What are tags? You can give your posts a "tag", which is like a keyword. Tags help you find content which has something in common. You can assign as many tags as you wish to each post.
View posts by people in your network with tag picture-perfect
Freedom for many comes at a price and often after tremendous struggle. The butterfly is free, but the struggle to emerge from its pupa seems to take a huge toll on its strength, but if you help it along, it won't develop properly. Perhaps freedom that comes easily is not appreciated as much? Freedom is beautiful, is it not?
This photo is untouched beyond cropping and framing. We get tons of this particular butterfly. They decimate my nasturtiums. I have photos of the whole process, from egg through to butterfly. This one is taken of the butterfly after emerging on the ladder my husband made. Darn... I see there's a dog hair I should have removed.
Visit Picture Perfect to see the rest of the entries and join in the fun.
The "African" dancers. Their performance was very un-African, performed by Brazilian dancers who had never been to Africa. They had tremendous energy, though we kept expecting their straw outfits to catch fire against the candles.
-african- dancers - SAConsul function - 16April2005.WMV (5.0 MB)
Every year, we would go to the South African Consulate Function in April. It was usually a rather grandiose affair, but on this occasion, they had outdone themselves. Food was French style, ie. more artistic than designed to sustain, with an appetiser of Carpaccio of Ostrich, a rare meat here, but fairly common in South Africa. Wine flowed freely the whole evening. Designer gowns, flashy jewelry, and fancy cars abounded. The venue was an upmarket Bingo hall, Imperatriz. The building was palacial, done in an African style, with dark African warriors lining the walls, huge tusks curving up towards the ceilings, which were lit with myriads of tiny lights. The entrance hall boasted enormous statues of elephants and giraffes.
The place and the event epitomised extravagance to me in every sense of the word.
Lindiwe Zulu, the South African ambassador to Brazil broke out in song during the speeches. I think the chap standing behind her looks somewhat uncomfortable. As you can hear by the background noise, the song was a hit, especially among her fellow Xhosa's.
The "African" dancers. Their performance was very un-African, performed by Brazilian dancers who had never been to Africa, and the ambassador was angry. A few nasty office memo's flew around after the event.
Apologies for the video quality with this last one.
São Paulo is designed, to me, in a strange manner. In the center of the city is Sê Cathedral - literally, the center. All distances in the city are measured from this cathedral. Whatever road you're on, the numbering of the property is based on the distance from this cathedral. The lowest number on the road is the end closest to the cathedral. Properties here aren't numbered, as such, but go according to their size, so you are number 1234 on XYZ road based on the fact that your front door is 1234 meters away from the end of the road closest to the cathedral.
For more Picture Perfect or to join in the fun, go here.
This week's theme had me. I live in a very solid world, aside from an abundance of spider's webs. I had another photo planned and was tempted to post both, but I'm meant to be sticking to the rules, right? *sigh*
This was taken right after some rain here, a highly unusual occurence ; ) Yes, I am joking. Some critter or another had made a feast of Jorge's Queen of the Night and left just the veins.
With this theme, you get a little peek into my world, or should I say, out of it. I took this photo sitting at my computer. The window next to me was open. The photo I took was of the reflection in the window and our neighbour hanging out her laundry and, yes, the security bars too. Every door and window here has security bars. Before we moved in, the people who lived here had been burgled three times in as many months. Everything had been stolen. We took no chances. We would move in on condition the owner improved security. Between the bars and our dogs, I guess we're safe enough.
So this week, I don't have a very aesthetically pleasing photo. I came up with bars, bars, and more bars. I have photos of some lovely bars and fences, if something like that can be called lovely, but they're not very original as photos. Perhaps this photo will also give you an idea of why I crave wide open spaces...
Do visit Picture Perfect to play along! While I think about it, you can see another choice I had for today's theme here.
Fragile..... blue balloon, blown up in a moment of fun, caught in the bars. Will it pop? Will it break? Fragile is tougher than we think. Fun.... and happiness.... is fragile too... to be caught and held... and treasured... in case it bursts.
The balloon is blown with a straw from a tube of gunk, a Christmas stocking gift to Tatiana by her godmother that gets taken out occasionally to play with... only occasionally... because we want it to last as long as possible, of course
Visit Picture Perfect to play along. Yep, I know I have 3 photos instead of one.... ; )
I know I'm breaking one of the first rules here, but I couldn't resist this postcard from South Africa. I think a few of my photography friends can relate ; )
Deltiology...
The hobby isn't mine, but Tatiana's. It started when she was being homeschooled. As a social science/geography project, she had a goal to collect at least one card from every country and one per state from the larger countries. The project involved writing and organisational skills too. We both thoroughly enjoyed it. In fact, we enjoyed the project as a family. A huge wall map marked where the postcards were from. The highlight of our day was visiting the post office to see if another card had arrived. Tat's collection is now huge and we've slowed down with the collection somewhat, but looking through the albums is enough to revive interest.
