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"Why did the Yearling cross the road...?"
Moose of the Canadian Rockies
Moose (Alces alces) are the largest members of the deer family, and their size is precisely why they are one of nature’s most resilient cold-climate species. Their adaptive mechanism to conserve body heat is best described by a zoological principle known as, ‘Bergmann’s Rule.’ The rule applies to the ratio of body surface to weight in warm-blooded animals. Moose have a relatively small surface area compared to their volume. Regardless of external temperatures, Moose maintain a relatively constant internal temperature—meaning they require only minor metabolic and environmental adjustments to live comfortably in North America’s lowest-temperature regions. Moose range from the Arctic coasts of North America, Europe, and Asia, down to the southern limits of the boreal forest. In North America, they reach their southern extent in New York State to the east and Utah to the west.
The Moose is a browser, or ‘eater of twigs’ as the Algonquian Native name translates. In a single day, an adult can consume about 44 pounds of vegetation. They graze on aquatic plants such as water lilies and duckweed and make use of their impressive stature to tear off twigs high in the willow trees. Summer waterways are important feeding areas and also provide escape routes from wolves, bears, and mesopredators like the red fox and coyote.
For more Info: www.nathab.com/know-before-you-go/alaska-northern-adventu...
A brief moment in time, in this timeless and remote corner of Wales, high above the Conwy Valley.
Edit: Just thought of this line by TS Eliot, it fits my thoughts precisely: "Here, the intersection of the timeless moment"
Back from a holiday from France and more precisely Brittany and parts of Normandy, the first week a lot of clouds and rain, unfortunately the sun broke through here at this world famous heritage site and then disappeared for the rest of the afternoon....
This is precisely what we must prevent: being satisfied that it is over and attempt to patch up one's life, without demanding responsibility, because nothing we have lived will ever end if we are satisfied with having obtained a free time that can be revoked in any moment. We will have to find the jailers.
*Horizon:
The line that separates earth from sky. More precisely, it is the line that divides all of the directions you can possibly look into, into two categories: those which intersect the Earth, and those which do not. At many locations, the true horizon is obscured by trees, buildings, mountains, etc. The resulting intersection of earth and sky is instead known as the visible horizon.
Depth of Field! . St-Ursule, Québec, Canada.
PixQuote:
" I have two pairs of eyes – one to paint and one to take photographs."
-Jacques Henri Lartigue
Note:
Historically, the distance to the visible horizon has been extremely important as it represented the maximum range of communication and vision before the development of the radio and the telegraph.
This scene is precisely what I seek in a good summer holiday - to find myself in the middle of nowhere with an open road and blue skies.
Middle of Nowhere, Nevada USA
(July 24, 2012)
London City Hall was designed by the architect Norman Foster, one of the most valued architects in the world. The Bilbao metro is owed to him, whose entrances are popularly known as “fosteritos” in honor of his person, and are inspired precisely by this town hall.
Most citizens of Eisenach, a former communist town in central Germany, know precisely how their long-running Bach legacy began. They tell the tale of the Hungarian miller Vitus Bach who, fleeing persecution for his Lutheran beliefs in the 16th century, ended up in Eisenach, where his religion's founder, Martin Luther had spent his childhood and translated the New Testament.
Around a century later, in 1685, Johann Sebastian Bach was born. His father, Ambrosius Bach, was the town musician and Bach junior often accompanied him to the town hall tower where twice a day he played sonatas, dances and chorales on his trumpet.
Eisenach is now launching a campaign to publicise its association with the most famous of all baroque musicians after decades during which the composer was hijacked by various ideologies, including nazism and communism.
- The Guardian 7/4/07
Nature. The most beautiful thing in the world is, precisely, the conjunction of learning and inspiration. Oh, the passion for research and the joy of discovery!
Ad in the Farragut West Metro station for Bally Total Fitness Gyms, using a very modified parody of the Washington Metro map style.
Washington, DC / September 24, 2008
My wife did a remarkable job of staying precisely still for the 13-second exposure that was needed for this shot. The Atlantic Ocean was anything but calm, but such is the beauty of long exposures. The post-rain clouds were deadly, and were balanced against the foreground using two stacked 1-stop GND filters and a 3-stop ND filter.
ISO 100, F11, 13-second exposure, Canon L-Series 17-40MM @25MM. Tripod.
