Last week’s Friday Mystery Place was recognized with great accuracy by Justbluedutch, which should not be surprising given that the location is in the Netherlands. Specifically, it is a view across the Maas river in the port city of Rotterdam. We’re looking toward the Erasmus bridge and the Kop van Zuid (Head of South) with its high-rises. And, yes, that is a water taxi coming in our direction.
I’m confident that this week’s mystery place will find an answer…
Exotic Lighthouse
When I saw this lighthouse, I found it to be very exotic. Where is this location?
As always, extra credit for any additional detail you can provide! Best of luck!
Technical Details
This image was captured with a Canon EOS 5D Mk III and an EF 24-105mm f/4L lens. The exposure settings were at 1/125 second at f/8 and 400 ISO.
In today’s moment of Wonderment, I would like to focus on something that is nothing. This may sound contradictory, but as I find deep enjoyment and awareness in Stillness, there may be some sense to this statement.
What is Stillness? In its simplest form, it is doing nothing. Of course, doing nothing is not as easy as it sounds, as our minds tend to be rather busy, used to racing from moment to moment, anticipating this and remembering that. To achieve Stillness, we have to actively help our mind to achieve the quietude that we seek.
In quieting the mind we remove all the distractions of doubt and worry. In meditation, we practice unhooking from them, detaching for a short period. This proves useful in daily life, too. Quieting the mind works in concert with concentration. Because it is very difficult to stop thoughts by force, we use concentration to guide them instead, accepting each thought and allowing it to flow through us and out of us.
Peaceful Morning
Paramahansa Yogananda said, “When the activating power of the mind is stilled by concentration, restlessness ceases and we become absorbed in the transcendental Bliss of the soul.”
Through practice we can find moments of Stillness and bring them into our lives more and more frequently. I find that each such moment recharges me and helps focus my energies toward the tasks that are ahead.
I hope you find some moments of Stillness in your day!
In the annals of Particle Physics there is always discussion about the next particle to be discovered. At which energy level can we expect to find it? Can we verify its theoretical mass? How stable will it be?
Heady questions, all of these! In the alternate reality that surrounds us within hidden dimensions, we simply need to uncover the pathways into these dimensions and let our mind’s eye guide us across them. When we are in an adequate frame of mind to follow these pathways, we find untold beauty and a wealth of new knowledge. One of these paths leads us to this elusive vision of beauty…
Rose Particle
The Rose Particle is a rather elusive superposition of energies within interstitial dimensional space. When perceived, it radiates universal energies, which have been known to establish beautiful patterns.
This image was captured with a Canon EOS 5D Mk II using an EF 24-105mm f/4L lens. Exposure settings were 1/3 second with f/16 at 200 ISO; a zoom blur technique was used to create the effect in camera.
In this, the 15th edition of the Tuesday Photo Challenge, I challenge you to look for subject matter that you might ignore most of the time, as it’s not the most glamorous of material to photograph: Trash aka Rubbish, Refuge or the Detritus of Civilization!
The challenge that I pose to you is to depict the trash in a way that brings interest to the photo. Use composition, color, humor or any other technique that makes it likely that someone else will look at the image you created and have some type of emotional response, be it a pensive moment or a chuckle.
There are lots of times when we look at some item that has been thrown away carelessly and we shake our head with a certain amount of ennui; see, if you can take that moment and turn it into something creative.
Such as what happened to me, as I almost drove by this scene, where someone had dumped their couch about 50 yards from the Town of Shirley dumping station. After an initial head shake, I decided that the color composition was too precious not to capture it; the bright red of the couch against the deep greens worked rather nicely.
Lonely Couch
So, let’s see, if you can dazzle your followers with some inspiring trashy pictures! Of course, you’re going to succeed and show a side of trash that makes us all think and/or smile!
For those who’d like to participate in this weekly challenge, the rules are the following:
When the rain starts coming down on a tropical day, there is that feeling of instant relief from the oft oppressive heat that may embrace you. You step out into the rain to feel its cooling effects on your body. Within seconds, it soaks you to the core and now you look for sanctuary…
Beauty of Structure
The light radiates through the protecting palm leaf, as you appreciate its ability to shelter you from the rain once again…
After taking a day off from blogging this past Sunday, I figured that it’s time to start Monday of with Round Up #14 of the TPC. It was great to see the level of participation this past week, particularly given that it’s Summer in the Northern Hemisphere and vacation time for lots of folks!
