Before I set about my main exploration of Imago Galleries, I needed to relieve myself. Inside the unisex toilet I was a little bemused to find this sight. I don't think it was meant to be a work of art but it was certainly presented as one and made an irresistible photograph. Available light, hand-held.

P1150743 - 23 November 2012

In the art shop display window.

Crowds fill this London street awaiting the arrival of this widely rumoured elephant which seems to be wandering about the place

Modelo: Julia Goia

My first maternity shoot! It was a lot of fun, too - I shot a very good friend's wife, who's actually an actress. She claimed to be a bad model, but she was really great at it. This is just a sample, I got so many great shots of her...

to reach the semi-finals at least.

I saw the owner painting this last week and has to go back and get a shot.

Expected and Billy Lee easily winning the "Irish Stallion Owners Median Auction Maiden" at Cork - Alain Barr - 15.04.2018

had some plan to remove the mirror and just hold the frame.. but I got another idea with the empty frame. :-)

Sat like this for over an hour

expecting

Maternity Shoot

amanda.matilda.photography

The joy of expectation.

No one really expected this.

in Coventry

My good friend and his wife delivered a baby boy the day after this was taken

expect the best experience in ideal places to swim with the dolphins

Photo by Mikhail Goldenkov / Strelka Institute

for heather

As you'd expect, Lake Hollywood is a constructed body of water, part of the Rube Goldberg machine of Los Angeles hydrology that keeps Hollywood from dying of thirst. It sits behind the 1924 Mulholland Dam, a curved, concrete dam about 900 feet long that sits on top of an earthen berm. The pool behind the dam has a maximum depth of 185 feet, but the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power never lets it reach full capacity. The dam is nearly identical in its engineering to the St. Francis Dam, which the City of Los Angeles built at roughly the same time in San Francisquito Canyon, about 40 miles from the city center. St. Francis Dam failed in 1928 and killed 431 people, and it didn't have Hollywood right below it. So the city's engineers have kept the water level low here ever since.

At the larger size, you can see the decorative bear heads that line the face of the dam. I zoomed in for a closer look at those guys, but I'm already posting too many pictures, so this one will have to do.

via Tumblr pokemon-fans.tumblr.com/post/84809014605/pokemon-sizes-wh...

I was studying the mosaics I've made for my private collection yesterday and decided this mosaic is one of my all-time favorites. I thought I made it this year but it was made a whole year ago! Wow! There are more photos of it here: www.flickr.com/photos/mosaic_queen2008/8176093555

These are some great friends of my family and have been waiting so long and trying so hard to get pregnant. Finally, they are expecting a boy and girl!

I can't wait to get my hands on these little ones

O que esperar?

GIC Pomelo av Fager*D x CH (N) Migoto's Umami

George Washington, c. 1821

Gilbert Stuart

West Building, Main Floor — Gallery 60-A

The leading portraitist of a new nation, Gilbert Stuart painted each of the first five US presidents from life. Trained in England and Ireland, the artist introduced a looser, brushy style to American portraits, painting figures that were both grand and lifelike.

Stuart was also a shrewd businessman. He made many copies of his presidential paintings, especially those of George Washington, to sell to eager patrons. Stuart reportedly told a friend, “I expect to make a fortune by Washington alone.”

He created just two full sets of the five presidential portraits, meant to be displayed together. One set was partially destroyed in a fire. This is the only surviving complete group.

Shown from the chest up, a cleanshaven, middle-aged man with pale skin and silvery gray hair, wearing a white, ruffled shirt under a velvety black, high-necked jacket, looks out at us in this vertical portrait painting. His body is angled to our left, and he turns his face slightly to look at us with gray eyes under slightly arched eyebrows. He has a long nose and his thin lips are closed in a straight line. Shadows define slightly sagging jowls along his jawline and down his neck. His light gray hair is pulled back from his forehead and swells in bushy curls over his ears. Part of a black ribbon seen beyond his shoulder ties his hair back. Light illuminates the person from our left and creates a golden glow on the light brown background behind him.

