View allAll Photos Tagged RESTORE
Carwynnen, Cornwall, site of the newly restored (2014) neolithic Funerary Dolmen known as Carwynnen Quoit, Giant's Quoit or The Devil's Fryingpan.
In the late 1980s, when he first took an interest in the buses he was travelling on, Kenny Barclay wouldn’t have imagined in his wildest dreams that he would ever own one. Now he has four. Purchasing a Leyland Leopard from 1980 in May 2007, three more buses of varying shapes and sizes followed over the next two years and he has lovingly restored each of them.
Here, Kenny Barclay gives a fascinating insight into this restoration process. A history of each bus, including technical specifications, is included alongside a selection of images of each vehicle in its heyday. This is followed by a fully illustrated account of each of the restoration projects, as well as photographs of the buses once restored to their former glory.
Packed with fascinating photography, Restoring a Bus is perfect both for those looking to enter the preservation scene and those who simply admire vintage vehicles.
IMAGE INFO
- The view is looking north-east across the completely re-built second version of "J. H. Wills" boat-hire shed & the paddle steamer P.S. "TELEPHONE" docked at the floating pontoon/jetty facility.
- John "Jack" H. Wills (with partner Mr Press) was a well-known manager/operator of part of the local Como cruise & pleasure boat hiring business, along with the other primary boat-shed owners, Mr Wheatley & Mr James F. Murphy (also manager of the Holt-Sutherland Estate Land Company), who each owned & operated boat-sheds just to the east of the southern abutment of the rail bridge.
- The original boat-shed Mr Press & Jack Wills had planned for the site (application for lease in Oct 1893) had been granted on 17 Oct 1894 by the NSW Legislative Assembly, with construction completed sometime in 1895. However, the Sydney Morning Herald reports that a devastating fire destroyed the original boating facility shortly after, on 6 December 1895.
- Further in the background can be seen the original single line, steel lattice railway bridge crossing the Georges River at Como.
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SOURCE INFO
- I created this restored image version from a download of part of a screen capture of a digitized image of a very rare glass plate negative which is held in the National Library of Australia collection.
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CREDITS
- Credits go to -
(a) the creator of the original excellent negative used for this particular restoration - Charles Harper Bennett (1840-1927).
(b) the National Library of Australia
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ORIGINAL IMAGE COPYRIGHT STATUS
- Per the NLA advice -
"Out of Copyright
Reason for copyright status: Created/Published Date is Before 1955
Copyright status was determined using the following information:
Material type: Photograph
Published status: Unpublished
Government copyright ownership: No Government Copyright Ownership".
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HISTORIC INFO
- Bridge info from Wikipedia - "The original Como Railway Bridge opened on 26 December 1885 as part of the extension of the Illawarra railway line from Hurstville to Sutherland. It was a single track lattice truss bridge designed by John Whitton, the Chief Engineer of the New South Wales Government Railways. The double tracks converged to a single gauntlet track on the bridge, which enabled trains to cross in either direction without points. When the rest of the line was duplicated, it became a major bottleneck.
- Between 1935 and 1942, the Metropolitan Water Sewerage & Drainage Board built two 60 centimetre diameter pipelines to pump water from the recently completed Woronora Dam to the reservoir at Penshurst. The pipeline was supported on new steel outriggers cantilevered from the main girders.
- Second bridge -
To relieve the bottleneck, a new double track reinforced concrete bridge immediately to the west opened on 27 November 1972. The original bridge reopened as a cycleway (& pedestrian path) on 15 December 1985".
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RE-PROCESS INFO
- Latest version re-coloured using MyHeritage app.
- Image enhanced using Topaz Gigapixel AI, Skylum Luminar Neo AI & Adobe Photoshop CS2.
I restored this Schuster & Co. Zither that was made in Germany that was made in the late 19th to early 20th century.
This one was strung with 40 strings, Ivory tuner heads and engraved Silver plate on the peg head.
Listen to a Zither being played:
photo: train station Mar Mikhael 1896
photo: The railway station Mar Mikhael during the 1900s
Chemin de fer de Beyrouth à Damas
Please visit also my gallery Lebanon railroad with much more links.