As I mentioned in the challenge, the color Orange has incredible variety and its position in the spectrum between red and yellow gives it lots of room for expression depending on the particular mixture. More yellowish orange can often give the sense of a more subdued color, whereas the reddish orange hues tend to be very rich and bold (my truck’s color is the latter 🙂 ).
The entries were all stunning and showed a great variety of oranges (including oranges, the fruit). I know that some of you discovered the complexity of the color orange and hope that it drew you in to examine other colors in a similar fashion!
Autumn Winds
This image is a somewhat abstract approach to capturing the movement of Autumn in the yellow and orange hues of this tree.
The following were this week’s participants in the challenge with links to their posts:
Emily’s exploration of a variety of orange hues in Zombie Flamingos showed the way in a great fashion for those who dared follow! Orange-brown is a great cat color!
Ladyleemanilla posted with an incredible array of orange photography, ranging from fruits to drink and safety vests to a line that I think is on the equator based on the cities that marked on it.
Irene is a photographer who writes the Heaven’s Sunshine blog showed us some fiery orange in her photo of a zinnia.
Kim hit the orange on the head (bad pun is mine) in his blog Do You See What I See?; if you’re curious about the pun, I suggest you look to Kim’s blog to find out why 🙂
Amy, whose awesome blog is titled Bedlam and Daisies, tempts us with a mimosa… I’m still thirsty after seeing it!
Mick, from Lincoln, England, writes the gorgeous blog My Garden Bio-Diversity, and he shared a fantastic post with us this week!
Sonya, in her blog Middleton Road, was kind enough to post a beautiful floral shot rather than a Dutch football jersey!
Miriam, of the Out an’ About blog, has orange in many locales ranging from the dirt to rocks and the good times around a campfire!
Nikki’s post in her blog, A Kinder Way, was filled with mug shots!
Steve’s new blog Steve Newcomb Photography, used this week’s challenge as his first blog post! Time for all of us to follow Steve’s new blog and check out his take on orange from the silly to the gorgeous!
Debbie, whose blog is Forgiving Journal, found her way home on the orange line, which led her all the way to Home Sweet Home to touch orange again
I am truly honored by the number of great posts that were in this week’s response to the challenge. I appreciate each of you taking the time to play along!
I’m germinating an idea for this week’s edition… It will be there in the morning 🙂
Happy Saturday morning! Running a bit behind schedule this week, but I hope you don’t mind too much.
Last week’s Friday Mystery Place was uncovered pretty quickly, as the site of the Lochbuie Stones on the Isle of Mull in Scotland. A very mystical place, which gives one the idea that interdimensional travellers may have passed through it (I think someone wrote a series about this occurring in Scotland that is rather popular…). The Isle of Mull was one of our early stops on our trip to Scotland and I would recommend it wholeheartedly to anyone who enjoys beautiful landscape.
I think that this week’s image is pretty straightforward too…
Lots of water!
Where is this location?
As always, extra credit for any additional detail you can provide! Best of luck!
Technical Details
This image was captured with a Canon EOS 5D Mk II and an EF 24-105mm f/4L lens. The exposure settings were at 1/250 second at f/11 and 200 ISO.
This week’s dog is a well-known breed that we see everywhere. They are cute, loyal and loving: the Cocker Spaniel. Cocker Spaniels are dogs belonging to two breeds of the spaniel dog type: the American Cocker Spaniel and the English Cocker Spaniel, both of which are commonly called simply Cocker Spaniel in their countries of origin. In the early 20th century, Cocker Spaniels also included small hunting Spaniels.
Cocker Spaniels were originally bred as hunting dogs in the United Kingdom, with the term cocker deriving from their use to hunt the Eurasian woodcock. When the breed was brought to the United States, it was bred to a different standard, which enabled it to specialize in hunting the American woodcock. Further physical changes were bred into the cocker in the United States during the early part of the 20th century.
Spaniels were first mentioned in the 14th century by Gaston III of Foix-Béarn in his work the Livre de Chasse. The “cocking” or “cocker spaniel” was a type of field or land spaniel in the 19th century. Prior to 1901, Cocker Spaniels were only separated from Field Spaniels and Springer Spaniels by weight. Two dogs are considered to be the foundation sires of both modern breeds, the English variety are descended from Ch. Obo, while the American breed descends from Obo’s son, Ch. Obo II. In the United States, the English Cocker was recognized as separate from the native breed in 1946; in the UK, the American type was recognized as a separate breed in 1970. In addition, there is a second strain of English Cocker Spaniel, a working strain which is not bred to a standard but to working ability. Both breeds share similar coat colors and health issues with a few exceptions.
