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The companion shot to the previous "King of the Jungle...Floor." This Eastern American Toad (Anaxyrus a. americanus) is just starting out a life that could last between 30 and 40 years! Also, contrary to popular belief, one does not get warts from touching a toad. In fact, your touch is more hazardous to the toad--because toads absorb water through their lower abdomens, it is important that they stay clean. When touched by people, the salts and oils from our skin can impede the water absorption!
Photo taken in Francis Marion National Forest in South Carolina.
The journey to Kalsubai began around 12a before this exposure was made. It was about a six hour level 7 hike in the dark which wasn't too tough but still pretty energy consuming ascending up to the peak. It helped that six other yogi's from Skylight Yoga were there at every step. Once we made it to the temple we sat down in siddasana and faught off the monkey's attempting at our phones and water bottles. Other than that variable the goal in greeting the morning star with strong Sanga was met. Jai Mahadeva!
The highest point in Maharashtra; Ahmednagar district in Akole Taluka. Leica M11 / Leica 21mm f 3.4 Super Elmar ASPH
Nkosi.artiste@gmail.com
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Chance Nkosi Gomez known as Sri Govindaji (29 years of age) initiated by H.H Swami Jyotirmayanda as Sri Govinda walks an integral yogic path in which photography is the primary creative field of expression. The medium was introduced during sophomore year of high school by educator Dr. Devin Marsh of Robert Morgan Educational Center. Coming into alignment with light, its nature and articulating the camera was the focus during that time. Thereafter while completing a Photographic Technology Degree, the realization of what made an image “striking” came to the foreground of the inner dialogue. These college years brought forth major absorption and reflection as an apprentice to photographer and educator Tony A. Chirinos of Miami Dade College. The process of working towards a singular idea of interest and thus building a series became the heading from here on while the camera aided in cultivating an adherence to the present moment. The viewfinder resembles a doorway to the unified field of consciousness in which line, shape, form, color, value, texture all dissolve. It is here that the yogi is reminded of sat-chit-ananda (the supreme reality as all-pervading; pure consciousness). As of May 2024 Govinda has completed his 300hr yoga teacher training program at Sattva Yoga Academy studying from Master Yogi Anand Mehrotra in Rishikesh, India, Himalayas. This has strengthened his personal Sadhana and allows one to carry and share ancient Vedic Technology leading others in ultimately directing their intellect to bloom into intuition. As awareness and self-realization grows so does the imagery that is all at once divine in the mastery of capturing and controlling light. Over the last seven years he has self-published six photographic books, Follow me i’ll be right behind you (2017), Sonata - Minimal Study (2018), Birds Singing Lies (2018), Rwanda (2019), Where does the body begin? (2019) & Swayam Jyotis (2023). Currently, Govinda is employed at the Leica Store Miami as a camera specialist and starting his journey as a practitioner of yoga ॐ
just watching, and waiting,
outside my sequestered door. As the oldest in the house... for whom the bell tolls... I prefer the plaintive coos of the nesting owls in the neighboring tree.
Once I accepted the inevitability of exposure, I focused on resistance: boosting my immune system and antivirals. I’ll share what I take daily, and if anyone is aware of any reason to *not* take these in the context of coronavirus, please let me know and I’ll update. I have not had a sick day for decades, and perhaps this helped, but remember that my personal journey is not prescriptive and that none of these have been properly studied to reach any conclusions on efficacy, yet:
1) Vitamin D (+ K2 for better absorption): “Studies have indicated that there is a high prevalence of vitamin D deficiency worldwide. Vitamin D deficiency may affect the immune system as vitamin D plays an immunomodulation role, enhancing innate immunity by up-regulating the expression and secretion of antimicrobial peptides, which boosts mucosal defenses. Furthermore, recent meta-analyses have reported a protective effect of vitamin D supplementation on respiratory tract infections” — WHO and an apparently biased site, but some links: Vitamin D Wiki
2) Magical mushroom powder of Shitake + Maitake: “We found significant stimulation of defense reaction. In all cases, the most active was the Maitake-Shiitake combination” — NIH
3) Coconut oil: “Several in vitro, animal, and human studies support the potential of coconut oil, lauric acid and its derivatives as effective and safe agents against a virus like nCoV-2019. Mechanistic studies on other viruses show that at least three mechanisms may be operating. Given the safety and broad availability of virgin coconut oil (VCO), we recommend that VCO be considered as a general prophylactic against viral and microbial infection.” — Ateneo University
4) Zinc, short term use: “In this study we demonstrate that the combination of Zn(2+) and PT at low concentrations (2 µM Zn(2+) and 2 µM PT) inhibits the replication of SARS-coronavirus (SARS-CoV)” — Researchgate And some warnings about prolonged use: Oregon State
5) Oregano oil capsules: “Mexican oregano oil and its main component, carvacrol, are able to inhibit different human and animal viruses in vitro.” — NIH
And then found to be helpful with other viruses, like norovirus and herpes: “This study provides novel findings on the antiviral properties of oregano oil” — sfamjournals
6) Vitamin C: “2019-nCoV infected pneumonia, namely severe acute respiratory infection (SARI) has caused global concern and emergency. We hypothesize that Vitamin C infusion can help improve the prognosis of patients with SARI. Therefore, it is necessary to study the clinical efficacy” — Clinicaltrials
These are all inexpensive on Amazon, but if you want an even stronger placebo effect, find the most expensive version, as that is proven to work better :) ScienceDaily
7) Update: I have added Quercetin. Its impact on Covid-19 has not yet been properly researched, but the basic mechanism could be similar to Chloroquine, and is an over-the-counter supplement even if you don’t have symptoms. Best with Zinc. From molecular simulation studies: "Liu et al. (2020) successfully crystallised the COVID-19 main protease (Mpro), which is a potential drug target. Quercetin... and curcumin [among others] appeared to have the best potential to act as COVID-19 Mpro inhibitors."
8) I also take NMN + TMG and have been discussing possible downstream NAD+ / sirtuin effects on COVID-19 with David Sinclair of Harvard Medical School. As with all of these, nothing is proven; it's just a fascinating hypothesis. The observed age effect on mortality is stark — the younger a person is, across the spectrum, the lower the death rate and hospitalization rate. Looking to NAD+ depletion as we age, and exacerbated by inflammation, perhaps it's ultimately an energy crisis and a loss of NAD + ATP that does us in.
Snips from his recent book Lifespan:
“NAD boosts the activity of all seven sirtuins. And because NAD is used by over 500 different enzymes, without any NAD, we’d be dead in 30 seconds. NAD acts as a fuel for sirtuins. NAD levels decrease with age throughout the body. Human studies with NAD boosters (NMN and NR) are ongoing. So far, there has been no toxicity, not even a hint of it.” (p.134)
Also: "Most antiviral drugs target specific viral proteins. Consequently, they often work for only one virus, and their efficacy can be compromised by the rapid evolution of resistant variants. There is a need for the identification of host proteins with broad-spectrum antiviral functions, which provide effective targets for therapeutic treatments that limit the evolution of viral resistance. Here, we report that sirtuins present such an opportunity for the development of broad-spectrum antiviral treatments, since our findings highlight these enzymes as ancient defense factors that protect against a variety of viral pathogens." — Researchgate
Sinclair added trimethylglycine (TMG) in a recent podcast. He also mentions not to take NMN or NR at night as they interfere with sleep.
H/T Nova Spivack for the corona-relevant links. He is maintaining a more complete list here.
“Ah, distinctly I remember
it was in the bleak December
And each separate dying ember
wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl
to hear discourse so plainly,
Though its answer little meaning—
little relevancy bore
For we cannot help agreeing
that no living human being
Ever yet was blessed with seeing
bird above his chamber door
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt,
and ominous bird of yore
Meant in croaking ‘Nevermore.’”
— Edgar Allan Poe
The Hague
May 2012
The Netherlands
Urban life in the Netherlands
Ricoh GRD IV
Please do not reproduce or use this picture without my explicit permission.
If you ask nicely i will probably say yes, just ask me first!
If you happen to be in one of my frames and have any objections to this.
Please contact me!
All rights reserved
Da Dong Roast Duck Restaurant, Beijing
July 2012
China
Arguably the best roast duck in town, certainly not the cheapest either!
Urban life
Ricoh GR Digital IV
Please do not reproduce or use this picture without my explicit permission.
If you ask nicely I will probably say yes, just ask me first!
If you happen to be in one of my frames and have any objections to this.
Please contact me!
Please no glossy awards, scripted comments and big thumbnails back to your own work.
I will remove them..
VU, Amsterdam
March 2012
The Netherlands
Urban life in the Netherlands
Ricoh GRD IV
Please do not reproduce or use this picture without my explicit permission.
If you ask nicely i will probably say yes, just ask me first!
If you happen to be in one of my frames and have any objections to this.
Please contact me!
All rights reserved
Tiananmen
July 2012
China
Patriotism, Innovation, Inclusiveness, Virtue..
At least this little girl can strike the first one of her list..
Urban life
Canon 550D
Please do not reproduce or use this picture without my explicit permission.
If you ask nicely I will probably say yes, just ask me first!
If you happen to be in one of my frames and have any objections to this.
Please contact me!
Please no glossy awards, scripted comments and big thumbnails back to your own work.
I will remove them..
West Midlands PTE 4453 ROK453M
Daimler Fleetline, East Lancs
New to West Midlands PTE
4453 (ROK 453M), an East Lancs bodied Fleetline, is loading for Cheylesmore some years after the reconstruction of Broadgate and ten years after entering service. 4453 was one of a batch of twenty ordered by Coventry prior to absorption into the West Midlands PTE and delivered to the PTE. Numbered 4447-4466 by WMPTE, I assume they would have followed on from Coventry's last 1973 Fleetline, 142. Thus 4453 would have been Coventry 149. Perhaps!
Coventry, Upper Trinity Street
22 September 1984
The Hague
The Netherlands
2012
Candid shots in and around the Public Transport in The Netherlands
Ricoh GRD IV
150 megapixel panorama made using a Nikon 105mm macro lens and a Really Right Stuff pano head, showing the amazing details of the magnificent bamboo trees that line the dense, dark path through the Pipiwai Trail off the Road to Hana on the island of Maui.
I just had to do the shadow self-portrait here. It was so bright that the shadow lines were extremely crisp, even with refraction and absorption under 2 feet of water. Taken in the Mediterranean at Sardinia.
Leiden CS
February 2013
Candid shots in and around Public Transport
Ricoh GR Digital IV
Check out my blog: www.thecovertphotographer.wordpress.com/
"Date: 2019. Artist: Ulrike Koch-Brinkmann. Medium: Marble stucco on PMMA, natural pigments in egg tempera, tin, wood, gold foil.
The archer from a Greek temple pediment wears trousers with an intricate zigzag design, a long-sleeve pullover with a diamond pattern, and a vest decorated with lions and griffins. The patterns are visible in ultraviolet-induced luminescence and raking light on the original marble sculpture. The color values for the reconstruction were determined through comparative study of the technical photography, the well-preserved color on a statue of a Persian rider from the Athenian Acropolis, and the surviving pigments on other fragments from the same pediment. Although the archer’s attire reflects that of famed horsemen from areas north and east of ancient Greece, he may represent the mythical Trojan prince Paris, who abducted Helen and thus caused the Trojan War.
"The archer from the west pediment of the Temple of Aphaia on Aegina, which presumably shows the Trojan war, wears long, tightly fitting trousers with a complex zig-zag pattern. Over his long-sleeved pullover with diamond pattern he wears a vest, which is decorated with a wide border and with small figures of griffin-birds and lions. This splendidly ornamented clothing of the famed horsemen of the northern and eastern neighbors of the Greeks is clearly visible with the help of ultraviolet and raking light. The locks of hair were fashioned separately and then attached. It has been proposed that this figure shows the Trojan prince Paris, who abducted Helen and thus caused the Trojan war. Paris eventually shot the arrow which killed the Greek warrior Achilles.
The excavators of the fragments of the pedimental sculptures of the temple of Aphaia at Aigina found many remnants of blue and red paint, but no pigment from the garment of the archer has survived. Paint rendering the skin (a mixture of madder and red ochre) can also be documented on several otherwarriors and therefore is assumed to have been used on all the figures of the west pediment.
For the reconstruction Variants A and B, the colors green (malachite), blue (azurite), and red, along with yellow and brown ocher, were chosen, on the analogy of the so-called Persian Rider from the Athenian Acropolis. During the reconstruction process it became clear that the decorative elements were designed with the help of a grid. The two variants were differentiated by reversing the placement of blue and green, as well as red and brown ocher, within the decoration of the trousers and the upper garments.
The reconstruction Variant C was not made using a cast of the figure as restored by Bertel Thorvaldsen like for Variant A and B, but rather a copy based on a 3-D scan of the original. In 3-D printing, which was done in PMMA, traces of the ornament that have weathered can be made out even in areas where they are not revealed by photography. This precise information served as the basis of the most recent reconstruction of the ornament and confirms the process used for Variants A and B. Individual elements of the zig-zag border that runs around the vest are a little wider in this variant.
The traces of pigment on the fragments still in the storerooms of the excavation at the sanctuary in Greece could be examined in 2017 using newer techniques of ultraviolet-visible absorption spectroscopy (UV-Vis spectroscopy) and visible-induced infrared luminescence imaging (VIL), enabling a more precise identification. These new results led to a higher degree of precision in the new reconstruction of 2019. So, for example, it was determined that the blue pigment used was Egyptian blue and for red, red ocher mixed with cinnabar. In addition, on the analogy of ancient textiles of the peoples to the north who rode horses, now preserved in the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, dots of gilding were added to the ornament."" - info from the Met.
"The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 Fifth Avenue, along the Museum Mile on the eastern edge of Central Park on Manhattan's Upper East Side, is by area one of the world's largest art museums. A much smaller second location, The Cloisters at Fort Tryon Park in Upper Manhattan, contains an extensive collection of art, architecture, and artifacts from medieval Europe.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art was founded in 1870 with its mission to bring art and art education to the American people. The museum's permanent collection consists of works of art from classical antiquity and ancient Egypt, paintings, and sculptures from nearly all the European masters, and an extensive collection of American and modern art. The Met maintains extensive holdings of African, Asian, Oceanian, Byzantine, and Islamic art. The museum is home to encyclopedic collections of musical instruments, costumes, and accessories, as well as antique weapons and armor from around the world. Several notable interiors, ranging from 1st-century Rome through modern American design, are installed in its galleries.
The Fifth Avenue building opened on March 30, 1880. In 2021, despite the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City, the museum attracted 1,958,000 visitors, ranking fourth on the list of most-visited art museums in the world.
