Times Square candid
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the angel on Uppsala cathedral seems to be concerned, evil grows.../Svåra tider, ängeln på Uppsala domkyrka verkar bekymrad, ondskan tilltar.../Tiempos turbulentos, el ángel en la catedral de Uppsala parece preocupado, crece la maldad...(118-3)
Another one from the archives, of a night when I was the first and only person to get around Nash Point on a dropping tide. the freshly exposed rock layers were still glistening from the tide as the setting sun coloured up the cliffs and clouds. I can't wait to experience these special moments the world can give us again. Times Like These is by Foo Fighters and I think I'll have a go at singing it today after my breakfast disco :))) Perhaps I;l get the children next door who sit on the wall and keep me company to join in on the chorus ;)))
Baburgh St Aidan's Church.
According to Bede, St Aidan built a wooden church outside the castle wall in AD 635, and he died here in AD 652. A wooden beam preserved inside the church is traditionally said to be the one on which he rested as he died.
The present church dates from the late 12th century,
2014 05 0836 Sam Claire Visit Bamburgh 1HDR
I, I'm a new day rising
I'm a brand new sky
To hang the stars upon tonight
I am a little divided
Do I stay or run away
And leave it all behind?
It's times like these you learn to live again
It's times like these you give and give again
It's times like these you learn to love again
It's times like these time and time again
I hope you'll enjoy my work! Thank you for your support!
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The look through the camera is like a door to another world.
Cosmopolitan Event
❥Dress: ZVI. Melange Dress @ Cosmopolitan
❥Drink: :::ChicChica:::Orange Eggnog Mousse dispenser @ Cosmopolitan
❥Garland and planters: Dreamland Designs - Christmas Hanging Garland & Christmas planters @ Cosmopolitan
Just a little barn, trying to remain upright through another Missouri season of tornadoes and heavy rain. I guess we all have storms to weather, but with hopefully brighter days ahead!
Old remainder of ancient tree, the altar of times long gone, pedestal for moss and shrooms. Memory lost in mists, left for younger trees, so they can live again and become ancient by themselves. Many leaves will fall before the old stump disappears completely.
www.londonchicinsl.com/post/good-times
Hair: Trapa braids - Farbixquare
Top: Silencio Top (GOOD) - Catarsis [Tres chic event]
Shorts: Silencio shorts (Friends) - Catarsis [Tres chic event]
Phone: Hanging phone cases (IDC) - Bueno
Bag: Round belt bag (All black) - Majesty
Sneakers: Air Power One - Grailed
Ringing Roger, Peak District, UK
© 2023 Paul Newcombe. Don't use without permission
Possibly my favourite composition at Ringing Roger with the foreground rock creating an 'x'. I've stood here many times perfecting the composition. It felt quite precarious yesterday with the frozen rocks.
These are the best conditions I've had. Often, patchy doesn't work, creating too much contrast. But the hard frost decreased the contrast on the rocks.
I couldn't fit the foreground rock into one frame for the previous upload as I only had 24mm equivalent lens. This is good though as going wider reduces the impact of Loose Hill and the Great Ridge.
Eurasian Jay (Garrulus glandarius)
My best photos are here: www.lacerta-bilineata.com/ticino-best-photos-of-southern-...
More TICINO/TESSIN Wildlife Photos (all taken in my garden in Monteggio/Ti, Switzerland): it.lacerta-bilineata.com/ramarro-occidentale-lacerta-bili...
If you're interested, you'll find a more detailed closeup here (it's the 8th photo from the top): www.lacerta-bilineata.com/western-green-lizard-lacerta-bi...
My latest ANIMAL VIDEO (it's very brief but pretty unusual: a tiny wall lizard attacks two young great tits): www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQqkSsyrm7E
THE STORY BEHIND THE PHOTO: MY LONG AND ARDUOUS JOURNEY TO BIRD PHOTOGRAPHY
If you've set yourself the challenge of exclusively shooting the wildlife in your own back yard, you might find - as I did - that bird photography is really, really hard.
It's not that reptiles are easy to photograph either, mind - but at least the ones in my garden stay (for the most part) on the ground, and one can learn how to carefully approach them with a camera. They're also clearly egoists, which from a photographer's point of view is is a great character trait: if a lizard detects a human in its vicinity, it's only interested in saving its own skin, and it won't alarm its buddies.
