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I read about this place last week as they're planning on carting out whatever resources are left and turn it into a landfill site. Seems an awful shame! The locals are fighting it but I don't know what stage it's at now.
One advantage I've found in buying a pre-loved camera is that it came with a basic instruction booklet and a more advanced CD. Plus it has a beautiful brown leather case. It was obviously not pre-loved for long as it was boxed with all accessories tidily wrapped inside.
I tried it out around the garden and found its operation rather different from that of my a6000 and look forward to understanding more about it today.
Have the pleasure of looking at yesterday's shots on my new 24" screen today. (It's not even the 25th of any month....)
Thank you for visiting my photostream.💜 💜
Not what I originally intended but with bare trees the light was just too harsh, nothing really to get the reflective bokeh I was looking for, oh well
Nikkor 50mm f1.4 non AI
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I read somewhere that you can make a telescope using the lens found in a photocopy machine (with pretty amazing results). Of course, my next thought was could I make a macro lens out of it?
The other picture shows the unassembled lens and what a beast it is! The whole thing must weigh at least 3 kg! The lens you see me holding in this picture is almost 1 kg and only one component of the whole thing.
After some trial and error, taking things apart and putting it back together, I managed to get a 'working' macro/telephoto lens. A very different set up to my usual DIY lenses and it's going to be an exciting challenge perfecting this one. The lens you see in the picture comprises of 4 lenses in total, 1 flat, 1 concave and 2 convex.
Putting the lens directly in front of my phone camera produces only ok results, nothing that blew my mind or was any different than the lenses I already have. It did provide with greater depth of field than the other lenses I have made, which is a bonus, but strapping this lens to my phone will be pretty useless and counterproductive as it weighs so much. I still had to be around 2-5 cm close to the subject to produce usable results.
However, when I held the lens 5-10 cm away from the phone camera something unexpected happened. In this picture, the lens was around 15-20cm away from the dragonfly and 10cm from my phone. I manually focused onto the lens and it produced the result you see in this picture.
My guess at this moment is Ill need to make some type of tubing/casing to hold the different lenses together after deconstructing it, as it seems to produce the best result when the lens is a certain distance from my phone. Of course with my phone, the sensor has a fixed aperture of f1.8 which makes everything that bit more complex. And then theres the issue of mounting the thing!
If you have any ideas please feel free to share :). Hopefully the end product will be a decent macro/telephoto lens which allows me to be 15-30cm away from the subject rather than 1-5cm (which is what im getting from the current lenses I have).
Read more about Firefly .
Oracabessa, Jamaica
Our small group of five were the only visitors at Firefly. We wondered if, perhaps, Noel Coward, is unknown to some of the younger tourists in Jamaica. The house is unchanged since the day Noel Coward died and clearly in desperate need of restoration...although the site is beautifully maintained. It saddens me to think how it will fare in the future.
More from the feeder ...this handsome bird made its first appearance i the yard this year, and keeps coming to the suet. as the chicks grow the visits get more frequents, which is why I think it is breeding in the adjacent park.
please read ©Teddy’s Adventures
Episode XXXVIII
Hi Folks,
yesterday I saw the tractor again which was parked under the big willow tree and so I thought I could go on a little tour. Unfortunately, I could not find the key and when I asked my cousin PADDY if he knew anything about the key he said a key was not needed to start the engine. He went into the woodshed and returned with a long rusty nail with which he started the tractor; so we both could go on a little tour. After only some minutes there was a strange sound. All of a sudden a black rubber thing flew around in parts and the tractor stopped right under the willow tree from where we had started our tour. PADDY got the tools out of the garage but he did not know how to repair this black rubber thing. We both ignored this unpleasant event but I am not so sure whether I should tell HER or not. Anyway, SHE will realize early enough that it is not working so why upset HER now? We better keep quiet and see what happens and kindly offer help if needed ….
Bear Hugs all around
🐻 LIM (Mr. Innocent)
[Text and image copyright Caren (©all rights reserved)]
please respect my copyright © : Do not use any image or text without my previous written authorization, NOT even in social networks. If you want to use a photograph, please contact me!
Bitte mein Copyright beachten!
Meine Fotos und Texte sind copyright © geschützt (alle Rechte vorbehalten) und dürfen ohne meine vorherige und schriftliche Zustimmung NICHT von Dritten verwendet werden, auch nicht in sozialen Netzwerken. Falls Interesse an einem Foto besteht, bitte ich um Kontaktaufnahme!]