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The last pit stop of my 4200 mile escapade was, of course, my favorite home away from home. No, not Covington, but across this river town lies another one. Cincinnati, Ohio. Home to CSX's Queensgate Yard and Skyline Chili.
More importantly, on this day, was J767's trailing engine into town. I was getting some fetti for Illinois tolls when I heard a GEVO call for permission through work limits and yarding instructions. The optimist in me said maybe something more photogenic was trailing. So I headed back from Winton Place and parked next to the B&O freight house near the riverfront to find precisely what I had wished for.
A couple hours of work and cloudy skies passed, and here is the C&O SD40 swinging through Covington's finest backdrop , although I prefer it from an elevated position when the light is a little better.
This 360° panorama was captured from the Atacama Desert in Chile, one of the most suitable places on Earth for astronomical observation, and more precisely from the European Observatory of "La Silla". Note that the dome in the foreground is the home of the TRAPPIST Telescope, which discovered the famous system of 7-earth-size exoplanets around a red-dwarf star called TRAPPIST-1!)
Anyway, this image not only shows the Milky Way spanning over the entire field of view but also an impressive amount of strange colorful wave-like structures in the whole sky!
This orange/red light emitted at 85 km altitude (and higher) does not originate from artificial light pollution or high altitude clouds.
This rare phenomenon called Airglow is entirely natural and originates from an interaction between the Ultra-violet light of our Sun and the particles of the upper layers of the atmosphere.
During the day, the highly energetic UV light of the sun hits the atoms of oxygen, sodium, nitrogen...etc of the Earth's atmosphere. This absorption of energy puts them in an excited state that only waits for an external process to be able to release this excess of energy.
Using Chemiluminescence, the atoms of the atmosphere are slowly releasing this absorbed UV-llight into visible light, before going back to their stable energy state.
The emission of light, whose color depends on the chemical element involved in the reaction (oxygen for red airglow, sodium for green airglow), continues even during night-time when the sun has set for few hours.
As a fluid, Airglow follows the air flow of the atmosphere and the variation of gravity field caused by the topography of the ground, which produces the so-called "gravity waves" (not gravitational waves!).
These gravity waves are what make the main spatial feature of airglow in the sky: wave-like and ripple-like structures, with strong inhomogeneities.
Red and orange airglow (even a little bit of green) were very strong during that night in Chile! Even though this natural phenomenon is very common in this region of the world, it is usually not as intense as it was during that night!
You can also spot the zodiacal light, a tilted cone of blue light starting from the lower horizon and extending to the galactic center.
This leads to a new definition of what a high-quality sky for stargazing really is: not a dark-sky but a sky under which the rarest and the dimmest natural phenomena can be seen, revealing the true colors of the sky!
The two photographers next to the TRAPPIST observatory are Norédine and Olivia, two astronomy social enthusiasts of our group of 8 which was chosen by ESO to participate to its #MeeESO event.
The other observatories visible in this image are (from right to left) : the Danish 0.5-meter telescope, the ESO-0.5-meter telescope, the ESO-1.52-meter telescope and finally the tiny illuminated dome in the top horizon is the huge ESO-3.6-meter telescope.
17 images were captured and stitched together to form this 360° panoramic view. Neither photo blending/digital art nor over-exaggerated colors/contrasts. The success of this panorama holds in the fact that I used an ultra wide angle lens : a Sigma 14 mm F/1.8 which enabled me to capture far less images and to spend far less time than if I had used a standard lens (35 mm focal length).
TECHNICAL DETAILS
📷 Canon 6D + Sigma Art 14 mm + Standard Tripod
→ Single 20 seconds exposure
→ ISO 6400
→ 14 mm
→ f/1.8
→ 17-image stitching to make this 360 panorama
→ No photo blending, each image of this panoram is a "one-shot".
Softwares: Dxo Optics pro 9 for noise reduction / Microsoft ICE for panorama / Photoshop/Lightroom for all the edits.
Learning how to love is like learning how to tie your shoes...and that’s precisely why I wear slippers.
-- Jarod Kintz
Although 36 years is relatively young for a train, busses of that age are already long-time oldtimers. So is this Autosan of the absolutely legendary H9 series (here precisely H9-21). This is most likely the last picture of a series of photographs which I managed to snap of this bus during a short stay in Skierniewice. In October 2023 the WGM 03254 was scrapped. The picture presents it during a lone ride in December, from the Skierniewice bus station towards Łowicz. I was incredibly lucky to catch it back then.
