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Argentina, Buenos Aires: views from plaza San MCABA - Ciudad Autonoma de Buenos Aires
Is it possible to synthesize the soul of a city through photographs of its buildings? The work of Michele Molinari heads in that direction, overlooking the Buenos Aires of historic monuments and focusing on the common dwellings that stud the skyline of the porteña city. They are boundary lines by day and by night, suburban intersections trying to spur on the vertical expansion of the city. Molinari’s interesting experiment is to go back to the same places after a period of time to crystalize the changes and witness the immanence of certain corners of the urban fabric. – A. Trabucco
How emotional it is to admire Buenos Aires at dusk. The passers-by are hurrying along the sidewalks and distractedly look at the camera lens. With curious or perplexed glances. […] The essence of the obscurity is easier to enjoy in the quieter neighborhoods. […] The sense of calm even appears to reach the historic center in one of the few photos of monumental Buenos Aires included in the book. The circle closes. Every splintered scrap of the urban fabric is recomposed under the protective wing of the night. – A. Mauri
CABA - Ciudad Autonoma de Buenos Aires is a photobook. Photographs and essay by Michele Molinari, more essays by Andrea Mauri and Alessandro Trabucco. [essays are in English, Spanish and Italian]
CABA comes in 2 printed editions by Blurb, Pocket Edition [7x7in, 18x18cm, 132 pages, Standard Photo paper, Flexible High-Gloss Laminated cover, 106 color photos] and Deluxe Edition [8x10in, 20x25cm, 134 pages, ProLine Pearl Photo paper, Hardcover with Dust Jacket, 107 color photos], and one Digital Edition by Apple iBooks that features 107 + 7 bonus color photos.
CABA won Bronze Award at TIFA2020 Book/Documentary
Find it here: michelemolinari.info/2020/07/25/caba/
“I have a masters in transpersonal psychology so I study shamanism and plant based medicine. I’m offering a more shamanic healing worldview to everything I’m doing. Everything is looking at the inner ecology as a revolutionary standpoint. I’m looking at meditation and a technology. I synthesize and I’m a visionary. I’m ushering in the view of the human as this powerful entity with psycho-spiritual power. With that view comes the opportunity for transformation.”
“What opened you up to all this information?”
“I was connecting with Joanna Macy and studying Buddhism with this group and I’m realizing meditation has actual power. It’s a technology. My grandfather was also a minister so I grew up with the mystical. I learned the word is power when spoken. I’m also a Pisces so I’m very sensitive. I’m done a vision quest with the Lakota so that opened me up. That really clarified who I was and my mission. Also flying through the Pleiades with some brothers and having these direct experiences has been really powerful. I’ve experienced so many different worlds.”
“What were the Pleiades like?”
“We were flying through all the purple pyramids and they were downloading me with all this information. I learned we have different soul pieces that are like a lineage. Not in the way we think of it on the Earth. But more soul lineage, more energetic. Now I’m also remembering and releasing a lot of Atlantian technology. Color, frequencies. In the next 3-4 years when the planet gets the true Earth history....things are gonna really shift. Different beings from different dimensions are here, have been here, are responsible for the seeding of humanity on the Earth.”
#soulsofpeacefits (2/2)
Marc Chagall born Moishe Shagal; 6 July [O.S. 24 June] 1887 – 28 March 1985) was a Russian-French artist of Belarusian Jewish origin. An early modernist, he was associated with several major artistic styles and created works in a wide range of artistic formats, including painting, drawings, book illustrations, stained glass, stage sets, ceramics, tapestries and fine art prints.
Art critic Robert Hughes referred to Chagall as "the quintessential Jewish artist of the twentieth century" (though Chagall saw his work as "not the dream of one people but of all humanity"). According to art historian Michael J. Lewis, Chagall was considered to be "the last survivor of the first generation of European modernists". For decades, he "had also been respected as the world's pre-eminent Jewish artist". Using the medium of stained glass, he produced windows for the cathedrals of Reims and Metz, windows for the UN and the Art Institute of Chicago and the Jerusalem Windows in Israel. He also did large-scale paintings, including part of the ceiling of the Paris Opéra.
Before World War I, he travelled between Saint Petersburg, Paris, and Berlin. During this period he created his own mixture and style of modern art based on his idea of Eastern Europe and Jewish folk culture. He spent the wartime years in Soviet Belarus, becoming one of the country's most distinguished artists and a member of the modernist avant-garde, founding the Vitebsk Arts College before leaving again for Paris in 1923.
He had two basic reputations, writes Lewis: as a pioneer of modernism and as a major Jewish artist. He experienced modernism's "golden age" in Paris, where "he synthesized the art forms of Cubism, Symbolism, and Fauvism, and the influence of Fauvism gave rise to Surrealism". Yet throughout these phases of his style "he remained most emphatically a Jewish artist, whose work was one long dreamy reverie of life in his native village of Vitebsk."[7] "When Matisse dies," Pablo Picasso remarked in the 1950s, "Chagall will be the only painter left who understands what colour really is". All Saints' Church, Tudeley, UK (1963–1978)[edit]
All Saints' Church, Tudeley is the only church in the world to have all its twelve windows decorated by Chagall.[52] The other three religious buildings with complete sets of Chagall windows are the Hadassah Medical Center synagogue, the Chapel of Le Saillant, Limousin, and the Union Church of Pocantico Hills, New York.
The windows at Tudeley were commissioned by Sir Henry and Lady Rosemary d'Avigdor-Goldsmid as a memorial tribute to their daughter Sarah, who died in 1963 aged 21 in a sailing accident off Rye. When Chagall arrived for the dedication of the east window in 1967, and saw the church for the first time, he exclaimed "C'est magnifique! Je les ferai tous!" ("It's beautiful! I will do them all!") Over the next ten years Chagall designed the remaining eleven windows, made again in collaboration with the glassworker Charles Marq in his workshop at Reims in northern France. The last windows were installed in 1985, just before Chagall's death.
Oil on canvas; 162 x 114.4 cm.
Marc Zakharovich Chagall was a Russian-French artist.[1]:21 Art critic Robert Hughes referred to Chagall as "the quintessential Jewish artist of the twentieth century" (though Chagall saw his work as 'not the dream of one people but of all humanity'). An early modernist, he was associated with several major artistic styles and created works in virtually every artistic medium, including painting, book illustrations, stained glass, stage sets, ceramic, tapestries and fine art prints.
According to art historian Michael J. Lewis, Chagall was considered to be "the last survivor of the first generation of European modernists". For decades, he "had also been respected as the world's preeminent Jewish artist". Using the medium of stained glass, he produced windows for the cathedrals of Reims and Metz, windows for the UN, and the Jerusalem Windows in Israel. He also did large-scale paintings, including part of the ceiling of the Paris Opéra.
Before World War I, he traveled between St. Petersburg, Paris, and Berlin. During this period he created his own mixture and style of modern art based on his idea of Eastern European Jewish folk culture. He spent the wartime years in Soviet Belarus, becoming one of the country's most distinguished artists and a member of the modernist avant-garde, founding the Vitebsk Arts College before leaving again for Paris in 1922.
He had two basic reputations, writes Lewis: as a pioneer of modernism and as a major Jewish artist. He experienced modernism's "golden age" in Paris, where "he synthesized the art forms of Cubism, Symbolism, and Fauvism, and the influence of Fauvism gave rise to Surrealism". Yet throughout these phases of his style "he remained most emphatically a Jewish artist, whose work was one long dreamy reverie of life in his native village of Vitebsk."[3] "When Matisse dies," Pablo Picasso remarked in the 1950s, "Chagall will be the only painter left who understands what colour really is".[4]
MYRIAD LITTLE ONES
I won't ask for big joys
They are so few
So far apart
I'll take the myriad little ones
Like shattered bits of broken glass
That spark and glint in the dark
--Lilly Grebanier, Jan 1, 1912 - May 23, 2005
This is one of my favorite pictures of my mother, photographed by my father around 1940. She wrote the poem above in 1991, a half-century after this picture was taken. My guess is that it took that much additional experience for her to be able to synthesize and express such a clear and concise statement of the basis of her joyous attitude toward life. However, I think the picture itself expresses a great deal. I love the goldenrod on her shoulder--so typical of her to see the beauty in a common weed and turn it into an adornment. And a certain, typical ruthlessness too--poor goldenrod!
This is the first year I will not be calling her to wish her Happy New Year and Happy Birthday. I do not grieve too much for her--that doesn't seem entirely fitting as a memorial for someone who had such a positive attitude. She herself said that her life had been a full and good one. I cannot disagree. But, of course, I often miss her, especially at times like this.
I cannot pick up the phone to call her, and find myself playing on Flickr instead.
Happy Birthday! Happy New Year!
(December 31, 2005)
#Incentivecap #Film #NewMexico
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© 2013 2024 Lloyd Thrap Photography for Halo Media Group
All works subject to applicable copyright laws. This intellectual property MAY NOT BE DOWNLOADED except by normal viewing process of the browser. The intellectual property may not be copied to another computer, transmitted , published, reproduced, stored, manipulated, projected, or altered in any way, including without limitation any digitization or synthesizing of the images, alone or with any other material, by use of computer or other electronic means or any other method or means now or hereafter known, without the written permission of Lloyd Thrap and payment of a fee or arrangement thereof.
No images are within Public Domain. Use of any image as the basis for another photographic concept or illustration is a violation of copyright.
Palacio de Aguirre, Cartagena (Murcia), Spain
Built: 1898–1901
Architect: Víctor Beltrí (1862-1935)
Client: Camilo Aguirre, industrialist and newspaper proprietor
This opulent residence stands as a jewel of Cartagena’s late 19th-century bourgeois expansion, marrying Neo-Baroque monumentality with eclectic ornamental sophistication.
Commissioned by Camilo Aguirre, a wealthy entrepreneur whose fortune was rooted in the region’s mining boom and media influence, the palace functioned as both a family home and an architectural assertion of modern taste, cultural literacy, and upward mobility.
About Cartagena
In 1901, Cartagena was a city of strategic and symbolic importance in Spain—a historic naval stronghold undergoing a period of intense economic and urban renewal. Situated on the southeastern coast, it had long been home to the country’s principal Mediterranean naval base and shipyards.
By the turn of the 20th century, Cartagena was also at the center of a mining and industrial boom, driven by the extraction of silver, lead, and zinc from the nearby Sierra Minera. This influx of capital gave rise to a new class of bourgeois entrepreneurs, financiers, and professionals who sought to remake the city in their image: modern, cultured, and prosperous.
The construction of the Palacio de Aguirre in this context signals not only the personal ambition of its patron, Camilo Aguirre, but also the aspirations of a city eager to assert its place in the modern Spanish nation—as both a military bulwark and a symbol of civic progress, blending classical heritage with contemporary style.
Listed Status
The Palacio de Aguirre is officially designated as a Bien de Interés Cultural in the category of Monumento (Monument), which is the highest level of heritage protection in Spain. This status protects both its architectural integrity and decorative elements, including its polychrome tilework, sculptural ornamentation, and historic fabric.
Additionally, the building forms part of the Museo Regional de Arte Moderno (MURAM) and has been incorporated into the city's cultural and tourism infrastructure, further reinforcing its protected status.
🎨 Style: Historicist Eclecticism meets the Aesthetic Movement
The building synthesizes a rich variety of historicist vocabularies, from Baroque and Renaissance revival to the Aesthetic and Eastlake movements then circulating through European design discourse. Its intricate surface program reveals Beltrí’s fluency with:
•Arts & Crafts and Eastlake linearity, evident in the rhythmic scrolls, plant forms, and stylized beasts
•Spanish and Italian Baroque massing (note the heavily bracketed cornices and ornamental cresting)
•Renaissance grotesque motifs, especially in the ceramic panels
Ceramic Iconography: Pleasure, Labor, and Moral Complexity
A highlight of the façade is the vibrant polychrome tile frieze, where putti harvest grapes amid thistles and symbolic flora. This program draws directly on Roman and Renaissance precedents:
•The grape harvest invokes Bacchic fertility, but here labor is emphasized—putti are not frolicking but toiling, echoing bourgeois work ethic.
•The thistle, beneath soft flesh and ripe fruit, injects emotional and symbolic tension: a reminder of the pain beneath pleasure, or the hard reality beneath surface delight.
•Elsewhere, a putto presents a green parrot perched on a ring—a scene of exotic domesticity, but also allegory: a tamed, mimicking creature symbolizing artifice, desire, and aestheticized nature.
🐉 Scrollwork Beasts and Decorative Lineage
Surrounding these scenes, ceramic panels display scroll-and-beast motifs—hybrid zoomorphic forms emerging from foliage. These derive from:
•Roman grotesque wall painting, filtered through Renaissance revival and 19th-century pattern books.
•Possibly influenced by Moorish ornamental flattening or Japoniste abstraction, part of the wider Aesthetic Movement.
These “botanicomorphic” beasts, unreal by design, assert cultivated imagination—a hallmark of both imperial Rome and modern elite culture. Their presence signals control over the fantastical, a visual assertion of taste, intellect, and privilege.
🐝 Architectural Allegory in Relief and Iron
On the tower, relief bees and stylized botanical panels add another symbolic layer. The bee—a classical emblem of industry, order, and fertility—underscores the patron’s narrative: this is a house of productive labor, refined taste, and civilizing aspiration. Even the wrought iron balcony grilles echo Eastlake wood carving in their intricate scrollwork—nature made geometric, ornament made discipline.
A mixed-use building from the outset:
✔️ Primary Use: Family Residence
The upper floors, particularly the ornate corner rooms and formal salon spaces, were undoubtedly intended as private domestic quarters for the Aguirre family.
The architectural richness—putti, allegorical tiles, wrought iron balconies, and symbolic reliefs—aligns with the bourgeois ideal of the cultivated home, a stage for displaying wealth, refinement, and cultural legitimacy.
✔️ Secondary Use: Business and Social Functions
Camilo Aguirre was more than a rentier—he was an entrepreneur, linked to the regional press, mining interests, and finance.
Like many Spanish industrialist homes of the period, it is plausible that the ground floor or a lateral wing housed offices related to:
Aguirre’s publishing ventures (possibly editorial or administrative spaces)
Business meeting rooms for investment partnerships or civic involvement
Such arrangements were typical of urban palacetes—blending domestic life and elite professional activity in one structure.
Supporting Clues from the Architecture
The arched main door and grander-than-domestic vestibule suggest semi-public or business-related access.
The vertical zoning—more decorative and symbolic elements concentrated on upper façades—often marked a distinction between public-facing lower floors and private upper floors.
