View allAll Photos Tagged optimism
Spectacled Caiman, Caiman crocodilus, Tropical Rainforest, Costa Rica, Central America, America
UNA HISTORIA MÁS DE FOTOGRAFÍA DE NATURALEZA 11// ONE MORE WILDLIFE PHOTOGRAPHY STORY 11
…………….. Esperamos, esperamos……..escuchamos…….la selva.
09:00PM: Nos mantenemos atentos a los sonidos de la selva….y de pronto creemos haber oído algo diferente………. -¡Sí! ¡Sí!….. ¡Alguien también está dando alaridos! ¡Un equipo de búsqueda del campamento! -Subimos nuestro nivel de alaridos hasta donde podemos. Nos encuentran. Dos personas que traen agua y galletas, llevan varias horas buscándonos ¡Toda mi vida les estaré agradecido! Diez minutos para “digerir” el agua y las galletas.
–¡Vamos, vamos! ¡No podemos retrasarnos más! ¡Nos tenemos que poner en camino cuanto antes! -Nos insta el “nuevo guía”.
09:20PM: Comenzamos a andar, vamos todo lo rápido que podemos. A la media hora…………. ¡Uuuuffff!! ….Comienzo a….cojear. ¡¡¡Ooohh!!! ……. ¡No, no, no, no!!!…….. ¡Pues sí!!! ¡Es el nervio ciático que me está intentando decir algo! ¡No me lo puedo creer!!! ………¡Pues sí!!! ….La hernia discal se ha…… ¡despertado!!! -¡Habrá sido de la tensión, mañana seguro que se me ha pasado! -Pienso con optimismo (al final, no).
11.30PM: Uno de los “rescatadores”…………………….
—————————————————————————
…………….. We wait, wait …… we listen …… the jungle.
09:00PM: We remain attentive to the sounds of the jungle and suddenly we think we hear something different…………..-Yes! Yes! …..Somebody is also shrieking howls! A rescue team from the river camp! -We raised our level of howls to the top. They finally find us. Two people who bring water and cookies. They have been looking for us for several hours. I will be grateful to them all my life! Ten minutes to “digest” the water and cookies.
–Come on! Let´s go! We cannot delay any more! We should be setting out on the way as soon as we can! -The “new guide” tell us.
09:20PM: We start walking, we go as fast as we can. Half an hour later……….Uuuuffff!!!…….I start…..to limp. Ooohh!!!………No, no, no, no!!!……….Yes! The sciatic nerve is trying to tell me something! I can’t believe it! ………….Yes!!! ….My herniated lumbar disk.…..has awaked!!! -It must have been the stress. I will get better tomorrow, for sure! -I think with optimism (finally, not).
11:30PM: Someone of the “rescue team”………………
#abfav_sea_beach_wind
I LOVE THE SEA!!!
Under ALL circumstances, whether wild or calm...
What might here, SPECTACULAR, thunderingly beautiful and somehow frightening! I grew up by and with the sea and NEVER underestimate it!
This here is still the Atlantic Ocean.
"Cape of Good Hope" named thus because of the great optimism engendered by the opening of a sea route to India and the East.
I wish you all a very good day and thank you for all your kind words, time, comments and likes.
Very much appreciated. Magda, (*_*)
For more: www.indigo2photography.com
Please do not use this image on websites, blogs or any other media without my explicit permission. © All rights reserved
No, Teddy Roosevelt's legendary cavalry unit from the Spanish-American did not have anything to do with the construction of the TP&W. But this photo does show why, from Canton westward to roughly Bushnell, the KJRY was limited to 10-15mph operating speeds. The jointed rail has not been kept up much since the days of the original TP&W (although the KJRY has been slowly upgrading the line over the years, as time and funds allowed). The slow speeds did make it easy to chase, though, and this would be the first of many multiple encounters between Canton and Cuba, the next town to the west. Here, the F's approach the first crossing west of Canton, Maple St. Immediately west of here, the shaded "forest" ends until the Spoon River Valley west of Smithfield.
I’ve taken this capture a while back. It brightens my day and inspires optimistic thoughts. Wish you a wonderful day.
