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Kingfisher given the “dark” treatment. An old JPEG shot given a fresh edit.
Back when I tried hard to get crisp images out of my Nikon D800E and avoid burnt highlights on a bird with lots of white. Shot in Live-view to avoid mirrorshock, on tripod and cable release to mitigate lack of IBIS because what’s the point of all that resolution when mirror and shutter vibrations blur out the details!?
So this shot mitigated mirrorshock and lack of IBIS but the D800E had no EFC and the damaging effects of shuttershock still exists.
Most gear reviews employ “change management” methodologies. 1st off is to convince you that your existing gear has flaws/not good enough, next is emphasis on new gear capabilities/functionalities (regardless of whether they make any difference in field use). Finally when you have been convinced that your existing gear is not good/adequate and the new gear is better, they will reinforce these changes in your mind to drive you towards a purchase.
When the Nikon D800/800E got released, nobody mentioned mirror and shutter shock that negate the high resolution which was the cornerstone of these cameras. They then release the D810 a mere 2 years later telling you that the mirror and shutter mechanisms have been redesigned to reduce resolution robbing vibrations. Then came D850, it is now revealed that the D810 still suffers from mirror and shutter vibrations that are only now effectively eliminated in the latest and greatest D850!
You can cry wolf a few times before losing credibility but you can only cry no wolf once!
I have the D800E but skipped the D810 as it was not a worthwhile upgrade. The D850 is a worthwhile upgrade (because of BSI sensor) but I already bought into the Sony a7r2 as I had realized by then that IBIS, sans mirror and EFC in total are the effective solution against resolution robbing internal vibrations affecting high resolution sensors. The D850 finally has an effective EFC for handheld shooting but still lacks IBIS and its traditional DSLR PDAF mirror box and PDAF sensor can still cause lens misalignment issues as AF is not from light that hits the sensor directly (as in mirrorless) but via a split beam from the mirror box to the PDAF sensor.
I have been waiting for the Nikon Z mirrorless but it’s patently obvious to me that I’ll have to wait a little longer for Gen2. Adapting Nikon DSLR lenses via the FTZ adapter will be suboptimal, the fact that you only get 3 axis of stabilization via the FTZ when the Z7 is capable of 5 axis stabilization would tell you something.
Nikon DSLR users will have to buy Nikon gear all over again if they want the mirrorless Z system which is Nikon’s claimed future. Nikon will up their game with the new Z lenses to convince you to switch, I have already seen what new generation optics can do with the Sony FE 16-35mm f2.8 GM for instance, the difference is noticeable and will of course come at a higher price-point.
The new Nikon DSLR lens AF-S 500mm f5.6E PF VR is nice but why bother buying and adapting this on Z7 when it performs worse and you save only 195gms in the process which is negligible the heavier the lens!?
For my purpose, my handheld shooting is still perfectly served by my Sony a7r2, Nikon mirrorless Z mount will be interesting if and when they release a Z 600mm f5.6 PF VR.
I have seen people upgrade from Sony a72 to a7r2 then a9 and a7r3 but their photos all looked the same regardless of camera used! Conversely I have also seen people continue to create amazing images from old cameras. Camera tech currently has slowed, we get much better outputs from honing our shot-making and editing skills instead of buying a new camera!
This is what camera review sites don't want us to know!
Fully functional model of Kenworth W900 Rotator tow truck. Five motorized and five pneumatic functions. For more pictures visit my MOCPages page.
See also how it works on YouTube
My second try at the world famous stripping shovel "The Mountaineer", originally manufactured by the Marion Power Shovel Company.
The model I am presenting here is in scale 1 to 28.5 and is fully functional, using LEGO Power Functions components and bluetooth controlled SBricks.
Stripping shovels are a kind of mining shovels that were used to uncover coal seams by removing the overburden. In the meantime, even the largest machines of their kind have turned to be too small for the ever increasing depths from where the coal has to be uncovered. So today, no stripping shovel is in operation any more.
The Mountaineer was put into operation in 1956 near Cadiz, Ohio, USA. It has been retired in 1979 and scrapped in 1988.
Over 16 years ago, I already built a model of the very same shovel in roughly the same scale. Although it was impressive for the time being, I was never really satisfied with it and so I decided to give it another try. Compared to the earlier version, the current model has improvements in nearly every aspect:
- Fast-revving 9V-motors with individual cable control replaced by geared Power Functions motors, controlled by a bluetooth device using SBricks.
- An all over studded surface smoothed out by using tiles to a very large extent.
- Much more fine details like railings, stairs and ladders using parts like bars, tubes and clips.
- LED lighting all over the machinery house and the lower works.
Remote controlled functions include:
- Hoist drum using four PF XL motors
- Crowd motion using two PF M motors
- Swing gear using four PF L motors
- Bucket door latch rope drum using one PF M motor
- Propulsion of all eight crawlers using four PF M motors
- Independent steering of the front and rear crawler pair each using one PF M motor and four large linear actuators
- Passenger elevator with three stops (lower works, machinery house, gantry) using a 9V micro motor
- 22 pairs of LED lights, totalling 44 individual lights
The estimated weight of the model is around 35 kg of which 5.5 kg are steel bits acting as counterweight.
Mechanical and functional requirements worked out between TBS and Citizen シチズン Watch Company, Tokyo.
Developer: TBS Tokyo Broadcasting System, Akasaka, Tokyo
Date: Installed December, 1992.
Hundertwasser comment about the work:
This monument is a token, a landmark serving as an ambassador for a peace treaty between men and nature. (...) A consciousness of eternal cycles in harmony with nature and human creation becomes vital, just as timeless constant values, the knowledge of the cosmos where no up and no down exists, no right and no left. It is not the time, which is important but the cycle which develops in organical, beautiful form. Time should create new life, slowly, in spiral form, vegetativ and creative. Time should not destroy past time, should not create last panic before the time of tomorrow. The idea of counting time is a human misleading idea, an invention like the straight line, but there is only eternity developing in an organical cycle. (...) The same water is permanently flowing through the purification plant. The way of the water through the roots of the plants takes about 1 hour. The roots of these waterplants are producing oxygen and are turning what we call dirt into plant substance. We become witness of a permanent purification and renewal process in harmony with the laws of nature. (excerpt from Hundertwasser's text of August 1992) (from: Hundertwasser 1928-2000, Catalogue Raisonné, Vol. 2, Taschen, Cologne, 2002, p. 1261)
Information:
Hundertwasser designed the ecological monument for the Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS) in commemoration of the company's fiftieth anniversary in 2001. The digital display of a Citizen Clock, which could be read from both sides, counted down the days to the anniversary. The monument was erected on the TBS grounds in Midoriyama/Yokohama in December 1992 and moved to Akasaka in 1994. The accompanying program upon arrival of this event with the theme "Our Beloved Planet, Earth" was focusing on the everchanging Japan, the global environment and mankind. (Source: hundertwasser.com).
Public Clock Photography by Arjan Richter
Miniatur Wunderland Hamburg is a spectacular Model World featuring many Land- and Cityscapes from around the world containing model trains, moving cars, ships and even a fully functional airport with starting and landing planes.
All of this is meticulously handcrafted to the smallest Detail.
Please view the photos in full resolution to see all the little Details and Scenes.
Also make sure to visit this wonderful World, whenever you are in Hamburg.
All of this is meticulously handcrafted to the smallest Detail.
Graffiti is art that is written, painted or drawn on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from simple written words to elaborate wall paintings, and has existed since ancient times, with examples dating back to ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, and the Roman Empire (see also mural).
Graffiti is a controversial subject. In most countries, marking or painting property without permission is considered by property owners and civic authorities as defacement and vandalism, which is a punishable crime, citing the use of graffiti by street gangs to mark territory or to serve as an indicator of gang-related activities. Graffiti has become visualized as a growing urban "problem" for many cities in industrialized nations, spreading from the New York City subway system and Philadelphia in the early 1970s to the rest of the United States and Europe and other world regions
The term graffiti originally referred to the inscriptions, figure drawings, and such, found on the walls of ancient sepulchres or ruins, as in the Catacombs of Rome or at Pompeii. Historically, these writings were not considered vanadlism, which today is considered part of the definition of graffiti.
The only known source of the Safaitic language, an ancient form of Arabic, is from graffiti: inscriptions scratched on to the surface of rocks and boulders in the predominantly basalt desert of southern Syria, eastern Jordan and northern Saudi Arabia. Safaitic dates from the first century BC to the fourth century AD.