️ Afterlife: From Private Palace to Public Use
By the mid-20th century, the palace had ceased to function as a private residence.
It now houses the Museo Regional de Arte Moderno de Cartagena (MURAM)—a fitting reuse that continues the building’s role as a showcase of cultural aspiration.
Final Note
The Palacio de Aguirre is not just eclectic—it is encoded. It offers a narrative façade, in which labor and luxury, sensuality and discipline, mythology and modernity are layered into its ornament. Whether or not Camilo Aguirre grasped every classical or mythic reference, he certainly intended to project cultural legitimacy, moral rectitude, and aesthetic modernity—the values of a man made in the age of industry, but longing to be remembered in the idiom of empire.
About the Architect
Víctor Beltrí (1862–1935) was a prolific and versatile architect who played a transformative role in shaping Cartagena’s architectural identity during its late 19th- and early 20th-century boom. A Catalan by birth and trained in Barcelona, Beltrí brought to Murcia a refined blend of eclectic historicism, Modernisme, and regionalist idioms, applying them across public, religious, and residential buildings.
Here are some of his most notable surviving works, nearly all in Cartagena:
️ Casa Cervantes (1900–1901)
•One of his earliest major commissions in Cartagena, built for the industrialist José María Cervantes.
•Strongly eclectic, with Neo-Baroque and Neo-Renaissance features.
•Known for its decorative stuccowork, ironwork balconies, and elegant symmetry.
🏫 Casa Llagostera (1916)
•A more Modernista work, distinguished by elaborate ceramic tile panels and stylized floral motifs.
•Famous for its ceramic depictions of Cervantine characters (Don Quixote and Sancho Panza), referencing the owner’s name.
🏨 Grand Hotel of Cartagena (1907)
•Perhaps Beltrí’s most iconic secular work.
•A true Modernista showpiece, with a curved corner façade, domed turret, lavish iron balconies, and Art Nouveau ornament.
•Its exuberant decorative program and urban prominence make it one of Cartagena’s architectural landmarks.
⛪ Iglesia de la Caridad (restoration and dome, early 20th c.)
•Beltrí contributed to the renovation of this Baroque church, particularly the dome and lateral chapels.
•The church is the spiritual heart of Cartagena, housing the patron saint Nuestra Señora de la Caridad.
🏫 Casa Clares (1905)
•Residential and commercial building with wrought iron balconies, stucco ornament, and a carefully proportioned façade.
•A good example of Beltrí’s ability to adapt ornamental richness to smaller-scale urban commissions.
️ Casino de Cartagena (remodeling, early 20th century)
•Beltrí was responsible for major interior renovations to this 19th-century social club.
•He introduced Neo-Mudejar elements, stained glass, and eclectic interiors that blend orientalist fantasy with bourgeois refinement.
🏥 Hospital de la Caridad Expansion
•Beltrí also worked on institutional architecture, contributing to the expansion of Cartagena’s medical infrastructure.
Summary of Beltrí’s Significance
Beltrí’s legacy lies in his stylistic range: from strict academic revivalism (as in the Palacio de Aguirre) to Art Nouveau experimentation, always tailored to his patrons’ ambitions. His buildings remain among the most photographed and best-preserved examples of Cartagena’s golden age architecture.
This text is a collaboration with Chat GPT
Here's a view of NGC 6946, aka the Fireworks Galaxy🎇, an intermediate spiral galaxy 25 million light-years away in the constellations Cepheus & Cygnus. This is a mosaic of 7 WFC3/UVIS observation sets from Jan. 25-26 2019, each containing 2 images in optical light and a synthesized green.
Principal Investigator for the observations was William P. Blair.
Image credit: NASA/ESA, STScI, and Jason Major.
© 2017 Photo by Lloyd Thrap Photography
for Halo Media Group
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No images are within Public Domain. Use of any image as the basis for another photographic concept or illustration is a violation of copyright.
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Albuquerque photographers. Artist and good guy.
3D Crosseyed stereo: Cross your eyes until the two images overlap in the middle to form a 3rd image. That should appear in 3D! Sawfly (Tenthredo sp.) from Portland, OR. 4.5x cropped. 3d synthesized with Zerene Stacker.
This fixed focal length lens on my NEX can take really clear photos. This image was synthesized from three JPEG photos.
Jenna E. ModelMayhem #1031419
Lloyd Thrap ModelMayhem Photographer #792730
© 2012 2017 Lloyd Thrap Photography for Halo Media Group
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All works subject to applicable copyright laws. This intellectual property MAY NOT BE DOWNLOADED except by normal viewing process of the browser. The intellectual property may not be copied to another computer, transmitted , published, reproduced, stored, manipulated, projected, or altered in any way, including without limitation any digitization or synthesizing of the images, alone or with any other material, by use of computer or other electronic means or any other method or means now or hereafter known, without the written permission of Lloyd Thrap and payment of a fee or arrangement thereof.
No images are within Public Domain. Use of any image as the basis for another photographic concept or illustration is a violation of copyright.
The Sultan Ahmed Mosque (Turkish: Sultanahmet Camii) is an historical mosque in Istanbul, the largest city in Turkey and the capital of the Ottoman Empire (from 1453 to 1923). The mosque is popularly known as the Blue Mosque for the blue tiles adorning the walls of its interior.
It was built from 1609 to 1616, during the rule of Ahmed I. Like many other mosques, it also comprises a tomb of the founder, a madrasah and a hospice. While still used as a mosque, the Sultan Ahmed Mosque has also become a popular tourist attraction.
The design of the Sultan Ahmed Mosque is the culmination of two centuries of both Ottoman mosque and Byzantine church development. It incorporates some Byzantine elements of the neighboring Hagia Sophia with traditional Islamic architecture and is considered to be the last great mosque of the classical period. The architect has ably synthesized the ideas of his master Sinan, aiming for overwhelming size, majesty and splendour. It has 6 minarets along with 8 domes and 1 main one.
Illinois.
Synthesized IRY-->RGB cross-sampled image from a single exposure. Converted camera, Tiffen #15 filter. Worked up in Pixelbender and Photoshop.
www.pacegallery.com/exhibitions/james-turrell-9/
James Turrell’s recent Constellation works, the focal point of this exhibition, are the culmination of Turrell's lifelong pursuit. Generating what the artist has called “spaces within space,” these luminous portals are instruments for altering our perception; gazing into them results in the slow dissolution of the boundaries of the surrounding room, enveloping the viewer in the radiance of pure color. Fusing the temporal, sensuous, and illusory qualities of his projection works and architectural installations, the Constellations synthesize several aspects of Turrell’s practice. Unlike his early projection pieces, however, they are not about generating an illusion; instead, they greet the viewer with the actual materiality of light, what Turrell calls “the physical manifestation of light, which we have trained our eyes too readily to look through rather than to look at.”
A defect detector at approximately Mile Post 266 on the Canadian National Dubuque Subdivision. Two infrared (I assume) sensors to each side of the track, detect hot wheel bearings and brakes. Other detecting equipment for I assume speed and axle counts appears to be lying on top of the rock ballast. These sensors are cabled back to a signal house with a radio transmitter. These detectors will report in a synthesized voice on the road channel frequency their location, air temperature, direction of train travel, axle count, length of train and if everything is OK. If not, they will give the axle count of the defect, in which case the train will stop, and the conductor will start walking to the back of the train counting axles and trying to identify the issue. The CNRR has been putting numerous new defect detectors like this on their mainline from Waterloo to Chicago over the past few years. About every 30 miles there is a detector like this
High capacity, rapid-firing PDW.
* This is my entry for the PDW competition.
EDIT - Horizontally flipped the ACOG scope to allow the magwell to function.
"The following information is classified. Only those with Level 8 clearance may view this file." ~ Female Computer System Voice
An experimental PDW developed at the GR Secondary Weapon Branch, assisted by Tara Farrynheim Sho, chambered in the recently developed and employed 6.4x41mm F/BM-01 dual armor-piercing/explosive round. F/BM stands for Farrynium/Black Mercury, which are the jacket material and core payload respectively.
The newly discovered element 119, Farrynium, is several times denser, stronger, and by extension, heat resistant than the widely used titanium-tungsten alloy used on barrels and older armor piercing rounds. Field tests indicate that these rounds, at 150 meters range, will easily penetrate three ballistic gel bodies protected by CRISAT Kevlar vests, with each body having 10 meters of space - it will even punch through EOD suits with ease.
The synthesized Black Mercury chemical compound is made from thricium oxide, liquid uranium, and various other heavy metals. When subject to an electric shock, it violently detonates, with explosive power comparable to 3.5 tons of TNT, per milliliter. This special compound is used for bullet propulsion and the secondary explosion.
Farrynium is the only known metal to withstand the massive explosive force created from the black mercury, and so the casing has a thin farrynium interior, and a brass exterior, to reduce weight and costs.
Each bullet also has a microchip guidance system, similar to the M51 MCDS, intended for use with the supplied FCS, to determine when to release, arm, and trigger the black mercury payload. Without the FCS, it will arm and detonate after it passes through one target or thick surface.
The magazine and the reload system is also unique - a 133-round top-loaded casket magazine with a 90 degree bend on the internally tapered end. To reload, a handgun mag release-style latch-release is pressed, causing the magwell to rise and the magazine to be reloaded slightly popped out. Remove the old magazine and insert a new one, then simply push down on the magwell to lock it back into place.
Lastly, the fire selector is not ambidextrous, but rather there are two selectors - the left side has the safe, semi, burst, and auto selectors, and the right side other controls the number of rounds fired in the burst fire mode. Also, on the underside of the stock, which contains the electric charge firing system, has a rate reducer, which reduces the monstrous fire rate of 2000 RPM, to a more manageable 1000.
Text and GR insignia created via MS Paint.
The Park Güell (Catalan: Parc Güell [ˈparɡ ˈɡweʎ]) is a public park system composed of gardens and architectonic elements located on Carmel Hill, in Barcelona, Catalonia (Spain). Carmel Hill belongs to the mountain range of Collserola — the Parc del Carmel is located on the northern face. Park Güell is located in La Salut, a neighborhood in the Gràcia district of Barcelona. With urbanization in mind, Eusebi Güell assigned the design of the park to Antoni Gaudí, a renowned architect and the face of Catalan modernism. The park was built between 1900 and 1914 and was officially opened as a public park in 1926. In 1984, UNESCO declared the park a World Heritage Site under “Works of Antoni Gaudí”.
Park Güell is the reflection of Gaudí’s artistic plenitude, which belongs to his naturalist phase (first decade of the 20th century). During this period, the architect perfected his personal style through inspiration from organic shapes. He put into practice a series of new structural solutions rooted in the analysis of geometry. To that, the Catalan artist adds creative liberty and an imaginative, ornamental creation. Starting from a sort of baroquism, his works acquire a structural richness of forms and volumes, free of the rational rigidity or any sort of classic premisses. In the design of Park Güell, Gaudí unleashed all his architectonic genius and put to practice much of his innovative structural solutions that would become the symbol of his organic style and that would culminate in the creation of the Basilica and Expiatory Church of the Holy Family (Catalan: Sagrada Familia).
Güell and Gaudí conceived this park, situated within a natural park. They imagined an organized grouping of high-quality homes, decked out with all the latest technological advancements to ensure maximum comfort, finished off with an artistic touch. They also envisioned a community strongly influenced by symbolism, since, in the common elements of the park, they were trying to synthesize many of the political and religious ideals shared by patron and architect: therefore there are noticeable concepts originating from political Catalanism - especially in the entrance stairway where the Catalonian countries are represented - and from Catholicism - the Monumento al Calvario, originally designed to be a chapel. The mythological elements are so important: apparently Güell and Gaudí's conception of the park was also inspired by the Temple of Apollo of Delphi.
On the other hand, many experts have tried to link the park to various symbols because of the complex iconography that Gaudí applied to the urban project. Such references go from political vindication to religious exaltation, passing through mythology, history and philosophy. Specifically, many studies claim to see references to Freemasonry, despite the deep religious beliefs of both Gaudí and Count Güell. These references have not been proven in the historiography of the modern architect. The multiplicity of symbols found in the Park Güell is, as previously mentioned, associated to political and religious signs, with a touch of mystery according to the preferences of that time for enigmas and puzzles.
Crossed-eyes 3D (stereoscopic) viewing: View the two photos cross-eyed until a third image appears in the middle, which will be in stereo 3D. The brain nicely synthesizes a composite image with realistic depth and sharpness. Then put your two hands in front of your face to cover the photos on the left and right so only the middle one remains in your sight.
A native of Reggio Calabria, Boccioni studied art through the Scuola Libera del Nudo at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome, beginning in 1901. He also studied design with a sign painter in Rome. Together with his friend Gino Severini, he became a student of Giacomo Balla, a divisionist painter. In 1906, Boccioni studied Impressionist and Post-Impressionist styles in Paris. During the late 1906 and early 1907, he shortly took drawing classes at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Venice. In 1901, Boccioni first visited the Famiglia Artistica, a society for artists in Milan. After moving there in 1907, he became acquainted with fellow Futurists, including the famous poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti. The two artists would later join with others in writing manifestos on Futurism.
Boccioni became the main theorist of the artistic movement. He also decided to be a sculptor after he visited various studios in Paris, in 1912, among which those of Braque, Archipenko, Brancusi, Raymond Duchamp-Villon and, probably, Medardo Rosso. While in 1912 he exhibited some paintings together with other Italian futurists at the Bernheim-Jeun, in 1913 he returned to show his sculptures at the Gallerie La Boetie: all related to the elaboration of what Boccioni had seen in Paris, they in their turn probably influenced the cubist sculptors, especially Duchamp-Villon.
In 1914, he published Pittura e scultura futuriste (dinamismo plastico) explaining the aesthetics of the group: “While the impressionists make a table to give one particular moment and subordinate the life of the table to its resemblance to this moment, we synthesize every moment (time, place, form, color-tone) and thus build the table.” He exhibited in London, together with the group, in 1912 (Sackville Gallery) and 1914 (Doré Gallery): the two exhibitions made a deep impression on a number of young English artists, in particular C.R.W. Nevinson, who joined the movement: others aligned themselves instead to its British equivalent, Vorticism, led by Wyndham Lewis.
Henderson County, NC.
IRG -> RGB cross-sampled image synthesized from a single exposure. 525LP dichroic filter.