More pictures of this very nostalgic bus in the 'busses' album.
Photo by Piotrek/Toprus
Maglione è un piccolo borgo piemontese, un vero e proprio paese/museo si trova in provincia di Torino, in una zona rurale tra le colline moreniche del Canavese, è quasi a metà strada tra Ivrea e Torino, distando 20 Chilometri dalla prima e 45 Chilometri dal capoluogo piemontese. Maglione ha quasi 500 abitanti, si trova a 310 metri dal livello del mare su una superficie di 6 Chilometri quadrati.
Confina con la provincia di Vercelli, e proprio per via di questa sua “caratteristica”, nella sua storia è passata sotto il dominio di moltissime province quali: Vercelli, Aosta, Ivrea, Trino, Biella e Torino. Per la maggior parte del tempo è stata sotto il dominio d’Ivrea, mentre è solo nel settembre del 1945 che essa entrerà a far parte della provincia di Torino (come ancora oggi).
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Maglione, province of Turin, Sweater, village / museum, work by G. Pomodoro
Maglione is a small Piedmontese village, a real town / museum is located in the province of Turin, in a rural area between the morainic hills of the Canavese area, is almost halfway between Ivrea and Turin, 20 kilometers from the first and 45 kilometers from the Piedmontese capital. Maglione has nearly 500 inhabitants, is located 310 meters above sea level on an area of 6 square kilometers.
It borders with the province of Vercelli, and precisely because of this "feature", in its history it has passed under the dominion of many provinces such as: Vercelli, Aosta, Ivrea, Trino, Biella and Turin. For most of the time it was under the dominion of Ivrea, while it is only in September 1945 that it will become part of the province of Turin (as still today).
That's precisely the type of guy your mother warned you for! Even though he drives a bourgious Opel Kadett. Somewhere along the nice Italian Alpine lakes perhaps?
Edit: location is Portofino, Italy.
Precisely the least, the softest, lightest, a lizard's rustling, a breath, a flash, a moment
Das Wenigste gerade, das Leiseste, einer Eidechse Rascheln,
ein Hauch, ein Husch, ein Augenblick
(Friedrich Nietzsche)
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Trees on Sandstone Cliff. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
A row of coniferous trees ascends a steep gully on a sandstone cliff face.
There is something compelling about individual or small groups of trees growing in unlikely places. It is hard to precisely describe why this is, but my friend Charles Cramer has referred to photographs of them as “brave little tree” images. (I don’t know if Charlie coined the term, but he’s the first person I heard use it.) Perhaps there is something metaphorical about these trees stand in such places, where they are tall and straight like these examples or twisted and stunted by their stark environment. Whatever the reason, I know I’m not the only person attracted to them.
This group of conifers grows high up on a sandstone cliff in Zion National Park, improbably forming a very tine forest in a very difficult place. Such trees, viewed up close, often seem to thrive on almost nothing at all, putting roots down in little more than cracks in the rock. This group rises from a cluster of smaller shrubs and trees to a few larger trees in the widest part of the ledge, and then the trees continue upwards, diminishing in size.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.
Leica x1
it's good being back on Flickr. Photography, and more precisely the art of composition and framing is so valuable not only for my photography side, but also "de facto" for my concept art side.
i could spend hours trying to define and improve a compo within photoshop. and photography does help a lot. framing a scene in a snap, doing the best choice in order to get a theme or a subject speak to the eye is an excitement in so many ways.
oh and it's fun having a photo in Explore. like in the good old days.
thanks Steven for pointing that out.
Night shot taken on June 13th 2012, at 11:23 p.m. portraying a sector of the Milky Way (precisely the Great Rift) heading south, right over the mountains Levanne north faces.
On the right is visible the constellation Scorpius, with the red supergiant Antares.
Location: Nivolet (2.641 m), Gran Paradiso National Park, Italy
The slight light pollution comes from two dams below and the area of Ceresole Reale.
In the foreground, a bit in the dark, you can see the last curve of the street that reaches the summit of this alpine pass.
Actually this area is called "belvedere", which means viewpoint.
Obviously the road is available only during spring/summer (with some quite correct traffic restrictions on weekends). During autumn/winter everything is submerged in snow and ice.
I will have to return soon to this dreamy place, to wander with snowshoes, alone, into the white silent immensity.
_____________________
©Roberto Bertero, All Rights Reserved. This image is not available for use on websites, blogs or other media without the explicit written permission of the photographer.
