I am rewarding myself for all my hard studying and working by having a few days at Uluru in early August. The thing is, I keep gettin…
I am rewarding myself for all my hard studying and working by having a few days at Uluru in early August. The thing is, I keep getting conflicting advice from people such as… / 1) The rock looks stunning all the time in all sorts of light / 2) The rock only lights up and looks fantastic for about 10 minutes at sunrise and sunset / 3) Don’t take you best camera because it is doomed due to all the dust and grit in the air / 4) Take your best camera because you will regret it if you don’t / 5) Do a tour to find the best spots (photographically speaking) / 6) Take yourself to the rock to find the best spots (photographically speaking) / 7) Find a local to show you the best spots (photographically speaking) So who can lend me some realistic advice on how to structure my time there to best suit my photographic endevours?
Do you feel as I do? My brothers and sisters? Deviants and mutants and freaks and angels? – does it move you like this. Like -...
Do you feel as I do? My brothers and sisters? Deviants and mutants and freaks and angels? – does it move you like this. Like – THIS? It swings and burns and riots inside me sometimes – sudden tastes uncertain and anomalous – each sense fitted up and mis-wired with invention. / Show me that synchronous similitude: Following Orpheus as he follows Eurydice into the dark. The dark that I have been sucking, gulping into me since I first lifted my wide wide gaze to the moon. Rising ancient and cold. Eating darkness and it tastes…. Human like you, yes! Let me exist as you, I want to sear your mind show me where you hide your kindness so that I can rip it from you with my red real teeth. / Sad and soft sounds sticking in my throat, in the softness behind my words. Behind my panicked, violently blue eyes. / I once… I made a man cry with my work – Triggers in his own bruising mind clipping sore and real and true. / A strong man and brave. A man… my oldest friend; he whom I have not never seen shed tears. Not in twenty hard years of the hard corners of a brutal and difficult life. He has healed himself now. He is in love with his wife. He would kill and die for me… / Women and men have shed tears at my work. / They have I have seen them I was there I saw I saw and my memory is quick sometimes and it frightens me with clarity so sharp and real. I trace the path of their tears in the air before me. AND I ALMOST SOB. / Stop it. Stop it stop it. The emotion, unnameable, is colossal impossible. / Stop. / Deep breath, try. Shudder once more. My own tears hot on my cheek. Sip something cool, open a fucking window? Put the kettle on again forget put it on again forget and remember that I have done this twice and limp back to my work. I stand. I twist my strong, deft hands against each other. I fail without simple answers, stuttering ambiguities sincere and desperate. A gasp of longing slips from my tongue flicking outwards from my undecided lips like a creaking leather whip. / Calloused and scared and still and always smeared (STILL YES! WHY I CAME IN HERE! REMEMBERED YAY!)with paint. It is so beautiful. It frightens me. / I step numb to the bathroom twist taps in unfeeling slippery fingers paint. It makes things…hard to grasp. Hah! Puns rule… Shock and cold and it tastes so sweet and I could drink such water as this, forever cool. False insectile legs pricking my skin even as I scrub it, prickling through my hair. / I pour clear cold water in a winding trail down my back and hold my head under the tap for as long as I can bear. / Oh, to find a baptism such as this – at the hands of one so replete with belief that what they may have been disintegrates before the throb of divine insistence. Baptised by a drowning. / For this act, to find faith in warm human hands… In some symbol ancient and quivering with the force of certainty. With fucking CERTAINTY (“doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is an absurd one” – Voltaire, the wily old bastard). With faith. / Measured in millions of long dead believers embraced in the sweet surety of ritual – beneath the crying cup. / Dust strewn under hard, calloused hands. Angels? And dust? We must be both! Concentrate! / As the cool water runs over the yielding welcome of my eyelids. / The last and least peace that I can find. / My own faith… zealot of nothingness, disciple of CHANCE. Rhapsodist in ephemeral accident so pure its coldness burns. / I hear the hiss of the plumbing, the booming blood surging in my ears. I breathe some rushing strand of the water and cough hard. Enough. / I bang my head, on the tap, even as it vibrates to my sight in the tricking slight of hand of mild hallucination. / Only me. Shiver and shake. Force out each claw into a supple human finger, nails painted deep sapphire blue. They are calloused from my guitar, still stained with my paint and sore from the incessant scrape of life at their raw nerves searing just under the skin. / Squint and glare at my reflection. Snarls have always just looked completely silly on my face. I must smile. Smile smile. The shape of the bone, the skull, under the gums. / The sink is covered in paint. Faucets young but obsolescent. Plastic decay matching my own. / Flick my hair back just so and water sprays lightly. It seems to fall in jerky staccato accelerations and infinitesimal pauses. Some of the drops on my open palm. They roll and rattle into each other like flawless crystal marbles before dissolving into water once more. / This. Endless. Endless. Impossibility… this mammoth UNNAMED and Unnameable emotion. That my senses distort when I must see to work to breathe to work see to paint to live. / It is so heavy. I want it and hate it and crave a name for its crippling mass upon my heart. / For now… / Trick it with beauty. Paint. Be brave. Courage my friends, my siblings, my lovers. / Angels and dust. Concentrate! “Where I am I don’t know, I can’t know. In the silence, you won’t know, you’ll never know; I must go on, I can’t go on. I’ll go on.” / Beckett.
