Month: May 2022

animals, art, history, mammal, photography

A wonderful story came to its end!

solaner

mm25-600_9588-eb_w

This story started back in April 2010 with a cat giving birth to 4 little kittens in our kitchen. Fritz was the youngest of them, but the biggest from the birth. Out of his 3 sisters, he stayed the longes with us. only the oldest is also still with us. The middle 2 moved to another family in the summer of 2010 when they were a few months old. These were the first of the four kittens who ate cat food and didn’t drink mother milk anymore. So, the first chapter ended well.
Their mother was less than a year when she became pregnant by accident. According to her habit, we guessed, she was born in the summer of 2009. She became only about 1 year old and died as a result of an accident with a car on a Saturday night in mid-September 2010. Luckily, the kittens were already old enough to survive alone (with our help). The second chapter ended not so nicely.

The first 2 girls were black, just like their father and the 2 younger kittens were tabby, just like their mother. The first-born kitten was the smallest from the beginning and stayed quite small. So, she got the name Petite-Fleur (little flower). The second got the name Felina, derived from the Latin name for cats: Felidae (Felis silvestris catus). The third got her name from the very prominent “M” on her forehead: Mchen (little M). And, the youngest was Fritz. He also has the “M” on his forehead, but less distinct than in his elder sister’s fur.

On Sunday, April 30th, 2017, little Petite passed away because of a severe injury and the third chapter also ended badly.

Today, the last chapter ended and it also ended sadly. About a year ago, we had to bring Fritz to the vet clinic because he collapsed a couple of times. his regular vet was unable to help any further. It was too severe. Apparently, he got poisoned. Although we got him back after a couple of days, but he wasn’t the same anymore. From that day, he had to see the doctor quite often. Every couple of weeks he collapsed again. In October last year, he had to have his molars pulled. Unfortunately, one fang also had to come out. Pills helpt him to recover more or less. But, he didn’t eat cat food. He captured mice and rats. He only took water, a bit of cat milk, and dry cat food. So, it was very problematic to give him the medicine. While we’re on vacation, his condition went worse again and our youngest son (he’s still at home) and his girlfriend took action and brought him to the vet clinic again. They took him in after a short examination. Later, they called our son to tell him, that Fritz’s state was already too bad to heal him. He already had water in his lung and they recommended putting him to sleep. So, this noon, the final chapter ended very sadly again.

Another sad Sunday. But, Fritz is reunited with his mother and his oldest sister.

Take care!

photo-of-the-day, photography

Monochrome Monday 9-02

solaner


Three weeks ago, while scouting a location, I saw these kite flyers paragliders. It was amazing to see them bringing their kites up in the air. Although there was not much wind the man in the middle didn’t have any problems bringing his kite up. The lady to the left, instead, struggled a lot. I don’t know anything about kiting, but I like watching them. So, I can’t tell, if it was a lack of physical power, less experienced, or simply bad luck. Apparently, the guy in the middle was waiting for her and while waiting he had to fight hard with his kite and the wind to avoid being lifted up.

The guy to the right came later. He was still preparing everything. Although his kite is already in the air, the kite wasn’t connected to his body. So, he was unable to start. He even didn’t have his security backpack pulled on.

Unfortunately. I wasn’t alone. So, I couldn’t wait long enough to see them in the air.

This plateau is about 100 meters above the ground. It’s a heap built from the dead rock remaining from digging for stone coal in the underground mines for centuries. As the mine is closed since 2001, the area is converted into a park. There’s a path around the heap. This path is about 6.4 kilometers long. The whole park is around 7.5 square kilometers in size and offers a lot to the people.

Although the park was opened to the public in 2011 and has a very interesting sun observatory to visit, I wasn’t there up to now. The main reason was, that the sun observatory was closed again only shortly after the opening because of construction problems. In a documentary I watched the week before the visit, I noticed a demonstration of a part of that observatory: the point for observing the solstice. Apparently, the film team got access to the closed area for that sequence or it was taken from their archive. What a pity. Next week, I showing you the observatory.

Take care!

art, landscape, nature, photo-of-the-day, photography, travel, world

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #199 – Mechanical/Industrial

solaner

OK, guys. Weekend! Time for my contribution to LAPC. This week John is our host. He went back the memory lane a couple decades and directs our view to the time when machines started to first accomplish and ease, and later replace human labor.

 

I guess, I have to pause the next two or three weeks for LAPC because I’m on a trip. My usual posts are prescheduled.

