View allAll Photos Tagged SERENDIPITY
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A different view of the same scene here.
Last week I rented a Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 lens from Borrowlenses.com. This lens is truly a thing of beauty and awesomeness.
Funny story, actually. So, I rented the lens last week and headed to this very same spot to take some wideangle sunset shots. I spent a good hour on that windy ridge snapping away as my fingers got more and more numb. Anyway, I got some great shots that evening. Well, I thought I had gotten some great shots, but when I processed them they were covered in dust. Every single one. And I have no idea how all that dust got on my sensor. Anyway, yesterday I ran into Borrowlenses.com's San Carlos, CA location and had my sensor cleaned while I waited. Tonight I took the rented lens out for the last time (it goes back tomorrow) and took the shots I had wanted to take last week. And guess what? Tonight's sunset was ten times better than last week's...and dust-free to boot! How's that for luck? This lens is going on my wish list. It really is an amazing, amazing lens.
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odd how your mind reacts to a new year, drifting forward with no purpose......................then WHAM must do this..........
The church, with semi-circular portico and tower, was built in 1826-9 and was designed by Thomas Cundy, then architect to the Grosvenor estate in Westminster.
The original site of Normanton Church (St Matthew's Church as it was once known) would have placed it below the proposed water line of Rutland Water. It was saved from this fate through a project, aided by voluntary subscription, which raised the floor level of the church and protected the lower part of the building with a pier of stones.
The Church now stands proudly by the side of Rutland Water and houses a museum and exhibition on the building of the reservoir which is open to the public.
A serendipity piece!
I was clearing out a cupboard in my department at school and came across a squeezy bottle of red marker ink, designed, rather badly as it turned out, to refill industrial felt pens.
This flea is the result of the ensuing accident, I was able to make something of the mess on the card, but not on the desk or my clothes!!
I have added 'ink outlines' filter, which has manufactured some interest in the background.
I hope you like this, as I do, it is one of the few bits I didn't want to part with at my last exhibition!
«serendipità è cercare un ago in un pagliaio e trovarci la figlia del contadino»
(Julius Comroe Jr, 1976)
Of X-rays, Yellowstone and Viagra
The word "serendipity" was entered into the lexicon by Horace Walpole in 1754. He had become intrigued with a Persian fairytale in which three princes of Serendip, (formerly also Ceylon, now Sri Lanka) traveled the world, "making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things they were not in quest of."
The Oxford English Dictionary defines serendipity as "the faculty of making happy and unexpected discoveries by accident." Serendipity plays an important part in research of all kinds, but it operates only in a special environment; as Pasteur famously stated, "Chance favors the prepared mind." In research, what serendipity really means in practical terms is that scientists discover things in the course of their investigations that they were not looking for. Occasionally, serendipity plays a big role in a key discovery.
One excellent example of a serendipitous observation which led to a great discovery occurred in 1895, when Wilhelm Roentgen, working in his darkened lab with a Crooke's (cathode ray) tube, noticed out of the corner of his eye that several feet away, a piece of paper coated with barium cyanoplatinate was glowing faintly. He was puzzled, since the only conceivable source of energy in the room was the tube. When subsequently Roentgen found that sealed photographic plates in his desk had become fogged in the absence of a visible light source, he deduced that a novel form of radiation was being generated in the Crooke's tube. He termed the new radiation X-rays. Within a year after this discovery, X-rays were being applied in diagnostic medicine.
More recently, the multi-billion dollar biotechnology industry in great measure found its origins in a spontaneous, serendipitous detour:
"It would sound reasonable if I were to say that the research work...began as a result of a grand design, with a vision of the goals in mind. Unfortunately, this would not be true. This work began the day I took a detour through Yellowstone National Park on my way to Seattle." (Thomas Brock)
On this, his first visit to Yellowstone, Brock became intrigued with the multi-colored algae mats in the hot springs, and on a whim, took some samples back to analyze in his laboratory. In 1969, Brock and Freese reported the discovery of Thermus aquaticus; this bacterium became one early source from which the heat-stable enzymes were purified that are the key tools in recombinant DNA technologies.
