Tag: friday foto finder

The 8-legged butterflies of Nara, Japan

10 years ago, I was lucky enough to go to Japan for a conference. The conference itself was held in Nara, a very old city whose historical monuments are listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. There I visited Todai-Ji, a temple housing the largest bronze Buddha statue in the world. The large wooden temple also housed a number of other statues and decorations, including these giant butterflies perched on enormous vases. (I don’t remember exactly how big they were, and my photos are unhelpful in terms of offering things for scale, but you can sort of make out some people heads in the lower left corner of the first photo.)

I was particularly intrigued to notice that the butterflies all had 8 legs, rather than the usual 6.

I found that I was quite charmed by them.

I’m just rather sorry that my point-and-shoot camera didn’t do as well with the trick low-light conditions as my current camera does. I will just have to go back to get new photos some day.

This week’s friday foto finder theme was “butterfly.” I have posted on butterflies many times before (including a ThThTh list as well as some of my own photos), but somehow had not yet managed to post these curiosities. To see what other butterflies have been collected, pay a visit to the fff blog.

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cold comfort

Last week’s friday foto finder theme was “comfort.” If you’re out and about walking, it can be a comfort to find a bench to sit on.

Perhaps not, though, if you happen to be walking in New England in winter. Unless your idea of comfort includes having a seriously cold backside.

This bench looks not only cold, but lumpy.

I’ve often thought that fresh fallen snow looks beautifully soft and pillowy. Given enough winter clothing, these chairs might actually be pretty comfortable with their fluffy white cushions….

(This photo was from my archives, taken in December, 2008.)

These snowy cushions, however, are really quite over the top. Literally.¹

This photo was from February, 2011. That was a very long, very snowy, very miserable winter. Even more so than this year. I’m happy to say that after a few days of temperatures well above freezing, our deck is now almost completely clear of snow. Which is good, as we might have more snow on the way this week. (I feel for my friends up in parts of Canada who have not so much of a thaw, and whose decks look still largely like this photo. Take comfort, friends. Spring will surely arrive…some day.)

To see other people getting comfortable with this theme, head on over to the fff blog and set a spell.

¹ I do mean literally literally. Not figuratively.² That snow reaches over the tops of the chairs.
² I received an email from Tumblr recently with the subject line “Your Dashboard is literally on fire.” I found this rather alarming. In case of an actual fire, an email is perhaps not the best means of communication.

Shiny Apple Pi (and some peach pie pi, too)

This week’s friday foto finder theme is “shiny.” I have loads of photos of shiny things in my photo library, but seeing as it’s Pi Day, I coudln’t resist including some pi (and some pie).

Apple pi, on a shiny plate. (The apple is pretty shiny, too.)


A shiny pi server.


Here is this year’s annual Pi Day pie, which was somewhat experimental: a peach blueberry pie with a crust topping in the shape of pi, and filled out with circles of pie crust (each of which had the circumference of roughly 2πr). To see some of the other pi pies from my past, check out my old post, easy as pi.

To see what other shiny bits people are sharing, check out the fff blog.

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A 2000-year-old loaf of bread (friday foto finder: old)

This loaf of bread was part of an exhibit of artifacts from Pompeii that I saw at the Boston Museum of Science back in February of 2012. This bread was one of many loaves found in a bakery oven, preserved from when the Roman city was covered in layers of volcanic ash when Vesuvius erupted in the year 79 a.d. (You may realize that I exaggerated in the bread’s age. Or rounded. The bread is only 1934 years old, and a few months.)

I found the exhibit to be fascinating for the glimpses of everyday life that were so strikingly preserved. The exhibit was also haunting in that it contained not only relics of life in that city, but forms of many who died. The imprints of their bodies and clothing were found in the cemented layers of ash, and plaster casts were made from these hollows, to reveal the shapes of individuals posed as they were in their last moments of life.

This week’s friday foto finder assignment was to share a photo for the theme of “old.” To see what other old things have been unearthed, and to share your own, pay a visit to the fff blog.
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pigeons in flight (friday foto finder: pigeon)

(Last) Friday’s friday foto finder challenge was to find and share photos featuring a pigeon. I had a few pigeons to choose from, but my eyes were caught by these pigeons taking flight on the boardwalk along the Hudson River in Newburgh, NY.

Of course, I can’t post photos of pigeons without remembering this little movie I put together from some mostly accidental footage from my mother’s camera from our 2007 trip to Paris, that includes a fleeing pigeon. (If you watch the movie, it really does need the sound on.)

And if you want more of my pigeons, see my post called pigeon post. And if you want to learn something about pidgins, see my post called pidgin post.

To see what other pigeons have been posted, check out the fff blog.

first flakes of a snowstorm (friday foto finder: beginning)

The past month has been a blur of activity. Or, I suppose, given the subject of these photos, a “flurry of activity” would be a better fit. Deadlines. Holidays. Deadlines. Festivities. Deadlines. And lots and lots of baking. It’s hard to know even where to start. Happily, this week’s friday foto finder theme of beginning gave me a thought of where to dig in.

These first 3 photos are all crops of one photo that I took at the very beginning of a snowstorm we had a couple of weeks ago. I was out with Phoebe at a concert a friend of hers was performing in, and the first flakes of a big predicted storm started to fall as we watched the show. When we left, the snow had just started to collect here and there. We admired the flakes that had gathered on the ledge of the car window, and naturally I grabbed my phone to take a photo.

