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• Tutorial: Layer Masks and Transparency Gradients for "The Heart"
  by Cain Doherty

  This tutorial will cover my development of The Heart with Photoshop CS3…

  This tutorial will cover my development of The Heart with Photoshop CS3. The source images can be downloaded by clicking on the thumbnails for a larger version and right clicking to save to your computer. / IMG_1164 & IMG_1166 A key part of processing The Heart is making use of layer masks. This enables modification of selected regions of the photograph created in this case with the gradient tool. 1. To begin, open IMG_1166. 2. Press Ctrl+Shift+N and click OK to add a new layer. To place IMG_1164 on this layer go to File > Place and find where you saved it. Click the tick to commit the transform. 3. To create a mask, click the New Layer Mask (grey square with white circle inside) button in the Layers palette. To create a transparency gradient on this mask, first hit G to bring up the gradient toolbar and select a linear gradient. Then click and drag as shown in the following picture. 4. The next layer will be a photo filter so click Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Photo Filter and hit OK. Push the density slider to 100% and select a custom colour with properties as shown in the following picture. 5. Now apply another layer mask and gradient, as done previously, to restrict the photo filter to the sky. Change the blend mode to Linear Burn and opacity to 70% for the following picture. The Linear Burn blend mode is similar to Color Burn, but instead of increasing contrast, it decreases brightness to darken the base color and reflect the blend color. Now add curves layers to the foreground and then the sky. 6. Click Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Curves and hit OK. Then modify each of the RGB channels to reflect something like the following picture. 7. Change the blend mode to soft light and add a layer mask and gradient (this time in reverse) to restrict the curves layer to the foreground. This will produce the following result. The curves layer that targets the sky looks like this. 8. Change the blend mode again to soft light, opacity to 75% and create a layer mask and gradient to achieve the following result. 9. The final step involves adding a levels layer and changing its blend mode to ‘screen’ to boost the lighter areas. An opacity of 90% will achieve the picture shown below. 10. Straightening the horizon and correcting the barrel distortion yields The Heart. If you’ve found this useful please let me know. Feedback and discussion is welcome. My previous tutorial Photographing the Milky Way with a standard DSLR camera has attracted a few hundred views so I figured it was worthwhile to write another. Cain Doherty

• Web WIDGETS for you!
  by webgrrl

  I’ve been really diggin the widgets ive been making, and placing them all over the place. It started just with my own personal stuff that…

  I’ve been really diggin the widgets ive been making, and placing them all over the place. It started just with my own personal stuff that i wanted to put on my other blogs/websites (yes, i have many).. then, i wanted to show others how they could utilize the RSS feed found within Redbubble (gallery, groups and forums). today i made a PAGE of Widgets from the RSS feeds of some of the groups i belong to in Redbubble.. / Widgets for You if you want me to make you a widget that i havent made yet..just bubblemail me. if you would like any of the widgets you see on the page, just click on the “Get Widget” button/link and it will give you codes you can copy and paste into your website, profile at myspace, facebook, bebo, and many other places..you will see all the familiar logos ;)

• Developing my Photography - Help please
  by Caroline Gorka

  I’m fairly new for photography – but beginning to get a strong feel for what I love to do, and work on (Portraits and Black and White) – ...

  I’m fairly new for photography – but beginning to get a strong feel for what I love to do, and work on (Portraits and Black and White) – but want some help, guidance (which I’m getting to a degree :)) ) but mainly someone to work with – perhaps assist – whatever it takes really for me to develop, and take that extra step. Anyone willing to take me on, or give me some pointers, I shall be eternally grateful. Caroline

• Blown Away!!
  by Macky

  I would like to share with all my friends and watchers this wonderful news this Monday morning. I received a bmail from Mundy Hackett in…

  I would like to share with all my friends and watchers this wonderful news this Monday morning. I received a bmail from Mundy Hackett informing me that my Cape Dwarf Chameleon II had won 1st place in the May 2008 Natural Developments Group competition. I would like to thank all who voted for me and I would also like to congratulate all the runners up. Last but not least a hearty thanks to Mundy for running and managing such a wonderful group, thanks to RB for the voucher and the honour of having this image in the 2009 Calendar. Kind regards to all Macky

• Using an exported art list
  by Dave Pearson

  Yesterday I finally got around to using my little tool for exporting my RedBubble art list...

