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You just need to imagine first what you want to shoot and then you need to place the required articles accordingly around the subject. For example in case of water droplets; broadly there would be three possibilities, drop just collapsed, about to touch the surface and de-bounce. It is bit difficult to predict these three conditions specifically when viewing through view finder and then result may be miss timed and blurred shots. To avoid this following procedure may be tried out:
1. Place a water pan on level of your camera which must me mounted on tripod.
2. Place a tiny steady object such as nail onto the place of your interest. May be center point of the water pan!
3. Set your camera with working distance allowed by macro lens.
4. Focus the nail as sharp as possible.
5. Set shutter speed faster around 1/200 to 1/300 to freeze the droplets.
6. Set aperture as large as possible, F/5 and 1.200 may give good results.
7. WB=Auto and ISO=100 may give desired results.
8. Once the object is well focused, replace it with a controlled water stream
9. Look this water stream through view finder and ensure whether is in focus or not.
10. Do slight adjustments in working distance if required to get the sharp picture.
11. Reduce down the speed of water stream up till one drop/seconds.
12. Wait and understand for the duration between two consecutive drops and once acclimatize with the frequency of dropping droplets, release the shutter with some estimation.
13. Just collapsed, about to touch the surface and de-bouncing drops can be frozen based upon synchronization of shutter release timing and some time estimation of drops.
Your setup is ready to produce some one of the fantastic shots. You may keep some colorful objects in the back ground to achieve diffused colorful DOF.
All the best.
Strong wind this morning forced the high tide up higher than predicted, around 3 feet higher in my estimation. Thus covering the road to the coal barn @ Thornham
9.10.2013 - 50 anni dalla tragedia
Vajont è il nome del torrente che scorre nella valle di Erto e Casso per confluire nel Piave, davanti a Longarone e a Castellavazzo, in provincia di Belluno (Italia).
La storia di queste comunità venne sconvolta dalla costruzione della diga del Vajont, che determinò la frana del monte Toc nel lago artificiale. La sera del 9 ottobre 1963 si elevò un immane ondata, che seminò ovunque morte e desolazione.
La stima più attendibile è, a tutt'oggi, di 1910 vittime.
Sono stati commessi tre fondamentali errori umani che hanno portato alla strage: l'aver costruito la diga in una valle non idonea sotto il profilo geologico; l'aver innalzato la quota del lago artificiale oltre i margini di sicurezza; il non aver dato l'allarme la sera del 9 ottobre per attivare l'evacuazione in massa delle popolazioni residenti nelle zone a rischio di inondazione.
Fu aperta un'inchiesta giudiziaria. Il processo venne celebrato nelle sue tre fasi dal 25 novembre 1968 al 25 marzo 1971 e si concluse con il riconoscimento di responsabilità penale per la previdibilità di inondazione e di frana e per gli omicidi colposi plurimi.
Ora Longarone ed i paesi colpiti sono stati ricostruiti.
La zona in cui si è verificato l'evento catastrofico continua a parlare alla coscienza di quanti la visitano attraverso la lezione, quanto mai attuale, che da esso si può apprendere.
(français)
Le Vajont est le torrent qui se coule dans la vallée de Erto et Casso pour confluer dans le fleuve Piave, face à Longarone et Castellavazzo, qui se trouvent en province de Belluno (en Italie).
L’histoire de cette communauté a été ravagée par la construction du barrage du Vajont qui a provoqué l’éboulement du Mont Toc dans le lac artificiel. Le soir du 9 Octobre 1963, s’éleva une énorme vague qui sema partout, mort et désolation. L’estimation la plus digne de foi est, dès nos jours, de 1910 victimes.
On a commis trois fautes humaines fondamentaux qui ont amené au carnage:
On a construit le barrage dans une vallée pas appropriée du point de vue géologique;
on a haussé le niveau de l’eau du lac artificiel au- delà de marges de sûreté ;
le soir du 9 Octobre, on n’a pas donné l’alerte afin de permettre l’évacuation des populations résidantes dans toutes les zones à risque d’inondation.
Une enquête judiciaire fût ouverte. Le procès fût instruit en trois phases, du 25 Novembre 1968 au 25 Mars 1971 et se conclût avec la reconnaissance de responsabilité pénale: l’inondation et l’éboulement étaient prévisibles donc on se trouve face à des homicides par imprudence pluraux.
Dès nos jours on a reconstruit Longarone et les autres villes frappées de nouveau.
Là où la catastrophe arriva tout témoigne encore, jour après jour, la leçon qu’on peut apprendre.
Year: 1999
Make: Infiniti
Model: G20
VIN: JNKCP11A4XT001925
Mileage: 343,053 km (CarFax calculated)
Other info: 2.0L 4Cyl
Last service 03/04/2016 (which explains the abdsurd mileage estimation)
The day my cat was born today. 2 June 2000, came to the world. in fact we're so predictable. my cats have received from the street. When we brought the baby home. estimate as we believe was born in June 2. My cat is now 9 years old. and slow, even if the disease is going to think of the good. My cat breast cancer. Please pray. pray for my cat. My cat is the power of prayer. Happy birthday to you Tom. I love you so much.
Le jour où mon chat est né aujourd'hui. 2 Juin 2000, est venu au monde. en fait, nous sommes tellement prévisibles. mes chats ont reçu de la rue. Lorsque nous avons mis le bébé à domicile. estimation que nous croyons est née en Juin 2. Mon chat est maintenant âgé de 9 ans. et lente, même si la maladie est en cours de penser du bien. Mon chat le cancer du sein. S'il vous plaît, priez. prier pour mon chat. Mon chat est le pouvoir de la prière. Joyeux anniversaire à vous tom. je t'aime tant.
Il giorno in cui il mio gatto è nato oggi. 2 giugno 2000, è venuto al mondo. in realtà siamo così prevedibile. i miei gatti hanno ricevuto dalla strada. Quando abbiamo portato il bambino a casa. stima in quanto riteniamo che è nato nel giugno del 2. Il mio gatto è ora di 9 anni. e lento, anche se la malattia è in corso a pensare bene. Il mio gatto il cancro al seno. Si prega di pregare. pregare per il mio gatto. Il mio gatto è il potere della preghiera. Buon compleanno a voi tom. ti amo tanto.
The rumor of imminent demise for the C40’s of northern Minnesota has been the topic of conversation for over a year now with the arrival of the 3300 series DC to AC rebuilds. While many of he fleet have been retired and sent off for disposition many more still remain active, for how long is anyone’s guess but with winter coming on and the 3300’s finally beginning to receive their straight air components for ore service it’s a fair estimation that time is running low… On a seasonably mild December morning 2026 hauls ass south with an empty limestone train making every bit of the 50 per track speed. Catch ‘em while you can…
There were, by my estimation, seven thousand people at the local Climate Strike march here in St John's today. Most of the attendees were well under the age of twenty.
At one point we were asked to take out our cell phones and send an email to the provincial premier. And several thousand people did so. Thus this picture, looking back through the crowd behind me.
Yay for the Millennials and the Gen Z's.
In my poor estimation, you simply can't have too many photos of this natural wonder.
Bizarrely, in spite of the fact that you can walk behind the falls, I failed to do so. Why? I must simply have not gotten around to it. Not a good explanation, but the only one I can muster. It's confounding, considering the fact that as soon as I drove up to the place, I fell madly in love with it--so why not go up and meet it? Why be content to view it from afar? The dandruff is falling all over my keyboard as I scratch my head in bewilderment.
Anyway, this is the second photo I've uploaded of this waterfall, the first being: www.flickr.com/photos/80014607@N05/35252659800/ . It's right smack dab in between Hella and Vik on the Ring Road, about a 90 minute drive from Reykjavik, and a stop on all the tours that tackle all or at least the southern section of the Ring Road.
Now this took a long, long, long time, having to get every individual piece of the World Trade Center and the surrounding city, together with people, cars, boats, even the tiniest pebble!
But I feel it was worth the three-weeks of on/off effort!
Among the most iconic buildings in all of history, the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center stood for 28 years as symbols of many things, economic might, human innovation, American pride, and icons of New York. But their short period in existence was brought to an abrupt end on September 11th, 2001, where the two tallest buildings in the city of New York were left seething in peril, and reduced to smouldering rubble within two hours, on a day when evil truly showed its ugliest face, average citizens became heroes, and victims were made of us all.
Considerations for a 'World Trade Center' went back to the end of World War II in 1945, where it was intended to create a single centre for the major shipping companies of New York and the divisional offices of large foreign shipping firms to concentrate their activity to one place. However, the rise of the aviation industry and the decline of the traditional shipping companies in the face of rationalisation following developments such as the Shipping Container over the previous Box n' Crate system made it so that there were barely enough of these firms left to justify such a project. The idea wouldn't resurface again until the early 1960's, where after a decade of production and progress in the American economy, the larger number of firms required greater office space in New York's financial district in Lower Manhattan. Enter director of the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey, Austin J. Tobin, and newly elected New Jersey Governor Richard J. Hughes, who, together, were responsible for the final location of the World Trade Center.
Original plans from 1961 would have placed the World Trade Center on the former dockyards along the East River, what is today the historic South Street Dockyard. Tobin was convinced by Hughes to include the World Trade Center as part of a package deal to improve the services of the Hudson & Manhattan Railroad, an underground subway line that connected New Jersey to its terminus in Lower Manhattan. Built in 1909, the railroad was in a dire state of disrepair, and passenger numbers had dropped dramatically. Hughes felt that a major stimulus for the railroad's regrowth would be its direct connection to the new World Trade Center project, therefore solving two problems in one and being mutually beneficial to New York and New Jersey. Thus a 16 acre site of old low-rise buildings on the shores of the Hudson known as 'Radio Row' were chosen as the site of the new complex.
Design of the World Trade Center was handed to American-born Japanese architect, Minoru Yamasaki, who envisaged the World Trade Center as not just a simple collection of buildings, but a work of art. Taking design cues from the Piazza san Marco in Venice, he saw the WTC buildings surrounding a large plaza within which would be sculptures, artistic pieces and fountains, crowned by 'The Sphere', a Bronze sculpture stood in the middle of a large fountain at the centre of the Plaza that would depict World Trade and Peace. The commission was given to German sculptor Fritz Koenig, who designed and built it in his workshop in Germany before having it shipped to the WTC in 1971, where, upon its plinth, it would do a full rotation every 24 hours. The pièce de résistance however would be the two 1,360ft tall, 110 storey Twin Towers that would stand at a staggered angle to one another along the site's western side closest to the Hudson and the elevated West Side Highway. Yamasaki's original plan called for the towers to be 80 stories tall, but to meet the Port Authority's requirement for 10,000,000 square feet of office space, the buildings would each have to be 110 stories tall.
Yamasaki's design for the World Trade Center, unveiled to the public on January 18th, 1964, called for a square plan approximately 208ft in dimension on each side. The buildings were designed with narrow office windows 18in wide, which reflected Yamasaki's fear of heights as well as his desire to make building occupants feel secure. Yamasaki's design included building facades sheathed in aluminium-alloy. The result of this aluminium cladding was a translucent effect, with the two towers changing colours with the times of the day from a vibrant silver at midday, to a magnificent orange and pink in the evening or at sunrise.
Another problem the WTC faced were elevators, as with the greater height of the building, more elevators were required to serve it, taking up more floor space. The result was an ingenious new method involving 'Sky-Lobbies', a concept first put into practice on the John Hancock Center in Chicago. The idea was similar to that of trains on the New York Subway, with limited-stop express elevators running the entire length of the towers, whilst local elevators served individual floors or alternate floors. Sky-Lobbies were located on the 44th and 78th floors, and their implementation enabled the elevators to be used efficiently, increasing the amount of usable space on each floor from 62 to 75 percent by reducing the number of elevator shafts. Altogether, the World Trade Center had 95 express and local elevators.
The tower design consisted of a tube-frame, introduced by Fazlur Khan, and was a comparatively new one, done primarily to increase the amount of floor space when compared to the traditional design of evenly spaced steel columns in a stacked-box approach, as was implemented on the Empire State Building. The World Trade Center towers used high-strength, load-bearing perimeter steel columns called Vierendeel trusses that were spaced closely together to form a strong, rigid wall structure, supporting virtually all lateral loads such as wind loads, and sharing the gravity load with the core columns. The perimeter structure containing 59 columns per side was constructed with extensive use of prefabricated modular pieces, each consisting of three columns, three stories tall, connected by spandrel plates. The spandrel plates were welded to the columns to create the modular pieces off-site at fabrication shops, and were shipped to New York by train.
The core of the towers housed the elevator and utility shafts, restrooms, three stairwells, and other support spaces. The core of each tower had a rectangular area 87 by 135ft and contained 47 steel columns running from the bedrock to the top of the tower. The large, column-free space between the perimeter and core was bridged by prefabricated floor trusses. The floors supported their own weight as well as live loads, providing lateral stability to the exterior walls and distributing wind loads among the exterior walls. The floors consisted of 4in thick lightweight concrete slabs laid on a fluted steel deck. This rule was repeated for every floor with the exception of the 107th floor, which were fitted with Hat trusses to support a tall communications antenna. Both towers could have been fitted with antennas, but it was only ever implemented on the North Tower. The truss system consisted of six trusses along the long axis of the core and four along the short axis. This truss system allowed some load redistribution between the perimeter and core columns and supported the transmission tower.
Approval for the WTC was given in 1965, and properties on Radio Row were acquired by the Port Authority the same year. By 1966, Radio Row had been largely demolished and construction began on the World Trade Center towers. Before construction of the towers could begin though, the biggest issue that had to be confronted were the forces of nature, that being the Hudson only a few hundred feet away. Constructing the world's tallest buildings on a muddy marsh could have been likened to a silly man building his house upon the sand, it just couldn't work. As such, an innovative new concrete coffer dam was sunk along the West Side Highway and under the base of what would become the future Twin Towers in an oblong structure known as the Bathtub. Sunk to bedrock, the Bathtub held moisture in the surrounding soil and ground away from where the tower's foundations would be sunk, thus providing engineers with the equivalent of building a conventional skyscraper anywhere else into regular bedrock. With this problem sorted, construction began on the site.
The North Tower rose first between 1967 and 1970, followed closely by the South Tower between 1968 and 1971. The North Tower was topped out on December 23rd, 1970, proclaiming it officially as the tallest building in the world, toppling the Empire State Building from the title after its 37 year reign. The North Tower rose to 1,368ft, whilst the South Tower rose to 1,362ft, and would retain the title until the Sears Tower was topped out in 1973 at a height of 1,450ft. In addition to the Twin Towers, a set of smaller buildings surrounding the plaza were also constructed between 1970 and 1974, these being WTC 4, 5 and 6. WTC 4 and WTC 5 were 9-storeys tall, with WTC 4 being home to the largest Trading Floor in New York, whilst WTC 6 was 8-storeys tall and housed the U.S. Customhouse.
In addition to the WTC, the Hudson Railroad was given major modifications as well in the form of new trains and a refurbished 4-track station underneath the Plaza, accessible via WTC 5. The Hudson Railroad came under the ownership of the Port Authority, and was subsequently renamed the Port Authority Trans Hudson line, or PATH. Beneath the plaza too was an enormous shopping centre that stretched the entire complex and was, at the time, Manhattan's largest indoor shopping mall.
The official opening ceremony of the towers took place on April 4th, 1973, although the structures had yet to be completely finished, with tenants taking up occupancy on the lower, completed floors during the first year before final completion of the towers in 1975. 1975 saw the opening of the Top of the World Observatory, an observation deck located on the roof of the South Tower, which, until recently, held the title as the world's highest outdoor observation deck. This was joined by the opening of the North Tower's restaurant on the 106th and 107th floor, the Windows on the World and the Greatest Bar on Earth, which for years was one of the most exclusive and popular restaurants in the United States.
At first, the World Trade Center was not looked on favourably, with architectural criticism being made against the angular design of the Twin Towers and the 'Superblock' style of the WTC Plaza, with many of the original streets dating back as far as the mid-18th Century being truncated to make space for the site. The towers were also seen as huge 'White Elephants', primarily due to the stagnation of the economic market in the early 1970's which meant that barely any tenants initially moved into the site's 10,000,000 square feet of office space.
However, one person who looked on the towers favourably was Philippe Petit, a French high-wire artist who saw the Twin Towers in a similar fashion to two poles, just without a wire strung between them. Seeing them originally in a promotional pamphlet before their construction in the 1960's, he devised a scheme to sneak into the unfinished towers and string a wire between them so he could perform the greatest high-wire act in history. On the night of August 6th, 1974, he and several friends snuck into the towers disguised as construction workers, and spent the night setting up the next morning's act. Using a Bow & Arrow, they fired a line across the 200ft void between the Twin Towers, and after hours of securing and preparation, Petit stepped out onto the wire at around 7am as New Yorkers began their commute to work. Over the course of the next 45 minutes, Petit stunned the city and indeed the world as he balanced on a wire only a couple of inches across, 1,360ft above the ground, sitting and lying down on it, gesturing to the waiting policemen on either tower, and even stopping for a cigarette break. Upon returning to the roof of one of the towers, he was promptly arrested and sentenced to performing for children in Central Park for trespassing, and given a lifetime pass to the observation deck atop the South Tower by the Port Authority. Petit's act has been seen as making these looming towers seem much more human, and the later popularity of these buildings was due largely in part to his incredible feat.
Trouble struck however in 1975 when a fire caused by a faulty telephone switchboard ravaged the 11th floor of the North Tower for several hours, though no permanent damage was caused. But even before the Twin Towers had been finished they were quickly associated with fire, most prominently by the movie, and books it was based off, 'Towering Inferno', which depicted a hi-rise blaze in the fictional Glass Tower in San Francisco. In one of the books the movie was based off of, the Glass Inferno, the Glass Tower was situated adjacent to the World Trade Center, and a Breeches Buoy was suspended between the Glass Tower and the North Tower to rescue people from the disaster. All of these works were inspired by the construction of the World Trade Center, the first in a short spree of tall building construction, but with such a tragic and ironic end.
Nevertheless, the Twin Towers did live a charmed life throughout the remainder of the 1970's and 80's, and quickly became New York icons, appearing in movies, adverts, TV Shows, Music Videos and other forms of media. King Kong climbed them in the 1976 adaption of the legendary story, Kurt Russell lands his glider atop the North Tower in the 1981 dystopian future thriller Escape from New York, they were atomised in 1996’s Independence Day, yet, oddly enough, were the only things left standing, as they were in 1998’s Deep Impact, when they were swamped by a giant tidal wave following the impact of an asteroid. They were turned to Swiss Cheese in that eternal cheesefest known as 1998’s Armageddon, crashed into by a giant chunk of rock in another cheesefest trying to pass itself off as a good movie, Meteor, and provided the climactic ending to yet another notable cheesefest, Mazes and Monsters, where Tom Hanks attempts to fling himself from the roof of the South Tower thinking he'd ascend to some questionable plot device known as the 'Great Hall', although I'd like to have seen him get past the suicide fence between the observation deck and the edge of the building!
The WTC was also notable for many extreme events, including two climbs, the first in 1977 by George Willing, who scaled the South Tower, and the second by Dan Goodwin in 1983, who climbed the North Tower. In 1984, aspiring artist Joanna Gilman Hyde painted a 10,000 square foot painting known as the 'Self-Organizing Galaxy' on the roof of 5 World Trade Center, a piece that could only be seen and appreciated from the Twin Towers that loomed over it. The towers were also famous for Base Jumpers, who would manage to somehow sneak their way onto the roof of either building, usually the South Tower, and leap off with a parachute, huddling themselves into a waiting car in Battery Park before they could be arrested and hauled off by the NYPD for trespassing and reckless indulgence.
