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EXPLORED #494!
Found while exploring an old abandoned apartment out in rural NH. Scattered throughout the apartment was an impressive collection of televisions. So my photo partner in crime, Ed Karjala, with the help of Ed's pal Pete, collected all the sets up and made a pile of them in one corner.
Because of chairs and other cars parked close, it was hard to get a good shot of this Buick. This view makes it look pretty ordinary.
Seen at the waterfront cars show in Bellingham Washington.
The image is far from sharp (her dad was driving the big Anytec boat quite fast through the waves), but when you are able to catch a beautiful 14-year old girl smiling like that AND get her permission to upload the image.. then you just go for it! : )
Picture taken somewhere between Hanko and Padva in the Finnish archipelago on a Friday evening in August
I have not been able to build much over the last year because our home was undergoing renovations.
During that time I kept adding to my wishlist of projects, which I am now starting to work my way through.
The first is the Jungle Cruise - In honour of the original Disneyland's 60th birthday last week here is one of the classic original rides.
If you like it please look at my Ideas submission.
ideas.lego.com/projects/110049
There may be some other Disneyland related projects coming soon.
Because everyone needs a reliable man who serves them wine on command! Available also as a Santa version. 2 Prims - for November 20 Cosmopolitan Event!
This shot is dedicated to my dear Flickr pals hms_chic and MPObrien because their love of church photos rivals my own. :)
I shot all the standard angles of this ornate, baroque spectacle in marble, gold leaf and gesso known as the Chiesa del Sacro Nome di Gesù but in keeping with my less-than-usual photo theme for the trip, I decided to post this viewpoint shot wide and wonky. I think seeing it at 10mm helps make this place feel a little less somber plus I like the way the barrel distortion worked out on the marble figures in the lower left. :)
Happy Thursday!
I'm not supposed to say this, because I'm normally very independent and don't want to ruin that image for anyone. But sometimes, I really wish I was in a 24/7 dom/sub relationship. One where I didn't have to make any decisions and I could trust that I would be taken care of.
To defend myself, and not get any "You're pushing back women's rights" comments, I want to point out that this isn't some hidden thing that I keep inside because I'm embarrassed about it or something. It's not because I'm a girl. It's because I'm completely overwhelmed and alone in dealing with it. I would not enter a relationship like that, at least not any time soon, because it closely resembles and can easily become emotional abuse. And I've played that game, and I don't want to again. Plus I'd get sick of it in like, a week.
ETA: My next couple photos are going to be late. I'm heading home for the weekend, and I'm not bringing my laptop.
So because I'm never on here anymore, and if you're interested in following me in some sort of way, you can read my blog at lemieletlalune.wordpress.com
Cheers! xoxo
The Karel Havlíček Monument is an outdoor monument and sculpture by Joseph Strachovsky commemorating Karel Havlíček Borovský, installed in the median of East Solidarity Drive, in Chicago's Northerly Island, in the U.S. state of Illinois. The statue was created in 1911 and installed in 1983.
Karel Havlíček Borovský was a Czech writer, poet, critic, politician, journalist, and publisher.
He lived and studied at the gymnasium in Německý Brod (today Havlíčkův Brod, named after Borovský), and his house on the main square is today the Havlíček Museum. In 1838 he moved to Prague to study philosophy at Charles University and, influenced by the revolutionary atmosphere before the Revolutions of 1848, decided on the objective of becoming a patriotic writer. He devoted himself to studying Czech and literature. After graduating he began studying theology because he thought the best way to serve the nation would be as a priest. He was expelled after one year for "showing too little indication for spiritual ministry".
After failing to find a teacher's job in Bohemia, he left for Moscow to work as a tutor in a Russian teacher's family: with a recommendation by Pavel Josef Šafařík. He became a Russophile and a Pan-Slav, but after recognizing the true reality of the Russian society he took the pessimistic view that "Pan-Slavism is a great, attractive but feckless idea". His memories of the Russian stay were published first in magazines and then as a book Obrazy z Rus (Pictures from Russia).
He returned to Bohemia in 1844, aged 24 and used his writing skills to criticize the fashion of embracing anything written in the recently reborn Czech language. He specifically aimed at a novel by Josef Kajetán Tyl. In 1846 Havlíček attained a position as editor of the Pražské noviny newspaper with the help of František Palacký.
In April 1848 he changed the name of the newspaper to Národní noviny (National News) and it became one of the first newspapers of the Revolutionary-era Czech liberals, and one of the most influential publications of 1848–1849. Národní noviny became popular especially for his sharp-tongued epigrams and its wit. Havlíček was concerned with the preparations of the Slavic Congress in Prague. In July 1848 he was elected as a member of the Austrian Empire Constituent Assembly in Vienna and later in Kroměříž. He eventually relinquished his seat to focus on journalism.
Havlíček was a "liberal nationalist" politically, but refused to allow a "party line" to inform his opinions. Often, he would criticize those that agreed with him as much as those that disagreed. He excoriated revolutionaries for their radicalism, but also advocated ideas like universal suffrage—a concept altogether too radical for most of his fellow liberals. He was a pragmatist, and had little patience for those that spent their time romanticizing the Czech nationality without helping it achieve political or cultural independence. He used much of the space in his newspapers to educate the people on important issues—stressing areas like economics, which were sorely neglected by other nationalist writers.
The Bohemian revolution was defeated in March 1849 with the dissolution of the Kroměříž assembly, but Havlíček continued to criticize the new regime. He was brought to court for his criticism (there was no freedom of the press in the Habsburg's territory) but was found not guilty by a sympathetic jury. Národní noviny had to cease publication in January 1850, but Havlíček did not end his activities. In May 1850 he began publishing the magazine Slovan in Kutná Hora. The magazine was a target of censorship from the start. It had to stop publication in August 1851, and Havlíček stood again at the court to answer on charges of dissent. Again, he was found not guilty by a sympathetic jury of Czech commoners.
Havlíček translated and introduced some satirical and critical authors into the Czech language culture including Nikolai Gogol (1842) and Voltaire (1851).
In the night of 16 December 1851, he was arrested by the police and forced into exile in Brixen, Austria (present-day Italy).[2] He was depressed from the exile, but continued writing and wrote some of his best work: Tyrolské elegie (Tyrolean Elegies), Křest svatého Vladimíra (The Baptism of St. Vladimir) and Král Lávra (King Lavra, based on the legend of Labraid Loingsech).
When he returned from Brixen in 1855, he learned that his wife had died a few days earlier. Most of his former friends, afraid of the Bach system, stood aloof from him. Only a few publicly declared support for him.
In 1856, Havlíček died of tuberculosis, aged 35. Božena Němcová put a crown of thorns on his head in the coffin. His funeral was attended by about 5,000 Czechs.
In 1911, a monument was raised to Havlíček in Chicago by Czech residents of the city in Douglass Park. The bronze statue by Joseph Strachovsky was cast by V. Mašek in Prague and shows Havlicek in a revolutionary pose, dressed in a full military uniform and a draped cape with his outstretched arm motioning the viewer to join him. The statue was moved to Solidarity Drive on today's Museum Campus in the vicinity of the Adler Planetarium in 1981.
In 1918, the new Rifle Regiment of the 3rd division of Czechoslovak legions in Russia was named the "Karel Havlíček Borovský regiment"
In 1925, a biographical film was released.
In 1945, the 20 Czechoslovak koruna banknote bore Havlíček's portrait.
Chicago is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388 in the 2020 census, it is the third-most populous city in the United States after New York City and Los Angeles. As the seat of Cook County, the second-most populous county in the U.S., Chicago is the center of the Chicago metropolitan area, which is often colloquially called "Chicagoland".
Located on the shore of Lake Michigan, Chicago was incorporated as a city in 1837 near a portage between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River watershed. It grew rapidly in the mid-19th century. In 1871, the Great Chicago Fire destroyed several square miles and left more than 100,000 homeless, but Chicago's population continued to grow. Chicago made noted contributions to urban planning and architecture, such as the Chicago School, the development of the City Beautiful Movement, and the steel-framed skyscraper.
Chicago is an international hub for finance, culture, commerce, industry, education, technology, telecommunications, and transportation. It has the largest and most diverse derivatives market in the world, generating 20% of all volume in commodities and financial futures alone. O'Hare International Airport is routinely ranked among the world's top six busiest airports by passenger traffic, and the region is also the nation's railroad hub. The Chicago area has one of the highest gross domestic products (GDP) of any urban region in the world, generating $689 billion in 2018. Chicago's economy is diverse, with no single industry employing more than 14% of the workforce.
Chicago is a major tourist destination. Chicago's culture has contributed much to the visual arts, literature, film, theater, comedy (especially improvisational comedy), food, dance, and music (particularly jazz, blues, soul, hip-hop, gospel, and electronic dance music, including house music). Chicago is home to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Lyric Opera of Chicago, while the Art Institute of Chicago provides an influential visual arts museum and art school. The Chicago area also hosts the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, and the University of Illinois Chicago, among other institutions of learning. Chicago has professional sports teams in each of the major professional leagues, including two Major League Baseball teams.
In the mid-18th century, the area was inhabited by the Potawatomi, an indigenous tribe who had succeeded the Miami and Sauk and Fox peoples in this region.
The first known permanent settler in Chicago was trader Jean Baptiste Point du Sable. Du Sable was of African descent, perhaps born in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (Haiti), and established the settlement in the 1780s. He is commonly known as the "Founder of Chicago."
In 1795, following the victory of the new United States in the Northwest Indian War, an area that was to be part of Chicago was turned over to the U.S. for a military post by native tribes in accordance with the Treaty of Greenville. In 1803, the U.S. Army constructed Fort Dearborn, which was destroyed during the War of 1812 in the Battle of Fort Dearborn by the Potawatomi before being later rebuilt.
