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Looking up inside the Khan Shatyr in Astana, the (new) capital of Kazakhstan.
One of the iconic buildings in the city, and one that my eye was drawn towards in early 2010, on my first visit to Astana. It was still being constructed at that time, but now has settled in to life as a shopping / 'entertainment' centre - rather a dissapointing use in my mind for a fabulous building.
But I suppose at least lots of people visit and use it, so it has life and purpose, and continues to stand out in the city, where 'landmark' buildings appear seemingly daily.
The Khan Shatyr is truly different, and for that reason alone, I like it.
148 years ago this week, the Union Pacific completed the transcontinental railroad at Promontory. This week I completed this model of UP 189514 as it appeared in 1969.
It is a B50-27 boxcar that is sub- lettered for the Oregon Short Line. Model is an Intermountain with Archer alternate center rivets, decaled with Microscale.
I should have done more homework today.
I'm SO glad it's finally warm out. I hate winter after Christmas.
No school tomorrow!!! :D
Robert Tonner's Tyler Wentworth is feted by friends and family to mark the beginning of her 20th anniversary in 2019. Fashions by Tonner Doll, V.Jhon, and RDGdoll.
He lines them up...in the tub, when he's playing and as a compromise before nap time :)
They are there waiting for him when he gets up.
The lanterns decorations lighted-up for the Chinatown Chinese New Year 2016 Festival celebrations along New Bridge Road and Eu Tong Sen Street.
Pentax K-5 • 80 ISO • Sigma 8-16mm f:4.5-5.6 DC HSM
Handheld HDR 3 photos (-2, 0, +2 EV) with Photomatix 3.2.9
Weekend Studio/argentique Aficionados-Zinzins à Luxembourg le 5 et 6 Février 2011 avec
Déborah, Vincent, João et Frédéric.
Esch Belval • Luxembourg
Close-up of my first punch needle project. You can definitely tell that it was my first time trying this craft out
An impressive line up of Spitfires at the Imperial War Museum Duxford. All aircraft were capable of flight and ranged from a Mark 1 to a Mark 19
Looking up and west at the repaired cracks in the south side of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in front of Memorial Amphitheater at Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C., in the United States. You can see the unrepaired crack extending from the central figure's calf to the right across the legs of the male figure, and off and around to the north face of the Tomb.
Unfortunately, the Tomb began to fall apart almost immediately. Chips and spalls (pieces broken off after heating and contracting) were found coming off the base in 1933. Hairline cracks, not lengthy at all, were noticed in the sides in the 1940s. By 1963, two large horizontal cracks had appeared in the south side of the block -- probably caused by the release of pressure after the marble was mined. (It's also possible that the block was damaged during transport, or damaged during sculpting, or damaged during placement.) Form the extent of the cracks, it was clear that they had existed and been visible for some time.
By 1974, the cracks had lengthened by about a third. For the first time, repairs were made to the Tomb. The cracks were actually widened slightly to allow grout to be inserted into them. The grout had failed by 1989. The old grout was removed and new grout -- mixed with adhesive polymer -- was placed to seal the cracks. By this time, the "primary crack" extended completely across the north and west sides of the Tomb, across approximately half the south side, and across approximately a third of the east side. A "secondary crack" extended across approximately seven-eighths of the south and east sides.
The Tomb was analyzed in 1988 and 1989 using radar thermography and photogrammetry to determine the extent of the cracks. The analysis showed that the cracks were not superficial, but rather extended all the way through the solid block of marble. Additional cracks were likely to appear as well. The one good thing about the cracks is that they did not appear likely to cause the Tomb to collapse. They were uneven, and not at an angle, and the pieces were likely to hold together with friction alone.
A year after the study was done, a new, vertical crack appeared in the base of the north side of the Tomb.
In 2004, Arlington National Cemetery Superintendent John C. Metzler, Jr. proposed replacing the Tomb with a copy. A public outcry led to Congress passing legislation which would have barred this from happening, and which required the Army to issue a report to Congress before taking any more action. The 2008 report laid out several options, but the course of action taken was to repair the Tomb.
Grout was applied in April 2010, but within a year it was flaking and in some cases falling completely out. Arlington Cemetery rushed to apply new grout in May 2011, but the National Trust for Historic Preservation and other groups cried foul. Arlington studied the issue for a couple months with their help, and in August and September 2011 new grout was applied again.
Acid rain and pollution have caused the marble sculptures to wear down appreciably, such that today they are only about half as sharp as they once were. (FYI, the Tomb is not "pressure washed." It is gently steam cleaned twice a year, so it will not be damaged.)
