photographs you have made.

[fuki]

King's-day 2018









Koningsdag 04/27/2018

[Dan74]

Haha, Fuki, I still have a mental image of you from 10 years ago. You are old, like me! (Altgough I am much more gray).

[fuki]

Haha, took me 41 years to look my age Dan, finally ppl say I'm old. You're the first, thank you!

Was my only dream as a kid to grow gray hair, my mom (pic) still dreams of being forever young...25-ish.

[fuki]

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[fuki]

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[desert_woodworker]

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[desert_woodworker]

I saw this helicopter from the airforce base circling about three weeks ago, I think practicing landings at the hospital rooftop heliport half a mile away.

Here, it passed over my yard, and I put a long lens on the Nikon and took a few pictures. I think the helicopter was only about 200 meters off the deck, or less, and was very loud and large in the sky. In the 500 mm lens used for this image, the craft filled almost the entire field of view.

I am struck by the job of the poor guy who has to hang out on the porch of the chopper in his resistant suit, and with his headgear to protect his eyes and hearing. Presumably the headgear also has night-vision capability for night-operations. In that helmet, he/she looks a lot like Darth Vader!

This is a very capable gunship. --Joe

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[boda]

I saw this helicopter from the airforce base circling about three weeks ago, I think practicing landings at the hospital rooftop heliport half a mile away.

Here, it passed over my yard, and I put a long lens on the Nikon and took a few pictures. I think the helicopter was only about 200 meters off the deck, or less, and was very loud and large in the sky. In the 500 mm lens used for this image, the craft filled almost the entire field of view.

I am struck by the job of the poor guy who has to hang out on the porch of the chopper in his resistant suit, and with his headgear to protect his eyes and hearing. Presumably the headgear also has night-vision capability for night-operations. In that helmet, he/she looks a lot like Darth Vader!

This is a very capable gunship. --Joe



chopper_1024.jpg



chopper_soldier.jpg

Hopefully they won't use you for target practice. May the force be with you if they do!

[desert_woodworker]

Hopefully they won't use you for target practice. May the force be with you if they do!

Right. You said it. It WAS a bit unsettling to have that big thing pirouetting above me in my tomato garden. The fellow manning the outrigger machine-gun port could probably also see me pointing this huge ...thing?... at him (the 500 mm f/5.6 lens ). Glad he stayed off the trigger.

[fuki]

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[desert_woodworker]

I didn't take it, but I SAT for it. "Sitting", even then! A school photo, but not sure just when:

If Kindergarten, then about Sept., 1957; if First-Grade, then about Sept., 1958. Anyway, "Sputnik" was a new thing, then; Exciting. --Joe

p.s. (I was fascinated by the Photographer's equipment, and jealous of it; I knew I'd have better stuff than that, someday. Well, what do you know... ?)

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Keck I and II 10-meter Telescopes, Mauna Kea, Hawai'i

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[[james]]

Reverse Beaver:

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[Emmet]

[Emmet]

[Emmet]

[desert_woodworker]

"Lenticular" clouds are lens-shaped clouds, in profile. Often, they appear in mountain environments, and sometimes act as a persistent "cap" over a mountain peak that may remain for hours. Other times, they float free, away from peaks.

Here is a free-floating, detached lenticular. At times, here in the desert, these have been reported as "UFOs". Presumably, to some, they look like disk-shaped or saucer-shaped objects.

This lenticular has some precipitation falling and being windblown below it to the left (North). In this view we are looking East, over the Rincon Mountain range, where the highest peaks on a ridge reach to 8600 feet (2620 m).

The windblown precipitation that is falling ("Virga") may look to some like a kind of "vapor-trail", giving the cloud more of the look of some kind of "craft", to some. But the object (cloud... ) was not moving at anything like propulsion-driven speed, but was just drifting on the wind aloft, lazily, on an otherwise clear-sky desert morning, in April this year.

--Joe

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[fuki]

Fuki-Pentecost

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[fuki]

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[boda]

Nice matcha set! What's the strawberry for?

[Emmet]

What's the strawberry for?

In Japanese tea ceremonies, some sort of confection (called wagashi), specifically chosen to compliment the season or occasion, is served prior to the tea; the sweetness balances the strong umami taste of the tea, which is never served sweetened. An art form in itself, wagashi is unavailable here (except the simplest ones by mail-order at exorbitant cost), so whenever possible I like to resort to it's historical precedent; kashi, fruit. This is my favorite; field-ripened strawberries from a farm 3 miles from here. Available for only a couple of weeks a year, they're far too delicate and easily bruised for machinery. Harvested by hand at their peak of ripeness; they must be enjoyed today, this moment; if you wait 'till tomorrow, they're compost. Like the flowers in the tokonoma, they embody all of the beauty, sweetness, frailty, and brevity of this fleeting life, and as I don't grow strawberries myself, they're reminiscent of how dependent I am upon the hard work and dedication of many hands and many beings, seen and unseen, known and unknown, who collectively contribute to the causes and conditions which give rise to my well-being. Considering this deeply, I vow that whenever I encounter another being in need, I will respond in kind.