After the War of 1812, the Ottawa, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi tribes ceded additional land to the United States in the 1816 Treaty of St. Louis. The Potawatomi were forcibly removed from their land after the 1833 Treaty of Chicago and sent west of the Mississippi River as part of the federal policy of Indian removal.
On August 12, 1833, the Town of Chicago was organized with a population of about 200. Within seven years it grew to more than 6,000 people. On June 15, 1835, the first public land sales began with Edmund Dick Taylor as Receiver of Public Monies. The City of Chicago was incorporated on Saturday, March 4, 1837, and for several decades was the world's fastest-growing city.
As the site of the Chicago Portage, the city became an important transportation hub between the eastern and western United States. Chicago's first railway, Galena and Chicago Union Railroad, and the Illinois and Michigan Canal opened in 1848. The canal allowed steamboats and sailing ships on the Great Lakes to connect to the Mississippi River.
A flourishing economy brought residents from rural communities and immigrants from abroad. Manufacturing and retail and finance sectors became dominant, influencing the American economy. The Chicago Board of Trade (established 1848) listed the first-ever standardized "exchange-traded" forward contracts, which were called futures contracts.
In the 1850s, Chicago gained national political prominence as the home of Senator Stephen Douglas, the champion of the Kansas–Nebraska Act and the "popular sovereignty" approach to the issue of the spread of slavery. These issues also helped propel another Illinoisan, Abraham Lincoln, to the national stage. Lincoln was nominated in Chicago for U.S. president at the 1860 Republican National Convention, which was held in a purpose-built auditorium called the Wigwam. He defeated Douglas in the general election, and this set the stage for the American Civil War.
To accommodate rapid population growth and demand for better sanitation, the city improved its infrastructure. In February 1856, Chicago's Common Council approved Chesbrough's plan to build the United States' first comprehensive sewerage system. The project raised much of central Chicago to a new grade with the use of jackscrews for raising buildings. While elevating Chicago, and at first improving the city's health, the untreated sewage and industrial waste now flowed into the Chicago River, and subsequently into Lake Michigan, polluting the city's primary freshwater source.
The city responded by tunneling two miles (3.2 km) out into Lake Michigan to newly built water cribs. In 1900, the problem of sewage contamination was largely resolved when the city completed a major engineering feat. It reversed the flow of the Chicago River so that the water flowed away from Lake Michigan rather than into it. This project began with the construction and improvement of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, and was completed with the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal that connects to the Illinois River, which flows into the Mississippi River.
In 1871, the Great Chicago Fire destroyed an area about 4 miles (6.4 km) long and 1-mile (1.6 km) wide, a large section of the city at the time. Much of the city, including railroads and stockyards, survived intact, and from the ruins of the previous wooden structures arose more modern constructions of steel and stone. These set a precedent for worldwide construction. During its rebuilding period, Chicago constructed the world's first skyscraper in 1885, using steel-skeleton construction.
The city grew significantly in size and population by incorporating many neighboring townships between 1851 and 1920, with the largest annexation happening in 1889, with five townships joining the city, including the Hyde Park Township, which now comprises most of the South Side of Chicago and the far southeast of Chicago, and the Jefferson Township, which now makes up most of Chicago's Northwest Side. The desire to join the city was driven by municipal services that the city could provide its residents.
Chicago's flourishing economy attracted huge numbers of new immigrants from Europe and migrants from the Eastern United States. Of the total population in 1900, more than 77% were either foreign-born or born in the United States of foreign parentage. Germans, Irish, Poles, Swedes, and Czechs made up nearly two-thirds of the foreign-born population (by 1900, whites were 98.1% of the city's population).
Labor conflicts followed the industrial boom and the rapid expansion of the labor pool, including the Haymarket affair on May 4, 1886, and in 1894 the Pullman Strike. Anarchist and socialist groups played prominent roles in creating very large and highly organized labor actions. Concern for social problems among Chicago's immigrant poor led Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr to found Hull House in 1889. Programs that were developed there became a model for the new field of social work.
During the 1870s and 1880s, Chicago attained national stature as the leader in the movement to improve public health. City laws and later, state laws that upgraded standards for the medical profession and fought urban epidemics of cholera, smallpox, and yellow fever were both passed and enforced. These laws became templates for public health reform in other cities and states.
The city established many large, well-landscaped municipal parks, which also included public sanitation facilities. The chief advocate for improving public health in Chicago was John H. Rauch, M.D. Rauch established a plan for Chicago's park system in 1866. He created Lincoln Park by closing a cemetery filled with shallow graves, and in 1867, in response to an outbreak of cholera he helped establish a new Chicago Board of Health. Ten years later, he became the secretary and then the president of the first Illinois State Board of Health, which carried out most of its activities in Chicago.
In the 1800s, Chicago became the nation's railroad hub, and by 1910 over 20 railroads operated passenger service out of six different downtown terminals. In 1883, Chicago's railway managers needed a general time convention, so they developed the standardized system of North American time zones. This system for telling time spread throughout the continent.
In 1893, Chicago hosted the World's Columbian Exposition on former marshland at the present location of Jackson Park. The Exposition drew 27.5 million visitors, and is considered the most influential world's fair in history. The University of Chicago, formerly at another location, moved to the same South Side location in 1892. The term "midway" for a fair or carnival referred originally to the Midway Plaisance, a strip of park land that still runs through the University of Chicago campus and connects the Washington and Jackson Parks.
During World War I and the 1920s there was a major expansion in industry. The availability of jobs attracted African Americans from the Southern United States. Between 1910 and 1930, the African American population of Chicago increased dramatically, from 44,103 to 233,903. This Great Migration had an immense cultural impact, called the Chicago Black Renaissance, part of the New Negro Movement, in art, literature, and music. Continuing racial tensions and violence, such as the Chicago race riot of 1919, also occurred.
The ratification of the 18th amendment to the Constitution in 1919 made the production and sale (including exportation) of alcoholic beverages illegal in the United States. This ushered in the beginning of what is known as the gangster era, a time that roughly spans from 1919 until 1933 when Prohibition was repealed. The 1920s saw gangsters, including Al Capone, Dion O'Banion, Bugs Moran and Tony Accardo battle law enforcement and each other on the streets of Chicago during the Prohibition era. Chicago was the location of the infamous St. Valentine's Day Massacre in 1929, when Al Capone sent men to gun down members of a rival gang, North Side, led by Bugs Moran.
Chicago was the first American city to have a homosexual-rights organization. The organization, formed in 1924, was called the Society for Human Rights. It produced the first American publication for homosexuals, Friendship and Freedom. Police and political pressure caused the organization to disband.
The Great Depression brought unprecedented suffering to Chicago, in no small part due to the city's heavy reliance on heavy industry. Notably, industrial areas on the south side and neighborhoods lining both branches of the Chicago River were devastated; by 1933 over 50% of industrial jobs in the city had been lost, and unemployment rates amongst blacks and Mexicans in the city were over 40%. The Republican political machine in Chicago was utterly destroyed by the economic crisis, and every mayor since 1931 has been a Democrat.
From 1928 to 1933, the city witnessed a tax revolt, and the city was unable to meet payroll or provide relief efforts. The fiscal crisis was resolved by 1933, and at the same time, federal relief funding began to flow into Chicago. Chicago was also a hotbed of labor activism, with Unemployed Councils contributing heavily in the early depression to create solidarity for the poor and demand relief; these organizations were created by socialist and communist groups. By 1935 the Workers Alliance of America begun organizing the poor, workers, the unemployed. In the spring of 1937 Republic Steel Works witnessed the Memorial Day massacre of 1937 in the neighborhood of East Side.
In 1933, Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak was fatally wounded in Miami, Florida, during a failed assassination attempt on President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1933 and 1934, the city celebrated its centennial by hosting the Century of Progress International Exposition World's Fair. The theme of the fair was technological innovation over the century since Chicago's founding.
During World War II, the city of Chicago alone produced more steel than the United Kingdom every year from 1939 – 1945, and more than Nazi Germany from 1943 – 1945.
The Great Migration, which had been on pause due to the Depression, resumed at an even faster pace in the second wave, as hundreds of thousands of blacks from the South arrived in the city to work in the steel mills, railroads, and shipping yards.
On December 2, 1942, physicist Enrico Fermi conducted the world's first controlled nuclear reaction at the University of Chicago as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project. This led to the creation of the atomic bomb by the United States, which it used in World War II in 1945.
Mayor Richard J. Daley, a Democrat, was elected in 1955, in the era of machine politics. In 1956, the city conducted its last major expansion when it annexed the land under O'Hare airport, including a small portion of DuPage County.
By the 1960s, white residents in several neighborhoods left the city for the suburban areas – in many American cities, a process known as white flight – as Blacks continued to move beyond the Black Belt. While home loan discriminatory redlining against blacks continued, the real estate industry practiced what became known as blockbusting, completely changing the racial composition of whole neighborhoods. Structural changes in industry, such as globalization and job outsourcing, caused heavy job losses for lower-skilled workers. At its peak during the 1960s, some 250,000 workers were employed in the steel industry in Chicago, but the steel crisis of the 1970s and 1980s reduced this number to just 28,000 in 2015. In 1966, Martin Luther King Jr. and Albert Raby led the Chicago Freedom Movement, which culminated in agreements between Mayor Richard J. Daley and the movement leaders.
Two years later, the city hosted the tumultuous 1968 Democratic National Convention, which featured physical confrontations both inside and outside the convention hall, with anti-war protesters, journalists and bystanders being beaten by police. Major construction projects, including the Sears Tower (now known as the Willis Tower, which in 1974 became the world's tallest building), University of Illinois at Chicago, McCormick Place, and O'Hare International Airport, were undertaken during Richard J. Daley's tenure. In 1979, Jane Byrne, the city's first female mayor, was elected. She was notable for temporarily moving into the crime-ridden Cabrini-Green housing project and for leading Chicago's school system out of a financial crisis.
