View allAll Photos Tagged endpoints
My dogs as puppies, almost 11 years ago--playing in their swimming pool. It makes me somewhat sad to look at this picture, knowing they're now near the endpoint of their lives. Why do dogs wrap themselves around our heartstrings like they do?
Happy Slider's Sunday everyone.
San Carlos CA
In January 1997, severe floods closed railroad lines through both the Feather River and Sacramento River Canyons. For a couple of weeks, Union Pacific was compelled to detour a large amount of traffic over the Modoc Line. Ironically, UP planned to close the line later in the year and then abandon it.
While the detours were in effect, UP would typically run them in fleets of five or six trains between Klamath Falls, Oregon and Wendel, California. Once the last train in a fleet arrived at an endpoint, a new fleet of trains would begin moving in the opposite direction. Trains generally operated at restricted speed, since the line had no block signal system.
For railfans, in addition to being a turkey shoot, the January 1997 detours were one last chance to see a significant amount of traffic on the Modoc Line. At the beginning of July 1997, the line was permanently closed to through traffic.
On Saturday morning, January 11th, a westbound Modoc detour is rounding Likely Loop, as seen from a pullout on US 395. This train has been descending from the summit at Sage Hen on a grade that ranges up to 1.6%. It will reach level trackage a couple of miles ahead at Likely.
Today, this right of way is a hiking trail.
Took my parents to see the "Sensorio, Field of Light" in Paso Robles last night. Fiber optic threads sprouting to endpoints via octopus tentacles connected to buried bulbs - 58,000 of them planted in rolling hills amongst craggy oaks. Scrambled to get there before evening light disappeared, and barely made it. Definitely not part of the Central Coast thing growing up! Really unique experience. iPhone snaps - we'll see how the camera shots turn out later (though they ban tripods, so that was a separate challenge).
The challenges of railroading in Alaska!
News out of Alaska yesterday reported that a freight train derailed when it collided with an avalanche. If you missed the story check out this link: www.adn.com/alaska-news/2023/01/17/alaska-railroad-employ...
I knew both employees involved and thankfully both were uninjured despite their lead loco twisting off the rails down hill toward the lake. This is not the first time a train has come to blows with mother nature here, and the railroad even has sensors high up on the mountain that send an alert to the train dispatcher, but alas like all technology it's not foolproof. To read about it here's an interesting older story: www.alaskajournal.com/community/2001-12-17/railroad-aims-...
The train in the news story above is at the exact same location as this photo, a spot I've photographed and ridden the rails over countless times.
A solo SD70MAC ARR 4325 leads a little five car charter passenger train near MP 71 on the Alaska Railroad mainline just north of Kern Creek. Kern Creek was the endpoint of ARR predecessor Alaska Northern Railroad (itself a successor to the Alaska Central) a private enterprise that built north from Seward and reached Kern around 1911 before succumbing to bankruptcy. Ultimately the 71 miles of railroad were purchased by the Federal Government and pushed north to become what is today's Alaska Railroad.
The train is an annual event each March operated on behalf of the Anchorage Convention and Visitors Bureau and is seen northbound passing through SZ72 at Kern, one of the most treacherous and active avalanche areas on the length of the railroad. The train is slicing through the massive piles of snow that had already buried the tracks a couple times this season. Springtime is just around the corner and soon even more slides will come down in this location leaving piles of snow and ice visible well into July and August!
If you care to know more about the science of snow fighting check out this paper by the ARRC's full time avalanche coordinator:
arc.lib.montana.edu/snow-science/objects/issw-2009-0533-0...
And you can learn even more from the railroad's permit issued by the US Forest Service:
www.alaskarailroad.com/sites/default/files/Communications...
South of Girdwood, Alaska
Saturday March 7, 2009
Leaves.
I posted a shot for Sliders Sunday last week. It was one of a set of variations on the theme all based on one original picture.
I didn’t have time to publish the rest at the time so I’ll do it now, in case it interests anyone.
The fun for me is in creating these different endpoints and seeing which ones work and which don’t. It’s always interesting to hear which you prefer too as that often surprises me.
The original image is linked in the first comment. I did about ten variants in all but I’ll only share the ones that I like for some reason or the other.
I like this one for its emphasis on the leaf veins and its graphic illustration quality.
Thank you for taking the time to look. I hope you enjoy the images (and don’t get too bored!)
[This one was made using Topaz Studio 2 starting from the Eternity preset and then tweaked and processed from there.]
I was rather at a loss yesterday about what to do for Sliders Sunday this week. Wonderful ideas were notable for their absence. So I thought I would have a play with that good old favourite - a dahlia pic.
There are four endpoints in this set: two are fairly well-travelled approaches and two are sheer experiment.
The first is a fairly straight rendition of the image using the Radiance and Smudge filters of Topaz Studio. The radiance lengthens and strengthens the lines while smudge smoothes surfaces. The result lends a greater sense of physicality, particularly in the petals, that works well with flowers - a bit like an oil painting. The difficulty with this approach is getting the balance right - if you look at the image in detail you can see the filters are having a real party so you need to resist overdoing it. But what is right depends quite a lot on the device and scale that the image is seen at. In other words, you are doomed :(
You can play Spot the Fly with this one ;)
The second is a mirror version created entirely in Affinity Photo. I thought I’d got over my obsession with mirroring flowers, but apparently not. This one is made setting up the adjustment with five mirrors and then searching about a bit with the origin to find an interesting image. Most of the work was in getting rid of the background.