Some of the oldest cave paintings in the world are 40,000 year old ones found in Australia. The oldest written graffiti was found in ancient Rome around 2500 years ago. Most graffiti from the time was boasts about sexual experiences Graffiti in Ancient Rome was a form of communication, and was not considered vandalism.
Ancient tourists visiting the 5th-century citadel at Sigiriya in Sri Lanka write their names and commentary over the "mirror wall", adding up to over 1800 individual graffiti produced there between the 6th and 18th centuries. Most of the graffiti refer to the frescoes of semi-nude females found there. One reads:
Wet with cool dew drops
fragrant with perfume from the flowers
came the gentle breeze
jasmine and water lily
dance in the spring sunshine
side-long glances
of the golden-hued ladies
stab into my thoughts
heaven itself cannot take my mind
as it has been captivated by one lass
among the five hundred I have seen here.
Among the ancient political graffiti examples were Arab satirist poems. Yazid al-Himyari, an Umayyad Arab and Persian poet, was most known for writing his political poetry on the walls between Sajistan and Basra, manifesting a strong hatred towards the Umayyad regime and its walis, and people used to read and circulate them very widely.
Graffiti, known as Tacherons, were frequently scratched on Romanesque Scandinavian church walls. When Renaissance artists such as Pinturicchio, Raphael, Michelangelo, Ghirlandaio, or Filippino Lippi descended into the ruins of Nero's Domus Aurea, they carved or painted their names and returned to initiate the grottesche style of decoration.
There are also examples of graffiti occurring in American history, such as Independence Rock, a national landmark along the Oregon Trail.
Later, French soldiers carved their names on monuments during the Napoleonic campaign of Egypt in the 1790s. Lord Byron's survives on one of the columns of the Temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounion in Attica, Greece.
The oldest known example of graffiti "monikers" found on traincars created by hobos and railworkers since the late 1800s. The Bozo Texino monikers were documented by filmmaker Bill Daniel in his 2005 film, Who is Bozo Texino?.
In World War II, an inscription on a wall at the fortress of Verdun was seen as an illustration of the US response twice in a generation to the wrongs of the Old World:
During World War II and for decades after, the phrase "Kilroy was here" with an accompanying illustration was widespread throughout the world, due to its use by American troops and ultimately filtering into American popular culture. Shortly after the death of Charlie Parker (nicknamed "Yardbird" or "Bird"), graffiti began appearing around New York with the words "Bird Lives".
Modern graffiti art has its origins with young people in 1960s and 70s in New York City and Philadelphia. Tags were the first form of stylised contemporary graffiti. Eventually, throw-ups and pieces evolved with the desire to create larger art. Writers used spray paint and other kind of materials to leave tags or to create images on the sides subway trains. and eventually moved into the city after the NYC metro began to buy new trains and paint over graffiti.
While the art had many advocates and appreciators—including the cultural critic Norman Mailer—others, including New York City mayor Ed Koch, considered it to be defacement of public property, and saw it as a form of public blight. The ‘taggers’ called what they did ‘writing’—though an important 1974 essay by Mailer referred to it using the term ‘graffiti.’
Contemporary graffiti style has been heavily influenced by hip hop culture and the myriad international styles derived from Philadelphia and New York City Subway graffiti; however, there are many other traditions of notable graffiti in the twentieth century. Graffiti have long appeared on building walls, in latrines, railroad boxcars, subways, and bridges.
An early graffito outside of New York or Philadelphia was the inscription in London reading "Clapton is God" in reference to the guitarist Eric Clapton. Creating the cult of the guitar hero, the phrase was spray-painted by an admirer on a wall in an Islington, north London in the autumn of 1967. The graffito was captured in a photograph, in which a dog is urinating on the wall.
Films like Style Wars in the 80s depicting famous writers such as Skeme, Dondi, MinOne, and ZEPHYR reinforced graffiti's role within New York's emerging hip-hop culture. Although many officers of the New York City Police Department found this film to be controversial, Style Wars is still recognized as the most prolific film representation of what was going on within the young hip hop culture of the early 1980s. Fab 5 Freddy and Futura 2000 took hip hop graffiti to Paris and London as part of the New York City Rap Tour in 1983
Commercialization and entrance into mainstream pop culture
Main article: Commercial graffiti
With the popularity and legitimization of graffiti has come a level of commercialization. In 2001, computer giant IBM launched an advertising campaign in Chicago and San Francisco which involved people spray painting on sidewalks a peace symbol, a heart, and a penguin (Linux mascot), to represent "Peace, Love, and Linux." IBM paid Chicago and San Francisco collectively US$120,000 for punitive damages and clean-up costs.
In 2005, a similar ad campaign was launched by Sony and executed by its advertising agency in New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Miami, to market its handheld PSP gaming system. In this campaign, taking notice of the legal problems of the IBM campaign, Sony paid building owners for the rights to paint on their buildings "a collection of dizzy-eyed urban kids playing with the PSP as if it were a skateboard, a paddle, or a rocking horse".
Tristan Manco wrote that Brazil "boasts a unique and particularly rich, graffiti scene ... [earning] it an international reputation as the place to go for artistic inspiration". Graffiti "flourishes in every conceivable space in Brazil's cities". Artistic parallels "are often drawn between the energy of São Paulo today and 1970s New York". The "sprawling metropolis", of São Paulo has "become the new shrine to graffiti"; Manco alludes to "poverty and unemployment ... [and] the epic struggles and conditions of the country's marginalised peoples", and to "Brazil's chronic poverty", as the main engines that "have fuelled a vibrant graffiti culture". In world terms, Brazil has "one of the most uneven distributions of income. Laws and taxes change frequently". Such factors, Manco argues, contribute to a very fluid society, riven with those economic divisions and social tensions that underpin and feed the "folkloric vandalism and an urban sport for the disenfranchised", that is South American graffiti art.
Prominent Brazilian writers include Os Gêmeos, Boleta, Nunca, Nina, Speto, Tikka, and T.Freak. Their artistic success and involvement in commercial design ventures has highlighted divisions within the Brazilian graffiti community between adherents of the cruder transgressive form of pichação and the more conventionally artistic values of the practitioners of grafite.
Graffiti in the Middle East has emerged slowly, with taggers operating in Egypt, Lebanon, the Gulf countries like Bahrain or the United Arab Emirates, Israel, and in Iran. The major Iranian newspaper Hamshahri has published two articles on illegal writers in the city with photographic coverage of Iranian artist A1one's works on Tehran walls. Tokyo-based design magazine, PingMag, has interviewed A1one and featured photographs of his work. The Israeli West Bank barrier has become a site for graffiti, reminiscent in this sense of the Berlin Wall. Many writers in Israel come from other places around the globe, such as JUIF from Los Angeles and DEVIONE from London. The religious reference "נ נח נחמ נחמן מאומן" ("Na Nach Nachma Nachman Meuman") is commonly seen in graffiti around Israel.
Graffiti has played an important role within the street art scene in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), especially following the events of the Arab Spring of 2011 or the Sudanese Revolution of 2018/19. Graffiti is a tool of expression in the context of conflict in the region, allowing people to raise their voices politically and socially. Famous street artist Banksy has had an important effect in the street art scene in the MENA area, especially in Palestine where some of his works are located in the West Bank barrier and Bethlehem.
There are also a large number of graffiti influences in Southeast Asian countries that mostly come from modern Western culture, such as Malaysia, where graffiti have long been a common sight in Malaysia's capital city, Kuala Lumpur. Since 2010, the country has begun hosting a street festival to encourage all generations and people from all walks of life to enjoy and encourage Malaysian street culture.
The modern-day graffitists can be found with an arsenal of various materials that allow for a successful production of a piece. This includes such techniques as scribing. However, spray paint in aerosol cans is the number one medium for graffiti. From this commodity comes different styles, technique, and abilities to form master works of graffiti. Spray paint can be found at hardware and art stores and comes in virtually every color.
Stencil graffiti is created by cutting out shapes and designs in a stiff material (such as cardboard or subject folders) to form an overall design or image. The stencil is then placed on the "canvas" gently and with quick, easy strokes of the aerosol can, the image begins to appear on the intended surface.