In 1978, the North Tower was fitted with a 598ft Television Antenna, which quickly became a home for a majority of New York's TV and Radio stations with its unobstructed line of sight to pretty much everywhere in the surrounding Tri-State area. In 1981 and 1987, the WTC was joined by two other buildings. The first was World Trade Center 3, also known as the Vista Hotel, a 22-storey structure built between the Twin Towers and the West Side Highway. The first hotel to open in Lower Manhattan since 1897, the Vista was one of the most luxury hotels in the city, providing guests with a myriad of restaurants, a top-floor Gym with views of the Hudson, direct access to the World Trade Center and later World Financial Center, as well as its proximity to Wall Street and the banks of Lower Manhattan. WTC 3 was the last building of the original proposal to be built, but had been modified from its original 9-storey design to increase capacity. The final addition to the World Trade Center was WTC 7, a 47-storey structure built between 1984 and 1987 to the north of the complex above a ConEd Substation. The tower was largely home to Salomon Brothers, which resulted in the building being affectionately dubbed the Salomon Brothers building.
However, disaster struck on February 26th, 1993, when a truck bomb planted by Islamic extremist, Ramsi Yousif, exploded in the underground parking lot beneath the North Tower. Yousif's intention was to destroy the supporting foundations of the tower so as to cause it to fall onto its twin. Thankfully this didn't occur, but 6 people were killed in the blast and over 1,000 injured, and it proved to the United States that it was now vulnerable to international terrorism. The Twin Towers were reopened in 20 days, but the Vista Hotel, later bought by Marriott, wouldn't reopen until 1994 after extensive renovation and a new front entrance. At the same time, evacuation and safety features in the towers were updated heavily. A major setback of the 1993 attack was the poorly implemented safety measures and evacuation procedures, with many unsure of where to go or what to do as they huddled into the tightly packed, smoke filled stairwells, some eventually being rescued by helicopter from the roof, whilst others had to endure hours in the dark of the powerless towers before they were led down by firefighters.
In 1999, the Plaza of the World Trade Center was rebuilt and repaved after years of wear and tear, and to rectify a common complaint about the wind that would rush across the open space, making it undesirable to be stood right in the centre. The floor was, as mentioned, repaved, benches were added as well as a small garden around the central fountain, and much greater use was made of the Plaza, including market stalls, outdoor rock concerts, charity events and other community events that gave the WTC a greater human feel. Other plans included an upgrade to the PATH station that would be completed by 2003, and a renovation of the Observation Deck for the 2002 Summer Season.
All this however was brought to an abrupt and tragic end on September 11th, 2001, when American Airlines Flight 11, a Boeing 767 hijacked by terrorists, was flown deliberately into the North Tower at 8:46am between the 93rd and 99th floors. 17 minutes later, United Airlines Flight 175, another Boeing 767, was flown into the South Tower between the 78th and 81st floors, with thousands trapped in both towers above the impact zones.
Confusion reigned as the towers burned, with people inside not knowing what had happened a few floors above or below them as the rest of the world watched in horror. In the North Tower, all stairwells through the impact zone had been destroyed, and for the estimated 1,300 people above, every last one of them would die, either through effects of the smoke, fire, the eventual collapse of the tower, or a tragic final option, where an estimated 200 people jumped the half-mile drop to their deaths on the street below, their last few moments immortalised in videos and pictures. The desperation of their situation was relayed through the final phone calls and emails from those trapped above. In the South Tower, although PA systems stated that workers should not evacuate prior to the impact of Flight 175, many had left the building by the time it did, although an estimated 630 remained above the flames after the crash. Unlike the North Tower, one stairwell remained accessible, but only 18 people were able to escape past this point from above. Many sought passage to the roof of either tower hoping for rescue by helicopter, but the doors to the roof were locked. In any case, the NYPD Aviation Units circling the stricken towers would not have been able to rescue people, the sea of antennas on the North Tower roof inhibiting landing, whilst the South Tower's roof was engulfed in smoke from its Twin.
At 9:59am, the unthinkable happened when after burning for 56 minutes, the South Tower of the World Trade Center collapsed. Although many reasons for such a catastrophic failure have circulated, and with many conspiracy theorists declaring that the collapse was done by way of controlled demolition, the generally accepted reason is that a mixture of the damage sustained, together with heavy fire and extreme heat, resulted in the floor trusses separating from the core and perimeter walls, resulting in the weight of the floors above no longer being sustained and the tower falling into itself. The top 35 floors of the structure above the crash site toppled towards the East River before crashing downwards into the rest of the building, killing hundreds both inside and outside. The North Tower followed suit at 10:28am, sinking straight downwards into itself, killing hundreds more in the chaos that ensued.
The results of both the crashes and the collapse of the towers was beyond estimation. 2,753 people died at the World Trade Center that day, together with 125 at the Pentagon in Washington, and 265 aboard the four planes hijacked, a total of 2,996. The remainder of the World Trade Center was destroyed or extensively damaged by the collapse of the Twin Towers. The Marriott WTC was split in half by the South Tower before its remains were crushed by the North Tower. WTC 4 was almost completely crushed, and WTC 6 had a hole burrowed into the basement. WTC 7 suffered heavy damage to its southern face, and after burning for hours it collapsed later that day at 5:20pm. The only WTC building to escape largely intact was WTC 5, furthest from the Twin Towers, with books in the Borders bookshop on the ground floor still sat on their shelves. The office floors above however were gutted by fire and damaged beyond repair. Only 18 people were dragged alive from the rubble of the Twin Towers, and after a majority of the bodies had been retrieved from the site, the remaining buildings were levelled in 2002.
A victory though from September 11th is that of the 17,000 people working in the towers at the time of the attacks, the best part of 14,000 were evacuated before they collapsed, thanks to the incredibly bravery of the rescue workers from the FDNY, the Port Authority and the NYPD who valiantly laid down their lives to save others. In total, 343 Firefighters, 71 law enforcement officers including 23 members of the New York City Police Department (NYPD), 37 members of the Port Authority Police Department (PAPD), five members of the New York State Office of Tax Enforcement (OTE), three officers of the New York State Office of Court Administration (OCA), one Fire Marshall of the New York City Fire Department (FDNY) who have sworn law enforcement powers (and was also among the 343 FDNY members killed), one member of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and one member of the United States Secret Service (USSS), were killed, many of whom were in the North Tower, and didn't receive the evacuation order after the collapse of the South Tower due to radio problems.
But it wasn't just members of the emergency services who became heroes, as ordinary people plunged into disaster brought forward their strength and courage to save as many as they could themselves. These included Frank de Martini, from his office on the 88th floor of the North Tower, worked his way up to the impact zone of Flight 11 to rescue people trapped on the floors immediately below. Eventually, he was able to save over 70 people before he tragically lost his life in the collapse of the tower, his last reported location being on the 78th floor helping someone escape an elevator. Another was Rick Rescorla, originally from Hayle in Cornwall and a hero of the Vietnam War, who, aside from predicting both attacks on the World Trade Center, was able to safely evacuate 2,700 employees from the South Tower, motivating them and maintaining their morale by singing old British songs such as 'Men of Harlech', before he too was killed in the collapse of the South Tower, he being last reported on the 10th floor climbing back up to rescue others. But their tales were just some of many instances where humble office workers became true heroes, putting caution aside to save those in desperate need. Even a pair of Guide Dogs became heroes, rescuing their blind owners by leading them down hundreds of flights of stairs to safety.
There were also tales of survival that seemed to defy belief. George Sleigh, a British manager of technical consistency at the American Bureau of Shipping on the 91st floor of the North Tower, was only 25ft below where Flight 11 struck, and would be one of only a handful of people to climb down almost the entire height of the building and survive. Venessa Lawrence, a British artist, had quite literally stepped from an elevator on the 91st floor as Flight 11 struck, the car she had exited tumbling down into the dark void as explosions and fire ravaged the floors above. Stanley Praimnath is quite possibly the luckiest, his office on the 81st floor of the South Tower taking a direct hit by United Airlines Flight 175, the wing of which was lodged in his door on the other side of his office. He would eventually be rescued by Brian Clark from the 84th floor, and the pair would escape the South Tower with minutes to spare. Of course there was also the last survivor to be pulled free from the rubble of the World Trade Center, that being Genelle Guzman-McMillan, who was pinned under smouldering concrete and steel debris for 27 hours before being rescued, the last of 18 people.
For years the World Trade Center sat in a state of limbo, an empty lot of concrete foundations with no clear goal in mind. An opinion poll in 2002 among New Yorkers came to a vote of 82% in favour of rebuilding the Twin Towers as they were. Instead, developers came to the conclusion that the new World Trade Center would consist of several towers, topped by what was formerly known as the Freedom Tower at 1,776ft.
Even with the Twin Towers gone and with no sign of them ever returning, we can still look back upon them warmly, knowing that for 28 years they did grace the skyline of Manhattan and left imprints on the hearts of so many. Although most recognize their image with their destruction, and indeed one must never forget the tragedy that befell the Towers, the City and the World that day, myself and many others prefer to remember their lives before that dreadful day in 2001. I've never drawn a picture of the World Trade Center on fire or collapsing because, as my brother once exceptionally put it, it shows the towers in pain, suffering at the hands of evil people who see nothing but destruction in everything they do, people who can't make things, only break things, and it's up to us as the people who make things to make things right!
Sorry for the lengthy description, but summing up the history of these mighty buildings sadly can't be done in one sentence!
I recently came up short bidding on this item. !&*?@$%!
However, thanks to the auction house, “New England Auctions”/Fred Giampietro, a well-photographed, high-resolution image was provided/posted in the auction…with a link to download it…BRAVO! That, and it being by the hand of Aerojet-General’s George Mathis made it a no-brainer for me to add it to “the record”, as it were. I find Mr. Mathis’ style to be distinctive, unique & striking. And, in this case, the subject matter being somewhat of a unicorn…IMHO.
First, that’s a Block II Saturn I on the launch pedestal, recognizable by its eight stubby fins. SA-5 being its inaugural flight btw. And, the pièce de résistance; that’s a NERVA upper stage being hoisted for mating to the first stage! Have you ever seen that!?! I haven’t!
I really wanted it. Drat it!
auctions.neauction.com/online-auctions/new-haven-auctions...
Credit: NEW ENGLAND AUCTIONS/FRED GIAMPIETRO website
Some background:
“The NERVA (Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Applications) program was initiated in 1961. This effort, under the direction of the Space Nuclear Propulsion Office of NASA and the AEC, is being performed by the Aerojet-General Corporation as the prime contractor and Westinghouse Electric Corporation as the principal subcontractor with responsibility for the development of the nuclear subsystem, which includes the reactor, shielding, and reactor controls.”
Above is an extract from/at:
www1.grc.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/NERVA-Nuclear-Rocket...
And, of course, a plethora of information at:
Some excellent diagrams confirming my identification & estimation of year:
Both above credit: “The Unwanted Blog” blog
www.aerospaceprojectsreview.com/blog/?s=NERVA&searchs...
Credit: Aerospace Projects Review website
Finally, hopefully correctly identified. If so, note the lack of fins, so this is a Block I Saturn I, predating that in the Mathis painting:
airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/model-rocket-saturn...
Credit: NASM/Smithsonian website
I can’t help but wonder if the winning bidder actually had a clue as to the uniqueness of what’s depicted here. And not just disposable income.
I got ONE chance today.
The LONG version: Camera and tripod are probably 10 feet from the bottom of the escalator. I realize that to take this photo, I'll have to take the escalator up, turn around, wait for a "clear" escalator (the mall was busier than I expected for a Thursday early afternoon) and then slowly ride down. By my own estimations, this left my camera (and two additional lens') unmanned for over 90 seconds. This was a really scary idea.
So I'm standing there trying to get up the nerve to walk away from the most valuable thing I own in a VERY open, VERY populated place when a security guard approaches me and tells me I can't take a photo in the mall. I explain that we don't have a problem then because I haven't taken one... yet. He repeats himself and continues to just stand there, arms folded, face all smirky.
I have a problem with authority. I have since I was little. So I'm not going to pack up my equipment with some stranger standing over me flexing his "authority". So the game of chicken begins. We're both just standing there. He's looking at me, I'm looking at the escalator. He's occasionally repeating himself. (This goes on for at least 3, maybe 4 minutes).
Finally I ask him if he'll guard my stuff while I run up the down escalator and take a photo.
He agrees.
People. I'll never ever understand them.
Did Tyrannosaurus Rex use red toothpaste?
The head of existing T. Rex skeletons are almost my height. Lucky for us it went extinct in one of the mass extinction cataclysms suffered by our planet Earth.
The teeth of Tyrannosaurus rex displayed marked heterodonty (differences in shape).[13][23] The premaxillary teeth at the front of the upper jaw were closely packed, D-shaped in cross-section, had reinforcing ridges on the rear surface, were incisiform (their tips were chisel-like blades), and curved backward. The D-shaped cross-section, reinforcing ridges, and backward curve reduced the risk that the teeth would snap when Tyrannosaurus bit and pulled. The remaining teeth were robust, like "lethal bananas" rather than daggers; more widely spaced and also had reinforcing ridges.[24] Those in the upper jaw were larger than those in all but the rear of the lower jaw. The largest found so far is estimated to have been 30 centimeters (12 in) long including the root when the animal was alive, making it the largest tooth of any carnivorous dinosaur yet found.[3]
Tyrannosaurus rex was one of the largest land carnivores of all time; the largest complete specimen, FMNH PR2081 ("Sue"), measured 12.8 metres (42 ft) long and was 4.0 metres (13.1 ft) tall at the hips.[3] Mass estimates have varied widely over the years, from more than 7.2 metric tons (7.9 short tons),[2] to less than 4.5 metric tons (5.0 short tons),[5][6] with most modern estimates ranging between 5.4 and 6.8 metric tons (6.0 and 7.5 short tons).[4][7][8][9] Packard et al. (2009) tested dinosaur mass estimation procedures on elephants and concluded that dinosaur estimations are flawed and produce over-estimations; thus, the weight of Tyrannosaurus could be much less than usually estimated.[10]
Although Tyrannosaurus rex was larger than the well known Jurassic theropod Allosaurus, it was slightly smaller than some other Cretaceous carnivores, such as Spinosaurus and Giganotosaurus.[11][12]
The neck of Tyrannosaurus rex formed a natural S-shaped curve like that of other theropods, but was short and muscular to support the massive head. The forelimbs had only two clawed fingers,[13] along with an additional small metacarpal representing the remnant of a third digit.[14] In contrast, the hind limbs were among the longest in proportion to body size of any theropod. The tail was heavy and long, sometimes containing over forty vertebrae, in order to balance the massive head and torso. To compensate for the immense bulk of the animal, many bones throughout the skeleton were hollow, reducing its weight without significant loss of strength.[13]
The largest known Tyrannosaurus rex skulls measure up to 5 feet (1.5 m) in length.[15] Large fenestrae (openings) in the skull reduced weight and provided areas for muscle attachment, as in all carnivorous theropods. But in other respects, Tyrannosaurus’ skull was significantly different from those of large non-tyrannosauroid theropods. It was extremely wide at the rear but had a narrow snout, allowing unusually good binocular vision.[16][17] The skull bones were massive and the nasals and some other bones were fused, preventing movement between them; but many were pneumatized (contained a "honeycomb" of tiny air spaces) which may have made the bones more flexible as well as lighter. These and other skull-strengthening features are part of the tyrannosaurid trend towards an increasingly powerful bite, which easily surpassed that of all non-tyrannosaurids.[18][19][20] The tip of the upper jaw was U-shaped (most non-tyrannosauroid carnivores had V-shaped upper jaws), which increased the amount of tissue and bone a tyrannosaur could rip out with one bite, although it also increased the stresses on the front teeth.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyrannosaurus
T.Rex was not the largest Therapod:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Largesttheropods.png
IMG_0368
photo rights reserved by B℮n
Uthai Thani is a province in the northwest of Thailand. It is a region known for its natural beauty, historical sites and cultural heritage. One of the notable features of Uthai Thani is the presence of several national parks that protect the beautiful flora and fauna of the region. Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary: This is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the largest protected areas in Thailand. It is home to a diverse flora and fauna, including rare and endangered species such as the Indochinese tiger, Asian elephant and Malayan bear. Tum Chang Cave National Park is a national park known for its impressive limestone caves and formations. These national parks in Uthai Thani offer a range of activities including trekking, bird watching and admiring Thailand's natural beauty. An impressive and majestic tree, which is native especially to this part of Thailand, is Tualang tree, scientifically known as Koompassia excelsa. The Tualang tree is known for its exceptionally tall height. The Tualang tree often plays a crucial role in the ecosystem, as it provides an important source of food and shelter for various animals, including honey bees. Beekeepers sometimes place beehives high in the branches of the Tualang tree to promote the production of Tualang honey, which is considered one of the most unique and high-quality honeys. The conservation and protection of such trees is often of great importance for maintaining biodiversity and ecological balance in the region.
There is a giant Tualang tree (Koompassia excelsa) found east of Ban Rai in Uthai Thani province. This impressive Tualang is located on private property in the middle of a forest, but the owner is happy to welcome visitors. On one side of the tree are claw marks from a bear that tried to knock down a honey bee nest. The local population, descendants of Laotian settlers brought here two hundred years ago during conflicts with Burma, inhabit this area. The circumference of the tree is approximately 97 meters, including the buttress roots that reach from branches to the ground to support the tree. The age of the tree is estimated at 400 years, and its height exceeds 50 meters. This majestic tree sprang up around the year 1621. Visitors are encouraged to touch and feel the ancient tree. The skin of the tree still feels very healthy and vibrant. Let's hope this giant tree continues to thrive forever. It is truly a wonderful spectacle.
Uthai Thani is een provincie in het noordwesten van Thailand. Eén van de opmerkelijke kenmerken van Uthai Thani is de aanwezigheid van diverse nationale parken die de prachtige flora en fauna van de regio beschermen. Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary: Dit is een UNESCO-werelderfgoed en één van de grootste beschermde gebieden in Thailand. Het herbergt een diverse flora en fauna, waaronder zeldzame en bedreigde diersoorten zoals de Indochinese tijger, Aziatische olifant en Maleise beer. Een indrukwekkende en majestueuze boom, die inheems is met name in dit deel van Thailand, is Tualang-boom. Deze boom staat bekend om zijn buitengewoon grote hoogte. De Tualang-boom speelt vaak een cruciale rol in het ecosysteem, omdat het een belangrijke bron van voedsel en onderdak biedt aan verschillende dieren, waaronder honingbijen. Het behoud en de bescherming van dergelijke bomen zijn vaak van groot belang voor het behoud van biodiversiteit en ecologisch evenwicht in de regio. Er is een gigantische Tualang-boom te vinden ten oosten van Ban Rai in de provincie Uthai Thani. Deze indrukwekkende Tualang bevindt zich op privéterrein midden in een bos, maar de eigenaar verwelkomt graag bezoekers. Aan de ene kant van de boom zijn klauwafdrukken te zien van een beer die probeerde een honingbijennest omver te werpen. Bijenhouders plaatsen soms bijenkorven hoog in de takken van de Tualang-boom om de productie van Tualang-honing te bevorderen, die wordt beschouwd als één van de meest unieke en hoogwaardige honingsoorten. De omtrek van de boom is ongeveer 97 meter, inclusief de steunwortels die van takken tot aan de grond reiken om de boom te ondersteunen. De leeftijd van de boom wordt geschat op 400 jaar, en de hoogte overschrijdt de 50 meter. Deze majestueuze boom ontsproot rond het jaar 1621. Bezoekers worden aangemoedigd de oude boom aan te raken en te voelen. De huid van de boom voelt nog steeds erg gezond en levendig aan. Laten we hopen dat deze gigantische boom voor altijd zal blijven gedijen. Het is werkelijk een wonderbaarlijk schouwspel.
This is a common view on MDH. There is supposed to be around 155 curves between Ouray and Silverton. I have never counted them, but I have to believe that is close, or a little low. If you ever drive the road, I think you will also to the same conclusion I have.