  Yesterday I finally got around to using my little tool for exporting my RedBubble art list to build a quick and dirty site that acts as a simple “front door” into my works here. Given that I’ve had the domain davep.co.uk hanging around not doing anything useful for a while I’ve placed it over there. At the moment it’s a quick and dirty hack, more of a proof of concept than anything else, I’ll probably expand it into something more at some point in the future. But, for now, here’s the first version of Photography by Dave Pearson.

• More Suggestions to keep the RB Developers Busy :)
  by Aaron Booth

  Not sure if this has already been suggested, but something that i use a lot on Flickr and DeviantArt is RSS feeds. Suggested feeds: ...

  Not sure if this has already been suggested, but something that i use a lot on Flickr and DeviantArt is RSS feeds. Suggested feeds: - Your watchlist [shows when artists on your list upload new work] - Any user’s portfolio - Any user’s journal - Activity on your bubble [favourites, comments] These days I use RSS feeds almost exclusively. Apart from The Age, I don’t read any websites that don’t have an RSS feed [except for online apps ala Gmail, Google Maps etc] I currently have 125 feeds in Google Reader[!]. Another small thing that has been bugging me is that when you paste a url into your journal/a comment/an image description it isn’t automatically converted into a link. It’s weird that I would just expect this but I think most websites and apps do that these days. Anyway, cheers guys and keep up the good work! EDIT: I’m having a hell of a time creating something that looks like a bulleted list here. I had to use double line breaks [which i’m guessing converts it to a new paragraph]. -ab

• Character Creation: Giving Birth when You Least Expect It
  by Gayla Drummond

  In an effort to get myself out of my current little funk/mild writer’s block, I thought I’d write an entry about how a couple of my chara…

  In an effort to get myself out of my current little funk/mild writer’s block, I thought I’d write an entry about how a couple of my characters came into being for me. I’ve mentioned I have a couple of original fiction projects I’ve never gotten much done on, but have sort of slogged away at them over the years. One, Dark’s Bane, is around about a decade old, the other is about 4-5 years old. I slogged, wrote, stopped, tore it up, rewrote, set it aside, rinse/repeat, ad nauseum. Then…the Xmen movies came out, I saw all of them, my old fondness for Wolverine from the comic books developed into a full blow fascination with the movie Wolverine ( You know, the whole buckets of drool thing ), and I started checking out fan fiction. After reading some, I thought I’d try my own hand at writing it. My first effort was with Morrigan, a young woman Logan meets in a bar, starts getting a little attached to during the events of the 2nd and 3rd movies. Morrigan was hiding the fact that she was a mutant, a healer like Logan. Somehow, the people attempting to revive Project X discovered her, captured her as she left work one night, and performed the procedure on her. She didn’t have claws, they gave them to her and inserted an animal consciousness into her mind. She escapes, and spends a year running from town to town, trying to deal with it, and Logan eventually tracks her down, something he hadn’t had a problem doing before. When he finds out she’s now become like him, he decides to keep her, and she eventually ends up living at the mansion. Okay..that was a bit of a tangent from where I was going, but background, I guess, lol. Anyway, I had another story idea pop into my head after that one, and started working on it. That one was set about 100 years in the future, and the world was a very different place. Logan was still alive, only looking about late thirties or so. My O/C for that story was a young woman who was bucking the system in place, and succeeded in her aim to become a Marine sniper. When Logan meets her, having been asked to lead her platoon on a very important mission, she is the number one rated sniper in the world, a corporal in the USMC. She’s the daughter of a ret. USMC Gunnery Sgt, who was also the number one rated sniper, in his day. As I wrote the story, my O/C started to split into multiple personalities with my brain asking me ‘What if…’ and the beginnings of Shadow Connor and Faith Wilder were born. They eventually solidified into the characters they’ve become, whole and mostly seperate from their fanfic O/C ‘mother’. She gave her names to them…her name is Faith Connor. There are parallels between the three, of course. All three are pretty strong willed women, very competant. Shadow is bolder, brasher and has a tendency to bulldoze her way through obstacles. Faith Wilder is quieter, and on the shy, uncertain side. Their ‘mother’ is a self-confident woman who knows she’s the best at what she does, is very determined, but pretty calm and collected. I guess what I’m trying to say is that you just never know where inspiration for an original character might come from, or lead to. Shadow’s arrival has led to a series of stories for me to work on, other original characters to meet (Jase, Wolfe and Lucien, to name a few), and an accompanying universe to develop. Faith’s arrival hasn’t produced quite as much just yet, but the storyline’s there and waiting for me to really start working on it. Faith Wilder, in her own turn, is the ‘mother’ of Rhianne Morgan, my character from Focus, and therefore the progenitor of the whole Focus Universe and the other characters that have come along for it. Call it shadow spawning, lol. Rhianne is the ‘mother’ of Jazz Thomas, US Mage Corps Captain, and also of Shiankha Miller, from WIP ‘Whispers’. Shadow is the ‘mother’ of Constance the Vampire Hunter, and at least an ‘aunt’ to Riley from Code Walker. And each of them have spawned a ‘shadow child’ of their own, which may very well never end up seeing the light of day, except in short stories. And it all started from deciding to try my hand at fanfic, and creating a character I became very attached to. It’s funny how your mind works these things out. Moral of the story: Take your inspiration from where ever you receive it from, and run like hell with it.