Some of the first examples were created in 1981 by artists Blek le Rat in Paris, in 1982 by Jef Aerosol in Tours (France); by 1985 stencils had appeared in other cities including New York City, Sydney, and Melbourne, where they were documented by American photographer Charles Gatewood and Australian photographer Rennie Ellis
Tagging is the practice of someone spray-painting "their name, initial or logo onto a public surface" in a handstyle unique to the writer. Tags were the first form of modern graffiti.
Modern graffiti art often incorporates additional arts and technologies. For example, Graffiti Research Lab has encouraged the use of projected images and magnetic light-emitting diodes (throwies) as new media for graffitists. yarnbombing is another recent form of graffiti. Yarnbombers occasionally target previous graffiti for modification, which had been avoided among the majority of graffitists.
Theories on the use of graffiti by avant-garde artists have a history dating back at least to the Asger Jorn, who in 1962 painting declared in a graffiti-like gesture "the avant-garde won't give up"
Many contemporary analysts and even art critics have begun to see artistic value in some graffiti and to recognize it as a form of public art. According to many art researchers, particularly in the Netherlands and in Los Angeles, that type of public art is, in fact an effective tool of social emancipation or, in the achievement of a political goal
In times of conflict, such murals have offered a means of communication and self-expression for members of these socially, ethnically, or racially divided communities, and have proven themselves as effective tools in establishing dialog and thus, of addressing cleavages in the long run. The Berlin Wall was also extensively covered by graffiti reflecting social pressures relating to the oppressive Soviet rule over the GDR.
Many artists involved with graffiti are also concerned with the similar activity of stenciling. Essentially, this entails stenciling a print of one or more colors using spray-paint. Recognized while exhibiting and publishing several of her coloured stencils and paintings portraying the Sri Lankan Civil War and urban Britain in the early 2000s, graffitists Mathangi Arulpragasam, aka M.I.A., has also become known for integrating her imagery of political violence into her music videos for singles "Galang" and "Bucky Done Gun", and her cover art. Stickers of her artwork also often appear around places such as London in Brick Lane, stuck to lamp posts and street signs, she having become a muse for other graffitists and painters worldwide in cities including Seville.
Graffitist believes that art should be on display for everyone in the public eye or in plain sight, not hidden away in a museum or a gallery. Art should color the streets, not the inside of some building. Graffiti is a form of art that cannot be owned or bought. It does not last forever, it is temporary, yet one of a kind. It is a form of self promotion for the artist that can be displayed anywhere form sidewalks, roofs, subways, building wall, etc. Art to them is for everyone and should be showed to everyone for free.
Graffiti is a way of communicating and a way of expressing what one feels in the moment. It is both art and a functional thing that can warn people of something or inform people of something. However, graffiti is to some people a form of art, but to some a form of vandalism. And many graffitists choose to protect their identities and remain anonymous or to hinder prosecution.
With the commercialization of graffiti (and hip hop in general), in most cases, even with legally painted "graffiti" art, graffitists tend to choose anonymity. This may be attributed to various reasons or a combination of reasons. Graffiti still remains the one of four hip hop elements that is not considered "performance art" despite the image of the "singing and dancing star" that sells hip hop culture to the mainstream. Being a graphic form of art, it might also be said that many graffitists still fall in the category of the introverted archetypal artist.
Banksy is one of the world's most notorious and popular street artists who continues to remain faceless in today's society. He is known for his political, anti-war stencil art mainly in Bristol, England, but his work may be seen anywhere from Los Angeles to Palestine. In the UK, Banksy is the most recognizable icon for this cultural artistic movement and keeps his identity a secret to avoid arrest. Much of Banksy's artwork may be seen around the streets of London and surrounding suburbs, although he has painted pictures throughout the world, including the Middle East, where he has painted on Israel's controversial West Bank barrier with satirical images of life on the other side. One depicted a hole in the wall with an idyllic beach, while another shows a mountain landscape on the other side. A number of exhibitions also have taken place since 2000, and recent works of art have fetched vast sums of money. Banksy's art is a prime example of the classic controversy: vandalism vs. art. Art supporters endorse his work distributed in urban areas as pieces of art and some councils, such as Bristol and Islington, have officially protected them, while officials of other areas have deemed his work to be vandalism and have removed it.
Pixnit is another artist who chooses to keep her identity from the general public. Her work focuses on beauty and design aspects of graffiti as opposed to Banksy's anti-government shock value. Her paintings are often of flower designs above shops and stores in her local urban area of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Some store owners endorse her work and encourage others to do similar work as well. "One of the pieces was left up above Steve's Kitchen, because it looks pretty awesome"- Erin Scott, the manager of New England Comics in Allston, Massachusetts.
Graffiti artists may become offended if photographs of their art are published in a commercial context without their permission. In March 2020, the Finnish graffiti artist Psyke expressed his displeasure at the newspaper Ilta-Sanomat publishing a photograph of a Peugeot 208 in an article about new cars, with his graffiti prominently shown on the background. The artist claims he does not want his art being used in commercial context, not even if he were to receive compensation.
Territorial graffiti marks urban neighborhoods with tags and logos to differentiate certain groups from others. These images are meant to show outsiders a stern look at whose turf is whose. The subject matter of gang-related graffiti consists of cryptic symbols and initials strictly fashioned with unique calligraphies. Gang members use graffiti to designate membership throughout the gang, to differentiate rivals and associates and, most commonly, to mark borders which are both territorial and ideological.
Graffiti has been used as a means of advertising both legally and illegally. Bronx-based TATS CRU has made a name for themselves doing legal advertising campaigns for companies such as Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Toyota, and MTV. In the UK, Covent Garden's Boxfresh used stencil images of a Zapatista revolutionary in the hopes that cross referencing would promote their store.
Smirnoff hired artists to use reverse graffiti (the use of high pressure hoses to clean dirty surfaces to leave a clean image in the surrounding dirt) to increase awareness of their product.
Graffiti often has a reputation as part of a subculture that rebels against authority, although the considerations of the practitioners often diverge and can relate to a wide range of attitudes. It can express a political practice and can form just one tool in an array of resistance techniques. One early example includes the anarcho-punk band Crass, who conducted a campaign of stenciling anti-war, anarchist, feminist, and anti-consumerist messages throughout the London Underground system during the late 1970s and early 1980s. In Amsterdam graffiti was a major part of the punk scene. The city was covered with names such as "De Zoot", "Vendex", and "Dr Rat". To document the graffiti a punk magazine was started that was called Gallery Anus. So when hip hop came to Europe in the early 1980s there was already a vibrant graffiti culture.
The student protests and general strike of May 1968 saw Paris bedecked in revolutionary, anarchistic, and situationist slogans such as L'ennui est contre-révolutionnaire ("Boredom is counterrevolutionary") and Lisez moins, vivez plus ("Read less, live more"). While not exhaustive, the graffiti gave a sense of the 'millenarian' and rebellious spirit, tempered with a good deal of verbal wit, of the strikers.
I think graffiti writing is a way of defining what our generation is like. Excuse the French, we're not a bunch of p---- artists. Traditionally artists have been considered soft and mellow people, a little bit kooky. Maybe we're a little bit more like pirates that way. We defend our territory, whatever space we steal to paint on, we defend it fiercely.
The developments of graffiti art which took place in art galleries and colleges as well as "on the street" or "underground", contributed to the resurfacing in the 1990s of a far more overtly politicized art form in the subvertising, culture jamming, or tactical media movements. These movements or styles tend to classify the artists by their relationship to their social and economic contexts, since, in most countries, graffiti art remains illegal in many forms except when using non-permanent paint. Since the 1990s with the rise of Street Art, a growing number of artists are switching to non-permanent paints and non-traditional forms of painting.
Contemporary practitioners, accordingly, have varied and often conflicting practices. Some individuals, such as Alexander Brener, have used the medium to politicize other art forms, and have used the prison sentences enforced on them as a means of further protest. The practices of anonymous groups and individuals also vary widely, and practitioners by no means always agree with each other's practices. For example, the anti-capitalist art group the Space Hijackers did a piece in 2004 about the contradiction between the capitalistic elements of Banksy and his use of political imagery.
Berlin human rights activist Irmela Mensah-Schramm has received global media attention and numerous awards for her 35-year campaign of effacing neo-Nazi and other right-wing extremist graffiti throughout Germany, often by altering hate speech in humorous ways.
