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#young amateur photographer of the year winner
sitting-on-me-bum · 1 year
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A seal pup from the largest colony in the UK in Horsey, Norfolk. This one was very confident and curious, and excited to see people.
Photographer: Lucy Monckton, England
YOUNG AMATEUR PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR WINNER
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ddagent · 4 years
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you: # I really need to write some red carpet jb me: hell yes please give me that here's the prompt in case you need one I definitely need one (or 50)
So a) this taps in really nice with an idea I’ve been toying with, of Brienne playing Jaime’s role in a reboot, b) shout out to @angel-deux-writes, who needed some fic today, and I hope this fits the bill, c) this is Brienne’s dress, and d) prompt #99!
“Brienne! Brienne, over here!” 
He’d barely stepped foot upon the red carpet at the Crimson Kingdom awards, but already the vultures had turned their attention towards his replacement. Brienne Tarth. Tall, ungainly, a passable actress at best. Yet the photographers clamoured for a shot of her, the lead of Oathkeeper; nominated tonight for the very first time. The fact that Jaime had not been nominated – also for the very first time – was only part of his frustration. All this attention, all this fuss, for a role that was essentially his. 
“Jaime, Jaime, can you spare a moment to talk to us!”
Melara Hetherspoon, one of the gossip reporters for Ice and Fire magazine, thrust both a microphone and a camera in his face. He adjusted the line of his burgundy tuxedo jacket and offered Melara one his charming smiles. As expected, she practically pooled at his feet. 
“So, Jaime,” she said, teeth toying with her pink bottom lip. “Tonight is the first Crimson Kingdom awards you haven’t been nominated for since your very first at sixteen.”
“It is,” he said, with a slight shrug. “The competition grows fiercer every year; just means I have to step up my game.” 
Melara continued to swoon. “Brienne Tarth is nominated for best actress this year for Oathkeeper, a reboot of your first major success, The Dragon King. Brienne’s character shares many similarities with your original role. Any resentment that a reboot of your character is getting such acclaim, especially after your plans for a reboot fell through?”
If there was an award for best forced smile, Jaime certainly would have won it. “No resentment at all. In fact, I wish Brienne Tarth good luck tonight. She’s in a tough category, but hopefully, she’ll come out on top. That is, after all, how she likes it. Lovely to see you, Melara.”
She made to ask another question, but Jaime was already walking away. A few flashes went off in his face; he waved his hand in the direction of a couple of photographers. But his gaze quickly fell back towards Brienne Tarth. She was wearing a dark blue dress that fell across her body; silver stars pinned to her shoulders. Her hair was short, yet she kept fiddling with the blonde strands. Her smile was so innocent; her face completely devoid of guile. Yet Jaime knew her sort. He knew her sort very well. 
When a reboot of The Dragon King had been floated by Jaime, he’d practically bitten the production team’s hand off. Years of working on obscure but award-worthy films had left him with a full mantle but feeling rather drained. He wanted to do something fun again, and he loved the idea of returning to Arthur Westford, the youngest knight ever elevated to the Kingsguard. He’d brainstormed many an idea of a fresh take – of Arthur’s future – until he was told they were going in a different direction. Similar plot: young knight, mentally-ill monarch, intrigue and drama. Only Arthur would now be Alysanne. Only he would be out, and Brienne Tarth would be in. 
"Brienne! Brienne! Just one more!”
She was flagging. Jaime could see the slight crease in her forehead; the falter of her mouth. Amateur. The PR assistant, a redhead who should have been in front of the camera rather than the giant from the Stormlands, noticed it too. She then noticed Jaime. With a speed he had not imagined she would possess, the girl grabbed his arm. 
“Come with me, this will be a great press opportunity!” 
And suddenly Jaime was stood next to Brienne Tarth in front of a television camera, with a microphone thrust at both of them. The journalist grinned at the pair of them, and then into the camera. “Look at this, TV fans: the youngest knights ever sworn into the Kingsguard!” 
Both he and Brienne laughed politely, as if the tension between them wasn’t so thick that not even valyrian steel could cut through it. “Arthur Westford and Alysanne Swann. TV history is being made tonight! Is this the first time you both have met?”
“Yes, it is,” Brienne said, fiddling with her hair again. 
“Not for lack of trying.”
“Oh?” The journalist asked. “Does this mean we might get an Arthur Westford cameo on the show?”
Jaime snorted. “Doubtful. I thought I might have been asked, but I was informed no one else can fit in Ms Tarth’s spotlight.” He turned to her, decorum and public opinion out the window. He was a Lann Award Winner for fuck’s sake. He wouldn’t prop anyone up, least of all her. “I imagine it is hard for anyone else to fit in it.”
Brienne’s facade in front of the cameras faded just as quickly as his. “How dare you accuse me of such a thing? You don’t even know me.”
“Exactly. No one knows who the fuck you are, but you’ve still got enough clout at the network to cut me out of the project.”
“I have no idea—”
“—oh please. This naive little facade might work with studio execs but I’ve been in this business long before you were ever in your first school play, Ms Tarth. I imagine as a tree.”
“Well, I’d rather play a tree than any of the roles you’ve played lately. You looked like you were half asleep in The Blackwater Connection. It’s no wonder the producers didn’t want you to have anything to do with the new show.��
“Yes, because—”
“I wish I hadn’t bothered fighting for you.” Her shoulders dropped. “Arthur was my favourite character; you were...” Brienne trailed off. “But you’re just a huge disappointment."
With the sweep of her dress like a knight’s cloak, Brienne Tarth left to continue her journey down the red carpet. Jaime stood there like the biggest arsehole in all of Westeros. He was now left with two options: either Brienne Tarth was the greatest actress he had ever seen, or she truly had fought for him to be included in the show. 
Either way, he was wrong, and Jaime felt the sudden urge to discover what was right. 
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lady-divine-writes · 5 years
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Moral Arguments
Summary:
Crowley doesn't exactly take assignments anymore, but sometimes he does things for fun - like answering the call of a broken-hearted woman summoning a demon on St. Valentine's Day. But what Crowley thinks is going to be a simple hex-and-go turns into more emotionally charged than he bargained for.
Notes:
Inspired in part by this post.
(AO3)
“Creatures of the Underworld …”
“Yup. That’s me.”
“… on Earth and below …”
“Gotcha.”
“… I summon thee!”
Crowley throws up his hands in frustration. Ten more minutes of this, and he’s going to start pulling his hair out.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m summoned! I’m summoned! Let’s get a move on, will ya? I’m late for a date!”
“Demons of vengeance! Hear my plea! Do my bidding!”
“Let’s have at it then, girlie!”
“Lords of the Dark!”
“Oh, bollocks! Here we go again!”
“I, Samantha Westin of West Berkshire, call you to my aid!”
“Ugh!”
Crowley, hidden between a dresser and a closet, in a shadow created by several taper candles throwing light, slides down the bedroom wall and sits. He’d been summoned here, but not really. Only very specific spells can truly summon him. It’s not a simple matter of yelling out, “Oi! Demon! Get your bum over here! I need you to do something for me!”
If that were the case, he’d never get a moment’s peace.
But this was different – an amateur incantation but on a day of the year when demons get the greatest (and easiest) opportunity to make mischief – and Crowley appreciates easy; when people from all walks of life will call for a demon like they’re ordering take away and invite them into their homes with little to no thought of the consequences.
St. Valentine’s Day.
Crowley doesn’t do much in the way of official assignments for the big bosses anymore, but old habits die hard, and this one’s too tempting to resist. He’s running late for dinner with his angel, but this was going to be fun. He could risk being a few minutes late.
That’s what he’d originally thought.
He’s closing in on over half-an-hour.
Samantha leans over a book on the floor in front of her. She reads a bit, then jumps nervously. She grabs a container of salt by her knee and spills it out in a circle around her.
A protective ring –a boundary between her and any potential evil.
“Aw!” Crowley coos sarcastically to himself. “She fancies herself a white witch! How adorable!”
He has to give her some credit. Whatever book she bought, it’s from someone who knows an inkling of their stuff. Salt is effective against evil creatures, but only minor ones, like the insects of the demon world. Still, considering no one would want their house invaded by a horde of demonic termites or zombie ants, it’s nothing to sneeze at.
“Find a photograph of the offending and fix your eyes upon it.”
“Okay, okay.” Crowley sits up, wondering if he should miracle himself up a bag of crisps. “Finally! Things are gettin’ good.”
“Tear up the photograph,” she reads, “and proclaim his sins into the dark.” She takes a deep breath, then lets it out. “Okay. Here goes.”
She begins to tear the picture in half, then fourths, and Crowley rubs his hands excitedly together.
“So let’s see. What did this crank handle do, huh, Sammy? Stepped out with another bird, I’ll wager.”
Samantha carefully places the torn pieces of the photograph into a small wooden bowl, part of her arsenal of witchcraft paraphernalia, and sighs. “He left me for my twin sister.”
“Ding, ding, ding! Winner, winner, chicken dinner!” Crowley licks his finger and marks a single, sparking tally into the air. “Well, you should take that as a compliment, love, really. He left for someone who looks exactly like you.”
“He stole my car …”
“Oh, we’re not done.”
“… broke into my house …” She takes a long breath, shuddered by the onset of tears. “He killed my dog …”
The grin that had been spreading on Crowley’s face falls into an immediate frown. “For Satan’s sake! This prick should be working for us.”
The woman stops, bites her lower lip as the tears gathering around her heart begin to fall.
“He hit me. Not just once. Not just twice. And he … he …” Her voice fails her, but she mouths the words, and Crowley rises to his knees, subconsciously gearing up for a fight. This is a new instinct for him, being protective of anyone, specially a mortal. He’s known right and wrong from day one. He’s felt anger over the injustices he’s witnessed, even remorse over the ones he’s helped cause. But, for the most part, he’s been fine sitting on the sidelines, inconveniencing people when he could for the greater good.
It’s a grey area – thwarting a crime. In the end, someone gets hurt or killed. When you’re in the business of harvesting souls, the who doesn’t necessarily matter.
Crowley simply finds a way to harvest a bit more selectively than other demons.
“Holy fuck!” he groans, tossing his head back and staring up at the ceiling. “Why? Why me? This was supposed to be a simple little fun hex-and-go. What am I supposed to do now?”
The real question, he discovers with very little wracking of his brain, is what would Aziraphale do?
“Sprinkle rose water on the pieces of the photograph and set them on fire.”
A conflicted Crowley watches the young lady search for her flask of rose water. He’d seen it beside her a moment ago – a simple vessel of water with roses floating in it that she probably prepared herself. She suddenly seems to remember where she put it because she spins around quickly with an anxious look on her face, mumbling, “No, no, no! Crap!” before she finds it tipped over onto its side. “Dammit!” She examines the empty flask, wet rose petals plastered to the sides, the water that had been inside soaking into her rug. She shakes her head and sets the flask down. “Of course! Of course! Just my luck! Now what am I going to do?” She gets on her hands and knees and goes searching for something to replace the water with. She finds another bottle within reach of her salt circle and grabs it. She reads the label, then gives it a sniff. She consults her book, and shrugs.
“Smells like roses. This should do.”
Crowley squints from the darkness to catch a glimpse of the label. This bottle isn’t rose water. It’s perfume. Not expensive perfume. The kind one buys at a corner market along with their milk and eggs on the way home. Perfume of that caliber is usually teeming with alcohol.
Flammable alcohol.
He watches as she gives the bowl a few spritzes, a subtle floral aroma filling the air. Then she goes for broke, untwists the top, and empties the contents into the bowl. The scent of roses smacks him in the face like a freight train along with an undercurrent of sharp and chemical. She grabs a book of matches, tearing four from the inseam, and strikes them.
“Jesus Christmas! She’s going to light herself on fire!” Flashbacks fill his brain of a heat seared inside his memory like a wound that refuses, even with time and treatment, to heal. Crowley leaps to his feet and materializes from the shadows, rushing at her, waving his hands to get her attention. “Stop! Stop! For Satan’s sake, stop!”
Samantha’s head snaps up. She drops her matchbook and scuttles backward, stopping when her hands hit the salt. With a snap of his fingers, Crowley extinguishes the flame before it has a chance to ignite the bowl.
“What the ---? What the fuck?” Samantha screams. “Who the fuck are you?”
“I’m a demon!” Crowley pats his chest dramatically as if she might mistake something else for the demon and him for a coat rack. “You know, the one you’ve been summoning?”
“I---I don’t believe in demons!” she yells and for a moment, all of Crowley’s worries about this woman setting herself, her house, and her neighbors ablaze dies with the absurdity of that remark.
“I … huh … what!? If you don’t believe in demons, why the bloody heck are you trying to summon one then? That’s literally the stupidest … you don’t dabble in magicks, young lady! That’s even worse than knowing what you’re doing!”
“It ---it wasn’t supposed to be serious! It was a coping mechanism!”
“Don’t talk to me about coping mechanisms! My entire existence is about coping mechanisms! Don’t do that!” Crowley snaps, catching her with his magic before she can jump to her feet and dive onto her bed for her cell phone. The bed is halfway across the room. Making a break for it would have taken her out of her circle. “Don’t break the ring of salt! Even terrible spells need to be ended correctly!”
“What happens if they aren’t?” she asks, relaxing when he releases his hold over her.