Symmetry in an image has a strange effect on our minds. It increases visual impact but reduces attention span. I call it the ‘wow!... boring’ effect. I still like creating symmetric flower images because it makes me look more closely at the flower and see things that I’d previously missed.
The last two I feel a bit apologetic about as they are not really finished pieces but proofs of concept. They are both made using an approach I stumbled across with my previous Sliders Sunday playtime, that of duplicating the image layer and then changing the blend mode of the top layer to Difference. That just creates a black screen (because there is no difference between the layers). The fun starts when you begin mangling the top layer.
Previously I’d just used Liquify to mangle the layer (this pushes pixels around without smudging). It’s easy to do in Affinity because the Liquify adjustment is just another layer that remains editable. But that was not enough here - having a predominantly white flower doesn’t work as well as the multicoloured one last time. So I dabbled in my diddling with Recolour, Smudge, Gradient Map and Liquify. The textured one is mainly Smudge, and the other is several Difference results together in a composite.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy some of them and that they encourage you to have a bit of fun yourself. I’d love to hear which is your favourite. I’ll post a link to the in-camera version in the first comment so that you can see where we started with this set.
Thanks for taking the time to look. I hope you enjoy the image. Happy Sliders Sunday :)
Unless I’m truly in a hurry, I never park as close to a destination as possible, especially at a restaurant… an extra step or two can never hurt, can it? I suppose that depends on how many steps you had taken beforehand. I try to do 10,000 steps a day, for a number of reasons, not least of which it’s good for you. That being said, I don’t really enjoy walking for walking’s sake… but if you add to that a lovely vista as an endpoint to set the camera in front of, well, that changes things exponentially! There are few things I like better than a hike to the proper motivator… not just a beautiful place, a “cookie jar” place.
I love the wonders of the easily accessed views of our mountains from the Blue Ridge Parkway, particularly when others are along who are experiencing it for the first time. Sometimes, however, the unspoiled beauty is lying there in the wilderness, up there beyond the easy reach, just like a cookie jar. They’re places where the journey takes a little more effort, but just like reaching that cookie jar, the rewards can be sweet.
The cascades of Flat Laurel Creek, in the region of Black Balsam and Sam Knob, is no doubt a cookie jar place, and more so when autumn’s palette is evident. This is among some of the higher places around the parkway, so the season’s colors often occur here early in October. The hike in to this point is a little over two miles… the hike beyond takes you into Sam Knob. I found myself the first to blaze the trail up on this particular morning… I knew that not so much because I wasn’t running across other hikers, but rather because I hiked through enough webs stretched across the trail that I appeared to have on a spider silk suit… but only on the front half. I had to hike backwards for a while to complete the ensemble.
As are many such places, this place always seems to invite me to stay for just a while longer... "What's your hurry?" Mere moments after I left this spot, I found that I was no longer alone, but the reverie while sitting on a rock amidst this tumbling stream and Technicolor forest remains. Where is your favorite “cookie jar” place? Post a link here in the comments.
After following one of the tags, I found two of my contacts had been to this very spot, though closer to the boulders in the background here... check out www.flickr.com/photos/stammphotography/12737789143/ from Josh Stamm, and www.flickr.com/photos/52399662@N05/5200922135/in/photolis... from Sharon Canter.
The idea for a hotel in Dalen came with the expansion of the Telemark Canal in 1892. Through a series of staircase locks, the canal from Skien to Norsjø was extended to reach Bandak, with the small town of Dalen as its new endpoint. The canal was referred to as the "eighth wonder" upon its completion, and the waterway saw heavy traffic from ferries bringing passengers from the east in Oslo and Grenland travelling towards destinations in central and western Norway.
The initiative to build a luxury hotel in Dalen was taken by Skien businessman Hans Larsen along with his two associates, merchants Lars Rød and Anton Hansen from Skien and Porsgrunn respectively. The men commissioned local Porsgrunn architect Haldor Larsen Børve to design the hotel. Børve, originally from Ullensvang, was a highly trained architect, having studied at universities in Trondheim and later Hannover in Germany. After its opening in 1894, the hotel drew royal guests from all over Europe, playing host to the likes of King Oscar II of Sweden, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, King Leopold II of Belgium, King Haakon VII of Norway and his family, and several members of the British aristocracy.
During the German occupation of Norway in World War II, Dalen Hotel was used as a resort for German officers. Most of the building's interior was stripped out and sold for parts, and the building fell into disrepair due to lack of proper maintenance. After the war, the building was bought by singer and evangelist Aage Samuelsen with the intent of restoring the hotel to its former glory. Though Samuelsen failed to raise the necessary funds to renovate the building, he gave the hotel significant press exposure, and towards the end of the 1980s restoration efforts began in earnest. The hotel was reopened once the remodelling finished in 1992. In 2000, the hotel was honored with the Europa Nostra award for outstanding conservation.