In Serbian capital, Belgrade, the graffiti depicting a uniformed former general of Serb army and war criminal, convicted at ICTY for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including genocide and ethnic cleansing in Bosnian War, Ratko Mladić, appeared in a military salute alongside the words "General, thank to your mother". Aleks Eror, Berlin-based journalist, explains how "veneration of historical and wartime figures" through street art is not a new phenomenon in the region of former Yugoslavia, and that "in most cases is firmly focused on the future, rather than retelling the past". Eror is not only analyst pointing to danger of such an expressions for the region's future. In a long expose on the subject of Bosnian genocide denial, at Balkan Diskurs magazine and multimedia platform website, Kristina Gadže and Taylor Whitsell referred to these experiences as a young generations' "cultural heritage", in which young are being exposed to celebration and affirmation of war-criminals as part of their "formal education" and "inheritance".
There are numerous examples of genocide denial through celebration and affirmation of war criminals throughout the region of Western Balkans inhabited by Serbs using this form of artistic expression. Several more of these graffiti are found in Serbian capital, and many more across Serbia and Bosnian and Herzegovinian administrative entity, Republika Srpska, which is the ethnic Serbian majority enclave. Critics point that Serbia as a state, is willing to defend the mural of convicted war criminal, and have no intention to react on cases of genocide denial, noting that Interior Minister of Serbia, Aleksandar Vulin decision to ban any gathering with an intent to remove the mural, with the deployment of riot police, sends the message of "tacit endorsement". Consequently, on 9 November 2021, Serbian heavy police in riot gear, with graffiti creators and their supporters, blocked the access to the mural to prevent human rights groups and other activists to paint over it and mark the International Day Against Fascism and Antisemitism in that way, and even arrested two civic activist for throwing eggs at the graffiti.
Graffiti may also be used as an offensive expression. This form of graffiti may be difficult to identify, as it is mostly removed by the local authority (as councils which have adopted strategies of criminalization also strive to remove graffiti quickly). Therefore, existing racist graffiti is mostly more subtle and at first sight, not easily recognized as "racist". It can then be understood only if one knows the relevant "local code" (social, historical, political, temporal, and spatial), which is seen as heteroglot and thus a 'unique set of conditions' in a cultural context.
A spatial code for example, could be that there is a certain youth group in an area that is engaging heavily in racist activities. So, for residents (knowing the local code), a graffiti containing only the name or abbreviation of this gang already is a racist expression, reminding the offended people of their gang activities. Also a graffiti is in most cases, the herald of more serious criminal activity to come. A person who does not know these gang activities would not be able to recognize the meaning of this graffiti. Also if a tag of this youth group or gang is placed on a building occupied by asylum seekers, for example, its racist character is even stronger.
By making the graffiti less explicit (as adapted to social and legal constraints), these drawings are less likely to be removed, but do not lose their threatening and offensive character.
Elsewhere, activists in Russia have used painted caricatures of local officials with their mouths as potholes, to show their anger about the poor state of the roads. In Manchester, England, a graffitists painted obscene images around potholes, which often resulted in them being repaired within 48 hours.
In the early 1980s, the first art galleries to show graffitists to the public were Fashion Moda in the Bronx, Now Gallery and Fun Gallery, both in the East Village, Manhattan.
A 2006 exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum displayed graffiti as an art form that began in New York's outer boroughs and reached great heights in the early 1980s with the work of Crash, Lee, Daze, Keith Haring, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. It displayed 22 works by New York graffitists, including Crash, Daze, and Lady Pink. In an article about the exhibition in the magazine Time Out, curator Charlotta Kotik said that she hoped the exhibition would cause viewers to rethink their assumptions about graffiti.
From the 1970s onwards, Burhan Doğançay photographed urban walls all over the world; these he then archived for use as sources of inspiration for his painterly works. The project today known as "Walls of the World" grew beyond even his own expectations and comprises about 30,000 individual images. It spans a period of 40 years across five continents and 114 countries. In 1982, photographs from this project comprised a one-man exhibition titled "Les murs murmurent, ils crient, ils chantent ..." (The walls whisper, shout and sing ...) at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.
In Australia, art historians have judged some local graffiti of sufficient creative merit to rank them firmly within the arts. Oxford University Press's art history text Australian Painting 1788–2000 concludes with a long discussion of graffiti's key place within contemporary visual culture, including the work of several Australian practitioners.
Between March and April 2009, 150 artists exhibited 300 pieces of graffiti at the Grand Palais in Paris.
Spray paint has many negative environmental effects. The paint contains toxic chemicals, and the can uses volatile hydrocarbon gases to spray the paint onto a surface.
Volatile organic compound (VOC) leads to ground level ozone formation and most of graffiti related emissions are VOCs. A 2010 paper estimates 4,862 tons of VOCs were released in the United States in activities related to graffiti.
In China, Mao Zedong in the 1920s used revolutionary slogans and paintings in public places to galvanize the country's communist movement.
Based on different national conditions, many people believe that China's attitude towards Graffiti is fierce, but in fact, according to Lance Crayon in his film Spray Paint Beijing: Graffiti in the Capital of China, Graffiti is generally accepted in Beijing, with artists not seeing much police interference. Political and religiously sensitive graffiti, however, is not allowed.
In Hong Kong, Tsang Tsou Choi was known as the King of Kowloon for his calligraphy graffiti over many years, in which he claimed ownership of the area. Now some of his work is preserved officially.
In Taiwan, the government has made some concessions to graffitists. Since 2005 they have been allowed to freely display their work along some sections of riverside retaining walls in designated "Graffiti Zones". From 2007, Taipei's department of cultural affairs also began permitting graffiti on fences around major public construction sites. Department head Yong-ping Lee (李永萍) stated, "We will promote graffiti starting with the public sector, and then later in the private sector too. It's our goal to beautify the city with graffiti". The government later helped organize a graffiti contest in Ximending, a popular shopping district. graffitists caught working outside of these designated areas still face fines up to NT$6,000 under a department of environmental protection regulation. However, Taiwanese authorities can be relatively lenient, one veteran police officer stating anonymously, "Unless someone complains about vandalism, we won't get involved. We don't go after it proactively."
In 1993, after several expensive cars in Singapore were spray-painted, the police arrested a student from the Singapore American School, Michael P. Fay, questioned him, and subsequently charged him with vandalism. Fay pleaded guilty to vandalizing a car in addition to stealing road signs. Under the 1966 Vandalism Act of Singapore, originally passed to curb the spread of communist graffiti in Singapore, the court sentenced him to four months in jail, a fine of S$3,500 (US$2,233), and a caning. The New York Times ran several editorials and op-eds that condemned the punishment and called on the American public to flood the Singaporean embassy with protests. Although the Singapore government received many calls for clemency, Fay's caning took place in Singapore on 5 May 1994. Fay had originally received a sentence of six strokes of the cane, but the presiding president of Singapore, Ong Teng Cheong, agreed to reduce his caning sentence to four lashes.
In South Korea, Park Jung-soo was fined two million South Korean won by the Seoul Central District Court for spray-painting a rat on posters of the G-20 Summit a few days before the event in November 2011. Park alleged that the initial in "G-20" sounds like the Korean word for "rat", but Korean government prosecutors alleged that Park was making a derogatory statement about the president of South Korea, Lee Myung-bak, the host of the summit. This case led to public outcry and debate on the lack of government tolerance and in support of freedom of expression. The court ruled that the painting, "an ominous creature like a rat" amounts to "an organized criminal activity" and upheld the fine while denying the prosecution's request for imprisonment for Park.
In Europe, community cleaning squads have responded to graffiti, in some cases with reckless abandon, as when in 1992 in France a local Scout group, attempting to remove modern graffiti, damaged two prehistoric paintings of bison in the Cave of Mayrière supérieure near the French village of Bruniquel in Tarn-et-Garonne, earning them the 1992 Ig Nobel Prize in archeology.
In September 2006, the European Parliament directed the European Commission to create urban environment policies to prevent and eliminate dirt, litter, graffiti, animal excrement, and excessive noise from domestic and vehicular music systems in European cities, along with other concerns over urban life.
In Budapest, Hungary, both a city-backed movement called I Love Budapest and a special police division tackle the problem, including the provision of approved areas.
The Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 became Britain's latest anti-graffiti legislation. In August 2004, the Keep Britain Tidy campaign issued a press release calling for zero tolerance of graffiti and supporting proposals such as issuing "on the spot" fines to graffiti offenders and banning the sale of aerosol paint to anyone under the age of 16. The press release also condemned the use of graffiti images in advertising and in music videos, arguing that real-world experience of graffiti stood far removed from its often-portrayed "cool" or "edgy'" image.
