color and poor communities for years of environmental injustice, establishes legal rights for ecosystems to thrive and regenerate in perpetuity, and repairs the effects of ongoing ecocide to prevent extinction of human and all species, in order to maintain a livable, just planet for all.

Sainte-Chapelle, the radiant Gothic chapel in the middle of Paris, has been a "bucket list" photo destination of mine for years. It's hidden within the Palais de Justice and underneath the shadow of its more famous, larger cousin: Notre Dame.

Gothic cathedrals are famous for their heavy stone structures and foreboding decorations. The purpose of all that masonry is to provide support for enormous windows. Nowhere is this more evident than Sainte-Chapelle: it seems the entire structure is made of garishly-saturated stained glass.

Now, I find many of the most interesting Sainte-Chapelle photographs were taken when just light enough outside to illuminate the windows, but dark enough to necessitate the interior chandeliers to be lit. Given you are not allowed to bring a tripod into the chapel, that means that most of the work I've seen of the chapel either lacks dynamic range, detail, or is butchered by overly-aggressive post-processing.

Years ago, during my last visit to Paris, I had missed the opportunity to tour the chapel. Knowing I had a few free hours in Paris upcoming, I immediately prioritized bringing a camera to the chapel and I decided to rent a new Sony A7r III for two purposes: to compare it to my standby D800, and to see if the in-body image stabilization (IBIS) that the camera boasts was truly able to offer multiple stops of stabilization.

I received a Sony A7r III (I'm sure I was the first person to use this particular camera) and a Novoflex Nikon G to Sony FE adapter on a Thursday and by Saturday I had shoved it along with a tripod and my D800 and associated lenses into a duffel and was on my way to the airport.

The first visit I made was during the daytime hours on a Sunday, the place was relatively empty and the sunlight was both intense and direct. It shone through the glass and cast shades of purple and blue throughout the chapel. Though the photographs (and more importantly, the experience of visiting) were beautiful - I had a different image in my mind.

Under these well-lit conditions, there was little difference between the Nikon and the Sony - chalk that up to the ability to stop down and still achieve a low ISO with either camera. The Nikon was far more pleasant to use (perhaps a function of familiarity), however, and therefore I ended up taking more images and ended with a better set.

When the skies opened up a day later and stormy weather began to roll over Paris, I had a short window of time available before meetings and I decided to try again. I trudged through the rain to wait in line once more. This time, I was rewarded with near perfect lighting conditions - the thunderstorm had created precisely the atmosphere I was seeking.

Inside the chapel, I worked to capture most angles with both cameras - I wasn't interested in a scientific comparison, but in a real-world test of image quality in the field. This is about comparing the in-the-moment experiences and qualitative impressions of both systems captured while using both heavily under time pressure and in difficult lighting.

Another long flight back and I sat in front of the computer to compare results. A couple of conclusions:

1) On overall image quality, and particularly dynamic range, the Nikon D800, for being many years old, can still hold its own against the latest and greatest offerings.

2) For those of us accustomed to DSLRs - the OVF and ergnomics are superior to the more compact, mirrorless options. This is purely subjective and, as advantages go, short-lived. Photographers who buy into mirrorless will feel the opposite way once their muscle memory is accustomed to their cameras. Kudos to Sony for making something I could rent and learn and use effectively in a weekend - but it's tiny and cramped and all a bit, well... unsubstantial.

3) Nikon owners don't have automatic adapters yet (or at least I didn't) and therefore are still reliant on manual focusing and manual aperture control - if you're thinking of switching you can use your Nikkor lenses, but don't expect to enjoy it.

4) 42MP is a truly marginal improvement over 36MP - if you're a D800 user lusting after more resolution, you're either eyeing the D850 or (more accurately) a 100MP back or future camera to see another step-change the likes of which you experienced moving to the D800

5) The Sony A7r III produces truly amazing images - on par or better with the best DSLRs. This bit is obvious and has been shown over and over again in qualitative and quantitative tests.

6) The Sony's IBIS gave me at least 1-2 stops improvement over the Nikon - producing sharp images at ~1/8 of a second and below. When you consider that IBIS systems in general degrade image quality (the sensor is moving, after all) and that 42 megapixels is a brutal judge of sharpness - that I could reliably shoot below 1/10th of a second and produce sharp images is truly remarkable. The top image is 6 frames shot handheld and stitched - all of them were taken in quick succession and have no issues with blur or hand shake. Amazing.

7) The Sony's dynamic range and therefore the ability to draw out shadows and pull back highlights in post was at least as good as the D800 - an awesome parlor trick for those of us who grew up on film and early digital no matter how old.

8) I have no idea if the A7r III has a focusing advantage or even how it operates with an autofocus lens.

9) It's not that much smaller. If you're trekking through the back-country then the size matters, but the much-touted smaller form factor comes with as many costs as benefits. I have a Leica Q, so maybe that disqualifies me from commenting on size (as I already have a camera that solves for the size/quality maximum) - but if you're a DSLR user, I wouldn't buy this for the size advantage. After all, a good lens (and you'll need one to benefit from that sensor) isn't going to clock in any smaller on the Sony than the Nikon

10) There are a mix of Nikon and Sony images on this page - you can't tell them apart unless you look at the EXIF - and both are years ahead of mobile image quality. As good as it is, the iPhone photo below (shot in RAW and processed with Adobe Lightroom Mobile) is clearly inferior to the "big camera" images. Mobile cameras were, at one point, "catching up" with DSLR image quality, but we've now entered into a time where that gap is opening again.

11) None of these images were possible anywhere near this quality 10 years ago. This is the bit that's exciting - despite diminishing returns - digital tech is still opening up new frontiers in what you can capture. That goes double for the "low quality" iPhone image - if I'd brought film with me, the iPhone would blow it out of the water.

Was the image quality noticeably better under tougher conditions with the Sony? Yes. Would I switch to Sony mirrorless? Not yet. Would I rent again for a situation like this? Yes - I may even leave the DSLR home next time and save a little carry-on room for a warmer jacket.

This technology is real - Nikon and Canon (who may have fallen permanently behind) need to continue to over-deliver on their DSLRs - the D850 probably keeps me in the Nikon fold if I need to replace my 800 in the coming years.

The 2045 Mercedes Benz Athane prioritizes safety, sustainability, and versatility. The 2045 Athane is the most advanced and cost effective truck in our 150 years of truck building experience.

The front view of the Mercedes-Benz Athane. Submitted to the Building Challenge on Rebrick.com.

Much more at Thirdwigg.com. Find the Youtube video here.

This second installment to our "As Told By Dollies" skit series is long over due! We've had tons of plans and ideas for this series, but due to how time consuming it is to film, edit, and gather the supplies, we haven't been able to prioritize this. I apologize for the long wait, and I hope you enjoy!

Video:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTCqX-3oT94&feature=youtu.be

I've not been able to prioritize birding lately, so it was much needed that I got in a little today. And my first of year sighting of a Dickcissel made it even better! I heard many of them calling along a certain section of trail that my wife and I were biking along. So after our bike ride, we drove back, as close to that spot and found parking nearby. So I didn't have to walk far, but it DID take me quite a while to get close to one. It was fairly windy at the time and the top of this small tree was moving back and forth fairly quickly. I caught this shot using shutter priority mode and 1/2500 second exposure. Bunker Hills Regional Park, Anoka County, MN 06/28/25

Canadians are often known for several positive characteristics, including:

1.Politeness and Courtesy – They have a reputation for being polite, saying “sorry” often, and treating others with respect.

2.Friendliness – Canadians are generally warm and welcoming to both locals and visitors.

3.Diversity and Inclusivity – Canada is multicultural, and its people embrace diversity in ethnicity, culture, and perspectives.

4.Tolerance and Open-Mindedness – Canadians tend to value human rights, equality, and progressive social policies.

5.Community-Oriented – Many Canadians are involved in their communities and prioritize social well-being.

6.Love for Nature and the Outdoors – With stunning landscapes, Canadians often appreciate and respect nature, engaging in outdoor activities like hiking, camping, and skiing.

7.Sense of Humor – They have a dry, self-deprecating, and sometimes quirky sense of humor.

8.Humble and Modest – Canadians tend to downplay achievements and avoid arrogance.

9.Hardworking and Resourceful – Whether in cities or remote regions, Canadians have a strong work ethic.

10.Peacefulness – They are generally non-confrontational and support diplomacy over aggression.

Thanks ChatGPT (prompt: tell me about Canadians)!

In June 2020, after experiencing a devastating spring due to COVID, New York State announced that certain businesses could begin partially opening again. New York City’s response included a program called Open Restaurants, which allowed restaurants to use sidewalks and parking spaces for outdoor, socially distant dining. Owners quickly built temporary enclosures in the streets in front of their businesses to try and recover from months of shutdown. Small stretches of Brooklyn in early 2021 display the variety and feel of these enclosures. Hopefully, the Open Restaurants initiative will help these businesses to survive and may even lead to a more permanent reorienting of streets to prioritize people over cars.

In the first half of 2023 I made many F1 machines with Lego, some of them are already posted to Flickr, but this is one of the remaining.

Mclaren MP4/8, driven by Ayrton Senna in 1993 won 5 races, including victory in the Monaco and his home, Brazil.

The technique used for this is basically same as MP4/4 I 've already introduced.

I prioritized its size than giving small details.

Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) leader Ralph Abernathy introduces Jesse Jackson May 22, 1968 as the manager of Resurrection City—the encampment near the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. where most participants in the Poor Peoples’ Campaign camped.

A “city hall” banner is being tacked on the side of one of the plywood structures that made up the campsite.

Jackson’s tenure in the camp helped to catapult him into a national leader.

The six-week Poor People’s Campaign from May 21st until June 24th for economic justice and against the Vietnam War drew upwards of 100,000 people at its peak in addition to the 3,000 encamped on the national mall.