Meine erste Begegnung mit 642.347 ist bereits mehr als zehn Jahren her – genauer gesagt, wir haben uns am 17.01.2011 zum ersten Mal in Leipzig getroffen. Damals trug sie noch das auffällige „Leipziger Neuseenland“ Werbung und war bei MRB eingeteilt, die damals noch unter anderem nach Geithain und Wurzen die Strecken bediente; nebst einigen Desiros, waren hier Diesel-Talente sowie RS1s auch anzutreffen. Wenige Jahre später kam sie in die Slowakei, und unter der Flagge von Regiojet befuhr sie die Strecke Bratislava – Komárno in einem gelben Farbkleid. Als Regiojet die Strecke verloren hat, wechselte sie zur Arriva nach Tschechien und gleichzeitig auch das Aussehen. Seit einige Jahren ist sie skyblue lackiert und bedient vorrangig die Linien L3 und L31 im Liberecky Kraj und ab und zu die Linie S49 in Prag. Die Linie L3 führt von Liberec via Stará Paka bis nach Jaromer. Der Knotenbahnhof Stará Paka ist sehr wohl bekannt unter den Eisenbahnfans da seine westliche Doppelausfahrt mit einer langgezogenen Kurve sich schön umsetzen lässt. Aber auch nordöstlich vom Bahnhof kann man – insbesondere frühmorgens im Hochsommer – das eine oder das andere gutes Bild anfertigen. Am 18. Juli war mein „Buddy“ 642.347 mit dem Os 5408 beauftragt und konnte gleich hinter dem Bahnhof aufgenommen werden.
More than a decade has already been passed since our first date – to be precise, I managed to take a picture of 642.347 for the first time on 17.01.2011 in Leipzig. Back to that date, she wore the advertisement for „Leipziger Neuseenland“ and her owner was the Mitteldeutsche Regiobahn, which served – among others – the lines to Wurzen and Geithan with Desiros, Talent DMUs and a few RS1s. Later on, her owner became Regiojet, which put her into service on the line connecting the Slovakian capital Bratislava with Komárno. As the vast majority of Regiojet’s fleet, she was also painted yellow. However, RegioJet did not manage to keep the concession for this line (now, its is operated by a joint venture of the Slovakian Railways ZSSK and the Austrian ÖBB), causing the DMU to change its owner once again. For a few years, it has been operated by the Czech subsidiary of Arriva and primarily serves the lines L3 and L31 around Liberec, seldom also the line S49 in Praha. The line L3 connects Jaromer with Liberec; roughly the midpoint of this line is the station Stará Paka, which is well known for its western endpoint where the lines to Lomnice and Popelkou and Turnov run parallelly with a nice curve. However, also the eastern entrance of this station offers the possibility to take some nice images as the one shown here. On 18.07.2023, my “Buddy” is about to take its next stop in Stará Paka with the early-morning service Os 54018.
Along the Blue Ridge Parkway at Thunder Hill Overlook the Mountain to Sea Trail parallels the parkway along this stretch.
The Mountains-to-Sea Trail (MST) is a long-distance trail, and as of January 2011,covers 530 miles across NC for hiking and backpacking. The trail runs across North Carolina from the Great Smoky Mountains to the Outer Banks with the trail's western endpoint at Clingman's Dome, where it connects to the Appalachian Trail in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Its eastern endpoint is in Jockey's Ridge State Park on the tallest sand dune on the east coast. The trail is envisioned as a scenic backbone of an interconnected trail system spanning the state. The Mountains-to-Sea State Park Trail was made an official land-based unit of the state park system by the General Assembly on August 2, 2000.
The Fonte Gaia ("Fountain of the Earth") was built in 1419 as an endpoint of the system of conduits bringing water to the city's centre, replacing an earlier fountain completed about 1342 when the water conduits were completed.
Every now and then, one should honour mundane, everyday trains with a photo as well. RABe 511 065 is engaged on line S11 from Sennhof-Kyburg (one of the northern endpoints: it alternates with Seuzach. At rush hour, the trains get extended beyond Sennhof-Kyburg to Wila) to Aarau (all S11 train terminate there). Winterthur, 02-11-2020.
The Arcade and Attica Railroad runs from a connection with the Buffalo & Pittsburgh at Arcade, NY up to North Java. It's original endpoint of Attica was severed from the rest of the "system" by flooding on Tonawanda Creek in 1947. Nonetheless, the railroad has continued to thrive in modern times due to a robust excursion train schedule, and steady freight business on the order of a couple runs per week.
Unfortunately, I saw neither during my brief visit to Arcade, a diversion from the WNYP at Olean for the morning. However, ARA hospitality more than made up for it. I had a good visit with the men charged with maintaining ARA's fleet of GE switchers. Here, 80-tonner #113 gets a routine inspection and minor repairs in preparation for the following weekend's Fall Foliage and Wine Tasters specials. That's 65-tonner #112 behind it, former US Navy #65-00063. Out the door to the left, you can just make out the cab of ex-Boyne City 2-8-0 Consolidation #18, whose boiler is off-site getting some major repair work completed.
The idea for a hotel in Dalen came with the expansion of the Telemark Canal in 1892. Through a series of staircase locks, the canal from Skien to Norsjø was extended to reach Bandak, with the small town of Dalen as its new endpoint. The canal was referred to as the "eighth wonder" upon its completion, and the waterway saw heavy traffic from ferries bringing passengers from the east in Oslo and Grenland travelling towards destinations in central and western Norway.
The initiative to build a luxury hotel in Dalen was taken by Skien businessman Hans Larsen along with his two associates, merchants Lars Rød and Anton Hansen from Skien and Porsgrunn respectively. The men commissioned local Porsgrunn architect Haldor Larsen Børve to design the hotel. Børve, originally from Ullensvang, was a highly trained architect, having studied at universities in Trondheim and later Hannover in Germany. After its opening in 1894, the hotel drew royal guests from all over Europe, playing host to the likes of King Oscar II of Sweden, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, King Leopold II of Belgium, King Haakon VII of Norway and his family, and several members of the British aristocracy.