Ukrainians!
All our defenders!
Today I want to say special words of gratitude. Gratitude to all our people who defend our state, defend independence.
Ukraine held out after a full-scale attack by Russia. Ukraine managed to unite the world around the struggle for freedom. Ukraine managed to liberate a significant part of the territory the Russian troops invaded. Ukraine liberates people from Russian captivity.
And Ukraine managed to change the course of the war so that every occupier, even the most inadequate one, felt that we can win and are moving towards victory.
I am thankful to everyone who fights and works for this! For the sake of our victory.
It is precisely to the fact of Ukrainian strength that the leadership of Russia reacts, changing tactics and trying to draw even more Russian citizens and resources into the war.
Russia's decision on mobilization is a frank admission that their regular army, which has been prepared for decades to take over a foreign country, did not withstand and crumbled. And now, due to mobilization, Russia's war against Ukraine for the majority of Russian citizens is not something on TV or on the Internet, but something that has entered every Russian home.
I’ve held a meeting of the Staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief today. The questions are clear. Frontline. Provision of our military. And new threats created by Russia.
I will note right away: any decisions of the Russian leadership do not change anything for Ukraine. We should care only about our tasks. This is the liberation of our country, the protection of our people and the mobilization of global support for the implementation of our tasks.
Diplomatic mobilization of the entire international community is now taking place.
The circle of those who support us now is not limited to our traditional partners and those who openly supported our state after February 24. Now almost everyone supports us - this is the reaction to new Russian escalation steps.
In particular, the farce with the preparation of sham referenda in the occupied territory demonstrates what happened in 2014 in Crimea and Donbas.
And I am grateful to everyone in the world who supported us. Who clearly condemned another Russian lie.
Grateful to President Biden and all American friends. To President Macron, Chancellor Scholz, the President of Finland and all our Polish brothers, the Baltic states, Mr. Borrell, Mrs. Ursula von der Leyen, Charles Michel, the OSCE and all Europeans from Iceland to Romania, who will never be deceived by Russia again.
I am thankful to Britain for the support! Türkiye! Thank you Canada! Thanks also to all those who now privately express their support for Ukraine.
When Russia declares that it supposedly wants negotiations, but announces mobilization... When Russia knows Ukraine's clear position about the impossibility of a diplomatic process after Russia holds any sham referenda...
Everything is clear to everyone. Russia itself buries the prospect of negotiations with its own hands.
I will explain to the Russians what is happening in Russian.
Protests against mobilization took place in the cities of Russia - albeit not massive, but they took place. And they take place. And this is an indicator. Not only in Moscow and St. Petersburg. We know the real mood in the regions of Russia.
We see that people in Dagestan, in Buryatia, in other national republics and regions of Russia understand that they were simply thrown. Thrown to death.
Why, for example, Dagestanis or anyone else should die in the Kharkiv region or near Donetsk? Because one person in Russia decided so - for all the citizens of Russia. There is no other reason. That’s what he wants.
You are already accomplices in all these crimes, murders and torture of Ukrainians.
Because you were silent. Because you are silent.
And now it's time for you to choose. For men in Russia, this is a choice to die or live, to become a cripple or to preserve health. For women in Russia, the choice is to lose their husbands, sons, grandchildren forever, or still try to protect them from death, from war, from one person.
Just think about the number of people they want to take away!
We know for sure that the conscription letters for 300,000 people were printed and signed in advance, even before this decision on mobilization appeared. Our intelligence has proven it. But the Russian leadership is preparing to take up to a million men into the army - this is the key thing they are now silent about.
We know that they will take everyone indiscriminately. Not only the military in the reserve, but any men. Anyone who will be so intimidated that he will be more afraid of avoiding war than of dying in war.
55 thousand Russian soldiers died in this war in six months. Tens of thousands are wounded and maimed. Want more? No? Then protest. Fight back. Run away. Or surrender to Ukrainian captivity. These are options for you to survive.
Russian mothers! Have no doubt that the children of the top officials of your state will not be sent to the war against Ukraine. Those who make decisions in your country take care of their children. And they do not even bury your children.
And we return ours.
A very important briefing was held today. Head of the Office Yermak, Head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Budanov, Head of the Security Service Maliuk, Minister of Internal Affairs Monastyrskyi. They told the details of our operation to release 215 warriors, the details of the exchange. We do everything so that society and the world can see how Ukraine protects people and basic human values.
