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Created for: Treat This 308 ~ 15 January to 21 January 2023
www.flickr.com/groups/1752359@N21/discuss/72157721918011814/
Thanks to abstractartangel77 for this source:
www.flickr.com/photos/abstractartangel77/52612809136/
Wombo blend using the source
Hands/birds=PNGWING
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Just about every small town in the Midwest has one or more of these…an empty lot caused by the removal of one of the old buildings in a commercial row. Looking a bit like a missing tooth, what can you do with it? The days of commercial prosperity have flown the coop and about all you have now that is viable is a Casey’s gas station and a Dollar Store. These old commercial rows present a challenging situation for a bold entrepreneur who can think outside the box. Maybe we should just order dentures.
Arundel Castle is a restored and remodelled medieval castle in Arundel, West Sussex, England. It was established during the reign of Edward the Confessor and completed by Roger de Montgomery. The castle was damaged in the English Civil War and then restored in the 18th and 19th centuries by Charles Howard, 11th Duke of Norfolk.
Since the 11th century, the castle has been the seat of the Earls of Arundel and the Dukes of Norfolk. It is a Grade I listed building.
The original structure was a motte-and-bailey castle. Roger de Montgomery was declared the first Earl of Arundel as the King granted him the property as part of a much larger package of hundreds of manors. Roger, who was a cousin of William the Conqueror, had stayed in Normandy to keep the peace there while William was away from England. He was rewarded for his loyalty with extensive lands in the Welsh Marches and across the country, together with one fifth of Sussex (Arundel Rape). He began work on Arundel Castle in around 1067.
The castle then passed to Adeliza of Louvain (who had previously been married to Henry I) and her husband William d'Aubigny. Empress Matilda stayed in the castle, in 1139. It then passed down the d'Aubigny line until the death of Hugh d'Aubigny, 5th Earl of Arundel in 1243. John Fitzalan then inherited jure matris the castle and honour of Arundel, by which, according to Henry VI's "admission" of 1433, he was later retrospectively held to have become de jure Earl of Arundel.
The FitzAlan male line ceased on the death of Henry Fitzalan, 12th Earl of Arundel, whose daughter and heiress Mary FitzAlan married Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk, to whose descendants the castle and earldom passed.
In 1643, during the First English Civil War, the castle was besieged. The 800 royalists inside surrendered after 18 days. Afterwards in 1653 Parliament ordered the slighting of the castle; however "weather probably destroyed more".
Although the castle remained in the hands of the Howard family over the succeeding centuries, it was not their favourite residence, and the various Dukes of Norfolk invested their time and energy into improving other ducal estates, including Norfolk House in London. Charles Howard, 11th Duke of Norfolk, was known for his restoration work and improvements to the castle beginning in 1787. The folly that still stands on the hill above Swanbourne Lake was commissioned by and built for the Duke by Francis Hiorne at this time.
In 1846, Queen Victoria and her husband, Prince Albert, visited Arundel Castle for three days. Henry Howard, 13th Duke of Norfolk, remodelled the castle in time for her visit to a design by an architectural firm, Morant: a suite of six rooms were built on the second floor of the south-east range at this time.
The 19th-century embellishments had not been completed when this picture was published in 1880. Soon after the 1846 Royal visit the 14th Duke began re-structuring the castle again. The work, which was done to the designs of Charles Alban Buckler and undertaken by Rattee and Kett of Cambridge, was completed in the late 19th century. The 16th Duke had planned to give the castle to the National Trust but following his death in 1975 the 17th Duke cancelled the plan. He created an independent charitable trust to guarantee the castle's future, and oversaw restorative works.
The extensive gardens had received significant improvements by early 2020 through the efforts of head gardener Martin Duncan and his crew. A horticulturalist and landscape designer, Duncan has been working at the Castle since 2009; in 2018, he received the Kew Guild Medal. The gardeners and volunteers "have worked wonders with their bold and innovative plantings", according to an April 2020 report by Country Life. Their most recent efforts led to a wild water garden around the ponds.
For further information please visit en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arundel_Castle, www.arundelcastle.org/gardens/ and www.arundelcastle.org/
Cill Chriosd Manse House, Nr Broardford, Isle of Skye
I'll give you a break from Valencia for a while!
Back to March and my trip up to Skye. I met up with Skyeweasel and although the weather/tides meant Elgol was pretty pointless she was kind enough to show me a few locations I'd not shot before on the Broadford to Elgol road.
I'd seen this old manse house on a map and aerial photo and had it in mind to try to find but Louise took me straight there and we must have spent 90mins at least trying different povs and portrait v Landscape orientations. The snow on the mountains added a different feel. Several areas of rock existed to create leading lines and this was one of them.
Have to say I really enjoyed this location so once again my sincere thanks to Louise for her help and guidance on the day. Check out her channel if you haven't already www.flickr.com/photos/95388056@N02
© All rights reserved Steve Pellatt. Please do not use this image on websites, blogs or any other media without my explicit written permission.
Some time before I shot the previous photo, the Black-shouldered Kite male was carrying this twig and landed in the tree where the nest should be. I suppose this was just some small addition to the already completed construction because I had observed the nest building process at lest a month ago. I wonder about the strength of his beak holding the twig so precisely at its very tip during the fast flight.
Leica M-P & Elmarit-M 28mm
Please don't use this image on websites, blogs or other media without my written permission.
© Toni_V. All rights reserved.
This Red-necked Grebe pair is working side by side to improve the nest with floating materials gathered nearby. Here they are moving the materials with their beaks to where they like them.
Taken 14 June 2021 in Anchorage, Alaska.