In 1983, Harold Washington became the first black mayor of Chicago. Washington's first term in office directed attention to poor and previously neglected minority neighborhoods. He was re‑elected in 1987 but died of a heart attack soon after. Washington was succeeded by 6th ward alderperson Eugene Sawyer, who was elected by the Chicago City Council and served until a special election.
Richard M. Daley, son of Richard J. Daley, was elected in 1989. His accomplishments included improvements to parks and creating incentives for sustainable development, as well as closing Meigs Field in the middle of the night and destroying the runways. After successfully running for re-election five times, and becoming Chicago's longest-serving mayor, Richard M. Daley declined to run for a seventh term.
In 1992, a construction accident near the Kinzie Street Bridge produced a breach connecting the Chicago River to a tunnel below, which was part of an abandoned freight tunnel system extending throughout the downtown Loop district. The tunnels filled with 250 million US gallons (1,000,000 m3) of water, affecting buildings throughout the district and forcing a shutdown of electrical power. The area was shut down for three days and some buildings did not reopen for weeks; losses were estimated at $1.95 billion.
On February 23, 2011, Rahm Emanuel, a former White House Chief of Staff and member of the House of Representatives, won the mayoral election. Emanuel was sworn in as mayor on May 16, 2011, and won re-election in 2015. Lori Lightfoot, the city's first African American woman mayor and its first openly LGBTQ mayor, was elected to succeed Emanuel as mayor in 2019. All three city-wide elective offices were held by women (and women of color) for the first time in Chicago history: in addition to Lightfoot, the city clerk was Anna Valencia and the city treasurer was Melissa Conyears-Ervin.
On May 15, 2023, Brandon Johnson assumed office as the 57th mayor of Chicago.
Illinois is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Great Lakes to its northeast, the Mississippi River to its west, and the Wabash and Ohio rivers to its south. Its largest metropolitan areas are Chicago and the Metro East region of Greater St. Louis. Other metropolitan areas include Peoria and Rockford, as well as Springfield, its capital, and Champaign-Urbana, home to the main campus of the state's flagship university. Of the fifty U.S. states, Illinois has the fifth-largest gross domestic product (GDP), the sixth-largest population, and the 25th-largest land area.
Illinois has a highly diverse economy, with the global city of Chicago in the northeast, major industrial and agricultural hubs in the north and center, and natural resources such as coal, timber, and petroleum in the south. Owing to its central location and favorable geography, the state is a major transportation hub: the Port of Chicago has access to the Atlantic Ocean through the Great Lakes and Saint Lawrence Seaway and to the Gulf of Mexico from the Mississippi River via the Illinois Waterway. Chicago has been the nation's railroad hub since the 1860s, and its O'Hare International Airport has been among the world's busiest airports for decades. Illinois has long been considered a microcosm of the United States and a bellwether in American culture, exemplified by the phrase Will it play in Peoria?.
Present-day Illinois was inhabited by various indigenous cultures for thousands of years, including the advanced civilization centered in the Cahokia region. The French were the first Europeans to arrive, settling near the Mississippi and Illinois River in the 17th century in the region they called Illinois Country, as part of the sprawling colony of New France. Following U.S. independence in 1783, American settlers began arriving from Kentucky via the Ohio River, and the population grew from south to north. Illinois was part of the United States' oldest territory, the Northwest Territory, and in 1818 it achieved statehood. The Erie Canal brought increased commercial activity in the Great Lakes, and the small settlement of Chicago became one of the fastest growing cities in the world, benefiting from its location as one of the few natural harbors in southwestern Lake Michigan. The invention of the self-scouring steel plow by Illinoisan John Deere turned the state's rich prairie into some of the world's most productive and valuable farmland, attracting immigrant farmers from Germany and Sweden. In the mid-19th century, the Illinois and Michigan Canal and a sprawling railroad network greatly facilitated trade, commerce, and settlement, making the state a transportation hub for the nation.
By 1900, the growth of industrial jobs in the northern cities and coal mining in the central and southern areas attracted immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe. Illinois became one of America's most industrialized states and remains a major manufacturing center. The Great Migration from the South established a large community of African Americans, particularly in Chicago, who founded the city's famous jazz and blues cultures. Chicago became a leading cultural, economic, and population center and is today one of the world's major commercial centers; its metropolitan area, informally referred to as Chicagoland, holds about 65% of the state's 12.8 million residents.
Two World Heritage Sites are in Illinois, the ancient Cahokia Mounds, and part of the Wright architecture site. Major centers of learning include the University of Chicago, University of Illinois, and Northwestern University. A wide variety of protected areas seek to conserve Illinois' natural and cultural resources. Historically, three U.S. presidents have been elected while residents of Illinois: Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, and Barack Obama; additionally, Ronald Reagan was born and raised in the state. Illinois honors Lincoln with its official state slogan Land of Lincoln. The state is the site of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield and the future home of the Barack Obama Presidential Center in Chicago.
Because of the rich Baroque architectural monuments found in the city, Lecce is commonly nicknamed[2] "The Florence of the South". The city also has a long traditional affinity with Greek culture going back to its foundation; the Messapii who founded the city are said to have been Cretans in Greek records.[3] To this day, in the Grecìa Salentina, a group of towns not far from Lecce, the griko language is still spoken.
The Roman Amphitheatre, built in the 2nd century and situated near Sant'Oronzo Square, was able to seat more than 25,000 people. It is now half-buried because other monuments were built above it over the centuries.
The column holding the statue of Saint Oronzo (Lecce's patron) was given to Lecce by the city of Brindisi, because Saint Oronzo was reputed to have cured the plague in Brindisi. The column was one of a pair that marked the end of the Appian Way, the main road between Rome and southern Italy.
All rights reserved - Copyright © Henri Hirschfeld
All images are exclusive property and may not be copied, downloaded, reproduced, transmitted, manipulated or used in any way without expressed, written permission of the photographer.
Situated amidst the calming greenery, a village steeped in ancient animism and rituals, is the home of about 250 artisans carrying forward the tradition of ecstatic wooden mask making for generations. The craft of Gomira dance masks is practiced in a specific area in North Dinajpur district of West Bengal state, India, in and around the village of Mahisbathan (Khunia Danga, Kushmandi Block) located approximately 50km south-east of Raiganj, the district headquarter.
The mask dance (or Mukha Khel) is usually organized in between mid-April to mid-July though there are no fixed dates, but each village in the area organizes at least one Gomira dance during this period according to their convenience, at a central location. The Gomira dances have distinct forms. The Gomira format is the predominant one, which has characters with strong links to the animist tradition. It is performed to propitiate Gram-Chandi, the female deity, usher in the 'good forces' and drive out the 'evil forces'.
The craft of Gomira mask-making, in its pristine form, catered to the needs of the dancers (and any villager wishing to give a mask as an offering to the village deity). The masks make part of the costume of the traditional Gomira dance. Themes of the masks are usually spiritual, historic and religious.
Originally, the Gomira masks are crafted from neem wood, as per Hindu mythology. Later locally available cheaper wood such as gamhar, pakur, kadam, mango, and teak came to be used. The village craftsmen are very conscious of the environment and always plant one tree for trees cut down, usually of the same species.
The mask making begins with cutting the log and then immersed in water for seasoning. Once the basic shape has emerged, they use the broad chisel and heaviest hammer to bring out the final shape. The reverse side of the mask is scooped out very carefully. For finer finishing, narrower chisels, sand papers of various grades are being used and a coat or two of varnish, which provides smoothness to the mask and ensures durability. Formerly, the masks were hand-painted with natural dyes. Slowly the use of chemical dyes and even enamel paints have gained acceptance mainly because of ready availability and permanence.
The Gomira craftsmen are from Rajbongshi community and do not belong to any particular caste. The women folk have never been a part of mask-making. For most of the artisans, mask making is a supplementary source of income.
In association with UNESCO, Government of West Bengal's Department of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises & Textiles has developed a Rural Craft Hub at Mahisbathan to resurrect this art form, by giving the craftsmen a place to work. The Mahisbathan Gramin Hasta Shilpa Samabay Samiti Limited (a cooperative of craftsmen and artisans who live in the nearby villages) runs the centre; ensures payments for work done and promotes the sale of masks and other wooden artefacts. The Samiti delivers more than 100 masks per month, where the selling price varies from Rs. 700 (USD $10) to Rs. 3500 (USD $50), depending on the complexity.
The Samity also runs a Folk Art Centre which is also equipped with accommodation facility for guests. One can participate in workshops, learn about the history of the community and craft, nuances of the mask making and the fascinating associated stories.
More, Gomira Dance Mask by Tulip Sinha - The Chitrolekha Journal on Art and Design
Beautiful Bengal, India
Pack your fishing gear and your raft and bring family and friends, because this corridor has something for everyone. This North Umpqua Wild and Scenic River Corridor is known for its stunning forest setting with the emerald green waters of the North Umpqua running right through the heart of it. Nestled amongst old-growth trees, one can relax at Susan Creek Campground, take a hike along the river on the 1.5 mile long Emerald Trail or stroll up the short trail to 50’ tall Susan Creek Falls. Anglers from across the country, flock to the North Umpqua to fly-fish for the elusive salmon and steelhead. The 79-mile long North Umpqua Trail is perfect for longer distance hikes and mountain bike excursions.
Know Before You Go:
•Susan Creek Campground opens late-April and closes late-October.
•Pets are allowed in the campground, but must be kept on a 6-foot or shorter leash.