During the German occupation of Norway in World War II, Dalen Hotel was used as a resort for German officers. Most of the building's interior was stripped out and sold for parts, and the building fell into disrepair due to lack of proper maintenance. After the war, the building was bought by singer and evangelist Aage Samuelsen with the intent of restoring the hotel to its former glory. Though Samuelsen failed to raise the necessary funds to renovate the building, he gave the hotel significant press exposure, and towards the end of the 1980s restoration efforts began in earnest. The hotel was reopened once the remodelling finished in 1992. In 2000, the hotel was honored with the Europa Nostra award for outstanding conservation
I was rather at a loss yesterday about what to do for Sliders Sunday this week. Wonderful ideas were notable for their absence. So I thought I would have a play with that good old favourite - a dahlia pic.
There are four endpoints in this set: two are fairly well-travelled approaches and two are sheer experiment.
The first is a fairly straight rendition of the image using the Radiance and Smudge filters of Topaz Studio. The radiance lengthens and strengthens the lines while smudge smoothes surfaces. The result lends a greater sense of physicality, particularly in the petals, that works well with flowers - a bit like an oil painting. The difficulty with this approach is getting the balance right - if you look at the image in detail you can see the filters are having a real party so you need to resist overdoing it. But what is right depends quite a lot on the device and scale that the image is seen at. In other words, you are doomed :(
You can play Spot the Fly with this one ;)
The second is a mirror version created entirely in Affinity Photo. I thought I’d got over my obsession with mirroring flowers, but apparently not. This one is made setting up the adjustment with five mirrors and then searching about a bit with the origin to find an interesting image. Most of the work was in getting rid of the background.
Symmetry in an image has a strange effect on our minds. It increases visual impact but reduces attention span. I call it the ‘wow!... boring’ effect. I still like creating symmetric flower images because it makes me look more closely at the flower and see things that I’d previously missed.
The last two I feel a bit apologetic about as they are not really finished pieces but proofs of concept. They are both made using an approach I stumbled across with my previous Sliders Sunday playtime, that of duplicating the image layer and then changing the blend mode of the top layer to Difference. That just creates a black screen (because there is no difference between the layers). The fun starts when you begin mangling the top layer.
Previously I’d just used Liquify to mangle the layer (this pushes pixels around without smudging). It’s easy to do in Affinity because the Liquify adjustment is just another layer that remains editable. But that was not enough here - having a predominantly white flower doesn’t work as well as the multicoloured one last time. So I dabbled in my diddling with Recolour, Smudge, Gradient Map and Liquify. The textured one is mainly Smudge, and the other is several Difference results blended together in a composite.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy some of them and that they encourage you to have a bit of fun yourself. I’d love to hear which is your favourite. I’ll post a link to the in-camera version in the first comment so that you can see where we started with this set.
Thanks for taking the time to look. I hope you enjoy the image. Happy Sliders Sunday :)
Since December 2020, the Südostbahn runs the service on the old Gotthard line using Traverso class EMUs. Between Locarno and Arth-Goldau, they offer an hourly service. Beyond Arth-Goldau, the endpoints alternate between Zürich HB (in which case the trains runs with line number IR46) and Basel SBB (IR26 - as this one). RABe 526 117/217 is engaging the S-shaped curve at Intschi on the descent from Göschenen to Erstfeld. Intschi, 27-04-2022.
This is quite a tricky photo location, due to the fact that it is not easy to reach a vantage point high enough - when you are not lugging around a ladder or something. Anyway, this is what I managed, with RABDe 500 017, baptised "Willi Ritschard" passing underneath (and through) the castle of Grandson near Yverdon-les-Bains as ICN 624 from Basel SBB to Genève-Aéroport. In the new timetable starting December 2015, the service on this route has been rearranged: instead of two trains per hour from Basel and St. Gallen to Genève-Aéroport and Lausanne (alternating the endpoints every hour) following each other within three minutes between Biel/Bienne and Yverdon, there is now a proper half-hourly service with one train St. Gallen - Lausanne and one train Zürich - Genève-Aéroport (without alternation of endpoints). In repercussion, the trains to and from Basel have been shortened to Basel - Biel/Bienne v.v. Grandson, 04-09-2015.
Mangled Mushrooms.
This is part of project inspired by Sliders Sunday which starts with the same image (I'll link it below) and sees what sorts of different endpoints I can get to.
This turned out to be my favourite endpoint, which I found interesting as it's the nearest one to the original image (I am doomed in the pursuit of abstraction it seems!). I love the silky, slightly shiny look and particularly the way the colour of the background has been strengthened and textured adding interest.
This was created using Topaz Glow starting with one of the Fur & Feathers Presets and a fair bit of tweaking.
Well I hope you enjoy it, or at least some of the series. Thanks very much for your patience with my foolery and of course for your visit! HSS :)
Our endpoint today was at the foot of the pass in the distance. It clouded over for a while and got quite windy, so we did not touch the pass this time.
Both Steve Patterson and I are fond of RDCs. We've ridden a number of them in Canada over the years. One of our favorite trips was in October 1997 when we rode VIA Rail #185 from Sudbury to White River, Ontario. Trains 185 and 186 served several outback communities that lacked connecting roads.
On our trip, a very accommodating conductor allowed us to detain at meets and certain other spots for photos. In this scene, we are having our own private photo runby, one of a couple on the venture. There were several passengers on the train, and we often wondered what they were thinking while we were involved in these antics–––photo by Joe McMillan with Steve Patterson near Lochalsh, Ontario, October 2, 1997.