• Flood of work onto RB - Apologies in advance... and no, haven't gone into regression that's why I need you to read this : )
  by Carmen Cilliers

  Hi Everyone, I’m sorry if you suddenly get a huge flood of work from me in your activity monitor. I am putting all the work I have d…

  Hi Everyone, I’m sorry if you suddenly get a huge flood of work from me in your activity monitor. I am putting all the work I have done in my short 18 month painting career (as at 01.06.08) on to the bub. They’ll be listed from newest on page 1 to oldest on page “how ever many it is”. I am going to get a card printed of each art work so I can start doing up a portfolio. I have sold almost everything I have done so I think if I am going to start beating down doors of galleries it’s time to get a folio together that demonstrates my progress. Some of the works are pretty bad, so I don’t expect comments, I really just wanted to warn you. Also, please be gentle and make sure you have a quick look at the description so you can place the work in the time-line accordingly. I’d hate for you to think I’d gone into regression – LOL! Thanks for your support, your comments and most of all your patience. Carms.

• Alice's Blues (A Character Development Exercise)
  by bearhat

  why o sun do you shine upon my shoulder when i know not warmth, / cannot know warmth, nor recall it? / why must you do this, when i will no…

  why o sun do you shine upon my shoulder when i know not warmth, / cannot know warmth, nor recall it? / why must you do this, when i will not recollect this warm kiss upon the back of my neck… / ...lest i remember his also? once upon a time. why, o cloud crouching on yonder horizon, will you not churn / and roil for me and cover the sky with darkness? / my skin wishes the sting of hard rain, / my pelt the pelt of hail. / my eyes desire gloom. / acid-rain on me, you fucker. / i want something outward to match the scratched over black-ice inside. as above so beneath. / come, lovey, come maw of fate, / come, show alice your teeth. instead the sunset paints pretty pink masterpieces, / dusk dapples daintily through breeze-tossed leaves / and birds warble cutely like idiots in the pepperwood trees, / while my soul moulders. o stranger staring back at me hollow-eyed / from the glass of the hotel window, / how can i be you, when you seem so gathered, masked and together? / teach me to draw shutters on the world / and stand blank-faced, detached, / bulletproof / and impervious to knives. i marvel at you, my mirror me, / my alice in the looking glass, / stepping forward to meet him with a peck on the cheek. look, skies, birds, sun, at her, / and do your worst. / trapped in glass she is beyond you. / she keeps her heart in her leather purse, / with her phone and her keys and her makeup. A creative writing exercise. I’m trying to get into the skin of a new character, trying to write from a female point of view. It’s about letting her take as much from me as she needs, explore my dark places as if they were her own.