Ok, a bit of a fluffy title, but I am over the moon because someone bought another card – my ‘Toadsville’ image. To the buyer, a huge …
Ok, a bit of a fluffy title, but I am over the moon because someone bought another card – my ‘Toadsville’ image. To the buyer, a huge thank you. My confidence goes up in leaps and bounds! The feedback I had from my other sale was extremely positive – RedBubble produced a very impressive product and the recipient was delighted. So I am sure that this buyer will be too. :-)
I have been lucky enough to win a few prizes around the traps, and the last one arrived on my doorstep a couple of days ago from the love…
I have been lucky enough to win a few prizes around the traps, and the last one arrived on my doorstep a couple of days ago from the lovely people at Visible Dust, compliments of the Digital Image Cafe Cathy MacMillan – a co-owner with her husband Todd, asked me to write a small review of the product, so here it is, warts and all. I’m not all that good with words. I unpacked my Arctic Butterfly 724 Total Care Bundle with glee, knowing my trip to New Zealand had left my sensor with more dust bunnies than I cared to mention. What fabulous care this company takes with it’s accessories. Zippered tailor-made PVC bag for the Arctic Butterfly, with a solid case inside that, with the Arctic Butterfly nestling into a cut-out foam bed. The Sensor Loupe also has a wonderful tailor-made PVC container, and inside there are extras too! The Loupe itself is encased in a microfibre bag with a looped closure, there’s a separate microfibre cloth to clean the screen, and in a pocket on the other side is a cord to attach to the Loupe so you can wear it around your neck, I guess to stop it being dropped. (These people must know me too well!!) Each of the PVC bags also has a large clip so that you can hang your accessories from a convenient place, you could be a travelling sensor cleaner with a tool belt of Visible Dust tools. The focusing screen swab was my first test, so I opened up the camera by removing the lens, then used 2 drops of liquid on the swab, wiped it gently across both focusing screen and mirror, then checked the view with the lens back on. This made quite a huge difference to start with! I then tested the Arctic Butterfly. I loaded up the supplied batteries, took off the clear perspex lid, and turned it on. The whirling brush apparently picks up static so that it can clean off any contaminants. My sensor is a contaminant attractor, so I was hoping that we’d see a huge difference! The 20D has a very small sensor, and therefore the opening seems quite cramped. It’s easy though, and needless to say a single sweep of the brush was all that was necessary. It looks quite clean to me! Time to get out the Sensor Loupe! Whoa! What a fabulous accessory! You can see every millimetre of sensor, in bright clear light. What an innovation! Everyone who uses a DSLR needs one of these! Ok, the 20D sensor still appears to have a couple of smears, which is obvious from the use of the Sensor Loupe. It’s time to check out the sensor swabs. The supplied swabs are the 1.6X size, to suit the Canon 20D. It’s important to use the correct sized swabs. Three drops of sensor cleaning fluid – and leave it for a few seconds. Swab the sensor by using a single pass across it. Check with the Sensor Loupe, and voila! It’s clean, shiny and ready to go. It’s a complete and easy to use product, and I can highly recommend it! Documentation is attached to the boxes that contain the swabs, the liquid is supplied with a flyer to give the entire directions as well, and if in doubt, there’s a wealth of information on the webpage Great Christmas present, people!
I’ve been given ‘Stardust’ as a gift, and watched it tonight for the first time since seeing it in the cinema. It’s a movie adaption…
I’ve been given ‘Stardust’ as a gift, and watched it tonight for the first time since seeing it in the cinema. It’s a movie adaption of one of my favourite books, and it really is a lovely and sweet fairytale. Although the book is more so ;) I love the work of Neil Gaiman. What a delightful mind. While I still like the book more, and cringed at times with some of the strange turns added into the movie, it’s still great. I wasn’t sure what I thought the first time I saw it at the cinema, but it stuck with me for days, so I assumed that meant I loved it, and was just coping with how it was changed from the book. Claire Danes is such a sweety, and gorgeous when she’s glowing. So I love a bit of romantic fantasy :)
This sucks! I some how got dust behind the prism in my camera. I got a bit of dust on the sensor while changing lenses in the field… so…
This sucks! I some how got dust behind the prism in my camera. I got a bit of dust on the sensor while changing lenses in the field… so as always I got the can of air and lightly blew the dust off the sensor, dropped the mirror back and look through the viewfinder to find more dust!! So I locked the mirror back up and took another look… the dust was gone!? So I looked at the mirror.. no dust… I checked the prism… no dust? “Am I going crazy?” I thought to myself looking through the view finder again.. So then I get a lens cloth and wipe the view finder clean thinking that had to be the problem… NOPE!! The only other place it CAN be is behind the prism!! The dust won’t show up in the photos (which is good I guess) But it still REALLY sucks! I guess I’ll have to take it to the shop which sucks even more! :( ARRRGGGHHHHHH!!!