Gilbert Stuart’s ambition when he left Dublin in 1793 was to paint the first president of the United States – he supposedly declared to a friend: “I expect to make a fortune by Washington.” After the artist traveled to Philadelphia in the late autumn of 1794 with a letter of introduction from Chief Justice John Jay, the president sat for Stuart sometime the following year. Attracting commissions from prominent patrons in the colonies and abroad, Stuart’s portraits of Washington were a success from the start, and two more such sittings would occur over the next several years.

One of four Stuart portraits of George Washington owned by the National Gallery, this 1821 work is derived from Stuart’s second life portrait from 1796 (now jointly owned by the Museum of Fine Arts Boston and the National Portrait Gallery). Here, Washington is shown looking to the left, wearing a black velvet suit and a white shirt with a ruffle of lace or linen. The work demonstrates Stuart’s extraordinary ability to capture an individual’s likeness, which was based on a gift for assessing each sitter’s personality through conversation and on his close observation. Each portrait reflects Stuart’s knowledge of anatomy and his belief in theories of physiognomy, which hold that a study of the outward body can reveal a person’s character.

Over the course of his career, Gilbert Stuart painted at least 100 portraits of George Washington, most of them also copies of the 1796 painting. Centuries later, Stuart’s portrayal of Washington remains the best-known image of the United States’ first president—as writer and critic John Neal wrote in 1823, “So, Stuart painted him; and though a better likeness of him were shown to us, we should reject it; for, the only idea that we now have of George Washington, is associated with Stuart’s Washington.”

More information on this painting can be found in the Gallery publication American Paintings of the Eighteenth Century, pages 265-266, 268-270, and 273, which is available as a free PDF.

Gilbert Stuart was the preeminent portraitist in Federal America. He combined a talent for recording likeness with an ability to interpret a sitter's personality or character in the choice of pose, color and style of clothing, and setting. He introduced to America the loose, brushy style used by many of the leading artists of late eighteenth century London. He recorded likenesses of lawyers, politicians, diplomats, native Americans, their wives and children. His sitters included many prominent Americans, among them the first five presidents, their advisors, families, and admirers. He is known especially for his numerous portraits of George Washington.

Born in 1755 in North Kingston, Rhode Island, Stuart was baptized with his name spelled "Stewart". His father, an immigrant Scot, built and operated a snuff mill that may have led to the artist's addiction to snuff. He grew up in the trading city of Newport, where itinerant Scottish portraitist Cosmo Alexander (1724-1772) gave him his earliest training in painting. He accompanied Alexander to Scotland in 1771, returning home at the older artist's death. Three years later in 1775, on the eve of the American Revolution, he went to London, where he worked for five years (1777-1782) as assistant to the Anglo-American painter Benjamin West. He exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1777 to 1785, using the name Gilbert Charles Stuart the first year. The success of The Skater (NGA 1950.18.1), painted in 1782, enabled him to establish his own business as a portrait painter. In 1786 Stuart married Charlotte Coates, and the following year they went to Dublin, where Stuart painted portraits of the Protestant ruling minority for over five years.

Stuart returned to the United States in 1793, planning to paint a portrait of George Washington that would establish his reputation in America. After about a year in New York City, he went to Philadelphia, the capital of the United States, with a letter of introduction to Washington from John Jay. He painted the president in the winter or early spring of 1795. He was not satisfied with his first life portrait of Washington, but others were. Martha Washington commissioned a second and Mrs. William Bingham commissioned two full-lengths. His success led immediately to many other commissions. His sitters were politically prominent and wealthy, from the merchant and landed classes. After Washington, D.C. became the new national capital, Stuart moved there in December of 1803, and this group continued as his patrons. There he painted the Madisons, Jefferson, the Thorntons, and others from Jefferson's administration.