Slideshow of the Tibet 2013, Kham set: www.flickr.com/photos/reurinkjan/sets/72157635937209655/show
The Tibetan Nomad lives and works in accordance with ebb and flow of the seasons. In summer it is time to lead the herds up to the high alpine pastures, trade with townsfolk, and prepare for the harsh season to come. In winter, the Tibetan Nomads move down into camps that are at a lower, warmer, altitude. In recent times, solid brick houses have been constructed to make the cold season a little mor bearable. The winter season is one of rest as there is not as much work to be done and, due to the extreme cold, synthesized activity is lessened to the bare essentials. As Heinrich Harrer puts it:
"In winter the men living a nomad life have not much to do. . . The women collect yak dung and often carry their babies around with them as they work. . . As one can imagine, the nomads have the simplest methods of cooking. In winter they eat almost exclusively meat with as much fat as possible. They also eat different kinds of soup- tsampa, the staple diet in agricultural districts, is a rarity here."
Read the whole story at:
© 2018 Photo by Lloyd Thrap Photography
for Halo Media Group
All works subject to applicable copyright laws. This intellectual property MAY NOT BE DOWNLOADED except by normal viewing process of the browser. The intellectual property may not be copied to another computer, transmitted , published, reproduced, stored, manipulated, projected, or altered in any way, including without limitation any digitization or synthesizing of the images, alone or with any other material, by use of computer or other electronic means or any other method or means now or hereafter known, without the written permission of Lloyd Thrap and payment of a fee or arrangement thereof.
No images are within Public Domain. Use of any image as the basis for another photographic concept or illustration is a violation of copyright.
Lloyd Thrap's Public Portfolio
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Albuquerque photographers. Artist and good guy.
Model: Chelsea, Damm ™
Location: model shop studio, Albuquerque, NM. USA
© 2009 2025 Photo by Lloyd Thrap Photography for Halo Media Group
All works subject to applicable copyright laws. This intellectual property MAY NOT BE DOWNLOADED except by normal viewing process of the browser. The intellectual property may not be copied to another computer, transmitted , published, reproduced, stored, manipulated, projected, or altered in any way, including without limitation any digitization or synthesizing of the images, alone or with any other material, by use of computer or other electronic means or any other method or means now or hereafter known, without the written permission of Lloyd Thrap and payment of a fee or arrangement thereof.
No images are within Public Domain. Use of any image as the basis for another photographic concept or illustration is a violation of copyright.
From 8,000 feet over Burke County, NC.
Synthesized IRG-->RGB cross-sampled image from a single exposure. Converted camera, #12 filter. Worked up in Pixelbender and Photoshop.
Two firsts:
1. First time I synthesized a "natural" sound. Okay, I didn't design it per se, it was a lucky find, but so what.
2. First time I edited a video besides cropping it, trial and error with real software. I'm still surprised how far I got without any knowledge.
The titel is – of course – a Violent Femmes reference.
ARIETE
Il pianeta dominante è Marte. Il metallo abbinato a questo segno è il ferro, la pietra il rubino: ho sintetizzato con un pugno di ferro che porta al dito un anello con un grosso rubino. I fiori sono il tulipano e il gladiolo; l’albero è il nocciòlo. L’ariete annuncia la primavera ed è un simbolo solare.
ARIES
The ruling planet is Mars. The metal combined with this sign is iron, stone Ruby: I synthesized with an iron fist leading to finger a ring with a large ruby. Flowers are tulip and gladiolus; the tree is the hazel. The ram announces the spring and is a solar symbol.
Freeze frame from video shot by Linden Hudson. (amateur photographer, cheap cameras, photo fluorescent lights, just having fun)
Who is Linden Hudson?
CLASSICBANDS DOT COM said: “According to former roadie David Blayney in his book SHARP DRESSED MEN: sound engineer Linden Hudson co-wrote much of the material on the ZZ Top ELIMINATOR album.” (end quote)
(ZZ Top never opted to give Linden credit, which would have been THE decent thing to do. It would have helped Linden's career as well. The band and management worked ruthlessly to take FULL credit for the hugely successful album which Linden had spent a good deal of time working on. Linden works daily to tell this story. Also, the band did not opt to pay Linden, they worked to keep all the money and they treated Linden like dirt. It was abuse. Linden launched a limited lawsuit, brought about using his limited resources which brought limited results and took years. No one should treat the co-writer of their most successful album like this. It's just deeply fucked up.)
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Hear the original ZZ Top ELIMINATOR writing/rehearsal tapes made by Linden Hudson and Billy Gibbons at: youtu.be/2QZ8WUTaS18
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Read Linden's story of the making of the super-famous ZZ Top ELIMINATOR album at: www.flickr.com/people/152350852@N02/
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Follow this Wikipedia link and find Linden's name throughout the article & read the album songwriter credits about halfway down at: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliminator_%28album%29
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LICKLIBRARY DOT COM (2013 Billy Gibbons interview) ZZ TOP'S BILLY GIBBONS FINALLY ADMITTED: “the Eliminator sessions in 1983 were guided largely by another one of our associates, Linden Hudson, a gifted engineer, during the development of those compositions.” (end quote) (Gibbons admits this after 30 years, but offers Linden no apology or reparations for lack of credit/royalties)
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MUSICRADAR DOT COM (2013 interview with ZZ Top's guitarist Billy Gibbons broke 30 years of silence about Linden Hudson introducing synthesizers into ZZ Top's sound.) Gibbons said: “This was a really interesting turning point. We had befriended somebody who would become an influential associate, a guy named Linden Hudson. He was a gifted songwriter and had production skills that were leading the pack at times. He brought some elements to the forefront that helped reshape what ZZ Top were doing, starting in the studio and eventually to the live stage. Linden had no fear and was eager to experiment in ways that would frighten most bands. But we followed suit, and the synthesizers started to show up on record.” (once again, there was no apology from ZZ Top or Billy Gibbons after this revelation).
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TEXAS MONTHLY MAGAZINE (Dec 1996, By Joe Nick Patoski): "Linden Hudson floated the notion that the ideal dance music had 124 beats per minute; then he and Gibbons conceived, wrote, and recorded what amounted to a rough draft of an album before the band had set foot inside Ardent Studios."
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FROM THE BOOK: SHARP DRESSED MEN - ZZ TOP (By David Blayney) : "Probably the most dramatic development in ZZ Top recording approaches came about as Eliminator was constructed. What had gone on before evolutionary; this change was revolutionary. ZZ Top got what amounted to a new bandsman (Linden) for the album, unknown to the world at large and at first even to Dusty and Frank."
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CNET DOT COM: (question posed to ZZ Top): Sound engineer Linden Hudson was described as a high-tech music teacher on your highly successful "Eliminator" album. How much did the band experiment with electronic instruments prior to that album?
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THE HOUSTON CHRONICLE, MARCH 2018: "Eliminator" had a tremendous impact on us and the people who listen to us," says ZZ Top’s bass player. Common band lore points to production engineer Linden Hudson suggesting that 120 beats per minute was the perfect rock tempo, or "the people's tempo" as it came to be known.
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FROM THE BOOK: SHARP DRESSED MEN - ZZ TOP by David Blayney: (page 227): "...the song LEGS Linden Hudson introduced the pumping synthesizer effect."
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(Search Linden Hudson in the various ZZ Top Wikipedia pages which are related to the ELIMINATOR album and you will find bits about Linden. Also the main ZZ Top Wikipedia page mentions Linden. He's mentioned in at least 7 ZZ Top related Wikipedia pages.)
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FROM THE BOOK: SHARP DRESSED MEN - ZZ TOP By David Blayney: "Linden found himself in the position of being Billy's (Billy Gibbons, ZZ Top guitarist) closest collaborator on Eliminator. In fact, he wound up spending more time on the album than anybody except Billy. While the two of them spent day after day in the studio, they were mostly alone with the equipment and the ideas."
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FROM THE BOOK: BEER DRINKERS & HELL RAISERS: A ZZ TOP GUIDE (By Neil Daniels, released 2014): "Hudson reportedly had a significant role to play during the planning stages of the release (ELIMINATOR)."
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FROM THE BOOK: ZZ TOP - BAD AND WORLDWIDE (ROLLING STONE PRESS, WRITTEN BY DEBORAH FROST): "Linden was always doing computer studies. It was something that fascinated him, like studio technology. He thought he might understand the components of popular songs better if he fed certain data into his computer. It might help him understand what hits (song releases) of any given period share. He first found out about speed; all the songs he studied deviated no more than one beat from 120 beats per minute. Billy immediately started to write some songs with 120 beats per minute. Linden helped out with a couple, like UNDER PRESSURE and SHARP DRESSED MAN. Someone had to help Billy out. Dusty and Frank didn't even like to rehearse much. Their studio absence wasn't really a problem though. The bass and drum parts were easily played with a synthesizer or Linn drum machine." (end quote)
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FROM THE BOOK: "SHARP DRESSED MEN - ZZ TOP" BY DAVID BLAYNEY: "After his quantitative revelations, Linden informally but instantly became ZZ Top's rehearsal hall theoretician, producer, and engineer." (end quote)
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FROM THE BOOK: "ZZ TOP - BAD AND WORLDWIDE" (ROLLING STONE PRESS, BY DEBORAH FROST): "With the release of their ninth album, ELIMINATOR, in 1983, these hairy, unlikely rock heroes had become a pop phenomenon. This had something to do with the discoveries of a young preproduction engineer (Linden Hudson) whose contributions, like those of many associated with the band over the years, were never acknowledged."
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FROM THE BOOK: SHARP DRESSED MEN - ZZ TOP (By DAVID BLAYNEY) : "The integral position Linden occupied in the process of building Eliminator was demonstrated eloquently in the case of song Under Pressure. Billy and Linden, the studio wizards, did the whole song all in one afternoon without either the bass player or drummer even knowing it had been written and recorded on a demo tape. Linden synthesized the bass and drums and helped write the lyrics; Billy did the guitars and vocals."
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FROM THE BOOK: "TRES HOMBRES - THE STORY OF ZZ TOP" BY DAVID SINCLAIR (Writer for the Times Of London): "Linden Hudson, the engineer/producer who lived at Beard's house (ZZ's drummer) had drawn their attention to the possibilities of the new recording technology and specifically to the charms of the straight drumming pattern, as used on a programmed drum machine. On ELIMINATOR ZZ Top unveiled a simple new musical combination that cracked open a vast worldwide market.
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FROM THE BOOK: "SHARP DRESS MEN - ZZ TOP" BY DAVID BLAYNEY: "ELIMINATOR went on to become a multi-platinum album, just as Linden had predicted when he and Billy were setting up the 124-beat tempos and arranging all the material. Rolling Stone eventually picked the album as number 39 out of the top 100 of the 80's. Linden Hudson in a fair world shoud have had his name all over ELIMINATOR and gotten the just compensation he deserved. Instead he got ostracized."
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FROM THE BOOK: SHARP DRESSED MEN - ZZ TOP by DAVID BLAYNEY: "He (Linden) went back with the boys to 1970 when he was working as a radio disc jocky aliased Jack Smack. He was emcee for a show ZZ did around that time, and even sang an encore tune with the band, perhaps the only person ever to have that honor." (side note: this was ZZ Top's very first show).
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FROM THE BOOK: "SHARP DRESSED MEN - ZZ TOP" BY DAVID BLAYNEY: "Linden remained at Frank's (ZZ Top drummer) place as ZZ's live-in engineer throughout the whole period of ELIMINATOR rehearsals, and was like one of the family... as he (Linden) worked at the controls day after day, watching the album (ELIMINATOR) take shape, his hopes for a big step forward in his production career undoubtably soared. ELIMINATOR marked the first time that ZZ Top was able to rehearse an entire album with the recording studio gadgetry that Billy so loved. With Linden Hudson around all the time, it also was the first time the band could write, rehearse, and record with someone who knew the men and the machines. ZZ Top was free to go musically crazy, but also musically crazy like a fox. Linden made that possible too."
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FROM THE BOOK "ZZ TOP - BAD AND WORLDWIDE" (ROLLING STONE PRESS, BY DEBORAH FROST, WRITER FOR ROLLING STONE MAGAZINE): "... SHARP DRESSED MAN which employed Hudson's 120 beat-per-minute theory. The feel, the enthusiasm, the snappy beat and crisp clean sound propelled ELIMINATOR into the ears and hearts of 5 million people who previously could have cared less about the boogie band of RIO GRANDE MUD."
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THE GREATEST ROCK REBRAND OF ALL TIME (by Jason Miller): "Sound engineer Linden Hudson researched the tempos at which the most popular rock tracks in the charts had been recorded. His data showed that there was something very special about 120 beats to a minute. Gibbons decided to record pretty much the whole of ZZ Top’s new album at that tempo. The result? 1983’s Eliminator. It was named after Gibbons’ Ford Coupé; it had been created through a unique combination of creative collaboration and data mining. And it was about to take the world by storm."
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ULTIMATECLASSICROCK DOT COM: "This new melding of styles was encouraged by Hudson, who served as a kind of pre-producer for EL LOCO ... ... Hudson helped construct ZZ Top drummer Frank Beard's home studio, and had lived with him for a time. That led to these initial sessions, and then a closer collaboration on 1983's ELIMINATOR.
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FIREDOGLAKE DOT COM: "I like Billy Gibbons' guitar tone quite a lot, but I lost all respect for them after reading how badly they fucked over Linden Hudson (the guy who was the brains behind their move to include synthesizers and co-wrote most of their career-defining Eliminator record)."
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EMAIL FROM A ZZ TOP FAN TO LINDEN (One Of Many): "I write you today about broken hearts, one is mine and one is for you. I have been a ZZ Top fan since I was 6 years old. I purchased ELIMINATOR vinyl from Caldors in Connecticut with the $20 my grandma gave me for my birthday. I will spare the #1 fan epic saga of tee shirts, harassing Noreen at the fan club via phone weekly for years, over 40 shows attended. Posters, non stop conversation about the time I have spent idolizing this band, but more Billy G, as he has seemed to break free of the Lone Wolf shackles and it became more clear this was his baby. In baseball I was Don Mattingly's #1 fan, Hershel Walker in football, Billy Gibbons in music. What do these individuals have in common? They were role models. Not a DUI, not a spousal abuse, not a drug overdose, not a cheater. Until I read your web page. I read Blayney's book around 1992 or so, I was in middle school and I was familiar with your name for a long time. I didn't realize you suffered so greatly or that your involvement was so significant. It pains me to learn my idol not only cheated but did something so wrong to another being. I now know this is where tall tales and fun loving bullshit and poor morals and ethics are distinguished and where I would no longer consider myself to look up to Billy. I love to joke and I love credit but I have always prided myself on ethics and principles... I hold them dear. I wanted to say, the snippet of UNDER PRESSURE you played sounded very new wave and I may like it more than the finished product. Well that's all. You have reached ZZ Top's biggest fan and I can let others know. Bummer. Cheers and good luck. James."