How fine it would be to have the optimism, strength and will of a weed.😎
As far as this pretty, flowering weed is concerned, there is just enough morning sun and dew to make a "garden plot" out of the bit of dirt in the crack where a wall abuts the asphalt sidewalk.
Location: A stretch of asphalt sidewalk abutting the wall of a building, near the village center, Riehen BS Switzerland.
In my album: Dan's Weed World.
Its the only way in these troubled times. My favourite mug from the Stokes Croft China Company of Bristol.
أحيانا
يغرقنا الحزن حتى نعتاد عليه =((!
..وننسى أن في الحياة !!!
أشياء كثيرةيمكن أن تسعدنا =*) Happy
مآاشآء الله تبآرك الله *
المودل:كناري,
لرؤية الصورة بوضوح اضغط على الصورة
TWITTER: @Ghadyalomarz
ASK,FM: ask.fm/Ghadyz
There are many aspects of our sense of self and many fragments that lead up to a whole. When you drop a delicate glass and it shatters, you see all of the pieces that make up that simple structure that holds liquid. Just imagine how many pieces are inside of each of us, just as fragile and susceptible to damage.
Each year, I make some changes to my life. I wouldn't call them New Year's Resolutions (though I do try to make a couple of those) because they don't always happen on the new year. I yearn to be a flawless person and I've always realized how finite our time spans on Earth are...and so, I don't like to waste any time that I'm given, either when trying to make the world a better place or in terms of trying to make myself into a better person, someone I can respect and love when I Iook in the mirror. 2015 was a year filled with changes for me and, instead of doing a top 10 or 20 or 25 live shows, I thought maybe I would do something different this year instead.
1. Photography:
I have many identities, if you must know. Some call these roles but when your roles in life define you, it seems to become a little more than that. In other words, if you lose one role, like your role as an artist, you will probably have something along the lines of a nervous breakdown, where you question who you are and want to jump out of the window. That's how strongly I identify with myself as a photographer. I've been doing this for 20 years now and I started in the dark room with film and a ton of time and creative youthful energy.
I really haven't changed yet in terms of my yearning to be a part of the collective consciousness that defines us as human beings and wanting to redeem it. There are so many harmful things that bring us all down...we have allowed the rich to get stronger and the poor to become many. We have turned our backs on our sisters and brothers. We no longer recognize them in the street.
More importantly, photography is a sort of art therapy for me. I've been going to a very helpful Sleep Therapist recently to help with my insomnia. He has me rate the stress in my life on a 0-5 scale. 5 is the highest and 0 is literally no stress. After about 5 visits, on our last visit in December, my sleep therapist pointed out to me how he thought it was interesting that I never rated my stress level for each day a 5 even though I often reported that my job was the cause of much dismay. I explained, "That's because, no matter how stressed I am, I realize I have to keep perspective. 5 is genocide. 5 is I am raped and nearly murdered and my family is murdered in front of me. 5 is someone opens their door on me while bicycling and I'm in the hospital and am told I will never walk again or breathe without a machine. If 5 is the worst thing that can happen to a person, I hope I never see it." Did I mention I'm intense?
Anyway, I digress...photography helps me cope with all of the sadness I feel when I think that we're all doomed and uniquely flawed in a way that doesn't allow us to change our mistakes, to make ourselves better, to find redemption. I don't mean religious redemption, either. I just mean that we realize we were each given a unique potential and the failure to live up to this is a black mark upon all of us.
I've made some changes regarding photography and my identity this year. When I started photographing with digital over film in 2006, it opened up some previously unexplored possibilities for me. I've always loved music and concerts and so, increasingly more, I started photographing my favorite bands. I still do so and continue to love it but I feel a sadness in the thought that I'll be be pigeonholed as merely a "concert photographer" when the day is done. More than anything, I have always yearned to capture life at the end of the day. I'm a searcher and I'm searching for the qualities that show us as overcoming all of our past atrocities, as better than all that. There is something in a gesture that Milan Kundera understood...a gesture can be linked to identity and can be it's own greatest art form. I'm a huge fan of animals but the gestures that humans make can actually take my breath away.
