Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS Mk II USM
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The spiral staircase is located within UTS Building 2 (UTS Central) and is located along Broadway in Ultimo. The spiral is inspired by the double helix structure of DNA molecules. It was designed by the Australian firm FJMT.
Broadway, Ultimo
December, 2022
:::: BIGGER ....is better for your eyes and soul...!
:::: Latest!
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:: Zenitude!, Mastigouche Wildlife Reserve, Québec, Canada.
Copyright © 2009 Gaëtan Bourque. All rights reserved. Use without permission is illegal.
This was used as artwork for a digital single release by musician Joe Hodgson who is launching his latest work and website this summer. All creative and arts folk are having to navigate difficult times this year!
Check out ::: www.facebook.com/joehodgsonmusic/
I don't have a name for it. It's been a while in the making. I was trying to make it look like vines climbing up the tree in the foreground but I don't think I did very well at that. Anyway . . . it is what it is
Here's my latest flame!!
It's 'Garden Party', a hybrid tea-rose growing here at Castle Hill, in the Hills District of Sydney.
And here' s the world's current No. 1 video hit on Youtubemusic. It's a remix of Elvis Presley's 'His Latest Flame' with a host of sensational dancers. Interestingly, it's actually been on Youtubemusic for three years!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=6H6TNo6SHC0
My younger daughter (Miss 16) is driving us mad with her shuffle dancing to this song, along with her girlfriends from high-school! Goodness me, Tik Tok must be sick of the girls posting their shuffle dancing! (I had not actually heard of shuffle dancing until this year!!)
But, anyway, back to the rose!! It is 'Garden Party', a hybrid tea, located at the amazing Roxborough Park Rose Gardens here in the Hills District of Sydney!!
My Canon EOS 5D Mk IV with the Canon EF 100mm 2.8L II USM macro lens.
Processed in Adobe Lightroom and PhotoPad Pro by NCH software.
At the water’s edge with the kind of effortless poise only a wild creature can pull off. Its long neck curves in a quiet S‑shape, the sharp beak angled toward the still surface as if reading the water for secrets. The muted browns of the pond behind it create a soft, painterly backdrop, letting the bird’s blue‑gray plumage and dark crown stand out with understated elegance.
There’s a sense of discipline in the heron’s posture a hunter’s patience, a sentinel’s calm. The grassy patch beneath its feet adds a touch of texture, grounding the scene in a natural simplicity that feels both intimate and timeless. It’s a portrait of focus and quiet strength, captured in a moment where nothing moves except the faint ripple of water.
My latest photography is now available for purchase at crsimages.pixels.com/, featuring prints, framed art, and more from my curated collections.
Apparently the latest thing is night walking to excercise without crowds. Well, it works. Just a pity it was below freezing and started to snow during the walk.
Fuji X100T @f2.8.
IMPORTANT: for non-pro users who read the info on a computer, just enlarge your screen to 120% (or more), then the full text will appear below the photo with a white background - which makes reading so much easier.
The color version of the photo above is here: www.lacerta-bilineata.com/ticino-best-photos-of-southern-...
THE STORY BEHIND THE PHOTO:
So far there's only been one photo in my gallery that hasn't been taken in my garden ('The Flame Rider', captured in the Maggia Valley: www.flickr.com/photos/191055893@N07/53563448847/in/datepo... ) - which makes the image above the second time I've "strayed from the path" (although not very far, since the photo was taken only approximately 500 meters from my house).
Overall, I'll stick to my "only-garden rule", but every once in a while I'll show you a little bit of the landscape around my village, because I think it will give you a better sense of just how fascinating this region is, and also of its history.
The title I chose for the photo may seem cheesy, and it's certainly not very original, but I couldn't think of another one, because it's an honest reflection of what I felt when I took it: a profound sense of peace - although if you make it to the end of this text you'll realize my relationship with that word is a bit more complicated.