Dedicated to CRA (ILYWAMHASAM)
Read, Lancashire
In reality it will be a couple of months before the leaves become to appear, usually end of April/early May
Frog: "I can jump higher than the Empire State building!"
Me: Seriously???
Frog: "Yes, the Empire State building can not jump!" Lol!
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Put down your phone!
Open a book!
Read!,
The bicycle rack gently chides.
Decatur (Decatur Square), Georgia, USA.
11 December 2022.
***************
▶ Photo by Yours For Good Fermentables.com.
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The easiest way to distinguish between Western and Eastern Meadowlarks is their song. So if you can read lips, you will undoubtedly recognize this diva as a Western (although the spots on its flank are also a good field mark). Along the roadside at Grasslands National Park, Saskatchewan.
Both are translated books
1 - Marx a la plage - Le Capital dans un transat, ,Jean Numa Ducange
2. Let Nietzsche be yr Shrink . Author is a Korean
The first book is written by a French writer. He tried to make Marx ideas easy to understand thus the name Marx at the beach. Marxism was not in our sch syllabus & given the status of Satan's by the gov & many conservatives. IMHO this is a bad policy. It is just like taking photo with only one POV....
Read the decision making steps above in the image. I often said photography is about "seeing," not looking, but seeing. And seeing is noticing things that most people will walk right by without seeing. And it's different than looking. When you are seeing, the potential subject matter is vast and unlimited! And in the case of my little example above, seeing also applies to not only when shot, but also to the time that you are looking over your shots and during the editing of those shots. You might find that there are many new shots incorporated right in the original, and a simple crop can bring them out. Sometimes, it's a matter of breathing life into something that's destined for the digital trash can!
please read ©Teddy’s Adventures
Episode VII
Hi Folks,
</ it seems that I’m not HER only one and that irritates me a lot – SHE told me stories of polar bear ‘Nobby’ and said we’ll go to Yorkshire ONEDAY to see him. I haven’t even got a clue where to find this planet ‘Yorkshire’. Is it near the sun or closer to the moon ??? Then I checked all the calendars available but couldn’t find ONEDAY. Not even PLOP could tell me and believe me, he knows (nearly) everything and said that Yorkshire is in England and not in Wales, neither near the sun nor closer to the moon which means we will leave the country - but not the Kingdom! Just to make sure that I’m ready when SHE is ready I took my brand new suitcase and packed it with all I think is needed for a long journey. And here I am ready for take off (whenever that will be) not knowing whether I am now a ‘Tourist in Waiting’ or a ‘Waiter’. Two of the three honey jars are already emptied, but before the last one is gone I’ll ask her when ONEDAY will be - SHE might understand that my patience is not unlimited …. as SHE knows very well that LESS (waiting) IS MORE (fun)!
Bear Hugs all around
🐻LIM
(Tourist in Waiting and/or Waiter)
[Text and image copyright Caren (©all rights reserved)]
please respect my copyright © : Do not use any image or text without my previous written authorization, NOT even in social networks. If you want to use a photograph, please contact me!
Bitte mein Copyright beachten!
Meine Fotos und Texte sind copyright © geschützt (alle Rechte vorbehalten) und dürfen ohne meine vorherige und schriftliche Zustimmung NICHT von Dritten verwendet werden, auch nicht in sozialen Netzwerken. Falls Interesse an einem Foto besteht, bitte ich um Kontaktaufnahme!]
[Dedicated to C.F. (ILYWAMHASAM) ]
read my latest story about the beautiful hummingbird while getting fashion info @ Brit Brat Blog also add me on flickr
I little light reading by the piano.
In case you ask, I'm sorry but I do not participate in commenting groups, but I'm always grateful for your visits and would like to thank you now for stopping by, and any comments you may leave. Much appreciated, John...
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Atman does not feel, does not judge, does not want, does not envy, has no centre and has no end.
Atman is the moving light drawing you within, and guiding you towards.
Atman is the You within you, below all the layers of you.
Atman is the love you feel, the peace you create, the path you seek, the light you need to see in the eyes of your brothers and sisters around you.
Atman is the hidden Sun in all of us. Buried deep yet ready to be unleashed, and can never be destroyed.
Find Atman in you, find Atman in everyone and everything, and you will find your 'Still'.
...
Image of 'Still', statue created by Rob Mulholland at Loch Earn, Scotland.