Million Dollar Highway is one of best drives in the country, in my estimation the best. Especially since it goes through the most beautiful mountains, the San Juans.
West-German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/259.
American actor John Wayne (1907-1979) was one of the most popular film stars of the 20th century. He received his first leading film role in The Big Trail (1930). Working with John Ford, he got his next big break in Stagecoach (1939). His career as an actor took another leap forward when he worked with director Howard Hawks in Red River (1948). Wayne won his first Academy Award in 1969. He He starred in 142 films altogether and remains a popular American icon to this day.
John Wayne was born Marion Robert Morrison in 1907, in Winterset, Iowa. Some sources also list him as Marion Michael Morrison and Marion Mitchell Morrison. He was already a sizable presence when he was born, weighing around 13 pounds. The oldest of two children born to Clyde and Mary 'Molly' Morrison, Wayne moved to Lancester, California, around the age of seven. The family moved again a few years later after Clyde failed in his attempt to become a farmer. Settling in Glendale, California, Wayne received his distinctive nickname 'Duke' while living there. He had a dog by that name, and he spent so much time with his pet that the pair became known as 'Little Duke' and 'Big Duke', according to the official John Wayne website. In high school, Wayne excelled in his classes and in many different activities, including student government and football. He also participated in numerous student theatrical productions. Winning a football scholarship to University of Southern California (USC), Wayne started college in the fall of 1925. Unfortunately, after two years, an injury, a result of a bodysurfing accident, took him off the football field and ended his scholarship. While in college, Wayne had done some work as a film extra, appearing as a football player in Brown of Harvard (Jack Conway, 1926) with William Haines, and Drop Kick (Millard Webb, 1927), starring Richard Barthelmess. Out of school, Wayne worked as an extra and a prop man in the film industry. He first met director John Ford while working as an extra on Mother Machree (John Ford, 1928). With the early widescreen film epic The Big Trail (Raoul Walsh, 1930), Wayne received his first leading role, thanks to director Walsh. Raoul Walsh is often credited with helping him create his now legendary screen name, John Wayne. Unfortunately, the Western was a box office failure. For nearly a decade, Wayne toiled in numerous B-films. He played the lead, with his name over the title, in many low-budget Poverty Row Westerns, mostly at Monogram Pictures and serials for Mascot Pictures Corporation. By Wayne's own estimation, he appeared in about 80 of these horse operas from 1930 to 1939. In Riders of Destiny (Robert N. Bradbury, 1933), he became one of the first singing cowboys of film, named Sandy Saunders, although via dubbing. During this period, Wayne started developing his man of action persona, which would serve as the basis of many popular characters later on.
Working with John Ford, John Wayne got his next big break in Stagecoach (John Ford, 1939). Because of Wayne's B-film status and track record in low-budget Westerns throughout the 1930s, Ford had difficulty getting financing for what was to be an A-budget film. After rejection by all the major studios, Ford struck a deal with independent producer Walter Wanger in which Claire Trevor, who was a much bigger star at the time, received top billing. Wayne portrayed the Ringo Kid, an escaped outlaw, who joins an unusual assortment of characters on a dangerous journey through frontier lands. During the trip, the Kid falls for a dance hall prostitute named Dallas (Claire Trevor). The film was well received by filmgoers and critics alike and earned seven Academy Award nominations, including one for Ford's direction. In the end, it took home the awards for Music and for Actor in a Supporting Role for Thomas Mitchell. Wayne became a mainstream star. Reunited with Ford and Mitchell, Wayne stepped away from his usual Western roles to become a Swedish seaman in The Long Voyage Home (John Ford, 1940). The film was adapted from a play by Eugene O'Neill and follows the crew of a steamer ship as they move a shipment of explosives. Along with many positive reviews, the film earned several Academy Award nominations. Around this time, Wayne made the first of several films with German star Marlene Dietrich. The two appeared together in Seven Sinners (Tay Garnett, 1940) with Wayne playing a naval officer and Dietrich as a woman who sets out to seduce him. Off-screen, they became romantically involved, though Wayne was married at the time. There had been rumours about Wayne having other affairs, but nothing as substantial as his connection to Dietrich. Even after their physical relationship ended, the pair remained good friends and co-starred in two more films, Pittsburgh (Lewis Seiler, 1942) and The Spoilers (Ray Enright, 1942). Wayne's first color film was Shepherd of the Hills (Henry Hathaway, 1941), in which he co-starred with his longtime friend Harry Carey. The following year, he appeared in his only film directed by Cecil B. DeMille, the Technicolor epic Reap the Wild Wind (1942), in which he co-starred with Ray Milland and Paulette Goddard; it was one of the rare times he played a character with questionable values. Wayne started working behind the scenes as a producer in the late 1940s. The first film he produced was Angel and the Badman (James Edward Grant, 1947) with Gail Russell. Over the years, he operated several different production companies, including John Wayne Productions, Wayne-Fellows Productions and Batjac Productions.
John Wayne's career as an actor took another leap forward when he worked with director Howard Hawks in Red River (1948). The Western drama provided Wayne with an opportunity to show his talents as an actor, not just an action hero. Playing the conflicted cattleman Tom Dunson, he took on a darker sort of character. He deftly handled his character's slow collapse and difficult relationship with his adopted son played by Montgomery Clift. Also around this time, Wayne also received praise for his work in John Ford's Fort Apache (1948) with Henry Fonda and Shirley Temple. Taking on a war drama, Wayne gave a strong performance in Sands of Iwo Jima (Allan Dwan, 1949), which garnered him his first Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. He also appeared in more two Westerns by Ford now considered classics: She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (John Ford, 1949) and Rio Grande (John Ford, 1950) with Maureen O'Hara. Wayne worked with O'Hara on several films, perhaps most notably The Quiet Man (John Ford, 1952). Playing an American boxer with a bad reputation, his character moved to Ireland where he fell in love with a local woman (Maureen O'Hara). This film is considered Wayne's most convincing leading romantic role by many critics. A well-known conservative and anticommunist, Wayne merged his personal beliefs and his professional life in Big Jim McLain (Edward Ludwig, 1952). He played an investigator working for the U.S. House Un-American Activities Committee, which worked to root out communists in all aspects of public life. Off screen, Wayne played a leading role in the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals and even served as its president for a time. The organisation was a group of conservatives who wanted to stop communists from working in the film industry, and other members included Gary Cooper and Ronald Reagan. In 1956, Wayne starred in another Ford Western, The Searchers (John Ford, 1956). He played Civil War veteran Ethan Edwards whose niece is abducted by a tribe of Comanches and he again showed some dramatic range as the morally questionable veteran. He soon after reteamed with Howard Hawks for Rio Bravo (1959). Playing a local sheriff, Wayne's character must face off against a powerful rancher and his henchmen who want to free his jailed brother. The unusual cast included Dean Martin and Angie Dickinson.
John Wayne made his directorial debut with The Alamo (John Wayne, 1960). Starring in the film as Davy Crockett, he received decidedly mixed reviews for both his on- and off-screen efforts. Wayne received a much warmer reception for The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (John Ford, 1962) in which he played a troubled rancher competing with a lawyer (James Stewart) for a woman's hand in marriage. Some other notable films from this period include The Longest Day (Ken Annakin, Andrew Marton, Bernhard Wicki, 1962) and How the West Was Won (John Ford, Henry Hathaway, George Marshall, 1962). Continuing to work steadily, Wayne refused to even let illness slow him down. He successfully battled lung cancer in 1964. To defeat the disease, Wayne had to have a lung and several ribs removed. In the later part of the 1960s, Wayne had some great successes and failures. He co-starred with Robert Mitchum in El Dorado (Howard Hawks, 1967), which was well received. The next year, Wayne again mixed the professional and the political with the pro-Vietnam War film The Green Berets (Ray Kellogg, John Wayne, 1968). He directed and produced as well as starred in the film, which was derided by critics for being heavy handed and clichéd. Viewed by many as a piece of propaganda, the film still did well at the box office. Around this time, Wayne continued to espouse his conservative political views. He support friend Ronald Reagan in his 1966 bid for governor of California as well as his 1970 re-election effort. In 1976, Wayne recorded radio advertisements for Reagan's first attempt to become the Republican presidential candidate. Wayne won his first Academy Award for Best Actor for True Grit (Henry Hathaway, 1969). He played Rooster Cogburn, an one-eyed marshal and drunkard, who helps a young woman named Mattie (Kim Darby) track down her father's killer. A young Glen Campbell joined the pair on their mission. Rounding out the cast, Robert Duvall and Dennis Hopper were among the bad guys the trio had to defeat. A later sequel with Katherine Hepburn, Rooster Cogburn (Stuart Millar, 1975), failed to attract critical acclaim or much of an audience. Wayne portrayed an aging gunfighter dying of cancer in his final film, The Shootist (Don Siegel, 1976), with James Stewart and Lauren Bacall. His character, John Bernard Books, hoped to spend his final days peacefully, but got involved one last gunfight. In 1978, life imitated art with Wayne being diagnosed with stomach cancer. John Wayne died in 1979, in Los Angeles, California. He was survived by his seven children from two of his three marriages. During his marriage to Josephine Saenz from 1933 to 1945, the couple had four children, two daughters Antonia and Melinda and two sons Michael and Patrick. Both Michael and Patrick followed in their father's footsteps Michael as a producer and Patrick as an actor. With his third wife, Pilar Palette, he had three more children, Ethan, Aissa, and Marisa. Ethan has worked as an actor over the years.
Sources: Biography.com, Wikipedia and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
photo rights reserved by B℮n
Uthai Thani is a province in the northwest of Thailand. It is a region known for its natural beauty, historical sites and cultural heritage. One of the notable features of Uthai Thani is the presence of several national parks that protect the beautiful flora and fauna of the region. Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary: This is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the largest protected areas in Thailand. It is home to a diverse flora and fauna, including rare and endangered species such as the Indochinese tiger, Asian elephant and Malayan bear. Tum Chang Cave National Park is a national park known for its impressive limestone caves and formations. These national parks in Uthai Thani offer a range of activities including trekking, bird watching and admiring Thailand's natural beauty. An impressive and majestic tree, which is native especially to this part of Thailand, is Tualang tree, scientifically known as Koompassia excelsa. The Tualang tree is known for its exceptionally tall height. The Tualang tree often plays a crucial role in the ecosystem, as it provides an important source of food and shelter for various animals, including honey bees. Beekeepers sometimes place beehives high in the branches of the Tualang tree to promote the production of Tualang honey, which is considered one of the most unique and high-quality honeys. The conservation and protection of such trees is often of great importance for maintaining biodiversity and ecological balance in the region.
There is a giant Tualang tree (Koompassia excelsa) found east of Ban Rai in Uthai Thani province. This impressive Tualang is located on private property in the middle of a forest, but the owner is happy to welcome visitors. On one side of the tree are claw marks from a bear that tried to knock down a honey bee nest. The local population, descendants of Laotian settlers brought here two hundred years ago during conflicts with Burma, inhabit this area. The circumference of the tree is approximately 97 meters, including the buttress roots that reach from branches to the ground to support the tree. The age of the tree is estimated at 400 years, and its height exceeds 50 meters. This majestic tree sprang up around the year 1621. Visitors are encouraged to touch and feel the ancient tree. The skin of the tree still feels very healthy and vibrant. Let's hope this giant tree continues to thrive forever. It is truly a wonderful spectacle.
Uthai Thani is een provincie in het noordwesten van Thailand. Eén van de opmerkelijke kenmerken van Uthai Thani is de aanwezigheid van diverse nationale parken die de prachtige flora en fauna van de regio beschermen. Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary: Dit is een UNESCO-werelderfgoed en één van de grootste beschermde gebieden in Thailand. Het herbergt een diverse flora en fauna, waaronder zeldzame en bedreigde diersoorten zoals de Indochinese tijger, Aziatische olifant en Maleise beer. Een indrukwekkende en majestueuze boom, die inheems is met name in dit deel van Thailand, is Tualang-boom. Deze boom staat bekend om zijn buitengewoon grote hoogte. De Tualang-boom speelt vaak een cruciale rol in het ecosysteem, omdat het een belangrijke bron van voedsel en onderdak biedt aan verschillende dieren, waaronder honingbijen. Het behoud en de bescherming van dergelijke bomen zijn vaak van groot belang voor het behoud van biodiversiteit en ecologisch evenwicht in de regio. Er is een gigantische Tualang-boom te vinden ten oosten van Ban Rai in de provincie Uthai Thani. Deze indrukwekkende Tualang bevindt zich op privéterrein midden in een bos, maar de eigenaar verwelkomt graag bezoekers. Aan de ene kant van de boom zijn klauwafdrukken te zien van een beer die probeerde een honingbijennest omver te werpen. De lokale bevolking, afstammelingen van Laotiaanse kolonisten die hier tweehonderd jaar geleden werden gebracht tijdens conflicten met Birma, bewoont dit gebied. De omtrek van de boom is ongeveer 97 meter, inclusief de steunwortels die van takken tot aan de grond reiken om de boom te ondersteunen. De leeftijd van de boom wordt geschat op 400 jaar, en de hoogte overschrijdt de 50 meter. Deze majestueuze boom ontsproot rond het jaar 1621. Bezoekers worden aangemoedigd de oude boom aan te raken en te voelen. De huid van de boom voelt nog steeds erg gezond en levendig aan. Laten we hopen dat deze gigantische boom voor altijd zal blijven gedijen. Het is werkelijk een wonderbaarlijk schouwspel.
That would be Paris, France as opposed to Paris, Texas.
I think this is the photograph that Art Nahpro has called forth, otherwise known as "Ravishing Actress." mrwaterslide certainly is ravished. Sarony in America, and Nadar in Paris may be more famous, but Reutlinger, for Pure D Photographing of Voluptuous Female Beauty (Fully-Clothed Division) is Tops (in mrwaterslide's estimation). Part of his mastery is in his fantastic use of light and dark forms, of which this photo is one example. mrwaterslide recently passed on an even better example of Reutlinger's Olympian use of Light & Dark (Reutlinger's aren't cheap, though I would venture a guess that they are under-priced.)
This photo no doubt is not a unique example. Reutlinger photographed his damsels to sell to the masses, kind of like baseball cards, I guess. If you want to get yourself a 1955 Mickey Mantle Topps baseball card of Feminine Pulchritude, get a Reutlinger.
So anyway, here she is. Who she is, I know not---she may have been an actress, or an opera star. Reutlinger was big on opera stars. She may have just been another run-of-the-mill (joke alert, joke alert) Parisian courtesan. You be the judge.
Here's a link to some more Reutlinger images, in an exhibition curated by Paul Frecker, a London dealer in vintage photographs who has a particularly affinity for Reutlinger. Only a few of the images in the exhibition on Luminous-Lint come up to the very best of Reutlinger, but go to the last one and look at it---it's nice. Here's the llink: luminous-lint.com/__sw.php?action=ACT_VEX&p1=_PHOTOGR...
If you want to see all the images in the exhibition as thumbnails, and then click on the ones that interest you, click on "Lightbox."
57 London Road was originally in civilian occupation and named ‘Fairlawns’. The property was requisitioned in 1939 as a new headquarters for No.1 Group of the Royal Observer Corps, who had previously been stationed in rooms above Maidstone Post Office. An operations room was built in the house using the ground floor and basement. Fairlawns was in use throughout the war until stand down. In the 1950s Fairlawns was relegated to being a training centre for the group control at Beckenham (19 Group). In 1961 a new semi-sunk control was built to the rear of Fairlawns with administration located in the house. Beckenham was then relegated to being training centre for 1 Group at Maidstone. The former 19 Group HQ at Dura Den, Park Place, Beckenham was absorbed into No. 1 Group in 1953 but was retained for as a secondary training centre until 1968 In 1976 Fairlawns was renamed Ashmore House in memory of the Corps’ founder Major Ashmore. On closure Ashmore House and the bunker behind was sold to a local solicitors.
Maidstone is similar in construction to other semi-sunken group controls, consisting of three levels. The upper level is a surface concrete blockhouse often referred to as an ‘Aztec Temple’. The middle level is partly below ground, mounded over with soil and grassed, the bottom level is completely below grown. Externally the bunker is in excellent condition and well maintained. The grass on top of the mound is regularly mown and the surface blockhouse is painted white. The telescopic aerial mast is still in place alongside the entrance steps and unusually the aerial is also still there on top of the mast. Two other UHF aerials are also still in place on top of an adjacent pole. On top of the mound the FSM and BPI pipes are in the middle and close to them is a metal cover over what might be part of the AWDREY (Atomic Weapon Detection Recognition and Estimation of Yield) equipment consisting of a white metal box mounted at an angle on a square concrete plinth. Several pipes protrude from the mound alongside. At the east end of the mound is the original emergency exit consisting of an ROC post hatch on a raised concrete plinth with a rail around it. The later emergency exit door is at the back of the mound.
The surface blockhouse still has its external ladder giving access to the roof. Here the GZI mounting is to be found on top of one of the ventilation stacks.
At the top of the entrance stairs is a steel blast door giving access to the upper level corridor. There are two rooms on the left, the decontamination room and dressing room; both still contain sinks and water tanks. There are two rooms on the right, the first has a gas tight door and houses a small fan for cooling the plant in the room below, the adjacent room contains a bank of filters. Beyond these rooms is another gas tight wooden door which, together with the entrance door, forms an air lock. Beyond this door stairs to the left lead down to the middle floor and ahead was the winch room. The winch has been removed as has the floor. There are railings just inside the entrance door to stop anyone falling. A hole has been cut into the right hand side wall of the winch room to give access to a large water tank.
At the bottom of the stairs is a dog leg into the main east - west spine corridor. The first room on the right is the ventilation and filtration plant room which is in immaculate condition with all the brass still polished and gleaming. All the plant remains in place including two chiller pumps, the main ventilation fan, two smaller fans, two compressors and the floor standing electrical control cabinet. There is a filing cabinet full of wiring diagrams, instruction books, maintenance logs etc. Although unused for ten years the plant is almost certainly fully operational with the chiller system still charged.
In one corner of the plant room is a separate filter room with it’s own gas tight door. The bank of filters are still in place. At the back of the room two wooden door open into the generator room which is noticeably narrower then the same room in other semi-sunken group controls. The generator and its control equipment is also in excellent condition with 1518 hours on the clock.
The next room on the right is the canteen, accessed along a short corridor. On the right hand side of the corridor is the kitchen which is largely intact with a Creda industrial cooker, Creda grill, hot food heater, stainless steel sink and draining board and stainless steel covered units. There is a sliding glass hatch for serving food. The canteen is now used for storage of old files and retains nothing original apart from wall cabinets at the back with electrical switchgear.
Next door to the canteen is the BT equipment room, again this is now used for the storage of old files but there are two BT wall cabinets on the end wall and the remains of two racks with some wiring looms. Beyond the BT room is an empty store room and stairs down to the lower level. The final two doors on the right lead onto the balcony looking down onto the control room. Nothing is left in the room at all although in the triangulation alcove it still says ‘Triangulation’ on the wall and there is a small shelf with a slot for an FSM and in the ceiling the bottom of the FSM pipe.
There is a gas tight door in the corridor between the two doors onto the balcony with another gas tight door beyond giving access to the emergency exit. These two doors form a second airlock. There is a ladder on the wall up to a short landing and then a second ladder up to the emergency escape hatch. This was replaced in the 1970’s by a stairway with a door on the south side of the mound.
Back in the spine corridor the first door on the left is the sewage ejection room with two compressors and a compressed air receiver just inside the door and two pumps in the sump underneath a metal grille. This plant also looks immaculate. The next two rooms are the male and female toilets which are complete although no longer connected to the mains water supply. The female toilet has a hot water tank, two hand basins, two WC cubicles and a shower. The male toilet is similar with one of the WC cubicles replaced by a urinal. The next two rooms are the male and female dormitories, these are used for the storage of confidential client files and we had no access. The final room on the left is the small officers room which is empty apart from a Tanoy loudspeaker on the wall.