Maybe also interesting my gallery Once upon a time ... Beirut
Taken September 2013 with my Olympus OM-2N on Kodak Portra 35mm film.
Pre-restoration - www.flickr.com/photos/gs3vespa/8391773787/in/set-72157621...
Cylindrical towers constructed from fieldstones belong to the original series of burial towers at the archaeological site of Sillustani. These older towers were originally coated with plaster, as restored here.
Entitled The Great Wall Of China [1907] H Ponting. [RESTORED] I repaired spots and small defects, adjusted contrast, tonality, and adding a sepia tone.
Ponting's placement of a person (or in this case, persons) somewhere in the foreground was a de rigueur photographic technique of the day. It was done primarily to add a human element and to provide a sense of scale to the scene.
The Great Wall of China 萬里長城 is a misnomer (at least in its English translation, the Chinese meaning is more along the lines of "ten thousand Li long city"). It would be more accurate to describe it as the Great Walls of China, as they are the remnants from a historic series of stone and earthen barriers. Erected throughout northern China, they were mostly built and revised over two thousand years between the 5th century BC and the 16th century. Origins of each wall section from various times were contingent upon their political and military needs in accordance to their dynastic periods.
The oldest, original walls were constructed for the purposes of protecting against Xiongnu nomadic incursions into the areas occupied by the various disparate states that were to later form China. After the Qin consolidation, these separate structures were then integrated into an almost continuous whole, mostly using rammed earth structures. Unfortunately, little of that wall actually exists today. The majority of the wall that still remains (ie the one that we have generally come to know) was built during the Ming dynasty, which relied more heavily on integration of brick and masonry work. History, legends and myths about the Great Wall abound. In the last hundred year or so, industrialization and modernization of the areas which the wall passes through has endangered it as entire sections were destroyed to reclaim construction materials. Other sections were refurbished, in some cases rebuilt using modern engineering, and have seen heavy use as tourist attractions; still others have been entirely overgrown or reclaimed by nature. Reportedly, less than 30 percent of the wall remains intact. Nevertheless, it is considered to be one of the most important historic constructions of man and specific parts of it was listed since 1987 as a UNESCO World Heritage site.
The present wall starts from Shanhaiguan, dipping into the Bohai Sea in the east, and ends at Xinjiang's Lop Nur in the west, following along the southern border of the Chinese province of Inner Mongolia. The most comprehensive survey to date has determined that the wall as currently recognized covers a distance of 8,851.8 km (or 5,500.3 miles), consisting of 6,259.6 km (3,889.5 miles) actual wall, combined with various other structures like trenches and natural defensive barriers of impassable hills and rivers. Contrary to popular myth, you cannot see the wall from outer space or the moon.
The Great Wall varies from tourist trap (like the section at Badaling, near Beijing) to extreme, off the beaten path wilderness. Certain sections are so dangerous that it would be suicidal to attempt ascending unless one has special climbing equipment with a technical and advanced mountaineering support team. Try as I might, I was not able to gather any real statistics on Great Wall related accidents or deaths, which is unusual as every tourist location has accidents. In any case, I suspect that the PRC government doesn't really want to keep such statistics to begin with.
In another forum dedicated to just information about the Great Wall, one writer told of how one tourist was killed, and offered some safety tips:
www.greatwallforum.com/forum/great-wall-china-general-inf...
This sculpted image of the goddess Nike - without trainers! - along one of the beautifully restored roads in Ephesus looks a bit like an inverted Nike logo. They should have stuck with the original.
HDR from 3 exposure shots. Handheld, since I left tripod at home.
large View On Black
Glen Echo Park began in 1891 as a National Chautauqua Assembly, which taught the sciences, arts, languages and literature. By the early 1900s Glen Echo Park had become a premier amusement park, serving the Washington area until 1968. This park has been restored recently. The final restoration price tag was $19 million.
Restored yellow house in the Pietermaai District in the city of Willemstad in Curacao. / Maison jaune restaurée dans le quartier Pietermaai dans la ville de Willemstad à Curaçao.