“Trust me, you don’t want to know.”
“Yes, I want to know! I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t want to know!”
“Cheeky little …” he mutters, fishing his phone out of his pocket, realizing how much this young lady and his angel would get along. “Let’s just say if you don’t want to know what it feels like to have your brains liquefied inside your skull and then drunk by demon maggots, you’ll end this spell. Meanwhile, I’m gonna call in some reinforcements.”
“Reinforcements?” Samantha swallows hard. “L---like … more demons?”
“Luckily for you, no. I run with a different crowd.”
“How do I end the spell?”
“Jump to the bottom of the page,” he says, phone to his ear. “It’ll tell you---Aziraphale?”
This isn’t the way Crowley saw this going. Back in the old days, he’d hex the guy and be done with it – make him go bald with his head hair growing out his nose, give him a festering boil on his face that would never heal, make him severely and flatulently allergic to his favorite foods. Only thing was, unbeknownst to the young lady who summoned him, she would be damned, too. That wasn’t even a demonic rule. That one came from the good book itself. It was the kind of two-for-one demons delighted in.
One that came with a divine loophole.
But not anymore.
For some bizarre reason, he’s taking this personally.
“Crowley?” Aziraphale’s voice barks over the line. “What the heaven has happened to you? You’re nearly an hour late!”
“I know, angel, I know. I got caught up with work.”
“You’re working? Tonight!?”
“I’m sorry. I’ll explain when I get there.” Crowley glances down at Samantha, reading through the spell, sniffling as the words take her back to why she was doing what she was doing a moment before. “I’ll be bringing work home with me. I need a little help.”
***
“There, there, dear,” Aziraphale says, handing Samantha a cup of tea. “Let’s talk this out, hmm? Tell us everything, and then we can come up with a solution.”
It took Aziraphale close to an hour over the phone to convince Samantha to get into Crowley’s Bentley and accompany him to his bookshop. When he did, he made Crowley swear he’d obey the posted speed limits.
When they arrived in under fifteen minutes, Aziraphale knew he hadn’t.
Remarkable seeing as they stopped along the way to pick up a friend.
“The solution is we should call the police!” Anathema says, bringing over a plate of cookies.
“I … I tried.” Samantha takes the plate with a small but grateful smile. “Everything he’s done, even with the evidence I have against him, and it’s still a his word against mine sort of situation. It’s almost like the police don’t want to listen. Like they think it’s not worth their time.”
“Sounds about right,” Anathema reluctantly admits, dropping onto a nearby sofa and accepting a glass of whiskey from an angrily hissing Crowley as he paces the floor.
Aziraphale watches on with sympathetic eyes. He’d asked Crowley in private why? Why did this mean so much to him? With everything he’d done in the past, why did this one woman’s plight trigger such a strong response? Crowley had confessed that he didn’t know, but mumbled something about those abusing the vulnerable beginning to get under his skin.
“So, what do you suggest, angel?” Crowley asks, peeking up when he feels his husband’s eyes on him. “What does it say in the rule book about dealing with a situation like this when the supposed good guys sit around with their thumbs up their arses?”
“Normally, I would recommend gentle persuasion, and if that doesn’t work, then a little forceful persuasion,” Aziraphale says. “But as I don’t feel the man in question would be receptive to that, and the authorities aren’t in the mood to help, maybe we should skip the usual steps and jump to the end.”
“And what’s the end?” Samantha looks nervously from Aziraphale to Anathema, then to Crowley staring at the man in white with a disbelief that erases the color from his face. All three have gone quiet, but they’ve seem to come to the same conclusion, and it stuns at least two of them.
Samantha is obviously missing something big.
“Well, you did summon a demon, my dear,” Aziraphale says kindly, but with a grave nod to his husband. “I’d say it’s about time that demon got to work.”
“Are you serious?” Anathema yelps, but not in a way that indicates she disagrees. In fact, she looks fully on board with this plan – whatever it is.
“What about the whole damnation clause thing?” Crowley asks in a lower than low whisper.
“Find a loophole, my dear. That’s what you do.”
Crowley grins, impressed at the ability of his innocent Aziraphale to straddle the grey line as well as he. During a discussion about guns, his angel had once said that they lend weight to a moral argument when wielded by the right people. He wonders if this falls under the same category. “Right. And what about dinner?”
Aziraphale escorts his demon to the door, kissing him softly on the lips before showing him out. “It’ll keep.”
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thisentertaining · 6 years
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The Way of Models- Stormlight Archives Fanfiction
Characters: Adolin/Shallan, Jakamav/Inkima
Summary: Adolin can’t wait to be featured in a televised fashion design competition, but a bet with his friends may make things a little more difficult. 
Modern AU with Roshar elements. Basically I couldn’t commit to either so I did a little melding. It’s basically modern technology on Roshar. Also men can read. I don’t mention Spren but they could be around. 
_____
Jakamav accepted his wine with a wide grin to the waitress that was returned with a well-practiced, if insincere, smile in reply. Adolin accepted his drink with a smile of his own, though he kept his eyes on his friend.
“I hear congratulations are in order, you made it onto the show.” Jakamav said, turning up the collar of his green sportscoat.
“Finally,” Adolin said with a broad grin. “I think they’ve just been trying to get a name for themselves before calling in the real stars. Smart if you ask me, every other season of ‘The Look’ will pale in comparison after they see what I’m capable of.”
The Look was a competition-based reality show highlighting the best and brightest upcoming fashion designers and models in Roshar. For 10 weeks designers would be given a particular theme for inspiration for a single outfit that their models would wear down the runway, with one team getting eliminated each week until the three best would have a full show. The fairly new show was quickly gaining in popularity boosted by live online audience voting. This year they were trying to become more interactive than ever as the competitors were tasked with staging and photographing a photo shoot to promote outfits for side-challenges. The pictures would be posted to social media for the public to vote on, with the winners given an advantage in the next challenge. As a model, Jakamav knew very well what the next few months would entail.
He looked forward to it. He knew that he was handsome, and that he wore clothing well. He was already growing a name for himself on the ‘best dressed’ lists at the kings banquets and other high society events. There was only one problem, well two really. First, none of the outfit’s he’d gained ‘best dressed’ notoriety with were designed by his girlfriend Inkima, and she was to be his designer for the competition. Second, Adolin really was good at what he did. He may not be as good as he thought he was, but he was good. He knew color better than Inkima, and he was more creative. He would be a great contender, a greater one than Jakamav really cared to go up against.
“And you and Inkima of course,” Adolin suddenly added, as though noting his faux pas. “With all of us competing at once, it will be a season to remember.”
Clunky recovery, lacking any poise or subtlety. Jakamav wished the highprince’s designs were as ill-refined as his politicking.  
“Of course.” Jakamav said, indicating to the waitress that they wanted another drink. “And I assume Shallan will be joining you?” That would be good at least. Sure the girl was pretty, but the man thought her hair wasn’t nearly as refined as the Alethi black, and her freckles may cause problems as well.
Adolin grinned stupidly at the mention of his girlfriend. Storms, but the man had it bad. “Yes, but not as my model. She wanted to be my assistant.”
Jakamav’s nose wrinkled in confusion. He never understood Shallan. What girl would rather be an assistant than a model? Didn’t all girls want to be models? All girls aside from Shallan, apparently. “An assistant? Really?”
“She is a master with makeup. You should see it sometime, she can look like a completely different person. It’s incredible. Plus, she’s good with lighting and stuff, she’ll be good for all of the… you know, new stuff. Who’s going to be Inkima’s assistant.”
“Danlan offered.” Jakamav took care to watch Adolin’s reaction at dropping the name of his ex so abruptly, but the other man was so caught up in thinking about his current girlfriend that he hardly seemed to notice. Oh well, the way Adolin went through women, they would probably break up before the third episode was through. That would be give Inkima an edge then.
Adolin nodded and took a long draw of his drink to empty it as the waitress came to refill it. The man’s head was starting to bob to the music of the live band on the stage, likely already feeling the effects of the strong drink.
“And your model?” Jakamav asked, settling back into his chair.
“I’m not sure yet. I’m thinking of finding someone online, maybe putting an add out at an agency.”
Well that was interesting. Jakamav wasn’t nearly as good at manipulations as his girlfriend, but Adolin was a fairly easy target, maybe he could nudge the man a little. “Hmm. It’s not exactly fair though, is it?”
“What?”
“You, having the cream of the crop of models to choose from. You’re the nephew to the king, son of the Blackthorn the greatest martial artist of all time, a master duelist, one of Roshar’s most famous eligible bachelors even without the show. You could show models a sack and they would pretend it was an honor to model for you. Even if the rules do state you have to use an amateur, you’re going to end up with the best of the best. No matter the other’s designs, you’ll have an edge.”
Adolin snorted. The combination of his euphoria at getting accepted, Jakamav’s compliments, the pulsing beat of the nightclub music, and the intoxicating wine was beginning to get to him. That much was obvious to the other man. It was making him overconfident, cocky. It was prime breeding ground for the manipulative Alethi brighteye. “Please,” The blonde-and-black haired man said. “I could make anyone look good, and I mean anyone.”
Jakamav scoffed. “Please, we both know you say that, but you’ll choose some light-eyed beauty whose been practicing modeling for years.”
“No man, I’m serious. I guarantee that I could win with anyone.”
“Fine. How about we make this interesting then, eh?”
“Fine. Choose anyone here, anyone, and I guarantee I’ll win with them as my model.”
Jakamav grinned. This was perfect. He hadn’t been sure how Adolin would react to his prying, but this was perfect. A guarantee like that could mean only one thing: a bet. Jakamav was certainly a gambling man. The brightlord thought for a moment, what could the payment be though? Adolin was so confident, this could be an excellent moment for some political dealings. There was some tension between his house and Dalinar’s at the moment. Oh, but that was so boring. Also, if the stakes were too high even Adolin wouldn’t agree to the bet. Adolin swiped a lock of black-blonde hair out of his eyes and Jakamav grinned. That would be perfect.
“Fine then, I will choose your model. If you lose though, you have to shave your head.” Adolin gaped at his friend, completely aghast, and Jakamav grinned. This was probably actually higher stakes to Adolin than any kind of political subterfuge. “That is, unless you don’t think you can do it.”
The kholin bristled. “No, I’ll win with whoever you pick. When I do, you have to shave your head.” Jakamav froze. Maybe these stakes were too high. Adolin grinned at him. “Well? Pick your champion.”
Jakamav looked around and his heart began to sink. This is why he usually let Inkima plan stuff like this. OF course he would make this challenge in one of the kingdoms most exclusive clubs. No one could even get in unless they were rich, beautiful, young lighteyes. None of the clientele would have any issues being a fantastic model, and none of them would even consider passing up the chance to grow in the esteem of the Kholins. Who then, should he pick? Someone who he knew to be annoying and argumentative? Someone in his pocket that he could easily bribe? Perhaps a beautiful woman that would be sure to draw Adolin’s eye and hasten his and Shallan’s falling out?
Wait, was that- perfect. Jakamav pointed with a smirk. “Him.”
____
Adolin followed his friend’s pointing finger and froze. “The bouncer?” He asked, incredulous.
Jakamav was pointing at a well-muscled darkeyed man standing at the entrance to the club. The man’s stance bespoke of strength and aggression as he eyed the lighteyes in line to get in with a discerning gaze. His uniform, while well cared for, was obviously worn, as though he wore it every night because he didn’t own alternatives. His eyes were dark brown and what looked liked prison tattoos peeked out from where the tank top revealed his shoulders and back.
It was obvious that had he not been an employee, the man would not have been allowed within ten miles of the place without someone calling the police on the ‘ruffian loitering around the high-end district’. Worst of all though was his expression. It was as though a storm cloud had become trapped in the man’s face, dangerous and volatile. Adolin doubted that the man could do anything but scowl, he certainly was not the type to ‘smile for the camera’.
His friend grinned. “Yeah, him. I thought you wanted a challenge. Oh and look, he’s going on break now. You’d better hurry, this may be your only chance.”
Looking up, the highprince could see that the bouncer was being replaced with an equally intimidating man, though the new guy’s scowl could never compare to the original’s. Jakamav clearly wasn’t going to change his mind. Adolin stood and hastily began walking towards where the bouncer was headed, determined to beat the man to the employees only area.
The man was walking with a quick, purposeful stride, but wasn’t actively trying to hurry like Adolin was so the brighteyes managed to catch up quickly. The designer stepped in front of the man with a large smile, putting every ounce of charm he had into the expression.
“Hi, I’m Adolin. Nice to meet you.”
The bouncer gave him a flat look in reply, “I’m not letting your underage friends in, I don’t care how much you pay me.”
“No, no” Adolin laughed, “That’s not it, I just wanted to ask you about something.”
“I also have no interest in being the ‘darkeye’ notch on your headboard.”
“No!” Adolin blushed. “That’s not what I, no. You misunderstand. I have a proposition for you.”
“My answer stands.” The bouncer said, just as flat as the first time he spoke. “Also, no, I don’t know who you are and why you are so incredibly important. Nor do I care. I also don’t care if you complain to the manager about me. I’m hired here because I don’t give into the whims of lighteyes like you. I suggest you give up.” He tried to side-step around Adolin, but the highprince blocked his path.
