Hey there my Hive friends and followers!
Welcome to the 220th round of my special weekly photo challenge known as Appreciate Beauty of Nature with @phortun :)
Important note: I have been hosting this challenge in the same format for almost 4 years but I recently decided to introduce some major changes to it so please read all the updates below. The essence of this challenge stays the same though so the intro part will be the same as it was before.
I know a lot of photo contests with nature as the main theme were/are/will be hosted by various people on the Hive blockchain but I wanted to come up with something more than just another photo contest where participants would submit their best natural photos. Therefore, I decided to go for quite an unusual concept that I am going to introduce in the following lines.
The aim of the Appreciate Beauty of Nature with @phortun photo challenge is not to make you dig up your photo archives and submit the best pictures of nature that you have ever taken. Instead, I want you guys to go out and appreciate the beauty of our nature right now.
The internet (and the Hive blockchain as well) is flooded with picture perfect shots of landscapes, mountains, forests, beaches etc. taken years ago. But this is not what I want to see in this challenge. I want to see shots that may not be necessarily stunning but they must be fresh, proving that you have just physically spent some time outdoors in the fresh air. But remember that nature comes in many forms. It doesn´t have to be a pristine jungle or a deep remote forest. An urban park, a botanical garden, a little grove on the outskirts of your town - pretty much any place with some trees, plants, rocks, bodies of water or any other natural features would be just as fine ;)
HERE COME THE UPDATES
Originally, the prizes for the winners were just my full upvotes given to their entries but since, unfortunately, I lately had to power down significantly, my upvotes are not that big and motivating anymore so I decided to reward the winners of each round with additional 1.5 Hive each. So now, the winners get my full upvotes on their entries plus 1.5 Hive each. All of the other valid entries will be rewarded with some smaller (usually 50%) upvotes too so that all participants get rewarded for their engagement in this challenge.
In the past, I usually hosted this challenge on Thursday but because of the reasons described below, I cannot guarantee that anymore so now, I may roll out the new round on Thursday, Friday or even Saturday so if you guys don´t want to miss out on the fun here, please check out my blog regularly.
Also, in the past, I always tried to lead by example and thus open each new round with my own fresh natural photo taken during the previous 7 days. However, as you might now from my recent posts, me and my wife are now taking care of our newborn baby and it takes just so much time and energy that I simply don´t have the time to go out and take fresh natural photos anymore (btw late autumn and winter here in Central Europe are not favorable seasons for natural photography anyway) so instead, I will be using my old photos from cool natural places around the world that I have been to. Hopefully, in a few months, I will be able to go out to nature regularly again and take a nice fresh picture for each round just like I did it over the years but before that happens, I will show you some beautiful natural places that I got to see during our travels. It will also be a nice way for me to remember and relive those moments from the times when it was just me and my wife, traveling around the world - happy, young and free :)
THE RULES
I want to keep the rules of this challenge as simple and benevolent as possible so let´s agree on just this:
Only one entry (photo) per person per round.
The photo must be yours and not older than 7 days.
Add a few lines about the photo (at least 50 words) including the date and location.
You can start submitting your entries to this round in the comment section below from now until the next round. If you want to create a separate post as your entry, you can do that but please always remember to submit your entry in the form of a comment here under this post as well. I only check the entries submitted here as comments.
Prior to publishing the next round, I will pick 3 winners, give my full upvotes on their entries and send them 1.5 Hive each as the prize. The winning entries will be featured in the next round of the challenge. I also give smaller upvotes on the other valid entries as I mentioned before.
So that´s it. Let me now open the new round of my photography challenge called Appreciate Beauty of Nature with @phortun :)
I´m going to Krakow tomorrow (I´m taking my mum there to show her around a bit, it was a birthday gift) and I probably won´t be online at all when there so I´m rolling out the new round of this challenge today (even though it has been just a few days since the previous one and there haven´t been many entries yet, sorry about that). And to pay tribute to this beautiful Polish city, I´m using a picture from Krakow to open the new round. Some of you know that I lived in Krakow for 2 years and it was actually quite recently (from 2020 to 2022) but what you can see in the picture looks totally different today. My shot depicts the Zakrzowek Quarry, a former limestone quarry, in conditions that it was for long decades. Wild, rough, romantic. But try to google out the place now. It went through a massive reconstruction and these days, the place is promoted as "the Polish Maldives" and after checking out the current photos from the quarry, you will see why. I´m not saying the idea is bad as it now gives the opportunity to enjoy some fine and safe swimming to many people and even families with little kids but honestly, I liked the original Zakrzowek more than what it is now. I still hope to make it there during the upcoming visit though, I really liked to hike in the forests and on the cliffs surrounding the quarry.
In the last round of this challenge, we had 4 participants. After some thorough consideration, I decided to pick these 3 winners:
@mipiano with this entry from Spain:
Hey @phortun, I am swinging by to say hello and that Madeira looks awesome from your lenses. Hope you guys had a lovely Sunday with Florinka ;)) 🌺 Maybe I can also contribute this week to your initiative :)We walked this afternoon to a neighbouring town here in Spain. I've been seeing Jacaranda trees everywhere these days, it was the same today, but I only took one photo this afternoon. It was standing out with its colour from the other trees, as all Jacarandas do when they bloom.
@videoaddiction with this entry from Turkiye:
Hi @phortun mate! Nice to participate in your challenge after a while. I took this photo on Saturday when I was in one of my favourite place, which I was there also last month. It is nearby a dam-lake in Istanbul and one of the rare places that we can get rid of the crowd and rush of the city in the weekend. Moreover, I think to share a post about it during the next week if I can make it ready. Location: Istanbul, Türkiye.
@alfrin with this entry from Venezuela:
Here you can see what is known in Venezuela as CHICHARRAS and in other places as CIGARS, which are insects known for making one of the loudest noises known in nature, up to 115 decibels. It is equivalent to a rock concert and is produced by males to attract the female to reproduce and to mark territory. This sound has a characteristic that is produced so that it has an echo and thus when trying to search for the CHICHARRA for the origin of the sound, it will not be found because it seems to originate in another place, being that the insect that produces it It is in some tree around where the sound takes us, making it very difficult to find it. In addition, the CHICHARRA has a particular life cycle in which the female dies shortly after laying the eggs, the larvae bury themselves in the ground and remain there for 4 to 17 years, then they emerge all together and undergo metamorphosis and Thus the cycle begins again. This particular way of life is so that the adults do not compete for food with the larvae and also when all the larvae emerge at the same time, the probability that predators will be able to devastate the population of CICAGARRAS decreases as there are many of them at the same time. These insects are not a danger to man or his crops because they feed on tree sap. This photo was taken on May 20 on a walk through Los Caobos Park in the center of the city where you can hear the CHICHARRA, in this month, giving a special atmosphere to the park. I hope you like this post and waiting for your comments or suggestions.
Congratulations guys! It was my pleasure to give you 100% upvotes on your entries and send 1.5 Hive each, you can check that out in your wallets :)
I am looking forward to what you all will come up with in this round :) Have fun everyone and don´t forget to... Appreciate Beauty of Nature!
I post this series in the Amazing Nature community, a great community for all nature lovers. Feel free to check it out ;)
This post was created by me for the Hive blockchain exclusively. All rights reserved.
