The Wye Valley Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB; Welsh: Dyffryn Gwy) is an internationally important protected landscape straddling the border between England and Wales. It is one of the most dramatic and scenic landscape areas in southern Britain.

The River Wye (Welsh: Afon Gwy) is the fifth-longest river in the United Kingdom. The upper part of the river passes through the settlements of Rhayader, Builth Wells and Hay-on-Wye, but the area designated as an AONB covers 326 square kilometres (126 sq mi) surrounding a 72-kilometre (45 mi) stretch lower down the river, from just south of the city of Hereford to Chepstow.

This area covers parts of the counties of Gloucestershire, Herefordshire and Monmouthshire, and is recognised in particular for its limestone gorge scenery and dense native woodlands, as well as its wildlife, archaeological and industrial remains. It is also historically important as one of the birthplaces of the modern tourism industry. The area is predominantly rural, and many people make a living from tourism, agriculture or forestry. Ross-on-Wye is the only town within the AONB itself, but Hereford, Monmouth, Coleford and Chepstow lie just outside its boundaries.

The varied landscapes of the Wye Valley can be explained by underlying rocks and structures, and how ice and then the river and tributary streams have acted upon them through time.

Close to Hereford, the geology of the area around the village of Woolhope is largely made up of Silurian limestones, shales and sandstones. To the south of this, the Herefordshire lowlands are largely underlain by red mudstones and sandstones, producing a redder soil. These rocks are softer than the limestones elsewhere, so the river created more meanders, a wider floodplain, and a gentler and more rolling landscape. Around Symonds Yat, limestones and red sandstones meet. This leads to a landscape of hills and plains, as well as substantial meanders which have formed impressive river cliffs.

The Lower Wye landscape was formed by the river acting on a series of layers of rock that dip towards the Forest of Dean. Here the river has incised into the margins of the Old Red Sandstone plateau to form a gorge with substantial river cliffs. The steepest parts of the Wye gorge are cut through the Carboniferous Limestone. Here the combined action of the river, natural joints in the rocks and quarrying have exposed many vertical faces, particularly between Tintern and Chepstow.

Geological interest extends underground, and there are many rock shelters and solution caves in the area. These include King Arthur's Cave and many others in the area of Symonds Yat and Slaughter Stream Cave near Berry Hill. At St Arvans, near Chepstow, the underground watercourses have carved out long cave systems, which exit at Otter Hole at the base of Piercefield cliffs – the only cave system in England or Wales which can only be reached through a tidal sump, making it a mecca for experienced cavers.

Lancaut and Ban-y-Gor are Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust nature reserves. They both have SSSI status being part of the nationally important Lower Wye Gorge SSSI and within the Wye Valley AONB. The Wye Valley is important for its rich wildlife habitats.

The area has three sites of international importance, designated as Special Areas of Conservation (SACs) under the European Union's Habitats Directive. These are the River Wye (Afon Gwy), the Wye Valley and Forest of Dean Bat Sites (Safleoedd Ystlumod Dyffryn Gwy a Fforest y Ddena) and the Wye Valley Woodlands (Coetiroedd Dyffryn Gwy). It supports a population of lesser horseshoe bats, a growing population of peregrine falcons, goshawks, ravens, rare whitebeam, nightjar and lesser known fish like the shad and twaite. The main Welsh populations of the small but colourful moth Oecophora bractella are found here.

In September 2006 it was reported that one colony of lesser horseshoe bats in the area had reached record numbers, with some 890 bats in a small stone barn (599 adults and 291 babies recorded).

The valley has been inhabited for at least 12,000 years. Caves near Symonds Yat and Chepstow provide evidence of settlement dating from Palaeolithic times, and finds from later stone ages such as the Neolithic have also been found. These have yielded evidence of how prehistoric human populations lived as nomadic hunters and traders.

Standing stones at Huntsham, Staunton, and Trellech all have origins dating back to the Bronze Age. Later, Iron Age forts along the lower Wye Valley, and in the Woolhope area, took advantage of the natural hilltops and promontories to form well-defended settlements. It is likely that many of these marked the edges of disputed tribal pre-Roman territories.

Watling Street ran through the Roman settlements of Ariconium (just north of modern Ross-on-Wye) and Blestium (Monmouth), and a number of other small Roman settlements are known. The first evidence of the exploitation of iron and coal in the valley is found in the Roman period, with iron working known from sites at Monmouth, Trellech and elsewhere, as well as in the adjoining Forest of Dean. The medieval boroughs of Goodrich and Chepstow, at each end of the Wye Gorge, may have originally been established at this time.

Closely following the River Wye, Offa's Dyke was built in the 8th century under King Offa to mark out the boundary between England and Wales and is, today, the longest archaeological monument in Britain. Offa's Dyke Path long distance footpath today traces the route through the Wye valley on the English bank, while the Wye Valley Walk follows the Welsh bank.

When the Normans conquered the region in the 11th century they immediately built major castles at Chepstow and Monmouth to defend the territory. Smaller castles were built at St Briavels, Ruardean, Goodrich and Wilton Castle.

Tintern Abbey was founded in 1131 by Cistercian monks, and largely rebuilt in the 13th century. It is the best-preserved medieval abbey in Wales and an outstanding example of Gothic architecture.

Many of the smaller villages in the area probably date from the Middle Ages, and much of this expansion was probably associated with the early iron industry. The medieval iron industry consumed large quantities of charcoal and much of the woodland was coppiced for this purpose. Trellech was one of the largest communities in Wales during this period.

Iron has been made in the Wye Valley since Roman times, using the ready supply of timber, good quality ore and abundant charcoal from the Forest of Dean. The river provided transport for the raw materials and finished product, and with the introduction of the blast furnace in the 16th century, its tributaries began to be used for water power.

The first brass made in Britain was founded at Tintern in 1566. Wire-making followed, with water mills situated on all the tributaries of the lower Wye. The area resounded to the noise and smoke of heavy industry for the next 400 years and gave rise to many pioneering industries. For instance, Whitebrook became famous for paper milling, when wallpaper became a fashionable way to decorate houses. At Redbrook, copper works were established by 1691, and a century later the village became one of the world's major tinplate manufacturing centres. This industry survived until the 1960s and was renowned for producing the thinnest, highest quality plate in the world. The Lydbrook valley was also a thriving centre for metal industries, such as the manufacture of telegraph cables.