A small group of demonstrators continued the protests for a couple weeks after the camp was cleared.

Originally conceived by King as a massive civil disobedience exercise to demand re-prioritizing U.S. policy away from Vietnam and toward domestic economic equality, it devolved into a permitted series of demonstrations and lobby visits following King’s death in April. The civil disobedience that was conducted was small-scale and symbolic.

The protest ended in defeat as no economic bill of rights passed Congress and many existing programs were limited or dismantled in the coming decades. Some historians mark the end of the national civil rights movement that began with the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom in 1957 with this demonstration.

Jesse Jackson biography from the Black Past:

Born Jesse Burns in Greenville, South Carolina on October 8, 1941 to Helen Burns, a 17 year old unwed high school student and Noah Robinson, her older married neighbor, young Jesse took the surname Jackson from his adopted father, Charles Jackson, who later married Burns.

Insecure owing to the circumstances of his birth, Jackson decided to make himself a father figure and leader of his people.

Tall and imposing at 6’ 4,” Jackson became a star high school quarterback and earned a football scholarship at the University of Illinois in 1959.

After one year at Illinois he transferred to North Carolina Agricultural and Technical (A & T) University in Greensboro, North Carolina partly because he was not allowed to play quarterback.

At A & T, Jackson used his oratorical skills and charismatic personality to become the student body president. Encouraged to test his leadership skills, Jackson led his first march to downtown Greensboro in 1962.

Under the guidance of A & T President, Dr. Samuel Proctor, Jackson enrolled at the Chicago Theological Seminary where he planned to train for the ministry. Jackson was ordained a Baptist minister in 1968 although he left the Seminary two years earlier to work full time in the Civil Rights Movement.

Jackson’s introduction to the Movement came in 1965 when he traveled to Selma, Alabama to join in the campaign for voting rights. While there Jackson met Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the man who would launch his career as a national civil rights leader.

Through King’s influence, Jackson quickly established himself prominently within King’s organization, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

When SCLC launched its first northern campaign in Chicago in 1966, Jackson was put in charge of its Operation Breadbasket which used boycotts and selective buying campaigns to win contracts for black businesses and jobs for black workers.

During the years Jackson headed Operation Breadbasket (1966 to 1971), the campaign generated over three thousand jobs for Southside Chicago residents and enlarged the income of the area by $22 million.

Despite its success, Jackson and Rev. Ralph Abernathy, Dr. Martin Luther King’s successor at SCLC, clashed. In 1971, Jackson left the organization and found Operation PUSH where he continued his campaign of economic empowerment.

By the early 1980s Jackson had acquired a national reputation as a racial justice activist. That reputation was enhanced when in 1983 he traveled to Syria and made a dramatic personal appeal to Syrian President Hafez al-Assad to secure the release of a captured American pilot, Navy Lt. Robert Goodman, who had been shot down over Lebanon.

In June 1984 Jackson traveled to Havana to meet with Cuban President Fidel Castro to negotiate the release of 22 Americans being held by Castro’s government.

In 1984, following the success of his Syrian mission, Jesse Jackson mounted the second major effort by an African American (after Shirley Chisholm in 1972) to seek the Democratic nomination for President of the United States.

He and his followers adopted the term “Rainbow Coalition” to describe the broad coalition of groups of color, working poor, gays and lesbians, and white progressives that Jackson hoped would propel him to the nomination and eventually the White House.

Despite controversial anti-Semitic remarks made during the campaign, Jackson ran a surprisingly strong race, winning primaries in five states including Michigan. Jackson garnered 21% of the primary vote but gained only 8% of the delegates and ultimately lost the nomination to former Vice President Walter Mondale.

Jackson mounted a second effort in 1988, this time winning more than seven million primary votes across the nation in another failed attempt to win the nomination. After winning the South Carolina primary, finishing second in the Illinois primary and winning the Democratic caucus in Michigan, Jackson became the Democratic frontrunner.

Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis recaptured the lead with wins in the Colorado and Wisconsin primaries forcing Jackson to drop out of the race.

Jesse Jackson did not make another bid for the presidential nomination and since 1992 has functioned as a power broker within the Democratic Party.

In 1990 he won the largely ceremonial position of District of Columbia’s statehood senator, a platform from which he argued for statehood for the nation’s capital.

In 1997 Jackson launched the Wall Street Project which encouraged African Americans to become stockholders to use their leverage to force changes in corporate culture and behavior.

Two years later Jackson engaged in personal diplomacy once again when during the Kosovo War he traveled to Belgrade to meet with Yugoslav (now Serbia) president Slobodan Milosevic where he secured the release of three U.S. prisoners of war. In the same year, 1999, he brokered a cease-fire in war-ravaged Sierra Leone.

Both his supporters and critics describe Jackson as bold, defiant, and controversial. He has elicited praise for inspiring the poor with speeches punctuated by catchword phrases such as “I am somebody” and “keep hope alive.”

Critics, however, blamed Jackson for mounting blatantly self-promoting campaigns that exploited racial grievances and inflamed racial outrage.

The revelation that Jackson, married since 1962, fathered a child in 2001 with Rainbow Coalition staffer Karin Stanford, sullied his well-crafted public image as a moral leader. Nevertheless, Jesse Jackson remains enormously popular both in the United States and abroad.

For more information and related images, see flic.kr/s/aHskrqbSDg

The photographer is unknown. The image is an Associated Press photograph housed in the D.C. Library Washington Star Collection.

Rev. Jesse Jackson, appointed “mayor” of Resurrection City three days earlier, leads participants in the Poor Peoples Campaign May 25, 1968.

Jackson brought energy, drive and militant speech to the protest that had been led by more traditional civil rights leaders Ralph Abernathy, Rev. Andrew Young, Rev. Bernard Lafayette and Rev. Hosea Williams.

Jackson’s tenure in the camp helped to catapult him into a national leader.

The six-week Poor People’s Campaign from May 21st until June 24th for economic justice and against the Vietnam War drew upwards of 100,000 people at its peak in addition to the 3,000 encamped on the national mall.

A small group of demonstrators continued the protests for a couple weeks after the camp was cleared.

Originally conceived by King as a massive civil disobedience exercise to demand re-prioritizing U.S. policy away from Vietnam and toward domestic economic equality, it devolved into a permitted series of demonstrations and lobby visits following King’s death in April. The civil disobedience that was conducted was small-scale and symbolic.

The protest ended in defeat as no economic bill of rights passed Congress and many existing programs were limited or dismantled in the coming decades. Some historians mark the end of the national civil rights movement that began with the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom in 1957 with this demonstration.

Jesse Jackson biography from The Black Past Remembered and Reclaimed:

Born Jesse Burns in Greenville, South Carolina on October 8, 1941 to Helen Burns, a 17 year old unwed high school student and Noah Robinson, her older married neighbor, young Jesse took the surname Jackson from his adopted father, Charles Jackson, who later married Burns.

Insecure owing to the circumstances of his birth, Jackson decided to make himself a father figure and leader of his people.

Tall and imposing at 6’ 4,” Jackson became a star high school quarterback and earned a football scholarship at the University of Illinois in 1959.

After one year at Illinois he transferred to North Carolina Agricultural and Technical (A & T) University in Greensboro, North Carolina partly because he was not allowed to play quarterback.

At A & T, Jackson used his oratorical skills and charismatic personality to become the student body president. Encouraged to test his leadership skills, Jackson led his first march to downtown Greensboro in 1962.

Under the guidance of A & T President, Dr. Samuel Proctor, Jackson enrolled at the Chicago Theological Seminary where he planned to train for the ministry. Jackson was ordained a Baptist minister in 1968 although he left the Seminary two years earlier to work full time in the Civil Rights Movement.

Jackson’s introduction to the Movement came in 1965 when he traveled to Selma, Alabama to join in the campaign for voting rights. While there Jackson met Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the man who would launch his career as a national civil rights leader.

Through King’s influence, Jackson quickly established himself prominently within King’s organization, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

When SCLC launched its first northern campaign in Chicago in 1966, Jackson was put in charge of its Operation Breadbasket which used boycotts and selective buying campaigns to win contracts for black businesses and jobs for black workers.

During the years Jackson headed Operation Breadbasket (1966 to 1971), the campaign generated over three thousand jobs for Southside Chicago residents and enlarged the income of the area by $22 million.

Despite its success, Jackson and Rev. Ralph Abernathy, Dr. Martin Luther King’s successor at SCLC, clashed. In 1971, Jackson left the organization and found Operation PUSH where he continued his campaign of economic empowerment.

By the early 1980s Jackson had acquired a national reputation as a racial justice activist. That reputation was enhanced when in 1983 he traveled to Syria and made a dramatic personal appeal to Syrian President Hafez al-Assad to secure the release of a captured American pilot, Navy Lt. Robert Goodman, who had been shot down over Lebanon.

In June 1984 Jackson traveled to Havana to meet with Cuban President Fidel Castro to negotiate the release of 22 Americans being held by Castro’s government.

In 1984, following the success of his Syrian mission, Jesse Jackson mounted the second major effort by an African American (after Shirley Chisholm in 1972) to seek the Democratic nomination for President of the United States.

He and his followers adopted the term “Rainbow Coalition” to describe the broad coalition of groups of color, working poor, gays and lesbians, and white progressives that Jackson hoped would propel him to the nomination and eventually the White House.

Despite controversial anti-Semitic remarks made during the campaign, Jackson ran a surprisingly strong race, winning primaries in five states including Michigan. Jackson garnered 21% of the primary vote but gained only 8% of the delegates and ultimately lost the nomination to former Vice President Walter Mondale.

Jackson mounted a second effort in 1988, this time winning more than seven million primary votes across the nation in another failed attempt to win the nomination. After winning the South Carolina primary, finishing second in the Illinois primary and winning the Democratic caucus in Michigan, Jackson became the Democratic frontrunner.

Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis recaptured the lead with wins in the Colorado and Wisconsin primaries forcing Jackson to drop out of the race.

Jesse Jackson did not make another bid for the presidential nomination and since 1992 has functioned as a power broker within the Democratic Party.

In 1990 he won the largely ceremonial position of District of Columbia’s statehood senator, a platform from which he argued for statehood for the nation’s capital.

In 1997 Jackson launched the Wall Street Project which encouraged African Americans to become stockholders to use their leverage to force changes in corporate culture and behavior.

Two years later Jackson engaged in personal diplomacy once again when during the Kosovo War he traveled to Belgrade to meet with Yugoslav (now Serbia) president Slobodan Milosevic where he secured the release of three U.S. prisoners of war. In the same year, 1999, he brokered a cease-fire in war-ravaged Sierra Leone.

Both his supporters and critics describe Jackson as bold, defiant, and controversial. He has elicited praise for inspiring the poor with speeches punctuated by catchword phrases such as “I am somebody” and “keep hope alive.”

Critics, however, blamed Jackson for mounting blatantly self-promoting campaigns that exploited racial grievances and inflamed racial outrage.

The revelation that Jackson, married since 1962, fathered a child in 2001 with Rainbow Coalition staffer Karin Stanford, sullied his well-crafted public image as a moral leader. Nevertheless, Jesse Jackson remains enormously popular both in the United States and abroad.

For more information and related images, see flic.kr/s/aHskrqbSDg

Photo by Bernie Boston. The image is courtesy of the D.C. Public Library Washington Star Collection © Washington Post.

Visitors can take their time to enjoy an elevated view of New Youk City from High Line an elevated railway line owned by the City of New York, today a 1.45-mile-long linear public park maintained, operated, and programmed by Friends of the High Line, in partnership with the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation, on Tuesday, September 15, 2015. High Line was opened in 1934 and moved goods to and from Manhattan’s largest industrial district until 1980. The third and final phase officially opened to the public on September 21, 2014. The High Line's green roof system with drip irrigation is designed to allow the planting beds to retain as much water as possible; because many of the plants are drought-tolerant, they need little supplemental watering. When supplemental watering is needed, hand watering is used so as to tailor the amount of water to the needs of individual species and weather conditions, and to conserve water. High Line is independently funded from U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service (USFS). Urban forestry and green spaces are priority areas for USFS. With 80 percent* of the nation's population in urban areas, there are strong environmental, social, and economic cases to be made for the conservation of green spaces to guide growth and revitalize city centers and older suburbs. Urban forests broadly include urban parks, street trees, landscaped boulevards, public gardens, river and coastal promenades, greenways, river corridors, wetlands, nature preserves, natural areas, shelter belts of trees and working trees at industrial brownfield sites. Urban forests are dynamic ecosystems that provide needed environmental services by cleaning air and water helping to control storm water, and conserving energy. They add form, structure, beauty and breathing room to urban design, reduce noise, separate incompatible uses, provide places to recreate, strengthen social cohesion, leverage community revitalization, and add economic value to our communities. Urban forests, through planned connections of green spaces, form the green infrastructure system on which communities depend. Green infrastructure works at multiple scales from the neighborhood to the metro area up to the regional landscape. This natural life support system sustains clean air and water, biodiversity, habitat, nesting and travel corridors for wildlife, and connects people to nature. Urban forests, through planned connections of green spaces, form the green infrastructure system on which communities depend. Urban and Community Forestry (UCF) is a cooperative program of the US Forest Service that focuses on the stewardship of urban natural resources. UCF provides technical, financial, research and educational services to local government, non-profit organizations community groups, educational institutions, and tribal governments. The program is delivered through its legislative partners, the state forestry agencies in 59 states and US territories. Forest Service cooperative programs are currently being redesigned to make more effective use of federal resources. Programs will be focused on issues and landscapes of national importance and prioritized through state and regional assessments. Over the next five years an increasing percentage of funding will be focused on landscape scale projects. Three national themes provide a framework for this work: conserve working forest landscapes; protect forests from harm; and enhance benefits associated with trees and forests. More information and upcoming webinars on December 9, 2015 | 1:00pm-2:15pm ET; January 13, 2016 | 1:00pm-2:15pm ET; and February 10, 2016 | 1:00pm-2:15pm ET can be seen at *http://www.fs.fed.us/ucf/program.shtml. USDA Photo By Lance Cheung.

Shinjuku after sunset, today is Christmas Eve but why am I taking a picture by myself?

(Because we prioritize photography rather than meeting with a lover, it's only for Christmas Eve to be alone with one person)

Biennalist :

Biennalist is an Art Format commenting on active biennials and managed cultural events through artworks.Biennalist takes the thematics of the biennales and similar events like festivals and conferences seriously, questioning the established structures of the staged art events in order to contribute to the debate, which they wish to generate.

-------------------------------------------

links about Biennalist :

Thierry Geoffroy/Colonel:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thierry_Geoffroy

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Room_(art)

www.emergencyrooms.org/formats.html

www.colonel.dk/

—--Biennale from wikipedia —--

The Venice International Film Festival is part of the Venice Biennale. The famous Golden Lion is awarded to the best film screening at the competition.

Biennale (Italian: [bi.enˈnaːle]), Italian for "biennial" or "every other year", is any event that happens every two years. It is most commonly used within the art world to describe large-scale international contemporary art exhibitions. As such the term was popularised by Venice Biennale, which was first held in 1895. Since the 1990s, the terms "biennale" and "biennial" have been interchangeably used in a more generic way - to signify a large-scale international survey show of contemporary art that recurs at regular intervals but not necessarily biannual (such as triennials, Documenta, Skulptur Projekte Münster).[1] The phrase has also been used for other artistic events, such as the "Biennale de Paris", "Kochi-Muziris Biennale", Berlinale (for the Berlin International Film Festival) and Viennale (for Vienna's international film festival).

Characteristics[edit]

According to author Federica Martini, what is at stake in contemporary biennales is the diplomatic/international relations potential as well as urban regeneration plans. Besides being mainly focused on the present (the “here and now” where the cultural event takes place and their effect of "spectacularisation of the everyday"), because of their site-specificity cultural events may refer back to,[who?] produce or frame the history of the site and communities' collective memory.[2]

The Great Exhibition in The Crystal Palace in Hyde Park, London, in 1851, the first attempt to condense the representation of the world within a unitary exhibition space.

A strong and influent symbol of biennales and of large-scale international exhibitions in general is the Crystal Palace, the gigantic and futuristic London architecture that hosted the Great Exhibition in 1851. According to philosopher Peter Sloterdijk,[3][page needed] the Crystal Palace is the first attempt to condense the representation of the world in a unitary exhibition space, where the main exhibit is society itself in an a-historical, spectacular condition. The Crystal Palace main motives were the affirmation of British economic and national leadership and the creation of moments of spectacle. In this respect, 19th century World fairs provided a visual crystallization of colonial culture and were, at the same time, forerunners of contemporary theme parks.

The Venice Biennale as an archetype[edit]

The structure of the Venice Biennale in 2005 with an international exhibition and the national pavilions.

The Venice Biennale, a periodical large-scale cultural event founded in 1895, served as an archetype of the biennales. Meant to become a World Fair focused on contemporary art, the Venice Biennale used as a pretext the wedding anniversary of the Italian king and followed up to several national exhibitions organised after Italy unification in 1861. The Biennale immediately put forth issues of city marketing, cultural tourism and urban regeneration, as it was meant to reposition Venice on the international cultural map after the crisis due to the end of the Grand Tour model and the weakening of the Venetian school of painting. Furthermore, the Gardens where the Biennale takes place were an abandoned city area that needed to be re-functionalised. In cultural terms, the Biennale was meant to provide on a biennial basis a platform for discussing contemporary art practices that were not represented in fine arts museums at the time. The early Biennale model already included some key points that are still constitutive of large-scale international art exhibitions today: a mix of city marketing, internationalism, gentrification issues and destination culture, and the spectacular, large scale of the event.

Biennials after the 1990s[edit]

The situation of biennials has changed in the contemporary context: while at its origin in 1895 Venice was a unique cultural event, but since the 1990s hundreds of biennials have been organized across the globe. Given the ephemeral and irregular nature of some biennials, there is little consensus on the exact number of biennials in existence at any given time.[citation needed] Furthermore, while Venice was a unique agent in the presentation of contemporary art, since the 1960s several museums devoted to contemporary art are exhibiting the contemporary scene on a regular basis. Another point of difference concerns 19th century internationalism in the arts, that was brought into question by post-colonial debates and criticism of the contemporary art “ethnic marketing”, and also challenged the Venetian and World Fair’s national representation system. As a consequence of this, Eurocentric tendency to implode the whole word in an exhibition space, which characterises both the Crystal Palace and the Venice Biennale, is affected by the expansion of the artistic geographical map to scenes traditionally considered as marginal. The birth of the Havana Biennial in 1984 is widely considered an important counterpoint to the Venetian model for its prioritization of artists working in the Global South and curatorial rejection of the national pavilion model.

International biennales[edit]

In the term's most commonly used context of major recurrent art exhibitions:

Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art, South Australia

Asian Art Biennale, in Taichung, Taiwan (National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts)

Athens Biennale, in Athens, Greece

Bienal de Arte Paiz, in Guatemala City, Guatemala[4]

Arts in Marrakech (AiM) International Biennale (Arts in Marrakech Festival)

Bamako Encounters, a biennale of photography in Mali

Bat-Yam International Biennale of Landscape Urbanism

Beijing Biennale

Berlin Biennale (contemporary art biennale, to be distinguished from Berlinale, which is a film festival)

Bergen Assembly (triennial for contemporary art in Bergen, Norway)www.bergenassembly.no

Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture, in Shenzhen and Hong Kong, China

Bienal de Arte de Ponce in Ponce, Puerto Rico

Biënnale van België, Biennial of Belgium, Belgium

BiennaleOnline Online biennial exhibition of contemporary art from the most promising emerging artists.

