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The moon was beautiful last night, and these are my first decent moon pics. Trying out my new tripod, and it certainly makes a difference from earlier attempts. The one below is right before darkness, and the main pic is about 10 minutes later. I plan on trying it again when the full moon appears. Think I'll read up on how to achieve good moon pics. Might save me a lot of trial and error regarding the settings. Or if any of my flickr friends have suggestions, I'll certainly be listening to your advice.
Now with the arrival of Perfume Pretty Whitney my Whitney collection is almost completed, I only miss her nurse version.
Need to machine a slot so the bottom bracket assembly can key into a rail on the tooling plate so things slide true. Basically done though.
(re-edited, from my archives.) Xhosa Rite of Passage/circumcision ritual . Gugaletu, South Africa, 2010. In Xhosa tradition this event is a milestone in a boy’s life; it is the time when he becomes a man. Boys have to be initiated into manhood before their 18th birthday (although nowadays many are older and even in their twenties depending on their financial situation) and sometimes they can be as young as 12. Normally they go into the bush or the mountains depending on where they live and spend several weeks being initiated by men who are specialized in that and this part of the ceremony is kept in secrecy, no one really knows what happens there. (let me just add here that another friend of mine who went though this initiation when he was 20 told me that if he knew the pain he would go through that he would have never ever chosen to become a man..)
The boys are not circumcised as babies so one stage of the initiation is for them to be circumcised and this has become the centre of a lot of controversy as many boys have either lost their penises or died during the process. The circumcision is done by the initiator and he doesn’t use any type of anaesthetic but this is all a part of proving that you are a man. This may seem very horrible to some people especially in the western world but like a fried of mine said, in other cultures you may have to kill a lion and this is just a part of African culture and there are many similar things in other countries that we go though as a rite of passage. But now they are being given better tools to perform this procedure and people are beginning to step away from using the traditional tools once used which are not as safe.
Usually the father of the son decides when he is physically and emotionally ready to be initiated and then he places the son in the hands of a man that he trusts, very often he takes him to the same man who initiated him. The father of this young man did everything to make sure that his son would be safe and not be hurt in any way. He decided for his son to also be initiated at the same time as his cousin which gives the children some moral support while in the bush and while they were in the bush he would visit them 3-4 times a week just to make sure everything was running smoothly and that his son was alright. But of course the mother’s always worry.
a friend of mine was telling about some of the problems that are now happening which were expressed to him by his good friend (who is the father of this boy) where now the whole process of initiation has become a business and the true tradition is being lost because instead of the father deciding when his son is ready, a lot of the time the father isn’t even present, either because he has passed away or just decided to leave his family and people are aware of this and now you will find some men who drive around in a truck looking for young boys walking along the street and then they just grab them and forcibly put them into initiation school and sometimes the boy is way too young to be initiated, he is not physically or emotionally ready to undergo such an experience because it is a very difficult process for the boys to have to go through and if they are not ready this will obviously cause many psychological problems for the boys or even severe physical problems.
Once they have taken the boy they send someone to his mother’s house and tell her that she needs to pay them anywhere from 2,000-4,000 rand. It’s no longer that the family knows the initiator and a lot of the time the initiators are not even qualified to have this role and are just alcoholics looking for a quick way to make some money. In many cases like this the boys are beaten and tortured but in this case they have been very careful and have known the man they chose to be the initiator for a long time. They have done it properly which is how it would normally be done according to tradition.
The part of the ritual I experienced was one of the final phases of the son’s circumcision ritual. They have already spent their time in the bush and are now accepted as men but there is one more week to go before they can dress as men. In this photo you are seeing the men being yelled at by the elders in how to behave and how to live a life of dignity and respect, i was lucky enough that they invited me in to the room where this takes place. During this period they are not allowed to wear shoes and must wear a scarf over their eyes because they are not supposed to see anyone yet and in a week’s time they will be able to wash, and wear normal clothes consisting of a nice jacket and a cap.
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almost done shading! Asian Arowana tattoo! Thanks to Leo@ Two Thumbs Tattoo Hawaii for inking my designs!
Paddy Field @ Kampung Besar, Penang 2012
Paddy Field almost ready for harvest..
Gear:
Aperture Priority
Model: DSLR-A580
ISO: 100
Exposure: 1/80 sec
Aperture: 14.0
Focal Length: 17mm
Flash Used: No
Filter: Hitech Filter 0.6s
Digital copy and Canvas printout can be done at below;
This ceramic art from Oaxaca Mexico slows the Three Kings approaching Belen to bring their gifts to Baby Jesus. I hope all Flickr friends get many wonderful gifts tonight
Seriously, this straight on pose makes me think an owl, instead of a hawk. But I am delighted to get the hawk! Although I still really want an owl.
The air-landing "Helldiver" is built almost 100% out of the box - just some hydraulics were added inside of the opened air brakes on the lower legs, and the head received some hydraulic rams as added details.
