Canon EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS USM
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Great Tit [Parus Major]
A lovely afternoon brought literally hundreds of wee birdies to my feeders at The Pixies.
This Great Tit waited on a branch for a few seconds, before darting down to get a peanut. Sometimes, they will sit and eat sunflower hearts but normally they just swoop in, take a nut, and fly off, then come back and repeat the procedure. Apparently, they stash their food for later.
At The Pixies
South Carrick Hills
SW Scotland
(cropped)
I saw a hooded merganser couple in the creek from a distance. They swam away from me, so I continued with other subjects. I noted that the drake was approaching, and took up a position where I could catch a glimpse of him through the foliage. This was the result - one of the closest encounters I've had with a hooded merganser!
Without a time to meditate, without a time to stop, there's an emtyness stalking, a nothingness creeping. Go for a walk to escape, or you're going to fall. The fall without falling, the hit without hitting, the pain you won't even feel. You feel nothing anymore. Go for a walk to feel again, go get a walk to stop. To heal.
This Yellow Rumped Myrtle warbler stopped in a branch near me. I always enjoy the bright colors of these birds.
A quick trip up to Shining Tor after leaving work
Spectacular conditions with rainbows and stormy clouds. I had to be quick to get this shot and it was the only image I got before the light faded. Prob some of the best light I have witnessed.
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To purchase prints of this image please visit
To test out the bounce flash settings I was using my brother-in-law was kind enough to pause for the quick portrait.
Captured while indoors at a wedding reception venue.
Yet another daylight long exposure landscape shoot - I am quickly becoming addicted to daylight long exposure! Manual mode same as last to get more experience. I chose f/16 to allow for the exposure time I wanted (15-20 secs)
Thanks again to Adam and his Landscape Masterclass at First Man Photography - without that I really wouldn't have considered going manual and not even gotten the shot because going through that masterclass has made me rethink how I shoot landscapes. I am still learning; I still struggle when looking for interesting subjects and also the composition. Also, ISO, aperture and shutterspeed is something I still need to incorporate into my workflow for each shot because I tend to forget checking and setting them. Heh.
taken specifically to practise new BWVison Quick mask pro 2022 update haven't learnt it yet! -need hours more practice!!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQG4LF1yqb4
_X4A1790
Pretty much says what I did here, with the rain coming down and another car coming along the narrow road, I jumped out camera in had and did a twelve shot pano beside Cummock water Cumbria .
Quick one for Macro Mondays, didn't have much time this week. Obviously, alphabet spaghetti which contain no numbers, so had to resort to cake decorations for the numbers. A revolting combination ...
A quick glimpse of a coyote running through the open fields before quickly disappearing into the forest.
On my recce for compositions for sunsets, arriving on the first top the Beacon I get caught in a shower. I wander off path to the cairn as the shower passes over and glance over my shoulder, quick a rainbow. Sack off, camera out, change to wide angle, check the settings, try to find a composition, oh and dial in the polariser, nothing to it.
Mr Crissy was marching towards the food, trying not to get blown sideways, it was sunny and pretty windy today. If you zoom in you can also see him with a nice big smile.
[NinetyFive] - No Pictures, Please #172 @mainstore
Taxi: maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Rambling%20Rose/87/202/3502
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.
Never like self portraits so not an easy topic. Here's me playing a spot of chess, my other passion. Just wish I was better at it.
The crew. Pullout at Alaska Hwy just north of MP 1252.
Tetlin National Wildlife Refuge. Plus 2F with a stiff wind.
December 10, 2018.
9 Days, 4 Dogs, 2,558 Miles. Day 2 (Tok AK to Haines Jct YT).
Checking out architecture in a hurry...
Left: "De Rotterdam", Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
Design (1998): OMA.
Center: NH-industries NH-90 anti-submarine and transport helicopter, Dutch Air Force.
Right: Van der Hoevenplein
Design (2003): Alvaro Siza and ADP architects.
World Port Days (Wereldhavendagen), Rotterdam, The Netherlands.