Once again, I congratulate 215 families and our entire country on the return of the heroes.
I am thankful to everyone who helps Ukraine!
Eternal glory to all who fight for Ukraine!
Glory to our indomitable and brave people!
Glory to Ukraine!
Nature. The most beautiful thing in the world is, precisely, the conjunction of learning and inspiration. Oh, the passion for research and the joy of discovery!
A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.
The city of Petra, capital of the Nabataean Arabs, is one of the most famous archaeological sites in the world.
t is not known precisely when Petra was built, but the city began to prosper as the capital of the Nabataean Empire from the 1st century BC, which grew rich through trade in frankincense, myrrh, and spices.
Petra was later annexed to the Roman Empire and continued to thrive until a large earthquake in 363 AD destroyed much of the city in the 4th century AD.
The earthquake combined with changes in trade routes, eventually led to the downfall of the city which was ultimately abandoned.
Petra is also known as the rose-red city, a name it gets from the wonderful colour of the rock from which many of the city’s structures were carved.
The Nabataeans buried their dead in intricate tombs that were cut out of the mountain sides and the city also had temples, a theater, and following the Roman annexation and later the Byzantine influence, a colonnaded street and churches.
In addition to the magnificent remains of the Nabataean city, human settlement and land use for over 10,000 years can be traced in Petra, where great natural, cultural, archaeological and geological features merge.
On December 6, 1985, Petra was designated a World Heritage Site.
Not precisely a 45 degree view but close.
House On The Rock, Wisconson, USA
SLR Magic 25mm f1.4 Cine
The autumnal equinox arrives precisely at 4:21 a.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2015 in the U.S.A. People celebrate this moment across the world because that is exactly the time when the sun passes directly over the equator.
What time will the equinox be where I live?
Eastern Daylight Time: 4:21 a.m.
Central Daylight Time: 3:21 a.m.
Mountain Daylight Time: 2:21 a.m.
Pacific Daylight Time: 1:21 a.m.
For everywhere else around the world, convert your time here.
It was at the limit of the bearable in terms of effort, but meanwhile the frustration about the weather is so great that one is willing to go a little further than usual.
So when the weather looked promising in the southern part of Austria on January 25th, I searched for a place at the foot of the Grossglocker mountain, more precisely in Ferleiten, using Google Earth. According to the forecast, it was supposed to be clear all night and the valley there extends exactly to the north-east - where the comet is located. Blue light pollution zone on top of that!
So I drove off in the evening full of hope, only to find out after 2 ½ hours that 5km before Ferleiten the road is closed due to an avalanche (Google Maps: Why woun't you say anything!?)
Unfortunately, exactly at this point there is also the border between high fog cover and clear sky and all around no place to be found, where you can take pictures undisturbed throughout the night.
So plan "B" then:
An hour's drive on to the Felbertauern Pass - further to the southwest and up to 1650m altitude - no other alternative available. In front of the long tunnel right before the pass I saw the stars twinkle in the south. But when I got to the top of the pass, I was sobered: Just like during the whole journey from my home to East Tyrol - high fog as far as the eye can see! What a nightmare!
I decide to wait and, after almost an hour, my patience was rewarded - it's clearing up! Despite the suboptimal conditions - the toll and service station is brightly lit, and an accommodation facility below has "festival lighting" on all night - I managed to expose the comet for some 3 1/2 hours.
At 5 o'clock in the morning I packed up at -22°C and drove home for three hours - finally some time to sleep!
So this is what I ended up with as a reward: A rare ion tail separation event - wow!
Taken on January 26th 2023 1:00 UT with a QHY600M on a Skywatcher Esprit 100/550 telescope, tracked with an EQ6-R, guided with MGEN-3:
40x 60sec. Antlia V-Pro Red
40x 60sec. Antlia V-Pro Blue
40x 60sec. Antlia V-Pro Green
165x 30sec. Antlia V-Pro Luminance
Processed with Astro Pixel Processor, Pixinsight, StarXTerminator and Photoshop.
He's a pedigree Highland Cow - and he has got an incredible haircut if you ask me.
He lives in Scotland - to be precisely he lives in Kilmahog which is here.
btw: Hamish was featured on the blog of the Breathtaking Group. Thanks for that!
© National Geographic Yourshot (Editor's Favourite, August 2018). Story and assignment: “Rethinking Portraiture.”