I read an article today that said that people experience their highest stress levels of the year during the Christmas season.
This starts with the Christmas decorations, goes through the procurement of gifts, various Christmas parties at the company, school or kindergarten through to the planning and organization of the Christmas dinner. Then there are the family obligations during the holidays (who is with whom and when?). Finally, in the post-Christmas period, it culminates in redeeming vouchers, exchanging gifts and clearing up the domestic chaos that the holidays have left behind (both organizationally and emotionally).
When I read this coherently, only one question comes to mind: "Why are we doing this to ourselves?"
Especially in view of the Christian history (very simple circumstances and only three visitors) and what Christmas actually stands for, much of the above is hardly comprehensible to me.
This effort is the complete opposite of what would actually be appropriate at this time of year and takes away so much of the meaning of the Christmas season.
And so I wish you that this week you have the opportunity to clear your head of all these “I have to, because that is what is expected of me” and to replace them with as many “I want to, because that makes me happy” as possible replace.
Ich habe heute einen Artikel gelesen, der besagt, dass die Menschen in der Weihnachtszeit das höchste Stresslevel im Jahr empfinden.
Das beginnt schon bei der Weihnachtsdekoration, geht über die Beschaffung von Geschenken, diverse Weihnachtsfeiern von der Firma, der Schule oder dem Kindergarten bis hin zur Planung und Organisation des Weihnachtsessens. Hinzu kommen dann noch die familiären Verpflichtungen während der Feiertage (wer ist wann bei wem?). Schlußendlich gipfelt es dann in der Nach-Weihnachtszeit in dem Einlösen von Gutscheinen, dem Umtauschen von Geschenken und dem Beseitigen des häuslichen Chaos, welches die Feiertage hinterlassen haben (sowohl organsatorisch als auch emotional).
Wenn ich das so zusammenhängend lese, dann kommt mir nur eine Frage in den Sinn: "Warum tun wir uns das an?"
Vor allem im Hinblick auf die christliche Geschichte (sehr einfache Verhältnisse und nur drei Besucher) und dem, wofür Weihnachten eigentlich steht, ist für mich vieles von dem oben genannten kaum nachvollziehbar.
Dieser Aufwand ist das komplette Gegenteil von dem, was in dieser Zeit des Jashres eigentlich angebracht wäre und nimmt der Weihnachtszeit so viel von Ihrer eigentlichen Bedeutung.
Und so wünsche ich Euch, dass Ihr diese Woche die Gelegenheit habt den Kopf frei zu bekommen von all diesen "Ich muss, denn das wird von mir erwartet" und diese durch so viele "ich möchte, denn das macht mich glücklich" wie möglich zu erstetzen.
more of this on my website at: www.shoot-to-catch.de
"You've spent a lifetime stuck in silence afraid you'll say something wrong."
Blog: trendybagels.wordpress.com/2014/12/23/read-all-about-it/
I read a little less this year than usual. I found when my dad passed this summer, I became quickly wrapped up in the funeral and all of the things you have to take care of and then it took awhile to build up my concentration again. I only read 140 books this year, which is far lower than my usual amount of over 200. One year, I read 365 books! So, I slacked off this year. I found myself lingering along different pages and chapters more so than ever. Here are some of my favorite books that I read. They didn’t all come out this year but time is an illusion anyway.
I'd love to hear about all of your favorite reads from this year or other years!
Photo above is a multiple exposure from Iceland..a reading/study room with a landscape photo in honor of my favorite read of the year.
1. Rooms for Vanishing by Stuart Nadler
A real wonder of a book about different possibilities, split timelines, divergent futures confronting the personal horrors of WWII in one of the most creative and thought provoking ways I’ve ever seen. I read several chapters again and again and felt like this was one of the most philosophical and creative books Ive ever read!
2. The Membranes by Chi Ta-wei
Extremely ahead of its time and published originally 30 years ago and translated into English fairly recently. This is a glimpse of a future world which many facets have proved to be fairly accurate predictions but it is also about queer identity and is written sort of like a gay Taiwanese young William Gibson might write it. Wholly original!
3. Is a River Alive? by Robert McFarlane
Yes, a river is very much alive! This is a wondrous work of nonfiction that really explores some diverse and hard to reach areas of nature and its effect on both the nearby inhabitants and the visitors like this author. I loved its sense of environmental advocacy and questioning why we would allot personhood to corporations but not bodies of water, for instance. You really feel like you go on a psychological journey with the author and learn so much between the rivers he explores and the people he meets.