04/16/2008 Another Sealer Bites the Dust / [to be beat of “Another One Bites the Dust”] Commentary by Captain Paul Watson / Found…
04/16/2008 Another Sealer Bites the Dust / [to be beat of “Another One Bites the Dust”] Commentary by Captain Paul Watson / Founder and President of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society And Another One Gone and Another One Gone…………… Oh! Shepherds Let’s go / The sealer walks warily on the ice / With his club and knuckles dragging low, / No mercy in his heart, he isn’t very nice, / Hak-a-pik ready to go / Are you ready hey are you ready for this? / Are you hanging on the edge of your seat? / Out of the gloom the Sea Shepherd does rip / To the sound of the beat yeah / Another sealer bites the dust / Another sealer bites the dust / And another sealer gone and another one gone / Another one bites the dust hey / Hey we’re gonna get you too / Another sealer bites the dust / How do you think we’re going to get along / Without them the seals are gone / You took from the ice everything that they had / And kicked them in the face. / Are you happy, are you satisfied? / How long can you stand the pain. / Out of the ice the Sea Shepherd rips / To the sound of the beat look out / Another sealer bites the dust / Another sealer bites the dust / And another one gone and another one gone / Another one bites the dust hey / Hey I’m gonna get you too / Another sealer bites the dust / Hey / Oh take it – Bite the dust bite the dust / Hey Another sealer bites the dust / Another one bites the dust ow / Another sealer bites the dust he he / Another sealer bites the dust hay yay ya ya ya / Ooh shout / There are plenty of ways that you can hurt a seal / And bring him to the ground / You can beat him / You can skin him alive / You can wound him bad and leave him / When he’s down yeah / But we’re, yes we’re for you / We’re standing on our own two feet / Out of the fog you can see us rip / Repeating to the sound of the beat / Another sealer bites the dust / Another sealer bites the dust / And another one gone and another one gone / Another sealer bites the dust yeah / Hey we’re gonna get you too / Another sealer bites the dust / Shoot out / E-he! Alright! And yesterday two more sealing ships bit the dust. The Newfoundland sealing vessel Lacey May burst into flames and burned to the waterline some 37 kilometres off the coast of Newfoundland. All five seal killers were rescued by the coast guard after the men abandoned their boat and hopped onto an ice floe. About the same time a 15 metre sealing vessel the B S Venture ran onto the rocks on the coast of Newfoundland. Apparently their engine broke down, they lost power, and went up on the rocks. Now that was a sight for a poor seal’s eyes. Two weeks ago the sealing boat L’Acadien II capsized while being towed through the ice by the Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker Sir William Alexander. Four men died in that tragedy. That was not the first time this bizarre accident has happened. In 1997, the Newfoundland sealing boat Angela and Brother’s flipped and sank while being towed by the Coast Guard ice-breaker Sir Humphrey Gilbert. Sealing vessels were crushed and sunk last year in thick ice and numerous vessels have been damaged again this year. Not that the sealers care. The government of Canada is always ready to pay compensation for losses just as they subsidize the slaughter with surveillance to locate seals, they break the ice to allow access to the seals and they march around the world trying to drum up markets for seal products ranging from seal fur to powdered seal penis. Tax-payer founded purveyors of snake-oil sex potions and heavy metal laced seal oil “health” tablets. The seal slaughter is a glorified welfare scheme and the sealers nothing more than uneducated welfare bums seeking to practice their barbarous trade at the expense of Canadian tax-payers and Canada’s reputation. All of this because Canadian Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn is encouraging sealers to use flimsy non-ice class wooden and aluminum hulled vessels in extremely hazardous ice conditions. In their lust to kill seals the sealers are being encouraged by a man seeking to further his own political ambitions by declaring himself the champion of fishermen and the scourge of seals and seal defenders. After all, most Canadians did not elect Hearn, he only needs to keep the fishermen in Newfoundland happy to win re-election. He can ignore the concerns of all Canadians because only the sealing vote counts for him. Meanwhile the ever hilariously hysterical Hearn is having his thugs tear apart the Sea Shepherd ship Farley Mowat looking for safety violations. It appears that a steel hulled, Norwegian built, ice class ship is suspected of not being safe to navigate the ice yet flimsy little boats are being blessed by the same Coast Guard and sent off to sea to be dashed on rocks, burnt or sunk by the Coast Guard. Meanwhile Hearn distracts the anger of the fishermen away from government incompetence by scape-goating seals and seal defenders. In his effort to harpoon all opposition to the barbaric sealing industry, Hearn has made a spectacle of himself, spouting off with juvenile schoolyard name-calling, shooting mis-information from the hip and sending his gun-toting henchmen onto a foreign registered yacht in international waters and then bold faced lying about it, obviously completely ignorant of the fact that there is a device called GPS that can pinpoint the position of vessels to within a few metres anywhere in the world. As sealing boats sink, get crushed in the ice, burn and smash themselves on the rocks, images of horrific cruelty are being published worldwide. The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society’s campaign to defend the seals has been an enormous success and everything has gone better than planned as we take the battle off the ice for now and into the courtrooms. Meanwhile, another sealing boat bites the dust and another one gone and anther one gone – alright!