The valley woodlands were carefully managed to produce mature trees for shipbuilding, or by coppicing for charcoal, and to provide bark for tanning. The valley industries were also massive consumers of timber. A ship of 150 tons, for example, required 3,000 wagonloads of timber to complete – and in 1824, 13 ships were launched at Brockweir alone.

The river was the economic backbone of the region, providing an important means of transport, trade and communication. In late medieval times, salmon weirs hindered free passage on the river, but the Wye Navigation Act in 1662 enabled the river's potential to be developed. By 1727 shallow draught boats could get upstream beyond Hereford, and a significant shipbuilding industry developed at Monmouth, Llandogo, Brockweir and Chepstow. However, by 1835 it was stated that the Wye "can scarcely be considered a commercial highway" above Monmouth, and by the 1880s Brockweir bridge was the effective upper limit of navigation.

As the 19th century progressed, the valley's industries gradually declined, and management of the woodlands lessened when there was no longer a ready market for their products.

For further information please visit en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wye_Valley

The Forest of Dean is a geographical, historical and cultural region in the western part of the county of Gloucestershire, England. It forms a roughly triangular plateau bounded by the River Wye to the west and north-west, Herefordshire to the north, the River Severn to the south, and the City of Gloucester to the east.

The area is characterised by more than 110 square kilometres (42.5 sq mi) of mixed woodland, one of the surviving ancient woodlands in England. A large area was reserved for royal hunting before 1066, and remained as the second largest crown forest in England, the largest being New Forest. Although the name is used loosely to refer to the part of Gloucestershire between the Severn and Wye, the Forest of Dean proper has covered a much smaller area since medieval times. In 1327 it was defined to cover only the royal demesne and parts of parishes within the hundred of St Briavels, and after 1668 comprised the royal demesne only. The Forest proper is within the civil parishes of West Dean, Lydbrook, Cinderford, Ruspidge, and Drybrook, together with a strip of land in the parish of English Bicknor.

Traditionally the main sources of work have been forestry – including charcoal production - iron working and coal mining. Archaeological studies have dated the earliest use of coal to Roman times for domestic heating and industrial processes such as the preparation of iron ore.

The area gives its name to the local government district, Forest of Dean, and a parliamentary constituency, both of which cover wider areas than the historic Forest. The administrative centre of the local authority is Coleford, one of the main towns in the historic Forest area, together with Cinderford and Lydney.

For further information please visit en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forest_of_Dean

Constantly bombarded with so many scenes, symbols, and metaphors, my modern eyes hunger for simplicity as opposed to crowded, conjoined, or busy scenes. Separating story panels helps isolate and simplify. I noticed here that the widest border is the panel on the top, and the middle story has a mid-sized top border. The bottom has the thinnest top border. As a photographer, I want to isolate one story and one scene at a time. However, I also need an image, such as this one, that introduces this huge stained-glass window and everything that is going on in it.

This is Kentucky's largest stained glass window. The scene at the top is arguably the centerpiece of the Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption. It is a scene from Mary being coronated† as the Queen of Heaven after her Assumption. An "assumption" is an Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic belief that Mary was immediately assumed, or taken body and soul, into heaven after she died. However, the middle panel reminds Catholics that it was the Council of Ephesus in the Roman Empire that gave Mary the Greek title of Theotokos, which in English means birther (mother) of God. That resolved the theological question that Jesus was fully God when born from Mary rather than a mortal baby who grew into Godhood.

Classic Rome also had a crowned queen of heaven. Her name was the goddess Juno, a very important figure for the Romans.

About this stained-glass window, Wikipedia states: "This large stained glass window is installed in the North Transept of the Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption in Covington, Kentucky. The upper portion of the window represents the Coronation of Mary after her Assumption into Heaven. The lower portion is a depiction of the Council of Ephesus, 431 AD, which in affirming the Divinity of Christ, gave Mary the title Theotokos (God Bearer, or Mother of God), which emphasized Jesus as fully God, not a mortal, when born. This window, created by Mayer and Company of Munich, Germany, is claimed to be the largest stained glass window in a church anywhere in the world. It was installed in 1911. A full restoration of the Cathedral, including this window, was completed in 2001."

---

†Note: Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic clerics would likely cite Revelation 12:1-10 and assume that it specifically describes the royal crowning of Mary, the mother of Jesus.

During a trip to Bend, we decided a detour to Smith Rock State Park was in order. After a hot, grueling climb up the Misery Ridge trail, we crested and were descending the far trail just as a trio of climbers themselves were descending from the top of Monkey Face. I know hundreds, if not thousands, of climbers ascend and descend this rock every year without incident, but it is still a mildly anxious thing to watch a human dangling by the thinnest of cords at perilous heights. So naturally I stopped to make a few photos. While the other two were descending, this first climber and I actually struck up a conversation and I made a point to note his e-mail address, just so I could make sure I passed along the images I made on that hike. I finally got around to sending him those images, with the delay mostly being due to the fact that the roll just now got finished, developed and scanned. The speed of film as it turns out is slower than a hiker ascending Misery Ridge and much slower than a climber rappelling down Monkey Face.

Hasselblad 500C

Agfa APX (pleasantly aged but still quite good)

What soothes the beast? Let's take that apart,

little by bit,

peel and pull at the crumbs of it.

Beasts: not bloody maniacs, not always

brutes. Sometimes, just standing outside the lines, making their own way. Sometimes loyal and self possessed, sometimes so good stepping to drummers only they hear, wind up, catalize. They sometimes are breathing courage from their snouts.

When they trod, reeds bend under their mighty paws. Grasses supple and also strong, flexible. When they rest, birds stay ready, vigilant, able to sound alarms. When they

run

we make way because

there is probably a reason.

These things fall in line around, envelope, they stay the same but take a new shape. They do not ask the beast to be what it is not, do they? They accept without condition.

Just as the sea hums to the shore and the thinnest line separates yin from yang, her small nimble fingers stroke its chin. It chuffs a sigh, the scent of the wilderness strong in its body.

She might love it still. She might accept it, even appreciate its wild nature

its polar qualities.

She might love it still and learn to bend like reeds,

grasses supple and strong.