"To possess the world in the form of images is, precisely, to re-experience the unreality and remoteness of the the real." Susan Sontag, On Photography
A married Dani woman with carrying net prepares for a pig feast inside the oval courtyard of a traditional fortress-like compound high in a remote corner of West Papua's central highlands, 1600m/5200ft above sea level - Grand Valley of the Balim River, Irian Jaya, Indonesia.
A Dani warrior appears in the faded backdrop as he prepares for a ritualized mock battle that will take place outside the compound. He is adorned with an upturned boar’s tusk nose piece, bird-of-paradise plumes, arm bands of dog fur, white clay body markings, and the iconic koteka or penis gourd – all part of traditional Dani ornamentation and battle dress.
The indigenous peoples of West Papua migrated from southeast Asia and the Australian continent about 30,000 to 50,000 years ago during the Ice Age when sea levels were lower and distances between islands shorter. Western "first contact” with West Papua's Grand Valley Dani was established in 1938 during American-led botanical and zoological expeditions to the central highlands, less than sixty years before this photograph was taken.
High resolution Noritsu Koki QSS digital film scan, shot with a compact semi-automatic Pentax point-and-shoot film camera, circa 1996.
© All rights to these photos and descriptions are reserved and protected by international copyright laws. Any use of this work requires my prior written permission.
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Ethnographic efforts at demystifying Dani neolithic cultural practices and ritualized warfare in the region are associated with the early ground-breaking 1961 Harvard-Peabody Expedition. They include anthropologist Karl Heider’s accounts in “The Dugum Dani: A Papuan Culture in the Highlands of West New Guinea,” Aldine Publishing (1970) and “Grand Valley Dani: Peaceful Warriors” (Case Studies in Cultural Anthropology), Wadsworth Publishing (1996); also filmmaker Robert Gardner’s classic ethnographic documentary, “Dead Birds” (1965) and Peter Matthiessen’s “Under the Mountain Wall: A Chronicle of Two Seasons in Stone Age New Guinea,” Viking Press (1962).
The spirit of Alpen Fest (Livigno) is precisely to bring the public closer to what are the origins of a territory that today presents itself as a modern alpine resort, but which has its roots in agricultural work and in close contact with animals, especially cows
Lt. Stalker, command log:
The hellfire started slowly, creeping farther up into the sky, farther up your sightline, coming into the front of your focus. These turbolasers could’ve been lighting up the sky all kriffin’ day, I only just noticed as the rushing BOOM of an evacuating LAAT blew my kama straight back. Your perceptions warp like that over time, especially when you’re moving people–faceless civies–for 49 hours straight. We simply kept going with this blasted evacuation. We’re just busy bodies now, is that it? Serving the whims of Jedi…
Wait… that BOOM just ahead, the one that blasted the sterilizing scent of my helmet’s filtration system into my nostrils. The one that was a falling tragedy from the sky, billowing black smoke all around, right back down onto the landing pad. That’s it! The hellfire of a thousand Seppie turbolasers cutting through the ever shrinking parade of gunship silhouettes in the sky. And one just collapsed in front of me. That black smoke and the charred remains of evacuees proposed to my nose a numb, sterile smell of my helmet’s air filter. My sight argued back, uncensored. The only corpses I’d seen before were Theta squad on Geonosis, then those on the Absolver afterwards. Kriffing hell! These were civies, they do have faces. Oh hell, the sights are coming back. A twi’lek doctor with a carriage truss partly through her neck, the pilot letting steam from his helmet seal as the cockpit burned around him. Holy kriffing hell. I’ve barely seen combat haven’t I?
“Back!” I screamed to any standing GAR member at the edge of the pad. Back, back as far as we could go. The LAAT crash cut us off from the rest of the pad crew. Reduced to nothing, like the haunted ruins around us, we were mere shields to the Jedi’s goals and their hubris has produced horrors. “Trap, report.”
“Sir I’m clocking many, many droids.”
“C’mon di’kut, numbers, distance, what kind of metrics are we talking? Is there some Kamino training pad in front of you?” At my wits end I found the ground at my feet turned to a cliff, I was about to fall off. “Sorry, Trap, hit me again. What are we looking at?” For one thing we both see the horrors of that LAAT crash…
“There’s a whole battalion, no half - this blasted smoke…”
“Sir! Dropship overhead! Not one of ours,” Opal cut in, his advanced spectrum visor picking up a droid dropship loitering in the smoke above our personal hell on landing pad eight.