I stumbled upon a great Flickr group the other day called Noise and Dust Through The Viewfinder, w…
I stumbled upon a great Flickr group the other day called Noise and Dust Through The Viewfinder, which was created for people to upload their best Viewfinder Textures for use on commercial, digital TTV work! You can peruse the gallery and use them for your own work!!!! I have used them in my work and will always refer back to this journal for proper credit. If you have used any, post a link below so that we can all share!!! Cheers! ~ B :o) P.S. Note: I have updated information in regards to Dillon’s question… In regard to commercial use, the group’s creator/moderator says this (in the group’s forums): “Just by posting in this group, you agree to donate your TTV’s for all creative work. This doesnt mean taking the image and passing them off as your own… If you dont agree with this, then please remove your TTV’s from our lists. (not that we want to lose any!)” He specifically created the group to find TTV Textures to use in commercial work. (I am assuming “commercial” implies royalty free as long as credit is provided.) By uploading to the group, members agree to this. If there is any concern about it, the originator of the image can be contacted via Flickr or you can post in the group’s forums. These are my pieces which use any of the above TTV Viewfinder Textures (will add as I create more):
Thank you, Oil Paintings Group! / I am spinning like a dog trying to catch it’s tail! Z…
Thank you, Oil Paintings Group! / I am spinning like a dog trying to catch it’s tail! Zebra Stallions, Survivors and Danger in the Dust are all featured at the same time! Wheeeee… Danger in the Dust / Survivors / Zebra Stallions / /
When I was a child, I wrote in a book, which I recently rediscovered, these words: Alaska, Coke, KENI. They were written as if an equatio…
When I was a child, I wrote in a book, which I recently rediscovered, these words: Alaska, Coke, KENI. They were written as if an equation, which, if you worked it, would add up to the sum of all that was important in life. Perhaps it was bordering on the pagan in some aspects, for I know that persons who saw these sort of writings in my childhood, those outside of the family, often wondered over my having not mentioned God. Yet, I wondered back, how it is that I mentioned Alaska and they did not know that God was, thusly, inherent in the equation. After all: one good look about the place, and you have to know Jehovah made her! Alaska is big, far bigger than any website you can quickly google will let on. They go on about “at least twice the size of Texas” or “somewhat over twice the size of Texas”. Hah! Funny how that only started being said, again, after Texans started being Presidents! There is an old joke that hits much closer to the truth: Q. If Alaska were cut into three equal parts, what would happen? / A: Texas would be the fourth largest State. I can’t remember anymore, why anyone would ask the first question, but it was not an Alaskan question; it was an aggressive, let’s get rid of Alaska and/or begin using it as a land fill for the rest of America question. Such was always the planned fate of Alaska, per the whim of America, ever since she “joined the Union”.. Even before that it was much the same. Strip her down of her natural resources, dump her back on the Russians; strip her of her natural resources, dump her on the Canadians; strip her of her natural resources and dump all over her. The fact that Alaska would not put it’s Natives in Reservations only made others more adamant. Even in the allegedly civilized 80’s, it was proposed that Alaska, that barren wilderness, be made into a nuclear dumping ground. Well, that would have been convenient, for some, since the Natives, who have their own television station, were already reporting about the illegal dumping of nuclear waste onto their lands. Wouldn’t have to ever explain that or try to make amends, if you finished off the rest of the State, eh? Strangely, it was Texas who stood up for Alaska the most. Well, strange in some respects, because Texas hates Alaska as a rival. Yet, Texas, if you study it’s history, went through much of the same sort of abuse from American government at large as Alaska has gone through. So, in more ways than one, despite the animosity , there is understanding and camaraderie. I remember, as a child, being forced out of our homes to stand single file along the road, as the American army passed by on maneuvers. This was considered to be legal, because the Army had to protect itself from someone who had been taking shots at the soldiers. So, since they didn’t know just who did it, and since no one was ‘fessing up or turning anyone else in, they were treating all as suspects.. Sounds reasonable, yes? Of course, the reason the shots were fired is that the soldiers were often out on maneuvers and when they were they would invade people’s yards, steal their food; they would drive by in their trucks and shoot our dogs; and they did shoot a boy in the stomach. It is not certain, to my understanding, if that was on purpose or just the