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VINYLSTYLUS DOT COM: Much of Eliminator was recorded at 124bpm, the tempo that considered perfect for dance music by the band’s associate Linden Hudson. An aspiring songwriter, former DJ and – at the time – drummer Frank Beard’s house-sitter, Hudson’s involvement in the recording of the album would come back to haunt them. Despite assisting Gibbons with the pre-production and developing of the material that would end up on both El Loco and Eliminator, his contribution wasn’t credited when either record was released.
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INFOMORY DOT COM: ‘Eliminator’ is a studio album of the American rock band ZZ Top. It was released on March 23, 1983 and topped the charts worldwide. Its lyrics were co-written by the band’s sound engineer Linden Hudson while the band denied it.
Louis Fratino synthesizes his own experiences, memories, and fantasies in his intimate, sensual paintings of gay life in the metropolis. In his celebrated male nudes, scenes of entangled bodies, and pictures of subway passengers peering at their reflections, Fratino imbues contemporary subject matter with art historical references. Evoking tenets of Cubism and Fauvism, his paintings often embrace the styles and palettes of early 20th-century modernists such as Pablo Picasso, Fernand Léger, and Henri Matisse. A graduate of the Maryland Institute College of Art, Fratino was awarded a Fulbright Research Fellowship in 2016. His work has been exhibited in New York, Los Angeles, Paris, Berlin, and Stockholm, among other cities. Along with his portraits and group scenes, Fratino has also painted still lifes and interiors. ONLINE BIO NOTES.
Another from the modelshopstudio™ photo shoot with Mia and Lloyd Thrap Creative Photography — at modelshopstudio™.
© 2014 Photo by Lloyd Thrap Photography for modelshopstudio™
Lloyd-Thrap-Creative-Photography
All works subject to applicable copyright laws. This intellectual property MAY NOT BE DOWNLOADED except by normal viewing process of the browser. The intellectual property may not be copied to another computer, transmitted , published, reproduced, stored, manipulated, projected, or altered in any way, including without limitation any digitization or synthesizing of the images, alone or with any other material, by use of computer or other electronic means or any other method or means now or hereafter known, without the written permission of Lloyd Thrap and payment of a fee or arrangement thereof.
No images are within Public Domain. Use of any image as the basis for another photographic concept or illustration is a violation of copyright.
Press L Key.
Model: Lexina Pandora
Location: In your basement locked inside her demented head.
© 2012 2025 Lloyd Thrap Photography for Halo Media Group
All works subject to applicable copyright laws. This intellectual property MAY NOT BE DOWNLOADED except by normal viewing process of the browser. The intellectual property may not be copied to another computer, transmitted , published, reproduced, stored, manipulated, projected, or altered in any way, including without limitation any digitization or synthesizing of the images, alone or with any other material, by use of computer or other electronic means or any other method or means now or hereafter known, without the written permission of Lloyd Thrap and payment of a fee or arrangement thereof.
No images are within Public Domain. Use of any image as the basis for another photographic concept or illustration is a violation of copyright.
A hand fan is an instrument and a fashion accessory designed so that with a rhythmic and variable play of the wrist, air can be moved and cooling is facilitated when in a hot environment.
HISTORY: The umbel or parasol and the flabellum, a large fixed fan with a long handle, are considered precedents in Egypt —at least since the 19th dynasty— and in Asia of the modest and functional folding fan and its western variants.
Already in the tomb of Tutankhamun, two fans with precious metal handles were deposited as part of the pharaoh's trousseau.
An essential object in Chinese and Japanese cultures, both in ceremonies and in theater, which synthesizes the fantasy of these peoples in the different types of fans.
In China, the origin of the rigid fan dates back to 2697 BC. C., with the emperor Hsiem Yuan.
LANGUAGE AND SECRET CODES: Progressively a complicated language of codes was developed, according to the movement and position of the fans.
Thus, for example, quickly fanning oneself looking into your eyes translated as "I love you madly", but if it was done slowly, the message was very different: "I am married and you are indifferent to me".
Opening the fan and showing it was equivalent to: “you can wait for me”.
Holding it with both hands advised a cruel “you better forget me”.
If a woman dropped her fan in front of a man, the passionate message was "I belong to you".
If she supported him open on her chest at the level of the heart: "I love you."
If she covered her face with the open fan: "Follow me when I go."
If she rested it on her right cheek it was equivalent to a "yes", but if she rested it on her left it was a resounding and cruel "no". Source: Wikipedia.
Photo taken in Pozuelo de Alarcón, Madrid, Spain.
UNA HERRAMIENTA TRADICIONAL PARA AYUDAR CON EL CALOR DEL VERANO, 2023
Un abanico de mano es un instrumento y un complemento de moda ideado para que con un juego de muñeca rítmico y variable se pueda mover aire y facilitar la refrigeración cuando se está en un ambiente caluroso.
HISTORIA: La umbela o quitasol y el flabellum, gran abanico fijo de largo mango, se consideran precedentes en Egipto —al menos desde la dinastía XIX— y en Asia del modesto y funcional abanico plegable y sus variantes occidentales.
Ya en la tumba de Tutankamón se depositaron, como parte del ajuar del faraón, dos abanicos con mango de metales preciosos.
Objeto esencial en las culturas china y japonesa, tanto en ceremonias como en el teatro, que sintetiza la fantasía de estos pueblos en los diferentes tipos de abanico.
En China, el origen del abanico rígido se sitúa hacia 2697 a. C., con el emperador Hsiem Yuan.
LENGUAJE Y CÓDIGOS SECRETOS: Progresivamente se llegó a desarrollar un complicado lenguaje de códigos, según el movimiento y posición de los abanicos.
Así, por ejemplo, abanicarse rápidamente mirándote a los ojos se traducía como “te amo con locura”, pero si se hacía lentamente, el mensaje era muy distinto: “estoy casada y me eres indiferente”.
Abrir el abanico y mostrarlo equivalía a un: “puedes esperarme”.
Sujetarlo con las dos manos aconsejaba un cruel “es mejor que me olvides”.
Si una mujer dejaba caer su abanico delante de un hombre, el mensaje era apasionado "te pertenezco".
Si lo apoyaba abierto sobre el pecho a la altura del corazón: “te amo”.
Si se cubría la cara con el abanico abierto: “Sígueme cuando me vaya”.
Si lo apoyaba en la mejilla derecha equivalía a un “sí”, pero si lo apoyaba sobre la izquierda era un “no” rotundo y cruel. Fuente: Wikipedia.
Foto tomada en Pozuelo de Alarcón, Madrid, España.
Please view in full screen mode.
Lloyd Thrap modelshopstudio™.
Lloyd-Thrap-Creative-Photography
All works subject to applicable copyright laws. This intellectual property MAY NOT BE DOWNLOADED except by normal viewing process of the browser. The intellectual property may not be copied to another computer, transmitted , published, reproduced, stored, manipulated, projected, or altered in any way, including without limitation any digitization or synthesizing of the images, alone or with any other material, by use of computer or other electronic means or any other method or means now or hereafter known, without the written permission of Lloyd Thrap and payment of a fee or arrangement thereof.
No images are within Public Domain. Use of any image as the basis for another photographic concept or illustration is a violation of copyright.
Southwestern Mumblings... Humbled, Blessed & Grateful in the 505...
At modelshopstudio™ with Livvy Wenchy Nicholsoni and Emma Alabama Photo by: Lloyd Thrap Creative Photography.
Location: modelshopstudio™
Albuquerque, New Mexico. USA
© 2014 2023 Photo by Lloyd Thrap Photography for modelshopstudio™
Lloyd-Thrap-Creative-Photography
All works subject to applicable copyright laws. This intellectual property MAY NOT BE DOWNLOADED except by normal viewing process of the browser. The intellectual property may not be copied to another computer, transmitted , published, reproduced, stored, manipulated, projected, or altered in any way, including without limitation any digitization or synthesizing of the images, alone or with any other material, by use of computer or other electronic means or any other method or means now or hereafter known, without the written permission of Lloyd Thrap and payment of a fee or arrangement thereof.
No images are within Public Domain. Use of any image as the basis for another photographic concept or illustration is a violation of copyright.
Lloyd Thrap's Public Portfolio
Model
From 8,000 feet over Burke County, NC.
Synthesized IRG-->RGB cross-sampled image from a single exposure. Converted camera, #12 filter. Worked up in Pixelbender and Photoshop.
Both summits rise to 3,952 meters, 1,905 meters above the valley floor.
Synthesized IRG-->RGB cross-sampled image from a single exposure. Full-spectrum camera, 525LP dichroic filter. Worked up in Pixelbender and Photoshop.
“Smelting plant takes in ore on moon.”
“Plans to plant a colony on the moon are crystallizing, even though a permanent settlement on the moon may not be established until 1980. In the book, “The Moon—Target For Tomorrow,” written in 1958, this writer speculated that we could land on the moon in 1970 and establish a colony by 1980. Settlers on the moon could support themselves from material derived from the lunar surface.
While we believe that water is present under the surface of the moon (because the underlying layers are hot, and water may be driven out of the rocks), it may be impossible to dig deep enough to acquire this water. But water will not present a problem if sufficient energy is available on the moon. And by 1980, energy from several sources will be plentiful on the moon.
We can take the lunar rocks, break, crush and bake them, and extract the water of crystallization. Then, using energy, the water can be electrolyzed or broken up into oxygen and hydrogen. The oxygen can be used for atmosphere, the hydrogen can be liquefied to be used as a rocket propellant.
In the beginning, foods will be brought with the settlers and then grown on the moon in a variety of hydroponic gardens. In all probability, algae, that green scum floating on stagnant pools on earth, will become the backbone of a food technology. Algae can be used as an extender of flour and also as food for the fast-growing animals which will provide the all-important animal proteins.
Even materials like dyes, medicinals, detergents and plastics can be obtained on the moon by synthesizing or combining the basic elements—such as hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, carbon. In this fashion the settlers can acquire most of the material needed to permit a colony to perpetuate itself on the moon.
However, there is one type of…”
A cliff-hanger...so typical of Dr. I. M. Levitt! 🤔
The highlighting, for the purposes of press publication, appear to have been made using a permanent marker. There is a large area of mild waviness, particularly along the edge nearest the affixed article on the verso, due to the copious amount of military-grade adhesive applied.
That’s a boss looking vehicle. I wonder what the ground guide is holding in his left hand. Whatever it is, it looks to be either corded or tethered to the astronaut.
Doesn’t the driver look like either a Star Wars droid or the Invisible Man (wrapped).
Although there’s no signature, I’m sure it’s by John Gorsuch, reinforced by the identity of the writer of the article. Dr. Levitt & Mr. Gorsuch seemed to have had a collaborative arrangement/agreement whereby Mr. Gorsuch brought to life the ideas, proposals, prognostications, etc., etc. of the good doctor.
Is this the book? It's not prefaced with "The Moon" though:
www.collectspace.com/ubb/Forum27/HTML/004957.html
Credit: collectSPACE website
Costume and concept by Whiting Tennis-
Showing in May- Reception 20th at Greg Kucera Gallery
Whiting Tennis' "Walleyed" by D.W. Burnam
Whiting Tennis empathizes with his surroundings. His propensity for cataloging objects rendered soft by neglect and disuse engages him in the generative process of translating their representation into personal, shareable projections. Like Don Quixote, Whiting peoples his singular cosmos with characters born of interplay between inert materials and his imagination.
A show of these works presents a storehouse of material that refers directly to its points of origin: backyards, gardens, alleyways and outer-urban roadside landscapes. Each work also belongs to a narrative in which it is cast as a protagonist bearing the malaise of stigmatized personhood.
Often camouflaged at the world’s margins, the objects under Whiting’s scrutiny are easy to miss. He tells an anecdote about stopping short on a walk through the city to converse with a tin can. It has been crushed, stepped on. “You and Me,” he quips. Veering onto the shoulder of a stretch of highway, Whiting bounds out to an abandoned piggyback trailer about a hundred yards from the road. His gestures suggest a person-to-person introduction. Attentive to the trailer’s space without rescinding familiarity, he complements its originating influence. For Whiting, roads are paved hallways that traverse whole museums of significance: from tin cans to trailers, from bunkers to barns. (It can be unnerving as a passenger.)
Spare building materials compose his sculptures: reclaimed plywood, weathered shake and shingle, canvas, tarp, steel wire and string, nails and rivets. More or less human in scale, Whiting assembles structurally complex, balanced contraptions that border on architecture but function instead as unassuming morphological presences. Their hue is essentially uniform, as weather-beaten rural and suburban improvisation goes; in some cases the whole business is slathered in monochrome. Whiting’s paintings are similarly built-up facades of either woodblock-printed textures onto newsprint or thickly brushed hatchings and fades of oil paint. Diagramming planes and hardware with a practical, structural logic, he freezes his subjects like portraits in moments between their firmest cohesion and their most vulnerable. Whiting’s wall sculptures further realize the diagrams. The Nevelson-esque “Airport,” a white, wall mounted slab gridded-out in a succession of pocket architectural tableaus in relief, traces an ungrounded trajectory through space. Smaller studies like “Ghost” and “Donkey” sever objects' moorings in any real or simulated space. Echoing Cubist concerns with visual distortion in representation, the wall sculptures synthesize painting and sculpture onto one skewed plane. Extracted from the larger narratives to which his work tends, each of Whiting’s studies is an analytic exercise in decision-making, dimensionality and the evasive resolution of abstract and literal modes of perception.
Whiting engineers a kind of dilapidated-baroque. His irruptive figurations, usually modeled after animals and marginally subverted literary tropes, manage to radiate icon-like significance despite their awkward edifices. In 1957, Flannery O’Connor remarked of the grotesque character-type in Southern fiction, “it is when the freak can be sensed as a figure for our essential displacement that he attains some depth in literature.”
In some of Whiting’s earlier sculptures, occasional latches or drawer pulls invited viewers to search a work’s interior, often revealing bare compartments. Whiting’s assemblages demand a kind of self-assessment by provoking expectations as to their utility. Human identity depends on this kind of use-value. Purportedly hard-won claims to style, manner, vocation and ideology are so many cobbled together skins drawn over a receptacle that awaits self-affirming gifts from without. In The Poetics of Space, Gaston Bachelard devotes a chapter to the psychology of furniture interiors, “Wardrobes with their shelves, desks with their drawers, and chests with their false bottoms are veritable organs of the secret psychological life. Indeed, without these ‘objects’…our intimate life would lack a model of intimacy. They are hybrid objects, subject objects.” Whiting scaffolds a gap between the perceptual uniformity of the human shell and the diverse grounds of deep judgments and deeper desires.
