People of the Great Rivers
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Nieuw-Herlaer Castle is on the east bank of the Dommel, about a hundred meters from the hamlet Halder, to which it is connected by a bridge. Nieuw-Herlaer Castle was a loan from the Lordship Herlaer, which centered on Oud Herlaer Castle. Oud Herlaer Castle is only about one kilometer to the north and is very close to Maurick Castle in Vught. Haanwijk manor is only 400 meters to the north. Haanwijk Manor is not a true castle, but it has the medieval tower 't Vaantje on the estate grounds. The castle density in the area seems remarkable.
In the past the proximity between Nieuw-Herlaar Castle and Oud Herlaer Castle was more logical than it now seems to be. Nieuw-Herlaer was on the west bank of the Dommel, and Oud Herlaer on the east bank. That is, the Dommel flowed just north of Nieuw-Herlaar Castle. Thus from a military perspective, Nieuw-Herlaar Castle was close to Maurick Castle in Vught, also on the west bank of the Dommel. The Esschestroom was between these castles, which belonged to opposing parties when they were founded.
A drawing from 1801 is very instructive to understand the location of Nieuw-Herlaar Castle on the Dommel. It also makes old pictures of the castle understandable. The map easily compares to a modern map. The very small wings (cf. the 2010 photograph) of the current mansion, which protrude to the south/southeast help to understand it.
8/08/2021. Georgia Mountains. This species is beginning to move south by this August date in our area but this species also does breed at the Georgia Mountain location where I took this image. This image is instructive as it illustrates the transition from the Spring adult male plumage to the duller fall plumage. Notice the orange although still fairly bright is a good bit duller than a bright Spring male. Also note that the solid white wing panel of the Spring male is being replaced by a pair of full looking white wing bars.
The beak is lighter in color and the black is noticeably duller on the face. First fall males are yellow rather than orange and fall adult females are also more yellow than orange but have a uniform looking charcoal face patch (auricular) whereas the first fall male has some darker black on the top and or posterior part of the patch. First fall females are the dullest (more of a buff than yellow or orange) and later fall individuals can appear very pale almost white. No matter the season or sex all birds of this species will have two paired pale back stripes which of course is often not seen well.
I will follow up on this post with a fall female and a first fall male to help illustrate the differences discussed above.
On the left:
Camera: Nikon F90X with an Orange filter
Film: Kodak Professional 400TX BW film
Scanned by Atkins Photography Lab, Adelaide, Australia
On the right, the Nikon D850. Not as strict a comparison as the previous shots because the angle to the sun is different, but still instructive. The film holds up well I think.
One thing that you can do with shooting film negatives is to overexpose the shot. This brings out more detail in the shadows, but you don't blow out your highlights as in digital. Film is very tolerant (unless shooting slides) and this little trick helps to lift the shot as we see here. One stop is probably enough.
“Few things under heaven are as instructive as the lessons of Silence.”
— Tao Te Ching
Prints and downloads:
“Few things under heaven are as instructive as the lessons of Silence.”— Tao Te Ching
Prints and downloads available at:
Pansy, "Majestic Giants II Clear Purple" Viola tricolor var. hortensis, a cultivated hybrid, in a hanging basket on our patio. Not a lot of deep meaning here. Sometimes a pretty face will suffice to celebrate Spring.
Tech Note: I tag SOOC & film sim because I am (sometimes) trying to be more intentional about getting the right shot by premeditation, and to educate myself about the characteristics looks on offer. The X-S10 offers film sim bracketing; i.e., optionally saves 3 pre-selected jpegs per exposure, which can be instructive. Didn’t use it here.
20 Apr 2021; 08:15 CDT; cropped SOOC; Velvia film simulation.
Earliest XF70-300mm post.
It's decorative and NO you can't have a bath in it.
Sometimes they say the dumbest things. They have a true fascination for things though. They don't get out much.
Happy Teddy Bear Tuesday
Seriously, this photo was not accepted for the Group "Archaeological Artefact photography". Lest you do not know, I am an archaeologist. I visited Xian with a group of archaeologists and heritage specialists in 2014. All of the terracotta warriors are known ONLY from archaeology, and they are artefacts. Most archaeological artefacts have to be reconstructed before they are put on display. This photo shows that, and it was really instructive to me that the warriors were not all found standing in the positions we view them. Give me a break. Most group allocations are irrelevant, but not this one.
"Final - My Challenge365, and at the same time a wonderful and exciting year of photography, is now over. I gained many new insights from this, and at the same time I got to know the limits of my camera. Outside this challenge, there were also three wonderful shootings.
The first was a romantic shoot for the twentieth wedding anniversary. The second, a band shooting with the band "DISTREZZED", in which I was really allowed to let off steam (more about this shooting will follow soon).
And last but not least, I was allowed to accompany a bridal couple with my camera at their wedding ceremony at Beilstein Castle.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone involved in these shootings once again for the trust they have placed in me. All three shootings were a lot of fun. On the one hand because of the completely relaxed atmosphere, on the other hand because of the completely uncomplicated actors. And by the way, these shootings were also extremely instructive for me.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank all followers, all new followers, and all those who just stopped by, and will stop by. I say thank you for all the previous and for all the new favs and comments.
Thank you for accompanying me on my Challenge365 and keeping me faithful. New projects are already being planned (more on this in the New Year), and therefore I would be really happy if you would remain with me. 🙏
In this sense - all the best for 2023…!"
„Finale - Meine Challenge365, und gleichzeitig ein wunderbares und spannendes Jahr der Fotografie, ist hiermit beendet. Viele neue Erkenntnisse habe ich hierdurch gewonnen, und gleichzeitig die Grenzen meiner Kamera kennengelernt. Außerhalb dieser Challenge ergaben sich zudem auch noch drei wunderbare Shootings.
Das erste war ein romantisches Shooting zum zwanzigsten Hochzeitstag. Das zweite, ein Bandshooting mit der Band „DISTREZZED“, bei welchem ich mich so richtig austoben durfte (mehr zu diesem Shooting folgt in Kürze).
Und zu guter letzt durfte ich ein Brautpaar bei ihrer Trauung auf Schloss Beilstein mit meiner Kamera begleiten.
