Month: December 2022

culture

Happy New Year!

solaner

Another year reached its end. Another year dominated by special regulations due to the Covid19 pandemic. Although some scientists and politicians declare the pandemic for being over, I don’t think so. IMHO the virus stays and is part of our common life now. Vaccinations are still necessary, especially for kids.

Fortunately, the rate of serious infections is quite low, at least in western countries as well as in those countries willing to cooperate with them. But, nevertheless, everyone is due to take care of their own health by protecting themselves from getting infected. Thus, face masks will probably remain just the way it is common in a couple of Asian countries for years already, and facemasks are even produced by major fashion labels.

So, I’m wishing you the very best for 2023: health and wealth. Health for being able to enjoy life with your family and friends and wealth for heaving the necessary funds either by earning them from your job or from your pension fund in case you’ve already retired.

I selected this image from my archive taken a couple of years ago. Before sunrise, I was already hidden in a hide waiting for the sunlight to wake up the cranes standing in the shallow water in front of me about a hundred meters away. Cranes are considered of being birds of happiness and luck. Me, that morning definitely brought happiness to me. Many of the birds started flying straight in my direction, just like the ones in the image above.

May they also bring some luck for you for the new year.

Take care!

photography, street, summer, travel, urban, world

Throwback Thursday: elephant crossing

solaner
other countries, other road signs!

Take care!

 

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—–

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architecture, photo-of-the-day, photography, spring, travel, urban, world

Travel Tuesday: Ol’ MacDonald’s graveyard

solaner

 

Take care! 

 

<ad>

Excire has started its Christmas Promotion. 
Anyone who purchases Excire Foto between December 16th, 2022, and January 6th, 2023 will receive the Excire Analytics extension as a gift (worth 39€).
Excire Analytics is a great added value for your customers. By using it they can gain exciting insights into their photographic work. 

Retrieving the gift is simple: instead of Excire Foto, simply add the Excire Foto + Excire Analytics bundle to their shopping cart with a reduced price of 99€ instead of 129€.

If you want to purchase both Excire Foto and Excire Search add the complete Excire Collection to your shopping cart with a reduced price of 169€ instead of 189€. The Excire Collection consists of Excire Foto, Excire Search, and Excire Analytics.

But that’s not all: With the code Excire79 you can get Excire Foto or Excire Search for only 79€ instead of 99€. Of course without Excire Analytics. This promotion also runs until January 6th, 2023. The code can be used when ordering in the shop.

The same is valid for the US shop! Simply replace the € by $ 😁

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animals, mammal, nature, photo-of-the-day, photography, plants, wildlife

Monochrome Monday 9-32

solaner

 

 

Take care!

 

<ad>

Excire has started its Christmas Promotion. 
Anyone who purchases Excire Foto between December 16th, 2022, and January 6th, 2023 will receive the Excire Analytics extension as a gift (worth 39€).
Excire Analytics is a great added value for your customers. By using it they can gain exciting insights into their photographic work. 

Retrieving the gift is simple: instead of Excire Foto, simply add the Excire Foto + Excire Analytics bundle to their shopping cart with a reduced price of 99€ instead of 129€.

If you want to purchase both Excire Foto and Excire Search add the complete Excire Collection to your shopping cart with a reduced price of 169€ instead of 189€. The Excire Collection consists of Excire Foto, Excire Search, and Excire Analytics.

But that’s not all: With the code Excire79 you can get Excire Foto or Excire Search for only 79€ instead of 99€. Of course without Excire Analytics. This promotion also runs until January 6th, 2023. The code can be used when ordering in the shop.

The same is valid for the US shop! Simply replace the € by $ 😁

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art, landscape, nature, photography, travel, world

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge 230: “Last chance”

solaner

Curtain up, for the last Lens-Artist’s Photo Challenge in 2022. This week LAPC is hosted by Tina.

When preparing a post, you have a couple of images for the given topic. In the end, you have to skip a few of them to maintain the post on a reasonable level. This week’s theme gives us the opportunity, to show a few of these skipped images. But, she added two additional conditions: taken in 2022 and not previously published!

As my images are usually taken from my archive and are not created especially for the challenge, I’m interpreting this slightly differently: Today, I’ve chosen only unpublished images taken in 2022, but selecting one of the challenges from this year, I didn’t participate because of some reason.