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over 300.46 square miles (778.2 km2), New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the United States. The city is within the southern tip of New York State, and constitutes the geographical and demographic center of both the Northeast megalopolis and the New York metropolitan area – the largest metropolitan area in the world by urban landmass. With over 20.1 million people in its metropolitan statistical area and 23.5 million in its combined statistical area as of 2020, New York is one of the world's most populous megacities, and over 58 million people live within 250 mi (400 km) of the city. New York City is a global cultural, financial, and media center with a significant influence on commerce, health care and life sciences, entertainment, research, technology, education, politics, tourism, dining, art, fashion, and sports. New York is the most photographed city in the world. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy, an established safe haven for global investors, and is sometimes described as the capital of the world." - info from Wikipedia.
The fall of 2022 I did my 3rd major cycling tour. I began my adventure in Montreal, Canada and finished in Savannah, GA. This tour took me through the oldest parts of Quebec and the 13 original US states. During this adventure I cycled 7,126 km over the course of 2.5 months and took more than 68,000 photos. As with my previous tours, a major focus was to photograph historic architecture.
Now on Instagram.
he light here was incredible this time when I went which made me compose differently to what I had imagined...also a vertical shot
Processed using calibrated near-infrared methane-absorption band filtered (CB3) images of Titan taken by Cassini on May 7 2017.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI/CICLOPS/Kevin M. Gill
Summerpalace, Beijing Juli 2012
China
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_Palace
Canon 550D
Please do not reproduce or use this picture without my explicit permission.
If you ask nicely I will probably say yes, just ask me first!
If you happen to be in one of my frames and have any objections to this.
Please contact me!
Please no glossy awards, scripted comments and big thumbnails back to your own work.
I will remove them..
part of liverpools revamped waterfront location looking windswept and interesting against the passing clouds, i dont normally enjoy light absorption by the clouds but i think it works well here.
The Art of Being
The fern in the rain breathes the silver message.
Stay, lie low. Play your dark reeds
and relearn the beauty of absorption.
There is nothing beyond the rotten log
covered with leaves and needles.
Forget the light emerging with its golden wick.
Raise your face to the water-laden frond.
A thousand blossoms will fall into your arms.
By Anne Coray
My Daily Baby Spinach Salad. I have switched from Iceberg lettuce to Spinach because Spinach is a Super food loaded with Vitamins and Minerals you just dont find in any other food.
Health Benefits of Spinach
Like other dark greens, spinach is an excellent source of beta-carotene, a powerful disease-fighting antioxidant that's been shown, among other things, to reduce the risk of developing cataracts. It fights heart disease and cancer as well.
As a dark, leafy green, spinach possesses several important phytochemicals, including lutein, which helps prevent age-related macular degeneration. Spinach also contains lipoic acid, which helps antioxidant vitamins C and E regenerate. Because of its role in energy production, lipoic acid is being investigated for regulating blood sugar levels.
Served raw, spinach is a good source of vitamin C, another powerful antioxidant. Overcook it, however, and you lose most of this important vitamin. Though spinach is rich in calcium, most of it is unavailable, because oxalic acid in spinach binds with calcium, preventing its absorption. The abundant potassium in spinach is available, and it will promote heart health. When you cook spinach, it cooks down tremendously. Because cooking concentrates nutrients and fiber, a serving of cooked spinach gives you even more bang for your buck than a serving of raw.
A 10-ounce bag of raw spinach, which contains approximately 284 grams of spinach, provides 1,585 milligrams of potassium.
Potassium functions as an electrolyte, which means that it helps balance the amount of fluid in your body and transmits electrical impulses produced by nerves, making it vital to muscle function. Potassium works closely with other electrolytes including sodium and calcium and staying healthy requires a balance between these minerals. In fact, the American Heart Association stresses the importance of potassium because it lessens the effects of sodium and helps control blood pressure.
A plant absorbs nutrition when pixies induce a type of magnetic, yet organic, solenoid into the roots’ water. This absorption occurs much like iron filings near a loadstone.
WET DREAM, Oil painting by Jaisini
Wet Dream, an oil painting by Jaisini, in terms of exploration of own sexuality, dreams, or nightmares, belongs to a human traditional need for personal revelations. The imagery of the work is of a usually Jaisinesque theme that is not to be a statement or an illusion, but which summons the emotions.
In Wet Dream, the feelings of morning euphoria and desire create a new formula of early life’s passion. Jaisini delivers a high sensory level through the graduate, almost hypnotic step by step desire awakening.
The work precedes the Reincarnation series. As in all of his paintings, Jaisini pursues a metamorphosis of the physical and mental states. In his works, the concept and the material are enclosed and inserted within each other. The essential visual vehicle is in a line, that emphatically has a life of its own and could be perceived as an automatic release. The enclosure of the line is not only graphical, but also symbolic of the connection between the picture’s elements which await their disclosure.
In the years of cubism, Andre Masson created his series of erotic drawings. In his works, Masson portrayed pure erotica with total absorption in the act, orgiastic, uncomplicated, and a little banal. The lack of diversity in such a subject matter as eroticism resulted in the Masson’s scenes of pairs, trios, or even dozens of naked women interacting in a sexual way with one another. Masson filled these scenes with a Rubensian appreciation of the flesh and its pleasures, the very quality which impoverishes the otherwise fruitful area of human psyche.
Jaisini, on the contrary, uses the sensual overtones to enrich and explore the mysterious realm of mind potential. So, instead of creating automatically, similarly, and limited, Jaisini employs his mind to complicate and develop the subject of desire.
In Masson’s erotic series, the only sentiment is the libidinous desire. Jaisini reflects a different time and epoch that is not satisfied with the simple approach. Jaisini combines together the physical with psychological, which becomes nearly a game.
The expressionistic line swirls flow in the open canvas ground and embrace the canvas in expansive loops. The work is airy.
The artist’s thought transfers line into an image of a contraposto torso with a liplike part on the neck cut. Another female images express their physical and emotional concerns. The bottom lean figure indicates the young age of this female. In turn, that may explain the desperate pose for the erotic fulfillment. The third blond woman at the upper right corner appears to be more sexually mature. She holds a big breast that belongs to another female with a face that has only big red lips and flowing down hair lines. Here, we find a profile of a man who seems to sniff the aroma of the female bodies not without pleasure. In the center, there is another gasping profile. The curvilinear forms enhance the overall impression of a fluid movement, which so well corresponds to the erotic sensation. A phallic finger touches a soft pillow and charges erotic energy in all other phallic configurations in Wet Dream.
All images link in their conscious-unconscious, figurative-abstract condition.
The cycle of desire goes on endlessly and is at the core of human existence. In Wet Dream, Jaisini liberates the desire from the self. In this well born work of art the desire is taken for a model. The work demonstrates what we know of creation to be a combination of already existing things into newer forms. That being so, the desire of man must have been in an endless existence and will continue to dwell in bodies and in works of art to which Wet Dream is an example.
Yustas Kotz-Gottlieb
Review of “Wet Dream” by Paul Jaisini
“The beauty of a living thing is not the atoms that go into it, but the way those atoms are put together.”
Carl Sagan, Cosmos
Macro Mondays - theme: “Defining Beauty”
Common chicory (Cichorium intybus), is a bushy perennial herbaceous plant with blue, lavender, or occasionally white flowers. Various varieties are cultivated for salad leaves, chicons (blanched buds), or for roots (var. sativum), which are baked, ground, and used as a coffee substitute and additive. It is also grown as a forage crop for livestock. It lives as a wild plant on roadsides in its native Europe, and in North America and Australia, where it has become naturalized.
Chicory (especially the flower) was used as a treatment in Germany, and is recorded in many books as an ancient German treatment for everyday ailments. It is variously used as a tonic and as a treatment for gallstones, gastro-enteritis, sinus problems and cuts and bruises. (Howard M. 1987). Chicory contains inulin, which may help humans with weight loss, constipation, improving bowel function, and general health. In rats, it may increase calcium absorption and bone mineral density.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cykoria podróżnik (Cichorium intybus) – gatunek rośliny należący do rodziny astrowatych. Znany też jako podróżnik błękitny. Rodzimy obszar jego występowania to znaczna część Europy, Azji oraz Algieria i Tunezja w Afryce Północnej, ale rozprzestrzenił się szeroko i obecnie występuje na wszystkich kontynentach z wyjątkiem Antarktydy. Jest także uprawiany w Azji, Europie, Australazji, Afryce i Ameryce Północnej. W polskiej florze jest rośliną pospolicie występującą na całym obszarze. Cykoria podróżnik to roślina lecznicza, korzeń łagodnie pobudza wytwarzanie soku żołądkowego, żółci oraz ma działanie moczopędne. Jest stosowany w wielu mieszankach ziołowych do leczenia zaburzeń trawienia i przy ogólnym osłabieniu. Młode listki cykorii można wiosną dodawać do sałatek, ze względu na zawartość witamin C, B i mikroelementów.
"In botany, a leaf is an above-ground plant organ specialized for photosynthesis. For this purpose, a leaf is typically flat (laminar) and thin. There is continued debate about whether the flatness of leaves evolved to expose the chloroplasts to more light or to increase the absorption of carbon dioxide". --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leaf
Open Mind — See Future — Behind Curtain — Now
Homage to Paul Jaisini By Gleitzeit International Group 2014
WET DREAM, Oil painting by Paul Jaisini
Wet Dream, an oil painting by Paul Jaisini, in terms of exploration of own sexuality, dreams, or nightmares, belongs to a human traditional need for personal revelations. The imagery of the work is of a usually Jaisinesque theme that is not to be a statement or an illusion, but which summons the emotions.
In Wet Dream, the feelings of morning euphoria and desire create a new formula of early life’s passion. Paul Jaisini delivers a high sensory level through the graduate, almost hypnotic step by step desire awakening.
The work precedes the Reincarnation series. As in all of his paintings, Paul Jaisini pursues a metamorphosis of the physical and mental states. In his works, the concept and the material are enclosed and inserted within each other. The essential visual vehicle is in a line, that emphatically has a life of its own and could be perceived as an automatic release. The enclosure of the line is not only graphical, but also symbolic of the connection between the picture’s elements which await their disclosure.
In the years of cubism, Andre Masson created his series of erotic drawings. In his works, Masson portrayed pure erotica with total absorption in the act, orgiastic, uncomplicated, and a little banal. The lack of diversity in such a subject matter as eroticism resulted in the Masson’s scenes of pairs, trios, or even dozens of naked women interacting in a sexual way with one another. Masson filled these scenes with a Rubensian appreciation of the flesh and its pleasures, the very quality which impoverishes the otherwise fruitful area of human psyche.
Paul Jaisini, on the contrary, uses the sensual overtones to enrich and explore the mysterious realm of mind potential. So, instead of creating automatically, similarly, and limited, P. Jaisini employs his mind to complicate and develop the subject of desire.
In Masson’s erotic series, the only sentiment is the libidinous desire. Paul Jaisini reflects a different time and epoch that is not satisfied with the simple approach. Paul Jaisini combines together the physical with psychological, which becomes nearly a game.
The expressionistic line swirls flow in the open canvas ground and embrace the canvas in expansive loops. The work is airy.
The artist’s thought transfers line into an image of a contraposto torso with a liplike part on the neck cut. Another female images express their physical and emotional concerns. The bottom lean figure indicates the young age of this female. In turn, that may explain the desperate pose for the erotic fulfillment. The third blond woman at the upper right corner appears to be more sexually mature. She holds a big breast that belongs to another female with a face that has only big red lips and flowing down hair lines. Here, we find a profile of a man who seems to sniff the aroma of the female bodies not without pleasure. In the center, there is another gasping profile. The curvilinear forms enhance the overall impression of a fluid movement, which so well corresponds to the erotic sensation. A phallic finger touches a soft pillow and charges erotic energy in all other phallic configurations in Wet Dream.
All images link in their conscious-unconscious, figurative-abstract condition.
The cycle of desire goes on endlessly and is at the core of human existence. In Wet Dream, P. Jaisini liberates the desire from the self. In this well born work of art the desire is taken for a model. The work demonstrates what we know of creation to be a combination of already existing things into newer forms. That being so, the desire of man must have been in an endless existence and will continue to dwell in bodies and in works of art to which Wet Dream is an example.
Yustas Kotz-Gottlieb
Review of “Wet Dream” by Paul Jaisini
Copyright ©2015 Yustas Kotz-Gottlieb. All rights reserved. New York
HORACIO PATRONE: NIKON D 500 LENS NIKOR AF-S 300/4 D IF ED + NIKON TC 1.4- RESERVA PARQUE SARMIENTO,BUENOS AIRES - ARGENTINA-INFO: from the friend Ramon Roman Montero ... although the Ceibo is an emblematic species in Argentina (national flower) and that is cultivated as an ornament for parks and public walks, the majority of the population does not know the main biological function of this species, which is to help balance coastal environments.
The roots of this species are pivoting, with knots produced by nitrifying bacteria that live in symbiosis, facilitating the absorption of the nitrogen they fix, while taking the organic substances that it elaborates. Its roots are very strong -the main ones stand out- and are affirmed to the ground, counteracting the erosion caused by the waters. Ceibo seeds are transported by water, germinating in places such as sandbars, where they help stabilize the land to form new islands.
We can conclude then that this species is essential for coastal environments - besides that not any tree can be present in them. The negligence in these cases, is the one that causes negative consequences, such as floods and disappearance of species, among other types of imbalances.
Amsterdam
June 2012
The Netherlands
Urban life in the Netherlands
Ricoh GRD IV
Please do not reproduce or use this picture without my explicit permission.
If you ask nicely I will probably say yes, just ask me first!
If you happen to be in one of my frames and have any objections to this.
Please contact me!
Please no glossy awards, scripted comments and big thumbnails back to your own work.
I will remove them..
An out-of-body experience (OBE or sometimes OOBE) is an experience in which a person seems to perceive the world from a location outside their physical body. An OBE is a form of autoscopy (literally "seeing self"), although the term autoscopy more commonly refers to the pathological condition of seeing a second self, or doppelgänger.Do you want to float around the astral plane without dying first? Are you longing to leave your body at home for a few hours to explore the cosmos? People report out-of-body experiences (OBEs) while dreaming, during near-death experiences, or through relaxation techniques such as meditation. For some people, having an OBE can be like being Alice in your very own Wonderland. Read on to learn how to experience this on purpose.Ready your mind and body. Choose a quiet place you find relaxing. You can be indoors or outdoors, as long as you are comfortable. Make sure you won't be interrupted. OBEs are most common in the morning at 4:00am-6:00am, however trying this at night or when you are tired will probably just make you fall asleep.
Find a comfortable position, either sitting or lying down. Many people choose to lie down on their backs, but be forewarned that temporary sleep paralysis is more likely in this position if you do fall asleep. These may consist of dark figures, ghosts or whatever you fear entering your room. Though this may sound scary, the more you realise they cannot physically harm you for they are your mind's creation, the less scary it is to endure.