© Vincent Demers
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Carthage, Missouri - May 5, 2021: The Boots Court Motel, a restored deco style historic U.S. Route 66 motorcourt hotel - close up of the neon sign
Entitled Black, Chinese and White laborers in a gold mine in South Africa [c1890-1923] F Carpenter [RESTORED]. The original, created from a copy negative, resides in the LOC under Reproduction Number: LC-USZ62-40653. I did the usual spot removal, edge repair, contrast & tone adjustments and added a sepia tone.
This picture provides evidence of the early and steady immigration of Chinese labor, often to take on the toughest and dirtiest jobs, at seemingly the most remote places of the world. By the late 1800's to early 1900's, driven outward by famine and social upheaval within China, Chinese labor was literally found on all continents except for Antarctica. Not only did this phenomenon create a huge diaspora that thrives to this day, it was also the reason for the spread of what was then Asia's longest surviving, but barely known (outside of Asia) culture to the other parts of the world.
In early photography Chinese skin tones tended to be rendered so dark that it made them seem almost African in appearance, here's a great example of that and the historic mistakes that it can engender. It had to do with the inability of early film emulsions to fully record the red end of the spectrum. Since Asian skin tones, especially those that are well tanned, have ample red hues, the early films recorded them so darkly that they often appeared to be black. If one were to closely and carefully examine each face in the above photograph for its features, it becomes readily apparent that all of the supposedly black miners are really Asians (presumably Chinese) instead. Hence, the title of "Black, Chinese and White Laborers..." is obviously wrong.
But why would the title be mistaken? One has to ask oneself, that certainly the photographer must have known what he was photographing, right? There may be two separate explanations for this.
Possible Explanation 1. One has to remember that this was made from a copy negative. That is, there was an original print, and someone then took a picture of the original print, creating a copy negative. The original (with proper title) was lost; subsequent prints made from the copy negative without a proper title were then inappropriately given one by a busy technician. He or she probably didn't remember or did not know of the historic color sensitivity quirk of early films, and must have assumed that, surely some of those dark faces must have belonged to Africans (being that they're of mines in Africa). Ergo, the picture gained that mistaken title.
Possible Explanation 2. Take a look at that picture and imagine oneself back in the late 1800's to early 1900's, standing in a South African mine shaft; what would the physical situation have been like? How light or dark would it have been? That black Africans were plentiful and probably constituted the bulk of the mine's work force is a historic given, being as they were in Africa after all. It would be safe to assume that Frank Carpenter (the photographer), would have probably seen and encountered many Africans around the mines. However, would he have actually seen them while within a mine? The answer probably is no, not unless they were standing no more than two feet from the oil lamp that Carpenter was holding. The mines, being underground as they were, were also in pitch darkness, and portable light sources in those days were limited to primitive torches or storm lamps. Thus, it was likely very hard to see anything at all.
So how then was this picture taken? That the photo was made with a single light source is apparent, as there is only a single shadow. The shadow is also indistinct, that is, it has no solid edge. This means that the light itself was not a single pinpoint (like that of a tiny flash bulb) but rather a broadened source that would be more characteristic with a large board on which magnesium powder was laid. Hence, my belief is that this is probably a good example of Magnesium Flash Powder photography, in which a rapid burning combustible powder made from Magnesium filings mixed with gun powder produced a brief but extremely bright light source that aided photographers in dim or lightless situations. Carpenter himself could have thus misnamed the picture. He had probably assumed that some of the dark skinned people were Africans, as there were many in the mine the day that he took the picture. However, he probably never actually saw the scene or the people captured in it clearly enough when it happened; at least not until he processed his plates in his darkroom. Once the developed picture revealed dark faces, he too, may have fallen into the visual trap of mistaking some of them to be African, and so mislabeled the original photograph accordingly.
We had rent the accommodation in Egypt a few years ago and we had an incredible time. Place was just great for us and wonderful holiday in last past April. I sincerely hope that everything will be peaceful and pray that democracy and justice can be restored for Egyptian people.
Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum
November 2nd, 2014
Weston, WV
"Across from the West Fork River on 269 acres in Weston, West Virginia stands The Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum. The two main hospital buildings stretch for an intimidating two-tenths of a mile and was to hold 250 patients. The hospital is the largest hand-cut stone masonry building in America. The hospital also stands out because of the many stories about Trans Allegheny Lunatic Asylum ghosts.