To back the campaign, 123 Members of Parliament (MPs) (including then Prime Minister Tony Blair), signed a charter which stated: "Graffiti is not art, it's crime. On behalf of my constituents, I will do all I can to rid our community of this problem."
In the UK, city councils have the power to take action against the owner of any property that has been defaced under the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 (as amended by the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005) or, in certain cases, the Highways Act. This is often used against owners of property that are complacent in allowing protective boards to be defaced so long as the property is not damaged.
In July 2008, a conspiracy charge was used to convict graffitists for the first time. After a three-month police surveillance operation, nine members of the DPM crew were convicted of conspiracy to commit criminal damage costing at least £1 million. Five of them received prison sentences, ranging from eighteen months to two years. The unprecedented scale of the investigation and the severity of the sentences rekindled public debate over whether graffiti should be considered art or crime.
Some councils, like those of Stroud and Loerrach, provide approved areas in the town where graffitists can showcase their talents, including underpasses, car parks, and walls that might otherwise prove a target for the "spray and run".
Graffiti Tunnel, University of Sydney at Camperdown (2009)
In an effort to reduce vandalism, many cities in Australia have designated walls or areas exclusively for use by graffitists. One early example is the "Graffiti Tunnel" located at the Camperdown Campus of the University of Sydney, which is available for use by any student at the university to tag, advertise, poster, and paint. Advocates of this idea suggest that this discourages petty vandalism yet encourages artists to take their time and produce great art, without worry of being caught or arrested for vandalism or trespassing.[108][109] Others disagree with this approach, arguing that the presence of legal graffiti walls does not demonstrably reduce illegal graffiti elsewhere. Some local government areas throughout Australia have introduced "anti-graffiti squads", who clean graffiti in the area, and such crews as BCW (Buffers Can't Win) have taken steps to keep one step ahead of local graffiti cleaners.
Many state governments have banned the sale or possession of spray paint to those under the age of 18 (age of majority). However, a number of local governments in Victoria have taken steps to recognize the cultural heritage value of some examples of graffiti, such as prominent political graffiti. Tough new graffiti laws have been introduced in Australia with fines of up to A$26,000 and two years in prison.
Melbourne is a prominent graffiti city of Australia with many of its lanes being tourist attractions, such as Hosier Lane in particular, a popular destination for photographers, wedding photography, and backdrops for corporate print advertising. The Lonely Planet travel guide cites Melbourne's street as a major attraction. All forms of graffiti, including sticker art, poster, stencil art, and wheatpasting, can be found in many places throughout the city. Prominent street art precincts include; Fitzroy, Collingwood, Northcote, Brunswick, St. Kilda, and the CBD, where stencil and sticker art is prominent. As one moves farther away from the city, mostly along suburban train lines, graffiti tags become more prominent. Many international artists such as Banksy have left their work in Melbourne and in early 2008 a perspex screen was installed to prevent a Banksy stencil art piece from being destroyed, it has survived since 2003 through the respect of local street artists avoiding posting over it, although it has recently had paint tipped over it.
In February 2008 Helen Clark, the New Zealand prime minister at that time, announced a government crackdown on tagging and other forms of graffiti vandalism, describing it as a destructive crime representing an invasion of public and private property. New legislation subsequently adopted included a ban on the sale of paint spray cans to persons under 18 and increases in maximum fines for the offence from NZ$200 to NZ$2,000 or extended community service. The issue of tagging become a widely debated one following an incident in Auckland during January 2008 in which a middle-aged property owner stabbed one of two teenage taggers to death and was subsequently convicted of manslaughter.
Graffiti databases have increased in the past decade because they allow vandalism incidents to be fully documented against an offender and help the police and prosecution charge and prosecute offenders for multiple counts of vandalism. They also provide law enforcement the ability to rapidly search for an offender's moniker or tag in a simple, effective, and comprehensive way. These systems can also help track costs of damage to a city to help allocate an anti-graffiti budget. The theory is that when an offender is caught putting up graffiti, they are not just charged with one count of vandalism; they can be held accountable for all the other damage for which they are responsible. This has two main benefits for law enforcement. One, it sends a signal to the offenders that their vandalism is being tracked. Two, a city can seek restitution from offenders for all the damage that they have committed, not merely a single incident. These systems give law enforcement personnel real-time, street-level intelligence that allows them not only to focus on the worst graffiti offenders and their damage, but also to monitor potential gang violence that is associated with the graffiti.
Many restrictions of civil gang injunctions are designed to help address and protect the physical environment and limit graffiti. Provisions of gang injunctions include things such as restricting the possession of marker pens, spray paint cans, or other sharp objects capable of defacing private or public property; spray painting, or marking with marker pens, scratching, applying stickers, or otherwise applying graffiti on any public or private property, including, but not limited to the street, alley, residences, block walls, and fences, vehicles or any other real or personal property. Some injunctions contain wording that restricts damaging or vandalizing both public and private property, including but not limited to any vehicle, light fixture, door, fence, wall, gate, window, building, street sign, utility box, telephone box, tree, or power pole.
To help address many of these issues, many local jurisdictions have set up graffiti abatement hotlines, where citizens can call in and report vandalism and have it removed. San Diego's hotline receives more than 5,000 calls per year, in addition to reporting the graffiti, callers can learn more about prevention. One of the complaints about these hotlines is the response time; there is often a lag time between a property owner calling about the graffiti and its removal. The length of delay should be a consideration for any jurisdiction planning on operating a hotline. Local jurisdictions must convince the callers that their complaint of vandalism will be a priority and cleaned off right away. If the jurisdiction does not have the resources to respond to complaints in a timely manner, the value of the hotline diminishes. Crews must be able to respond to individual service calls made to the graffiti hotline as well as focus on cleanup near schools, parks, and major intersections and transit routes to have the biggest impact. Some cities offer a reward for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of suspects for tagging or graffiti related vandalism. The amount of the reward is based on the information provided, and the action taken.
When police obtain search warrants in connection with a vandalism investigation, they are often seeking judicial approval to look for items such as cans of spray paint and nozzles from other kinds of aerosol sprays; etching tools, or other sharp or pointed objects, which could be used to etch or scratch glass and other hard surfaces; permanent marking pens, markers, or paint sticks; evidence of membership or affiliation with any gang or tagging crew; paraphernalia including any reference to "(tagger's name)"; any drawings, writing, objects, or graffiti depicting taggers' names, initials, logos, monikers, slogans, or any mention of tagging crew membership; and any newspaper clippings relating to graffiti crime.
So, here it is. Another part or better said LEGO interpretation of another part of my childhood. Sanok, the place I spent most of my summer time. A place on earth I love to come back anytime I’ve got some spare time.
Autosan, one of the the oldest factories in Poland, founded by Walenty Lipiński and Mateusz Beksiński (yes, great-grandfather of ZdzisłaW Bekśiński) in 1845/1846.
Autosan H9-35, a city bus dsigned in 1969 and since 70s widely used in Poland in small and medium cities. Far away from today’s buses but still can be met here and there. Most of them are modernized.
I decided to replicate something older what I remember. The choice was H9-35 in traditional SPGK (operator of buses in Sanok) livery used in 80s and 90s. Bus #017 was built in 1984 and since new used as a city bus. I’m not sure when it was scrapped but for sure it is never more. Line number 3, just because it was the one I often traveled from my grandparents to visit my cousin on the other side of the city. Another option is a line “0” – called that because its route was around the city.
The idea to build such a bus with LEGO came after V1 showed his H9-21 couple of years ago. I re-used his front and wheel arches.
The model is equipped with fully functional minifig seats and couple more of them can stand on the floor as well. Far away from a real bus capacity, but not bad as for LEGO model. There are hand handles under the ceiling. Doors can be detached and then you will get fully functional steps to arrange some bus stop scenes. Driver workplace is also quite realistic with seat, steering wheel, gear lever and fancy wooden foot landing prevalent in H9-35 buses.
A lot of fun building it. I really cannot wait to put it on the bus stop by my train station. Now I think I need two of them. Or maybe Jelcz PR110 #084 from Sanok, but it’s topic for another story :)
Here's a relatively recent photo showing it as an Esso garage around 2010 www.geograph.org.uk/photo/2082160 Today there's nothing left, totally demolished which is an absolute shame as it was wonderful architecture. www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.5594371,-0.1971041,3a,75y,204.5... In May 2015 it was still a functional service station but by September it was on its way as Street View captures well here www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.5594229,-0.1970997,3a,75y,204.5...
