Hi there my Hivean friends and followers!
Welcome to the 147th round of my special weekly photo challenge known as Appreciate Beauty of Nature with @phortun :)
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 ;)
Obviously, there is no way for me to verify whether the photo that you submit in the challenge is really fresh or if it was even taken by you so I am relying on your honesty guys. The prizes for the winners (as described below) are more symbolical than overly motivating so I don´t expect too much fraudulent behavior in this challenge anyway.
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 one week.
Add a few words about the photo, at least where and when you took it.
You can start submitting your entries to this round in the comment section below from now until the next round.
Prior to publishing the next round post, I will pick 3 winners, give my full upvote on their entries and feature them in the next round of the challenge. As long as the response is not too overwhelming, I will also try to give some smaller upvotes on all of the other entries to reward all participants.
I might change the concept and/or the rules of the photo challenge later on, depending on how things go. I usually host the challenge on Thursday but when needed for some reason, I can host it on some other day so better check my blog regularly not to miss out on it ;)
To keep up with you guys, I submit my own fresh natural photo to every round´s post too :) Here is my contribution to start out this round:
A couple of days ago, we got another load of snow here in Prague. It was snowing quite heavily last Friday but it was already dark outside so I couldn´t take any pictures that day. Therefore, I headed out to nature the next day, on Saturday morning, to enjoy the snow before it melts away again. Unfortunately, I´m not exactly an early bird so I ended up outside as late as just before the lunch and by that time, a decent part of the fresh snow blanket already did melt away but I still managed to capture some snowy scenes. Here is one of them. Taken at one of the entrances to the famous Prokop Valley here in Prague, Czech Republic.
In the last round, we had 8 participants. After some thorough consideration, I decided to pick these 3 winners:
@tommyl33 with this entry from Malaysia:
I always see this bee every morning getting honey from flower around the house but I decided try to take her picture last weekend. After chasing her a few minutes, I managed to take her picture while she was resting. This carpenter bee says hello from Sabah, Malaysia.
@malos10 with this entry from Venezuela:
Here is my entry for this week, I took this photo yesterday in a pine forest in Venezuela, Tachira State. I'm planning to make a post tomorrow about this adventure too! I will tag your contest, hopefully more people will be encouraged to join too.
@onlavu with this entry from the Czech Republic:
Hey @phortun, very fresh entry from my today´s trek through my beloved Jeseniky Mountains (Czechia). All day long, milky weather on my journey. Except this moment when the sun showed up for a couple of minutes. Photo taken at the Lost Stones (1250 m.a.s.l.) a very popular hiking spot of the mountains.
Congratulations guys! It was my pleasure to give you 100% upvotes on your entries :)
I am looking forward to what you will come up with in this round.
Have fun and appreciate the 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 ;)