using a long exposure to have the clouds paint themselves across the evening sky.

 

5 minute 23 second exposure

 

Edited in Capture 1 Pro. To purchase/try it check out the link below.

 

Phase One Online Store

www.rickrose.co

Used old manual KO-120M (120mm f1.8)

projector lens with DIY focusing helicoid and m42 mount. All background and corners blur from lens, no PS was needed!

Optare Excel OP24 ex Go North East 8148 (S148OCU) and Leyland Lynx 2 ex Cardiff Bus 263 (J263UDW) are seen on a Summer lay-off in Galway August 2007

For your Art only, not for Sale on a Collage Sheet or CD

Used the CMN Lothian President for this one. Taken apart but just flatted down to get rid of the harlequin colour blocks and take the gloss off the white.

 

Window 'stickers' (several!)removed with T-cut and the model repainted with a coat of primer, 2 x undercoats and 2 x Phoenix white gloss. Not a bad white finish for a brush job!

 

Red line is a cheat - adhesive silver vinyl strip pre-painted and fixed into place.

 

This was actually a pig to do with everything being a bit too delicate (lost wipers as soon as touched!) and taking apart needs great care especially around the glued-in glazing.

 

My 4 year old son and his cousin's dog are the culprits in this ball's demise

The Baltimore & Ohio created a lap siding at Cairo, Ohio, with the middle of siding being at Main Street. If you look carefully you will see the dwarf signal displays a clear indication. In the meantime, CSX steel train K596 is pulling out of the north end of the siding onto the main. A northbound behind the photographer is in the south end of the siding and will pull onto the main as the steel train meets it.

Used the ef300 F4L IS USM with the X2 III extender on the 5D3, found that AF with the extender is *glacially* slow, completely useless for trying to catch smaller flighty birds but big slow ones like this - it's (almost) adequate. Keeper rate is truly dismal regardless of lens used.

The combination of frequent image degradation on my L tele primes + AF braking *massively* restricts the usability of the x2 III extender.

Using the car headlights again......

 

I had pulled my car over beside the Devil's Golf Course at Death Valley and this caught my eye...

using the Viltrox E/Z adapter to mount Sony E-mount lenses on the Z-Mount Nikons... 😮 now I can use the Voigtlander Heliar 15mm on the Zf too...without buying a "new" one

 

Sony FE 85mm /F1.8

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HIT THE 'L' KEY FOR A BETTER VIEW! Thanks for the favs and comments. Much Appreciated.

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All of my photographs are under copyright ©. None of these photographs may be reproduced and/or used in any way without my permission.

 

© VanveenJF Photography

Used JDM import, steering side changed in Chile

Using Lily Quilts tutorial: www.modabakeshop.com/2012/03/framed-art-pillows.html

Notorious bushranger of the 1870s, Harry Power used this natural vantage point to look out for approaching police.

 

From the Australian Dictionary of Biography online:

 

" Henry (Harry) Power (1820-1891), bushranger, also known as Johnson, was born at Waterford, Ireland. He was transported for seven years in 1840 for stealing a pair of shoes, and arrived at Hobart Town in the Isabella on 21 May 1842. He received a ticket-of-leave in November 1847 and certificate of freedom in September 1848, and then moved to the Port Phillip District. He became a horse-dealer at Geelong, but was attracted by the gold discoveries. Stopped by two troopers at Daisy Hill, near Maryborough, in March 1855 on suspicion of horse-stealing, he wounded one of the police. A week later he was arrested whilst attempting to cross the Murray River and was sentenced on 25 September 1855 to thirteen years on the roads.

 

Confined to the hulk Success, Johnson was implicated with Captain Melville and others in the murder of Owen Owens and John Turner on 22 October 1856, but was found not guilty. After two years and a half in the hulks, he was transferred to Pentridge stockade. As Power he escaped in 1862, and lived at Middle Creek in the Ovens District, where he was assisted by the Kelly, Quinn and Lloyd families. Arrested on a charge of horse-stealing, he was sentenced at Beechworth on 19 February 1864 to seven years on the roads.

 

Power again escaped from Pentridge on 16 February 1869. He was assisted briefly by Ned Kelly, who was then 13, but the arrangement proved unsatisfactory and thereafter Power operated independently. He held up the mail-coach at Porepunkah on 7 May and another coach on the Longwood-Mansfield Road on the 22nd. These were the first of over a year's depredations, during which Power claimed to have committed over 600 robberies.

 

In September the Victorian government offered a reward of £200, soon increased to £500, for Power's arrest; as a result he moved to New South Wales. He soon returned to Victoria where police efforts to capture him proved fruitless until he was arrested on 5 June 1870 by Superintendents Nicolson and Hare, who with Sergeant Montford and a black tracker, surprised Power in his hide-out (Power's Lookout) overlooking the Quinn property on the King River. The police were led there by James Quinn, who received the reward of £500. Power was sentenced at Beechworth to fifteen-years hard labour on three counts of bushranging and was again held at Pentridge.

 

In 1877, after accounts of Power's ill health by the 'Vagabond' in the Argus, he was released on the application of several women, including Lady Janet Clarke. He worked on the Clarke property at Sunbury until he became a guide of the hulk Success in 1891. His body was found in the Murray River; he died 'on or about 11 October 1891 … near Swan Hill from drowning … there is nothing to show how he came into the river'.

 

Power was a fearless and daring rider and bushman, but never killed police or his victims. He broke from prison several times, defied the police in the Ovens District for a decade and was finally convicted through an informer."

Por favor, no use esta imagen en su web, blogs u otros medios sin mi permiso explícito. © Todos los derechos reservados.

© Alejandro Cárdaba Rubio/2015

 

Los múltiples y monumentales edificios de la explanada de Chichén Itzá están presididos por la Pirámide de Kukulcán, llamada por muchos "el Castillo", uno de los edificios paradigmáticos de la arquitectura maya. Es una pirámide de cuatro lados que culmina en un templo rectangular. Se asienta sobre una plataforma rectangular de 55,5 metros de ancho y tiene una altura de 24 metros. Cada lado de la pirámide tiene una gran escalinata, 91 escalones por lado y 1 más que conduce al templo superior, dando 365 escalones, uno por día del año. Balaustradas de piedra flanquean cada escalera, y en la base de la escalinata norte se asientan dos colosales cabezas de serpientes emplumadas, efigies del dios Kukulcán. Es en estas escalinatas y muy particularmente en sus pretiles o balaustradas, donde se proyectan durante el transcurso del día equinoccial, las sombras de las aristas de las plataformas o basamentos superpuestos, que integran el gran edificio, configurándose así la imagen del cuerpo de la serpiente-dios, que al paso de las horas parece moverse descendiendo y rematando en la mencionada cabeza pétrea situada en la base inferior de la escalinata.

Es en este juego de luz y sombra, que representa la "bajada" de Kukulcán a la tierra, como quisieron los mayas simbolizar el mandato superior de acudir a la labor agrícola, ante la inminencia de la llegada de las lluvias, al concluir el mes de marzo en que se inicia la temporada de siembra de la milpa en la región.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The many monumental buildings and the Esplanade of Chichen Itza are chaired by the Pyramid of Kukulcan, called by many "the Castle", one of the paradigmatic buildings of Mayan architecture. It is a four-sided pyramid which culminates in a rectangular temple. It sits on a rectangular platform of 55.5 meters wide and has a height of 24 meters. Each side of the pyramid has a grand staircase, 91 steps per side and 1 more leads to the upper temple, giving 365 steps, one day of the year. Stone balustrades flanking each stairway, and at the base of the north staircase two colossal heads of feathered serpents, effigies of the god Kukulcan settle. It is in these steps and particularly in its parapets or balustrades, which projects over the course of equinoctial day, the shadows of the edges of platforms or bases overlapping, which make up the large building, thereby constituting the image of the body of the snake God, that the passing hours and topping seems to move down in the aforementioned head stone at the bottom base of the staircase.

It is in this play of light and shadow, which represents the "down" Kukulcan to land, as they wanted the Mayans symbolize the superior command to go to the farm work, given the imminent arrival of the rains, at the end of the month March when the planting season begins cornfield in the region.

 

Más Información / More Information: es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chichén_Itzá

Don't use without permission of Bas Fransen

 

Please HELP ME win this photo contest.

 

You only have to select "Foto 12" and hit the "Stem" button on the following website:

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Damascus

 

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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For other uses, see Damascus (disambiguation).

Damascus

دمشق Dimashq

 

View of Damascus from a bank of Barada river.

Nickname(s): (Al-Fayhaa) The Fragrant City

 

Damascus

 

Coordinates: 33°30′47″N 36°17′31″E / 33.51306°N 36.29194°E / 33.51306; 36.29194

Country Syria

Governorates Damascus Governorate, Capital City

Government

- Governor Bishr Al Sabban

Area

- City 573 km2 (221.2 sq mi)

- Metro 1,200 km2 (463.3 sq mi)

Elevation 600 m (1,969 ft)

Population (2007)[citation needed]

- City over 4 million

- Metro 6,500,000

Time zone EET (UTC+2)

- Summer (DST) EEST (UTC+3)

Area code(s) Country code: 963, City code: 11

Demonym Damascene

Damascus (Arabic: دمشق‎, transliteration: Dimashq, also commonly known as الشام ash-Shām) is the capital and largest city of Syria. It is one of the the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world and its current population is estimated at about 4,000,000[citation needed]. The city is a governorate by itself, and the capital of the governorate of Rif Dimashq ("Rural Damascus").

   

Etymology

In Arabic, the city is called دمشق الشام (Dimashq ash-Shām), although this is often shortened to either Dimashq or ash-Shām by the citizens of Damascus, of Syria and other Arab neighbors. Ash-Shām is an Arabic term for north and for Syria (Syria—particularly historical Greater Syria—is called Bilād ash-Shām—بلاد الشام, "land of the north"—in Arabic.) The etymology of the ancient name "Damascus" is uncertain, but it is suspected to be pre-Semitic. It is attested as Dimašqa in Akkadian, T-ms-ḳw in Egyptian, Dammaśq (דמשק) in Old Aramaic and Dammeśeq (דמשק) in Biblical Hebrew. The Akkadian spelling is the earliest attestation, found in the Amarna letters, from the 14th century BCE. Later Aramaic spellings of the name often include an intrusive resh (letter r), perhaps influenced by the root dr, meaning "dwelling". Thus, the Qumranic Darmeśeq (דרמשק), and Darmsûq (ܕܪܡܣܘܩ) in Syriac.[1][2]

  

History

Ancient City of Damascus*

UNESCO World Heritage Site

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

State Party Syria

Type Cultural

Criteria i, ii, iii, iv, vi

Reference 20

Region** Arab States

Inscription history

Inscription 1979 (3rd Session)

* Name as inscribed on World Heritage List.

** Region as classified by UNESCO.

 

Ancient history

Excavations at Tell Ramad on the outskirts of the city have demonstrated that Damascus has been inhabited as early as 8,000 to 10,000 BC. It is due to this that Damascus is considered to be among the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world. However, Damascus is not documented as an important city until the coming of the Aramaeans, Semitic nomads who arrived from Mesopotamia. It is known that it was the Aramaeans who first established the water distribution system of Damascus by constructing canals and tunnels which maximized the efficiency of the Barada river. The same network was later improved by the Romans and the Umayyads, and still forms the basis of the water system of the old part of Damascus today. It was mentioned in Genesis 14 as existing at the time of the War of the Kings.

 

According to the 1st century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus in his twenty-one volume Antiquities of the Jews, Damascus (along with Trachonitis), was founded by Uz, the son of Aram. Elsewhere, he stated:

 

Nicolaus of Damascus, in the fourth book of his History, says thus: "Abraham reigned at Damascus, being a foreigner, who came with an army out of the land above Babylon, called the land of the Chaldeans: but, after a long time, he got him up, and removed from that country also, with his people, and went into the land then called the land of Canaan, but now the land of Judea, and this when his posterity were become a multitude; as to which posterity of his, we relate their history in another work. Now the name of Abraham is even still famous in the country of Damascus; and there is shown a village named from him, The Habitation of Abraham.

 

Damascus is designated as having been part of the ancient province of Amurru in the Hyksos Kingdom, from 1720 to 1570 BC. (MacMillan, pp. 30–31). Some of the earliest Egyptian records are from the 1350 BC Amarna letters, when Damascus-(called Dimasqu) was ruled by king Biryawaza. In 1100 BC, the city became the center of a powerful Aramaean state called Aram Damascus. The Kings of Aram Damascus were involved in many wars in the area against the Assyrians and the Israelites. One of the Kings, Ben-Hadad II, fought Shalmaneser III at the Battle of Qarqar. The ruins of the Aramean town most probably lie under the eastern part of the old walled city. After Tiglath-Pileser III captured and destroyed the city in 732 BC, it lost its independence for hundreds of years, and it fell to the Neo-Babylonian Empire of Nebuchadnezzar starting in 572 BC. The Babylonian rule of the city came to an end in 538 BC when the Persians under Cyrus captured the city and made it the capital of the Persian province of Syria.