•29 individual camping sites, 15 of which can be reserved for part of the year. To reserve sites visit www.recreation.gov or call 1-877-444-6777.
•Angling on this stretch of the river is limited to fly-fishing only.
•The North Umpqua is a class III whitewater river. It demands your attention.
Directions:
To access to the Susan Creek Recreation Area, travel 29 miles east of Roseburg along Highway 138. A parking area is located at the Susan Creek day-use area; this is where river access for rafters is located. Across the road, an easy ADA-accessible 0.8 mile trail leads to the 50 foot tall Susan Creek Falls.
Point of Interest:
The spectacular 79-mile long North Umpqua Trail is popular with hiker and mountain bikers, and can be accessed by crossing the Tioga Bridge or at Swiftwater day-use area.
Contact:
Roseburg District Office
777 NW Garden Valley Blvd.
Roseburg, OR 97471
(541)440-4930
BLM_OR_RB_Mail@blm.gov
This hashtag is best appreciated in the original Spanish, because its delightful assonance is lost in translation. It means "The Pardon is an Insult."
Pardon? Who and why?
This story is a chance to change the subject for those of us who are still reeling from Lyin' Donnie Trump's recent interview with the NY Times where he spun one falsehood every 75 seconds.
South of the equator, in the past 10 days the president of Peru has unleashed true chaos upon that country's institutions. We have the Brazilian construction titan Oderbrecht to thank for it.
Oderbrecht is to Latin American corruption what stains are to the diagnosis of cancer. The company paid out almost $800 million in bribes to executives and governmental officials to secure contracts worth about $3.3 billion. When insiders began talking, their talk lit up nodes of corruption all over the map of Latin America.
In Peru, the former president and his wife are in jail awaiting trial on charges of Oderbrecht-related corruption. Another Peruvian ex-president, Alejandro Toledo, is on the lam after reports about his dodgy dealings with Oderbrecht surfaced.
Which brings us to PPK, as the current president, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, is known. More Anglo than Latino, PPK's CV sparkles with elite trophies: a public school in the UK, then Oxford for politics, philosophy and economics, followed by a masters in public affairs from Princeton. After that, PPK put his education to work at the World Bank, investment banking, and private-equity management.
Oh yes, and PPK also served several Peruvian presidents, most notably as Minister of Economy and Finance from July 2001 to July 2002, and again from February 2004 to August 2005. In August 2005, he was appointed as Prime Minister, a position he held until 2006.
Fast forward to 2016, when PPK was elected to the presidency of Peru by a margin of only 40,000 votes. He pulled off this upset by riding the wave of resentment towards Peru's last dictator, Alberto Fujimori, personified by his daughter Keiko. Though PPK defeated Keiko, the fujimoristas controlled the legislature and have played the same sort of obstructionist role as the Republicans in the US Congress under President Obama.
But back to the Oderbrecht, scandal, where the Peruvian public was surprised and horrified to learn that PPK, he of the sterling CV, was the owner of two firms that did business with Oderbrecht while PPK was serving in government. This came as a shock because PPK had denied any involvement with the Oderbrecht octopus.
That was all it took for the fujimoristas to haul PPK before the legislature on charges he was morally unfit to serve as president. In the US, major political scandals tend to unfold at a glacial pace, The same cannot be said for Peru. Before you knew it, PPK was fighting for his political life in front of a session of Peru's congress. The trial and the vote all took place on the same day.
Amazingly, PPK survived thanks to a split in the ranks of the fujimoristas. While Alberto Fujimori's daughter Keiko wanted PPK gone, her brother Kenji struck a back-room deal with PPK whereby he and a handful of his supporters would not vote for impeachment in exchange for PPK's pardoning Alberto, who was serving a 25-year term in jail.
According to Wikipedia, "Fujimori was specifically found guilty of murder, bodily harm, and two cases of kidnapping. In July 2009 Fujimori was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison for embezzlement after he admitted to giving $15 million from the Peruvian treasury to his intelligence service chief, Vladimiro Montesinos. Two months later he pled guilty in a fourth trial to bribery and received an additional six-year term."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberto_Fujimori
The fallout from the pardon was immediate and harsh and, so far, incessant. To call it a backlash is an understatement. The leftist candidate for president, who supported PPK in his 2016 campaign because of her hatred of Keiko, has denounced PPK and declared that, as far as she is concerned PPK is not Peru's president.
Several cabinet ministers have resigned and further resignations are rumored. Members of the Justice Department have resigned on the grounds that Alberto was not eligible for a pardon in the first place. A group of at least 230 writers, including the writer and Nobel Literature Mario Vargas Llosa, have published a letter criticizing PPK for pardoning Alberto Fujimori.
That brings us to this photo, which was taken at a recent march in protest of Fujimori's pardon.
And there was I, thinking that PPK would be a new, different and better sort of president in a country where presidents always leave office with abysmal approval ratings
I can't predict where this is going to end, particularly since PPK has testified again since his impeachment about his dealings with Oderbrecht while he was minister.
So remember, if you can't stand seeing Trump on TV and are tired of hearing the "experts" babble on about Russian this and Russian that, tune in to El Comercio to for an installment of the PPK show!
Because of Mattels very biased way they treat the Matchbox brand ie, always subservient to Hot Wheels, their idea of premium is what you'd expect to find in your average Majorette offering. There is no doubt I really like this Superfast 50th Anniversary classic 1980 Porsche 911 Turbo, its well detailed, glossily finished with opening doors and rubber tyres. BUT, its baseplate is still made of plastic, its interior design is very simplistic and there is no working suspension hence hence in my view not a proper premium. Sourced recently from the U.S. Mint and boxed.
Cut-paper collage postcard created for Kollage Kit theme "Tales of Mystery and Imagination"
iron —> heme —> hemoglobin —> blood
Top: Still from "Bram Stoker's Dracula" (1992)
Middle: Still from "Don't Look Now" (1973)
Bottom: from Vlad the Impaler: The Man Who Was Dracula
I have been away from Flickr for about a month because of two reasons. Last May 4, my main working hard drives mysteriously lost its entire contents, all 1.4 terabytes of mostly images. It was a mirrored set for data safety but I guess something went horribly wrong with the electronics and everything was gone. I have backups of original files but not those that have been processed so I probably lost several hundred processed photos, ouch! Then the following day, May 5, I went on a kamikaze trip (went early home late, same day) to Yosemite and overworked my right forearm so the old injury came back and I had to nurse it back to health.
Four weeks later, I've restored "most" of what I lost during the hard drive crash and my right forearm was well enough to go shooting again so off I went to capture the 75th Golden Gate bridge fireworks show in the San Francisco bay area of California. I thought I was being smart by planning on being onsite where I will shoot the event about 3 hours before it's scheduled to start but unknown to me, there were probably 10,000 other smarter shooters already in position so there were slim pickings for optimal vantage points. All the good spots were either taken or "access not allowed" so I settled for an illegal spot midway up Conzelman Road in the Marin Headlands. Park Rangers were very accommodating as long as it's not a public safety issue so I packed up and walked uphill to look for a better view.
This is the opening salvo right after the firefalls from the bridge deck.
View large in lightbox.
Copyright ©2012 - C. Roy Yokingco, aka Nextier Photography
All Rights Reserved. Please do not use my images without prior consent.
...Because after all I am Dutch :)
And Dutch like orange, right? Well, I do not. I only wore this dress once on Queensday a couple of years ago.
Starting to love my new hair <3
“I love cats because I enjoy my home; and little by little, they become its visible soul.” - Jean Cocteau
Watch videos of Zeus & Phoebe and their kittens here: www.youtube.com/user/utahactor
Every view helps us earn money.
Because most of the time my local Target store sucks and never puts out anything new, I found these at a Target store where my parents live.
This new line is actually very sweet and pretty!
A railroad crossing sign on Andrews Road in Columbia, South Carolina is being overtaken by kudzu. Kudzu is an invasive weed that was originally introduced to America by Japan at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. By the 1940s, American farmers were planting it to stop soil erosion, a decision many of them no doubt soon regretted. Kudzu notoriously grows quickly like rabbits overtaking and killing other plant life and old houses.
Kudzu's environmental and ecological damage results from its out dueling other species for needed resources. Kudzu competes with native flora for light, and acts to block their access to this vital resource by growing over them and shading them with its leaves. Native plants then die as a result.
Scientists predict kudzu will kill us all by 2050.
Because of the great fire wall of Chinese policy, it's so hard to cross the limit to visit flickr, so I could not reply my dear friends, I'm so sorry about that and please forgive me,thank you so much and hope my friends can still hit on me！由于中国网络原因，访问flickr很困难，速度很慢，所有暂时没有办法一一回应各位好友，请朋友们见谅！还请各位好友继续关注我！
My pro account is out of time，thank you my friends here for supporting me what a long time！！May I have a pleasure to receive a pro gift from you？我的pro账号到期了，感谢朋友们长期以来的热心支持！！有好心人能赞助一个pro账号给我吗，在此先表感谢！！
If you want to use or buy this image，please contact me. 版权所有，转载请联系本人。
Because of the great fire wall of Chinese policy, it's so hard to cross the limit to visit flickr, so I could not reply my dear friends, I'm so sorry about that and please forgive me,thank you so much and hope my friends can still hit on me！由于中国网络原因，访问flickr很困难，速度很慢，所有暂时没有办法一一回应各位好友，请朋友们见谅！还请各位好友继续关注我！
My pro account is out of time，thank you my friends here for supporting me what a long time！！May I have a pleasure to receive a pro gift from you？我的pro账号到期了，感谢朋友们长期以来的热心支持！！有好心人能赞助一个pro账号给我吗，在此先表感谢！！
If you want to use or buy this image，please contact me. 版权所有，转载请联系本人。
The days drag and the weeks fly by.