Arlington's first Amphitheater was constructed of wood in 1874, and soon proved far too small. Congress authorized construction of the Memorial Amphitheater on March 4, 1913. Ground-breaking occurred on March 1, 1915, and President Woodrow Wilson placed the cornerstone on October 15, 1915. It was dedicated on May 15, 1920.
Originally, the main entrance to Memorial Amphitheater had a rectangular granite plaza in front of it, from which some short marble steps led down to a slightly elliptical granite plaza surrounded by a marble balustrade. From this overlook, you could see a rectangular grass lawn 20 feet below. But this soon changed...
Memorial Amphitheater was altered forever the year after its dedication. In 1917, America entered World War I. More than 1.3 million Americans served in Europe during the war, and more than 116,516 died. Just 4,221 were unidentified or missing; the missing (3,173) were the vast majority of them. Nonetheless, 1,100 "unidentified" American war dead was a burden on the national conscience, and the media focused heavily on grieving mothers with no body to bury. Some American generals suggested in 1919 that a "Tomb of an Unknown Soldier" be created in the United States. The idea didn't gain traction at first, but in 1920 both England and France held huge public ceremonies honoring their unknown dead. These received much press attention in the United States, and on February 4, 1921, Congress enacted legislation establishing a similar memorial. Some proponents of the memorial originally proposed burying the unknown soldier in the crypt beneath the Capitol Rotunda -- a crypt originally planned for George Washington (but politely declined by his family). Worried that the Capitol might become a mausoleum, Congress instead chose Arlington National Cemetery as the site for the new memorial. On March 4, 1921, with just hours left in his presidency, President Woodrow Wilson signed the legislation into law.
In the United States, preparation for the "Tomb of the Unknown Solider" was frantically under way. The newly-formed American Legion (a congressionally-chartered veterans' lobby group) was pressing as late as May 1921 for the body to be buried in the Capitol Crypt. This debate was not resolved until mid-July, and by then very little time remained to create the monument. Where to build the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery continued until October, when it was decided that the view from the Memorial Amphitheater's plaza was the most appropriate site.
The Tomb was cut unto the center of the short steps which led down to the granite overlook. Diggers buried downward until they reached the level of the lawn below. They then continued another 20 feet below the surface. The subsurface shaft was 16 feet from east to west and 9.5 feet from north to south, and filled with solid concrete. This formed the footings for the vault above. The footings had to be that deep and that large because tons of marble were going to be placed on top of them, and the memorial could not be permitted to sink or become destabilized. The vault itself was lined with marble. The vault's walls ranged in thickness from 7 feet at the bottom to 2 feet, 4 inches at the top. A plinth (or "sub-base") was set on top of the vault walls. The plinth serves as the base of the memorial proper, and also helps to conceal the rough, unfinished top of the vault walls. The plinth was made of three finished, rectangular pieces of marble which fitted over the vault walls like a collar. These are on the north, south, and west sides of the vault, and were the only part of the substructure visible in 1921. (They remain visible today; you can just see them in this image.) Four rectangular marble pieces form the actual base of the memorial. These were mortared to the top of the plinth. A rectangular marble capstone with curved sides was placed on top of the base. The capstone was pierced with the a hole to permit the coffin to be lowered into through the base, through the plinth, and to the bottom of the grave vault. The bottom of the vault was lined with 2 inches of French soil, taken from various battlefields in France.
The World War I unknown was interred as scheduled on November 11, 1921. More than 100,000 people attended the ceremonies, including the Premier of France, Aristide Briand; the former Premier of France, Rene Viviani (who led France through the war); Marshal Ferdinand Foch (who was Commander in Chief of Allied Forces in France); President Warren G. Harding, former President William Howard Taft, and former President Woodrow Wilson. One thousand "gold star mothers" (women who had lost a son in the war) attended the ceremony, as did every single living Medal of Honor winner. The entire United States Cabinet was there, and so was the entire United States Supreme Court. Every member of the House and Senate was present (although they had to stand in the colonnade). A large number of military personnel also attended the dedication. These included General John Pershing, who had led American forces in Europe; Lieutenant General Nelson Miles, former Commanding General of the Army; Admiral of the Fleet David Richard Beatty of the United Kingdom; General Armando Diaz, Marshal of Italy; General Baron Alphonse Jacques de Dixmude of Belgium; Frederick Lambart, 10th Earl of Cavan, commander of British forces in Italy; Arthur Balfour, former Prime Minster of the United Kingdom; and Tokugawa, Prince of Japan. Also conspicuous was Chief Plenty Coups of the Crow Nation, in full battle regalia and headdress.