And the pharmaceutical industry has benefited many times from serendipitous observations. Perhaps the best-known contemporary case is that of Viagra, which was originally tested as a treatment for angina. It was almost immediately found to be less effective than nitroglycerine for coronary artery dilatation, but then the patients in the first clinical trial reported an unusual, not at all undesirable and now well-known side effect. It is no wonder that the patients became depressed when the first clinical trials were brought to an end, and it was requested that the unused pills be returned to Pfizer. Pfizer noted that never had so many unused clinical trial pills been reported as "lost, misplaced, or accidentally flushed down the toilet..."
Serendipity still plays a major role in discovery and invention. It is the manifestation of inspiration, and of being in the right place at the right time. To some, it has a certain magic about it that suggests predetermination or intervention by the supernatural, or as Shakespeare wrote: "There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune..." (Brutus to Cassius, in Julius Caesar)
In the end, though, probably the best way to sum up the phenomenon was thoughtfully stated by Julius Comroe: "Serendipity is jumping into a haystack to search for a needle, and coming up with the farmer's daughter."
Definition: when you photograph a damselfly from a distance to make sure you get one photo of it, and upon arriving home you see that it's a lovely little scene of wet grass that also includes a perfectly focused lady beetle in a good pose in relation to the damselfly. (This was cropped a bit to make it work with the actual subject matter.)
We drove to a pharmacy in Woodhouse Eaves this Sunday afternoon for our Covid booster injections and then decided to take a walk along the road and in to Swithland. Jackie spotted a bridle path called Toby's Walk and we set off along it and were rewarded with early autumn fields of sunflowers.
- Museum of Modern Art, New York City, New York -
I was amused at how the woman's pants turned into a headdress for the person in the reflection .... photography has its own form of serendipity ... and perhaps I am just too easily amused :)
God and Nature first made us what we are, and then out of our own created genius we make ourselves what we want to be. Follow always that great law. Let the sky and God be our limit and Eternity our measurement.
I went out to close my greenhouse door and saw this California Poppy beginning to close for the night...grabbing my camera I arrived just in time to see it glowing in the fading sun...photography is just as much luck as skill I think.
Facebook : Aegir Photography
500px : 500px.com/photo/86266037/serendipity-by-glenn-crouch
More light painting with my PixelStick. The pre-dawn air formed condensation on my lens which created a funky halo around the light. Taken at Middle Head fortifications, Sydney harbour.
Nikon D800 & Nikkor 14-24mm. PP in PS CC using Nik Software and luminosity masks.
at the end of a long happy day at the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust in Llanelli, I heard a 'pip pip' and went to have a peep - and there on the grass was a pair of moorhens with 4 very young chicks - what an unexpected delight
Beautiful look at one of my favorite places during a winter storm. The snow was dense and almost chest high. In addition, I couldn't see where the ground ended and the stream started and almost went for a swim. However, all in all it was worth it! I'm very happy to be able to share this with you guys. Enjoy!
i am doing a cool photoshoot tomorrow with a friend downtown with old buildings. can't wait to show you all!
I feel so fortunate to adopte this gorgeous girl from Gwen Leven. Thank You!
My anniversary gift.... 10 years.
Jumeira Beach, named after the Jumeirah district of Dubai, is a stretch of beach ten miles south of Dubai where developers are creating large hotel resorts and luxury housing. Also built here is the Burj Al Arab (Arab Tower) hotel.
The Wild Wadi Water Park, the luxurious Jumeirah Beach Hotel and the old-style Madinat Jumeirah, all owned by the Jumeirah hotel chain, are in this area.
Where I stand this saturday morning- out and about doing errands. This mosaic heart is at the entrance to Over The Rainbow quilt shop. Hard to see but it is raining mightily and windy. Big storm!
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Just for the fun of it - some drawing inks went for a walk on the page and I doodled on top.
( Drawing inks, watercolour, nib pen and white Posca pen.)
In the mix of the liveliness of my visiting grandchildren I grasp solitary, private moments. In the distance they played. Beside the lake I walked. Caught among high weeds, a feather of fine lines, splendid in its golden light, became a one-man art show. writenow.wordpress.com/2016/09/16/day-2-of-16-with-the-gr...