“Please, just hear me out.” The bouncer sighed. He remained in the spot, though he did it with the air of someone dealing with a difficult customer and didn’t want to get fired. Refusing Adolin was one thing. Walking away from a lighteved customer who wanted his attention would be another.
Adolin realized that this man would not be impressed by his charm nor his position. No, the plain, blunt truth would best serve him here. Though few other highprinces used it, Adolin knew what a powerful tool the truth could be. It was what had interested Shallan at least. “I am a contestant on ‘The Look’ next season. Do you watch it?”
The bouncer raised one, unimpressed brown and Adolin deflated. Right. He didn’t seem like the fashion show type. The young lord coughed awkwardly. “Right. Uh, anyway, My friend and I just made a bet that he could pick anyone as my model and I’d still win the show. Loser has to shave his head. He picked you.”
“Then I suggest you find a nice hat.” The man tried to get around Adolin again, and the brighteyes started sputtering.
“But this is a chance to be on TV! It’s one of the highest rated shows of the year, you’d be famous!”
“I’d want that, why?” The man was scowling even fiercer now, which Adolin wouldn’t have thought was possible. He also didn’t have any idea how to respond to the man’s question. Why wouldn’t he want that? He glanced over at Jakamav in despair, but the other man just held two fingers up in a way that looked vaguely like a pair of scissors and pretended to cut his hair. Adolin grimaced.
“I’ll give you all of the prize money if we win! Every cent.” Shallan was going to kill him. Oh, Shallan, speaking of. “My girlfriend is kinda sorta related to Sebariel, the owner of this club.” Or not related. He was very confused about that relationship, but he’d long since stopped questioning Shallan. “I can guarantee that you can come right back to your job afterwards.”
The man’s dark look remained, and for a moment it looked like he was going to give another curt reply and walk off, but then he paused and looked thoughtful. The man sighed heavily, as though the next words were being rung out of him. “How much?”
“Huh?”
“How much is the prize money?”
“500 Ruby Broams. And we’ll win. I know it, I’m the best.”
The stranger looked physically pained by the boasting, but his lips moved and Adolin could almost see him making calculations in his head about what that amount could gain him. “That’s two months, right? After that I get back to my normal life?”
“Yes! Yes, I promise. All the prize if we win, and your job waiting for you guaranteed.” The money would have been nice, but neither he nor Shallan really needed it. She was going to give him an earful, but it would be fine.
He hoped. 
The bouncer sighed. “I must be a storming fool.” He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a single black and white business card. ‘Bridge 4 Bodyguards, Bouncers, and Catering services.’ Under the title was a single phone number. “Call sometime tomorrow. If I don’t pick up, ask for Kaladin.”
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TIME magazine - January 31, 1955 Cover illustration by Boris Chaliapin
THE GIRL IN WHITE GLOVES
Almost every morning, a slim figure in a polo coat, leading a small black poodle on a leash, emerges from one of Manhattan's cliff houses on East 66th Street. The doorman gives her a cheery “Good Morning, Miss Kelly.” But outside, no head turns. For, in her low-heeled shoes and horn-rimmed spectacles, Actress Grace Kelly is all but indistinguishable from any other well-scrubbed young woman of the station-wagon set, armored in good manners, a cool expression, and the secure knowledge that whatever happens, Daddy can pay.
A few blocks away, Grace Kelly's name is emblazoned on two first-run Broadway houses, and the same face, without spectacles, makes husbands sigh and wives think enviously that they might look that way too, if only they could afford a really good hairdo. In Hollywood, producers fight over her, directors beg for her, writers compose special scripts for her. In an industry where the girls can be roughly divided into young beauties and aging actresses, Grace Kelly is something special: a young (25) beauty who can act.
A year ago, Grace Patricia Kelly was only a promising newcomer (generally thought to be English), who lost Clark Gable to Ava Gardner in Mogambo. Currently, she is the acknowledged “hottest property” in Hollywood. In Manhattan this year, the New York Film Critics pronounced her acting in The Country Girl “the outstanding performance of 1954.”
CAN’T TOUCH HER
Grace Kelly, with the lovely blonde hair, chiseled features, blue eyes and an accent that is obviously refined, is a startling change from the run of smoky film sirens and bumptious cuties. Said one Hollywood observer: “Most of these dames just suggest Kinsey statistics. But if a guy in a movie theater starts mooning about Grace, there could be nothing squalid about it; his wife would have to be made to understand that it was something fine - and bigger than all of them. Her peculiar talent, you might say, is that she inspires licit passion."
From the day in 1951 when she walked into Director Fred Zinnemann's office wearing prim white gloves ("Nobody came to see me before wearing white gloves"), the well-bred Miss Grace Kelly of Philadelphia has baffled Hollywood. She is a rich girl who has struck it rich. She was not discovered behind a soda fountain or at a drive-in. She is a star who was never a starlet, who never worked up from B pictures, never posed for cheesecake, was never elected, with a press agent's help, Miss Antiaircraft Battery C. She did not gush or twitter or desperately pull wires for a chance to get in the movies. Twice she turned down good Hollywood contracts. When she finally signed on the line, she forced mighty M-G-M itself to grant her special terms. Beamed a New York friend: “Here, for the first time in history, is a babe that Hollywood can't get to. Can't touch her with money, can't touch her with big names. Only thing they can offer her is good parts.”
STEEL INSIDES
She has managed to get the parts. In the short space of 18 months, she has been paired with six of Hollywood's biggest box office male stars - Clark Gable, Ray Milland, James Stewart, William Holden, Bing Crosby, Cary Grant. These seasoned veterans have learned to view with a jaundiced eye the pretty young newcomers assigned to play opposite them. Grace, as usual, was different. Says Holden, one of Hollywood's ablest pros: “With some actresses, you have to keep snapping them to attention like a puppy. Grace is always concentrating. In fact, she sometimes keeps me on the track.” Says Jimmy Stewart: "She's easy to play to. You can see her thinking the way she's supposed to think in the role. You know she's listening, and not just for cues. Some actresses don't think and don't listen. You can tell they're just counting the words.”
Outside the studio, Grace continued to disregard the Hollywood rules. She was friendly, but she refused to court the important columnists. Interviewers who tried to get her to open up came away swearing that they would rather tackle a train window anytime. One producer grumbled that she had “stainless steel insides.” She flatly refused to divulge even the standard data (bust, waist, hips). One columnist asked routinely whether she wore nightgowns. “I think it's nobody's business what I wear to bed,” she said coolly. “A person has to keep something to herself, or your life is just a layout in a magazine."
In the end, publicists had to content themselves with tagging Miss Kelly as “a Main Line debutante.” She is neither Main Line nor a debutante, but she is the next thing to both.
THE BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE
In Philadelphia, the Kellys are about as conspicuous as the 30th Street Station, which, like many of the city's major structures, bears the credit: Brickwork by Kelly. Handsome, athletic John B. Kelly, Grace's father, the son of a farm boy from County Mayo, began business life as a bricklayer. Eventually, he parlayed a borrowed $7,000 into the nation's biggest brickwork construction company. One of his brothers was George Kelly, Pulitzer Prizewinning playwright (Craig's Wife); another was Walter Kelly, the famed “Virginia Judge” of the vaudeville circuits.
All the Kellys, says a friend, are “beautiful, physical people.” Father Jack was a champion sculler; Grace's mother (who is of German descent) was a model, later the first woman physical education instructor at the University of Pennsylvania. Father Jack, who still takes his athletics seriously, went to England in 1920 to compete at Henley. But the Henley committee ruled that he could not compete because he had once “worked with his hands" and was therefore not a “gentleman.” He went on to the Olympics, where he soundly thrashed the Henley winner, and triumphantly sent his sweaty green rowing cap to King George V of England with his compliments. The moment his son John B. Jr. (“Kell") was born in 1927, Jack resolved that he would win at Henley; he began training the boy personally at the age of seven. In 1947 Kell righted an old wrong done his family by going to Henley in the colors of the University of Pennsylvania and scoring an impressive victory for Penn and Pop.
CHURCH & ATHLETICS
Of the three Kelly daughters, Peggy was the oldest and a cut-up, Lizanne the youngest and an extrovert. Grace, the middle one, born Nov. 12, 1929, was shy, quiet, and for years snuffled with a chronic cold. The big, 15-room house in plain East Falls, across the Schuylkill River from the Main Line, was the meeting place for the whole neighborhood. “There was a lawn out back with swings and a sandbox, a tennis court and the usual things like that,” says Grace. Summers, the Kelly family had a house on the Jersey shore at Ocean City. As regularly as she marched the children to St. Bridget's Roman Catholic Church every Sunday, Mrs. Kelly marched them off to the Penn Athletic Club for workouts. "There's a certain discipline in athletic work,” says Mrs. Kelly. “That's why Grace can accustom herself to routine and responsibility.” Sister Peg organized home theatricals. "Somebody else always got the lead,” Grace recalls, without rancor. Even then remote and self-absorbed, Grace used to write poetry, some serious, some "little gooney ones” that showed a neat turn of phrase. Sample, written when she was 14:
I hate to see the sun go down And squeeze itself into the ground, Since some warm night it might get stuck And in the morning not get up.
Little Grace went to the local Ravenhill convent school, then to Stevens School in Germantown. By the time she was eleven, she was appearing in a local amateur dramatic company. Turned down by Bennington (she flunked math), Grace got herself into the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York. From the first, her family was dubious about an acting career. “We'd hoped she would give it up,” says her mother. Snorts Father Kelly: “Those movie people lead pretty shallow lives.”
THE “CLEAN” WAY
But Grace knew what she wanted. To assure her independence, she got a job modeling, was soon making $400 a week posing for Ipana, beer ads, Old Golds. Photographer Ruzzie Green describes her as “what we call ‘nice clean stuff’ in our business. She's not a top model and never will be. She's the girl next door. No glamour, no oomph, no cheesecake. She has lovely shoulders but no chest. Grace is like Bergman in the 'clean’ way. She can do that smush stuff in movies - remember all those little kisses in Rear Window? - and get away with it.” A friend remembers her at this period as “terribly sedate, always wore tweed suits and a hat-with-a-veil kind of thing. She had any number of sensible shoes, even some with those awful flaps on front.”
She did TV commercials (“I was terrible - honestly, anyone watching me give the pitch for Old Golds would have switched to Camels"), doggedly made the rounds of summer stock (New Hope and Denver) and casting offices. “I've read for almost everything that's been cast. I even read for the ingenue part in The Country Girl on Broadway (left out in the movie ). The producer told me I really wasn't the ingenue type, that I was too intelligent looking.”
Then she read for the daughter's part in Strindberg's grim The Father. She got the part and won good notices, but the play lasted only two months. Grace went back to TV (“summer stock in an iron lung") to play in such varied offerings as Studio One, Treasury Men in Action, Philco Playhouse and Lights Out.
FIRST FAN
Once before and once shortly after she left dramatic school, Grace turned down $250-a-week movie contracts: “I didn't want to be just another starlet.” Now Hollywood reached for her again but failed to get a firm grip. Director Henry Hathaway gave her a bit part as the lady negotiating a divorce across the street from the man on the ledge in Fourteen Hours. But she refused a contract; she did not feel ready yet. She did accept a one-shot offer from Producer Stanley Kramer for the part of Gary Cooper's young wife in High Noon.
Fourteen Hours produced her first fan, a high-school girl in Oregon who started a fan club and kept Grace posted on new members. Grace thought it a hilarious joke. “We've got a new girl in Washington,” she would cry in triumph. “I think she's ours, sewed up.” In High Noon her finishing-school accent sat awkwardly amongst the western drawls, and her beauty made little impact. What was more, from High Noon determined Grace Kelly got her first real self-doubts about her planned progress. Says she: “With Gary Cooper, everything is so clear. You look into his face and see everything he is thinking. I looked into my own face and saw nothing. I knew what I was thinking, but it didn't show. For the first time, I suddenly thought, ‘Perhaps I'm not going to be a great star, perhaps I'm not any good after all.’” Grace hustled back to New York to learn how to make it show.
THE “TOO” CATEGORY
She was still learning (with Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse) when 20th Century-Fox called her to test for a role in a film called Taxi. Dressed in an old skirt and a man's shirt on her way to class, “I walked into Gregory Ratoff's office, and he threw up his arms and screamed, 'She's perfect.' In all my life, no one has ever said, 'You are perfect.' People have been confused about my type, but they agreed on one thing: I was in the “too” category - too tall, too leggy, too chinny. And Ratoff kept yelling around, 'What I love about this girl, she's not pretty.’” But the producer did not like her, and another girl got the role.
Director John Ford saw the test, however, and wanted her for Mogambo. Even then, Grace did not come running. When M-G-M offered her a seven-year contract starting at $750 a week, she demanded a year off every two years for a play, and permission to go back to New York, instead of hanging around Hollywood, whenever she finished a picture. She was only 22, and all but unknown. But M-G-M agreed to her terms. Says Grace: “I wanted Mogambo for three things: John Ford, Clark Gable, and a free trip to Africa.”
In Africa, Grace picked up a lot of film technique from Ford and developed a hero worship for Gable. Ford was soon predicting that she would be a star. For her performance as the cool English wife stirred to sudden and thwarted passion for White Hunter Gable, Grace won a “best supporting role” nomination for the Academy Award.