Virginia had only two state hospitals in the mid 1800’s, Williamsburg and Staunton, and both were very overcrowded, so the Virginia Legislature voted to build another new state hospital and after a long search decided on Weston as the home. Construction began in 1858 but grounded to a halt in 1861 with the outbreak of the American Civil War.
When Virginia succeeded from the Union the state government demanded the money back that wasn’t already used for construction on the hospital so it could be used in their defense fund. The 7th Ohio Volunteer Infantry had other plans and confiscated the money and delivered it to Wheeling. They used the money to fund the Reorganized Government of Virginia which sided with the Union. Appropriating more funds, the new government began construction again in 1862.
West Virginia became a state in 1863 and renamed Trans Allegheny Lunatic Asylum to West Virginia Hospital for the Insane. Construction continued until 1881 but admission of patients started in 1864. 1871 saw completion of the signature 200 foot clock tower.
The hospital’s goal was to become self-sufficient. It expanded to eventually include 666 acres and had on the grounds a dairy, a farm, a cemetery and waterworks. In 1902 they drilled a gas well and another name change to Weston State Hospital came in 1913.
The Charleston Gazette did a series of reports in 1949 reporting poor sanitation, lighting and heating in areas of the hospital. From the mid 1970’s to the closing of the hospital were the most violent. Patients killing patients, both male and female staff got attacked and some killed and the most violent patients kept in cages. In 1994 Weston State Hospital closed for good.
There are several thousand documented deaths connected to the hospital and three cemeteries located behind the hospital. The three cemeteries cover different times in the history of the hospital, the first cemetery covers 1858-1900, the second covers 1901-1933 and the last one 1933-1970’s. Due to missing markers however, it is nearly impossible to match names to those buried there.
With so many deaths throughout the history of the hospital, it should come as no surprise that there are plenty of stories of Trans Allegheny Lunatic Asylum ghosts. Staff reports sounds of gurney’s being pushed down the hallways, screams coming from the electro-shock area and even doctor apparition’s roaming the hallways and rooms.
One of the most popular Trans Allegheny Lunatic Asylum ghosts is the story of Lily. Lily was born in the hospital in 1863, her mom; Gladys Ravensfield was a patient there. The story surrounding Gladys is that she was continuously raped and beaten by a group of Civil War soldiers and the resulting emotional after effects landed her in the asylum. Not long after her admission, they found out she was pregnant. Gladys gave birth to Lily nut sadly within a few hours Lily passed away.
Lily hangs around her mom’s room in the Civil War section and the hallways around there. She likes to play ball and will hold your hand when you walk by. Though she died as a new-born, most report the little girl as being around three years old. Apparently she also has acquired a sweet tooth and reports are that if you leave candy around, or even in your pocket, it will go missing. A child laughing and giggling are also often reported around Lily’s room.
The Civil War section seems the most active area in the haunted hospital. It is known for a Civil War soldier’s apparition, who’s been named Jacob, wandering aimlessly around the floor, loud banging and strange noises are heard, whispering and what seems like constant conversation being heard even though no one is on the floor."
SOURCE: www.themosthauntedplaces.com/trans-allegheny-lunatic-asyl...
Entitled: Toy Vendor, Chinatown, San Francisco [c1900s] A Genthe [RESTORED] The Picture had spots removed, edge uneveness repaired, tonality smoothed, and then sepia toned for warmth. The original resides at the Library of Congress and can be found under reproduction number LC-USZ62-68252. The LOC also bought the bulk of Genthe's collection in 1943 (immediately after his death the previous year) and his work can be seen here:
www.loc.gov/rr/print/coll/092.html
Arnold Genthe is probably history's best remembered photographer of San Francisco's Chinatown. He accumulated an extensive collection of images over time that reveals his, ...what? Love, fascination, obsession perhaps? ...with his subject matter. He eventually became an otherwise great photographer to the well off, the well heeled, and the well connected. Genthe certainly didn't need to traipse into the rough and tumble 'foreign' quarter of Chinatown to seek his fortune. But he did so repeatedly. It was only through his dedication that we are able to take a look back at one of America's largest concentrations of Diaspora Chinese from the early 1900's. Genthe was also a photographer to stars, celebrities, and politicians. Just a simple search in the US Library of Congress' web site got 17,000 items returned with Genthe's name on it. Genthe wasn't without controversy either. There is substantial evidence that he often manipulated his images; retouched out certain aspects and added in other things to suit his tastes, leading many photography historians to openly question Genthe's integrity. Despite his failings however, in terms of going into history as one of the masters of photography as a craft of social record, this guy was certainly one of the heaviest of hitters.