  

Greco-Roman

Damascus first came under western control with the giant campaign of Alexander the Great that swept through the near east. After the death of Alexander in 323 BC, Damascus became the site of a struggle between the Seleucid and Ptolemaic empires. The control of the city passed frequently from one empire to the other. Seleucus Nicator, one of Alexander's generals, had made Antioch the capital of his vast empire, a decision that led Damascus' importance to decline compared with the newly founded Seleucid cities such as Latakia in the north.

 

In 64 BC, the Roman general Pompey annexed the western part of Syria. The Romans occupied Damascus and subsequently incorporated it into the league of ten cities known as the Decapolis because it was considered such an important center of Greco-Roman culture. According to the New Testament, St. Paul was on the road to Damascus when he received a vision, was struck blind and as a result converted to Christianity. In the year 37, Roman Emperor Caligula transferred Damascus into Nabataean control by decree.[citation needed] The Nabataean king Aretas IV Philopatris ruled Damascus from his capital Petra. However, around the year 106, Nabataea was conquered by the Romans, and Damascus returned to Roman control.

 

Damascus became a metropolis by the beginning of the second century and in 222 it was upgraded to a colonia by the Emperor Septimius Severus. During the Pax Romana, Damascus and the Roman province of Syria in general began to prosper. Damascus's importance as a caravan city was evident with the trade routes from southern Arabia, Palmyra, Petra, and the silk routes from China all converging on it. The city satisfied the Roman demands for eastern luxuries.

 

Little remains of the architecture of the Romans, but the town planning of the old city did have a lasting effect. The Roman architects brought together the Greek and Aramaean foundations of the city and fused them into a new layout measuring approximately 1,500 metres (4,900 ft) by 750 metres (2,500 ft), surrounded by a city wall. The city wall contained seven gates, but only the eastern gate (Bab Sharqi) remains from the Roman period. Roman Damascus lies mostly at depths of up to five meters (16.4 ft) below the modern city.

 

The old borough of Bab Tuma was developed at the end of the Roman/Byzantine era by the local Eastern Orthodox community. According to the Acts of the Apostles, Saint Paul and Saint Thomas both lived in that neighborhood. Roman Catholic historians also consider Bab Tuma to be the birthplace of several Popes such as John V and Gregory III.

  

Islamic Arab period

 

The Umayyad Mosque

Alsayyida Zaynab shrine domeDamascus was conquered by the Rashidun Caliphate during the reign of Umar by forces under Khaled ibn al-Walid in 634 CE. Immediately thereafter, the city's power and prestige reached its peak when it became the capital of the Umayyad Empire, which extended from Spain to India from 661 to 750. In 744, the last Umayyad caliph, Marwan II, moved the capital to Harran in the Jazira,[3] and Damascus was never to regain the political prominence it had held in that period.

 

After the fall of the Umayyads and the establishment of the Abbasid caliphate in 750, Damascus was ruled from Baghdad, although in 858 al-Mutawakkil briefly established his residence there with the intention of transferring his capital there from Samarra. However, he soon abandoned the idea. As the Abbasid caliphate declined, Damascus suffered from the prevailing instability, and came under the control of local dynasties.

 

In 970, the Fatimid Caliphs in Cairo gained control of Damascus. This was to usher in a turbulent period in the city's history, as the Berber troops who formed the backbone of the Fatimid forces became deeply unpopular among its citizens. The presence in Syria of the Qaramita and occasionally of Turkish military bands added to the constant pressure from the Bedouin. For a brief period from 978, Damascus was self-governing, under the leadership of a certain Qassam and protected by a citizen militia. However, the Ghouta was ravaged by the Bedouin and after a Turkish-led campaign the city once again surrendered to Fatimid rule. From 1029 to 1041 the Turkish military leader Anushtakin was governor of Damascus under the Fatimid caliph Al-Zahir, and did much to restore the city's prosperity.

 

It appears that during this period the slow transformation of Damascus from a Graeco-Roman city layout - characterised by blocks of insulae — to a more familiar Islamic pattern took place: the grid of straight streets changed to a pattern of narrow streets, with most residents living inside harat closed off at night by heavy wooden gates to protect against criminals and the exactions of the soldiery.

  

Seljuks and Crusader rule

 

The statue of Saladin in front of Damascus citadel.

Azem Palace.

Damascus WallsWith the arrival of the Seljuk Turks in the late 11th century, Damascus again became the capital of independent states. It was ruled by a Seljuk dynasty from 1079 to 1104, and then by another Turkish dynasty - the Burid Emirs, who withstood a siege of the city during the Second Crusade in 1148 . In 1154 Damascus was conquered from the Burids by the famous Zengid Atabeg Nur ad-Din of Aleppo, the great foe of the Crusaders. He made it his capital, and following his death, it was acquired by Saladin, the ruler of Egypt, who also made it his capital. Saladin rebuilt the citadel, and it is reported that under his rule the suburbs were as extensive as the city itself. It is reported by Ibn Jubayr that during the time of Saladin, Damascus welcomed seekers of knowledge and industrious youth from around the world, who arrived for the sake of "undistracted study and seclusion" in Damascus' many colleges.

 

In the years following Saladin's death in 1193, there were frequent conflicts between different Ayyubid sultans ruling in Damascus and Cairo. Damascus was the capital of independent Ayyubid rulers between 1193 and 1201, from 1218 to 1238, from 1239 to 1245, and from 1250 to 1260. At other times it was ruled by the Ayyubid rulers of Egypt. Damascus steel gained a legendary reputation among the Crusaders, and patterned steel is still "damascened". The patterned Byzantine and Chinese silks available through Damascus, one of the Western termini of the Silk Road, gave the English language "damask".

  

Mamluk rule

Ayyubid rule (and independence) came to an end with the Mongol invasion of Syria in 1260, and following the Mongol defeat at Ain Jalut in the same year, Damascus became a provincial capital of the Mamluk Empire, ruled from Egypt, following the Mongol withdrawal.

  

Timurlane

In 1400 Timur, the Turco-Mongol conqueror, besieged Damascus. The Mamluk sultan dispatched a deputation from Cairo, including Ibn Khaldun, who negotiated with him, but after their withdrawal he put the city to sack. The Umayyad Mosque was burnt and men and women taken into slavery. A huge number of the city's artisans were taken to Timur's capital at Samarkand. These were the luckier citizens: many were slaughtered and their heads piled up in a field outside the north-east corner of the walls, where a city square still bears the name burj al-ru'us, originally "the tower of heads".

 

Rebuilt, Damascus continued to serve as a Mamluk provincial capital until 1516.

  

The Ottoman conquest

 

Khan As'ad Pasha was built in 1752In early 1516, the Ottoman Turks, wary of the danger of an alliance between the Mamluks and the Persian Safavids, started a campaign of conquest against the Mamluk sultanate. On 21 September, the Mamluk governor of Damascus fled the city, and on 2 October the khutba in the Umayyad mosque was pronounced in the name of Selim I. The day after, the victorious sultan entered the city, staying for three months. On 15 December, he left Damascus by Bab al-Jabiya, intent on the conquest of Egypt. Little appeared to have changed in the city: one army had simply replaced another. However, on his return in October 1517, the sultan ordered the construction of a mosque, taqiyya and mausoleum at the shrine of Shaikh Muhi al-Din ibn Arabi in al-Salihiyah. This was to be the first of Damascus' great Ottoman monuments.

 

The Ottomans remained for the next 400 years, except for a brief occupation by Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt from 1832 to 1840 . Because of its importance as the point of departure for one of the two great Hajj caravans to Mecca, Damascus was treated with more attention by the Porte than its size might have warranted — for most of this period, Aleppo was more populous and commercially more important. In 1560 the Taqiyya al-Sulaimaniyya, a mosque and khan for pilgrims on the road to Mecca, was completed to a design by the famous Ottoman architect Sinan, and soon afterwards a madrasa was built adjoining it.

  

The destroyed Christian quarter of Damascus, 1860.Perhaps the most notorious incident of these centuries was the massacre of Christians in 1860, when fighting between Druze (most probably supported by foreign countries to weaken the economical power) and Maronites in Mount Lebanon spilled over into the city. Several thousand Christians were killed, with many more being saved through the intervention of the Algerian exile Abd al-Qadir and his soldiers (three days after the massacre started), who brought them to safety in Abd al-Qadir's residence and the citadel. The Christian quarter of the old city (mostly inhabited by Catholics), including a number of churches, was burnt down. The Christian inhabitants of the notoriously poor and refractory Midan district outside the walls (mostly Orthodox) were, however, protected by their Muslim neighbours.

 

American Missionary E.C. Miller records that in 1867 the population of the city was 'about' 140,000, of whom 30,000 where Christians, 10,000 Jews and 100,000 'Mohammedans' with less than 100 Protestant Christians.[4]

  

Rise of Arab nationalism

In the early years of the twentieth century, nationalist sentiment in Damascus, initially cultural in its interest, began to take a political colouring, largely in reaction to the turkicisation programme of the Committee of Union and Progress government established in Istanbul in 1908. The hanging of a number of patriotic intellectuals by Jamal Pasha, governor of Damascus, in Beirut and Damascus in 1915 and 1916 further stoked nationalist feeling, and in 1918, as the forces of the Arab Revolt and the British army approached, residents fired on the retreating Turkish troops.

  

Modern

 

The Turkish Hospital in Damascus on 1 October 1918, shortly after the entry of the 4th Australian Light Horse Regiment.

Damascus in flames as the result of the French air raid on October 18, 1925.On 1 October 1918, the forces of the Arab revolt led by Nuri as-Said entered Damascus. The same day, Australian soldiers from the 4th and 10th Light Horse Regiments reinforced with detachments from the British Yeomanry Mounted Division entered the city and accepted its surrender from the Turkish appointed Governor Emir Said (installed as Governor the previous afternoon by the retreating Turkish Commander)[1][2]. A military government under Shukri Pasha was named. Other British forces including T. E. Lawrence followed later that day, and Faisal ibn Hussein was proclaimed king of Syria. Political tension rose in November 1917, when the new Bolshevik government in Russia revealed the Sykes-Picot Agreement whereby Britain and France had arranged to partition the Arab east between them. A new Franco-British proclamation on 17 November promised the "complete and definitive freeing of the peoples so long oppressed by the Turks." The Syrian Congress in March adopted a democratic constitution. However, the Versailles Conference had granted France a mandate over Syria, and in 1920 a French army commanded by the General Mariano Goybet crossed the Anti-Lebanon Mountains, defeated a small Syrian defensive expedition at the Battle of Maysalun and entered Damascus. The French made Damascus capital of their League of Nations Mandate of Syria.

 

When in 1925 the Druze revolt in the Hauran spread to Damascus, the French suppressed it brutally, bombing and shelling the city. The area of the old city between Al-Hamidiyah Souq and Medhat Pasha Souq was burned to the ground, with many deaths, and has since then been known as al-Hariqa ("the fire"). The old city was surrounded with barbed wire to prevent rebels infiltrating from the Ghouta, and a new road was built outside the northern ramparts to facilitate the movement of armored cars.

 

On 21 June 1941, Damascus was captured from the Vichy French forces by the Allies during the Syria-Lebanon campaign.

 

In 1945 the French once more bombed Damascus, but on this occasion British forces intervened and the French agreed to withdraw, thus leading to the full independence of Syria in 1946 . Damascus remained the capital. With the influx of Iraqi refugees beginning in 2003, and funds from the Persian Gulf, Damascus has been going through an economic boom ever since.

  

Geography

 

Damascus in spring seen from Spot satelliteDamascus lies about 80 km (50 mi) inland from the Mediterranean Sea, sheltered by the Anti-Lebanon Mountains. It lies on a plateau 680 metres (2,200 ft) above sea-level.

 

The old city of Damascus, enclosed by the city walls, lies on the south bank of the river Barada which is almost dry(3 cm left). To the south-east, north and north-east it is surrounded by suburban areas whose history stretches back to the Middle Ages: Midan in the south-west, Sarouja and Imara in the north and north-west. These districts originally arose on roads leading out of the city, near the tombs of religious figures. In the nineteenth century outlying villages developed on the slopes of Jabal Qasioun, overlooking the city, already the site of the al-Salihiyah district centred around the important shrine of Sheikh Muhi al-Din ibn Arabi. These new districts were initially settled by Kurdish soldiery and Muslim refugees from the European regions of the Ottoman Empire which had fallen under Christian rule. Thus they were known as al-Akrad (the Kurds) and al-Muhajirin (the migrants). They lay two to three kilometres (2 mi) north of the old city.