RESTRAINT & CONTROL
M-G-M still seemed uncertain about what to do with her. But Alfred Hitchcock, also impressed by the Taxi test, snapped her up for Dial M for Murder, then for Rear Window. Says Hitchcock: “From the Taxi test, you could see Grace's potential for restraint. I always tell actors don't use the face for nothing. Don't start scribbling over the sheet of paper until we have something to write. We may need it later. Grace has this control. It's a rare thing for a girl at such an age.” Director George Seaton adds: “Grace doesn't throw everything at you in the first five seconds. Some girls give you everything they've got at once, and there it is -  there is no more. But Grace is like a kaleidoscope: one twist, and you get a whole new facet.”
Under Hitchcock's expert direction, Grace bloomed in Rear Window. As a sleek young career girl, she distilled a tingling essence of what Hitchcock has called “sexual elegance.” She was learning her trade. The way she walked, spoke and combed her hair had a sureness that gives moviegoers a comfortable feeling: she would never make them wince with some awkwardness of misplaced gaucherie. Exhibitors, who know a good thing when they see the turnstiles click, began dropping Hitchcock and Stewart from their marquees and advertised simply: “Grace Kelly in Rear Window.” In Hollywood, the stampede was on.
MORE THAN BEAUTIFUL
When the stampede started, Grace was in a bathing suit dutifully splashing around a Japanese bathhouse as Navy Pilot Bill Holden's wife in The Bridges at Toko-Ri (a movie that does little for Grace except establish the fact that she has a better figure than normally meets the eye). At about the same time, Paramount's producer-director team of William Perlberg and George Seaton got word that Jennifer Jones, scheduled to play the title role in their next picture, The Country Girl, had become pregnant. They asked M-G-M to lend them Grace. This time M-G-M said no. Grace still gets angry when she thinks about it. She went to her agent, says Perlberg, and told him: “If I can't do this picture, I'll get on the train and never come back. I'll quit the picture business. I'll never make another film.” Actress Kelly had her way. M-G-M lent her out to Paramount again, but this time jumped the price from the $20,000 charged for Toko-Ri to $50,000 and demanded that she give M-G-M an extra picture (her contract calls for only three a year).  
The Country Girl was final proof that she is more than merely beautiful. The well-bred girl from Philadelphia is completely convincing as the slatternly, embittered wife of aging, alcoholic Matinee Idol Bing Crosby. She slouches around with her glowing hair gone dull, her glasses stuck on top of her head, her underlip sullen, resentment in the very sag of her shoulders and the dangle of her arms. She looks dreadful. Said Seaton: “You know that old cardigan sweater she wears? Well, a lot of actresses would say, 'Well, why don't we just put a few rhinestones here? I want to look dowdy, of course, but this woman has taste... and before you know it, she'd look like a million dollars. But not Grace. Grace wanted to be authentic.”
Bing Crosby, a little nervous himself at undertaking so exacting a dramatic role, was dubious about his untried costar and said so. But before the shooting was over, Crosby was telling Seaton, “Never let me open my big mouth again,” and talking of taking Grace out dancing.
BAGS PACKED
Hollywood is now eager to adopt Actress Kelly, white gloves and all, and is trying hard, with the air of an ill-at-ease lumberjack worrying whether he is using the right spoon. But Grace shows no interest in the Hollywood way of life, or even in having the customary swimming pool ("I don't swim that much"). Thus far, she has lived with a sister or a girlfriend in a furnished, two-room North Hollywood apartment, acting as if she considered herself on location, with her bags packed ready to go back to New York.
Young men who are eager to brighten her after-hours life come away baffled. “If she doesn't think a joke is funny," one complained, “she doesn't laugh." Wolves are discouraged when Grace briskly pulls on her glasses (her lovely blue eyes are nearsighted) and assumes her Philadelphia expression. Some suspect that she is, as Oscar Wilde put it, “a sphinx without secrets." Publicity men despair of her. “A Grace Kelly anecdote?” said a friend. “I don't think Grace would allow an anecdote to happen to her.”
A few of Hollywood's older, more sought-after men have concluded, from time to time, that they were just the boys destined to discover and unlock the real Grace. Each time, Grace has resisted unlocking, though whenever her father reads in a column of a new “romantic attachment,” the family gets alarmed. “I don't like that sort of thing much," snorts father Kelly. “I'd like to see Grace married. These people in Hollywood think marriage is like a game of musical chairs." When the gossips reported that Ray Milland was leaving his wife for Grace, mother Kelly hustled out to California to set things straight. Milland insists that he only took her to dinner once; Grace says nothing. Most recently Grace's escort has been Dress Designer Oleg Cassini, onetime husband of Gene Tierney and professional man-about-ladies. The Kellys deplore all such gossip-column romances. "I don't generally approve of these oddballs she goes out with,” grumps brother Kell, who is still national sculling champion and works for his father's company between workouts on the Schuylkill. “I wish she would go out with the more athletic type. But she doesn't listen to me anymore.”
Some of Grace's admirers fear that M-G-M may do to her what the studio did to Deborah Kerr - lash her down to "lady" roles and keep her there. Even after The Country Girl, the best M-G-M could think of was to assign Grace to Green Fire (which she did as her part of the bargain on Country Girl) and then offer her Quentin Durward. Grace, who sees the satin-lined trap as clearly as anyone, refused the Durward part after reading the script. “All the men can duel and fight, but all I'd do would be to wear 35 different costumes, look pretty and frightened. There are eight people chasing me: the old man, robbers, the head gypsy and Durward. The stage directions on every page of the script say, 'She clutches her jewel box and flees.’ I just thought I'd be so bored..."
RELUCTANT SCENERY
While waiting for M-G-M to think again, Grace retired to her three-room apartment in a huge, modern building in Manhattan (masonry by Kelly), where she lives alone with her poodle puppy, Oliver. Her amusements range from photography (she develops her own negatives, sloshing around her bathroom in the dark) to word games.  A favorite game is one devised by Alfred Hitchcock when he met Lizabeth Scott and got to wondering what would happen if other people dropped the first letter of their names: Rank Sinatra, Scar Hammerstein, Reer Garson, Orgie Raft, Ickey Rooney. Four times a week she puts her hair up into a ponytail, dons a leotard, and goes off to classes in modern dancing and ballet. Wandering near Broadway, she avoided the Broadway theater where M-G-M publicized Green Fire with a huge poster of a bosomy girl in sexy green drapery with Grace's head but another girl's body. “It makes me so mad,” says Grace. “And the dress isn't even in the picture.”  
Last week M-G-M's Production Boss Dore Schary summoned Grace to Hollywood to propose a new picture - a western with Spencer Tracy scheduled to costar. After two days of talk, Grace was still noncommittal; she would wait, she said coolly, until she had seen the completed script.
It is possible that Grace might yet win an Oscar for her Country Girl performance, and even M-G-M would have a hard time turning an Oscar-winning actress into a road-company Greer Garson. Furthermore, Actress Kelly is determined that that will not happen to her. Says she, setting her beautiful chin: “I don't want to dress up a picture with just my face. If anybody starts using me as scenery, I'll do something about it.” If all else fails, Grace could conceivably break her contract and return to television. Or she could try the stage, where acting talent counts for more, and the competition is tougher. She could always give up the whole thing for the role of wealthy young socialite. But if her studio mentors are wise, and if Grace is as wary as she has so far proved to be, the young beauty from Philadelphia may yet become an authentic jewel in Hollywood's tinsel crown.
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classyfoxdestiny · 3 years
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FREEZE! Animals on the Prowl
FREEZE! Animals on the Prowl
If you thought human beings were expressive, take a look at these animals; they beat us hollow!
And, to prove that, it is that time of the year again — The Wildlife Photographer of the Year contest.
Developed and produced by the Natural History Museum, London, it offers a peek into the lives of various animal species from around the world.
The exhibition, which is held at the Natural History Museum, opens on October 15, 2021.
This year’s competition attracted over 50,000 entries from professionals and amateurs across 95 countries.
The winners will be announced via a virtual awards ceremony, streamed from the Natural History Museum on October 12.
Take a look at some of the stunning entries.
  Please click on the images below for a better look.
The Great Swim
IMAGE: When the Tano Bora coalition of male cheetahs leapt into the raging Talek River in Kenya’s Maasai Mara, Dilini feared they would not make it.
Unseasonable, relentless rain (possibly linked to the changing climate) had, by January 2020, caused the worst flooding local elders had ever known.
Cheetahs are strong (if not keen) swimmers and with the prospect of more prey on the other side of the river, they were determined.
Dilini followed them for hours from the opposite bank as they searched for a crossing point.
Male cheetahs are mostly solitary but sometimes stay with their brothers or team up with unrelated males.
The Tano Bora (Maasai for ‘magnificent five’) is an unusually large coalition, thought to comprise two pairs of brothers, joined later by a single male.
‘A couple of times the lead cheetah waded into the river, only to turn back,’ says Dilini.
Calmer stretches — perhaps with a greater risk of lurking crocodiles — were spurned. ‘Suddenly, the leader jumped in,’ she says.
Three followed and, then, finally the fifth. Dilini watched them being swept away by the torrents, faces grimacing.
Against her expectations and much to her relief, all five made it. They emerged onto the bank some 100 metres (330 feet) downstream and headed straight off to hunt.
Photograph: Buddhilini de Soyza/Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2021
  Net Loss
IMAGE: In the wake of a fishing boat, a slick of dead and dying herrings covers the surface of the sea off the coast of Norway.
The boat had caught too many fish and when the encircling wall of the purse-seine net was closed and winched up, it broke, releasing tons of crushed and suffocated animals.
Audun was on board a Norwegian coastguard vessel, on a project to satellite-tag killer whales.
The whales follow the migrating herrings and are frequently found alongside fishing boats, where they feed on the fish that leak out of the nets.
For the Norwegian coastguard — responsible for surveillance of the fishing fleet — the spectacle of carnage and waste was effectively a crime scene. So Audun’s photographs became the visual evidence in a court case that resulted in a conviction and fine for the owner of the boat.
Overfishing is one of the biggest threats to ocean ecosystems. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, more than 60 per cent of fisheries today are either ‘fully fished’ or collapsed; almost 30 per cent are at their limit (‘overfished’).
Norwegian spring-spawning herring — part of the Atlantic herring population complex — was in the nineteenth century the most commercially fished fish population in the North Atlantic; by the end of the 1960s, it had been fished almost to extinction.
This is regarded as a classic example of how a combination of bad management, little knowledge and greed can have a devastating and sometimes permanent effect, not only on the species itself but on the whole ecosystem.
The Atlantic herring came close to extinction. It took 20 years and a near-ban on fishing for the populations to recover, though it is still considered vulnerable to overfishing.
The recovery of the herring has been followed by an increase in the numbers of their predators, such as killer whales, but it is a recovery that needs continued monitoring of herring numbers and fisheries, as Audun’s picture shows.
Photograph: Audun Rikardsen/Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2021
  Raw Moment
IMAGE: Bright red blood dripped from her muzzle – oxygenated blood, indicating that her wildebeest meal was still alive.
Perhaps being inexperienced, this young lioness had not made a clean kill and had begun eating the still struggling animal.
Now, with a paw holding it down, she gave Lara an intense stare.
More than two million wildebeest move through the north of Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park on their annual migration in search of greener grass, providing the Serengeti lions with a seasonal glut of food.
Lara had spotted the lioness just as she pounced.
Lions’s primary hunting strategy is stalking, but this one had just been resting in the long grass when the wildebeest wandered by.
‘She was already quite full,’ says Lara, ‘probably after feeding the night before, but she grabbed the opportunity for an easy meal.’
Though most successful when hunting with a pride, a single lion can bring down an animal twice its weight.
A lion would usually pull it down backwards or sideways and then lunge for the throat or nose, gripping firmly until the victim could no longer cause injury with flailing horns or hooves.
Lying in a specially adapted vehicle, with the sides folded down, Lara framed her low-angle close-up. Her arresting portrait captures the rawness of the moment and the intensity of the lioness’s stare.
She didn’t eat much, says Lara, before leaving the kill to walk off with the male whom she had been lying up with, seemingly more interested in mating than feeding.
Photograph: Lara Jackson/Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2021
  Apollo Landing
IMAGE: As dusk starts to fall, an Apollo butterfly settles on an oxeye daisy.
Emelin had long dreamed of photographing the Apollo, a large mountain butterfly with a wingspan up to 90 millimetres (31/2 inches) and now one of Europe’s threatened butterflies, at risk from the warming climate and extreme weather events.
In summer, on holiday in the Haut-Jura Regional Nature Park, on the French-Swiss border, Emelin found himself surrounded by alpine meadows full of butterflies, including Apollos. Though slow flyers, the Apollos were constantly on the move.
The solution was this roost, in a woodland clearing, where the butterflies were settling. But a breeze meant the daisies were moving.
Also, the light was fading.
After numerous adjustments of settings and focus, Emelin finally achieved his emblematic image, the whites standing out in stark contrast and just daubs of colour — the yellow hearts of the daisies and the red eyespots of the Apollo.
Photograph: Emelin Dupieux/Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2021
  Lockdown Chicks
IMAGE: Three rose-ringed parakeet chicks pop their heads out of the nest hole as their father returns with food. Ten-year-old Gagana, on the balcony of his parents’ bedroom, in Colombo, Sri Lanka, was watching.