“I’ll contact the Absolver, let ‘em know we have clankers on the ground.” I booted up my long range comms hub before these tin heads descended upon us.
“Shiny, what are you doing?” Opal confusedly mumbled over the comms. My attention was drawn to a Shiny trooper shoving his blaster into Opal’s breast plate. He proceeded to drag the LAAT gunner out of the wreckage into a fresh crater in the ruins. The pack on his back suggests he’s a medic but the armor suggests it’s his first combat zone.
“Ay Shiny! Administer whatever aid you can but don’t forget we have clankas inbound.” tink tink, tink tink. The metallic trot of a droid horde was fast approaching. Out of the smoke, blaster fire came straight at us. As I calibrated the last of my message to the Absolver, I prayed reinforcements would come, miraculously evading the flak, and precisely landing on our ping. No. I resisted fantasy. At worst, I thought the blast doors behind us were sealed and my message meant nothing. Now, that is a thought to fight against. A low flying STAP? Trap made quick work. Droid officer directing B2’s on the platform? I dispatched it. Those B2’s? Opal gunned them down, no ceremony or celebration. We did our work emotionlessly. No horror to be found in the grinding gears and spastic circuitry of a failing droid. That crash though, it’s lingering still.
Too much to think about now, I can’t keep going with this log. It only worsened from there… somehow.
Stalker out.
I liked this one because of how my new camera focuses so precisely. My old camera stopped focusing at all, by the end, and for a couple of years before that, it was a struggle to get anything to focus.
But my new camera is a joy when it comes to focusing. I was focusing on the little tombstone near the tree, shining in the light, and it is so clear you can read the name on it! I was a good 60 yards away, probably.
Anyway, another one from Spring Grove cemetery and arboretum, a couple of weeks ago when there were still leaves on the trees.
(68/365) The final result of all the glassblowing effort is this colorful mug. It ended up a bit larger than intended, holding around 20 fl oz (see the next shot for how it holds a 12 oz beer). This is not precisely how I envisioned things when starting, but it is reasonably close, and I do like how it came out.
This is Gulf of Trieste, or more precisely part of it which can be seen from Trieste's Faro della Vittoria and leads towards Grignano and Miramare Castle. Entire Gulf of Trieste is shared by Italy, Slovenia and Croatia - in fact entire Slovenian sea is part of it - and it would be a bit complicated to try to take a picture of it with my smartphone.
Yesterday I had a city walk in beautiful sunshine in my beloved birthplace Hamburg. More precisely in the HafenCity with adjacent Speicherstadt. I brought my ND filters with me. See the result ...
When one sees him washing in precisely the same way as a house cat, it becomes particularly obvious that Pavan really isn't a domestic cat: the massive (claw-filled) paws and elongated muzzle are those of a powerful hunter.
[Image reached no.129 in Flickr Explore on 06/11/14! Thanks!]
Moose of the Canadian Rockies
Moose (Alces alces) are the largest members of the deer family, and their size is precisely why they are one of nature’s most resilient cold-climate species. Their adaptive mechanism to conserve body heat is best described by a zoological principle known as, ‘Bergmann’s Rule.’ The rule applies to the ratio of body surface to weight in warm-blooded animals. Moose have a relatively small surface area compared to their volume. Regardless of external temperatures, Moose maintain a relatively constant internal temperature—meaning they require only minor metabolic and environmental adjustments to live comfortably in North America’s lowest-temperature regions. Moose range from the Arctic coasts of North America, Europe, and Asia, down to the southern limits of the boreal forest. In North America, they reach their southern extent in New York State to the east and Utah to the west.
The Moose is a browser, or ‘eater of twigs’ as the Algonquian Native name translates. In a single day, an adult can consume about 44 pounds of vegetation. They graze on aquatic plants such as water lilies and duckweed and make use of their impressive stature to tear off twigs high in the willow trees. Summer waterways are important feeding areas and also provide escape routes from wolves, bears, and mesopredators like the red fox and coyote.
For more Info: www.nathab.com/know-before-you-go/alaska-northern-adventu...
Some years ago----never mind how long precisely----having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world.
Herman Melville, 'Moby Dick'
More precisely this is the Our Lady of Perpetual Help, also know as the Wilson Church. Once in Colfax county Nebraska but now torn down.
Liverpool architecture 1 of 2.
Modern glass and reflections of waterfront contrasting with traditional Royal Liver Building.