11.05.21

Visit the Seasonal Cuddle Nook at Shambles Abbey: maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Lefabre/78/88/1898

Read more about the Strength card: www.biddytarot.com/tarot-card-meanings/major-arcana/stren...

Can I stay here with you through the night time

I’ve fallen sad inside

And I need a place to hide

Can I stay here with you through the nighttime

I’m all alone and blue

Won’t you take me to your room

Lay with me in your thinnest dress

Fill my heart with each caress

Between your blissful kisses

Whisper darling, is this love

Whisper to me...is this love...

- Ray LaMontagne

View On Black

textures by ro-stock.deviantart.com/gallery/#Textures

The Moto Z is the thinnest mainstream flagship on the planet5

Düsseldorf-Hafen means the harbour of Düsseldorf. More than that, Hafen is the name of the Düsseldorf district in which the habour is located.

The borough covers 3.85 km2, but there were only 212 inhabitants in the year 2000. With 55 inhabitants per km², this is the thinnest density of population in Düsseldorf.

For decades the harbour has been an area of workers, industry and trade. But after the Mannesmann company had discontinued its tube production in Düsseldorf, parts of the central harbour lost their reason for being (another harbour is in Düsseldorf-Reisholz). As a result the eastern part of the harbour started to be redeveloped.

Mainly third sector businesses were attracted to move to the Hafen: media companies, but also fashion and design offices. One of the first new residents to the so-called Media Harbour was Westdeutscher Rundfunk with its current affairs TV and radio studios. There is also Düsseldorf's local radio station, Antenne Düsseldorf, in the harbour. CNN used to have an office there. One of the largest cinemas of Düsseldorf is in the Hafen. The Landtag (State parliament) of North Rhine-Westphalia and the Rheinturm are situated right next to the harbour.

The Hafen district itself contains some spectacular post-modern architecture, most famously three twisted constructions by Frank Gehry. Other than that there are many restaurants, bars, and a few clubs, which make the Hafen a prominent lifestyle district. But one of its main attractions, the beach bar "Monkey's Island", had to close for the sake of one further newly planned upscale hotel.

The western part of the harbour is still industrially used, but there are plans for further redevelopment with the construction of high end apartment buildings.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The night was still lingering when I started walking along the beach - I mean it was lingering in a special, sticky way, lingering over the cold sand, hanging about, hovering over the sea. It felt like it was to last forever. There was the thinnest stripe of red and orange at the horizon, but it just looked like a faint hint of something else - more like a delusion than a promise. Wishful thinking. The oily velvet of the night was smearing itself on my camera, on my lens, on my body. On my mind. That shy line of light flickering at the horizon was not actually there... it was a reminder of lost possibilities. It was a message in a language I could not understand. It was the sun saying goodbye instead of hi. I stumbled upon the body of a dead seabird - a foreboding encounter on the verge of an endless night. The so-called One Hundred Logs Pier was close now, its long row of logs emerging from the sand and the water like the half-buried toothed jaw of an antediluvian monster, so dark that it was able to get silhouetted against the lingering darkness. Then it simply happened. Rivers of light poured from the horizon, setting the clouds on fire. The sun was keeping its promise after all. The day was breaking, at last... the night was shying away from the world and I was able to capture that glorious sunrise. And I am here, now, with you, telling the story of the fateful morning that was about to not happen at all.

Laura and I were on one of those little, precious vacations of us. We were at the seaside, at Milano Marittima (i.e. Milan-on-the-seaside, but the name of the place should not fool you: it is more than 300 km from Milan). We had a wonderful, intimate time - and I went chasing sunrises, earning three sunrise sessions in four days. I am normally careful not to photograph too much and too seriously on such occasions, even when the place is luring me, since my main focus is on us being together. Yet I am somehow lucky to have a thing for sunrises, since this allows me to dedicate some time to photography that does not weigh on our precious together-time - indeed, when I am back she is usually still asleep. So here I am with a shot from my first session, and the best one (we'll see if I can squeeze something worth from the other two).

Explored on 2024/06/01 nr. 65

I have obtained this picture by blending an exposure bracketing [-2.0/-1.0/0/+1.0/+2.0 EV] by luminosity masks in the Gimp (EXIF data, as usual, refer to the "normal exposure" shot). Along the journey - post-processing always is a journey of discovery to me - I tried the inverted RGB blue channel technique described by Boris Hajdukovic to give a slight tonal boost to some parts of the scene, desaturating a lot and retaining mostly the boost to the tones.

As usual, I gave the finishing touches with Nik Color Efex Pro 4 and played a bit with dodging and burning.

Raw files processed with Darktable.

According to true believers, around the time of Halloween and DÍa de los Muertos, the separation between the corporal and spiritual worlds is at its thinnest. Día de los Muertos isn't about collecting candy, it's about honoring those lost. Yesterday I saw the ritual dances of Danza Azteca Taxca Yoloztl performed at MECA.

With the longest span of any arch in North America and rated 5th in the world, it is measured at 306 feet (93.3 meters).

In 1991 and 1995 some very large slabs broke away from underneath the thinnest section of the span - these slabs were 73, 47 and 30 ft - they feel that it may have been a good thing as the excess weight of fallen rock has reduced the stress of the thinnest part of the span. It is estimated that the thinnest part is now 6 feet thick.

Very happy to have seen this huge natural arch while it is still here - arches will and have fallen over the years. Made of eroded entrada sandstone, weather and time continue to reshape these amazing formations.

www.facebook.com/FreshairphotographybyJanisMorrison

This is a Euphorbia antisyphilitica (Spurge) It has flowers growing on two foot talks, the thinnest stalks to hold these 1/16th inch flowers. A least breeze will move it and, since it love shade, with such a slow shutter speed and high aperture, any movement will run the shot. And, because it's in the shade all day long, there is no advantage as to what time of day you shoot this *^#*^% plant. It took me six weeks of shooting daily before I could get one that shows these tiny flowers. I have only two images after all that. I needed the flash and dark background to freeze these stems. Remember these stems are the circumference of a spaghetti! The colors, flash and all, are true.