Affirm to yourself that you are going to have an out-of-body experience. Say to yourself "Mind awake-Body Asleep" or "I will have a lucid dream." Repeat this several times until it is the only thought left in your mind. Close your eyes and relax. Become less conscious of your external surroundings. Empty your mind of thoughts and ideas. Meditation techniques can be helpful here to maintain an empty mind while still remaining focused and aware. Allow yourself to almost fall asleep. Actually sleeping would defeat the purpose. Instead, let yourself drift close to sleep while concentrating on being conscious of your sensations and mental state. Feel a vibrating sensation in your body. As you relax further, you should become more aware of what's happening inside your mind and body than anything happening in the room around you. Try to feel the vibration of your body, coming from both the larger pulse of your blood and breath to the individual movements of your cells. You may think you hear sounds like a tornado/wind. The urge to move here will be tremendous, especially if it's your first time. Just relax deeper and deeper until the sounds passes, but avoid falling asleep.
Try to slow the vibration. Visualize the movements of your body slowing and the sounds and sensations of vibrations getting fainter. Soon everything will be completely silent and your body will be still. Let your body become paralyzed. Some say it feels like a lead blanket has been placed over you. You may notice all of a sudden that you can't move your arms or legs. Don't panic! If you try to force yourself to move you may wake up. You will, however, be able to move your eyes, mouth, nose, and face, so try moving those slightly instead. Feel your hands grasping an invisible rope. Don't move your actual hands or visualize the rope. The "rope method" relies on the imaginary feeling of the rope, not a mental image. Focus on the texture, thickness and heftiness of the rope. Feel the tension in your arms between the strength of the rope and the pull of your weight. If you have trouble using the rope technique, try imagining a ladder instead. Some people find this easier, especially if they are more accustomed to climbing ladders than ropes.
Use the rope to pull yourself up and start climbing. Feel your muscles contract and your body move upward when you pull. Don't visualize: imagine you are doing this in pure darkness. Keep going up. Soon you will find yourself out of your body, triggering the "projection reflex."
If you experience vibrations in your body as you climb, try to relax more, or else you will only lose more energy and it will become harder.
If you have trouble, try climbing up as you inhale and then resting as you exhale.
The rope method is a more practical variation on the more iconic technique of visualizing yourself floating up. Though floating out of one's body all at once makes for a better image in the movies, it's not as effective in real life.
Open your astral eyes. Once you know you are out of your body, open your eyes. You should be viewing your room from the side of your bed, with your body still lying there still with eyes closed.
If you want, try to open your third eye first, low on the center of your forehead.
Visualize every detail of the space around you. Make sure you get a good look at your surroundings before you lie down. Now try to recall and feel the location and shape of every object in the room, as it looks from where you are resting.
Visualize the space around you as seen from a different point in the room. Once you have the image of the room clear in your mind's eye, shift that perspective to try to see that image as though you were standing over or near your body. In some ways you should already feel like you have left your body.
Rise from your body to the spot you were visualizing from. Stay very relaxed, but be forceful in your will to gently bring yourself to that point. Feel yourself moving up and over to that space, and visualize your perspective changing. Then open your astral eyes.
www.wikihow.com/Have-an-Out-of-Body-Experience
The term out-of-body experience was introduced in 1943 by G. N. M. Tyrrell in his book Apparitions, and was adopted by researchers such as Celia Green and Robert Monroe[3] as an alternative to belief-centric labels such as "astral projection", "soul travel", or "spirit walking". OBEs can be induced by brain traumas, sensory deprivation, near-death experiences, dissociative and psychedelic drugs, dehydration, sleep, and electrical stimulation of the brain, among others. It can also be deliberately induced by some. One in ten people have an OBE once, or more commonly, several times in their life.
Neuroscientists and psychologists regard OBEs as dissociative experiences arising from different psychological and neurological factors.
Those experiencing OBEs sometimes report (among other types of immediate and spontaneous experience) a preceding and initiating lucid-dream state. In many cases, people who claim to have had an OBE report being on the verge of sleep, or being already asleep shortly before the experience. A large percentage of these cases refer to situations where the sleep was not particularly deep (due to illness, noises in other rooms, emotional stress, exhaustion from overworking, frequent re-awakening, etc.). In most of these cases subjects perceive themselves as being awake; about half of them note a feeling of sleep paralysis.
Near-death experiences
Main article: Near-death experience
Another form of spontaneous OBE is the near-death experience (NDE). Some subjects report having had an OBE at times of severe physical trauma such as near-drownings or major surgery. Near-death experiences may include subjective impressions of being outside the physical body, sometimes visions of deceased relatives and religious figures, and transcendence of ego and spatiotemporal boundaries.Typically the experience includes such factors as: a sense of being dead; a feeling of peace and painlessness; hearing of various non-physical sounds, an out-of-body experience; a tunnel experience (the sense of moving up or through a narrow passageway); encountering "beings of light" and a God-like figure or similar entities; being given a "life review", and a reluctance to return to life.
Resulting from extreme physical effort
Along the same lines as an NDE, extreme physical effort during activities such as high-altitude climbing and marathon running can induce OBEs. A sense of bilocation may be experienced, with both ground and air-based perspectives being experienced simultaneously.
Induced
Chemical
OBEs can be induced by hallucinogens (particularly dissociatives) such as psilocybin, ketamine, DMT, MDA, and LSD.
Mental induction
Falling asleep physically without losing awareness. The "Mind Awake, Body Asleep" state is widely suggested as a cause of OBEs, voluntary and otherwise. Thomas Edison used this state to tackle problems while working on his inventions. He would rest a silver dollar on his head while sitting with a metal bucket in a chair. As he drifted off, the coin would noisily fall into the bucket, restoring some of his alertness. OBE pioneer Sylvan Muldoon more simply used a forearm held perpendicular in bed as the falling object. Salvador Dalí was said to use a similar "paranoiac-critical" method to gain odd visions which inspired his paintings. Deliberately teetering between awake and asleep states is known to cause spontaneous trance episodes at the onset of sleep which are ultimately helpful when attempting to induce an OBE. By moving deeper and deeper into relaxation, one eventually encounters a "slipping" feeling if the mind is still alert. This slipping is reported to feel like leaving the physical body. Some consider progressive relaxation a passive form of sensory deprivation.
Deep trance, meditation and visualization. The types of visualizations vary; some common analogies include climbing a rope to "pull out" of one's body, floating out of one's body, getting shot out of a cannon, and other similar approaches. This technique is considered hard to use for people who cannot properly relax. One example of such a technique is the popular Golden Dawn "Body of Light" Technique.
Mechanical induction
Brainwave synchronization via audio/visual stimulation. Binaural beats can be used to induce specific brainwave frequencies,[30] notably those predominant in various mind awake/body asleep states. Binaural induction of a "body asleep" 4 Hertz brainwave frequency was observed as effective by the Monroe Institute, and some authors consider binaural beats to be significantly supportive of OBE initiation when used in conjunction with other techniques. Simultaneous introduction of "mind awake" beta frequencies (detectable in the brains of normal, relaxed awakened individuals) was also observed as constructive. Another popular technology uses sinusoidal wave pulses to achieve similar results, and the drumming accompanying Native American religious ceremonies is also believed to have heightened receptivity to "other worlds" through brainwave entrainment mechanisms.
Magnetic stimulation of the brain, as with the God helmet developed by Michael Persinger.
Direct stimulation of the vestibular cortex.
Electrical stimulation of the brain, particularly the temporoparietal junction (see Blanke study below).
Sensory deprivation. This approach aims to induce intense disorientation by removal of space and time references. Flotation tanks or pink noise played through headphones are often employed for this purpose.
Sensory overload, the opposite of sensory deprivation. The subject can for instance be rocked for a long time in a specially designed cradle, or submitted to light forms of torture, to cause the brain to shut itself off from all sensory input. Both conditions tend to cause confusion and this disorientation often permits the subject to experience vivid, ethereal out-of-body experiences.
Strong g-forces that causes blood to drain from parts of the brain, as experienced for example in high-performance aircraft or high-G training for pilots and astronauts.
An apparatus that uses a head-mounted display and a touch that confuses the sense of proprioception (and which can also create the sensation of additional limbs).
Theories of OBEs
Psychological
In the fields of cognitive science and psychology OBEs are considered dissociative experiences arising from different psychological and neurological factors.Scientists consider the OBE to be an experience from a mental state, like a dream or an altered state of consciousness without recourse to the paranormal.
Charles Richet (1887) held that OBEs are created by the subject's memory and imagination processes and are no different from dreams.James H. Hyslop (1912) wrote that OBEs occur when the activity of the subconscious mind dramatizes certain images to give the impression the subject is in a different physical location. Eugéne Osty (1930) considered OBEs to be nothing more than the product of imagination.Other early researchers (such as Schmeing, 1938) supported psychophysiological theories.[46] G. N. M. Tyrrell interpreted OBEs as hallucinatory constructs relating to subconscious levels of personality.
Donovan Rawcliffe (1959) connected the OBE experience with psychosis and hysteria. Other researchers have discussed the phenomena of the OBE in terms of a distortion of the body image (Horowitz, 1970) and depersonalization (Whitlock, 1978). The psychologists Nandor Fodor (1959) and Jan Ehrenwald (1974) proposed that an OBE is a defense mechanism designed to deal with the threat of death.[51][52] According to (Irin and Watt, 2007) Jan Ehrenwald had described the out-of-body experience (OBE) "as an imaginal confirmation of the question for immortality, a delusory attempt to assure ourselves that we possess a soul that exists independently of the physical body. The psychologists Donald Hebb (1960) and Cyril Burt (1968) wrote on the psychological interpretation of the OBE involving body image and visual imagery. Graham Reed (1974) suggested that the OBE is a stress reaction to a painful situation, such as the loss of love.John Palmer (1978) wrote that the OBE is a response to a body image change causing a threat to personal identity.
Carl Sagan (1977) and Barbara Honegger (1983) wrote that the OBE experience may be based on a rebirth fantasy or reliving of the birth process based on reports of tunnel-like passageways and a cord-like connection by some OBErs which they compared to an umbilical cord.Susan Blackmore (1978) came to the conclusion that the OBE is a hallucinatory fantasy as it has the characteristics of imaginary perceptions, perceptual distortions and fantasy-like perceptions of the self (such as having no body).[60][61] Ronald Siegel (1980) also wrote that OBEs are hallucinatory fantasies.
Harvey Irwin (1985) presented a theory of the OBE involving attentional cognitive processes and somatic sensory activity. His theory involved a cognitive personality construct known as psychological absorption and gave instances of the classification of an OBE as examples of autoscopy, depersonalization and mental dissociation.[38] The psychophysiologist Stephen Laberge (1985) has written that the explanation for OBEs can be found in lucid dreaming. David Hufford (1989) linked the OBE experience with a phenomenon he described as a nightmare waking experience, a type of sleep paralysis.[64] Other scientists have also linked OBEs to cases of hypnagogia and sleep paralysis (cataplexy).
In case studies fantasy proneness has been shown to be higher among OBErs than those who have not had an OBE.[67] The data has shown a link between the OBE experience in some cases to fantasy prone personality (FPP).[68] In a case study involving 167 participants the findings revealed that those who claimed to have experienced the OBE were "more fantasy prone, higher in their belief in the paranormal and displayed greater somatoform dissociation."[69] Research from studies has also suggested that OBEs are related to cognitive-perceptual schizotypy.
Terence Hines (2003) has written that spontaneous out-of-body experiences can be generated by artificial stimulation of the brain and this strongly suggests that the OBE experience is caused from "temporary, minor brain malfunctions, not by the person's spirit (or whatever) actually leaving the body."In a study review of neurological and neurocognitive data (Bünning and Blanke, 2005) wrote that OBEs are due to "functional disintegration of lower-level multisensory processing and abnormal higher-level self-processing at the temporoparietal junction. Some scientists suspect that OBEs are the result of a mismatch between visual and tactile signals.
Richard Wiseman (2011) has noted that OBE research has focused on finding a psychological explanation and "out-of-body experiences are not paranormal and do not provide evidence for the soul. Instead, they reveal something far more remarkable about the everyday workings of your brain and body."[75] A study conducted by Jason Braithwaite and colleagues (2011) linked the OBE to "neural instabilities in the brain's temporal lobes and to errors in the body's sense of itself". Braithwaite et al. (2013) reported that the "current and dominant view is that the OBE occurs due to a temporary disruption in multi-sensory integration processes."
Paranormal
Writers within the fields of parapsychology and occultism have written that OBEs are not psychological and that a soul, spirit or subtle body can detach itself out of the body and visit distant locations. Out-of-the-body experiences were known during the Victorian period in spiritualist literature as "travelling clairvoyance". The psychical researcher Frederic Myers referred to the OBE as a "psychical excursion".[79] An early study which described alleged cases of OBEs was the two volume Phantasms of the Living, published in 1886 by the psychical researchers Edmund Gurney, Myers and Frank Podmore. The book was largely criticized by the scientific community as the anecdotal reports lacked evidential substantiation in nearly every case.
A 19th-century illustration of Robert Blair's poem The Grave, depicting the soul leaving the body
The Theosophist Arthur Powell (1927) was an early author to advocate the subtle body theory of OBEs. Sylvan Muldoon (1936) embraced the concept of an etheric body to explain the OBE experience. The psychical researcher Ernesto Bozzano (1938) had also supported a similar view describing the phenomena of the OBE experience in terms of bilocation in which an "etheric body" can release itself from the physical body in rare circumstances. The subtle body theory was also supported by occult writers such as Ralph Shirley (1938), Benjamin Walker (1977) and Douglas Baker (1979).[85] James Baker (1954) wrote that a mental body enters an "intercosmic region" during the OBE.[86] Marilynn Hughes states that the experiences are the projection of the spiritual body from the physical for the purpose of the soul's purification.[87] Robert Crookall in many publications supported the subtle body theory of OBEs.
The paranormal interpretation of OBEs has not been supported by all researchers within the study of parapsychology. Gardner Murphy (1961) wrote that OBEs are "not very far from the known terrain of general psychology, which we are beginning to understand more and more without recourse to the paranormal".
In the 1970s, Karlis Osis conducted many OBE experiments with the psychic Alex Tanous. For a series of these experiments he was asked whilst in an OBE state to try to identify coloured targets that were placed in remote locations. Osis reported that in 197 trials there were 114 hits. However, the controls to the experiments have been criticized and according to Susan Blackmore, the final result was not particularly significant as 108 hits would be expected by chance. Blackmore noted that the results provide "no evidence for accurate perception in the OBE".
In April 1977, a patient from Harborview Medical Center known as Maria claimed to have experienced an out-of-body experience. During her OBE she claimed to have floated outside her body and outside of the hospital. Maria would later tell her social worker Kimberly Clark that during the OBE she had observed a tennis shoe on the third floor window ledge to the north side of the building. Clark would go to the north wing of the building and by looking out of the window could see a tennis shoe on one of the ledges. Clark published the account in 1985. The story has since been used in many paranormal books as evidence a spirit can leave the body.
