Weekly Photo Challenge: Let There Be Light!

This weeks assignment for the photo challenge at The daily post is to show the source of light in a photo.

I took this one two or three years ago. The young lady is illuminated by a burning candle. The kind of light, we love especially during the dark months.

In my opinion, it shows, what light can do: enlighten the darkness and warm our lives.

Now, at the end of a year, you can look back and review the enlightening moments of the last year, or your live. These memories keep your heart young. They remain, when you get old.

Take a light with you in your heart.

Welcome to the jungle

This time we stopped in the mountains in the south of Cuba. Here we have forests, lots of colorful birds, butterflies and, of course, rivers. Our hotel up in the mountains is located at a river with a waterfall, where the water falls down in a pond. The hotel consists of same small  houses. Approximately 40 – 50 guests can get a bed here. The photo above shows our hotels dining room and I’m standing in the middle of the (now nearly dry) river.

Do you remember, I already told you February and March belong to the dry period. The dry period begins in October / November and lasts until April / May. Having this in mind, you can easily see, why this river hasn’t that much water in early March. I’d really like to see, the waterfall during the raining period.

Even we’re in a tropic area, where they don’t have fall (autumn), some trees loosing their foliage during the dry period to spare water. But, nevertheless, it’s still green everywhere and we didn’t experience any water rationing here.

For today, I only picked out some photos showing the river, the waterfall and the pond. More on the nature around, the birds and the butterflies in one of my next posts.

Stay tuned!

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uhhhhhhh …..

It’s November. Today we have Eternity Sunday here in Germany, I already explained it here in more detail. Although this two things already can make you feel sad, the current (typical) November weather makes you feel blue and depressed, too. Additionally the weather can even decrease your mood.

Because of the grey, dark, wet and cold weather we currently have, I miss the colors. You, too? So, enjoy the colors in the above photo.

A big “thank you” to my wonderful model this summer. I took the photo during our Hippie theme photo shooting and edited it afterwards. At first I converted it to grey tones and at last I changed the colors back to blue and yellow. I hope, you like it.

Two other photos taken during that afternoon can be found here and here.

Take care!

Choosing the right drink

In Cuba it’s quite easy to decide which soft drink to order and to choose you sport.

If you’re a girl, you have to skate in-line skates and drink orangeade.

If you’re a boy, you have to skate on a skateboard and drink coke.

Easy? Isn’t it? 🙂

OK, I’m kidding. But the cans are real. Indeed, boys and girls can certainly order and drink both soft drinks, as well as the third one with lemon taste.

Enjoy.

Walking around in Camagüey

A short stop for the night left us some time to walk around. This was one of the two days with not so good weather. You can see a gray overcast sky and a few puddles in the streets.

I didn’t like the city, because it was quite hard to breath. The air was stinky and smelled like being spoiled by traffic pollution, although we didn’t see many cars. Maybe the bad weather was accountable for hindering the pollution to leave the streets and thus causing the bad air condition.

As usual, we found the church closed. Some people were waiting in front of the church for the door opening,  because the church was supposed to be open on that time, but no one came to open the doors. So, we went on.

Take care.

Don’t forget to have a look on the past posts von Cuba.

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typical November

You might wonder, what I mean, when I say “typical November”. Here in the northern hemisphere November means summer is definitely over, but winter hasn’t already started although up in the mountains they already fight against the snow.
November usually is quite cold, wet and windy, even stormy.
November is also the month with many memorial days dedicated to the past away or dead people.
– November 1st is dedicated to all saints (from the view of the catholic church)
– November 2nd is dedicated to all death people (All Souls Day)
– 2nd Sunday before 1st Advent we have people’s mourning day to remember all the soldiers of the World Wars and those who died due to the violence of an oppressive government.
– Sunday before 1st Advent we have Sunday of the Dead, also called Eternity Sunday. It’s also the last Sunday of the Christian or Church year. This protestant memorial day is similar to the catholic All Souls Day.

Are these or similar holidays common, where you live? Drop me a note in the comments area and tell us about.

As a long time reader you might remember, that I already showed photos taken in Paris and in Havana and explained, how interesting a visit on a cemetery in a foreign country is. And that I proposed to show photos taken on a German cemetery. So, here they are.

Usually German cemeteries are designed like parks.

A little break …

… on the beach. A lazy afternoon in the sun.

When in the Caribbean you have to go to the beach. In this time of the year, the beaches aren’t crowded. That’s because the locals don’t go to the beach during “winter”. Winter in the Caribbean? Are you kidding? No, I’m not. Although it was quite hot for me in February and March, the Cubans are used to much higher temperatures. So, they don’t go to the beach in this time of the year. But, they don’t call this time “winter”. It’s the dry season.