Euphorbia antisyphilitica is a species of flowering plant in the spurge family Euphorbiaceae. It is native to the Trans-Pecos of Texas and southern New Mexico in the United States as well as Chihuahua, Coahuila, Hidalgo, and Querétaro in Mexico. Common names include candelilla and wax plant, but the latter is more often applied to members of the unrelated genus Hoya. It is shrubby and has densely clustered, erect, essentially leafless stems that are covered in wax to prevent transpiration.

And you never know when you may need this information: The white sap of E. antisyphilitica was historically used in Mexico to treat sexually-transmitted diseases. Available without a prescription ... I'm guessing.

..... My Friends,

I invite you to explore this magic land in North-western part of Italy where I was born....

and in particular today I wish you can taste these magic, delicious chocolate .....

.....

Piedmont

is mostly known for its wines and braised meat in the culinary world. However, the small city of Cuneo reserves some pretty amazing gastronomic surprises to those who can go beyond the obvious… Cuneesi, for example, are wonderful artisan chocolates invented in Cuneo at the beginning of the 1900s, and now renowned all over the world because… well, beyond being delicious, they are rare: the process of making them cannot be industrialized!

The traditional cuneesi are small, bite-sized cioccolatini (chocolate truffles) with a heart of rum encased in the thinnest of meringue-made wafer. Since the wafer breaks in the industrial process, they can only be made artisanally. Which, believe me, makes for a pretty amazing chocolate experience, although it needs to be consumed within three weeks at the most from their manufacturing!

The oldest and most respected pastry stores in Cuneo have their stores in the main square, Piazza Galimberti, and manufacture their own cuneesi. Arione, who originally invented and patented the process of making cuneesi, is possibly the most famous pastry store in town, but I am partial to the ones produced by Giraudo, a competing outfit just a few doors down.

© All rights reserved

Incerdibly agile for such large and heavy-looking creatures. They climb through trees easily and they hoist themselves up to the thinnest of branches. I had the pleasure of seeing these wild bears harvesting and eating mangos in the tree at the Chaparri Reserve in Lambayeque in northern Peru.

Can I stay here with you till the morning

I am so far from home and i feel a little stoned

so can i stay here with you till the morning?

There's nothing i want more than to wake up on your floor

So lay with me in your thinnest dress

fill my heart with each caress

between your blissful kisses, whisper

darling, is this love?

Can I Stay - by Ray Lamontagne

"Düsseldorf Hafen" means "Düsseldorf harbor" in German and is also the name of the district in which the harbor is located. It has the thinnest density of population here.

For decades the harbor has been an area just of workers, industry and trade. But after the "Mannesmann" company had discontinued its tube production in Düsseldorf, parts of the central harbor lost their reason for being. As a result the eastern part of the harbor started to be redeveloped.

Mainly third sector businesses were attracted to move to the "Hafen": media companies, but also fashion and design offices. One of the first new residents to the so called "Media Harbor" was the "WDR" with its tv and radio studios. CNN also used to have an office there.

The "Landtag" (State parliament) and the "Rheinturm" are situated right next to the harbor.

The "Hafen" district itself contains some spectacular post-modern architecture, most famously the three twisted constructions by renowned architect Frank Gehry (the video starts with them :-)...). The new "Hyatt" hotel is impressive too, I guess.

I love the contrasts of old industrial buildings, cranes etc. and the modern architecture. Hopefully it's interesting to watch....:-)!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpntNDAYltM&feature=related

Air Supply - Lost In Love

.....

I realize the best part of love is the thinnest lace

And it don't count for much but I'm not letting go

I believe there's still much to believe in

So lift your eyes if you feel you can

Reach for a star and I'll show you a plan

I figured it out

What I needed was someone to show me

.........

busy with the washing up liquid again - more fun than actually washing up - the bottom of the picture is the 'high end' end of the bubble where it is thinnest. The thinnest part is black, then comes white, then the orangey yellow... there's a sequencce.

40 hours later, The Forge is finally finished! So, what is The Forge? The Forge is a mobile asteroid mining and processing facility. It uses six tugs to collect asteroids and bring them to one of the six mining platforms near the front of the ship. The asteroids are then put through grinding drums that break them into smaller pieces. Next, any desired ore, minerals, etc. are removed from the fragments and the waste is jettisoned from the ship. The ore, minerals, etc. are sorted into seperate containers. Eight huge reinforced plates protect the shipping containers from rogue asteroids and open to allow a transport to collect them.

The two bridges share the workload of the ship. The rear bridge is in charge of piloting, navigation and shipping. The forward bridge handles the mining and processing operations.

Alright, time for some tech specs!

The forge measures in at a whopping 156 studs in length (The biggest SHIP I've ever built). She's 62 studs at the widest (26 at the thinnest) and 38 studs tall. I did have two big landing gears built into it but it got WAY too heavy for them, thus the stand. It also has motor-driven grinding drums in the mining platforms and the big grey button in the middle of the ship opens and closes the armored plates. The plates where also supposed to be motor-driven but I could get them working for the life of me. Oh well!

I hope you all enjoyed watching this beast going together as I had building it (even if I did shout some horrific profanities from time to time)! Thanks for watching and for all the support!

La sonrisa cura todas las enfermedades. La vida es corta como para perderla pensando en ser la más delgada o popular. Yo le sonrío a la vida y aunque a veces me golpee, me levantare y seguiré peleando, porque estoy viva.

The smile cures all diseases. Life is short to waste thinking about being the thinnest or popular. I smile to life and even though sometimes I hit, I will arise and will continue fighting, because I'm alive.

MANUEL PORCARI CHUMPITAZ © Todo Derecho de Autor reservado sobre esta Obra©

All Copyright reserved on this Work ©

Looking up at one of the thinnest facades on the Rynek in Wroclaw, Poland. What it lacks in width I think it makes up for in elegance.

It was interesting to note that most buildings on the square had cables trailing down the front of them, presumably this is because they're 'Listed' and you can't fix things to the buidlings without agreement with the Planning Authorities. This being the case it's a good example of regulations having the opposite effect to that intended..........

Click here to see my other Poland shots : www.flickr.com/photos/darrellg/albums/72157671110605611

From Wikipedia : "The 13th century Main Market Square (Rynek) features the Old Town Hall. In the north-west corner of the market square there is the St. Elisabeth's Church (Bazylika Św. Elżbiety) with its 91.46 m tower, which has an observation deck (75 m). North of the church are the Shambles with Monument of Remembrance of Animals for Slaughter (pl). The Salt Square (now a flower market) is located at the south-western corner of the market square. Close to the square, between Szewska and Łaciarska streets, there is the St. Mary Magdalene Church (Kościół Św. Marii Magdaleny) established in the 13th century."

