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I haven't had a kalanchoe quite like this one. New blooms keep appearing daily. I like using them for macro shots and am having fun experimenting with washi paper backgrounds. I like the way the buds showed up in this pic.
Please note that long lists of group invites will be vapourised.
For "Eye contact" Happy Caturday. The old image, a little bit edited.
Thank you all for visits, favs and comments, it's greatly appreciated!
The ability to play the piano is truly a gift. I never learned how to play but one is never too old.
... a Persian Buttercup / Ranunkel (Ranunculus asiaticus)
in a vase from the birthday bouquet for my wife
and a new macro lens ;-))
Happy Sunday!
At a recent fundraiser in Orfordville, Wisconsin at Beckman's Mill, I found a wonderful couple playing the dulcimer. The fundraiser was like a step back in time and everyone in period clothing for those hosting the event. The scenery was beautiful and enjoyed everything this wonderful place had to offer.
Come Monday, October 9th, I will be having surgery and laid up for some time. One of the lenses have been "broken", though I have no idea how this happened. As a result, there is no more photos for awhile and will have to, at some point, replace the lens and am having horrific "withdrawal" from the long lens I used so much. There will probably plenty of archive shots and will have to delve into them as time goes on.
Have a great weekend, everyone!
Today my brother and me found an old Dragon Shrine!
People think that dragons don't exist anymore but that's not entirely true. They're just very hard to find. Most of the Dragon Shrines are destroyed today, because of their huge love for Sake! Sake, you ask? Aye, Sake!
Together with the Monks, the Dragons used to drink a lot of Sake! And a drunken Dragon is clumsy - and no fun at all.
One Burp and the whole shrine is on fire. One wag with it's tail and there'll be nothing be left but a pile of debris. One stomp with it's foot and it'll feel like an earthquake.
So, most of the shrines are burned, demolished or eaten by good old Earth. But gladly my brother and me found one!
And as long as you don't give them Sake, you'll be safe.
Blog: ducanevyper.wixsite.com/hikaru/single-post/2017/08/12/Pla...
My lines.
Brussels, 2020
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Hello beautiful people! How are they? I hope very well, Halloween is over :'(, but I'm very excited that very special dates are approaching! ^
Today i bring you a new photo, I hope you like it and give it a favorite. Keep taking care that soon we will be able to celebrate these dates with our friends. Kisses and hugs <3
♡ —————— ♡ —————— ♡
S P O N S O R
❥ moxxi // Tina Jacket
❥ .Q. Chosen
❥ FAGA - Nayah Hairstyle
❥ Avoixs - Mochi skin
❥ [B.G] Lulu Animations
❥ {Agape}. Sancta Halo
❥ YOKAI - Ghost Night
♡ —————— ♡ —————— ♡
HEAD: LeLUTKA - Ceylon Head
BODY: Maitreya Lara Mesh Body
❥ If you have time and you want to know more, please visit my blog, click in "about" and the link is there <3
A quick iPhone picture of our instruments before we start playing at an event at Resort World Casino in Las Vegas.
“Almost all creativity involves purposeful play.” - Abraham Maslow.
This is another attempt at three exposures done in camera of a Black Eyed Susan. I love playing with an idea to see where it goes and being pleasantly surprised.
This was taken a few weeks back on a trip to Tuscany. We set off on a very early morning walk from San Quirico hoping to get some misty conditions in the Val d'Orcia. The weather was reasonably obliging and I did manage to get a few shots of the classic scene featuring the Podere Belvedere farmhouse. Looking back, I think I prefer this viewpoint even though it didn’t seem to attract as much interest from the assemblage of photographers.
……We have our 6yr old Grandson Erroll here to play for a ½ term treat (for us and him!) so little time for Photography!! I wonder why!!!! Taken (quickly) on my phone in Apple RAW and edited in Lightroom. HS😊S, Alan:-)…….
For the interested I’m growing my Shutterstock catalogue regularly here, now sold 108 images :- www.shutterstock.com/g/Alan+Foster?rid=223484589&utm_...
©Alan Foster.