Biennial of Hawaii Artists

Biennale de la Biche, the smallest biennale in the world held at deserted island near Guadeloupe, French overseas region[5][6]

Biwako Biennale [ja], in Shiga, Japan

La Biennale de Montreal

Biennale of Luanda : Pan-African Forum for the Culture of Peace,[7] Angola

Boom Festival, international music and culture festival in Idanha-a-Nova, Portugal

Bucharest Biennale in Bucharest, Romania

Bushwick Biennial, in Bushwick, Brooklyn, New York

Canakkale Biennial, in Canakkale, Turkey

Cerveira International Art Biennial, Vila Nova de Cerveira, Portugal [8]

Changwon Sculpture Biennale in Changwon, South Korea

Dakar Biennale, also called Dak'Art, biennale in Dakar, Senegal

Documenta, contemporary art exhibition held every five years in Kassel, Germany

Estuaire (biennale), biennale in Nantes and Saint-Nazaire, France

EVA International, biennial in Limerick, Republic of Ireland

Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art, in Gothenburg, Sweden[9]

Greater Taipei Contemporary Art Biennial, in Taipei, Taiwan

Gwangju Biennale, Asia's first and most prestigious contemporary art biennale

Havana biennial, in Havana, Cuba

Helsinki Biennial, in Helsinki, Finland

Herzliya Biennial For Contemporary Art, in Herzliya, Israel

Incheon Women Artists' Biennale, in Incheon, South Korea

Iowa Biennial, in Iowa, USA

Istanbul Biennial, in Istanbul, Turkey

International Roaming Biennial of Tehran, in Tehran and Istanbul

Jakarta Biennale, in Jakarta, Indonesia

Jerusalem Biennale, in Jerusalem, Israel

Jogja Biennale, in Yogyakarta, Indonesia

Karachi Biennale, in Karachi, Pakistan

Keelung Harbor Biennale, in Keelung, Taiwan

Kochi-Muziris Biennale, largest art exhibition in India, in Kochi, Kerala, India

Kortrijk Design Biennale Interieur, in Kortrijk, Belgium

Kobe Biennale, in Japan

Kuandu Biennale, in Taipei, Taiwan

Lagos Biennial, in Lagos, Nigeria[10]

Light Art Biennale Austria, in Austria

Liverpool Biennial, in Liverpool, UK

Lofoten International Art Festival [no] (LIAF), on the Lofoten archipelago, Norway[11]

Manifesta, European Biennale of contemporary art in different European cities

Mediations Biennale, in Poznań, Poland

Melbourne International Biennial 1999

Mediterranean Biennale in Sakhnin 2013

MOMENTA Biennale de l'image [fr] (formerly known as Le Mois de la Photo à Montréal), in Montreal, Canada

MOMENTUM [no], in Moss, Norway[12]

Moscow Biennale, in Moscow, Russia

Munich Biennale, new opera and music-theatre in even-numbered years

Mykonos Biennale

Nakanojo Biennale[13]

NGV Triennial, contemporary art exhibition held every three years at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia

October Salon – Belgrade Biennale [sr], organised by the Cultural Center of Belgrade [sr], in Belgrade, Serbia[14]

OSTEN Biennial of Drawing Skopje, North Macedonia[15]

Biennale de Paris

Riga International Biennial of Contemporary Art (RIBOCA), in Riga, Latvia[16]

São Paulo Art Biennial, in São Paulo, Brazil

SCAPE Public Art Christchurch Biennial in Christchurch, New Zealand[17]

Prospect New Orleans

Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism

Sequences, in Reykjavík, Iceland[18]

Shanghai Biennale

Sharjah Biennale, in Sharjah, UAE

Singapore Biennale, held in various locations across the city-state island of Singapore

Screen City Biennial, in Stavanger, Norway

Biennale of Sydney

Taipei Biennale, in Taipei, Taiwan

Taiwan Arts Biennale, in Taichung, Taiwan (National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts)

Taiwan Film Biennale, in Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, U.S.A.

Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art [el], in Thessaloniki, Greece[19]

Dream city, produced by ART Rue Association in Tunisia

Vancouver Biennale

Visayas Islands Visual Arts Exhibition and Conference (VIVA ExCon) in the Philippines [20]

Venice Biennale, in Venice, Italy, which includes:

Venice Biennale of Contemporary Art

Venice Biennale of Architecture

Venice Film Festival

Vladivostok biennale of Visual Arts, in Vladivostok, Russia

Whitney Biennial, hosted by the Whitney Museum of American Art, in New York City, NY, USA

Web Biennial, produced with teams from Athens, Berlin and Istanbul.

West Africa Architecture Biennale,[21] Virtual in Lagos, Nigeria.

WRO Biennale, in Wrocław, Poland[22]

Music Biennale Zagreb

[SHIFT:ibpcpa] The International Biennale of Performance, Collaborative and Participatory Arts, Nomadic, International, Scotland, UK.

—---Venice Biennale from wikipedia —

The Venice Biennale (/ˌbiːɛˈnɑːleɪ, -li/; Italian: La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation.[2][3][4] The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of its kind. The main exhibition held in Castello, in the halls of the Arsenale and Biennale Gardens, alternates between art and architecture (hence the name biennale; biennial).[5][6][7] The other events hosted by the Foundation—spanning theatre, music, and dance—are held annually in various parts of Venice, whereas the Venice Film Festival takes place at the Lido.[8]

Organization[edit]

Art Biennale

Art Biennale

International Art Exhibition

1895

Even-numbered years (since 2022)

Venice Biennale of Architecture

International Architecture Exhibition

1980

Odd-numbered years (since 2021)

Biennale Musica

International Festival of Contemporary Music

1930

Annually (Sep/Oct)

Biennale Teatro

International Theatre Festival

1934

Annually (Jul/Aug)

Venice Film Festival

Venice International Film Festival

1932

Annually (Aug/Sep)

Venice Dance Biennale

International Festival of Contemporary Dance

1999

Annually (June; biennially 2010–16)

International Kids' Carnival

2009

Annually (during Carnevale)

History

1895–1947

On April 19, 1893, the Venetian City Council passed a resolution to set up an biennial exhibition of Italian Art ("Esposizione biennale artistica nazionale") to celebrate the silver anniversary of King Umberto I and Margherita of Savoy.[11]

A year later, the council decreed "to adopt a 'by invitation' system; to reserve a section of the Exhibition for foreign artists too; to admit works by uninvited Italian artists, as selected by a jury."[12]

The first Biennale, "I Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte della Città di Venezia (1st International Art Exhibition of the City of Venice)" (although originally scheduled for April 22, 1894) was opened on April 30, 1895, by the Italian King and Queen, Umberto I and Margherita di Savoia. The first exhibition was seen by 224,000 visitors.

The event became increasingly international in the first decades of the 20th century: from 1907 on, several countries installed national pavilions at the exhibition, with the first being from Belgium. In 1910 the first internationally well-known artists were displayed: a room dedicated to Gustav Klimt, a one-man show for Renoir, a retrospective of Courbet. A work by Picasso "Family of Saltimbanques" was removed from the Spanish salon in the central Palazzo because it was feared that its novelty might shock the public. By 1914 seven pavilions had been established: Belgium (1907), Hungary (1909), Germany (1909), Great Britain (1909), France (1912), and Russia (1914).

During World War I, the 1916 and 1918 events were cancelled.[13] In 1920 the post of mayor of Venice and president of the Biennale was split. The new secretary general, Vittorio Pica brought about the first presence of avant-garde art, notably Impressionists and Post-Impressionists.

1922 saw an exhibition of sculpture by African artists. Between the two World Wars, many important modern artists had their work exhibited there. In 1928 the Istituto Storico d'Arte Contemporanea (Historical Institute of Contemporary Art) opened, which was the first nucleus of archival collections of the Biennale. In 1930 its name was changed into Historical Archive of Contemporary Art.

In 1930, the Biennale was transformed into an Ente Autonomo (Autonomous Board) by Royal Decree with law no. 33 of 13-1-1930. Subsequently, the control of the Biennale passed from the Venice city council to the national Fascist government under Benito Mussolini. This brought on a restructuring, an associated financial boost, as well as a new president, Count Giuseppe Volpi di Misurata. Three entirely new events were established, including the Biennale Musica in 1930, also referred to as International Festival of Contemporary Music; the Venice Film Festival in 1932, which they claim as the first film festival in history,[14] also referred to as Venice International Film Festival; and the Biennale Theatro in 1934, also referred to as International Theatre Festival.

In 1933 the Biennale organized an exhibition of Italian art abroad. From 1938, Grand Prizes were awarded in the art exhibition section.

During World War II, the activities of the Biennale were interrupted: 1942 saw the last edition of the events. The Film Festival restarted in 1946, the Music and Theatre festivals were resumed in 1947, and the Art Exhibition in 1948.[15]

1948–1973[edit]

The Art Biennale was resumed in 1948 with a major exhibition of a recapitulatory nature. The Secretary General, art historian Rodolfo Pallucchini, started with the Impressionists and many protagonists of contemporary art including Chagall, Klee, Braque, Delvaux, Ensor, and Magritte, as well as a retrospective of Picasso's work. Peggy Guggenheim was invited to exhibit her collection, later to be permanently housed at Ca' Venier dei Leoni.

1949 saw the beginning of renewed attention to avant-garde movements in European—and later worldwide—movements in contemporary art. Abstract expressionism was introduced in the 1950s, and the Biennale is credited with importing Pop Art into the canon of art history by awarding the top prize to Robert Rauschenberg in 1964.[16] From 1948 to 1972, Italian architect Carlo Scarpa did a series of remarkable interventions in the Biennale's exhibition spaces.