These trains, to my knowledge, still operate. Although the endpoints of this route, Sudbury and White River, are not especially easy to get to, a ride on these cars is well worth the effort. Our train featured a rare RDC-4 (6250) and a regular RDC-1 (6215).
if humankind ever makes the leap to a space-faring species, i wonder what will religion be like?
what is the religion of a people born in space? you cant extinguish religion, it fills a gaping maw in the human 'makeup'. we need to feel connected to something deeper, more magnificent than ourselves. religion is the calcified artifact of spirituality. we require religion for a moral bearing, if spirituality is anchoring upon a distant teleological endpoint, be it a perfect unity, a dissolution of the self, a natural path (?), a technological transcendence, religion is the methodology that accretes along that viewpoint. it is structure, ritual, boundaries, seperateness from the without. it is exposition and definition of the 'conception'.
you cannot extinguish religion, it is a consequence, a by-product of us. religosity wanes, however, as competing orthodoxies are dismantled or fall apart under the weight of natural inconsistencies. there is no perfect atheist. their atheism becomes its own structure. the hedonist becomes their own imperfect god.
i would suspect that the spiritual yearning would be greater in a space-faring culture. the wide expanse of null space would trigger a voracious spiritual hunger. the enclosed reality of space-faring would give rise to an intense clanish or communal experience that would feed the construction of a religious structure. no other groups to provide resistance, feedback, or cross-polination of spiritual concepts. no outside restraints. a bacterial culture gone wild .
spirituality (a basic human need for the greater, the more magnificent, the deeper) kicks it off, then religion accretes around it, like a coral reef. religion defines the path to the divine (whether that be a perfect unity, a creative principle, a dissolution of the self (ala siddahartha) or even the myth that science will reveal the natural world - and what is 'outside' the path, the unbelievers, the hells of the weak, ignorant, or irrelevant. eventually religion becomes a moral regulation and a political authority - and the spiritual origin is lost, like flesh from a fossil.
Route 66 | Hackberry 04/12/2009 13h07
A place full of Route 66 memorabilia and vintage cars all over the place. The general store has been turned into a Route 66 museum and no gas is sold at the old pumps in front of it. The store is run by John and Kerry Pritchard.
Route 66 Arizona (recommended site)
Route 66
U.S. Route 66 (also known as the Will Rogers Highway after the humorist, and colloquially known as the "Main Street of America" or the "Mother Road") was a highway in the U.S. Highway System. One of the original U.S. highways, Route 66, US Highway 66, was established on November 11, 1926. However, road signs did not go up until the following year.
The famous highway originally ran from Chicago, Illinois, through Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California, before ending at Los Angeles, encompassing a total of 2,448 miles (3,940 km). It was recognized in popular culture by both a hit song (written by Bobby Troup and performed by the Nat King Cole Trio and The Rolling Stones, among others) and the Route 66 television show in the 1960s. More recently, the 2006 Disney/Pixar film Cars featured U.S. 66.
Route 66 underwent many improvements and realignments over its lifetime, changing its path and overall length. Many of the realignments gave travelers faster or safer routes, or detoured around city congestion. One realignment moved the western endpoint farther west from downtown Los Angeles to Santa Monica.
Route 66 was a major path of the migrants who went west, especially during the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, and supported the economies of the communities through which the road passed. People doing business along the route became prosperous due to the growing popularity of the highway, and those same people later fought to keep the highway alive even with the growing threat of being bypassed by the new Interstate Highway System.
US 66 was officially removed from the United States Highway System on June 27, 1985 after it was decided the route was no longer relevant and had been replaced by the Interstate Highway System. Portions of the road that passed through Illinois, Missouri, New Mexico, and Arizona have been designated a National Scenic Byway of the name "Historic Route 66". It has begun to return to maps in this form. Some portions of the road in southern California have been redesignated "State Route 66", and others bear "Historic Route 66" signs and relevant historic information.
[ Source and more information: Wikipedia - Route 66 ]
It's been a Zeppelin moment with this Stairway to Heaven. The iconic Dockland building in the Hamburg harbor marked the endpoint of this year's Kelby photowalk. Felt a Whole Lotta Love during the awesome sunset, too.
Phoebe Scribe watched Conor take bites of his cookie, and finally chewed the first bite of her own, swallowing it as if it was a heavy brick instead of a treat. She looks to Conor and asks. "So...when's school done? After cookies?" It sounded like a good endpoint to her, as her attention was waning.
Puddin takes a bite of her cookie, chewing and swallowing before glancing over to her daddy. She suddenly remembers her promise to her momma and shakes her head slightly, "just a rooms... I like tha colour reds... and pinks too and black."
River Grau smiled slightly as it seemed a couple people were more hesitant, even if they didn't believe his bluff. Capping the marker, he looked over at the pink bal of clay Pudding was done using. Stabbing it with the marker, he brought it over to Clementine. "Would yah like to use the pik clay?" Girls liked pink and perhaps this was a truce from being mean before.
Conor Nitely shrugged, crumbs going everywhere but in his mouth. "Sometimes it ends after show and tell if you bring a baby in a bag and sometimes it ends when people start fighting." Wise nod then, a quick glance back at River.
Darkness Odigaunt is finally relaxing again. She answers the girl's question "It is. When you finish art and cookies, you can go."
Clementine Cristole looks to River's pink clay. "Sure, thank you." She'd hold her hand out, ready to take the clay if the boy wasn't mean and took his offer back. The pink reminded her of her Auntie Dazy.