• Zen and the Art of redbubble
  by lightsmith

  Just some thoughts about Art and our growth as artists. I sent out a version of this to the Digital Interface...

  Just some thoughts about Art and our growth as artists. I sent out a version of this to the Digital Interface group members, but while I’d use that as a justification for the group’s guidelines it also seems to me to be appropriate (with a slight reworking perhaps) for all redbubblers. But feel free to disagree….. So why are we with redbubble? To showcase, educate and inspire. Oh, and to sell. And lets start with selling. If you are here to sell then that’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with that (he says hoping the buyers agree). But selling is a result – the result of two things – astounding art that is well showcased. The showcase portion is essential, and there are many great tips on the forums or in the various journal entries. Start with the redbubble item Tips for Selling Your Work On RedBubble The astounding art bit – well, that’s more complex. With the exception of the genius species (of which there are a few on redbubble), astounding art takes dedication. It also changes and matures over time - influences and IS influenced. It is in a state of flux – ever changing and ever growing. Fresh, delightful, emotional – anything that moves you is astonishing art. it has to make you feel or think differently. Essentially, as we develop as artists, our talents and our art develops too – it grows. It is this growth that is critical. With growth comes greater appeal, and greater appreciation. But growth requires a complex interaction with others. It requires nurturing, and feeding. Lets plant a seedling. For that seedling to turn into a beautiful flower, it needs water, sun, fertilizer, other plants, insects, good soil, cultivation and so on. Our art is no different. In our case, the good soil is our natural born talent. The cultivation is a complex combination of learning, experience and so on. The other plants are obviously other people’s artwork. The other plants, insects etc are collaboration The water, the fertilizer are inspiration. The ‘sun’ is our ability to showcase our work. Unless we have all of this, growth is unlikely. Some plants are solitary growers of course, but most of the plant (and animal) kingdom is completely reliant on others. It cannot live – let alone grow – without them. And the human kingdom is no different. Unlike many other sites, redbubble provides an enviromnent where such growth can occur. And to achieve this, fantastic artwork, good tutorials, explanatory descriptions and mutual support are essential. Most groups have forums. Use them. Discuss, disagree, collaborate, explain – talk about peanuts – whatever. It’s impssible to grow on our own. We need each other – to inspire us, to educate us, to challenge us. We need each other to take us from our first bud to the full bloom of our talents – and then beyond. You get what you give. Our world is a closed-system – there are no free lunches (unless you work for the tax office) and the better you make your journals, the better your descriptions, the more use you make of your forums etc, the more – ultimately – you will get out of it. We have a chance to push the limits. Don’t sit on the sidelines. Most of the greatest classic artists taught students and shared their skills and styles. You are every bit as talented as the great ones. I’ve seen your work. I know this is true.

• Navigation: Character Development
  by Vestque

  Prints: / ...

  Prints: / / / ACEOs: /

• Open-Source
  by Ash Laws

  Consider all of my written work open-source. Do whatever you want with it. Did I leave a story on a cliff-hanger? Go ahead and *f…

  Consider all of my written work open-source. Do whatever you want with it. Did I leave a story on a cliff-hanger? Go ahead and finish it. Enjoy a character? Go ahead and develop them. Like the setting/storyline? Go ahead and expand it. Creativity to the max. I don’t want anything that will inhibit the creative flows people!

• Art Vs. Commerce
  by WanderingAuthor

  I’ve been thinking a lot about this issue lately. I want to develop what talent I have to its highest potential. To do this, I need to wr…

