I don't know if you guys have been watching Avatar the Legend of Korra Book 3, but I have and I have been loving every minute. This book has been visually stunning with a deep story, best season so far in my opinion. So I thought it fitting that I make a figbarf. Here are figures of the 4 bender super group known for attempting to kidnap the Avatar and on the loose again. From left to right is Ghazan, Zaheer, P'li and Ming- Hua.

 

Ghazan- I am extremely happy with the outcome of this figure considering that there were no torsos that I had that were suitable, so Improvised. The torso is plain dark green with a graduates robe wedged through the legs. I think that I chose the perfect head as it looks exactly like him, the hair is allright but it does the job.

 

Zaheer- The easiest and probably my favorite of the 4. I think he resembles Zaheer very well but I might change his head at a later time.

 

P'li- P'li is the least accurate to her appearance in the show but thats because there aren't really any torsos that resemble her clothes. I didn't really know what to do for the legs so I gave her the Lone ranger legs, they look allright. The head and hair aren't 100% accurate but I really like how it looks.

 

Ming- Hua- My least favorite of the 4 mainly because of the torso I had to settle with. the head and hair look accurate but damn, that torso looks terrible. Ill try and find a better torso at a later date but I did my best.

 

I really hope you like the figures, comments and faves are greatly appreciated.

 

-Tristan

Every year, 15th October is celebrated around the world as White Cane Safety Day. The day celebrates all the achievements of blind and visually impaired people. It also raises awareness about blindness and vision loss among people.

 

Description of the photo:

The photo depicts a drawing of a foldable white cane with the words "White Cane Safety Day" written above the cane in Braille.

 

Keep the comments clean! No banners, awards or invitations, please!

Day 152

 

I don't know how visually appealing this is, but it's just a fun photo :) That would be my brother and cousin.

 

Have a great weekend everyone! :D

 

Strobist Info:

SB-900 camera left shot into silver reflective umbrella w/ 1/2 CTO

430EX II camera right shot through umbrella

土耳其－Kars省－阿尼遗址－荒原上的圣母大教堂

 

The Cathedral, also known as Surp Asdvadzadzin (the Church of the Holy Mother of God), situated in ancient Armenian city of Ani, a UNESCO World Heritage Site located in Kars province, Eastern Anatolia, Turkey, next to the closed border with Armenia.

 

The construction of the Cathedral was started in the year 989, under King Smbat II. Work was halted after his death, and was only finished in 1001 (or in 1010 under another reading of its building inscription). The design of the cathedral was the work of Trdat, the most celebrated architect of medieval Armenia. The cathedral is a domed basilica (the dome collapsed in 1319). The interior contains several progressive features (such as the use of pointed arches and clustered piers) that give to it the appearance of Gothic architecture (a style which the Ani cathedral predates by several centuries).

 

The city of Ani is located on a triangular site, visually dramatic and naturally defensive, protected on its eastern side by the ravine of the Akhurian River and on its western side by the Bostanlar or Tzaghkotzadzor valley. The Akhurian is a branch of the Araks River and forms part of the current border between Turkey and Armenia.

 

Between 961 and 1045, Ani was the capital of the Bagratid Armenian kingdom that covered much of present-day Armenia and eastern Turkey. Called the "City of 1001 Churches", Ani stood on various trade routes and its many religious buildings, palaces, and fortifications were amongst the most technically and artistically advanced structures in the world. At its height, the population of Ani probably was on the order of 100,000.

 

Long ago renowned for its splendor and magnificence, Ani was sacked by the Mongols in 1236 and devastated in a 1319 earthquake, after which it was reduced to a village and gradually abandoned and largely forgotten by the seventeenth century. Ani is a widely recognized cultural, religious, and national heritage symbol for Armenians. According to Razmik Panossian, Ani is one of the most visible and ‘tangible’ symbols of past Armenian greatness and hence a source of pride.

 

© All rights reserved. You may not use this photo in website, blog or any other media without my explicit permission.

A visually striking collection of interstellar gas and dust is the focus of this week's Hubble Picture of the Week. Named RCW 7, the nebula is located just over 5300 light-years from Earth in the constellation Puppis.

 

Nebulae are areas of space that are rich in the raw material needed to form new stars. Under the influence of gravity, parts of these molecular clouds collapse until they coalesce into protostars, surrounded by spinning discs of leftover gas and dust. In the case of RCW 7, the protostars forming here are particularly massive, giving off strongly ionising radiation and fierce stellar winds that have transformed it into what is known as a H II region.

 

H II regions are filled with hydrogen ions — where H I refers to a normal hydrogen atom, H II is hydrogen that has lost its electron. The ultraviolet radiation from the massive protostars excites the hydrogen, causing it to emit light and giving this nebula its soft pinkish glow. Here Hubble is studying a particular massive protostellar binary named IRAS 07299-1651, still in its glowing cocoon of gas in the curling clouds towards the top of the nebula. To expose this star and its siblings, this image was captured using the Wide Field Camera 3 in near-infrared light. The massive protostars here are brightest in ultraviolet light, but they emit plenty of infrared light which can pass through much of the gas and dust around them and be seen by Hubble. Many of the other, larger-looking stars in this image are not part of the nebula, but sit between it and our Solar System.

 

The creation of an H II region marks the beginning of the end for a molecular cloud. Over only a few million years, the radiation and winds from the massive stars gradually disperse the gas — even more so as the most massive stars come to the end of their lives in supernova explosions. Only a fraction of the gas will be incorporated into new stars in this nebula, with the rest being spread throughout the galaxy to eventually form new molecular clouds.

 

[Image Description: Clouds of gas and dust with many stars. The clouds form a flat blue background towards the bottom, and become more thick and smoky towards the top. They are lit on one side by stars in the nebula. A thick arc of gas and dust reaches around from the top, where it is brightly lit by many stars in and around it, to the bottom where it is dark and obscuring. Other large stars lie between the clouds and the viewer.]

 

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, J. Tan (Chalmers University & University of Virginia), R. Fedriani (Institute for Astrophysics of Andalusia)

 

CC BY 4.0 INT

March Point. Padilla Bay/Fidalgo Bay.

"The Washington population of the Black Oystercatcher is estimated to be roughly 400 birds. This number is probably not significantly different from the historical population, as these birds require fairly specialized habitat, which is not evenly distributed. Oystercatchers are highly vulnerable to human disturbance, oil spills, and pollution of the intertidal zone. Numbers of Black Oystercatchers on the outer coast may be higher than in the past, in part due to decreased human disturbance resulting from lighthouse automation. Numbers in inland areas, however, have declined in response to increased human activity. The Northern Pacific Coast Regional Shorebird Management Plan has identified the Black Oystercatcher as a regional species of high concern."

 

"The Black Oystercatcher is restricted in its range, never straying far from shores, in particular favoring rocky shorelines. It has been suggested that this bird is seen mostly on coastal stretches which have some quieter embayments, such as jetty protected areas. It forages in the intertidal zone, feeding on marine invertebrates, particularly molluscs such as mussels, limpets and chitons. It will also take crabs, isopods and barnacles. It hunts through the intertidal area, searching for food visually, often so close to the water's edge it has to fly up to avoid crashing surf. It uses its strong bill to dislodge food and pry shells open."

As visually complicated as the ABANDONED CADILLAC photo might appear, it really was a fairly simple setup, right on my kitchen table.

[ here's the finished photo:]

www.flickr.com/photos/24796741@N05/7028272255/in/photostr...

 

I've had that bridge model for some time and wanted to use it in a different way.

After I placed it on the "road surface" the whole scene fell into place because the piers of the structure seemed to make a stronger statement than the iron works.

After that decision, It was a just a question of what era to represent.

 

When lighting the set, it was immediately clear that a dramatic over head source was the way to go. The pattern of the girders falling on the automobiles defined the story.

An interesting aspect of that lighting was it created an odd flattening of the background; there was no sense depth, even though the backdrop was over 3 feet away.

 

Visually Oregon City seems either too dark or too bright, e.g. here the new lights on the bridge made the river seem very dark visually, but photographically it balanced out very nicely. Click here to view other images in this Study Series. From a fun night in Oregon City with the PDXNightowls. NB18369

The 356 C replaced the 356 B in model year 1964. Visually there was hardly any difference, apart from a new rear-view mirror and flatter hubs with the Porsche emblem in color. Disc brakes came as standard.

 

1.582 cc

Flat 4

75 hp

Vmax : 175 km/h

0-100 km/h : 14 sec

 

In the Spotlight : Porsche 356 - 70 Years

01/07/2020 - 30/08/2020

 

Autoworld

www.autoworld.be

Brussels - Belgium

August 2020

I was attracted to the colors and the repeating pattern of these peppers at the local super market.

Downtown Los Angeles in the visually entertaining Arts District.

Visually speaking, tree stumps and saw dust are kinda the story of our lives right now.

Models: Lizzie Hannah Davies & AmyMcK

MUA: Lucy McCulloch

  

Strobist Info: 580EX with wide angle diffuser flipped down, camera right. Triggered with CTR-301P wireless.

West Loop skyscrapers

This image of NGC 3628, sometimes known as Sarah’s Galaxy or by the more visually descriptive Hamburger Galaxy represents 9.6 hours of image integration time over 4 nights this past March 2023 from Grand Mesa Observatory. www.grandmesaobservatory.com

   

NGC 3628 is a great example of an edge on view of a spiral galaxy. The dust band running through the center of the galaxy is the dust and gas located in its spiral arms which are enveloped in a halo of stars, gas, and more dust. There is some debate as to whether NGC3628 is a barred spiral galaxy or just a spiral galaxy, this may have something to do with the orientation of the bars relative to our view here on Earth. I wonder if there will ever be a way to definitively know, in the meantime it’s something interesting to ponder. Also, dimly visible in this image is a portion of its 300,000-light-year tidal tail drifting off to the left, this is the product of its interaction with other nearby galaxies. NGC 3628 is also part of the galaxy group known as the Leo Triplet. At about 35 million light years distant, light we see from this galaxy left NGC 3628 when here on Earth Daphoenus roamed North America during the Middle Eocene. Daphoenus or ‘bear dogs’ were an interesting predatory mammal that were about the size of a coyote based on the fossil record and had characteristics of both bears and dogs hence the name. I’ll bet they would eat a hamburger if they ever came across one 😊

   

NGC 3628 Wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_3628

 

Leo Triplet Wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Triplet

 

Daphoenus, Bear Dog Wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daphoenus

   

This image taken from Grand Mesa Observatory, captured and processed by Terry Hancock and Tom Masterson

   

Technical Info:

   

Captured and processed by: Tom Masterson and Terry Hancock using Grand Mesa Observatory's System 2a William Optics FLT156mm APO now available with our subscription: grandmesaobservatory.com/equipment-rentals.

  

Location: GrandMesaObservatory.com Purdy Mesa, Colorado

  

Captured over 4 nights in March 2023 for Total acquisition time of 9.6 hours.

 

RGB 86 min 144 x 244 sec

  

Camera: QHY294C one shot color CMOS

 

Filter Wheel: QHYCFW3 Medium

 

Gain 2850, Offset 76

 

Calibrated with dark, and dark Flat Frames

 

Optics: William Optics FLT 156mm F7.8 1228mm

 

Image Scale: 0.76 arcsec/pix

 

Field of View: 0.90 0.61

 

EQ Mount: Paramount ME

 

Image Acquisition software NINA Pre-Processing in PixInsight Post Processed in Photoshop CC

Ah, the visually amazing El Camino.

Truly one of the "Love It or Hate It" body styles of the late 50's.

A veritable buffet of Show Car, Space Age and Surreal automotive design.

What's not to like?

 

This photo is an out take from the promotional images I did for West Coast Precision Diecasts.

The buildings, way in the background, are part of the MIT campus, here in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

 

The Llao Llao, one of the most famous hotels in Argentina, was a little too salty (apparently a common term in Argentina for expensive) for our travel budget. We stayed in a hotel on the lake closer to the town of Bariloche, which was nice in its own right but not as visually striking as this. Just about every time we drove past the Llao Llau I had to stop and take a few photos. My wife asked me if I was trying to take the same photo as you'd see on the hotel brochure. I try and avoid that kind of shot but sometimes you have to just give in and embrace the cliche.

While visually, you might find this jarring, to me this is actually what I saw today. Not the blown out sky I got from a tradional shot.

If you take a wonder through my stream you will see that I LOVE colour, so I thought this Hans Hofmann quote was perfect for the ODC theme "The whole world as we experience it visually, comes to us through the mystic realm of color".

 

This was another one I took yesterday for the quoted theme, but I was unsure of the composition of it when I transferred it to Lightroom, something just did not look right to me, but I did love the colour and the quote, hence I have decided to post it anyway.

 

I hope you are all having a fantastic Thursday x

“Visually Warm”

 

Susquehanna Sunset January 29, 2025

 

Strong winds and lake affect snow but,still was able to capture a visually warm moment.

 

Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania

I enjoy modern… Visually & mentally… but how amazing does it feel to walk into the 90’s and feel… and even taste it… 🎄❤️ The most immense happiness is in the most minor things… There are many misunderstandings in life… way too many… we don’t listen… we don’t hear… what people say & what they mean… and what they say & what we hear is not always the same thing…

  

All I want for Christmas is for you

You're the gift that's made my dreams all come true

All I need for Christmas is here

Finding every sweet surprise wrapped up in your eyes

Waiting there for me underneath the tree

We'll then spend the day exchanging kisses

Smile and say What a Christmas this is

Long before the snowflakes appear

Without bells or mistletoe or the tinsel silver glow

You just look at me and Oh!

Christmas is here!

  

Someone asks me today if she should not speak to her fiance ever again because of something she heard… and I said, “yes, you should not speak to him if you want to quit him.” Ignoring someone is an excellent way to get them out of your life 200% of the time. But if you want to ignore because of something you “think”… assumption is a hypothesis not worth testing. If you would ignore it because of love… just make sure they speak your “language” before you lose them.

 

A visually appealing shot down the cell block of an abandoned maximum security prison. The fate of this facility in unknown as it was recently put up for sale. In all likelihood majority of it will be demolished & the facade saved for due it its historical value/status. That said, everything about this photo makes me very happy. The only thing that would be better is if I was back again exploring/hanging out!

  

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A full moon at perigee is visually larger up to 14% in diameter and shines 30% more light than one at its farthest point, or apogee.

 

A supermoon is the coincidence of a full moon or a New moon with the closest approach the Moon makes to the Earth on its elliptical orbit, resulting in the largest apparent size of the lunar disk as seen from Earth.[3] The technical name is the perigee-syzygy of the Earth–Moon–Sun system.[a] The term "supermoon" is not astronomical, but originated in modern astrology.[4] The association of the Moon with both oceanic and crustal tides has led to claims that the supermoon phenomenon may be associated with increased risk of events such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, but this effect is very slight.

 

Taken from Wikipedia.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

by artofvisuals ift.tt/1WN1zNG

Sadly not a patch on previous times I've been. Visually less of everything across the board. It's clear reenactors, stall holders, vintage vehicles etc., have given it a miss in advance.

The event organisers [Pike and Shot] say 80% of the groups let them down. Cant blame the groups for the mass exodus. You're the organisers, they have supported this event for over 10 years. The fault is on your doorstep.

 

I was watching and listening to the fella firing up the Rolls Royce engine. He was furious to put it mildly (as seen in my video). He received a call to start it earlier than scheduled. He had to! He did with reluctance and was subsequently drowning out the singers nearby. When he challenged the staff about it they were not so sympathetic. Awful for him. To his credit he apologised to the small crowd of what happened that he was instructed to start the engine early. So for me, this was a live example of the organisers causing unrest as the event unfolded.

Having been to several 1940s events this year, this was the bottom of the pile. When I spoke with quite a few visitors and stall holders etc., they were expecting so much more, as in the past.

 

Singer: Miss Trixie Holiday

The other singer, not in this video, was Ricky Hunter. Decided not to include him in my video because he spent way too much time looking at his phone, playlist, drinking water, while singing, rather than entertain the crowd. He was a last minute guest singer anyway. He had not been invited for over 5 years.

 

Entrance fee was £10! (reduced to £4 very late on into the second day). No concessions. No signposting to the event. No map or itinerary. Limited parking. A bare bones event. Purely the fault of the organisers and Rufford Abbey Estate collectively.

 

Without Prejudice.

A visually pleasing and creative charcuterie platter, that I was lucky to share with friends while visiting the Liquidity Bistro in the Okanagan on the May long weekend.

 

©Maria Janicki. All rights reserved. Image may not be used or reproduced without permission. Contact me for further information.

I wanted to travel to Morocco by boat in order to experiment visually the continent change from Europa to Africa. Only on land travelling make the passenger really feel the distance and the cultural evolution all along the way. Since I had previously visited Sevilla, Malaga was for me an obvious starting point for a short Morocco trip. Then I would go to gibraltar, Tarifa and take the boat for Tangier, my first Morocco city. The trip lasted 3 weeks until I reach south of Atlas Mountain Range, just before the desert.

 

The conclusion of my travel is that I could not recognize any Moroccan people anymore since I could realize that from north to south, and depending of the mountain side landscape, geography and people are totally different.

by artofvisuals ift.tt/1USmykc

This AI-generated image is a perfect example of what architects call "starchitecture" - a building so visually dramatic it becomes a landmark before the first brick is even laid. While a Santiago Calatrava-inspired mall would undoubtedly be a "bionic" masterpiece of white steel and soaring ribs, the question of its sensibility is a complicated one. In the current 2026 retail climate, we aren’t seeing the "death of the mall" so much as a great bifurcation. The middle-market malls you grew up with are indeed shuttering at record rates, but high-end, "destination" malls are actually seeing a resurgence.

 

The financial viability of such a project hinges on the fact that retail has shifted from a commodity business to an experience economy. People no longer drive to a physical location just to buy a pair of jeans they could order via an AI concierge in three seconds; they go for the "theatrical" environment. A Calatrava-style structure - much like his Oculus in New York or the City of Arts and Sciences in Valencia - functions more like a secular cathedral or a museum than a store. In 2026, premier "Class A" malls that lean into this immersive, high-art aesthetic are reporting visit gains, while "zombie malls" with generic designs are being converted into medical offices or apartments.

 

However, the "built anywhere" part of your premise is where the sensibility starts to crumble. A state-of-the-art, neofuturistic mall is incredibly expensive to build and maintain. The skeletal, organic forms Calatrava is known for require specialized engineering and high-grade materials that drive up the "rent-per-square-foot" to levels only ultra-luxury brands can afford. If you drop this masterpiece in a mid-sized suburb with average household incomes, it becomes a "white elephant" - a beautiful structure that can't generate enough revenue to cover its own air conditioning and debt service.

 

There is also the "anywhere" fallacy regarding cultural context. Part of the reason malls are struggling globally is that consumers are craving authenticity and local connection. A "spaceship" mall that looks the same in Dubai as it does in Dallas often fails to build a long-term community bond. The most successful new developments in 2026 are moving away from the "sealed box" model and toward biophilic, open-air designs that integrate with the local environment. A Calatrava design is stunning, but if it feels like an alien vessel landed in a parking lot, it risks becoming a tourist curiosity rather than a functional piece of the city's social fabric.

 

Ultimately, building a mall like this is only sensible if it isn't just a mall. To survive today’s financial headwinds, such a project must be a mixed-use hub - integrating luxury housing, high-end dining, and perhaps a transit link. If the goal is purely to sell clothes, it’s a financial ghost ship in the making. But if the goal is to create a cultural destination where "shopping" is just a side effect of "being there," it might just be one of the few types of physical retail that still makes sense.

If the word perfume is to ever be used to describe scenery, that part of nature would probably look like something very close to this.

 

I give you the fragrance of paradise, visually scented.

Visually a descendent of the SP1 Striker, but sized more like the Galactic Peacekeeper.

 

I'm still not totally sure about that cagelike take on the prisoner transport pod, but it mostly works.

 

And I actually managed semi-retractable undercarriage.

The photo shows the Braille letters BRL - short for the word Braille.

 

4th January is celebrated as World Braille Day every year. The whole month of January is Braille Literacy Month.

  

Many people say that in the era of modern technology Braille is outdated. However, that is absolutely not true. Just like sighted people must know how to read and write, blind and visually impaired people must be able to use a system for reading and writing, too. In fact, it is even more important for blind and visually impaired people to be able to read and write. Being literate is a basic skill that everybody must master. Sure, screen readers are great and make life a lot easier if you can't use a phone or a computer screen. But still - these apps and programs are not a substitute for the basic ability of reading and writing. So, if you are visually impaired or blind, I encourage you to learn Braille! As a Braille user I can tell you from experience that it will open up a whole world of new possibilities for you just as it has for me!

 

Keep the comment clean! No banners, awards or invitations, please!

 

See more photos of this, and the Wikipedia article.

 

Details, quoting from Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum | Lockheed P-38J-10-LO Lightning

 

In the P-38 Lockheed engineer Clarence "Kelly" Johnson and his team of designers created one of the most successful twin-engine fighters ever flown by any nation. From 1942 to 1945, U. S. Army Air Forces pilots flew P-38s over Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Pacific, and from the frozen Aleutian Islands to the sun-baked deserts of North Africa. Lightning pilots in the Pacific theater downed more Japanese aircraft than pilots flying any other Allied warplane.

 

Maj. Richard I. Bong, America's leading fighter ace, flew this P-38J-10-LO on April 16, 1945, at Wright Field, Ohio, to evaluate an experimental method of interconnecting the movement of the throttle and propeller control levers. However, his right engine exploded in flight before he could conduct the experiment.

 

Transferred from the United States Air Force.

 

Manufacturer:

Lockheed Aircraft Company

 

Date:

1943

 

Country of Origin:

United States of America

 

Dimensions:

Overall: 390 x 1170cm, 6345kg, 1580cm (12ft 9 9/16in. x 38ft 4 5/8in., 13988.2lb., 51ft 10 1/16in.)

 

Materials:

All-metal

 

Physical Description:

Twin-tail boom and twin-engine fighter; tricycle landing gear.

 

Long Description:

From 1942 to 1945, the thunder of P-38 Lightnings was heard around the world. U. S. Army pilots flew the P-38 over Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Pacific; from the frozen Aleutian Islands to the sun-baked deserts of North Africa. Measured by success in combat, Lockheed engineer Clarence "Kelly" Johnson and a team of designers created the most successful twin-engine fighter ever flown by any nation. In the Pacific Theater, Lightning pilots downed more Japanese aircraft than pilots flying any other Army Air Forces warplane.

 

Johnson and his team conceived this twin-engine, single-pilot fighter airplane in 1936 and the Army Air Corps authorized the firm to build it in June 1937. Lockheed finished constructing the prototype XP-38 and delivered it to the Air Corps on New Year's Day, 1939. Air Corps test pilot and P-38 project officer, Lt. Benjamin S. Kelsey, first flew the aircraft on January 27. Losing this prototype in a crash at Mitchel Field, New York, with Kelsey at the controls, did not deter the Air Corps from ordering 13 YP-38s for service testing on April 27. Kelsey survived the crash and remained an important part of the Lightning program. Before the airplane could be declared ready for combat, Lockheed had to block the effects of high-speed aerodynamic compressibility and tail buffeting, and solve other problems discovered during the service tests.

 

The most vexing difficulty was the loss of control in a dive caused by aerodynamic compressibility. During late spring 1941, Air Corps Major Signa A. Gilke encountered serious trouble while diving his Lightning at high-speed from an altitude of 9,120 m (30,000 ft). When he reached an indicated airspeed of about 515 kph (320 mph), the airplane's tail began to shake violently and the nose dropped until the dive was almost vertical. Signa recovered and landed safely and the tail buffet problem was soon resolved after Lockheed installed new fillets to improve airflow where the cockpit gondola joined the wing center section. Seventeen months passed before engineers began to determine what caused the Lightning's nose to drop. They tested a scale model P-38 in the Ames Laboratory wind tunnel operated by the NACA (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics) and found that shock waves formed when airflow over the wing leading edges reached transonic speeds. The nose drop and loss of control was never fully remedied but Lockheed installed dive recovery flaps under each wing in 1944. These devices slowed the P-38 enough to allow the pilot to maintain control when diving at high-speed.

 

Just as the development of the North American P-51 Mustang, Republic P-47 Thunderbolt, and the Vought F4U Corsair (see NASM collection for these aircraft) pushed the limits of aircraft performance into unexplored territory, so too did P-38 development. The type of aircraft envisioned by the Lockheed design team and Air Corps strategists in 1937 did not appear until June 1944. This protracted shakedown period mirrors the tribulations suffered by Vought in sorting out the many technical problems that kept F4U Corsairs off U. S. Navy carrier decks until the end of 1944.

 

Lockheed's efforts to trouble-shoot various problems with the design also delayed high-rate, mass production. When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, the company had delivered only 69 Lightnings to the Army. Production steadily increased and at its peak in 1944, 22 sub-contractors built various Lightning components and shipped them to Burbank, California, for final assembly. Consolidated-Vultee (Convair) subcontracted to build the wing center section and the firm later became prime manufacturer for 2,000 P-38Ls but that company's Nashville plant completed only 113 examples of this Lightning model before war's end. Lockheed and Convair finished 10,038 P-38 aircraft including 500 photo-reconnaissance models. They built more L models, 3,923, than any other version.

 

To ease control and improve stability, particularly at low speeds, Lockheed equipped all Lightnings, except a batch ordered by Britain, with propellers that counter-rotated. The propeller to the pilot's left turned counter-clockwise and the propeller to his right turned clockwise, so that one propeller countered the torque and airflow effects generated by the other. The airplane also performed well at high speeds and the definitive P-38L model could make better than 676 kph (420 mph) between 7,600 and 9,120 m (25,000 and 30,000 ft). The design was versatile enough to carry various combinations of bombs, air-to-ground rockets, and external fuel tanks. The multi-engine configuration reduced the Lightning loss-rate to anti-aircraft gunfire during ground attack missions. Single-engine airplanes equipped with power plants cooled by pressurized liquid, such as the North American P-51 Mustang (see NASM collection), were particularly vulnerable. Even a small nick in one coolant line could cause the engine to seize in a matter of minutes.

 

The first P-38s to reach the Pacific combat theater arrived on April 4, 1942, when a version of the Lightning that carried reconnaissance cameras (designated the F-4), joined the 8th Photographic Squadron based in Australia. This unit launched the first P-38 combat missions over New Guinea and New Britain during April. By May 29, the first 25 P-38s had arrived in Anchorage, Alaska. On August 9, pilots of the 343rd Fighter Group, Eleventh Air Force, flying the P-38E, shot down a pair of Japanese flying boats.

 

Back in the United States, Army Air Forces leaders tried to control a rumor that Lightnings killed their own pilots. On August 10, 1942, Col. Arthur I. Ennis, Chief of U. S. Army Air Forces Public Relations in Washington, told a fellow officer "… Here's what the 4th Fighter [training] Command is up against… common rumor out there that the whole West Coast was filled with headless bodies of men who jumped out of P-38s and had their heads cut off by the propellers." Novice Lightning pilots unfamiliar with the correct bailout procedures actually had more to fear from the twin-boom tail, if an emergency dictated taking to the parachute but properly executed, Lightning bailouts were as safe as parachuting from any other high-performance fighter of the day. Misinformation and wild speculation about many new aircraft was rampant during the early War period.

 

Along with U. S. Navy Grumman F4F Wildcats (see NASM collection) and Curtiss P-40 Warhawks (see NASM collection), Lightnings were the first American fighter airplanes capable of consistently defeating Japanese fighter aircraft. On November 18, men of the 339th Fighter Squadron became the first Lightning pilots to attack Japanese fighters. Flying from Henderson Field on Guadalcanal, they claimed three during a mission to escort Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bombers (see NASM collection).

 

On April 18, 1943, fourteen P-38 pilots from the 70th and the 339th Fighter Squadrons, 347th Fighter Group, accomplished one of the most important Lightning missions of the war. American ULTRA cryptanalysts had decoded Japanese messages that revealed the timetable for a visit to the front by the commander of the Imperial Japanese Navy, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto. This charismatic leader had crafted the plan to attack Pearl Harbor and Allied strategists believed his loss would severely cripple Japanese morale. The P-38 pilots flew 700 km (435 miles) at heights from 3-15 m (10-50 feet) above the ocean to avoid detection. Over the coast of Bougainville, they intercepted a formation of two Mitsubishi G4M BETTY bombers (see NASM collection) carrying the Admiral and his staff, and six Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighters (see NASM collection) providing escort. The Lightning pilots downed both bombers but lost Lt. Ray Hine to a Zero.

 

In Europe, the first Americans to down a Luftwaffe aircraft were Lt. Elza E. Shahan flying a 27th Fighter Squadron P-38E, and Lt. J. K. Shaffer flying a Curtiss P-40 (see NASM collection) in the 33rd Fighter Squadron. The two flyers shared the destruction of a Focke-Wulf Fw 200C-3 Condor maritime strike aircraft over Iceland on August 14, 1942. Later that month, the 1st fighter group accepted Lightnings and began combat operations from bases in England but this unit soon moved to fight in North Africa. More than a year passed before the P-38 reappeared over Western Europe. While the Lightning was absent, U. S. Army Air Forces strategists had relearned a painful lesson: unescorted bombers cannot operate successfully in the face of determined opposition from enemy fighters. When P-38s returned to England, the primary mission had become long-range bomber escort at ranges of about 805 kms (500 miles) and at altitudes above 6,080 m (20,000 ft).

 

On October 15, 1943, P-38H pilots in the 55th Fighter Group flew their first combat mission over Europe at a time when the need for long-range escorts was acute. Just the day before, German fighter pilots had destroyed 60 of 291 Eighth Air Force B-17 Flying Fortresses (see NASM collection) during a mission to bomb five ball-bearing plants at Schweinfurt, Germany. No air force could sustain a loss-rate of nearly 20 percent for more than a few missions but these targets lay well beyond the range of available escort fighters (Republic P-47 Thunderbolt, see NASM collection). American war planners hoped the long-range capabilities of the P-38 Lightning could halt this deadly trend, but the very high and very cold environment peculiar to the European air war caused severe power plant and cockpit heating difficulties for the Lightning pilots. The long-range escort problem was not completely solved until the North American P-51 Mustang (see NASM collection) began to arrive in large numbers early in 1944.

 

Poor cockpit heating in the H and J model Lightnings made flying and fighting at altitudes that frequently approached 12,320 m (40,000 ft) nearly impossible. This was a fundamental design flaw that Kelly Johnson and his team never anticipated when they designed the airplane six years earlier. In his seminal work on the Allison V-1710 engine, Daniel Whitney analyzed in detail other factors that made the P-38 a disappointing airplane in combat over Western Europe.

 

• Many new and inexperienced pilots arrived in England during December 1943, along with the new J model P-38 Lightning.

 

• J model rated at 1,600 horsepower vs. 1,425 for earlier H model Lightnings. This power setting required better maintenance between flights. It appears this work was not done in many cases.

 

• During stateside training, Lightning pilots were taught to fly at high rpm settings and low engine manifold pressure during cruise flight. This was very hard on the engines, and not in keeping with technical directives issued by Allison and Lockheed.

 

• The quality of fuel in England may have been poor, TEL (tetraethyl lead) fuel additive appeared to condense inside engine induction manifolds, causing detonation (destructive explosion of fuel mixture rather than controlled burning).

 

• Improved turbo supercharger intercoolers appeared on the J model P-38. These devices greatly reduced manifold temperatures but this encouraged TEL condensation in manifolds during cruise flight and increased spark plug fouling.

 

Using water injection to minimize detonation might have reduced these engine problems. Both the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt and the North American P-51 Mustang (see NASM collection) were fitted with water injection systems but not the P-38. Lightning pilots continued to fly, despite these handicaps.

 

During November 1942, two all-Lightning fighter groups, the 1st and the 14th, began operating in North Africa. In the Mediterranean Theater, P-38 pilots flew more sorties than Allied pilots flying any other type of fighter. They claimed 608 enemy a/c destroyed in the air, 123 probably destroyed and 343 damaged, against the loss of 131 Lightnings.

 

In the war against Japan, the P-38 truly excelled. Combat rarely occurred above 6,080 m (20,000 ft) and the engine and cockpit comfort problems common in Europe never plagued pilots in the Pacific Theater. The Lightning's excellent range was used to full advantage above the vast expanses of water. In early 1945, Lightning pilots of the 12th Fighter Squadron, 18th Fighter Group, flew a mission that lasted 10 ½ hours and covered more than 3,220 km (2,000 miles). In August, P-38 pilots established the world's long-distance record for a World War II combat fighter when they flew from the Philippines to the Netherlands East Indies, a distance of 3,703 km (2,300 miles). During early 1944, Lightning pilots in the 475th Fighter Group began the 'race of aces.' By March, Lieutenant Colonel Thomas J. Lynch had scored 21 victories before he fell to antiaircraft gunfire while strafing enemy ships. Major Thomas B. McGuire downed 38 Japanese aircraft before he was killed when his P-38 crashed at low altitude in early January 1945. Major Richard I. Bong became America's highest scoring fighter ace (40 victories) but died in the crash of a Lockheed P-80 (see NASM collection) on August 6, 1945.

 

Museum records show that Lockheed assigned the construction number 422-2273 to the National Air and Space Museum's P-38. The Army Air Forces accepted this Lightning as a P-38J-l0-LO on November 6, 1943, and the service identified the airplane with the serial number 42-67762. Recent investigations conducted by a team of specialists at the Paul E. Garber Facility, and Herb Brownstein, a volunteer in the Aeronautics Division at the National Air and Space Museum, have revealed many hitherto unknown aspects to the history of this aircraft.

 

Brownstein examined NASM files and documents at the National Archives. He discovered that a few days after the Army Air Forces (AAF) accepted this airplane, the Engineering Division at Wright Field in Dayton, Ohio, granted Lockheed permission to convert this P-38 into a two-seat trainer. The firm added a seat behind the pilot to accommodate an instructor who would train civilian pilots in instrument flying techniques. Once trained, these test pilots evaluated new Lightnings fresh off the assembly line.

 

In a teletype sent by the Engineering Division on March 2, 1944, Brownstein also discovered that this P-38 was released to Colonel Benjamin S. Kelsey from March 3 to April 10, 1944, to conduct special tests. This action was confirmed the following day in a cable from the War Department. This same pilot, then a Lieutenant, flew the XP-38 across the United States in 1939 and survived the crash that destroyed this Lightning at Mitchel Field, New York. In early 1944, Kelsey was assigned to the Eighth Air Force in England and he apparently traveled to the Lockheed factory at Burbank to pick up the P-38. Further information about these tests and Kelsey's involvement remain an intriguing question.

 

One of Brownstein's most important discoveries was a small file rich with information about the NASM Lightning. This file contained a cryptic reference to a "Major Bong" who flew the NASM P-38 on April 16, 1945, at Wright Field. Bong had planned to fly for an hour to evaluate an experimental method of interconnecting the movement of the throttle and propeller control levers. His flight ended after twenty-minutes when "the right engine blew up before I had a chance [to conduct the test]." The curator at the Richard I. Bong Heritage Center confirmed that America's highest scoring ace made this flight in the NASM P-38 Lightning.

 

Working in Building 10 at the Paul E. Garber Facility, Rob Mawhinney, Dave Wilson, Wil Lee, Bob Weihrauch, Jim Purton, and Heather Hutton spent several months during the spring and summer of 2001 carefully disassembling, inspecting, and cleaning the NASM Lightning. They found every hardware modification consistent with a model J-25 airplane, not the model J-10 painted in the data block beneath the artifact's left nose. This fact dovetails perfectly with knowledge uncovered by Brownstein. On April 10, the Engineering Division again cabled Lockheed asking the company to prepare 42-67762 for transfer to Wright Field "in standard configuration." The standard P-38 configuration at that time was the P-38J-25. The work took several weeks and the fighter does not appear on Wright Field records until May 15, 1944. On June 9, the Flight Test Section at Wright Field released the fighter for flight trials aimed at collecting pilot comments on how the airplane handled.

 

Wright Field's Aeromedical Laboratory was the next organization involved with this P-38. That unit installed a kit on July 26 that probably measured the force required to move the control wheel left and right to actuate the power-boosted ailerons installed in all Lightnings beginning with version J-25. From August 12-16, the Power Plant Laboratory carried out tests to measure the hydraulic pump temperatures on this Lightning. Then beginning September 16 and lasting about ten days, the Bombing Branch, Armament Laboratory, tested type R-3 fragmentation bomb racks. The work appears to have ended early in December. On June 20, 1945, the AAF Aircraft Distribution Office asked that the Air Technical Service Command transfer the Lightning from Wright Field to Altus Air Force Base, Oklahoma, a temporary holding area for Air Force museum aircraft. The P-38 arrived at the Oklahoma City Air Depot on June 27, 1945, and mechanics prepared the fighter for flyable storage.

 

Airplane Flight Reports for this Lightning also describe the following activities and movements:

 

6-21-45 Wright Field, Ohio, 5.15 hours of flying.

6-22-45Wright Field, Ohio, .35 minutes of flying by Lt. Col. Wendel [?] J. Kelley and P. Shannon.

6-25-45Altus, Oklahoma, .55 hours flown, pilot P. Shannon.

6-27-45Altus, Oklahoma, #2 engine changed, 1.05 hours flown by Air Corps F/O Ralph F. Coady.

10-5-45 OCATSC-GCAAF (Garden City Army Air Field, Garden City, Kansas), guns removed and ballast added.

10-8-45Adams Field, Little Rock, Arkansas.

10-9-45Nashville, Tennessee,

5-28-46Freeman Field, Indiana, maintenance check by Air Corps Capt. H. M. Chadhowere [sp]?

7-24-46Freeman Field, Indiana, 1 hour local flight by 1st Lt. Charles C. Heckel.

7-31-46 Freeman Field, Indiana, 4120th AAF Base Unit, ferry flight to Orchard Place [Illinois] by 1st Lt. Charles C. Heckel.

 

On August 5, 1946, the AAF moved the aircraft to another storage site at the former Consolidated B-24 bomber assembly plant at Park Ridge, Illinois. A short time later, the AAF transferred custody of the Lightning and more than sixty other World War II-era airplanes to the Smithsonian National Air Museum. During the early 1950s, the Air Force moved these airplanes from Park Ridge to the Smithsonian storage site at Suitland, Maryland.

 

• • •

 

Quoting from Wikipedia | Lockheed P-38 Lightning:

 

The Lockheed P-38 Lightning was a World War II American fighter aircraft built by Lockheed. Developed to a United States Army Air Corps requirement, the P-38 had distinctive twin booms and a single, central nacelle containing the cockpit and armament. Named "fork-tailed devil" by the Luftwaffe and "two planes, one pilot" by the Japanese, the P-38 was used in a number of roles, including dive bombing, level bombing, ground-attack, photo reconnaissance missions, and extensively as a long-range escort fighter when equipped with drop tanks under its wings.

 

The P-38 was used most successfully in the Pacific Theater of Operations and the China-Burma-India Theater of Operations as the mount of America's top aces, Richard Bong (40 victories) and Thomas McGuire (38 victories). In the South West Pacific theater, the P-38 was the primary long-range fighter of United States Army Air Forces until the appearance of large numbers of P-51D Mustangs toward the end of the war. The P-38 was unusually quiet for a fighter, the exhaust muffled by the turbo-superchargers. It was extremely forgiving, and could be mishandled in many ways, but the rate of roll was too slow for it to excel as a dogfighter. The P-38 was the only American fighter aircraft in production throughout American involvement in the war, from Pearl Harbor to Victory over Japan Day.

 

Variants: Lightning in maturity: P-38J

 

The P-38J was introduced in August 1943. The turbo-supercharger intercooler system on previous variants had been housed in the leading edges of the wings and had proven vulnerable to combat damage and could burst if the wrong series of controls were mistakenly activated. In the P-38J model, the streamlined engine nacelles of previous Lightnings were changed to fit the intercooler radiator between the oil coolers, forming a "chin" that visually distinguished the J model from its predecessors. While the P-38J used the same V-1710-89/91 engines as the H model, the new core-type intercooler more efficiently lowered intake manifold temperatures and permitted a substantial increase in rated power. The leading edge of the outer wing was fitted with 55 gal (208 l) fuel tanks, filling the space formerly occupied by intercooler tunnels, but these were omitted on early P-38J blocks due to limited availability.

 

The final 210 J models, designated P-38J-25-LO, alleviated the compressibility problem through the addition of a set of electrically-actuated dive recovery flaps just outboard of the engines on the bottom centerline of the wings. With these improvements, a USAAF pilot reported a dive speed of almost 600 mph (970 km/h), although the indicated air speed was later corrected for compressibility error, and the actual dive speed was lower. Lockheed manufactured over 200 retrofit modification kits to be installed on P-38J-10-LO and J-20-LO already in Europe, but the USAAF C-54 carrying them was shot down by an RAF pilot who mistook the Douglas transport for a German Focke-Wulf Condor. Unfortunately the loss of the kits came during Lockheed test pilot Tony LeVier's four-month morale-boosting tour of P-38 bases. Flying a new Lightning named "Snafuperman" modified to full P-38J-25-LO specs at Lockheed's modification center near Belfast, LeVier captured the pilots' full attention by routinely performing maneuvers during March 1944 that common Eighth Air Force wisdom held to be suicidal. It proved too little too late because the decision had already been made to re-equip with Mustangs.

 

The P-38J-25-LO production block also introduced hydraulically-boosted ailerons, one of the first times such a system was fitted to a fighter. This significantly improved the Lightning's rate of roll and reduced control forces for the pilot. This production block and the following P-38L model are considered the definitive Lightnings, and Lockheed ramped up production, working with subcontractors across the country to produce hundreds of Lightnings each month.

 

Noted P-38 pilots

 

Richard Bong and Thomas McGuire

 

The American ace of aces and his closest competitor both flew Lightnings as they tallied 40 and 38 victories respectively. Majors Richard I. "Dick" Bong and Thomas J. "Tommy" McGuire of the USAAF competed for the top position. Both men were awarded the Medal of Honor.

 

McGuire was killed in air combat in January 1945 over the Philippines, after racking up 38 confirmed kills, making him the second-ranking American ace. Bong was rotated back to the United States as America's ace of aces, after making 40 kills, becoming a test pilot. He was killed on 6 August 1945, the day the atomic bomb was dropped on Japan, when his P-80 Shooting Star jet fighter flamed out on takeoff.

 

Charles Lindbergh

 

The famed aviator Charles Lindbergh toured the South Pacific as a civilian contractor for United Aircraft Corporation, comparing and evaluating performance of single- and twin-engined fighters for Vought. He worked to improve range and load limits of the F4U Corsair, flying both routine and combat strafing missions in Corsairs alongside Marine pilots. In Hollandia, he attached himself to the 475th FG flying P-38s so that he could investigate the twin-engine fighter. Though new to the machine, he was instrumental in extending the range of the P-38 through improved throttle settings, or engine-leaning techniques, notably by reducing engine speed to 1,600 rpm, setting the carburetors for auto-lean and flying at 185 mph (298 km/h) indicated airspeed which reduced fuel consumption to 70 gal/h, about 2.6 mpg. This combination of settings had been considered dangerous; it was thought it would upset the fuel mixture and cause an explosion. Everywhere Lindbergh went in the South Pacific, he was accorded the normal preferential treatment of a visiting colonel, though he had resigned his Air Corps Reserve colonel's commission three years before. While with the 475th, he held training classes and took part in a number of Army Air Corps combat missions. On 28 July 1944, Lindbergh shot down a Mitsubishi Ki-51 "Sonia" flown expertly by the veteran commander of 73rd Independent Flying Chutai, Imperial Japanese Army Captain Saburo Shimada. In an extended, twisting dogfight in which many of the participants ran out of ammunition, Shimada turned his aircraft directly toward Lindbergh who was just approaching the combat area. Lindbergh fired in a defensive reaction brought on by Shimada's apparent head-on ramming attack. Hit by cannon and machine gun fire, the "Sonia's" propeller visibly slowed, but Shimada held his course. Lindbergh pulled up at the last moment to avoid collision as the damaged "Sonia" went into a steep dive, hit the ocean and sank. Lindbergh's wingman, ace Joseph E. "Fishkiller" Miller, Jr., had also scored hits on the "Sonia" after it had begun its fatal dive, but Miller was certain the kill credit was Lindbergh's. The unofficial kill was not entered in the 475th's war record. On 12 August 1944 Lindbergh left Hollandia to return to the United States.

 

Charles MacDonald

 

The seventh-ranking American ace, Charles H. MacDonald, flew a Lightning against the Japanese, scoring 27 kills in his famous aircraft, the Putt Putt Maru.

 

Robin Olds

 

Main article: Robin Olds

 

Robin Olds was the last P-38 ace in the Eighth Air Force and the last in the ETO. Flying a P-38J, he downed five German fighters on two separate missions over France and Germany. He subsequently transitioned to P-51s to make seven more kills. After World War II, he flew F-4 Phantom IIs in Vietnam, ending his career as brigadier general with 16 kills.

 

Clay Tice

 

A P-38 piloted by Clay Tice was the first American aircraft to land in Japan after VJ-Day, when he and his wingman set down on Nitagahara because his wingman was low on fuel.

 

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

 

Noted aviation pioneer and writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry vanished in a F-5B-1-LO, 42-68223, c/n 2734, of Groupe de Chasse II/33, out of Borgo-Porreta, Bastia, Corsica, a reconnaissance variant of the P-38, while on a flight over the Mediterranean, from Corsica to mainland France, on 31 July 1944. His health, both physical and mental (he was said to be intermittently subject to depression), had been deteriorating and there had been talk of taking him off flight status. There have been suggestions (although no proof to date) that this was a suicide rather than an aircraft failure or combat loss. In 2000, a French scuba diver found the wreckage of a Lightning in the Mediterranean off the coast of Marseille, and it was confirmed in April 2004 as Saint-Exupéry's F-5B. No evidence of air combat was found. In March 2008, a former Luftwaffe pilot, Horst Rippert from Jagdgruppe 200, claimed to have shot down Saint-Exupéry.

 

Adrian Warburton

 

The RAF's legendary photo-recon "ace", Wing Commander Adrian Warburton DSO DFC, was the pilot of a Lockheed P-38 borrowed from the USAAF that took off on 12 April 1944 to photograph targets in Germany. W/C Warburton failed to arrive at the rendezvous point and was never seen again. In 2003, his remains were recovered in Germany from his wrecked USAAF P-38 Lightning.

 

• • • • •

 

Quoting Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum | Boeing B-29 Superfortress "Enola Gay":

 

Boeing's B-29 Superfortress was the most sophisticated propeller-driven bomber of World War II and the first bomber to house its crew in pressurized compartments. Although designed to fight in the European theater, the B-29 found its niche on the other side of the globe. In the Pacific, B-29s delivered a variety of aerial weapons: conventional bombs, incendiary bombs, mines, and two nuclear weapons.

 

On August 6, 1945, this Martin-built B-29-45-MO dropped the first atomic weapon used in combat on Hiroshima, Japan. Three days later, Bockscar (on display at the U.S. Air Force Museum near Dayton, Ohio) dropped a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan. Enola Gay flew as the advance weather reconnaissance aircraft that day. A third B-29, The Great Artiste, flew as an observation aircraft on both missions.

 

Transferred from the United States Air Force.

 

Manufacturer:

Boeing Aircraft Co.

Martin Co., Omaha, Nebr.

 

Date:

1945

 

Country of Origin:

United States of America

 

Dimensions:

Overall: 900 x 3020cm, 32580kg, 4300cm (29ft 6 5/16in. x 99ft 1in., 71825.9lb., 141ft 15/16in.)

 

Materials:

Polished overall aluminum finish

 

Physical Description:

Four-engine heavy bomber with semi-monoqoque fuselage and high-aspect ratio wings. Polished aluminum finish overall, standard late-World War II Army Air Forces insignia on wings and aft fuselage and serial number on vertical fin; 509th Composite Group markings painted in black; "Enola Gay" in black, block letters on lower left nose.

Edited Hubble Space Telescope image (I ran it through a haze reduction filter) of NGC 3314, two spiral galaxies that are visually overlapping from our perspective.

My first attempts with a black mirror. I'm quite pleased with the result, actually :-)

 

While I initially started out with different combinations of coloured pencils, I decided to post this photo here on my Flickr. Why? Well, I decided to use it as a way of explaining the question that I got the other day about my white cane: "Do the colours on your cane mean anything?" And the answer is yes!

 

While today white canes can be colourful, too (different colours of grips, tips, etc), there is a kind of an international "code" about white canes, too.

1) A white cane that is completely white indicates that the user is completely blind.

2) A white cane with a red bottom part (like the one I have) indicates that the user is visually impaired and still has some usable vision left.

3) A striped red and white cane indicates that the user is deafblind.

 

So, next time you see someone with a white cane, pay attention to the colours of the cane. This way, you'll know how to act around them and perhaps help them if they ask for help.

 

Keep the comments clean! No banners,a wards or invitations, please!

The Izapa Ruins are historically significant but visually lacking the impact other sites. This shot shows about 50% of what has been uncovered to date which a mere fraction of the ruins.

The HAL tour spent about 90 minutes here, 30 would have been sufficient.

 

From Mundo Maya:

Founded around the year 1,500 B.C., Izapa was the most important ceremonial, political, and religious center of the Pacific coast for almost a thousand years. Its importance was due to commercial factors, as well as for being the region’s religious center. Its position favored migrations and the trade of jade, cocoa, and obsidian, however its ruins do not house spectacular structures or famous paintings like other sites, as it lost a great deal of importance during the Mayan Classic period.

 

Izapa, originally inhabited by Mize-zoque people, began its development around 600 B.C. and reached its peak as a regional center toward the upper Preclassic period, due mostly to the climactic characteristics of where it is located, with its fertile soil and high humidity, which allowed the creation of an intensive agricultural system and surplus stock.

 

The location and planning of its ceremonial center is full of astronomical references, to the point that many archaeologists believe that Izapa had a key role in the construction of Mesoamerican calendars and the Mayan calendar in particular. Its orientation, on a slightly askew angle from the geographical north and its alignment with the Tacaná volcano, have led to the conclusion that its best structures and pyramids for astronomical observation match the dusk of the winter solstice in the northern hemisphere.

 

The ancient city of Izapa was explored by Matthew Stirling in 1935; by Philip Drucker, from the Smithsonian Institution in 1947 and 1948; and was inspected by Eulalia Guzmán in 1935 and 1944.

 

Various stelae narrate some of the myths collected in the Popol Vuh.

 

The archaeological zone is quite wide, it has an area of two kilometers and is comprised of groups of mounds.

 

Today, it is only possible to visit Group F, north of the highway to Talismán, it is the most restored area, which groups together most of the stelae and stone sculptures. Groups A and B, to the south, are accessible through dirt roads, but the area is covered in vegetation. Most of the stelae are in Groups A and B, which correspond to the site’s Preclassic occupation.

Yay! The Corner Garage is finally built. It took me four days to do it. Yeah, I'm just that slow building virtually.

 

So now all that's left is tuning the lights...color, brightness, placement on some.

 

My take on it. I really liked it when I only had the garage level. It has become less interesting, more cluttered and visually noisy the more I built. I'm not sure tuning the lights is going to help all that much.

 

But, in all, a good learning experience. I'm MUCH better at building with Stud.io now.

 

And at least this render is from a different angle.

A visually intense, dense collage from the late 20th Century. Something about Donkey Party Game and Vincent Van Gogh's sunflowers and more, much more. High Art/Low Art. The Beatles from their second album and a Girly Bird screaming upside down at them is in here too. The battleship Texas pennant hangs. A lady at a political convention drapes a Flowers bumper sticker across her forehead. And donkey tales. Poor VV Gogh's 19th century masterpiece gets reduced to background and cultural reference.

What a visually stunning first encounter this handsome Hawk Moth caterpillar was... we found two older instars as well, one green and one so brown it was almost black! They will be posted tomorrow...

Visually appealing landforms.

"Constructed circa 1865, Upton is a coursed gray ashlar two-storey residence located in the east end of the central residential core of Sault Ste. Marie. It visually provides a well proportioned, dignified elevation to a quiet dead end street.

 

Upton has been recognized for its heritage value by the City of Sault Ste. Marie, By-law 83-266.

 

Thought to have been constructed in 1865, Upton, as it was originally named, is one of the oldest residences in Sault Ste. Marie, second only to the Ermatinger Old Stone House (built in 1812). It was built as the home of Wemyss Mackenzie Simpson. Simpson had come to Canada in 1840, serving with the Hudson's Bay Company in various capacities, including that of chief factor of the Sault post from 1862 until its closure in 1865. Following the closure of the post, Simpson was elected as the first Member of Parliament for Algoma. He served in that capacity from 1867 to 1872, at which time he resigned to accept the post of Indian Commissioner.

 

One of the most important examples of Sault Ste. Marie's earliest residential buildings, Upton displays a Georgian style of architecture with Regency influences. It is similar in design to Bishophurst, built in 1874 as the home of Bishop Frederick Dawson Fauquier, the first Bishop of Anglican Diocese of Algoma. Similarities can be seen in the verandahs, the box-like structure of the main house and the low-hipped roofs with smaller projecting wings.

 

In the mid-1980's Upton was in danger of being lost to the community through neglect and abuse. It was saved by the efforts of Heritage Sault Ste. Marie, a local non-profit corporation that purchased Upton in 1987 and restored its exterior while converting the interior into three luxury condominiums. Now owned by private individuals, this important heritage building is secure in its future.

 

Key character defining elements that reflect Upton's heritage value include its:

- symmetrical fenestration and layout

- low, truncated hip roof

- coursed ashlar stone

- stone lintels, keystones and quoins

- six over six sash windows

- french doors

- Regency style wood verandah" - info from Historic Places Canada.

 

"Sault Ste. Marie (/ˈsuː seɪnt məˈriː/ SOO-seint-ma-REE) is a city on the St. Marys River in Ontario, Canada, close to the Canada–US border. It is the seat of the Algoma District and the third largest city in Northern Ontario, after Sudbury and Thunder Bay.

 

The Ojibwe, the indigenous Anishinaabe inhabitants of the area, call this area Baawitigong, meaning "place of the rapids." They used this as a regional meeting place during whitefish season in the St. Mary's Rapids. (The anglicized form of this name, Bawating, is used in institutional and geographic names in the area.)

 

To the south, across the river, is the United States and the Michigan city of the same name. These two communities were one city until a new treaty after the War of 1812 established the border between Canada and the United States in this area at the St. Mary's River. In the 20th century, the two cities are joined by the International Bridge, which connects Interstate 75 on the Michigan side, and Huron Street (and former Ontario Secondary Highway 550B) on the Ontario side. Shipping traffic in the Great Lakes system bypasses the Saint Mary's Rapids via the American Soo Locks, the world's busiest canal in terms of tonnage that passes through it, while smaller recreational and tour boats use the Canadian Sault Ste. Marie Canal.

 

French colonists referred to the rapids on the river as Les Saults de Ste. Marie and the village name was derived from that. The rapids and cascades of the St. Mary's River descend more than 6 m (20 ft) from the level of Lake Superior to the level of the lower lakes. Hundreds of years ago, this slowed shipping traffic, requiring an overland portage of boats and cargo from one lake to the other. The entire name translates to "Saint Mary's Rapids" or "Saint Mary's Falls". The word sault is pronounced [so] in French, and /suː/ in the English pronunciation of the city name. Residents of the city are called Saultites.

 

Sault Ste. Marie is bordered to the east by the Rankin and Garden River First Nation reserves, and to the west by Prince Township. To the north, the city is bordered by an unincorporated portion of Algoma District, which includes the local services boards of Aweres, Batchawana Bay, Goulais and District, Peace Tree and Searchmont. The city's census agglomeration, including the townships of Laird, Prince and Macdonald, Meredith and Aberdeen Additional and the First Nations reserves of Garden River and Rankin, had a total population of 79,800 in 2011.