In the summer of 1805 Stuart settled in Boston. In his Roxbury studio he continued to paint politically and socially prominent sitters and, on request, to make replicas of his second "Athenaeum" portrait of George Washington. Throughout his life younger artists, including John Trumbull, Thomas Sully, Rembrandt Peale, and John Vanderlyn, sought his advice and imitated his work. Among his students were his children Charles Gilbert (1787-1813) and Jane (1812-1888). One indication of Stuart's popularity is the number of portraits he painted, over a thousand during his long career, excluding copies of the portraits of Washington. Another indication is the number of copies of his work that other artists made. His sitters indicated their fascination for his talent and personality by recording lengthy anecdotes and descriptions of their sittings, producing an unusally rich written record about an American portraitist. Stuart died in Boston in 1828. [This is an edited version of the artist's biography published in the NGA Systematic Catalogue]

________________________________

The National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC is a world-class art museum that displays one of the largest collections of masterpieces in the world including paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, sculpture, and decorative arts from the 13th century to the present. The National Gallery of Art collection includes an extensive survey of works of American, British, Italian, Flemish, Spanish, Dutch, French and German art. With its prime location on the National Mall, surrounded by the Smithsonian Institution, visitors often think that the museum is a part of the Smithsonian. It is a separate entity and is supported by a combination of private and public funds. Admission is free. The museum offers a wide range of educational programs, lectures, guided tours, films, and concerts.

The original neoclassical building, the West Building includes European (13th-early 20th century) and American (18th-early 20th century) paintings, sculptures, decorative arts, and temporary exhibitions. The National Gallery of Art was opened to the public in 1941 with funds provided by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The original collection of masterpieces was provided by Mellon, who was the U. S. Secretary of the Treasury and ambassador to Britain in the 1930s. Mellon collected European masterpieces and many of the Gallery’s original works were once owned by Catherine II of Russia and purchased in the early 1930s by Mellon from the Hermitage Museum in Leningrad.

The core collection includes major works of art donated by Paul Mellon, Ailsa Mellon Bruce, Lessing J. Rosenwald, Samuel Henry Kress, Rush Harrison Kress, Peter Arrell Browne Widener, Joseph E. Widener, and Chester Dale. The Gallery's collection of paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, sculpture, medals, and decorative arts traces the development of Western art from the Middle Ages to the present, including the only painting by Leonardo da Vinci in the Americas and the largest mobile created by Alexander Calder.

The NGA's collection galleries and Sculpture Garden display European and American paintings, sculpture, works on paper, photographs, and decorative arts. Paintings in the permanent collection date from the Middle Ages to the present. The Italian Renaissance collection includes two panels from Duccio's Maesta, the tondo of the Adoration of the Magi by Fra Angelico and Filippo Lippi, a Botticelli work on the same subject, Giorgione's Allendale Nativity, Giovanni Bellini's The Feast of the Gods, Ginevra de' Benci (the only painting by Leonardo da Vinci in the Americas) and groups of works by Titian and Raphael.

The collections include paintings by many European masters, including a version of Saint Martin and the Beggar, by El Greco, and works by Matthias Grünewald, Cranach the Elder, Rogier van der Weyden, Albrecht Dürer, Frans Hals, Rembrandt, Johannes Vermeer, Francisco Goya, Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, and Eugène Delacroix, among others. The collection of sculpture and decorative arts includes such works as the Chalice of Abbot Suger of St-Denis and a collection of work by Auguste Rodin and Edgar Degas. Other highlights of the permanent collection include the second of the two original sets of Thomas Cole's series of paintings titled The Voyage of Life, (the first set is at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute in Utica, New York) and the original version of Watson and the Shark by John Singleton Copley (two other versions are in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the Detroit Institute of Arts).

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Gallery_of_Art

Andrew W. Mellon, who pledged both the resources to construct the National Gallery of Art as well as his high-quality art collection, is rightly known as the founder of the gallery. But his bequest numbered less than two hundred paintings and sculptures—not nearly enough to fill the gallery’s massive rooms. This, however, was a feature, not a failure of Mellon’s vision; he anticipated that the gallery eventually would be filled not only by his own collection, but also by additional donations from other private collectors. By design, then, it was both Andrew Mellon and those who followed his lead—among them, eight men and women known as the Founding Benefactors—to whom the gallery owes its premier reputation as a national art museum. At the gallery’s opening in 1941, President Roosevelt stated, “the dedication of this Gallery to a living past, and to a greater and more richly living future, is the measure of the earnestness of our intention that the freedom of the human spirit shall go on.”

www.doaks.org/resources/cultural-philanthropy/national-ga...