In 1996, Hayden Ebbern, Sean Mulligan and Barry Beyerstein visited the Medical Center to investigate the story. They placed a tennis shoe on the same ledge and discovered that the shoe was visible from within the building and could have easily been observed by a patient lying in bed. They also discovered the shoe was easily observable from outside the building and suggested that Maria may have overheard a comment about it during her three days in the hospital and incorporated it into her OBE. They concluded "Maria's story merely reveals the naiveté and the power of wishful thinking" from OBE researchers seeking a paranormal explanation.[93] Clark did not publish the description of the case until seven years after it happened, casting doubt on the story. Richard Wiseman has said that although the story is not evidence for anything paranormal it has been "endlessly repeated by writers who either couldn't be bothered to check the facts, or were unwilling to present their readers with the more skeptical side of the story."
Oneness and One
In 2017, Prince Paul Mamakos summarized the three stages of out of body experience.[94] The first stage being achieving an out-of-body experience and experiencing movement within the environment near the physical body. The second stage being going out and exploring outside ones house, going off planet, going into the planet and meeting other beings. In the third stage of OBEs, a person begins to notice the energy within another being as the same as that which is coming out of their own being. The energy essence of another, is the same as your energy. In the culmination of the third stage, a person experiences a sense of connection with all beings. On a linear range of awareness, if we place personality at a proximal point on a line, a point on the distal end of the line will represent an experience of oneness. Personality and oneness representing opposite extremes of awareness. Further dropping oneness results in the 'it' experience. One.
Studies of OBEs
Early collections of OBE cases had been made by Ernesto Bozzano (Italy) and Robert Crookall (UK). Crookall approached the subject from a spiritualistic position, and collected his cases predominantly from spiritualist newspapers such as the Psychic News, which appears to have biased his results in various ways. For example, the majority of his subjects reported seeing a cord connecting the physical body and its observing counterpart; whereas Green found that less than 4% of her subjects noticed anything of this sort, and some 80% reported feeling they were a "disembodied consciousness", with no external body at all.
The first extensive scientific study of OBEs was made by Celia Green (1968).She collected written, first-hand accounts from a total of 400 subjects, recruited by means of appeals in the mainstream media, and followed up by questionnaires. Her purpose was to provide a taxonomy of the different types of OBE, viewed simply as an anomalous perceptual experience or hallucination, while leaving open the question of whether some of the cases might incorporate information derived by extrasensory perception.
International Academy of Consciousness - Global Survey
In 1999, at the 1st International Forum of Consciousness Research in Barcelona, International Academy of Consciousness research-practitioners Wagner Alegretti and Nanci Trivellato presented preliminary findings of an online survey on the out-of-body experience answered by internet users interested in the subject; therefore, not a sample representative of the general population.
1,007 (85%) of the first 1,185 respondents reported having had an OBE. 37% claimed to have had between two and ten OBEs. 5.5% claimed more than 100 such experiences. 45% of those who reported an OBE said they successfully induced at least one OBE by using a specific technique. 62% of participants claiming to have had an OBE also reported having enjoyed nonphysical flight; 40% reported experiencing the phenomenon of self-bilocation (i.e. seeing one's own physical body whilst outside the body); and 38% claimed having experienced self-permeability (passing through physical objects such as walls). The most commonly reported sensations experienced in connection with the OBE were falling, floating, repercussions e.g. myoclonia (the jerking of limbs, jerking awake), sinking, torpidity (numbness), intracranial sounds, tingling, clairvoyance, oscillation and serenity.
Another reported common sensation related to OBE was temporary or projective catalepsy, a more common feature of sleep paralysis. The sleep paralysis and OBE correlation was later corroborated by the Out-of-Body Experience and Arousal study published in Neurology by Kevin Nelson and his colleagues from the University of Kentucky in 2007. The study discovered that people who have out-of-body experiences are more likely to suffer from sleep paralysis.
Also noteworthy, is the Waterloo Unusual Sleep Experiences Questionnaire that further illustrates the correlation.
Miss Z study
In 1968, Charles Tart conducted an OBE experiment with a subject known as Miss Z for four nights in his sleep laboratory. The subject was attached to an EEG machine and a five-digit code was placed on a shelf above her bed. She did not claim to see the number on the first three nights but on fourth gave the number correctly.The psychologist James Alcock criticized the experiment for inadequate controls and questioned why the subject was not visually monitored by a video camera.Martin Gardner has written the experiment was not evidence for an OBE and suggested that whilst Tart was "snoring behind the window, Miss Z simply stood up in bed, without detaching the electrodes, and peeked." Susan Blackmore wrote "If Miss Z had tried to climb up, the brain-wave record would have showed a pattern of interference. And that was exactly what it did show."
Neurology and OBE-like experiences
There are several possible physiological explanations for parts of the OBE. OBE-like experiences have been induced by stimulation of the brain. OBE-like experience has also been induced through stimulation of the posterior part of the right superior temporal gyrus in a patient.[106] Positron-emission tomography was also used in this study to identify brain regions affected by this stimulation. The term OBE-like is used above because the experiences described in these experiments either lacked some of the clarity or details of normal OBEs, or were described by subjects who had never experienced an OBE before. Such subjects were therefore not qualified to make claims about the authenticity of the experimentally-induced OBE.
British psychologist Susan Blackmore and others suggest that an OBE begins when a person loses contact with sensory input from the body while remaining conscious. The person retains the illusion of having a body, but that perception is no longer derived from the senses. The perceived world may resemble the world he or she generally inhabits while awake, but this perception does not come from the senses either. The vivid body and world is made by our brain's ability to create fully convincing realms, even in the absence of sensory information. This process is witnessed by each of us every night in our dreams, though OBEs are claimed to be far more vivid than even a lucid dream.
Irwin pointed out that OBEs appear to occur under conditions of either very high or very low arousal. For example, Green[109] found that three quarters of a group of 176 subjects reporting a single OBE were lying down at the time of the experience, and of these 12% considered they had been asleep when it started. By contrast, a substantial minority of her cases occurred under conditions of maximum arousal, such as a rock-climbing fall, a traffic accident, or childbirth. McCreery has suggested that this paradox may be explained by reference to the fact that sleep can supervene as a reaction to extreme stress or hyper-arousal. He proposes that OBEs under both conditions, relaxation and hyper-arousal, represent a form of "waking dream", or the intrusion of Stage 1 sleep processes into waking consciousness.
Olaf Blanke studies
Research by Olaf Blanke in Switzerland found that it is possible to reliably elicit experiences somewhat similar to the OBE by stimulating regions of the brain called the right temporal-parietal junction (TPJ; a region where the temporal lobe and parietal lobe of the brain come together). Blanke and his collaborators in Switzerland have explored the neural basis of OBEs by showing that they are reliably associated with lesions in the right TPJ region and that they can be reliably elicited with electrical stimulation of this region in a patient with epilepsy.[114] These elicited experiences may include perceptions of transformations of the patient's arms and legs (complex somatosensory responses) and whole-body displacements (vestibular responses).
In neurologically normal subjects, Blanke and colleagues then showed that the conscious experience of the self and body being in the same location depends on multisensory integration in the TPJ. Using event-related potentials, Blanke and colleagues showed the selective activation of the TPJ 330–400 ms after stimulus onset when healthy volunteers imagined themselves in the position and visual perspective that generally are reported by people experiencing spontaneous OBEs. Transcranial magnetic stimulation in the same subjects impaired mental transformation of the participant's own body. No such effects were found with stimulation of another site or for imagined spatial transformations of external objects, suggesting the selective implication of the TPJ in mental imagery of one's own body.
In a follow up study, Arzy et al. showed that the location and timing of brain activation depended on whether mental imagery is performed with mentally embodied or disembodied self location. When subjects performed mental imagery with an embodied location, there was increased activation of a region called the "extrastriate body area" (EBA), but when subjects performed mental imagery with a disembodied location, as reported in OBEs, there was increased activation in the region of the TPJ. This leads Arzy et al. to argue that "these data show that distributed brain activity at the EBA and TPJ as well as their timing are crucial for the coding of the self as embodied and as spatially situated within the human body."
Blanke and colleagues thus propose that the right temporal-parietal junction is important for the sense of spatial location of the self, and that when these normal processes go awry, an OBE arises.
In August 2007 Blanke's lab published research in Science demonstrating that conflicting visual-somatosensory input in virtual reality could disrupt the spatial unity between the self and the body. During multisensory conflict, participants felt as if a virtual body seen in front of them was their own body and mislocalized themselves toward the virtual body, to a position outside their bodily borders. This indicates that spatial unity and bodily self-consciousness can be studied experimentally and is based on multisensory and cognitive processing of bodily information.
Ehrsson study
In August 2007, Henrik Ehrsson, then at the Institute of Neurology at University College of London (now at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden), published research in Science demonstrating the first experimental method that, according to the scientist's claims in the publication, induced an out-of-body experience in healthy participants. The experiment was conducted in the following way:
The study participant sits in a chair wearing a pair of head-mounted video displays. These have two small screens over each eye, which show a live film recorded by two video cameras placed beside each other two metres behind the participant's head. The image from the left video camera is presented on the left-eye display and the image from the right camera on the right-eye display. The participant sees these as one "stereoscopic" (3D) image, so they see their own back displayed from the perspective of someone sitting behind them.
The researcher then stands just beside the participant (in their view) and uses two plastic rods to simultaneously touch the participant's actual chest out-of-view and the chest of the illusory body, moving this second rod towards where the illusory chest would be located, just below the camera's view.
The participants confirmed that they had experienced sitting behind their physical body and looking at it from that location.
Both critics and the experimenter himself note that the study fell short of replicating "full-blown" OBEs. As with previous experiments which induced sensations of floating outside of the body, Ehrsson's work does not explain how a brain malfunction might cause an OBE. Essentially, Ehrsson created an illusion that fits a definition of an OBE in which "a person who is awake sees his or her body from a location outside the physical body."
Awareness during Resuscitation Study
In 2001, Sam Parnia and colleagues investigated out of body claims by placing figures on suspended boards facing the ceiling, not visible from the floor. Parnia wrote "anybody who claimed to have left their body and be near the ceiling during resuscitation attempts would be expected to identify those targets. If, however, such perceptions are psychological, then one would obviously not expect the targets to be identified." The philosopher Keith Augustine, who examined Parnia's study, has written that all target identification experiments have produced negative results. Psychologist Chris French wrote regarding the study "unfortunately, and somewhat atypically, none of the survivors in this sample experienced an OBE."
In the autumn of 2008, 25 UK and US hospitals began participation in a study, coordinated by Sam Parnia and Southampton University known as the AWARE study (AWAreness during REsuscitation). Following on from the work of Pim van Lommel in the Netherlands, the study aims to examine near-death experiences in 1,500 cardiac arrest survivors and so determine whether people without a heartbeat or brain activity can have documentable out-of-body experiences. As part of the study Parnia and colleagues have investigated out of body claims by using hidden targets placed on shelves that could only be seen from above.Parnia has written "if no one sees the pictures, it shows these experiences are illusions or false memories".
In 2014 Parnia issued a statement indicating that the first phase of the project has been completed and the results are undergoing peer review for publication in a medical journal. No subjects saw the images mounted out of sight according to Parnia's early report of the results of the study at an American Heart Association meeting in November 2013. Only two out of the 152 patients reported any visual experiences, and one of them described events that could be verified. The two NDEs occurred in an area were "no visual targets had been placed".
On October 6, 2014, the results of the study were published in the journal Resuscitation. Among those who reported a perception of awareness and completed further interviews, 46 per cent experienced a broad range of mental recollections in relation to death that were not compatible with the commonly used term of NDEs. These included fearful and persecutory experiences. Only 9 per cent had experiences compatible with NDEs and 2 per cent exhibited full awareness compatible with OBEs with explicit recall of 'seeing' and 'hearing' events. One case was validated and timed using auditory stimuli during cardiac arrest. According to Caroline Watt "The one 'verifiable period of conscious awareness' that Parnia was able to report did not relate to this objective test. Rather, it was a patient giving a supposedly accurate report of events during his resuscitation. He didn't identify the pictures, he described the defibrillator machine noise. But that's not very impressive since many people know what goes on in an emergency room setting from seeing recreations on television."
AWARE Study II
As of May 2016, a posting at the UK Clinical Trials Gateway website describes plans for AWARE II, a two-year multicenter observational study of 900-1500 patients experiencing cardiac arrest, with subjects being recruited as August 1, 2014 and a trial end date of May 31, 2017.
Smith & Messier
A recent functional imaging study reported the case of a woman who could experience out of body experience at will. She reported developing the ability as a child and associated it with difficulties in falling sleep. Her OBEs continued into adulthood but became less frequent. She was able to see herself rotating in the air above her body, lying flat, and rolling in the horizontal plane. She reported sometimes watching herself move from above but remained aware of her unmoving "real" body. The participant reported no particular emotions linked to the experience. "[T]he brain functional changes associated with the reported extra-corporeal experience (ECE) were different than those observed in motor imagery. Activations were mainly left-sided and involved the left supplementary motor area and supramarginal and posterior superior temporal gyri, the last two overlapping with the temporal parietal junction that has been associated with out-of-body experiences. The cerebellum also showed activation that is consistent with the participant's report of the impression of movement during the ECE. There was also left middle and superior orbital frontal gyri activity, regions often associated with action monitoring."
OBE training and research facilities[edit]
The International Academy of Consciousness (IAC) is a global organisation, with training centers in California, New York, London, Lisbon, Madrid, Sao Paolo, Rio de Janeiro, several other cities around the world and a research campus in Portugal. The research campus features specialised laboratories, including a spherical lab dedicated exclusively for the practice and research of out-of-body experiences.The IAC offers courses online and in person, including their signature course the Consciousness Development Programme (a comprehensive 40-hour course covering OBE techniques, with practical classes, as well as many other para-psychic themes related to the practice).
The Monroe Institute's Nancy Penn Center is a facility specializing in or out-of-body experience induction. The Center for Higher Studies of the Consciousness in Brazil is another large OBE training facility. Olaf Blanke's Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience has become a well-known laboratory for OBE research.
Astral projection
Main article: Astral projection
Astral projection is a paranormal interpretation of out-of-body experiences that assumes the existence of one or more non-physical planes of existence and an associated body beyond the physical. Commonly such planes are called astral, etheric, or spiritual. Astral projection is often experienced as the spirit or astral body leaving the physical body to travel in the spirit world or astral plane.
I was sitting on a bench and taking a break next to this metal sculpture when i saw this interesting scene...atleast the one being blocked here was an inanimate object, but so often, we, in our own self absorption block other people around.