©Alan Foster. All rights reserved. Do not use without permission.……
We had a guest from Russia in July. And Vas'ka was so facinated by her knitted slippers that played with her every morning, biting and scratching her feet.
Thank you, dear friends, for all your visits, faves and comments!
Games people play, you take it or you leave it
Things that they say are not right
If I promised you the moon and the stars, would you believe it?
Games people play in the middle of the night...
All info in my Blog @ the about tab
Eurasian Jay (Garrulus glandarius)
My best photos are here: www.lacerta-bilineata.com/ticino-best-photos-of-southern-...
More TICINO/TESSIN Wildlife Photos (all taken in my garden in Monteggio/Ti, Switzerland): it.lacerta-bilineata.com/ramarro-occidentale-lacerta-bili...
If you're interested, you'll find a more detailed closeup here (it's the 8th photo from the top): www.lacerta-bilineata.com/western-green-lizard-lacerta-bi...
My latest ANIMAL VIDEO (it's very brief but pretty unusual: a tiny wall lizard attacks two young great tits): www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQqkSsyrm7E
THE STORY BEHIND THE PHOTO: MY LONG AND ARDUOUS JOURNEY TO BIRD PHOTOGRAPHY
If you've set yourself the challenge of exclusively shooting the wildlife in your own back yard, you might find - as I did - that bird photography is really, really hard.
It's not that reptiles are easy to photograph either, mind - but at least the ones in my garden stay (for the most part) on the ground, and one can learn how to carefully approach them with a camera. They're also clearly egoists, which from a photographer's point of view is is a great character trait: if a lizard detects a human in its vicinity, it's only interested in saving its own skin, and it won't alarm its buddies.
But birds... oh man. Over the years, my feathered friends and I have developed a lovely routine that now defines our peaceful co-existence. As soon as I as much as open a window (let alone the door), I'm instantly greeted by an eruption of panicky fluttering and hysterical shouts from my garden: "SAVE YOUR WOMEN AND CHILDREN AND FLY FOR YOUR LIVES: THE HAIRLESS, PINK MONSTER IS COMING!!! (Yes, I speak bird, and I know that this is exactly what they are shouting 😉).
Needless to say, with the exception of the redstart I already showed here, all my efforts to get the kind of detailed shots I usually strive for with my nature photography ended in complete failure and utter disillusionment. I was ready to give up on stalking the winged misanthropes in my garden altogether, but then winter came - and changed everything.
One day this past January I observed my neighbor Signora P - a kind, elderly Italian lady - putting something on the low garden wall in front of my house. At first I thought she was just putting some treat there for her cat Romeo; the young tom patrols that wall constantly (it's his favorite spot in the garden, and during the warmer months he usually lurks in the thick foliage next to it to prey on lizards).
But once I detected a lot of movement on that wall through my window, I understood she had put a little pile of bread crumbs there; she was feeding the birds who soon arrived in flocks. This was certainly well-intended on my neighbor's part, but her noble action came with a catch, and I'm afraid quite literally.
When I took a stroll through my garden the next day I discovered a suspicious amount of feathers on the ground next to the wall. Romeo had apparently switched from his low-calorie summer diet (lizard) to more energy-rich meals consisting of "fowl" (it was winter after all, so from a nutritionist's point of view this made sense).
I would find fresh traces of Romeo's victims (mostly feathers, but also the odd wing) in my garden over the following days; so my first intuition that my neighbor was feeding her cat hadn't been that far off after all, as Romeo was now clearly being "served" fresh birds on a daily basis. And although the hungry visitors seemed to be aware of the danger and became slightly more prudent, they just couldn't resist the tasty snacks Signora P put on that wall - and neither could Romeo.
It was obvious that I had to act, but talking to my neighbor - who is as stubborn as she is kind - would have been futile, I knew that much. I pondered the matter long and hard - until a light bulb went off in my head. The idea was genius. If successful, what I had in mind would not only increase the birds' chances of surviving Romeo's appetite, but also greatly benefit my own photographic endeavors.
I started to enact my master plan the very next day by buying a giant bag of bird feed (consisting mainly of sunflower seeds) from the store. Then I dragged a huge piece of a tree trunk (approx. 120 cm in height) that we normally chop firewood on from the shed out into the garden and emptied almost half of the bag's content on top of it. Signora P's buffet for birds (and cats) was about to get some serious competition 😊.