  I’ve been thinking a lot about this issue lately. I want to develop what talent I have to its highest potential. To do this, I need to write as much as possible. To do that, I need to be free of the necessity of bringing in cash in ways that don’t develop my writing skills. At the moment, most writers don’t even make enough to live on. I know of one professional author, published, been writing for over fifteen years. You could walk in a bookstore and find at least a few of her books there. Yet she noted her income last year was in the “high four figures”. I’m not naming her, since I can’t be sure how widely she’d want that detail known. For those of you in other countries, where she lives, “high four figures” is worse than what a dishwasher or janitor makes. Yet you read everywhere that, on the Internet, “content is king.” We write content, better than most of what’s out there, and we can’t make a living, while there are spammers and scrapers making a hundred thousand and more a month! Yes, that does tick me off! Steal my content, and a few thousand other people’s, and you could make more than I can honestly writing it. I posted about some of these thoughts on another writing site, one for writers seeking serious careers and publication. I tossed out a few ideas, poorly thought out, just for brainstorming. How can we as writers make more cash, and get at least a little slice of the pie? How can we survive the changes in culture and society? I also raised a lot of issues I know many writers must fear. The result? Some people disagreed. I can live with that. But some people accused me of writing because I want to get rich. I am not a writer because I think it will make me rich. I’d be happy to make just enough of a living to write and nothing else. Yes, I also wouldn’t mind making a little more than that, if fortunes are going to be made on the foundation of “content”, but that isn’t why I write. Dickens took whatever writing jobs would pay him. So did a lot of other great writers. They had to eat. So do I. In their day, they made enough that they could do nothing but write, and that time to develop skill and talent is one of the things that made them great. So I’ve thought of some ideas, ways I might be able to ask a higher price for my writing than it would normally command. I don’t know if they’ll work until I try them. I’m not outlining them here since, as they are my ideas, I’d at least like to clearly be the one to try them out first, before someone else runs off with them. Some of them, honestly, involve asking some pretty high prices, and ‘creating’ a market for the work. I’ve thought over what terms I’d have to insist on to preserve my freedom to write honestly, as I would in other situations. But I wonder, is there something wrong with trying to make money from creative writing? Does it somehow compromise what we do? I’m not worried about the other end – creative writing is a luxury – if I can figure out a way to ask twenty million (I’m not really thinking anywhere near that…) for a story, and get it, no one had to pay that, so in my opinion, it’s fair enough. I’m just trying to work out if it will somehow make me less of a writer. Do the rest of you wrestle with issues like this?

• Maya 3d in Tuscany, Italy
  by catherinelouise

  If anyone is interested in developing their digital skills in a 3dimensional direction we (artist George Snow and I) are running Maya (le…

  If anyone is interested in developing their digital skills in a 3dimensional direction we (artist George Snow and I) are running Maya (leading 3d animation software) courses this summer from our lovely castle near Cortona, Tuscany Italy. / You can check us out on www.3d3world.com

• My Photography v 2.0
  by Kenneth Pang

  I’ve graduated from handling a P&S to an SLR for almost a year now. Boys being boys, I was at first, focussing too much time and energ…

  I’ve graduated from handling a P&S to an SLR for almost a year now. Boys being boys, I was at first, focussing too much time and energy on the technical aspects of cameras and equipment. I’m not an arty person by nature so it was in some ways like learning a fundamental skill from scratch as a relatively ‘old dog’. My love of photography is not about getting right in an exposure the rules of the perfect composition of a photo or the correct exposure settings etc. I love it because a photograph reflects, in my own words, ‘a moment in time’ which deserves to be permanently captured and shared. I love life for all its ups and downs and I love travelling the world and seeing how others live and being able to experience it for myself. I am thankful for the opportunity to have travelled as widely as I have to date. I know that not everyone is as fortunate as me and I hope that I can share my life and a story or two through a lens and a camera. Hopefully from this point on I can really concentrate more on the experience and less on the technique.

• Making poverty history
  by Omary S

  We are halfway to 2015 and the millenium development goals. Hence there are a number competitions and exhibitions on the theme of making …

  We are halfway to 2015 and the millenium development goals. Hence there are a number competitions and exhibitions on the theme of making poverty history. Omary has a collection of paintings on this theme that you can view with statements. / Three have been selected for the Create to Advocate Art Exhibition with Micah Challenge in Parliament House, Canberra. They are Morning Torch, Ruaha River and The End. / There are others on the theme of water: Morning Work and Sunset Water Carrying being entered in a similar competition with World Vision.