Take care!

photo-of-the-day, photography

Monochrome Monday 8-52

solaner

Wow! Another year of Monochrome images is over! Before starting the 9th year next week, I’m showing you my personal highlights from the last 52 weeks.

Deutzer Brücke, Cologne, Germany

 

Ghost Town, Kolmanskop, Namibia

 

stair case, Germany

 

Skógafoss, Iceland

 

ostrich

 

I didn’t order them for any purpose. I hope, you like the reminder.

 

Take care!

art, landscape, nature, photo-of-the-day, photography, travel, world

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #198 – Lights and Shadows

solaner

It’s Saturday again and while others are preparing for going to a party, I’m publishing a post for LAPC. It’s Patti’s turn this week.

We have a saying here “Wo Licht ist, ist auch Schatten” (Where there is light there is also shadow) and that’s definitely true. In photography as in painting, you can play with light and shadow. The human eye is always attracted by the bright parts of an image. Thus, you can use the shadow parts to may the main object pops out. The interaction between lights and shadows works in general best with black-and-white images, but also in color images it’s worth to have an eye on them.

A group of small decorative side towers at one of the towers of Colone’s cathedral at full moon. Here, the dark parts are the main subject also only seen as a silhouette.

During winter, the sun is able to paint wonderful structures on the ground.

This image taken in Sossusvlei is also a good example for what shadows can contribute to you final image.

Not only for abstract images, shadows can help making your main subject really key: the shadows in the back help this cheetah really popping out. Especially, because the low standing sun also models out his muscles.

Shadows can bring some depth in your architecture image. Especially for Lost-Places images this works well in monochrome and in color.

 

This is another example of very strong shadows. The sun was only able to enlight the top parts of the structures of a mountain side on Iceland.

This mushroom pops out from the dark surroundings. Although growing in the shadows, you can recognise it very well and the surroundings doesn’t distract form the main subject.

In this image, take a few weeks ago, the sun paints beautyfull patterns on the ground. The sun itself is positions near the sweet-spot (following the rule of thirds). In addition, the patterns are painting a positive diagonal from the lower left to the upper right and ends in the star-shaped sun. Thus, the patterns lead your view from the dark to the light.

The remaining two images are a bit different. Here we have a partial solar eclipse and total lunar eclipse. In the first one the moon is shadowing a part of the sun, while in the other image the moon crosses the earth shadow. In that image I put together 6 phases from the transition as well as the main image of the bloodmoon itself.

In case you’re interested in participating in this challenge either once or on a regular basis, check out this post published by Amy to learn about the rules and where to find the weekly topic.

Take care!

flowers, photography, spring, world

Throwback Thursday: A blue morning

solaner

Last week on Saturday morning, my alarm clock rang very early again: at 4:30. Many people don’t like getting up so early. They even don’t like getting up earlier than necessary or earlier than on a weekday morning. Me, usually, too. But, sometimes, the plans say different. So, this weekend: getting up early, drinking one coffee, having a shower, and jumping in the car.

Depending on the general temperatures of spring, around mid-April, the bluebells start blooming and their blooming time only lasts about 3-4 weeks. They depend on loose and nutrient-rich soil and must not become overgrown with bushes. The flowering cycle must be finished before the canopy of the surrounding deciduous trees closes and no light reaches the ground anymore. Although they were very common in Europe after the last ice age, they are very rare now, except in England and Wales. This small (tiny) forest is about 1,5 hour’s drive away from my home. Thus, I had to get up early if I want to be there at sunrise. And it’s only a very small timeslot to find rich blooming ground as well as not too dense foliage.

This forest is a nature-protected area. So, leaving the few paths is not allowed. I’m fine with that rule. But, there are many others not caring about it. The locals usually complain about the reckless visitors. When I was there for the first time, besides me only a few joggers were passing by. During my second visit, 10-15 photographers were also there, most of them equipped with apparently good equipment and a tripod. But, they should know better. When walking through the flowers to get ‘better’ spots / sights, they are trampling down the flowers and compacting the ground to make it next year harder for the flowers to breakthrough. They withdraw their energy into the onions. When I was there last year for my third visit, only very few flowers were blooming. Because of the cold weather, nature was way behind normal development. This year the timing was perfect. Many, many blooming flowers were covering the forest ground. Even from the parking ground about approximately 200 m away as the bird flies, I was able to see the blue glowing in the forest. And only a couple of quite well-behaving dog photographers (dog among the bluebells) were there. But, it was still quite full for the small area.

In the end, I was back at home at about 10:00. Time for breakfast!.

Take care