Since the day she came home from hospital, at 24 hours old, Chloe and I have been interacting with nature together. On that day we talked to the leopard tree between our two houses. She has never been afraid of insects, or as we say in this part of the world goggos. Has had wiggly worms crawling up her arms, saved bees from drowning in the pool by scooping them out and had snail races with her friend Rebecca. Yesterday was the first time that a butterfly sat on her finger and she cherished the moment as though she had been touched by the gods. Complete absorption by the miracle of it all. I know I should have told her to let it be and not handle it, and I will. Please indulge me in showing you the joy and beauty of both examples of nature.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
IATA ICAO Callsign
TN TAA TRANSAIR
Founded8 February 1946
Commenced operations9 September 1946
Ceased operationsApril 1994 (acquired by Qantas Airways)
HubsMelbourne Airport (Essendon Airport from 1947 to 1971)
Parent companyAustralian National Airlines Commission
HeadquartersMelbourne, Victoria, Australia
Trans Australia Airlines (TAA), renamed Australian Airlines in 1986, was one of the two major Australian domestic airlines between its inception in 1946 and its merger with Qantas in September 1992. As a result of the "COBRA" (or Common Branding) project, the entire airline was rebranded Qantas about a year later with tickets stating in small print "Australian Airlines Limited trading as Qantas Airways Limited" until the adoption of a single Air Operator Certificate a few years later. At that point, the entire airline was officially renamed "Qantas Airways Limited" continuing the name and livery of the parent company with the only change being the change of by-line from "The Spirit of Australia" to "The Australian Airline" under the window line with the existing "Qantas" title appearing above.
During its period as TAA, the company played a major part in the development of the Australian domestic air transport industry. The establishment of TAA broke the domestic air transport monopoly of Australian National Airways (ANA) in the late 1940s, and taking over the Queensland air network from Qantas. It was also at the time TAA supported the Flying Doctor Services of Australia by providing aircraft, pilots and engineers to ensure every emergency was answered quickly. Qantas had also been instrumental in the formation of the Flying Doctor Service.
The airline's headquarters were located in Melbourne.[1][2] In 1954 TAA became the first airline outside Europe to introduce the Vickers Viscount "propjet", and in 1981 it introduced the Airbus A300, the first wide-body aircraft to be purchased by an Australian domestic airline providing TAA with a clear edge over major competitor at the time, Ansett which had purchased instead, the Boeing 767-200, receiving the type approximately a year later. Ironically, although the A300s were initially painted in full Qantas livery, they were phased out within a few years being replaced by previously international operated Qantas 767-238ERs, 767-338ERs and later supplemented by seven ex British Airways 767-336ERs.
Qantas revived the Australian Airlines brand between 2002 and 2006 to serve the low-cost leisure market of visitors to and from Australia but using a full-service model, operating selected Qantas 767-338ERs – although the livery used was not the same as that used by the previous domestic operation.
History
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Background
Up until World War II, Australia had been one of the world's leading centres of aviation. With its tiny population of about seven million, Australia ranked sixth in the world for scheduled air mileage, had 16 airlines, was growing at twice the world average, and had produced a number of prominent aviation pioneers, including Lawrence Hargrave, Harry Hawker, Bert Hinkler, Lawrence Wackett, the Reverend John Flynn, Sidney Cotton, Keith Virtue and Charles Kingsford Smith. Governments on both sides of politics, well aware of the immense stretches of uninhabitable desert that separated the small productive regions of Australia, regarded air transport as a matter of national importance (as did the governments of other geographically large nations, such as the Soviet Union and the United States). In the words of Director General of Civil Aviation AB Corbett,
A nation which refuses to use flying in its national life must necessarily today be a backward and defenceless nation.[3]
Air transport was encouraged both with direct subsidies and with mail contracts. Immediately before the start of the war, more than half of all airline passenger and freight miles were subsidised.
However, after 1939 and especially after Japan's invasion of the islands to the north in 1941, civil aviation was sacrificed to military needs. By the end of the war, there were only nine domestic airlines remaining, eight smaller regional concerns and Australian National Airways (ANA), a conglomerate owned by British and Australian shipping interests which had a virtual monopoly on the major trunk routes and received 85% of all government air transport subsidies.
The Chifley Government's view was summed up by Minister for Air, Arthur Drakeford: Where are the great pioneers of aviation? ..... We discover that one by one the small pioneer enterprises are disappearing from the register. It is the inevitable process of absorption by a monopoly. Air transport, the government believed, was primarily a public service, like hospitals, the railways or the post office. If there was to be a monopoly at all, then it should be one owned by the public and working in the public interest.
In August 1945, only two days after the end of World War II, the Australian parliament passed the Australian National Airways Bill, which set up the Australian National Airways Commission (ANAC) and charged it with the task of reconstructing the nation's air transport industry. In keeping with the Labor government's socialist leanings, the bill declared that the licenses of private operators would lapse for those routes that were adequately serviced by the national carrier. From this time on, it seemed, air transport in Australia would be a government monopoly. However, a legal challenge, backed by the Liberal opposition and business interests generally, was successful and in December 1945, the High Court ruled that the Commonwealth did not have the power to prevent the issue of airline licenses to private companies. The government could set up an airline if it wished, but it could not legislate a monopoly. Much of the press objected strongly to the setting up of a public airline network, seeing it as a form of socialisation by stealth.
Beginnings
Trans-Australia Airlines Skymaster
With the bill suitably amended to remove the monopoly provisions, the Australian National Airways Commission came into existence in February 1946. The commissioners themselves were prominent high-achievers, including the director-general of civil aviation, the deputy director, a Labor party luminary and former member of the Commonwealth Bank board, the director-general of posts and telegraphs, and the assistant secretary of the Treasury. The commission was to be chaired by Arthur Coles.
Coles was one of the richest men in Australia, and the co-founder of the Coles Group. By this time however, Coles had withdrawn from active management of the family business. He was 'a great believer in competition for business'[4] and would not have accepted the post of Chairman of the ANAC had the monopoly provision been retained.
The Commission decided on the name "Trans-Australia Airlines", applied to the Treasury for a preliminary advance of £10,000 and set about making plans, recruiting staff, and purchasing equipment. Reginald Ansett, proprietor of the small Victorian company Ansett Airways was quick to offer to get the new airline off to a flying start by selling his entire operation to the ANAC as a going concern, including (if desired) his own services as managing agent. The asking price, the Commission decided, was optimistic, and Ansett declined a more modest counter offer.
There was considerable correspondence between the Commission and Ivan Holyman, the Chairman of ANA, with a view to recruiting Holyman as General Manager of TAA at the princely salary of £10,000 pa, and, when that offer was declined, of buying the near-monopoly airline outright. Holyman was not willing to sell, nor to work for a government-owned body, but was interested in setting up a "composite company", the details of which proposal remained unclear.
Eventually the ANAC proceeded with the original plan, to build an airline from scratch. One of the first people hired was Lester Brain, then operations manager at Qantas. Brain had 22 years of pioneering aviation experience behind him and was regarded as the man behind Qantas' reputation for technical excellence. He applied for the advertised position of TAA Operations Manager, but to his surprise and delight, was instead offered an appointment as General Manager — though at £3,000 pa, not the £10,000 that had been offered to Holyman.
TAA Douglas DC-3 at Brisbane Airport, early 1970s
TAA acquired its first two aircraft in mid-June 1946, both Douglas DC-3s. A dozen more DC-3s would be added over the next few months, all ex-Royal Australian Air Force aircraft originally bought by the Australian Government under lend-lease. In July, the Treasury released £350,000 to allow TAA to order four larger, more modern DC-4s from Douglas in the United States, and Brain appointed Aubrey Koch (from Qantas) as Senior Pilot DC4 Skymaster and John Watkins as Chief Technical Officer. Watkins would become one of the key figures in TAA's success. His first task was to travel to the United States to accept delivery of the DC-4s. He later wrote:
To my utter astonishment Arthur Coles, after the expected pep-talk about the DC-4 assignment, said he was relying on me to find out what new equipment was being developed that would enable us to offer our passengers a better product than our established rival, at a competitive price.
It was typical of Coles, who knew nothing about aircraft, to reason that quality equipment would be vital, and then select the best man for the job of finding it and be prepared to back his judgement.
At this point, political considerations came to the fore again. TAA planned to start regular services on 7 October, but there was a federal election set for 28 September. Britain's wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill had been enormously popular during the darkest hours, but was voted out at the first post-war opportunity. There was no certainty that the Chifley Government would not be treated likewise, and the opposition was opposed to government ownership. Coles addressed the Commission at a meeting on 2 September 1946.
Gentlemen, the Government wants us to start services as soon as possible. There is a Federal election on 28 September. If we don't have an airline up and running by then and Labor loses the election there'll be no airline. We'll be out of a job. Any suggestions?
After some discussion it was agreed that the airline was not ready. It had a name, some excellent pilots, and some aircraft, but no ground facilities, no sales staff, no documentation, not even tickets. With a great deal of effort, it should be possible to make the planned start date of 7 October. With the discussion complete, Coles said:
I have news for you. We start next Monday.
After a week of frantic effort hiring staff, borrowing a tin shed at the RAAF base at Laverton because Essendon Airport had been turned into mud by heavy rain, creating operations manuals, passenger manifests, tickets, and load sheets — even making passenger steps and baggage carts because there was no time to buy them in the ordinary way — Captains Hepburn and Nickels took off from Laverton at 5:45 am bound for Sydney. TAA's first scheduled flight carried a full load of VIPs and just one paying passenger.
Rapid expansion
Fokker Friendship Series 100 of TAA at Melbourne's Essendon Airport in 1970.
The subsequent few years led to massive growth for the new airline. As post-war austerity gave way to a more affluent era, Australians were able to travel by air in ever increasing numbers.
Much of the growth in domestic aviation in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s was dominated by the rivalry between the privately owned Ansett-ANA and the government-supported TAA. A major factor in the success of the government airline was the wise choice of aircraft. After initially utilising the venerable and readily available Douglas DC-3, TAA was able to acquire the revolutionary pressurised Convair 240. Popular with the travelling public because of its ability to fly above much of the weather, it was really this aircraft that established the airline's reputation for excellence and service reliability.
TAA Douglas DC-9-31 Paul Strzelecki awaiting passengers at Melbourne's Essendon Airport in 1971, wearing the 1964-1969 Whispering T-Jet colour scheme used exclusively on DC-9s and Boeing 727s.
East-coast services were continually expanded and TAA soon earned its title as a true 'trans Australian' airline with services to Perth on the west coast of the continent, using Douglas DC-4 aircraft. Vickers Viscount turboprop aircraft were introduced in the 1950s and again proved immensely popular as a result of their smooth, vibration-free ride.
Although government-owned, the Liberal conservative government of the 1950s had a philosophical leaning towards the needs of the privately owned Ansett and the requirements of TAA suffered as a result. The controversial Two Airlines Policy was introduced and effectively seriously limited growth and expansion opportunities for the airlines without government approval.
Flight numbers and schedules were strictly controlled, and TAA and Ansett-ANA invariably had flights departing airports for the same destination at exactly the same time with exactly the same equipment. The policy was so strict that even newly purchased identical aircraft (one from each airline) were required on their delivery flights to enter Australian airspace at exactly the same time.[citation needed]
TAA's first Lockheed Electra II four-engined turboprop airliner at Melbourne's Essendon Airport, January 1971, wearing the 1960-1969 Jetliner colour scheme
The conservative government's benevolent attitude towards Ansett was epitomised in the 1950s when it forced TAA to swap a number of its popular turbo-prop Viscount aircraft with Ansett-ANA in return for slower and older, piston-engined Douglas DC-6Bs. In another instance, TAA had planned to re-equip with the revolutionary Sud Aviation Caravelle pure-jet but as Ansett felt this was too advanced at that stage for their own needs, both airlines were required to purchase the Ansett preference: the less advanced turbo-prop Lockheed L-188 Electra.
Nonetheless the Electra proved a reliable aircraft and TAA continuously grew and prospered. In the 1960s it introduced Boeing 727-100 and McDonnell Douglas DC-9-30 Whispering T-Jets on primary routes as well as Fokker F27 Friendship Jetliner turboprops on regional routes.
By the late 1960s it had a massive network criss-crossing the continent, as well as an internal network within Papua New Guinea and flights from Darwin to Baucau in Portuguese Timor. At this time the airline's livery was the famous white T on a blue tail, referred to as The Look of the '70s. One of the more memorable television advertisements of the period was the jingle "Up, Up and away, with TAA, the Friendly Friendly Way", whose lyrics and music were a variation on the 1967 song Up, Up and Away, written by Jimmy Webb and also used by the US airline TWA.
Further expansion occurred in the 1970s and larger 727-276s (simultaneously with Ansett) were acquired. Once again the terms of the introduction were restricted by the two-airline policy.
The policy was marginally relaxed in the early 1980s when TAA was able to introduce the Airbus A300B4, whilst Ansett chose to purchase the Boeing 767. The A300 was a revolutionary aircraft at the time for the domestic airline industry, in that it was a wide-body (twin aisle) aircraft. It provided significant extra capacity on the trunk east coast network and to Perth. In 1986, Trans-Australia Airlines was rebranded as 'Australian Airlines' and the kangaroo returned to its livery. Its new image coincided with a very successful and popular television campaign: "You Should See Us Now", "Face To Face" and "The Way We Do The Things We Do" became the carrier's new theme songs.
Rebranding
A Boeing 727 at Brisbane Airport in March 1992
In 1986, after a change of airline management, the name Trans-Australia Airlines was controversially dropped, in favour of Australian Airlines. Associated with this image change was a new livery for the airlines' aircraft, which wore the title Australian.
Australian Airlines was the travel sponsor for the television shows Neighbours, Wheel of Fortune and Sale of the Century between late 1987 and 1994.
Between 1980 and the merger with Qantas, selected teams participating in the Australian Touring Car Championship bore both Trans Australian Airlines (TAA) and Australian Airlines insignia, and from 1985 to 1990 the Seven Network commentary team used the airline to travel between the states to attend the various racing venues.
By the end of the 1980s, the government began to move towards deregulation of domestic aviation. (Deregulation took effect in October 1990.[5]) A by-product of this impending change was the 1989 Australian pilots' dispute. As the result of prolonged wage suppression, this dispute saw the resignation of the majority of Australian Airlines' aircrew and the basic structure of the airline was changed forever. The Hawke cabinet not only encouraged the airline companies to employ overseas "strike breakers" but went even further, opting to pay the newly employed pilots from the public purse.[6]
Downturn
The early 1990s changed the face of Australian domestic air travel. The Federal Government, although technically having deregulated the domestic aviation sector, made it effectively impossible for new entrant Compass Airlines to succeed. In 1987, the Hawke Government announced that the then government-owned domestic air terminals would be effectively privatised and leased to the two domestic airlines. Compass, a threat to the TAA/Ansett duopoly, was granted severely limited access to terminal facilities. At Sydney Airport both major airlines had effectively been given freehold ownership of their two separate terminals. The Federal Airports Corporation later purchased the Ansett terminal when it went broke in 2002. Any third airline operating there had to make do with the regional airline facilities. At other airports the two airlines had leased mostly empty terminals and installed all operational furnishings themselves. The airport authorities eagerly accepted lease money from Compass while providing almost no space in their terminals.