..

________________________________

The National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC is a world-class art museum that displays one of the largest collections of masterpieces in the world including paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, sculpture, and decorative arts from the 13th century to the present. The National Gallery of Art collection includes an extensive survey of works of American, British, Italian, Flemish, Spanish, Dutch, French and German art. With its prime location on the National Mall, surrounded by the Smithsonian Institution, visitors often think that the museum is a part of the Smithsonian. It is a separate entity and is supported by a combination of private and public funds. Admission is free. The museum offers a wide range of educational programs, lectures, guided tours, films, and concerts.

The original neoclassical building, the West Building includes European (13th-early 20th century) and American (18th-early 20th century) paintings, sculptures, decorative arts, and temporary exhibitions. The National Gallery of Art was opened to the public in 1941 with funds provided by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The original collection of masterpieces was provided by Mellon, who was the U. S. Secretary of the Treasury and ambassador to Britain in the 1930s. Mellon collected European masterpieces and many of the Gallery’s original works were once owned by Catherine II of Russia and purchased in the early 1930s by Mellon from the Hermitage Museum in Leningrad.

The core collection includes major works of art donated by Paul Mellon, Ailsa Mellon Bruce, Lessing J. Rosenwald, Samuel Henry Kress, Rush Harrison Kress, Peter Arrell Browne Widener, Joseph E. Widener, and Chester Dale. The Gallery's collection of paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, sculpture, medals, and decorative arts traces the development of Western art from the Middle Ages to the present, including the only painting by Leonardo da Vinci in the Americas and the largest mobile created by Alexander Calder.

The NGA's collection galleries and Sculpture Garden display European and American paintings, sculpture, works on paper, photographs, and decorative arts. Paintings in the permanent collection date from the Middle Ages to the present. The Italian Renaissance collection includes two panels from Duccio's Maesta, the tondo of the Adoration of the Magi by Fra Angelico and Filippo Lippi, a Botticelli work on the same subject, Giorgione's Allendale Nativity, Giovanni Bellini's The Feast of the Gods, Ginevra de' Benci (the only painting by Leonardo da Vinci in the Americas) and groups of works by Titian and Raphael.

The collections include paintings by many European masters, including a version of Saint Martin and the Beggar, by El Greco, and works by Matthias Grünewald, Cranach the Elder, Rogier van der Weyden, Albrecht Dürer, Frans Hals, Rembrandt, Johannes Vermeer, Francisco Goya, Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, and Eugène Delacroix, among others. The collection of sculpture and decorative arts includes such works as the Chalice of Abbot Suger of St-Denis and a collection of work by Auguste Rodin and Edgar Degas. Other highlights of the permanent collection include the second of the two original sets of Thomas Cole's series of paintings titled The Voyage of Life, (the first set is at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute in Utica, New York) and the original version of Watson and the Shark by John Singleton Copley (two other versions are in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the Detroit Institute of Arts).

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Gallery_of_Art

Andrew W. Mellon, who pledged both the resources to construct the National Gallery of Art as well as his high-quality art collection, is rightly known as the founder of the gallery. But his bequest numbered less than two hundred paintings and sculptures—not nearly enough to fill the gallery’s massive rooms. This, however, was a feature, not a failure of Mellon’s vision; he anticipated that the gallery eventually would be filled not only by his own collection, but also by additional donations from other private collectors. By design, then, it was both Andrew Mellon and those who followed his lead—among them, eight men and women known as the Founding Benefactors—to whom the gallery owes its premier reputation as a national art museum. At the gallery’s opening in 1941, President Roosevelt stated, “the dedication of this Gallery to a living past, and to a greater and more richly living future, is the measure of the earnestness of our intention that the freedom of the human spirit shall go on.”

www.doaks.org/resources/cultural-philanthropy/national-ga...

.