I got up early that day; it was a beautiful spring morning, and there was still a bit of mist in the valley below my village which I hoped would make for a few nice mood shots, so I quickly grabbed my camera and went down there before the rising sun could dissolve the magical layer on the scenery.
Most human activity hadn't started yet, and I was engulfed in the sounds of the forest as I was walking the narrow trail along the horse pasture; it seemed every little creature around me wanted to make its presence known to potential mates (or rivals) in a myriad of sounds and voices and noises (in case you're interested, here's a taste of what I usually wake up to in spring, but you best use headphones: www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfoCTqdAVCE )
Strolling through such an idyllic landscape next to grazing horses and surrounded by birdsong and beautiful trees, I guess it's kind of obvious one would feel the way I described above and choose the title I did, but as I looked at the old stone buildings - the cattle shelter you can see in the foreground and the stable further up ahead on the right - I also realized how fortunate I was.
It's hard to imagine now, because Switzerland is one of the wealthiest countries in the world today, but the men and women who had carried these stones and constructed the walls of these buildings were among the poorest in Europe. The hardships the people in some of the remote and little developed valleys in Ticino endured only a few generations ago are unimaginable to most folks living in my country today.
It wasn't uncommon that people had to sell their own kids as child slaves - the girls had to work in factories or in rice fields, the boys as "living chimney brushes" in northern Italy - just because there wasn't enough food to support the whole family through the harsh Ticino winters.
If you wonder why contemporary Swiss historians speak of "slaves" as opposed to child laborers, it's because that's what many of them actually were: auctioned off for a negotiable prize at the local market, once sold, these kids were not payed and in many cases not even fed by their masters (they had to beg for food in the streets or steal it).
Translated from German Wikipedia: ...The Piazza grande in Locarno, where the Locarno Film Festival is held today, was one of the places where orphans, foundlings and children from poor families were auctioned off. The boys were sold as chimney sweeps, the girls ended up in the textile industry, in tobacco processing in Brissago or in the rice fields of Novara, which was also extremely hard work: the girls had to stand bent over in the water for twelve to fourteen hours in all weathers. The last verse of the Italian folk song 'Amore mio non piangere' reads: “Mamma, papà, non piangere, se sono consumata, è stata la risaia che mi ha rovinata” (Mom, dad, don't cry when I'm used up, it was the rice field that destroyed me.)... de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaminfegerkinder
The conditions for the chimney sweeps - usually boys between the age of 8 and 12 (or younger, because they had to be small enough to be able to crawl into the chimneys) - were so catastrophic that many of them didn't survive; they died of starvation, cold or soot in their lungs - as well as of work-related accidents like breaking their necks when they fell, or suffocatig if they got stuck in inside a chimney. This practice of "child slavery" went on as late as the 1950s (there's a very short article in English on the topic here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spazzacamini and a more in depth account for German speakers in this brief clip: www.youtube.com/watch?v=gda8vZp_zsc ).
Now I don't know if the people who built the old stone houses along my path had to sell any of their kids, but looking at the remnants of their (not so distant) era I felt an immense sense of gratitude that I was born at a time of prosperity - and peace - in my region, my country and my home. Because none of it was my doing: it was simple luck that decided when and where I came into this world.
It also made me think of my own family. Both of my grandparents on my father's side grew up in Ticino (they were both born in 1900), but while they eventually left Switzerland's poorest region to live in its richest, the Kanton of Zurich, my grandfather's parents relocated to northern Italy in the 1920s and unfortunately were still there when WWII broke out.
They lost everything during the war, and it was their youngest daughter - whom I only knew as "Zia" which means "aunt" in Italian - who earned a little money to support herself and my great-grandparents by giving piano lessons to high-ranking Nazi officers and their kids (this was towards the end of the war when German forces had occupied Italy).
I never knew that about her; Zia only very rarely spoke of the war, but one time when I visited her when she was already over a 100 years old (she died at close to 104), I asked her how they had managed to survive, and she told me that she went to the local prefecture nearly every day to teach piano. "And on the way there would be the dangling ones" she said, with a shudder.