In 1954 the island San Giorgio Maggiore provided the venue for the first Japanese Noh theatre shows in Europe. 1956 saw the selection of films following an artistic selection and no longer based upon the designation of the participating country. The 1957 Golden Lion went to Satyajit Ray's Aparajito which introduced Indian cinema to the West.

1962 included Arte Informale at the Art Exhibition with Jean Fautrier, Hans Hartung, Emilio Vedova, and Pietro Consagra. The 1964 Art Exhibition introduced continental Europe to Pop Art (The Independent Group had been founded in Britain in 1952). The American Robert Rauschenberg was the first American artist to win the Gran Premio, and the youngest to date.

The student protests of 1968 also marked a crisis for the Biennale. Student protests hindered the opening of the Biennale. A resulting period of institutional changes opened and ending with a new Statute in 1973. In 1969, following the protests, the Grand Prizes were abandoned. These resumed in 1980 for the Mostra del Cinema and in 1986 for the Art Exhibition.[17]

In 1972, for the first time, a theme was adopted by the Biennale, called "Opera o comportamento" ("Work or Behaviour").

Starting from 1973 the Music Festival was no longer held annually. During the year in which the Mostra del Cinema was not held, there was a series of "Giornate del cinema italiano" (Days of Italian Cinema) promoted by sectorial bodies in campo Santa Margherita, in Venice.[18]

1974–1998[edit]

1974 saw the start of the four-year presidency of Carlo Ripa di Meana. The International Art Exhibition was not held (until it was resumed in 1976). Theatre and cinema events were held in October 1974 and 1975 under the title Libertà per il Cile (Freedom for Chile)—a major cultural protest against the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.

On 15 November 1977, the so-called Dissident Biennale (in reference to the dissident movement in the USSR) opened. Because of the ensuing controversies within the Italian left wing parties, president Ripa di Meana resigned at the end of the year.[19]

In 1979 the new presidency of Giuseppe Galasso (1979-1982) began. The principle was laid down whereby each of the artistic sectors was to have a permanent director to organise its activity.

In 1980, the Architecture section of the Biennale was set up. The director, Paolo Portoghesi, opened the Corderie dell'Arsenale to the public for the first time. At the Mostra del Cinema, the awards were brought back into being (between 1969 and 1979, the editions were non-competitive). In 1980, Achille Bonito Oliva and Harald Szeemann introduced "Aperto", a section of the exhibition designed to explore emerging art. Italian art historian Giovanni Carandente directed the 1988 and 1990 editions. A three-year gap was left afterwards to make sure that the 1995 edition would coincide with the 100th anniversary of the Biennale.[13]

The 1993 edition was directed by Achille Bonito Oliva. In 1995, Jean Clair was appointed to be the Biennale's first non-Italian director of visual arts[20] while Germano Celant served as director in 1997.

For the Centenary in 1995, the Biennale promoted events in every sector of its activity: the 34th Festival del Teatro, the 46th art exhibition, the 46th Festival di Musica, the 52nd Mostra del Cinema.[21]

1999–present[edit]

In 1999 and 2001, Harald Szeemann directed two editions in a row (48th & 49th) bringing in a larger representation of artists from Asia and Eastern Europe and more young artists than usual and expanded the show into several newly restored spaces of the Arsenale.

In 1999 a new sector was created for live shows: DMT (Dance Music Theatre).

The 50th edition, 2003, directed by Francesco Bonami, had a record number of seven co-curators involved, including Hans Ulrich Obrist, Catherine David, Igor Zabel, Hou Hanru and Massimiliano Gioni.

The 51st edition of the Biennale opened in June 2005, curated, for the first time by two women, Maria de Corral and Rosa Martinez. De Corral organized "The Experience of Art" which included 41 artists, from past masters to younger figures. Rosa Martinez took over the Arsenale with "Always a Little Further." Drawing on "the myth of the romantic traveler" her exhibition involved 49 artists, ranging from the elegant to the profane.

In 2007, Robert Storr became the first director from the United States to curate the Biennale (the 52nd), with a show entitled Think with the Senses – Feel with the Mind. Art in the Present Tense.

Swedish curator Daniel Birnbaum was artistic director of the 2009 edition entitled "Fare Mondi // Making Worlds".

The 2011 edition was curated by Swiss curator Bice Curiger entitled "ILLUMInazioni – ILLUMInations".

The Biennale in 2013 was curated by the Italian Massimiliano Gioni. His title and theme, Il Palazzo Enciclopedico / The Encyclopedic Palace, was adopted from an architectural model by the self-taught Italian-American artist Marino Auriti. Auriti's work, The Encyclopedic Palace of the World was lent by the American Folk Art Museum and exhibited in the first room of the Arsenale for the duration of the biennale. For Gioni, Auriti's work, "meant to house all worldly knowledge, bringing together the greatest discoveries of the human race, from the wheel to the satellite," provided an analogous figure for the "biennale model itself...based on the impossible desire to concentrate the infinite worlds of contemporary art in a single place: a task that now seems as dizzyingly absurd as Auriti's dream."[22]

Curator Okwui Enwezor was responsible for the 2015 edition.[23] He was the first African-born curator of the biennial. As a catalyst for imagining different ways of imagining multiple desires and futures Enwezor commissioned special projects and programs throughout the Biennale in the Giardini. This included a Creative Time Summit, e-flux journal's SUPERCOMMUNITY, Gulf Labor Coalition, The Invisible Borders Trans-African Project and Abounaddara.[24][25]

The 2017 Biennale, titled Viva Arte Viva, was directed by French curator Christine Macel who called it an "exhibition inspired by humanism".[26] German artist Franz Erhard Walter won the Golden Lion for best artist, while Carolee Schneemann was awarded a posthumous Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement.[27]

The 2019 Biennale, titled May You Live In Interesting Times, was directed by American-born curator Ralph Rugoff.[28]

The 2022 edition was curated by Italian curator Cecilia Alemani entitled "The Milk of Dreams" after a book by British-born Mexican surrealist painter Leonora Carrington.[29]

The Biennale has an attendance today of over 500,000 visitors.[30][31][32]

Role in the art market[edit]

When the Venice Biennale was founded in 1895, one of its main goals was to establish a new market for contemporary art. Between 1942 and 1968 a sales office assisted artists in finding clients and selling their work,[33] a service for which it charged 10% commission. Sales remained an intrinsic part of the biennale until 1968, when a sales ban was enacted. An important practical reason why the focus on non-commodities has failed to decouple Venice from the market is that the biennale itself lacks the funds to produce, ship and install these large-scale works. Therefore, the financial involvement of dealers is widely regarded as indispensable;[16] as they regularly front the funding for production of ambitious projects.[34] Furthermore, every other year the Venice Biennale coincides with nearby Art Basel, the world's prime commercial fair for modern and contemporary art. Numerous galleries with artists on show in Venice usually bring work by the same artists to Basel.[35]

Central Pavilion and Arsenale[edit]

The formal Biennale is based at a park, the Giardini. The Giardini includes a large exhibition hall that houses a themed exhibition curated by the Biennale's director.

Initiated in 1980, the Aperto began as a fringe event for younger artists and artists of a national origin not represented by the permanent national pavilions. This is usually staged in the Arsenale and has become part of the formal biennale programme. In 1995 there was no Aperto so a number of participating countries hired venues to show exhibitions of emerging artists. From 1999, both the international exhibition and the Aperto were held as one exhibition, held both at the Central Pavilion and the Arsenale. Also in 1999, a $1 million renovation transformed the Arsenale area into a cluster of renovated shipyards, sheds and warehouses, more than doubling the Arsenale's exhibition space of previous years.[36]

A special edition of the 54th Biennale was held at Padiglione Italia of Torino Esposizioni – Sala Nervi (December 2011 – February 2012) for the 150th Anniversary of Italian Unification. The event was directed by Vittorio Sgarbi.[37]

National pavilions[edit]

Main article: National pavilions at the Venice Biennale

The Giardini houses 30 permanent national pavilions.[13] Alongside the Central Pavilion, built in 1894 and later restructured and extended several times, the Giardini are occupied by a further 29 pavilions built at different periods by the various countries participating in the Biennale. The first nation to build a pavilion was Belgium in 1907, followed by Germany, Britain and Hungary in 1909.[13] The pavilions are the property of the individual countries and are managed by their ministries of culture.[38]

Countries not owning a pavilion in the Giardini are exhibited in other venues across Venice. The number of countries represented is still growing. In 2005, China was showing for the first time, followed by the African Pavilion and Mexico (2007), the United Arab Emirates (2009), and India (2011).[39]

The assignment of the permanent pavilions was largely dictated by the international politics of the 1930s and the Cold War. There is no single format to how each country manages their pavilion, established and emerging countries represented at the biennial maintain and fund their pavilions in different ways.[38] While pavilions are usually government-funded, private money plays an increasingly large role; in 2015, the pavilions of Iraq, Ukraine and Syria were completely privately funded.[40] The pavilion for Great Britain is always managed by the British Council[41] while the United States assigns the responsibility to a public gallery chosen by the Department of State which, since 1985, has been the Peggy Guggenheim Collection.[42] The countries at the Arsenale that request a temporary exhibition space pay a hire fee per square meter.[38]