On the bottom level the control room at the bottom of the stairs to the left has been fitted out with Dexion racking and is the main storage area for old files. Nothing from ROC days remains apart from one floor standing display board. The adjacent communications centre is empty. The walls are covered with acoustic tiles and the original tables and chairs are still in place. There are three windows looking into the control room one with a small message hatch beneath one.
The radio room was to the right of the stairs, this has been divided into two rooms, both of which are empty. There is a small store room under the stairs which is also empty.
During the 1990’s numerous ROC items including maps and signs were sold to the Kelvedon Hatch cold war museum. The only remaining signs are fire prevention notices which are screwed to the wall in various rooms.
The owners have no plans to remove any of the remaining equipment and will continue to use the bunker for the storage of redundant files. It is clean and dry throughout and the lighting works in all the rooms.
To a nature loving optimistic photographer like myself, I often go to extremes to get that 'one-shot' that has a certain story, flair or is otherwise interesting, at least for myself. My goal is first to please myself with the adventure of obtaining a fun image, perhaps even a composition that would be enjoyed by others. And occasionally there turns out to be a few bumps along the way, and an interesting story to go along with the photo.
Such was the case this last Saturday at the wooded Harrison Hills Park near the border of four counties in Western Pennsylvania. Every Saturday morning I often hike along a scenic trail which lies at the top of a very steep ridge along the Allegheny River. At the base of the ridge are railroad tracks. I don't often see trains along there, but on this occasion, there was a train stopped right below me.
In winter the view is spectacular; off in the distance one can see the town of Freeport, and there are snow covered hills and trees as far as the eye can see if one looks up the valley. The river itself is often teaming with various forms of ducks and geese often heard, and with binoculars seen down in the distance.
On this particular day I spied a bird's nest, by my estimation most likely the nest of a Red-eyed Vireo based on the size and location in the branch of a small wild Black-Cherry tree. I decide that I'd try to get a photo of this durable nest, even though it was situated down about 15 feet from my position. The embankment there is quite steep, and against my better judgment I began to descend a little bit over the edge. There was a nice foot hold for my right leg which I decided was the best place to make pictures. I dared not go any further. I took a few photos, but my zoom was only 3x, and decided I need to get just a few inches further.
Suddenly I slipped onto my back, but yet did not slide down the ridge. My cool head told me to put the camera away, which I did, luckily, I even managed to get my glove back on my right hand. But how would I get out of this predicament? A moment later I began to slide, and slid on my back halfway down the steep ridge. Luckily, a log loomed large and I grabbed it, otherwise who knows how much further I would have gone, and to what peril.
I was able to gain my feet, inspect for damage, to which there was none, and traverse along the ridge to a place where trees with many hand holds afforded a chance for me to ascend back out of the ridge back to the path. I went back to where I had fallen and marveled at my luck. I then proceeded to place a few well laid foot prints so that anyone else coming upon the scene wouldn't worry that someone had fallen over the cliff because the tracks would have appeared to go one way only: down. I didn't want anyone to institute a search.
Perhaps some day, another photographer, in a similar situation, will think of my story, and err on the side of caution. Maybe my foolhardy escapade will have not been for naught.
Le Fossa, animal presque mythique de Madagascar, est pratiquement invisible, présent sur toute la Grande Ile, l’endroit où on peut espérer le voir est le Parc de Kirindy … si on a de la chance !
Mix de civette, mangouste, chat, chien, puma, il est unique dans sa famille.
Classé VU par l’IUCN, sa population n’est qu’une estimation : 2 500 à 8 000 adultes, la déforestation et la démographie inflationniste de Madagascar perturbe tout l’écosystème : moins de forêts = moins de lémuriens (ses principales proies) = moins de Fossas !
Son régime est pour le moins varié : lémuriens, reptiles, insectes, oiseaux et quand il a compris qu’il y a de la nourriture près de l’homme, il s’attaque aux poules, chevreaux, porcs … et aux déchets …
Bien que considéré comme « fady », tabou on sait qu’il est pourchassé à proximité des villages et dans certaines régions il sert de viande de brousse !
L’individu vu à Kirindy a compris qu’il pouvait y avoir de la nourriture dans les poubelles et il visite les abords de l’entrée du parc … de temps en temps, vous pouvez passer plusieurs jours sans le voir, ou si vous avez de la chance, le voir traverser la piste …
www.iucnredlist.org/species/5760/45197189
fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossa_(animal)
Fosa, mythic animal of Madagascar, is virtually invisibe, found in the whole Great Island, the place where you have to be is Kirindy Park … if you have luck !
Mix of civet, mongoose, cat, dog, puma, he is unique in his family.
Classified VU by IUCN, his population is only a rough estimation / 2 500 to 8 000 adults, deforestation and inflationary human pressure in madagascar disrupt the whole ecosystem : less forests = less lemurs (his main preys) = less fosas !
His diet is, at the least, varied : lemurs (all species), reptiles, insects, birds and when he understood there is food near human, he can decide to directly take chicken, young goats, pigs … and garbage …
Although considered « fady », taboo we know he is chased near villages and in some areas he is used as bushmeat !
The one we saw in Kirindy knew he could get some food in the waste bins and he could visit the park surroundings … from time to time, you can spend several days without seeing him, or if you are lucky, you will watch him crossing the trail …
Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin, no. 554, no. 7. John Wayne and Barbra Streisand during the Oscars ceremony 1970. Streisand presented the Best Actor award to Wayne on the 42nd Academy Awards show. Wayne won the Oscar for his performance in True Grit (Henry Hathaway, 1969).
American actor John Wayne (1907-1979) was one of the most popular film stars of the 20th century. He received his first leading film role in The Big Trail (1930). Working with John Ford, he got his next big break in Stagecoach (1939). His career as an actor took another leap forward when he worked with director Howard Hawks in Red River (1948). Wayne won his first Academy Award in 1969. He starred in 142 films altogether and remains a popular American icon to this day.
John Wayne was born Marion Robert Morrison in 1907, in Winterset, Iowa. Some sources also list him as Marion Michael Morrison and Marion Mitchell Morrison. He was already a sizable presence when he was born, weighing around 13 pounds. The oldest of two children born to Clyde and Mary 'Molly' Morrison, Wayne moved to Lancester, California, around the age of seven. The family moved again a few years later after Clyde failed in his attempt to become a farmer. Settling in Glendale, California, Wayne received his distinctive nickname 'Duke' while living there. He had a dog by that name, and he spent so much time with his pet that the pair became known as 'Little Duke' and 'Big Duke', according to the official John Wayne website. In high school, Wayne excelled in his classes and in many different activities, including student government and football. He also participated in numerous student theatrical productions. Winning a football scholarship to the University of Southern California (USC), Wayne started college in the fall of 1925. Unfortunately, after two years, an injury, a result of a bodysurfing accident, took him off the football field and ended his scholarship. While in college, Wayne had done some work as a film extra, appearing as a football player in Brown of Harvard (Jack Conway, 1926) with William Haines, and Drop Kick (Millard Webb, 1927), starring Richard Barthelmess. Out of school, Wayne worked as an extra and a prop man in the film industry. He first met director John Ford while working as an extra on Mother Machree (John Ford, 1928). With the early widescreen film epic The Big Trail (Raoul Walsh, 1930), Wayne received his first leading role, thanks to director Walsh. Raoul Walsh is often credited with helping him create his now legendary screen name, John Wayne. Unfortunately, the Western was a box office failure. For nearly a decade, Wayne toiled in numerous B-films. He played the lead, with his name over the title, in many low-budget Poverty Row Westerns, mostly at Monogram Pictures and serials for Mascot Pictures Corporation. By Wayne's own estimation, he appeared in about 80 of these horse operas from 1930 to 1939. In Riders of Destiny (Robert N. Bradbury, 1933), he became one of the first singing cowboys of film, named Sandy Saunders, although via dubbing. During this period, Wayne started developing his man-of-action persona, which would serve as the basis of many popular characters later on.
Working with John Ford, John Wayne got his next big break in Stagecoach (John Ford, 1939). Because of Wayne's B-film status and track record in low-budget Westerns throughout the 1930s, Ford had difficulty getting financing for what was to be an A-budget film. After rejection by all the major studios, Ford struck a deal with independent producer Walter Wanger in which Claire Trevor, who was a much bigger star at the time, received top billing. Wayne portrayed the Ringo Kid, an escaped outlaw, who joins an unusual assortment of characters on a dangerous journey through frontier lands. During the trip, the Kid falls for a dance hall prostitute named Dallas (Claire Trevor). The film was well received by filmgoers and critics alike and earned seven Academy Award nominations, including one for Ford's direction. In the end, it took home the awards for Music and for Actor in a Supporting Role for Thomas Mitchell. Wayne became a mainstream star. Reunited with Ford and Mitchell, Wayne stepped away from his usual Western roles to become a Swedish seaman in The Long Voyage Home (John Ford, 1940). The film was adapted from a play by Eugene O'Neill and follows the crew of a steamer ship as they move a shipment of explosives. Along with many positive reviews, the film earned several Academy Award nominations. Around this time, Wayne made the first of several films with German star Marlene Dietrich. The two appeared together in Seven Sinners (Tay Garnett, 1940) with Wayne playing a naval officer and Dietrich as a woman who sets out to seduce him. Off-screen, they became romantically involved, though Wayne was married at the time. There had been rumours about Wayne having other affairs, but nothing as substantial as his connection to Dietrich. Even after their physical relationship ended, the pair remained good friends and co-starred in two more films, Pittsburgh (Lewis Seiler, 1942) and The Spoilers (Ray Enright, 1942). Wayne's first colour film was Shepherd of the Hills (Henry Hathaway, 1941), in which he co-starred with his longtime friend Harry Carey. The following year, he appeared in his only film directed by Cecil B. DeMille, the Technicolor epic Reap the Wild Wind (1942), in which he co-starred with Ray Milland and Paulette Goddard; it was one of the rare times he played a character with questionable values. Wayne started working behind the scenes as a producer in the late 1940s. The first film he produced was Angel and the Badman (James Edward Grant, 1947) with Gail Russell. Over the years, he operated several different production companies, including John Wayne Productions, Wayne-Fellows Productions and Batjac Productions.
John Wayne's career as an actor took another leap forward when he worked with director Howard Hawks in Red River (1948). The Western drama provided Wayne with an opportunity to show his talents as an actor, not just an action hero. Playing the conflicted cattleman Tom Dunson, he took on a darker sort of character. He deftly handled his character's slow collapse and difficult relationship with his adopted son played by Montgomery Clift. Also around this time, Wayne also received praise for his work in John Ford's Fort Apache (1948) with Henry Fonda and Shirley Temple. Taking on a war drama, Wayne gave a strong performance in Sands of Iwo Jima (Allan Dwan, 1949), which garnered him his first Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. He also appeared in more two Westerns by Ford now considered classics: She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (John Ford, 1949) and Rio Grande (John Ford, 1950) with Maureen O'Hara. Wayne worked with O'Hara on several films, perhaps most notably The Quiet Man (John Ford, 1952). Playing an American boxer with a bad reputation, his character moved to Ireland where he fell in love with a local woman (Maureen O'Hara). This film is considered Wayne's most convincing leading romantic role by many critics. A well-known conservative and anticommunist, Wayne merged his personal beliefs and his professional life with Big Jim McLain (Edward Ludwig, 1952). He played an investigator working for the U.S. House Un-American Activities Committee, which worked to root out communists in all aspects of public life. Off-screen, Wayne played a leading role in the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals and even served as its president for a time. The organisation was a group of conservatives who wanted to stop communists from working in the film industry, and other members included Gary Cooper and Ronald Reagan. In 1956, Wayne starred in another Ford Western, The Searchers (John Ford, 1956). He played Civil War veteran Ethan Edwards whose niece is abducted by a tribe of Comanches and he again showed some dramatic range as the morally questionable veteran. He soon after reteamed with Howard Hawks for Rio Bravo (1959). Playing a local sheriff, Wayne's character must face off against a powerful rancher and his henchmen who want to free his jailed brother. The unusual cast included Dean Martin and Angie Dickinson.
John Wayne made his directorial debut with The Alamo (John Wayne, 1960). Starring in the film as Davy Crockett, he received decidedly mixed reviews for both his on- and off-screen efforts. Wayne received a much warmer reception for The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (John Ford, 1962) in which he played a troubled rancher competing with a lawyer (James Stewart) for a woman's hand in marriage. Some other notable films from this period include The Longest Day (Ken Annakin, Andrew Marton, Bernhard Wicki, 1962) and How the West Was Won (John Ford, Henry Hathaway, George Marshall, 1962). Continuing to work steadily, Wayne refused to even let illness slow him down. He successfully battled lung cancer in 1964. To defeat the disease, Wayne had to have a lung and several ribs removed. In the later part of the 1960s, Wayne had some great successes and failures. He co-starred with Robert Mitchum in El Dorado (Howard Hawks, 1967), which was well received. The next year, Wayne again mixed the professional and the political with the pro-Vietnam War film The Green Berets (Ray Kellogg, John Wayne, 1968). He directed and produced as well as starred in the film, which was derided by critics for being heavy-handed and clichéd. Viewed by many as a piece of propaganda, the film still did well at the box office. Around this time, Wayne continued to espouse his conservative political views. He supported his friend Ronald Reagan in his 1966 bid for governor of California as well as his 1970 re-election effort. In 1976, Wayne recorded radio advertisements for Reagan's first attempt to become the Republican presidential candidate. Wayne won his first Academy Award for Best Actor for True Grit (Henry Hathaway, 1969). He played Rooster Cogburn, a one-eyed marshal and drunkard, who helps a young woman named Mattie (Kim Darby) track down her father's killer. A young Glen Campbell joined the pair on their mission. Rounding out the cast, Robert Duvall and Dennis Hopper were among the bad guys the trio had to defeat. A later sequel with Katherine Hepburn, Rooster Cogburn (Stuart Millar, 1975), failed to attract critical acclaim or much of an audience. Wayne portrayed an ageing gunfighter dying of cancer in his final film, The Shootist (Don Siegel, 1976), with James Stewart and Lauren Bacall. His character, John Bernard Books, hoped to spend his final days peacefully but got involved in one last gunfight. In 1978, life imitated art with Wayne being diagnosed with stomach cancer. John Wayne died in 1979, in Los Angeles, California. He was survived by his seven children from two of his three marriages. During his marriage to Josephine Saenz from 1933 to 1945, the couple had four children, two daughters Antonia and Melinda and two sons Michael and Patrick. Both Michael and Patrick followed in their father's footsteps Michael as a producer and Patrick as an actor. With his third wife, Pilar Palette, he had three more children, Ethan, Aissa, and Marisa. Ethan has worked as an actor over the years.
Sources: Biography.com, Wikipedia and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
Good morning. I know, kind of weird. Butterflies one day, then a fish the next. Photographing fish at an aquarium is something I always wanted to do/try. But since there isn't a public aquarium within hundreds of miles of here I've been denied any chance of doing so. That is until I discovered a business in town that raises and sells fish for other retailers, home aquariums, and hobbiest. For our small community it is quite an impressive operation. Not like something you'd find at a local Wall-Mart, or a Petland store. Hundreds of tanks, some quite large containing both fresh and salt water fish. As well as other aquatic creatures.
Fortunately the owner is kind enough to allow me to spend as much time as I want on the premises taking photographs. So far I've spent a total of six hours between two days and took close to 1000 photos. Of which only 20 - 40 turned out half way decent. Long learning curve here :-(
The above is an Albino Oscar. One of many salt water fish they have, which is quite large. Best estimation, it weighs about five pounds. Today's single photo is the first of a series I'll be posting, which will be in a new album/set titled...Treasures from the deep blue sea. My intent is not to bore you with typical aquarium shots...hopefully I'll be somewhat successful. And as I post more photos I'll explain about some of the difficulties encountered photographing fish, and what I learned.
Thank you for stopping by...I hope you have a most wonderful Friday and weekend. And so you'll know, I have a follow-up doctor's appointment later this morning and will not be online much. So please excuse my absence here for most of the day. Thank you.
Lacey
ISO100, aperture f/8, exposure 0.25 seconds (1/4) focal length 28mm
World Vision International, a humanitarian organisation, warns that COVID-19 has forced eight million children into begging and child labour. Amidst the income plummets and job lay-offs of family members, this marginalised population is forced to beg from streets to streets. Various estimates suggest that there are approximately 700,000 beggars in Bangladesh, of which 40,000 reside in the capital city.
(IMHO THIS IS SUCH A LOW ESTIMATION ITS NOT EVEN FUNNY )
instead of school, learning how to read and write and a bit about the outside world he will use his congenital deformity to earn a living for his family. This is his destiny!
I
am
in
Dhaka
Photography’s new conscience
British postcard in the Film Partners Series, London, no. P 289. Photo: Walter Wanger. John Wayne and Claire Trevor in Stagecoach (John Ford, 1939).
American actor John Wayne (1907-1979) was one of the most popular film stars of the 20th century. He received his first leading film role in The Big Trail (1930). Working with John Ford, he got his next big break in Stagecoach (1939). His career as an actor took another leap forward when he worked with director Howard Hawks in Red River (1948). Wayne won his first Academy Award in 1969. He He starred in 142 films altogether and remains a popular American icon to this day.
John Wayne was born Marion Robert Morrison in 1907, in Winterset, Iowa. Some sources also list him as Marion Michael Morrison and Marion Mitchell Morrison. He was already a sizable presence when he was born, weighing around 13 pounds. The oldest of two children born to Clyde and Mary 'Molly' Morrison, Wayne moved to Lancester, California, around the age of seven. The family moved again a few years later after Clyde failed in his attempt to become a farmer. Settling in Glendale, California, Wayne received his distinctive nickname 'Duke' while living there. He had a dog by that name, and he spent so much time with his pet that the pair became known as 'Little Duke' and 'Big Duke', according to the official John Wayne website. In high school, Wayne excelled in his classes and in many different activities, including student government and football. He also participated in numerous student theatrical productions. Winning a football scholarship to University of Southern California (USC), Wayne started college in the fall of 1925. Unfortunately, after two years, an injury, a result of a bodysurfing accident, took him off the football field and ended his scholarship. While in college, Wayne had done some work as a film extra, appearing as a football player in Brown of Harvard (Jack Conway, 1926) with William Haines, and Drop Kick (Millard Webb, 1927), starring Richard Barthelmess. Out of school, Wayne worked as an extra and a prop man in the film industry. He first met director John Ford while working as an extra on Mother Machree (John Ford, 1928). With the early widescreen film epic The Big Trail (Raoul Walsh, 1930), Wayne received his first leading role, thanks to director Walsh. Raoul Walsh is often credited with helping him create his now legendary screen name, John Wayne. Unfortunately, the Western was a box office failure. For nearly a decade, Wayne toiled in numerous B-films. He played the lead, with his name over the title, in many low-budget Poverty Row Westerns, mostly at Monogram Pictures and serials for Mascot Pictures Corporation. By Wayne's own estimation, he appeared in about 80 of these horse operas from 1930 to 1939. In Riders of Destiny (Robert N. Bradbury, 1933), he became one of the first singing cowboys of film, named Sandy Saunders, although via dubbing. During this period, Wayne started developing his man of action persona, which would serve as the basis of many popular characters later on.