The design and modular functionality of this set is unparalleled. The two cockpits detached from the center leaving a base behind. The top two sections also detached and could be reattached to the cockpits creating two ships with a little finagling of the tires. There was so much that you could do with this set. I toyed around (pun intended) with doing a whole Febrovery month based on this single set….but I figured I would wait for a 28 day Febrovery for that. This set is a perfect companion to the Alien Moon Stalker released the following year. I love the color scheme on both of them.
Liverpool City Transport L357, typifies the slab-fronted, but functional appearance of Liverpool's half-cabbed, tin-fronted buses of the late 1950s and early 1960s. L357 was a Crossley bodied Leyland PD2/20 that had been new to Liverpool in May 1958. She is pictured at rest in Water Street, Liverpool circa 1967-8.
Most of these buses were withdrawn in the 1970s, but sister bus L255 (VKB 711), survives in preservation.
It would appear from a previous photo I post some months ago, and taken in the same location, that the 57A service was jointly worked with Ribble.
Carrer de les Eres, Arans, Ordino, Vall nord, Andorra, Pyrenees - (c) Lutz Meyer
More Arans poble & Ordino parroquia: Follow the group links at right side.
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The Avro Vulcan XM594 displayed at Newark Aircraft Museum. Incredible to believe this aircraft’s preliminary design and development work started before World War 2 had drawn to a close.
Built at a time when British Aviation was at the very pinnacle of of World Class Engineering.
Scandinavian Sea House MOC is a small - but functional - house by the sea. It is shaped like an L and located somewhere in the Swedish archipelago. Downstairs you find a small TV-room and kitchen next to a guest room and a laundry room. A storage space is hidden underneath the staircase, that leads up to the master bedroom. And now we come to the best part - the home spa! Here you find a Turkish bath and resting chairs in a peaceful environment with a panorama sea view. Double glass doors lead to the roof terrace outside.
Film: Foma Fomapan 200 @ ISO | Develop: Caffenol C-H (Stock), 15 mins @ 20°C | Scan: Epson Perfection V800 Photo
Functional minifig-scale Batmobile Tumbler with full suspension and opening hatch (no Batpod, sorry ;-).
Further description and credits see www.flickr.com/photos/er0l/7272927220.
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One of the entrances to the former Cornwall Canal in Cornwall, Ontario, Canada.
The Cornwall Canal was built by the British government of Canada to bypass a troublesome rapids hindering navigation on the St. Lawrence at Cornwall, Ontario. Construction began in 1834 and was completed in 1843.
It closed in 1968, after becoming obsolete and functionally replaced by the St. Lawrence Seaway.
Bordes de Beixalis, Vila, Encamp, Vall d'Orient, Andorra, Pyrenees - (c) Lutz Meyer
More Beixalis & Encamp parroquia images: Follow the group links at right side.
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We offer 100.000+ photos of Andorra and North of Spain. The largest professional image catalog of Andorra from the newer history: all regions, all cities and villages, all times, all seasons, all weather(s). HighRes & HighColor GeoCoded stock-photo images including metadata in 4-5 languages. Prepared for an easy systematic organising of large image portfolios with advanced online / print-publishing as "Culture-GIS" (Geographic Info System). The big stockphoto collection from the Pyrenees.
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Casa d'Areny-Plandolit, Ordino, Vall nord, Andorra, Pyrenees - (c) Lutz Meyer
More Ordino city, Ordino parroquia, Ruta del Ferro, Andorra, Pyrenees: Follow the group links at right side.
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* "Andorra camis & rutes" active collection
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* for large metadata-controlled business collections: photo-archives, travel agencies, tourism editiorials
We offer 200.000+ photos of Andorra and North of Spain. 20.000+ visable here at Flickr. Its the largest professional image catalog of Andorra: all regions, all cities and villages, all times, all seasons, all weather(s). Consistent for additional advanced programming. For smartphones and web-db. REAL TIME!
It's based on GeoCoded stock-photo images and metadata with 4-5 languages. Prepared for easy systematic organising of large image portfolios with advanced online / print-publishing as "Culture-GIS" (Geographic Info System).
More information about usage, tips, how-to, conditions: www.flickr.com/people/lutzmeyer/. Get quality, data consistency, stable organisation and PR environments: Professional stockphotos for exciting stories - docu, tales, mystic.
Ask for licence! lutz(at)lutz-meyer.com
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The Attire of the Rovingian Nomadic Monks - Tradition, Inspiration, and Functionality - Part II by Daniel Arrhakis (2026)
® All designs created by Daniel Arrhakis.
4. Design Variations and Customization
Rovingianism is not a rigid monastic order, but a spiritual path based on individual freedom and personal journey. Therefore, the habit does not function as a fixed uniform: it evolves with the monk's journey, the climates he traverses, the available materials, and the symbols he chooses to incorporate.
Variations according to route and climate
Nomads of the cold highlands: use dense wools, handcrafted felt, heavy linens, and lanolin-rich fabrics, capable of protecting against wind, rain, fog, and altitude.
Dense wools for thermal insulation.
Rustic fibers, such as burel or wild goat skin.
Leather reinforcements on the shoulders and elbows to resist the friction of backpacks.
Earthy tones: rocky grays, deep browns, and moss greens.
Forest and woodland nomads: favor heavy cotton, rustic hemp, and moisture-resistant fabrics, suitable for dense trails, branches, brambles, and damp soil.
Robust cotton to resist tearing.
Rustic hemp for durability and moisture resistance.
Camouflage tones, such as leaf green, moss, and bark brown.
Botanical dyeing with berries, bark, and leaves.
Waxed reinforcements on hems to reduce mud and dew absorption.
Desert nomads: use lightweight linens, raw cotton, and ample layers to promote air circulation and protect against sun, sand, and intense heat.
Flowing and breathable linens.
Raw cotton, capable of reflecting solar radiation.
Long cloaks and voluminous scarves against sandstorms.
Solar tones: white, sand, ochre, and deep indigo.
Local plant fibers for durable details.
Travel Patchwork: As the robe wears out, the monk patches it with found, exchanged, or inherited fabrics. These patches, inspired by techniques such as boro or sashiko, transform the garment into a visual record of the lands visited.
Personal Tones, Dyes, and Patterns
The color palette functions as a visual geography. Each shade reveals the monk's relationship with the environment and can be obtained through natural dyes.
Earth and Root Tones: Deep browns obtained from walnut shells, oak, or roots.
Greens and Lichens: Olive, moss, and grayish tones, associated with vegetation and spiritual camouflage.
Ash and Charcoal Grays: Used by monks connected to purification rituals by fire or to mountainous and volcanic areas.
Painted and Embroidered Patterns
The personalization of the robe is understood as a form of active meditation. The monk may paint, embroider, or engrave symbols that translate their relationship with nature and with the journey itself.
Animistic protection patterns: motifs inspired by leaves, watercourses, footprints, or sacred animals.
Travel lines: abstract bands and contours that evoke crossed rivers, climbed mountains, or traveled paths.
Sacred imperfection: asymmetries and irregularities are valued as an expression of change, wear, and acceptance.
The final garment thus becomes a living logbook: dark, patched garments suggest long journeys through cold mountains, while plant patterns painted on green linen may reveal a recent experience in fertile valleys.
5. Pseudo-writing Patterns
Pseudo-writing patterns are one of the most mysterious elements of Rovingian attire. They do not correspond to a fixed alphabet or a functional script; rather, they serve a spiritual, aesthetic, and meditative purpose.
Since Rovingianism values individual freedom, these characters represent an intuitive language: an attempt to visually translate sounds of nature, meditation visions, the flow of wind, or the movement of water.
Types of Pseudo-writing
1. Types of Rovingian Pseudo-writing
Organic glyphs: inspired by branches, cracks in ice, erosion marks, or mountain contours.
Flowing cursive writing: continuous and interwoven lines, painted in a single gesture, evoking wind, water, or movement.
Abstract sacred geometry: dots, parallel lines, and concentric circles suggesting star maps, lunar cycles, or seasons.
Application methods
Hand painting: application of natural pigments made from charcoal, clay, berries, or minerals.
Subtle embroidery: characters embroidered on threads slightly different from the fabric, creating relief and textile reinforcement.