In 2011, the countries were Albania, Andorra, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bangladesh, Belarus, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, China, Congo, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cuba, Cyprus, Czechia and Slovakia, Denmark, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Haiti, Hungary, Iceland, India, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Mexico, Moldova, Montenegro, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, San Marino, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Singapore, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Syrian Arab Republic, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States of America, Uruguay, Venezuela, Wales and Zimbabwe. In addition to this there are two collective pavilions: Central Asia Pavilion and Istituto Italo-Latino Americano. In 2013, eleven new participant countries developed national pavilions for the Biennale: Angola, Bosnia and Herzegowina, the Bahamas, Bahrain, the Ivory Coast, Kosovo, Kuwait, the Maldives, Paraguay, Tuvalu, and the Holy See. In 2015, five new participant countries developed pavilions for the Biennale: Grenada,[43] Republic of Mozambique, Republic of Seychelles, Mauritius and Mongolia. In 2017, three countries participated in the Art Biennale for the first time: Antigua & Barbuda, Kiribati, and Nigeria.[44] In 2019, four countries participated in the Art Biennale for the first time: Ghana, Madagascar, Malaysia, and Pakistan.[45]

As well as the national pavilions there are countless "unofficial pavilions"[46] that spring up every year. In 2009 there were pavilions such as the Gabon Pavilion and a Peckham pavilion. In 2017 The Diaspora Pavilion bought together 19 artists from complex, multinational backgrounds to challenge the prevalence of the nation state at the Biennale.[47]

The Internet Pavilion (Italian: Padiglione Internet) was founded in 2009 as a platform for activists and artists working in new media.[48][49][50] Subsequent editions were held since,[51] 2013,[51] in conjunction with the biennale.[52]

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وینسVenetsiya

art umjetnost umění kunst taideτέχνη művészetList ealaínarte māksla menasartiKunst sztuka artăumenie umetnost konstcelfקונסטարվեստincəsənətশিল্প艺术(yìshù)藝術 (yìshù)ხელოვნებაकलाkos duabアートಕಲೆសិល្បៈ미(misul)ສິນລະປະകലकलाအတတ်ပညာकलाකලාවகலைఆర్ట్ศิลปะ آرٹsan'atnghệ thuậtفن (fan)אומנותهنرsanat artist

venice biennale Venezia Venedig biennalen Bienal_de_Venecia Venise Venecia Bienalo Bienal Biënnale Venetië Veneza Μπιενάλε της Βενετίας ヴェネツィ ア・ビエンナーレ 威尼斯双年展 Venedik Bienali Venetsian biennaali Wenecji biennial #venicebiennale #venicebiennial biennalism

Veneziako Venecija Venècia Venetië Veneetsia Venetsia VenedigΒ ενετία Velence Feneyjar Venice Venēcija Venezja Venezia Wenecja VenezaVeneția Venetsiya Benátky Benetke Fenisוועניס Վենետիկ ভেনি স威尼斯 威尼斯 ვენეციისવે નિસवेनिसヴ ェネツィアವೆನಿಸ್베니스வெனிஸ்వెనిస్เวนิซوینس Venetsiya Italy italia

--------key words

headband protest fashion protestfashion artistic intervention performance artformat action installation critical critic critique institutional critic choregraphy scenography

#venicebiennale #biennalist #artformat #biennale #artbiennale #biennial

#BiennaleArte2024 #artformat

Assegnando le giuste priorità alle user story

"The Jefferson Memorial is a presidential memorial built in Washington, D.C. between 1939 and 1943 in honor of Thomas Jefferson, the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence, a central intellectual force behind the American Revolution, founder of the Democratic-Republican Party, and the nation's third president.

The Jefferson Memorial features multiple Jefferson quotes designed to capture Jefferson's ideology and philosophy, known as Jeffersonian democracy, which was staunchly supportive of American republicanism, individual rights, religious freedom, states' rights, and virtue and prioritized and valued what he saw as the undervalued independent yeoman. Jefferson was simultaneously deeply skeptical of cities and financiers and hostile to aristocracy, elitism, and corruption. He is widely considered among the most influential political minds of his age and one of the most consequential intellectual forces behind the American Revolution.

The Jefferson Memorial is built in neoclassical style and is situated in West Potomac Park on the shore of the Potomac River. It was designed by John Russell Pope, a New York City architect, and built by Philadelphia contractor John McShain. Construction on it began in 1939 and was completed in 1943, though the bronze statue of Jefferson was not completed and added until four years after its dedication and opening, in 1947. Pope made references to the Roman Pantheon, whose designer was Apollodorus of Damascus, and to Jefferson's own design for the rotunda at the University of Virginia as inspirations for the memorial's aesthetics.

The Jefferson Memorial and White House form a main anchor point to the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The Washington Monument, initially intended to be built at the intersection of the White House and the Jefferson Memorial's site, was ultimately built further east because the ground at that location was deemed too soft and swampy.

The Jefferson Memorial is a designated national memorial and is managed by the National Park Service of the U.S. Department of the Interior's National Mall and Memorial Parks division. In 1966, the Jefferson Memorial was named to the National Register of Historic Places. In 2007, it ranked fourth on the "list of America's favorite architecture", published by the American Institute of Architects.

The National Mall is a landscaped park near the downtown area of Washington, D.C., the capital city of the United States, and contains and borders a number of museums of the Smithsonian Institution, art galleries, cultural institutions, and various memorials, sculptures, and statues. It is administered by the National Park Service (NPS) of the United States Department of the Interior as part of the National Mall and Memorial Parks unit of the National Park System. The park receives approximately 24 million visitors each year.

The core area of the National Mall extends between the United States Capitol grounds to the east and the Washington Monument to the west and is lined to the north and south by several museums and a federal office building. The term National Mall may also include areas that are also officially part of neighboring West Potomac Park to the south and west and Constitution Gardens to the north, extending to the Lincoln Memorial on the west and Jefferson Memorial to the south.

Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia, also known as just Washington or simply D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. It is located on the east bank of the Potomac River, which forms its southwestern and southern border with the U.S. state of Virginia, and it shares a land border with the U.S. state of Maryland on its other sides. The city was named for George Washington, a Founding Father and the first president of the United States, and the federal district is named after Columbia, the female personification of the nation. As the seat of the U.S. federal government and several international organizations, the city is an important world political capital. It is one of the most visited cities in the U.S. with over 20 million annual visitors as of 2016.

The U.S. Constitution provides for a federal district under the exclusive jurisdiction of Congress; the district is not a part of any U.S. state (nor is it one itself). The signing of the Residence Act on July 16, 1790, approved the creation of the capital district located along the Potomac River near the country's East Coast. The City of Washington was founded in 1791, and Congress held its first session there in 1800. In 1801, the territory, formerly part of Maryland and Virginia (including the settlements of Georgetown and Alexandria), officially became recognized as the federal district. In 1846, Congress returned the land originally ceded by Virginia, including the city of Alexandria; in 1871, it created a single municipal government for the remaining portion of the district. There have been efforts to make the city into a state since the 1880s, a movement that has gained momentum in recent years, and a statehood bill passed the House of Representatives in 2021.

The city is divided into quadrants centered on the Capitol, and there are as many as 131 neighborhoods. According to the 2020 census, it has a population of 689,545, which makes it the 23rd most populous city in the U.S. as of 2020, the third most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic, and gives it a population larger than that of two U.S. states: Wyoming and Vermont. Commuters from the surrounding Maryland and Virginia suburbs raise the city's daytime population to more than one million during the workweek. Washington's metropolitan area, the country's sixth largest (including parts of Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia), had a 2020 estimated population of 6.3 million residents; and over 54 million people live within 250 mi (400 km) of the District.

The three branches of the U.S. federal government are centered in the district: Congress (legislative), the president (executive), and the Supreme Court (judicial). Washington is home to many national monuments and museums, primarily situated on or around the National Mall. The city hosts 177 foreign embassies as well as the headquarters of many international organizations, trade unions, non-profits, lobbying groups, and professional associations, including the World Bank Group, the International Monetary Fund, the Organization of American States, AARP, the National Geographic Society, the American Red Cross, and others.

A locally elected mayor and a 13-member council have governed the district since 1973. Congress maintains supreme authority over the city and may overturn local laws. The District of Columbia does not have representation in Congress, although D.C. residents elect a single at-large congressional delegate to the House of Representatives who has no vote. District voters choose three presidential electors in accordance with the Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified in 1961." - info from Wikipedia.

The fall of 2022 I did my 3rd major cycling tour. I began my adventure in Montreal, Canada and finished in Savannah, GA. This tour took me through the oldest parts of Quebec and the 13 original US states. During this adventure I cycled 7,126 km over the course of 2.5 months and took more than 68,000 photos. As with my previous tours, a major focus was to photograph historic architecture.

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I miss ya'll. I will work on working Flickr back into my schedule. But first I need to work on prioritizing my life.

This atmospheric night scene captures the essence of Kanazawa’s preserved districts, where the past lingers in the architecture and the glow of lanterns reflects off weathered wood. The corner building, a traditional machiya (町家), exemplifies the Edo-period architectural style with its dark wooden lattices (koshi), tiled roof, and white plaster accents. These structures were once home to merchants, geisha teahouses, and local artisans, their exteriors meticulously preserved to retain their historic charm.

Kanazawa’s Higashi Chaya and Kazuemachi districts are among the most well-preserved geisha quarters in Japan. Unlike modern constructions, these streets were designed to foster intimate connections, their narrow alleys lined with buildings that prioritize privacy while still inviting glimpses into softly illuminated interiors. The glass storefront seen here suggests a small shop or tea house, offering local crafts or sweets.

The stone-paved pedestrian path, a contrast to the shadowed side street, highlights the district’s ongoing preservation efforts. In Edo times, these roads would have been bustling with kimono-clad patrons heading to ochaya (teahouses) for refined entertainment. Today, the area remains tranquil after dark, making it a perfect setting for photographers and history enthusiasts alike.

From the ornate eaves of the machiya to the golden glow of lanterns down the street, every detail in this frame speaks to a city that values its heritage. This is old Japan at its finest—timeless, atmospheric, and beautifully untouched by modern distractions.

Link to the large size

Always the one playing baseball with friends as the sunlight comes and goes through the puffy white clouds of a late spring afternoon in Texas, even if I am not there, it is where I will always wish to be.