President Harding bestowed on the unknown soldier the Medal of Honor and the Distinguished Service Cross (the latter was never awarded again). General Jacques presented the Croix de Guerre, Belgium's highest military honor. (He took from his own chest the medal, which had been bestowed on him by King Albert.) Admiral Beatty bestowed the Victoria Cross, which had never before been given to a foreigner. Marshal Foch bestowed the Medaille Militaire and the Croix de Guerre with palm, France's highest military honor. General Diaz gave the Gold Medal for Bravery, Prince Bibescu of Romania gave the Virtuta Militaire, Dr. Dedrich Stephenek of Czechoslovakia presented the Szechoslovakia War Cross, and Prince Lubomirski of Poland gave the Virtuti Militan. When the coffin was ready for lowering into the vault, Chief Plenty Coups removed his war bonnet and tenderly placed it and his coup-stick on the coffin. He raised his hands to the sky. "I place on this grave of this noble warrior this coup stick and this war bonnet," he said, "every eagle feather of which represents a deed of valor by my race. I hope that the Great Spirit will grant that these noble warriors have not given up their lives in vain and that there will be peace to all men hereafter." An artillery battery fired, and the coffin began to be lowered. An answering a battery of fire came from the ''USS Olympia'', an American destroyer lying at anchor in the Potomac River. "Taps" were played. Once the coffin lay on the floor of the vault, the centerpiece of the capstone was put in place and the tomb sealed.
But all that existed was the base. The actual cenotaph, which you see here, did not yet exist.
Congress authorized completion of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in July 1926. The Secretary of War held a design competition, with judges from Arlington National Cemetery, the American Battle Monuments Commission, and the Commission of Fine Arts. Only architects of national standing were permitted to enter the competition, and 74 submitted designs. Five were chosen as finalists, and required to submit plaster models of their proposals. Architect Lorimer Rich and sculptor Thomas Hudson Jones won the competition. Their design imitated a sarcophagus, but really was a solid block of marble. The design included a thin rectangular base to go on top of the existing capstone. Then there was the "die block" (the main monument), on top of which was a capstone. The die block featured Doric pilasters (fake columns) in low relief at the corners. On the east side (facing the Potomac River) was a sculpture in low relief of three figures, representing female Victory, Valor (male, to her left), and Peace (female). The north and south sides were divided into three sections by fluted Doric pilasters, with an inverted wreath on the upper portion of each section. On the west side (facing the amphitheater) was the inscription: "Here Rests In Honored Glory An American Soldier Known But To God." It is still not clear who came up with the phrase, but it had been used on crosses marking the graves of unknown soldiers in Europe as early as 1925. The judges asked that the approaches to the Tomb be improved as well. Clarence Renshaw designed the steps. The balustrade was removed, and the short series of steps extended outward and downward until they reached the lawn. A small landing exists two-thirds of the way down, after which the steps continue (wider than before). Congress approved funding for the memorial and new steps on February 29, 1929, and a contract to complete the Tomb was awarded on December 21, 1929. Quartermaster General Brig. Gen. Louis H. Bash oversaw the construction, which was done by Hegman and Harris.
The Vermont Marble Company provided the marble. This proved very problematic. The Yule Marble Quarry at Marble, Colorado, was chosen as the quarry. A year passed before suitable pieces of marble could be located at the quarry and mined. Three pieces had to be mined before a piece suitable for the 56-ton die block was found. Three pieces were mined and discarded before a fourth piece was found for the 18-ton base. But once the base arrived at Arlington, workers discovered an imperfection in the marble which caused it to be discarded. A fifth, sixth, and seventh piece of marble was then mined, but only the eighth piece was suitable and brought to the cemetery. Amazingly, a piece for the 14-ton capstone was found on the first try.
Work began on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in September 1931, but stopped for three months after a flaw in the base was found. Work resumed in December, and all three pieces were in place on December 31, 1931. Fabrication was completed on-site, with sculptor Jones working five days a week. The Tomb was completed and opened to the public on April 9, 1932. There was no dedication ceremony.
Car almost done some minor stuff yet to do but you get the idea. Maintenance boys are out having a look.
Tema da semana: Pin Up
esmaltes usados:
Os esmaltes usados foram : Elke metálico -Plugado e Colorama Amarelo Pop Art.