Whiting Tennis has little concern for archival materials. Newsprint, cardboard and sometimes spray paint are his essentials. Permanence lies at the whims of an elemental time. His sculptures, in all states of completion – framed as such they never are complete - litter his Greenwood property, soaking in rain that hairs and warps the wood grain; the surfaces build up mottled patinas of grit and rust. “We don’t last, and we discolor,” replies architect John Hejduk to a rebuke for using “one coat of rubber cement” on “the pasted in elements” of his sketchbooks. Whiting’s move to still life painting seems a natural progression for an artist who isn’t particularly rattled by rot and collapse. In his submission to degradation Whiting squeezes out the hyperbole of natura morta (literally, dead nature), breeding mute zombies not just from the tabletop, but from houses, wheelbarrows and tree stumps as well. The painting, “Go Seahawks. New Menus,” unfortunately not on view, frames both a restaurant reader board -lacking a complete set of black letters - and the quiet sadness of phoning in team spirit for more business. One could argue that Whiting only makes still life.
If it seems that in the present treatment thus far Whiting is just a depressive, it is because I have omitted that he finds his attraction to infirmity rather hilarious. The reader of Don Quixote, if their imagination is close to par with that of the protagonist, casts sickness in doubt in order to grasp the sensibility (read: the fun) of invoking the imagination’s ability to reverse the path of vision. A mythic “Triclops,” one of the centerpieces of Whiting’s new show is an absurd and hilariously invasive aesthetic move. A three-sided white ovoid column, looming like a sentinel, observes the entirety of the gallery. A cynic would presuppose its judgment; but perhaps it is just curious. Like the “Bovine” of Whiting's last show, a full-scale replica of a trailer replete with homespun ornament and the indices of habitation, its programs remain inaudible. Observations tend to follow causal trajectories that evade empirical fact; the true face of chaotic reality gets obscured by disbelief in what is magically, ineffably present. It is in the interstices of an irreconcilable stereoscopic flicker that a more “rational” world is spotted: an angelic monster, fractured and patched-together in places, who just wants to be our friend.
ESA project astronaut Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewskia and Ax-4 mission specialist with the Space Volcanic Algae experiment on the International Space Station during the Ignis mission.
Space Volcanic Algae is an advanced biotechnological experiment involving the deployment of extremophilic microalgae—organisms naturally thriving in volcanic ecosystems—into space. The aim is to investigate their physiological properties to responses to microgravity and cosmic radiation. Simultaneously, the mission tests an innovative oxygen-sensing technology designed to quantify photosynthetic oxygen production under space conditions.
This experiment is a step toward developing sustainable systems for living in space and enable survival under extreme terrestrial conditions such as high concentration of metals, acidity, and radiation. It makes them prime candidates for integration into regenerative life support systems during long-term space missions. By studying their behavior and viability in space, researchers can evaluate their potential to sustain closed-loop systems by producing oxygen, capturing carbon dioxide, and synthesizing bioactive compounds essential for long-term human habitation on the Moon, Mars, and beyond.
This research lays the groundwork for sustainable life-support technologies which play a crucial role for human space exploration. Beyond its space applications, the insights gained may translate to breakthroughs in terrestrial biotechnology, such as the development of robust bioengineered organisms, new pharmaceuticals, and more efficient environmental remediation techniques. Understanding how life endures under extreme conditions may ultimately expand our capacity to address challenges both on Earth and beyond.
Follow Sławosz’s journey on the Ignis website, check our launch kit and connect with him on his Instagram and X accounts.
Credits: ESA-S. Uznański-Wiśniewski
The writings of Josephus describe many projects built in the Upper City in the time of Herod. As an increasingly affluent residential area, Herod sought to Romanize the neighborhood. The construction of a Roman theatre is thought to have been carried out at this time. Though no archaeological evidence of its existence has been found, archaeologist Yosef Patrich has put forth the idea that such a structure may have been partially constructed of wood, which would explain the lack of evidence for its construction. This was, in fact, not unheard of in Roman construction. Many of the most impressive structures of Rome at the time were built of wood and stone or concrete facing, such as the Circus Maximus. This explains why so much of the imperial capital went up in flames in the Great Fire of 64 CE.
Here in the First Century Jerusalem piece, I have synthesized this theory into a Herodian Theatre which consists of stone facing similar to that of the villas which surround it, but with an internal structure made up of brown and dark tan elements, representing the proposed wooden structural framework.
CABA - Ciudad Autonoma de Buenos Aires
Is it possible to synthesize the soul of a city through photographs of its buildings? The work of Michele Molinari heads in that direction, overlooking the Buenos Aires of historic monuments and focusing on the common dwellings that stud the skyline of the porteña city. They are boundary lines by day and by night, suburban intersections trying to spur on the vertical expansion of the city. Molinari’s interesting experiment is to go back to the same places after a period of time to crystalize the changes and witness the immanence of certain corners of the urban fabric. – Alessandro Trabucco
How emotional it is to admire Buenos Aires at dusk. The passers-by are hurrying along the sidewalks and distractedly look at the camera lens. With curious or perplexed glances. […] The essence of the obscurity is easier to enjoy in the quieter neighborhoods. […] The sense of calm even appears to reach the historic center in one of the few photos of monumental Buenos Aires included in the book. The circle closes. Every splintered scrap of the urban fabric is recomposed under the protective wing of the night. – Andrea Mauri
CABA - Ciudad Autonoma de Buenos Aires is a photobook. Photographs and essay by Michele Molinari, more essays by Andrea Mauri and Alessandro Trabucco. [essays are in English, Spanish and Italian]
CABA comes in 2 printed editions by Blurb, Pocket Edition [7x7in, 18x18cm, 132 pages, Standard Photo paper, Flexible High-Gloss Laminated cover, 106 color photos] and Deluxe Edition [8x10in, 20x25cm, 134 pages, ProLine Pearl Photo paper, Hardcover with Dust Jacket, 107 color photos], and one Digital Edition by Apple iBooks that features 107 + 7 bonus color photos.
CABA won Bronze Award at TIFA2020 Book/Documentary and Silver Award at PX3 Paris 2023.
Find it here: michelemolinari.info/2020/07/25/caba/
Notice: This photo was synthesized using a face swap app. Not the real me.
The "I" in this photo (face is me, body is the young female model of the app template) has a very natural line from the shoulders to the armpits and the cleavage of the breasts. I favor this photo.
Lloyd Thrap Creative Photography & Model Mayhem — with Lloyd Thrap at modelshopstudio™.
© 2014 2025 Photo by Lloyd Thrap Photography for modelshopstudio™
Lloyd-Thrap-Creative-Photography
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No images are within Public Domain. Use of any image as the basis for another photographic concept or illustration is a violation of copyright.
The tomato is the edible berry of the plant Solanum lycopersicum, commonly known as a tomato plant. The species originated in western South America and Central America. The Nahuatl (the language used by the Aztecs) word tomatl gave rise to the Spanish word tomate, from which the English word tomato derived. Its domestication and use as a cultivated food may have originated with the indigenous peoples of Mexico. The Aztecs used tomatoes in their cooking at the time of the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, and after the Spanish encountered the tomato for the first time after their contact with the Aztecs, they brought the plant to Europe. From there, the tomato was introduced to other parts of the European-colonized world during the 16th century.
Tomatoes are a significant source of umami flavor. The tomato is consumed in diverse ways, raw or cooked, in many dishes, sauces, salads, and drinks. While tomatoes are fruits—botanically classified as berries—they are commonly used as a vegetable ingredient or side dish.
Numerous varieties of the tomato plant are widely grown in temperate climates across the world, with greenhouses allowing for the production of tomatoes throughout all seasons of the year. Tomato plants typically grow to 1–3 meters in height. They are vines that have a weak stem that sprawls and typically needs support. Indeterminate tomato plants are perennials in their native habitat, but are cultivated as annuals. (Determinate, or bush, plants are annuals that stop growing at a certain height and produce a crop all at once.) The size of the tomato varies according to the cultivar, with a range of 1–10 cm in width.
NAMES
ETYMOLOGY
The word tomato comes from the Spanish tomate, which in turn comes from the Nahuatl word tomatl [ˈtomat͡ɬ], meaning 'the swelling fruit'. The native Mexican tomatillo is tomate (Nahuatl: tomātl About this soundpronunciation (help·info), meaning 'fat water' or 'fat thing'). When Aztecs started to cultivate the fruit to be larger, sweeter, and red, they called the new species xitomatl (or jitomates) (pronounced [ʃiːˈtomatɬ]), ('plump with navel' or 'fat water with navel'). The scientific species epithet lycopersicum is interpreted literally from Latin in the 1753 book, Species Plantarum, as 'wolfpeach', where wolf is from lyco and peach is from persicum.
PRONUNCIATION
The usual pronunciations of tomato are /təˈmeɪtoʊ/ (usual in American English) and /təˈmɑːtoʊ/ (usual in British English). The word's dual pronunciations were immortalized in Ira and George Gershwin's 1937 song "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off" ("You like /pəˈteɪtoʊ/ and I like /pəˈtɑːtoʊ/ / You like /təˈmeɪtoʊ/ and I like /təˈmɑːtoʊ/") and have become a symbol for nitpicking pronunciation disputes. In this capacity, it has even become an American and British slang term: saying "/təˈmeɪtoʊ təˈmɑːtoʊ/" when presented with two choices can mean "What's the difference?" or "It's all the same to me".
FRUIT VERSUS VEGETABLE
Botanically, a tomato is a fruit—a berry, consisting of the ovary, together with its seeds, of a flowering plant. However, the tomato is considered a "culinary vegetable" because it has a much lower sugar content than culinary fruits; it is typically served as part of a salad or main course of a meal, rather than as a dessert. Tomatoes are not the only food source with this ambiguity; bell peppers, cucumbers, green beans, eggplants, avocados, and squashes of all kinds (such as zucchini and pumpkins) are all botanically fruit, yet cooked as vegetables. This has led to legal dispute in the United States. In 1887, U.S. tariff laws that imposed a duty on vegetables, but not on fruit, caused the tomato's status to become a matter of legal importance. The U.S. Supreme Court settled this controversy on May 10, 1893, by declaring that the tomato is a vegetable, based on the popular definition that classifies vegetables by use—they are generally served with dinner and not dessert (Nix v. Hedden (149 U.S. 304)). The holding of this case applies only to the interpretation of the Tariff of 1883, and the court did not purport to reclassify the tomato for botanical or other purposes.
BOTANY
DESCRIPTION
Tomato plants are vines, initially decumbent, typically growing 180 cm or more above the ground if supported, although erect bush varieties have been bred, generally 100 cm tall or shorter. Indeterminate types are "tender" perennials, dying annually in temperate climates (they are originally native to tropical highlands), although they can live up to three years in a greenhouse in some cases. Determinate types are annual in all climates.
Tomato plants are dicots, and grow as a series of branching stems, with a terminal bud at the tip that does the actual growing. When that tip eventually stops growing, whether because of pruning or flowering, lateral buds take over and grow into other, fully functional, vines.
Tomato vines are typically pubescent, meaning covered with fine short hairs. These hairs facilitate the vining process, turning into roots wherever the plant is in contact with the ground and moisture, especially if the vine's connection to its original root has been damaged or severed.
Most tomato plants have compound leaves, and are called regular leaf (RL) plants, but some cultivars have simple leaves known as potato leaf (PL) style because of their resemblance to that particular relative. Of RL plants, there are variations, such as rugose leaves, which are deeply grooved, and variegated, angora leaves, which have additional colors where a genetic mutation causes chlorophyll to be excluded from some portions of the leaves.
The leaves are 10–25 cm long, odd pinnate, with five to nine leaflets on petioles, each leaflet up to 8 cm long, with a serrated margin; both the stem and leaves are densely glandular-hairy.
Their flowers, appearing on the apical meristem, have the anthers fused along the edges, forming a column surrounding the pistil's style. Flowers in domestic cultivars can be self-fertilizing. The flowers are 1–2 cm across, yellow, with five pointed lobes on the corolla; they are borne in a cyme of three to 12 together.
Although in culinary terms, tomato is regarded as a vegetable, its fruit is classified botanically as a berry. As a true fruit, it develops from the ovary of the plant after fertilization, its flesh comprising the pericarp walls. The fruit contains hollow spaces full of seeds and moisture, called locular cavities. These vary, among cultivated species, according to type. Some smaller varieties have two cavities, globe-shaped varieties typically have three to five, beefsteak tomatoes have a great number of smaller cavities, while paste tomatoes have very few, very small cavities.
For propagation, the seeds need to come from a mature fruit, and be dried or fermented before germination.
CLASSIFICATION
In 1753, Linnaeus placed the tomato in the genus Solanum (alongside the potato) as Solanum lycopersicum. In 1768, Philip Miller moved it to its own genus, naming it Lycopersicon esculentum. This name came into wide use, but was technically in breach of the plant naming rules because Linnaeus's species name lycopersicum still had priority. Although the name Lycopersicum lycopersicum was suggested by Karsten (1888), this is not used because it violates the International Code of Nomenclature barring the use of tautonyms in botanical nomenclature. The corrected name Lycopersicon lycopersicum (Nicolson 1974) was technically valid, since Miller's genus name and Linnaeus's species name differ in exact spelling, but since Lycopersicon esculentum has become so well known, it was officially listed as a nomen conservandum in 1983, and would be the correct name for the tomato in classifications which do not place the tomato in the genus Solanum.
Genetic evidence has now shown that Linnaeus was correct to put the tomato in the genus Solanum, making Solanum lycopersicum the correct name. Both names, however, will probably be found in the literature for some time. Two of the major reasons for considering the genera separate are the leaf structure (tomato leaves are markedly different from any other Solanum), and the biochemistry (many of the alkaloids common to other Solanum species are conspicuously absent in the tomato). On the other hand, hybrids of tomato and diploid potato can be created in the lab by somatic fusion, and are partially fertile, providing evidence of the close relationship between these species.
GENETIC MODIFICATION
Tomatoes that have been modified using genetic engineering have been developed, and although none are commercially available now, they have been in the past. The first commercially available genetically modified food was a variety of tomato named the Flavr Savr, which was engineered to have a longer shelf life. Scientists are continuing to develop tomatoes with new traits not found in natural crops, such as increased resistance to pests or environmental stresses. Other projects aim to enrich tomatoes with substances that may offer health benefits or provide better nutrition.