Thanks to my friend Bob for this recommendation!
4. Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich
There was a period of my life where I just didn’t quite get Erdrich for some reason…it just didn’t click…but now, I am reading at least a couple of books a year by her. This is really a striking book about desperate women who have lost all body autonomy. Her books are always well written and engaging but this one felt more fast paced and thrilling than the others in style and topic.
5. House of Day, House of Night: by Olga Tokarczuk
I really love how Tokarczuk writes about dreams and mushrooms in this one especially. There is quite a bit about religion as well as physical gender identity within that religious space and a really interesting sense of the people who live in Poland in a border town with Germany and remnants of WWII even. She just has a really poetic way of writing.
6. The Measure by Nikki Erlick
I read this on recommendation from my sister in law in one sitting on the plane to Los Angeles. It is one of the most engaging book I have ever read and a speculative fiction masterpiece exploring the psychology behind lifespan and how society might change if everyone over 21 was sent a single string of a certain length that told them how much longer they would live….but not how they would die. Fascinating storyline and very well executed…I kept wondering how I would handle this situation myself. Another book that made me cry this year…I guess I am a bit of a mess! Apparently, this was an “instant” NYT Bestseller back in 2022 but I hadn’t heard of it until my sister in law mentioned it…I guess I just don’t pay attention to popular culture.
7. Archipelago of the Sun by Yoko Tawada
This is the third book of the trilogy of friends where Tawada explores language and identity within the context of our current world and its insistence on borders and a national identity that not all have and definitely not all share the same level of privilege. These friends are so diverse and interesting and also one of the characters and their transitioning identity is also explored so it is rather complex but also very thought provoking and meditative the way she writes…you just want to linger on certain sentences again and again.
8. Tell Me Everything by Erika Krouse
I read three books by Erika Krouse and loved all three-this one is nonfiction and is about all of the horrific ways a football team takes advantage of, persecutes, and threatens women and how deep the cover up goes. Krouse is helping the investigator while also going through the horrors of her past and personal identity. I was honestly not expecting to find this book as engaging as I did but Krouse is an exceptional author whose short stories Save Me, Stranger have stuck with me for many months and who also writes vivid characters in fiction books (see Contenders). Highly recommended!!
9. The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and his Mother) by Rabih Alameddine
If you ever have the chance to see Rabih Alameddine speak, DO IT! I saw him a few years back after Trump was office the first time around and he spoke about how art including writing is in and of itself an act of resistance. This book is both tragic and funny. There’s an image of our protagonist hero escaping a bunker during a civil war in Lebanon that actually had me laughing so hard I’m surprised I could stop. But, this is also a portrait study of a city and how it changed when the fighting began and equally an exploration of a mother and her gay son as they navigate through their relationship across decades. This is technically fiction but reads at times like an autobiography and, after all, it is a true true story.
10. The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami
This book scared the crap out of me and if it had been published when she first had started working on it, it would have been even more terrifying. The premise reads like a Black Mirror story where there are corporations who own and monitor your dreams and might even insert products into them. You can also be suspect based on your dreams but people give up their dreams in desperate situations just to fall asleep….very riveting and terrifying!
11. Poets Square Cats by Courtney Gustafson
I’ve been following this author’s cat rescue in Tucson, Arizona for a few years now but only had part of the story before I read this book. This is the autobiographical back story of the author and cat rescuer herself and the ways in which becoming a full time cat rescuer changed her and perhaps made her more human or at least helped her focus her values and what being alive truly means to her. She is doing very good work and it is important to support this work. This book also gives the back story behind so many important characters, many of whom don’t seem quite so feral when you see their true feline selves in her way. A book to be treasured!
12. Sunbirth by An Yu
I loved her speculative novel Ghost Music and this new one is even more bizarre and has an apocalyptic angle about the sun slowly disappearing and people in this town being enveloped by and exploding with light. None of the characters know what it is like in other cities and towns and some try to escape but, after all, the sun is something we all share so you wonder how it could be different when it is the same major problem occurring. I loved these astounding characters and the sense of imagination here.
