Border Collies of North America
View allAll Photos Tagged border
Switzerland, May 2021
My best photos are here: www.lacerta-bilineata.com/ticino-best-photos-of-southern-...
My latest ANIMAL VIDEO (warning, it's a bit shocking): www.youtube.com/watch?v=4T2-Xszz7FI
You find a selection of my 80 BEST PHOTOS (mostly not yet on Flickr) here: www.lacerta-bilineata.com/western-green-lizard-lacerta-bi... (the website exists in ESPAÑOL, FRANÇAIS, ITALIANO, ENGLISH, DEUTSCH)
ABOUT THE PHOTO:
So this photo is a bit of a novelty for me - at least here on Flickr, but it's also a journey back in time in a sense. I've always loved b/w and sepia photography; already as a very young teenager I would go out into the woods with an old Pentax Spotmatic (which I had nicked from my father) whenever it was a foggy day to shoot b/w compositions of sunbeams cutting through the ghostlike trees.
I used films with a sensitivity of at least 1600 (for those of you who remember what that means 😉 ), and the resulting photos had an incredibly fine grain which I loved; I blew them up to the size of posters and hung them on the walls of my teenage man-cave next to Hendrix, Jim Morrison and Slash.
But then I abandoned photography altogether for 20 years, and when I finally picked up a camera again, it was one of the digital kind. Now neither film nor grain played any role in my photographic endeavours - let alone b/w compositions: because the reason I fell in love with shooting pictures once more was the rare and incredibly colorful lizard species that had chosen my garden as its habitat.
It's this species - the Lacerta bilineata aka the western green lizard - that my photo website www.lacerta-bilineata.com/ and also my Flickr gallery are dedicated to, but I've since expanded that theme a bit so that it now comprises the whole Lacerta bilineata habitat, which is to say my garden and its immediate surroundings and all the flora and fauna I find in it.
I like that my gallery and the website have this clear theme, because in order to rise to the challenge of portraying all aspects of a very specific little eco system (which also happens to be my home of sorts), it forces me to constantly explore it from fresh angles, and I keep discovering fascinating new motives as my photographic journey continues.
Which brings me to the horse pasture you see in this photo. This playground for happy horsies lies just outside my garden, and it normally only interests me insofar as my green reptile friends claim parts of it as their territory, and I very much prefer it to be horseless (which it thankfully often is).
Not that the horses bother the reptiles - the lizards don't mind them one bit, and I've even seen them jump from the safety of the fly honeysuckle shrub which the pasture borders on right between the deadly looking hooves of the horses to forage for snails, without any sign of fear or even respect.
No, the reason I have a very conflicted relationship with those horses is that they are mighty cute and that there's usually also foals. The sight of those beautiful, happy animals jumping around and frolicking (it's a huge pasture and you can tell the horses really love it) is irresistible: and that inevitably attracts what in the entire universe is known as the most destructive anti-matter and ultimate undoing of any nature photographer: other humans.
Unlike with the horses, the lizards ARE indeed very much bothered by specimens of loud, unpredictable Homo sapiens sapiens - which makes those (and by extension also the horses) the cryptonite of this here reptile photographer. It's not the horses' fault, I know that, but that doesn't change a thing. I'm just telling you how it is (and some of you might have read about the traumatic events I had to endure to get a particular photo - if not, read at your own risk here: www.flickr.com/photos/191055893@N07/51405389883/in/datepo... - which clearly demonstrated that even when it's entirely horseless, that pasture is still a threat for artistic endeavours).
But back to the photo. So one morning during my vacation back in May I got up quite early. It had rained all night, and now the fog was creeping up from the valley below to our village just as the sky cleared up and the morning sun started to shine through the trees.
And just as I did when I was a teenager I grabbed my camera and ran out to photograph this beautiful mood of ghostlike trees and sunbeams cutting through the mist. There had already been such a day a week earlier (which is when I took this photo: www.flickr.com/photos/191055893@N07/51543603732/in/datepo... ), but this time, the horses were also there.
Because of our slightly strained relationship I only took this one photo of them (I now wish I had taken more: talk about missed opportunities), and otherwise concentrated on the landscape. It was only later when I went through all the photos on my computer that I realized that I actually really liked those horses, even despite the whole composition being such a cliché. And I realized another thing: when I drained the photo of all the color, I liked it even better - because there was almost a bit of grain in it, like in the photos from my youth.