Woodblock printing: patterns stamped with seals carved by the monk himself.
Spiritual Purpose
Active Meditation: Drawing or embroidering without literal meaning helps focus the mind on gesture and rhythm.
Traveler's Secret: Because it is not legible to others, the pseudo-writing preserves the monk's spiritual intimacy.
Mystical Camouflage: From a distance, the patterns break the human silhouette and blend the body with natural textures.
6. The Double Hood
The double hood that appears on some costumes, is one of the most ingenious and striking features of the garment. The overlapping of two layers responds to the need for climate adaptation, meditative isolation, and protection in various demanding natural environments.
Inner hood: spiritual and contact layer
Material: soft and breathable fabrics, such as washed linen, rustic cotton, or fine wool.
Practical function: retains body heat and protects the ears from the wind without completely blocking hearing.
Spiritual function: limits peripheral vision during walking meditation, creating a space for inner concentration.
Outer hood: protective and environmental layer
Material: waxed thick linens, beaten wool, or fabrics treated with natural oils.
Practical function: protects against heavy rain, snow, wind, and intense sun.
Visual function: the depth of the hood casts a shadow over the face and breaks up the silhouette of the head in the natural environment.
Dynamics of use while traveling
The main advantage of the double hood is its modular versatility, allowing for different configurations according to the climate, social context, or the meditative state of the monk.
In mild weather or camping: the outer hood can be lowered, keeping only the inner layer.
During a storm: both hoods are raised; the outer hood deflects water and wind, while the inner hood retains heat.
In deep meditation: the inner hood reduces visual stimuli, and the outer hood creates a zone of personal retreat.
In the final silhouette, the double hood adds volume, mystery, and presence to the shoulders and neck. Combined with wide-legged trousers and a wrap-around tunic, it creates an imposing, functional, and timeless figure.
7. The Cloth Belt or Sash
In the tradition of Rovingian nomadic monks, the cloth belt represents the continuous flow of vital energy and spiritual discipline. Similar to the obi (sash) used in a martial arts kimono, this belt is long and wraps around the waist several times. It may also contain ritualistic natural elements hanging from cords.
The Symbolism of Colors
In Rovingianism, the choice of belt color is a purely personal and contextual expression, not a system of ranking or power. The absence of a rigid hierarchy reinforces the nomadic philosophy that each spiritual journey is unique and self-directed.
Factors Determining Color
Environment: The color adapts to the geography (e.g., earth tones for forests or white for snow), promoting camouflage and harmony with the environment.
Individual Path: Reflects the monk's current life stage, internal challenges overcome, or current spiritual vow.
Personal and spiritual symbolism. The meaning of each color is defined by the wearer, making the belt a mirror of their consciousness.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
4. Variações de Design e Personalização
O Rovingianismo não é uma ordem monástica rígida, mas um caminho espiritual assente na liberdade individual e na jornada pessoal. Por isso, o traje não funciona como uniforme fixo: evolui com o percurso do monge, com os climas que atravessa, os materiais disponíveis e os símbolos que decide incorporar.
Variações conforme a rota e o clima
Nómadas das terras altas e frias: utilizam lãs densas, feltro artesanal, linhos pesados e tecidos ricos em lanolina, capazes de proteger contra vento, chuva, nevoeiro e altitude.
Lãs densas para isolamento térmico.
Fibras rústicas, como burel ou pelo de cabra selvagem.
Reforços em cabedal nos ombros e cotovelos para resistir ao atrito das mochilas.
Tons telúricos: cinzentos rochosos, castanhos profundos e verdes musgo.
Nómadas das florestas e bosques: privilegiam algodão pesado, cânhamo rústico e tecidos resistentes à humidade, adequados a trilhos densos, ramos, silvas e solos húmidos.
Algodão robusto para resistir ao rasgo.
Cânhamo rústico pela durabilidade e resistência à humidade.
Tons de camuflagem, como verde-folha, musgo e castanho-casca.
Tingimento botânico com bagas, cascas e folhas.
Reforços encerados nas bainhas para reduzir a absorção de lama e orvalho.
Nómadas do deserto: recorrem a linhos leves, algodão cru e camadas amplas para favorecer a circulação do ar e proteger contra sol, areia e calor intenso.
Linhos fluidos e respiráveis.
Algodão cru, capaz de refletir a radiação solar.
Mantos longos e lenços volumosos contra tempestades de areia.
Tons solares: branco, areia, ocre e índigo profundo.
Fibras vegetais locais para detalhes resistentes.
Retalhos de viagem: à medida que o traje se desgasta, o monge remenda-o com tecidos encontrados, trocados ou herdados. Estes remendos, inspirados em técnicas como boro ou sashiko, transformam a roupa num registo visual das terras visitadas.
Tons, tinturas e padrões pessoais
A paleta de cores funciona como uma geografia visual. Cada tom revela a relação do monge com o ambiente e pode ser obtido através de tinturas naturais.
Tons de terra e raízes: castanhos profundos obtidos de cascas de noz, carvalho ou raízes.
Verdes e líquenes: tons oliva, musgo e acinzentados, associados à vegetação e à camuflagem espiritual.
Cinzentos de cinza e carvão: usados por monges ligados a rituais de purificação pelo fogo ou a zonas montanhosas e vulcânicas.
Padrões pintados e bordados
A personalização do traje é entendida como uma forma de meditação ativa. O monge pode pintar, bordar ou gravar símbolos que traduzem a sua relação com a natureza e com a própria jornada.
Padrões de proteção animista: motivos inspirados em folhas, cursos de água, pegadas ou animais sagrados.
Linhas de viagem: faixas e contornos abstratos que evocam rios cruzados, montanhas superadas ou caminhos percorridos.
Imperfeição sagrada: assimetrias e irregularidades são valorizadas como expressão de mudança, desgaste e aceitação.
O traje final torna-se, assim, um diário de bordo vivo: vestes escuras e remendadas sugerem longas passagens por montanhas frias, enquanto padrões vegetais pintados sobre linho verde podem revelar uma vivência recente em vales férteis.
5. Padrões de Pseudoescrita
Os padrões de pseudoescrita são um dos elementos mais misteriosos do traje rovingiano. Não correspondem a um alfabeto fixo nem a uma escrita funcional; cumprem antes um propósito espiritual, estético e meditativo.
Como o Rovingianismo valoriza a liberdade individual, estes caracteres representam uma linguagem intuitiva: uma tentativa de traduzir visualmente sons da natureza, visões de meditação, o fluxo do vento ou o movimento da água.
Tipos de pseudoescrita
1. Tipos de Pseudoescrita Rovingiana
Glifos orgânicos: inspirados em ramos, fendas no gelo, marcas de erosão ou contornos de montanhas.
Escrita cursiva de fluxo: linhas contínuas e entrelaçadas, pintadas num único gesto, evocando vento, água ou movimento.
Geometria sagrada abstrata: pontos, linhas paralelas e círculos concêntricos que sugerem mapas estelares, ciclos lunares ou estações.
Métodos de aplicação
Pintura manual: aplicação de pigmentos naturais feitos de carvão, argila, bagas ou minerais.
Bordado subtil: caracteres bordados em fios ligeiramente diferentes do tecido, criando relevo e reforço têxtil.
Impressão por bloco de madeira: padrões carimbados com selos esculpidos pelo próprio monge.
Propósito espiritual
Meditação ativa: desenhar ou bordar sem significado literal ajuda a focar a mente no gesto e no ritmo.
Segredo do viajante: por não ser legível para outros, a pseudoescrita preserva a intimidade espiritual do monge.
Camuflagem mística: à distância, os padrões quebram a silhueta humana e misturam o corpo com texturas naturais.
6. O Duplo Capuz
O duplo capuz que surge em alguns trajes, é uma das características mais engenhosas e marcantes do traje. A sobreposição de duas camadas responde à necessidade de adaptação climática, isolamento meditativo e proteção em ambientes naturais exigentes.
Capuz interior: camada espiritual e de contacto
Material: tecidos macios e respiráveis, como linho lavado, algodão rústico ou lã fina.
Função prática: retém calor corporal e protege as orelhas do vento sem bloquear totalmente a audição.
Função espiritual: limita a visão periférica durante a meditação em caminhada, criando um espaço de concentração interior.
Capuz exterior: camada de proteção e ambiente
Material: linhos grossos encerados, lã batida ou tecidos tratados com óleos naturais.