Allen Beteiligten dieser Shootings danke ich an dieser Stelle nochmals ganz herzlich für das Vertrauen welches sie mir entgegengebracht haben. Alle drei Shootings haben sehr viel Spaß bereitet. Zum einen wegen der vollkommen entspannten Atmosphäre, zum anderen wegen den vollkommen unkomplizierten Akteuren. Und so ganz nebenbei waren diese Shootings für mich auch noch äußerst lehrreich.
Ich danke an dieser Stelle nochmals allen Followern, allen neuen Followern, und all jenen die einfach so mal vorbeigeschaut haben, und noch vorbeischaun werden. Ich sage Danke für alle bisherigen und für all die neu hinzukommenden Fav‘s und Kommentare.
Danke dass Ihr mich bei meiner Challenge365 begleitet und die Treue gehalten habt. Neue Projekte sind bereits in Planung (mehr dazu dann im Neuen Jahr), und daher würde ich mich wirklich sehr darüber freuen, wenn Ihr mir auch weiterhin verbunden bleibt. 🙏
In diesem Sinne - alles Gute für 2023…!“
An old iron fire escape and ghost sign stand as silent witnesses to a storied past. Relics of a bygone era. Such clues are not just a field of study for professional historians but rather reminders of the fleeting nature of societal assumptions and the lifestyles that are thereby created. Monuments more instructive than a cemetery. A dying town and its founders still speak.
The differences in plumage between this bird and the adult female on the previous post are subtle but instructive. This bird also is not an adult male as it has too little black on the cap and face, and it's necklace is not bold nor black enough. It is also not a first fall female as it has too much black on the face (lores), and first fall females generally have a much less apparent necklace. This bird is therefore either another adult female or a first fall male, and that's what is so interesting in comparing these two birds. First fall, and often first spring Canada warblers have a brownish/almost purplish cast to the flight feathers, making these feathers contrast in color ever so slightly from the gray blue tones of the back of the bird. Also the alula and the primary coverts share the same color cast. If you compare these areas to the previous post you can see the difference. All the gray blue tones are the same on the adult female on the previous post, and here there is that contrast. Also this bird has more black in the lores (area in front of the eye), and some tinges of black in the crown. There is also a olive yellow cast to the crown. This bird is therefore likely a first fall male. In many warbler species the first fall male plumage is very difficult to separate from the fall adult female plumage. It would be impossible to tell the difference with these two birds as well without detailed images or a close in hand inspection of a bird caught for banding. This is probably more information than most would care to know, but I find it fascinating.
Cochran Shoals. Atlanta area. 9/6/2017.
Catalina Foothills. With cactus bokeh.
This also was from a neighborhood walk from our Airbnb. We had some large mesquite trees in the neighborhood and around our place as well. We had another Lucy's that was singing from our yard throughout our stay. Lucy's do like mature mesquite trees.
It is instructive to compare this plumage with the Virginia's warbler from a few posts ago. This Lucy's image doesn't show the rufous over tail coverts (found in Lucy's given adequate views) which is another plumage differentiator between the two. Virginia's has yellow in both the over tail and under tail coverts. They both may show rufous in the crown. Both have a pointed beak and are gray dorsally and whitish below. The Lucy's has some buff on the chest and never the yellow on the chest that the Virginia's has.
Probably the most commonly seen hawk in the mid-latitudes of North America, red-tailed hawks are also amazingly variable in their plumage colors and patterns. The spring 2025 edition of Living Bird (Cornell Lab of Ornithology) has an instructive story on this variation, based on the doctoral dissertation of a student at Cornell. He concluded there are at least 16 subspecies of red-tailed hawks associated with fairly distinct geographic locations, with color variation relating to the habitat (e.g. light morphs in warm climates, dark morphs in cold climates).
My week started at four this morning. Now it should be somewhere between five and seven. The sunflowers in the photo are the only sunny thing I've seen so far.
I'm on my way to Frankfurt (I may have already arrived by now), where I will stay until Friday to take part in a seminar.
Yes, you read that right, for once I'm not the frontman, but a participant (which, by the way, will happen again and again in the next few months).
Although I've already seen some springs, I don't plan on stopping learning.
Still, I have a photo with me for every day, although I don't know if and when I'll be able to post it. My texts will probably be a little shorter too.
With this in mind, I wish you all an interesting and instructive week.
Meine Woche begann heute früh um vier. Jetzt müsste es irgendwo zwischen fünf und sieben sein. Die Sonnenblumen auf dem Foto sind das Einzige sonnige, was ich bisher gesehen habe.
Ich befinde mich nämlich auf dem Weg nach Frankfurt (eventuell bin ich auch zwischenzeitlich schon angekommen) wo ich bis Freitag bleiben werde, um an einem Seminar teilzunehmen.
Ja, richtig gelesen, ausnahmsweise bin ich mal nicht der Vorturner sondern ein Teilnehmer (was übrigens in den nächsten Monaten immer mal wieder passieren wird).
Trotz der Tatsache, dass ich schon ein paar Frühlinge gesehen habe, habe ich nicht geplant mit dem Lernen aufzuhören.
Unabhängig davon habe ich trotzdem für jeden Tag ein Foto im Gepäck, obwohl ich nicht weiß, ob und wann ich in der Lage bin es zu posten. Auch meine Texte werden wahrscheinlich etwas kürzer ausfallen.
In diesem Sinne wünsche ich Euch allen eine interessante und lehrreiche Woche.
more of this on my website at: www.shoot-to-catch.de
I had encountered and photographed this species in SW Colorado some years back but have never been that happy with those images. We had a nice session on Mount Lemmon this trip with one but this is from a few days later near Elephant Head that I like better. I am pleased that this image showed some of the oft hidden rufous crown and the yellow under tail AND over tail in addition to the yellow on the chest.
It is instructive to contrast this plumage with Lucy's, Co1ima, and the dullest of Nashvil1e warblers.
Last Monday, I showed you a photo taken in the same field from approximately the same position. If you don't remember or haven't seen it yet, I'd like to invite you to compare these two images.
Both photos show the exact same trail and thus the same poppy and cornflower blossoms.