It has been a grim week at work, and yet the weekend is here once again.
The cold snap is still here; thick frosts and icy patches, but Sunday afternoon storms will sweep in from the west and temperatures will soar by day to 13 degrees.
But for now it is cold, and colder at nights, the wood burner makes the living room toasty warm, though the rest of the house seems like a fridge in comparison.
Even though we went to bed at nine, we slept to nearly half seven, which meant we were already later than usual going to Tesco.
We had a coffee first, then got dressed and went out into the winter wonderland.
Tesco was more crowded mainly because we were an hour later. There were no crackers for cheese, a whole aisle empty of cream crackers and butter wafers.
There is only so much food you can eat even over Christmas, so the cracker-shortage won't affect us, we have two Dundee cakes, filling for two lots of mince pies and pastry for five lots of sausage rolls.
We won't starve.
We buy another bag of stuff for the food bank, try to get two weeks of stuff so we wont need to go next weekend, just to a farm shop for vegetables, and the butcher for the Christmas order, though on the 25th we are going out for dinner to the Lantern.
Back home for fruit, then bacon butties and another huge brew. Yes, smoked bacon is again in short supply, with just the basic streaky smoked available, but we're not fussy, so that does the trick.
Also, Jools picked up her inhalers for her cough, and so, we hope, the road to recovery begins.
What to do with the day?
Although a walk would have been good, Jools can do no more than ten minutes in freezing conditions before a coughing fits starts, so a couple of churches to revisit and take more shots of.
First on the list was St Leonard in Upper Deal. A church I have only have been inside once. As it was just half ten, there should have been a chance it was open, but no. We parked up and I walked over the road to try the porch door, but it was locked.
No worries, as the next two would certainly be open.
Just up the road towards Canterbury is Ash.
Ash is a large village that the main roads now bypass its narrow streets, and buses call not so frequently.
The church towers over the village, its spire piercing the grey sky. We park beside the old curry hours than burned down a decade ago, is now a house and no sign of damage.
indeed the church was open, though the porch door was closed, it opened with use of the latch, and the inner glass door swung inwards, revealing an interior I had forgotten about, rich Victorian glass let in the weak sunlight, allowing me to take detailed shots. It was far better and more enjoyable than I remembered.
Once I took 200 or so shots, we went back to the car, drove back to the main road, and on to Wingham, where the church there, a twin of Wingham, would also be open too.
And it was.
The wardens were just finishing trimming the church up, and putting out new flowers, it was a bustle of activity, then one by one they left.
got my shots, and we left, back to the car and to home, though we did stop at he farm shop at Aylsham, and all we wanted was some sweet peppers for hash.
We went in and there was the bakery: I bought two sausage rolls, four small pork pies and two Cajun flavours scotch eggs. We got cider, beer, healthy snacks (we told ourselves) and finally found the peppers.
Three peppers cost £50!
Then back home, along the A2.
And arriving back home at one. We feasted on the scotch eggs and two of the pork pies.
Yummy.
There was the third place play off game to watch on the tellybox, the Football league to follow on the radio. We lit the woodburner and it was soon toasty warm.
At half five, Norwich kicked off, and hopes were high as Blackburn had not beaten us in over a decade.
And, yes you guessed it, Norwich lost. Played poorly, and in Dad's words, were lucky to get nil.
Oh dear.
Oh dear indeed.
We have Christmas cake for supper, and apart from the football, as was well with the world.
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An enormous church, picturesquely set at an angle of the village street. It owes its size to the fact that it supported a college of priests in the Middle Ages. During the sixteenth century it was substantially rebuilt, but the north aisle was not replaced, reducing the church to the odd shape we see today. The unusual pillars which divide the nave from the south aisle are of timber, not stone as a result of lack of money. At the end of the south aisle is the Oxenden chapel, which contains that family's excellent bull's head monument. The contemporary metalwork screens and black and white pavements add great dignity to this part of the building. By going through a curved passage from the chapel you can emerge in the chancel, which is dominated by a stone reredos of fifteenth-century date. This French construction was a gift to the church in the 1930s and while it is not good quality carving, is an unusual find in a Kent church.
www.kentchurches.info/church.asp?p=Wingham
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hortly after 1280AD Archbishop Peckham of Canterbury established a college of priests at Wingham, with a provost and six canons. From 1286 the priests lived in the attractive timber-framed house opposite St Mary's church. The college accounts for the size of the church, which seems enormous considering the present size of Wingham itself.
There was a cruciform church here before the college was established, but that building was remodelled around 1290, leaving us several excellent Geometric Gothic windows. A south porch and tower were added around 1400. The porch is curious in that there are two stories externally, but internally only one. There are many reminders of the church's past, however; the arch between the south transept and south nave aisle is late Norman, as is a blocked arch on the west wall of the north transept.
By the early 16th century the nave was in poor condition. A local brewer named George Ffogarde of Canterbury was granted a license to raise money for its repair. Having a considerable sum of money for church repair, the unscrupulous brewer absconded with the funds, embezzling £224, a huge sum for the time. The missing funds may explain why the nave was rebuilt using cheaper timber posts to support the arcades, rather than more costly stone.
The octagonal timber posts are of chestnut wood, topped by a crown-post timber roof. Sometime before the mid-19th century the timbers were encased in plaster to resemble Doric columns, but thankfully the plaster has been stripped off and we can appreciate the timber! The nave was rebuilt in the late 16th century, diminishing its footprint and leaving behind some rather odd features, like an external piscina on what was originally the easternmost pier of the nave arcade. Another odd touch is provided by the north transept, remodelled with wood frames in the Georgian period. I'm not sure I can call to mind another essentially medieval church with wooden-framed windows!
In the chancel is a lovely 14th century triple-seat sedilia and piscina. The chancel and nave are separated by a 15th century screen, now truncated, with blank panels which must have once boasted painted figures of saints. But the real treasure in the chancel is a series of ten 14th century misericords. Six of the misericord carvings are simply decorative, with floral or foliage designs. Two show animals; one appears to be a horse, another a donkey. The final two carvings are the most interesting; one shows a woman in a wimple, the other a Green Man peering out from a screen of foliage.
Behind the altar is a lovely 15th century reredos, brought here from Troyes in France. The reredos is in two sections, the upper section depicting the Passion of Christ, the lower showing the Last Supper and the Adoration of the Kings. There are small fragments of rather attractive 14th century grisailles glass in the chancel windows, and near the font are a number of surviving medieval floor tiles.
The interior is full of monuments to the Oxenden and Palmer families. The finest of these are to be found in the north transept chapel. On the east wall of the chapel is a memorial to Sir Nicholas Palmer (d. 1624). The memorial was designed by Nicholas Stone and shows effigies of Palmer and his wife under Corinthian columns and an open pediment. On the north wall is the monument to a later Thomas Palmer (d. 1656) with a bust of the deceased, now somewhat the worse for wear. A tablet to Streynsham Master (d. 1718) is on the south chapel wall, and has a fairly typical pair of skulls at the base of the tablet, wreathed in olive branches.
The most extravagant and eye-catching memorial in the church, however, is to be found in the north transept chapel, which is guarded by ornate wrought-iron screens. In the centre of the chapel is an ebullient obelisk, dated 1682, commemorating the Oxenden family. This free-standing obelisk, possibly designed by Arnold Quellin, is of white stone, with exquisite fruit and flowers cascading down each side, with large black ox heads at each angle of the base. The base is embellished with four putti (cherubic 'infants'). The effect is quite extraordinary; most people will either love it or hate it (I loved it). Also in the south transept is a wall tablet to Charles Tripp (d. 1624).
Other monuments worth mentioning include a 14th century tomb recess in the south aisle wall and a number of 15th century indents in the chancel floor which once contained memorial brasses to canons.
The church is set within a large walled enclosure, dating to the 16th and 17th centuries. Unusually, the churchyard wall has been listed Grade-II by the Department of the Environment for its historical interest.
www.britainexpress.com/counties/kent/churches/wingham.htm
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WINGHAM
IS the next adjoining parish south-westward from Ash, situated for the most part in the upper half hundred of the same name, and having in it the boroughs of Wingham-street, Deane, Twitham, and Wenderton, which latter is in the lower half hundred of Wingham.
WINGHAM is situated in a healthy pleasant country, the greatest part of it is open uninclosed arable lands, the soil of which, though chalky, is far from being unfertile. The village, or town of Wingham, is nearly in the middle of the parish, having the church and college at the south-west part of it; behind the latter is a field, still called the Vineyard. The village contains about fifty houses, one of which is the court-lodge, and is built on the road leading from Canterbury to Sandwich, at the west end of it runs the stream, called the Wingham river, which having turned a corn-mill here, goes on and joins the Lesser Stour, about two miles below; on each side the stream is a moist tract of meadow land. Near the south boundary of the parish is the mansion of Dene, situated in the bottom, a dry, though dull and gloomy habitation; and at the opposite side, next to Staple, the ruinated mansion of Brook, in a far more open and pleasant situation. To the northward the parish extends a considerable way, almost as far as the churches of Preston and Elmstone. The market, granted anno 36 king Henry III. as mentioned hereafter, if it ever was held, has been disused for a number of years past; though the market-house seems yet remaining. There are two fairs held yearly here, on May 12, and November 12, for cattle and pedlary.
In 1710 there was found on the court-lodge farm, by the plough striking against it, a chest or coffin, of large thick stones, joined together, and covered with a single one at the top. At the bottom were some black ashes, but nothing else in it. The ground round about was searched, but nothing else was sound.