• Hello Bubble Land!
  by Erin Guest

  I suppose I should introduce myself. My name is Erin, though most people, especially in the online world, know me as Ren. I get called Re…

  I suppose I should introduce myself. My name is Erin, though most people, especially in the online world, know me as Ren. I get called Ren almost as much as my real name which I kind of like. I started doing photography when my partner wanted to upgrade his kit. I offered to buy his – a Pentax MZ50 film camera which, I must say, was rather wonderful in it’s simplicity. I learned to love black and white film with grain the size of golfballs and colour rich Reala which will remain my favourite film of all time. I dabbled in the world of slide film too though never really developed the obsession my partner did with Velvia and Provia. Plus it was pretty expensive and finding a developer who didn’t wreck nearly all the shots we took was difficult at best and impossible at worst. Eventually, the desire to take a step up and upgrade my kit led me to the new world of digital cameras. Due to the money being not so plentiful but the want being rather inexhaustable, I bought another Pentax… an ist*DS. Bliss. Not only could I take photos and have them ready for printing on the same day, but I had stuff I could manipulate – something I have been doing with other people’s photographs for years. My mantra has always been “Photoshop is my friend”. Purists would hate me and call me lazy and unskilled, but I take photos with the intention to mess with them, whether it be a little or a lot. I enjoy the process. I don’t think it’s a matter of being unskilled in photography, I think it’s a matter of utilising DIFFERENT skills. And I am not ashamed of what I do at all because I find it fun, relaxing, entertaining and I’ve managed to create some artwork that I would personally have up in my own home. Anyway, apart from photography and digital art, I also make jewellery. I work mostly on a commission basis though I do occasionally make stuff because I can. I’ll update this page with some pictures of that work later on.

• How much comes for free?
  by floto

  After 4 days “in the field” (here) we’ve notched up over 200 views – and the real majority of the “art portfolio isn’t uploaded yet! / I’m…

  After 4 days “in the field” (here) we’ve notched up over 200 views – and the real majority of the “art portfolio isn’t uploaded yet! / I’m not writing this journal to tell you how many people have looked at my pictures, but to let you in on ideas – Ideas which will bring together all of the different places online where “floto” exists. “Things are best, when things are free”, and with this in mind I’m looking at building a really cool place for the photography online. Keep watching to see what I develop.

• Developed my own film finally...
  by Jenni C

  ....and it was great fun! A friend who is also a photographer set me up with all the fixins’ for developing B&W film. I got 4 rolls of my…

  ....and it was great fun! A friend who is also a photographer set me up with all the fixins’ for developing B&W film. I got 4 rolls of my 120 film done this weekend and it was great to be in ‘control’ of yet another process. Of course as we all know control is relative. One of my rolls must have been wound with a kink in it because one of my pictures was a marbled mess of chemical madness—all purple, white and black. It’s all part of the process and no harm done. My friend is not so casual about his developing and was horrified but once I explained my philosophy of embracing the imperfections he understood the laissez faire attitude. Hopefully I’ll rub off on him a little bit. I find the process so much more enjoyable when it doesn’t have to be perfect. It is a freeing state-of-mind that I’ve only come to since I started playing with toy cameras. My inability to buy a big, fat DSLR is the reason I have Holga, Lubitel and Fed 2. It sometimes pays to be cheap as I’ve gained priceless knowledge from using these little plastic wonders.

• Looking for feedback
  by Marie Edwards

  I am very interested in critique of my works, but am reluctant to overload the Critique Forum. Feel free to comment on anything you may f…

  I am very interested in critique of my works, but am reluctant to overload the Critique Forum. Feel free to comment on anything you may find in my images that you feel needs improvement or maybe a new perspective. i am all ears I promise! / XXX

• Entry No.1 - Steps to improvement
  by Fiona Law

  Ok well I’ve been a bit slack recently on the photography front. Mainly as I’m trying to plough my way through the mountains of photo’s …