Despite being thousands of miles away from their homeland, Chinese like other immigrants before them, congregated into neighborhoods to allow for socialization and mutual protection. Some had managed to start families. Pictured here are two Chinese children, which nowadays wouldn't seem too rare. However, in the early 1900's a Chinese man finding a wife was almost impossible. It was illegal for him to marry a white woman, and a Chinese woman was even harder to be found. This was a result of the racist Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 (and subsequent revisions). It was finally repealed with the Magnuson Act of 1943 (but which only allowed a maximum of 105 Chinese per year to enter the US). The California law not allowing Chinese to marry whites wasn't lifted until 1948. Large number immigration of Chinese into the US did not resume until the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965. Thus, a picture of two Chinese children walking around the streets of 1900's San Francisco Chinatown (as seen here), was genuinely a precious sight to behold.
***Sidebar*** Whatever one may remember of the man personally, aside; politically, Asians in the US owe Ted Kennedy a lot for this one. He fought tooth and nail to get a bill passed when no one else was willing to lead on what was a volatile immigration issue. Just about all Asians born or allowed into the United States after 1965 are where they are today because of the Immigration and Naturalization act of 1965. Many Chinese (especially kids) fail to appreciate that, but by that stroke of one historic legislative pen, their entire families (including themselves) may still be living in China.
The streets were crowded earlier in the morning with thousands of people immersing themselves in the festivities of color.
As dusk settled, normalcy was restored and people returned to their daily lives.
But piece by piece he collected me
Up off the ground but you abandoned things
And piece by piece he filled the holes that you burned in me
I... just want to hold a small warm fluff bundle again.
(Tiny belongs to a friend. ♥︎)
Sérguiev Posad (Rusia) - Sergiyev Posad (Russia) - Се́ргиев Поса́д (Россия)
Sérguiev Posad (en ruso: Се́ргиев Поса́д), entre 1930 y 1991 llamada Zagorsk, es una ciudad rusa, al nordeste de Moscú. Contaba con 109.252 habitantes en el censo de 2008. Posee un importante conjunto monumental, el monasterio de la Trinidad y de San Sergio (siglos XV-XVIII), declarado Patrimonio de la Humanidad por la UNESCO.
es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sérguiev_Posad
es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anillo_de_Oro_de_Rusia
Sergiyev Posad (Russian: Се́ргиев Поса́д) is a city and the administrative center of Sergiyevo-Posadsky District in Moscow Oblast, Russia. Population: 111,179 (2010 Census); 113,581 (2002 Census); 114,696 (1989 Census).
It was previously known as Sergiyev Posad (until 1919), Sergiyev (until 1930), Zagorsk (until 1991).
Sergiyev Posad grew in the 15th century around one of the greatest of Russian monasteries, the Trinity Lavra established by St. Sergius of Radonezh, still (as of 2015) one of the largest monasteries in Russia. Town status was granted to Sergiyev Posad in 1742. The town's name, alluding to St. Sergius, has strong religious connotations. Soviet authorities changed it first to just Sergiyev in 1919, and then to Zagorsk in 1930, in memory of the revolutionary Vladimir Mikhailovich Zagorsky
The original name was restored in 1991.
Within the framework of administrative divisions, Sergiyev Posad serves as the administrative center of Sergiyevo-Posadsky District. As an administrative division, it is, together with twenty-six rural localities, incorporated within Sergiyevo-Posadsky District as the City of Sergiyev Posad. As a municipal division, the City of Sergiyev Posad is incorporated within Sergiyevo-Posadsky Municipal District as Sergiyev Posad Urban Settlement.
Tourism associated with the Golden Ring plays a role in the regional economy. There is also an important toy factory.