Ears Flying!
Description
There are two modern breeds of cocker spaniel, the English Cocker Spaniel and the American Cocker Spaniel. They were bred as gun dogs; to use their sense of smell to cover low areas near the handler in order to flush birds into the air to be shot, and to use their eyes and nose to locate the bird once downed, and then to retrieve the bird with a soft mouth. The major differences between the English and American varieties is that the American is smaller with a shorter back, a domed head and a shorter muzzle, while the English variety is taller with a narrower head and chest.
Cocker spaniel coats come in a variety of colors including black, liver, red and golden in solids. There are also black and tan, and sometimes liver and tan, as well as a variety of color mixtures of those solid colors including roans, roan and tans, tricolors and those solid colors with additional white markings.
Rare colours can appear unexpectedly in certain lines, for instance while an all-white cocker is usually bred by selective breeding of very light golden strains, they can still appear very uncommonly to parents who are dark colored. A noted occurrence of this happened in 1943, when a grandson of My Own Brucie, Best in Show at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show in 1940 and 1941, was born all-white.
In its native United States, the American Cocker Spaniel was ranked the 23rd most popular breed according to registration statistics of the AKC in 2009, a decrease in popularity since 1999 when it was ranked 13th. For twenty five years the American Cocker Spaniel was the most popular dog in America. It was ranked number one first in 1936 prior to the English Cocker Spaniel being recognized as a separate breed, and held onto the spot until 1952 when Beagles became the most popular dog. It regained the spot in 1983 and held on at number one until 1990. In the UK, the American Cocker Spaniel is far less popular than its English cousin with 322 registrations compared to the English Cocker’s 22,211 in 2009.
History
While their origins are unknown, “spaynels” are mentioned in 14th century writings. It is commonly assumed that they originated in Spain, and Edward of Norwich, 2nd Duke of York in his 15th century work The Master of Game introduces them as “Another kind of hound there is that be called hounds for the hawk and spaniels, for their kind cometh from Spain, notwithstanding that there are many in other countries.” The Master of Game was mostly an English translation of an earlier 14th century Old French work by Gaston III of Foix-Béarn entitled Livre de Chasse.
In 1801, Sydenham Edwards wrote in Cynographia Britannica that the “Land Spaniel” is divided into two types: the hawking, springing/springer and the cocking/cocker spaniel. The term cocker came from the dog’s use in hunting woodcocks. During the 19th century a “cocker spaniel” was a type of small Field Spaniel; at the time, this term referred to a number of different spaniel hunting breeds, including the Norfolk Spaniel, Sussex Spaniel, and Clumber Spaniel. While there were no Sussex Cockers or Clumber Cockers, there were dogs known as Welsh Cockers and Devonshire Cockers. The Welsh or Devonshire were considered cockers until 1903 when they were recognized by The Kennel Club as the Welsh Springer Spaniel.
Prior to the 1870s, the only requirement for a dog to be classed as a Cocker Spaniel was that it needed to weigh less than 25 pounds (11 kg), although breeders separated the cocker from the King Charles Spaniel which remains a smaller breed of spaniel. This maximum weight limit remained on the Cocker Spaniel until 1900, with larger dogs being classed as Springer Spaniels. The colors of the Devonshire and Welsh Cockers were described by John Henry Walsh under the pseudonym Stonehenge in his book The Dog in Health and Disease as being a deeper shade of liver than that of the Sussex Spaniel. Following the formation of The Kennel Club in the UK in 1873, efforts were made by breeders to record the pedigrees of cockers and springers. In 1892, English Cocker Spaniels and English Springer Spaniels were recognized as separate breeds by The Kennel Club.
There are two dogs which are thought to be the foundation sires of both modern breeds of cocker spaniels. Ch. Obo is considered by breed enthusiasts to be the father of the modern English Cocker Spaniel, while his son, Ch. Obo II, is considered to be the progenitor of the American Cocker Spaniel. Obo was born in 1879, at which point registration as a cocker was still only by size and not by ancestry. He was the son of a Sussex Spaniel and a Field Spaniel. Although Obo was an English dog, Obo II was born on American shores – his mother was shipped to the United States while pregnant. During his lifetime, it was claimed in advertisements that Obo II was the sire or grandsire of nearly every prize winning cocker in America.
Technical Details
This image was captured with a Canon EOS 1D Mk III using an EF 70-200mm f/2.8L lens and EF 1.4x extender. Exposure settings were at 1/500 second, f/6.3 and 320 ISO.