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© D.Godliman

Another shot showing the arrangement a little better. With a nod to Ace McCloud!

I came across some "orbital sniper" illustrations on Deviantart a little while ago and thought it was such a crazy and impractical concept I had to build one! I can't imagine a person's head and shoulders would present a large target from orbit so maybe they'd be better off against tanks etc where the armour on the top surfaces is usually thinnest???

djahal.deviantart.com/art/Galaxy-Saga-applibot-Orbital-sn...

- Henry David Thoreau.

|| insta || blog || photostream ||

After witnessing an epic sunrise at Artist’s View, we ran into some thick fog on our way back as we passed the Bridal Veil Falls. Then the smell hit us, and we realized it was smoke. I was a little panicked but soon saw a notice about controlled burning in effect. Then we came across the Hanging Valley area, and suddenly, the view changed. The smoke-filled woodland looked otherworldly, especially with gorgeous fall colors at their peak. A few of us returning to the valley quickly stopped and jumped out to take advantage of the smoke before it cleared.

Walking around, I noticed this opening in the canopy with a gorgeous view of El Capitan. Finding a tree to place at the base of the massive rock formation was also relatively easy. Finding a leading line was tough, but I eventually found one. This fallen tree has been around for a while and has an almost driftwood-like appearance. I composed this image with an ultra-wide 14mm focal length using the patterns in the tree to lead the eye of the viewer. I liked how the branches to the top right corner also pointed at El Capitan. Without a doubt, this is my favorite image from our short but eventful Yosemite trip.

The windows are at the top (and thinnest) part of the Arch, though it doesn't look that way from this POV.

Gateway Arch National Park, St. Louis, Missouri.

The bracelets that I made to go with the mauve set. There are 3 separate bracelets. I used tons of different beads but I was sure to match them all together, and used the absolute thinnest chain I have, I only have a little bit of it left.

“We are adrift, and the thinnest breeze may blow us where it will.”

Another snowflake from our recent storms, this one with a center that just draws you right in! My favourite type of snowflake has centers like this – be sure to view large!

This snowflake is a perfect example of the beauty that exists when a snowflake splits itself in two. The brighter hexagon is sitting above a lower level of ice that has grown faster and created branches, starving the top layer the necessary building blocks to do the same. This creates slower growth and maintains a hexagonal shape as result… but the real storyteller is the shape at the center.

The darker center that somewhat resembles a snowflake itself is solid ice, before the split. If you can imagine this infantile crystal growing outward, the first signs of splitting happen in the center of each edge, as they are closer to the center. Cavities form in the ice because growth is slower in these regions, but given a minute or so, these cavities expand to the corners. This is why the solid area remains in the same direction as the hexagonal corners beyond it. Once the snowflake creates two new planes of growth, usually the thinnest will grow faster.

One can conclude that this means the bubbles in the ice were not equally distant from one side to the other, possibly due to the aerodynamics of the crystal or for physics that me as a photographer cannot comprehend. Still, it’s an interesting observation!

The snow that fell alongside this snowflake was somewhat erratic in design. Five minutes would pass by and new shapes would be seen and this variety would disappear. This is quite common during many snowfalls, and the best specimens may only be floating to earth for a few minutes. If you’re after the most beautiful snowflakes, check often to see what is falling – the best conditions come and go quickly!

I know that some magical snowflakes fell last night while I was sleeping. The scene on the ground was very sparkly – a sign of large pristine crystals lying about. The problem is sublimation – they would be useless to photograph unless you get to them immediately. After a half-hour on the ground, many snowflakes are only a ghost of their former self because they evaporate back into thin air. You can see signs of sublimation on this snowflake at the branch tips – rounded as if rocks were weathered by water over thousands of years, but it begins as soon as the snowflake falls from the cloud that formed it. Even though I photographed this crystal immediately, it had already begun to fade away.

Like these images? Enjoy the post? I assume so if you’ve read this far! Take the experience farther with a copy of Sky Crystals: Unraveling the Mysteries of Snowflakes – www.skycrystals.ca/book/ - it’s a 304pg hardcover book that details the science, photographic techniques (in exhaustive detail), and the overwhelming beauty of these skyborne sculptures.

2-ply merino/bamboo/nylon in the "Gentle" colorway, dyed by Funky Carolina.

Ended up being about a sport-weight, some of my thinnest spinning in a while. About 283 yards.

Already transforming into a Lacy Baktus!

Captured in London, England, April 2023.

The Arches National Park, in Utah near Moab couldn't have been named any other. It has some incredible natural arches made of rocks, that would baffle many structural & civil engineers.

The landscape Arch is an easy mile hike from the crowded parking lot of the Devil's Garden & is a spectacular sight alright. The 290 feet rock arch, which is only two meter wide at it's thinnest happens to be the longest & the slimmest natural bridge arch of it's kind in the worrld. Earlier the trail used to go right underneath this bridge, but was stopped after couple of massive chunks of rock fell off the bridge in 1995.

Nope , I got the title right , it is The Bottle of Britain - it is what Shepherd Neame Brewery call their famous ale that they brew named "Spitfire " . Brewed in Kent it is a tribute to the Spitfires that took part in the days of The Battle of Britain . Let me get in here now and say that the Spitfire gets all the credit , but it is the Hawker Hurricane that was the workhorse and the one that claimed the most hits against the enemy back then .

Well this is my post for the Saturday Self Challenge 20/112021 -- Drinks .

So I was floundering around looking for a subject for the challenge and had in mind to do a soup in my Hawker Hurricane mug - ( soup that is not chewed is a drink but a soup full of bits and pieces needing chewing is eaten !! ) , Anyway , then I got a text from someone who I have know since the 1960s , and he messages that he had had over the last weekend been up in his flight in a Spitfire - barrel rolls over Beachy Head included !! Oh , that did it - I then got the idea of Spitfire Ale for my subject , so quickly added some to the Sainsbury's order !! Soon after it arrived the oven cooker top pop up studio was set up as seen above with two bottles , my Spitfire glass and my Spitfire pencil sharpener - shots taken , best composition chosen , beer consumed and it was over to the computer to add a couple of embellishments ( well 3 ) of photos of different Spitfires I had to fill the negative space that was intentionally left . So that is my SSC Drinks challenge done !