 

From the late nineteenth century on, a modern administrative and commercial centre began to spring up to the west of the old city, around the Barada, centred on the area known as al-Marjeh or the meadow. Al-Marjeh soon became the name of what was initially the central square of modern Damascus, with the city hall on it. The courts of justice, post office and railway station stood on higher ground slightly to the south. A Europeanised residential quarter soon began to be built on the road leading between al-Marjeh and al-Salihiyah. The commercial and administrative centre of the new city gradually shifted northwards slightly towards this area.

 

In the twentieth century, newer suburbs developed north of the Barada, and to some extent to the south, invading the Ghouta oasis. From 1955 the new district of Yarmouk became a second home to thousands of Palestinian refugees. City planners preferred to preserve the Ghouta as far as possible, and in the later twentieth century some of the main areas of development were to the north, in the western Mezzeh district and most recently along the Barada valley in Dummar in the northwest and on the slopes of the mountains at Berze in the north-east. Poorer areas, often built without official approval, have mostly developed south of the main city.

 

Damascus used to be surrounded by an oasis, the Ghouta region (الغوطة al-ġūṭä), watered by the Barada river. The Fijeh spring, west along the Barada valley, used to provides the city with drinking water. The Ghouta oasis has been decreasing in size with the rapid expansion of housing and industry in the city and it is almost dry. It has also become polluted due to the city's traffic, industry, and sewage.

  

Climate

Damascus' climate is semi arid, due to rain shadow effect of Anti-Lebanon mountain. Summers are hot with less humidity. Winters are cool and rainy or snowy. January Maximum & Minimum Temperatures are 11 °C (52 °F) and 0 °C (32 °F), lowest ever recorded are −13.5 °C (8 °F), The summer August Maximum & Minimum Temperature are 35 °C (95 °F) and 17 °C (63 °F), Highest ever recorded are 45.5 °C (113.9 °F), Annual rainfall around 20 cm (8 in), occur from November to March.[5]

 

Weather averages for Damascus

Month Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Year

Average high °C (°F) 11

(53) 13

(57) 17

(64) 23

(74) 28

(84) 33

(92) 36

(96) 36

(96) 33

(91) 27

(81) 19

(67) 13

(56) 24

(76)

Average low °C (°F) 0

(33) 2

(36) 4

(40) 7

(46) 11

(52) 14

(58) 16

(62) 17

(63) 13

(57) 9

(49) 4

(40) 1

(35) 8

(48)

Precipitation cm (inches) 3

(1.5) 3

(1.3) 2

(0.9) 1

(0.5) 0

(0.2) 0

(0) 0

(0) 0

(0) 0

(0) 1

(0.4) 2

(1) 4

(1.7) 19

(7.6)

Source: Weatherbase[5] 2008

  

Demographics

 

People

 

Three Damascene women; lady wearing qabqabs, a Druze, and a peasant, 1873.The majority of the population in Damascus came as a result of rural-urban migration. It is believed that the local people of Damascus, called Damascene, are about 1.5 million. Damascus is considered by most people to be a very safe city. Haggling is common, especially in the traditional souks. Corruption is widespread, but in the past few years there have been aims at combating it, by both the government and non-governmental organizations. Tea, Mate (popular caffeinated beverage made from Yerba mate), and Turkish Coffee are the most common beverages in Damascus.

 

Religion

The majority of the inhabitants of Damascus—about 75%—are Sunni Muslims. It is believed that there are more than 2,000 mosques in Damascus, the most well-known being the Umayyad Mosque. Christians represent the remaining 15% and there a number of Christian districts, such as Bab Tuma, Kassaa, and Ghassani, with many churches, most notably the ancient Chapel of Saint Paul.

  

Historical sites

 

House of Saint AnaniasDamascus has a wealth of historical sites dating back to many different periods of the city's history. Since the city has been built up with every passing occupation, it has become almost impossible to excavate all the ruins of Damascus that lie up to 8 feet (2.4 m) below the modern level. The Citadel of Damascus is located in the northwest corner of the Old City. The Street Called Straight (referred to in the conversion of St. Paul in Acts 9:11), also known as the Via Recta, was the decumanus (East-West main street) of Roman Damascus, and extended for over 1,500 metres (4,900 ft). Today, it consists of the street of Bab Sharqi and the Souk Medhat Pasha, a covered market. The Bab Sharqi street is filled with small shops and leads to the old Christian quarter of Bab Tuma (St. Thomas's Gate). Souk Medhat Pasha is also a main market in Damascus and was named after Medhat Pasha, the Ottoman governor of Syria who renovated the Souk. At the end of the Bab Sharqi street, one reaches the House of Ananias, an underground chapel that was the cellar of Ananias's house. The Umayyad Mosque, also known as the Grand Mosque of Damascus, is one of the largest mosques in the world, and one of the oldest sites of continuous prayer since the rise of Islam. A shrine in the mosque is said to contain the head of Husayn ibn Ali and the body of St. John the Baptist. The mausoleum where Saladin was buried is located in the gardens just outside the mosque. Sayyidah Ruqayya Mosque, the shrine of the yongest daughter of Husayn ibn Ali, can also be found near the Umayyad Mosque. Another heavily visited site is Sayyidah Zaynab Mosque, which is the tomb of Zaynab bint Ali.

  

The walls and gates of Damascus

v • d • eOld City of Damascus

 

Azm PalaceDamascus

CitadelUmayyad Mosque

Gates

al-Jabiya · al-Saghir · Kisan · Sharqi · Tuma · al-Salam · Faradis

The Old City of Damascus is surrounded by ramparts on the northern and eastern sides and part of the southern side. There are seven extant city gates, the oldest of which dates back to the Roman period. These are, clockwise from the north of the citadel:

 

Bab al-Saghir (The Small Gate)

Bab al-Faradis ("the gate of the orchards", or "of the paradise")

Bab al-Salam ("the gate of peace"), all on the north boundary of the Old City

Bab Tuma ("Touma" or "Thomas's Gate") in the north-east corner, leading into the Christian quarter of the same name,

Bab Sharqi ("eastern gate") in the east wall, the only one to retain its Roman plan

Bab Kisan in the south-east, from which tradition holds that Saint Paul made his escape from Damascus, lowered from the ramparts in a basket; this gate is now closed and a chapel marking the event has been built into the structure,

Bab al-Jabiya at the entrance to Souk Midhat Pasha, in the south-west.

Other areas outside the walled city also bear the name "gate": Bab al-Faraj, Bab Mousalla and Bab Sreija, both to the south-west of the walled city.

  

Churches in the old city

 

The Minaret of the Bride, Umayyad Mosque in old Damascus.

Sayyidah Zaynab Mosque

Sayyidah Ruqayya MosqueCathedral of Damascus.

Virgin Mary's Cathedral.

House of Saint Ananias.

Chapel of Saint Paul.

The Roman Catholic Cathedral in Zaitoon (Olive) Alley.

The Damascene Saint Johan church.

Saint Paul's Laura.

Saint Georgeus's sanctuary.

 

Islamic sites in the old city

Sayyidah Zaynab Mosque

Sayyidah Ruqayya Mosque

Bab Saghir cemetery

Umayyad Mosque

Saladin Shrine.

 

Madrasas

Al-Adiliyah Madrasa.

Az-Zahiriyah Library.

Nur al-Din Madrasa.

 

Old Damascene houses

Azm Palace

Bayt al-Aqqad (Danish Institute in Damascus)

Maktab Anbar

Beit al-Mamlouka (Boutique Hotel)

 

Khans

Khan Jaqmaq

Khan As'ad Pasha

Khan Sulayman Pasha

 

Threats to the future of the old City

Due to the rapid decline of the population of Old Damascus (between 1995-2005 more than 20,000 people moved out of the old city for more modern accommodation), a growing number of buildings are being abandoned or are falling into disrepair. In March 2007, the local government announced that it would be demolishing Old City buildings along a 1,400-metre (4,600 ft) stretch of rampart walls as part of a redevelopment scheme. These factors resulted in the Old City being placed by the World Monuments Fund on its 2008 Watch List of the 100 Most Endangered Sites in the world. It is hoped that its inclusion on the list will draw more public awareness to these significant threats to the future of the historic Old City of Damascus.

  

Current state of old Damascus

In spite of the recommendations of the UNESCO World Heritage Center:[3]

 

Souk El Atik, a protected buffer zone, was destroyed in three days in November 2006;

King Faysal Street, a traditional hand-craft region in a protected buffer zone near the walls of Old Damascus between the Citadel and Bab Touma, is threatened by a proposed motorway.

In 2007, the Old City of Damascus and notably the district of Bab Tuma have been recognized by The World Monument Fund as one of the most endangered sites in the world.[4]

 

Subdivisions

 

The ancient city of Damascus around the Omayyad Mosque

Azmeh Square in downtown DamascusDamascus is divided into many districts. Among them there are:

 

Abbasiyyin

Abou Rummaneh

Amara

Bahsa

Baramkah

Barzeh

Dummar

Jobar

Kafar Souseh

Malki

Mazraa

Mezzeh

Midan

Muhajreen

Qanawat

Rukn Eddeen

Al-Salihiyah

Sarouja

Sha'alan

Shaghoor

Tijara

 

ducation

Damascus is the main center of education in Syria. It is home to Damascus University, which is the oldest and by far the largest university in Syria. After the enactment of legislation allowing private secondary institutions, several new universities were established in the city and in the surrounding area.

  

Universities

 

Damascus National Museum.Damascus University

Syrian Virtual University

International University for Science and Technology

Higher Institute of Business Administration (HIBA)

Higher Institute for Applied Science and Technology (HIAST)

University of Kalamoon

Arab European University

National Institute of Administration

 

Transportation

 

Al-Hijaz StationThe main airport is Damascus International Airport, approximately 20 km (12 mi) away from the city center, with connections to many Asian, Europe, African, and recently, South American cities. Streets in Damascus are often narrow, mostly in the older parts of the city, and speed bumps are widely used to limit the speed.

 

Public transport in Damascus depends extensively on minibuses. There are about one hundred lines that operate inside the city and some of them extend from the city center to nearby suburbs. There is no schedule for the lines, and due to the limited number of official bus stops, buses will usually stop wherever a passenger needs to get on or off. The number of buses serving the same line is relatively high, which minimizes the waiting time. Lines are not numbered, rather they are given captions mostly indicating the two end points and possibly an important station along the line.

 

Al-Hijaz railway station, lies in the city center. Currently this station is closed, and railway connections with other cities take place in a suburb.

 

In 2008, the government announced a plan to construct an underground system in Damascus with opening time for the green line scheduled for 2015 Damascus Metro

  

Culture

Damascus was the 2008 Arab Capital of Culture.

  

Museums

National Museum of Damascus

Azem Palace

Military Museum

Museum of Arabic Calligraphy

 

Leisure activities

 

Damascus by night, pictured from Jabal Qasioun; the green spots are minarets

Parks and gardens

Tishreen Park is by far the largest park in Damascus. It is home to the yearly held Damascus Flower Show. Other parks include Aljahiz, Al sibbki, Altijara and Alwahda. Damascus' Ghouta (Oasis) is also a popular destination for recreation.

  

Cafe culture

Cafes are popular meeting spots for Damascene, where Arghilehs (water pipes) and popular beverages are served. Card games, Tables (backgammon variants), and chess are common in these cafes.

  

Sports

Popular sports include football, basketball, swimming and table tennis. Damascus is home to many sports clubs, such as:

 

Al Jaish

Al Wahda

Al Majd

Barada

 

Nearby attractions

Madaya

Bloudan

Zabadani

Maaloula

Saidnaya

 

Born in Damascus

Hadadezer King of Aram Damascus and leader of the coalition the 12 kings coalition that fought against Shalmaneser III

Nicolaus of Damascus (historian and philosopher)

John of Damascus (676-749) Christian saint

Ananias (Christian disciple involved in healing and preaching to Paul the Apostle)

Sophronius (Patriarch of Jerusalem)

Abd ar-Rahman I, Founder of Omayyad dynasty in Cordoba.

Izzat Husrieh, A renowned journalist and founder of the Syrian labor unions.

Khalid al-Azm, Former prime minister of Syria.

Shukri al-Quwatli, Former Syrian president and co-founder of the United Arab Republic.

Muna Wassef ( A Movie Star, and a United Nations Goodwill ambassador.)

Damascius (Byzantine philosopher)

Yasser Seirawan (chess player)

Ahmed Kuftaro (former grand mufti of Syria)

Ikram Antaki (Mexican writer)

Ghada al-Samman (novelist)

Nizar Qabbani (poet)

Michel Aflaq (political thinker and co-founder of the Baath Party)

Salah al-Din al-Bitar (political thinker and co-founder of the Baath Party)

Constantin Zureiq (academic and Arab nationalist intellectual)

Zakaria Tamer (writer)

Professor Aziz Al-Azmeh (academic, PhD in Oriental Studies)

Nazir Ismail (Artist)

Sheik Bashir Al Bani (Grand Sheik in Syria)

Mehdi Mourtada (Famous journalist and founder of WAS News Agency.