I didn't get what she meant, so she explained. Visiting the city center where the high ranking military resided meant she had to walk underneath the executed men and women who were hanging from the lantern posts along the road (these executions - often of civilians - were the Germans' retaliations for attacks by the Italian partisans).
I never forgot her words - nor could I shake the look on her face as she re-lived this memory. And I still can't grasp it; my house in Ticino is only 60 meters from the Italian border, and the idea that there was a brutal war going on three houses down the road from where I live now in Zia's lifetime strikes me as completely surreal.
So, back to my title for the photo above. "Peace". It's such a simple, short word, isn't it? And we use it - or its cousin "peaceful" - quite often when we mean nice and quiet or stress-free. But if I'm honest I don't think I know what it means. My grandaunt Zia did, but I can't know. And I honestly hope I never will.
I'm sorry I led you down such a dark road; I usually intend to make people smile with the anecdotes that go with my photos, but this one demanded a different approach (I guess with this latest image I've strayed from the path in more than one sense, and I hope you'll forgive me).
Ticino today is the region with the second highest average life expectancy in Europe (85.2 years), and "The Human Development Index" of 0.961 in 2021 was one of the highest found anywhere in the world, and northern Italy isn't far behind. But my neighbors, many of whom are now in their 90s, remember well it wasn't always so.
That a region so poor it must have felt like purgatory to many of its inhabitants could turn into something as close to paradise on Earth as I can imagine in a person's lifetime should make us all very hopeful. But, and this is the sad part, it also works the other way 'round. And I believe we'd do well to remember that, too.
To all of you - with my usual tardiness but from the bottom of my heart - a happy, healthy, hopeful 2025 and beyond.
"Wow, a hover car.....with strange round things called "wheels"! The salesman said they were a whole new invention from a long time in the future in a galaxy far, far away. Much better than all those big mechanical leg things that we use. I must inform Lord Vader at once!"
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A 12 image focus stack processed in camera with the Canon R10 and RF24-240 lens.
© Zoë Murdoch. All Rights Reserved. Use without permission is illegal!
Latest face, so effortless
Your great arrival at my eyes,
No one standing near could guess
Your beauty had no home till then;
Precious vagrant, recognise
My look, and do not turn again.
Admirer and admired embrace
on a useless level, where
I contain your current grace,
You my judgement; yet to move
Into real untidy air
Brings no lasting tribute -
Bargains, suffering, and love,
Not this always-planned salute.
Lies grow dark around us: will
The statue of your beauty walk?
Must I wade behind it, till
Something's found - or is not found -
Far too late for turning back?
Or, if I will not shift my ground,
Is your power actual - can
Denial of you duck and run,
Stay out of sight and double round,
Leap from the sun with mask and brand
And murder and not understand?
~ Philip Larkin.
Porsche 918 w/ Weissach Package from Qatar. George V, Avenue George V, Paris. July 18th 2015.
MORE ON --> www.thelittlespotters.fr
119/365 This is my newest and most favorite Golden Snitch. I got it a while back, but thought it might be a good subject for playing with light and shadow.
SCT intermodal 3MB9 works around Goondah curve with CSR016 and CF4430 hauling dead attached C’s 502/503/508.
SCT transferred the C class from Western Australia after a period on hire with Watco, they would be detached at Goulburn before being forward to SSR’s Cootamundra depot.
Southern Shorthaul Railroad has added the former Railfirst C’s to their ever growing locomotive fleet.
In 1975, the newest power on the Grand Trunk Western were a dozen GP38ACs purchased in 1971, and were the first power delivered in the now iconic Burdakin Blue and Morenci Orange. Other than the 30 SD40s, these were the only second-generation units on the Trunk until the arrival of 20 GP38-2s in 1978. While they were able to be freely mixed with other power, it seems as though for the first few years that the railroad preferred to run them in pairs or trios. One such pair is the 5803 and 5801, making their way into Battle Creek Yard after a run from Chicago.