The hole was at eye level with the balcony, in a dead areca-nut palm in the backyard, which his parents had deliberately left standing to attract wildlife.
In the spring of 2020, during the long days of the island-wide lockdown, Gagana and his older brother had hours of entertainment watching the parakeet family and experimenting with their cameras, sharing lenses and a tripod, always mindful that the slightest movement or noise would stop the chicks from showing themselves.
When incubating the eggs, the female stayed inside while the male foraged (for fruit, berries, nuts and seeds mainly), feeding her by regurgitating the food.
When Gagana took this picture, both parents were feeding the growing chicks. Only when they fledged did Gagana realise that there were as many as five chicks.
Also known as ring-necked parakeets, these medium-sized parrots are native to Sri Lanka, India and Pakistan as well as a band of sub-Saharan Africa, but feral populations are now found in many countries including the UK.
These are often found in urban settings, where they sometimes even breed in holes in brick walls.
Photograph: Gagana Mendis Wickramasinghe/Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2021
  Beautiful Bloodsucker
IMAGE: The best way to photograph a female ornamented mosquito, says Gil, is to let it bite you.
The elegant Sabethes mosquitoes, found only in Latin America, are just 4 millimetres (0.16 inches) long and skittish.
Only the females bite — they need a blood meal to produce eggs — and, in doing so, can act as vectors of tropical diseases such as yellow fever and dengue fever.
Their long legs sport brushes of hairs (possibly important in attracting mates) and their hind legs are typically raised and waved around as they bite.
With large compound eyes and sensitive, feathery antennae, they can detect the slightest movement.
So when this one, in central Ecuador, landed on Gil, he kept stock-still as he framed it, head on, proboscis poised to pierce his finger knuckle.
Focus-stacking six exposures, he captured it in perfect symmetry, highlighting its jewel-like body and iridescent wings against the neutral background of his hiking trousers.
Its bite, he admits, was rather painful.
Photograph: Gil Wizen/Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2021
  The Gripping End
IMAGE: Clutched in the coils of a golden tree snake, a red-spotted tokay gecko stays clamped onto its attacker’s head in a last attempt at defence.
Named for their to-kay call, tokay geckos are large — up to 40 centimetres (16 inches) long — feisty and have powerful jaws.
They are also a favourite prey of the golden tree snake.
This snake, common in the lowland forests of South and Southeast Asia, also hunts lizards, amphibians, birds and bats and is one of five snakes that can ‘fly’, expanding its ribs and flattening its body to glide from branch to branch.
Wei was photographing birds at a park near his home in Bangkok, Thailand, when his attention was caught by the loud croaking and hissing warnings of the gecko. It was being approached by the golden tree snake, coiled on a branch above and slowly letting itself down.
As the snake struck, injecting its venom, the gecko turned and clamped onto the snake’s upper jaw.
Wei watched as they wrestled but, within minutes, the snake had dislodged the gecko, coiled tightly around it and was squeezing it to death.
While still hanging from the loop of its tail, the slender snake then began the laborious process of swallowing the gecko whole.
Photograph: Wei Fu/Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2021
  Storm Fox
IMAGE: This fox was busy searching in the shallows for salmon carcasses — sockeye salmon that had died after spawning.
At the water’s edge, Jonny was lying on his chest, aiming for a low, wide angle.
The vixen was one of only two red foxes resident on the tiny island in Karluk Lake, on Alaska’s Kodiak Island, and she was surprisingly bold.
Jonny had followed her over several days, watching her forage for berries, pounce after birds and playfully nip at the heels of a young brown bear.
Taking advantage of the window of deepening atmospheric light created by a storm rolling in, he was after a dramatic portrait.
But working with a manual flash, he had to pre-set the power for a soft spotlight — just enough to bring out the texture of her coat at relatively close range.
Now he was hoping she would come closer. As she did, his companion and fellow researcher raised up the diffused flash for him.
It was just enough to pique her curiosity, giving Jonny his atmospheric portrait — studio-style — moments before the deluge of rain.
Photograph: Jonny Armstrong/Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2021
  Deep Feelers
IMAGE: In deep water off the French Mediterranean coast, among cold-water black coral, Laurent came across a surreal sight — a vibrant community of thousands of narwhal shrimps.
Their legs weren’t touching, but their exceptionally long, highly mobile outer antennae were.
It appeared that each shrimp was in touch with its neighbours and that, potentially, signals were being sent across a far-reaching network.
Research suggests that such contact is central to the shrimps’ social behaviour, in pairing and competition.
In such deep water (78 metres down — 256 feet), Laurent’s air supply included helium (to cut back on nitrogen absorbed), which enabled him to stay at depth longer, stalk the shrimps and compose an image at close quarters.
Against the deep-blue of the open water, floating among the feathery black coral (which are white when living), the translucent narwhal shrimps looked exceptionally beautiful, with their red and white stripes, long orange legs and sweeping antennae.
Between a shrimp’s bulbous stalked eyes, flanked by two pairs of antennae, is a beak-like serrated rostrum that extended well beyond its 10-centimetre (4 inch) bodies.
Narwhal shrimps are normally nocturnal and often burrow in mud or sand or hide among rocks or in caves during the day, which is where Laurent was more used to seeing them.
They are also fished commercially.
When shrimp-fishing involves bottom-trawling over such deep-water locations, it destroys the slow-growing coral forests as well as their communities.
Photograph: Laurent Ballesta/Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2021
  Toxic Design
IMAGE: This eye-catching detail of a small river in the Geamana Valley, within Romania’s Apuseni Mountains, took Gheorghe by surprise.
Though he had been visiting the region for several years, using his drone to capture images of the valley’s ever-changing patterns, he had never come across such a striking combination of colours and shapes.
These designs — perhaps made sharp by recent heavy rain — are the result of an ugly truth.
In the late 1970s, more than 400 families living in Geamana were forced to leave to make way for waste flowing from the nearby Rosia Poieni mine — a mine exploiting one of the largest deposits of copper ore and gold in Europe.
The picturesque valley became a ‘tailings pond’ filled with an acidic cocktail, containing pyrite (fool’s gold), iron and other heavy metals, laced with cyanide.
These toxic materials have infiltrated the groundwater and threatened waterways more widely.
The settlement was gradually engulfed with millions of tons of toxic waste, leaving just the old church tower protruding and the sludge still piling up.
His composition — ‘to draw attention to the ecological disaster’ — captures the elemental colours of heavy metals in the river and the ornate radiating banks of this shockingly toxic landscape.
Photograph: Gheorghe Popa/Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2021
  Up For Grabs
IMAGE: In southern California, USA, a juvenile white-tailed kite reaches to grab a live mouse from the clutches of its hovering father.
A more experienced bird would have approached from behind (it’s easier to coordinate a mid-air transfer if you are both moving in the same direction), but this cinnamon streaked youngster had been flying for just two days and still had much to learn.
It must master aerial food exchange until it is capable of hunting for itself (typically by hovering, then dropping down to grab mainly small mammals).
Later, it needs to perform aerial courtship rituals (where a male offers prey to a female).
To get the shot, Jack had to abandon his tripod, grab his camera and run. The result was the highlight of three years’ work — the action and the conditions came together perfectly.
The fledgling missed but then circled around and seized the mouse.
Photograph: Jack Zhi/Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2021
  Mushroom Magic
IMAGE: It was on a summer night, at full moon, after monsoon rain, that Juergen found the ghost fungus, on a dead tree in the rainforest near his home in Queensland, Australia.
He needed a torch to keep to the track, but every few metres he would switch it off to scan the dark for the ghostly glow.
His reward was this cluster of hand-sized fruiting bodies.
Comparatively few species of fungi are known to make light in this way, through a chemical reaction: luciferin oxidising in contact with the enzyme luciferase. But why the ghost fungus glows is a mystery.
No spore-dispersing insects seem to be attracted by the light, which is produced constantly and may just be a by-product of the fungi’s metabolism.
Juergen crouched on the forest floor for at least 90 minutes to take eight five-minute exposures to capture the dim glow at different focal points, which were merged (focus stacked) to create one sharp-focus image of the tree-trunk display.
Photograph: Juergen Freund/Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2021
  The Nurturing Wetland
IMAGE: Houses on the edge of Kakinada city reach the estuary, buffered from the sea by the remains of a mangrove swamp.
Development has already destroyed 90 per cent of the mangroves — salt-tolerant trees and shrubs — along this eastern coastal area of Andhra Pradesh, India.
Mangroves are now recognised as vital for coastal life, human and non-human.
Their roots trap organic matter, providing carbon storage, slow incoming tides, protect communities against storms and create nurseries for numerous fish and other species that fishing communities rely on.
Flying his drone over the area, Rakesh could see the impact of human activities — pollution, plastic waste and mangrove clearance — but this picture seemed to sum up the protective, nurturing girdle that mangroves provide for such storm-prone tropical communities.
Photograph: Rakesh Pulapa/Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2021
  Lynx On The Threshold
IMAGE: A young Iberian lynx pauses in the doorway of the abandoned hayloft where it was raised, on a farm in eastern Sierra Morena, Spain. He will soon be leaving his mother’s territory.
Once widespread on the Iberian Peninsula of Spain and Portugal, by 2002 there were fewer than 100 lynx in Spain and none in Portugal.
Their decline was driven by hunting, killing by farmers, habitat loss and loss of prey (they eat mainly rabbits).
Thanks to ongoing conservation efforts — reintroduction, rewilding, prey boosting and the creation of natural corridors and tunnels — Iberian lynx have escaped extinction and, though still endangered, are fully protected.
Only recently, with numbers increasing, have they begun to take advantage of human environments. This individual is one of the latest in a family line to emerge from the old hayloft.
After months of waiting, Sergio’s carefully-set camera trap finally gave him the picture he wanted.
Photograph: Sergio Marijuán/Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2021
  A Caring Hand
IMAGE: After a feed of special formula milk, an orphaned grey-headed flying-fox pup lies on a ‘mumma roll’, sucking on a dummy and cradled in the hand of wildlife-carer Bev.
She was three weeks old when she was found on the ground in Melbourne, Australia, and taken to a shelter.
Grey-headed flying-foxes, endemic to eastern Australia, are threatened by heat-stress events and destruction of their forest habitat where they play a key role in seed dispersal and pollination.
They also come into conflict with people, get caught in netting and on barbed wire and electrocuted on power lines.
At eight weeks, the pup will be weaned onto fruit, then flowering eucalyptus.
After a few months, she will join a creche and build up flight fitness, before being moved next to Melbourne’s Yarra Bend bat colony, for eventual release.
Photograph: Douglas Gimesy/Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2021
  Feature Presentation: Ashish Narsale/ Rediff.com
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opportunitywow · 3 years
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UNESCO-UNEVOC Skills in Action Photo Competition 2021
Deadline: August 31, 2021
Are you an amateur or professional photographer with an interest in youth skills? Don’t miss your chance to enter the UNESCO-UNEVOC Skills in Action Photo Competition 2021.
They want you to capture interesting moments showcasing how Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) is equipping young people with skills for the future. This year’s theme is The future of Youth Skills and submissions should focus on one or all of the following:
TVET for a sustainable future – photos highlighting how skilled young people are applying their knowledge and training to contribute to a greener and more sustainable future.
Preparing for a digitalized world – photos highlighting how the digitalization of TVET is helping to build skills and competencies for the changing future of work.
Skills for inclusive growth – photos highlighting the importance of ensuring equal access to innovative, future-oriented TVET, regardless of gender, ethnicity, nationality or disability.
Prizes
The winners of the Skills in Action Photo Competition will receive the following prizes:
1st prize – $750 USD
2nd prize – $500 USD
3rd prize – $350 USD
Winning photographers and finalists will receive a certificate, and their entries will be featured on the UNESCO-UNEVOC website and across various social media platforms. All submissions received will become the property of UNESCO-UNEVOC and will be eligible for use in future UNESCO-UNEVOC media campaigns, publications and promotional material.
Eligibility
You are eligible to participate as long as:
you are at least 18 years old.
you are the owner or copyright holder of the photo entry/entries.
Photo Requirements
All entries should be submitted with a title, a brief paragraph (not more than 75 words) explaining the context of the photo, along with where and when it was taken.
All photos submitted should be in jpeg format. It will be an advantage to submit Raw/Tiff files. The longer side should be at least 3,000 pixels. The entrants are allowed to digitally manipulate entries slightly and state the nature of manipulation. Please do not include any marks, logos, watermarks, or borders in your photos.
Your photos should be related to the themes mentioned above.
Selection Criteria
The selection process will be based on the following criteria:
Adherence to the theme
Uniqueness of the concept/shot
Creativity
Innovative means of delivering the message
Application
After taking your photo/s:
Add a title and write a short description for every photo.
Rename the photo/s in this format: Lastname-Firstname_title.jpeg (example: Oyelowo-Eyitayo_Female-aircraft-engineers.jpeg/.tiff)
Make sure you agree with the Terms and Conditions. (Also found in the submission form)
Download and complete the submission form and rename the form in this format: Lastname-Firstname_SAPC20_SF.docx (Note that the insert picture/thumbnail function may not work for MSWord97-2003 versions)
Send the completed form (with thumbnails of the pictures) along with the original photo files to [email protected] with the following email subject heading Last name_SAPhotoCompetition2020. Note that the attachment size may have a limit. In case of multiple entries that cannot be sent via email, you can use any cloud storage servers you prefer and provide them with the direct link (no sign-up required) to download. WeTransfer is an example of an online file sharing service.