way it happened, but, obviously, if the American Army had not been shooting at allegedly American citizens, this would not have occurred! Election time was always a time of turmoil. Yes, people would file out to vote, in the hopes that this year it would mean something. Bitterness fouled the air, though, because they knew, from prior experience, that the American President would be elected long before the votes of Alaskans were counted. When it’s four hours before the polls close, and you are standing in line to give your opinion on the matter, it is more than a little disheartening to be told that the polls throughout America are closed and this is who the President is. Then the condescension of politicians who say your voice is important, one man one vote, and all that other nonsense which are nothing but lies .. not a good time. We’d go to school and learn, as we came to say it “What it is we are delusional enough to believe that Alaska has, when really it doesn’t.” or “What new and exciting things they are going to deny the existence of today.” Oh, it didn’t happen every day, but most days: Alaska doesn’t have blueberries; Alaska doesnt’ have cranberries; Alaska doesn’t have currants; Alaska doesn’t have grizzly bears; Alaska doesn’t have salmon .. and if you tried to argue the point, it was “Oh, yes, well they may look like .. but they aren’t real… Those just don’t (grow, live, exist, come to) Alaska!” In my late teens or early 20’s, I also learned that we have no moose. and this wasn’t even something Americans said just to be annoying that way, this time. Scandinavian scientists studied the moose in Alaska, didn’t find any, and so concluded that moose do not exist in Alaska and all the pictures of them in people’s back yards, all the talk of hunting and eating them, the man who was kicked to death by one, etc. are hoaxes! In those sort of ways, growing up in Alaska was torture. Oppressoin was mainstream, idiocy abounded … Oh, but the delight of the air, with it’s myriad scents .. the stinging bite of the cold .. the ridiculous overdone size, scope, height, breadth, color, density of plaything with and of the land ….. Sometimes there is so much beauty in one spot that you can’t take it in, you have to focus on this bit or that, or be overwhelmed …. and in this beauty is utter proof of God. No one else could get away with that! If there was a Mother Nature, she would never so unequally balance the world as to allow the existence of such spots of irrevocably divine beauty amidst the more sedate rest of the world. No, but it’s proof that a paradise was expected, and is still possible, will be delivered. Is it the only proof? No. I’ve seem some very lovely proof being plowed over in 100 acre swathes on other continents, in pictures and videos, that is; but, it is proof. And, we were free.. yes, we had to argue and fight, yes things were hard and frustrating, but we were free. I never knew how free until I stayed in California for a time, in a “country” neighborhood, with Tommy Lee’s cousin living right down the road, and witnessed the awful oppression of “what would the neighbors think”. / which was even worse than when I was in Texas and had to worry about what the KKK might think. A feat, by the way, which I was notoriously unadept. Which was nothing, compared to “What are the police and scheming neighbors up to” of Arizona. We did odd things, such as speak our minds, listen to our music,, express emotion, wear clothes that we felt like. We walked in woods, alongside roads, we talked to people who wore different clothing and came from different backgrounds, mostly without fear; and our dogs were animals -not pedicured toys, dressed to fit our self image – but romping, playing, protecting animals who roamed and fended for themselves and came home happy. This is Alaska: from a more technical aspect. You may learn a lot about where things are from the maps. Probably it’s useful sort of stuff, if you are going to roam about and see things. / This is also Alaska, by perspective: Alaska is the only place i know that people will run around in shorts in the middle of winter. why one might ask,( i feel ) because many are happy there and are not focused on “cold” “NO whineres aloud” you run to the store in shorts, because all in all who you trying to impress? the ice? its about the people your friends and etc. and might i add, Alaskans are strong in every way. probably why most the plastic cant live there.* And THIS is Alaska, from a different perspective. A place so beautiful, that you don’t actually have to use filters and little digital tricks to see such a sight. All you have to do is walk out to the right bit, at the right time of night, and open your eyes! The dust, the same dust which is so painful for me to be near, gives Alaska sunrises and sunsets unrivaled. In fact, usually, the photos, far from enhancing their beauty as I’ve seen happen with pictures taken in other States, tend to detract from them. This is a sunset in Juneau Sorry if you were expecting more of a point. This is not a novel, or even a short story or article: it’s a character study!