And Jan , yes there was not full bokeh on the distant bottle , but it was out of focus a bit .

The Supermarine Spitfire is a British single-seat fighter aircraft that was used by the Royal Air Force and other Allied countries before, during, and after World War II. Many variants of the Spitfire were built, using several wing configurations, and it was produced in greater numbers than any other British aircraft.[citation needed] It was also the only British fighter produced continuously throughout the war. The Spitfire continues to be popular among enthusiasts; around 70 remain airworthy, and many more are static exhibits in aviation museums throughout the world.

The Spitfire was designed as a short-range, high-performance interceptor aircraft by R. J. Mitchell, chief designer at Supermarine Aviation Works, which operated as a subsidiary of Vickers-Armstrong from 1928. Mitchell pushed the Spitfire's distinctive elliptical wing with cutting-edge sunken rivets (designed by Beverley Shenstone) to have the thinnest possible cross-section, helping give the aircraft a higher top speed than several contemporary fighters, including the Hawker Hurricane. Mitchell continued to refine the design until his death in 1937, whereupon his colleague Joseph Smith took over as chief designer, overseeing the Spitfire's development throughout its multitude of variants.

Spitfire Ale is one of the UK’s best-loved beers with an international reputation as a Great British Classic.

Since its inception as a one-off brew back in 1990, Spitfire has enjoyed phenomenal success, earning a Royal Warrant and protected status as a Kentish Ale.

While the great taste has remained constant throughout its history, the Spitfire family has grown to include golden ale and lager, each imbued with the distinctive Spitfire spirit.

Today Spitfire has a dynamic new look reflecting the nature of the iconic plane that inspired its creation and befitting its status as an ale of substance and character.

A true classic, Spitfire Amber is the head of the Spitfire family and a true taste of Kent. It was first brewed to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Britain, played out in the skies above Kentish soil. It is brewed using 100% Kentish hops, the finest malt and water drawn from a well deep beneath Shepherd Neame’s Faversham brewery.

After all that there is a problem - I wanna go up in a Spitfire as well !!

For sight & sound - something different for me to choose ,but very apt --

youtu.be/i4zk3dHZ11w

And for any Airheads out there , here is the Magical song of a number of Merlins !!

turn it up to 11 and enjoy

youtu.be/Y5rGyP6SSYM

A southern pale chanting goshawk (melierax canorus) looks out over The Kalahari from the topmost and thinnest branches of a tree. I took many photographs of this species, mostly from beneath their lofty perches. I thought the stance of this particular bird added an extra touch of majesty. More at "Colin Pacitti Wildlife Photography & Fishing Travels" - www.colin-pacitti.com.

Longest, and thinnest arch, only 6 feet in diameter at its thinnest part.

I dedicate this photo to my beloved wife Laura, who has just successfully ended her 5-years follow-up after her neurosurgery and radiotherapy in February 2019: a fulfilled promise, a gift for the present and the future. We are deeply grateful to dr. Carlo Mandelli, her neursurgeon, and to the whole staff of the ward and of the radiotherapy unit at San Raffaele hospital.

The night was still lingering when I started walking along the beach - I mean it was lingering in a special, sticky way, lingering over the cold sand, hanging about, hovering over the sea. It felt like it was to last forever. There was the thinnest stripe of red and orange at the horizon, but it just looked like a faint hint of something else - more like a delusion than a promise. Wishful thinking. The oily velvet of the night was smearing itself on my camera, on my lens, on my body. On my mind. That shy line of light flickering at the horizon was not actually there... it was a reminder of lost possibilities. It was a message in a language I could not understand. It was the sun saying goodbye instead of hi. I stumbled upon the body of a dead seabird - a foreboding encounter on the verge of an endless night. A blob of foam from the bowels of the sea were stranded on the beach - an interrupted, already forgotten dream. The so-called One Hundred Logs Pier was close now, its long row of logs emerging from the sand and the water like the half-buried toothed jaw of an antediluvian monster, so dark that it was able to get silhouetted against the lingering darkness. Then it simply happened. Rivers of light poured from the horizon, setting the clouds on fire. The sun was keeping its promise after all. The day was breaking, at last... the night was shying away from the world and I was able to capture that glorious sunrise. And I am here, now, with you, telling the story of the fateful morning that was about to not happen at all.

Laura and I were on one of those little, precious vacations of us. We were at the seaside, at Milano Marittima (i.e. Milan-on-the-seaside, but the name of the place should not fool you: it is more than 300 km from Milan). We had a wonderful, intimate time - and I went chasing sunrises, earning three sunrise sessions in four days. I am normally careful not to photograph too much and too seriously on such occasions, even when the place is luring me, since my main focus is on us being together. Yet I am somehow lucky to have a thing for sunrises, since this allows me to dedicate some time to photography that does not weigh on our precious together-time - indeed, when I am back she is usually still asleep. So here I am with a shot from my first session, and the best one (we'll see if I can squeeze something worth from the other two).

Explored on 2024/11/09 nr. 114.

I have obtained this picture by blending an exposure bracketing [-2.0/-1.0/0/+1.0/+2.0 EV] by luminosity masks in the Gimp (EXIF data, as usual, refer to the "normal exposure" shot). Along the journey - post-processing always is a journey of discovery to me - I tried the inverted RGB blue channel technique described by Boris Hajdukovic to give a slight tonal boost to some parts of the scene, desaturating a lot and retaining mostly the boost to the tones.

Raw files processed with Darktable.

I have quite recently bought a new, computer with Ubuntu Studio natively installed (honour to the memory of my 15 years old Win 7 PC), so my workflow is totally and puristically Open Source now (I have not installed Nik Collection on Wine, not yet).

There was a mass movement of Hickory Tussock Moth Caterpillars in our yard this morning, most of them heading across the driveway towards the yard and a grove of cedar trees and many others scooting around under the hickory trees. This one was dangling from the thinnest of silk threads, heading back up into the trees.