I've only changed two details. Firstly, I'm photographing with a wide-angle lens, and secondly, I've moved to a significantly lower position.
These minimal changes in perspective have a tremendous impact on the appearance and impact of the photo. While in the first photo, the scene was completely dominated by the red poppies, here the blue cornflowers suddenly play a key role.
Such changes in perspective aren't just interesting for photography. They can also generate entirely new insights and even new "truths" in everyday life.
All we have to do is step out of our own role for a moment and open ourselves to another. And suddenly, the world is (under certain circumstances) completely different.
This isn't only exciting and instructive. It also enables us to deal with conflict situations in a much more constructive and solution-oriented way.
And so, this week, I invite you to change your perspective every now and then. And I hope this is just as exciting for you as it is for me every time.
Am vergangenen Mo(h)ntag habe ich Euch ein Foto gezeigt, welches auf dem selben Feld von annähernd der selben Position aufgenommen wurde. Falls Ihr Euch nicht erinnert, oder es noch nicht gesehen habt, möchte ich Euch dazu einladen, diese beiden Bilder einmal zu vergleichen.
Beide Fotos zeigen die exakt selbe Spur und somit die selben Mohn- und Kornblumenblüten.
Ich habe lediglich zwei Details verändert. Zum einen fotografiere ich hier mit einem Weitwinkelobjektiv und zum anderen habe ich mich auf eine deutlich tiefere Position begeben.
Diese minimalen Veränderungen in der Perspektive haben enorme Auswirkung auf die Erscheinung und die Wirkung des Fotos. Während bei dem ersten Foto die Szene absolut von den roten Mohnblüten dominiert wurde, spielen die blauen Kornblumen hier plötzlich eine tragende Rolle.
Solche Veränderungen in der Perspektive sind nicht nur beim Fotografieren interessant. Auch im täglichen Leben können sie völlig neue Erkenntnisse und sogar neue "Wahrheiten" erzeugen.
Alles was wir dafür tun müssen ist für einen Moment unsere eigene Rolle zu verlassen und uns für eine andere öffnen. Und schon ist die Welt (unter Umständen) eine völlig andere.
Dies ist nicht nur spannend und lehrreich. Es ermöglicht uns auch einen deutlich konstruktiveren und lösungsorientierteren Umgang mit Konfliksituationen.
Und so lade ich Euch in dieser Woche dazu ein, ab und zu einmal die Perspektive zu wechseln. Und ich hoffe, das ist für Euch genau so spannend, wie es das jedes Mal für mich ist.
This is a small fall of water in a tributary that converges with the main stream below Dukes Creek Falls in the north Georgia mountains. I'm writing this six years after I uploaded the photo. I'd edit it much differently, today. Revisiting old uploads can be both instructive and humbling.
I was trying to find a photograph of Temminck's Stint that was a little bit different and this ruffled feather shot seemed to fit the bill. I think it is also quite an instructive photograph as it shows how subtle two of the diagnostic identification features can be. Most field guides will tell you that the best two ways to differentiate Temminck's from Little Stint are yellow legs and white outer tail feathers. But the shadows make the yellow legs appear dark, and the tail feathers are subtly grey, apart from the outer pair. And to add to the confusion here's an adult Little Stint where the legs do not appear black, and the outer tail feathers appear white, like Temminck's: www.flickr.com/photos/timmelling/51229885422/in/photolist
Temminck's Stint (Calidris temminckii) was named after Dutch naturalist Coenraad Temminck by his good friend Dr Johann Leisler (both the scientific and vernacular names). It is a vanishingly rare breeder in Scotland but does occur annually on passage, mainly in spring, and always in small numbers. I photographed this individual back in May in Lincolnshire
in order to slightly correct the situation with the lack of black and white photographs - Petr & Alexander. freelance cabinet furniture assemblers in the collapsed as a result of perestroika of the USSR. new financial relationships, shortages of goods, used clothes from Europe, many Christian denominations from across the ocean and absolutely unsafe on the streets. A difficult time for life and a great time for black and white photography. Forgotten brands - "Svema", "Tasma", original film, not a Chinese analogue without silver, repackaged in a retro box.. real silver halide in photographic gelatin in film emulsion .. photochemistry plants and production of film cameras .. photographic paper "Slavich", "brome-portrait" ("Бром-портрет"), "Березка" ("Birch"), and desktop electric gloss-maker in a dark room.. incredible memories
I think this is one of the test films in preparation for this photo shoot in the Caucasus ( My budget is $100 maximum for a companion on my upcoming trip - a $50 camera and a $50 lens )
www.flickr.com/photos/zoombablog/52152929166/in/album-721...
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when, due to a trip, I buy the right lens and look for its strengths, I always experiment with people.
I don't like making the test with a "brick wall" view.
This, of course, is instructive, but I'm bored.
So often in my film there are random portraits, not always meaningful. Here is one
probably filmed on 135 bw "Svema" original old Ukrainian film,
and Tasma original developer (made in Tatarstan)
Praktica LTL Film Camera made in DDR,
ZEBRA Carl Zeiss Jena, (DDR ) Pancolar 50mm f/1.8 lens
Scanned from photo paper
(Dolichovespula maculata)
This hornet attacked a fly in mid air. A buzzing struggle ensued and the two fell to the ground in a buzzing frenzy. A short time passed and the fly was dead. The hornet proceeded to cut off the fly's abdomen, grab its thorax and take wing back to its nest. I photographed it just as it was about to take off. Unfortunately, the event took place in the grass and it was impossible to get a totally clear shot. Its not a beautiful photo but an instructive one.
Badlands National Park in South Dakota is beautiful and instructive about our changing Earth. The spectacular scenery is the result of the forces of deposition and erosion. As the link to the NPS page below indicates, the Badlands current appearance is only about 500,000 years old. Continuing erosion, at a rate of about an inch annually, suggests they will be gone in another 500,000 years. That million year total is, of course, nothing more than an eyeblink in the geologic history of our planet.
From that magic morning in the countryside.
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Had a "Lith-afternoon" yesterday with this neg (HP5 in HC110h).
Tried Fomatone classic (snowballs despite 6 min), Record Rapid ( too "orange").