Just dropped in briefly and saw Dust_Trail featured in “*New_South_Wa…
Just dropped in briefly and saw Dust_Trail featured in New_South_Wales_Photography and Classy_Stairs featured in Stairs THANK YOU to both Groups for featuring my work!!! I am honoured!!! While I am here, I would just like to say that I may not be around much over the next week or so. I have an unwell mother-in-law who requires my help and attention for a while. Please excuse me for not commenting on your work or replying to comments. THANK YOU ALL for your kindness and support!!! RB is such a lovely community and I am so happy to be a part of it!!!
Orange… Seriously, It was ALL orange!! Yesterday, here, in my fair part of the world we copped a MASSIVE dust storm… the ligh…
Orange… Seriously, It was ALL orange!! Yesterday, here, in my fair part of the world we copped a MASSIVE dust storm… the light was amazing, eerie, scary and almost sickening. But the only place I could get any images, without me dying from the inability to breathe, was from the inside of my car… these pics were taken at around 3pm… this was the storm coming in… the clouds of dust were up really high, I was hoping that it was going to blow over… alas… 20 minutes later, this is what it was like; and then like this and then it kinda went like this…. I know that these pics arent very good… but jeebas, it was unreal!!
THE DIRT ROAD / I came across a dirt roa…
THE DIRT ROAD / I came across a dirt road, / And thought I heard it say, / I know you’ve driven asphalt, / But please turn down this way. !! / And so I answered the dirt road, / And walked down its first mile. / The things I saw as I trudged on, / Caused me to slow and smile. The dust that played beneath my feet, / And swirled so gently round, / Brought a smile unto my weary face, / And chased away my frown. / It brought back memories I had forgotten, / Of days so long ago, / When mostly there were dirt roads, / And driving was so slow. I saw the butterflies long side, / On flowers that grew tall, / And saw a rabbit dart across, / And heard an eagle‘s call. / I saw great trees that furnished shade, / Tall, reaching for blue sky, / They gave needed cooling from hot sun, / To all those who passed by. And then I passed a rundown house, / And felt a twinge of alarm, / It won’t be long till nothing’s left, / Where once there was a farm. And then I thought of its future, / When the dirt road too is gone, / Encroaching grass along the edge, / Tells me it won’t be long. Until the road has disappeared, / From all but memory, / And I wished with all my heart the road, / Could tell its history. / That it could tell me all about, / And I could hear it say, / “I am the very thing that caused, / Them all to move away.” Author: Loree (Mason) O’Neil / Photos- Ruth Lambert
I am thinking of putting together a book showing the best of our Urban Wildlife Group in time for Christmas. The people I will use to …
I am thinking of putting together a book showing the best of our Urban Wildlife Group in time for Christmas. The people I will use to publish the book would be Blurb.com who have software that allows one to design a very professional looking book including a dust jacket with inner flaps. Their pages also allow for text so one can make anything from a coffee table extravaganza to a recipe book. In order to do this, I would invite members to submit work that they consider worthy and I would also invite members whose work I admire who may have missed these notifications. For work submitted, I propose using a ‘Challenge’. It would be called the ‘Book Challenge’ and will allow you to submit one photograph of your best work. This would not be a challenge in the true sense, but would be a place to initially start gathering work for consideration. Other work would have to be submitted by email if you think it is worthy. All published photographers would have a full credit so we also need to know your real name, not your nickname! All those submitting work whether it be by invite or via the challenge, would also have to send me their images by email. Images must be of the highest quality and I would recommend sending full size images where possible. An accompanying text must also be sent with the submission. Basically this should say what the creature is and where it was photographed. Locations must not be vague, we will have a global audience as usual so ‘my back yard’ will not do, it tells us nothing. ‘My back yard, Tuscon, Texas, USA is better. The text is very important. One or two condensed but informative paragraphs are ideal telling what we are looking at, where it was photographed and how. Any interesting information about the species may also help, but please use your own words; don’t just ‘lift’ your text from Wikipedia or the like. Urban Wildlife means precisely that. It means the picture must be taken within the confines of a city or town. If it is two miles out from the city perched on a pole or crossing the road it is no longer ‘urban’. I really would like to stick to the strict confines of our group so please only submit pictures that were NOT taken out in the country or wild coast. A park within the city is fine, a park outside the city is not. So to sum up… 1. Your very best work. Jpeg Images only. / 2. Well written and informative accompanying text. / 3. Send you full size image and text (use Notepad to create a .txt file) to info@johnhootonphotography.com / 4, Include the URL of your picture so that I have a quick reference in Urban Wildlife c/o RedBubble. Although Christmas might sound quite a long way away, I have got to select, edit and compile the book by about mid November at the latest, so you can start submitting work straight away. I will limit the works to up to four per person. I think October 31st will be about the last date for submissions. I cannot guarantee that your work will appear in the book, it will be a compilation of the best of the best so there will be a limit on the number of pictures we can publish, however, I encourage you to submit your best work, and will very much welcome your effort whether it is published or not. I will probably plan the book in chapters, so we might have Birds, Insects, Butterflies, Wildlife, Mammals, Reptiles. I will probably skip flowers. We don’t have enough of them and there are stacks of books on flowers that are a subject on their own.. Bear in mind what our group is about. Start digging through your pictures and let’s create a book that we can be really proud of. By the way, books sell for a profit on Blurb and if by some miracle we happen to create a best seller, then profits would be divided up amongst the photographers on a picture by picture basis. The coffers would be reviewed every quarter. Let me know what you think by commenting, and I will attempt to answer any questions and reply here. John
So The Monsoon Season Officially started…....... / The day was beautiful…....... / Not A Cloud In the Sky…............ / !http://image…
So The Monsoon Season Officially started…....... / The day was beautiful…....... / Not A Cloud In the Sky…............ / / When all of a sudden this started to roll into the Valley (Phoenix) / / So I grabbed my camera and started to shoot the western sky…....... / First the sky got cloudy and gray….... / / I seconds the dust began to engulf the mountain behind our home….... / / The sun was quickly disappearing…........ / / Every click of the camera the sun stated to fade…...... / / Until Poof…......it was gone….......... / / 50 minutes later it was all over…......... Ahwatukee AZ. / canon A530
Sorry I have’nt been around for a while. Appreciate the following features and placements: Inch Worm...