Working with John Ford, John Wayne got his next big break in Stagecoach (John Ford, 1939). Because of Wayne's B-film status and track record in low-budget Westerns throughout the 1930s, Ford had difficulty getting financing for what was to be an A-budget film. After rejection by all the major studios, Ford struck a deal with independent producer Walter Wanger in which Claire Trevor, who was a much bigger star at the time, received top billing. Wayne portrayed the Ringo Kid, an escaped outlaw, who joins an unusual assortment of characters on a dangerous journey through frontier lands. During the trip, the Kid falls for a dance hall prostitute named Dallas (Claire Trevor). The film was well received by filmgoers and critics alike and earned seven Academy Award nominations, including one for Ford's direction. In the end, it took home the awards for Music and for Actor in a Supporting Role for Thomas Mitchell. Wayne became a mainstream star. Reunited with Ford and Mitchell, Wayne stepped away from his usual Western roles to become a Swedish seaman in The Long Voyage Home (John Ford, 1940). The film was adapted from a play by Eugene O'Neill and follows the crew of a steamer ship as they move a shipment of explosives. Along with many positive reviews, the film earned several Academy Award nominations. Around this time, Wayne made the first of several films with German star Marlene Dietrich. The two appeared together in Seven Sinners (Tay Garnett, 1940) with Wayne playing a naval officer and Dietrich as a woman who sets out to seduce him. Off-screen, they became romantically involved, though Wayne was married at the time. There had been rumours about Wayne having other affairs, but nothing as substantial as his connection to Dietrich. Even after their physical relationship ended, the pair remained good friends and co-starred in two more films, Pittsburgh (Lewis Seiler, 1942) and The Spoilers (Ray Enright, 1942). Wayne's first color film was Shepherd of the Hills (Henry Hathaway, 1941), in which he co-starred with his longtime friend Harry Carey. The following year, he appeared in his only film directed by Cecil B. DeMille, the Technicolor epic Reap the Wild Wind (1942), in which he co-starred with Ray Milland and Paulette Goddard; it was one of the rare times he played a character with questionable values. Wayne started working behind the scenes as a producer in the late 1940s. The first film he produced was Angel and the Badman (James Edward Grant, 1947) with Gail Russell. Over the years, he operated several different production companies, including John Wayne Productions, Wayne-Fellows Productions and Batjac Productions.
John Wayne's career as an actor took another leap forward when he worked with director Howard Hawks in Red River (1948). The Western drama provided Wayne with an opportunity to show his talents as an actor, not just an action hero. Playing the conflicted cattleman Tom Dunson, he took on a darker sort of character. He deftly handled his character's slow collapse and difficult relationship with his adopted son played by Montgomery Clift. Also around this time, Wayne also received praise for his work in John Ford's Fort Apache (1948) with Henry Fonda and Shirley Temple. Taking on a war drama, Wayne gave a strong performance in Sands of Iwo Jima (Allan Dwan, 1949), which garnered him his first Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. He also appeared in more two Westerns by Ford now considered classics: She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (John Ford, 1949) and Rio Grande (John Ford, 1950) with Maureen O'Hara. Wayne worked with O'Hara on several films, perhaps most notably The Quiet Man (John Ford, 1952). Playing an American boxer with a bad reputation, his character moved to Ireland where he fell in love with a local woman (Maureen O'Hara). This film is considered Wayne's most convincing leading romantic role by many critics. A well-known conservative and anticommunist, Wayne merged his personal beliefs and his professional life in Big Jim McLain (Edward Ludwig, 1952). He played an investigator working for the U.S. House Un-American Activities Committee, which worked to root out communists in all aspects of public life. Off screen, Wayne played a leading role in the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals and even served as its president for a time. The organisation was a group of conservatives who wanted to stop communists from working in the film industry, and other members included Gary Cooper and Ronald Reagan. In 1956, Wayne starred in another Ford Western, The Searchers (John Ford, 1956). He played Civil War veteran Ethan Edwards whose niece is abducted by a tribe of Comanches and he again showed some dramatic range as the morally questionable veteran. He soon after reteamed with Howard Hawks for Rio Bravo (1959). Playing a local sheriff, Wayne's character must face off against a powerful rancher and his henchmen who want to free his jailed brother. The unusual cast included Dean Martin and Angie Dickinson.
John Wayne made his directorial debut with The Alamo (John Wayne, 1960). Starring in the film as Davy Crockett, he received decidedly mixed reviews for both his on- and off-screen efforts. Wayne received a much warmer reception for The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (John Ford, 1962) in which he played a troubled rancher competing with a lawyer (James Stewart) for a woman's hand in marriage. Some other notable films from this period include The Longest Day (Ken Annakin, Andrew Marton, Bernhard Wicki, 1962) and How the West Was Won (John Ford, Henry Hathaway, George Marshall, 1962). Continuing to work steadily, Wayne refused to even let illness slow him down. He successfully battled lung cancer in 1964. To defeat the disease, Wayne had to have a lung and several ribs removed. In the later part of the 1960s, Wayne had some great successes and failures. He co-starred with Robert Mitchum in El Dorado (Howard Hawks, 1967), which was well received. The next year, Wayne again mixed the professional and the political with the pro-Vietnam War film The Green Berets (Ray Kellogg, John Wayne, 1968). He directed and produced as well as starred in the film, which was derided by critics for being heavy handed and clichéd. Viewed by many as a piece of propaganda, the film still did well at the box office. Around this time, Wayne continued to espouse his conservative political views. He support friend Ronald Reagan in his 1966 bid for governor of California as well as his 1970 re-election effort. In 1976, Wayne recorded radio advertisements for Reagan's first attempt to become the Republican presidential candidate. Wayne won his first Academy Award for Best Actor for True Grit (Henry Hathaway, 1969). He played Rooster Cogburn, an one-eyed marshal and drunkard, who helps a young woman named Mattie (Kim Darby) track down her father's killer. A young Glen Campbell joined the pair on their mission. Rounding out the cast, Robert Duvall and Dennis Hopper were among the bad guys the trio had to defeat. A later sequel with Katherine Hepburn, Rooster Cogburn (Stuart Millar, 1975), failed to attract critical acclaim or much of an audience. Wayne portrayed an aging gunfighter dying of cancer in his final film, The Shootist (Don Siegel, 1976), with James Stewart and Lauren Bacall. His character, John Bernard Books, hoped to spend his final days peacefully, but got involved one last gunfight. In 1978, life imitated art with Wayne being diagnosed with stomach cancer. John Wayne died in 1979, in Los Angeles, California. He was survived by his seven children from two of his three marriages. During his marriage to Josephine Saenz from 1933 to 1945, the couple had four children, two daughters Antonia and Melinda and two sons Michael and Patrick. Both Michael and Patrick followed in their father's footsteps Michael as a producer and Patrick as an actor. With his third wife, Pilar Palette, he had three more children, Ethan, Aissa, and Marisa. Ethan has worked as an actor over the years.
Sources: Biography.com, Wikipedia and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
Not long after I got my first real job and could afford to do it, I went into a local shoe store to buy a pair of new boots, to finally bury the old ones. There was an old skinny man who worked there, six feet tall and weighing little, a very witty man, with a dry sense of humour. I told him what I wanted and he nodded sagely. He said to me slowly and sorta understatedly, "Yes, sir: those old ones don't owe you anything anymore."
And so, this morning, my wife and I agreed this tea strainer -- now succeeded by a new one ordered from across the world -- owed us nothing anymore.
Well, thought I, it owed nothing except a nice picture to remember it by.
It is in the garbage now.
A friend asked me how many cups of tea went through it so I did some rough estimations and arithmetic. A conservatively estimated average number of cups a day in the earlier years is probably fifteen or even twenty. But in more recent years it would be somewhat lower than that. Let's say on average a dozen cups a day -- that would make about four thousand a year, for forty years. (I think the strainer is that old. Maybe we've had it even longer than that.)
Those rough numbers suggest about 160,000 cups. No wonder it's pock-marked around the edges.
You just need to imagine first what you want to shoot and then you need to place the required articles accordingly around the subject. For example in case of water droplets; broadly there would be three possibilities, drop just collapsed, about to touch the surface and de-bounce. It is bit difficult to predict these three conditions specifically when viewing through view finder and then result may be miss timed and blurred shots. To avoid this following procedure may be tried out:
1. Place a water pan on level of your camera which must me mounted on tripod.
2. Place a tiny steady object such as nail onto the place of your interest. May be center point of the water pan!
3. Set your camera with working distance allowed by macro lens.
4. Focus the nail as sharp as possible.
5. Set shutter speed faster around 1/200 to 1/300 to freeze the droplets.
6. Set aperture as large as possible, F/5 and 1.200 may give good results.
7. WB=Auto and ISO=100 may give desired results.
8. Once the object is well focused, replace it with a controlled water stream
9. Look this water stream through view finder and ensure whether is in focus or not.
10. Do slight adjustments in working distance if required to get the sharp picture.
11. Reduce down the speed of water stream up till one drop/seconds.
12. Wait and understand for the duration between two consecutive drops and once acclimatize with the frequency of dropping droplets, release the shutter with some estimation.
13. Just collapsed, about to touch the surface and de-bouncing drops can be frozen based upon synchronization of shutter release timing and some time estimation of drops.
Your setup is ready to produce some one of the fantastic shots. You may keep some colorful objects in the back ground to achieve diffused colorful DOF.
All the best.
Thanks to Playingwithbrushes for the use of this texture! A gorgeous set of amazing work! www.flickr.com/photos/playingwithpsp/sets/72157604052440248/
Sorry I can't figure out a fancy link - but check her work out!
Hope everyone is well this morning. Another experimentation with texture! It is so hard not to over do it! The texture alone could stand as art in my estimation. The test for me is how to incorporate my image with another's! This process has altered the way I photograph, the vision that I have for my work. Each little step is riveting for me! Let me know what you think. Best wishes my friends - for a glorious sun filled day! e
Best when View On Black
Location of this house is in Washington County along the National Road (Route40)Bill, Here's what I found out. The original stone part of the house was built by Charles Wheeler, who purchased the property in the 1770s. The brick part was built in 1870s by Oliver Knoght Taylor, a Brownsville banker. The house is not on the national Register of Historic Places, although it should be in my estimation. Dave bill_rockwell.photography.com/
Framed photos and greeding cards visit:
PRINTS OF THIS PHOTO ARE AVAILABLE ON fineartamerica.com AND
MOUNTED PRINTS READY FOR FRAMING AVAILABLE at etsy.com/billrockrockphotography
During Roman times the settlement was known as Astigi. Caesar ordered the town's fortification and refounded it as a Julian colony. According to Pliny the Elder who wrote in the 1st century AD, it was the rival of Cordova and Seville.
After the Romans, it was ruled by successively by Suevs and Visigoths. It was also from an early date the seat of a diocese. St. Fulgentius (died before 633), was named to the see by his brother Isidore of Seville.
In 711, Écija was conquered by an Islamic army on its way to Córdoba. Capital of an extensive Kūra, Écija preserved its condition as a centre of high agricultural productivity.
The place was seized by Christians in 1240. The proximity to the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada turned Écija into a border town. Most of the mudéjar population was expelled in 1263. The Jewish population suffered the antisemitic revolt initiated after the assault on the jewry of Seville in June 1391, that spread across Andalusia. During the 15th century, Écija was the third most important urban centre of the Kingdom of Seville after Seville and Jerez. Estimations for the 15th century yield a population of about 18,000 (today 40.000).
The effects of the 1755 earthquake (Lisbon) forced a deep urban renewal.
Although Astigi was one of the most completely discovered Roman cities, the city council decided against all odds in 1998 to bulldoze the Roman ruins of Écija, including a forum, a bathhouse, a gymnasium and a temple, as well as dozens of private houses, and replace them with a car park.
But at least, there is the museum housed in the "Palacio de Benamejí"
Sculpture of a bull. Limestone. Iberian/pre-Roman period
The Galactic Center or Galactic Centre is the rotational center of the Milky Way. The estimations for its location range from 7.6 to 8.7 kiloparsecs (about 25 000 to 28 000 lightyears), in the direction of the constellations Sagittarius, Ophiuchus, and Scorpius where the Milky Way appears brightest. (Wikipedia)
Check out also my timelapse shot from the same location.
Roseworthy.
Just outside of the town is the Roseworthy Agricultural College established in 1883. The railway from Adelaide reached the district in 1860. In 1869 the line was pushed northwards from here to the great copper mine at Burra. There are virtually no old buildings left in the town which once had an early Methodist Church, the hotel was totally rebuilt, the old railway station and the old school were demolished. The oldest public building in town is the Soldiers War memorial Hall.
•Origins are in declining wheat yields from the bread basket of Australia- SA; and the governments concerns to be experimental and in the forefront of scientific thinking. SA was almost radical in those times of 1880s- later the communists village settlement on the Murray River; the early 1880s a period of droughts; agriculture beyond Goyder’s line and agriculture in a mess- farmers walking off the land, lots of criticisms of the government.
•Albert Molineux. Despite his French name he was English. In 1875 he produced the first edition of a farming and gardening magazine called Garden and Field. From the start of Garden and Field he argued for a professor of Agriculture and a government department of Agriculture. The government listened. The first Minister of Agriculture was appointed in 1876 with a Central Board of farmers to advise him; the government began planning for Roseworthy College in 1880/81 although it did not open until 1885, but Professor Custance arrived and began work in 1883.
•Next in 1887 Albert Molineux proposed Agricultural Bureaux to help farmers modernise and user better methods for dairying and for cereal crops, and for the use of insecticides on fruit trees and vines in the Barossa and the use of fertilisers. i.e he wanted farmers to use the latest scientific methods for farming. Again the government listened. In February 1888 they established the Agricultural Bureaux. They were to be run from the Central Agricultural Board which advised the minister. Local branches were to be established to get the new scientific ideas out to the farmers. In the first year branches were established at: Burra, Gumeracha, Millicent, Mannum, Nurioopta and Stansbury. Soon there were over 120 branches across the state. Around 100 still operate after 120 years. Trevor will talk to you before dessert about the offshoot for women. In 1888 the Bureaux started advocating the use of superphosphate for wheat crops.
•Professor John Custance appointed 1882 to found the college and revive sagging fortunes of agriculture. He was the first professor of Agriculture in SA. He was a researcher and teacher. He experimented with new crops, new varieties of wheat and manures and above all else superphosphate. This was the first agricultural college in Australia. He experimented with guano from Sth America and in 1883 the Adelaide Chemical Works opened at Torrensville to produce super phosphate for wheat farmers. Wheat returns generally doubled with the application of super. More manufacturer of super established including Wallaroo Fertiliser Works and super was gradually adopted around all the wheat belts of Australia. Custance was suspended in 1886 because he had insulted the head for the Crown Lands Department! He returned to England but came back out to SA in 1906 and lived her until he died in 1923.
•The wonderful blue stone main building was completed in 1883 and the first 25 students began studies in 1885. The college was based on practical experience and had a full scale farm (the govt bought Olive Hill Farm at Roseworthy for the College) including dairy herds, cattle, sheep and cereals. It did not become part of the University of Adelaide as originally planned and remained a separate entity. The first links with the University of Adelaide were established in 1905 when wine making and other courses were accepted By Uni of Adelaide as subjects towards a B.Sc. It was eventually merged into the University in 1991.
•In 1887 William Lowrie was appointed as principal. He began a series of experiential government farms across the state to find new crops and new fertilisers and scientific breeding of livestock etc. The main farms were at: Millicent; Eudunda, Clare; Maitland; Gladstone and tiny Black Rock near Orroroo. He was also the one who popularised superphosphate with the farmers and showed them the direct benefits in the crop yields they would get. He left suddenly too after fights with the government about funding and resources for Roseworthy College. What changes? He resigned in 1902 and moved to Canterbury in New Zealand. He also eventually returned to SA and lived at Echunga until he died in 1933.
•Professor Arthur Perkins was another important early college principal. He was appointed in 1904 and became the new head of the newly established Department of Agriculture for the government as well. He had established the first wine making course at the college in 1895. He placed an emphasis on viticulture and his quarantines on plant imports to SA helped the state avoid a major phylloxera out breaks in the early 1900s.
•During the 1920s and 1930s the college expanded its programs and forged closer links with the science programs at the University of Adelaide. It by the awarded the Diploma of agriculture, another in Dairying and another in Oenology or winemaking (established 1936- the first in Australia.) In 1974 the college became a College of Advanced Education and in 1991 it merged with the University of Adelaide. It now also conducts the veterinary science program for the university which only began in SA for the first time a couple of years ago.
•A later principal, Reg Ninnes also forged a link between the college and the state highs schools in the 1920s. Principal Ninnes set up the agricultural science program at Clare High school in 1927 the first in the state of SA. The others set up at that time were Kadina and Balaklava( and Urrbrae of course.) For almost 30 years he was responsible for agricultural programs in state high schools across the state, including the one devoted solely to agriculture at Urrbrae. Urrbrae Agricultural High School was gifted to the Education department by wealthy pastoralist Peter Waite in 1913. But the high school did not begin until after Peter Waite’s death in 1922. Classes started in 1926.
•Mr Peter Waite in his letter to the premier in 1913 offering land for an agricultural high school. He wrote:
• with comparatively little scientific training our agriculturalists and pastoralists have placed our wheat, wool and fruits in the highest estimation of the world;
•our sheep have been brought to perfection such that they are sought not only by all the sisters states but by South Africa;
•our agricultural machinery has been found good enough for even the Americans to copy;
•and our farming methods have been accepted by the other states as the most up-to-date and practical for Australian conditions.”
NEW Volvo B7RLE Wright Urban Eclipse number 199 (LB62 BUS) departs from what must surely be our most scenic terminus: Pencaitland deep in the heart of East Lothian, near to Gifford and Tranent.
The journey time from the Western General Hospital in the centre of Edinburgh takes just under 1 and a half hours. On mostly an hourly service just three vehicles are normally required with an extra for the rush periods.
The new eastLothianbuses.com service is only a few months old and since it took over this service from 'a n other' company it has proved to be remarkably popular, but the change from old Dennis Trident double deckers to these beautiful new single deckers has not proved quite as popular with the travellers as we'd hoped.
195 to 199 came with a price tag of nearly £1 Million but for folk who have to now stand at busy peak periods this is not an improvement. The five single deckers each have a seating capacity of just 37, with an astonishing estimation of 59 standing - I certainly wouldn't want to have 58 tummies wobbling beside me on these East Lothian country tracks!
Perhaps an increase in the frequency would be the easiest solution with some of the older Eclipse's being re-painted into this glorious former Eastern Scottish livery.
Whatever happens this is still a delicious looking bus and one the locals can be proud of.
57 London Road was originally in civilian occupation and named ‘Fairlawns’. The property was requisitioned in 1939 as a new headquarters for No.1 Group of the Royal Observer Corps, who had previously been stationed in rooms above Maidstone Post Office. An operations room was built in the house using the ground floor and basement. Fairlawns was in use throughout the war until stand down. In the 1950s Fairlawns was relegated to being a training centre for the group control at Beckenham (19 Group). In 1961 a new semi-sunk control was built to the rear of Fairlawns with administration located in the house. Beckenham was then relegated to being training centre for 1 Group at Maidstone. The former 19 Group HQ at Dura Den, Park Place, Beckenham was absorbed into No. 1 Group in 1953 but was retained for as a secondary training centre until 1968 In 1976 Fairlawns was renamed Ashmore House in memory of the Corps’ founder Major Ashmore. On closure Ashmore House and the bunker behind was sold to a local solicitors.
Maidstone is similar in construction to other semi-sunken group controls, consisting of three levels. The upper level is a surface concrete blockhouse often referred to as an ‘Aztec Temple’. The middle level is partly below ground, mounded over with soil and grassed, the bottom level is completely below grown. Externally the bunker is in excellent condition and well maintained. The grass on top of the mound is regularly mown and the surface blockhouse is painted white. The telescopic aerial mast is still in place alongside the entrance steps and unusually the aerial is also still there on top of the mast. Two other UHF aerials are also still in place on top of an adjacent pole. On top of the mound the FSM and BPI pipes are in the middle and close to them is a metal cover over what might be part of the AWDREY (Atomic Weapon Detection Recognition and Estimation of Yield) equipment consisting of a white metal box mounted at an angle on a square concrete plinth. Several pipes protrude from the mound alongside. At the east end of the mound is the original emergency exit consisting of an ROC post hatch on a raised concrete plinth with a rail around it. The later emergency exit door is at the back of the mound.