This is a scanned slide from my collection, photographer unknown. I love all of the electric switch lamps!
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field Camera 3 observed Saturn on 20 June 2019 as the planet made its closest approach to Earth this year, at approximately 1.36 billion kilometres away.
Saturn hosts many recognisable features, most notably its trademark ring system, which is now tilted towards Earth. This gives us a magnificent view of its bright icy structure. Hubble resolves numerous ringlets and the fainter inner rings. Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens first identified the rings in 1655 and thought they were a continuous disk encircling the planet, but we now know them to be composed of orbiting particles of ice and dust. Though all of the gas giants boast rings, Saturn’s are the largest and most spectacular.
The age of Saturn’s ring system continues to be debated. And, even more perplexingly, it’s unknown what cosmic event formed the rings. There is no consensus among planetary astronomers today.
Read more here.
Credits: NASA, ESA, A. Simon (Goddard Space Flight Center), and M.H. Wong (University of California, Berkeley); CC BY 4.0
Thanks to all for your views, comments and favs - it is very much appreciated.
I'm (finally) into double digits to go on this 365 project!
Sea fog spoilt my plans for sunrise... and sunset...
So a return to tabletop photography was plan c
Latest in my 365 project - www.flickr.com/photos/fearghal_breathnach/sets/7215763240...
As always all comments, advice & suggestions welcome...
1. Untitled, 2. morning light, 3. Untitled, 4. A sudden storm, a brilliant flash / Day 344 Year 2, 5. 20:45, 6. California Girl, 7. line of light, 8. The Big Oak, 9. Rural Rails, 10. Untitled, 11. look for the signs of Love, 12. Tenderloin Cab, 13. Untitled, 14. wrong hands, 15. diptycho moon, i, 16. Untitled, 17. Super Nature, 18. Permanent etchings / Day 340 Year 2, 19. I was made with a heart of stone to be broken, 20. .., 21. blindspot reflex-2, 22. Brad #1 & #2, diptych, 23. red flags, 24. fresh, 25. horizontal, 26. We were like dots against a great grey sky, 27. Untitled, 28. Gum trees at Tidal River, 29. wall flower, diptych, 30. blue, 31. Dark Night, 32. broom, 33. functional, 34. what I see out my kitchen window ain't nobody's business but my own, 35. Untitled36. Not available
i'm in san francisco, and completely disoriented. think i got to sleep at 5:30ish this morning (east coast time)? keep getting confused about what's SF and what's pittsburgh stuff (time, people, places, etc.)
until i see what comes to be with photo'ing and uploading, i wanted to take the opportunity to post this montage. i'm greatly influenced by the work and art of others; influenced not just creatively, but intellectually and emotionally.
(and i occasionally look at what you all choose as your favorites -
also inspirational, not to mention telling :)
my deep appreciation to all of you, those i follow, and those i stumble across.
from this little fish in a great big wondrous sea,
xo
My latest iteration of the iconic "woodpecker." Still using a chain link end for the front sight, but now I am able to change height like the real deal, the tripod uses two short legs in the front and the grille tile is used to represent the belt-fed trays it fired. Thanks again to mj for allowing me to photograph on the Guadalcanal collab.
OBSERVE Collective
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germanstreetphotography.com/michael-monty-may/
Criei um blog para falar um pouco mais sobre meus ensaios, acesse! livingonthestateofdreaming.blogspot.com.br/
I've created a blog to talk more about my shoots, check out! livingonthestateofdreaming.blogspot.com.br/
"there's a part of me that wants an answer
a part of me that doesn't want to know
part of you that i am in love with
and the part that i am willing to let go
this is a delicate unraveling
now and then i find pieces on the floor
tiny little bits that tell me
maybe i shouldn't do this
or love you anymore..."
---mandy moore, latest mistake