The Moscow–Yaroslavl railway and highway pass through the town. Sergiyev Posad Bus Terminal is located in the city.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergiyev_Posad
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Ring_of_Russia
El monasterio de la Trinidad y San Sergio (en ruso Тро́ице-Се́ргиева Ла́вра; o Tróitse-Sérguieva Lavra) en la ciudad de Sérguiev Posad (antiguo Zagorsk) es un importante monasterio ruso y centro espiritual de la iglesia ortodoxa rusa. Sérguiev Posad se encuentra a unos 70 kilómetros al noreste de Moscú en la carretera que va a Yaroslavl. Actualmente alberga a unos 300 monjes. Según la Unesco, que lo declaró Patrimonio de la Humanidad en 1993, se trata de «un buen ejemplo de monasterio ortodoxo en funcionamiento, con rasgos militares típicos de los siglos XV al XVIII, período durante el que se desarrolló.»
La iglesia principal de la Laura (monasterio), la catedral de la Asunción, recuerda la homónima catedral del Kremlin y alberga las tumbas de los Godunov.
Siendo monje de la Laura, Andréi Rubliov pintó, para el iconostasio de la catedral, su más célebre icono La Trinidad que actualmente se expone en la Galería Tretiakov de Moscú.
es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_de_la_Trinidad_y_San_Sergio
The Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius (Russian: Тро́ице-Се́ргиева Ла́вра) is the most important Russian monastery and the spiritual centre of the Russian Orthodox Church. The monastery is situated in the town of Sergiyev Posad, about 70 km to the north-east from Moscow by the road leading to Yaroslavl, and currently is home to over 300 monks.
The monastery was founded in 1337 by one of the most venerated Russian saints, Sergius of Radonezh, who built a wooden church in honour of the Holy Trinity on Makovets Hill. Early development of the monastic community is well documented in contemporary lives of Sergius and his disciples.
In 1355, Sergius introduced a charter which required the construction of auxiliary buildings, such as refectory, kitchen, and bakery. This charter was a model for Sergius' numerous followers who founded more than 400 cloisters all over Russia, including the celebrated Solovetsky, Kirillov, and Simonov monasteries.
St. Sergius supported Dmitri Donskoi in his struggle against the Tatars and sent two of his monks, Peresvet and Oslyabya, to participate in the Battle of Kulikovo (1380). At the outbreak of the battle, Peresvet died in a single combat against a Tatar bogatyr. The monastery was devastated by fire, when a Tatar unit raided the area in 1408.
St. Sergius was declared patron saint of the Russian state in 1422. The same year the first stone cathedral was built by a team of Serbian monks who had found refuge in the monastery after the Battle of Kosovo. The relics of St. Sergius still may be seen in this cathedral, dedicated to the Holy Trinity. The greatest icon painters of medieval Russia, Andrei Rublev and Daniil Chyorny, were summoned to decorate the cathedral with frescoes. Traditionally, Muscovite royals were baptized in this cathedral and held thanksgiving services here.
In 1476, Ivan III invited several Pskovian masters to build the church of the Holy Spirit. This graceful structure is one of the few remaining examples of a Russian church topped with a belltower. The interior contains the earliest specimens of the use of glazed tiles for decoration. In the early 16th century, Vasily III added the Nikon annex and the Serapion tent, where several of Sergius' disciples were interred.
It took 26 years to construct the six-pillared Assumption Cathedral, which was commissioned by Ivan the Terrible in 1559. The cathedral is much larger than its model and namesake in the Moscow Kremlin. The magnificent iconostasis of the 16th–18th centuries features Simon Ushakov's masterpiece, the icon of Last Supper. Interior walls were painted with violet and blue frescoes by a team of Yaroslavl masters in 1684. The vault contains burials of Boris Godunov, his family and several 20th-century patriarchs.
As the monastery grew into one of the wealthiest landowners in Russia, the woods where it had stood were cleared and a village (or posad) sprang up near the monastery walls. It gradually developed into the modern town of Sergiyev Posad. The cloister itself was a notable centre of chronicle-writing and icon painting. Just opposite the monastery walls St. Paraskeva's Convent was established, among whose buildings St. Paraskeva's Church (1547), Introduction Church (1547), and a 17th-century chapel over St. Paraskeva's well are still visible.