James managed to phone-capture an excellent moment in which I realized that being in South America meant that I've now been to 6 (!!!) continents, with only Antarctica left to go! Craziness! :)
(ironically, my brother happened to be in Antarctica at this exact moment:)
Outtake from the book about Houston Street Art I am on the verge of self-publishing, "Stay Up: Houston Street Art"
Will include work from:
Give Up
Weah
Dual
Cutthroat
Ack!
Eyesore
Coolidge
Shreddi
2:12
I second guessed whether this should go into the book or not since it shows the iconic razor print. Ended up doing something different, but there several razors that made it into the book.
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Vietnam was our original choice for a touring holiday back in 2015, mainly to see Halong Bay, but we got sidetracked by the gorgeous pictures of Myanmar in the brochures and ended up going there instead. Myanmar, and probably touring holidays in general, was hard work, we are both in our sixties and do not really travel that well after having a lot of pampered holidays in the Maldives, so after the final three hour wait in another airport lounge we said 'never again'. But three months later after sitting back and looking at the best set of holiday photo's we have ever taken, we realised what wonderful people we had met and amazing places we had seen and that you have to put up with airport lounges, train stations and car journeys to get that. So the next thing we knew we were booking another touring holiday to Vietnam with Mango Journeys based in Cambodia! Warren the owner of Mango, actually an Aussie guy, sorted out our itinerary, click to view, we booked a couple of flights and it was done. Vietnam has a lot of Buddhist tradition like Myanmar so we figured that the people would be similar to the lovely people of Myanmar we met last year. Plus the landscape and scenery looked so green and lush so it all boded well.
However when we arrived in Saigon, all the Vietnamese still call it Saigon, in mid December it turned out that it was still the rainy season. So it was quite cloudy, foggy and rainy.....and it stayed like that for most of the holiday actually. We hadn't quite bargained for that, Myanmar was dry and sunny at the same time last year so this was quite a dramatic change. We were also in their winter so no crops were growing, hence all the lovely green and golden paddy fields you see in the brochures were mostly brown and muddy. Vietnam is big and very busy, there were a huge amount of Chinese tourists here, especially at Ankor Wat in Cambodia. A lot of the local people traditionally come home from all over the world at this time of year to see their families, so the place is buzzing. The Vietnamese people are also a lot more 'tourist savvy' here compared with the totally charming Burmese people we met last year, they seem to have that air of indifference you get in developed western countries towards tourists.
It's all sounding a bit disappointing and I'm afraid that is how it felt quite a lot of the time. We were in Saigon for 2 days....way too busy for us. Then a boat trip to the Mekong Delta, sounds idyllic but actually just a big busy river, we never really got far enough into the smaller tributaries where it might be more like you imagine the Mekong Delta to look like. A flight to Siem Reap then a couple of days around Ankor Wat. This was undoubtedly the highlight of the holiday. The Angkor Archaeological Park is mind boggingly massive! It took us 45 minutes by car to reach the pink sandstone temple of Banteay Srei in one corner of the park! The distances involved when moving between the various temples are all the same.....huge! Ankor Wat itself covers an enormous area but hugely impressive. It shows the power of this place when you get to the entrance at 5:00am to watch the sunrise and there are already hundreds of people there! And it happens every day of the year apparently. Although hordes of people can bug you sometimes, the collective enjoyment factor seems to override that here, the place is just so awe inspiring.
We really enjoyed Cambodia, we wished we had spent more time there, we only met a few people but they all seemed to have more of that charm of the Burmese people. Cambodia has had an extremely troubled past, the war didn't end until 1998 and everybody appears to have been tainted by it. Our guide lost 15 of his immediate relatives to it, and a lot of people seem to have similar horrific tales to tell. The landmine museum we visited was a poignant reminder of those days and our guide was obviously quite emotional in his rendering of the museum's history and the people involved in it. As a result of the regime's slaughter of all the ruling elite including politicians, teachers, scholars and intellectuals Cambodia was left backward in the rapidly growing economy of south east Asia. They are moving in the right direction now, albeit slowly, and we both felt we should have spent more time there and given them more of the benefit of our tourist dollar.
Of all the other places we visited, Da Nang, Hoi An, Hue, Tam Coc, Mai Chau Valley, Hanoi and Halong Bay, Mai Chau Valley was like an oasis in a sea of traffic, busy people and tourists. When you look down at the valley from the main photo vantage point it has the look of the promised land, a lush green place nestling in the surrounding mountains.