An international consortium of researchers from 10 countries, among them researchers from the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research, began sequencing the tomato genome in 2004, and is creating a database of genomic sequences and information on the tomato and related plants. A prerelease version of the genome was made available in December 2009. The genomes of its mitochondria and chloroplasts are also being sequenced as part of the project. The complete genome for the cultivar Heinz 1706 was published on 31 May 2012 in Nature. Since many other fruits, like strawberries, apples, melons, and bananas share the same characteristics and genes, researchers stated the published genome could help to improve food quality, food security and reduce costs of all of these fruits.
BREEDING
The Tomato Genetic Resource Center, Germplasm Resources Information Network, AVRDC, and numerous seed banks around the world store seed representing genetic variations of value to modern agriculture. These seed stocks are available for legitimate breeding and research efforts. While individual breeding efforts can produce useful results, the bulk of tomato breeding work is at universities and major agriculture-related corporations. These efforts have resulted in significant regionally adapted breeding lines and hybrids, such as the Mountain series from North Carolina. Corporations including Heinz, Monsanto, BHNSeed, and Bejoseed have breeding programs that attempt to improve production, size, shape, color, flavor, disease tolerance, pest tolerance, nutritional value, and numerous other traits.
HISTORY
The wild ancestor of the tomato is native to western South America. These wild versions were the size of peas. Aztecs and other peoples in Mesoamerica were the first to have domesticated the fruit and used in their cooking. The Spanish first introduced tomatoes to Europe, where they became used in Spanish food. In France, Italy and northern Europe, the tomato was initially grown as an ornamental plant. It was regarded with suspicion as a food because botanists recognized it as a nightshade, a relative of the poisonous belladonna. This was exacerbated by the interaction of the tomato's acidic juice with pewter plates. The leaves and immature fruit contains tomatine, which in large quantities would be toxic. However, the ripe fruit contains no tomatine.
MESOAMERICA
The exact date of domestication is unknown; by 500 BC, it was already being cultivated in southern Mexico and probably other areas. The Pueblo people are thought to have believed that those who witnessed the ingestion of tomato seeds were blessed with powers of divination. The large, lumpy variety of tomato, a mutation from a smoother, smaller fruit, originated in Mesoamerica, and may be the direct ancestor of some modern cultivated tomatoes.
The Aztecs raised several varieties of tomato, with red tomatoes called xictomatl and green tomatoes called tomatl (Tomatillo). According to Bernardino de Sahagún he saw a great variety of tomatoes in the Aztec market at Tenochtitlán (Mexico City): “. . . large tomatoes, small tomatoes, leaf tomatoes, sweet tomatoes, large serpent tomatoes, nipple-shaped tomatoes,” and tomatoes of all colors from the brightest red to the deepest yellow. Bernardino de Sahagún mentioned Aztecs cooking various sauces, some with and without tomatoes of different sizes, serving them in city markets: "foods sauces, hot sauces; fried [food], olla-cooked [food], juices, sauces of juices, shredded [food] with chile, with squash seeds [most likely Cucurbita pepo], with tomatoes, with smoked chile, with hot chile, with yellow chile, with mild red chile sauce, yellow chile sauce, hot chile sauce, with "bird excrement" sauce, sauce of smoked chile, heated [sauces], bean sauce; [he sells] toasted beans, cooked beans, mushroom sauce, sauce of small squash, sauce of large tomatoes, sauce of ordinary tomatoes, sauce of various kinds of sour herbs, avocado sauce."
SPANISH DISTRIBUTION
Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés may have been the first to transfer a small yellow tomato to Europe after he captured the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan, now Mexico City, in 1521. The earliest discussion of the tomato in European literature appeared in a herbal written in 1544 by Pietro Andrea Mattioli, an Italian physician and botanist, who suggested that a new type of eggplant had been brought to Italy that was blood red or golden color when mature and could be divided into segments and eaten like an eggplant—that is, cooked and seasoned with salt, black pepper, and oil. It was not until ten years later that tomatoes were named in print by Mattioli as pomi d'oro, or "golden apples".
After the Spanish colonization of the Americas, the Spanish distributed the tomato throughout their colonies in the Caribbean. They also took it to the Philippines, from where it spread to southeast Asia and then the entire Asian continent. The Spanish also brought the tomato to Europe. It grew easily in Mediterranean climates, and cultivation began in the 1540s. It was probably eaten shortly after it was introduced, and was certainly being used as food by the early 17th century in Spain.
CHINA
The tomato was introduced to China, likely via the Philippines or Macau, in the 1500s. It was given the name fānqié (barbarian eggplant), as the Chinese named many foodstuffs introduced from abroad, but referring specifically to early introductions.
ITALY
The recorded history of tomatoes in Italy dates back to at least 31 October 1548, when the house steward of Cosimo de' Medici, the grand duke of Tuscany, wrote to the Medici private secretary informing him that the basket of tomatoes sent from the grand duke's Florentine estate at Torre del Gallo "had arrived safely". Tomatoes were grown mainly as ornamentals early on after their arrival in Italy. For example, the Florentine aristocrat Giovanvettorio Soderini wrote how they "were to be sought only for their beauty", and were grown only in gardens or flower beds. The tomato's ability to mutate and create new and different varieties helped contribute to its success and spread throughout Italy. However, even in areas where the climate supported growing tomatoes, their habit of growing to the ground suggested low status. They were not adopted as a staple of the peasant population because they were not as filling as other fruits already available. Additionally, both toxic and inedible varieties discouraged many people from attempting to consume or prepare any other varieties. In certain areas of Italy, such as Florence, the fruit was used solely as a tabletop decoration, until it was incorporated into the local cuisine in the late 17th or early 18th century. The earliest discovered cookbook with tomato recipes was published in Naples in 1692, though the author had apparently obtained these recipes from Spanish sources.
Unique varieties were developed over the next several hundred years for uses such as dried tomatoes, sauce tomatoes, pizza tomatoes, and tomatoes for long-term storage. These varieties are usually known for their place of origin as much as by a variety name. For example, Pomodorino del Piennolo del Vesuvio is the "hanging tomato of Vesuvius" or the Pomodoro di Pachino and Pomodorino di Manduria.
BRITAIN
Tomatoes were not grown in England until the 1590s. One of the earliest cultivators was John Gerard, a barber-surgeon. Gerard's Herbal, published in 1597, and largely plagiarized from continental sources, is also one of the earliest discussions of the tomato in England. Gerard knew the tomato was eaten in Spain and Italy. Nonetheless, he believed it was poisonous (in fact, the plant and raw fruit do have low levels of tomatine, but are not generally dangerous; see below). Gerard's views were influential, and the tomato was considered unfit for eating (though not necessarily poisonous) for many years in Britain and its North American colonies.
However, by the mid-18th century, tomatoes were widely eaten in Britain, and before the end of that century, the Encyclopædia Britannica stated the tomato was "in daily use" in soups, broths, and as a garnish. They were not part of the average person's diet, and though by 1820 they were described as "to be seen in great abundance in all our vegetable markets" and to be "used by all our best cooks", reference was made to their cultivation in gardens still "for the singularity of their appearance", while their use in cooking was associated with exotic Italian or Jewish cuisine.
INDIA
The tomato arrived in India by the way of Portuguese explorers, in the 16th century. It was grown from the 18th century onwards for the British. Even today, in Bengal, the alternative name is "Biliti Begun" (Bengali: বিলিতি বেগুন), meaning "Foreign Eggplant" It was then adopted widely as it is well suited to India's climate, with Uttarakhand as one of the main producers.
MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA
The tomato was introduced to cultivation in the Middle East by John Barker, British consul in Aleppo circa 1799 to 1825. Nineteenth century descriptions of its consumption are uniformly as an ingredient in a cooked dish. In 1881, it is described as only eaten in the region "within the last forty years". Today, the tomato is a critical and ubiquitous part of Middle Eastern cuisine, served fresh in salads (e.g., Arab salad, Israeli salad, Shirazi salad and Turkish salad), grilled with kebabs and other dishes, made into sauces, and so on.
NORTH AMERICA
The earliest reference to tomatoes being grown in British North America is from 1710, when herbalist William Salmon reported seeing them in what is today South Carolina. They may have been introduced from the Caribbean. By the mid-18th century, they were cultivated on some Carolina plantations, and probably in other parts of the Southeast as well. Possibly, some people continued to think tomatoes were poisonous at this time; and in general, they were grown more as ornamental plants than as food. Thomas Jefferson, who ate tomatoes in Paris, sent some seeds back to America.
Early tomato breeders included Henry Tilden in Iowa and a Dr. Hand in Baltimore.
Alexander W. Livingston receives much credit for developing numerous varieties of tomato for both home and commercial gardeners. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's 1937 yearbook declared that "half of the major varieties were a result of the abilities of the Livingstons to evaluate and perpetuate superior material in the tomato." Livingston's first breed of tomato, the Paragon, was introduced in 1870. In 1875, he introduced the Acme, which was said to be involved in the parentage of most of the tomatoes introduced by him and his competitors for the next twenty-five years.
When Livingston began his attempts to develop the tomato as a commercial crop, his aim had been to grow tomatoes smooth in contour, uniform in size, and sweet in flavor. In 1870, Livingston introduced the Paragon, and tomato culture soon became a great enterprise in the county. He eventually developed over seventeen different varieties of the tomato plant. Today, the crop is grown in every state in the Union.
Because of the long growing season needed for this heat-loving crop, several states in the US Sun Belt became major tomato-producers, particularly Florida and California. In California, tomatoes are grown under irrigation for both the fresh fruit market and for canning and processing. The University of California, Davis (UC Davis) became a major center for research on the tomato. The C.M. Rick Tomato Genetics Resource Center at UC Davis is a gene bank of wild relatives, monogenic mutants and miscellaneous genetic stocks of tomato. The center is named for the late Dr. Charles M. Rick, a pioneer in tomato genetics research. Research on processing tomatoes is also conducted by the California Tomato Research Institute in Escalon, California.
In California, growers have used a method of cultivation called dry-farming, especially with Early Girl tomatoes. This technique encourages the plant to send roots deep to find existing moisture in soil that retains moisture, such as clayey soil.
MODERN COMMERCIAL VARIETIES
The poor taste and lack of sugar in modern garden and commercial tomato varieties resulted from breeding tomatoes to ripen uniformly red. This change occurred after discovery of a mutant "u" phenotype in the mid 20th century that ripened "u"niformly. This was widely cross-bred to produce red fruit without the typical green ring around the stem on uncross-bred varieties. Prior to general introduction of this trait, most tomatoes produced more sugar during ripening, and were sweeter and more flavorful.
Evidence has been found that 10–20% of the total carbon fixed in the fruit can be produced by photosynthesis in the developing fruit of the normal U phenotype. The u genetic mutation encodes a factor that produces defective chloroplasts with lower density in developing fruit, resulting in a lighter green colour of unripe fruit, and repression of sugars accumulation in the resulting ripe fruit by 10–15%. Perhaps more important than their role in photosynthesis, the fruit chloroplasts are remodelled during ripening into chlorophyll-free chromoplasts that synthesize and accumulate the carotenoids lycopene, β-carotene, and other metabolites that are sensory and nutritional assets of the ripe fruit. The potent chloroplasts in the dark-green shoulders of the U phenotype are beneficial here, but have the disadvantage of leaving green shoulders near the stems of the ripe fruit, and even cracked yellow shoulders, apparently because of oxidative stress due to overload of the photosynthetic chain in direct sunlight at high temperatures. Hence genetic design of a commercial variety that combines the advantages of types u and U requires fine tuning, but may be feasible.
Furthermore, breeders of modern tomato cultivars typically strive to produce tomato plants exhibiting improved yield, shelf life, size, and tolerance/resistance to various environmental pressures, including disease. However, these breeding efforts have yielded unintended negative consequences on various tomato fruit attributes. For instance, linkage drag is a phenomenon that has been responsible for alterations in the metabolism of the tomato fruit. Linkage drag describes the introduction of an undesired trait or allele into a plant during backcrossing. This trait/allele is physically linked (or is very close) to the desired allele along the chromosome. In introducing the beneficial allele, there exists a high likelihood that the poor allele is also incorporated into the plant. Thus, breeding efforts attempting to enhance certain traits (for example: larger fruit size) have unintentionally altered production of chemicals associated with, for instance, nutritional value and flavor.
Breeders have turned to using wild tomato species as a source of alleles for the introduction of beneficial traits into modern tomato varieties. For example, wild tomato relatives may possess higher amounts of fruit solids (which are associated with greater sugar content) or resistance to diseases caused by microbes, such as resistance towards the early blight pathogen Alternaria solani. However, this tactic has limitations, for the incorporation of certain traits, such as pathogen resistance, can negatively impact other favorable phenotypes (fruit production, etc.).
CULTIVATION
The tomato is grown worldwide for its edible fruits, with thousands of cultivars. A fertilizer with an NPK ratio of 5–10–10 is often sold as tomato fertilizer or vegetable fertilizer, although manure and compost are also used.
DISEASES,PESTS AND DISORDERS
Tomato cultivars vary widely in their resistance to disease. Modern hybrids focus on improving disease resistance over the heirloom plants.
Various forms of mildew and blight are common tomato afflictions, which is why tomato cultivars are often marked with a combination of letters that refer to specific disease resistance. The most common letters are: LB – late blight, V – verticillium wilt, F – fusarium wilt strain I, FF – fusarium wilt strain I and II, N – nematodes, T – tobacco mosaic virus, and A – alternaria.
Some common tomato pests are stink bugs, cutworms, tomato hornworms and tobacco hornworms, aphids, cabbage loopers, whiteflies, tomato fruitworms, flea beetles, red spider mite, slugs,[56] and Colorado potato beetles. The tomato russet mite, Aculops lycopersici, feeds on foliage and young fruit of tomato plants, causing shrivelling and necrosis of leaves, flowers, and fruit, possibly killing the plant.
A common tomato disease is tobacco mosaic virus. Handling cigarettes and other infected tobacco products can transmit the virus to tomato plants.
Another particularly dreaded disease is curly top, carried by the beet leafhopper, which interrupts the lifecycle. As the name implies, it has the symptom of making the top leaves of the plant wrinkle up and grow abnormally.
After an insect attack tomato plants produce systemin, a plant peptide hormone . Systemin activates defensive mechanisms, such as the production of protease inhibitors to slow the growth of insects. The hormone was first identified in tomatoes, but similar proteins have been identified in other species since.