I see more views, favorites, comments, etc. when I post a concert photo and I appreciate those but, at the end of the day, I am part of Flickr because I want to grow as a photographer and I don't want to die with people thinking all I ever did was stand alongside 15 other people taking photos of the same musicians at the exact same time. I think that's why I haven't really missed scaling back on shows and festivals overall this year. I still love Levitation/Austin Psych Fest the very best (it's my type of music!) and I still enjoy live shows...but if I am photographing bands, I want to be doing so to promote their creativity and their presence in the world so not necessarily the bands everyone has already heard of in other words.
I realize I'm not the best street or portrait photographer in the world but it takes time to develop and, just like it took time for me to develop as a concert photographer, I have made more of a commitment to devoting time and energy to this endeavor. It's painful to me when I try to be part of a community of street photographers and I feel rejected or condescended to. I have music within me and I sing in my own way. Right now, this is where my heart is leading me.
2. Vegan
When I was 13, it finally occurred to me that it was perhaps more than a little hypocritical to identify myself as an animal lover and then eat them. Back then, I pretty much lived on vegetarian vegetable cans of Progresso soup and it was a challenge to live as a vegetarian in upstate NY not because I enjoyed the taste of meat but because I had a lack of options for my own nutrition. I also had to learn the hard way about taking B vitamin and iron supplements or I'd be feeling weak and/or faint all day long. Pretty soon, though, being a vegetarian became a part of the very fabric of my being and was one of the first things I mentioned. It definitely made me more healthy but it also made me feel like I was a person with integrity.
Of course, not as much was known in 1992 about the environmental implications of being vegetarian and, even more so, vegan. When you're facing food scarcities, using all fertile land in the most optimal way to feed the approaching 7 billion people on this planet seems less like radical ideology and more just like plain common sense.
At least in America, vegan cheeses, yogurts, sorbets, milks, butters, and even egg substitutes have seen remarkable growth. Not so long ago, vegan cheese tasted like play-doh and was absolutely disgusting. We've come a long way, especially in the last three years. I've never been a fan of Daiya, though I appreciate their history in the market, but I am a fan of Heidi-Ho vegan cheese made from chia seeds. Kite Hill, Punk Rawk cheese, Treeline cheese and Mykononos cheese are all fantastic vegan options. In addition, each city (even my own small home town city of Rochester, NY with the amazing vegan restaurant Vive) seems to be developing it's own artisan vegan cheeses. To be clear, these are "cheeses" I wouldn't even realize were vegan. In Chicago, we have Feed Your Head, Teese, Chicago Raw, and Soul Veg. which are amazing-as well as several restaurant options.
When I think about the process in America of separating the young calves from their mothers and killing male chickens, I think about the stress hormones that get transferred from animal to your food. I also think about the rise in quite a few life threatening allergies...some of this may be related to pollution but maybe some of it is related to animals. I became a vegetarian way before epidemics like "Mad Cow Disease" but this disease isn't exactly a compelling argument to continue to eat any animal products for me.
There is going to come a time when we can no longer be dependent on animals for any food source. I don't know when that exact year is...if I had to guess, it will probably be well before I reach old age (if I do reach it). Let's say 2040. Animal products will be unreliable and even toxic. If you'd like for some reasonable substitutes and would, in the meantime, like to become a healthier and more productive human, I would recommend becoming vegan sooner than later. Again, I'm not a radical. I'm not a trend setter. However, I am a person who likes to think I can see trends and has some common sense. Many thanks to my friend and photographer Lindsey Best for opening my eyes and giving me a needed push in the right direction. I hope my words here find you well and you are open minded enough to consider them for yourself and for the future of the world.
Check out her work:
3. Sleep
Being an insomniac started to usurp my identity or components of it for a couple of decades. Ever since I became addicted to Nyquil in high school after a cold, I have struggled on and off with insomnia. My most recent dependency as an adult was 3 Ibuprofen PM AND 3 Melatonin. I have a great deal of anxiety and stress related to work and I found I couldn't sleep without this combination. But then, I had an even more of a problem which was that even this combination wasn't doing the trick. Your body habituates over time and you feel extremely abnormal. You start to really worry about the damage you might be doing to your kidneys, for instance, and start to feel helpless. There are only so many times I can have a panic attack in the middle of the night before I realize I probably need to gather some gumption and actually see a medical professional about it.