 

On its final run of the night, and the final run for use with Sydney Trains S Set Comeng motor car C3765 leads the S/AK cars through Lindfield on run HK78

I'm using the description I added to a few previous photos from this trip, to lessen the amount I use my painful shoulders, so just skip if you happen to have read it before.

 

On 22 June 2014, I was up at 4:00 a.m., to get ready for a long day trip east of Calgary, to Dinosaur Provincial Park. I had only ever once been there before, that I can remember, and it must have been 30+ years ago, so yesterday's bus trip was an absolute treat. 46 people went on this annual outing and when we arrived, we split into two groups. One half went on a mini bus tour in the morning to an area of the park that is kept closed to people, in order to protect the landscape. The other half took this tour in the afternoon. The rest of the day, we could go on a walk along one of the trails in the park that are open to the public.

 

I was in the group that walked in the morning. We went on the Cottonwoods Trail, that eventually led to the river - a long walk that was much further than I had expected! We saw very few birds, the main one being a Yellow Warbler that had its beak full of soft, white "seed fluff" from a Cottonwood tree. When we were almost back at the starting point, a Nighthawk was spotted lying on a very high branch. Well done, Shirley, for spotting this bird that was very difficult to see! A real thrill for me, as I had always wanted to see a perched Nighthawk! I saw three of them flying over the Bow River and over our heads in Bow Valley Provincial Park a few years ago, but no chance for a photo back then.

 

Our mini bus tour in one of the Park's buses in the afternoon took us to some spectacular scenery. This photo, taken at one of the stops we made, is an example of the fascinating eroded hills that we saw. As you can see, we had great weather, which was very lucky, as we had had rain for quite a few days before. When wet, the Bentonite clay becomes treacherously slippery, so we did not have to experience that, though in just a few places we could feel our feet slipping.

 

I got back home around 6:30 p.m., barely able to move an inch, but it was definitely worth it. Thanks so much, Lynne, for organizing such an enjoyable trip to this fascinating area! A lot of work goes into organizing an event like this and it was much appreciated! Thanks, too, to friends Val and Wendy who took turns to sit by me for the long 2 1/2 hour journey out there and back! Great to catch up with both of you!

 

Video (4.25 minutes in length) about Dinosaur Provincial Park, by Alberta Parks:

 

youtu.be/lww6Y4hlQR4

 

"Dinosaur Provincial Park is world famous for its dinosaur fossil finds. So much so that UNESCO designated it a World Heritage Site in 1979. A mind-boggling number of species have been found here - 40 and counting - but what really puts it over the top is that the bonebeds have yielded more than 300 specimens, which grace museums around the world. The park has also been designated a Natural Preserve to protect the extensive fossil fields and the valley’s fragile environment, an complicated mix of badlands and cottonwood river habitat."

 

travelalberta.com/Places%20to%20Go/Parks/Dinosaur%20Provi...

The Postcard

 

A postcard bearing no publisher's name that was posted in Par, Cornwall using a 1d. stamp on Monday the 25th. August 1930. It was sent to:

 

C. F. Baker Esq.,

'Hedgerow',

Russell Grove,

Westbury Park,

Bristol.

 

The message on the divided back of the card was as follows:

 

"Sunday.

35, Par Green,

Par, Cornwall.

Dear Mr. & Mrs. Baker,

This is as quiet a place as

anyone could wish for - a

beautiful little bay & nice

sands.

We have the use of a hut

on the beach.

The Westermans wanted

me to preach, but I fear I

could not have stood in my

own pulpit today.

We have been thinking of

you all, and hope you are

having a good day.

Love to all from both,

S & B."

 

Kingswear

 

Kingswear is a village in the South Hams area of Devon. The village is located on the east bank of the tidal River Dart, close to the river's mouth, and opposite the small town of Dartmouth. It lies within the South Devon Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and has a population of 1,332.

 

Kingswear is noted for being the railhead for Dartmouth, a role continued to this day by the presence of the Paignton and Dartmouth Steam Railway in the village. Two vehicle ferries and one pedestrian ferry provide links to Dartmouth.

 

The village itself contains several small tourist-oriented shops and public houses, and is home to the Royal Dart Yacht Club. Kingswear Castle, a privately owned 15th. century artillery tower, is situated on the outskirts.

 

Kingswear also contains the Church of St. Thomas, which is a member of the Anglican Diocese of Exeter and whose patron saint is Saint Thomas of Canterbury.

 

Sir Sean Connery

 

So what else happened on the day that the card was posted?

 

Well, the 25th. August 1930 marked the birth in Edinburgh of Sean Connery.

 

Sir Sean Connery, who was born Thomas Sean Connery, was a Scottish actor. He was the first actor to portray fictional British secret agent James Bond on film, starring in seven Bond films between 1962 and 1983.

 

Originating the role in Dr. No, Connery played Bond in six of Eon Productions' entries, and made his final Bond appearance in the non-Eon-produced Never Say Never Again.

 

If non-Eon-produced Bond movies are included, Connery shares the record for the most portrayals as James Bond with Roger Moore (with seven apiece).

 

Following Sean's third appearance as Bond in Goldfinger (1964), in June 1965, Time magazine observed:

 

"James Bond has developed into the

biggest mass-cult hero of the decade".

 

Connery began acting in smaller theatre and television productions until his break-out role as Bond. Although he did not enjoy the off-screen attention the role gave him, the success of the Bond films brought Connery offers from notable directors such as Alfred Hitchcock, Sidney Lumet and John Huston.

 

Their films in which Connery appeared included Marnie (1964), The Hill (1965), Murder on the Orient Express (1974), and The Man Who Would Be King (1975).

 

He also appeared in A Bridge Too Far (1977), Highlander (1986), The Name of the Rose (1986), The Untouchables (1987), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), The Hunt for Red October (1990), Dragonheart (1996), The Rock (1996), Finding Forrester (2000), and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003).

 

Connery officially retired from acting in 2006, although he briefly returned for voice-over roles in 2012.

 

His achievements in film were recognised with an Academy Award, two BAFTA Awards (including the BAFTA Fellowship), and three Golden Globes, including the Cecil B. DeMille Award and a Henrietta Award.

 

In 1987, Sean was made a Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters in France, and he received the US Kennedy Center Honors lifetime achievement award in 1999. Connery was knighted in the 2000 New Year Honours for services to film drama.

 

Sean Connery - The Early Years

 

Thomas Connery was born at the Royal Maternity Hospital in Edinburgh, Scotland. He was named after his paternal grandfather.

 

He was brought up at No. 176 Fountainbridge, a block which has since been demolished. His mother, Euphemia McBain "Effie" McLean, was a cleaning woman. Connery's father, Joseph Connery, was a factory worker and lorry driver.

 

His father was a Roman Catholic, and his mother was a Protestant. Connery had a younger brother Neil, and was generally referred to in his youth as "Tommy".

 

Although Sean was small in primary school, he grew rapidly around the age of 12, reaching his full adult height of 6 ft. 2 in. (188 cm) at 18. Connery was known during his teen years as "Big Tam", and he said that he lost his virginity to an adult woman in an ATS uniform at the age of 14.

 

He had an Irish childhood friend named Séamus; when the two were together, those who knew them both called Connery by his middle name Sean, emphasising the alliteration of the two names. Since then Connery preferred to use his middle name.

 

Connery's first job was as a milkman in Edinburgh with St. Cuthbert's Co-operative Society. In 2009, Connery recalled a conversation in a taxi:

 

"When I took a taxi during a recent Edinburgh

Film Festival, the driver was amazed that I

could put a name to every street we passed.

"How come?" he asked. "As a boy I used to

deliver milk round here", I said. "So what do

you do now?" That was rather harder to

answer."

 

In 1946, at the age of 16, Connery joined the Royal Navy, during which time he acquired two tattoos. Connery's official website says:

 

"Unlike many tattoos, his were not frivolous –

his tattoos reflect two of his lifelong

commitments: his family and Scotland. One

tattoo is a tribute to his parents, and reads

'Mum and Dad', and the other is self-explanatory,

'Scotland Forever'".

 

Sean trained in Portsmouth at the naval gunnery school and in an anti-aircraft crew. He was later assigned as an Able Seaman on HMS Formidable.

 

Connery was discharged from the navy at the age of 19 on medical grounds because of a duodenal ulcer, a condition that affected most of the males in previous generations of his family.

 

Afterwards, he returned to the Co-op and worked as a lorry driver, a lifeguard at Portobello swimming baths, a labourer, an artist's model for the Edinburgh College of Art, and after a suggestion by former Mr. Scotland Archie Brennan, as a coffin polisher, among other jobs.

 

The modelling earned him 15 shillings an hour. Artist Richard Demarco, at the time a student who painted several early pictures of Connery, described him as:

 

"Very straight, slightly shy, too,

too beautiful for words, a virtual

Adonis".

 

Connery began bodybuilding at the age of 18, and from 1951 trained heavily with Ellington, a former gym instructor in the British Army. While his official website states he was third in the 1950 Mr. Universe contest, most sources place him in the 1953 competition, either third in the Junior class or failing to place in the Tall Man classification.

 

Connery said that he was soon deterred from bodybuilding when he found that Americans frequently beat him in competitions because of sheer muscle size and, unlike Connery, refused to participate in athletic activity which could make them lose muscle mass.

 

Connery was a keen footballer, having played for Bonnyrigg Rose in his younger days. He was offered a trial with East Fife.

 

While on tour with South Pacific, Connery played in a football match against a local team that Matt Busby, manager of Manchester United, happened to be scouting. According to reports, Busby was impressed with Sean's physical prowess, and offered Connery a contract worth £25 a week (equivalent to £743 in 2021) immediately after the game. Connery said he was tempted to accept, but he recalls,

 

"I realised that a top-class footballer could

be over the hill by the age of 30, and I was

already 23. I decided to become an actor,

and it turned out to be one of my more

intelligent moves".

 

Sean Connery's Acting Career

 

(a) Pre-James Bond

 

Seeking to supplement his income, Connery helped out backstage at the King's Theatre in late 1951. During a bodybuilding competition held in London in 1953, one of the competitors mentioned that auditions were being held for a production of South Pacific, and Connery landed a small part as one of the Seabees chorus boys.

 

By the time the production reached Edinburgh, he had been given the part of Marine Cpl. Hamilton Steeves, and was understudying two of the juvenile leads, and his salary was raised from £12 to £14–10s a week.

 

The production returned the following year, out of popular demand, and Connery was promoted to the featured role of Lieutenant Buzz Adams, which Larry Hagman had portrayed in the West End.

 

While in Edinburgh, Connery was targeted by the Valdor gang, one of the most violent in the city. He was first approached by them in a billiard hall where he prevented them from stealing his jacket and was later followed by six gang members to a 15-foot-high (4.6 m) balcony at the Palais de Danse.

 

There, Connery singlehandedly launched an attack against the gang members, grabbing one by the throat and another by the biceps and cracking their heads together. From then on, he was treated with great respect by the gang and gained a reputation as a "hard man".

 

Connery first met Michael Caine at a party during the production of South Pacific in 1954, and the two later became close friends. During this production at the Opera House, Manchester, over the Christmas period of 1954, Connery developed a serious interest in the theatre through American actor Robert Henderson, who lent him copies of the Ibsen works Hedda Gabler, The Wild Duck, and When We Dead Awaken, and later listed works by the likes of Proust, Tolstoy, Turgenev, Bernard Shaw, Joyce, and Shakespeare for him to digest.

 

Henderson urged Sean to take elocution lessons, and got him parts at the Maida Vale Theatre in London. He had already begun a film career, having been an extra in Herbert Wilcox's 1954 musical Lilacs in the Spring alongside Errol Flynn and Anna Neagle.

 

Although Connery had secured several roles as an extra, he was struggling to make ends meet, and was forced to accept a part-time job as a babysitter for journalist Peter Noble and his actress wife Marianne, which earned him 10 shillings a night.

 

One night at Noble's house Sean met Hollywood actress Shelley Winters, who described Connery as:

 

"One of the tallest and most charming

and masculine Scotsmen I have ever

seen."

 

Shelley later spent many evenings with the Connery brothers drinking beer. Around this time, Connery was residing at TV presenter Llew Gardner's house.

 

Henderson landed Connery a role in a £6 a week Q Theatre production of Agatha Christie's Witness for the Prosecution, during which he met and became friends with fellow Scot Ian Bannen.

 

This role was followed by Point of Departure and A Witch in Time at Kew, a role as Pentheus opposite Yvonne Mitchell in The Bacchae at the Oxford Playhouse, and a role opposite Jill Bennett in Eugene O'Neill's play Anna Christie.

 

During his time at the Oxford Theatre, Connery won a brief part as a boxer in the TV series The Square Ring, before being spotted by Canadian director Alvin Rakoff, who gave him multiple roles in The Condemned, shot on location in Dover in Kent.