13. ACLU The Fight of the Century: Edited by Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman
Never has there been a more important time to stand up for human rights and also understand the history of human rights. I loved some of the authors responding to historical cases that are organized chronologically. Yea Gyasi Viet Thanh Nguyen, Elizabeth Strout, Salman Rushdie, Aleksander Hemon, Brit Bennett, Li Yiyun, Rabih Alameddine, Louise Erdrich, and Anthony Doerr amongst main more give us glimpses into their own personal history and how these cases may have impacted them. Some of these chapters are also critical of the ACLU’s stance too in some aspects in a healthy way as in the case of campaign funding, for example. Regardless, it’s an organization under great threat in America whose continued existence is vital.
14. Bad Bad Girl by Gish Jen
This is partly a memoir of the author but also an exploration of her mother’s past and her ancestry from back in Shanghai. It explores the horrors of the history they lived through while her mother escaped to America but it’s also an engaging imaginary conversation Gish Jen has with her mother who suffered sexism in her own life and treats her daughter as if she should also be quiet and easy and not have so many opinions. But Gish Jen is a phenomenal author of so many great fictional stories exploring culture and identity and she will always be a Good Bad Girl that we should be grateful for. Thank goodness for the women who don’t succumb to societal and family pressures put on us.
15. My Beloved Monster: Masha, the Half-Wild Rescue Cat Who Rescued Me by Caleb Carr
An extraordinary nonfiction work that really had me on the edge of my seat several times and crying at others. This is a story of a human who Is battling a personal history with physical abuse and has gone through several surgeries that have been only minimally successful. He is an acclaimed author (I haven’t read any of his other books) and lives alone when he decides to adopt a cat later on in life. I just love how he explores his relationship with his cat and the cat’s personality and sense of adventure. This is actually a story about two wandering souls who find each other and meet in the middle and I do believe that they have found each other again in the ether of the afterlife.
16. Generosity by Richard Powers
I read four different books by Powers this year. If you haven’t read his work, it’s quite masterful! He is one of those authors that has great ideas and can truly craft a complex storyline and bring it all back home in an impressive way. This one is interesting because it focuses on an immigrant who by all accounts should be miserable…she has very little and her parents have been murdered and her brother imprisoned. At one point, she is even sexually molested. Still, throughout all of this, our protagonist, Thassadit Amzwar. remains happy and joyful in a way that others just can’t quite seem to manage or understand. As one might imagine, people try to diagnose her as if something is wrong with her and study her DNA…things go so haywire because other humans literally just can’t imagine how this human could be this happy when the rest of us are so depressed.
17. Bewilderment by Richard Powers
This book really got to me in so many ways…it’s so much about the relationship between a father and a son who is neurodivergent and tests him in so many ways but it is also about biofeedback, flexible thinking, and consciousness after death. It is filled with wonder and sorrow both and really explores the complexity of human consciousness.
18. Beyond Anxiety by Martha Beck
I read quite a few nonfiction books this year related to flexible thinkers, nature, human consciousness existing after death, and octopuses but this one really resonated with me in the sense that it helped me immediately to manage my anxiety and is highly recommended to any artists. There are people in this world who consume art and those who create art and those who do both. I am probably in the latter category because I create art but also really love being part of an international community like Flickr and don’t really enjoy participating in other social media type of sites that seem to focus more on making oneself look cool or rich or just a made up version of a human.
This nonfiction is about how creativity can cancel out the heightened anxiety that threatens to overwhelm us every day. If you start to feel the heightened sensation taking over like you can’t even breathe except to scream, maybe this book is for you. Also, just sitting down and doing art for hours is indeed a luxury and makes it hard to go back to the “real world” of capitalism, etc. but sometimes this is exactly what self care is needed
19. A Love Story From the End of the World by Juhea Kim
I loved the wild weirdness and environmental focus of these short stories set all across the world in this time of climate chaos and political upheaval. Kim is an author and activist with a truly creative spirit!
20. After by Bruce Greyson M.D.
After what happened this summer with my dad passing, I read a ton of nonfiction regarding human consciousness continuing and this one really goes through quite a variety of Near Death Experiences and how it also ends up changing people. It’s a really fascinating look into human consciousness and how it continues from a medical expert. I am fascinated by these human stories and really enjoy the perspective of someone from a background in Science. I do believe that, when the body dies, the consciousness and soul of the spirit does continue and that most of us have already lived multiple lives at this point.
Honorable Mentions:
The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong
Annihilation by Michel Houellebecq
The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai
Mailman: My Wild Ride Delivering the Mail in Appalachia and Finally Finding Home by Stephen Starring Grant
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