Then I tried this one.
Agfa Brovira speed in Moersch Easy Lith and Cathecol.
Took 4 hours but it´s very enjoying and instructive.
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Leica M6 & Summicron 50.
Difficult Light Portrait
I created this portrait as part of my "lighting techniques" course. It's a challenging but instructive exercise, as it uses only the reflected light from a shop window at night. Let me know what you think. Thanks in advance. Greetings from Belgium, Stefan
I was supposed to shoot this last year. But stuff happened.
So I planned out my hike up Spencer's Trail out of Lees Ferry, AZ following my drive from Albuquerque. Only 2.2 miles, but with my equipment and the 1700 feet or so of elevation gain, it took an hour forty! As advertised, this bend in the Colorado was right where I was hoping it would be. I set this perspective because in daylight you can see the canyons extending northeast toward Lake Powell. In the night shot, those don't really figure, even in the blue light I used for the landscape. Maybe the next time, I'll shift perspective to put Page more at the periphery of the image.
Even so, light pollution in the same frame as the Milky Way is instructive. It's easy to love the natural elements in images like this one. We look at the the little town of Page (Population 7,531 + as many tourists?), and the term pollution is quite apropos. Yet, so many of us (myself included) live right in the middle of the soup. It's useful. It's convenient. It's safe. But we waste so much of it lighting up the sky. Seems like a lot of trouble to irritate nightscapers. I'm hopeful that we'll turn more and more to the realization that it's wasteful and is one more way we disregard how our choices degrade the natural world.
On another note, this trip marks an emergence for me, the first time I'm out of NM in 14 months. It's important for us to get out of our bubbles. To seek out the perspective of the light and the dark. Seeing both in ourselves, we have a chance of treating the light and the dark we encounter in our world with creativity and compassion.
Peace and Cheers!
How to compare oneself now to 4 years ago?
My early Still Life shots were fun, experimental, instructive even. Now, "better" equipment only means anything with better execution. And keeping the ideas flowing. But I'm still enjoying the journey.
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14 image focus stack and processing in Affinity v3.
From the Richard Harvey Studio One.
My first attempt with drops was very interesting and instructive. After some initial difficulties, I ended up in a flow and took 600 pictures. In the end, about 60 were usable. That was my personal highlight!
Artist: Paul Gauguin (1848-1903)
Title: Landscape with Breton Women
Material: Oil on canvas
I find this instructive for image composition–i.e. overlay (rule of thirds, golden ratio), leading lines, and color.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYTNO_WtNys
Las Calles vacias 2020 durante la cuarentena del covid 19
The empty streets 2020 during the covid 19 quarantine
Las calles de la ciudad de Nueva York en cuarentena, estos momentos los recordaremos para siempre y que las próximas generaciones servirán de ejemplo para ellos y para nosotros para apreciar más que nunca en el mundo en el que vivimos
The streets of New York City in quarantine, These moments we will remember forever and that the next generations will serve as an example for them and us to appreciate more than ever in the world in which we live.
It is difficult to conceive of a potentially more instructive social danger due to its egalitarian nature than the incomparable threat of Covid19. It is a global issue that cannot be tackled effectively using local recipes and requires universal cooperation from a cosmopolitan perspective.
Taking time to reflect (RRA)
Although this is not the time for ideological or social demands, at least until we surrender to the adversary, this crisis can help us change our perspective on certain issues of enormous importance. For example, the hegemonic mentality of for himself may vary, prevailing since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War.
Could this global pandemic lead to a kind of social revolution? A revolution as unprecedented as the pandemic itself. That it be undertaken without fanfare and be seen consummated by far-reaching reforms.
Then David said to Nathan, "I have sinned against the LORD."
Nathan replied, "The LORD has taken away your sin. You are not going to die. But because by doing this you have made the enemies of the LORD show utter contempt, the son born to you will die." 2 Samuel 12:13-14
David's experience is very instructive to us. While it teaches us that God can and will forgive us, if we repent of our great and gross sins—yet it also teaches us that sin is an evil and a bitter thing; and that, though the guilt of it may be removed, the evil consequences of it will cling to us and be a subject of sorrow to us—until God shall wipe away all tears from our eyes!
Pipilotti Rist, birth name Elisabeth Rist, (b. 1962) is a Swiss artist and a leading figure in video and light installations. She was first known for her video installation I'm Not the Girl Who Misses Much (1986), but her breakthrough on an international scale was in the middle of the 1990s with the video-installations Sip My Ocean (1996) and Ever is Over All (1997). As an artist she is known for making comprehensive, surprising and instructive installations which combine video, light, sound and design. She is known for focusing on the human body, familiar and domestic motifs which she distorts and appropriates in new contexts.
Nordic Hiplights is an extension of her artistic universe. Rist has taken the recognizable and everyday motif of a clothesline containing only white underwear for both sexes, and transformed it into a chain of light, following a forest path in the park. Each underwear is illuminated by its own light. By converting the underwear as lamps hanging high above us, Rist highlights and elevates this intimate and very familiar clothing. It is first when the underpants are taken outside the private and safe sphere of our everyday lives that we experience them as bizarre and astonishing. She explores in a shamelessly and humorous way this important, and stigmatized, part of the human body, which is the center of life and pleasure but also pain. The underwear is not supposed to seduce or decorate, but to be experienced in their practical and original state, as something functional and as an everyday object, elevated and elevated by the glow from the lamps they are mounted on. And in case you were wondering, yes, she got her name from her childhood heroine Pippi Longstocking.
This is one of twelve yaksha (or giants) who guard the gates of the Wat Phra Kaew temple in Bangkok
I have adopted him to try and protect us from the lies and hypocrisy of the Trump regime.I know that Flickrs not about politics but I have had a complete bellyful of the lies, boasts and the utter moral vacuum coming from the current US regime.