One is well advised to avoid handling these caterpillars since they can produce a rash in some people. I moved a bunch of them off our driveway, using leaves to transport them. Better safe...

What do you think? I then I fight with my eyes. All Trouble now is that I can not draw the strips within the eye, because just do not quit. Even the thinnest brush does not draw them so thin. Blue eyes white stripes in principle can not be seen even, all merged and red eyes, I painted blue stripes, and they got fat. My hands, apparently growing out of my ass !!!

Commander Dex was cold. He had been on on the snow covered plains of the planet for days doing recon. He was hungry, he had brought rations but they were not enough in cold such as this. His suit's heater couldn't keep up with the bitter cold and finally gave out 12 hours ago. The wind stung him at his joint were his body glove was thinnest. He was tired. He had not slept in days as he worked his way through his path. As he was in his final stretch back to base he set off a flood light some where in an industrial complex. As the light shone of his armor he thought to himself, "defiantly a 'character building deployment.

Landscape Arch is in the Devils Garden section of Arches National Park. This is a arc natural arch eroded in Entrada sandstone. Arc natural arches are considered old and near the end of their lifecycle. It is hard to believe that a piece of rock like this can exist. In its thinnest section the arch is only 6 feet thick, yet it supports a span of rock 290 feet long . This arch could collapse at any time: any day, any year, any decade, or any century.

On September 1, 1991, a 73-foot slab of rock fell out from underneath the thinnest section of the span. This was captured on video by a Swiss tourist who happened to be behind the arch at the time. On the sound track of the video, another hiker can be heard saying "I don't think I want to walk back under there!" The rock that fell, however, was probably not structurally important to the arch. In fact, by reducing the weight of suspended rock, the arch was probably strengthened.

On June 5, 1995, a 47-foot mass of rock fell from the front of the thinnest section of the arch, followed by another 30-foot rock fall on June 21. Due to these events the Park Service has closed the loop trail that once led underneath the arch.

I have been tagged by my best friend recently.

Visit www.flickr.com/groups/tagged/

So... here we go... :)

1.I'm the thinnest guy in the world ;)

2.I can not be fat, whatever I eat... :(

3.I deeply love only a few people & they know who they are.

4.I care for my loved ones more than anything...and I Love loving them...

5.I'm a quarrelsome person for the people closer to me.

6.I love my job, and office is the place where I can forget all my worries and tensions.

7.Kappa (tapioca) and fish curry is my favorite. Even though i don't each much...

8.I'm crazy about gadgets, although I own a very few.

9.I always love to be behind the cam. From the childhood...

10.Music is my passion, I play the keyboard, though not as well as how I used to play during my school days when I practiced a lot. Trying to learn Drums also... ;)

11.I'm very bad at expressing myself...

12.I have Big dreams, I wanna do Big things...Waiting for a breakthrough in my Life...

13.I'm still waiting for my soul mate...So Girls, I'm available… ;)

14.My Current wish list include a Grand Piano, a SUV (probably endeavor), a good SLR cam (to begin with), Sony Ericsson W595, and a home of my own :)

And the above Creative Inspire 245 is the one which makes the day full of music in my office desk

The lower part of a bedrock cliff in the south part of the Okanagan valley, in south-central British Columbia, western Canada.

Scale: this cross-section of low-angle, sub-horizontal metamorphic layers is about 2.5 to 3 m thick (base to top of view). The thicker discrete layers are approx. 10 to 30 cm thick; the thinnest layers are about 1 cm thick.

This is a high-grade metamorphic rock, a 'basement' gneiss that has been intensely sheared (layer-parallel deformation) during regional tectonism; the layers and their lateral discontinuities (incl. thinning and truncation) are the result of this shearing (not sedimentary layering).

Copyright J.R. Devaney

The most distinguishing plumage feature is the yellowish central crown stripe bordered by dark but this is a recently-fledged juvenile bird that has yet to acquire its crown. Juvenile birds don't stay "crownless" like this for long as the post-juvenile moult usually starts mid July. As well as lacking the crown markings, juveniles also have pale bills which are blackish in adults. I heard this juvenile calling while on a walk from home this week, but I didn't realise it was a juvenile until it came close. Here's a typical adult showing the crown markings and the dark bill: www.flickr.com/photos/timmelling/49755706231/in/photolist

I used to lead dawn chorus walks many years ago and I noticed that some participants could not hear certain high-pitched bird songs. The three species I remember this most from were Goldcrest, Treecreeper and Grasshopper Warbler. I also noticed that the people unable to hear these songs were generally male, and over 50. I remember once a Goldcrest singing right next to us sounded really loud, yet several people just looked puzzled as if I was making things up.

The reason for this deafness is damage to the vibrissae in our cochlea. The cochlea is the snail shell-shaped organ in our ear that has tiny hairs called vibrissae which range from thick to thin. When notes of certain pitch reach our ears the appropriate vibrissae vibrate; the thick ones to deep notes, the thin ones to high notes. But really loud noises damage these vibrissae, particularly the thin ones that register high notes. And once they are damaged they are damaged forever. So people who have been exposed to loud noises eg in industry or concerts, are more likely to have ear damage to the thinnest vibrissae, so are less likely to be able to hear a Goldcrest sing.

But here's the really interesting part. Birds regrow their vibrissae each year so any hearing damage is not permanent. And really loud birds like Corncrakes have a system which effectively covers their ears when they start calling, so they don't damage their own hearing ability.

Landscape Arch

Landscape Arch is the longest of the many natural rock arches located in the Arches National Park in Utah, USA. The arch is among many in the area known as Devil's Garden in the north area of the park. It was named by Frank Beckwith, leader of the Arches National Monument Scientific Expedition, who explored the area in the winter of 1933–1934, and can be reached by short walk/hike of about 1.5 miles along a maintained trail.

The Natural Arch and Bridge Society (NABS) considers the Landscape Arch to be the longest natural arch in the world, having measured the span in 2004 at 290.1 ± 0.8 feet (88.4 m), which is slightly longer than a measurement made by the Society in 2006 of Kolob Arch in Zion National Park. Since 1991, three slabs of sandstone measuring 30, 47, and 70 feet (9.1, 14, and 21 m) long have fallen from the thinnest section of Landscape Arch, prompting the Park Service to close the trail that once passed beneath it.