Iohannes Crispien would allow Clemmy to reach ofr a cookie, grabbing one himself. He then helps flip to the locutions section, then point to the phrase, 'Ab imo pectore' He'd then bring her hand up to her chest, then lightly pounds his own, "From here, it means."
Guinevere Fouroux looks between the two girls when no one reaches for a cookie, so takes the intiative herself. Scooting back to the runner, she grins at the sister and reaches out to snag two cookies, one for Jaine and one for Whysper, and hands them over with a flourish.
River Grau smiled and set the ball of clay into Clementines' hand using the marker. "Here yah go." His tail flicked as he watched her, curious of what the girl would make.
Phoebe Scribe lifted an eyebrow at Conor's response and started looking around for the baby in a bag or a pending fight. "Kay...I's gotta get back soon." She went back to her cookie, and kept a watchful eye on those around her.
Whysper Noyes did reach for a cookie. Who in their right mind, even a petulant too cool for school tenager, could resist those cookies. She'd never admit how many she and Luci pilfered at night.
Jaina Lefevre hears Sister D's words and quietly gets to her feet. She pauses as Guin hands her a cookie. "Thank youse." she offers softly. She looks around for Nanny and spies Deets. "Mama!" She runs over to her, book in hand, bag bouncing on her back. She frowns as she sees the slice and looks from the bandage up to Deets. "Youse bleeding?"
Bailey Longcloth grins as she watches the group in front of her. It held promise, all these little ones together, getting along. For the most part anyway. Perhaps the adults could learn from them
Clementine Cristole takes the clay from River and says "Thank you" again. She didn't make anything with the clay, much like she didn't make anything from the clay before. She repeats after her father. "Ab imo pectore... it means from my heart?"
Tanner Blackheart nods slightly to Puddin and sighs looking away and glancing around, his eyes meeting Elise's for a moment before he looks over to D.
[
Darkness Odigaunt smiles and watches Jaina curiously. She studies the woman she calls 'Mama' for a oment before turning to the circle again. Seeing Tanner's look, she glances to Puddin, her new neice?
Conor Nitely nodded at Phoebe, the word 'dark' muttered quietly. When he spoke to her his eyes shot back to Guin, familiar blush rising in his cheeks. "I can walk you home if you want 'cause that's what gentlement do. But only if you want." His voice was starting to rise again, squeaking a little now. "AND NO HAND HOLDING 'CAUSE I DON'T REALLY KNOW YOU YET."
Deets Carroll moves towards the group, smiling as she watches the children together. Wincing slightly, she lowers herself to sit on the step. She grins as Jaina approaches."Hey Bug. Whatcha reading?" At the child's question, she'd run her hand across her bandage. "Ack. I guess I could have done a better job, there."
Taken from Navajo Lake in northern New Mexico. Wonderfully dark skies despite light from the marina and a few other locations. Of course the real expense was the light to turn the lake an eerie blue. OK, that is a result of the twilight landscape shots to set up the overall composite. In blending, this was fun endpoint. Enjoy!
Dirección: Calle de Embajadores, 15.
Se trata de la antigua iglesia del convento de Nuestra Señora del Favor, aunque por ser de clérigos teatinos fue más conocida por el nombre del fundador de la orden, San Cayetano de Thiene.
El convento tuvo su origen en un oratorio dedicado a San Marcos y a Nuestra Señora del Favor, fundado en 1612 por Diego de Vera y Ordóñez de Villaquirán en unas casas de su propiedad, en la calle del Oso. En 1644 el Padre Plácido Mirto fundó un convento de teatinos en este oratorio y tomó su patronato el Consejo de Hacienda.
En 1822, durante el trienio liberal, el gobierno decretó el traslado de los teatinos a su convento de Zaragoza, y el edificio permaneció vacío. Poco tiempo después, con Fernando VII de nuevo en el trono, se cedió provisionalmente a los frailes de San Gil, mientras finalizaban las obras de su convento de la plaza de San Marcial –hoy plaza de España-. Allí permanecieron los gilitos hasta su expulsión en 1836 con los decretos desamortizadores, quedando el espacio del convento reservado para viviendas particulares, con la excepción de su iglesia que permaneció abierta al culto.
En 1869 se va a trasladar a la iglesia de San Cayetano la parroquia de San Millán Abad, que había sido fundada en 1561 en la calle Toledo como anejo de San Justo y que desde 1806 era parroquia independiente. Desde ese momento, la antigua iglesia de los teatinos pasó a convertirse en la iglesia parroquial de San Millán y San Cayetano, función que sigue desempeñando en nuestros días.
En cuanto al edificio, las obras las comenzó en 1669 el arquitecto Marcos López, se cree que las continuaron José de Churriguera y Pedro de Ribera, y fueron concluidas por Francisco de Moradillo en 1761. La planta es de cruz griega y esta coronada con una gran cúpula de tambor sobre pechinas de estilo bizantino; el interior consta de tres naves y cuatro capillas cerradas con sus correspondientes cúpulas.
La fachada fue construida en granito y ha sido atribuida a Churriguera. Se compone de ocho grandes pilastras rematadas con capiteles de orden compuesto. Las dos pilastras de cada extremo encuadran las dos torres y entre las cuatro del centro se disponen tres arcos de acceso de medio punto. Sobre los arcos se colocaron en unos nichos las estatuas de San Cayetano, de Nuestra Señora del Favor, y de San Andrés Avelino, realizadas en piedra caliza por Pedro Alonso de los Ríos.