Like everything else in life, memory is not perfect. It is not even neat and orderly. It is messy like life itself. Over time, the things that we once did in everyday life diminish to specks and events of varying importance. But those elements can fade to become impossible to prioritize, even in retrospect. Seemingly significant meetings are sometimes reduced in our memories to chance encounters only to become barely noticed details. Some less meaningful events can emerge as clearly influential moments. Time will enhance some memories and dull the focus on others.

My memory of my father’s father serves up an ideal that continues to be difficult to live up to. He was an example to aspire to be like. I always have that in mind. Always. What better legacy could a man leave on this earth?

Riding with my grandfather in his car on a Sunday afternoon in 1960, I remembered that my grandmother said he had once declined the offer of a live chicken for his services. He accepted some eggs instead. She said my grandfather “cut many heads for free” when people were down on their luck. He would trade a haircut and a shave for some bacon or some fresh eggs or butter, some shelled pecans or even for just a promise. Her reveal of his generosity involved admiration but with a dash of frustration on top. I think Grandma liked to eat and worried more than Grandpa about how they would keep doing so. Of course, I just thought it would have been great to have a live chicken around the house. I was a city kid.

The upholstery of a car made in the 1950s had an odor like old, hot, dry foam rubber and a dirty shirt. Maybe it was the heat of Texas summers that brought out such a smell. There was no air conditioning. Everybody looked for shade and a cool drink or they went for a drive to enjoy air that was in motion. The only way to enjoy air in motion during a Texas summer is to put it in motion once the sun is going down. Texas summer air is heavy, moist and as still as a corpse.

My grandfather drove out to a farmhouse where a man was sick and unable to come to him. Not only did he wear his Sunday suit with a white shirt and tie, he always wore a hat. His hats were lightweight and stylish looking. Clearly, he was unaware of hats being in or out of style. He just liked his hats. The inside of his hats always smelled like the flower flavored hair tonic he splashed on me after cutting my hair. I liked Rosewater the best. It smelled like roses and cotton candy which, to this day, I consider an unbeatable combo in the smell department. He always waited until after Sunday “dinner” to visit his shut-ins. In places other than Texas, it is my experience that Sunday “dinner” is usually referred to as “lunch”, although it might be considered by some to be a late lunch.

More times than could be counted, my grandfather would give a shave and a haircut to a man who was dying in his own bed in the farmhouse of a cotton farm. This was almost always a man that Grandpa had known for many years. Grandpa said that a shave would especially make a man feel clean and normal for a minute, even in the face of the worst sickness. I have not forgotten. I will not forget.

Our arrival was always uncomfortable to me even if I had been there before. But it never seemed so for him and never for the family at the farmhouse. Peoples’ comfort with my grandfather was always evident. He was an easy man to be around. There were almost always young kids in dirty clothes, holding broken toys. Farm dogs and other farm animals almost always came to greet us…except the cows. Cows were always busy chewing. Some cows would look up, but always continued chewing. This is where I formed the unshakable opinion that cows are stupid.

Talk was always of the weather, the crops, people at church and the price of everything imaginable. None of this was remotely interesting to a kid like me. All I wanted to do was go outside to play baseball and escape the stale smell of sick.

Before going outside to play with kids or animals, I would always watch my grandfather’s preparation for the shave. Even when his preparations became familiar to me, it was a show worth watching. It included easy conversation and easier smiles. My grandfather did not even come close to noticing such trivial things as odors. It is now clear to me that this was simply lack of acknowledgement by him. My grandfather usually opened the window in the bedroom, whether it was the freezing cold of winter or the stifling heat of a Texas summer Sunday. It always surprised me when he would do this. It seemed bold to open someone’s window in their own house. The sick man never appeared to be surprised when my grandfather opened the window. I am now certain that the sick man was busy thinking about important things and opening a window was not an important thing.

From a huge, very experienced leather bag, Grandpa pulled out both manual and electric clippers, scissors, towels, a shaving kit with cup and brush, a straight razor and a long, wide leather strap. There seemed to be other things he took out and never used. Taking things out of that worn leather bag was an essential part of the show. The oxygen mask and tubing to the huge tanks were temporary inconveniences. My grandfather moved masks, tubes or any other medical equipment with confidence, as if he was also a doctor and it was clear that it was best to set these things aside for a few minutes. And so it was.

Left over in my memory is a pungent, cloudy, stinging smell of tobacco…both stale smoke and the smell of moist chewing tobacco in a spittoon in the corner. As awful as the smell of stale smoke can be, the sight and smell of a spit-stained copper spittoon was worse than the sick smell of any dying man’s farmhouse bedroom.

A few times the sick man for that Sunday afternoon was barely awake and appeared unaware of what was happening. After one such shave and when we were back in his car, I asked my grandfather if he had ever shaved a dead man. Whether they ask or not, these are always the questions that occur to a young boy. In the manner that defines my memory of my grandfather, he thought for a minute until I finally looked away from him. There was no surprise on his face as he considered his answer. Once he sensed me looking away, he said, “Many times.” When I looked immediately back at his face there was no more information or reaction available on that spectacular comment. When I asked, “What was that like?”, the only response was talk of weather, the crops, people at church and the price of everything imaginable. As wholly unsatisfying as it was at the time, I can now appreciate that my grandfather was a particularly thoughtful, kind and good man. Having now read extensively about his experiences in Europe during WWI, I am confident that my grandfather saw things and knew things that should not ever be told to any young boy. They never were.

The alternating slow and fast slap of the razor being honed on the long leather strap is an audio and visual memory that I consider to be wonderfully unique. Very few things smell as fresh and clean as shaving cream mixed by hand with a stiff horsehair brush. It smells like creamy, fresh soap, but man-soap. No flower perfume smells are involved. My grandfather was sure and unhesitant in his actions. He always appeared to me to be as comfortable as if he was in his barbershop. His clear intent and knowledge is a comforting memory. The shaving cream was whipped in a heavy, white glass cup with a stiff brush. It felt right for him to mix it himself rather than succumb to the convenience of an aerosol can of creamed soap. It was all part of the experience that he offered. All his movements felt so right and they still do.

The sick man’s wife usually brought in a teakettle full of boiling-hot water. She poured the steaming water over a fresh, white towel that Grandpa had brought from the leather bag. The sick man always smiled when Grandpa put that steamy towel over his face so only his nose and mouth showed. I was always the only one in the room to flinch at the sight and conjured feeling of such heat on my own face. Even the barely awake sick men smiled. The clear pleasure of such an act always struck me as odd, until I was grown.

I can now ponder the trust issues involved with allowing a man to scrape the skin of your face with an amazingly sharp razor. It was not a matter of submission for a sick man to allow my grandfather to do such a thing. There was trust. This truth is clear to me now and it was good.

About that time, my thoughts usually returned to me being the one playing baseball with friends as the sunlight comes and goes through the puffy white clouds of a late spring afternoon in Texas. Hair was trimmed and oiled. The comb and rosewater tonic finished the job.. The temperature, smell and feeling of the room were changed. Things were a little bit better for a while. The dark cloud that had been covering hope was blown away for a few moments. My grandfather did some important things in his life.

I never saw any money, eggs, bacon, live chickens or anything else change hands in these times. But I always saw smiles and handshakes exchanged. It always smelled wonderful, like a barbershop when we left…like my grandfather’s barbershop.

www.ericluck.net

When you only have 18 in. by 3 ft of space, you learn to prioritize.

Agriculture Deputy Secretary Krysta Harden and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) New and Beginning Farmer and Rancher Program Coordinator Lila McFarland host a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) employee-only webinar on recent new farmer announcements, including an in-depth look at everything the new and improved www.usda.gov/newfarmers can do on Monday, Nov. 23, 2015. The website’s new Discovery Tool allows new farmers to build a personalized set of recommendations of USDA programs and services that may meet their needs. Deputy Secretary Harden discussed the recent announcement to prioritize $5.6 billion over the next two years within USDA programs and services that serve new and beginning farmers and ranchers, and how USDA employees can get the word out to USDA’s customers. USDA photo by Tom Witham.

I am at last happy to announce to you all my LEGO A-4E Skyhawk MOC – in John S. McCain III’s livery. If anyone reading has been following me for a long time – first off, I thank you sincerely for your support – some may remember the A-4E I built quite some time ago now, also in John McCain’s livery. This one is pretty much a ground up rebuild of my initial Skyhawk and is for the most part entirely a novel design.

The model itself, in terms of features, has retractable landing gear, space for a minifigure in the cockpit (BARELY), and deployable airbrakes. Due to the construction of the wing and the standards I wanted to prioritize for looks, I did not incorporate working flaps or leading edge slats like I had initially planned. However, like I said, my priority if in doubt was nailing the look and accuracy of the model on display – and I feel I have approximated that to the best of my current abilities… though I know I can always improve! Let me know your thoughts though!

A low brain health day but I prioritized time for recovery in my favorite space with good smells and low lighting.

While I prefer to shoot landscapes and intimate details in nature, there are times when I indulge in cityscapes and street photography. This is especially true while in the medieval towns and cities in Europe where they take effort to aesthetically light up the buildings to highlight the architecture.

Twilight, or blue hour as it is often colloquially called by photographers, is often the perfect time to capture the lighting aesthetics. The deep blue of the twilight sky and the brilliant orange from the sodium vapor lighting often exist in perfect harmony for a few valuable minutes at dawn and dusk that I often try to prioritize and work my evening itinerary around these golden minutes.

This one is the medieval old town in Czech Republic

Cesky Krumlov

Czechia

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based on historical facts. BEWARE!