My reasoning was as follows: not only would the birds be lured away from the fatally low garden wall to a place where they were safe from the cat - there was nothing around that tree trunk that provided cover for a predator, and the birds had a nice 360° view around it at all times - but I was also able to photograph them while hiding in the shed.
However, in order for my plan to work there was one little extra measure I had to take, and it was one that risked lowering my own life expectancy considerably once the owner of the property - my mom - discovered it. You see, our shed is completely windowless, so if I wanted to use it as a blind, I had no choice but to cut a hole into one of its wooden walls... which I promptly did (I figured all's fair in love - and photography 😉).
Granted, I have absolutely zero carpentering skills, and it showed. That hole was an ugly mess: the shed's wall seemed to have had an encounter with Jack Nicholson's ax-wielding lunatic character from the film 'The Shining'. Needless to say, I was incredibly proud of my work (I mean, come on: there now was a hole where before there wasn't a hole, and it was big enough for the lens of my camera to peek through, so it was mission accomplished as far as I was concerned).
Now all I had to do was wait for the birds to discover the tree trunk. In the meantime I started to mentally prepare myself for the inevitable confrontation with my mom and go through possible explanations for that splintering hole in the wall (it was either gonna be a rabid woodpecker attack or an emergency rescue mission with a feeding tube for a little kid that had accidentally locked himself inside the shed - both seemed valid options, though I slightly preferred the locked-in kid due to the involved drama and heroism 😉).
A whole day went by, and not a single bird visited the sunflower seeds. I had expected that it might take a few hours until the first of the ever curious great tits or blue tits would show up, but given how tiny my garden is, an entire day seemed excessive. Then another day came and went: the birds kept flocking to the bread crumbs on the wall, and my tree trunk kept collecting dust. To add injury to insult, a few fresh feathers on the ground were proof that Romeo was still feasting.
It was incredibly frustrating: I provided my winged guests with a much better view - plus a higher chance of surviving the cuisine - than Signora P's place; I risked (almost) certain death at the hands of my own mother (OK, the act of vandalism on the shed I had committed for my own benefit, but still), yet the birds kept ignoring me.
Then, after three days, just before sunset, I spotted a single blue tit on the tree trunk picking away at the sunflower seeds.
When I got up the next morning I immediately realized that the loud noise that accompanies each and every tit activity had shifted from the wall to the shed. At last the dam had broken: there was a flurry of movement around the tree trunk, and I counted at least 5 different species of birds feasting on the sunflower seeds.
From day 4 onward my plan worked beautifully: the birds now indeed mostly ignored Romeo's "snack wall" and kept to the tree trunk. And yes, I was able to play peeping tom from behind the shed's wall and photograph them!! 😊
Thus, dear readers, I finally managed to produce some acceptable bird photos, and I had even saved my feathered friends from a deadly foe in the process. All through winter and spring I took advantage of my new bird hide, and in late May I started mixing some cherries with the sunflower seeds. The idea was to attract a Eurasian jay (Garrulus glandarius), and as you can see, it worked!
It took me almost three weeks and more than a few tricks to capture that clever fella, but given how long I've been rambling here already, that's a story for another day. As for my mom, she still doesn't know about the hole in the wall, so please don't snitch! 😉.
I hope you like the photo and wish you all a wonderful weekend! Many greetings from Switzerland, and as always: let me know what you think in the comments 🙏 😊 ❤!
P.S. if anyone has their own funny tale about the obstacles we photographers are prepared to overcome for a desired photo, please write it in the comments: I love such stories 😊
Still learning. Having lots of fun.
The Center Circle is wool felt.
Inspired by Doodle Stitching by Aimee Ray.
My attendance at Provo High School was at times compromised due to the close proximity of the Rio Grande, Utah Railway, and Union Pacific rail yards. Case it point: Utah Railway's Martin Turn departing Provo the afternoon of July 29, 1977. The temptation to take flight from campus was real and ever-present, magnified all the more when I earned my driver's license.