The surface blockhouse still has its external ladder giving access to the roof. Here the GZI mounting is to be found on top of one of the ventilation stacks.
At the top of the entrance stairs is a steel blast door giving access to the upper level corridor. There are two rooms on the left, the decontamination room and dressing room; both still contain sinks and water tanks. There are two rooms on the right, the first has a gas tight door and houses a small fan for cooling the plant in the room below, the adjacent room contains a bank of filters. Beyond these rooms is another gas tight wooden door which, together with the entrance door, forms an air lock. Beyond this door stairs to the left lead down to the middle floor and ahead was the winch room. The winch has been removed as has the floor. There are railings just inside the entrance door to stop anyone falling. A hole has been cut into the right hand side wall of the winch room to give access to a large water tank.
At the bottom of the stairs is a dog leg into the main east - west spine corridor. The first room on the right is the ventilation and filtration plant room which is in immaculate condition with all the brass still polished and gleaming. All the plant remains in place including two chiller pumps, the main ventilation fan, two smaller fans, two compressors and the floor standing electrical control cabinet. There is a filing cabinet full of wiring diagrams, instruction books, maintenance logs etc. Although unused for ten years the plant is almost certainly fully operational with the chiller system still charged.
In one corner of the plant room is a separate filter room with it’s own gas tight door. The bank of filters are still in place. At the back of the room two wooden door open into the generator room which is noticeably narrower then the same room in other semi-sunken group controls. The generator and its control equipment is also in excellent condition with 1518 hours on the clock.
The next room on the right is the canteen, accessed along a short corridor. On the right hand side of the corridor is the kitchen which is largely intact with a Creda industrial cooker, Creda grill, hot food heater, stainless steel sink and draining board and stainless steel covered units. There is a sliding glass hatch for serving food. The canteen is now used for storage of old files and retains nothing original apart from wall cabinets at the back with electrical switchgear.
Next door to the canteen is the BT equipment room, again this is now used for the storage of old files but there are two BT wall cabinets on the end wall and the remains of two racks with some wiring looms. Beyond the BT room is an empty store room and stairs down to the lower level. The final two doors on the right lead onto the balcony looking down onto the control room. Nothing is left in the room at all although in the triangulation alcove it still says ‘Triangulation’ on the wall and there is a small shelf with a slot for an FSM and in the ceiling the bottom of the FSM pipe.
There is a gas tight door in the corridor between the two doors onto the balcony with another gas tight door beyond giving access to the emergency exit. These two doors form a second airlock. There is a ladder on the wall up to a short landing and then a second ladder up to the emergency escape hatch. This was replaced in the 1970’s by a stairway with a door on the south side of the mound.
Back in the spine corridor the first door on the left is the sewage ejection room with two compressors and a compressed air receiver just inside the door and two pumps in the sump underneath a metal grille. This plant also looks immaculate. The next two rooms are the male and female toilets which are complete although no longer connected to the mains water supply. The female toilet has a hot water tank, two hand basins, two WC cubicles and a shower. The male toilet is similar with one of the WC cubicles replaced by a urinal. The next two rooms are the male and female dormitories, these are used for the storage of confidential client files and we had no access. The final room on the left is the small officers room which is empty apart from a Tanoy loudspeaker on the wall.
On the bottom level the control room at the bottom of the stairs to the left has been fitted out with Dexion racking and is the main storage area for old files. Nothing from ROC days remains apart from one floor standing display board. The adjacent communications centre is empty. The walls are covered with acoustic tiles and the original tables and chairs are still in place. There are three windows looking into the control room one with a small message hatch beneath one.
The radio room was to the right of the stairs, this has been divided into two rooms, both of which are empty. There is a small store room under the stairs which is also empty.
During the 1990’s numerous ROC items including maps and signs were sold to the Kelvedon Hatch cold war museum. The only remaining signs are fire prevention notices which are screwed to the wall in various rooms.
The owners have no plans to remove any of the remaining equipment and will continue to use the bunker for the storage of redundant files. It is clean and dry throughout and the lighting works in all the rooms.
Backlit in winter with the Nikon D4 camera mated to the Nikkor 300mm 2.8 lens and 2.0 TC. Killer handheld bird photography rig for me for years and the files out of this combo remains supreme in my estimation. The DSLR is not dead, it just smells funny when you forgot you had left half a sub sandwich in your photo backpack from the previous shoot :)
Memphis, TN, est. 1819, pop. 650,000
• in the 1950s, in a small studio on Union, Ave., Sam C. Phillips (1923-2003) recorded music that is "one of the true touchstones of American culture" —Escott, Hawkins, Good Rockin' Tonight: Sun Records and the Birth of Rock 'N' Roll
• this two-story corner bldg. is located in Memphis's Edge district • before becoming the Sun Studio Café, the 1st floor housed Taylor's Fine Food restaurant (1948-1981) [photo] • owned by Dell Taylor (1911-2003) & husband, Carlos (1914-1976) • 2nd floor was a rooming house
• the 1908 bldg. shares a partywall with a 1-story storefront at no. 706, built in 1916 [photos] • this small adjacent structure became Memphis Recording Service & later, Sun Studio [discography], where Elvis Presley (1935-1977) began his recording career
"Dell M. Taylor served up country fried steak and gentle mothering to the emerging stars of Sun Studio… Mrs. Taylor saw to it that Elvis Presley, Rufus Thomas, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, Charlie Rich and Carl Perkins, — along with the mechanics and other workers from the auto dealership row on Union — had the freshest greens and vegetables… Many a song was written in the booths, as the musicians would come in to eat during a break in recording at Sun Studio next door… Sun Studio founder Sam Phillips, credited with discovering Elvis and others, often did his bookkeeping at the restaurant." —Chris Conley, The Commercial Appeal (Memphis), 24 Feb., 2003
• Sam Phillips, who claimed he didn't have a desk, had his own booth at Taylor's to pore over paperwork • "That's where all the guys did their writing and talking, and that's where the Sun sound was really born." –Jack Clement (1931-2013), Sun Studio producer
• exhausted musicians often spent the night in one of "Miss Taylor's" upstairs rooms • while recording at Sun the mid-1950s, Roy Orbison had a two-room apartment there
• the bldg. now serves as visitor center for the recording studio, which is open to the public for tours
Marker: Elvis Presley and Sun Records
In July 1954 Sun Records released Elvis Presley's first recording. That record, and Elvis' four that followed on the Sun label, changed popular music. Elvis developed an innovative and different sound combining blues, gospel, and country. That quality made Elvis a worldwide celebrity within two years. He went on to become one of the most famous and beloved entertainers in history. Sun Records introduced many well known people in all fields of music. Generations of musicians have been affected by those who recorded here and especially by the music Elvis Presley first sang at Sun Records
National Historic Landmark Nomination: (unedited version with citations available here)
Marion Keisker (1917-1989), Phillips's sole assistant & employee when he started his business said he "would talk about this idea he had, this dream, I suppose, to have a facility where black people could come and play their own music, a place where they would feel free and relaxed to do it. One day we were riding along, and he saw that spot on Union, and he said, 'That's the spot I want.' With many difficulties we got the place, and we raised the money, and between us we did everything. We laid all the tile, we painted the acoustic boards, I put in the bathroom, Sam put in the control room—what little equipment he had always had to be the best." — quoted by Peter Guralnick, Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley
Phillips started his own record company, Sun Records, in 1952, "the first great rock 'n' roll record label." • Some of the artists Phillips recorded would redefine the musical genres in which they worked. Many of them made for Phillips not only their first recordings but also their best.
Before World War II most black music was blues, and a lot of those were country blues of the Mississippi Delta, the raw, gut-wrenching folk music of rural African Americans… Black migration out of the rural South accelerated during the First World War and exploded after World War II when manual cotton picking came to an end. Synthetic materials took over the market after the discovery of nylon in 1939, and the mechanical cotton picker, able to do the work of fifty people, arrived soon after. "The main musical result of the great migration was the blues came to town, and not to any old town: to Memphis, which acted as the local focus for migration from the Delta." — Sir Peter Hall, Cities in Civilization
In Memphis, WDIA started out in 1947 as a popular and country music radio station. The station switched formats in 1948 and began programming for a black audience after the success of a show called "Black America Speaks," hosted by Memphis's first black on-air personality, Nat Williams (1907-1983) [editorial: Color the Issue, A Point of View by Nat L. Williams]
Also in 1948, Dewey Phillips (1926-1968), a white radio announcer from rural Tennessee, began to host a show on WHBQ. "Red Hot and Blue" [listen] expanded from fifteen minutes to three hours daily during its first year on the air. Phillips played "an eclectic mix of blues, hillbilly, and pop that would become an institution in Memphis, and his importance to the cross-cultural miscegenation that became Rock 'n' Roll is incalculable." By 1951, word began to spread that white kids were buying "race records."
Sam Phillips was born on January 5, 1923 in the northwest corner of Alabama near Florence, about 150 miles east of Memphis. He got his first radio job in 1940 at WLAY in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, and later took correspondence courses in radio engineering. He worked at WMSL in Decatur, Alabama, and at WLAC in Nashville before moving to Memphis in 1945.
In January 1950, Phillips started his own recording business in addition to his regular jobs. The Memphis Recording Service opened at 706 Union Avenue, about a mile east of the downtown area. The small one-story brick building had a reception area/office at the front of the building, a recording studio in the middle section, and a small control room in the rear. The entire building is only about 18 feet wide and 57 feet long. Phillips's business card read "We Record Anything—Anywhere—Anytime." Initially that included weddings, funerals, bar mitzvahs, advertisements for radio, etc., in addition to musicians in his studio.
"I opened the Memphis Recording Service with the intention of recording singers and musicians from Memphis and the locality who I felt had something that people should be able to hear. I'm talking about blues—both the country style and the rhythm style—and also about gospel or spiritual music and about white country music. I always felt that people who played this type of music had not been given the opportunity to reach an audience . . . My aim was to try and record the blues and other music I liked and to prove whether I was right or wrong about this music. I knew, or I felt I knew, that there was a bigger audience for blues than just the black man of the mid-South. There were city markets to be reached, and I knew that whites listened to blues surreptitiously." —Escott, op. cit.
Phillips also functioned as a folklorist, documenting music that was fading into the past. "With the jet age coming on, with cotton-picking machines as big as a building going down the road, with society changing, I knew that this music wasn't going to be available in a pure sense forever."
Recording the Blues
video: Sam Phillips: The Man who Invented Rock & Roll Part 1 (44:22) & Part 2 (45:59)
His first deal, with 4 Star/Gilt Edge Records, was a song by a blind pianist from south Memphis. Lost John Hunter's "Boogie for Me Baby" [listen] was "a crude boogie blues that could pick up some southern juke coin," according to the review in Billboard, a record business trade publication.
In late summer 1950, Phillips launched his own record company with partner Dewey Phillips (the hot Memphis radio announcer, no relation) in order to issue and promote his own products. They called their label Phillips, but it only lasted a few weeks, issuing three hundred copies of Joe Hill Louis's "Boogie in the Park" in August 1950 [listen]
Phillips soon began working with Modern Records of Los Angeles, owned and operated by the Bihari brothers. Their new subsidiary, RPM Records, was looking for "new music with a down- home feel." Jules Bihari sent a guitar player from Indianola, Mississippi, to Sam Phillips to record. Riley King was already popular locally and known as B.B. King (for Blues Boy, or more likely, Black Boy). Phillips recorded King, one of the first artists on the new RPM label, from mid-1950 until mid-1951 [listen].
Even at this early stage in his career, Sam Phillips used recording techniques that were soon recognized as hallmarks of his records. He put up-tempo boogies on the front sides of records, slow numbers on back sides, and overamplified on faster songs to get a primitive fuzzy sound… These early recording sessions with King also document Phillips's skill as a record producer. King's version of a Tampa Red song had an explosiveness missing from the original record.
"Rocket '88'," a song about a hot Oldsmobile, is one of the contenders for the title "first rock 'n' roll record." It featured Jackie Brenston, the singer, and Ike Turner, the bandleader, on piano. "Rocket '88'" [listen] was released in April 1951. It hit number 1 on Billboard's R&B chart in June and eventually became the second biggest R&B hit of the year. According to Sam Phillips, "Rocket '88'" was the record that really kicked it off for me as far as broadening the base of music and opening up wider markets for our local music." Phillips resigned from WREC in June 1951 after "Rocket '88'" became a hit. — [more] on the history of “Rocket 88”
The Commercial Appeal (Memphis), 28 Mar, 1951: "[Sam Phillips] has agreements with two recording companies to locate and record hillbilly and race music. Race numbers are those tailored for the Negro trade. Sam auditions musicians with original songs. When he finds something he's sure will sell, he gets it on acetate and sends it to one of the companies. He doesn't charge the musicians anything . . . Sam may branch out one day, so he says if anyone wants to bring him a pop song, he'll be glad to look it over." • full article
• Sam Phillips first recorded Chester Burnett (The Howlin' Wolf) in the spring of 1951. Born near Aberdeen, Mississippi, Howlin' Wolf (1910-1976) was a singer who gave the traditional Delta blues another dimension. They recorded "Moanin' at Midnight" and "How Many More Years" [listen] in August 1951… In Phillips's estimation, the Wolf was his greatest discovery.
• Even though he preferred the creative side of the business, Phillips started his own record company early in 1952… With his own label, Phillips could run the business like he wanted and release records that other labels rejected.
"When I was leasing to other labels, they wanted me to compromise. They wanted a fuller blues sound than I did. They were selling excitement. I was recording the feel I found in the blues. I wanted to get that gut feel onto record. I realized that it was going to be much more difficult to merchandise than what Atlantic or Specialty, for example, were doing, but I was willing to go with it."
Phillips named his new company Sun Records and selected an eye-catching record label [photo] designed by John G. Parker (1925-2012), who also designed the tiger stripe helmet for the Cincinnati Bengals football team and packages for Alka-Seltzer and Super Bubble gum… "The sun to me—even as a kid back on the farm—was a universal kind of thing. A new day, a new opportunity." —Sam Phillips
The first record issued on the new Sun label (March 27, 1952), Sun number 175, was an original instrumental, "Drivin' Slow," by alto saxophonist Johnny London.
"Even on this first release, all the hallmarks of a Sam Phillips Sun record were in place: the raw sound, the experimental origin, the dark texture, even the trademark echo. Phillips and London created the illusion of a sax heard down a long hallway on a humid night by rigging something like a telephone booth over London's head while he played. The record's appeal had more to do with feeling than virtuosity—in short, it offered everything music buyers could expect from Sun for the remainder of the decade." [listen]
The first recording on the Sun label considered to be a classic was Easy, an instrumental released in March 1953 by Walter Horton (1921-1981) (Little Walter, and later, Big Walter).
". . . Horton played the same theme five times, with mounting intensity. By the fourth chorus, he was playing with such intensity that his harmonica sounded like a tenor saxophone. Phillips' virtuosity with tape delay echo was rarely used to better advantage: he made three instruments [harmonica, guitar, drums] sound as full as an orchestra. Any other instrument would have been redundant." [listen]
Sun Records had its first national hit in the spring of 1953 with "Bear Cat," [listen] which went to number 3 on the national R&B chart. It was an "answer song" to "Hound Dog" by Big Mama Thornton aka Willie Mae Thornton (1926-1984), sung by local radio announcer Rufus Thomas. "Bear Cat" was the first record to make money for Sun Records and it put the company on the map. "Feelin' Good" by Little Junior's Blue Flames (released in July 1953), was also commercially successful, reaching number 5 on the national R&B chart.
Sun's next hit was "Just Walkin' in the Rain" [listen] by The Prisonaires, a black vocal group of five inmates from the Tennessee State Penitentiary in Nashville. They sang close-harmony gospel style and came under armed guard to record at 706 Union on June 1, 1953. As part of the warden's rehabilitation program, they were allowed to perform on radio, in concerts, and at the Governor's mansion, but "Just Walkin' in the Rain" was their only hit.
Phillips recorded a number of important blues artists in the early 1950s, including "Sleepy" John Estes, Little Milton Campbell, Rosco Gordon, Dr. Ross, Harmonica Frank Floyd, Willie Nix, Billy "The Kid" Emerson, and Bobby "Blue" Bland.
". . . It's safe to say that the blues has never sounded as mean, raw, or intense as it did on countless days and nights at 706 Union Avenue. Amplifiers were cranked way past the point of distortion, guitars slashed like straight razors, rickety drum kits were pounded with fury and abandon, and the stories both sung and shouted spanned the gamut of the black Southern experience…
"Even if he'd never issued a record on the shining yellow Sun label, even if Elvis Presley had never entered his small recording studio..., Phillips would rank as one of the most visionary record producers of our time on the basis of his early fifties blues work." —John Floyd, Sun Records: An Oral History
In May 1954, Phillips recorded "Cotton Crop Blues" with James Cotton on vocals and Auburn "Pat" Hare on guitar. This was "one of the truly great blues recordings," but recording of traditional blues at 706 Union fell off in 1954 with the growing popularity of R&B music. Sun Records soon became synonymous with rock 'n' roll, overshadowing Phillips's role in blues recording "and the insight that [he] brought to recording the blues. He worked hard to get the best from his artists . . . Phillips would sit behind his tape deck until sunup if he thought the musicians on the studio floor might capture the sound that he heard in his head."
Phillips struggled to make money in the record business for almost six years. Eventually he saw that the market at that time was too small for the kind of music he was recording.
"The base wasn't broad enough because of racial prejudice. It wasn't broad enough to get the amount of commercial play and general acceptance overall—not just in the South . . . Now these were basically good people, but conceptually they did not understand the kinship between black and white people in the South. So I knew what I had to do to broaden the base of acceptance." —Escott, op. cit.
Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley graduated from Humes High School in north Memphis on June 3, 1953 and went to work at M.B. Parker Machinists on July 1. Later that summer, he recorded a personal record at the Memphis Recording Service. Presley paid $3.98 for an acetate with two sides, both ballads. While he was there, Presley talked with Marion Keisker, a long-time Memphis radio personality who helped Sam Phillips run his businesses at 706 Union, and asked if she knew of a band that needed a singer.
He made an impression on Keisker which she later remembered well, especially his answer to her question about which hillbilly singer he sounded like: "I don't sound like nobody." At that time, Presley had a child's guitar that he played in the park, on his porch steps, and in a band with his buddies around their housing project. He soon aspired to be a member of the Songfellows, an amateur church quartet. —Guralnick, op. cit.
Presley dropped by 706 Union a number of times after that initial meeting to see if Ms. Keisker had any leads for him. In January 1954, Presley paid for a second personal record, and tried out for a professional band that spring. Eddie Bond (1933-2003), the band leader, told him to keep driving a truck because he would never make it as a singer. Presley later revealed that Bond's rejection "broke my heart." —Guralnick, op. cit.
". . . There is little question that he stepped through the doorway [at 706 Union] with the idea, if not of stardom . . . at the very least of being discovered. In later years he would always say that he wanted to make a personal record "to surprise my mother." Or "I just wanted to hear what I sounded like." But, of course, if he had simply wanted to record his voice, he could have paid twenty-five cents at W. T. Grant's on Main Street . . . Instead, Elvis went to a professional facility, where a man who had been written up in the papers would hear him sing." —Guralnick, op. cit.
Marion Keisker finally called Presley on Saturday, June 26 to set up an appointment, almost a year after he recorded his first personal disc. On a recent trip to Nashville, Phillips had gotten an acetate of a song that reminded him of Presley's voice. They worked on "Without You" [listen] for a long time that afternoon, and Phillips had Presley sing a number of other songs after his unsuccessful attempts with "Without You."
