View allAll Photos Tagged Useful
I managed to get out to the Pond [Lake] last week. It was a very dull day, but made a welcome change to the rain and high winds we've been getting lately.
There were plenty of ducks, gulls and geese around plus a pair of swans and this pair of white doves.
I've never seen any white doves over there before, so this was a nice surprise and they stayed put for me too.
When I got back home I decided to look doves up on line as I know nothing about them. Most results seemed a bit disparaging about them and called them pigeons. Well, I suppose they are of the pigeon family but to me they are so much more distinctive.
Anyway - I know pigeons can be seen as a nuisance, but I read somewhere that people's perception of them changes for the better when they find out how useful and stoic homing pigeons were during the war and they were even awarded medals - so there!
Just for a bit of useful information, there were no enhancements on this photograph (and the entire roll of film) as far as anything goes. Before using this film, I decided that I would try something a little contradistinctive. I wound the film back and forward after the original loading process, allowing it to get a bit scrunched, abused, used and unamused in hopes that something would come out of it all. It appears as though this particular photograph got wet and completely damaged and that I went back and added a few elements into it, but none was such the case. Most of the roll turned out this way, which for me, was rather gratifying.
NGC 6334, the usefully named Cat's Paw Nebula! Shot over 3 nights at Hawker, South Australia, this is the first serious target with the new Askar 130PHQ telescope with shots over 3 nights (rather than a couple hours!), shot with R, G and B Astronomik filters and an Optolong L-Para dual narrowband for luminance and finer stars. Warp Astron WD-20 EQ mount doing a good job when the wind wasn't catching the big scope, PHD2 guiding, NINA camera control, QHY268M camera, APP and PS processing.
With the glowing embers of a fall day silently slipping away, a trio of once active and useful farm objects stand as quiet sentinels pointing to a past now only alive in the minds of older folks and featured in books celebrating nostalgia.
The metal wheel of an Aermotor Windmill still creaks in a strong breeze when it calls out in vain for oil. A ladder still snuggles upward on the silo, once climbed with swiftness by a young farmer adjusting the blower pipes during silo filling season.
The barn looks like an old farmer worn out by the toil of a lifetime. A damaged roof and broken windows speak of neglect that once would have been an embarrassment to a farmer in its active years.
Someone driving by on the nearby dusty gravel road might give the site a cursory glance but dismiss it as no longer relevant.
When we are young and vibrant, there are vague realizations of a distant future when our life might not be the same but in our busy days of making a living and raising a family we put off thinking very much about what is inevitably coming.
However, when our working days cease, things begin to change. Sure, we have more time on our hands to do certain hobbies or pursue interests like gardening or traveling. But there are other subtle changes that many of us find more difficult to admit or accept.
Losing our relevance to younger generations can be one of those challenges. We often discover our adult sons and daughters now seek out the advice of others before asking us for our opinion on their life decisions.
And, if we don’t keep up with technology or social trends, we soon realize our grown children or older grandchildren find our ignorance humorous and we laugh along with them.
But deep inside we realize our sphere of influence in life is declining and won’t return.
(Photographed near Stacy, MN)
Quality prints, greeting cards, many useful products and now jigsaw puzzles can be purchased at >> kaye-menner.pixels.com/featured/sunflower-bright-and-happ... OR www.lens2print.co.uk/imageview.asp?imageID=70353
I just love sunflowers. They are so bright and happy. Whether in a field in in the home, they are a pleasure to view.
Sunflowers symbolize adoration, loyalty and longevity. Much of the meaning of sunflowers stems from its namesake, the sun itself. ... Sunflowers are known for being “happy” flowers, making them the perfect gift to bring joy to someone's (or your) day.
Sunflowers make up the genus Helianthus which contains almost 70 different species. The meaning of sunflower is rooted in it's genus Helianthus- helios meaning sun and anthos meaning flower. Grown year-round, sunflowers have large flower faces and bright petals.
THE FINE ART AMERICA LOGO / MY WATERMARK WILL NOT APPEAR ON PURCHASED PRINTS OR PRODUCTS.
Useful gorse (Ulex europaeus) pollen loads on this honey bee.
Loads of bees on willow catkins today but there were also some like this one working the gorse. I watched some on coltsfoot flowers too but i couldnt get a picture - they were too fast ...or maybe I was too slow.
Good to see lots of pollen coming into the hives.
The Selecter - Carry Go Bring Home
The Santa Fe was donated to the City of Kingman in 1953, at the end of its useful life. It covered over two million miles between Los Angeles and Kansas City.
This is my spotty cotton shawl which light and soft. I often carry it with me. I have used it as a scarf, a wrap, a blanket, a table cloth and a curtain. Further uses are still to be discovered.
Scene from trip to a favorite haunt, Olde Good Things in Scranton, PA
Postprocessed with Snapseed using portrait preset, contrast, local adjustments, and Lightroom to desaturate. .