Unlike regular deltiologists, we collected cards of all shapes and sizes. At first, we prefered the cards to be written on and stamped. It made it more personal. An added bonus was if the person wrote a little about themselves and their country. Later, we went through a phase of preferring mint postcards in envelopes, as the post office was damaging them. The photo above is just a tiny sample of her collection. She now has 717, excluding those that aren't sorted into folders. There are some very old postcards in there now, from the early 1900's and some really unique ones, like the emboidered Spanish one pictured here and one with a sample of South African beach sand. One last photo ; ) This just to show how much work went into the collection. Each postcard is set onto the page with cutouts - no tape or glue involved, so as not to damage the card. Alongside, Tat would write details about the card, where it is from and who sent it with any extra information if there is any.
I was just thinking that the postcard collection is much like a Picture Perfect by snail mail. What a thought : ) Come along and join the fun!
The only flag missing here is the Lithuanian flag to make up the countries we, as a family, represent. Yes, there are two South African flags, the old and the new. The old flag is there for a special reason. That flag was bought for me at the Voortrekker Monument in Pretoria. My family were Voortrekkers (pioneers). The flag means a lot to me. The little boat is an oddity. It was given to us by Darcy. It is made of copper. It is a replica, apparently, of the fishing rafts used in the North East of Brazil. I took this photo one night when I was lighting candles on the shelves of our little display cabinet. Not the most exciting photo, but there you have it : )
John has given us a whopper this time.... 'gobsmacked'. While we have many gobsmacked moments here, I never get the chance to photograph them, so I did a bit of hunting. The photo in question is Tatiana. She only allowed this one, as it shows very little of her and is the least harmful to her reputation out of the various photos I had picked out. Gobsmacked is a state she finds herself in fairly easily, it seems *grins* This here was her first "Close encounter of the Avocado kind". I just love those eyes... ; )
This photo was taken at one of Tatiana's Aikido exams. Every move is executed with a certain grace and precision, each participant taking pride in his or her performance, striving to please, remembering instructions in Japanese and Portuguese. Nervous pre-exam butterflies transform into adrenaline and focus.
In life's crowded waters Each ripple we make Goes on in infinite circles Mingling with the ripples of others Crossing over Disturbing the smooth waters in another's life
It's HOT!! Literally. We're toasting here. The thunder has occasionally over the past few days rumbled feebly and though the skies occasionally grey over, there is no sign of rain.
This photo was taken at the central market here in São Paulo. Chillies anyone?
Paraty... a tiny seaside village with a big history. Paraty was part of the "Caminho de Ouro", thus the canon. Scattered across its landmass and a few of its islands, you'll see the canons, put in place to keep piracy at bay. The "Caminho de Ouro" (Gold route) was the path from Minas in the interior to Paraty, where the gold was shipped to the motherland, Portugal.
The cobbled streets of old Paraty are built in a shallow 'v' shape. All the houses are built slightly above road level with huge granite or concrete block steps to their doors. On the shoreline, you'll find this low wall with holes at regular intervals. Once a day, the tide comes in and flows through Paraty's streets, washing them clean.
~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~ The photo was taken with my old Canon Digital Elph Powershot SD10 set to auto.
Visit Picture Perfect for some brilliant photography, heartwarming snaps and stirring words.
pondok - hovel, hut, shack pondokkie - a small hovel, hut, or shack
By definition, not anyone's ideal home. I very nearly chose this photo for Picture Perfect, but decided against it. Once again, a story that is so very important to me. We arrived to look at our new 'home'. It was downright ugly. The rock hard ground could grow no grass, the veranda was full of someone else's old junk. The roof leaked and even the vine was struggling for survival.
Then... we looked down into the valley at the land that was ours. We had just bought our first piece of land. The view was, to us, breathtakingly beautiful. At the bottom of the valley was a gorge with a tiny stream flowing through it. The spring came up on our land. Ah yes, there was plenty of room for us, our dogs, the pigs, chickens, veggies... and even the guinea fowl and duiker (a small buck). Tatiana grew up with rosy cheeks and hands and knees permanently stained by the rich, red soil.
We settled in and made the 'pondokkie' home, at least until we could build. The vine was encouraged until we shared the grapes with our neighbours, along with fresh veggies, herbs, and eggs. The lawn was plush. In the center was our beautiful rose garden. The roses flourished, as they enjoy clay soil. Lining the front wall was a garden with lavendar bushes, rosemary and a few other shrubs, annuals and herbs. Everything flourished. We flourished! We spent a few years in that house. It was a humble house, but I do believe we were probably at our happiest then.
I live in a suburb away from the hubub of central São Paulo. The life here is quieter. Yes, we do have very heavy traffic on my road because it is a main throughfare connecting two bypasses, but on the whole, it is quiet. On market days, our quiet is broken by the cry of various vendors.
For a long time, we heard this strange cry. None of us could make out what was being sold. By chance one day, Tatiana and I were outside when we heard the cry and could finally associate it with this gentleman. The cry turned out to be "Peixe! Peixe!" or "Fish! Fish!" It turns out that he has been doing this for quite a few decades. I guess when you're that familiar with your territory and people know you, it no longer really matters w hat you say. He will come to your door, clean and fillet the fish for you and be on his way again.