A week later, Phillips set Presley up with two members of the Starlite Wranglers [photos], Scotty Moore (guitar) and Bill Black (bass), and the three of them went to the studio on Monday, July 5 so Phillips could hear them on tape. Nothing special happened at the session until they took a break and Presley began fooling around and playing an old blues song by Arthur Crudup, "That's All Right [Mama] [listen]."
"Sam recognized it right away. He was amazed that the boy even knew Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup—nothing in any of the songs he had tried so far gave any indication that he was drawn to this kind of music at all. But this was the sort of music that Sam had long ago wholeheartedly embraced . . . And the way the boy performed it, it came across with a freshness and an exuberance, it came across with the kind of clear-eyed, unabashed originality that Sam sought in all the music that he recorded—it was "different," it was itself." —Guralnick, op. cit.
Phillips got his friend and kindred spirit, disc jockey Dewey Phillips, to play "That's All Right" [listen] on his radio show "Red Hot and Blue," then near the height of its popularity. The response was immediate—hundreds of phone calls and telegrams. Dewey played the song a number of times that night and also interviewed Presley during the show.
By the time the record was pressed and ready for release, there were 6,000 orders for it locally. Sun record number 209 was released on Monday, July 17, 1954. Phillips had been "looking for something that nobody could categorize," and this song did not sound exclusively black or white or country or pop. Initially, many people who heard the song thought that Presley was a black man. —Guralnick, op. cit.
Elvis Presley's first big public appearance with Scotty and Bill, the Blue Moon Boys, was on Friday, July 30 at Memphis's outdoor amphitheater in Overton Park [photos]. The show featured Slim Whitman, a star from the Louisiana Hayride, which some called the Grand Ole Opry's "farm club." He drew a hillbilly crowd, but they went wild when Elvis shook and wiggled his legs, his natural way of performing.
The new record made Billboard's regional charts by the end of August, but it was the B side that was more popular. Phillips backed "That's All Right" with an unorthodox version of "Blue Moon of Kentucky" [listen], a waltz that was a hit in 1946 for Bill Monroe, country music's elder statesman. By early September, "Blue Moon" was number 1 on the Memphis C&W chart and "That's All Right" was number 7. —Guralnick, op. cit.
Sun released Presley's second record in late September. "It was . . . an even bolder declaration of intent than the first, especially the strident blues number 'Good Rockin' Tonight' [listen], which rocked more confidently than anything they could have imagined in those first, uncertain days in the studio." The original jump blues version was written and recorded by Roy Brown in 1947 [listen]
Presley's growing popularity enabled Phillips to arrange a guest appearance on the Grand Ole Opry for October 2, even though the Opry had never before scheduled a performer at such an early stage in his career. The performance of "Blue Moon of Kentucky" by Elvis Presley, Scotty and Bill received a "polite, but somewhat tepid, reception," and the Opry's manager told Phillips that Presley "just did not fit the Opry mold."
It was a big disappointment for Elvis. But soon they were off to Louisiana for Presley's first appearance on the Louisiana Hayride, "the Opry's more innovative rival in Shreveport" that had a show every Saturday night. On the third Saturday of the month the show broadcast with a 50,000 watt signal that reached up to twenty-eight states.48 After only one guest appearance, Presley signed a standard one year contract to be one of the Hayride's regular members, and he and his band quit their day jobs. —Guralnick, op. cit.
For the next year, Elvis Presley and the Blue Moon Boys toured almost constantly... Presley took his first airplane flight and first trip to New York City on March 23, 1955 to try out for Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts contest, but he did not pass the audition. [A] tour with Hank Snow/Jamboree Attractions began on May 1 in New Orleans, visiting twenty cities in three weeks, including a number of stops in Florida. There was a "riot" backstage after the concert in Jacksonville …
The audiences had never heard music like Presley played before, and they had never seen anyone who performed like Presley either. The shy, polite, mumbling boy gained self-confidence with every appearance, which soon led to a transformation on stage. People watching the show were astounded and shocked, both by the "ferocity of his performance,"49 and the crowd's reaction to it.
Even in the early days, Elvis almost always stole the show from the headliners, and concert lineups had to be rearranged accordingly. Nobody followed Elvis. Roy Orbison saw Presley for the first time in Odessa, Texas: "His energy was incredible, his instinct was just amazing . . . I just didn't know what to make of it. There was just no reference point in the culture to compare it."—Guralnick, op. cit.
"'He's the new rage,' said a Louisiana radio executive… 'Sings hillbilly in R&B time. Can you figure that out? He wears pink pants and a black coat . . .'" —Guralnick, op. cit.
Elvis caused a great commotion everywhere he went. Throughout the South, Presley had girls screaming and fainting and chasing after him.
Sam Phillips was also on the road constantly after the Overton Park performance in July 1954, promoting the new records to distributors, disc jockeys, record store owners, and jukebox operators. His experiences, however, were entirely different. Time and again, disc jockeys who were old friends and/or long-standing business associates told Phillips they could not play the Presley records. A country deejay said "Sam, they'll run me out of town." To an R&B deejay, "That's All Right" was a country song. A major pop station disc jockey told Phillips, "your music is just so ragged. I just can't handle it right now. Maybe later on." —Guralnick, op. cit.
WELO in Tupelo, Mississippi, Presley's hometown, would not even play the record, in spite of many requests from teenagers, because the deejay did not like the new music. —Guralnick, op. cit.
Sam Phillips persevered in spite of all the rejection he was getting, and kept trying to turn it around. "I needed the attention that I got from the people that hated what I was doing, that acted like: 'Here is somebody trying to thrust junk on us and classify it as our music.'"—Guralnick, op. cit.
"He was a man swept up by a belief, in a sound and in an idea. And as discouraged as he might sometimes get, as harsh as the reality of selling this new music might be, he never strayed from his belief, he never allowed himself to be distracted from his main goal. Which was to get them to listen." —Guralnick, op. cit.
Phillips could feel a revolution was on the way. There were already lots of country boys coming to his studio to play the new music, which initially got the name rockabilly. "Sam knew that a day was coming . . . when the music would prevail." —Guralnick, op. cit.
Presley was still a regional sensation and unknown to the national market when he got the record industry's attention. By the summer of 1955, almost all the major and independent record labels were inquiring about him. Sam Phillips had mixed feelings about selling Presley's contract, but his operations could not accommodate the Presley phenomenon, his finances were very tight, and he had other artists who needed his attention.
Presley's parents signed a contract in August which soon forced the issue. Col. Tom Parker (1909-1997) became "special adviser to Elvis Presley." He was the head of Jamboree Attractions, one of the major promoters and bookers of country and western talent, and had booked Presley on the Hank Snow package tours earlier that year. At that time, Parker was known as the best promoter in the business. In October Parker asked Phillips to name his price for Presley's contract, and Parker made sure that it was met.
The deal was signed at 706 Union Avenue on November 21, 1955. RCA-Victor bought Elvis Presley's contract from Sun Records for $35,000, plus $5,000 in back royalties owed to Presley. The story ran in the Memphis Press-Scimitar the next day:
"Elvis Presley, 20, Memphis recording star and entertainer who zoomed into big- time and the big money almost overnight, has been released from his contract with Sun Record Co. of Memphis . . . . Phillips and RCA officials did not reveal terms but said the money involved is probably the highest ever paid for a contract release for a country-western recording artist. 'I feel Elvis is one of the most talented youngsters today,' Phillips said, 'and by releasing his contract to RCA-Victor we will give him the opportunity of entering the largest organization of its kind in the world, so his talents can be given the fullest opportunity.'" —quoted in Guralnick, op. cit.
Sam Phillips never regretted his decision to sell Elvis Presley's contract. In many ways, Presley's departure was like a new beginning for Sun Records. Many country musicians aspiring to play rockabilly began to make their way to 706 Union Avenue. As Johnny Cash said many years later, "Elvis was a beacon that brought us all there." —Peter Guralnick, "Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock 'n' Roll," VHS (A&E Biography, 2000)
Sun Studio
After Sam Phillips moved his companies to the new location on Madison Avenue, 706 Union Avenue housed a number of different businesses in the 1960s and 1970s, including a barber shop, an auto parts store, and a scuba shop. The building was vacant in 1985 when it became the site of a family reunion of sorts. An album entitled “Class of '55: Memphis Rock 'n' Roll Homecoming“ was recorded here to celebrate and remember the "Class of '55" on their 30th "anniversary." Record producer Chips Moman convened Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Roy Orbison to record together for the first time at the Sun studio in September 1985.
Not long after that event, 706 Union Avenue became a stop for visitors on tours to Graceland, the home of Elvis Presley, which opened to the public in 1982. The building opened as the Sun Studio for tours in 1987—the name Sun Records and the original Sun record label design still belong to Shelby Singleton, who bought the company in 1969. The current property owner also purchased the adjacent two-story brick building that housed a café and a boarding house in the 1950s. That building now serves as a soda shop, gallery, and gift shop for visitors to Sun Studio.
The Sun Studio also operates as a full service 24-track recording studio for professional musicians, as well as anyone who wants to make a personal record, just like Elvis. In 1987, the Irish rock band U2 recorded several songs here for their album "Rattle and Hum," including "When Love Comes to Town" featuring B.B. King. Several hundred thousand visitors have made the pilgrimage to this extraordinary place.
• National Register # 03001031, 2003 • designated a National Historic Landmark, 2003
This photo shows the once beefy Griffith model board slimmed down considerably.
This model board at the time I was there had the EJ&E and GTW. Parts of the C&O and the EL were still used as is the MC in spots.
My estimation of traffic at this time was :
8-12 EJ&E trains + switching moves
25-35 GT trains a day
EJ&E Griffith Tower
8/14/1999
2nd Shift
Manual Interlocking, crossing of the EJ&E-GTW-EL-C&O-MC RR's
This is actually one of the family room cabins in Villa Socorro Farm in Pagsanjan, Laguna where we stayed for a night. The design was meant to look like it is some sort of a junkshop on one side with broken electrical appliances as props.
I also wanted to take a photo of the Milky Way galaxy but on my estimation it would rise by 3 AM, so I proceeded to sleep at 11 PM. By the time my alarm went off, the call of my bed was more inviting than getting up to take photos so I just slept till morning. =)
Oh, I forgot! This is composed of 50 photos with 30 sec. exposure each. You do the math! ;-)
57 London Road was originally in civilian occupation and named ‘Fairlawns’. The property was requisitioned in 1939 as a new headquarters for No.1 Group of the Royal Observer Corps, who had previously been stationed in rooms above Maidstone Post Office. An operations room was built in the house using the ground floor and basement. Fairlawns was in use throughout the war until stand down. In the 1950s Fairlawns was relegated to being a training centre for the group control at Beckenham (19 Group). In 1961 a new semi-sunk control was built to the rear of Fairlawns with administration located in the house. Beckenham was then relegated to being training centre for 1 Group at Maidstone. The former 19 Group HQ at Dura Den, Park Place, Beckenham was absorbed into No. 1 Group in 1953 but was retained for as a secondary training centre until 1968 In 1976 Fairlawns was renamed Ashmore House in memory of the Corps’ founder Major Ashmore. On closure Ashmore House and the bunker behind was sold to a local solicitors.
Maidstone is similar in construction to other semi-sunken group controls, consisting of three levels. The upper level is a surface concrete blockhouse often referred to as an ‘Aztec Temple’. The middle level is partly below ground, mounded over with soil and grassed, the bottom level is completely below grown. Externally the bunker is in excellent condition and well maintained. The grass on top of the mound is regularly mown and the surface blockhouse is painted white. The telescopic aerial mast is still in place alongside the entrance steps and unusually the aerial is also still there on top of the mast. Two other UHF aerials are also still in place on top of an adjacent pole. On top of the mound the FSM and BPI pipes are in the middle and close to them is a metal cover over what might be part of the AWDREY (Atomic Weapon Detection Recognition and Estimation of Yield) equipment consisting of a white metal box mounted at an angle on a square concrete plinth. Several pipes protrude from the mound alongside. At the east end of the mound is the original emergency exit consisting of an ROC post hatch on a raised concrete plinth with a rail around it. The later emergency exit door is at the back of the mound.
The surface blockhouse still has its external ladder giving access to the roof. Here the GZI mounting is to be found on top of one of the ventilation stacks.
At the top of the entrance stairs is a steel blast door giving access to the upper level corridor. There are two rooms on the left, the decontamination room and dressing room; both still contain sinks and water tanks. There are two rooms on the right, the first has a gas tight door and houses a small fan for cooling the plant in the room below, the adjacent room contains a bank of filters. Beyond these rooms is another gas tight wooden door which, together with the entrance door, forms an air lock. Beyond this door stairs to the left lead down to the middle floor and ahead was the winch room. The winch has been removed as has the floor. There are railings just inside the entrance door to stop anyone falling. A hole has been cut into the right hand side wall of the winch room to give access to a large water tank.
At the bottom of the stairs is a dog leg into the main east - west spine corridor. The first room on the right is the ventilation and filtration plant room which is in immaculate condition with all the brass still polished and gleaming. All the plant remains in place including two chiller pumps, the main ventilation fan, two smaller fans, two compressors and the floor standing electrical control cabinet. There is a filing cabinet full of wiring diagrams, instruction books, maintenance logs etc. Although unused for ten years the plant is almost certainly fully operational with the chiller system still charged.
In one corner of the plant room is a separate filter room with it’s own gas tight door. The bank of filters are still in place. At the back of the room two wooden door open into the generator room which is noticeably narrower then the same room in other semi-sunken group controls. The generator and its control equipment is also in excellent condition with 1518 hours on the clock.
The next room on the right is the canteen, accessed along a short corridor. On the right hand side of the corridor is the kitchen which is largely intact with a Creda industrial cooker, Creda grill, hot food heater, stainless steel sink and draining board and stainless steel covered units. There is a sliding glass hatch for serving food. The canteen is now used for storage of old files and retains nothing original apart from wall cabinets at the back with electrical switchgear.
Next door to the canteen is the BT equipment room, again this is now used for the storage of old files but there are two BT wall cabinets on the end wall and the remains of two racks with some wiring looms. Beyond the BT room is an empty store room and stairs down to the lower level. The final two doors on the right lead onto the balcony looking down onto the control room. Nothing is left in the room at all although in the triangulation alcove it still says ‘Triangulation’ on the wall and there is a small shelf with a slot for an FSM and in the ceiling the bottom of the FSM pipe.
There is a gas tight door in the corridor between the two doors onto the balcony with another gas tight door beyond giving access to the emergency exit. These two doors form a second airlock. There is a ladder on the wall up to a short landing and then a second ladder up to the emergency escape hatch. This was replaced in the 1970’s by a stairway with a door on the south side of the mound.
Back in the spine corridor the first door on the left is the sewage ejection room with two compressors and a compressed air receiver just inside the door and two pumps in the sump underneath a metal grille. This plant also looks immaculate. The next two rooms are the male and female toilets which are complete although no longer connected to the mains water supply. The female toilet has a hot water tank, two hand basins, two WC cubicles and a shower. The male toilet is similar with one of the WC cubicles replaced by a urinal. The next two rooms are the male and female dormitories, these are used for the storage of confidential client files and we had no access. The final room on the left is the small officers room which is empty apart from a Tanoy loudspeaker on the wall.
On the bottom level the control room at the bottom of the stairs to the left has been fitted out with Dexion racking and is the main storage area for old files. Nothing from ROC days remains apart from one floor standing display board. The adjacent communications centre is empty. The walls are covered with acoustic tiles and the original tables and chairs are still in place. There are three windows looking into the control room one with a small message hatch beneath one.
The radio room was to the right of the stairs, this has been divided into two rooms, both of which are empty. There is a small store room under the stairs which is also empty.
During the 1990’s numerous ROC items including maps and signs were sold to the Kelvedon Hatch cold war museum. The only remaining signs are fire prevention notices which are screwed to the wall in various rooms.
The owners have no plans to remove any of the remaining equipment and will continue to use the bunker for the storage of redundant files. It is clean and dry throughout and the lighting works in all the rooms.
Intelligence is a multidimensional entity, a human characteristic too complicated to be accurately and sufficiently measured by any IQ test. IQ tests merely photograph one's cognitive level / mental performance, rather than fully analyze and describe it, mainly since IQ itself is not all there is to intelligence. Creativity, for instance, which is highly correlated to imagination (the core of intelligence), is not IQ dependent. So it's really very hard to say, particularly since the IQ estimation of most of the greatest geniuses of all time is based almost entirely on their work, since they're not alive. Thus, the results' credibility cannot be verified with intelligence tests. Despite that, several psychometricians consider William James Sidis to be the most intelligent human who ever lived. Moreover, some believe his peak cognitive level to be representative of the highest possible level a human being can reach (his deviation IQ is estimated at about 250-280, sd 16). Others characterize Emanuel Swedenborg as the most intellectually charismatic person ever (during his lifetime, his mental abilities where considered nearly divine). Some other universal geniuses exceeding the level of a deviation IQ of 200, sd 16 are Leonardo Da Vinci, Socrates, Plato, Nikola Tesla, Hypatia, Stephen Hawking and more. Others, with an estimated deviation IQ above 180, sd 16 - the critical level of 5 sigma above the mean - are Friedrich Nietzsche, Gottfried W. Leibniz, Salvador Dali, Baruch Spinoza, Marie Curie, Johann W. Goethe, Pythagoras, Srinivasa Ramanujan, John Stuart Mill, Michelangelo Buonarroti, William Shakespeare, Robert J. Fischer and many more. Just consider that according to the current statistics & norms, the top 0.00003% of the unselected population corresponds to a deviation IQ of 180, sd 16 which is statistically equivalent to approximately 1800 individuals in our current population of (roughly) 6.4 billion people. Many scientific magazines & top scientists around the globe accept Dr. Edward Witten as the most intelligent human alive on earth. Witten works as a professor of physics at Princeton's Institute of Advanced Study and focuses on the laws that govern the Superstring Theory, currently the most realistic and widely accepted theory regarding the beginning and evolution of our universe. Grail Society (founded by Paul Cooijmans) has been created with a sole purpose of bringing out the most intelligent person who ever lived, that is, 1 in 100 billion people. This corresponds to 6.7 sigma above the average or a deviation IQ of 207, sd
The Medieval City of Rhodes was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1988.
It is one of the best-preserved and largest inhabited medieval towns in Europe.
Ted found a utility cover to shoot. Its an EN 124 B125 class cover.
The Deer Dama-Dama of Rhodes Greece, Dodecanese is present on all Rhodes utility covers.
The deer Dama-Dama is a unique species that lives only in Rhodes Greece for many centuries. Many legends say that this deer was brought to Rhodes by the Crusaders in the Medieval times, but according to other sources, they lived there since the ancient times.
In fact, Rhodes was called Elafioussa in the antiquity, which means with a lot of deer. The two deer statues that stand in Mandraki Harbor, Rhodes Town, shows that this deer has been the symbol of Rhodes for a long time.
The deer of Rhodes are medium-sized. They have a perfectly proportionate body and its colors are amazing. Colors vary according to the age and the season of the year. Their stomach is white, but they also have white patches on their body, which are used as a sort of camouflage. Their height can reach 90 cm till the upper part of its part and its weight can be approximately 100 kilos.
The bucks have spectacular symmetrical antlers. Interestingly enough, these antlers fall out every May and again grow back in September.
Adult bucks live alone or sometimes can be seen in groups of three to four, whereas the newborns live in herds. The pregnancy of the deer lasts about 8 months and female deer give birth in May.
In October, the mother pushes their children to get away and live on their own. The Dama-Dama deer can be spotted in the forests in mainland Rhodes and close to water springs.
According to estimations, there are about 100 to 150 deer at present in Rhodes. The Municipality of Rhodes has taken the initiative to take care about 70 of these animals. The rest has been transported to different parts of Greece and they are found especially in zoos and national reserve parks.