In 1550s, a wooden palisade surrounding the cloister was replaced with 1.5 km-long stone walls, featuring twelve towers, which helped the monastery to withstand a celebrated 16-month Polish-Lithuanian siege in 1608–1610. A shell-hole in the cathedral gates is preserved as a reminder of Wladyslaw IV's abortive siege in 1618.
By the end of the 17th century, when young Peter I twice found refuge within the monastery from his enemies, numerous buildings had been added. These include a small baroque palace of the patriarchs, noted for its luxurious interiors, and a royal palace, with its facades painted in checkerboard design. The refectory of St. Sergius, covering 510 square meters and also painted in dazzling checkerboard design, used to be the largest hall in Russia. The five-domed Church of John the Baptist's Nativity (1693–1699) was commissioned by the Stroganovs and built over one of the gates. Other 17th-century structures include the monks' cells, a hospital topped with a tented church, and a chapel built over a holy well discovered in 1644.
In 1744, Empress Elizabeth conferred on the cloister the dignity of a Lavra. The metropolitan of Moscow was henceforth also the Archimandrite of the Lavra. Elizabeth particularly favoured the Trinity and annually proceeded afoot from Moscow to the cloister. Her secret spouse Alexey Razumovsky accompanied her on such journeys and commissioned a baroque church to the Virgin of Smolensk, the last major shrine to be erected in the Lavra. Another pledge of Elizabeth's affection for the monastery is a white-and-blue baroque belltower, which, at 88 meters, was one of the tallest structures built in Russia up to that date. Its architects were Ivan Michurin and Dmitry Ukhtomsky.
Throughout the 19th century, the Lavra maintained its status as the richest Russian monastery. A seminary founded in 1742 was replaced by an ecclesiastical academy in 1814. The monastery boasted a supreme collection of manuscripts and books. Medieval collections of the Lavra sacristy attracted thousands of visitors. In Sergiyev Posad, the monastery maintained several sketes, one of which is a place of burial for the conservative philosophers Konstantin Leontiev and Vasily Rozanov.
After the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Soviet government closed the lavra in 1920. Its buildings were assigned to different civic institutions or declared museums. In 1930, monastery bells, including the Tsar-Bell of 65 tons, were destroyed. Pavel Florensky and his followers prevented the authorities from stealing and selling the sacristy collection but overall many valuables were lost or transferred to other collections.
In 1945, following Joseph Stalin's temporary tolerance of the church during World War II, the Lavra was returned to the Russian Orthodox Church. On April 16, 1946 divine service was renewed at the Assumption Cathedral. The lavra continued as the seat of the Moscow Patriarchate until 1983, when the patriarch was allowed to settle at the Danilov Monastery in Moscow. After that, the monastery continued as a prime centre of religious education. Important restoration works were conducted in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1993, the Trinity Lavra was inscribed on the UN World Heritage List.
The Lavra has a number of representative churches (podvorie or metochia) in its vicinity and throughout Russia. The Lavra's hieromonks have manned a number of sketes at remote locations (such as the Anzer Island in the Solovki Archipelago in the White Sea), as well as the Trinity Church on the King George Island in the Antarctic.
Preserved AEC Swift SM88, AML 88H restored to London Country livery having its first run out after an extensive restoration seen here in Gravesend.
I am breaking the high-key series with this shot.
I've been trying to improve my editing skills, trying to restore my imagination, trying to change lots of things are to start again.
Hope you like it.
Ely Cathedral as it might look if one side had not fallen down a long time ago and they had not yet erected the great gothic chamber on top of the west tower.
Restore us again, O God of our salvation,
and put away your indignation toward us!
5 Will you be angry with us forever?
Will you prolong your anger to all generations?
6 Will you not revive us again,
that your people may rejoice in you?
7 Show us your steadfast love, O LORD,
and grant us your salvation.
8 Let me hear what God the LORD will speak,
for he will speak peace to his people, to his saints;
but let them not turn back to folly.
9 Surely his salvation is near to those who fear him,
that glory may dwell in our land.