The ambitious new airline was allocated by the government what were clearly the worst gates, in the least desirable sections of domestic terminals across the country (in some cases, Atco huts were used) and had to operate from the international terminal at Perth Airport. As the result of liens placed over the Compass aircraft (due to alleged non-payment of airways expenses), the government's Civil Aviation Authority effectively caused the shutting down of Compass on 20 December 1991, 5 days before what would have been the immensely profitable Christmas travel period.[7] A seemingly well-orchestrated plan saw the Compass aircraft quickly flown out of the country and, with them, potentially the demise of a truly deregulated domestic aviation sector.
Ansett and TAA/Australian were the sole remaining players, in effect a de facto two-airline policy yet again. Throughout this period of transformation and deregulation, Australian Airlines continued its successful run by posting healthy profits, increasing passenger loads and gained much favour from its catchy television commercials. Although the merger with Qantas was seen as inevitable to give the latter a domestic network — and revive its bottom line — many former staff of Australian Airlines (TAA) and the general public mourned the loss of this iconic Australian brand.
Acquisition by Qantas
Although Compass was controversially and perhaps inevitably forced out of business, Australian's days, and those of Ansett, were numbered: the decision had been made at Federal Government level to offer both government-owned carriers (Qantas and Australian) for sale. Australian Airlines was offered first but was quickly snapped up by Qantas, which offered $400m to purchase the domestic carrier. Qantas then decided to merge the airline into its network; subsequently the government offered the entire merged operation in a public float, after selling a cornerstone 25% stake to British Airways, thus returning Qantas to the stock market after being absent from listing since 1947.
Qantas acquired Australian Airlines on 14 September 1992,[8] in preparation for its closure on 30 April 1994.[9] Subsequent to the merger, TAA/Australian's Boeing Customer Number '76' was replaced by the Qantas Customer Number '38' for all subsequent Boeing aircraft deliveries commencing with the Boeing 737-838.
The majority of the Australian Airlines branding was removed during the merger and replaced with Qantas branding; for instance, Australian's Flight Deck Lounge became The Qantas Club. The sole remaining Australian Airlines brand identity – The Australian Way (inflight) magazine – was rebranded as The Qantas Magazine in 2016.
Rebirth
In October 2002, Qantas revived the Australian Airlines brand as a full-service carrier, targeting the low-cost leisure market and flying primarily out of Cairns and Bali. This airline was disbanded in 2006 and its assets were absorbed back into the Qantas group.[8]
TAA Museum
Qantas currently allocates space at its Airport West Training Facility (formerly the TAA/Australian Airlines Flight Training Centre) for The TAA Museum. The museum displays artifacts from the life of TAA/Australian including service ware, uniforms, advertisements and photographs and is open to the public during the week. The museum is immensely popular with former staff and the travelling public and is run by a dedicated group of volunteers.
Fleet
The nose section of an Australian Airlines Airbus A300 in TAA colours at Eagle Farm Airport, 1988
An Australian Airlines Boeing 737-300 at a gate at Sydney Airport, with a company Airbus A300 in the background, in TAA colors, 1987
Over the years, the airline operated the following aircraft types:
This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.
Aircraft Introduced Retired Notes
Airbus A300[10][11]
1981
1993
Wide-body aircraft. Transferred to Qantas.
Bell 47[12]
1961
1971
Light helicopter
Boeing 707[13] Leased from Qantas
Boeing 727[14]
1964
1992
Includes B727-100 and B727-200 aircraft
Boeing 737-300[11]
1986
1993
Transferred to Qantas.
Boeing 737-400[11]
1990
1993
Transferred to Qantas.
Boeing 747-200[11]
1989
1990
One leased from All Nippon Airways.
Boeing 757-200[11]
1989
1990
Two leased from Monarch Airlines
Bristol 170 Freighter[15]
1961
1967
Cargo aircraft
Consolidated PBY Catalina[16]
1962
1966
Amphibious flying boat built as Canadian-Vickers OA-10A for USAAF
Convair CV-240[17]
1948
1959
One Convair CV-440 operated by HARS in TAA livery
de Havilland Canada DHC-3 Otter[18]
1960
1966
STOL aircraft
de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter[19]
1966
1993
STOL aircraft
Douglas DC-3
Douglas C-47 Skytrain[13]
1946
Douglas DC-4
Douglas C-54 Skymaster[13]
Douglas DC-6[13]
Fokker F27 Friendship[13] Turboprop aircraft
Lockheed L-188 Electra[13]
1959
1971
Turboprop aircraft
Lockheed Model 18 Lodestar[citation needed]
McDonnell Douglas DC-9[13]
1967
1987
DC-9-30 aircraft
Vickers Viscount[20]
1954
1970
Turboprop aircraft
Australian Airlines also ordered the Airbus A320 and 'pictures' appeared in Australian aviation magazines advertising the paint company who were to supply the paint for the livery. The airline never took up the option on the A320 opting instead for the Boeing 737-400.
Accidents and incidents
Fatal
On 8 August 1951 at around 9 p.m. local time, a Trans Australia Airlines Douglas C-47 Skytrain (registered VH-TAT) crashed into the sea shortly after take-off from Cambridge Aerodrome for a cargo flight to Melbourne, killing the two pilots. They had lost control of the aircraft due to a severe ice build-up.[21][22]
On 31 October 1954, a Vickers Viscount (registered VH-TVA) crashed shortly after take-off from Mangalore Airport. Three of the eight crew members that had been on the training flight were killed.[23]
On 10 June 1960, Flight 538 from Rockhampton to Mackay, Queensland, which was operated by a Fokker F27 Friendship registered VH-TFB, crashed into the sea while approaching Mackay Airport, killing the 25 passengers and four crew on board. It was the worst accident in the history of the airline.
On 24 May 1961, a Douglas DC-4 registered VH-TAA was destroyed when it crashed on Bulwer Island whilst on approach to Brisbane Airport, killing the two pilots that had been on the cargo flight from Sydney. The captain had suffered a heart attack and collapsed onto the throttles, and the co-pilot had thus been unable to see large trees in front of him because he could not reach the switch for the landing light.[24]
On 28 April 1970, a de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter (registered VH-TGR) crashed shortly after take-off from an unpaved airfield near Kainantu, Papua New Guinea, killing the two pilots and six of the nine passengers on board.[25]
Non-fatal
The damaged tail of a Canadian Pacific Air Lines Douglas DC-8, that was hit by a TAA Boeing 727 at Sydney Airport in 1971
On 29 January 1971, a Boeing 727 registered VH-TJA hit the tailfin of a Canadian Pacific Air Lines Douglas DC-8 (registered CF-CPQ) right after take-off from Sydney as Flight 592 to Perth. The DC-8 had not yet cleared the runway following its arrival. The TAA 727 suffered a gash in its fuselage, but the pilots managed to safely return the aircraft to the airport, so that there were no injuries.[26]
On 11 April 1972, a Douglas C-47 Skytrain (registered VH-PNB) that had been leased from Ansett, overran the runway on landing at Madang Airport, ending up in the sea damaged beyond economic repair.[27]
On 9 June 1982, a Fokker F27 Friendship was damaged beyond repair when it skidded off the runway upon landing at RAAF Base Amberley. The aircraft with three people on board had been on a training flight, which included a landing with one engine deliberately shut down, during which the pilot lost control.[28]
Criminal occurrences
On 19 July 1960, Flight 408 from Sydney to Brisbane, operated by a Lockheed L-188 Electra registered VH-TLB, was the subject of an attempted hijacking. An armed man demanded the flight be diverted to Singapore, but he was overpowered by the crew.[29]
On 8 June 1979, a hijacking attempt occurred on board a TAA McDonnell Douglas DC-9 during a flight from Coolangatta to Brisbane. The pilots landed at Brisbane Airport, where the perpetrator was arrested.[30]
On 21 September 1982, Trans Australia Airlines Flight 454, operated by a McDonnell Douglas DC-9 registered VH-TJS, was the subject of an attempted robbery of $600,000 from the Reserve Bank of Australia. The robbery involved four men consigning themselves as freight, intending to steal the money during two flights of the aircraft.[31]
On 13 February 1983, an Airbus A300 was hijacked en route a flight from Perth to Melbourne and the hijacker demanded to be flown to Tasmania. He was protesting the Franklin River Dam development.The pilots continued to Melbourne Airport, on taxi-in the hijacker, who was on the flight deck told the crew his bomb was on a timer – the aircraft was stopped and a full evacuation followed. The hijacker was subsequently arrested.[32]
A short series of 6 photographs taken at the Centre Pompidou.
Une petite série de 6 photos prises au Centre Pompidou.
Artist : Simon Hantaï
If you recognise yourself in these photos and prefer they are not here, just let me know (or if you would like a copy of the photo).
Si vous vous reconnaissez dans cette photo et préfériez que la photo ne soit pas publiée, dites le moi (ou bien si vous aimeriez en avoir une copie).
Having breakfast out with my son in London. I was taking pictures of our surroundings while he was occupied on his Smart phone. I started to take pictures of him in his absorption and suddenly he put his face in front of my lens as we got that moment of eye connection a second before I took the photo!
I love the candid and unposed shot and the connection means a lot!
Scheveningen/The Hague
June 2012
The Netherlands
I watched the EC match between The Netherlands and Germany in our local surfers enclave. This shot was taken in the final minutes of the game, which we lost..
Beachlife in the Netherlands
Ricoh GRD IV
Please do not reproduce or use this picture without my explicit permission.
If you ask nicely I will probably say yes, just ask me first!
If you happen to be in one of my frames and have any objections to this.
Please contact me!
Please no glossy awards, scripted comments and big thumbnails back to your own work.
I will remove them...
Metro
Beijing, China
July 2012
Candid shots in and around Public Transport
Canon 550D
Please do not reproduce or use this picture without my explicit permission.
If you ask nicely I will probably say yes, just ask me first!
If you happen to be in one of my frames and have any objections to this.
Please contact me!
Please no glossy awards, scripted comments and big thumbnails back to your own work.
I will remove them...
The Teesside Railless Traction Board (TRTB) served a predominately industrial area to the east of Middlesbrough but did not enter the town centre. By the time of its absorption into Teesside Municipal Transport (TMT) in 1968, it operated a mixed fleet of trolleybuses, motor buses and ancillary vehicles in a dark green livery. This fictional towing vehicle is based on a locally-preserved AEC Matador vehicle that carries Salford City Transport fleetnames (11-Feb-23).
All rights reserved. Not to be posted on Facebook or anywhere else without my prior written permission. Please follow the link below for additional information about my Flickr images:
Infrared converted Canon Rebel XTi with Tokina AT-X 116 Pro DX lens. HDR AEB +/-2.5 total of 6 exposures at F11, 11mm, 4XNDF, manual focus and processed with Photomatix HDR software. Levels adjusted in PSE6.
High Dynamic Range (HDR)
High-dynamic-range imaging (HDRI) is a high dynamic range (HDR) technique used in imaging and photography to reproduce a greater dynamic range of luminosity than is possible with standard digital imaging or photographic techniques. The aim is to present a similar range of luminance to that experienced through the human visual system. The human eye, through adaptation of the iris and other methods, adjusts constantly to adapt to a broad range of luminance present in the environment. The brain continuously interprets this information so that a viewer can see in a wide range of light conditions.
HDR images can represent a greater range of luminance levels than can be achieved using more 'traditional' methods, such as many real-world scenes containing very bright, direct sunlight to extreme shade, or very faint nebulae. This is often achieved by capturing and then combining several different, narrower range, exposures of the same subject matter. Non-HDR cameras take photographs with a limited exposure range, referred to as LDR, resulting in the loss of detail in highlights or shadows.
The two primary types of HDR images are computer renderings and images resulting from merging multiple low-dynamic-range (LDR) or standard-dynamic-range (SDR) photographs. HDR images can also be acquired using special image sensors, such as an oversampled binary image sensor.
Due to the limitations of printing and display contrast, the extended luminosity range of an HDR image has to be compressed to be made visible. The method of rendering an HDR image to a standard monitor or printing device is called tone mapping. This method reduces the overall contrast of an HDR image to facilitate display on devices or printouts with lower dynamic range, and can be applied to produce images with preserved local contrast (or exaggerated for artistic effect).
In photography, dynamic range is measured in exposure value (EV) differences (known as stops). An increase of one EV, or 'one stop', represents a doubling of the amount of light. Conversely, a decrease of one EV represents a halving of the amount of light. Therefore, revealing detail in the darkest of shadows requires high exposures, while preserving detail in very bright situations requires very low exposures. Most cameras cannot provide this range of exposure values within a single exposure, due to their low dynamic range. High-dynamic-range photographs are generally achieved by capturing multiple standard-exposure images, often using exposure bracketing, and then later merging them into a single HDR image, usually within a photo manipulation program). Digital images are often encoded in a camera's raw image format, because 8-bit JPEG encoding does not offer a wide enough range of values to allow fine transitions (and regarding HDR, later introduces undesirable effects due to lossy compression).
Any camera that allows manual exposure control can make images for HDR work, although one equipped with auto exposure bracketing (AEB) is far better suited. Images from film cameras are less suitable as they often must first be digitized, so that they can later be processed using software HDR methods.
In most imaging devices, the degree of exposure to light applied to the active element (be it film or CCD) can be altered in one of two ways: by either increasing/decreasing the size of the aperture or by increasing/decreasing the time of each exposure. Exposure variation in an HDR set is only done by altering the exposure time and not the aperture size; this is because altering the aperture size also affects the depth of field and so the resultant multiple images would be quite different, preventing their final combination into a single HDR image.
An important limitation for HDR photography is that any movement between successive images will impede or prevent success in combining them afterwards. Also, as one must create several images (often three or five and sometimes more) to obtain the desired luminance range, such a full 'set' of images takes extra time. HDR photographers have developed calculation methods and techniques to partially overcome these problems, but the use of a sturdy tripod is, at least, advised.
Some cameras have an auto exposure bracketing (AEB) feature with a far greater dynamic range than others, from the 3 EV of the Canon EOS 40D, to the 18 EV of the Canon EOS-1D Mark II. As the popularity of this imaging method grows, several camera manufactures are now offering built-in HDR features. For example, the Pentax K-7 DSLR has an HDR mode that captures an HDR image and outputs (only) a tone mapped JPEG file. The Canon PowerShot G12, Canon PowerShot S95 and Canon PowerShot S100 offer similar features in a smaller format.. Nikon's approach is called 'Active D-Lighting' which applies exposure compensation and tone mapping to the image as it comes from the sensor, with the accent being on retaing a realistic effect . Some smartphones provide HDR modes, and most mobile platforms have apps that provide HDR picture taking.
Camera characteristics such as gamma curves, sensor resolution, noise, photometric calibration and color calibration affect resulting high-dynamic-range images.
Color film negatives and slides consist of multiple film layers that respond to light differently. As a consequence, transparent originals (especially positive slides) feature a very high dynamic range
Tone mapping
Tone mapping reduces the dynamic range, or contrast ratio, of an entire image while retaining localized contrast. Although it is a distinct operation, tone mapping is often applied to HDRI files by the same software package.