However, the number of these animals is declining due to severe poaching, forest fires or car accidents. As the roads cross their forests, many deer try to cross the road at night and get hit by cars.
These deer live mostly in the inland close to Afandou, Archangelos and Lindos, Rhodes island
InterClassics 2020
Maastricht, the Netherlands.
Production: 1 of 500 (2007-2009)
The Alfa Romeo 8C is a supercar produced by Italian automaker Alfa Romeo between 2007 and 2009.
It was first presented as a concept car at the 2003 Frankfurt Motor Show and later released for sale for the 2007 model year.
The name refers to the eight-cylinder (Cilindro in Italian) engine (8C) and Alfa Romeo's racing pedigree (Competizione, Italian for 'Competition').
Alfa received over 1400 orders for the 8C after the official announcement that the car would enter production. However, only 500 customers ended up with the 8C Competizione and an other 500 with the 8C Spider.
The production version is very similar to the concept; the biggest difference to the exterior being the rear-hinged hood. Other minor changes included the front lights, which used Xenon lamps, a standard wiper system, a mesh side vent, and the rims, which had a design that mimicked the cloverleaf logo. The car came standard in Alfa Red or Black. Pearl Yellow and the Special Competizione Rosso, was also available as an option. Paint upon sample colors were also available for an additional charge. Therefore, the 8Cs where produced in a wide range of colors including, white, Maserati range: Fuji White, Blue Avio, Blue Oceano, Ferrari range: Blue Pozzi, Vinaccia (Aubergine), and special Alfa Romeo historic color Grigio Nuvolari.
The bodyshell is made of carbon fibre, produced by ATR Group. The carbon fibre body is fitted to a steel chassis, made by Italian company ITCA Produzione. The final assembly takes place at the Maserati factory in Modena, Italy.
It is fitted with specially developed 20-inch tires: 245/35 at the front and 285/35 at the rear, fitted on perforated rims in fluid moulded aluminium.
The 8C brakes have been called "phenomenal" by Road & Track magazine, with a stopping distance of 32 metres (105.0 ft), when travelling at an initial speed of 97 kilometres per hour (60 mph). The official top speed is announced to be 300 kilometres per hour but it might be higher, with estimations that it could be around 306 kilometres per hour (190 mph) according to the Road & Track magazine. An Alfa Romeo engineer also stated that it is faster than the announced top speed.
On top of this supercar performance there is the best exhaust sound you can imagine.
Source: www.dreamgarage.nl
I prefer to think this brought a person or family rather than a load of drugs. I mean, I wouldn't trust an expensive cargo in an open vessel like this...
Whatever. I do respect the ingenuity it took to build this, a seaworthy-looking cat in my estimation, from scrap.
American postcard by Storer's Cards, Tulsa Oklahoma, no. S- 1058. Original painting: Everett Raymond Kinstler. On display at the National Cowboy Hall of Fame and Western Heritage Center, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
American actor John Wayne (1907-1979) was one of the most popular film stars of the 20th century. He received his first leading film role in The Big Trail (1930). Working with John Ford, he got his next big break in Stagecoach (1939). His career as an actor took another leap forward when he worked with director Howard Hawks in Red River (1948). Wayne won his first Academy Award in 1969. He starred in 142 films altogether and remains a popular American icon to this day.
John Wayne was born Marion Robert Morrison in 1907, in Winterset, Iowa. Some sources also list him as Marion Michael Morrison and Marion Mitchell Morrison. He was already a sizable presence when he was born, weighing around 13 pounds. The oldest of two children born to Clyde and Mary 'Molly' Morrison, Wayne moved to Lancaster, California, around the age of seven. The family moved again a few years later after Clyde failed in his attempt to become a farmer. Settling in Glendale, California, Wayne received his distinctive nickname 'Duke' while living there. He had a dog by that name, and he spent so much time with his pet that the pair became known as 'Little Duke' and 'Big Duke', according to the official John Wayne website. In high school, Wayne excelled in his classes and in many different activities, including student government and football. He also participated in numerous student theatrical productions. Winning a football scholarship to the University of Southern California (USC), Wayne started college in the fall of 1925. Unfortunately, after two years, an injury, a result of a bodysurfing accident, took him off the football field and ended his scholarship. While in college, Wayne had done some work as a film extra, appearing as a football player in Brown of Harvard (Jack Conway, 1926) with William Haines, and Drop Kick (Millard Webb, 1927), starring Richard Barthelmess. Out of school, Wayne worked as an extra and a prop man in the film industry. He first met director John Ford while working as an extra on Mother Machree (John Ford, 1928). With the early widescreen film epic The Big Trail (Raoul Walsh, 1930), Wayne received his first leading role, thanks to director Walsh. Raoul Walsh is often credited with helping him create his now-legendary screen name, John Wayne. Unfortunately, the Western was a box office failure. For nearly a decade, Wayne toiled in numerous B-films. He played the lead, with his name over the title, in many low-budget Poverty Row Westerns, mostly at Monogram Pictures and serials for Mascot Pictures Corporation. By Wayne's own estimation, he appeared in about 80 of these horse operas from 1930 to 1939. In Riders of Destiny (Robert N. Bradbury, 1933), he became one of the first singing cowboys of film, named Sandy Saunders, although via dubbing. During this period, Wayne started developing his man of action persona, which would serve as the basis of many popular characters later on.
Working with John Ford, John Wayne got his next big break in Stagecoach (John Ford, 1939). Because of Wayne's B-film status and track record in low-budget Westerns throughout the 1930s, Ford had difficulty getting financing for what was to be an A-budget film. After rejection by all the major studios, Ford struck a deal with independent producer Walter Wanger in which Claire Trevor, who was a much bigger star at the time, received top billing. Wayne portrayed the Ringo Kid, an escaped outlaw, who joins an unusual assortment of characters on a dangerous journey through frontier lands. During the trip, the Kid falls for a dance hall prostitute named Dallas (Claire Trevor). The film was well-received by filmgoers and critics alike and earned seven Academy Award nominations, including one for Ford's direction. In the end, it took home the awards for Music and for Actor in a Supporting Role for Thomas Mitchell. Wayne became a mainstream star. Reunited with Ford and Mitchell, Wayne stepped away from his usual Western roles to become a Swedish seaman in The Long Voyage Home (John Ford, 1940). The film was adapted from a play by Eugene O'Neill and follows the crew of a steamer ship as they move a shipment of explosives. Along with many positive reviews, the film earned several Academy Award nominations. Around this time, Wayne made the first of several films with German star Marlene Dietrich. The two appeared together in Seven Sinners (Tay Garnett, 1940) with Wayne playing a naval officer and Dietrich as a woman who sets out to seduce him. Off-screen, they became romantically involved, though Wayne was married at the time. There had been rumours about Wayne having other affairs, but nothing as substantial as his connection to Dietrich. Even after their physical relationship ended, the pair remained good friends and co-starred in two more films, Pittsburgh (Lewis Seiler, 1942) and The Spoilers (Ray Enright, 1942). Wayne's first color film was Shepherd of the Hills (Henry Hathaway, 1941), in which he co-starred with his longtime friend Harry Carey. The following year, he appeared in his only film directed by Cecil B. DeMille, the Technicolor epic Reap the Wild Wind (1942), in which he co-starred with Ray Milland and Paulette Goddard; it was one of the rare times he played a character with questionable values. Wayne started working behind the scenes as a producer in the late 1940s. The first film he produced was Angel and the Badman (James Edward Grant, 1947) with Gail Russell. Over the years, he operated several different production companies, including John Wayne Productions, Wayne-Fellows Productions, and Batjac Productions.
John Wayne's career as an actor took another leap forward when he worked with director Howard Hawks in Red River (1948). The Western drama provided Wayne with an opportunity to show his talents as an actor, not just an action hero. Playing the conflicted cattleman Tom Dunson, he took on a darker sort of character. He deftly handled his character's slow collapse and difficult relationship with his adopted son played by Montgomery Clift. Also around this time, Wayne also received praise for his work in John Ford's Fort Apache (1948) with Henry Fonda and Shirley Temple. Taking on a war drama, Wayne gave a strong performance in Sands of Iwo Jima (Allan Dwan, 1949), which garnered him his first Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. He also appeared in more two Westerns by Ford now considered classics: She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (John Ford, 1949) and Rio Grande (John Ford, 1950) with Maureen O'Hara. Wayne worked with O'Hara on several films, perhaps most notably The Quiet Man (John Ford, 1952). Playing an American boxer with a bad reputation, his character moved to Ireland where he fell in love with a local woman (Maureen O'Hara). This film is considered Wayne's most convincing leading romantic role by many critics. A well-known conservative and anticommunist, Wayne merged his personal beliefs and his professional life in Big Jim McLain (Edward Ludwig, 1952). He played an investigator working for the U.S. House Un-American Activities Committee, which worked to root out communists in all aspects of public life. Off-screen, Wayne played a leading role in the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals and even served as its president for a time. The organisation was a group of conservatives who wanted to stop communists from working in the film industry, and other members included Gary Cooper and Ronald Reagan. In 1956, Wayne starred in another Ford Western, The Searchers (John Ford, 1956). He played Civil War veteran Ethan Edwards whose niece is abducted by a tribe of Comanches and he again showed some dramatic range as the morally questionable veteran. He soon after reteamed with Howard Hawks for Rio Bravo (1959). Playing a local sheriff, Wayne's character must face off against a powerful rancher and his henchmen who want to free his jailed brother. The unusual cast included Dean Martin and Angie Dickinson.
John Wayne made his directorial debut with The Alamo (John Wayne, 1960). Starring in the film as Davy Crockett, he received decidedly mixed reviews for both his on- and off-screen efforts. Wayne received a much warmer reception for The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (John Ford, 1962) in which he played a troubled rancher competing with a lawyer (James Stewart) for a woman's hand in marriage. Some other notable films from this period include The Longest Day (Ken Annakin, Andrew Marton, Bernhard Wicki, 1962) and How the West Was Won (John Ford, Henry Hathaway, George Marshall, 1962). Continuing to work steadily, Wayne refused to even let illness slow him down. He successfully battled lung cancer in 1964. To defeat the disease, Wayne had to have a lung and several ribs removed. In the later part of the 1960s, Wayne had some great successes and failures. He co-starred with Robert Mitchum in El Dorado (Howard Hawks, 1967), which was well-received. The next year, Wayne again mixed the professional and the political with the pro-Vietnam War film The Green Berets (Ray Kellogg, John Wayne, 1968). He directed and produced as well as starred in the film, which was derided by critics for being heavy-handed and clichéd. Viewed by many as a piece of propaganda, the film still did well at the box office. Around this time, Wayne continued to espouse his conservative political views. He supported his friend Ronald Reagan in his 1966 bid for governor of California as well as his 1970 re-election effort. In 1976, Wayne recorded radio advertisements for Reagan's first attempt to become the Republican presidential candidate. Wayne won his first Academy Award for Best Actor for True Grit (Henry Hathaway, 1969). He played Rooster Cogburn, a one-eyed marshal, and drunkard, who helps a young woman named Mattie (Kim Darby) track down her father's killer. A young Glen Campbell joined the pair on their mission. Rounding out the cast, Robert Duvall and Dennis Hopper were among the bad guys the trio had to defeat. A later sequel with Katherine Hepburn, Rooster Cogburn (Stuart Millar, 1975), failed to attract critical acclaim or much of an audience. Wayne portrayed an aging gunfighter dying of cancer in his final film, The Shootist (Don Siegel, 1976), with James Stewart and Lauren Bacall. His character, John Bernard Books, hoped to spend his final days peacefully but got involved in one last gunfight. In 1978, life imitated art with Wayne being diagnosed with stomach cancer. John Wayne died in 1979, in Los Angeles, California. He was survived by his seven children from two of his three marriages. During his marriage to Josephine Saenz from 1933 to 1945, the couple had four children, two daughters Antonia and Melinda, and two sons Michael and Patrick. Both Michael and Patrick followed in their father's footsteps Michael as a producer and Patrick as an actor. With his third wife, Pilar Palette, he had three more children, Ethan, Aissa, and Marisa. Ethan has worked as an actor over the years.
Sources: Biography.com, Wikipedia, and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
Better Large-These excellent examples of Giant Sequoias here in Sequoia National Park are in the lower part of the Sierra Nevada Range in California. A long way off the beaten path to get to these beauties. We crossed over the Coastal Sierra Divide (the Sierra watershed divide) in a loaded 20ft box truck to get here through the beautiful Sierras. What a vertical nightmare! These are the famous Giant Sequoias that are cousins to the Giant Redwoods. Many of these are larger around than the similar redwoods, but not as high.
The most significant difference to me is the area in which they grow. Redwoods are in Coastal areas with cool breezes and extreme fog and moisture...creating their own canopy in a cathedral-like manner...almost creating their own climate. These Sequoias are in much dryer and warmer areas though they do receive some rain. Because of the temperature difference, though more secluded, the sequoia groves are much more burdened with insects. On this warm summer day, even with spray, we could not get away quick enough to avoid bites of all shapes and sizes. We wanted to stay the night, but decided better after the insect onslaught. Spring, winter, or fall would be a much better time to visit in my estimation. It is a beautiful, secluded area that is well worth the properly timed trip.
My wife's hair highlights the color of the trees and gives an approximation of the enormous height and width of these "babies!" We learned that early settlers often used the hollow bases of the trees to protect wildlife in natural pens. In many of them, I could easily spend the night in a properly set up tent in quiet isolation. They are absolutely huge and majestic just like their cousin redwoods.
FOR THOSE INTERESTED I HAVE AN EXHIBITION AT THIS LINK www.flickr.com/groups/inspiringcollection/discuss/7215762...
Diamond Daggered Daughter (James Watkins)
Diamond daggered
Daughter-
Radiance so rare-
Soft as starlight,
Hard as heaven,
Strength
Beyond compare.
Constant
As the morning-
Dazzling
As the day-
Golden nights
And
Moonlit flights-
In lasting love’s
Foray.
Autumn coloured
Princess-
Fallish, fawning,
Fair-
Rooted deep
Through
Winter’s sleep-
She waits
Without a care.
Go gently in
Her presence-
You guilding
Gown of day-
For joy
Is in her armament,
And life in her array.
Bold bolstering hands
By helpful heart,
Contend
On buttress bare…
Full-forced she stands
Against all fear-
Her armory prepared.
Against the challenge
Of her time-
Far from frenzied fray-
Of mystery
And darkened mind-
That hunts
The periled prey.
The soul of man
Cannot withstand
Her onslaught
Soon released-
Of warmth
And laughter
Waxing wild
With
Primal
Passioned
Peace.
So,
Run your race
With confidence-
And stand
Before
Your king-
Your storehouse
Full and prospering-
Your children
Clothed and clean.
Your husband
Known
By
Men of war
Your journey
Now complete-
Prepared
To stand
At
God’s right hand-
With
Crowns
Before
His feet.
James Watkins 10-05
Still a good number of Wading birds on the south bank @ high tide this morning. Tide was higher than predicted in my estimation & about equal to yesterdays high tide. Difference was no people today compared to 150 yesterday! An alternative angle shot @ a distance from number 2 hide instead of the usual south bank blind
Treasure for your soul
(Henry Law, "The Raven" 1869)
Blessed are those who find their constant
pleasure-ground in the luxuries of the Bible!
They commune with the mind of God.
They listen to a heavenly voice.
They bask in rays of purest light.
They feed in wholesome pastures of refreshment.
They fear no poison from the weeds of error.
No devious path can lead their steps astray.
Wisdom from above sweetly guides them.
The Spirit, the ultimate Teacher of His people,
instructs the students. They advance safely,
happily—from grace to grace.
The lessons are as vast as the mine from which
they spring. They are as pure as the realms to
which they call. They warn of sin—its filth, its
misery, its end. They unfold Jesus—in all the
glories of His redeeming love. They exhibit
holiness—as the only road to a holy heaven.
Reader, heed a salutary admonition. Study the
Bible, as holding treasure for your soul. Study
in the earnestness of prayer. Study with eternity
outspread before you. Study with the humility of
a poor sinner before a speaking God. Study with
faith devoutly grasping every word.
Do not close the volume without inquiring . . .
Is sin more hateful to me?
Is the world more worthless in my estimation?
Is the flesh more treacherous in my sight?
Is Jesus brought nearer to my adoring soul?
Is my heart won to more entire devotedness?
Am I more resolute to live for Him, who died for me?
Empilements de 64 photos de 74µm/step en mode manuel 65mm - f/3,5 - 1” - ISO 100 - rapport 3:1
Boitier Canon EOS 5D Mark IV + Objectif Canon MP-E 65 mm f/2,8 1:1 ~ 5:1 + flash Canon MT-24EX Macro Twin Lite diffusé + lumières LED pour le fond + rail macro motorisé et contrôleur Cognisys Stackshot 3X.
Logiciel de stacking : ZereneStacker (DMap estimation radius 5/smoothing radius 2).
Post traitement : ZereneStacker, Lightroom, Photoshop.
Today I shot the x100 along with my fairly recently purchased Ricoh Gr3x. I need time to get used to the 3x,the x100 I'm very used to. I won't say one is better than the other, first impression is they both do things the other can't do as well. I found myself using the x100 a lot more today,probably 5 out of every 6 shots were with it over the Ricoh. I'm sure it's partly because I'm very comfortable with it,but I also was feeling that often I simply was liking it's look better. Sometimes the photos look very similar. Sometimes the better resolution of the Ricoh makes me favour it's rendering more,at other times it's cleaner look makes it lose in my mind to the Fuji. But neither camera is necessarily always predictable as to what it will produce,whether it will beat the other. The Fuji has a softer look at times,less perfection,which for me is on the path to perfection more so than than the more perfected outcome of the Ricoh. But not in all cases,for the Ricoh has it's own flashes of brilliance I've seen a bit in my short time using it. Different abilities in different situations than the Fuji, I'm just not well enough versed in these abilities right now. Comparing it as I am,or comparing these two cameras as I have the last couple of days is interesting,but not necessarily in every point the best thing to do. I am pretty clear that for me the better thing is to shoot the Ricoh all by itself and leave the Fuji or any other camera at home. They are two different cameras and they should be kept separate. In my estimation. The comparison thing may seem interesting,but I think it's actually the wrong road to go down. We have the ability I believe to like a great range of artistic stuff. It greatly depends on our mood,at least for me. When I like a scene,an image,I don't sit and compare it to another. I like it for what I see and feel in it in the moment. If I come back to it another day I will find my mood and feeling may have changed. I may favour one camera over the other, but honestly the fairest way to do that is to know both cameras really well and also know how to shoot them really well. Few people do that or are that good,including me. In the end I may like one over the other,and the fairest thing to be said would be that I prefer one look over the other,rather than saying one camera is better than the other. Kind of an interesting thing for me with another camera around as I shot the x100 alone for pretty well 8 years. Yes, I picked up a DP2 Merrill in June of 2022,and I think it is an amazing camera in what it can do well. But as anyone who knows anything about it knows,it has a certain limited range in which it is brilliant,and my schedule of life and shooting just don't always make it handy to use. I've thought often of selling it,but am not really willing quite yet to part with it. Now there's a Canon 5d in the mix as well. But have run into a technical problem with it,which hopefully is resolved by end of next week. I have the highest of hopes with this particular camera,but it will take time like anything to get acquainted well with it. Time is not easy to come by for me. So my shooting style of necessity is on the fly,not always my first choice but at the same time that style can be fun with good surprises. Today I remember the experience of shooting as much as any image shot. It was being alone on a beautiful day just outside of town. There were still too many people for me,occasionally driving by. Don't get me wrong,I don't dislike people. But when I take a camera out I don't want to bother them...and I don't want them to bother me. I want zero interaction,that's why I take a camera out. If I wanted to be with a person I would call them up and get together. Anyway, it was a special day,and there's always another special day waiting to be had with a camera.