Although not a disease as such, irregular supplies of water can cause growing or ripening fruit to split. Besides cosmetic damage, the splits may allow decay to start, although growing fruits have some ability to heal after a split. In addition, a deformity called cat-facing can be caused by pests, temperature stress, or poor soil conditions. Affected fruit usually remains edible, but its appearance may be unsightly.
COMPANION PLANTS
Tomatoes serve, or are served by, a large variety of companion plants.
Among the most famous pairings is the tomato plant and carrots; studies supporting this relationship have produced a popular book about companion planting, Carrots Love Tomatoes.
The devastating tomato hornworm has a major predator in various parasitic wasps, whose larvae devour the hornworm, but whose adult form drinks nectar from tiny-flowered plants like umbellifers. Several species of umbellifer are therefore often grown with tomato plants, including parsley, Queen Anne's lace, and occasionally dill. These also attract predatory flies that attack various tomato pests.
Borage is thought to repel the tomato hornworm moth.
Plants with strong scents, like alliums (onions, chives, garlic), mints (basil, oregano, spearmint) and French marigold, (Tagetes patula) are thought to mask the scent of the tomato plant, making it harder for pests to locate it, or to provide an alternative landing point, reducing the odds of the pests from attacking the correct plant. These plants may also subtly affect the flavor of tomato fruit.
Tomato plants can protect asparagus from asparagus beetles, because they contain solanine that kills this pest, while asparagus plants contain Asparagusic acid that repels nematodes known to attack tomato plants. Marigolds also repel nematodes.
POLLINATION
In the wild, original state, tomatoes required cross-pollination; they were much more self-incompatible than domestic cultivars. As a floral device to reduce selfing, the pistil of wild tomatoes extends farther out of the flower than today's cultivars. The stamens were, and remain, entirely within the closed corolla.
As tomatoes were moved from their native areas, their traditional pollinators, (probably a species of halictid bee) did not move with them. The trait of self-fertility became an advantage, and domestic cultivars of tomato have been selected to maximize this trait.
This is not the same as self-pollination, despite the common claim that tomatoes do so. That tomatoes pollinate themselves poorly without outside aid is clearly shown in greenhouse situations, where pollination must be aided by artificial wind, vibration of the plants (one brand of vibrator is a wand called an "electric bee" that is used manually), or more often today, by cultured bumblebees. The anther of a tomato flower is shaped like a hollow tube, with the pollen produced within the structure, rather than on the surface, as in most species. The pollen moves through pores in the anther, but very little pollen is shed without some kind of externally-induced motion. The ideal vibratory frequencies to release pollen grains are provided by an insect, such as a bumblebee, or the original wild halictid pollinator, capable of engaging in a behavior known as buzz pollination, which honey bees cannot perform. In an outdoors setting, wind or animals usually provide sufficient motion to produce commercially viable crops.
FRUIT FORMATION
Pollination and fruit formation depend on meiosis. Meiosis is central to the processes by which diploid microspore mother cells within the anther give rise to haploid pollen grains, and megaspore mother cells in ovules that are contained within the ovary give rise to haploid nuclei. Union of haploid nuclei from pollen and ovule (fertilization) can occur either by self- or cross-pollination. Fertilization leads to the formation of a diploid zygote that can then develop into an embryo within the emerging seed. Repeated fertilizations within the ovary are accompanied by maturation of the ovary to form the tomato fruit.
Homologs of the recA gene, including rad51, play a key role in homologous recombinational repair of DNA during meiosis. A rad51 homolog is present in the anther of tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum), suggesting that recombinational repair occurs during meiosis in tomato.
HYDROPONIC AND GREENHOUSE CULTIVATION
Tomatoes are often grown in greenhouses in cooler climates, and cultivars such as the British 'Moneymaker' and a number of cultivars grown in Siberia are specifically bred for indoor growing. In more temperate climates, it is not uncommon to start seeds in greenhouses during the late winter for future transplant.
Greenhouse tomato production in large-acreage commercial greenhouses and owner-operator stand-alone or multiple-bay greenhouses is on the increase, providing fruit during those times of the year when field-grown fruit is not readily available. Smaller sized fruit (cherry and grape), or cluster tomatoes (fruit-on-the-vine) are the fruit of choice for the large commercial greenhouse operators while the beefsteak varieties are the choice of owner-operator growers.
Hydroponic technique is often used in hostile growing environments, as well as high-density plantings.
PICKING AND RIPENING
To facilitate transportation and storage, tomatoes are often picked unripe (green) and ripened in storage with ethylene.
A machine-harvestable variety of tomato (the "square tomato") was developed in the 1950s by University of California, Davis's Gordie C. Hanna, which, in combination with the development of a suitable harvester, revolutionized the tomato-growing industry. This type of tomato is grown commercially near plants that process and can tomatoes, tomato sauce, and tomato paste. They are harvested when ripe and are flavorful when picked. They are harvested 24 hours a day, seven days a week during a 12- to 14-week season, and immediately transported to packing plants, which operate on the same schedule. California is a center of this sort of commercial tomato production and produces about a third of the processed tomatoes produced in the world.
In 1994, Calgene introduced a genetically modified tomato called the FlavrSavr, which could be vine ripened without compromising shelf life. However, the product was not commercially successful, and was sold only until 1997.
YIELD
The world dedicated 4.8 million hectares in 2012 for tomato cultivation and the total production was about 161.8 million tonnes. The average world farm yield for tomato was 33.6 tonnes per hectare, in 2012.
Tomato farms in the Netherlands were the most productive in 2012, with a nationwide average of 476 tonnes per hectare, followed by Belgium (463 tonnes per hectare) and Iceland (429 tonnes per hectare).
RECORDS
As of 2008, the heaviest tomato harvested, weighed 3.51 kg, was of the cultivar "Delicious", and was grown by Gordon Graham of Edmond, Oklahoma in 1986. The largest tomato plant grown was of the cultivar "Sungold" and reached 19.8 m in length, grown by Nutriculture Ltd (UK) of Mawdesley, Lancashire, UK, in 2000.
A massive "tomato tree" growing inside the Walt Disney World Resort's experimental greenhouses in Lake Buena Vista, Florida may have been the largest single tomato plant in the world. The plant has been recognized as a Guinness World Record Holder, with a harvest of more than 32,000 tomatoes and a total weight of 522 kg It yielded thousands of tomatoes at one time from a single vine. Yong Huang, Epcot's manager of agricultural science, discovered the unique plant in Beijing, China. Huang brought its seeds to Epcot and created the specialized greenhouse for the fruit to grow. The vine grew golf ball-sized tomatoes, which were served at Walt Disney World restaurants.[citation needed] The tree developed a disease and was removed in April 2010 after about 13 months of life.
PRODUCTION
In 2019, world production of tomatoes was 181 million tonnes, with China accounting for 35% of the total, followed by India and Turkey as major producers (table).
CONSUMPTION
Though it is botanically a berry, a subset of fruit, the tomato is a vegetable for culinary purposes because of its savory flavor (see below).
Although tomatoes originated in the Americas, they have become extensively used in Mediterranean cuisine. Ripe tomatoes contain significant umami flavor and they are a key ingredient in pizza, and are commonly used in pasta sauces. They are also used in gazpacho (Spanish cuisine) and pa amb tomàquet (Catalan cuisine).
The tomato is now grown and eaten around the world. It is used in diverse ways, including raw in salads or in slices, stewed, incorporated into a wide variety of dishes, or processed into ketchup or tomato soup. Unripe green tomatoes can also be breaded and fried, used to make salsa, or pickled. Tomato juice is sold as a drink, and is used in cocktails such as the Bloody Mary.
STORAGE
Tomatoes keep best unwashed at room temperature and out of direct sunlight. It is not recommended to refrigerate them as this can harm the flavor. Tomatoes stored cold tend to lose their flavor permanently.
Storing stem down can prolong shelf life, as it may keep from rotting too quickly.
Tomatoes that are not yet ripe can be kept in a paper bag till ripening.
Tomatoes are easy to preserve whole, in pieces, as tomato sauce or paste by home canning. They are acidic enough to process in a water bath rather than a pressure cooker as most vegetables require. The fruit is also preserved by drying, often in the sun, and sold either in bags or in jars with oil.
SAFETY
PLANT TOXICITY
The leaves, stem, and green unripe fruit of the tomato plant contain small amounts of the alkaloid tomatine, whose effect on humans has not been studied. They also contain small amounts of solanine, a toxic alkaloid found in potato leaves and other plants in the nightshade family. However, solanine concentrations in foliage and green fruit are generally too small to be dangerous unless large amounts are consumed—for example, as greens.
Small amounts of tomato foliage are sometimes used for flavoring without ill effect, and the green fruit of unripe red tomato varieties is sometimes used for cooking, particularly as fried green tomatoes. There are also tomato varieties with fully ripe fruit that is still green. Compared to potatoes, the amount of solanine in unripe green or fully ripe tomatoes is low. However, even in the case of potatoes, while solanine poisoning resulting from dosages several times the normal human consumption has been demonstrated, actual cases of poisoning from excessive consumption of potatoes are rare.
Tomato plants can be toxic to dogs if they eat large amounts of the fruit, or chew plant material.
SALMONELLA
Tomatoes were linked to seven Salmonella outbreaks between 1990 and 2005, and may have been the cause of a salmonellosis outbreak causing 172 illnesses in 18 US states in 2006. The 2008 United States salmonellosis outbreak caused the temporary removal of tomatoes from stores and restaurants across the United States and parts of Canada, although other foods, including jalapeño and serrano peppers, may have been involved.
NUTRITION
A tomato is 95% water, contains 4% carbohydrates and less than 1% each of fat and protein (table). In a 100 gram amount, raw tomatoes supply 18 calories and are a moderate source of vitamin C (17% of the Daily Value), but otherwise are absent of significant nutrient content (table).
RESEARCH
No conclusive evidence indicates that the lycopene in tomatoes or in supplements affects the onset of cardiovascular diseases or cancer.
In the United States, supposed health benefits of consuming tomatoes, tomato products or lycopene to affect cancer cannot be mentioned on packaged food products without a qualified health claim statement. In a scientific review of potential claims for lycopene favorably affecting DNA, skin exposed to ultraviolet radiation, heart function and vision, the European Food Safety Authority concluded that the evidence for lycopene having any of these effects was inconclusive.
HOST PLANT
The Potato Tuber moth (Phthorimaea operculella) is an oligophagous insect that prefers to feed on plants of the family Solanaceae such as tomato plants. Female P. operculella use the leaves to lay their eggs and the hatched larvae will eat away at the mesophyll of the leaf.
IN POPULAR CULTURE
On 30 August 2007, 40,000 Spaniards gathered in Buñol to throw 115,000 kg of tomatoes at each other in the yearly Tomatina festival.
In Ontario, Canada, member of provincial parliament Mike Colle introduced a private member's bill in March 2016 to name the tomato as the official vegetable of the province and to designate 15 July as Tomato Day, in order to acknowledge the tomato's importance in Ontario's agriculture. The bill did not pass in the legislature and no official designations were made.
Tomatoes have been designated the state vegetable of New Jersey. Arkansas took both sides by declaring the South Arkansas Vine Ripe Pink Tomato both the state fruit and the state vegetable in the same law, citing both its culinary and botanical classifications. In 2009, the state of Ohio passed a law making the tomato the state's official fruit. Tomato juice has been the official beverage of Ohio since 1965. Alexander W. Livingston, of Reynoldsburg, Ohio, played a large part in popularizing the tomato in the late 19th century; his efforts are commemorated in Reynoldsburg with an annual Tomato Festival.
Flavr Savr was the first commercially grown genetically engineered food licensed for human consumption.
The town of Buñol, Spain, annually celebrates La Tomatina, a festival centered on an enormous tomato fight. Tomatoes are a popular "nonlethal" throwing weapon in mass protests, and there was a common tradition of throwing rotten tomatoes at bad performers on a stage during the 19th century; today this is usually referenced as a metaphor. Embracing it for this protest connotation, the Dutch Socialist party adopted the tomato as their logo.
The US city of Reynoldsburg, Ohio calls itself "The Birthplace of the Tomato", claiming the first commercial variety of tomato was bred there in the 19th century.
Several US states have adopted the tomato as a state fruit or vegetable (see above).
"Rotten Tomatoes" is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The name "Rotten Tomatoes" derives from the practice of audiences throwing rotten tomatoes when disapproving of a poor stage performance. "Rotten Tomatoes" took the tomato metaphor further by rating films as Certified Fresh if they got a score of 75% or higher, Fresh for films with a score of 60% or higher that do not meet the requirements for the Certified Fresh seal, and Rotten for films with a score of 0–59%.
WIKIPEDIA
The Representative of Humanity (1922), a nine-meter high wood sculpture executed as a joint project with the sculptor Edith Maryon. This was intended to be placed in the first Goetheanum. It shows a central human figure, the "Representative of Humanity," holding a balance between opposing tendencies of expansion and contraction personified as the beings of Lucifer and Ahriman. It was intended to show, in conscious contrast to Michelangelo's Last Judgment, Christ as mute and impersonal such that the beings that approach him must judge themselves. The sculpture is now on permanent display at the Goetheanum.
Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner (27 or 25 February 1861– 30 March 1925) was an Austrian occultist, social reformer, architect, esotericist,and claimed clairvoyant. Steiner gained initial recognition at the end of the nineteenth century as a literary critic and published works including The Philosophy of Freedom. At the beginning of the twentieth century he founded an esoteric spiritual movement, anthroposophy, with roots in German idealist philosophy and theosophy. His ideas are largely pseudoscientific. He was also prone to pseudohistory.
In the first, more philosophically oriented phase of this movement, Steiner attempted to find a synthesis between science and spirituality. His philosophical work of these years, which he termed "spiritual science", sought to apply what he saw as the clarity of thinking characteristic of Western philosophy to spiritual questions, differentiating this approach from what he considered to be vaguer approaches to mysticism. In a second phase, beginning around 1907, he began working collaboratively in a variety of artistic media, including drama, dance and architecture, culminating in the building of the Goetheanum, a cultural centre to house all the arts. In the third phase of his work, beginning after World War I, Steiner worked on various ostensibly applied projects, including Waldorf education,biodynamic agriculture, and anthroposophical medicine.
Steiner advocated a form of ethical individualism, to which he later brought a more explicitly spiritual approach. He based his epistemology on Johann Wolfgang Goethe's world view, in which "thinking…is no more and no less an organ of perception than the eye or ear. Just as the eye perceives colours and the ear sounds, so thinking perceives ideas." A consistent thread that runs through his work is the goal of demonstrating that there are no limits to human knowledge.