Vance lectures Europe on free speech and democracy this is the Vice president of a country that is banning books thousands of books that do not fit in to their world view. That will call sections of the media, (those that don’t agree with them), enemies of the people . Where women are not free to make individual choices about about their health . A regime that still without a thread of evidence says the election of Joe Biden was rigged . A regime that has pardoned thugs who severely injured policeman whose only crime was protecting the capitol . Free speech it seems is only the prerogative of white straight “ Christian “ men. If Vance wants to know about free speech he should talk to Alexei Navalny…except he cant Putin murdered him
Frankly it's obscene to lecture anyone on democracy at the same time as they’re cuddling up to Putin. In Putin’s Russia, people who disagree with him disappear or die or flee the country, or, at a statistically unlikely level, fall out of high windows somewhere in Moscow. Trump yesterday called Zelenskyy a dictator, what does he think Putin is a wooly liberal . He also said that Ukraine started the war, this must Trumps biggest lie. Still it's all part of Trumps plan to make Russia great again . The thousands of Americans soldiers who died in Europe fighting tyranny must be spinning in their graves
History sadly repeats itself, the Munich Agreement of 1938 is widely regarded as a failed act of appeasement, and the term has become "a byword for the futility of appeasing expansionist totalitarian states.” Just replace Czechoslovakia with Ukraine its going to be the same outcome . Trump wants end the war not because of the loss of life but because its yet another business opportunity . He also clearly wants to be on the right side of Putin I wonder why ? . It was instructive to hear Trump talking about the war “ Every day people are dying. Young handsome soldiers are being killed. Young men, like my sons. On both sides. All over the battlefield.”. I note he does not mention the women and children who are perhaps not so handsome who have been killed by Putins brutal aerial warfare .
The plan to “ remove “ 2 million Palestinian people from their land to build luxury golf courses is so repugnant an idea it almost takes one breath away Trump, Vance and Musk and their wealthy backers are interested only in naked power and acquiring greater wealth. If they are the saviours of Western civilisation frankly its not worth saving .
Just to end on a positive note Trump now seems to think he is Americas Napoleon . I look forward to seeing him one day on the Isle of Saint Helena .
THANKS FOR YOUR VISIT TO MY STREAM
I WOULD BE VERY GRATEFUL IF YOU COULD NOT FAVE A PHOTO
WITHOUT ALSO LEAVING A COMMENT
Having an after dinner drink while watching people watching the world from a balcony & looking at old building from a different angle."That's the Way to Do it ! " ; with Mr. Punch's famous catchphrase with the characteristic sense of gleeful self-satisfaction ...
A History of Punch and Judy Associated with Traditional British Culture.Punch arrived in England in the 17th century and was first recorded by the diarist Samuel Pepys.
"Thence to see an Italian puppet play that is within the rails there,which is very pretty,the best that ever I saw, and a great resort of gallants."- Samuel Pepys Diary, 9 May 1662
Punch & Judy Balcony Bar on a historic building in Covent Garden Market in the West End of London.This listed building retains much of the original brick and stonework and is one of very few properties in Covent Garden that escaped damage in World War II.
Covent Garden’s Punch & Judy pub was built in 1787 and was named after the famous Punch and Judy puppet performances that used to take place in Covent Garden’s Piazza for the children of flower-sellers.The shows were not just for children though.Aspects of the comedy such as the marital strife between Punch and Judy,obviously struck a chord with many adult members of the audience.
Charles Dickens (1812 - 1870) Letter to Mary Tyler, 6 November 1849 reads :
" In my opinion the Street Punch is one of those extravagant reliefs from the realities of life which would lose its hold upon the people if it were made moral and instructive. I regard it as quite harmless in its influence and as an outrageous joke which no one in existence would think of regarding as an incentive to any kind of action or as a model for any kind of conduct."
In October 1662 Signor Bologna,the Italian puppet showman, was honoured with a royal command performance by Charles II at Whitehall.The king rewarded him with a gold chain and medal,a gift worth £25 then,or about £3,000 today.
Punchinello who Pepys saw in Covent Garden in 1662 can be seen there every May,flouting political correctness and entertaining audiences in the same spirit that he has done for over 355 years. He hasn’t gone far, but he’s come a long way. Now,that’s the way to do it!
" That's the Way to Do it ! " 9 May 1662- 9 May 2018
Uluru is Australia’s most symbolic landmark. The giant monolith rises from the centre of the Australian desert in stark contrast to its surroundings. Local Aboriginal people say it was formed by ancestral beings in the long-ago Dreamtime. For thousands of years it has been a sacred site of deep significance and instructive folklore. Many myths explain its formation and mysterious markings, others provide lessons in life. Aboriginal people are thought to have lived in the area for at least 30,000 years. In 1983 ownership was returned to the local Anangu People. Normally with temperatures often around 40 degrees Celsius during summer, recent heavy rains have left winter grasses sprouting abundantly.
I've never done anything like this before and found it very instructive....The most enjoyable for me was the minimalist approach....perhaps because I tend to over work everything. I really came out of this exercise wondering where I will go from here....Looking forward to doing a piece of clothing....and wondering what a minimalist approach will do on that!
I can’t quite figure this one out. Often times with smaller, simpler snowflakes, you can understand them. This particular gem, unless I can find more like it, might simply be a fluke. It’s stacked!
It could simply be a snowflake resting on another snowflake, in perfect alignment of the corners. Or, it could be a type of “split” maneuver. If we go back to the basic rule of “whatever sticks out the farthest, grows the fastest”, we can assume that the center of the rectangular prism facets will grow more slowly than their outer edges. This can create a cavity in the ice which can grow so large that it reaches the corners, effectively splitting the snowflake into two parallel places. If one side is facing the wind for even a brief moment, it may grow slightly faster, providing a larger footprint. The smaller of the two plates will forever remain tiny.
This snowflake also offers us a unique look into the thickness that these crystals possess. You can see the prism facets clearly, but you also get a glimpse at something important. Along the bottom two edges, you see bubbles at the edge of the crystal. They are not positioned in the middle; they are very close to the surface. But wait… based on the previous paragraph, shouldn’t the bubbles be forming in the center of the facet? It depends.
I am still trying to understand the multiple ways in which bubbles can form within a snowflake. One such method can be caused by indentations in the ice growing over a ceiling of sorts, but this sort of growth would be internal – and could represent the way most of the bubbles formed within this snowflake. But then, how are these covered-over bubbles extending to the very edge of the snowflake? I can’t answer that definitively. I’d need to see more examples of this happening at the same scale.