Sorry I have’nt been around for a while. Appreciate the following features and placements: Inch Worm featured in the Top 10 of The Woman Photographer Challenge / Itty Bitty Teeny Tiny ie Very Small Pink Fuzzy Fungi featured in the Top 10 of Fungilicious Challenge / The Colour Pink Coral Fungi featured in the Top 10 of Fungilicious Challenge / Enter Your Best Clavaria or Ramaria Species Moss Covered Myrtle Beech Featured and in the Top 10 of The Scavenger Hunt Challenge / Lets Hunt for Trees Rivenhall Historic Church featured in History Jardine Ferry Crossing featured in Stream Crossings and Featured Member of the Group Twin Beach Lookout featured in Out of the Blue Dog Biscuit featured in Nature’s Macro Canvas Mining Family Statue featured in Goldrush and Ghost Towns Banksia – Australian Native featured in Protaceae Family View to the Torres Strait Islands featured in Far North Queensland The Penitentiary – Port Arthur featured in Prisons Gaols Jails Asylums Iron Bars & Court Houses Dust Dust and More Dust featured in Commercial Vehicles Three Blue Berries featured in the Top 10 of Alphabet Soup Challenge / Best of B Walls of Jerusalem National Park featured in Lakes and Inland Waterways A Days Walk to the Walls of Jerusalem National Park featured in / Australian Travel Photography and Writing View HERE Thank you for all your encouraging comments and support. Marilyn :o)
I was looking for an appropriate song name for a photo i wanted to upload. What i usually do is type in the word that i’m looking for and…
I was looking for an appropriate song name for a photo i wanted to upload. What i usually do is type in the word that i’m looking for and see what songs pop up, often songs i forgot i had or i didn’t even know i had pop-up. Its interesting and over time iv made some amazing discoveries. My latest one which just struck the chords of my heart is this song by High Places called From Stardust To Sentience and its simply amazing. its now been on repeat ever since… the lyrics are just so profoundly true of what we are and who we are as people in this world. And art plays such a role too, its just puts things in perspective for me. It shows facets that we don’t actually ever see in life but tend to look over. Art finds the specks of dust that we overlook, we become aware, we become sentient of what we didn’t even know existed. / the lyrics: From small speck of stardust to wondrously sentient / Revolving and spinning in space / Waking and sleeping and yielding to gravity / It starts to show on your face Millions of forces of physics and providence / Teamed up and brought us all here / Waking and sleeping and yielding to gravity / Pointless to measure in years Out in the desert your thoughts are as clear as the stars / You feel golden / You’re billion year old carbon Simply beautiful aren’t they…. lovely thought… hmmmm Whilst driving back with a dear friend, one of my dreamy crazy hippie friends i realised how much of the bigger picture i have become aware of after becoming so involved with my art. I see things i didn’t ever see, i pick up little things that make up a part of the big things. Its amzing actually… its fscinating too. i love looking, and God forbid i go blind because my eyes are the windows to mind, heart and soul… / I am also constantly thinking of the obscure and profound, the things indirectly involved… like on that same night, on that same drive, my friend forgot to turn on her car lights as we had been prevoiusly driving in a brightly lit area. When we hit a place with no lights, it took a few seconds before she noticed we didn’t have our lights on. If she hadn’t picked it up, i wouldn’t have noticed, i was busy thinking, ‘where had all the street lights gone?”, not “our lights aren’t on!!”... she was also thinking the same thing… we both found this funny and laughed our heads off… typical us dreamy people… haha! but back to the point, i notice “unimportant” things that are actually important but deemed that by society who are so rushed and irate and serious that they need immediate gratitude and straightforward answers. / What happened to deep thinkers??? well they are here, wish id found you all earlier… LOL! art just brings out our profound brain, the “other” mind, the one that sees everything, even the specks… I have become internally conscience, my inner eye has been opened through art and now poetry and i have discovered a new state of being, the one that is made of stardust, the part of me i really love! :) Look at this artwork / inspired by this amazing song… you can listen to the song from their too (i highly recommend you should…!)