El templo fue incendiado en 1936 durante la Guerra Civil, y hubiera quedado totalmente destruido de no ser por el apeo y cimbrado que durante la guerra llevó a cabo Fernando Chueca Goitia. Durante la posguerra fue reconstruida, salvándose íntegramente su fachada y rehaciendo la gran cúpula central.
Address: Calle ambassadors, 15.
This is the old church of the convent of our Lady of the gem, although because of teatinos clerics was best known by the name of the founder of the order, San Cayetano of Thiene.
The convent had its origin in an oratory dedicated to San Marcos and our Lady of the gem, founded in 1612 by Diego de Vera and Villaquirán Ordóñez in some houses of their property in the street of the bear. In 1644 father Placido Myrtle founded a convent of teatinos in this oratory and took its Board of Trustees Finance Council.
In 1822, during the liberal triennium, the Government decreed the transfer of the teatinos to his convent of Zaragoza, and the building remained empty. Shortly thereafter, with Fernando VII again in the throne, were ceded provisionally to the friars of San Gil, while finalizaban works of her convent of San Marcial - today plaza de Spain-square. There remained the gilitos until his expulsion in 1836 with desamortizadores, decrees left the convent reserved for homes with the exception of his church that remained open to the worship space.
1869 Will move to the Church of San Cayetano the parish of San Millán Abad, founded in 1561 in the Toledo Street as annexed San fair and that since 1806 was independent parish. Since that time, the old church of the teatinos became become the parish church of San Millán and San Cayetano, function which continues to play in our days.
As regards the building, works them began in 1669 architect Marcos López, is believed continued them José de Churriguera and Pedro Bank and were concluded by Francisco Moradillo in 1761. The plant is Greek cross and this crowned with a large dome drum on Byzantine style scallops; the interior consists of three naves and four chapels closed with corresponding domes.
The facade was built in granite and has been attributed to Churriguera. Consists of eight large pilasters finished with composite order capitals. The two each endpoint pilasters fall the two towers and four o'clock in the Centre have three arches of half point. On the arches made in limestone by Pedro Alonso de los Ríos San Cayetano, Lady for our, and San Andrés Avelino statues were placed in some niches.
The temple was burned down in 1936 during the civil war and had been totally destroyed if not for the apeo and cimbrado that during the war carried Fernando Chueca Goitia. During the post-war period was rebuilt, saving fully its facade and rebuilding the great central dome.
Assumed to be Warthausen station as one of Ulm's many 215 passes on Silbelinge. Formerly the endpoint of the freight-only version of the Oechsle-bahn.
Mohave Point is located at an altitude of 2,125 meters. Another remarkable viewpoint on West Rim Drive.
The West Rim Drive consists of the driveable section from Grand Canyon Village west to the road's endpoint at Hermits Rest. In this context, however, drivable means that this 13.1-kilometer section can be traveled from March 1 to November 30 by a regularly scheduled, free shuttle bus. During this time, however, the route is closed to private vehicles. The trail runs along the canyon rim past Trailview Overlook, Maricopa Point, Powell Point, Hopi Point, Mohave Point, The Abyss and Pima Point.
I’ll leave it to you to divine what it is this time.
For Macro Mondays Red theme.
This idea has been lurking in my mind for quite a while now. That’s actually more impressive than it sounds as I am pretty convinced there is only room in there for two or three of them at any one time.
So an experiment. And you are the unwitting victim. Err... sorry.
As usual the endpoint wasn’t quite what I imagined but not far off this time, and quite a bit was discovered along the way.
While I was trying to put it all together I was reflecting (oops, sorry about the pun) about the paucity of options the modern diviner has these days. I mean, chicken entrails can not be had in modern supermarkets for love nor money.
And the advent of teabags has caused havoc. You really can’t say convincingly to a client “just hang on a moment while I rip open your teabag and we'll see what it says”. Gone are the days when you just swirled the Broken Orange Pekoe at the bottom of the porcelain and looked mystical and faraway…
And so that just leaves (excuse the pun... again) crystal balls...
Thank you for taking the time to look. I hope you enjoy the sweet kiss of the lipstick. Happy Macro Mondays :)
[Tripod mount; remote trigger; manual focus. My wonderful (aka cheap) A3 LED lightbox under two red acetate, reflector-patterned sheets (with a slight crack between); red card background.
The crystal ball (only the bottom half of it this visible in the top half of the image, the outer faint circle) on its carrier is 3 inches across, so cropped to less than this.
Developed in DxO Photolab 3 for colour and reduced clarity. Hefty Prime noise reduction.
Processed in Affinity Photo, reducing Clarity twice to soften everything and then sharpened with USM and two layers of High Pass/Linear Blend masking out the darker background to reduce noise.
Inpainting (healing) to get rid of blemishes, dust and stray reflections.
Dark vignette.]
Took my parents to see the "Sensorio, Field of Light" in Paso Robles last night. Fiber optic threads sprouting to endpoints via octopus tentacles connected to buried bulbs - 58,000 of them planted in rolling hills amongst craggy oaks. Scrambled to get there before evening light disappeared, and barely made it. Definitely not part of the Central Coast thing growing up! Really unique experience. iPhone snaps - we'll see how the camera shots turn out later (though they ban tripods, so that was a separate challenge).
