The Picture Thread Mark III

[Avatar]

Here are some ancient buildings trying to survive.

 

[Avatar]

I mean, would you want to go in there? I'd want. :]

Flowers in snow with a bride turned to stone

And here's the embassy of Danmark. As you can see it's very quiet here. Must have something to do with our minute muslim population.
I didn't want to take a direct shot of the fron doors because there were cameras everywhere and I didn't want to answer questions of why I'm taking pictures of a diplomatic building.

 

[Avatar]

Here I'm walking wondering where to go next

Found this little house behind a big church.
Here you can see where the steet level was many hundreds of years ago.
We have lots of such places. The earliest building standing is from the early 13th century, but that is not this one.

And here's the changing of the guard by the Freedom Monument (somehow my camera had turned itself to black/white in my pocket and I didn't notice that.

 

[Avatar]

Here are two more pics of the guard. The last one is in colour, that's when I noticed.

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Our's is a quiet city in general. Nothing is happening because nothing wants to happen. And I'm not sure that's good.

You can see many different people on the streets, lots of beautiful and smiling girls with good and unique style,
lots of people from the country trying to fit in, but failing miserably,
russian businesmen walking the old city and talking about stuff only they know or care about,
then there are beggars, kids, policemen, and national guards by the Freedom Monument.
But of them all I best understood the cat today.

 

[Kunax]

The B/W pictures are greate thou, it looks like something ripped from the 50 or 60's

 

[water]

Hi Avatar,
thank you for the pictures!


I'm always impressed by such things -- how those light reflecting signs tend to betray how bright it really was when the photo was taken.


And the guards! I have a fancy for men in uniforms.
No, seriously, the motive of the photos is poignant, somehow.

 

[water]

What is this plate at the top of the building, with the cross? How come it is placed that way?

 

[Avatar]

It's an old storage house, there was a crane and ropes up on that high platform some hundreds of years ago that lifted grain and other food supplies to the various levels of the building.
Ropes were attached to oxen behind the storage house.

 

[spuriousmonkey]

The B/W pictures are greate thou, it looks like something ripped from the 50 or 60's

let's modify it a bit then:

 

[Kunax]

excelent, the snow flex in the middle only seems to enhance the effect

 

[Roman]

I like the snowy pictures of the park. I'm missing a white winter, down here in the south. It snowed for the first time today, and the snow stuck until about noon.

The color composition of the cat under the dumpsters really sweet. Reminds me of a lynx in birch, but instead it's a stray in an alley.

Magnolias were, historically, the first blossoiming plants, right?

I believe so. They were blossoming before bees evolved.

 

[Avatar]

No, seriously, the motive of the photos is poignant, somehow.

People create their environment, then the environment creates its' people.
City people - we are masters of our environment, masters of our cage,
even our pain is done in morbid style.

That's why the people from the country fail so much to fit in, they don't feel the walls around,
and not all of the walls are visable to the naked eye,
and some open if you know the correct word.

And we whisper our passwords like they were spells. Adding value to them, selling them, dying with them.
I know a man who knows a man who works in the national id datacentre, would you want me to whisper some secret request to him? Are you willing to give a bit of your soul for that?

And so it goes from century to century, and the more ancient the city, the more secret words and unseen walls it has,
the more souls it has drunk.

 

[water]

I can't imagine living in the city. I need the space, real space. The woods, the meadows, the fields.

Yet, for the whole time of highschool and college, my days consisted of two escapes: the first one was from the country to the city, the other one was from the city to the country. The real home was on the way from one to the other. It was on the bus that I felt most calm.

 

[Avatar]

I too, but, while I study, there are no other options.
I've always been living with one foot in the capital city, the other outside of the city by the sea (now just the city though).
I understand the city well and can operate in it with ease, but I don't like it, yet I find it strangely romantic/attractive at times. I'm torn between.
What I dislike outside of cities is the people. They lack ellegance and culture.
Of course many here lack it too.

I'd prefer to be killed with poison in a glass of good wine instead of a big hammer on the head while I eat - that's the difference.

 

[Cottontop3000]

Great pics Avatar. I was in East Berlin once, just after the Berlin Wall came down, and your pictures remind me of what it was like there. It was eerie. To see just how much gloomier east berlin was than west.

 

[Roman]

I was in Eastern Germany last summer, and it was definitely gloomy and eerie.

 

[Varda]

I would like to see them, Varda. I find the pictures of the local insects fascinating. Brazil is definitely awash in wildlife, isn't it?

I don't suppose you could provide names and details of them as you post, could you? That last spider for instance, the view from underneath is really quite striking. It almost looks like a skull face or something.

What about mammals? I suppose they're a bit harder to capture on film than insects?

As to the view of your back yard... What do you think of houseguests?

Keep up the pictures. They're great.

that spider is of the argiope genre, although i dont know what the exact species is... maybe argiope argentata

there is a reserve of the atlantic forest just behind my house, but it is not very common to see mammals. there are some capivaras that we can see if we're lucky and once i saw a jaguatirica! it was awesome. there is a wide variety of birds and snakes, these are more common to see, they come to my garden and sometimes even in my house

you're all welcome to my house *buys more pepper spray*

 

[Varda]

Avatar, those are fantastic.
I can't imagine how that much cold must feel like.

 

[Cottontop3000]

you're all welcome to my house *buys more pepper spray*

You better buy a lot.

 

[Hercules Rockefeller]

This is a photograph of a 'sulphur crested cockatoo' taken on the back porch of my sister’s house on the outskirts of Melbourne, Australia. These beautiful birds are found everywhere in the eastern half of the country.

http://www.amonline.net.au/factsheets/sulphur_crested_cockatoo.htm