Furthermore the cockpit hatch was with the pilot lifted high enough to have a look "out of the Labor's breast" - it's actually a 1:72 figure, but it's acceptable as a 1:60 Japanese person ;)
Painting was done with Tamiya Acrylics, and the kit slightly weathered/dusted.
The small diorama was built on a 8x8" base, with real wood pieces and real earth for the forest ground it is supposed to simulate. Additionally, some moss and foam leafs were used.
We're almost to summer.
This afternoon was a nice, quiet time on the beach, which had a nice cross-section of the beautiful ethnic and socioeconomic diversity which my neighborhood contains. The beach is free.
Edgewater, Chicago, Illinois.
Mother's Day, Sunday, May 11, 2014.
The journey from Brittain Yard in Akron to Gambranius Yard in Canton is nearly complete as the train passes a Timken facility.
You simply must go big to see the detail @ 18th and Carson where we gathered for the Pittsburgh flickr meet-up. A bunch of great folks turned out for the walk. Some old friends and new acquaintances. It was good seeing you all. Please feel free to use face sized notes to ID and link yourselves.
I think I missed Nina and Bill, maybe another, by not shooting one more frame.
My apologies, I'd filled the stinking buffer and just gave up after Nixon.
This is one point of a full set of caribou antlers that is nearly engulfed by the flourishing tundra around it. Left undisturbed for decades past, it may be covered completely in a few decades to come.
Antler almost buried by plant growth
.... but you have to wait till the weekend!!
Our Daily Challenge ~ Almost ....
Thanks to everyone who views this photo, adds a note, leaves a comment and of course BIG thanks to anyone who chooses to favourite my photo .... thanks to you all.
The clouds won out on this day, but I was able to get a little filtered sun on the nose here in Kingston. With power like this, I won't whine too much about the lighting!
The farmer had just laid out some supplementary feed on one of the "middle-ground" pastures above Langcliffe.
This is Almost the Great White Donkey. He was next to Davey, the pygmy goat, and was smelling the grass!! I guess he didn't like what he smelled!! Or maybe he did and made him overjoyed!! LOL!!
This photo made Explore!!
This photo doesn't exactly fit with this song....but I ABSOLUTELY LOVE THIS SONG and I wanted to share it since I have had it stuck in my head all day!
Hear the song HERE
A Fine Frenzy- "Almost Lover"
Your fingertips across my skin
The palm trees swaying in the wind
Images
You sang me Spanish lullabies
The sweetest sadness in your eyes
Clever trick
Well, I never want to see you unhappy
I thought you'd want the same for me
Goodbye, my almost lover
Goodbye, my hopeless dream
I'm trying not to think about you
Can't you just let me be?
So long, my luckless romance
My back is turned on you
Should've known you'd bring me heartache
Almost lovers always do
We walked along a crowded street
You took my hand and danced with me
Images
And when you left, you kissed my lips
You told me you would never, never forget
These images
No
Well, I'd never want to see you unhappy
I thought you'd want the same for me
Goodbye, my almost lover
Goodbye, my hopeless dream
I'm trying not to think about you
Can't you just let me be?
So long, my luckless romance
My back is turned on you
Should've known you'd bring me heartache
Almost lovers always do
I cannot go to the ocean
I cannot drive the streets at night
I cannot wake up in the morning
Without you on my mind
So you're gone and I'm haunted
And I bet you are just fine
Did I make it that
Easy to walk right in and out
Of my life?
Goodbye, my almost lover
Goodbye, my hopeless dream
I'm trying not to think about you
Can't you just let me be?
So long, my luckless romance
My back is turned on you
Should have known you'd bring me heartache
Almost lovers always do
Crancot, départment du Jura, France
Epouse ('spouse')
She died almost seventy years after her husband. He was 28 years older than her, and probably married her towards the end of the 1920s, when she was in her late teens. This was not an uncommon state of affairs in rural France at the time. He would have fought in, and survived, the First World War, which carried off more than three million young French men - there were many more women than men in France in the 1920s. And perhaps it was a war wound which led to his early death in 1934.
And then, she lived on. Through the 1930s economic depression, and then the Second World War, the post-war austerity, the years of De Gaulle, the 1960s and the troubled French year of 1968, another economic depression in the 1970s, the years of Pompidou, Giscard d'Estaing, Mitterand and Chirac. She saw things that he would never see: television, jet planes, the European Community, pop music, nuclear power, mass immigration and the internet. She saw in the new millennium. Her husband, as an adult, had seen the previous century end.
She died at the age of 93, and now they lie together again, in the church graveyard of the pretty village of Crancot in the French Jura.
When the branch broke, it startled me and the hawk. Neither of us were prepared for that. The hawk exploded out of the branches as it started to fall and I swung my camera up but clipped the top fingers of its wings from this photo. By my next shots it was much higher. Still, it was a nice look at it's under wing beauty.
Juvenile Red-tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis)
My photos can also be found at kapturedbykala.com