For more information, visit UNESCO.
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newscheckz · 3 years
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Canon expands Ambassador Programme to over 100 leading international photographers and filmmakers
New Post has been published on https://newscheckz.com/canon-expands-ambassador-programme-to-over-100-leading-international-photographers-and-filmmakers/
Canon expands Ambassador Programme to over 100 leading international photographers and filmmakers
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Canon Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) expands Ambassador Programme to over 100 leading international photographers and filmmakers including risings stars of the future.
Originally launched in 2008, the pioneering initiative brings together some of the world’s best photographers and videographers from across Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) to collaborate with Canon and share its passion for visual storytelling.
In 2020, Canon EMEA  expands its world-renowned Ambassador Programme with 59 new professionals joining the ranks.
The first of its kind, the Canon EMEA Ambassador Programme was created to represent and support current and future generations of photographers and filmmakers by sharing their passion and technical know-how with fellow professionals, as well as enthusiastic amateurs who want to develop their skills.
With the largest ever intake, now featuring a total of 115 Ambassadors across EMEA, this is Canon’s most exciting and diverse programme to date.
Among them are 17 incredible young photographers including Ksenia Kuleshova and Michele Spatari, alumni of the Canon Student Programme and Young Photographer Award winners.
In the most competitive selection process yet, an esteemed panel of 13 judges reviewed nominations for more than 450 photographers and evaluated over 20,000 images – covering news, documentary, wildlife, weddings, portraits, sports and more.
Celebrating visual storytelling, and stories that resonate, the Canon EMEA Ambassador Programme brings together the best of the best within the imaging industry.
Susie Donaldson, ITCG European Marketing Director for Canon EMEA said: “The Ambassador Programme is our opportunity to work with an amazing group of bold and inspirational individuals in the photo, video and print industry.
With this refresh we are enabling and empowering photographers and filmmakers with unique perspectives from across the region, supporting them with the tools to tell those stories that matter.
“We’re always evolving the Programme to seek out and welcome photographers and filmmakers from a multitude of genres and all backgrounds across age, gender and race.
This year we’ve significantly increased the number of Ambassadors under the age of 30 from two to 17, which shows the remarkable range of talent within the industry and our commitment to nurturing creatives through our student programmes as their career progresses.
With this latest intake we hope to pave the way for the next generation of visual storytellers, with a fresh new perspective to the Programme.”
Amine Djouahra, Sales and Marketing Director at Canon Central and North Africa added “It is a privilege to be part of a programme that inspires talent and creativity in Africa.
We continuously seek creative talent to cultivate the love of photograph and to showcase the rich beauty of the continent.
The ambassador programme is now furthermore enriched with photographers representing diverse backgrounds and cultures, as well as a balanced mix of both genders.
We have extended appointments with five female African photographers and expanded the programme with three new female ambassadors from the continent.”
Joining the Programme in 2020 from Africa include:
Clement Kiragu – Clement is an award-winning commercial and wildlife photographer based in Nairobi, Kenya. His work has been published around the world.
Emmanuel Oyeleke – A versatile photographer influenced by fine art and documentary styles. His work covers a broad range of genres including weddings, fashion editorial and advertising campaigns for international brands. He is based in Lagos, Nigeria.
Hassan Hajjaj – One of Morocco’s foremost artists, Hassan’s practice includes portraiture, performance, installation, video and fashion.
A photographer since the late 1980s, Hassan lives and works between Morocco and the UK where he moved in the 1970s. His work bridges Moroccan and British cultures.
Karim Tibari – one of Morocco’s most prominent photographers. He covers high-profile music and film festivals and institutional events held by major corporations, as well as shooting fashion, portraits, wildlife and sports.
Menna Hossam – an Egyptian fine art and fashion photographer whose imaginative work is inspired by myth, fantasy and visual storytelling.
Yagazi Emezi agazie – Nigerian artist and self-taught photojournalist whose work focuses on stories surrounding African women and their health, sexuality, education and human rights. Having worked extensively across Africa, Yagazie also covers stories on identity and culture, social justice, climate change and migration.
Yasmin Al Batoul – Based in Batna, Algeria, Yasmin completed a professional diploma in photography in 2017 and is now a freelance photographer, specialising in food and product imagery.
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perfectirishgifts · 3 years
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21 Great Photos Of The Smallest Creatures: Winning Images Of #Small2020 By Agora
New Post has been published on https://perfectirishgifts.com/21-great-photos-of-the-smallest-creatures-winning-images-of-small2020-by-agora/
21 Great Photos Of The Smallest Creatures: Winning Images Of #Small2020 By Agora
‘First Light’, Winner of #Small2020.
From minuscule bees, new hatched little turtles or newborn babies, all creatures of the earth can be so tiny compared with the immensity of the world around us.
Mobile app Agora challenged international photographers to participate in the #Small2020 photo contest and show us the world through their magnifying lenses.
As a result, 14,432 photos of all kinds of small things facing the greatness of Mother Nature and man-made wonders were submitted to the contest that was won by Bangladeshi photographer @rafid007 with the image (above) of a Black Naped Monarch hatchling and titled ‘First Light’.
The photo gathered the most votes on the Agora app, making him the #Small2020 Hero and earning the photographer a $1,000 prize.
This picture hides a heartbreaking story: “I was filming a short documentary about the Black Naped Monarch birds and captured some shots of this nest,” explains the photographer. “This is the last time I saw this hatchling; one day later a storm came by and destroyed the nest. I believe this picture shows some of its latest moments.”
MORE FROM FORBES50 Best Photos Of The Year Competing For $25,000 Agora PrizeBy Cecilia Rodriguez
The Finalist Images
The best overall image, along with the next five winners, were selected from a shortlist of 50 finalists narrowed down by competition judges before Agora users were asked to vote for their favorite and here they are:
‘The baby going to the sea’: Finalist: The photo was taken during the release of young turtles at … [] Samas Beach, Indonesia.
Agora, which claims 3.5 million users of its mobile app, has been organizing photo competitions since 2017. “The app’s global audience plays an important part in the selection of the winning image in each contest,” the organization explains. “All Agora users have the power to vote for the photo that struck them the most during the final voting rounds, making the process democratic where everyone can participate, vote and win.”
Agora is a free-to-use mobile app where photographers, whether amateur or professional, can participate in photo contests for a chance to win cash prizes (from $1,000 to $25,000) and international recognition.
‘The Little One’, Finalist: A tattooed model with her husband and their new baby girl a few days … [] after her birth.
‘Black and yellow seahorse’ Finalist. Jakarta, Indonesia.
In recent years, the population of seahorses around the world has declined, with 14 of its species listed as threatened.
‘Welcome to the Cruel World, little Human’, Finalist, Jakarta, Indonesia.
‘Nap’, Finalist. Bonn, Germany.
‘Belleza Natural’, Finalist. Guatemala.
‘It takes everything to stand alone’, Finalist, Enkhuizen, Netherlands.
“’It takes nothing to join the crowd, but it takes everything to stand alone,’” the photographer says. “This picture totally represents this quote. Swans usually go in pairs, but not in this case. This one was just swimming alone and in combination with the environment, the feeling of being alone was even more amplified. “
‘Close up of a Damselfly’, Finalist. Bilbao, Spain.
With the portrait of this red Damselfly, the photographer wants to show the small details that are imperceptible to the human eye: “You can see how the drops of water remain suspended in the face, transforming it completely.”
‘Cheetah looking for food’, Finalist. Parc National De Serengeti, Tanzania.
‘Drop with daisy. Gota con margarita’, Finalist, Málaga, Spain.
‘Small natural beauty’, Finalist. A small spider on a rose petal. Rajshahi, Bangladesh.
‘Small’, Finalist. Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Russia.
‘Wandering birds’, Finalist. Sacramento, U.S.
‘Point on the map’, Finalist. Saint Nicholas Cathedral, Kalyazin, Russia.
The bell tower of St. Nicholas Cathedral, standing in the middle of the Uglich reservoir, serves as a monument of history and architecture and a symbol of the consequences of the construction of the reservoir cascade on the Volga River, which covered hundreds of villages, towns and cities along with the ancient structures that existed there.
‘Working’, Finalist, Small bee in lavender flower. Tours, France.
‘Herds of Yak’, Finalist, A herd of Yak grassing at a stunning landscape in the Hinalayas. Sarchu, … [] Himalaya, India.
‘Window Cleaners’, Finalist, Jakarta, Indonesia.
‘Da Nang Perspectives’, Finalist, A lone walker crossing the Da Nang bridge, Vietnam.
‘Train station’, Finalist. Arnhem, Netherlands.
‘Feeling small never felt so good’, FInalist, Dolomiti Passo Rolle, Italy.
More from Arts in Perfectirishgifts
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frankkjonestx · 3 years
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A glowing zebrafish wins the 2020 Nikon Small World photography contest
While seeking answers to scientific questions, it’s worth sometimes taking a step back to appreciate the world’s exquisiteness.
For developmental biologists Daniel Castranova, Bakary Samasa and Brant Weinstein, some of that delicate beauty is inside a zebrafish. While working in Weinstein’s lab at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., Castranova and Samasa snapped a stunning photograph of a young zebrafish, illuminating never-before-seen parts of its lymphatic system.
The photo comes from research that sought to determine whether zebrafish have lymphatic vessels inside their skulls. The lymphatic system helps clear toxins and waste from the body, and previously researchers thought only mammals had such structures close to the brain.
But zebrafish have those vessels too, Castranova and colleagues report in preliminary research posted in May at bioRxiv.org. The team used fish that had been genetically modified to have lymphatic vessels that fluoresce orange under certain conditions, with skeletons and scales that glow blue. Because fish are easier than mammals to raise and image in the lab, Castranova says, the finding could help scientists more easily study the role of the brain’s lymphatic system in neurological diseases like brain cancer or Alzheimer’s.
After taking the photo — a composite of 350 images taken with a confocal microscope — on a busy work day, “I never even looked at the picture for a couple of weeks,” Castranova says. “And then when I looked at it at some point post-data processing, I was like ‘Wow.’”
Even if it took Castranova a bit to appreciate what he had in hand, judges for the 2020 Nikon Small World photomicroscopy competition realized that it was a winner. The photo snagged first place in the 46th annual contest.  The results were announced October 13.
Here are some our favorite photographs from this year’s competition.
Inside a clownfish egg
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A developing clownfish (Amphiprion percula) embryo won second place in the contest. The series of photos documents the embryo’s growth (from left to right) on day one, morning and evening of day three, day five and day nine.Daniel Knop/Natur und Tier-Verlag NTV
Over nine days, German photographer Daniel Knop watched an embryo grow from a striking golden yolk sac into a baby clownfish (Amphiprion percula) to produce this second place–winning photo.
The composite image, created by stacking together multiple photos that had been taken while the embryo was in motion, documents stages of the embryo’s development from left to right. The first snapshot shows the newly growing fish hours after fertilization, with a cluster of extra sperm cells (white splotch) still on the outside of the first egg (clear bubble) on the left. The subsequent images depict the fish twice on the third day of development (morning and evening), as well as the fifth and ninth days, hours before the fish hatched.
Tongue of a snail
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This colorful depiction of part of a snail’s tongue, at 40 times magnification, shows its structure in three dimensions. Sections colored blue are farthest from the viewer and those colored hot pink are closest. The image placed third in the competition.Igor Siwanowicz/HHMI
When neurobiologist Igor Siwanowicz’s lab mate’s aquarium was taken over by freshwater snails, Siwanowicz decided to snap a photo of part of one snail’s tongue, earning him third place in the competition.
The appendage, magnified 40 times, was photographed in layers with a laser to reconstruct the tongue in three dimensions. The pieces closest to the viewer are colored hot pink; the farthest bits are blue. The tongue’s comblike projections scrape algae off of surfaces for food.
“I chose this image to show that in nature, beauty can be found in the most unexpected places, like a snail’s mouth,” says Siwanowicz, of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Janelia Research Campus in Ashburn, Va., and second-place winner in the 2019 contest (SN: 10/21/19).
Lab-grown hairs
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Shown at 20 times magnification, this skin organoid (colored blue) sports human hair follicles (stubby projections) and nerves (red). The image earned an honorable mention.Karl Koehler and Jiyoon Lee/Boston Children’s Hospital & Harvard Medical School
Neuroscientist Karl Koehler and biochemist Jiyoon Lee, both of Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, captured this image of human hair follicles (stubby blue-colored projections) budding off of a cluster of lab-grown skin cells, broadly called an organoid, in a lab dish. Other types of organoids exist for various parts of the body, such as the gut and brain.  
It takes about four to five months for a skin organoid to grow in the lab. The structures develop nerves (red) that connect specialized cells in hair follicles, much like the neural circuit system that allows us to feel touch, and could one day help develop better skin grafts. This lab-grown skin develops inside-out, Koehler says. So the surface that grows hair is inside the clump of cells, and viewers see the base of hair follicles. The team published their findings June 3 in Nature.