This house looked so sad for a very long time. The area at the front was overgrown and full to bursting with three cornered leeks.
It took the new owners a bit of time, but it's now looking lovely. You can just see the Welcome sign I took a photo of on the left hand wall - www.flickr.com/photos/44506883@N04/50176710771/in/album-7...
Better viewed large and thank you for your favourites.
'twas great fun watching a pair shore up their nest in anticipation of little ones this morning.
Northern VA
The same Blue Jay that landed on the fence in our back yard. This is what it looked like after it splashed around in our bird bath for several minutes. I don't see an improvement. :)
Young red squirrel (Sciurus vulgaris) collecting hay. Grass was recently mowed with some hay remaining, and it's a great opportunity for some nest improvement.
Młoda wiewiórka (Sciurus vulgaris) zbierająca siano. Trawa zostałą niedawno skoszona i pozostało po tym nieco siana, co jest znakomitą okazją do ulepszenia gniazda.
Highway 1 connects Metro Vancouver to the North Shore, the Horseshoe Bay Ferry Terminal and Highway 99. It is a vital local, Regional and Provincial corridor for people, services and goods. Improvements will address safety, queuing, delays and will help to improve travel times along Highway 1 and the Lower Lynn Interchanges.
Red squirrel (Sciurus vulgaris) perched on a dead tree branch with a bunch of nest building material in its mouth.
Wiewiórka (Sciurus vulgaris) siedząca na gałęzi martwego drzewa z porcją materiału do budowy gniazda w pyszczku.
Some of my old 1/72 were pretty rushed and all getting a good revisit. Much improved Mig-29 and now working on some camo versions.
Highest Position - Explore #1 | 08.05.2009 (Thank u kindly always!)
(Big cheers to Frank for the ss!)
Me feeling real slow today... slow reaction & to top it up..i've got a real slow internet connection as well. Had a hard time even trying to upload this shot. I've just used up my download limit for the month :)) so i'm just connected at 64kbps which is real sad! Therefore pls bear with me while i get back my fast connection tomorrow & everything will be hunky dorey! & yes thank goodness weekend is here for me soon! HAVE LOTSA FUN everyone! Catch u on again soon! ;)
View LARGE On Black (sorry low quality for faster upload)
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About
The Singapore Sunset with the Twin Pagodas at the Chinese Garden
The Shot
Standard 3 exposure shot (+2..0..-2 EV) taken handheld using Sigma DC HSM 10-20mm lens
Photomatix
- Tonemapped generated HDR using detail enhancer option
Photoshop
- Added 1 layer mask effect of 'curves' to increase the contrast
- Added 1 layer mask effect of 'saturation' (blues) to darken the sky
- Added 1 layer mask effect of 'saturation' (yellows) to slightly tone up the sunset
- Added 1 layer mask effect of 'saturation' (reds) to tone down the brightness of tiles
- Applied noise reduction
- Used 'unsharp mask' (as always) on the background layer
You
All comments, criticism and tips for improvements are (as always) welcome
Music
Bruce Springsteen - Secret Garden
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Grey heron, partially back lit, working on home improvements.
Thank you for stopping by to look at my images. Any comments and faves are always appreciated. Have a great day!
CN and BNSF GE C44-9Ws roll past through the construction zone at Prairie View in 2005.
Soon this will be double track with an interlocking installed. The cell phone towers will remain.
first image processed in Capture One. There is still plenty of room for improvement however I really like the workflow in that piece of software.
and there are clearly too many pictures of subway stairs and escalators. but I could not resist, this was easy to process... :-)
I last stopped to photograph this small ruined building near Elphin back in 2014 ('Des Res'). It sits atop a small 'hill' with stunning views to Cul More and Suilven at left and right. The skies on this visit were particularly 'angry', rendering the mountains as almost black. I was pleased to see that perhaps this is not quite as abandoned as I thought; there was some additional, unexpected garden furniture added since my last visit.
A CSX West Olive coal train turns the corner toward Grand Rapids in Plymouth, Michigan with a much improved yellow nose scheme. I hated the all grey and blue/grey schemes, this was an improvement but far from what could have been considering all the classy schemes that disappeared into Family Lines and CSX. April 1990
Number 135 of my 365 photo challenge - Another macro image of a Dandelion fruit.
I know I have used this subject already, but this was just too much of an improvement from my point of view, not to be used for today's picture.
Duntulm is believed to have been first fortified in the Iron Age, and the site continues to be associated with the name Dùn Dhaibhidh or "David's Fort". Later in life it was fortified by the Norse, and subsequently by their successors, the MacLeods of Skye. It would have been while it was under the MacLeod's tenure that James V visited the castle in 1540, where he was impressed by its strength and the quality of the hospitality on offer.
By the early 1600s, Trotternish was under the control of the MacLeod's rivals on Skye, the MacDonalds of Sleat. They appear to have made a number of improvements to the castle and it is possible that much of the structure recorded in the late 1800s, apart from the keep, dated back to this period. The MacDonalds abandoned the castle in about 1730 in favour of nearby Monkstadt House and then Armadale Castle in Sleat. Some say this was after a nursemaid accidentally dropped the baby son of the clan chief from a castle window above the cliffs. The ghost of the nursemaid, killed in retribution, is still said to wander the ruins. She is apparently kept company by the ghost of Hugh MacDonald, who plotted against the rightful clan chief in the 1600s, and who was starved to death in the dungeon at Duntulm.
The outer isles are visible in the distance
Bald Eagle taking another offering home to the nest, maybe this one will pass its partner's approval.
Check out this picture to see what he brought 1st! www.flickr.com/photos/137525873@N08/51953549437/in/datepo...