 

In 1956, Connery appeared in the theatrical production of Epitaph, and played a minor role as a hoodlum in the "Ladies of the Manor" episode of the BBC Television police series Dixon of Dock Green.

 

This was followed by small television parts in Sailor of Fortune and The Jack Benny Program (in a special episode filmed in Europe).

 

In early 1957, Connery hired agent Richard Hatton, who got him his first film role, as Spike, a minor gangster with a speech impediment in Montgomery Tully's No Road Back.

 

In April 1957, Rakoff – after being disappointed by Jack Palance – decided to give the young actor his first chance in a leading role, and cast Connery as Mountain McLintock in BBC Television's production of Requiem for a Heavyweight, which also starred Warren Mitchell and Jacqueline Hill.

 

Sean then played a rogue lorry driver, Johnny Yates, in Cy Endfield's Hell Drivers (1957) alongside Stanley Baker, Herbert Lom, Peggy Cummins, and Patrick McGoohan.

 

Later in 1957, Connery appeared in Terence Young's poorly received MGM action picture Action of the Tiger; the film was shot on location in southern Spain.

 

He also had a minor role in Gerald Thomas's thriller Time Lock (1957) as a welder, appearing alongside Robert Beatty, Lee Patterson, Betty McDowall, and Vincent Winter. This commenced filming on the 1st. December 1956 at Beaconsfield Studios.

 

Connery had a major role in the melodrama Another Time, Another Place (1958) as a British reporter named Mark Trevor, caught in a love affair opposite Lana Turner and Barry Sullivan.

 

During filming, Turner's possessive gangster boyfriend, Johnny Stompanato, who was visiting from Los Angeles, believed she was having an affair with Connery. Connery and Turner had attended West End shows and London restaurants together.

 

Stompanato stormed onto the film set and pointed a gun at Connery, only to have Connery disarm him and knock him flat on his back. Stompanato was banned from the set. Two Scotland Yard detectives advised Stompanato to leave and escorted him to the airport, where he boarded a plane back to the United States.

 

Connery later recounted that he had to lay low for a while after receiving threats from men linked to Stompanato's boss, Mickey Cohen.

 

In 1959, Connery landed a leading role in director Robert Stevenson's Walt Disney Productions film Darby O'Gill and the Little People (1959). The film is a tale about a wily Irishman and his battle of wits with leprechauns.

 

Upon the film's initial release, A. H. Weiler of The New York Times praised the cast (save Connery whom he described as "merely tall, dark, and handsome") and thought the film:

 

"An overpoweringly charming concoction

of standard Gaelic tall stories, fantasy and

romance."

 

Sean also had prominent television roles in Rudolph Cartier's 1961 productions of Adventure Story and Anna Karenina for BBC Television, co-starring with Claire Bloom in the latter.

 

Also in 1961 he portrayed the title role in a CBC television film adaptation of Shakespeare's Macbeth with Australian actress Zoe Caldwell cast as Lady Macbeth.

 

(b) James Bond: 1962–1971, 1983

 

Connery's breakthrough came in the role of British secret agent James Bond. He was reluctant to commit to a film series, but understood that if the films succeeded, his career would greatly benefit.

 

Between 1962 and 1967, Connery played 007 in Dr. No, From Russia with Love, Goldfinger, Thunderball, and You Only Live Twice, the first five Bond films produced by Eon Productions.

 

After departing from the role, Connery returned for the seventh film, Diamonds Are Forever, in 1971. Connery made his final appearance as Bond in Never Say Never Again, a 1983 remake of Thunderball produced by Jack Schwartzman's Taliafilm.

 

All seven films were commercially successful. James Bond, as portrayed by Connery, was selected as the third-greatest hero in cinema history by the American Film Institute.

 

Connery's selection for the role of James Bond owed a lot to Dana Broccoli, wife of producer Albert "Cubby" Broccoli, who is reputed to have been instrumental in persuading her husband that Connery was the right man.

 

James Bond's creator, Ian Fleming, originally doubted Connery's casting, saying:

 

"He's not what I envisioned of James

Bond looks. I'm looking for Commander

Bond and not an overgrown stunt-man."

 

He added that Connery (muscular, 6' 2", and a Scot) was unrefined. However Fleming's girlfriend Blanche Blackwell told Fleming that Connery had the requisite sexual charisma, and Fleming changed his mind after the successful Dr. No première.

 

He was so impressed, he wrote Connery's heritage into the character. In his 1964 novel You Only Live Twice, Fleming wrote that Bond's father was Scottish and from Glencoe in the Scottish Highlands.

 

Connery's portrayal of Bond owes much to stylistic tutelage from director Terence Young, who helped polish him while using his physical grace and presence for the action.

 

Lois Maxwell, who played Miss Moneypenny, related that:

 

"Terence took Sean under his wing.

He took him to dinner, showed him

how to walk, how to talk, even how

to eat".

 

The tutoring was successful; Connery received thousands of fan letters a week after Dr. No's opening, and he became a major sex symbol in film.

 

Following the release of the film Dr. No in 1962, the line "Bond ... James Bond", became a catch phrase in the lexicon of Western popular culture. Film critic Peter Bradshaw writes:

 

"It is the most famous self-introduction

from any character in movie history.

Three cool monosyllables, surname first,

a little curtly, as befits a former naval

commander.

And then, as if in afterthought, the first

name, followed by the surname again.

Connery carried it off with icily disdainful

style, in full evening dress with a cigarette

hanging from his lips.

The introduction was a kind of challenge,

or seduction, invariably addressed to an

enemy.

In the early 60's, Connery's James Bond

was about as dangerous and sexy as it

got on screen."

 

During the filming of Thunderball in 1965, Connery's life was in danger in the sequence with the sharks in Emilio Largo's pool. He had been concerned about this threat when he read the script.

 

Connery insisted that Ken Adam build a special Plexiglas partition inside the pool, but this was not a fixed structure, and one of the sharks managed to pass through it. He had to abandon the pool immediately.

 

(c) Post-James Bond

 

Although Bond had made him a star, Connery grew tired of the role and the pressure the franchise put on him, saying:

 

"I am fed up to here with the whole

Bond bit. I have always hated that

damned James Bond. I'd like to kill

him."

 

Michael Caine said of the situation:

 

"If you were his friend in these early

days you didn't raise the subject of

Bond. He was, and is, a much better

actor than just playing James Bond,

but he became synonymous with

Bond. He'd be walking down the

street and people would say,

'Look, there's James Bond'.

That was particularly upsetting

to him."

 

While making the Bond films, Connery also starred in other films such as Alfred Hitchcock's Marnie (1964) and Sidney Lumet's The Hill (1965), which film critic Peter Bradshaw regards as his two great non-Bond pictures from the 1960's.

 

In Marnie, Connery starred opposite Tippi Hedren. Connery had said he wanted to work with Hitchcock, which Eon arranged through their contacts. Connery shocked many people at the time by asking to see a script, something he did because he was worried about being typecast as a spy, and he did not want to do a variation of North by Northwest or Notorious.

 

When told by Hitchcock's agent that Cary Grant had not asked to see even one of Hitchcock's scripts, Connery replied:

 

"I'm not Cary Grant."

 

Hitchcock and Connery got on well during filming, and Connery said he was happy with the film "with certain reservations".

 

In The Hill, Connery wanted to act in something that wasn't Bond related, and he used his leverage as a star to feature in it. While the film wasn't a financial success, it was a critical one, debuting at the Cannes Film Festival and winning Best Screenplay.

 

The first of five films he made with Lumet, Connery considered him to be one of his favourite directors. The respect was mutual, with Lumet saying of Connery's performance in The Hill:

 

"The thing that was apparent to me –

and to most directors – was how much

talent and ability it takes to play that

kind of character who is based on charm

and magnetism.

It's the equivalent of high comedy, and

he did it brilliantly."

 

In the mid-1960's, Connery played golf with Scottish industrialist Iain Maxwell Stewart, a connection which led to Connery directing and presenting the documentary film The Bowler and the Bunnet in 1967.

 

The film described the Fairfield Experiment, a new approach to industrial relations carried out at the Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company, Glasgow, during the 1960s; the experiment was initiated by Stewart and supported by George Brown, the First Secretary in Harold Wilson's cabinet, in 1966.

 

The company was facing closure, and Brown agreed to provide £1 million (£13.135 million; US$15.55 million in 2021 terms) to enable trade unions, the management and the shareholders to try out new ways of industrial management.

 

Having played Bond six times, Connery's global popularity was such that he shared a Golden Globe Henrietta Award with Charles Bronson for "World Film Favorite – Male" in 1972.

 

He appeared in John Huston's The Man Who Would Be King (1975) opposite Michael Caine. Playing two former British soldiers who set themselves up as kings in Kafiristan, both actors regarded it as their favourite film.

 

The same year, Sean appeared in The Wind and the Lion opposite Candice Bergen who played Eden Perdicaris (based on the real-life Perdicaris incident), and in 1976 played Robin Hood in Robin and Marian opposite Audrey Hepburn.

 

Film critic Roger Ebert, who had praised the double act of Connery and Caine in The Man Who Would Be King, praised Connery's chemistry with Hepburn, writing:

 

"Connery and Hepburn seem to have

arrived at a tacit understanding

between themselves about their

characters. They glow. They really

do seem in love."

 

During the 1970's, Connery was part of ensemble casts in films such as Murder on the Orient Express (1974) with Vanessa Redgrave and John Gielgud, and played a British Army general in Richard Attenborough's war film A Bridge Too Far (1977), co-starring with Dirk Bogarde and Laurence Olivier.

 

In 1974, he starred in John Boorman's sci-fi thriller Zardoz. Often called one of the weirdest and worst movies ever made, it featured Connery in a scarlet mankini – a revealing costume which generated much controversy for its unBond-like appearance.

 

Despite being panned by critics at the time, the film has developed a cult following since its release. In the audio commentary to the film, Boorman relates how Connery would write poetry in his free time, describing him as:

 

"A man of great depth and intelligence,

as well as possessing the most

extraordinary memory."

 

In 1981, Connery appeared in the film Time Bandits as Agamemnon. The casting choice derives from a joke Michael Palin included in the script, which describes the character's removing his mask and being:

 

"Sean Connery – or someone

of equal but cheaper stature".

 

When shown the script, Connery was happy to play the supporting role.

 

In 1981 he portrayed Marshal William T. O'Niel in the science fiction thriller Outland. In 1982, Connery narrated G'olé!, the official film of the 1982 FIFA World Cup.

 

That same year, he was offered the role of Daddy Warbucks in Annie, going as far as taking voice lessons for the John Huston musical before turning down the part.

 

Connery agreed to reprise Bond as an ageing agent 007 in Never Say Never Again, released in October 1983. The title, contributed by his wife, refers to his earlier statement that he would "never again" return to the role.

 

Although the film performed well at the box office, it was plagued with production problems: strife between the director and producer, financial problems, the Fleming estate trustees' attempts to halt the film, and Connery's wrist being broken by the fight choreographer, Steven Seagal.

 

As a result of his negative experiences during filming, Connery became unhappy with the major studios, and did not make any films for two years. Following the successful European production The Name of the Rose (1986), for which he won a BAFTA Award for Best Actor, Connery's interest in more commercial material was revived.

 

That same year, a supporting role in Highlander showcased his ability to play older mentors to younger leads, which became a recurring role in many of his later films.

 

In 1987, Connery starred in Brian De Palma's The Untouchables, where he played a hard-nosed Irish-American cop alongside Kevin Costner's Eliot Ness. The film also starred Andy Garcia and Robert De Niro as Al Capone.

 

The film was a critical and box-office success. Many critics praised Connery for his performance, including Roger Ebert, who wrote:

 

"The best performance in the movie

is Connery. He brings a human element

to his character; he seems to have had

an existence apart from the legend of

the Untouchables, and when he's

onscreen we can believe, briefly, that

the Prohibition Era was inhabited by

people, not caricatures."

 

For his performance, Connery received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

 

Connery starred in Steven Spielberg's Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), playing Henry Jones Sr., the title character's father, and received BAFTA and Golden Globe Award nominations. Harrison Ford said Connery's contributions at the writing stage enhanced the film:

 

"It was amazing for me in how far he got

into the script and went after exploiting

opportunities for character.

His suggestions to George Lucas at the

writing stage really gave the character

and the picture a lot more complexity

and value than it had in the original

screenplay.

 

Sean's subsequent box-office hits included The Hunt for Red October (1990), The Russia House (1990), The Rock (1996), and Entrapment (1999). In 1996, he voiced the role of Draco the dragon in the film Dragonheart.

 

He also appeared in a brief cameo as King Richard the Lionheart at the end of Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991). In 1998, Connery received the BAFTA Fellowship, a lifetime achievement award from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts.

 

Connery's later films included several box-office and critical disappointments such as First Knight (1995), Just Cause (1995), The Avengers (1998), and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003).