Majestic moss
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Moss capsules, like the one pictured here at 10 times magnification and shown in false-color, release hundreds of thousands of spores that are carried by the wind to new parts of the forest to grow. The photo is an Image of Distinction in this year’s Nikon Small World photo contest.Miroslav Žít
Miroslav Žít, an amateur photographer from Prachatice in the Czech Republic, snapped this photo of a stunning moss capsule packed with spores almost ready to take flight. Capsules perch on top of stems that extend from blankets of moss.
The spores ride the wind once released, sometimes traveling long distances and staying dormant until conditions are right for growth.
Viral infection
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This mouse paw has been infected with the Chikungunya virus (colored pink), a pathogen that causes painful inflammation of the joints. The rodent’s immune response to the virus, in the form of immune cells called microphages, is shown in blue and general tissue is colored orange. The image won an honorable mention.Jonard Corpuz Valdoz, Pam Van Ry and Richard Robison/Brigham Young Univ.
Researchers at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah combined more than 2,200 photos taken with a confocal microscope to create this vivid shot of a 1-centimeter-long mouse paw infected with the Chikungunya virus.
Chikungunya is a disease that can result in debilitating joint pain. Biochemists Jonard Corpuz Valdoz and Pam Van Ry teamed up with microbiologist Richard Robison to take a peek at how a mouse responds to the infection, in the hopes of shedding light on how the virus spreads in animals, including humans. Immune cells called macrophages (colored blue) rush to the paw to fight the virus (pink), amid a background of general tissue (orange).
Baby bat
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This image of a Seba’s short-tailed fruit bat embryo (Carollia perspicillata) was artificially colored to show its skeleton in green and cartilage in orange; it placed 20th in the photo competition.Dorit Hockman/ Univ. of Cape Town, , Vanessa Chong-Morrison/UCL
While participating in an embryology course at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass., Vanessa Chong-Morrison, a developmental biologist then at the University of Oxford, prepared this image of a Seba’s short-tailed fruit bat (Carollia perspicillata) embryo for picture day.
Chong-Morrison, now at University College London, and Dorit Hockman of the University of Cape Town in South Africa took snapshots of the developing bat’s skeleton, capturing small areas at a time. Hockman is also a developmental biologist who studies how bat hands grow into “impressive wings.” The pair then stitched together the images to produce the final photo, which was edited to show the bat’s bones in green and cartilage in orange.   
A work of amino acid art
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When in a warm solution of ethanol and water, amino acids L-glutamine and beta-alanine form crystals, photographed here in a 13th place–winning photo at four times magnification.Justin Zoll/Justin Zoll Photography
No, this photo isn’t an abstract painting. It’s a portrait of the crystals that form after two amino acids — L-glutamine and beta-alanine — are heated in a solution made of ethanol and water. One of the compounds, L-glutamine, is a building block for proteins and ensures that the immune system can function. The other, beta-alanine, helps with muscle endurance.
Justin Zoll, a photographer based in Ithaca, N.Y., merged multiple images of crystals taken at four times their normal size into a panorama to show the crystals’ intricate details in a wider field of view. When the crystals interact with a multiple beams of polarized light, the arrangement of their molecules reflects stunning colors, he says.
from Tips By Frank https://www.sciencenews.org/article/2020-nikon-small-world-photo-contest-glowing-zebrafish-wins
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papermoonloveslucy · 4 years
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LUCY, DESI & THE WHITING GIRLS
July 30, 1955
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On July 30, 1955, TV Guide (volume 3, number 31, issue 122) featured Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, Barbara and Margaret Whiting, stars of “Those Whiting Girls” (1955).
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The cover photograph of the Arnaz’s and the Whitings was credited to Charles Rhodes. During the 1940s, Rhodes was photographer for Fawcett Publications and often photographed movie star Lucille Ball.
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This is Lucille Ball’s sixth national TV Guide cover out of a total of 39. A little more than two years earlier, she was on the first national edition with her newborn son, Desi.
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“Those Whiting Girls” was a Desilu-produced summer replacement series that premiered on July 4, 1955. A second series of the situation comedy was aired during the summer of 1957.  The cover was symbolic of the Whiting Girls taking over “I Love Lucy’s” Monday night time slot on CBS while they were on hiatus. 
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The series was written by Bob Carroll and Madelyn Pugh, the “I Love Lucy” writers. “I Love Lucy” director James V. Kern helmed the premiere and one other episode.
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The Whitings were pop and country singers although Margaret was more interested in acting than her sister Barbara. Their father is composer Richard A. Whiting. Margaret was the inspiration for his classic song "On the Good Ship Lollipop."
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The only other actor to appear in all 26 episodes of “Those Whiting Girls” was Mabel Albertson, who played their mother, Eleanor. She is best remembered by TV viewers as Darrin Stephens’ mother on “Bewitched” (1964-71). Her first appearance on “Bewitched” was aired just four days before her only episode of “The Lucy Show.”  In 1956 she had appeared with Lucille Ball in the film Forever Darling. Her brother, Jack Albertson, appeared on “I Love Lucy” in “Bon Voyage” (ILL S5;E13) the same time as Forever Darling was in movie theatres.  
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In 1957, Jerry Paris (later of “The Dick Van Dyke Show”) appeared in 13 episodes as the Whitings’ accompanist, Artie. He later directed a couple of episodes of “Here’s Lucy,” including the most famous, “Lucy Meets the Burtons” (HL S3;E1) in 1970, but was not compatible with Lucille Ball and dismissed before his contract was up.  
In 1955, Beverly Long played the recurring role of Daisy Dunbar, the girls’ best friend.
Over the two seasons, “I Love Lucy” cast members Norma Varden, Herb Vigran, and Maxine Semon also appeared on the show.
The episode listed in this TV Guide was “The Carnival Incident’ (S1;E5) on August 1, 1955. In it, Barbara learns a lesson in showmanship at the campus carnival. When her boy friend persuades her into serving as the lure who gets dunked when baseball throwers hit the target, she tries to get sister Margaret to take her place. Margaret sings "Meet Me at the Station."
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The show was sponsored by Proctor and Gamble, General Foods, and Max Factor. 
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When “The Handcuffs” (ILL S2;E4) was re-run at the end of season 4 in 1955, Lucy and Desi (as themselves), standing in the Hollywood hotel room set, tell the TV audience they are going on vacation for the summer (“13 weeks, to be exact” Lucille says) and reminds them to tune in to the new Desilu show “Those Whiting Girls” starring Margaret Whiting and her sister Barbara, which filled their time slot during the summer.
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Much later, the series was mentioned by Desi Arnaz Jr. on a February 1976 episode of “Saturday Night Live” on NBC. 
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Over the masthead is a headline that teases an article about the Arthur Godfrey scandal during 1955. The Mariners were a four-piece all-male racially integrated group (two white and two African American members). Arthur Godfrey hired them, and they were regulars on his radio show and later his television shows for several years.The presence of the integrated Mariners brought complaints from Southern politicians and Southern CBS affiliates, which Godfrey publicly and scathingly rebuffed.  Despite this, Godfrey summarily fired the group in 1955. The Mariners then guested on other shows and appeared on New York radio, but with diminishing popularity.
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Another inside article was “The Rise and Fall of Mr. Peepers” (aka Wally Cox). Cox was one of Lucille Ball’s favorite performers and appeared on several episodes of “The Lucy Show” and “Here’s Lucy.” 
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The cover also promoted (in a corner banner) a contest to win a role on a television show!  The winner would play Dr. Tim Watson in “Dr. Hudson’s Secret Journal” for at least three episodes. Entrants had to be male (sorry ladies) and between the ages of 17 and 21 (sorry Dad). The role eventually went to Joe Walker, who appeared on the medical series in late 1956 and early 1957. This was his only screen credit.  Young actor Harvey Grant appeared on one episode of the series in 1955, just before playing Kenneth Hamilton, Lucy Ricardo’s dance partner on the S.S. Constitution. Sammy Ogg, who played one of Lucy’s terrible Hudson twins, was also in a 1956 episode. Coincidentally, Jerry Paris of “Those Whiting Girls” played a doctor on the show. The cast also included “The Lucy Show” actors Vito Scotti and Max Showalter.
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The back cover featured a message from Ted Mack, the host of “Ted Mack’s Amateur Hour.” 
For More About TV Guide and “I Love Lucy” Click Here! 
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serenavangstuff · 4 years
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Juniper Publishers-The Exercise Continuum and the Role of Doctors
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Introduction
Everyone can be placed somewhere on an exercise continuum with the idle at one end and the hyperactive at the other. At both extremes, health suffers. Exercise is essential to health and managing it is the responsibility of individuals but few know what they should do. Doctors seldom teach how to be healthy and act only when repair is needed.
The Idle
In the oceans, lakes and rivers are creatures that stay in one place and water flows over them bringing food to their open mouths and removing waste from the opposite end of their bodies. Of all land animals, humans are the only creatures able to exist by the same idle method. The human brain can contrive a situation in which other humans care for idle ones and this is not about looking after a patient in bed, it is feeding an idle person who commands others. That image, perhaps of ancient kings, is seen by many to represent ultimate ambition; servants supplying all needs. The reality is that the idle one is the one that suffers and those scurrying around have more benefits.
These days, physical inactivity is available to all, rich and poor and some of the poor appear to love it. Getting food has become no more arduous than opening a packet. Ordering and paying for it is done by pressing buttons on a smart phone and getting the money in the first place is in some countries only a matter of getting state aid on the grounds of unemployment or being unable to work. The more idle they are, the less they are able to work. The consequences are obesity, diabetes and heart disease. Muscles weaken and joints are unable to carry the added weight. Generally, idleness is accompanied by little mental stimulation which leads to further decay of the body. Doctors are then asked to make repairs. In go the drugs, up go the pharmaceutical profits and up go the costs to insurers and governments. Should the doctor take the smart phone away, ban them from television and send them swimming three times a day because swimming is less damaging to fat limbs than walking and to run is impossible? Such hardship would help the patient and in some rare cases it is being done. Usually they get drugs and a suggestion that they should exercise but no enforcement. This is the situation in the prosperous countries in recent years.
The Hyperactive
In racing sports, they talk of going through the pain barrier. The margin of safety is considerable. Grin and bear it and you will win. By that means, it was not always the strongest who won but the person who could tolerate most suffering. When drugs became available, the pain barrier ceased to be a barrier and the body lost its protection. The determination to win would expose the body to excess stress that could be fatal (Figure 1).
I took this photograph of a bicycle hill climb in 1965. Almost certainly no performance enhancing drugs were used. At the finish line, all the competitors were gasping for breath and some lay on their back to recover but they were up again in a few minutes grinning and eager to find out their time. The winner I knew well back in those days and he went on to become the National Hill Climb Champion. He was only a year older than me and, from what I have been able to find out, he died some years ago of a strange illness. He had suffered a crash in a race and had never properly recovered. This, as I see it, is a danger. He had pushed himself too far, not just in physical effort but by taking chances. It was a risk he would not ordinarily have taken but, in a race, where everything is about winning it becomes combat.
The drugs scandals at the Olympic games and in the Tour de France cycle race are now headline news. That competitors will sacrifice their lives for the vanity of winning shows the danger of sport at this level.
Amongst amateurs, dangers abound. There are combat sports that were encouraged because they prepare soldiers for battle. With less hand to hand fighting in modern armies and more alternatives in schools that are threatened by lawyers there is less boxing but rugby is still popular especially in fee- paying schools. A young boy's father will tell him that the rough treatment in a game of rugby will make a man of him. If the boy is stocky enough and determined, it is very likely he will have a life changing injury before he is thirty. Physiotherapists and orthopaedic surgeons specialising in joint replacements are grateful to football, squash and tennis for the business it brings. Footballers get kicked as well as adding pressure to their knees and hips. Racquet games twist the knees more violently than straightforward running with the result that a titanium implant is offered as the easy repair. The fact that a revision (another replacement) will be needed ten to fifteen years hence is seldom mentioned.
At the extremities of all sports there are dangers even in those that are danger-avoidant. Rock climbing is all about fall prevention until the glory of not using a rope takes over and then there is no back up. Mountaineering is safe until risk taking becomes more attractive than the scenery and the threats of bad weather, an avalanche or thaw (the ice giving way) are pushed to one side believing that these hazards have been overcome before. Confidence leads to invincibility, a concept that has never been proven.
Over confidence is as much a danger as depression. The role of exercise in combatting depression with the suicides and anger that arise are seldom appreciated. Mental health benefits from exercise as much if not more than bodily health.
There are many activities classed as sports that do not involve muscles and cause damage to the participants and even more so to spectators. Motor racing is a major culprit. Deaths on the track are less than they used to be but they instil a culture of speed which on the public road will kill. It was often commented years ago when people went to the cinema that after a James Bond film the cars were hurtling away a break neck speeds with the drivers inspired by what had enthralled them half an hour before. Motor racing is nonsense. The winner is not the most skilful but the one prepared to take most risk. Is that meritous? It is not even a sport. Shooting must be equally condemned. Just as the ancient Greeks may have delighted in wrestling and the Romans in gladiator fights, those sports gave way to fencing and when those weapons were superseded by guns it was shooting that was applauded. To aim, it is necessary to be fit, so the argument goes, so that one can hold one's breath when firing to keep the gun steady as one breaths. Does that compare with the fitness of a swimmer or any athlete? When the target for shooting is an innocent wild animal or bird, the claim that this is a sport is hard to sustain.