But birds... oh man. Over the years, my feathered friends and I have developed a lovely routine that now defines our peaceful co-existence. As soon as I as much as open a window (let alone the door), I'm instantly greeted by an eruption of panicky fluttering and hysterical shouts from my garden: "SAVE YOUR WOMEN AND CHILDREN AND FLY FOR YOUR LIVES: THE HAIRLESS, PINK MONSTER IS COMING!!! (Yes, I speak bird, and I know that this is exactly what they are shouting 😉).
Needless to say, with the exception of the redstart I already showed here, all my efforts to get the kind of detailed shots I usually strive for with my nature photography ended in complete failure and utter disillusionment. I was ready to give up on stalking the winged misanthropes in my garden altogether, but then winter came - and changed everything.
One day this past January I observed my neighbor Signora P - a kind, elderly Italian lady - putting something on the low garden wall in front of my house. At first I thought she was just putting some treat there for her cat Romeo; the young tom patrols that wall constantly (it's his favorite spot in the garden, and during the warmer months he usually lurks in the thick foliage next to it to prey on lizards).
But once I detected a lot of movement on that wall through my window, I understood she had put a little pile of bread crumbs there; she was feeding the birds who soon arrived in flocks. This was certainly well-intended on my neighbor's part, but her noble action came with a catch, and I'm afraid quite literally.
When I took a stroll through my garden the next day I discovered a suspicious amount of feathers on the ground next to the wall. Romeo had apparently switched from his low-calorie summer diet (lizard) to more energy-rich meals consisting of "fowl" (it was winter after all, so from a nutritionist's point of view this made sense).
I would find fresh traces of Romeo's victims (mostly feathers, but also the odd wing) in my garden over the following days; so my first intuition that my neighbor was feeding her cat hadn't been that far off after all, as Romeo was now clearly being "served" fresh birds on a daily basis. And although the hungry visitors seemed to be aware of the danger and became slightly more prudent, they just couldn't resist the tasty snacks Signora P put on that wall - and neither could Romeo.
It was obvious that I had to act, but talking to my neighbor - who is as stubborn as she is kind - would have been futile, I knew that much. I pondered the matter long and hard - until a light bulb went off in my head. The idea was genius. If successful, what I had in mind would not only increase the birds' chances of surviving Romeo's appetite, but also greatly benefit my own photographic endeavors.
I started to enact my master plan the very next day by buying a giant bag of bird feed (consisting mainly of sunflower seeds) from the store. Then I dragged a huge piece of a tree trunk (approx. 120 cm in height) that we normally chop firewood on in the shed out into the garden and emptied almost half of the bag's content on top of it. Signora P's buffet for birds (and cats) was about to get some serious competition 😊.
My reasoning was as follows: not only would the birds be lured away from the fatally low garden wall to a place where they were safe from the cat - there was nothing around that tree trunk that provided cover for a predator, and the birds had a nice 360° view around it at all times - but I was also able to photograph them while hiding in the shed.
However, in order for my plan to work there was one little extra measure I had to take, and it was one that risked lowering my own life expectancy considerably once the owner of the property - my mom - discovered it. You see, our shed is completely windowless, so if I wanted to use it as a blind, I had no choice but to cut a hole into one of its wooden walls... which I promptly did (I figured all's fair in love - and photography 😉).
Granted, I have absolutely zero carpentering skills, and it showed. That hole was an ugly mess: the shed's wall seemed to have had an encounter with Jack Nicholson's ax-wielding lunatic character from the film 'The Shining'. Needless to say, I was incredibly proud of my work (I mean, come on: there now was a hole where before there wasn't a hole, and it was big enough for the lens of my camera to peek through, so it was mission accomplished as far as I was concerned).
Now all I had to do was wait for the birds to discover the tree trunk. In the meantime I started to mentally prepare myself for the inevitable confrontation with my mom and go through possible explanations for that splintering hole in the wall (it was either gonna be a rabid woodpecker attack or an emergency rescue mission with a feeding tube for a little kid that had accidentally locked himself inside the shed - both seemed valid options, though I slightly preferred the locked-in kid due to the involved drama and heroism 😉).