Some background:

The CAC Sabre, sometimes known as the Avon Sabre or CA-27, was an Australian variant of the North American Aviation F-86F Sabre fighter aircraft. In 1951, Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation obtained a license agreement to build the F-86F Sabre. In a major departure from the North American blueprint, it was decided that the CA-27 would be powered by a license-built version of the Rolls-Royce Avon R.A.7, rather than the General Electric J47. In theory, the Avon was capable of more than double the maximum thrust and double the thrust-to-weight ratio of the US engine. This necessitated a re-design of the fuselage, as the Avon was shorter, wider and lighter than the J47.

The CAC 27 Mk 41s’ last carrier operations took place in 1981 in the course of Melbourne’s involvements in two major exercises, Sea Hawk and Kangaroo 81, the ship’s final missions at sea. After Melbourne was decommissioned in 1984, the Fleet Air Arm ceased fixed-wing combat aircraft operation. This was the operational end of the Sabre Mk 41, which had reached the end of their airframe lifetime, and the Sea Sabre fleet had, during its career, severely suffered from accidents and losses: upon retirement, only eight of the original twenty-two aircraft still existed in flightworthy condition, so that the aircraft were all scrapped. The younger RAN A-4Gs were eventually sold to New Zealand, where they were kept in service until 2002.

General characteristics:

Crew: 1

Length: 37 ft 6 in (11.43 m)

Wingspan: 37 ft 1 in (11.3 m)

Height: 14 ft 5 in (4.39 m)

Wing area: 302.3 sq ft (28.1 m²)

Empty weight: 12,000 lb (5,443 kg)

Loaded weight: 16,000 lb (7,256 kg)

Max. takeoff weight: 21,210 lb (9,621 kg)

Powerplant:

1× Rolls-Royce Avon 208A turbojet engine with 8,200 lbf (36.44 kN)

Performance:

Maximum speed: 700 mph (1,100 km/h) (605 knots)

Range: 1,153 mi, (1,000 NM, 1,850 km)

Service ceiling: 52,000 ft (15,850 m)

Rate of climb: 12,000 ft/min at sea level (61 m/s)

Armament:

2× 30 mm ADEN cannons with 150 rounds per gun

5,300 lb (2,400 kg) of payload on six external hardpoints;

Bombs were usually mounted on outer two pylons as the mid pair were wet-plumbed pylons for

2× 200 gallons drop tanks, while the inner pair was usually occupied by a pair of AIM-9 Sidewinder

AAMs

A wide variety of bombs could be carried with maximum standard loadout being 2x 1,000 lb bombs

or 2x Matra pods with unguided SURA missiles plus 2 drop tanks for ground attacks, or 2x AIM-9 plus

two drop tanks as day fighter

The kit and its assembly:

This project was initially inspired by a set of decals from an ESCI A-4G which I had bought in a lot – I wondered if I could use it for a submission to the “In the navy” group build at whatifmodelers.com in early 2020. I considered an FJ-3M in Australian colors on this basis and had stashed away a Sword kit of that aircraft for this purpose. However, I had already built an FJ variant for the GB (a kitbashed mix of an F-86D and an FJ-4B in USMC colors), and was reluctant to add another Fury.

This spontaneously changed after (thanks to Corona virus quarantine…) I cleaned up one of my kit hoards and found a conversion set for a 1:72 CAC 27 from JAYS Model Kits which I had bought eons ago without a concrete plan. That was the eventual trigger to spin the RAN Fury idea further – why not a navalized version of the Avon Sabre for HMAS Melbourne?

The result is either another kitbash or a highly modified FJ-3M from Sword. The JAYS Model Kits set comes with a THICK sprue that carries two fuselage halves and an air intake, and it also offers a vacu canopy as a thin fallback option because the set is actually intended to be used together with a Hobby Craft F-86F.

While the parts, molded in a somewhat waxy and brittle styrene, look crude on the massive sprue, the fuselage halves come with very fine recessed engravings. And once you have cleaned the parts (NOTHING for people faint at heart, a mini drill with a saw blade is highly recommended), their fit is surprisingly good. The air intake was so exact that no putty was needed to blend it with the rest of the fuselage.

The rest came from the Sword kit and integrating the parts into the CAC 27 fuselage went more smoothly than expected. For instance, the FJ-3M comes with a nice cockpit tub that also holds a full air intake duct. Thanks to the slightly wider fuselage of the CAC 27, it could be mounted into the new fuselage halves without problems and the intake duct almost perfectly matches the intake frame from the conversion set. The tailpipe could be easily integrated without any mods, too. The fins had to be glued directly to the fuselage – but this is the way how the Sword kit is actually constructed! Even the FJ-3M’s wings match the different fuselage perfectly. The only modifications I had to make is a slight enlargement of the ventral wing opening at the front and at the read in order to take the deeper wing element from the Sword kit, but that was an easy task. Once in place, the parts blend almost perfectly into each other, just minor PSR was necessary to hide the seams!

Other mods include an extended front wheel well for the longer leg from the FJ-3M and a scratched arrester hook installation, made from wire, which is on purpose different from the Y-shaped hook of the Furies.

For the canopy I relied on the vacu piece that came with the JAYS set. Fitting it was not easy, though, it took some PSR to blend the windscreen into the rest of the fuselage. Not perfect, but O.K. for such a solution from a conversion set.

The underwing pylons were taken from the Sword kit, including the early Sidewinders. I just replaced the drop tanks – the OOB tanks are very wide, and even though they might be authentic for the FJ-3, I was skeptical if they fit at all under the wings with the landing gear extended? In order to avoid trouble and for a more modern look, I replaced them outright with more slender tanks, which were to mimic A-4 tanks (USN FJ-4s frequently carried Skyhawk tanks). They actually come from a Revell F-16 kit, with modified fins. The refueling probe comes from the Sword kit.

A last word about the Sword kit: much light, but also much shadow. While I appreciate the fine surface engravings, the recognizably cambered wings, a detailed cockpit with a two-piece resin seat and a pretty landing gear as well as the long air intake, I wonder why the creators totally failed to provide ANY detail of the arrester hook (there is literally nothing, as if this was a land-based Sabre variant!?) or went for doubtful solutions like a front landing gear that consists of five(!) single, tiny parts? Sadism? The resin seat was also broken (despite being packed in a seperate bag), and it did not fit into the cockpit tub at all. Meh!

Painting and markings:

From the start I planned to give the model the late RAN A-4Gs’ unique air superiority paint scheme, which was AFAIK introduced in the late Seventies: a two-tone wraparound scheme consisting of “Light Admiralty Grey” (BS381C 697) and “Aircraft Grey” (BS 381C 693). Quite simple, but finding suitable paints was not an easy task, and I based my choice on pictures of the real aircraft (esp. from "buzz" number 880 at the Fleet Air Arm Museum, you find pics of it with very good light condition) rather than rely on (pretty doubtful if not contradictive) recommendations in various painting instructions from models or decal sets.

I wanted to keep things simple and settled upon Dark Gull Grey (FS 36231) and Light Blue (FS 35414), both enamel colors from Modelmaster, since both are rather dull interpretations of these tones. Esp. the Light Blue comes quite close to Light Admiralty Grey, even though it should be lighter for more contrast to the darker grey tone. But it has that subtle greenish touch of the original BS tone, and I did not want to mix the colors.

The pattern was adapted from the late A-4Gs’ scheme, and the colors were dulled down even more through a light black ink wash. Some post-shading with lighter tones emphasized the contrast between the two colors again. And while it is not an exact representation of the unique RAN air superiority scheme, I think that the overall impression is there.

The cockpit interior was painted in very dark grey, while the landing gear, its wells and the inside of the air intake became white. A red rim was painted around the front opening, and the landing gear covers received a red outline, too. The white drop tanks are a detail I took from real world RAN A-4Gs - in the early days of the air superiority scheme, the tanks were frequently still finished in the old USN style livery, hence the white body but fins and tail section already in the updated colors.

The decals became a fight, though. As mentioned above, the came from an ESCI kit – and, as expected, the were brittle. All decals with a clear carrier film disintegrated while soaking in water, only those with a fully printed carrier film were more or less usable. One roundel broke and had to be repaired, and the checkered fin flash was a very delicate affair that broke several times, even though I tried to save and repair it with paint. But you can unfortunately see the damage.

Most stencils and some replacements (e. g. the “Navy” tag) come from the Sword FJ-3. While these decals are crisply printed, their carrier film is utterly thin, so thin that applying esp. the larger decals turned out to be hazardous and complicated. Another point that did not really convince me about the Sword kit.

Finally, the kit was sealed with matt acrylic varnish (Italeri) and some soot stains were added around the exhaust and the gun ports with graphite.

In the end, this build looks, despite the troubles and the rather exotic ingredients like a relatively simple Sabre with Australian markings, just with a different Navy livery. You neither immediately recognize the FJ-3 behind it, nor the Avon Sabre’s bigger fuselage, unless you take a close and probably educated look. Very subtle, though.

The RAN air superiority scheme from the late Skyhawks suits the Sabre/Fury-thing well – I like the fact that it is a modern fighter scheme, but, thanks to the tones and the colorful other markings, not as dull and boring like many others, e. g. the contemporary USN "Ghost" scheme. Made me wonder about an early RAAF F-18 in this livery - should look very pretty, too?

I'm hopeless with close-ups - was trying to capture the frost but wasn't very successful. Eventually I decided to take a shot and crop it.

It’s freezing here in Swansea at the moment but compared to the rest of the country

we are getting off pretty lightly.

No snow here so far.

I’m still trying to prioritize time at the moment.

Hugs from Wales

Sandra

Please see the camera-wiki article on the Ricoh XR-P Multi-program. As the name (and graph) indicate, this model offers different autoexposure programs, which can prioritize depth of field (small apertures), freezing action (fast shutter speeds), or a compromise.

The new Ricoh "P" series lenses are a modification of the original Pentax K mount to enable the body to drive the aperture position. Unfortunately, Ricoh uses its own custom linkage to do this and Pentax--A lenses are not compatible.