The most photographically useful mile on the Missabe strikes again with this consolation prize U717 yesterday. I had been out specifically to catch the squeaky clean veterans unit leading A439 but it outran the setting sun to Birch. After failing I started southward for home and caught up with this guy at Culver and beat him here to the south crossing at Burnett with about 6 minutes of sun left.
Ya don't get this opportunity often. Also as you'll see in the companion photo this is a set of shiny new 8000 series ore cars that have displaced the old order astonishingly quickly. The Missabe is down to one or two trainsets of old cars in pellet service.
This portrait of Katherine Parr is clearly from a template produced for multiple portrait copies of the queen to be hung in the halls of English nobility. It seems to generally fit the overall image of Katherine as reddish-blonde-haired, blue eyed, healthy, and attractive.
Portrait painted by an unknown artist, possibly a follower of Hans Eworth, in the 16th century.
Oil on panel. Collection of Appleby Castle.
Philip Mould: "As the famous rhyme suggests, Katherine Parr’s record as the last of Henry VIII’s six wives was unique. She survived. Though Anne of Cleves, the sad ‘Flanders Mare’ unable to arouse England’s most insatiable monarch, lived on until 1557 it is only Katherine who was neither divorced, beheaded, or died. She was by any standards a remarkable woman: beautiful enough to marry the King of England, despite having neither royal nor court background; shrewd enough to remain his Queen, despite court plots and an attempt on her life; and courageous enough to sustain the Protestant cause, despite Henry’s latent sympathies for the Roman faith. She was Regent of England during Henry’s invasion of France in 1544. And with her publication of religious works such as Prayers or Meditations in 1545, she became not only the first English Queen to publish a work of prose, but the first woman to do so in the sixteenth century.
Katherine became Queen of England in July 1543. Henry was her third husband, but, on this occasion, not her first choice. She had instead fallen in love with the dashing courtier Thomas Seymour, and was understandably wary of Henry’s past form when it came to marital relations. Five wives had failed – what chance did a sixth have of success? Nonetheless, to turn down the King’s offer of marriage was unthinkable. Katherine, a deeply devout woman, determined that if she was to be Queen, she would be Queen with a purpose. That purpose was to further the cause of the Protestant Reformation.
In doing so Katherine, literally, risked her life. Never afraid to exercise her sharp mind, Katherine had become accustomed to discussing religion with Henry VIII. Though this was at first welcomed by the King, the conservative factions of court and church were terrified of any radical words whispered into the Royal ear - that after all was how Anne Boleyn had first led Henry towards Lutheranism. To conservatives like Bishop Gardiner and Chancellor Wriothesley the answer seemed obvious – Katherine should meet the same fate as Anne. At first, Henry, increasingly irascible from ulcerated legs, indicated that Katherine’s days were numbered. An arrest warrant was drawn up, and, amid rumours of ‘a new queen’, arrest could only have been followed by death. But Katherine succeeded in persuading Henry of her good faith and innocent naivety. “Is it even so, Sweetheart?”, said the King, “Then perfect friends we are now again…” Thus did Tudor Royalty kiss and make up.
Katherine’s victory checked any conservative renaissance in the final years of the King’s reign. From now all eyes turned to the future (Protestant) reign of Edward VI. Here, Katherine appears to have been less successful, and for once followed her heart rather than her head. With ill-considered haste, she took Thomas Seymour as her lover within weeks of Henry’s death in 1547, and married him just months later. In doing so she lost any chance she may have had in exercising power during Edward’s minority. And yet, perhaps her final and most enduring success was yet to come, for in helping to restore the Princesses Mary and Elizabeth to the line of succession she had extended the Tudor dynasty by half a century. Katherine died after giving birth to a daughter in 1548.
The iconography of Katherine Parr is of particular interest. It is ironic that so few portraits of the Queen appear to survive, given that she was the foremost patron of portraiture in mid-Tudor England. There are several reasons why the Queen liked portraiture, not least because she evidently liked art. But perhaps the most intriguing reason may lie in Henry VIII’s habit (undoubtedly annoying to Catherine) of repeatedly portraying himself with Jane Seymour. Was Katherine’s jealousy manifested in art? Was her decision to commission the first full-length portraits of Elizabeth and Mary as Princesses, part of her desire to elevate them from illegitimate bastards to heirs of the English crown? Whatever the reasons, her legacy to the advancement of English portraiture cannot be doubted.
There are five recorded certainly known portraits of Katherine Parr that survive. The first is a miniature formerly in the collection of Horace Walpole (now at Sudeley Castle), which is probably by Lucas Hornebolt. The second and third, in the National Portrait Gallery, are a full-length (once erroneously called Lady Jane Grey) by Master John, and a half-length by an unknown artist. A fourth (Lambeth Palace) shows a young Katherine in the 1530s. And now the present example represents a fifth, and shows the Queen towards the end of her life.
And yet, Katherine’s own records show that she commissioned at least more than a dozen portraits of herself; “give me one of your small pictures”, her fourth husband Thomas Seymour wrote, “if ye have any left…” The contrast between Katherine’s commissions and those extant portraits gives a useful indication of how little survives from the sixteenth century – in this case less than a third. The Queen’s chamber accounts show that John Bettes the Elder painted up to seven miniatures – none survive – and nor apparently do any other miniatures by Hornebolt, aside from the possible Sudeley example.