We had a couple of lovely walks around here over two days enjoying the beatiful landscape and meeting a few of the local people. We realised afterwards that we should have stayed away from the cities and done more of this sort of stuff. We stopped and spoke to a lovely 68 year old lady in Mau Chau vilage, there was nothing to her she looked so thin and frail. She told us, interpreted by our guide, that her husband left when she was 36 years old and because of the culture she was never allowed to be with another man after that. Her only daughter was married at around the same time and again the culture dictates that she moved to the husband's village which was in south Vietnam. Her daughter is extremely poor and travel for local people is so expensive that it is extremely unlikely she will ever see her mother again. A small story but one that is probably played out a lot in this country. This amazing lady took us back to the one room brick built house with a small garden no bigger than your average shed that she now lives in. She managed to build it with help from the villagers who all seem to look after each other extremely well, so at least she now has somewhere dry to live. She was so welcoming though and showed us how she cooks, where she sleeps and the small garden she tends, it was without doubt the most touching moment of our holiday and one we will always remember.
If you like busy cities then Hanoi is probably a better option than Saigon, it has an old quarter that is strangely quaint for a big city, is a lot more photogenic and a nicer place to be. We were never taken to new Hanoi so I guess it's probably just like Saigon.
Halong Bay was the main inspiration to visit Vietnam in the first place. I saw photo's of this place back in 2014 when searching for more of the limestone karst scenery we had seen in Thailand's Phang Nga Bay on a previous holiday. The boat trip with an overnight stay was the holiday finale and supposed to be one of the highlights. I mistakenly thought we would be touring around Halong Bay the whole time....a foolish assumption! We sailed for about 30 minutes, during which time we had a briefing and some food, then we dropped anchor and that was it! It turned out to be more of a booze cruise, with kayaking, happy hour, games, karaoke and Tai Chi in the morning! Oh my God, what a waste! This place is massive and to just sail into it for half an hour seemed ridiculous to us. I know a lot of it looks the same but as a photographer you are looking for those subtle differences in composition and quality of light that make great photographs. You can't get that when you are sat in the same spot. I managed to get some reasonable photographs but overall, disappointing.....again!
As I write this back in the UK, I've just finshed post processing our holiday photo's after around four weeks work. Originally, because of the dull weather we had, I thought they were not going to be a patch on the photo's from Myanmar last year, but I have been pleasantly surprised. I am constantly amazed at what you can pull out of seemingly dull photographs with the help of Lightroom, Topaz Labs and Photomatix for HDR. Back in the days of film I used to love the punchy colours you could get on a sunny day with the help of a polarizing filter and Kodachrome 25! Nowadays with the help of modern software it's possible to get so much colour into photographs almost out of nowhere! I love making 'impression' type of pictures where the photo is transformed into a sort of painting....used judiciously they conjure up more of the feeling of a place than a straight photo. Those plus the power of HDR photography and Topaz Labs give our holiday snaps a warmth and colour that maybe isn't true to life but always makes them look amazing! No wonder we got suckered into doing another touring holiday.....the photo's just look so good!
A word about Mango Journeys, they were amazing. All the guides were there to greet us and look after us wherever we went and they all seemed to enjoy their work, which always helps. Everything on the itenerary worked out OK.....in the end! We had one hiccup where we missed our flight from Cambodia back into Vietnam but Warren stepped in at 9:00pm at night and got us on another flight and into a hotel without too much bother and no extra charge. As it was our first visit to Vietnam Mango tried to give us a bit of everything I guess, stuff that most tourists want to see. In hindsight and learning from our Burma trip last year we should have really studied the itinerary and made sure it included what WE wanted to do, especially staying away from big cities! We are quite new to touring so it's a learning process.
Our next holiday? As soon as we got home we knew we 'needed a holiday' it had been so busy with a lot of travelling. We booked a week on Veligandu in the Maldives at Easter! Back to our favourite place in the world! Not only that we decided to put touring on hold for a while and booked two weeks on Filitheyo for Christmas. Back to just sunbathing, snorkelling, scuba diving and chilling! Heaven!
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To view the rest of my Photography Collection click on Link below:
www.flickr.com/photos/nevillewootton/albums
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Photography & Equipment sponsored by my web business:
We are UK's leading Filter Specialists, selling online to the Plant, Agricultural, Commercial Vehicle and Marine Industries.
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PLEASE NOTE: I take Photographs purely as a hobby these days so am happy to share them with anyone who enjoys them or has a use for them. If you do use them an accreditation would be nice and if you benefit from them financially a donation to www.sightsavers.org would be really nice.
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