One thing is certain: no matter the scale, the enigmas or the complexity… there is always more to discover in the universe at our feet.
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In EXPLORE on May 1st 2017. ( Best position: 156 )
Thanks to all of you for your interst and positive comments. It is much appreciated here - and I am just enjoying the FLICKR community.. It is so instructive, enriching and inspiring being part of it.. Thanks dear photo-friends.
Regards, Rind Photo
At “We’re Here!” the host group for the day is Photos of Books. This is my oldest book – which our whole family shared when I was a little girl. Hard to believe, but it is actually older than I am – published in 1936, and held together by masking tape. I believe my mother hoped it would be instructive for my five brothers, and they did seem to enjoy it because they were allowed to contribute their own illustrations in the blank pages the author provided at the end of the book.
This is a female King Eider, a Queen Eider perhaps? Distinguished from female Eider by the smiling face (the mouth gape turns upwards) and the light gingery colouration. They also have a broader lobe of bill extending up towards the eye. Here's a Common Eider female for comparison: www.flickr.com/photos/timmelling/51277990061/in/photolist They breed right around the Arctic coasts, but with a gap in Iceland and Scandinavia. They usually winter close to the ice too but they frequently wander to Britain. Most records of rare birds are of youngsters, but young King Eiders are so similar to Common Eiders that they probably get overlooked, as the majority of British records are of adult males. Unfortunately I didn't get really close views of male King Eiders but this photo is far more instructive.
This crystal does an excellent job at illustrating the surface texture of a snowflake – riding the boundary of reflection, like a close-up view of the edge of glare on a piece of glass. The “glare” would reveal itself differently to any variation in the surface texture of the glass; as is with this snowflake, it provides clues to the contours of the microscopic topography in this minuscule gem.
One of the first things I notice is how thick the “spines” are down the center of each branch. This is not always the case, but the combination of reflections and their ability to block the reflection, you can see how far they stand out above the rest of the crystal. You can also spot concentric rings radiation out from the center, giving the appearance of a “domed” shape to the center. I believe that snowflakes can grow outward in barely-perceptible layers, only seen when the angle of light is precisely adjusted.
The opposite is also true – snowflakes can grow inward. Solid circles in the surface of a snowflake are definitely indicators of this, but they look more like the circle in the very center of the internal hexagon. That hexagon is likely the result of a column-type snowflake growing plats on either end, eventually growing into a more tradition snowflake footprint. One plate often remains small if the aerodynamic properties of the crystal (the way it tumbles in the air) gives my water vapour to one side than the other. As soon as one of the two plates is larger than the other, it’ll forever have the advantage in growth. Whatever sticks out the farthest, grows the fastest.
If you know where to look (and the top branch is a great place to start), you can see evidence of a thin “ceiling” of ice starting to form internally over a thinner portion of the clubbed branch. There are more than a half dozen examples to be observed on that branch alone, illustrating the complexity in growth that every snowflake is capable of.
To get the light at these precise angles is a bit of a crap shoot, even after photographing thousands of snowflakes; I still have over 1000 unedited images from previous winters, and each snowflakes takes an average of four hours to edit. All of these images are shot handheld, in the freezing cold, where the fleeting snowflake is the most comfortable. Speed is the name of the game, often nudging the snowflake with a small artist’s paintbrush to get an approximately-appropriate angle, then jumping in with the camera to try and get light from my ring flash to reflect directly off the surface of the snowflake. You get a feel for it over time, but using the boundary / fringe of the glare reveals a ton of detail that would remain invisible if the entire snowflake was reflective.
If you’re new to this series, you might be asking about the background. Every snowflake in this series is photographed on a homemade black mitten, since the first ones photographed on December 16, 2009. I’ve been at this for nearly 13 years! The woolen texture of the mitten helps lift the snowflake away from a busy background, and any fibers from the mitten are easily removed from the final image. Because one fiber lifts the snowflake away from the surface, it also acts as an insulator and prevents the snowflake from melting when the temperatures are closer to the freezing point. And black offers nice neutral contrast – the mitten has become a tradition, but it’s also one of the best tools for the job. If it gets too cluttered with falling snow, just shake it off and wait for more.
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Some snowflakes are so small they are almost invisible, others are large and we can admire them with our own eyes. A small percentage in the right conditions can become gargantuan. How big can a snowflake get?
The largest specimens I have seen personally measure around 12mm across. The consensus seems to be that this is as large as they can naturally grow before they fall out of the sky or they become so fragile they break apart. This specimen is not quite a record-breaker, but it measures at roughly 9mm. When the “giants” are falling, I don’t head back inside until the snow has stopped. Furthermore, I’ll often use a fun trick to extend my shooting after the snow has either stopped altogether or has transitioned to a different type of snowflake: use the mitten as a snowflake pick-up device.
When lightly pressing the homemade mitten (that is the background behind all of these snowflake images), very gently against the freshly fallen snow, many of them will attach themselves to the woolen fibers. Flipping the mitten over gives another set of crystals to examine, hoping to find a good one. This technique has a limited time of usefulness, however, as snowflakes quickly sublimate. See the outer branches of this snowflake, particularly around the bottom? Some still have sharp 60-degree facets at the tips, but many are rounded. It doesn’t take much time – maybe 10-15 minutes – for a snowflake to start rounding out these edges with ice evaporating back into thin air. The process begins as soon as the snowflake falls from the cloud, before it even hits the ground.
This particular gem is a difficult one to figure out when staring at the center. This “diamond eye” shape is one I’ve seen before, but with a different origin. Here’s one from nearly a decade ago ( donkom.ca/bts/DKP_8835.jpg ) that has clear indications of starting as a split crystal – note the circle in the middle as the potential remnant of a column… but we don’t have that here. I’ve been staring at the center of this snowflake for a long while trying to figure it out. Could another crystal have been attached to the center, altering its growth? Unlikely. I believe it may have something to do with the way bubbles form near the surface of a snowflake, but I’m still left without an answer. I love snowflakes that can still stump me.