Wildlife in your backyard or next to your home (#225):

geringelte Mordwanze (Rhynocoris annulatus) – I was unable to find the English name for the bug. Maybe one of you is able to help based on the scientific name in Latin.

 

hummingbird hawk-moth (Macroglossum stellatarum) / Taubenschwänzchen

 

European garden spider aka diadem spider (Araneus diadematus) / Gartenkreuzspinne

 

large red damselfly (Pyrrhosoma nymphula) / Frühe Adonisjungfer

 

great spotted woodpecker (Dendrocopos major = Picoides major) / Buntspecht

 

European green woodpecker (Picus viridis) / Grünspecht

 

Maybe, I was able to inspire you to dig in your archive and find some images, you can publish your images on your blog and set a link to Tina’s inspiration post. Don’t forget to tag it with LENS-ARTIST, so we can find it.

Take care!

photography, street, summer, travel, urban, world

Throwback Thursday: elephant crossing

solaner

When arriving in Etosha National Park in north-eastern Namibia 3 weeks ago, we had to wait a while until the huge elephant herd crossing the road. Approxymately 60-80 elephants, mothers, calfs, and adolecents were coming right from a waterhole a few hundred meters away heading back to the bush. One boy, walking at the end of the herd, paused in the middle of the road and tried to impress us with his posing. But all the others were simply walking their way. Very impressive!

And, you can’t imagine how silent they were while coming closer, crossing the road, and vanishing in the bush. The whole event from seeing the elephants coming around a corner in some distance to their vanishing in the bush on the other side of the road lasted approximately 20 minutes.

 

art, landscape, nature, photography, travel, world

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge 229: “patterns”

solaner

OK, break is over (at least I guess so). 

This week, Ann-Christine invites us to think about patterns in photography. You can find them in nature as well as in man-made environments. You simply have to walk around with open eyes.

I captured the first one in Lisbon a couple of years ago. The sun painted this on the ground.

 

On the shelves of this small shop in Lisbon, you can find many tins with sardines. 

The next image is taken with a macro lens in a kitchen. You can see a part of a rub.

Next, I have a few natural patterns: grain on a field 

ocean waves painting patterns at the shore.

Intentional camera movement in a forest

A part of a palm tree leave

The wrinkles in the dress of the Green Lady of the North.

And finally, a railway track.

 

Maybe, I was able to inspire you to dig in your archive and find some images, you can publish your images on your blog and set a link to Ann-Christine’s inspiration post. Don’t forget to tag it with LENS-ARTIST, so we can find it.

Take care!

art, landscape, long exposure, nature, photography, summer, travel, world

Throwback Thursday: I’m back …

solaner

… from Africa again. This time seeing wild animals was the central aspect of the trip. For my trip, I headed to Namibia again. But instead of traveling around through the deserts, I headed north. Starting from the Etosha pan we traveled eastwards crossing the Caprivi strip and ending the trip after a more than 2,100 km drive in Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe.

It was a very different experience compared to the last year’s trip. Although it was more or less the same time of the year (end of November = start of the rain season) and the same temperatures of between 36 and 38°C. Last year we visited deserts, saw lots of dried-out rivers, and were not sweating much. The humidity was much lower.

The Etosha pan is a large endorheic salt pan, forming part of the Cuvelai-Etosha Basin in the north of Namibia. It is a hollow in the ground in which water may collect or in which a deposit of salt remains after water has evaporated. The 120-kilometre-long (75-mile-long) dry lakebed and its surroundings are protected as Etosha National Park, Namibia’s second-largest wildlife park, covering 22,270 square kilometres (8,600 sq mi). The pan is mostly dry but after a heavy rain it will acquire a thin layer of water, which is heavily salted by the mineral deposits on the surface. (source: Wikipedia)

We were very lucky to be able to see many different kinds of wild animals. Among others, we met all the Big 5: lion, rhino, elephant, leopard, and buffalo.

Leaving Etosha eastwards, the environment changes slightly, but noticeable. The brownish dusty dries were accomplished by more and more trees and rivers filled with water instead of sand and dust.

I even was lucky enough to be able to capture a few images of the other signature animal of Namibia: the African fish eagle (the other one is the Oryx).

Although we traveled at the beginning of the rainy season, we had only two occurrences of rain: hard rain and a thunderstorm one evening and night at the end of the first week and another one on our last day, which was already without any specific pre-planned activity.

African fish eagle (Haliaeetus vocifer) or the African sea eagle / Schreiseeadler

 

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Take care!