Steiner first began speaking publicly about spiritual experiences and phenomena in his 1899 lectures to the Theosophical Society. By 1901 he had begun to write about spiritual topics, initially in the form of discussions of historical figures such as the mystics of the Middle Ages. By 1904 he was expressing his own understanding of these themes in his essays and books, while continuing to refer to a wide variety of historical sources.
A world of spiritual perception is discussed in a number of writings which I have published since this book appeared. The Philosophy of Freedom forms the philosophical basis for these later writings. For it tries to show that the experience of thinking, rightly understood, is in fact an experience of spirit.
(Steiner, Philosophy of Freedom, Consequences of Monism)
Steiner aimed to apply his training in mathematics, science, and philosophy to produce rigorous, verifiable presentations of those experiences. He believed that through freely chosen ethical disciplines and meditative training, anyone could develop the ability to experience the spiritual world, including the higher nature of oneself and others. Steiner believed that such discipline and training would help a person to become a more moral, creative and free individual – free in the sense of being capable of actions motivated solely by love. His philosophical ideas were affected by Franz Brentano, with whom he had studied, as well as by Fichte, Hegel, Schelling, and Goethe's phenomenological approach to science.
Steiner used the word Geisteswissenschaft (from Geist = mind or spirit, Wissenschaft = science), a term originally coined by Wilhelm Dilthey as a descriptor of the humanities, in a novel way, to describe a systematic ("scientific") approach to spirituality. Steiner used the term Geisteswissenschaft, generally translated into English as "spiritual science," to describe a discipline treating the spirit as something actual and real, starting from the premise that it is possible for human beings to penetrate behind what is sense-perceptible. He proposed that psychology, history, and the humanities generally were based on the direct grasp of an ideal reality, and required close attention to the particular period and culture which provided the distinctive character of religious qualities in the course of the evolution of consciousness. In contrast to William James' pragmatic approach to religious and psychic experience, which emphasized its idiosyncratic character, Steiner focused on ways such experience can be rendered more intelligible and integrated into human life.
Steiner proposed that an understanding of reincarnation and karma was necessary to understand psychology[81] and that the form of external nature would be more comprehensible as a result of insight into the course of karma in the evolution of humanity. Beginning in 1910, he described aspects of karma relating to health, natural phenomena and free will, taking the position that a person is not bound by his or her karma, but can transcend this through actively taking hold of one's own nature and destiny. In an extensive series of lectures from February to September 1924, Steiner presented further research on successive reincarnations of various individuals and described the techniques he used for karma research.
In his earliest works, Steiner already spoke of the "natural and spiritual worlds" as a unity. From 1900 on, he began lecturing about concrete details of the spiritual world(s), culminating in the publication in 1904 of the first of several systematic presentations, his Theosophy: An Introduction to the Spiritual Processes in Human Life and in the Cosmos. As a starting point for the book Steiner took a quotation from Goethe, describing the method of natural scientific observation,[136] while in the Preface he made clear that the line of thought taken in this book led to the same goal as that in his earlier work, The Philosophy of Freedom.
In the years 1903–1908 Steiner maintained the magazine Lucifer-Gnosis and published in it essays on topics such as initiation, reincarnation and karma, and knowledge of the supernatural world. Some of these were later collected and published as books, such as How to Know Higher Worlds (1904–5) and Cosmic Memory. The book An Outline of Esoteric Science was published in 1910. Important themes include:
the human being as body, soul and spirit;
the path of spiritual development;
spiritual influences on world-evolution and history; and
reincarnation and karma.
Steiner emphasized that there is an objective natural and spiritual world that can be known, and that perceptions of the spiritual world and incorporeal beings are, under conditions of training comparable to that required for the natural sciences, including self-discipline, replicable by multiple observers. It is on this basis that spiritual science is possible, with radically different epistemological foundations than those of natural science. He believed that natural science was correct in its methods but one-sided for exclusively focusing on sensory phenomena, while mysticism was vague in its methods, though seeking to explore the inner and spiritual life. Anthroposophy was meant to apply the systematic methods of the former to the content of the latter.
For Steiner, the cosmos is permeated and continually transformed by the creative activity of non-physical processes and spiritual beings. For the human being to become conscious of the objective reality of these processes and beings, it is necessary to creatively enact and reenact, within, their creative activity. Thus objective spiritual knowledge always entails creative inner activity. Steiner articulated three stages of any creative deed:[73]: Pt II, Chapter 1
Moral intuition: the ability to discover or, preferably, develop valid ethical principles;
Moral imagination: the imaginative transformation of such principles into a concrete intention applicable to the particular situation (situational ethics); and
Moral technique: the realization of the intended transformation, depending on a mastery of practical skills.
Steiner termed his work from this period onwards Anthroposophy. He emphasized that the spiritual path he articulated builds upon and supports individual freedom and independent judgment; for the results of spiritual research to be appropriately presented in a modern context they must be in a form accessible to logical understanding, so that those who do not have access to the spiritual experiences underlying anthroposophical research can make independent evaluations of the latter's results. Spiritual training is to support what Steiner considered the overall purpose of human evolution, the development of the mutually interdependent qualities of love and freedom.
Goethean science is not science, but pseudoscience. According to Dan Dugan, Steiner was a champion of the following pseudoscientific claims:
wrong color theory;
obtuse criticism of the theory of relativity;
weird ideas about motions of the planets;
supporting vitalism;
doubting germ theory;
weird approach to physiological systems;
"the heart is not a pump".
In his commentaries on Goethe's scientific works, written between 1884 and 1897, Steiner presented Goethe's approach to science as essentially phenomenological in nature, rather than theory- or model-based. He developed this conception further in several books, The Theory of Knowledge Implicit in Goethe's World-Conception (1886) and Goethe's Conception of the World (1897), particularly emphasizing the transformation in Goethe's approach from the physical sciences, where experiment played the primary role, to plant biology, where both accurate perception and imagination were required to find the biological archetypes (Urpflanze). He postulated that Goethe had sought, but been unable to fully find, the further transformation in scientific thinking necessary to properly interpret and understand the animal kingdom. Steiner emphasized the role of evolutionary thinking in Goethe's discovery of the intermaxillary bone in human beings; Goethe expected human anatomy to be an evolutionary transformation of animal anatomy. Steiner defended Goethe's qualitative description of color as arising synthetically from the polarity of light and darkness, in contrast to Newton's particle-based and analytic conception.
Particular organic forms can be evolved only from universal types, and every organic entity we experience must coincide with some one of these derivative forms of the type. Here the evolutionary method must replace the method of proof. We aim not to show that external conditions act upon one another in a certain way and thereby bring about a definite result, but that a particular form has developed under definite external conditions out of the type. This is the radical difference between inorganic and organic science.
— Rudolf Steiner, The Theory of Knowledge Implicit in Goethe's World Conception, Chapter XVI, "Organic Nature"
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Steiner
Rudolf Steiner developed exercises aimed at cultivating new cognitive faculties he believed would be appropriate to contemporary individual and cultural development. According to Steiner's view of history, in earlier periods people were capable of direct spiritual perceptions, or clairvoyance, but not yet of rational thought; more recently, rationality has been developed at the cost of spiritual perception, leading to the alienation characteristic of modernity. Steiner proposed that humanity now has the task of synthesizing the rational and contemplative/spiritual components of cognition, whereby spiritual perception would be awakened through intensifying thinking. He considered this relevant not only to personal development, but as a foundation for advanced scientific research
Moral background of spiritual development[edit]
A central principle of Steiner's proposed path to spiritual development is that self-development - inner transformation - is a necessary part of the spiritual path: "for every step in spiritual perception, three steps are to be taken in moral development." According to the spiritual philosophy Steiner founded, anthroposophy, moral development: reveals the extent to which a person has achieved control over his or her inner life;
ensures that he or she lives in harmony with the surrounding natural and social world;
correlates with his or her progress in spiritual development, the fruits of which are given in spiritual perception; and
guarantees the capacity to distinguish between true perceptions and illusions, or to distinguish in any perception between the influence of subjective elements and objective realities.
Meditative path.
Steiner described three stages of meditative progress: imaginative cognition, inspiration and intuition.
In imaginative cognition, the meditant aims to achieve thinking independent of sensory perception through concentration on either visual forms of symbolic significance never encountered in the sensory world (e.g. a black cross with a circle of seven red roses superimposed upon it), metamorphoses (e.g. the growth cycle of a plant from seed to mature flower), or mantric verses spoken aloud or silently (e.g. verses for each week of the year intended to connect the meditant with the rhythms of nature).
In inspiration, the meditant seeks to eliminate all consciously chosen meditative content to open a receptive space in which objective spiritual content (impressions stemming from objective spiritual beings) may be encountered. The meditative activity established in inspirative cognition is set forth without concrete content.
The stage of intuition is achieved through practicing exercises of will (e.g. reviewing the sequence of the day's events in reverse order). At this stage, the meditant seeks unity with the creative forces of the cosmos without any loss of his or her individualized consciousness.
This sequence of meditative stages has the ultimate goal of the meditant experiencing his or her own karma and previous incarnations, as well as the "Akashic record" of historical events.
Preliminary requirements for embarking on a spiritual training[edit]
Steiner believed that in order for a spiritual training to bear "healthy fruits," a person would have to attend to the following:
Striving to develop a healthy body and soul.
Feeling connected with all of existence; to recognize oneself in everything, and everything in oneself; not to judge others without standing in their shoes.
Recognizing that one's thoughts and feelings have as significant an influence as one's deeds, and that work on one's inner life is as important as work on one's outer life.
Recognizing that the true essence of a human being does not lie in the person's outer appearance, but rather in the inner nature, in the soul and spiritual existence of this person.
Finding the genuine balance between having an open heart for the demands of the outer world and maintaining inner strength and "unshakeable endurance."
The ability to be true to a decision once made, even in the face of daunting adversity, until one comes to the conclusion that it was or is made in error.
Developing thankfulness for everything that meets us, and that universal love which allows the world to reveal itself fully to oneself.
Supplementary exercises
Steiner suggested that certain exercises should accompany all meditational practices as a measure of protection against possible negative influences caused by the meditation in the life of the individual. These six exercises, meant to foster positive soul qualities, are:
Practice self-control over one's thinking. For example: for a period of time -at least five minutes- contemplate any object and concentrate one's thoughts exclusively on this object. (A pencil or a paper clip might do.)
Exercise willpower by choosing any free deed, i.e. one that nothing is influencing you to do, and choose a regular time of day or day of the week to practice this. (E.g. water plants at the same time each day.)
Practice equanimity: foster calm emotional responses.
Try to see positive aspects in everything and to make the best out of every situation.
Practice being open to new experiences and ideas, never letting expectations based upon the past close your mind to the lessons of the moment.
Find a harmonious, balanced relationship between the above five qualities, practicing each regularly and becoming able to move dynamically between them.
The initial three exercises are intended to enable a person to attain self-discipline in thinking, willing and feeling.[1] The second group of three involve cultivating attitudes toward the world.
Individual exercises
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Exercises developed in anthroposophy include:
Review of the day. Each evening, going backwards through the day recalling its events, its sequential unfolding (experienced here reversed in time), the people one has met, etc.
Experiencing the year's unfolding. Exercises Steiner suggested here include:[citation needed]
Drawing the same plant or tree or landscape over the course of a year.
Meditating the sequence of 52 mantric verses that Steiner wrote to deepen one's experience of the course of the seasons and the year and to bring the inner life of the soul into dialogue with nature, the Soul Calendar.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Steiner%27s_exercises_for_sp...
This Ionized Gas Accumulation Drone, produced by Chao-Hashi Consolidated, is being unloaded after having served its task of collecting raw gasses from the atmosphere of 4090 Hydrae V, the gas giant and fifth celestial body orbiting Oshara in the Oshara System. Soon, these gasses will be compressed and loaded onto a cargo ship bent on delivering it to a processing facility where most of it will be synthesized into H3 fusion-fuel.
The IGAD-1V, like others of its type, gathers these raw elements by probing the upper atmosphere with a retractable, superconductive electromagnetic rod. This process is thought to have been first conceptualized as early as 2098, though it had not been truly invented until later by Doarn Kazuyuki, who at this point in his life was still young and unsuccessful. He was unable to profit from his original design later, however, as he was unable to afford the patenting fee at that stage of his career.
The Zebra Longwing or Zebra Heliconian (Heliconius charithonia) is a species of butterfly belonging to the subfamily Heliconiinae of the Nymphalidae.[1][2] The boldly striped black and white wing pattern is aposematic, warning off predators.
The species is distributed across South and Central America and as far north as southern Texas and peninsular Florida; there are migrations north into other American states in the warmer months.
Zebra longwing adults roost communally at night in groups of up to 60 adults for safety from predators. The adult butterflies are unusual in feeding on pollen as well as on nectar; the pollen enables them to synthesize cyanogenic glycosides that make their bodies toxic to potential predators. Caterpillars feed on various species of Passionflower, evading the plants' defensive trichomes by biting them off or laying silk mats over them.
Alexa & Richard. Models Actors and Dancers...
Location: Santa Fe, New Mexico. USA parking lot.
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Think I've probably exhausted my photos from the recent OlympusUK / Photojabber Oxford Photowalk so it's back to the Photography News / Fujifilm London Photo24 event........
The 250 or so photographers that took part in the event had the opportunity to take part in a Steampunk shoot in the 'Banksy' Leake Street tunnel under Waterloo Station. As you can imagine it was a bit of a scrum and consequently I've probably only a couple of shots worth uploading including this shot of Steampunk model Becks Southwell-Collins.
Click here to see more shots from this and previous years Photo24 events : www.flickr.com/photos/darrellg/albums/72157667520181380
From Wikipedia : "Steampunk fashion has no set guidelines but tends to synthesize modern styles with influences from the Victorian era. Such influences may include bustles, corsets, gowns, and petticoats; suits with waistcoats, coats, top hats and bowler hats (themselves originating in 1850 England), tailcoats and spats; or military-inspired garments. Steampunk-influenced outfits are usually accented with several technological and "period" accessories: timepieces, parasols, flying/driving goggles, and ray guns.
Modern accessories like cell phones or music players can be found in steampunk outfits, after being modified to give them the appearance of Victorian-era objects. Post-apocalyptic elements, such as gas masks, ragged clothing, and tribal motifs, can also be included. Aspects of steampunk fashion have been anticipated by mainstream high fashion, the Lolita and aristocrat styles, neo-Victorianism, and the romantic goth subculture."
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