Records also show that Katherine was painted by Hans Eworth, the Dutch artist considered the closest thing to Holbein’s heir . Such patronage was an indication of Katherine’s desire to support the new, for Eworth had only arrived in England c.1543. His earliest known work is dated 1549. The almost enamel-like flesh tones and bright colouring of the cheeks in this portrait, together with the distinctive modeling of the eyes, may suggest that the artist of this picture was influenced in some way by Eworth’s now lost original. The accomplished handling of the detail in Katherine’s out-turned collar, and the delicate portrayal of her hair, is also reminiscent of Eworth’s Mary Neville, Lady Dacre (National Gallery of Canada). That the jewelry Katherine wears in this portrait is similar to that recorded in her inventories, not to mention the intelligent depiction of Katherine’s slight physique, further suggests that it is based on a contemporary ad vivum example."
All sorts of helpful tables--metric equivalents, English and Federal money denominations, and even avoirdupois weights!
All found on the back of a vintage composition notebook entitled "50th State". The cover features a map of Hawai'i and room for the student's name and grade, but no other publishing information. I'd say this dates to the early 1960s and was published in Hawai'i.
Binkie is one of our camper van mascots, usually he just keeps a lookout through the windscreen but he was very useful for holding our camping ticket at Priddy Folk Festival last weekend.
The very useful foot (and bike!) ferry across the main Chicester channel. The channel eventually leads to the edge of the cathedral city of Chichester itself, the important remains of the Roman villa at Fishbourne and the site of the Roman harbour, now long silted up.
Part of a long and frustrating day's walk, the humid heat wave of late July broken overnight and replaced by flat grey cloud and a miserably cold wind I hadn't expected.
Taken with my phone as I thought I might need both hands for the ferry. A very useful service linking two remote corners of the harbour area, but also doing request stops, threading between the moored yachts on their buoys, picking up and dropping off their owners.
A long cold trudge of a day with few photographs due to the flat light.
The often repeated "fast lenses being useful for shooting low light scenes" is a fallacy unless you are taking a shot that utilises the look of a shallow DOF or the scene is flat.
Personally for scenes that has depth, the longer the focal length, any faster than f2.8 is kind of pointless and I'm better off shooting on tripod and stopping down the lens.
Taken with FE 55mm f1.8 ZA at f2.2, the so-called "CA monster" (regurgitated ad nauseam) for those who are clueless on how to utilise their tools.
The scene was partially illuminated by the headlights of a vehicle outside the frame.
Meanwhile the Z7 has been out for a while, been checking the Z7 Flickr groups hoping to be inspired but oddly, nothing much really jumps out. Not sure what's going on, is it the gear or the user? I suppose it is safe to say that any gear released over the past few years is more than capable of taking decent pictures, in the right hands.
Some recent talk of Canon bringing out their Gen 2 FF mirrorless 70+mp with IBIS.
Dieses Affenkind hat seinen Lieblingsplatz gefunden. Gekonnt schaukelt er auf dem Ast und posiert sogar ein wenig kokett für fotografieren Touristen.
So now I can begin to understand how our stuff feels when it reaches the end of its useful life. I believe I'm off to a landfill site for the next generation to discover.
Quite why Mrs. Flibble thought I was broken I have no idea. Maybe she purchased me in error or just got bored. But worry not - out of sight, out of mind.
*sobs*
*blubber*
I know you'd love to:
New release!
This kit is useful to make bakery.
Total 17items
1Play=20L$
No RARE!
Some of items has material settings, but it is not important.
Example of use can see here :
maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Nautilus%20-%20Shalim/80/2...
Already available at :
my phone sits on my desk all day at work, on vibrate mode. when it rings, it buzzes and skitters all over the place. so i have a pad of post-it notes devoted just to phone-setting, except that kind of bothers me. because i have to use the post-it notes too, and having two pads is dumb.
so i decided to knit something for my phone to sit on during the day, which will also provide me hours of cuteness. this was my solution. SUCCESS.
(it's also a cozy, and the bottom is open so i can plug my phone in.)
Summit shot - also useful from the documentary point of view - taken at sunrise on the top of Mount Rocciamelone (3.538 m), Susa Valley, Italy.
The month is July... but at these altitudes just "a brush" of snow can litterally submerge everything.
Above you can see the lightning rod, the statue of the B.V. Mary, then, below, the chapel, which is actually a Sanctuary, twinned with the other chapel situated at slightly higher altitude on the Monte Rosa, adjacent to the Cabane Giovanni Gnifetti.
Then, on the right of the construction, are visible the door and the window of the unmanaged refuge (I had to dig in the snow to open that door).
_____________________
©Roberto Bertero, All Rights Reserved. This image is not available for use on websites, blogs or other media without the explicit written permission of the photographer.