Tag: wednesday

Wednesday Wonderment – pt 8

Lowly beauty with benefits

With Spring fast approaching, I have been in a somewhat more floral mood, which leads me to this little flower that soon every gardener will be trying to remove from their lawns: the dandelion.

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Spherical Beauty

The humble dandelion is a simple yet beautiful flower that is maligned only for its propensity to spread very quickly, as its seed head has the ability to start many other plants. In many parts of the world, this plant is cultivated.  The name dandelion comes from the French dent de lion, which translates to lion’s tooth; the dandelion leaf has a resemblance to lion’s teeth.

Historically, dandelion was prized for a variety of medicinal properties, and it contains a number of pharmacologically active compounds. Dandelion is used as a herbal remedy in Europe, North America, and China. It has been used in herbal medicine to treat infections, bile and liver problems, and as a diuretic.

The flower petals, along with other ingredients, usually including citrus, are used to make dandelion wine. The ground, roasted roots can be used as a caffeine-free dandelion coffee. Dandelion was also traditionally used to make the traditional British soft drink dandelion and burdock, and is one of the ingredients of root beer. Also, dandelions were once delicacies eaten by the Victorian gentry, mostly in salads and sandwiches.

Dandelion leaves contain abundant vitamins and minerals, especially vitamins A, C, and K, and are good sources of calcium, potassium, iron, and manganese.

Overall, the lowly dandelion is a good little plant, except when it disturbs the green of your lovely lawn!

Technical Details

This image was captured with a Canon EOS 5D Mk II and an EF 100mm f/2.8L macro lens .  Exposure settings were  f/7.1 at 1/125 second with ISO 400.

Wednesday Wonderment – pt 7

Blossoming just for you

Nature is full of amazing and beautiful displays, many of which are taken for granted.  Go into any grocery store or super market and apples abound; how many of us take a moment to appreciate how this apple started?

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Apple’s True Beauty

About five years ago, I decided to follow the development of an apple orchard, which was close to my daily commute throughout the year.  It’s one of those fun projects that keep one’s interest in photography keen, and taking a walk through an apple orchard in the morning is a great way of invigorating the senses for the day that lies ahead.

This shot is from early May, when the blooms were fully developed, just before the wither and start developing into tasty, crisp New England apples.  With the beautiful light, it was just amazing to look more closely at these trees and their wondrous adornment!

Hope you enjoy this moment of wonder and think about it, when you bite into your next apple.

Technical Details

This image was captured with a Canon EOS 5D Mk II and a 24-105 f/4L lens (with circular polarizing filter).  Settings were  f/10 at 1/400 second with ISO 200.

Wednesday Wonderment – pt 6

Leaf power

Today, I am going back to Nature for this installment of Wednesday Wonderment, as she is a source of immeasurable variety, beauty and amazement.

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Structural Integrity

This amazing leaf was in a tropical greenhouse at the Botanical Garden of the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands.  This botanical garden is both a fantastic exhibit to visit and see plants from a variety of biomes, and a research facility for the students of the University of Technology.  During our visit, a group of students was working with a professor to study soil characteristics, which was interesting to watch.

One of the aspects of Nature that continually grabs my attention are the structures that make up plants, leaves and trees; the distribution of strength in support of the energy production machinery is sheer perfection.  Even today, when I look at this image, there are little details such as the feathering of the lamina between the lateral veins; it might be indicative of the flow of energy and fluid through the leaf.

Each of these details have evolved over the ages, as successful function edged out other variants by the thinnest of margins.  It would be amazing to see the entire book of variations over the ages, as that would provide insight beyond anything that we have ever possessed.

Technical Details

This image was captured with a Canon EOS 5D Mk III and a 24-105 f/4L lens.  Settings were  f/5.6 at 1/320 second with ISO 1000.  The image was processed using the camera’s HDR capability.

Hope you enjoy this leaf, as much as I do.

Wednesday Wonderment – pt 3

New and old engineering marvels

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Falkirk Wheel in action

Today, a departure from the past couple of Wednesday Wonderment posts; this time, the amazing subject are two feats of human engineering near the town of Falkirk in Scotland.

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Falkirk Wheel from below.

The first is the Falkirk Wheel, which is a rotating boat lift connecting the Forth and Clyde Canal with the Union Canal, which have an elevation difference of 35 meters (appr. 115 feet).  Prior to the construction of this marvel, ships were required to go through a system of 11 locks, which could take as much as a day to traverse.

The wheel raises boats by 24 meters, after which they still need to go through 2 locks for the remaining 11 meters.  The lock operates on Archimedes’ principle, which states that the upward buoyant force on an object (i.e. boat) equals the mass of the water that is displaced.  This means that when a boat enters the moving part of the lock, its mass plus the mass of the water is equal to the mass of the when the boat was not in the lock.  In a nutshell both sides of the arm are always balanced.

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Wheel with boat

 

The Falkirk Wheel is the only lock of its kind in the world; it was opened in 2002.

The other engineering marvel is ancient!  It is the Antonine Wall, a turf fortification on stone foundations across the Central Belt of Scotland, between the Firth of Forth and the Firth of Clyde.

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Antonine Wall

Unlike the Falkirk Wheel, it doesn’t stand out in the landscape, but rather blends in pretty well due to its weather state.  This lesser known of the two great walls in Great Britain was started at the order of Roman Emperor Antoninus Pius in CE 142, and took around 12 years to complete.  Its key function was to provide a fortification to help repel the Caledonians.

The wall had 16 forts with smaller fortlets between them; the soldiers who built the wall placed slabs to commemorate the construction and their struggles with the Caledonians, twenty of which still survive.

The section of the wall in this photo is in walking distance from the Falkirk Wheel.  I hope you enjoy these travel photos!