The conditions were just right such that the big, fluffy flakes maintained their crystalline form, even after landing. Sadly, I hadn’t remembered to bring my real camera. (Not that I would have had much time, as we were in somewhat of a hurry to get home.)

I keep hoping to see more snowflakes like these, but the snow we have had since hasn’t measured up. Our current snow, for example was so cold that the flakes that landed appeared to be just tiny shards of shattered flakes, with no evidence of intricate symmetry. Other snow has fallen wet and mixed with rain.


The beginnings of yesterday’s snow were much less dramatic to see. These tiny flaky bits were seen on our porch rail. I took this photo with a lens extender, but even the macro shot didn’t reveal any six-sided wonders.

To see what other beginnings are to be seen, drift over to the fff blog.fff 200x602

an eclectic row of hedges (friday foto finder: hedge)

This week’s friday foto finder challenge was to share photos on the theme of hedge. Around here, there is plenty of shrubbery and such in the landscaping, but it’s not so common for the bushes to be arranged in hedges. Of course, the term hedging my bets came to mind, but that didn’t generate any photos either. I found myself checking out the definition of hedge for inspiration:

From Dictionary.com¹

hedge [hej] Show IPA noun, verb, hedged, hedg·ing.
noun
1. a row of bushes or small trees planted close together, especially when forming a fence or boundary; hedgerow: small fields separated by hedges.
2. any barrier or boundary: a hedge of stones.
3. an act or means of preventing complete loss of a bet, an argument, an investment, or the like, witha partially counterbalancing or qualifying one.

I didn’t particularly remember taking any photos of hedges, but I thought surely I must have, especially during my travels. I did find quite a few samples, which I’ve lined up here in a row for your perusal. (Though really, this is more of a column of hedge photos than a row of them.) (I also wonder if some of the towering French examples still count as hedges. I suppose that I am hedging my bets by showing so many varied examples.)


2007: Le Jardin des Plantes (“The garden of plants”), Paris, France. A range of hedge sizes can be seen, including some that are rows of not-so-small trees.


2007: The gardens of the Palace of Versailles, France. Off in the distance, you can see what look like rows of box hedges. But I think the tiny specks in front of them are people, so there’s no way they are “small trees.” They are gigantic. The mother-of-all-box-hedges gigantic.


2007: Saarbrücken, Germany. I liked this leafy gate, which enticingly showed glimpses of a hedge maze behind it. (Attempts to photograph said hedge maze in the fading light with the little point-and-shoot I used at the time were blurrily unsuccessful. Here they are, tiny so as to hide the blur:


2009: Parc Güell, Barcelona. Swarms of tourists swarm over a stairway in front of a pretty unremarkable hedge.


2009: Alcázar, in Sevilla, Spain. Judging from my photos, Alcázar is chock full of hedges, some of them quite striking. Funny how they didn’t stick in my memory.


2009: Again in Alcázar, in Sevilla, Spain. These hedges were a bit more unruly.


2012: at MIT, Cabridge, MA. Finally, here’s a hedge that’s closer to home. I’m pretty sure I was looking more at the willow trees, whose dangling strands looked remarkably even at the bottom, reminding me of freshly-trimmed bangs.

To see what hedges others have lined up, and share your own, pay a visit to the fff blog.
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—

¹ This citation of Dictionary.com made me think of this article: “If everyone still wrote like they did in college.”²
² Of course, when I was an undergrad, there was no Dictionary.com. We had to cite a freakin’ dictionary. Like, a book.³
³ I feel like such an old fart. Imagine me saying, in my best crotchety old man voice, “Back in my day, we didn’t have the internets or wikipedia or this dot com nonsense. We had to dig our references out of the fields by hand, with nothing but spade and card catalog.”

photos of a burned-out mill (friday foto finder: factory)

In this part of New England, the textile industry once dominated. In the towns around where I live can be seen many an old mill. Many of the mills are now abandoned, others have been converted to new uses. This particular mill was once a yarn mill, but in recent decades had been converted to space for dozens of small businesses. About 6 years ago, the whole mill complex was largely destroyed in a fire. The fire started in the middle of the night, so happily there were no casualties. But the businesses were destroyed, and many lost their jobs and livelihood. (It particularly saddens me to think of the many artists who had studios in the mill, who undoubtedly lost years worth of artwork.)

All these years later, the mill is still a burned-out shell. Much of the debris and rubble was cleared out, but large sections of the structures still stand. Here are some photos that I’ve taken on a few different occasions over the past year.


The smoke stack has been converted into a cell phone tower. I vaguely remember that this happened after the fire.


The shell of the rather ostentatious columned façade.


A sign on the fence remaining from before the fire: “No smoking beyond this point.”


I find it a bit eerie to see that remnants of the landscaping survived the fire. Here are some ornamental trees and a hydrangea bush, in their late fall but otherwise healthy states.


I found the striped shadows of these exposed rafters to be quite striking.


A different angle on those shadows, and zoomed in a bit. (Hence the graininess.)


The façade does look very imposing against the fiery colors of a dramatic sunset.

This week’s foto finder challenge was to share photos on the theme of “factory.” To see what other sorts of factories others have found, pay a visit to the fff blog.
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life spilling up through the cracks (friday foto finder: grass)

This week’s friday foto finder challenge is to find photos to share of grass. People plant a lot of grass where I live, and invest a lot of resources into keeping lawns looking neat and green. For the most part, though, I don’t find it very interesting to look at. Here is some grass that planted itself in a parking lot somewhere, which I found much more compelling.

To find out whether the grass is green on the other blogs, pay a visit to the fff blog.
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