 

The failure of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen was especially frustrating for Connery. He sensed during shooting that the production was "going off the rails", and announced that the director, Stephen Norrington should be "locked up for insanity".

 

Connery spent considerable effort in trying to salvage the film through the editing process, ultimately deciding to retire from acting rather than go through such stress ever again.

 

However, he received positive reviews for his performance in Finding Forrester (2000). He also received a Crystal Globe for outstanding artistic contribution to world cinema.

 

In a 2003 UK poll conducted by Channel 4, Connery was ranked eighth on their list of the 100 Greatest Movie Stars.

 

Connery turned down the role of Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings films, saying he did not understand the script. He was reportedly offered US$30 million along with 15% of the worldwide box office receipts, which would have earned him US$450 million.

 

He also turned down the opportunity to appear as Albus Dumbledore in the Harry Potter series and the Architect in The Matrix trilogy.

 

In 2005, he recorded voiceovers for the From Russia with Love video game with recording producer Terry Manning in the Bahamas, and provided his likeness. Connery said he was happy the producers, Electronic Arts, had approached him to voice Bond.

 

(d) Retirement

 

When Connery received the American Film Institute's Lifetime Achievement Award on the 8th. June 2006, he confirmed his retirement from acting.

 

Connery's disillusionment with the "idiots now making films in Hollywood" was cited as a reason for his decision to retire.

 

On the 7th. June 2007, he denied rumours that he would appear in the fourth Indiana Jones film, saying:

 

"Retirement is just too

much damned fun."

 

In 2010, a bronze bust sculpture of Connery was placed in Tallinn, Estonia, outside The Scottish Club, whose membership includes Estonian Scotophiles and a handful of expatriate Scots.

 

In 2012, Connery briefly came out of retirement to voice the title character in the Scottish animated film Sir Billi. Connery served as executive producer for an expanded 80-minute version.

 

Sean Connery's Personal Life

 

During the production of South Pacific in the mid-1950's, Connery dated a Jewish "dark-haired beauty with a ballerina's figure", Carol Sopel, but was warned off by her family.

 

He then dated Julie Hamilton, daughter of documentary filmmaker and feminist Jill Craigie. Given Connery's rugged appearance and rough charm, Hamilton initially thought he was an appalling person and was not attracted to him until she saw him in a kilt, declaring him to be the most beautiful thing she had ever seen in her life.

 

He also shared a mutual attraction with jazz singer Maxine Daniels, whom he met whilst working in theatre. He made a pass at her, but she told him she was already happily married with a daughter.

 

Connery was married to actress Diane Cilento from 1962 to 1974, though they separated in 1971. They had a son, actor Jason Joseph. Connery was separated in the early 1970's when he dated Dyan Cannon, Jill St. John, Lana Wood, Carole Mallory, and Magda Konopka.

 

In her 2006 autobiography, Cilento alleged that he had abused her mentally and physically during their relationship. Connery cancelled an appearance at the Scottish Parliament in 2006 because of controversy over his alleged support of abuse of women.

 

He denied claims that he told Playboy magazine in 1965:

 

"I don't think there is anything

particularly wrong in hitting a

woman, though I don't

recommend you do it in the

same way you hit a man".

 

He was also reported to have stated to Vanity Fair in 1993:

 

"There are women who take it

to the wire. That's what they are

looking for, the ultimate

confrontation. They want a smack."

 

In 2006, Connery told The Times of London:

 

"I don't believe that any level of

abuse of women is ever justified

under any circumstances. Full stop".

 

When knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2000 he wore a green-and-black hunting tartan kilt of his mother's MacLean clan.

 

Connery was married to French-Moroccan painter Micheline Roquebrune (born 4th. April 1929) from 1975 until his death. The marriage survived a well-documented affair Connery had in the late 1980's with the singer and songwriter Lynsey de Paul, which she later regretted due to his views concerning domestic violence.

 

Connery owned the Domaine de Terre Blanche in the South of France from 1979. He sold it to German billionaire Dietmar Hopp in 1999.

 

He was awarded an honorary rank of Shodan (1st. dan) in Kyokushin karate.

 

Connery relocated to the Bahamas in the 1990's; he owned a mansion in Lyford Cay on New Providence.

 

Connery had a villa in Kranidi, Greece. His neighbour was King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands, with whom he shared a helicopter platform.

 

Growing up, Connery supported the Scottish football club Celtic F.C., having been introduced to the club by his father who was a lifelong fan of the team.

 

Later in life, Connery switched his loyalty to Celtic's bitter rival, Rangers F.C., after he became close friends with the team's chairman, David Murray.

 

Sean was a keen golfer, and English professional golfer Peter Alliss gave Connery golf lessons before the filming of the 1964 James Bond film Goldfinger, which involved a scene where Connery, as Bond, played golf against gold magnate Auric Goldfinger at Stoke Park Golf Club in Buckinghamshire.

 

The golf scene saw him wear a Slazenger v-neck sweater, a brand which Connery became associated with while playing golf in his free time, with a light grey marl being a favoured colour.

 

Record major championship winner and golf course designer Jack Nicklaus said:

 

"He loved the game of golf – Sean

was a pretty darn good golfer! –

and we played together several

times.

In May 1993, Sean and legendary

driver Jackie Stewart helped me

open our design of the PGA

Centenary Course at Gleneagles

in Scotland."

 

Sean Connery's Political Views

 

Connery's Scottish roots and his experiences in filming in Glasgow's shipyards in 1966 inspired him to become a member of the centre-left Scottish National Party (SNP), which supports Scottish independence from the United Kingdom.

 

In 2011, Connery said:

 

"The Bowler and the Bunnet was just

the beginning of a journey that would

lead to my long association with the

Scottish National Party."

 

Connery supported the party both financially and through personal appearances. In 1967, he wrote to George Leslie, the SNP candidate in the 1967 Glasgow Pollok by-election, saying:

 

"I am convinced that with our resources

and skills we are more than capable of

building a prosperous, vigorous and

modern self-governing Scotland in which

we can all take pride and which will

deserve the respect of other nations."

 

His funding of the SNP ceased in 2001, when the UK Parliament passed legislation prohibiting overseas funding of political activities in the United Kingdom.

 

Dean Connery's Tax Status

 

In response to accusations that he was a tax exile, Connery released documents in 2003 showing he had paid £3.7 million in UK taxes between 1997 and 1998 and between 2002 and 2003. Critics pointed out that had he been continuously residing in the UK for tax purposes, his tax rate would have been far higher.

 

In the run-up to the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, Connery's brother Neil said that Connery would not come to Scotland to rally independence supporters, since his tax exile status greatly limited the number of days he could spend in the country.

 

After Connery sold his Marbella villa in 1999, Spanish authorities launched a tax evasion investigation, alleging that the Spanish treasury had been defrauded of £5.5 million.

 

Connery was subsequently cleared by officials, but his wife and 16 others were charged with attempting to defraud the Spanish treasury.

 

The Death and Legacy of Sean Connery

 

Connery died in his sleep on the 31st. October 2020, aged 90, at his home in the Lyford Cay community of Nassau in the Bahamas. His death was announced by his family and Eon Productions; although they did not disclose the cause of death, his son Jason said he had been unwell for some time.

 

A day later, Roquebrune revealed he had suffered from dementia in his final years. Connery's death certificate recorded the cause of death as pneumonia and respiratory failure, and the time of death was listed as 1:30 am.

 

Sean's remains were cremated, and the ashes were scattered in Scotland at undisclosed locations in 2022.

 

Following the announcement of his death, many co-stars and figures from the entertainment industry paid tribute to Connery, including Sam Neill, Nicolas Cage, Robert De Niro, Michael Bay, Tippi Hedren, Alec Baldwin, Hugh Jackman, George Lucas, Shirley Bassey, Kevin Costner, and Catherine Zeta-Jones.

 

Tributes also came from Barbra Streisand, John Cleese, Jane Seymour and Harrison Ford, as well as former Bond stars George Lazenby, Timothy Dalton and Pierce Brosnan, the family of late former Bond actor Roger Moore, and Daniel Craig, who played 007 until No Time to Die.

 

Connery's long-time friend Michael Caine called him:

 

"A great star, brilliant actor

and a wonderful friend".

 

James Bond producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli released a statement saying that:

 

"Connery has revolutionized the world

with his gritty and witty portrayal of the

sexy and charismatic secret agent.

He is undoubtedly largely responsible

for the success of the film series, and

we shall be forever grateful to him".

 

In 2004, a poll in the UK Sunday Herald recognised Connery as "The Greatest Living Scot," and a 2011 EuroMillions survey named him "Scotland's Greatest Living National Treasure".

 

He was voted by People magazine as the "Sexiest Man Alive" in 1989 and the "Sexiest Man of the Century" in 1999.

 

Final Thoughts From Sir Sean Connery

 

"I am not an Englishman, I was never an

Englishman, and I don't ever want to be

one. I am a Scotsman! I was a Scotsman,

and I will always be one."

 

"I admit I'm being paid well, but it's no more

than I deserve. After all, I've been screwed

more times than a hooker."

 

"Love may not make the world go round,

but I must admit that it makes the ride

worthwhile."

 

"There is nothing like a challenge

to bring out the best in man."

 

"I like women. I don't understand

them, but I like them."

 

"Some age, others mature."

 

"I met my wife through playing golf. She is

French and couldn't speak English, and I

couldn't speak French, so there was little

chance of us getting involved in any boring

conversations - that's why we got married

really quickly."

 

"Everything I have done or attempted to do

for Scotland has always been for her benefit,

never my own, and I defy anyone to prove

otherwise."

 

"The knighthood I received was a fantastic

honor but it's not something I've ever used,

and I don't think I ever will."

 

"I never trashed a hotel room or did drugs."

 

"More than anything else, I'd like to be an

old man with a good face, like Hitchcock or

Picasso."

 

"Laughter kills fear, and without fear there

can be no faith. For without fear of the devil

there is no need for God."

 

"Perhaps I'm not a good actor, but I would

be even worse at doing anything else."

 

"I'm an actor - it's not brain surgery. If I do

my job right, people won't ask for their

money back."

 

"I haven't found anywhere in the world

where I want to be all the time. The best

of my life is the moving. I look forward to

going."

Sonnenblume mit Pollen und Nektar für die Biene

Getting used to a new camera that I bought last week. (Canon EOS 350) I spotted this old Gantry that was used to load heavy cases onto the Delivery Lorries, in an old derilict warehouse due for demolition.

Used by the CIA. This is some sneaky stuff.

Plans have been proposed for this to be demolished and replaced multi-level senior housing with a ground level for commercial purposes. Appears Spirit will have at least one more time making temporary use of the space.

 

The cones are blocking off a large area filled with potholes.

 

Olean, NY. July 2021.

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sole and butt!!

Free For Commercial Use - attribution required as below -

 

Photo by: photoo.uk/ via freeforcommercialuse.org #FFCU #freefcu #ffcu

This year I'm using a different film format each month, starting with the smallest and working my way up through the sizes. The format for September is 127 roll film which was introduced in 1912. Narrower than 120 film, it allowed for smaller more pocketable cameras to be made, perhaps most famously the Kodak VP (Vest Pocket) also known as the soldiers' camera because many of them were used during the First World War (1914-18).

This was taken using a Korelle 3x4cm camera, which dates to the 1930s.

The film is Shanghai GP3 ISO 100 black and white, developed in Rodinal 1:50 for 11 mins at 22 degrees.

This is a double exposure.

I used to make custom motorcycle speedometer faces, (Alien Faces) and this is one that I made for a customer. (These were high resolution printed inserts that was placed OVER your original speedometer face)

He had a WWII P-51 Mustang airplane theme and wanted something fit the theme.

 

We talked about it in e-mail and came up with this, he just had a vague idea as to what he wanted.

 

His motorcycle had a custom paint job on it that had bullet holes and some intentional paint wear, rust, damage, exhaust smudge etc. So, that is what he wanted to continue on this.

 

I know that those with a sharp eye will see that the two gauges have (digitally painted) glass over them. The inner face has broken (digitally painted) glass over it too, AND, not just that, but there was some REAL glass over these. :)

So, that part, while hokey, he loved it, and we both knew it was WAY over the top, but he wanted it that way, so...

 

Also, in real life if those bullet holes were from a German plane, the holes would be larger, so practically NONE of what you see is realistic. (These are .22 caliber size)

 

In my mind I designed this to be like an old plane that was in a plane boneyard and was rusting for years and he came along and saved it. That was how I looked at it, and realism is what I aimed for, although, nothing was realistic in 'real life'. :)

I learned how to do rust, and age things while making this.

 

This was all done in Photoshop after looking online at how planes (especially P-51's) gauges looked. Actually, I couldn't find one, so I looked at other plane gauges and just went with it.

 

He was ex-Air Force so he had to have the Air Force star, and he also wanted the small type in small print about, "War Bird", his bike. (See circular print in the inner ring)

He won some contests with his bike, I saw it in a magazine once.