Well damn ! there will be no picture taking for me today as I woke up to a glowing red dust storm and I wont risk taking my camera out .,...
Well damn ! there will be no picture taking for me today as I woke up to a glowing red dust storm and I wont risk taking my camera out .,the dust is choking my lungs so I will be stuck indoors all day the winds have picked up to 95kms per hour just hope my colour bond fence holds up ,A few years ago I lost it in one of these storms and was chasing it down the street,and to this day I never found my garbage bin,I have to go to the shops too and pray a tree doesn’t fall on me ,As this happened to my neighbour in the last storm and he died instantly, God Bless! ,.They are making out on the news that this is some sort of extra-ordinary event,but we in the south and out west see this all the time,it’s the norm where I live,so don’t believe everything you hear on the news
Yesterday morning residents in Sydney, Australia woke up to an unusual sight and for those who were armed with cameras, a unique opportun…
Yesterday morning residents in Sydney, Australia woke up to an unusual sight and for those who were armed with cameras, a unique opportunity for some amazing photographs. Images of red and orange dust filled skies have been flashing across news channels worldwide in the past 24 hours and some of our own photographers were lucky enough to have their cameras at the ready. To mark such an unusual event, we thought we’d feature a mini gallery of some of the images you captured: Sydney dust storm like Mars (BBC) Dust storm whips Sydney; flight chaos (China Daily) Dust Storm Shrouds Sydney (New York Times) Dust storm blankets Australian cities in red haze (CNN) If you captured any images of the dust storm, in Sydney or other locations that were affected, we’d love to see them. Please feel free to share your images in the comments below. Nat See here for instructions on how to post your images in the comments.
How on the ball are the RB hosts, Our dust storm only happened yesterday and the home page is full of pics. The world is truly a small …
How on the ball are the RB hosts, Our dust storm only happened yesterday and the home page is full of pics. The world is truly a small place. / Thank you for featuring this extraordinary phenomenon and the truly amazing images. Congratulations to all the other featured artists, and if I have personally not responded to the wonderful comments can I take this oportunity to say Thank You. I am honoured to be included.
I’ve had my first sales! I have sold 2 Calendars – ‘Especially For You’ and “Outback Australia’! I am so thrilled and I think I know who …
I’ve had my first sales! I have sold 2 Calendars – ‘Especially For You’ and “Outback Australia’! I am so thrilled and I think I know who bought them! My online author friend on Facebook, Fleur McDonald – she who wrote “Red Dust” and the upcoming “Blue Skies”! Yay! Thank you Fleur! xx
Finally a chance to catch up with some of my features in various groups over the last month or two. A huge thankyou to all the hosts who…
Finally a chance to catch up with some of my features in various groups over the last month or two. A huge thankyou to all the hosts who chose my images to feature…....and a huge thankyou to everyone who leaves the most wonderful inspiring feedback and comments on my work. Hugs to all….Kathie xxx / The Burning Shore in The Fine Art of Peeling Paint Group / Log Cabin by the Lake in The Gold Coast Group / Shades of Gardenia in You’re Accepted Group / Symphony in Pink in The Fine Art of Peeling Paint Group / Cherry Blossoms in Water Media Group / Abstraction in the Natural Textures Group / Spring Arrives…. in the Water Media Group / Masterpiece in The Fine Art of Peeling Paint Group / Rainforest Dawn in the The Gold Coast Group / Dust Storm in The Gold Coast Group / Approaching Dust Storm in The Gold Coast Group / Sunburnt in The Gold Coast Group / Rocky Mountain High in !#1 Artists of Red Bubble / Cherry Blossoms in The Gold Coast Group / Kiwi Fruit in Natural Textures Group
Although it’s a little time ago now, just wanted to add entry to thank RedBubble for the feature, on the home page of RedBubble, of one o…
Although it’s a little time ago now, just wanted to add entry to thank RedBubble for the feature, on the home page of RedBubble, of one on my photos from the Sydney dust storm. Waking up at 6.00am to this experience was the weirdest things! Thanks again Redbubble!
To the person who has bought a mount of Moon Dust / !http://images-0….
To the person who has bought a mount of Moon Dust / / I am so overwhealmed by it. / Thank you again for liking my work. It means a lot to me!!! My best wishes and regards, Sylvia :-))xxx
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