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Not our easiest quiz. Clue: This is a national capital.
Can you name the city? The country?
The answer is after the jump.
And a good weekend to all from Common Sense and Whiskey and EarthPhotos.com.
Continue reading "Friday Photo Quiz #128 - Where in the World?" »
Great news: Common Sense and Whiskey, the book, is now available from the Kindle store. Get yours right here.
Or, get the book version.
And coming next week, we'll publish Chapter Nine from the book here on the blog. It's our exploration of Sri Lanka, in which Nandinga smokes cigarettes like the French do in old movies, between forefinger and thumb, and I ask Tyrone:
"When does the monsoon come?"
"End of April, sir."
"Is it ever late?"
"It is always late, sir."
Ad words are everywhere. I say 'em for a living in my day job. But media-popular phrases tamp down creative writing.
Having said that, look: It is what it is. At the end of the day, if you're going to take it to the next level you're going to have to touch base with your bottom line. Remember, going forward, if you're going to push the envelope, you can't drop the ball. Give 110%.
Know that if you mean to bring your A game you'll have to add value. So hit the ground running! The bottom line is, side step the 800 pound gorilla. That said, step up to the plate. Cast a wider net. Move up the value chain.
All that having been said, don't fly under the radar. Quite frankly, going forward, you'll always have to be good to go. Fire on all cylinders. Level the playing field by staying on message. If you bring a turnkey solution to the table you'll never have to Monday morning quarterback.
Remember, to get to a win-win situation, keep your ducks in a row.
Or just bugger all that and go somewhere.
One more contribution like last week's two from Italy. Not having enough fresh new material from abroad lately, I've been trolling old, unprocessed RAWs.
One day December before last I climbed to the top of Castel Sant'Angelo, alongside the Tiber River just a stone's throw from the Vatican. Here's an HDR from that day. It's three RAW shots, handheld, with a Nikon D700, combined in Photomatix and finished in Photoshop CS5:
Click the photo to make it really, really big. See related photos in the Italy Gallery and the HDR Gallery at EarthPhotos.com.
Nice to see the peaceful transfer of power to a new President in Zambia. Had a little email chat with the people at Kapani Lodge in the South Luangwa National Park this morning. They said President Banda was gracious in defeat, that it's all very exciting and they're proud. Best of luck to incoming President Sata.
Several years ago we spent a week at Kapani Lodge and other Norman Carr Safaris properties in South Luangwa. They're really great people. Couldn't have been nicer. Here's one of their bush camps. That's the "honeymoon suite" in the background.
Check out some wildlife photos in the Zambia Gallery at EarthPhotos.com.
It may be that you either know this famous monument or you don't. In case you don't, hmmm, well, there are some palm trees. Might be in a tropical climate. And one more clue: This 85 foot tall arch was built to commemorate the visit of King George V and Queen Mary of England.
Can you name the city? The country?
The answer is after the jump.
And a good weekend to all from Common Sense and Whiskey and EarthPhotos.com.
Continue reading "Friday Photo Quiz #127 - Where in the World?" »
Haven't been out on the road nearly enough lately. A not entirely satisfying substitute is to go back to a few bracketed shots that you never got around to converting to HDRs. Here are two from a 2009 trip to Rome. Click 'em to make 'em much bigger.
It's the Vatican on top and just a generic apartment block below. Compare the processed image in the bottom photo with the lackluster original.
Here is Chapter Eight of Common Sense and Whiskey, the book. We'll publish each chapter over the course of the year (Track down previous chapters here). You can order the entire book direct from EarthPhotos Publishing, or at Amazon.com. Photos and additional commentary are available at A Common Sense and Whiskey Companion. And here's the China Gallery at EarthPhotos.com.
Kiosk keepers huddled under strings of bare bulbs. An ancient pagoda perched high up on the hill across the river. Fruit and vegetable vendors and a magazine stand stood open at nine o’clock at night. Around a bend in the road, storefronts set sample dishes on the sidewalk, just out of the rain.
A wet old man beckoned me in. We didn't speak a word in common except “OK” and “bye bye.” I drank a couple of big tall green bottles of beer I couldn't read and I bought a bottle of something he thought I should buy. It was some clear elixir he kept pouring and we kept toasting. Mostly we sat in his store and stared into the fog.
•••••
One side of Guilin was shiny, the other just rubble. Five years before, Guilin tore down the buildings on the whole west side of Zhongshan Road and rebuilt them all. Now they were doing the same thing on the east side.
A bed careened by, balanced on a bicycle. Pointy-nosed little three-wheeled machines sputtered along, almost but not quite trucks. Water buffalo halted traffic and chewed the roadside, right in town. Guilin, somehow, was dusty even in the rain.
Continue reading "Common Sense and Whiskey, the Book - Guangxi Province, China, Chapter Eight" »
Famous river, city in the news. Can you name the city? The river? The country?
The answer is below.
And a good weekend to all from Common Sense and Whiskey and EarthPhotos.com.
Continue reading "Friday Photo Quiz #126 - Where in the World?" »
The sun has just risen from the Tasman Sea over Watson's Bay, New South Wales, Australia. Click this photo to make it much bigger via EarthPhotos.com.
This is from a single RAW, re-exposed -3, -2, -1, 0, +1 & +2 and saved as .tifs, combined and tonemapped in Photomatix and finished with several steps in Photoshop CS5, then applying the Glamor Glow filter from Nik.
See 338 other HDRs in the HDR Gallery at EarthPhotos.com.
If you're in the southeast U.S. next weekend, you won't want to miss this:
"The International Towing and Recovery Hall of Fame and Museum will be hosting a ceremony for the 2011 Hall of Fame Induction on Sunday, September 18th. Each year between 5 and 10 towing and recovery industry professionals are honored in the Hall of Fame for contributions to improving the industry as well as outstanding professional and community service. The Towing and Recovery Hall of Fame and Museum is located at 3315 Broad Street in Chattanooga."
Enjoy the International Towing and Recovery Hall of Fame and Museum web site. Go ahead.
And see the other Strange Museums.
Our first trip to China came way back in 1995, when we visited the impossibly exotic Guangxi Province. The center of tourism in Guangxi is a town called Guilin, much more modest then than it is today, and the Li River, which meanders around curious karst hills and paddies.
Next week we'll post the next installment of Common Sense and Whiskey, the book: Chapter Eight, Guangxi Province, here on the blog. Order the book from Amazon here. See all the book's photos, in color, at A Common Sense and Whiskey Companion. And see 180 photos from across China in the China Gallery at EarthPhotos.com.
Common Sense and Whiskey is the companion to EarthPhotos.com, where you can see and buy professional photo prints from 105 countries and territories around the world, and the blog for Common Sense and Whiskey - the book. It's Intelligent discussion about the world out there.
The Photos:
