View allAll Photos Tagged without
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Francisco Aragão © 2015. All Rights Reserved.
Use without permission is illegal.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Portuguese
Detalhes:
O Parque Aldeia do Imigrante é o atrativo turístico de maior destaque do município. Foi criado para resgatar e preservar o passado histórico dos imigrantes que colonizaram esta região, predominando a imigração alemã. O Parque está dividido em dois espaços, sendo o primeiro a Aldeia Bávara e o segundo a Aldeia Histórica, na qual há a representação da história dos primeiros imigrantes em forma de Museu Vivo. Além de preservar o patrimônio cultural, o patrimônio natural também é preservado.
Inaugurado oficialmente em 12 de janeiro de 1985, ele ocupa uma área de aproximadamente dez hectares, sendo a maior parte mata nativa. Na entrada do Parque foi erguida uma "Aldeia Bávara" com os seguintes elementos arquitetônicos: "Pórtico de Entrada", lojas de malhas, artesanato e produtos coloniais, "Salão de Baile", Quiosque para apresentação do rico folclore da região e o "Biergarten" (Jardim da Cerveja). Estes prédios foram construídos para as tradicionais festas do Município. No coração do Parque, a reconstrução de antigos prédios históricos com técnica "enxaimel", removidos de diversas localidades do interior, constituem a "Aldeia Histórica", demonstrando a estrutura e funcionamento de uma aldeia de Imigrantes, entre os anos de 1870 e 1910. Nesta Aldeia, encontram-se as seguintes construções, algumas com aproximadamente 100 anos: Capela do Imigrante, cemitério, venda com salão de baile, réplica da primeira sede da cooperativa de crédito mais antiga da América Latina, casa com cantina, ferraria, escola comunitária, casa do professor, casa do sapateiro, casa paroquial, estúdio fotográfico de foto à moda antiga, de Germano Schüür, e o Museu Histórico Municipal.
História:
A história do Parque começou em 1974, ano em que aconteceu um grande desfile cívico histórico em comemoração aos 150 anos da imigração alemã no Rio Grande do Sul. Nesse desfile, todas as comunidades do interior mostraram trajes, ferramentas, objetos, móveis e outros utensílios antigos.
Percebeu-se o grande valor histórico que estas peças continham e que era necessário fazer algo para preservá-las. A população gostou muito do desfile e apoiou a preservação. Surgiu então a ideia do Parque, que centralizaria também as tradicionais festas do Município.
O então prefeito Afonso Grings nomeou uma comissão encarregada de procurar um local e pesquisar o acervo. Assim que definiram o local, que pertencia a dois proprietários, o mesmo prefeito decretou a área de utilidade pública para fins de desapropriação, mas não efetuou a compra. O prefeito seguinte, Ewaldo Michaelsen, adquiriu parte da área e a outra parte foi vendida pelos proprietários à Cooperativa Agropecuária Piá. As muitas dificuldades fizeram com que se perdesse a empolgação inicial, mas alguns não desistiram da ideia. O próximo prefeito, Siegfried Drechsler empenhou-se muito na negociação com a Cooperativa Piá e efetuou uma permuta de áreas de terras, completando assim, em 1983, a área total que o Parque tem hoje (10 hectares).
Na época, havia uma grande preocupação com relação às casas construídas com técnica enxaimel. A população estava desmontando as casas, trocando os telhados por telhas de zinco, enfim, muitas casas desapareceram naqueles tempos sem que se pudesse fazer algo para impedir. Por isto o grande foco do Parque é a arquitetura enxaimel.
Os prédios escolhidos para fazer parte do acervo vieram de diversas localidades do interior do município. Foram fotografados de vários ângulos, desmontados, carregados em caminhões até o local onde seriam reerguidos a partir das fotos tiradas. Todas as casas foram compradas dos proprietários com recursos públicos e, em 12 de janeiro de 1985, aconteceu a inauguração do Parque Aldeia do Imigrante.
http://www.novapetropolis.rs.gov.br/int_empresa.php?tipo=5&id=141
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Portuguese
Nova Petrópolis é um município do estado do Rio Grande do Sul, no Brasil. Localiza-se a uma latitude 29º22'33" Sul e a uma longitude 51º06'43" Oeste, estando a uma altitude que varia de 596 à 710 metros. Segundo o último censo realizado em 2010, foi registrado a população de 19 045 habitantes. Possui uma área de 291,079 km².
História
No início do Século XIX, a região sul era um problema de segurança e infra estrutura para o governo central brasileiro recém liberto de Portugal. A região fazia parte de constantes disputas de terras entre, principalmente, portugueses e espanhóis e era pouco desenvolvido e povoado, comparada às regiões sudeste e nordeste do país. Em 1822, quando o Brasil se libertou de Portugal, o governo brasileiro investiu em propaganda para promover a imigração para o Brasil, principalmente a alemã e italiana. A Europa, neste período, estava passando por uma série de conflitos e revoluções - final do século XVIII e início do Século XIX.
O Brasil não dispunha de um exército para manter sua segurança nacional a partir de seu continental território, principalmente na região sul, que estava sob constantes ameaças em suas fronteiras - investidas das tropas espanholas. Por questões de segurança, não podia confiar nos portugueses que vivam na região. O governo brasileiro, encontrou uma saída. Através de propaganda de convencimento na Europa, propagava as vantagens do novo país, entre estes: o direito à terra, paz e alimento em abundância. Ofereceu vantagens (Nem sempre cumpridas) às famílias interessadas a residir no sul do Brasil, como: passagens, direito à cidadania, isenção de impostos e direito a posse de uma ou duas colônias de terras (24 a 48 ha). O objetivo era que estas famílias, principalmente alemãs e italianas, ocupassem a terra e os homens servissem no exército de reserva para manter a segurança da região sul , principalmente contra os espanhóis. Em 1822, quando o Brasil se libertou de Portugal, o governo brasileiro investiu em propaganda para promover a imigração para o Brasil, principalmente a alemã e italiana. A Europa, neste período, estava passando por uma série de conflitos e revoluções - final do século XVIII e início do Século XIX.
Spanish
Nova Petrópolis es un municipio brasileño del estado de Río Grande do Sul. Ubicada a 90 kilómetros de Porto Alegre, capital estatal, sobre la ruta nacional BR 116, Nova Petrópolis es la puerta de entrada al corredor turístico conocido como "Región de las Hortensias", comarca que comprende a las ciudades de Nova Petrópolis, Gramado, Canela y São Francisco de Paula. Menos turística que su vecina Gramado, Nova Petrópolis ha sabido conservar la tradición de sus antepasados alemanes, llegados a la zona en el siglo XIX. Hoy en día es la ciudad más alemana del Estado y posee una de las colonias más importantes y antiguas del Brasil. La herencia germánica está presente en las costumbres, la cocina y la arquitectura. Es en Nova Petrópolis donde se degusta el mejor y más tradicional "café colonial" de la Sierra Gaúcha. Dicha copiosa colación, compuesta por tortas, panes, mermeladas, fiambres, infusiones, jugos y vino, era la merienda que los inmigrantes alemanes instalados en Brasil tomaban luego de un arduo día de trabajo en el campo. Hoy en día varias casas de té de la región (pero también de Blumenau y Joinville, en Santa Catarina), suelen ofrecer un delicioso café colonial.
Banda folclórica alemana en el Parque Aldea del Inmigrante
A su vez, el municipio posee un patrimonio arquitectónico rural muy importante, parte del cual ha sido resguardado en el Parque Aldea del Inmigrante. Los inmigrantes que se instalaron en esta región trajeron de su Alemania natal un estilo de construcción llamado Fachwerk, conocido en Brasil como "enxaimel", que se caracteriza por la capacidad de las casas de ser desmontables, pudiendo ser trasladadas adonde quiera que el morador se dirija.
Entre los atractivos de la ciudad se encuentran edificios de líneas germánicas y jardines floridos. Cabe destacar la plaza principal, que posee un laberinto verde hecho de arbustos.
Nova Petrópolis sobresale también por su confecciones en lana e hilo, ofreciendo prendas a mejores precios que en otros centros turísticos de la región.
English
Nova Petrópolis is a municipality in the Southern Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul. The main seat of the municipality is also called Nova Petrópolis. It is located in the Serra Gaúcha region, at 29º22'35" South, 51º06'52" West, about 100 km north of Porto Alegre, the state capital city. Nova Petrópolis is situated at an average altitude of 580m above sea level and covers an area of 293 km².
Settlement
The population of the municipality is around 20,000 people and the majority of the natives are descendants of German immigrants. The German language or Riograndenser Hunsrückisch is still widely spoken in the municipality. Tourism is the main economic activity, followed by the manufacture of wool garments, dairy farming and shoemaking. Nova Petrópolis is one of the towns along the Serra Gaúcha scenic route known as Rota Romântica. The town is also part of the scenic Região das Hortênsias. Some known towns near Nova Petrópolis are Caxias do Sul, Novo Hamburgo, São Leopoldo, Feliz, Gramado, Canela.
Attractions
Nova Petropolis is mainly a historical town, but there are several tourist shops and a maze. There are several rural hostel which are combination farms and lodgings where horse riding being one of their most characteristic attractions. There are several restaurants also. Click here to see Restaurants in Nova Petropolis.
German
Nova Petrópolis ist eine Stadt mit 18.484 Einwohnern im Bundesstaat Rio Grande do Sul im Süden Brasiliens. Sie liegt in der Serra Gaúcha etwa 95 km nördlich von Porto Alegre. Benachbart sind die Orte Picada Café, Linha Nova, Caxias do Sul, Gramado, Santa Maria do Herval, Morro Reuter und Feliz.
Nova Petrópolis liegt an der Rota Romântica mit Gramado, Canela und São Francisco de Paula in der Região das Hortênsias. Sowohl Architektur als auch Brauchtum wie die Gastronomie erinnern an deutsche Vergangenheit. 1866 lebten dort 991 meist deutsche Siedler, 1912 gab es schon 8.500 Bewohner.
Im Distrikt Linha Imperial gründete der Schweizer Pater Theodor Amstad 1902 die erste Genossenschaft Brasiliens, Grundlage des brasilianischen Kreditgenossenschaftsverbandes SICREDI mit heute mehr als einer Million Mitgliedern. Im Museumsdorf Aldeia do Imigrante gibt es neben Fachwerkhäusern auch das Kooperativenmuseum.
Wikipedia
large viewing: key L
For larger: double click
© All rights reserved.
Don't use this image without my permission.
Size 13552 × 3866 DSC_2458-Pano
Painting by: Jeroen Bos Art
What I show, are low quality files, for quick viewing only.
Original, HQ photograph, available. For more info:
robica.photography@gmail.com
Jeroen Bos Art.
Located at ’s-Hertogenbosch, the Netherlands.
Next to creating all kinds of (UV) light-art, he does expositions. Also to be hired, to make your party unforgettable, with his big paintings. These will light up when UV (black-light) lights are present. Also to be watched with 3D glasses, for a fabulous effect.
Next to these big paintings, Jeroen also creates ‘Digital Art’, smaller paintings, with or without extra light, sometimes build in, in the piece of art. Wonderful (table) lights. Album-books with his colourful art, are also to be purchased. As well fleece blankets.
See his Instagram account: www.instagram.com/jeroen_bos_art/
or contact: robica.photography@gmail.com
The pulse goes off without a problem and a quick test with one of the firearms confirms the success. That’s one problem dealt with. With the threat of these weapons dealt with it’s time to turn my attention towards dealing with the last members of the Crimson cult. Since I’ve placed a tracer on the leader I can track him down once I’m done here, but if I can get the names of the ones in masks then I can put the nail in the coffin once and for all.
As fortune would have it I have just the means of getting the names, and it’s with a little help from Santa Prisca. I grab hold of the semi-conscious mercenary and throw him across the room. According to Alfred these men are trained to resist most forms of torture, or at least they were during Alfred’s time in Santa Prisca. Either they’ve become laxer on their training since then, or I’m more skilled at torture than the British secret service. I’d like to think it’s the former than the latter. If only because it’s worrying to consider that I’m more terrifying than a government sponsored intelligence agency.
”Here’s how things are going to go. You’re going to give me the names of all the attendees here tonight, and then you’re turn yourself over to the GCPD.”
” No te digo nada.”
”Sí. Vas a.”
”¿Me entiendes?”
”Si. Now, the names.”
He says nothing. Why do they all choose to try and resist at first? Surely they know by now just how far I’m willing to go in order to get what I want. I step on his head, forcing his face into the ground. I keep his face pressed against the ground for about thirty seconds. Not long enough to do any serious harm to him but long enough to make it difficult for him to breath before I release the pressure.
”You’re not the first of your kind that I’ve forced information out of. You’re not the first one to resist either. But no matter what you might think, you’re going to tell me what I want.”
I slam my foot down on his back and grab hold of his left arm. It always comes down to breaking an arm before they even consider squealing. I suppose it’s a case of until you make the first move, your threats are only words. Unfortunately for him, unlike most I’m more than willing to act on my words.
”Have it your way.”
Within seconds of saying those words, I break his arm. Most people choose to break an opponent’s arm slowly, drawing out the pain for a prolonged period of time to make them suffer. I’m more of a surgeon, choosing a quick precise strike to deal with them. Not to mention that it forces them to experience all the pain in one sudden rush. Hell, I’d consider talking if I was forced to endure that amount of pain.
”ARGH!”
”The names! Or I break the other one!”
”¡No lo sé!”
An obvious lie. The second most common trick encountered when interrogating someone against their own will. They’ll lie the first time they give an answer. How quick they are to lie indicates how far you’ll have to go to force the truth out of them though. I suppose the one benefit of these mercenaries is that because they’re so unwilling to confess you can always trust most the stuff they say. For all I know he may well have just told me the truth, but the only way to be certain is to go further.
I take a moment to lift his torso up off the ground and forcibly remove his body armour. What exactly I intend to do with his exposed torso, I’m not entirely sure but neither does he and that’s to my advantage. The broken arm will make him fearful, and the fearful always imagine situations to be worse than what they actually are. Highly beneficial if you're the interrogator.
”What are you doing? Stop! Please!”
”I’ll stop when I have the names.”
”I’m telling you I don’t know who they are!”
Without saying another word, I grab hold of his other arm and get ready to break it once again. I have no intention of breaking it, but he doesn’t need to know that.
”So be it.”
As soon as I say those words he begins to cry.
He’s telling the truth.
He doesn’t know who they are.
Damn it.
”I SWEAR I’M TELLING THE TRUTH!”
I let go of his arm, much to his relief.
”I know you are.”
I walk away and begin to load up the remote tracking live feed from the batcomputer. The two masked strangers might have escaped but I can at least take the leader out of play. The mercenary groans as he attempts to lift himself up off the ground.
”Do yourself a favour, hand yourself over to the GCPD when they get here. If you’re not here when they arrive, I’ll come looking for you and this time I won’t be so nice.”
With that I remove my grapple gun from its holster and exit the penthouse through the penthouse.
”Alfred.”
”I trust you had fun crashing another party, Master Bruce.”
”Certainly less eventful than the last.”
”So I hear. Master Timothy said the last two Santa Prisca mercenaries were at this rally. I trust you had fun giving them Gotham’s kind regards.”
”Naturally. I managed to plant a tracker on the leader as he was fleeing the rally after I made my entrance.”
”Feeding the signal’s co-ordinates to the batwing now. Looks like it’s on the move.”
”Current location?”
”29 Scala road.”
”Further into the slums.”
”The batwing is on it’s way.”
”No, that’s unnecessary Alfred. Whoever this guy is, he’ll be on edge after what just happened. It’s better if I approach the old fashioned way. Last thing I want is to give him a tip off.”
”Very well Master Bruce.”
”Tim still there?”
”No, he said you gave him the night off.”
”He go anywhere interesting?”
”The local fair with Miss Brown I believe.”
”Glad to hear.”
”I trust you’ll want me to make a call to Commissioner Gordon?”
”It’s his night off, Alfred. We’ll have to do it the old fashioned way.”
”An anonymous tipoff to the GCPD?”
”From a very concerned citizen.”
”I suppose we’d better hope I can still pull off my finest American accent.”
”I’m sure you’ll manage Alfred. Good luck.”
”Keep me posted Master Bruce. Pen-7 out.”
"Engineered without fear, driven by the fearless. At McLaren, we embrace the challenge and relish the unknown. Longtail models personify this spirit. Our most extreme, driver focused, pure performance cars. With a proud lineage.
The new 765LT Spider is the latest in this exclusive line. Only 765 will ever be made.
Delivering maximum engagement. Untamed performance. Scalpel-sharp handling. With 765PS and 800Nm of torque. It takes just 11 seconds to open and stow the ultra-lightweight single piece electric Retractable Hard Top. So now there’s nothing between you and the elements..."
Source: McLaren.
Photographed at Goodwood Festival of Speed - the event which offers enthusiasts an unrivalled opportunity to get close to the action, and to meet the great champions who gather at Goodwood each summer.
________________________________________________
Like my Fanpage
Follow me on Instagram
Steptoe Butte 062009 ©2009 David S. Nadal. This photo may not be used in any form without prior permission. All rights reserved.
American flag in the park. And, what would a photo be without the Maine state bird... the seagull? (Actually, the Maine state bird is the chickadee.)
-----
"I'll go crazy if I stay inside
Come on baby, take a ride
Take you places that we've never been
Don't be shy, hop on in
I ain't no Hollywood baby
You can't find a friend
They all say they love you
But just pretend
Mine never ends
I'm the original American boy"
-----
American Boy - Chris Isaak
For the second week in my 52 weeks project, the challenge was to create a portrait of somebody that tells a story about them without showing their face.
Hopefully I have done that.
Technical bits.
This shot is essentially straight out of the camera.
Camera: D800
Lens: Tamron 70-200 f/2.8 @ f/2.8 and 165mm
Lighting:
- one Normal ML600 with some tracing paper acting as a diffuser fired at the background to blow it out.
- one LP160 @ 1/8th in a 26" Westcott Octa Rapid Box pointed straight down about 2' above the violin and about 2' in front of it.
- Triggered by Pocketwizard FlexTT5s
© All rights reserved. Use without permission is illegal. Please do not reproduce, publish or use any of our photos without our express consent.
Kinkaku-ji (金閣寺, Kinkaku-ji, Golden Pavilion Temple) is the informal name of Rokuon-ji (鹿苑寺, Deer Garden Temple) in Kyoto, Japan.
It was originally built in 1397 to serve as a retirement villa for Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, as part of his estate then known as Kitayama. It was his son who converted the building into a Zen temple of the Rinzai school. Wiki
Más información en nuestro blog Nelebland
La licencia y la explotación de esta imagen pertenece a Getty Images.
Allí está la cumbre
Desafiándote
Llamándote por tu nombre
Y tú no puedes apartar
Los ojos de ella
No puedes dormir tranquilo
Hasta que la hayas tenido
Bajo tus pies...
---
This is me without all the photoshop.
This is straight out of the camera.
I really like this shot despite my teenaged bumpy red puffy-ness.
I think I look kind of pretty :]
EXPLORED! Oct 5, 2008 #427
Several photographers and models had cabin fever so we decided to organize an outdoor shoot. Mother Nature wasn't having it so she gave us a very cold day with winds over 25 mph. It was nasty. We ended up shooting in a dark, dank parking garage. The shoot actually was a lot of fun. Elizabeth C was one of the models. She is a blast to shoot with and she braved the elements without complaining but she might have second thoughts about shooting until it warms up again. We did this shoot in mid-March 2023 in downtown Boise.
PGB Photographer & Creative - © Philip Romeyn - Phillostar Gone Ballistic 2021 - Photo may not be edited from its original form. Commercial use is prohibited without contacting me.
A hearty handshake and the sweet feeling of victory to whoever can figure out what this is - without looking in the comments.
Fish Creek
Door County
Wisconsin
August 29, 2018
08291819171600
Copyright © 2008 Janice Street. All rights reserved. Do not use without my permission.
Here is the poem that my grandfather wrote and my mother recited to me many times when I was a child. Her eyes would always fill with tears in the last verse. I believe this poem and my grandfathers love for nature and family opened my eyes and heart to beauty at a young age. I am dedicating my book to this man who I never met, yet the gift he left behind lives in me...
Book "Frost on Windows" www.janicestreet.ca/Christmas.html
Gordon Lightfoot would sing it proud....
by John Martin my grandfather
Blue Sea Lake
In the beauty and lure of the Lake of Lakes nestled in the heart of the Gatineau Hills, I dedicate this little poem.
I have seen the Rocky Mountains,
Nova Scotia’s rugged shore,
Columbia’s towering forests,
Heard Niagara’s mighty roar.
But high among the Gatineau Hills,
If you will come with me,
I’ll show you Nature’s masterpiece,
A lake they call Blue Sea.
‘Tis rimmed by purple mountains,
Green waters kiss its shore,
And up on high, in azure sky,
White Sea Gulls dip and soar.
I would that you, at eventide,
When twilight’s shadows fall,
Could stand and watch the sun go down,
A vivid golden ball.
And see the hills and waters,
In all their glorious hue,
Forget your cares and sorrows,
Alone just God and you.
And now today in reverie,
My heart goes out to this Blue Sea,
For 30 years has passed and more,
Since my first-born played by her shore.
My brow has felt time’s honoured hand,
Grandchildren’s feet now mark her sand.
So if I love this lake to fair,
With memories sweet, and beauty rare,
It’s just because each bending tree,
Throughout my life will call to me.
John E Martin
August 3, 1940
I traveled to this lake on a journey to discover my roots 9 months after I posted this picture and poem. If you care to follow my journey as I experienced it, do so in the order posted in my set called Blue Sea Lake www.flickr.com/photos/bytheseeingeye/sets/72157618420020098/
It is now 2013 and I have been doing research to find out when my grandfather arrived at Blue Sea. Originally there was some confusion because there was another John Martin on the lake...As it turned out he was my great grandfather who had bought a cottage on the lake as early as 1900. That is where his first cottage was. Later my grandfather rented or bought a cottage about a mile or so closer to the village of Blue Sea on a beautiful lot with the cottage again almost next to the water.
Aixirivall, Sant Julia, Gran Valira, Andorra, Pyrenees
More Aixirivall & Sant Julia de Loria parroquia images: Follow the group links at right side.
.......
About this image:
* Medium format 4x3 (645) high quality image
* Usage: Large format prints optional
* Motive is suitable as symbol pic
* "Andorra authentic" edition (10 years decade 2008-2018)
* "Andorra camis & rutes" active collection
* Advanced metadata functionality on dynamic websites or apps
* for large metadata-controlled business collections: photo-archives, travel agencies, tourism redactions
We offer 100.000+ photos of Andorra and North of Spain. The biggest professional image catalog of Andorra from the newer history: all regions, all cities and villages, all times, all seasons, all weather(s). HighRes & HighColor GeoCoded stock-photo images including metadata in 4-5 languages. Prepared for an easy systematic organising of large image portfolios with advanced online / print-publishing as "Culture-GIS" (Geographic Info System). The big stockphoto collection from the Pyrenees.
More information about usage, tips, how-to, conditions: www.flickr.com/people/lutzmeyer/. Get quality, data consistency, stable organisation and PR environments: Professional stockphotos for exciting stories - docu, tales, mystic.
Ask for licence! lutz(at)lutz-meyer.com
(c) Lutz Meyer, all rights reserved. Do not use this photo without license.
Fun is fundamental.
There is no way around it.
You absolutely must
have fun. Without fun,
there is no enthusiasm.
Without enthusiasm,
there is no energy.
~Doug Hall
.... With no energy, nothing happens!
Well, I was dreading this day all week because I knew that they were sending me another supervisor from another store to train and I hate training people. I hate having to talk all day and usually the person coming to be trained hates it even more than I do. I went to bed before midnight for a change last night and woke up feeling every bit as tired, if not more so, than when I went to bed. I think I even worry in my sleep. But I was determined to get to work early and have at least half an hour to myself before my guest or guests arrived ( I had no clue who was coming). Of course, that didn’t happen because when I went out to my car this morning and went to start it, nothing happened. Absolutely nothing. So, I naturally assumed the obvious, that I had left my lights on, and the car was dead even though Dayna told me that the lights turn out by themselves. After killing my battery in this manner far more times that I care to admit (and you’d never believe me if I told you how many) I was pretty sure this was the case. So, I started looking around for jumper cables, finding none ( I know I had them... with my history, how could I not!) I started looking for that little battery charger that I used to carry around in my old car). Found that, but it was dead and I couldn’t find the charger for that either (see a pattern developing here?) So I called work and told them I’d be late and told them to apologize to the person I was to be training and I would be there as soon as I could. I went back inside and was deciding if I should ask Dayna to drive me to work, or call AAA and wait for them to come, and I noticed a key on the kitchen counter. My key. My car wasn’t dead, I had the wrong key. Keyless ignition. *sigh* So happy I hadn’t called AAA. Probably should have gone back to bed right then and there. I was only 10 minutes late for work. The woman from the other store was waiting for me. She was very nice, knew her stuff, really didn’t need training at all, but we went through the motions. I was able to show her a few things and shared a few “tricks”. I was tremendously distracted for several reasons all day though. I took a few personal phone calls during the day, I started sentences, lost my train of thought and didn’t finish them.... basically, I was pretty much a disaster. She came from a store where one of my favorite managers now works, and I did explain and apologize to her for my distractions and at lunch time I asked her, “You’re not going to go back and tell George that I’m a nutcase, are you?” She assured me that she was not and told me, “He’d never believe me anyway. He sings your praises. He loves you.” Huge sigh of relief! Although, I argued with George all the time because he believes that animals don’t have souls and don’t go to heaven, I loved him anyway! During the course of the day, I reaffirmed what I had known all along, that I am successful in my job because of several circumstances... I have an amazing “team”, without them nothing would work (pretty much what all of the other stores are experiencing.... nothing works!), I love and respect them and vice versa, I have “trained” our management to give us more coverage in the shoe department than is deemed necessary by the idiots in corporate, and apparently I have a bigger stockroom than other stores... all of these factors allow us to make our manager look really really good (not that he isn’t really, really good anyway.... because he is!) and the downside is that they seem to think that I know more than other shoe supervisors and can fix other shoe departments (which I don’t and I can’t) and it rewards me with more work which I am not compensated for. (someone owes me lunch, at least!!)
So, I gave this woman my cell phone number, told her to call me if she needs anything, told her I would stop in and talk to George and that I would come and work with her for a day and get everything straightened out and she could take it from there if they would allow me to. She was on her way out when she stopped and said “My managers asked me to ask one more question. How do you make this FUN?” I couldn’t really answer that, but I have to say that I pleased to be asked the question....I was pleased because it means that my manager, other store managers and probably even the district manager knows that in our store...we have fun. I don’t think you can teach fun. How could I say.... we sing, we dance, we throw things (apologies to Jason Mraz...but we throw things, we don’t steal things... well, some of us do...but they get fired and led out in handcuffs by policemen), we laugh, we hug, some days we cry, we take pictures, we hand cell phones to customers and have them take pictures of us, we keep chocolate hidden in the stock room, we make games out of things, we have a competitive streak, we shoot rubber bands, we play tricks on people, we shop during working hours, we don’t call in sick...(we call Torrie and Torrie fixes it when possible), we bend rules, and most importantly.... we. are. family. So, all in all I guess it was worth going to work today. Oh...and before she left, I dug through my locker and pulled out a pad of post-it notes, shaped like a cat head. They had been in my locker since George left years ago. I bought them to annoy him. He HATED post-it notes. I LOVE post-it notes. I use them EVERYWHERE. Drove George out of his mind. So, I gave them to her... and told her that they were FUN. I told her to use them religiously. I told her to write “Meow, meow” on one and stick it on George’s door (story for another day). I hope she will. And then I hope she won’t call me and tell me that she is now unemployed. (sometimes my idea of fun can cause problems!)
© All rights reserved. Any use without permission is prohibited and illegal
Per una visione migliore, tasto “L”- For a better view press “L”
Campocatino si trova nel comune di Vagli Sotto a circa 1000 metri di altezza, è costituito da un grande prato originatosi da un'antico bacino glaciale. E' un luogo suggestivo tra i più belli delle Apuane ai piedi del monte Roccandagia: nell'altipiano è ubicata una minuscola chiesetta ed alcune decine di case in pietra utilizzate un tempo come rifugio da pastori. Dal 1991 questo meraviglioso angolo di Garfagnana è divenuto "Oasi naturale della LIPU" in considerazione delle numerose specie di uccelli che vi vivono.
Copyright © John G. Lidstone, all rights reserved.
You are warned: DO NOT STEAL or RE-POST THIS PHOTO.
It is an offence under law if you remove my copyright marking, or post this image anywhere else without my express written permission.
If you do, and I find out, you WILL be reported for copyright infringement action to the host platform and/or group applicable.
The same applies to all of my images.
My copyright is also embedded in the image metadata.
day 3 and counting without power (told we have 2.5 more days to go). thank goodness we have a wood stove in living room. thank goodness for lots of things.
but fridge and freezer foods (meats, dairy, produce) being tossed at this point (ice supplies day-to-day available then sold out - then markets big & small closed). gas station waits for hours then stations closed altogether. schools and other public services closed for the duration. homes and apts buildings for the elderly and medical facilities without power, closed for now.
no hot water but what's in tank (many folks have no ability to draw water, flush toilets, can't dispose of water/waste coz their systems will flood).
of course no electronic connections for appliances, heat, entertainment, alarm systems (smoke detectors wired into the house), phone charging (even many land line phone services aren't happening for some reason).
if there *is* a fire in the night, no warning systems, no house/public lights to help with evacuation.
and no, not everyone can afford generators, or owns homes where they can have generators (or can get to the maybe-available fuel to power those).
btw, 2nd time in weeks, and both times we have had none of that predicted wind determined to be cause for this shutdown.
yeah, so far everyone we know is basically okay. checking on elderly or solitary neighbors and so far things are okay enough. but so many people managing feelings of powerlessness (pun absolutely appropriate), frustration, anger, fear, confusion, disorientation, concerns about imminent "next time"s, how to face this physically, financially, psychologically again and we're told again ...
(for you non-californians this is in re: to this state's pg&e power outages, supposedly for wildfire control. see news. )
PGB Photographer & Creative - © 2022 Philip Romeyn - Phillostar Gone Ballistic 2021 - Photo may not be edited from its original form. Commercial use is prohibited without contacting me.
Without his bass...now, "the dancer"
São miniaturas, a presença do Speaker de um Home Theatre tem como objetivo dar a idéia do tamanho das peças.
They are miniatures, the presence of the Speaker of a Home Theater has as objective to give the idea of the size of the parts.
Photo Copyright 2012, dynamo.photography.
All rights reserved, no use without license
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Hong kong)
Hong Kong, officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China, is an autonomous territory south to Mainland China and east to Macao in East Asia. With around 7.2 million Hong Kongers of various nationalities[note 2] in a territory of 1,104 km2, Hong Kong is the world's fourth most densely populated country or territory.
Hong Kong used to be a British colony with the perpetual cession of Hong Kong Island from the Qing Empire after the First Opium War (1839–42). The colony expanded to the Kowloon Peninsula in 1860 and acquired a 99-year lease of the New Territories from 1898. Hong Kong was later occupied by Japan during the Second World War until British control resumed in 1945. The Sino-British Joint Declaration signed between the United Kingdom and China in 1984 paved way for the transfer of sovereignty of Hong Kong in 1997, when it became a special administrative region (SAR) of the People's Republic of China with a high degree of autonomy.[15]
Under the principle of "one country, two systems",[16][17] Hong Kong maintains a separate political and economic system from China. Except in military defence and foreign affairs, Hong Kong maintains its independent executive, legislative and judiciary powers.[18] In addition, Hong Kong develops relations directly with foreign states and international organisations in a broad range of "appropriate fields".[19] Hong Kong involves in international organizations, such as the WTO[20] and the APEC [21], actively and independently.
Hong Kong is one of the world's most significant financial centres, with the highest Financial Development Index score and consistently ranks as the world's most competitive and freest economic entity.[22][23] As the world's 8th largest trading entity,[24] its legal tender, the Hong Kong dollar, is the world's 13th most traded currency.[25] As the world's most visited city,[26][27] Hong Kong's tertiary sector dominated economy is characterised by competitive simple taxation and supported by its independent judiciary system.[28] Even with one of the highest per capita incomes in the world, it suffers from severe income inequality.[29]
Nicknamed "Pearl of the Orient", Hong Kong is renowned for its deep natural harbour, which boasts the world's fifth busiest port with ready access by cargo ships, and its impressive skyline, with the most skyscrapers in the world.[30][31] It has a very high Human Development Index ranking and the world's longest life expectancy.[32][33] Over 90% of the population makes use of well-developed public transportation.[34][35] Seasonal air pollution with origins from neighbouring industrial areas of Mainland China, which adopts loose emissions standards, has resulted in a high level of atmospheric particulates in winter.[36][37][38]
Contents
1 Etymology
2 History
2.1 Prehistory
2.2 Imperial China
2.3 British Crown Colony: 1842–1941
2.4 Japanese occupation: 1941–45
2.5 Resumption of British rule and industrialisation: 1945–97
2.6 Handover and Special Administrative Region status
3 Governance
3.1 Structure of government
3.2 Electoral and political reforms
3.3 Legal system and judiciary
3.4 Foreign relations
3.5 Human rights
3.6 Regions and districts
3.7 Military
4 Geography and climate
5 Economy
5.1 Financial centre
5.2 International trading
5.3 Tourism and expatriation
5.4 Policy
5.5 Infrastructure
6 Demographics
6.1 Languages
6.2 Religion
6.3 Personal income
6.4 Education
6.5 Health
7 Culture
7.1 Sports
7.2 Architecture
7.3 Cityscape
7.4 Symbols
8 See also
9 Notes
10 References
10.1 Citations
10.2 Sources
11 Further reading
12 External links
Etymology
Hong Kong was officially recorded in the 1842 Treaty of Nanking to encompass the entirety of the island.[39]
The source of the romanised name "Hong Kong" is not known, but it is generally believed to be an early imprecise phonetic rendering of the pronunciation in spoken Cantonese 香港 (Cantonese Yale: Hēung Góng), which means "Fragrant Harbour" or "Incense Harbour".[13][14][40] Before 1842, the name referred to a small inlet—now Aberdeen Harbour (Chinese: 香港仔; Cantonese Yale: Hēunggóng jái), literally means "Little Hong Kong"—between Aberdeen Island and the southern coast of Hong Kong Island. Aberdeen was an initial point of contact between British sailors and local fishermen.[41]
Another theory is that the name would have been taken from Hong Kong's early inhabitants, the Tankas (水上人); it is equally probable that romanisation was done with a faithful execution of their speeches, i.e. hōng, not hēung in Cantonese.[42] Detailed and accurate romanisation systems for Cantonese were available and in use at the time.[43]
Fragrance may refer to the sweet taste of the harbour's fresh water estuarine influx of the Pearl River or to the incense from factories lining the coast of northern Kowloon. The incense was stored near Aberdeen Harbour for export before Hong Kong developed Victoria Harbour.[40]
The name had often been written as the single word Hongkong until the government adopted the current form in 1926.[44] Nevertheless, a number of century-old institutions still retain the single-word form, such as the Hongkong Post, Hongkong Electric and the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation.
As of 1997, its official name is the "Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China". This is the official title as mentioned in the Hong Kong Basic Law and the Hong Kong Government's website;[45] however, "Hong Kong Special Administrative Region" and "Hong Kong" are widely accepted.
Hong Kong has carried many nicknames. The most famous among those is the "Pearl of the Orient", which reflected the impressive nightscape of the city's light decorations on the skyscrapers along both sides of the Victoria Harbour. The territory is also known as "Asia's World City".
History
Main articles: History of Hong Kong and History of China
Prehistory
Main article: Prehistoric Hong Kong
Archaeological studies support human presence in the Chek Lap Kok area (now Hong Kong International Airport) from 35,000 to 39,000 years ago and on Sai Kung Peninsula from 6,000 years ago.[46][47][48]
Wong Tei Tung and Three Fathoms Cove are the earliest sites of human habitation in Hong Kong during the Paleolithic Period. It is believed that the Three Fathom Cove was a river-valley settlement and Wong Tei Tung was a lithic manufacturing site. Excavated Neolithic artefacts suggested cultural differences from the Longshan culture of northern China and settlement by the Che people, prior to the migration of the Baiyue to Hong Kong.[49][50] Eight petroglyphs, which dated to the Shang Dynasty (c. 1600 BC – 1066 BC) in China, were discovered on the surrounding islands.[51]
Imperial China
Main article: History of Hong Kong under Imperial China
In 214 BC, Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of a centralised China, conquered the Baiyue tribes in Jiaozhi (modern-day Liangguang region and Vietnam) and incorporated the area of Hong Kong into his imperial China for the first time. Hong Kong proper was assigned to the Nanhai commandery (modern-day Nanhai District), near the commandery's capital city Panyu.[52][53][54]
After a brief period of centralisation and collapse of the Qin dynasty, the area of Hong Kong was consolidated under the Kingdom of Nanyue, founded by general Zhao Tuo in 204 BC.[55] When Nanyue lost the Han-Nanyue War in 111 BC, Hong Kong came under the Jiaozhi commandery of the Han dynasty. Archaeological evidence indicates an increase of population and flourish of salt production. The Lei Cheng Uk Han Tomb on the Kowloon Peninsula is believed to have been built as a burial site during the Han dynasty.[56]
From the Han dynasty to the early Tang dynasty, Hong Kong was a part of Bao'an County. In the Tang dynasty, modern-day Guangzhou (Canton) flourished as an international trading centre. In 736, the Emperor Xuanzong of Tang established a military stronghold in Tuen Mun to strengthen defence of the coastal area.[57] The nearby Lantau Island was a salt production centre and salt smuggler riots occasionally broke out against the government. In c. 1075, The first village school, Li Ying College, was established around 1075 AD in modern-day New Territories by the Northern Song dynasty.[58] During their war against the Mongols, the imperial court of Southern Song was briefly stationed at modern-day Kowloon City (the Sung Wong Toi site) before their ultimate defeat by the Mongols at the Battle of Yamen in 1279.[59] The Mongols then established their dynastic court and governed Hong Kong for 97 years.
From the mid-Tang dynasty to the early Ming dynasty (1368–1644), Hong Kong was a part of Dongguan County. During the Ming dynasty, the area was transferred to Xin'an County. The indigenous inhabitants at that time consisted of several ethnicities such as Punti, Hakka, Tanka and Hoklo.
European discovery
The earliest European visitor on record was Jorge Álvares, a Portuguese explorer, who arrived in 1513.[60][61] Having established a trading post in a site they called "Tamão" in Hong Kong waters, Portuguese merchants commenced with regular trading in southern China. Subsequent military clashes between China and Portugal, however, led to the expulsion of all Portuguese merchants from southern China.
Since the 14th century, the Ming court had enforced the maritime prohibition laws that strictly forbade all private maritime activities in order to prevent contact with foreigners by sea.[62] When the Manchu Qing dynasty took over China, Hong Kong was directly affected by the Great Clearance decree of the Kangxi Emperor, who ordered the evacuation of coastal areas of Guangdong from 1661 to 1669. Over 16,000 inhabitants of Xin'an County including those in Hong Kong were forced to migrate inland; only 1,648 of those who had evacuated subsequently returned.[63][64]
British Crown Colony: 1842–1941
A painter at work. John Thomson. Hong Kong, 1871. The Wellcome Collection, London
Main articles: British Hong Kong and History of Hong Kong (1800s–1930s)
In 1839, threats by the imperial court of Qing to sanction opium imports caused diplomatic friction with the British Empire. Tensions escalated into the First Opium War. The Qing admitted defeat when British forces captured Hong Kong Island on 20 January 1841. The island was initially ceded under the Convention of Chuenpi as part of a ceasefire agreement between Captain Charles Elliot and Governor Qishan. A dispute between high-ranking officials of both countries, however, led to the failure of the treaty's ratification. On 29 August 1842, Hong Kong Island was formally ceded in perpetuity to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland under the Treaty of Nanking.[65] The British officially established a Crown colony and founded the City of Victoria in the following year.[66]
The population of Hong Kong Island was 7,450 when the Union Flag raised over Possession Point on 26 January 1841. It mostly consisted of Tanka fishermen and Hakka charcoal burners, whose settlements scattered along several coastal hamlets. In the 1850s, a large number of Chinese immigrants crossed the then-free border to escape from the Taiping Rebellion. Other natural disasters, such as flooding, typhoons and famine in mainland China would play a role in establishing Hong Kong as a place for safe shelter.[67][68]
Further conflicts over the opium trade between Britain and Qing quickly escalated into the Second Opium War. Following the Anglo-French victory, the Crown Colony was expanded to include Kowloon Peninsula (south of Boundary Street) and Stonecutter's Island, both of which were ceded to the British in perpetuity under the Convention of Beijing in 1860.
In 1898, Britain obtained a 99-year lease from Qing under the Convention for the Extension of Hong Kong Territory, in which Hong Kong obtained a 99-year lease of Lantau Island, the area north of Boundary Street in Kowloon up to Shenzhen River and over 200 other outlying islands.[69][70][71]
Hong Kong soon became a major entrepôt thanks to its free port status, attracting new immigrants to settle from both China and Europe. The society, however, remained racially segregated and polarised under early British colonial policies. Despite the rise of a British-educated Chinese upper-class by the late-19th century, race laws such as the Peak Reservation Ordinance prevented ethnic Chinese in Hong Kong from acquiring houses in reserved areas such as Victoria Peak. At this time, the majority of the Chinese population in Hong Kong had no political representation in the British colonial government. The British governors did rely, however, on a small number of Chinese elites, including Sir Kai Ho and Robert Hotung, who served as ambassadors and mediators between the government and local population.
File:1937 Hong Kong VP8.webmPlay media
Hong Kong filmed in 1937
In 1904, the United Kingdom established the world's first border and immigration control; all residents of Hong Kong were given citizenship as Citizens of United Kingdom and Colonies (CUKC).
Hong Kong continued to experience modest growth during the first half of the 20th century. The University of Hong Kong was established in 1911 as the territory's first higher education institute. While there had been an exodus of 60,000 residents for fear of a German attack on the British colony during the First World War, Hong Kong remained unscathed. Its population increased from 530,000 in 1916 to 725,000 in 1925 and reached 1.6 million by 1941.[72]
In 1925, Cecil Clementi became the 17th Governor of Hong Kong. Fluent in Cantonese and without a need for translator, Clementi introduced the first ethnic Chinese, Shouson Chow, into the Executive Council as an unofficial member. Under Clementi's tenure, Kai Tak Airport entered operation as RAF Kai Tak and several aviation clubs. In 1937, the Second Sino-Japanese War broke out when the Japanese Empire expanded its territories from northeastern China into the mainland proper. To safeguard Hong Kong as a freeport, Governor Geoffry Northcote declared the Crown Colony as a neutral zone.
Japanese occupation: 1941–45
Main article: Japanese occupation of Hong Kong
The Cenotaph in Hong Kong commemorates those who died in service in the First World War and the Second World War.[73]
As part of its military campaign in Southeast Asia during Second World War, the Japanese army moved south from Guangzhou of mainland China and attacked Hong Kong in on 8 December 1941.[74] Crossing the border at Shenzhen River on 8 December, the Battle of Hong Kong lasted for 18 days when British and Canadian forces held onto Hong Kong Island. Unable to defend against intensifying Japanese air and land bombardments, they eventually surrendered control of Hong Kong on 25 December 1941. The Governor of Hong Kong was captured and taken as a prisoner of war. This day is regarded by the locals as "Black Christmas".[75]
During the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong, the Japanese army committed atrocities against civilians and POWs, such as the St. Stephen's College massacre. Local residents also suffered widespread food shortages, limited rationing and hyper-inflation arising from the forced exchange of currency from Hong Kong dollars to Japanese military banknotes. The initial ratio of 2:1 was gradually devalued to 4:1 and ownership of Hong Kong dollars was declared illegal and punishable by harsh torture. Due to starvation and forced deportation for slave labour to mainland China, the population of Hong Kong had dwindled from 1.6 million in 1941 to 600,000 in 1945, when the United Kingdom resumed control of the colony on 2 September 1945.[76]
Resumption of British rule and industrialisation: 1945–97
Main articles: British Hong Kong, 1950s in Hong Kong, 1960s in Hong Kong, 1970s in Hong Kong, 1980s in Hong Kong, and 1990s in Hong Kong
Flag of British Hong Kong from 1959 to 1997
Hong Kong's population recovered quickly after the war, as a wave of skilled migrants from the Republic of China moved in to seek refuge from the Chinese Civil War. When the Communist Party eventually took full control of mainland China in 1949, even more skilled migrants fled across the open border for fear of persecution.[69] Many newcomers, especially those who had been based in the major port cities of Shanghai and Guangzhou, established corporations and small- to medium-sized businesses and shifted their base operations to British Hong Kong.[69] The establishment of a socialist state in China (People's Republic of China) on 1 October 1949 caused the British colonial government to reconsider Hong Kong's open border to mainland China. In 1951, a boundary zone was demarked as a buffer zone against potential military attacks from communist China. Border posts along the north of Hong Kong began operation in 1953 to regulate the movement of people and goods into and out of the territory.
Stamp with portrait of Queen Elizabeth II, 1953
In the 1950s, Hong Kong became the first of the Four Asian Tiger economies under rapid industrialisation driven by textile exports, manufacturing industries and re-exports of goods to China. As the population grew, with labour costs remaining low, living standards began to rise steadily.[77] The construction of the Shek Kip Mei Estate in 1953 marked the beginning of the public housing estate programme to provide shelter for the less privileged and to cope with the influx of immigrants.
Under Sir Murray MacLehose, 25th Governor of Hong Kong (1971–82), a series of reforms improved the public services, environment, housing, welfare, education and infrastructure of Hong Kong. MacLehose was British Hong Kong's longest-serving governor and, by the end of his tenure, had become one of the most popular and well-known figures in the Crown Colony. MacLehose laid the foundation for Hong Kong to establish itself as a key global city in the 1980s and early 1990s.
A sky view of Hong Kong Island
An aerial view of the northern shore of Hong Kong Island in 1986
To resolve traffic congestion and to provide a more reliable means of crossing the Victoria Harbour, a rapid transit railway system (metro), the MTR, was planned from the 1970s onwards. The Island Line (Hong Kong Island), Kwun Tong Line (Kowloon Peninsula and East Kowloon) and Tsuen Wan Line (Kowloon and urban New Territories) opened in the early 1980s.[78]
In 1983, the Hong Kong dollar left its 16:1 peg with the Pound sterling and switched to the current US-HK Dollar peg. Hong Kong's competitiveness in manufacturing gradually declined due to rising labour and property costs, as well as new development in southern China under the Open Door Policy introduced in 1978 which opened up China to foreign business. Nevertheless, towards the early 1990s, Hong Kong had established itself as a global financial centre along with London and New York City, a regional hub for logistics and freight, one of the fastest-growing economies in Asia and the world's exemplar of Laissez-faire market policy.[79]
The Hong Kong question
In 1971, the Republic of China (Taiwan)'s permanent seat on the United Nations was transferred to the People's Republic of China (PRC), Hong Kong's status as a recognised colony became terminated in 1972 under the request of PRC. Facing the uncertain future of Hong Kong and expiry of land lease of New Territories beyond 1997, Governor MacLehose raised the question in the late 1970s.
The British Nationality Act 1981 reclassified Hong Kong into a British Dependent Territory amid the reorganisation of global territories of the British Empire. All residents of Hong Kong became British Dependent Territory Citizens (BDTC). Diplomatic negotiations began with China and eventually concluded with the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration. Both countries agreed to transfer Hong Kong's sovereignty to China on 1 July 1997, when Hong Kong would remain autonomous as a special administrative region and be able to retain its free-market economy, British common law through the Hong Kong Basic Law, independent representation in international organisations (e.g. WTO and WHO), treaty arrangements and policy-making except foreign diplomacy and military defence.
It stipulated that Hong Kong would retain its laws and be guaranteed a high degree of autonomy for at least 50 years after the transfer. The Hong Kong Basic Law, based on English law, would serve as the constitutional document after the transfer. It was ratified in 1990.[69] The expiry of the 1898 lease on the New Territories in 1997 created problems for business contracts, property leases and confidence among foreign investors.
Handover and Special Administrative Region status
Main articles: Transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong and 2000s in Hong Kong
Transfer of sovereignty
Golden Bauhinia Square
On 1 July 1997, the transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong from the United Kingdom to the People's Republic of China took place, officially marking the end of Hong Kong's 156 years under British colonial governance. As the largest remaining colony of the United Kingdom, the loss of Hong Kong effectively represented the end of the British Empire. This transfer of sovereignty made Hong Kong the first special administrative region of China. Tung Chee-Hwa, a pro-Beijing business tycoon, was elected Hong Kong's first Chief Executive by a selected electorate of 800 in a televised programme.
Structure of government
Hong Kong's current structure of governance inherits from the British model of colonial administration set up in the 1850s. The 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration states that "Hong Kong should enjoy a high degree of autonomy in all areas except defence and foreign affairs" with reference to the underlying principle of one country, two systems.[note 3] This Declaration stipulates that Hong Kong maintains her capitalist economic system and guarantees the rights and freedoms of her people for at least 50 years after the 1997 handover. [note 4] Such guarantees are enshrined in the Hong Kong's Basic Law, the territory's constitutional document, which outlines the system of governance after 1997, albeit subject to interpretation by China's Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPCSC).[95][96]
Hong Kong's most senior leader, Chief Executive, is elected by a committee of 1,200 selected members (600 in 1997) and nominally appointed by the Government of China. The primary pillars of government are the Executive Council, Legislative Council, civil service and Judiciary.
Policy-making is initially discussed in the Executive Council, presided by the Chief Executive of Hong Kong, before passing to the Legislative Council for bill adoption. The Executive Council consists of 30 official/unofficial members appointed by the Chief Executive and one member among them acts as the convenor.[97][98]
The Legislative Council, set up in 1843, debates policies and motions before voting to adopt or rejecting bills. It has 70 members (originally 60) and 40 (originally 30) among them are directly elected by universal suffrage; the other 30 members are "functional constituencies" (indirectly) elected by a smaller electorate of corporate bodies or representatives of stipulated economic sectors as defined by the government. The Legislative Council is chaired by a president who acts as the speaker.[99][100]
In 1997, seating of the Legislative Council (also public services and election franchises) of Hong Kong modelled on the British system: Urban Council (Hong Kong and Kowloon) and District Council (New Territories and Outlying Islands). In 1999, this system has been reformed into 18 directly elected District Offices across 5 Legislative Council constituencies: Hong Kong Island (East/West), Kowloon and New Territories (East/West); the remaining outlying islands are divided across the aforementioned regions.
Hong Kong's Civil Service, created by the British colonial government, is a politically neutral body that implements government policies and provides public services. Senior civil servants are appointed based on meritocracy. The territory's police, firefighting and customs forces, as well as clerical officers across various government departments, make up the civil service.[101][102]
No stay in Provence would be complete without some landscape and village photography, especially if your wife is with you doing watercolor painting! So, taking a break from old stones (although there will be some of those...), here are a few of those shots I took in October 2024.
Le Barroux
Le Barroux is another one of those perched Mediæval villages that was designed to hug a hilltop around a castle where the locals could usually find protection in case of an attack.
There is not much left of that Mediæval castle, only the keep. The rest was remodeled during the Renaissance but retains quite an air of grandeur in spite of a relatively modest size —but the walls are impressive.
Le Barroux is also home to a community of rather fundamentalist Benedictine monks. The monastery began in the village of Bedoin in 1970 (see my photos of that church uploaded a few days ago), grew and outgrew Bedoin, then the monks found land and money to buy it and erect a new abbey in the Romanesque style, “the traditional way” in all respects, so to speak.
The Mediæval entrance into the village.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Francisco Aragão © 2012. All Rights Reserved.
Use without permission is illegal.
Attention please !
If you are interested in my photos, they are available for sale. Please contact me by email: aragaofrancisco@gmail.com. Do not use without permission.
Many images are available for license on Getty Images
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
"SAO LUIS DO MARANHAO - 400 ANOS"
Portuguese
São Luís é um município brasileiro, capital do estado do Maranhão localizado ao norte do estado, fundada por franceses no dia 8 de setembro de 1612 posteriormente, foi invadida por holandeses mas terminou por ser colonizada por portugueses. Localiza-se em uma ilha Upaon-Açu, no Atlântico Sul, entre as baías de São Marcos e São José de Ribamar. Quando em 1621 o Brasil foi dividido em duas unidades administrativas - Estado do Maranhão e Estado do Brasil - São Luís foi a capital da primeira unidade administrativa.
A capital maranhense tem um desenvolvido setor industrial por conta de grandes corporações e empresas de diversos áreas que se instalaram na cidade pela sua privilegiada posição geográfica entre as regiões Norte e Nordeste do país, seu litoral estrategicamente localizado bem mais próximo de grandes centros importadores de produtos brasileiras como Europa e EUA que permite economia de combustíveis e redução no prazo de entrega de mercadorias provenientes do Brasil pelo Porto de Itaqui que é o 2º mais profundo do mundo e um dos mais movimentados, sofisticados e bem estruturados para o comércio exterior no Brasil. Tudo isso aliado a ligação por linha férrea da capital São Luís ao interior do estado, e aos estados vizinhos do Pará, Tocantins e Piauí o que facilita e barateia a escoação agrícola vinda do interior do país para o porto de Itaqui, sendo que com a conclusão de Ferrovia Norte-Sul a cidade vai estar interligada a todas as regiões brasileiras (NO, NE, CO, SE e S) por ferrovias, por rodovia a ilha já é servida pela BR-135 que a liga ao continente, e por ar conta com o Aeroporto Internacional Marechal Cunha Machado com capacidade de atender mais de um milhão de passageiros por ano, e que já opera com demanda quase saturada pelo movimento intenso de passageiros não somente da cidade de São Luís mais também por servir como porta de entrada por ser o maior e mais movimentado aeroporto próximo ao Parque Nacional dos Lençóis Maranhenses.
O clima em São Luís é geralmente quente e abafado, tropical e semi-úmido. Isso se deve ao fato da cidade esta localizada proxima a Zona de Convergência Intertropical (ZCIT). A cidade apresenta grande quantidade de coqueiros e muita vegetação litorânea. A também pedaços da Floresta Amazônica na cidade protegidas por Parques Ambientais. Pequenos rios nascem na cidade, o Rio Bacanga é um dos mais importantes pois é muito util para a pesca.
Em 2010 o Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE) contou a população em 1,027,098 o que a torna o décimo-quinto município mais populoso do Brasil entre os 5 565 municípios brasileiros, 13° entre as capitais, 4º da região Nordeste e 1° do Maranhão. Sua área é de 831,7 Km², e desse total 157,5656 Km² estão em perímetro urbano. O município faz parte da Mesorregião do Norte Maranhense e Microrregião da Aglomeração Urbana de São Luís localizada a norte do estado do Maranhão. O Índice de Desenvolvimento Humano do municipio é de 0.778, alto comparado ao IDH do Maranhão.
English
São Luís (Portuguese pronunciation: [sɐ̃w luˈis], Saint Louis) is the capital of the Brazilian state of Maranhão. The city is located on São Luís island in the Baía de São Marcos (St Marcus Bay), an extension of the Atlantic Ocean which forms the estuary of Pindaré, Mearim, Itapecuru and other rivers. Its coordinates are 2.53° south, 44.30° west. The city proper has a population of some 986,826 people (2008 IBGE estimate). The metropolitan area totals 1,227,659 (ranked as the 16th largest in Brazil).
São Luís is the only Brazilian state capital founded by France (see France Équinoxiale) and it is one of the three Brazilian state capitals located on islands (the others are Vitória and Florianópolis).
The city has two major sea ports: Ponta da Madeira and Porto do Itaqui, through which a substantial part of Brazil's iron ore, originating from the (pre)-Amazon region, is exported. The city's main industries are metallurgical with Alumar, and Vale do Rio Doce. São Luís is home of the Federal University of Maranhão.
São Luís was the home town of famous Brazilian samba singer Alcione, Brazilian writers Aluísio Azevedo, Ferreira Gullar and Josué Montello, Belgian-naturalised soccer player Luís Oliveira, the musician João do Vale and Zeca Baleiro, a Música Popular Brasileira (MPB) singer.
Originally the town was a large village of the Tupinambá tribe. The first Europeans to see it were the French, in 1612, who intended to make it the centre of a French colony named Equinoctial France. They built a fort named Saint Louis after St Louis, King of France, as a compliment to his successor King Louis XIII. The settlement was conquered for Portugal by Jerônimo de Albuquerque in 1615, when it was renamed São Luís. There had been little time for the French to build a city. This has led to some controversy as to the actual date of the founding of the city, whether by the French or the Portuguese. In 1641, the city was invaded by the Dutch. They stayed until 1645 and did not manage to influence the city's architecture or to leave any sign of their invasion, mainly because they were kept too busy with the challenges to their occupation. In 1677, the city was made the seat of the new Roman Catholic Diocese of São Luís do Maranhão.
Only when those invasions ceased permanently did the colonial government decide to create the state of Grão-Pará e Maranhão, independent from the rest of the country. By that time, the economy was based on agriculture, particularly the exportation of sugar cane, cacao and tobacco. Conflicts amongst the local elites would lead to the Beckman's Revolt.
Soon after the outbreak of the American Civil War, the region started to provide cotton to Great Britain. The wealth generated by this activity was used to modernize the city; to bring religious men to come and teach in its schools; and supplement the water supply. The city came to be the third most populous city in the country. By the end of the 19th century, agriculture was in decay and since then the city's population has been searching for other ways to make a living.
Nowadays, São Luís has the largest and best preserved heritage of colonial Portuguese architecture of all Latin America. The island is known as the "Island of Love" and as "the Brazilian Athens", due to its many poets and writers, such as Sotero dos Reis, Aluísio Azevedo, Graça Aranha, Gonçalves Dias (the most famous), Ferreira Gullar, among others.
The ancestral composition of São Luís, according to an autosomal DNA study, is 42% European, 39% Native American and 19% African.
Portuguese is the official national language, and thus the primary language taught in schools. But English and Spanish are part of the official high school curriculum.
Wikipedia
Without the risk of going back to Boots Site due to what happened last time on day 2 of the 49 omnidekkas. I have to make use of Queens Drive Park & Ride, an ideal spot as it's advertising everywhere at the minute. Even the site had a little makeover.
Sorry guys if you were expecting shots in Boots!
no. YN19 EGC
Nice comments without copied/pasted group icons are welcome. .
As Flickr is a sharing site I only add my pictures to public groups, .
Photography experience courses available, please email for details.
The full portfolio available from Stock photography by Tim Large at Alamy
Photographer:- TimLarge
Location:- Axbridge, Somerset, England. UK
©TimothyLarge
There is film file with 15 of these loch side portraits without the green eyes. The original pictures are taken with the selfie camera and in processing they have been resized to that of the front camera. From 2880 x 3840p they have been enlarged to 3060 x 4080p. Yet dpi is down from 96dpi to 72dpi. The quick cut original colour iris of the eyes with a touch of brightness is not very fitting to a calm portrait, but it does show the edge of detail and the strength of separation in contrast and definition. If the pictures were from either a better lit scene, or from a better resolution lens and camera then the iris would be easier to select and better to view. By using the small iris as the target in the pictures the quality of the image is shown when a viewer enlarges the image to look just how well fitting the green iris appears in the images. Overall for a selfie camera on a phone the selective colour on the portraits is very good indeed.
Loch Ness quick self portraits taken in between experiencing the wonders available in, on and around this iconic location. The location chosen here was the near anonymous car scene, rather than the amazing beauty and of course the changeable wonderful views available just beyond the confines of the near anonymous vehicle. Of course we saw the monster(s) and they were very friendly and also maybe most importantly there was no ‘chompy chomp chomp’ whilst in the loch. They requested no pictures please at this time as they were scale moulting for their Winter Sheen coat, so instead you have images of the monstrous elusive me. My eyes as pictured have been edited in Adobe Lightroom both ‘Sclera’ and then ‘Iris and Pupil’ functions were jiggered with. There are 15 portraits in total in the film version, I will not load them all as JPEG files, rather a I will just share a couple of examples. The tests mentioned are to jog my memory of settings and functions and to learn how best to record a scene for my digital memories that are my proposed ‘ones and zeros’ for future viewing happiness. Tech can be kind and emotionally supportive as we all finding out, it can also fail drastically.
© PHH Sykes 2024
phhsykes@gmail.com
Graffiti (plural; singular graffiti or graffito, the latter rarely used except in archeology) is art that is written, painted or drawn on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from simple written words to elaborate wall paintings, and has existed since ancient times, with examples dating back to ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, and the Roman Empire (see also mural).
Graffiti is a controversial subject. In most countries, marking or painting property without permission is considered by property owners and civic authorities as defacement and vandalism, which is a punishable crime, citing the use of graffiti by street gangs to mark territory or to serve as an indicator of gang-related activities. Graffiti has become visualized as a growing urban "problem" for many cities in industrialized nations, spreading from the New York City subway system and Philadelphia in the early 1970s to the rest of the United States and Europe and other world regions
"Graffiti" (usually both singular and plural) and the rare singular form "graffito" are from the Italian word graffiato ("scratched"). The term "graffiti" is used in art history for works of art produced by scratching a design into a surface. A related term is "sgraffito", which involves scratching through one layer of pigment to reveal another beneath it. This technique was primarily used by potters who would glaze their wares and then scratch a design into them. In ancient times graffiti were carved on walls with a sharp object, although sometimes chalk or coal were used. The word originates from Greek γράφειν—graphein—meaning "to write".
The term graffiti originally referred to the inscriptions, figure drawings, and such, found on the walls of ancient sepulchres or ruins, as in the Catacombs of Rome or at Pompeii. Historically, these writings were not considered vanadlism, which today is considered part of the definition of graffiti.
The only known source of the Safaitic language, an ancient form of Arabic, is from graffiti: inscriptions scratched on to the surface of rocks and boulders in the predominantly basalt desert of southern Syria, eastern Jordan and northern Saudi Arabia. Safaitic dates from the first century BC to the fourth century AD.
Some of the oldest cave paintings in the world are 40,000 year old ones found in Australia. The oldest written graffiti was found in ancient Rome around 2500 years ago. Most graffiti from the time was boasts about sexual experiences Graffiti in Ancient Rome was a form of communication, and was not considered vandalism.
Ancient tourists visiting the 5th-century citadel at Sigiriya in Sri Lanka write their names and commentary over the "mirror wall", adding up to over 1800 individual graffiti produced there between the 6th and 18th centuries. Most of the graffiti refer to the frescoes of semi-nude females found there. One reads:
Wet with cool dew drops
fragrant with perfume from the flowers
came the gentle breeze
jasmine and water lily
dance in the spring sunshine
side-long glances
of the golden-hued ladies
stab into my thoughts
heaven itself cannot take my mind
as it has been captivated by one lass
among the five hundred I have seen here.
Among the ancient political graffiti examples were Arab satirist poems. Yazid al-Himyari, an Umayyad Arab and Persian poet, was most known for writing his political poetry on the walls between Sajistan and Basra, manifesting a strong hatred towards the Umayyad regime and its walis, and people used to read and circulate them very widely.
Graffiti, known as Tacherons, were frequently scratched on Romanesque Scandinavian church walls. When Renaissance artists such as Pinturicchio, Raphael, Michelangelo, Ghirlandaio, or Filippino Lippi descended into the ruins of Nero's Domus Aurea, they carved or painted their names and returned to initiate the grottesche style of decoration.
There are also examples of graffiti occurring in American history, such as Independence Rock, a national landmark along the Oregon Trail.
Later, French soldiers carved their names on monuments during the Napoleonic campaign of Egypt in the 1790s. Lord Byron's survives on one of the columns of the Temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounion in Attica, Greece.
The oldest known example of graffiti "monikers" found on traincars created by hobos and railworkers since the late 1800s. The Bozo Texino monikers were documented by filmmaker Bill Daniel in his 2005 film, Who is Bozo Texino?.
In World War II, an inscription on a wall at the fortress of Verdun was seen as an illustration of the US response twice in a generation to the wrongs of the Old World:
During World War II and for decades after, the phrase "Kilroy was here" with an accompanying illustration was widespread throughout the world, due to its use by American troops and ultimately filtering into American popular culture. Shortly after the death of Charlie Parker (nicknamed "Yardbird" or "Bird"), graffiti began appearing around New York with the words "Bird Lives".
Modern graffiti art has its origins with young people in 1960s and 70s in New York City and Philadelphia. Tags were the first form of stylised contemporary graffiti. Eventually, throw-ups and pieces evolved with the desire to create larger art. Writers used spray paint and other kind of materials to leave tags or to create images on the sides subway trains. and eventually moved into the city after the NYC metro began to buy new trains and paint over graffiti.
While the art had many advocates and appreciators—including the cultural critic Norman Mailer—others, including New York City mayor Ed Koch, considered it to be defacement of public property, and saw it as a form of public blight. The ‘taggers’ called what they did ‘writing’—though an important 1974 essay by Mailer referred to it using the term ‘graffiti.’
Contemporary graffiti style has been heavily influenced by hip hop culture and the myriad international styles derived from Philadelphia and New York City Subway graffiti; however, there are many other traditions of notable graffiti in the twentieth century. Graffiti have long appeared on building walls, in latrines, railroad boxcars, subways, and bridges.
An early graffito outside of New York or Philadelphia was the inscription in London reading "Clapton is God" in reference to the guitarist Eric Clapton. Creating the cult of the guitar hero, the phrase was spray-painted by an admirer on a wall in an Islington, north London in the autumn of 1967. The graffito was captured in a photograph, in which a dog is urinating on the wall.
Films like Style Wars in the 80s depicting famous writers such as Skeme, Dondi, MinOne, and ZEPHYR reinforced graffiti's role within New York's emerging hip-hop culture. Although many officers of the New York City Police Department found this film to be controversial, Style Wars is still recognized as the most prolific film representation of what was going on within the young hip hop culture of the early 1980s. Fab 5 Freddy and Futura 2000 took hip hop graffiti to Paris and London as part of the New York City Rap Tour in 1983
Commercialization and entrance into mainstream pop culture
Main article: Commercial graffiti
With the popularity and legitimization of graffiti has come a level of commercialization. In 2001, computer giant IBM launched an advertising campaign in Chicago and San Francisco which involved people spray painting on sidewalks a peace symbol, a heart, and a penguin (Linux mascot), to represent "Peace, Love, and Linux." IBM paid Chicago and San Francisco collectively US$120,000 for punitive damages and clean-up costs.
In 2005, a similar ad campaign was launched by Sony and executed by its advertising agency in New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Miami, to market its handheld PSP gaming system. In this campaign, taking notice of the legal problems of the IBM campaign, Sony paid building owners for the rights to paint on their buildings "a collection of dizzy-eyed urban kids playing with the PSP as if it were a skateboard, a paddle, or a rocking horse".
Tristan Manco wrote that Brazil "boasts a unique and particularly rich, graffiti scene ... [earning] it an international reputation as the place to go for artistic inspiration". Graffiti "flourishes in every conceivable space in Brazil's cities". Artistic parallels "are often drawn between the energy of São Paulo today and 1970s New York". The "sprawling metropolis", of São Paulo has "become the new shrine to graffiti"; Manco alludes to "poverty and unemployment ... [and] the epic struggles and conditions of the country's marginalised peoples", and to "Brazil's chronic poverty", as the main engines that "have fuelled a vibrant graffiti culture". In world terms, Brazil has "one of the most uneven distributions of income. Laws and taxes change frequently". Such factors, Manco argues, contribute to a very fluid society, riven with those economic divisions and social tensions that underpin and feed the "folkloric vandalism and an urban sport for the disenfranchised", that is South American graffiti art.
Prominent Brazilian writers include Os Gêmeos, Boleta, Nunca, Nina, Speto, Tikka, and T.Freak. Their artistic success and involvement in commercial design ventures has highlighted divisions within the Brazilian graffiti community between adherents of the cruder transgressive form of pichação and the more conventionally artistic values of the practitioners of grafite.
Graffiti in the Middle East has emerged slowly, with taggers operating in Egypt, Lebanon, the Gulf countries like Bahrain or the United Arab Emirates, Israel, and in Iran. The major Iranian newspaper Hamshahri has published two articles on illegal writers in the city with photographic coverage of Iranian artist A1one's works on Tehran walls. Tokyo-based design magazine, PingMag, has interviewed A1one and featured photographs of his work. The Israeli West Bank barrier has become a site for graffiti, reminiscent in this sense of the Berlin Wall. Many writers in Israel come from other places around the globe, such as JUIF from Los Angeles and DEVIONE from London. The religious reference "נ נח נחמ נחמן מאומן" ("Na Nach Nachma Nachman Meuman") is commonly seen in graffiti around Israel.
Graffiti has played an important role within the street art scene in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), especially following the events of the Arab Spring of 2011 or the Sudanese Revolution of 2018/19. Graffiti is a tool of expression in the context of conflict in the region, allowing people to raise their voices politically and socially. Famous street artist Banksy has had an important effect in the street art scene in the MENA area, especially in Palestine where some of his works are located in the West Bank barrier and Bethlehem.
There are also a large number of graffiti influences in Southeast Asian countries that mostly come from modern Western culture, such as Malaysia, where graffiti have long been a common sight in Malaysia's capital city, Kuala Lumpur. Since 2010, the country has begun hosting a street festival to encourage all generations and people from all walks of life to enjoy and encourage Malaysian street culture.
The modern-day graffitists can be found with an arsenal of various materials that allow for a successful production of a piece. This includes such techniques as scribing. However, spray paint in aerosol cans is the number one medium for graffiti. From this commodity comes different styles, technique, and abilities to form master works of graffiti. Spray paint can be found at hardware and art stores and comes in virtually every color.
Stencil graffiti is created by cutting out shapes and designs in a stiff material (such as cardboard or subject folders) to form an overall design or image. The stencil is then placed on the "canvas" gently and with quick, easy strokes of the aerosol can, the image begins to appear on the intended surface.
Some of the first examples were created in 1981 by artists Blek le Rat in Paris, in 1982 by Jef Aerosol in Tours (France); by 1985 stencils had appeared in other cities including New York City, Sydney, and Melbourne, where they were documented by American photographer Charles Gatewood and Australian photographer Rennie Ellis
Tagging is the practice of someone spray-painting "their name, initial or logo onto a public surface" in a handstyle unique to the writer. Tags were the first form of modern graffiti.
Modern graffiti art often incorporates additional arts and technologies. For example, Graffiti Research Lab has encouraged the use of projected images and magnetic light-emitting diodes (throwies) as new media for graffitists. yarnbombing is another recent form of graffiti. Yarnbombers occasionally target previous graffiti for modification, which had been avoided among the majority of graffitists.
Theories on the use of graffiti by avant-garde artists have a history dating back at least to the Asger Jorn, who in 1962 painting declared in a graffiti-like gesture "the avant-garde won't give up"
Many contemporary analysts and even art critics have begun to see artistic value in some graffiti and to recognize it as a form of public art. According to many art researchers, particularly in the Netherlands and in Los Angeles, that type of public art is, in fact an effective tool of social emancipation or, in the achievement of a political goal
In times of conflict, such murals have offered a means of communication and self-expression for members of these socially, ethnically, or racially divided communities, and have proven themselves as effective tools in establishing dialog and thus, of addressing cleavages in the long run. The Berlin Wall was also extensively covered by graffiti reflecting social pressures relating to the oppressive Soviet rule over the GDR.
Many artists involved with graffiti are also concerned with the similar activity of stenciling. Essentially, this entails stenciling a print of one or more colors using spray-paint. Recognized while exhibiting and publishing several of her coloured stencils and paintings portraying the Sri Lankan Civil War and urban Britain in the early 2000s, graffitists Mathangi Arulpragasam, aka M.I.A., has also become known for integrating her imagery of political violence into her music videos for singles "Galang" and "Bucky Done Gun", and her cover art. Stickers of her artwork also often appear around places such as London in Brick Lane, stuck to lamp posts and street signs, she having become a muse for other graffitists and painters worldwide in cities including Seville.
Graffitist believes that art should be on display for everyone in the public eye or in plain sight, not hidden away in a museum or a gallery. Art should color the streets, not the inside of some building. Graffiti is a form of art that cannot be owned or bought. It does not last forever, it is temporary, yet one of a kind. It is a form of self promotion for the artist that can be displayed anywhere form sidewalks, roofs, subways, building wall, etc. Art to them is for everyone and should be showed to everyone for free.
Graffiti is a way of communicating and a way of expressing what one feels in the moment. It is both art and a functional thing that can warn people of something or inform people of something. However, graffiti is to some people a form of art, but to some a form of vandalism. And many graffitists choose to protect their identities and remain anonymous or to hinder prosecution.
With the commercialization of graffiti (and hip hop in general), in most cases, even with legally painted "graffiti" art, graffitists tend to choose anonymity. This may be attributed to various reasons or a combination of reasons. Graffiti still remains the one of four hip hop elements that is not considered "performance art" despite the image of the "singing and dancing star" that sells hip hop culture to the mainstream. Being a graphic form of art, it might also be said that many graffitists still fall in the category of the introverted archetypal artist.
Banksy is one of the world's most notorious and popular street artists who continues to remain faceless in today's society. He is known for his political, anti-war stencil art mainly in Bristol, England, but his work may be seen anywhere from Los Angeles to Palestine. In the UK, Banksy is the most recognizable icon for this cultural artistic movement and keeps his identity a secret to avoid arrest. Much of Banksy's artwork may be seen around the streets of London and surrounding suburbs, although he has painted pictures throughout the world, including the Middle East, where he has painted on Israel's controversial West Bank barrier with satirical images of life on the other side. One depicted a hole in the wall with an idyllic beach, while another shows a mountain landscape on the other side. A number of exhibitions also have taken place since 2000, and recent works of art have fetched vast sums of money. Banksy's art is a prime example of the classic controversy: vandalism vs. art. Art supporters endorse his work distributed in urban areas as pieces of art and some councils, such as Bristol and Islington, have officially protected them, while officials of other areas have deemed his work to be vandalism and have removed it.
Pixnit is another artist who chooses to keep her identity from the general public. Her work focuses on beauty and design aspects of graffiti as opposed to Banksy's anti-government shock value. Her paintings are often of flower designs above shops and stores in her local urban area of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Some store owners endorse her work and encourage others to do similar work as well. "One of the pieces was left up above Steve's Kitchen, because it looks pretty awesome"- Erin Scott, the manager of New England Comics in Allston, Massachusetts.
Graffiti artists may become offended if photographs of their art are published in a commercial context without their permission. In March 2020, the Finnish graffiti artist Psyke expressed his displeasure at the newspaper Ilta-Sanomat publishing a photograph of a Peugeot 208 in an article about new cars, with his graffiti prominently shown on the background. The artist claims he does not want his art being used in commercial context, not even if he were to receive compensation.
Territorial graffiti marks urban neighborhoods with tags and logos to differentiate certain groups from others. These images are meant to show outsiders a stern look at whose turf is whose. The subject matter of gang-related graffiti consists of cryptic symbols and initials strictly fashioned with unique calligraphies. Gang members use graffiti to designate membership throughout the gang, to differentiate rivals and associates and, most commonly, to mark borders which are both territorial and ideological.
Graffiti has been used as a means of advertising both legally and illegally. Bronx-based TATS CRU has made a name for themselves doing legal advertising campaigns for companies such as Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Toyota, and MTV. In the UK, Covent Garden's Boxfresh used stencil images of a Zapatista revolutionary in the hopes that cross referencing would promote their store.
Smirnoff hired artists to use reverse graffiti (the use of high pressure hoses to clean dirty surfaces to leave a clean image in the surrounding dirt) to increase awareness of their product.
Graffiti often has a reputation as part of a subculture that rebels against authority, although the considerations of the practitioners often diverge and can relate to a wide range of attitudes. It can express a political practice and can form just one tool in an array of resistance techniques. One early example includes the anarcho-punk band Crass, who conducted a campaign of stenciling anti-war, anarchist, feminist, and anti-consumerist messages throughout the London Underground system during the late 1970s and early 1980s. In Amsterdam graffiti was a major part of the punk scene. The city was covered with names such as "De Zoot", "Vendex", and "Dr Rat". To document the graffiti a punk magazine was started that was called Gallery Anus. So when hip hop came to Europe in the early 1980s there was already a vibrant graffiti culture.
The student protests and general strike of May 1968 saw Paris bedecked in revolutionary, anarchistic, and situationist slogans such as L'ennui est contre-révolutionnaire ("Boredom is counterrevolutionary") and Lisez moins, vivez plus ("Read less, live more"). While not exhaustive, the graffiti gave a sense of the 'millenarian' and rebellious spirit, tempered with a good deal of verbal wit, of the strikers.
I think graffiti writing is a way of defining what our generation is like. Excuse the French, we're not a bunch of p---- artists. Traditionally artists have been considered soft and mellow people, a little bit kooky. Maybe we're a little bit more like pirates that way. We defend our territory, whatever space we steal to paint on, we defend it fiercely.
The developments of graffiti art which took place in art galleries and colleges as well as "on the street" or "underground", contributed to the resurfacing in the 1990s of a far more overtly politicized art form in the subvertising, culture jamming, or tactical media movements. These movements or styles tend to classify the artists by their relationship to their social and economic contexts, since, in most countries, graffiti art remains illegal in many forms except when using non-permanent paint. Since the 1990s with the rise of Street Art, a growing number of artists are switching to non-permanent paints and non-traditional forms of painting.
Contemporary practitioners, accordingly, have varied and often conflicting practices. Some individuals, such as Alexander Brener, have used the medium to politicize other art forms, and have used the prison sentences enforced on them as a means of further protest. The practices of anonymous groups and individuals also vary widely, and practitioners by no means always agree with each other's practices. For example, the anti-capitalist art group the Space Hijackers did a piece in 2004 about the contradiction between the capitalistic elements of Banksy and his use of political imagery.
Berlin human rights activist Irmela Mensah-Schramm has received global media attention and numerous awards for her 35-year campaign of effacing neo-Nazi and other right-wing extremist graffiti throughout Germany, often by altering hate speech in humorous ways.
In Serbian capital, Belgrade, the graffiti depicting a uniformed former general of Serb army and war criminal, convicted at ICTY for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including genocide and ethnic cleansing in Bosnian War, Ratko Mladić, appeared in a military salute alongside the words "General, thank to your mother". Aleks Eror, Berlin-based journalist, explains how "veneration of historical and wartime figures" through street art is not a new phenomenon in the region of former Yugoslavia, and that "in most cases is firmly focused on the future, rather than retelling the past". Eror is not only analyst pointing to danger of such an expressions for the region's future. In a long expose on the subject of Bosnian genocide denial, at Balkan Diskurs magazine and multimedia platform website, Kristina Gadže and Taylor Whitsell referred to these experiences as a young generations' "cultural heritage", in which young are being exposed to celebration and affirmation of war-criminals as part of their "formal education" and "inheritance".
There are numerous examples of genocide denial through celebration and affirmation of war criminals throughout the region of Western Balkans inhabited by Serbs using this form of artistic expression. Several more of these graffiti are found in Serbian capital, and many more across Serbia and Bosnian and Herzegovinian administrative entity, Republika Srpska, which is the ethnic Serbian majority enclave. Critics point that Serbia as a state, is willing to defend the mural of convicted war criminal, and have no intention to react on cases of genocide denial, noting that Interior Minister of Serbia, Aleksandar Vulin decision to ban any gathering with an intent to remove the mural, with the deployment of riot police, sends the message of "tacit endorsement". Consequently, on 9 November 2021, Serbian heavy police in riot gear, with graffiti creators and their supporters, blocked the access to the mural to prevent human rights groups and other activists to paint over it and mark the International Day Against Fascism and Antisemitism in that way, and even arrested two civic activist for throwing eggs at the graffiti.
Graffiti may also be used as an offensive expression. This form of graffiti may be difficult to identify, as it is mostly removed by the local authority (as councils which have adopted strategies of criminalization also strive to remove graffiti quickly). Therefore, existing racist graffiti is mostly more subtle and at first sight, not easily recognized as "racist". It can then be understood only if one knows the relevant "local code" (social, historical, political, temporal, and spatial), which is seen as heteroglot and thus a 'unique set of conditions' in a cultural context.
A spatial code for example, could be that there is a certain youth group in an area that is engaging heavily in racist activities. So, for residents (knowing the local code), a graffiti containing only the name or abbreviation of this gang already is a racist expression, reminding the offended people of their gang activities. Also a graffiti is in most cases, the herald of more serious criminal activity to come. A person who does not know these gang activities would not be able to recognize the meaning of this graffiti. Also if a tag of this youth group or gang is placed on a building occupied by asylum seekers, for example, its racist character is even stronger.
By making the graffiti less explicit (as adapted to social and legal constraints), these drawings are less likely to be removed, but do not lose their threatening and offensive character.
Elsewhere, activists in Russia have used painted caricatures of local officials with their mouths as potholes, to show their anger about the poor state of the roads. In Manchester, England, a graffitists painted obscene images around potholes, which often resulted in them being repaired within 48 hours.
In the early 1980s, the first art galleries to show graffitists to the public were Fashion Moda in the Bronx, Now Gallery and Fun Gallery, both in the East Village, Manhattan.
A 2006 exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum displayed graffiti as an art form that began in New York's outer boroughs and reached great heights in the early 1980s with the work of Crash, Lee, Daze, Keith Haring, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. It displayed 22 works by New York graffitists, including Crash, Daze, and Lady Pink. In an article about the exhibition in the magazine Time Out, curator Charlotta Kotik said that she hoped the exhibition would cause viewers to rethink their assumptions about graffiti.
From the 1970s onwards, Burhan Doğançay photographed urban walls all over the world; these he then archived for use as sources of inspiration for his painterly works. The project today known as "Walls of the World" grew beyond even his own expectations and comprises about 30,000 individual images. It spans a period of 40 years across five continents and 114 countries. In 1982, photographs from this project comprised a one-man exhibition titled "Les murs murmurent, ils crient, ils chantent ..." (The walls whisper, shout and sing ...) at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.
In Australia, art historians have judged some local graffiti of sufficient creative merit to rank them firmly within the arts. Oxford University Press's art history text Australian Painting 1788–2000 concludes with a long discussion of graffiti's key place within contemporary visual culture, including the work of several Australian practitioners.
Between March and April 2009, 150 artists exhibited 300 pieces of graffiti at the Grand Palais in Paris.
Spray paint has many negative environmental effects. The paint contains toxic chemicals, and the can uses volatile hydrocarbon gases to spray the paint onto a surface.
Volatile organic compound (VOC) leads to ground level ozone formation and most of graffiti related emissions are VOCs. A 2010 paper estimates 4,862 tons of VOCs were released in the United States in activities related to graffiti.
In China, Mao Zedong in the 1920s used revolutionary slogans and paintings in public places to galvanize the country's communist movement.
Based on different national conditions, many people believe that China's attitude towards Graffiti is fierce, but in fact, according to Lance Crayon in his film Spray Paint Beijing: Graffiti in the Capital of China, Graffiti is generally accepted in Beijing, with artists not seeing much police interference. Political and religiously sensitive graffiti, however, is not allowed.
In Hong Kong, Tsang Tsou Choi was known as the King of Kowloon for his calligraphy graffiti over many years, in which he claimed ownership of the area. Now some of his work is preserved officially.
In Taiwan, the government has made some concessions to graffitists. Since 2005 they have been allowed to freely display their work along some sections of riverside retaining walls in designated "Graffiti Zones". From 2007, Taipei's department of cultural affairs also began permitting graffiti on fences around major public construction sites. Department head Yong-ping Lee (李永萍) stated, "We will promote graffiti starting with the public sector, and then later in the private sector too. It's our goal to beautify the city with graffiti". The government later helped organize a graffiti contest in Ximending, a popular shopping district. graffitists caught working outside of these designated areas still face fines up to NT$6,000 under a department of environmental protection regulation. However, Taiwanese authorities can be relatively lenient, one veteran police officer stating anonymously, "Unless someone complains about vandalism, we won't get involved. We don't go after it proactively."
In 1993, after several expensive cars in Singapore were spray-painted, the police arrested a student from the Singapore American School, Michael P. Fay, questioned him, and subsequently charged him with vandalism. Fay pleaded guilty to vandalizing a car in addition to stealing road signs. Under the 1966 Vandalism Act of Singapore, originally passed to curb the spread of communist graffiti in Singapore, the court sentenced him to four months in jail, a fine of S$3,500 (US$2,233), and a caning. The New York Times ran several editorials and op-eds that condemned the punishment and called on the American public to flood the Singaporean embassy with protests. Although the Singapore government received many calls for clemency, Fay's caning took place in Singapore on 5 May 1994. Fay had originally received a sentence of six strokes of the cane, but the presiding president of Singapore, Ong Teng Cheong, agreed to reduce his caning sentence to four lashes.
In South Korea, Park Jung-soo was fined two million South Korean won by the Seoul Central District Court for spray-painting a rat on posters of the G-20 Summit a few days before the event in November 2011. Park alleged that the initial in "G-20" sounds like the Korean word for "rat", but Korean government prosecutors alleged that Park was making a derogatory statement about the president of South Korea, Lee Myung-bak, the host of the summit. This case led to public outcry and debate on the lack of government tolerance and in support of freedom of expression. The court ruled that the painting, "an ominous creature like a rat" amounts to "an organized criminal activity" and upheld the fine while denying the prosecution's request for imprisonment for Park.
In Europe, community cleaning squads have responded to graffiti, in some cases with reckless abandon, as when in 1992 in France a local Scout group, attempting to remove modern graffiti, damaged two prehistoric paintings of bison in the Cave of Mayrière supérieure near the French village of Bruniquel in Tarn-et-Garonne, earning them the 1992 Ig Nobel Prize in archeology.
In September 2006, the European Parliament directed the European Commission to create urban environment policies to prevent and eliminate dirt, litter, graffiti, animal excrement, and excessive noise from domestic and vehicular music systems in European cities, along with other concerns over urban life.
In Budapest, Hungary, both a city-backed movement called I Love Budapest and a special police division tackle the problem, including the provision of approved areas.
The Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 became Britain's latest anti-graffiti legislation. In August 2004, the Keep Britain Tidy campaign issued a press release calling for zero tolerance of graffiti and supporting proposals such as issuing "on the spot" fines to graffiti offenders and banning the sale of aerosol paint to anyone under the age of 16. The press release also condemned the use of graffiti images in advertising and in music videos, arguing that real-world experience of graffiti stood far removed from its often-portrayed "cool" or "edgy'" image.
To back the campaign, 123 Members of Parliament (MPs) (including then Prime Minister Tony Blair), signed a charter which stated: "Graffiti is not art, it's crime. On behalf of my constituents, I will do all I can to rid our community of this problem."
In the UK, city councils have the power to take action against the owner of any property that has been defaced under the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 (as amended by the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005) or, in certain cases, the Highways Act. This is often used against owners of property that are complacent in allowing protective boards to be defaced so long as the property is not damaged.
In July 2008, a conspiracy charge was used to convict graffitists for the first time. After a three-month police surveillance operation, nine members of the DPM crew were convicted of conspiracy to commit criminal damage costing at least £1 million. Five of them received prison sentences, ranging from eighteen months to two years. The unprecedented scale of the investigation and the severity of the sentences rekindled public debate over whether graffiti should be considered art or crime.
Some councils, like those of Stroud and Loerrach, provide approved areas in the town where graffitists can showcase their talents, including underpasses, car parks, and walls that might otherwise prove a target for the "spray and run".
Graffiti Tunnel, University of Sydney at Camperdown (2009)
In an effort to reduce vandalism, many cities in Australia have designated walls or areas exclusively for use by graffitists. One early example is the "Graffiti Tunnel" located at the Camperdown Campus of the University of Sydney, which is available for use by any student at the university to tag, advertise, poster, and paint. Advocates of this idea suggest that this discourages petty vandalism yet encourages artists to take their time and produce great art, without worry of being caught or arrested for vandalism or trespassing.[108][109] Others disagree with this approach, arguing that the presence of legal graffiti walls does not demonstrably reduce illegal graffiti elsewhere. Some local government areas throughout Australia have introduced "anti-graffiti squads", who clean graffiti in the area, and such crews as BCW (Buffers Can't Win) have taken steps to keep one step ahead of local graffiti cleaners.
Many state governments have banned the sale or possession of spray paint to those under the age of 18 (age of majority). However, a number of local governments in Victoria have taken steps to recognize the cultural heritage value of some examples of graffiti, such as prominent political graffiti. Tough new graffiti laws have been introduced in Australia with fines of up to A$26,000 and two years in prison.
Melbourne is a prominent graffiti city of Australia with many of its lanes being tourist attractions, such as Hosier Lane in particular, a popular destination for photographers, wedding photography, and backdrops for corporate print advertising. The Lonely Planet travel guide cites Melbourne's street as a major attraction. All forms of graffiti, including sticker art, poster, stencil art, and wheatpasting, can be found in many places throughout the city. Prominent street art precincts include; Fitzroy, Collingwood, Northcote, Brunswick, St. Kilda, and the CBD, where stencil and sticker art is prominent. As one moves farther away from the city, mostly along suburban train lines, graffiti tags become more prominent. Many international artists such as Banksy have left their work in Melbourne and in early 2008 a perspex screen was installed to prevent a Banksy stencil art piece from being destroyed, it has survived since 2003 through the respect of local street artists avoiding posting over it, although it has recently had paint tipped over it.
In February 2008 Helen Clark, the New Zealand prime minister at that time, announced a government crackdown on tagging and other forms of graffiti vandalism, describing it as a destructive crime representing an invasion of public and private property. New legislation subsequently adopted included a ban on the sale of paint spray cans to persons under 18 and increases in maximum fines for the offence from NZ$200 to NZ$2,000 or extended community service. The issue of tagging become a widely debated one following an incident in Auckland during January 2008 in which a middle-aged property owner stabbed one of two teenage taggers to death and was subsequently convicted of manslaughter.
Graffiti databases have increased in the past decade because they allow vandalism incidents to be fully documented against an offender and help the police and prosecution charge and prosecute offenders for multiple counts of vandalism. They also provide law enforcement the ability to rapidly search for an offender's moniker or tag in a simple, effective, and comprehensive way. These systems can also help track costs of damage to a city to help allocate an anti-graffiti budget. The theory is that when an offender is caught putting up graffiti, they are not just charged with one count of vandalism; they can be held accountable for all the other damage for which they are responsible. This has two main benefits for law enforcement. One, it sends a signal to the offenders that their vandalism is being tracked. Two, a city can seek restitution from offenders for all the damage that they have committed, not merely a single incident. These systems give law enforcement personnel real-time, street-level intelligence that allows them not only to focus on the worst graffiti offenders and their damage, but also to monitor potential gang violence that is associated with the graffiti.
Many restrictions of civil gang injunctions are designed to help address and protect the physical environment and limit graffiti. Provisions of gang injunctions include things such as restricting the possession of marker pens, spray paint cans, or other sharp objects capable of defacing private or public property; spray painting, or marking with marker pens, scratching, applying stickers, or otherwise applying graffiti on any public or private property, including, but not limited to the street, alley, residences, block walls, and fences, vehicles or any other real or personal property. Some injunctions contain wording that restricts damaging or vandalizing both public and private property, including but not limited to any vehicle, light fixture, door, fence, wall, gate, window, building, street sign, utility box, telephone box, tree, or power pole.
To help address many of these issues, many local jurisdictions have set up graffiti abatement hotlines, where citizens can call in and report vandalism and have it removed. San Diego's hotline receives more than 5,000 calls per year, in addition to reporting the graffiti, callers can learn more about prevention. One of the complaints about these hotlines is the response time; there is often a lag time between a property owner calling about the graffiti and its removal. The length of delay should be a consideration for any jurisdiction planning on operating a hotline. Local jurisdictions must convince the callers that their complaint of vandalism will be a priority and cleaned off right away. If the jurisdiction does not have the resources to respond to complaints in a timely manner, the value of the hotline diminishes. Crews must be able to respond to individual service calls made to the graffiti hotline as well as focus on cleanup near schools, parks, and major intersections and transit routes to have the biggest impact. Some cities offer a reward for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of suspects for tagging or graffiti related vandalism. The amount of the reward is based on the information provided, and the action taken.
When police obtain search warrants in connection with a vandalism investigation, they are often seeking judicial approval to look for items such as cans of spray paint and nozzles from other kinds of aerosol sprays; etching tools, or other sharp or pointed objects, which could be used to etch or scratch glass and other hard surfaces; permanent marking pens, markers, or paint sticks; evidence of membership or affiliation with any gang or tagging crew; paraphernalia including any reference to "(tagger's name)"; any drawings, writing, objects, or graffiti depicting taggers' names, initials, logos, monikers, slogans, or any mention of tagging crew membership; and any newspaper clippings relating to graffiti crime.
© All rights reserved Davide Zappettini 2023
Use without permission is illegal
contatti: groovemagic@hotmail.it
SEGUIMI QUI youtube.com/@davidezappettini6287
www.lensculture.com/davide-zappettini
www.photographers.it/gallery_image.php?id=42811#img
www.facebook.com/david.zappettini
Do not use any of my images on websites, blogs or other media without my explicit written permission.
„Without you... I lose meaning to my existence..."
Official: www.jyuwong.com/
Facebook: www.facebook.com/levinography
Instagram: LEVINLEE_