These photos are taken at the Trinidad beach. You can also find some hotels here, at the beach.

A few food dealers were walking around, trying to sell pastries, coconuts or drinks basing on rum (remember, we’re in Cuba). As I mentioned earlier, these people were not pushy. They were coming up slowly after a while for offering their products. After rejecting their offer politely, they always went back and left us alone.

Enjoy!

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it’s harvest time

Fall also means harvest in the northern hemisphere.

The apples in the basket are freshly picked. It’s necessary to pick them not before they are ripe. But, don’t let them in the tree too long. Why? It’s easy. At the end of October you have to expect night frost and the frost will spoil most of the fruits.

So, we picked all of the apples, when I noticed a temperature of only 3°C in the morning. Now, we have them save in our cellar waiting to be eaten.

Many years ago, a common believe was, that in the night between October 31 and November 1st a devil jumps through the country and shits on all remaining fruits, grains, veggies and crops and spoils them that way. Nowadays we know that this devils really name is frost.

Take care!

My calendars are available at the stores

Do you remember? Recently I wrote here about 3 calendars being published, containing some of my photos taken in Cuba.

Here are the ISBN numbers for ordering the 2014 calendar showing some of the fantastic vintage cars from Cuba as well as some insights into the old town of Havana. They are available in 5 country editions: Germany, Austria, Switzerland, United Kingdom and USA.

According to the publishing house, the ISBN numbers are internationally valid, and you should be able to get your copy by ordering it at a bookstore where you’re living. At least you can order them via amazon.de (*), amazon.at, amazon.ch and amazon.co.uk. At amazon.de you can also find an option for global delivery. so, take you chance!

German Edition:

2014	La Habana / Havana	Havana Portrait	Cuba Cars
Wandkalender DIN A4	978-3-660-26955-0	978-3-660-27463-9	978-3-660-22007-0
Wandkalender DIN A3	978-3-660-26954-3	978-3-660-27462-2	978-3-660-22006-3
Wandkalender DIN A2	978-3-660-26956-7	978-3-660-27464-6	978-3-660-22004-9
Tischkalender DIN A5	978-3-660-26953-6	978-3-660-27465-3	978-3-660-22005-6

US-Edition:

2014	La Habana / Havana	Havana Portrait	Cuba Cars
wall calendar DIN A4	978-3-660-26920-4	–	978-3-660-22011-7
wall calendar DIN A3	978-3-660-26922-8	–	978-3-660-22008-7
wall calendar DIN A2	978-3-660-26921-1	–	978-3-660-22009-4
table calendar DIN A5	978-3-660-26919-8	–	978-3-660-22010-0

UK-Edition:

2014	La Habana / Havana	Havana Portrait	Cuba Cars
wall calendar DIN A4	978-3-660-26917-4	–	978-3-660-23194-6
wall calendar DIN A3	978-3-660-26918-1	–	978-3-660-23193-9
wall calendar DIN A2	978-3-660-26915-0	–	978-3-660-23195-3
table calendar DIN A5	978-3-660-26916-7	–	978-3-660-23196-0

AT-Edition:

2014	La Habana / Havana	Havana Portrait	Cuba Cars
Wandkalender DIN A4	978-3-660-26985-7	–	978-3-660-23274-5
Wandkalender DIN A3	978-3-660-26986-4	–	978-3-660-23273-8
Wandkalender DIN A2	978-3-660-26984-0	–	978-3-660-23275-2
Tischkalender DIN A5	978-3-660-26987-1	–	978-3-660-23276-9

CH-Edition:

2014	La Habana / Havana	Havana Portrait	Cuba Cars
Wandkalender DIN A4	978-3-660-26982-6	–	978-3-660-23278-3
Wandkalender DIN A3	978-3-660-26986-4	–	978-3-660-23277-6
Wandkalender DIN A2	978-3-660-26984-0	–	978-3-660-23279-0
Tischkalender DIN A5	978-3-660-26981-9	–	978-3-660-23280-6

(*) this link brings you to an amazon partner shop, showing a certain subset of the regular basket of good at amazon.de. You get the regular amazon.de prices, but I’m able to compile only these certain products for you.

 

Update:

I attached the official catalog pages for you as a preview.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Eerie

For this weeks photo challenge at “The daily post” I picked this photos taken about 3 years ago in our garden.

It’s a kind of moth, a many-plumed moth. I never saw one before, so it was a very scary moment.  The moth is about 2-3 cm long and the spread wings approximately 4-5 cm.

It is pale-white and the legs have thorns. Considering that moths are usually not very pretty, this one looks like it was greater by a nightmare.

I’d recommend haven a look on nicer topics i.e. here in my blog.

Take care!