Psst, he's not wearing socks

Grandma Party 2007

maternity

Model: Max Ngoan Ngoan

Stylish: Su Mi

Wirral365 Project52 Week7.

Sunday 27th June - England v Germany

World Cup South Africa 2010.

Will it be Street Party or Street Wake? Either way let's hope football is the winner.

Tama Zoological Park, Hino, Tōkyō, Japan.

A keeper is preparing bones of an animal as these wolves' snacks.

東京都日野市、多摩動物公園にて。

飼育員がおやつのホネを投げようとしているところです。

SB-800 through softbox fired with pocketwizards

amanda.matilda.photography

“Desde el pueblo nassa tenemos expectativas grandes de esperanza, de esperanza por la vida, por la paz, por el territorio y, sobre todo, por la defensa de nuestra madre tierra, porque para nosotros la madre tierra es a la que tenemos que defender mucho más. Por eso, debemos protegerla y proteger mucho a los defensores de esta vida”. Esas fueron las palabras de Alcides Muse, indígena de la comunidad nassa del Cauca, quien participó en el primer Puesto de Mando Unificado (PMU) por la Vida del Gobierno del presidente Gustavo Petro.

En este PMU, que contó con la participación y el compromiso de la ministra de Ambiente y Desarrollo Sostenible, Susana Muhamad, el Gobierno Nacional escuchó a diferentes comunidades indígenas, afrodescendientes y campesinas del Cauca, escenario en el que le presentó al país el plan de emergencia para la protección de los líderes y defensores ambientales.

“Veinte líderes sociales ambientales del Magdalena Medio fueron amenazados por oponerse al fracking, 17 funcionarios de Parques Nacionales Naturales fueron asesinados durante la última década. Por eso, como ministra de Ambiente hago presencia en este PMU. Vamos a aportar de formas concretas: mapeando los conflictos socioambientales en todo el país, trabajando para ampliar la democracia ambiental, como también alertando situaciones especiales de colectivos que defienden el ambiente”, afirmó la jefe de la cartera ambiental.

Asimismo, la ministra Muhamad resaltó el compromiso del Gobierno para la pronta ratificación del Acuerdo de Escazú: “Queremos que los actores ambientales tengan un canal para ejercer la democracia ambiental que, además, se debe profundizar con la ratificación del Acuerdo de Escazú en el Congreso. Lo que estamos haciendo hoy aquí, aporta a ese avance del acuerdo, aunque no haya sido aprobado”.

El plan de emergencia cuenta con siete ejes y priorizará sus acciones en 65 municipios y seis capitales: Barranquilla, Bucaramanga, Cali, Medellín, Popayán y Santa Marta.

La estrategia, que se ajustará a las distintas realidades territoriales, dinámicas de la violencia, fuentes de riesgo, conflictos socioambientales, entre otros factores, trabajará en la presencia territorial del Estado y el acompañamiento de la comunidad internacional, en la acción preventiva y estratégica de la fuerza pública en terreno y en medidas de justicia y contra la impunidad.

El Puesto de Mando Unificado por la Vida también contó con la participación del ministro del Interior, Alfonso Prada; el alto comisionado para la Paz, Danilo Rueda; el presidente del Congreso de la República, Roy Barreras, y el defensor del Pueblo, Carlos Camargo, entre otros funcionarios del Gobierno Nacional, líderes de las comunidades, alcaldes y miembros de las fuerzas de seguridad del Estado. / Ago. 20, 2022. (Fotografía Oficial Ministerio de Ambiente y Desarrollo Sostenible / Juan Fernando Betancourt).

Esta fotografía oficial del Ministerio de Ambiente y Desarrollo Sostenible está disponible sólo para ser publicada por las organizaciones de noticias, medios nacionales e internacionales y/o para uso personal de impresión por el sujeto de la fotografía. La fotografía no puede ser alterada digitalmente o manipularse de ninguna manera, y tampoco puede usarse en materiales comerciales o políticos, anuncios, correos electrónicos, productos o promociones que de cualquier manera sugieran aprobación por parte del Ministerio de Ambiente y Desarrollo Sostenible.

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