Henry de Wengham, a person of great note and extraordinary parts, and much in favour with Henry III. was born here, who in 1255 made him lord chancellor. In 1259, he was elected bishop of Winchester, which he resused, but towards the latter end of the same year he was chosen bishop of London, being still chancellor, and was consecrated the beginning of the year following. He died in 1262, and was buried in his own cathedral. He bore for his arms, Gules, a heart between two wings, displayed, or.
WILLIAM COWPER, ESQ. eldest son of Sir William Cowper, bart. of Ratling-court, in Nonington, having been made lord-keeper of the great seal in 1705, was afterwards by letters patent, dated Dec. 14, 1706, created lord Cowper, baron Cowper of Wingham; and in 1709, was declared lord chancellor. After which, anno 4 George I. he was created earl Cowper and viscount Fordwich, in whose descendants these titles have continued down to the right hon. Peter-Lewis-Francis Cowper, the fifth and present earl Cowper, viscount Fordwich and baron of Wingham. (fn. 1)
The MANOR OF WINGHAM was part of the antient possessions of the see of Canterbury, given to it in the early period of the Saxon heptarchy, but being torn from it during the troubles of those times, it was restored to the church in the year 941, by king Edmund, his brother Eadred, and Edwin that king's son. (fn. 2) Accordingly it is thus entered, under the general title of the archbishop's possessions, taken in the survey of Domesday:
In the lath of Estrei, in Wingeham hundred, the archbishop himself holds Wingeham in demesne. It was taxed at forty sulings in the time of king Edward the Consessor, and now for thirty-five. The arable land is . . . . . . In demesne there are eight carucates, and four times twenty and five villeins, with twenty borderers having fifty-seven carucates. There are eight servants, and two mills of thirty-four sulings. Wood for the pannage of five hogs, and two small woods for fencing. In its whole value, in the time of king Edward the Consessor, it was worth seventy-seven pounds, when he received it the like, and now one hundred pounds. Of this manor William de Arcis holds one suling in Fletes, and there be has in demesne one carucate, and four villeins, and one knight with one carucate, and one fisbery, with a saltpit of thirty pence. The whole value is forty shillings. Of this ma nor five of the archbishop's men hold five sulings and an half and three yokes, and there they have in demesne eight carucates, and twenty-two borderers, and eight servants. In the whole they are worth twenty-one pounds.
In the 36th year of king Henry III. archbishop Boniface obtained the grant of a market at this place. The archbishops had a good house on this manor, in which they frequently resided. Archbishop Baldwin, in king Henry II.'s reign, staid at his house here for some time during his contention with the monks of Christ-church, concerning his college at Hackington. Archbishop Winchelsea entertained king Edward I. here in his 23d year, as did archbishop Walter Reynolds king Edward II. in his 18th year. And king Edward III. in his 5th year, having landed at Dover, with many lords and nobles in his train, came to Wingham, where he was lodged and entertained by archbishop Meopham. And this manor continued part of the see of Canterbury till archbishop Cranmer, in the 29th year of king Henry VIII. exchanged it with the king for other premises. After which it continued in the crown till king Charles I. in his 5th year, granted the scite, called Wingham court, with the demesne lands of the manor, to trustees, for the use of the city of London. From whom, by the direction of the mayor and commonalty, it was conveyed, at the latter end of that reign, to Sir William Cowper, knight and baronet, in whose descendants it has continued down to the right hon. Peter-Francis Cowper, earl Cowper, who is the present owner of it. (fn. 3)
BUT THE MANOR ITSELF, with the royalties, profits of courts, &c. remained still in the crown. Since which, the bailiwic of it, containing the rents and pro fits of the courts, with the fines, amerciaments, reliess, &c. and the privilege of holding the courts of it, by the bailiff of it, have been granted to the family of Oxenden, and Sir Henry Oxenden, bart. of Brome, is now in possession of the bailiwic of it. A court leet and court baron is held for this manor.
TRAPHAM is a mansion in this parish, which was formerly in the possession of a family of the same name, who resided at it, but after they were extinct it passed into that of Trippe, who bore for their arms, Gules, a chevron, or, between three borses heads erased, sable, bridled, collared and crined of the second; (fn. 4) and John Tripp, esq. resided here in queen Elizabeth's reign, as did his grandson Charles, who seems to have alienated it to Sir Christopher Harflete, of St. Stephen's, whose son Tho. Harflete, esq. left an only daughter and heir Afra, who carried it in marriage to John St. Leger, esq. of Doneraile, in Ireland, descended from Sir Anthony St. Leger, lord deputy of Ireland in Henry VIII.'s reign, and they joined in the alienation of it to Brook Bridges, esq of the adjoining parish of Goodneston, whose descendant Sir Brook Wm. Bridges, bart. of that place, is the present owner of it.
The MANOR OF DENE, situated in the valley, at the southern boundary of this parish, was antiently the inheritance of a family who took their surname from it, and held it by knight's service of the archbishop, in king Edward I's reign, but they seem to have been extinct here in that of king Edward III. After which it passed into the family of Hussey, who bore for their arms, Per chevron, argent and vert, three birds counterchanged; and then to Wood, before it came by sale into the family of Oxenden, who appear to have been possessed of it at the latter end of Henry VI.'s reign, about which time they had become by marriage, owners of Brook and other estates in this parish. The family of Oxenden have been resident in this county from the reign of king Edward III. Solomon Oxenden, being the first mentioned in the several pedigrees of it, whose near relation Richard Oxenden was prior of Christchurch, Canterbury, in that reign; in this name and family of Oxenden, whose arms were Argent, a chevron, gules, between three oxen, sable, armed, or; which coat was confirmed to the family by Gyan, king at arms, anno 24 Henry VI. this manor and seat continued down to Sir Henry Oxenden, of Dene, who was on May 8, 1678, created a baronet, whose youngest grandson Sir George Oxenden, bart. succeeding at length to the title on the death of his eldest brother Sir Henry, resided at Dene, where he died in 1775, having served in parliament for Sandwich, and been employed in high offices in administration, and leaving behind him the character of a compleat gentleman. He married Elizabeth, one of the daughters and coheirs of Edward Dunck, esq. of Little Wittenham, in Berkshire, by whom he had two sons, of whom George, the second, was made by will heir to the estate of Sir Basil Dixwell, bart. of Brome, on his death, s. p. and changed his name to Dixwell as enjoined by it, but died soon afterwards likewise, s. p. and that estate came at length to his eldest brother Henry, who succeeded his father in the title of Baronet. He married Margaret, daughter and coheir of Sir George Chudleigh, bart. of Devonshire, since deceased, by whom he has issue Henry Oxenden, esq. of Madekyn, in Barham, who married Mary, one of the daughters of Col. Graham, of St. Laurence, near Canterbury, by whom he has issue. Sir Henry Oxenden, bart. now resides at Brome, and is the present possessor of this manor and seat, as well as the rest of his father's estates in this parish. (fn. 5) Lady Hales, widow of Sir Thomas Pym Hales, bart. of Bekesborne, now resides in it.
TWITHAM, now usually called Twittam, is a hamlet in this parish, adjoining to Goodneston, the principal estate in which once belonged to a family of that name, one of whom Alanus de Twitham is recorded as having been with king Richard I. at the siege of Acon, in Palestine, who bore for his arms, Semee of crosscroslets, and three cinquesoils, argent, and held this estate in Twitham, of the archbishop, and they appear to have continued possessed of it in the 3d year of king Richard II. Some time after which it came into the possession of Fineux, and William Fineux sold it anno 33 Henry VIII. to Ingram Wollet, whose heirs passed it away to one of the family of Oxenden, of Wingham, in whose descendants it has continued down to Sir Henry Oxenden, bart. of Brome, the present possessor of it.
On the foundation of the college of Wingham, archbishop Peckham, in 1286, endowed the first diaconal prebend in it, which he distinguished by the name of the prebend of Twitham, with the tithes of the lands of Alanus de Twitham, which he freely held of the archbishop there in Goodwynestone, at Twytham. (fn. 6)
BROOK is an estate in this parish, situated northward from Twitham, which was formerly the estate of the Wendertons, of Wenderton, in this parish, in which it remained till by a female heir Jane, it went in marriage to Richard Oxenden, gent. of Wingham, who died in 1440, and was buried in Wingham church, in whose name and family it continued down to Henry Oxenden, of Brook, who left two daughters and coheirs, of whom Mary married Richard Oxenden, of Grays Inn, barrister-at-law, fourth son of Sir Henry Oxenden, bart, who afterwards, on his wife's becoming sole heiress of Brook, possessed it, and resided here. He left Elizabeth his sole daughter and heir, who carried it in marriage to Streynsham Master, esq. a captain in the royal navy, the eldest surviving son of James Master, esq. of East Langdon, who died some few days after his marriage; upon which she became again possessed of it in her own right, and dying in 1759, s. p. gave it by will to Henry Oxenden, esq. now Sir Henry Oxenden, bart. of Brome, and he is the present owner of it.
WENDERTON is a manor and antient seat, situated northward from Wingham church, eminent, says Philipott, for its excellent air, situation, and prospect, which for many successive generations had owners of that surname, one of whom, John de Wenderton, is mentioned in Fox's Martyrology, as one among other tenants of the manor of Wingham, on whom archbishop Courtnay, in 1390, imposed a penance for neglecting to perform some services due from that manor. In his descendants this seat continued till John Wenderton, of Wenderton, in the 1st year of Henry VIII. passed it away to archbishop Warham, who at his decease in 1533, gave it to his youngest brother John Warham, whose great-grandson John, by his will in 1609, ordered this manor to be sold, which it accordingly soon afterwards was to Manwood, from which name it was alienated, about the middle of the next reign of king Charles I. to Vincent Denne, gent. who resided here, and died in 1642, s. p. whose four nieces afterwards became by will possessed of it, and on the partition of their estates, the manor and mansion, with part of the lands since called Great Wenderton, was allotted to Mary, the youngest of them, who afterwards married Vincent Denne, sergeant-at-law, and the remaining part of it, which adjoins to them, since called Little Wenderton, to Dorothy, the third sister, afterwards married to Roger Lukin, gent. of London, who soon afterwards sold his share to Richard Oxenden, esq. of Brook, from one of which family it was sold to Underdown, by a female heir of which name, Frances, it went in marriage to John Carter, esq. of Deal, the present owner of it.