  Ok well I’ve been a bit slack recently on the photography front. Mainly as I’m trying to plough my way through the mountains of photo’s I took last month. I have decided to set myself goals. I’m not sure what they all are but I know where I’m starting. So first up. Stop taking so many photo’s of the one thing. I promise to try and get the shot in 1 or 2 photo’s as opposed to taking 5 and then using no 1,2 or 3. My reasoning behind this rule is that I will have less time in front of the laptop sorting them all out therefore more time to spend shooting. Also The more I practice this the better I’ll get at framing my shots and seeing what I actualy want to capture from a scene. Now I might be stuck practicing this rule for a while until I get to grips with it or maybe if I’m lucky this approach will fast track my abilities and I can move onto a new one. Ah whats rule no.2? I have no idea but if anyone has some suggestions let me know. What rules do you enforce on yourself?

• Moving the town into the country - Canmore
  by Ursula Tillmann

  Story of Developers and boom in a tranquil town. You can read it on: www.members.nowpublic.com/tilltales

  Story of Developers and boom in a tranquil town. You can read it on: www.members.nowpublic.com/tilltales

• Conservation in Colombia
  by robinmoore

  The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta is the highest coastal mountain formation in the world, rising from the azure waters of the Carribbean t…

  The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta is the highest coastal mountain formation in the world, rising from the azure waters of the Carribbean to snow-capped mountains at 19,000 feet. I know of nowhere else where you can stand in one place and see glaciers on one side and tropical ocean on the other. Against this jaw-dropping backdrop exotic birds flutter through lush cloudforest and rare frogs bounce across a sun-specked carpet of leaflitter under gnarled trees. Many of these species are found here and nowhere else. For this reason, the Sierra Nevada was recently identified as the second highest priority site for urgent conservation action worldwide. In early 2007 the habitat of these species was slated for conversion into vacation homes. We helped local and international partners to secure the area and create the El Dorado Reserve. The careful development of ecotourism in the reserve is now helping to generate revenue to pay locals to manage the park, as well as guides and cooks. Protecting a 1,500 acre patch of forest is a small battle won in the war on environmental devastation. Driving along the coast surrounding Santa Marta it was alarming to see house upon house submerged in several feet of water from a recent flood. Occupants sat on high ground nearby, waiting. The link between natural catastrophies and evironmental degradation is clearer than ever. It is in the interests of the people to protect their forest, a natural gem of which they should be proud. As more people pay vast sums of money to come and see exotic birds, it will become increasingly obvious that these forests are worth more intact than in pieces.

• My Introduction : For the first time
  by React D

  Hi! I React Developers, like to call myself Saptarshi Bagchi. / I am a student from I…

  Hi! I React Developers, like to call myself Saptarshi Bagchi. / I am a student from India. I am just 23 years old.This year, I graduated on Fashion Technology, a subject taught in National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT), India. Its a 4 years course and deals with technology related to production of apparels and other related aspects that varies from Costing, Management, Retailing, Supply Chain Management, etc. My interest is towards Retailing and I am trying to get into a 2 years post graduate programme in Retail Management, either by NIFT or by Future Group (Pantaloons). About my soul, I am a simple guy who loves to smile and make others smile, to make the world a better place to live in. I love to share knowledge and not confine them within myself. I often help others without helping myself. I believe there is only one religion one must follow, that is ‘Humanity’. / / I love creative ways to express myself. As a kid, I had interest in Painting and Music. I learnt them well but had to stop them during my school leaving final exams. Now when I was in college, I didnot get much time to devote, as more than study, I was involved in real life projects and internships, etc. I also had interest in Phillately and Match-box collecting. Now, I got a computer in early college days. I developed the interest in Adobe Photoshop, Corel Draw, Macromedia Flash, Sound Forge, Adobe Primiere. About me, you can say ‘jack of all trades, master of none’. I used to do them for fun, often I did them for my college and friends, for free offcourse. I will put some link to those examples later on. Now, when I was trained to be a proffessional in college, I developed the interest in money :) . I thaught, If I am spending my time in doing these things, why not convert some time into money. Although money was not the main concern, expressing my ideas to everyone was. But, when there is a chance to explore the commercial possibility, so… why not ? Right now, my latest medium of expression is photography, though I know, I am amature in it. Check My Works and My Homepage / /