I did several that were in magazines actually, I had a really good business while it lasted.

(Another guy saw this and wanted one for his bike and he had been a Tomcat pilot, so I made him one for that, I had several pilots actually)

 

Anyway, yeah, it's not realistic, but you just have to open your mind, or, have a shot of tequila, whichever. :)

 

Used a flower to create a bit more interesting bokeh.

 

Dutch: Zwartkopvuurkever (Pyrochroa coccinea)

 

LIKE BEETLES?

For your Art only, not for Sale on a CD or Collage Sheet

I use two 35mm film rangefinder systems.

 

One Leica M6 body with the following lenses:

Leitz 90mm f/2 Summicron

Zeiss 35mm f/1.4 Distagon

Leitz 21mm f/1.4 Summilux

 

Two Contax G1 bodies with the following lenses:

Zeiss 90mm f/2.8 Sonnar

Zeiss 45mm f/2 Planar

Zeiss 28mm f/2.8 Biogon

Zeiss 21mm f/2.8 Biogon

 

Each camera, with its own set of lenses, is enough for photographing most situations. However, when I do not have time to quickly change lenses, I prefer to carry three bodies with a lens mounted on each body.

 

My favorite combination is:

21mm f/2.8 Zeiss on Contax G1 green label plus accessory viewfinder

35mm f/1.4 Zeiss on Leica M6

90mm f/2.8 Zeiss on Contax G1 white label

 

My second favorite combination is:

21mm f/1.4 Leitz on Leica M6 plus accessory viewfinder

45mm f/2 Zeiss on Contax G1

90mm f/2.8 Zeiss on Contax G1

 

My third favorite combination is:

28mm f/2.8 Zeiss on Contax G1

45mm f/2 Zeiss on Contax G1

90mm f/2 Leitz on Leica M6

 

My favorite combination for landscape photography is:

21mm f/1.4 Leitz on Leica M6 plus accessory viewfinder

28mm f/2.8 Zeiss on Contax G1

45mm f/2 Zeiss on Contax G1

  

Of the holiday weekend! A couple camps out for the daily fireworks display

Using only fire as light source.

 

Trying out Sony 20mm F1.8G. ISO800 is possible with reasonable shutter speeds with f1.8. Also with ISO800 there's no noise and there's plenty of dynamic range left for easy editing. Nothing to complain with the image quality either. Great lens.

 

I'll call this just "G" from now on.

Using a small canon speed light (EX -430) @1/32 power , he was lit from the left side to catch his face and the opposite side I used the ambient neon light from a pawn shop on the street. I tried to power the flash 1 stop under ambient but I truly don’t know how to meter that, so I tried to make it look balanced on both side of his face.

  

Once Again Big Brother Steps Up to The Camera. We do what we can with what we have

Using the bright sky as a backdrop and lowering my perspective just a bit, was able to take this backlit scene with some brief reduced fill light from the Speedlight.

 

My eldest daughter was a willing model ;)

For your Art only, not for Sale on a CD or Collage Sheet

©All photographs on this site are copyright: ©DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams) 2011 – 2021 & GETTY IMAGES ®

  

No license is given nor granted in respect of the use of any copyrighted material on this site other than with the express written agreement of ©DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams). No image may be used as source material for paintings, drawings, sculptures, or any other art form without permission and/or compensation to ©DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams)

  

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Photograph taken at an altitude of Fifty metres at 11:51am on a beautiful springtime morning on Saturday 16th April 2022, off Chessington Avenue in Bexleyheath, Kent.

  

Here we see a Male and Female Carrion crow (Corvus corone), a passerine bird of the family Corvidae and the genus Raven (Higher classification: Corvus), which is native to western Europe and eastern Asia. It can grow to twenty inches in length with a wingspan of up to thirty nine inches. In the distance are the contrails of two passing aeroplanes.

  

AN IN DEPTH LOOK AT CORVUS CORONE

  

LEGEND AND MYTHOLOGY

By Paul Williams

  

Crows appear in the Bible where Noah uses one to search for dry land and to check on the recession of the flood. Crows supposedly saved the prophet, Elijah, from famine and are an Inuit deity. Legend has it that England and its monarchy will end when there are no more crows in the Tower of London. And some believe that the crows went to the Tower attracted by the regular corpses following executions with written accounts of their presence at the executions of Anne Boleyn and Jane Gray.

  

In Welsh mythology, unfortunately Crows are seen as symbolic of evilness and black magic thanks to many references to witches transforming into crows or ravens and escaping. Indian legend tells of Kakabhusandi, a crow who sits on the branches of a wish-fulfilling tree called Kalpataru and a crow in Ramayana where Lord Rama blessed the crow with the power to foresee future events and communicate with the souls.

  

In Native American first nation legend the crow is sometimes considered to be something of a trickster, though they are also viewed positively by some tribes as messengers between this world and the next where they carry messages from the living to those deceased, and even carry healing medicines between both worlds. There is a belief that crows can foresee the future. The Klamath tribe in Oregon believe that when we die, we fly up to heaven as a crow. The Crow can also signify wisdom to some tribes who believe crows had the power to talk and were therefore considered to be one of the wisest of birds. Tribes with Crow Clans include the Chippewa (whose Crow Clan and its totem are called Aandeg), the Hopi (whose Crow Clan is called Angwusngyam or Ungwish-wungwa), the Menominee, the Caddo, the Tlingit, and the Pueblo tribes of New Mexico.

  

The crow features in the Nanissáanah (Ghost dance), popularized by Jerome Crow Dog, a Brulé Lakota sub-chief and warrior born at Horse Stealing Creek in Montana Territory in 1833, the crow symbolizing wisdom and the past, when the crow had became a guide and acted as a pathfinder during hunting. The Ghost dance movement was originally created in 1870 by Wodziwob, or Gray Hair, a prophet and medicine man of the Paiute tribe in an area that became known as Nevada. Ghost dancers wore crow and eagle feathers in their clothes and hair, and the fact that the Crow could talk placed it as one of the sages of the animal kingdom. The five day dances seeking trance,prophecy and exhortations would eventually play a major part in the pathway towards the white man's broken treaties, the infamous battle at Wounded knee and the surrender of Matȟó Wanáȟtaka (Kicking Bear), after officials began to fear the ghost dancers and rituals which seemed to occur prior to battle.

  

Historically the Vikings are the group who made so many references to the crow, and Ragnarr Loðbrók and his sons used this species in his banner as well as appearances in many flags and coats of arms. Also, it had some kind of association with Odin, one of their main deities. Norse legend tells us that Odin is accompanied by two crows. Hugin, who symbolizes thought, and Munin, who represents a memory. These two crows were sent out each dawn to fly the entire world, returning at breakfast where they informed the Lord of the Nordic gods of everything that went on in their kingdoms. Odin was also referred to as Rafnagud (raven-god). The raven appears in almost every skaldic poem describing warfare.Coins dating back to 940's minted by Olaf Cuaran depict the Viking war standard, the Raven and Viking war banners (Gonfalon) depicted the bird also.

  

In Scandinavian legends, crows are a representative of the Goddess of Death, known as Valkyrie (from old Norse 'Valkyrja'), one of the group of maidens who served the Norse deity Odin, visiting battlefields and sending him the souls of the slain worthy of a place in Valhalla. Odin ( also called Wodan, Woden, or Wotan), preferred that heroes be killed in battle and that the most valiant of souls be taken to Valhöll, the hall of slain warriors. It is the crow that provides the Valkyries with important information on who should go. In Hindu ceremonies that are associated to ancestors, the crow has an important place in Vedic rituals. They are seen as messengers of death in Indian culture too.

  

In Germanic legend, Crows are seen as psychonomes, meaning the act of guiding spirits to their final destination, and that the feathers of a crow could cure a victim who had been cursed. And yet, a lone black crow could symbolize impending death, whilst a group symbolizes a lucky omen! Vikings also saw good omens in the crow and would leave offerings of meat as a token.

  

The crow also has sacred and prophetic meaning within the Celtic civilization, where it stood for flesh ripped off due to combat and Morrighan, the warrior goddess, often appears in Celtic mythology as a raven or crow, or else is found to be in the company of the birds. Crow is sacred to Lugdnum, the Celtic god of creation who gave his name to the city of Lug

  

In Greek mythology according to Appolodorus, Apollo is supposedly responsible for the black feathers of the crow, turning them forever black from their pristine white original plumage as a punishment after they brought news that Κορωνις (Coronis) a princess of the Thessalian kingdom of Phlegyantis, Apollo's pregnant lover had left him to marry a mortal, Ischys. In one legend, Apollo burned the crows feathers and then burned Coronis to death, in another Coronis herself was turned into a black crow, and another that she was slain by the arrows of Αρτεμις (Artemis - twin to Apollo). Koronis was later set amongst the stars as the constellation Corvus ("the Crow"). Her name means "Curved One" from the Greek word korônis or "Crow" from the word korônê.A similar Muslim legend allegedly tells of Muhammad, founder of Islam and the last prophet sent by God to Earth, who's secret location was given away by a white crow to his seekers, as he hid in caves. The crow shouted 'Ghar Ghar' (Cave, cave) and thus as punishment, Muhammad turned the crow black and cursed it for eternity to utter only one phrase, 'Ghar, ghar). Native Indian legend where the once rainbow coloured crows became forever black after shedding their colourful plumage over the other animals of the world.

  

In China the Crow is represented in art as a three legged bird on a solar disk, being a creature that helps the sun in its journey. In Japan there are myths of Crow Tengu who were priests who became vain, and turned into this spirit to serve as messengers until they learn the lesson of humility as well as a great Crow who takes part in Shinto creation stories.

  

In animal spirit guides there are general perceptions of what sightings of numbers of crows actually mean:

  

1 Crow Meaning: To carry a message from your near one who died recently.

 

2 Crows Meaning: Two crows sitting near your home signifies some good news is on your way.

 

3 Crows Meaning: An upcoming wedding in your family.

 

4 Crows Meaning: Symbolizes wealth and prosperity.

 

5 Crows Meaning: Diseases or pain.

 

6 Crows Meaning: A theft in your house!

 

7 Crows Meaning: Denotes travel or moving from your house.

 

8 Crows Meaning: Sorrowful events

  

Crows are generally seen as the symbolism when alive for doom bringing, misfortune and bad omens, and yet a dead crow symbolises potentially bringing good news and positive change to those who see it. This wonderful bird certainly gets a mixed bag of contradictory mythology and legend over the centuries and in modern days is often seen as a bit of a nuisance, attacking and killing the babies of other birds such as Starlings, Pigeons and House Sparrows as well as plucking the eyes out of lambs in the field, being loud and noisy and violently attacking poor victims in a 'crow court'....

  

There is even a classic horror film called 'THE CROW' released in 1994 by Miramax Films, directed by Alex Proyas and starring Brandon Lee in his final film appearance as Eric Draven, who is revived by a Crow tapping on his gravestone a year after he and his fiancée are murdered in Detroit by a street gang. The crow becomes his guide as he sets out to avenge the murders. The only son of martial arts expert Bruce Lee, Brandon lee suffered fatal injuries on the set of the film when the crew failed to remove the primer from a cartridge that hit Lee in the abdomen with the same force as a normal bullet. Lee died that day, March 31st 1993 aged 28.

  

The symbolism of the Crow resurrecting the dead star and accompanying him on his quest for revenge was powerful, and in some part based on the history of the carrion crow itself and the original film grossed more than $94 Million dollars with three subsequent sequels following.

  

TAKING A CLOSER LOOK

  

So let's move away from legend, mythology and stories passed down from our parents and grandparents and look at these amazing birds in isolation.

  

Carrion crow are passerines in the family Corvidae a group of Oscine passerine birds including Crows, Ravens, Rooks, Jackdaws, Jays, Magpies, Treepies, Choughs and Nutcrackers. Technically they are classed as Corvids, and the largest of passerine birds. Carrion crows are medium to large in size with rictal bristles and a single moult per year (most passerines moult twice). Carrion crow was one of the many species originally described by Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus (Carl Von Linne after his ennoblement) in his 1758 and 1759 editions of 'SYSTEMA NATURAE', and it still bears its original name of Corvus corone, derived from the Latin of Corvus, meaning Raven and the Greek κορώνη (korōnē), meaning crow.

  

Carrion crow are of the Animalia kingdom Phylum: Chordata Class: Aves Order: Passeriformes Family: Corvidae Genus: Corvus and Species: Corvus corone

  

Corvus corone can reach 45-47cm in length with a 93-104cm wingspan and weigh between 370-650g. They are protected under The Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 in the United Kingdom with a Green UK conservation status which means they are of least concern with more than 1,000,000 territories. Breeding occurs in April with fledging of the chicks taking around twenty nine days following an incubation period of around twenty days with 3 to 4 eggs being the average norm. They are abundant in the UK apart from Northwest Scotland and Ireland where the Hooded crow (Corvus cornix) was considered the same species until 2002. They have a lifespan of around four years, whilst Crow species can live to the age of Twenty years old, and the oldest known American crow in the wild was almost Thirty years old. The oldest documented captive crow died at age Fifty nine. They are smaller and have a shorter lifespan than the Raven, which again is used as a symbol in history to live life to the full and not waste a moment!