 

Native American settlements, mostly of Ojibwe-speaking peoples, existed here for more than 500 years. In the late 17th century, French Jesuit missionaries established a mission at the First Nations village. This was followed by development of a fur trading post and larger settlement, as traders, trappers and Native Americans were attracted to the community. It was considered one community and part of Canada until after the War of 1812 and settlement of the border between Canada and the US at the Ste. Mary's River. At that time, the US prohibited British traders from any longer operating in its territory, and the areas separated by the river began to develop as two communities, both named Sault Ste. Marie." - info from Wikipedia.

 

Now on Instagram.

 

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Submitted by: Raj K Raj

Country: India

Organisation: Special Photo journalist with Hindustan Times New Delhi

 

Category: Professional

Caption: Bibekananda Tripathi, 42, first met his wife Sasmita, 35, at school in their hometown Bhubhaneshwar in Odisha. It was a bond born out of love and empathy. They were both visually impaired and became close friends while learning how to negotiate a dark world at Bhima Bhoi School for the Blind. Twenty-five years later, Bibekananda’s job as a stenographer with the Central government led them to Delhi, where they live in a two-room government accommodation in RK Puram in South Delhi. On busy Delhi streets, most people help Bibekananda and his wife negotiate the traffic and people, but he gets more help from people from poorer sections than from the busy middle-classes. “We rarely step out at night because of drunk-driving. People who drink and drive are even more blind than the two of us,” laughs Sasmita.

 

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Photo uploaded from the #StrongerTogether Photo Competition website (photocomp.iapb.org)

Not as dramatic visually, but this image blows me away. As well as the colourful version of the Crab Nebula I shared a few days ago, I also collected some data without a filter - the upshot is the stars are more visible in post processing including the star that powers the whole thing. I didn't think I could capture it with equipment I had, but checking my image against several others with better resolution - I'm pretty confident I got it. That diminutive black dot shining at around 16th magnitude is only 20-30 km across, a neutron star, smaller than the island of Montreal, and yet we can see it here on Earth, 6000 light years or about 60 quadrillion km away.

 

This is a calibrated stack of 60 two minute sub frames.

 

Astrotech AT102ED Refractor

0.8X Reducer/Flatenner

UV/IR Cut Filter Filter

ZWO ASI533MC Pro Camera

View On Black

 

Visually I was pulled into the wavy lines on their clothes, hair and bodies... ilke a sketched drawing they seemed to be.

Is this ensemble that visually compelling that you must stare?

I hope your answer is "yes!"

 

I created this ensemble around a very clingy Baltogs wet look white lycra spandex leotard from nydancewear.com and matching wet look white lycra spandex miniskirt from coquetryclothing.com (which I've… discarded) and embellished it with my white satin under bust corset from canalboat.com, sheer white lycra mesh elbow length gloves and white fully fashioned Premier French Heel stockings, both from secretsinlace.com and finished off with my white stiletto pumps with 5" heels from electriqueboutique.com

 

To see more pix of me in other tight, sexy and revealing outfits click this link:www.flickr.com/photos/kaceycdpix/sets/72157623668202157/

 

To see more pix of me in my body hugging leotards & bodysuits click this link: www.flickr.com/photos/kaceycdpix/sets/72157622755507602/

 

To see more pix of me in my Baltogs lycra spandex dancewear click this link: www.flickr.com/photos/kaceycdpix/sets/72157617535517907/

 

To see more pix of me in clothes from Coquetry Clothing click this link: www.flickr.com/photos/kaceycdpix/sets/72157626739774869/

 

DSC_1602-12

The latest experimental baking project: “Pop-Tarts”. I made two varieties, these filled with homemade strawberry-rhubarb jam, and another with a chocolate crust filled with Nutella (and attempting to mimic store-bought strawberry and chocolate Pop-Tarts, at least visually.)

 

I don't think I've gotten a crust that I'm happy with yet. Regular Pop-Tart crust is like dry pie crust, and I didn't want to go that route, but I figured that the crust needed to be a bit stronger than pie crust typically is. This time around, I tried an egg, but that doesn't appear to be the right answer, as the crust was too firm instead (albeit still tastier than stock Pop-Tart crust). I think that part of the problem was that I figured the extra fat in the egg would compensate for the extra liquid in the egg, but given the gluten that formed in the resulting dough, I think I figured wrong. The recipe below is as I prepped things last night; next time I'll probably drop the egg but add a little extra liquid and some vegetable shortening to keep a 3 part flour : 2 part fat : 1 part liquid ratio. The amounts here make about 6 pastries per recipe.

 

After setting up a bunch of shots in the kitchen this morning (and then eating the subject matter), I realized I didn't really get any good shots of the Nutella variety, but I'll include the recipe here for completeness’ sake, along with the recipe for the strawberry-rhubarb jam.

 

I shot these indoors despite a lot of good light outside, because my original thought was to get a few of them with the toaster in the background, and my mirror-finish toaster would not exactly work well outside. I ended up not liking any of the compositions in the shots I set up that way, unfortunately.

 

Ingredients

 

Strawberry-Rhubarb Jam

 

14 oz. rhubarb, diced

1 lb. 6 oz. strawberries, hulled and diced

1 lb. 4 oz. sugar

juice and zest of 1/2 lemon

3 tbl. balsamic vinegar

pinch salt

few grinds of black pepper

 

Pop-Tart Crust

 

8 oz. all-purpose flour

1/8 tsp. salt

1 tbl. sugar

4 oz. cold butter, cut into cubes

1 egg

1 oz. ice water

1 oz. chilled vodka

 

Chocolate Pop-Tart Crust

 

7.5 oz. all-purpose flour

0.5 oz. dutch-process cocoa powder

1/8 tsp. salt

2 tbl. sugar

4 oz. cold butter, cut into cubes

1 egg

2 oz. chilled Frangelico liqueur

 

Pop-Tart Frosting

 

1 c. confectioner's sugar

milk

 

Chocolate Pop-Tart Frosting

 

1 c. confectioner's sugar

1 tbl. dutch-process cocoa powder

Frangelico

  

Directions

 

To make the jam

 

Combine all of the ingredients in a large pot and allow to sit until a good amount of juice comes out of the berries and soaks the sugar. Mash the berries with a potato masher. Cook over medium-high heat, stirring frequently, until the mixture gels when a small amount is placed on a cold plate (mixture will be measure 220°F on a thermometer). Portion into containers and allow to cool, makes about 3 cups.

 

To make the Pop-Tart Crust

 

Combine the dry ingredients in a food processor and pulse to combine. Add the cubes of butter, and give 10-12 one second pulses, to cut the butter in. You should have pieces of butter about the size of small peas. Sprinkle the liquid ingredients over the mixture, and pulse just a few times to distribute. Pour onto plastic wrap, form into a small disc, and refrigerate at least one hour.

 

To make the Pop-Tarts

 

Preheat your oven to 325°F.

 

Roll out your dough very thin (I used some 2mm rolling pin spacers, and even that ended up baking a little thick). Cut into 3"x4.5" rectangles. Spread about 1-2 tbl. of the filling out in the middle of a rectangle, leaving the outer 1/3" or thereabouts clear. Brush an egg wash or some water on the outer border, lay on another rectangle of dough, and press the edges to seal (I used a straightedge to do the pressing). Puncture the top several times with a skewer, and transfer to a parchment- or Silpat-lined baking sheet. Store completed tarts in the refrigerator as you work.

 

Bake for 25 minutes, until the dough is cooked through and set up but not really browned much on the top. Remove to a cooling rack.

 

To frost the Pop-Tarts

 

Add just enough liquid to the sugar (and optional cocoa) to make a thick glaze (work just a tiny bit at a time; it doesn't take much liquid at all do do this, usually less than a tablespoon). Spread the glaze out over the cooled pastries. If you like, decorate with some colored sugar (I used raw sugar on the chocolate version), since that's similar to what Kellogg's does. Or not.

 

My only observation on the frosting is that this glaze is pretty obviously not what's on an actual Pop-Tart. I actually had some stuck-on residue catch fire in my toaster (wee little fire, but still, use caution.) I have a slotted toaster whose "baskets" close in on the pastry, which results in residue like this. Toaster ovens and slot toasters that don't do this will probably be fine, but pay attention if you do toast these.