BUT GREAT WENDERTON continued in the possession of Sergeant Denne, till his death in 1693, when Dorothy, his eldest daughter and coheir, carried it in marriage to Mr. Thomas Ginder, who bore Argent, on a pale, sable, a cross fuchee, or, impaling azure, three lions heads, or; as they are on his monument. He resided at it till his death in 1716, as did his widow till her decease in 1736, when it came to her nephew Mr. Thomas Hatley, who left two daughters his coheirs, the eldest surviving of whom, Anne, carried it in marriage, first to Richard Nicholas, esq. and then successively to Mr. Smith and Mr. James Corneck, of London, and Mrs. Corneck, the widow of the latter, is the present possessor of it.
At the boundary of this parish, adjoining to Preston and Ash, lies THE MANOR OF WALMESTONE, usually called Wamston, which was antiently part of the possessions of the family of Septvans, one of whom, Robert de Septvans, held it in king Edward II.'s reign, of the archbishop; whose descendant Sir William de Septvans died possessed of it in the 25th year of that reign. (fn. 7) How long it continued in this name I have not found; but at the beginning of king Edward IV.'s reign it was become the property of William Bonington, of Canterbury, who died in 1463, and directed it by his will to be sold. After which it became, about the latter end of king Henry VIII.'s reign, the property of Walter Hendley, esq. the king's attorney-general, who left three daughters his coheirs, and they joined in the sale of it to Alday, who alienated it to Benedict Barnham, esq. alderman of London, one of whose daughters and coheirs, Elizabeth, carried it in marriage to Mervin Touchet, earl of Castlehaven, who being convicted of high crimes and misdemeanors, was executed anno 7 Charles I. Soon after which this manor seems to have been divided, and one part of it, since called Little Walmestone, in which was included the manor and part of the demesne lands, passed from his heirs to the Rev. John Smith, rector of Wickham Breaus, who having founded a scholarship at Oxford, out of the lands of it, presently afterwards sold it to Solly, of Pedding, in which name it continued till Stephen Solly, gent. of Pedding, and his two sons, John and Stephen, in 1653, joined in the conveyance of it to Thomas Winter, yeoman, of Wingham, in which name it remained for some time. At length, after some intermediate owners, it was sold to Sympson, and John Sympson, esq. of Canterbury, died possessed of it in 1748, leaving his wife surviving, who held it at her decease, upon which it came to her husband's heir-atlaw, and it is now accordingly in the possession of Mr. Richard Simpson.
BUT GREAT WALMESTONE, consisting of the mansion-house, with a greater part of the demesne lands of the manor, was passed away by the heirs of the earl of Castlehaven to Brigham, and Mr. Charles Brigham, of London, in the year 1653, sold it to William Rutland, of London, who left two daughters his coheirs, of whom Mary married John Ketch, by whom she had a sole daughter Anne, who afterwards at length became possessed of it, and carried it in marriage to Samuel Starling, gent. of Worcestershire, who in 1718, conveyed it, his only son Samuel joining in it, to Thomas Willys, esq. of London, afterwards created a baronet. After which it passed in the same manner, and in the like interests and shares, as the manor of Dargate, in Hernehill, down to Matthew, Robert and Thomas Mitchell, the trustees for the several uses to which this, among other estates belonging to the Willis's, had been limited; and they joined in the sale of it, in 1789, to Mr. William East, whose son, Mr. John East, of Wingham, is the present owner of it.
ARCHBISHOP KILWARBY intended to found a college in this church of Wingham, but resigning his archbishopric before he could put his design in practice, archbishop Peckham, his successor, in the year 1286, perfected his predecessor's design, and founded A COLLEGE in this church, for a provost, whose portion, among other premises, was the profits of this church and the vicarage of it, and six secular canons; the prebends of which he distinguished by the names of the several places from whence their respective portions arose, viz. Chilton, Pedding, Twitham, Bonnington, Ratling, and Wimlingswold. The provost's lodge, which appears by the foundation charter to have before been the parsonage, was situated adjoining to the church-yard; and the houses of the canons, at this time called Canon-row, opposite to it. These latter houses are, with their gardens and appurtenances, esteemed to be within the liberty of the town and port of Hastings, and jurisdiction of the cinque ports. This college was suppressed in the 1st year of king Edward VI. among others of the like sort, when the whole revenue of it was valued at 208l. 14s. 3½d. per annum, and 193l. 2s. 1d. clear; but Leland says, it was able to dispend at the suppression only eighty-four pounds per annum. Edward Cranmer, the last master, had at the dissolution a pension of twenty pounds per annum, which he enjoyed in 1553. (fn. 8)
After the dissolution of the college, the capital mansion, late belonging to the provost, remained in the crown till king Edward VI. in his 7th year, granted the scite of it, with the church appropriate of Wingham, and all tithes whatsoever arising within the parish, and one acre of glebe-land in it, to Sir Henry Palmer, subject to a payment of twenty pounds annually to the curate or vicar of it.
The Palmers of Wingham were descended from a very antient one at Angmerin, in Suffex, who bore for their arms, Or, two bars, gules, each charged with three tresoils of the field, in chief, a greyhound, currant, sable. In the seventh descent from Ralph Palmer, esq. of that place, in king Edward II.'s reign, was descended Sir Edward Palmer, of Angmerin, who left three sons, born on three successive Sundays, of whom John, the eldest, was of Sussex, which branch became extinct in queen Elizabeth's reign; Sir Henry, the second son, was of Wingham; and Sir Thomas, the youngest, was beheaded in queen Mary's reign. Sir Henry Palmer, the second son, having purchased the grant of the college of Wingham, as before-mentioned, made it the seat of his residence, as did his son Sir Thomas Palmer, who was sheriff anno 37 Elizabeth, and created a baronet in 1621. He so constantly resided at Wingham, that he is said to have kept sixty Christmases, without intermission, in this mansion, with great hospitality. He had three sons, each of whom were knighted. From the youngest of whom, Sir James, descended the Palmers, of Dauney, in Buckinghamshire, who upon the eldest branch becoming extinct, have succeeded to the title of baronet; and by his second wife he had Roger Palmer, earl of Castlemain. Sir Thomas Palmer, the eldest of the three brothers, died in his father's life-time, and left Sir Thomas Palmer, bart. of Wingham, heir to his grandfather; in whose descendants, baronets, of this place, this mansion, with the parsonage of Wingham appropriate, continued down to Sir Thomas Palmer, bart. of Wingham, who died possessed of it in 1723, having had three wives; by the first he had four daughters; by the second he had a son Herbert, born before marriage, and afterwards a daughter Frances; the third was Mrs. Markham, by whom he had no issue; and she afterwards married Thomas Hey, esq. whom she likewise survived. Sir Thomas Palmer, by his will, gave this seat, with the parsonage appropriate and tithes of Wingham, inter alia, after his widow's decease, to his natural son Herbert Palmer, esq. above-mentioned, who married Bethia, fourth daughter of Sir Thomas D'Aeth, bart. of Knolton. He died in 1760, s. p. and by will devised his interest in the reversion of this seat, with the parsonage, to his wife Bethia, for her life, and afterwards to his sister Mrs. Frances Palmer, in tail. But he never had possession of it, for lady Palmer furvived him, on whose death in 1763, Mrs. Bethia Palmer, his widow, became entitled to it, and afterwards married John Cosnan, esq. who died in 1773. She survived him, and resided here till her death in 1789. In the intermediate time, Mrs. Frances Palmer having barred the entail made by her natural brother Herbett above-mentioned, died, having devised the see of this estate, by her will in 1770, to the Rev. Thomas Hey, rector of Wickhambreaux, and his heirs, being the eldest son of the last lady Palmer by her last husband. Mr. Hey accordingly, on the death of Mrs. Cosnan, who died s. p. succeeded to this seat and estate. He married first Ethelreda, eldest daughter and coheir of dean Lynch, since deceased, by whom he has no surviving issue; and secondly, Mrs. Pugett, widow of Mr. Puget, of London. He now resides in this seat of Wingham college, having been created D. D. and promoted to a prebend of the church of Rochester.
Charities.
JOHN CHURCH, yeoman, of this parish, in 1604, gave 1cl. to the poor, to distribute yearly at Easter, 10s. to the poor for the interest of it.
HECTOR DU MONT, a Frenchman, born in 1632, gave the silver cup and patten for the holy communion.
SIR GEORGE OXENDEN, president for the East-India Company at Surat, in 1660, gave the velvet cushion and pulpitcloth.
JOHN RUSHBEACHER, gent. of this parish, in 1663, gave five acres of land in Woodnesborough, the rents to be annually distributed to ten of the meaner sort of people of Wingham, not receiving alms of the parish, now of the yearly value of 4l.
SIR GEORGE OXENDEN, above-mentioned, in 1682, gave 500l. for the repairing and beautifying this church, and the Dene chancel.
SIR JAMES OXENDEN, knight and baronet, of Dene, founded and endowed a school in this parish with 16l. per annum for ever, for teaching twenty poor children reading and writing, now in the patronage of Sir Henry Oxenden, bart.