(Wikipedia)

Der Landscape Arch ist mit 92 Metern Spannweite einer der größten Bögen der Welt. Am 1. September 1991 brach ein Felsblock von 18 Meter Länge, 3,40 Meter Breite und 1,20 Meter Dicke aus der Unterseite des Bogens. Seitdem ist er an seiner dünnsten Stelle weniger als 3 Meter dick.

(Wikipedia)

Konstantin Chaykin's ThinKing watch.

A watch that in 2024 broke the world record for the thinnest mechanical watch in the world.

I'm doubly pleased to publish this photo because not only did I take it at one of the exhibitions of the great watchmaker and inventor Konstantin Chaykin, I also work at Konstantin Chaykin's small watchmaking factory, and this watch contains parts I crafted under his supervision.

It was a very complex undertaking, but it worked.

I still feel a small sense of pride for the trust placed in me, for the fact that this, and many other Konstantin Chaykin watches, contain a piece of my work. My work in the movements, cases, and dials, which I can see in news, photographs, and video reports from the global watch industry.

And, of course, working under the guidance of the great watchmaker Konstantin Chaykin is a particular source of pride.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Ikulzs_WfA

Our visiting squirrel hung onto one of the thinnest branches to collect the Sycamore seeds from the very end - about 20 ft off the ground.

While searching for two huge ancient oaks in the Ashlade Firs part of Savernake Forest during the previous winter, I passed this huge beech tree (Faguc sylvatica). Apart from the overall size and shape of the tree, the trunk really stood out due to the myriad of nodules and burrs.

I visited again and measured the girth at 4.93m at 1.1m height. This is probably the thinnest part of the trunk but I could not measure at the usual 1.5m due to the protrusion (seen here on right side of the trunk) that is the remains of a fallen limb. Fallen limbs surround the tree and currently have many types of fungi growing on them.

This was processed in a fine art style using Adobe Camera RAW.

I took several shots of this my first Ruffed Grouse on digital. It was fun to watch him gingerly make his way to the ends of the thinnest branches for the tastiest buds. There is so little out here for wild life right now but they seem to survive somehow. Evolution has a way.

I think that this handsome bird is worth a look at on black. Please click on the link below.

View On Black

The sun was just trying to pierce the darkness when this swan sat for a morning portrait. At first I wondered why he was swimming motionlessly until I caught a glint of light off a thin layer of ice.

Since I can’t communicate with swans I did not know if he sat there all night or was just an early arrival who was confident the rising sun would soon melt the smattering of an ice cover and he would be able to swim off.

Pretty good chance this scene is how the earliest inhabitants of our state came up with the oft-used phrase “it’s colder than a duck’s butt” to describe Minnesota’s arctic cold.

In our area with numerous lakes of all sizes, we see humans that do this too in the early winter when they go out on the thinnest of ice to pursue several months of ice fishing.

(Photographed near Cambridge, MN)

The whitetails in the Cross Timbers suffer greatly from tick bites. These insidious little arachnids tend to congregate in areas where the deers' hair is thinnest-- around the eyes, anus and backs of the ears. Does do their best to remove them, but all the fawns have some ticks. I've gotten a couple myself this year and they aren't fun. Our beautiful world, pass it on.

Tibet IV - VII A.C.

A little about the agate skin on the surface of old dZi beads, or rather about the formation of horseshoes on the surface.

This effect can be found on old and antique agate beads. And also on spherulites Agate in nature. Some call this effect "weathering" of agate, but this is not entirely correct. We observe not the destruction of the mineral, but, on the contrary, its growth. Agate bead tends to its original state of agate nugget and grows its skin instead of a polished surface.

In nature, these dimples and bumps serve as nuggets to absorb moisture and minerals for their nutrition and growth.

On the surface of this bead, we can see the structure of the horseshoes that are polished when worn.

However, the presence of "horseshoes" on the surface of the bead cannot be unambiguously considered a sign of age, as Taiwanese and Chinese craftsmen have learned to imitate this effect of old beads. At the end of the last century, metal tools were used to create horseshoes. It was easy to distinguish from the original. Today, beads are cast from Agate powder, using molds and casts from old beads, the craftsman achieves 100% similarity of the surface of the original old agate bead. In general photos, such cast beads are practically indistinguishable from the original. But at high magnification, you can see that the agate structure is missing.

The fact is that agate is a living mineral and has a fractal structure at macro magnification.

Agate has micro-channels in its structure, they are visible only at high magnification as the thinnest short "hairs". It's funny, it's like the hairs on the banknotes as a counterfeit protection.

In this bead, we can see these signs as well as red dots of iron oxides inside the mineral. The Tibetans call this phenomenon Dragon Blood, in China they call it Cinnabar dots.

We can also observe the formation of new layers of agate. The Tibetans call it the Dragon Mark. This is a very good sign of a living bead. These layers appear after the creation of the bead and slightly shift the lines of the symbol.

The approximate cost of such a bead is 5-8 thousand dollars.

..... My Friends,

I invite you to explore this magic land in North-western part of Italy where I was born....

and in particular today I wish you can taste these magic, delicious chocolate .....

.....

Piedmont

is mostly known for its wines and braised meat in the culinary world. However, the small city of Cuneo reserves some pretty amazing gastronomic surprises to those who can go beyond the obvious… Cuneesi, for example, are wonderful artisan chocolates invented in Cuneo at the beginning of the 1900s, and now renowned all over the world because… well, beyond being delicious, they are rare: the process of making them cannot be industrialized!

The traditional cuneesi are small, bite-sized cioccolatini (chocolate truffles) with a heart of rum encased in the thinnest of meringue-made wafer. Since the wafer breaks in the industrial process, they can only be made artisanally. Which, believe me, makes for a pretty amazing chocolate experience, although it needs to be consumed within three weeks at the most from their manufacturing!

The oldest and most respected pastry stores in Cuneo have their stores in the main square, Piazza Galimberti, and manufacture their own cuneesi. Arione, who originally invented and patented the process of making cuneesi, is possibly the most famous pastry store in town, but I am partial to the ones produced by Giraudo, a competing outfit just a few doors down.

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Sweet red plum blossoms are some of my favorites.

The patterned kanzashi are made from kimono silk, and the red flowers are made of habutae silk; the thinnest silk for lining kimono.