Since then I have experimented quite a bit with b/w and sepia compositions (some of which I will upload here eventually I guess), but this photo here is the first one that helped me rediscover my old passion. I hope you like it even though it builds quite a stark contrast with the rest of my tiny - and very colorful - gallery. But in the spirit of showing you the whole Lacerta bilineata habitat (and also in the spirit of expanding my gallery a bit beyond lizards and insects), I think it's not such a bad fit.
As always, many greetings to all of you, have a wonderful day and don't hesitate to let me know what you think 😊
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Taken at Tabha - the border between Egypt and Israel, during the Pilgrim Trip to Egypt - Israel in Feb 2017
THANK YOU so MUCH for your kind visits, faved and comments.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Scotland beyond the wall with Hownam Law prominent in the distance to the far left, and Sunnyside Hill living up to its name a little left of centre.
hff! to all.
100x 2022- Northumberland (just!) 44/100
The Worm (German: Wurm) is a small river or creek at the border between Germany and the Netherlands. This shot is a long exposure of 50" and was taken from the Dutch side.
HP5 in Finol,
Kallitype, Sodium acetate developer,
1st MT12 Cobalt toner 12+9+7+4+450ml 1:30 mins
2nd MT7 Iron Blue 4+2+4+3+400ml 2 mins
3rd Lead acetate 3% 1 min.
Tulips (Tulipa) form a genus of spring-blooming perennial herbaceous bulbiferous geophytes (having bulbs as storage organs). The flowers are usually large, showy and brightly coloured, generally red, pink, yellow, or white (usually in warm colours).
Cupha prosope
Family: Nymphalidae
Order: Lepidoptera
And on iNaturalist:
inaturalist.ala.org.au/observations/125903140
DSC05293 copy
This picture is taken in the Netherlands, but this fence is in Germany. The stones are the border between them.
La Giettaz, Savoie,
Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, France.
La Giettaz es una comuna francesa ubicada en el departamento de Saboya, en la región de Auvernia-Ródano-Alpes.
Municipio del macizo de Aravis que a veces le merece el sobrenombre de "La Giettaz-en-Aravis", nombre que recibe su estación de deportes de invierno, situada en la aldea de Plan, su capital se sitúa al pie del Col des Aravis, en la alturas del Val d'Arly.
El pueblo está situado a 1.150 m de altitud, al pie del puerto y de la sierra de Aravis, límite entre Saboya y Alta Saboya.
La Giettaz is a French commune located in the Savoy department, in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region.
Municipality of the Aravis massif that sometimes earns it the nickname "La Giettaz-en-Aravis", the name given to its winter sports resort, located in the village of Plan, its capital is located at the foot of the Col des Aravis, in the heights of the Val d'Arly.
The town is located at an altitude of 1,150 m, at the foot of the port and the Aravis mountain range, the border between Savoy and Haute-Savoie.
As you can see, she didn't die playing with her Rottweiler friend. Still sunset, still perfectly warm light for shooting some portraits.
Canon FD 50mm @ f1.4
Gracias a todos por vuestra visita, amables comentarios y fav/ Thank you all for your visit, kind comments and fav.
The daily border patrol is an important task and it's something Tofu and Filou often do together. While Tofu checks what's going on in the neighbouring gardens, Filou's job is to cover his back.
Took this wee picture when I did my last photo shoot at a local cemetery of Asha peering through a gap in a old headstone...
one of 8 of lily and charlies pups this one we call teddy[ Looks like a teddy bea ] only brown one in litter there's 4 B/W and 3 blacks
Another 'cycle to Scotland' view of the Union Chain bridge looking into Scotland.
With yesterday's announcement that the Scottish National Party is seeking to hold another referendum on whether Scotland should secede from the United Kingdom, these posts may be future border posts (& I would need my passport to cycle over?!).
You may remember I posted a photo of Bandit's little niece, Taiga some time ago. She has grown quite a bit since then in size and personality. She is very sweet, and smart, and so pretty especially with her fanning that has started growing in.
Now that my daughter has moved about an hour west of me, these two don't get to see each other as often as I'd like.
Taiga is always ecstatic to see Bandit, he however is a little more reserved.
Texture thanks to Kathleen Clemens.
Thank you in advance for your views, comments, and faves. They are much appreciated!