10 Steadfast love and faithfulness meet;
righteousness and peace kiss each other.
11 Faithfulness springs up from the ground,
and righteousness looks down from the sky.
12 Yes, fthe LORD will give what is good,
and our land will yield its increase.
13 Righteousness will go before him
and make his footsteps a way.
The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2001), Ps 85:4–13.
A beautifully restored EMD SD24 diesel locomotive sits on a siding in front of Barn 9 at the Illinois Railway Museum.
Monday, September 5, 2011
IRM - Illinois Railway Museum
Union, Illinois
Olympus E-3 DSLR
Olympus ZD 14-54mm f.2.8-3.5 Mk II zoom
Quantaray Pro Digital circular polarizer
ISO 400 -- 17mm -- f.5.6 -- 1/640
Entitled: Foot Bound Girls, Liao Chow, Shansi, China [c1920-1930s] likely by IE Oberholtzer [RESTORED]. I took out spots, repaired obvious image defects, increased the contrast and fixed the edges.
Another picture worthy of social note was found from a private web gallery. I discovered this wonderful photograph amongst a series of pictures posted to Picassa Web Albums (Google's free picture gallery) by someone named Joe. He has a collection of images that (from what information I could gather on his gallery), seems to have been taken by one I.E. Oberholtzer in or around the Liao Chow area of Shansi, (modern day Liaozhou, Shanxi Province), China, during the 1920-1930s. His collection captured a wide range of events. There is a detailed series on road construction, a small series on the effects of war, and finally, a section devoted to missionary work, and the social milieu of the Shanxi area. I do not know if Oberholtzer himself was a missionary or not.
Other pictures from this series and Joe's magnificent galleries can be seen here:
picasaweb.google.com/LlamaLane
Beauty is often held to be in the eye of the beholder. One of the most famous, yet puzzling, but distinctly Chinese ideas thereof resided in the form of Bound Feet 纏足. This was done by the forcible breaking, folding and binding of young girls feet, so that the resultant footprint was only about half or a third of the size that it would naturally be. This painful, crippling, and sometimes fatal deformity process was performed on Chinese girls as early as three years old. It was considered something that made them more desirable by Chinese men when they reached eventual adulthood. Also known as a Lotus Foot, the practice was almost an exclusive habit of the affluent or wealthy (since the Tang) until the mid to late 1800's, whereupon the very poor too, eventually took up this practice. It was then thought to increase a family's prospects for eventual receipt of a better dowry when a daughter married. Many poor women however, could typically only be married into other poor families, thereby harshly limiting the size of any such dowry. Thus most poor women had their feet crippled for nothing. The practice was eventually outlawed in the early 1900's but remained a cultural imperative clandestinely performed until the middle of the century. At that time, communist Chinese authorities ultimately threatened death sentences to anyone who didn't stop. It was arguably one of the best pro human rights action that the Chinese communists ever did in China.
As the above photo shows, by the early 20th century, this slavish "fashion" phenomenon wasn't restricted to the very rich. Three young teenage girls, with poor and threadbare peasant clothing, nonetheless have tiny bound feet.
For those that have an interest in this horrifying yet historic practice, do take a look at Flickr member Okinawa Soba's extensive collection of images. His gallery not only has great pics of this cultural phenomenon, it is also peppered with lively discussion about it:
www.flickr.com/photos/24443965@N08/3462167744/in/set-7215...
And for those that don't already know it, Okinawa Soba has one of the finest (if not THE best) Flickr galleries of Old Japan, and general far east period images. His extensive collection is not only inspiring but should serve as a model for all of us Flickr members as to how it really should be done.
My upload to mark 100 years of the Royal Air Force is this Spitfire LF.16e TE184.
Like several World War II 'warbirds', it never fired a bullet during the conflict and this particular machine was completed just after V-E day and was put in storage. It was not until 1948 that it became an active flyer, but following a prang in 1951, it was decided it was not worth repairing.
Later, it was put on display at various locations and eventually was put in private hands and restored to flying condition.
My photo shows it at Zeltweg in Austria, where in the immediate post war period, the RAF did in fact fly Spitfires.
Zeltweg, Austria
28th June 2013
20130628 IMG_0227 TE184