  

They are often mistaken for the Rook (Corvus frugilegus), a similar bird, though in the UK, the Rook is actually technically smaller than the Carrion crow averaging 44-46cm in length, 81-99cm wingspan and weighing up to 340g. Rooks have white beaks compared to the black beaks of Carrion crow, a more steeply raked ratio from head to beak, and longer straighter beaks as well as a different plumage pattern. There are documented cases in the UK of singular and grouped Rooks attacking and killing Carrion crows in their territory. Rooks nest in colonies unlike Carrion crows. Carrion crows have only a few natural enemies including powerful raptors such as the northern goshawk, the peregrine falcon, the Eurasian eagle-owl and the golden eagle which will all readily hunt them.

  

Regarded as one of the most intelligent birds, indeed creatures on the planet, studies suggest that Corvids cognitive abilities can rival that of primates such as chimpanzees and gorillas and even provide clues to understanding human intelligence. Crows have relatively large brains for their body size, compared to other animals. Their encephalization quotient (EQ) a ratio of brain to body size, adjusted for size because there isn’t a linear relationship is 4.1. That is remarkably close to chimps at 4.2 whilst humans are 8.1. Corvids also have a very high neuronal density, the number of neurons per gram of brain, factoring in the number of cortical neurons, neuron packing density, interneuronal distance and axonal conduction velocity shows that Corvids score high on this measure as well, with humans scoring the highest.

  

A corvid's pallium is packed with more neurons than a great ape's. Corvids have demonstrated the ability to use a combination of mental tools such as imagination, and anticipation of future events. They can craft tools from twigs and branches to hook grubs from deep recesses, they can solve puzzles and intricate methods of gaining access to food set by humans., and have even bent pieces of wire into hooks to obtain food. They have been proven to have a higher cognitive ability level than seven year old humans. Communications wise, their repertoire of wraw-wraw's is not fully understood, but the intensity, rhythm, and duration of caws seems to form the basis of a possible language. They also remember the faces of humans who have hindered or hurt them and pass that information on to their offspring.

  

Aesop's fable of 'The Crow and the Pitcher, tells of a thirsty crow which drops stones into a water pitcher to raise the water level and enable it to take a drink. Scientists have conducted tests to see whether crows really are this intelligent. They placed floating treats in a deep tube and observed the crows indeed dropping dense objects carefully selected into the water until the treat floated within reach. They had the intelligence to pick up, weigh and discount objects that would float in the water, they also did not select ones that were too large for the container.

  

Pet crows develop a unique call for their owners, in effect actually naming them. They also know to sunbathe for a dose of vitamin D, regularly settling on wooden garden fences, opening their mouths and wings and raising their heads to the sun. In groups they warn of danger and communicate vocally. They store a cache of food for later if in abundance and are clever enough to move it if they feel it has been discovered. They leave markers for their cache. They have even learned to place walnuts and similar hard food items under car tyres at traffic lights as a means of cracking them!

  

Crows regularly gather around a dead fellow corvid, almost like a funeral, and it is thought they somehow learn from each death. They can even remember human faces for decades.Crows group together to attack larger predators and even steal their food, and they have different dialects in different areas, with the ability to mimic the dialect of the alpha males when they enter their territory!

  

They have a twenty year life span, the oldest on record reaching the age of Fifty nine. Crows can leave gifts for those who feed them such as buttons or bright shiny objects as a thank you, and they even kiss and make up after an argument, having mated for life.

  

In mythology they are associated with good and bad luck, being the bringers of omens and even witchcraft and are generally reviled for their attacks on baby birds and small mammals. They have an attack method of to stunning smaller birds before consuming them, tearing violently at smaller, less aggressive birds, which is simply down to the fact that they are so highly intelligent, and also the top of the food chain. Their diet includes over a thousand different items: Dead animals (as their name suggests), invertebrates, grain, as well as stealing eggs and chicks from other birds' nests, worms, insects, fruit, seeds, kitchen scraps. They are highly adaptable when food sources grow scarce. I absolutely love them, they are magnificent, bold, beautiful and incredibly interesting to watch and though at times it is hard to witness attacks made by them, I cannot help but adore them for so many other and more important reasons.

  

OBSERVATIONS ON THE PAIR IN MY GARDEN

  

Crows have been in the area for a while, but rarely had strayed into my garden, leaving the Magpies to own the territory. Things changed towards the end of May when a beautiful female Carrion crow appeared and began to take some of the food that I put down for the other birds. Within a few days she began to appear regularly, on occasions stocking up on food, whilst other times placing pieces in the birdbath to soften them. She would stand on the birdbath and eat and drink and come back over the course of the day to eat the softened food.

  

Shortly afterwards she brought along her mate, a tall and handsome fella, much larger than her who was also very vocal if he felt she was getting a little too close to me. By now I had moved from a seated position from the patio as an observer, to laying on a mat just five feet from the birdbath with my Nikon so that I could photograph the pair as they landed, scavenged and fed. She was now confident enough to let me be very close, and she even tolerated and recognized the clicking of the camera. At first I used silent mode to reduce the noise but this only allowed two shooting frame rates of single frame or continuous low frame which meant I was missing shots. I reverted back to normal continuous high frames and she soon got used to the whirring of the mechanisms as the mirror slapped back and forth.

  

The big fella would bark orders at her from the safety of the fence or the rear of the garden, whilst she rarely made a sound. That was until one day when in the sweltering heat she kept opening her beak and sunning on the grass, panting slightly in the heat. I placed the circular water sprayer nearby and had it rotating so that the birdbath and grass was bathed in gentle water droplets and she soon came back, landed and seemed to really like the cooling effect on offer. She then climbed onto the birdbath and opened her wings slightly and made some gentle purring, cooing noises....

  

I swear she was expressing happiness, joy....

  

On another blisteringly hot day when the sprayer was on, she came down, walked towards it and opened her wings up running into the water spray. Not once, but many times.

  

A further revelation into the unseen sides to these beautiful birds came with the male and female on the rear garden fence. They sat together, locked beaks like a kiss and then the male took his time gently preening her head feathers and the back of her neck as she made tiny happy sounds. They stayed together like that for several minutes, showing a gentle, softer side to their nature and demonstrating the deep bond between them. Into July and the pair started to bring their three youngsters to my garden, the nippers learning to use the birdbath for bathing and dipping food, the parents attentive as ever. Two of the youngsters headed off once large enough and strong enough.

  

I was privileged to be in close attendance as the last juvenile was brought down by the pair, taught to take food and then on a night in July, to soar and fly with it's mother in the evening sky as the light faded. She would swoop and twirl, and at regular intervals just touch the juvenile in flight with her wing tip feathers, as if to reassure it that she was close in attendance. What an amazing experience to view. A few days later, the juvenile, though now gaining independence and more than capable of tackling food scraps in the garden, was still on occasions demand feeding from it's mother who was now teaching him to take chicken breast, hotdogs or digestive biscuits and bury them in the garden beds for later delectation. The juvenile also liked to gather up peanuts and bury them in the grass. On one occasion I witnessed a pair of rumbunctious Pica Pica (Magpies), chasing the young crow on rooftops, leaping at him no matter how hard he tried to get away. He defended himself well and survived the attacks, much to my relief.

  

Into August and the last youngster remained with the adults, though now was very independent even though he still spent time with his parents on rooftops, and shared food gathering duties with his mum.Hotdog sausages were their favourite choice, followed by fish fingers and digestive biscuits which the adult male would gather up three at a time. In October, the three Crows were still kings of the area, but my time observing them was pretty much over as I will only put food out now for the birds in the winter months. The two adults are still here in December and now taking the food that I put out to help all birds survive in the winter months. They also have a pair of Magpies to compete with now.

Late February 2022 and Cheryl and Russell and their youngster are still with me, still dominant in the area and still taking raw chicken, hotdogs, biscuits and fatballs that I put out for them. Today I saw them mating for the first time this year in the tree and the cycle continues.

  

Corvus Corone.... magnificently misunderstood by some!

  

Paul Williams June 4th 2021 (Updated in April 2022)

  

Nikon D850 Focal length: 460mm Shutter speed: 1/1250s (Electronic front curtain enabled) Aperture: f/6.3 iso160 Hand held with Tamron VC Vibration control set to ON (Position 1) 14 Bit uncompressed RAW NEF file size L (8256 x 5504 pixels) FX (36 x 24) Focus mode: AF-C AF-Area mode: 3D-tracking AF-C Priority Selection: Release. Nikon Back button focusing enabled 3D Tracking watch area: Normal 55 Tracking points Exposure mode: Manual exposure mode Metering mode: Matrix metering White balance on: Auto1, 0, 0 (5080k) Colour space: RGB Picture control: Neutral (Sharpening +2) Active D-lighting: Low

  

Tamron SP 150-600mm F/5-6.3 Di VC USD G2. Nikon GP-1 GPS module. Lee SW150 MKII filter holder. Lee SW150 95mm screw in adapter ring. Lee SW150 circular polariser glass filter.Lee SW150 Filters field pouch. Hoodman HEYENRG round eyepiece oversized eyecup.Mcoplus professional MB-D850 multi function battery grip 6960.Two Nikon EN-EL15a batteries (Priority to battery in Battery grip). Black Rapid Curve Breathe strap. My Memory 128GB Class 10 SDXC 80MB/s card. Lowepro Flipside 400 AW camera bag.

     

LATITUDE: N 51d 28m 28.19s

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RAW (TIFF) FILE: 130.00MB NEF FILE: 89.4MB

PROCESSED (JPeg) FILE: 46.10MB

     

PROCESSING POWER:

  

Nikon D850 Firmware versions C 1.10 (9/05/2019) LD Distortion Data 2.018 (18/02/20) LF 1.00

  

HP 110-352na Desktop PC with AMD Quad-Core A6-5200 APU 64Bit processor. Radeon HD8400 graphics. 8 GB DDR3 Memory with 1TB Data storage. 64-bit Windows 10. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. WD My Passport Ultra 1tb USB3 Portable hard drive. Nikon ViewNX-1 64bit Version 1.4.1 (18/02/2020). Nikon Capture NX-D 64bit Version 1.6.2 (18/02/2020). Nikon Picture Control Utility 2 (Version 2.4.5 (18/02/2020). Nikon Transfer 2 Version 2.13.5. Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit.

   

Do you wish to take drugs intravenously? If so you will need tools to participate.

 

Here is some of the paraphernalia distributed free to intravenous drug users to inject their drug of choice.

 

The hypodermic needle with syringe is used to inject a liquefied drug into a vein or muscle.

 

The small spoon is used to “cook” the powdered drug in a liquid for injection . The spoon holds the drug so a needle tip can be placed in the liquid.

 

The small vial contains a sterile liquid that is drawn into the syringe then squirted into the spoon to liquify the drug.

 

The cotton squares placed in the liquid helps filter out any impurities from the drug solution before injecting. The needle is stuck into the cotton to pull up the liquid from the cotton, rather than directly from the spoon.

 

The blue stretch rubber strap (tie off) is tightened around an arm or leg to make veins more prominent and easier to hit with a needle.

  

Some drugs commonly injected include heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, opioid painkillers, prescription stimulants, some laced with fentanyl and an even stronger counterpart, carfentanil. Fentanyl is about 100 times stronger than morphine and over

50 times stronger than pure heroin. Each drug is extremely dangerous to inject and can have fatal consequences.

 

To decrease the spread of diseases, needle exchange programs provide intravenous drug users with free sterile syringes. They also collect used and contaminated syringes to prevent transmission to others.

 

The hypodermic needle and syringe in its current form was invented by the French scientist Charles Pravaz in 1851, and became a dominate means of treating pain during the wars of the time.

 

Drugs can be abused in a variety of ways; while some people may take them orally, others may smoke, snort, or inject them. The practice of “shooting up,” or injecting drugs directly into the bloodstream by means of a needle is particularly dangerous, as it can instantaneously produce intense and intoxicating effects that can speed the development of an addiction and otherwise result in significant health risks.

 

Permission to use photo.

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08 Nov 21

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To Whom It May Concern:

 

Tophatmonocle Corp (“Top Hat”) is requesting permission to use your Material (defined below) in the Work (defined below):

 

Tentative Title: Canadian Corrections, 6e and Related Product Family Components (collectively, the “Work”):

Author: Curt Griffiths

Territory: Worldwide

Languages: English

Media: Digital

Editions: Student book and custom derivatives

Quantity: Life of Edition

 

Sincerely,

 

Jessie Coffey

Permissions Researcher, on behalf of Tophatmonocle Corp.

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