It is a fact that most people are impressionable; they are followers and do not question those they admire. This gives role models a responsibility many of them do not understand. A star footballer is seldom an intellectual. From being groomed at school to being paid to play the game, he has learned only that what he does is right; it must be because he is paid a lot to do it and whatever he does must be right. He has a licence to do anything because at the extreme end of the exercise continuum he excels. Brawn beats brain and entertainment damages a thoughtless majority. Doctors are left to pick up the pieces. Could they have advised so that the damage is avoided?
The Importance of Exercise
Between the extremes of immobility and hyper-activity is where we should be but where is it? A good observation is a report on cycling to and from work:
Kevin Murnane writes: The effects of walking and cycling were measured by comparing them with the Non-active mode of transport. Cycling to work was associated with very large health benefits. Commuters who cycled to work had a 41% lower risk of dying from all causes than people who drove or took public transport. They also had a 46% lower risk of developing and a 52% lower risk of dying from cardiovascular disease, and a 45% lower risk of developing and a 40% lower risk of dying from cancer.
This is a study of ordinary people doing what everyone does, getting around as easily as possible. When it involves exercise, there are great benefits - listed in the article:
a) Cycling makes you happy
b) You lose weight
c) And build muscle
d) Without worrying about over eating
e) Good for the lungs
f) Cuts heart disease and risk of cancer
g) Less damage to joints
h) Saves time and money
i) Mental skill of route finding
j) Better sex
k) Better sleep
l) More brain power
m) Improved reactions and responses
n) Better immune system
o) More friends
Each one of the above would be a medical breakthrough. To get the lot for free is astounding and true.
In richer countries in the last decade cycling has become more popular and is said to be the new golf. For those who have always cycled, it is flattering to be recognised as sensible and not shouted off the road as used to happen. When the scientists investigate, they explain what to the cyclist is obvious.
Michelle Arthurs-Brennan reports that a study followed 125 long-distance cyclists. The riders are now all in their 80's but their immune system function is similar to that of 20-year-olds. The research, published in the Aging Cell journal, showed that the ageing cyclists produced the same number of T-cells - which help the immune system respond to new infections - as adults still in their 20s, and a separate study revealed that cyclists didn't lose muscle mass, strength, or gain body fat in the same way as non-cyclists.
Co-author of the report, Prof Norman Lazarus of King's College London is 82 himself; he told the BBC: "If exercise was a pill, everyone would be taking it. It has wide-ranging benefits for the body, the mind, for our muscles and our immune system."
In parallel, the same journalist presents a report on the sex lives of female cyclists:
Saddle discomfort is mentioned and the solution is a well- made lady's saddle of which there are many on the market. They have a slot along the top to avoid pressure on the genitalia. Usually the nose of the saddle is angled down for a lady whereas a man will have the saddle horizontal. Every woman should be able to ride comfortably. If you have a problem, a good bike shop will help you. (BioFlex O-Zone Gel Womens Saddle - Black).
The reports about Robert Marchand are incredible. He is the first of many in his category. One year after setting a new Hour Record for his age category, centenarian cyclist Robert Marchand has decided to hang up his wheels and retire from competitive riding at the grand old age of 106. A multiple record holder for age-group events, Marchand has now been advised not to take on any further competitive events on medical grounds. He can continue cycling but should stop racing. Read the report and note that there is nothing extraordinary about Robert other than he is doing what others half his age could not do. If he can do it, others can. Born in Amiens in 1911, Marchand started riding at the age of 14, but gave up the sport only to return to cycling in 1978 aged 67. Since then he has maintained a daily routine of riding and stretching, eating plenty of vegetables and little meat, not smoking, and generally avoiding alcohol.
Here is a report on a study of aging published on 6th January 2015 in The Journal of Physiology:
a) Emeritus Professor Norman Lazarus, a member of the King's team and also a cyclist, said: "Inevitably, our bodies will experience some decline with age, but staying physically active can buy you extra years of function compared to sedentary people.
b) "Cycling not only keeps you mentally alert but requires the vigorous use of many of the body's key systems, such as your muscles, heart and lungs which you need for maintaining health and for reducing the risks associated with numerous diseases."
c) On the 8th March 2018, Prof Lazarus's team published another study in Aging Cell published by the Anatomical Society and John Wiley & Sons Ltd. and appears to be a similar group of people, maybe the same.
d) Study confirming old cyclists same as healthy young.
e) The benefits of exercise all one’s life has always been known. The biological data is now measured in the Aging Cell report of the study by Birmingham University.
f) Dr Ross Pollock, who led the team of scientists from King's College London, warned that most of us are inactive, which causes 'physiological problems at any age'.
Study of cyclists found they were physically younger than most their age Underwent extensive tests of their heart, lungs and exercise capacity Researchers found they had muscle strength similar to younger people Say it proves cycling keeps the body and the mind staying young Aging and Physical Performance.
Mind and Body
If the articles referred to above suggest that all that is needed to get all the benefits is to move muscle, think again. The mind and body are inseparable. In a paper published last year on The Body’s Operating System, I discussed the effect of mind on body. The interaction is also body on mind. The Birmingham and Kings Studies accurately report the biological effects of exercise. It should be obvious that the same effect will apply to runners, walkers, swimmers and all active people. In these studies, cyclists formed a convenient group that could be identified and measured. Kevin Murnane's article listing 15 benefits is correct. This includes mental health. One cannot cycle without thinking. The machine has to be maintained. It can fail when you are miles from home and you have to fix it. Problem solving is where our brain excels. It distinguishes us from other animals and has got us to the stage where we can disrupt our environment; to solve the problems we have created (Figure 2).
The man repairing a puncture became the British National Hill Climb Champion. With modern tyres and less glass on the road, punctures are not as common as they were. We used to always repair the puncture, not just fit a new tube, and competed to see how many patches were on a tube before it was eventually discarded. You will see that his friends are there to tell him what to do even though he would do better without their distraction. This is social interaction at its best. The group broke up as members dispersed to study and work, married and, in some cases, died. I am still cycling and, if this article makes sense to you, am still fit and cognitively active. The Birmingham-Kings studies required the old cyclists to be able to ride at ten miles an hour for over six hours. Believe it or not that is very easy. Normal cycling speed is 14 mph and a club (chain gang) can be doing evens (20 mph or more). For 10 mph to make the difference between being as fit as a person 40 years younger is very interesting.
This shows that the discovery is not that exercise helps, it is that no exercise is damaging. To exercise always all one's life is normal. To refer to the cyclists as a remarkable minority is to forget what we are, animals born to forage and hunt from dawn to dusk. To feed, we had to exert. When people are astounded that I can ride a hundred miles (160 km) a day, I tell them it is only ten miles an hour for ten hours. If there was more time available, I would be able to cover longer distances. It is not a matter of strength. A normal person is well capable of these distances. The pity is, they don’t know it.  Nevertheless, more people are discovering they have hidden talent. Often a bicycle is daunting and they do not live where there are quiet roads. They make go walking, Scottish dancing, swimming or just flogging themselves in the gym.
Resistance
Look at again at the photo of the puncture being repaired. This was before most wheels had quick release hubs. He has taken the tube out of the cover without removing the wheel to avoid getting his hands dirty on the oily chain but he is still going to end up with the grime of the road and aluminium oxide from the rim on his hands and nowhere to wash them. The simple answer is to peel and eat an orange. We were never ill. In the summer of 1966 I cycled from Graz to Athens on unsurfaced roads through the Balkans averaging over a hundred miles a day. There were no plastic bottles of water for sale in shops back then. The water bottle carried in a cage on the bike frame was topped up at roadside wells and pumps. I never had diarrhoea and I drank a lot cycling in the heat through Greece. Nowadays, our exposure to germs is no less but our resistance is far less. Go on an airline flight for a few hours and breath the air expelled by your fellow passengers and be prepared for a sniffling cold for a few days afterwards. These are serious dangers.
Exercise in the open air, away from cities and pollution and your immune system improves not just from exercise but from the simple relationship with your environment, a relationship with which we have evolved. India has a campaign for indoor toilets to be flushed clean by water and proper sewage management. Outdoor defecation that had served for centuries became impractical as population density increased and privacy, especially for the girls and women, became difficult. They are moving to a modern system in which chemicals will certainly be used to solve one problem and cause others. The immune systems will adapt maintained by exercise, sleep, diet and a balanced approach to hygiene. We can be too careful.
Sunshine
Use of gyms is growing and is to be encouraged. For a traditionalist and outdoors man like me, a gym is hard work and uninspiring. In some climates, extremes of hot and cold, it can be the only option. In temperate climates the smell of fresh air, birds singing and wind in the face is pleasure. What the scientists investigating the improvement to the immune system did not record is the vitamin D from sunlight. You don't get it in a gym and the modern practice of protecting the skin from the sun reduces the essential vitamin intake. Sunglasses are worn too often. There appears to be a belief that they protect the eyes. If that were true, I should be blind by now. Bright sunshine tells the skin to beware, it changes and adds protection. People outdoors all the time seldom have the skin cancers that attack those exposed infrequently to unfiltered sun. In high altitude Switzerland and under the thin skies of New Zealand and the southern hemisphere, the conditions are dangerous and protection is essential. Under the haze of The Gulf, sunburn is less a risk.
Diet and Drinks
The old cyclists who have cycled almost all their lives learned what to eat and what to avoid. Very few smoked and that made them outcasts in the 1950s and 60s when the majority of people smoked. You did not need to be a scientist to see that the smoker had not got the puff to pedal. In other words, his lungs were being damaged by smoke. In those days, and I remember them well, almost all doctors  smoked. In their ignorance, they gave their patients bad advice.
Food was frequently discussed. We had large appetites. There was more organic food fifty years ago and it was fresher because transport was less efficient than today; food had to be grown locally. Knowing what was best to eat was understood by all and we worked it out empirically. One rider worked as a window cleaner during the week and cycled at the weekend so he was physically active outdoors every day in all weathers. He was our advisor and paid little attention to books. His knowledge came from experience. He never added sugar to his drinks or salt to his food and his explanation made sense to all of us. There was enough carbohydrate in a balanced diet and too much sugar meant too little roughage. Bran and the bike kept him regular. The amount of salt added to bread was more than enough in a temperate climate. Maybe in hot weather when sweating increased the water through-put there is a case for additional salt and more fluids but for the mileage we were doing, about 80 miles on a Sunday run, no additives were needed.
We learned to not be on the road after 10 o'clock at night because the drinkers would be driving away from the pubs drunk. It was not illegal to be drunk driving a car. Indeed, when there was a crash, the defence was that the alcohol made the driver incapable so it was only an accident, not deliberate bad driving. If the driver was incapable, he could not be blamed. Eventually this nonsense led to laws banning drivers from drinking alcohol and there seems to be a recent understanding amongst the general population that alcohol damages health. Cyclists knew it many years ago and by avoiding alcohol they have maintained good health. People have to be told. Is that the duty of doctors?
Resilience
Whether you are on a mountain ridge in the mist or miles from anywhere on a bicycle, you have only yourself to depend on. You may have companions and they look to you for leadership. You have no choice but to be resilient and carry on, map reading, apportioning your energy, not taking risks. It is all about survival. Move then to a city job and your mental attitude goes with you. Exercise maintained your health mentally and bodily.
The Role of Doctors
Clinical evidence that the minority group of old cyclists have an immune system comparable to people in their twenties is proof that the majority of people are in poor health because they do not exercise. If a doctor’s duty is to improve people's health, then the doctor has to tell them to exercise and say it before the deterioration goes too far. On the other hand, if a doctor is there only to repair the damage however caused, the doctor can let people make mistakes through ignorance and this will keep the doctor busy and prosperous. Do we not argue that in an ideal world there need be no police? By the same reasoning, doctors should not be needed if people live properly.
Has science got us to the stage where all illness is a mistake? Humans live and work in communities with many specialising thanks to their education. Theoretically we can prevent all illness and injury by education, control and prevention. For example, from the earliest age, teach and practice the benefits of exercise. Avoid the dangers of extremes. Control individuals by implanted chips so that everyone is answerable to an artificial intelligence central computer thereby eliminating the benefits of crime and war (and I would resist this being done to me and demand that it be done to others, such is hypocrisy and was well foretold in Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and 1984 by George Orwell). Ensure that the makers of pharmaceuticals and machines serve the majority in the world and not just the rich. Ebola can be controlled. Cancer is avoidable.
Guidance on these policies can only be given by those who understand the body and mind and they are doctors. Now is the time for doctors to work towards making themselves redundant. I am sure that  will never happen but it ought to be an objective. The police do little to prevent crime. They advise people to lock their doors but does nothing to change the motivation of potential burglars other than apply threats of punishment. Similarly, doctors prescribe drugs on top of drugs without getting to the source of a patient's problem. People respond to carrot, not stick. The evidence is clear. Most people can be maintained in good health by simply changing their lifestyle so that they exercise as much as their bodies have evolved to do. You are a doctor so tell your patient the blunt truth and when you say to them you don’t want to see them again, you mean it in the friendliest way.
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