Several software applications are available on the PC, Mac and Linux platforms for producing HDR files and tone mapped images. Notable titles include
Adobe Photoshop
Aurora HDR
Dynamic Photo HDR
HDR Efex Pro
HDR PhotoStudio
Luminance HDR
MagicRaw
Oloneo PhotoEngine
Photomatix Pro
PTGui
Information stored in high-dynamic-range images typically corresponds to the physical values of luminance or radiance that can be observed in the real world. This is different from traditional digital images, which represent colors as they should appear on a monitor or a paper print. Therefore, HDR image formats are often called scene-referred, in contrast to traditional digital images, which are device-referred or output-referred. Furthermore, traditional images are usually encoded for the human visual system (maximizing the visual information stored in the fixed number of bits), which is usually called gamma encoding or gamma correction. The values stored for HDR images are often gamma compressed (power law) or logarithmically encoded, or floating-point linear values, since fixed-point linear encodings are increasingly inefficient over higher dynamic ranges.
HDR images often don't use fixed ranges per color channel—other than traditional images—to represent many more colors over a much wider dynamic range. For that purpose, they don't use integer values to represent the single color channels (e.g., 0-255 in an 8 bit per pixel interval for red, green and blue) but instead use a floating point representation. Common are 16-bit (half precision) or 32-bit floating point numbers to represent HDR pixels. However, when the appropriate transfer function is used, HDR pixels for some applications can be represented with a color depth that has as few as 10–12 bits for luminance and 8 bits for chrominance without introducing any visible quantization artifacts.
History of HDR photography
The idea of using several exposures to adequately reproduce a too-extreme range of luminance was pioneered as early as the 1850s by Gustave Le Gray to render seascapes showing both the sky and the sea. Such rendering was impossible at the time using standard methods, as the luminosity range was too extreme. Le Gray used one negative for the sky, and another one with a longer exposure for the sea, and combined the two into one picture in positive.
Mid 20th century
Manual tone mapping was accomplished by dodging and burning – selectively increasing or decreasing the exposure of regions of the photograph to yield better tonality reproduction. This was effective because the dynamic range of the negative is significantly higher than would be available on the finished positive paper print when that is exposed via the negative in a uniform manner. An excellent example is the photograph Schweitzer at the Lamp by W. Eugene Smith, from his 1954 photo essay A Man of Mercy on Dr. Albert Schweitzer and his humanitarian work in French Equatorial Africa. The image took 5 days to reproduce the tonal range of the scene, which ranges from a bright lamp (relative to the scene) to a dark shadow.
Ansel Adams elevated dodging and burning to an art form. Many of his famous prints were manipulated in the darkroom with these two methods. Adams wrote a comprehensive book on producing prints called The Print, which prominently features dodging and burning, in the context of his Zone System.
With the advent of color photography, tone mapping in the darkroom was no longer possible due to the specific timing needed during the developing process of color film. Photographers looked to film manufacturers to design new film stocks with improved response, or continued to shoot in black and white to use tone mapping methods.
Color film capable of directly recording high-dynamic-range images was developed by Charles Wyckoff and EG&G "in the course of a contract with the Department of the Air Force". This XR film had three emulsion layers, an upper layer having an ASA speed rating of 400, a middle layer with an intermediate rating, and a lower layer with an ASA rating of 0.004. The film was processed in a manner similar to color films, and each layer produced a different color. The dynamic range of this extended range film has been estimated as 1:108. It has been used to photograph nuclear explosions, for astronomical photography, for spectrographic research, and for medical imaging. Wyckoff's detailed pictures of nuclear explosions appeared on the cover of Life magazine in the mid-1950s.
Late 20th century
Georges Cornuéjols and licensees of his patents (Brdi, Hymatom) introduced the principle of HDR video image, in 1986, by interposing a matricial LCD screen in front of the camera's image sensor, increasing the sensors dynamic by five stops. The concept of neighborhood tone mapping was applied to video cameras by a group from the Technion in Israel led by Dr. Oliver Hilsenrath and Prof. Y.Y.Zeevi who filed for a patent on this concept in 1988.
In February and April 1990, Georges Cornuéjols introduced the first real-time HDR camera that combined two images captured by a sensor3435 or simultaneously3637 by two sensors of the camera. This process is known as bracketing used for a video stream.
In 1991, the first commercial video camera was introduced that performed real-time capturing of multiple images with different exposures, and producing an HDR video image, by Hymatom, licensee of Georges Cornuéjols.
Also in 1991, Georges Cornuéjols introduced the HDR+ image principle by non-linear accumulation of images to increase the sensitivity of the camera: for low-light environments, several successive images are accumulated, thus increasing the signal to noise ratio.
In 1993, another commercial medical camera producing an HDR video image, by the Technion.
Modern HDR imaging uses a completely different approach, based on making a high-dynamic-range luminance or light map using only global image operations (across the entire image), and then tone mapping the result. Global HDR was first introduced in 19931 resulting in a mathematical theory of differently exposed pictures of the same subject matter that was published in 1995 by Steve Mann and Rosalind Picard.
On October 28, 1998, Ben Sarao created one of the first nighttime HDR+G (High Dynamic Range + Graphic image)of STS-95 on the launch pad at NASA's Kennedy Space Center. It consisted of four film images of the shuttle at night that were digitally composited with additional digital graphic elements. The image was first exhibited at NASA Headquarters Great Hall, Washington DC in 1999 and then published in Hasselblad Forum, Issue 3 1993, Volume 35 ISSN 0282-5449.
The advent of consumer digital cameras produced a new demand for HDR imaging to improve the light response of digital camera sensors, which had a much smaller dynamic range than film. Steve Mann developed and patented the global-HDR method for producing digital images having extended dynamic range at the MIT Media Laboratory. Mann's method involved a two-step procedure: (1) generate one floating point image array by global-only image operations (operations that affect all pixels identically, without regard to their local neighborhoods); and then (2) convert this image array, using local neighborhood processing (tone-remapping, etc.), into an HDR image. The image array generated by the first step of Mann's process is called a lightspace image, lightspace picture, or radiance map. Another benefit of global-HDR imaging is that it provides access to the intermediate light or radiance map, which has been used for computer vision, and other image processing operations.
21st century
In 2005, Adobe Systems introduced several new features in Photoshop CS2 including Merge to HDR, 32 bit floating point image support, and HDR tone mapping.
On June 30, 2016, Microsoft added support for the digital compositing of HDR images to Windows 10 using the Universal Windows Platform.
HDR sensors
Modern CMOS image sensors can often capture a high dynamic range from a single exposure. The wide dynamic range of the captured image is non-linearly compressed into a smaller dynamic range electronic representation. However, with proper processing, the information from a single exposure can be used to create an HDR image.
Such HDR imaging is used in extreme dynamic range applications like welding or automotive work. Some other cameras designed for use in security applications can automatically provide two or more images for each frame, with changing exposure. For example, a sensor for 30fps video will give out 60fps with the odd frames at a short exposure time and the even frames at a longer exposure time. Some of the sensor may even combine the two images on-chip so that a wider dynamic range without in-pixel compression is directly available to the user for display or processing.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-dynamic-range_imaging
Infrared Photography
In infrared photography, the film or image sensor used is sensitive to infrared light. The part of the spectrum used is referred to as near-infrared to distinguish it from far-infrared, which is the domain of thermal imaging. Wavelengths used for photography range from about 700 nm to about 900 nm. Film is usually sensitive to visible light too, so an infrared-passing filter is used; this lets infrared (IR) light pass through to the camera, but blocks all or most of the visible light spectrum (the filter thus looks black or deep red). ("Infrared filter" may refer either to this type of filter or to one that blocks infrared but passes other wavelengths.)
When these filters are used together with infrared-sensitive film or sensors, "in-camera effects" can be obtained; false-color or black-and-white images with a dreamlike or sometimes lurid appearance known as the "Wood Effect," an effect mainly caused by foliage (such as tree leaves and grass) strongly reflecting in the same way visible light is reflected from snow. There is a small contribution from chlorophyll fluorescence, but this is marginal and is not the real cause of the brightness seen in infrared photographs. The effect is named after the infrared photography pioneer Robert W. Wood, and not after the material wood, which does not strongly reflect infrared.
The other attributes of infrared photographs include very dark skies and penetration of atmospheric haze, caused by reduced Rayleigh scattering and Mie scattering, respectively, compared to visible light. The dark skies, in turn, result in less infrared light in shadows and dark reflections of those skies from water, and clouds will stand out strongly. These wavelengths also penetrate a few millimeters into skin and give a milky look to portraits, although eyes often look black.
Until the early 20th century, infrared photography was not possible because silver halide emulsions are not sensitive to longer wavelengths than that of blue light (and to a lesser extent, green light) without the addition of a dye to act as a color sensitizer. The first infrared photographs (as distinct from spectrographs) to be published appeared in the February 1910 edition of The Century Magazine and in the October 1910 edition of the Royal Photographic Society Journal to illustrate papers by Robert W. Wood, who discovered the unusual effects that now bear his name. The RPS co-ordinated events to celebrate the centenary of this event in 2010. Wood's photographs were taken on experimental film that required very long exposures; thus, most of his work focused on landscapes. A further set of infrared landscapes taken by Wood in Italy in 1911 used plates provided for him by CEK Mees at Wratten & Wainwright. Mees also took a few infrared photographs in Portugal in 1910, which are now in the Kodak archives.
Infrared-sensitive photographic plates were developed in the United States during World War I for spectroscopic analysis, and infrared sensitizing dyes were investigated for improved haze penetration in aerial photography. After 1930, new emulsions from Kodak and other manufacturers became useful to infrared astronomy.
Infrared photography became popular with photography enthusiasts in the 1930s when suitable film was introduced commercially. The Times regularly published landscape and aerial photographs taken by their staff photographers using Ilford infrared film. By 1937 33 kinds of infrared film were available from five manufacturers including Agfa, Kodak and Ilford. Infrared movie film was also available and was used to create day-for-night effects in motion pictures, a notable example being the pseudo-night aerial sequences in the James Cagney/Bette Davis movie The Bride Came COD.
False-color infrared photography became widely practiced with the introduction of Kodak Ektachrome Infrared Aero Film and Ektachrome Infrared EIR. The first version of this, known as Kodacolor Aero-Reversal-Film, was developed by Clark and others at the Kodak for camouflage detection in the 1940s. The film became more widely available in 35mm form in the 1960s but KODAK AEROCHROME III Infrared Film 1443 has been discontinued.
Infrared photography became popular with a number of 1960s recording artists, because of the unusual results; Jimi Hendrix, Donovan, Frank and a slow shutter speed without focus compensation, however wider apertures like f/2.0 can produce sharp photos only if the lens is meticulously refocused to the infrared index mark, and only if this index mark is the correct one for the filter and film in use. However, it should be noted that diffraction effects inside a camera are greater at infrared wavelengths so that stopping down the lens too far may actually reduce sharpness.
Most apochromatic ('APO') lenses do not have an Infrared index mark and do not need to be refocused for the infrared spectrum because they are already optically corrected into the near-infrared spectrum. Catadioptric lenses do not often require this adjustment because their mirror containing elements do not suffer from chromatic aberration and so the overall aberration is comparably less. Catadioptric lenses do, of course, still contain lenses, and these lenses do still have a dispersive property.
Infrared black-and-white films require special development times but development is usually achieved with standard black-and-white film developers and chemicals (like D-76). Kodak HIE film has a polyester film base that is very stable but extremely easy to scratch, therefore special care must be used in the handling of Kodak HIE throughout the development and printing/scanning process to avoid damage to the film. The Kodak HIE film was sensitive to 900 nm.
As of November 2, 2007, "KODAK is preannouncing the discontinuance" of HIE Infrared 35 mm film stating the reasons that, "Demand for these products has been declining significantly in recent years, and it is no longer practical to continue to manufacture given the low volume, the age of the product formulations and the complexity of the processes involved." At the time of this notice, HIE Infrared 135-36 was available at a street price of around $12.00 a roll at US mail order outlets.
Arguably the greatest obstacle to infrared film photography has been the increasing difficulty of obtaining infrared-sensitive film. However, despite the discontinuance of HIE, other newer infrared sensitive emulsions from EFKE, ROLLEI, and ILFORD are still available, but these formulations have differing sensitivity and specifications from the venerable KODAK HIE that has been around for at least two decades. Some of these infrared films are available in 120 and larger formats as well as 35 mm, which adds flexibility to their application. With the discontinuance of Kodak HIE, Efke's IR820 film has become the only IR film on the marketneeds update with good sensitivity beyond 750 nm, the Rollei film does extend beyond 750 nm but IR sensitivity falls off very rapidly.
Color infrared transparency films have three sensitized layers that, because of the way the dyes are coupled to these layers, reproduce infrared as red, red as green, and green as blue. All three layers are sensitive to blue so the film must be used with a yellow filter, since this will block blue light but allow the remaining colors to reach the film. The health of foliage can be determined from the relative strengths of green and infrared light reflected; this shows in color infrared as a shift from red (healthy) towards magenta (unhealthy). Early color infrared films were developed in the older E-4 process, but Kodak later manufactured a color transparency film that could be developed in standard E-6 chemistry, although more accurate results were obtained by developing using the AR-5 process. In general, color infrared does not need to be refocused to the infrared index mark on the lens.
In 2007 Kodak announced that production of the 35 mm version of their color infrared film (Ektachrome Professional Infrared/EIR) would cease as there was insufficient demand. Since 2011, all formats of color infrared film have been discontinued. Specifically, Aerochrome 1443 and SO-734.
There is no currently available digital camera that will produce the same results as Kodak color infrared film although the equivalent images can be produced by taking two exposures, one infrared and the other full-color, and combining in post-production. The color images produced by digital still cameras using infrared-pass filters are not equivalent to those produced on color infrared film. The colors result from varying amounts of infrared passing through the color filters on the photo sites, further amended by the Bayer filtering. While this makes such images unsuitable for the kind of applications for which the film was used, such as remote sensing of plant health, the resulting color tonality has proved popular artistically.
Color digital infrared, as part of full spectrum photography is gaining popularity. The ease of creating a softly colored photo with infrared characteristics has found interest among hobbyists and professionals.
In 2008, Los Angeles photographer, Dean Bennici started cutting and hand rolling Aerochrome color Infrared film. All Aerochrome medium and large format which exists today came directly from his lab. The trend in infrared photography continues to gain momentum with the success of photographer Richard Mosse and multiple users all around the world.
Digital camera sensors are inherently sensitive to infrared light, which would interfere with the normal photography by confusing the autofocus calculations or softening the image (because infrared light is focused differently from visible light), or oversaturating the red channel. Also, some clothing is transparent in the infrared, leading to unintended (at least to the manufacturer) uses of video cameras. Thus, to improve image quality and protect privacy, many digital cameras employ infrared blockers. Depending on the subject matter, infrared photography may not be practical with these cameras because the exposure times become overly long, often in the range of 30 seconds, creating noise and motion blur in the final image. However, for some subject matter the long exposure does not matter or the motion blur effects actually add to the image. Some lenses will also show a 'hot spot' in the centre of the image as their coatings are optimised for visible light and not for IR.