A whole day went by, and not a single bird visited the sunflower seeds. I had expected that it might take a few hours until the first of the ever curious great tits or blue tits would show up, but given how tiny my garden is, an entire day seemed excessive. Then another day came and went: the birds kept flocking to the bread crumbs on the wall, and my tree trunk kept collecting dust. To add injury to insult, a few fresh feathers on the ground were proof that Romeo was still feasting.
It was incredibly frustrating: I provided my winged guests with a much better view - plus a higher chance of surviving the cuisine - than Signora P's place; I risked (almost) certain death at the hands of my own mother (OK, the act of vandalism on the shed I had committed for my own benefit, but still), yet the birds kept ignoring me.
Then, after three days, just before sunset, I spotted a single blue tit on the tree trunk picking away at the sunflower seeds.
When I got up the next morning I immediately realized that the loud noise that accompanies each and every tit activity had shifted from the wall to the shed. At last the dam had broken: there was a flurry of movement around the tree trunk, and I counted at least 5 different species of birds feasting on the sunflower seeds.
From day 4 onward my plan worked beautifully: the birds now indeed mostly ignored Romeo's "snack wall" and kept to the tree trunk. And yes, I was able to play peeping tom from behind the shed's wall and photograph them!! 😊
Thus, dear readers, I finally managed to produce some acceptable bird photos, and I had even saved my feathered friends from a deadly foe in the process. All through winter and spring I took advantage of my new bird hide, and in late May I started mixing some cherries with the sunflower seeds. The idea was to attract a Eurasian jay (Garrulus glandarius), and as you can see, it worked!
It took me almost three weeks and more than a few tricks to capture that clever fella, but given how long I've been rambling here already, that's a story for another day. As for my mom, she still doesn't know about the hole in the wall, so please don't snitch! 😉.
I hope you like the photo and wish you all a wonderful weekend! Many greetings from Switzerland, and as always: let me know what you think in the comments 🙏 😊 ❤!
P.S. if anyone has their own funny tale about the obstacles we photographers are prepared to overcome for a desired photo, please write it in the comments: I love such stories 😊
"Today's teardrops are tomorrow's rainbows."
-Ricky Nelson
Crazy Tuesday: #Water
A funny note! After taking pictures of puddles near my apartment and getting wet (it's finally raining today); I didn't like the pictures I took. Then I thought about some water drops on some paper, mirror, plastic, etc inside my house. I tried several times and it seems my mind wasn't quite awake yet. I put some water drops with a spray bottle on some iridescent paper and click. But I didn't like them either. Nah! I wiped them off with my hand and these drops remained diagonally and well...cute... here they are. 😊
Thank you so much for the visit and comments!
I really appreciate it!
Passed my 3-month soberversary last week.
EDIT: It's been up half a day, and ... I just now realized it's a picture of a revolving door. Ohhh - symbolism (?!)
I sure hope not.
Power house mechanic working on steam pump..
© Lewis Hine, photographer, 1920
© Alain Girard, Restored & Colorized, 2024
Be Still My Soul - Three Violins
BiG THANKS to EVERYONE for your personal comments and also your support from selected groups.
Awards are always encouraging and especially appreciated from those add my work to their collection of 'faves'.
Cheerz G
(White Capped variant!)
This small bird is a winter migrant to India from parts of the Central Asia and middle East. It prefers dry areas and desert regions for its habitat and we found it all over the desert - infact it was the most common bird in that area - more than the myna's or bulbuls and sighted in the dry bushes and often coming to the ground.
Wikipedia refers to three distinct morphs of the bird and we sighted all 3 of them, though 2 seemed fairly common - the 3rd one - the white cap - was a bit uncommon but did sight a few times. The one we get down in the Southern India has white on the belly all the way till the neck. We never found it in our home state despite searching several seasons, but am so am glad that we sighted all the 3 variants.
Thank you very much in advance for your views, faves and feedback.
A pair of class 37s, unit 37405 with 37407 tailing, approach Derby some 66 minutes early with the 9.50am Canton Taff Vale Sidings - Derby RTC (1Z33) track-testing train.
The early arrival didn't seem to phase the healthy collection of enthusiasts on the station eager to get up close and personal to these 60yo machines. The train stopped here for a few minutes before reversing in to Network Rail's 'Research and Technical Centre', a few hundred yards out of sight on the left.
Comments off, thanks.
2.16pm, 13th November 2024