Giant snowflakes tend to form in high humidity at roughly -15C, but that’s the temperature in the clouds, not on the ground. Where I lived for many years in Barrie, ON, we would get “streamers” of snow coming off Georgian Bay. What would begin as ugly lake-effect snow would continue its journey to us, eventually forming fully-fledged snowflakes. If the bay wasn’t frozen and the humidity stayed high during a cold snap, we might be in for a treat of seeing these gems. However, some of the biggest and best snowflakes I have ever seen have fallen without a cloud in the sky, somehow drifting from a pocket of humidity with an unknown origin.
For as long as I have been photographing snowflakes, I have been attempting to predict the best conditions. Many times, I have set my alarm for 3AM only to be completely disappointed. Just keep trying, you’ll find the colossal crystals eventually.
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Another classic snowflake design, the stellar dendrite! However, there is something peculiar about this one. Can you spot the growth on at least four separate layers?
The first two are easy – the central hexagon is growing above the main body of the snowflake. The tell-tale sign is the central “dot” in the middle, signifying that a column-type snowflake grew plates out of both ends, and the bottom plate grew faster, eventually sprouting branches. You can even notice some asymmetry in the center; both the inner hexagon and the outer center appear to be growing faster towards the lower left. This type of asymmetry is quite common.
The other layers are hiding in plain view. Take a look at the top branch, and the two side-branches just up from the center. One is growing on a layer in front of the main branch, and the other is growing behind. Now that you know what to look for, visually navigate the rest of the snowflake and you’ll find many branches forming in this way. Snowflakes are not two-dimensional creations!
The small snowflake on the left branches is slightly turned to the camera, so it doesn’t get the full “glare” effect off its surface. How many details are missing as a result? Plenty! Who knows, the center of that smaller snowflake may have been vibrantly colourful from the effects of thin film interference and we would never know this.
Speaking of “missing information”, there is one side-branch that is missing from the larger snowflake. On the bottom branch, there’s a little indentation opposite the broadest side-branch. This would have been the location where another side-branch had emerged, but it broke off at some point and was never able to regrow. When you have layered growth like this, those connecting points tend to be quite fragile. A collision with another crystal, or with the ground, can have dramatic consequences that you would never otherwise realize.
In the end, it’s just another beautiful snowflake to add to the collection. And there will be many more of them to come!
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I’ve often referred to these snowflakes as “inner future” crystals, due to the appearance of a branched snowflake in the center of a hexagonal plate. What you’re seeing here is imply a collection of bubbles in the ice that allow for more reflective surfaces – therefore the bubbles appear brighter!
These larger bubbles form predominantly along the center of the prism facet where is less access to water vapour, and I had previously assumed there was a link with the outer edge of a snowflake growing with a cavity inside of it because there was fewer building blocks to go around. A new additional theory is this: valleys in the surface of the snowflake form via cascading growth, slowly thickening from the center. But what happens if the outer edge starts to thicken on its own, due to the crystal chaotically floating to a part of the cloud with slightly less humidity? This can thicken the outer edge – imagine a snowflake only as big as the darker hexagon in the center.
We now have a valley that can no longer fill in gracefully with shallow-slanted edges. The cascading valley transitions to a “cliff”, and the 90-degree edge of these geometric canyons grow a ceiling over top. This is similar to how the tiny bubbles at the base of each branch for as well. However, take a look at the lower branches and their leading edge of growth – you’ll see the “classic” theory at play; these bubbles form right at the leading edge of the prism facet, as the traditional model would have predicted. While the two models co-exist, I believe only the “new” way bubbles form can allow fore layers so thin that colours are evoked from this film interference.
There’s another angle to this – staring right at us on the left-most branch. What happens if a cavity growing on the edge of a snowflake grows so large that it cuts the snowflake into two parallel outgrowing planes? What if one of those thin planes gets a boost to grow slightly faster than the other? You’ll find that a snowflake branch can split itself into multiple layers! Also interesting on this branch is the partial ellipse, which is caused by a thicker wall of ice “backfilling” towards the center of the snowflake.
These subjects are a dance of physics, happening by the millions and billions every time you see a snowfall. They grow outward and inward with multiple methods to depict beauty within the chaos of our universe. The fun bit to consider here, is that this is just a tiny collection of organized water molecules. It simply “is”. We may find it beautiful, but the beauty is not contained within the subject itself; the beauty in a snowflake is found within our own minds and our perception of the universe around us.
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Two years ago we were in the second year of drought. Thankfully that broke last summer, and so far this year we are receiving a normal amount of rainfall. It's a cycle here - not quite predictable but certainly familiar.
I ran a half-day macro photography workshop for a couple of friends that year. We didn't get off to a particularly early start - their choice - and so the light wasn't especially good. By the end of June, most of the flowers were fading fast. Finding good subjects for macro work would not be easy. And those are often ideal conditions for teaching!
To illustrate what potential was there on our little hike into the hills, I made the three shots you see above: a Goatsbeard flower head in seed, rock textures, and a shadow on sand. Photography teachers have differing opinions on whether the instructor should bring a camera into the field; my take on that is that it's a good way to illustrate basic set ups for different kinds of photography. Sometimes seeing clearly how it's done can demystify the process. I think my students always understood that I was available all the time we were together, and that my own work was secondary during field trips. Seeing what I was able to do under the same conditions they had encountered could be instructive, or might boost their confidence if they came away with better shots (which happened frequently).
So here's a prairie drought triptych from Grasslands National Park, Saskatchewan (Canada). Don't use this image on websites, blogs, or other media without explicit permission ©2018 James R. Page - all rights reserved.
This bedraggled snowflake is fading away – the ends of the branches are all rounded as it sublimates back into thin air. You probably didn’t notice that, being captivated by the rainbow star in the center. Let’s talk about colourful snowflakes and how they form!
You don’t see crystals like this in every snowfall. In the snowy region of Canada where I used to live (Barrie, Ontario), we would get a few snowfalls a season that would produce colourful snowflakes; if you discover one, there are likely others nearby. So, what’s in the snowflake to give them colour? Air.