An alternative method of DSLR infrared photography is to remove the infrared blocker in front of the sensor and replace it with a filter that removes visible light. This filter is behind the mirror, so the camera can be used normally - handheld, normal shutter speeds, normal composition through the viewfinder, and focus, all work like a normal camera. Metering works but is not always accurate because of the difference between visible and infrared refraction. When the IR blocker is removed, many lenses which did display a hotspot cease to do so, and become perfectly usable for infrared photography. Additionally, because the red, green and blue micro-filters remain and have transmissions not only in their respective color but also in the infrared, enhanced infrared color may be recorded.
Since the Bayer filters in most digital cameras absorb a significant fraction of the infrared light, these cameras are sometimes not very sensitive as infrared cameras and can sometimes produce false colors in the images. An alternative approach is to use a Foveon X3 sensor, which does not have absorptive filters on it; the Sigma SD10 DSLR has a removable IR blocking filter and dust protector, which can be simply omitted or replaced by a deep red or complete visible light blocking filter. The Sigma SD14 has an IR/UV blocking filter that can be removed/installed without tools. The result is a very sensitive digital IR camera.
While it is common to use a filter that blocks almost all visible light, the wavelength sensitivity of a digital camera without internal infrared blocking is such that a variety of artistic results can be obtained with more conventional filtration. For example, a very dark neutral density filter can be used (such as the Hoya ND400) which passes a very small amount of visible light compared to the near-infrared it allows through. Wider filtration permits an SLR viewfinder to be used and also passes more varied color information to the sensor without necessarily reducing the Wood effect. Wider filtration is however likely to reduce other infrared artefacts such as haze penetration and darkened skies. This technique mirrors the methods used by infrared film photographers where black-and-white infrared film was often used with a deep red filter rather than a visually opaque one.
Another common technique with near-infrared filters is to swap blue and red channels in software (e.g. photoshop) which retains much of the characteristic 'white foliage' while rendering skies a glorious blue.
Several Sony cameras had the so-called Night Shot facility, which physically moves the blocking filter away from the light path, which makes the cameras very sensitive to infrared light. Soon after its development, this facility was 'restricted' by Sony to make it difficult for people to take photos that saw through clothing. To do this the iris is opened fully and exposure duration is limited to long times of more than 1/30 second or so. It is possible to shoot infrared but neutral density filters must be used to reduce the camera's sensitivity and the long exposure times mean that care must be taken to avoid camera-shake artifacts.
Fuji have produced digital cameras for use in forensic criminology and medicine which have no infrared blocking filter. The first camera, designated the S3 PRO UVIR, also had extended ultraviolet sensitivity (digital sensors are usually less sensitive to UV than to IR). Optimum UV sensitivity requires special lenses, but ordinary lenses usually work well for IR. In 2007, FujiFilm introduced a new version of this camera, based on the Nikon D200/ FujiFilm S5 called the IS Pro, also able to take Nikon lenses. Fuji had earlier introduced a non-SLR infrared camera, the IS-1, a modified version of the FujiFilm FinePix S9100. Unlike the S3 PRO UVIR, the IS-1 does not offer UV sensitivity. FujiFilm restricts the sale of these cameras to professional users with their EULA specifically prohibiting "unethical photographic conduct".
Phase One digital camera backs can be ordered in an infrared modified form.
Remote sensing and thermographic cameras are sensitive to longer wavelengths of infrared (see Infrared spectrum#Commonly used sub-division scheme). They may be multispectral and use a variety of technologies which may not resemble common camera or filter designs. Cameras sensitive to longer infrared wavelengths including those used in infrared astronomy often require cooling to reduce thermally induced dark currents in the sensor (see Dark current (physics)). Lower cost uncooled thermographic digital cameras operate in the Long Wave infrared band (see Thermographic camera#Uncooled infrared detectors). These cameras are generally used for building inspection or preventative maintenance but can be used for artistic pursuits as well.
Leiden
May 2012
The Netherlands
Urban life in the Netherlands
Ricoh GRD IV
Please do not reproduce or use this picture without my explicit permission.
If you ask nicely i will probably say yes, just ask me first!
If you happen to be in one of my frames and have any objections to this.
Please contact me!
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pls keep the comments clean.
no banners & awards pls!
© All rights reserved. Use without permission is illegal.If you do so you will be sued!!!
Metro
Beijing, China
July 2012
Candid shots in and around Public Transport
Ricoh GRD IV
Please do not reproduce or use this picture without my explicit permission.
If you ask nicely I will probably say yes, just ask me first!
If you happen to be in one of my frames and have any objections to this.
Please contact me!
Please no glossy awards, scripted comments and big thumbnails back to your own work.
I will remove them...
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Yellow Green (96 pictures)
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I'm always a little ambivalent about colored light on colorful suits. The mixing of light with a limited spectrum (=colored) on a fabric with a specific absorption spectrum (=colored) often looks weird. The white light from the front normalizes the overall impression somewhat, but the odd effect on the blending areas is usually intensified significantly by my image processing (color, saturation, contrast, ect.). On the other hand, the color contrast is great to look at and small shades through the body shapes are especially emphasized. In addition, the colored light is very easy to set up and allows many combinations. So I really love it :-)
Err, yes... I have not found a good name for the gallery.
Stay safe and healthy!
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you really should see the bigger image on flickr... and the whole set at my free website! :-)
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Bookmark the URL to my website: llb1983.bplaced.net
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Do not use or repost my pictures without my written permission!
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Prior to its absorption into General Motors, Cadillac was one of the country's largest auto manufacturing firms. This is their main factory, located in Detroit on Amsterdam Avenue.
This view is looking south across Cass Avenue at the rear of the factory. The photo was taken between 1906 and 1910 by Detroit Publishing Co. and is in the collection of the Library of Congress.
The only building remaining from this complex is the three-story reinforced concrete addition completed in 1905, visible here on the far right side with a brown brick façade. Cass Avenue at this location now passes beneath the railroad tracks.
There are no automobiles visible in this image, but ironically, there is a horse-drawn carriage parked next to the factory.
The original black and white photograph was colorized in Photoshop.
North:“Good evening, gentlemen.”
Chairman 1: “Who is this?”
North:“It is I, North. Mr North.”
Chairman 2: “And?”
North: “Time to enact the plans. Our plans.”
Chairman 1: “What is it you want?”
North: “To bring forth my goal. Changing what we’ve got because why not. I've always wanted to reform the state of things.”
Chairman 2: “And why should we listen to you?”
North: “If I can already accomplish much, then you should.”
Chairman 2: “Prove it.”
North: “I already have intel.”
Chairman 3: “Of what?”
Chairman 1: “Agency blow-ups? Hah! I bet you couldn’t do more than that?
North: “Now are you a**holes gonna keep asking me your desk cop questions? Because I swear the next second the fourth one says something, I will kill him.”
Sabine: “Hello uncle. I’m late.”
North: “Oh yes, my dear niece. Please put me out of my misery. I want to reinstate the people here.”
Sabine: “Of course. What else do you need?”
North: “Bring me the heads of every surviving agent out there and purge them. Save for a few, I want them alive. Anyone who gets either—-dead or not will collect a high bounty. Be relentless, show no mercy on them. Are we clear?”
Sabine: “Yes. I can and will do that.”
North: “Good. Now where were we....cleanse this room.”
***
The sounds of the swords still clashed highly in the air. The White Ninja was already giving Riley and Sam much of a fight to deal with. Running in the dark around the rooms and floors of the museum were sure to destroy a couple good antiques and old fashioned treasury. For another 45 minutes along the way—if they could survive, it would turn out to be their most exhausting workout of the day, as Sam thought to himself. He eyed Riley, realizing he was sweating and breathing hard. Much strategies took up his mind to pull another trick off his sleeve.
White Ninja: “Tired yet?”
Riley: “No, I love playing this. Better than a PlayStation 100.”
White Ninja: “Time to die now. Bodies, for mine to keep.”
Riley: "Ew, no. You f*cking rat. What am I, your sex doll or something?"
Sam: “Here goes nothing, I'm gonna have to use my rifle for a getaway—cover me!“
Sam fired his own shots at the quick opponent, who dodged the blasts like the tricky laser maze. And one of them got deflected. Much to his shock, he figured the rematch was more dangerous than ever. Sam’s heart was starting to beat faster as he sensed the ninja’s quick draws, until Riley unleashed her vibro waves, causing the floor to shudder, but at least it was not on the frequency to cause and earthquake.
Riley: “Eat this you son of a bitch.”
White Ninja: “F*ck! That was mild. Too mild You wanna do it better, girl Don't disappoint me. Make it hotter. Make me bleed. ”
Riley: “I’m not your woman you f*cking piece of slime. Stop talking like I'm a cow. Now taste this from the Highlands. I'll send you on a one way trip you'll never forget you were born."
White Ninja: *gets knocked back* “You are quick. I should have never underestimate how you do things. Your hair looks amazing, those blonde strands...I bet they smell really nice.”
Sam: “Shut the hell up, you damn creep. Give it up or else I’ll destroy the lung buttons. Now watch where you’re going punk.”
White Ninja: “Hmph! I won’t spill my own guts in front of you. It would be un-honourable for me....and him.”
Sam: “So he knows. He’s got the vials and signals.”
White Ninja: “Yes, very much, yes...”
Riley: “We have ours as well. Start talking yer filthy masked c**t.”
White Ninja: “Fair game, we are being witnessed. If you are looking for him, then I will leave my mark here. Careful, my rematch doesn’t end here. I will be more than glad to wipe out the both of you later. And you, only you, lady with swords...”
Sam: “We’ll probably meet again soon, that's a given.”
Riley: “Hell. I don't f*cking want to. Ever.”
Sam: “I thought he wouldn’t catch the plasma....”
Riley: *laughs* “Ain’t it too much for ya Samuel? Load up the gun better next time! I can't wait to destroy that robotic sh*t if we have to clash again!”
*Sam raises an eyebrow but still laughs anyways*
***
Ty: “Are we too late?”
Kieran: “No, not yet. We’re gonna use these to travel—basically even quicker than taking on the Tube. I think it’s more advanced than the type of stuff MI6/5 has, where we have our system all over and below it.”
Ty: “Invisible?”
Kieran: “Not till our buddy North blew it out of sh*t hole proportions and I think London’s....yup. It's always been sh*t. Never ask a Texan like to ever settle in Britain. However, still good in time to save your lady friend, y’know.”
Ty: “Alright, take us there.”
***
Kurt: “I did not know my jet pack signed up for this. The guy almost tore off one of my wings....”
Erin: “I had everything under control until the ES had to show up. But she’s got the full work package. Lyra?”
Lyra: “Ouí. I realised this is very fun. Their armour is very good for absorption.”
Kurt: “Let me reverse his molecules.”
Erin: “What If his blood’s acidic?”
Kurt: “Well, guess I'm gonna let missus element do her job. Uncle Kurt here's gonna have to move to other things. Least she can do the regeneration thing while I can’t. Uh, shadow girl? Was trying to read your lips...you were saying? Thirty more people about to bust up from the underground? See if you can do a few more teleporting runs---”
Erin: “Time for backup.”
*Ty and Kieran appear quickly”
Kieran: “Not too late to the party are we? Is it dark enough?”
Erin: “I figured the celling needed more light...you wanna balance it?”
Kieran: “Mhmm. How are you two?”
Lyra: “Merci de demander. Very well. One of those bastards nearly cut my hand off. And yes, it’s acidic.”
Kurt: “Eh. This is why investigation takes you everywhere. Fancy me some tea while looking. I need a quick break.”
Kieran: “Alright. Lyra, we’re gonna need some quick space over here....wanna show me more of your discovery?”
Lyra: “Would be a pleasure, Lighter.”
Ty: “So..we're...running short on time.”
Erin: “Yup.”
Ty: “Y'know, I was starting to worry about you even if your crew could handle themselves.”
Erin: “I kinda am as well. But didn’t return my calls though Ty.”
Ty: “I was busy. Like super busy.”
Erin: “So was I. I thought we would update the group chat at least to know everyone’s doing safe.”
Ty: “Umm...well....”
Erin: “Are you outta excuses? Nothing more to say to me?”
Ty: “Nah....I just couldn’t bother to respond...I’m too focused on so many things. It's called multitasking.”
Erin: “That doesn’t give you reasons not to talk to me. You're purposely avoiding me, right?”
Ty: “I thought we already went through this. Erin, come on.”
Erin: “No....not yet with me, Tyrone. You haven't. Honestly. I don't wanna stall it too much--"
Sam: *Uh everyone, we might have a lead on North. It’s not looking pretty.”
Kieran: “Where do we find him?”
Sam: “Still in Europe...but he’s gonna keep sending more assassins.”
Kurt: “Oh bloody hell. I want scotch now. I have to keep this running for extra hours? Can someone get scotch?”
***
Harry: “.....and his niece is here!”
Jesse: “Looks like Sam’s not the only one having a rematch.”
Harry: “Considering how I went all out to protect a kid until it turned into more than just that.”
Jesse: “Still a worthy experience. If only I could have been there to help.”
Gary: “You show quite a lot compassion. I can sense it. They call you the ghost, but you are not as cold as I think, Harry Kostopulos.”
Harry: “Since when did we start calling each other in full names? Oh right...we do know each other.”
Jesse: *laughs* “Since the day I broke your vase?”
Harry: “Damn. Not funny. You will pay back for that, Arden.”
Gary: “You do show considerable signs of anger sometimes. It can be good for the blood circulation. If you can keep it in the right amount of perplexing control. Just remember the nerves. Have you tried acupuncture?”
Jesse: *laughs even more* “Ok this is just too hilarious. My gosh. I like this guy. Yeah uh about that Harry...haha. Probs later.”
Edens *interrupts*: “Sorry boys, playtime’s over for now, though I gotta admit Gareth does know his stuff. Gardner, will you give the message?”
Gardner: “I kept analysing on the lead. I think there’s no other way to bring others to help us. People just refuse to do it.”
Edens: “We could only get help for people willing to....but not much. This—is unsanctioned use of helping. Obviously against the rules.”
Jesse: “But it’s not like anyone cares right?”
Gardner: “Right. We’re violating the code further...it’s time I opened up my secrets a bit. We got a recruit. I’d expect you guys to know him.”
Edens: “Huh. I think I already do.”
Harry: “You gotta be kidding me...”
Dusksmoke: *steps out of shadows* “Yes. I didn’t sign up for money or payment. Things have gotten too out of hand for us to not notice.”
Harry: “I hope Tokyo was fine after that.”
Dusksmoke: “It was. But then, the Yakuza seems to be extending over with more of the triad or gang members...and it gets dirty. I’ve been talking with Mason Gardner since then, given some history he has at Japan. But if we’re going to take down the big man, then I will gladly be here.”
Jesse: “Y’all gotta update me on something before I should not be passing out.”
Gary: “Right. Let’s go from the beginning then.”