Função prática: protege contra chuva forte, neve, vento e sol intenso.
Função visual: a profundidade do capuz projeta sombra sobre o rosto e quebra a silhueta da cabeça no ambiente natural.
Dinâmica de uso na viagem
A principal vantagem do duplo capuz é a sua versatilidade modular, permitindo diferentes configurações conforme o clima, o contexto social ou o estado meditativo do monge.
Em tempo ameno ou no acampamento: o capuz exterior pode ser baixado, mantendo apenas a camada interior.
Sob tempestade: ambos os capuzes são erguidos; o exterior desvia água e vento, enquanto o interior conserva calor.
Em meditação profunda: o capuz interior reduz estímulos visuais, e o exterior cria uma zona de recolhimento pessoal.
Na silhueta final, o duplo capuz acrescenta volume, mistério e presença aos ombros e ao pescoço. Em conjunto com as calças largas e a túnica cruzada, cria uma figura imponente, funcional e intemporal.
7. A Faixa ou Cinto de Pano
Na tradição dos monges nômades rovingianos, o cinto de pano representa o fluxo contínuo de energia vital e a disciplina espiritual. Semelhante ao obi (faixa) utilizado num Quimono de Artes Marciais, este cinto tem um formato longo e envolve a cintura várias vezes. Pode conter igualmente elementos naturais ritualísticos pendurados por cordões.
O Simbolismo das Cores
No Rovingianismo, a escolha da cor do cinto é uma expressão puramente pessoal e contextual, e não um sistema de graduação ou poder. A ausência de uma hierarquia rígida reforça a filosofia nômade de que cada jornada espiritual é única e autodirigida.
Fatores que Determinam a Cor
Ambiente: A cor adapta-se à geografia (ex: tons de terra para florestas ou branco para a neve), promovendo a camuflagem e a harmonia com o meio envolvente.
Percurso Individual: Reflete o momento de vida, os desafios internos superados ou o voto espiritual atual do monge.
Simbolismo pessoal e espiritual. : O significado de cada cor é definido pelo próprio portador, tornando o cinto um espelho da sua consciência.
oli says that it looks like they're swimming when she carries the purse around :)
pattern in my etsy shop: www.anapaulaoli.etsy.com
la oli dice que parece como que estuvieran nadando cuando lleva la carterita (no que los nenes de 3 son adorados?)
Functional pebble coasters in a range of earthy stone colours.
10cm £10 each or £3 for a set of four.
A fully functional Launch Abort System (LAS) with a test version of Orion attached, launches on NASA’s Ascent Abort-2 (AA-2) atop a Northrop Grumman provided booster on July 2, 2019, at 7 a.m. EDT, from Launch Pad 46 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. During AA-2, the booster will send the LAS and Orion to an altitude of 31,000 feet, traveling at Mach 1.15 (more than 1,000 mph). The LAS’ three motors will work together to pull the crew module away from the booster and prepare it for splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean. The flight test will prove that the abort system can pull crew to safety in the unlikely event of an emergency during ascent. Photo credit: NASA/Tony Gray and Kevin O’Connell
Demonstration video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_xyQyoIves
Using the polyphonic sound code from my electronic Dry Bones sprites along with the structural functionality of my illuminated mosaic Link portrait, I’ve combined both concepts. In this new portrait, I use a grid of flat LED panels fastened on to the rear door, with a 16 Ohm speaker attached as well. Controlling the whole circuit is a homemade circuit board with an Atmel ATmega328P as the central brain, containing an Arduino code for playing the music and activating the lights. The biggest technological feat for this project is how I successfully managed to control the 12V LED panels through a small 5.5V AVR, through the help of transistors.
In layman’s terms, a small microcontroller like the ATmega328 is only capable of controlling circuits between 3-5.5V; anything else will burn out the chip. By using transistors attached to the digital outputs of the ATmega, I can control much larger loads, with the overall 12V input power being directed into the circuit via a voltage regulator. This new method allows me to control larger lights than simple LEDs, which opens new doors for potentially building more LEGO traffic lights and whatnot.
The physical LEGO portion was rather straightforward and didn’t have a lot of flaws. Towards the end of the construction, I had to slightly rebuild the project to use a small tactile button to activate the circuit. Originally I had a large momentary pushbutton installed near the bottom of the rear door: the button required too much pressure to push, which caused the structure to wobble and almost fall over when pressed.
Creating the circuit board and wiring the Arduino code was also rather simple, since I used the same functionality of the Dry Bones model. Unfortunately, when I was testing out the method of using transistors for controlling the LED panels, I accidentally loaded the 12V power into my Arduino Uno’s 5.5V input — thus frying it. After purchasing a new Arduino, I successfully did some breadboard experiments with TIP120 transistors to control the LED panels.
The LEGO structure opens like a book, and on the rear door are eight white SMD LED panels connected in parallel to three digital output pins of the ATmega — cathode to cathode, with the red positive wires being channeled into the positive terminal of the 12V power supply. For sound output, I created some makeshift speaker holes on the top right orange brick sprite: this was achieved by placing LEGO grille tiles over headlight pieces.
A rusty but functional basketball hoop at the local primary school.
I watched the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie recently and found it rubbish. Then I downloaded a live concert of Douglas Adams reading excerpts from his books and found it totally hilarious. The words just don't translate! That Douglas Adams sure is a hoopy frood!
URBAN DICTIONARY
Hoopy = really together guy
Frood = really amazingly together guy
Taken with iPhone 4S.
BMW Welt (English - BMW World), is a multi-functional customer experience and exhibition facility of the BMW Group, located in Munich, Germany. In direct proximity to the BMW Headquarters, it is designed to: present the current products of BMW; be a distribution center for BMW cars; and offer an event forum and a conference center. HDR photo.
Designed by architects Coop Himmelb(l)au for BMW Group, the facility was constructed from August 2003 through Summer 2007.
"The Double Cone which protrudes prominently from the entire building acts as a powerful and dynamic eye-catcher. The cyclone made of glass and steel, winding upwards, ending in the roof which is suspended freely, floating just like a cloud, is created by a dynamic deformation of the two girder layers and constitutes one of the main supporting points of the roof.
The architectural concept of the BMW Welt combines form and function. This is shown in the elegant steel facade, for example, which serves the function of air-conditioning the BMW Welt, among other things. For this purpose, the solar energy which is lead from the roof to the facades contributes to the heating of the building and the ventilation of the building is also implemented with the large wall areas." --> www.bmw-welt.com/web/bmw-welt/en/index_highend.html
Die BMW Welt ist eine kombinierte Ausstellungs-, Auslieferungs-, Erlebnis-, Museums- und Eventstätte in direkter Nähe zum BMW-Vierzylinder in München. Sie wurde von 2003 bis 2007 nach Plänen der Architekten Coop Himmelb(l)au für BMW errichtet. Auf dem Dach ist eine Solaranlage mit 800 KW Leistung installiert. Die Eröffnung fand am 20./21. Oktober 2007 statt.
See my set about BMW Welt!
"Als kraftvoller und dynamischer Blickfang erscheint der dem gesamten Bauwerk prominent vorgelagerte Doppelkegel. Der in Glas und Stahl gebannte Tornadowirbel, der sich nach oben schraubt und im ebenso wie eine Wolke frei schwebenden und fliegenden Dach endet, entsteht durch eine dynamische Verformung der beiden Trägerlagen und bildet ein Hauptauflager des Daches.
Das architektonische Konzept der BMW Welt vereint Design und Funktion gleichermaßen. Dies zeigt sich zum Beispiel in der filigranen Stahlfassade, die unter anderem der Klimatisierung der BMW Welt dient. So wirkt die Solarenergie, die durch das Dach und die Fassaden gelangt, gezielt an der Beheizung des Gebäudes mit und die Belüftung des Gebäudes erfolgt ebenfalls über seine großen Wandflächen. Gläserne Hüllflächen ermöglichen eine thermisch behagliche Oberflächentemperatur." --> www.bmw-welt.com/web/bmw-welt/de/index_highend.html
F225 universal agricultural tractor as of 1962. Includes two cylinder engine, two speed transmission, drive shafts, working steering, lifting arrangement. Can be configured as tipper, front loader with digger or fork. There was also a sowing machine and a mower for it.
This has been grouted for couple months...finally got it cleaned..but see I still need to do a little more...I have a lot of starting and stopping right now, resting.