“Night Street, Santiago de Compostela” — A few people stroll along quiet streets in the early evening, Santiago de Compostela,
The Spanish city of Santiago de Campostela was one of two we visited on this trip almost on a whim. We knew almost nothing about it, aside from the fact that it is the endpoint for thousands of Camino participants, who take weeks or months to walk there. We ended up loving the town, the old central district of which is charming and has a different feel than other cities — in part due to the connection to the casinosm
When traveling we walk a lot, and often just head out with no well-defined plan, just expecting to see and discover things as we go. My recollection is that this was a post-dinner walk — though given Spain’s late dinner our it could have been pre-dinner! This street, with its old stone buildings, porticos, and narrow passage was almost deserted.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him.
Too many lines to count and every one of them leads to the one endpoint, or touches a line that does. The light was perfect too.
There’s something about skylights at the top of spiral staircases that makes them attractive photographically. The main problem I have is finding them. Some of them are famous and photographed to death but you can sometimes find less well-known ones in old houses.
I was pleased when I found this one off one of the quads in St John’s College in Cambridge earlier in the year and I ended up making quite a few attempts at capturing it. One of these days I’ll produce a proper image of it, but I thought for Sliders Sunday today that I would have a play with one of the less convincing variants and see what happened.
I had been toying with the image on the Chromebook using the Mirrorlabs Android app. That was really quite interesting and fun, though the results are not for today. What I did notice was one variant had produced an inverted monochrome image that was intriguing, so I decided to have a more formal go at the idea. This is the result… or at least one of the results.
The approach I took was to develop the image normally and then use a Curves adjustment to invert the luminosity. To do this I set the mode of the adjustment to LAB and then inverted the L (luminosity) channel. Normally the ‘curve’ is a straight line going up from the bottom left to the top right; so I dragged the endpoints to make the line go from the top left to the bottom right. That did the bulk of the work for this result. Doing it this way preserves all the original colours.
I then threw it at all my usual toys, but some (like Color Efex) came to nothing. I used Topaz Studio to add a little Smudge and Glow, and tweaked the colours a bit. I then used Photoshop for the Poster Edges filter which is one of my favourites. That was pretty much it. I then framed it by increasing the canvas size and adding a white fill layer underneath. I used layer fx on the image layer to add a drop shadow and an outline, and then we were done…
Although I had some fun with the processing I think the most striking thing for me was not the result but the realisation that spirals are really interesting graphical shapes… Hmmm… I must find some more :)
I’ll post a link to the starting image in the first comment for your delight…
Thanks for looking. I hope you enjoy the image. Happy Sliders Sunday :)
The idea for a hotel in Dalen came with the expansion of the Telemark Canal in 1892. Through a series of staircase locks, the canal from Skien to Norsjø was extended to reach Bandak, with the small town of Dalen as its new endpoint. The canal was referred to as the "eighth wonder" upon its completion, and the waterway saw heavy traffic from ferries bringing passengers from the east in Oslo and Grenland travelling towards destinations in central and western Norway.
The initiative to build a luxury hotel in Dalen was taken by Skien businessman Hans Larsen along with his two associates, merchants Lars Rød and Anton Hansen from Skien and Porsgrunn respectively. The men commissioned local Porsgrunn architect Haldor Larsen Børve to design the hotel. Børve, originally from Ullensvang, was a highly trained architect, having studied at universities in Trondheim and later Hannover in Germany. After its opening in 1894, the hotel drew royal guests from all over Europe, playing host to the likes of King Oscar II of Sweden, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, King Leopold II of Belgium, King Haakon VII of Norway and his family, and several members of the British aristocracy.
During the German occupation of Norway in World War II, Dalen Hotel was used as a resort for German officers. Most of the building's interior was stripped out and sold for parts, and the building fell into disrepair due to lack of proper maintenance. After the war, the building was bought by singer and evangelist Aage Samuelsen with the intent of restoring the hotel to its former glory. Though Samuelsen failed to raise the necessary funds to renovate the building, he gave the hotel significant press exposure, and towards the end of the 1980s restoration efforts began in earnest. The hotel was reopened once the remodelling finished in 1992. In 2000, the hotel was honored with the Europa Nostra award for outstanding conservation.
Pontile di Bagnoli (Napoli) - Il punto terminale a 900 m. dal punto di partenza. (The end point of Bagnoli pier 900 m. from the starting point)
(see L A R G E R )
The interesting flower of a fire wheel tree (Stenocarpus sinuatus), about 10cm diameter. (Alien tree from Australia)
Inset 1: Five strands go to each endpoint (sphere) of which one goes inside the sphere.
Inset 2:A quarter sphere at the end of one of the 4 strands.
Inset 3: Structure at the end of fifth strand, looks like pistil.
The cauldron of Blato is the endpoint of a mountain road, and a perfect trailhead for hikes on higher mountains.
The destination of our hike: A beautiful lonely beach. Sold a few tents and a small restaurant that served delicious food, as well as the tickets for the return journey by speedboat.
The location of the beach I've marked on the map - strictly geotagged: promise! Actually, you just have to follow the way. Start- and Endpoint is always Sai Kung (Bus or Boat).
Highest Explored position: 225
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Dam Square lies in the historical center of Amsterdam, approximately 750 meters south of the main transportation hub, Centraal Station. It is roughly rectangular in shape, stretching about 200 meters from west to east and about 100 meters from north to south. It links the streets Damrak and Rokin, which run along the original course of the Amstel River from Centraal Station to Muntplein (Mint Square) and Munttoren. The Dam also marks the endpoint of other well-traveled streets, Nieuwendijk, Kalverstraat and Damstraat. A short distance beyond the northeast corner lies the main red-light district, de Wallen.
As always, comments/notes/crituques and favourites (just hit F ) will be very much appreciated! For the best view, hit L .
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