This summer/August, I started to see a sleep therapist in Chicago. It was a big change for me because it finally spoke to the idea that I wanted to truly change my life. I've gone through phases of extreme struggle because, like my mother, I feel more creative in the wee hours of the night. I've also gone through phases where I truly viewed being an insomniac as "cool." But, at 3am, when you're sweating profusely, wondering how you're going to get through the next day at work, and wondering if you're racing heart signifies that you'll soon be having a heart attack, you realize this is anything but "cool." While it's true it's helpful to have deep experiences to become a better artist and feel connected to all aspects of the world, it's also very true that you're not helpful to anyone on Earth as a creative entity or otherwise if you're dead.
Fast forward 6 months later. I now sleep at least 6 hours most nights without any sleep aids...this is a big deal for me! When I say a "big deal" what I mean specifically is that if you had told me in August that I would be here in January, I would have thought you were suggesting the impossible. And yet, this is my new reality and, instead of identifying myself based on the sleep I did or didn't get the night before, I have begun to identify myself as the person who can do more with a little more sleep and feeling proud of myself for the progress I have made. Again, I am nowhere near the perfect and flawless human being I would like to be but this is a huge part of becoming better and doing more in the world each day I'm alive.
4. Neuroscience
I've always liked nonfiction in moderation but 2015 especially saw me struggling with some new cases at work where I felt I needed to learn more to become better and, what this inevitably boiled down to is learning more about the human brain and the capacity for change. Even when I was going to university for my degree back in NY in 2001, it was a widespread belief that the human brain was plastic only to a certain point following an injury like a stroke and that if progress didn't occur within the first 6months or so afterwards, the idea that the patient could grow was probably just a little too optimistic.
What neuroscientists have found most recently is that this is actually really false and, even more so, could be obviously damaging to the patient's progress when the doctors and therapists embrace this line of thinking. Neuroscientists have also learned so much more about mental illness, physical disabilities, Autism and other sensory disorders. This is one of the most exciting adventures you can have-realizing even how much potential we have to change and being inspired to change because of it. I've tried to make myself more trilingual, more of an optimist, and more filled with the kindness and empathy related to the struggles people have.
I would highly recommend checking out the following authors/works:
The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist's Quest for What Makes Us Human
by V.S. Ramachandran
www.goodreads.com/book/show/8574712-the-tell-tale-brain
Rainy Brain, Sunny Brain: How to Retrain Your Brain to Overcome Pessimism and Achieve a More Positive Outlook
by Elaine Fox
(It sounds kind of hokey and middle of the road but very interesting neuroscience behind optimism):
www.goodreads.com/book/show/13237701-rainy-brain-sunny-br...
The Brain's Way of Healing: Remarkable Discoveries and Recoveries from the Frontiers of Neuroplasticity
by Norman Doidge
www.goodreads.com/book/show/22522293-the-brain-s-way-of-h...
Thinking in Pictures: My Life with Autism
by Temple Grandin
www.goodreads.com/book/show/103408.Thinking_in_Pictures?f...
And recently my mom has encouraged me to watch youtube clips from this neuroscientist and read his work:
David Eagleman:
Thanks for reading, all. Good luck on your own journeys.
A grass spider, sow bug and salt grass continue after a controlled burn at the San Louis National Wildlife Refuge.
An optimist is a person who sees a green light everywhere, while a pessimist sees only the red stoplight. . . The truly wise person is colorblind.”
~ Albert Schweitzer
I'm so thankful for all of your examples in finding those green lights in life! (even the bokeh kind!!) You are all so sweet and some of the nicest people in the world!
As in countless years past, a pair of Canada Geese begin work on their new nest at Hubbard Pond, near my home. Sadly, this may be the last year to witness this inspiring event.