RICHARD OXENDEN, esq. of Brook, in 1701, gave an annuity of 4l. for ever, to the minister, for the reading of divine service and preaching a sermon, in this church, on every Wednesday in Lent, and on Good Friday; and he at the same time gave 20s. yearly for ever, to be distributed, with the consent of the heirs of the Brook estate, to eight poor people, who should be at divine service on Easter-day, to be paid out of the lands of Brook, now vested in Sir Henry Oxenden, bart.
THOMAS PALMER, esq. of St. Dunstan's in the East, London, gave 300l for the repairing, adorning and beautifying the great chancel of this church.
MRS. ELIZABETH MASTER, esq. relict of Strensham Master, of Brook, in 1728, gave the large silver flaggon; and MRS. SYBILLA OXENDEN, spinster, of Brook, at the same time gave a large silver patten for the communion.
Besides the above benefactions, there have been several lesser ones given at different times in money, both to the poor and for the church. All which are recorded in a very handsome table in the church, on which are likewise painted the arms of the several benefactors
There are about forty poor constantly relieved, and casually twenty.
THIS PARISH is within the ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION of the diocese of Canterbury, and deanry of Bridge.
The church, which is exempt from the archdeacon, is dedicated to St. Mary. It is a handsome building, consisting of two isles and three chancels, having a slim spire steeple at the west end, in which is a peal of eight bells and a clock. The church consists of two isles and three chancels. The former appear to have been built since the reformation; the latter are much more antient. It is handsome and well built; the pillars between the isles, now cased with wood, are slender and well proportioned. The outside is remarkably beautiful in the flint-work, and the windows throughout it, were regular and handsomely disposed, superior to other churches, till later repairs destroyed their uniformity. The windows were formerly richly ornamented with painted glass, the remains of which are but small. In the south window, in old English letters, is Edward Warham, gentill . . . . of making this window . . . . and underneath the arms of Warham. In the north isle is a brass tablet for Christopher Harris, curate here, and rector of Stourmouth, obt. Nov. 24, 1719. Over the entrance from this isle into the high chancel, is carved on the partition, the Prince of Wales's badge and motto. In the south wall is a circular arch, plain, seemingly over a tomb. A monument for T. Ginder, gent. obt. 1716. In the south east window the arms of Warham. A memorial for Vincent Denne, gent. of Wenderton, obt. 1642. In the high chancel are seven stalls on each side. On the pavement are several stones, robbed of their brasses, over the provosts and religious of the college. A stone, coffin-shaped, and two crosses pomelle, with an inscription round in old French capitals, for master John de Sarestone, rector, ob. XII Kal. May MCCLXXI. Several monuments and memorials for the family of Palmer. The south chancel is called the Dene chancel, belonging to that seat, under which is a vault, in which the family of Oxenden, owners of it, are deposited. In the middle, on the pavement, is a very costly monument, having at the corners four large black oxens beads, in allusion to their name and arms. It was erected in 1682. On the four tablets on the base is an account of the family of Oxenden, beginning with Henry, who built Denehouse, and ending with Dr. Oxenden, dean of the arches, who died in 1704. There are monuments in it likewise for the Trippes. The north chancel is called the Brook chancel, as belonging to that seat, in which are monuments for the Oxendens and Masters's of this seat. This chancel is shut out from the church, and is made use of as a school-room, by which means the monuments are much desaced, and the gravestones, from the filth in it, have become wholly obliterated. On one of these stones was a brass plate, now gone, for Henry Oxenden, esq. who built Dene, obt. 1597.
Elizabeth, daughter of the marquis of Juliers, and widow of John, son of Edmund of Woodstock, earl of Kent, after being solemnly veiled a nun, quitted her prosession, and was clandestinely married to Sir Eustace de Danbrichescourt, in a chapel of the mansion-house of Robert de Brome, a canon of this collegiate church, in 1360; for which she and her husband were enjoined different kinds of penance during their lives, which is well worth the reading, for the uncommon superstitious mockery of them. (fn. 9)
At the time of the reformation, the church was partly collegiate, and partly parochial. The high chancel, separated from the rest of the church by a partition, served for the members of the college to perform their quire service in. The two isles of the church were for the parishioners, who from thence could hear the quire service; and in the north isle was a roodlost, where one of the vicars went up and read the gospel to the people. At which time, I find mention of a parish chancel likewise.
The church of Wingham formerly comprehended not only this parish, but those likewise of Ash, Goodnestone, Nonington, and Wimlingswold; but archbishop Peckham, in 1282, divided them into four distinct parochial churches, and afterwards appropriated them to his new-founded college of Wingham, with a saving to them of certain portions which the vicars of them were accustomed to receive. The profits of this church and the vicarage of it, together with the parsonage-house, being thus appropriated and allotted to the provost, as part of his portion and maintenance, the archbishop, in order that the church should be duly served, by his foundation charter, ordered, that the provost and canons should each of them keep a vicar who should constantly serve in it. In which state it continued till the suppression of the college, in the 1st year of king Edward VI. when it came, among the rest of the revenues of the college, into the hands of the crown, where this parsonage appropriate, to which was annexed, the nomination of the perpetual curate serving in this church, remained till it was granted by king Edward VI. in his 7th year, to Sir Thomas Palmer, bart. Since which it has continued in like manner, together with the scite of the college, as has been already mentioned, to the Rev. Dr. Hey, who is the present possessor of this parsonage, together with the patronage of the perpetual curacy of the church of Wingham.
In 1640 the communicants here were three hundred and sixty-one.
¶The curacy is endowed with a stipend of twenty pounds per annum, paid by the owner of the parsonage, and reserved to the curate in the original grant of the college by king Edward VI. and with four pounds per annum, being the Oxenden gift before mentioned; besides which, the stipend of the resident curate, and his successors, was increased in 1797, by a liberal benefaction made by the Rev. Dr. Hey, of one hundred pounds per annum, clear of all deductions, to be paid out of the parsonage, and of a house, garden, and piece of pasture land adjoining, for the curate's use, both which were settled by him on trustees for that purpose.
because of one cruel and stupid man, and millions of fools, the whole world has turned a corner into very dark times
so remember the good times, savour the beauty, and celebrate your friends
and be prepared to fight, because this cancer is no respecter of borders
Posted to the 70D group because it's the photo that rolled over the counter on the camera. As I write this, I'm already over 300 photos into the next 10,000 shots. (added after the stuff that follows)
Add 9999 to that IMG number. I rolled over the counter on my camera while I was rolling around on the ground trying to fit me and the camera between it and this moth which was perched on the bottom of a leaf of one of the swamp milkweed plants.
This is the second DSLR I've taken more than 10,000 pictures with. I started with the original Digital Rebel, skipped a model and went to the Xti, the first one I rolled over the counter. Number three was the 50D. And I'[m thinking the 80D might be next. If it is, this will be the first time I've kept the old body and main lens instead of passing it along to another deserving photographer.
Because of the great fire wall of Chinese policy, it's so hard to cross the limit to visit flickr, so I could not reply my dear friends, I'm so sorry about that and please forgive me,thank you so much and hope my friends can still hit on me！由于中国网络原因，访问flickr很困难，速度很慢，所有暂时没有办法一一回应各位好友，请朋友们见谅！还请各位好友继续关注我！
My pro account is out of time，thank you my friends here for supporting me what a long time！！May I have a pleasure to receive a pro gift from you？我的pro账号到期了，感谢朋友们长期以来的热心支持！！有好心人能赞助一个pro账号给我吗，在此先表感谢！！
If you want to use or buy this image，please contact me. 版权所有，转载请联系本人。
who will keep you warm at night, when winter comes
and the wolves are howling at your window.
who will lay down beside you,
with your smell still clinging to their skin.
because winter is coming love, and
the fire won't hold you
By Laura Boanas
35mm film
I'm really, really bad with strangers and it usually takes me several encounters before I can open up ever so slightly.
I decided to participate in the 100 Strangers project some two months ago, after following Neil Winch for quite some time.
In other words, it took me two months to finally get out there and try it.
Today was the day!
I chose Zürich for my first time because there's thousands of people to encounter and I was sure that I would easily find someone there. aha..ha..
After entering the Bahnhofstrasse I was slightly overwhelmed by the shear masses of people passing by.
Countless interesting, beautiful people one could talk to if one had the balls..
I grabbed my DSLR tightly and stood there like a lost boy waiting for his mum.
After what felt like an eternity, I decided to sit on a bench and jump at the next passer-by that didn't seem too busy or dangerous.
They suddenly all looked terribly frightening and busy and after almost an hour I was about to give up when...
...this guy sits down next to me, making a phone call. He talks about filming and opportunities and that's when I decided that this had to be a sign.
I patiently waited for him to hang up, gave him a few more seconds to check some messages and then I finally got to talk to someone.
Meet Pascal
I explained my dire situation to him and he instantly nodded and told me how hard HE had it when he first started out with street photography, where for him the hardest part was aproaching people aswell.
How lucky can one get with the first time?
Pascal works in sales most of the time, making some money in filming and photography besides. He aspires to go full-time professional soon and I wish him all the best, should he happen to stumble upon this picture.
I asked for his permission to publish the picture on flickr and will e-mail him a few of the keepers.
There weren't many, though..
I only ever used the lens once with a student and shaking all over my body (from the cold) I couldn't get the focus most of the time.
I wanted to have the tattoo visible with a buttery background and some spots of warmth coming from the lights.
However, I totally missed that stupid sign in the background, which I had to burn by almost one stop so it wouldn't distract too much from the subject.
So, this was my first time and I can only hope that it won't be another 2 months till I get my shite together to get out there again, now that I'm kinda stoked about my "success".
Maybe, sometime in 2015 I will even manage to aproach a girl.. there's still time...
This picture is #1 in my 100 strangers project. Find out more about the project and see pictures taken by other photographers at the 100 Strangers Flickr Group page