Imagine a red car. We see red because the paint absorbs all colours except red, which is then reflected to our eyes. There are more ways to perceive colour, including metamerism where multiple wavelengths combine to appear to be a different colour – this is how nearly all digital cameras and displays work. Human visual perception is a complicated thing! What we see in these snowflakes as colour is effectively multiple wavelengths of light some amplified and some diminished by optical interference. Imagine a soap bubble, an oil spot, or the wing of the Madagascan Sunset Moth.
In the case of the snowflake, the colour forms where there are bubbles in the ice. Since the presence of a bubble creates more surfaces to reflect light (each air/ice and ice/air boundary will be reflective), bubbles tend to be brighter areas on snowflakes when illuminated with reflected light off the surface. The magic happens when the bubble or ice layers are incredibly thin, thanks to the way light slows down when passing through denser material. It happens like this:
Some light bounces off the front surface of the ice. Nothing complicated there, but some of the light penetrates into the ice itself, and during it’s time inside the super-thin layer of ice, it slows down (ice is denser than air). Some of this light will reflect off the inside ice-air boundary where the bubble begins, heading back to the camera. It’ll quickly leave the ice and resume its regular travel at the speed of light in air, rejoining the light that has reflected off the first surface initially… but wait, it slowed down for a little bit, right?
The two reflections of light will be “out of sync” with one another as result. If the thickness of the ice is small enough such that these reflections can interact with each-other on a wavelength-of-light level, we get complex constructive and destructive interference. Some wavelengths get amplified, others get cancelled out, and white light no longer balances to white. We see a colour via optical interference and perceived via metamerism! The best part of this? The balance changes based on the thickness of the ice. Change the thickness and you change the way the two reflections of light interact, as the out-of-syncness will also change. The light from the internal reflection will be been slowed down for a shorter or longer time.
Now, back to the snowflake. The very center is solid, and thereby darker. Not all bubbles create interference colours – if they are thicker, or the ice covering them is thicker, we might not see colours at all; this true of nearly all snowflakes, as it is true for the center of this crystal beyond the coloured bits. However, if we get the right conditions, light plays a magic trick for us. The interference interaction can happen between any two reflective layers; with a bubble in the ice, there are four reflective surfaces in total. It could very well be an interaction between light from the 2nd and 3rd reflections internally, and the colours change based on the thickness of the bubble rather than the thickness of the “ceiling” ice on top of it. One might assume the ceiling ice that seals off the bubble is the same thickness, but I’m not sure how to concretely prove that through direct observations.
Anyhow, a rainbow star is born inside of a snowflake, thanks to some bending and interfering light coupled with how our eyes interpret information. Understanding the process makes it more beautiful in my mind, and I hope you appreciate the same beauty of understanding.
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I love the classics, but this one has a few unique twists to it! It all starts in the center, where multiple layers of geometry add beauty to this skyborne gem.
The central dot is a dead giveaway that this snowflake began as a column. Plates commonly grow from either side of a column as it transitions to a more humid environment. But then, we have a third layer? The branches are forming on a layer underneath the central plates – and even going so far as to create a fourth layer in the central top area.
A combination of “capped column” and “crystal splitting” can account for this, whereas the larger plate could have grown a cavity around the edge that split it into two parallel plates. This wouldn’t explain, however, the 18 or more elongated ellipses pointing back towards the center, forming a sort of “glue” between the larger hexagon and the underlying branches. One ellipse matches perfectly for each branch, but there are a heck of a lot more in between. They all radiate back to a mysterious origin point in the center: a vague circle. They all terminate there.
This type of structure interconnecting two parallel growths is the hallmark of a “skeletal form”-type snowflake. While crystals can be visually identified by these features, they are still difficult to explain and may be caused by multiple factors. I wish I could explain how these features were created; they remain headscratchers, even after consulting physicists.
This crystal has a few other interesting bits! Rarely do we see thin film interference colours occur outside of the central hexagon of a snowflake, but here we can spot it in the branches. Upper left and lower right! It’s the little details that make a crystal like this special to me, and we can see even smaller details worthy of a quick mention.
Notice how there are tiny black dots along the broad “spine” of all but the bottom two branches? These appear to be small dents in the ice, soon to be covered with an ultra-thin sheet of ice. On the bottom branch, they’ve already been covered over – can you spot the tiny bubbles in the same approximate location? These form into bubbles well after the snowflake has grown outward beyond that point. At least some of these details can be explained!
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The parts of a snowflake often fit together like puzzle pieces. What at first has the illusion of symmetry will break down into simple balance. This particular snowflake is very asymmetric, but everything still “fits”.
Things started to get weird in the center, when a droplet of super-cooled water froze on the 2 o’clock branch, disrupting what would have been a more symmetrical growth. The ripple effect can be seen all across the crystal from this, albeit maybe not the only element of chaos thrown in the direction of this snowflake.
Notice how the lower-right branch has no initial side-branches near the center? That space was taken over by faster-growing branches on either side. The most “normal” symmetric branch is found on the upper-left, and the oddest among them is at the top; somehow that branch started as two separate branches! There’s a bubble between them as a “clue”, but there is not enough information to unravel this particular mystery.
What I find fascinating about this snowflake is the regularity at which the surface contours “switch sides”. If you see dark / contrasting features, that’s the topography of a snowflake facing the camera. If you see similar features with lighter grey features, those same details are present – but on the other side of the crystal. They almost always “sandwich” each-other, for which I have no explanation in physics. If a branch is growing lower (further away from the camera), the features are on top. If the branch is growing on a higher plane, closer to the camera, the features are on the bottom. The surface topography always faces each-other.
Of particular note on the details, most branch tips have some very cool ridges and valleys, some of which have started to fill in as bubbles. If only I could have watched this snowflake grow, it would have provided so much information as to how these features form. The upper-right branch tip is different, likely because that part of the snowflake had attached itself to another crystal while still growing. It breaks the overall balance a bit, but it doesn’t tarnish the charm of this skyborne jewel.
Merry Christmas, everyone! This is the penultimate snowflake in the daily series this year. There will be another one tomorrow, and then sporadically as I can find the time between other projects until the end of winter. Each one of these images takes an average of four hours to put together, some of them much longer. Tomorrow’s snowflake is ready, after taking over 14 hours to edit. I hope you’ve been appreciating them, and you’ll be wowed by what Christmas Day will bring. :)
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