On their home located in one of Ann Arbor's premier residential neighborhoods and without a Comprehensive Environmental Impact Report, public review/input, or apparent alternative site consideration, and in return for 185 VIP parking spaces on their Athletic Campus, the Regents of the University of Michigan are about to approve the relocation and the construction of a huge, high activity, high-traffic generating, smelly and noisy, brightly-lit 24/7, dusty, heavy industrial type facility.
Unfortunately, these handsome creatures have no effective way to argue their case. Even if they could get a hearing, parading their delightful goslings, plus indignant hissing, squawking and honking will never work. Instead, they need human help... your help.
To learn more about the proposed project and how you can give Mother Nature a human voice, you are invited to visit:
glacierhighlands.org/wp/?p=335
UPDATE: In a 12 March 2016 letter, the President of the University of Michigan indicates the proposed heavy industrial project for this site has been "paused". Plus, all applications for various construction permits are suspended and no construction contracts have been awarded.
While this turn of events appears positive, all it takes is will and a whim to re-activate the project. Until the final determination is STOP, the possibility of this easily preventable man-made disaster remains. Again, Mother Nature needs your voice. Now is the time to stand-up and sound-off !
UPDATE: 18 March 2016 - UM President apologizes...
www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/index.ssf/2016/03/u-m_presid...
How you can help...
www.change.org/p/boycott-university-of-michigan-s-bus-yar...
Stay thirsty, my friend...
Few things in the world are more powerful than a positive push. A smile. A word of optimism and hope. A "you can do it" when things are tough.
~ Richard M. DeVos
....
For Debbie...Cheer up!
Mollie is looking brighter and happier but still in the Paediatric Neurological ward at the LGI, in Leeds. The staff there have been wonderful, first saving her life and then nursing her back to health. We don't know the extent or results of our Granddaughter's injuries but are just glad she is still with us. This is another shot from my visit to Staithes for dawn on the day she was, later, rushed into hospital.
EXPLORE: March 27, 2009
These Lilac buds are optimistic that warmer weather is just around the corner. After several days of blizzard like conditons we are all ready for some Spring time. Last night it got down to ten above zero. My first photo with the Nikon 105VR lens. In fact this is my first macro posted on Flickr. If it does not have wings, does not quack or honk or is a critter with four legs and teeth, I feel totally out of my element. Your support is deeply appreciated.
The leaves have fallen, but not the trees. They stand their ground firmly, refusing to surrender to the tides of time (Canon EOS 700D).
My friend and fellow flickrista, Linda Plaisted (aka Linda's Many Muses) has had her artwork nominated for Daily Candy's Sweetest Things of 2008 in Washington DC's "Best Nest" (home decor) category.
I'd really appreciate it if you could help Linda out by giving her your vote. She's an amazing artist, fully deserving of the recognition. But don't take my word for it, go on over to Daily Candy and see for yourself.
Voting is open until January 16th. Thanks, everyone!!
Another good one: “If the grass is greener on the other side of the fence, you can bet the water bill is higher.”
Photo of Balsamorhiza sagittata, commonly called Arrowleaf Balsamroot, captured via Minolta MD Rokkor-X 85mm F/1.7 lens. Spokane Indian Reservation. Selkirk Mountains Range. Okanogan-Colville Xeric Valleys and Foothills section within the Northern Rockies Region. Inland Northwest. Stevens County, Washington. Late April 2021.
Exposure Time: 1/250 sec. * ISO Speed: ISO-100 * Aperture: F/4 * Bracketing: None * Color Temperature: 5100 K * Film Plug-In: Fuji Provia 100F * Elevation: 1,886 feet above sea-level
How Do You Think
If you think you are beaten, you are;
If you think you dare not, you don't!
If you'd like to win, but you think you can't,
It's almost certain you won't.
If you think you'll lose, you're lost;
For out in the world we find
Success begins with a fellow's will;
It's all in the state of mind!
If you think you're outclassed, you are;
You've got to think high to rise.
You've got to be sure of yourself
Before you'll ever win the prize.
Life's battles don't always go
To the stronger or faster man;
But sooner or later the man who wins
Is the person who thinks he can!
~Author Unknown
HBW my dear flickrmates!