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Luciole Press Blog

"Aqua art" by Mark Mawson








Mark Mawson art 

Something fishy: This creation by British artist Mark Mawson looks distinctly like a Portuguese man o' war with drifting tentacles







Is it a cloud? Is it a jellyfish? No, it's a whole new way of making a splash in the art world
03rd July 2009

 

 

They could be the latest NASA photographs from the cloud systems of Jupiter, a new species of jellyfish, or microscopic views inside the human body.

But in fact these amazing images are a whole new art form.

The work of self-styled 'aqua artist' Mark Mawson, they are created simply by dropping paint into water.

Splashing paint around has been a standard artistic approach ever since Jackson Pollock made his name with it in the 1950s. But by dropping the paint into water instead of onto a canvas, Mawson has arrived at a startlingly new look.

The 41-year-old, from London, has been taking pictures for 22 years but only recently came up with the eye-catching way of creating stunning and beautiful abstract forms at random.

Mawson, who specialises in shooting underwater scenes and people, takes different kinds of paint and drops them into a tank before snapping the outcome with his camera and using a strobe to light up the weird and wonderful forms.












Mark Mawson art

Pitcher this: A milky vision created simply by dropping white paint into a tank of water








One secret of creating the variety of shapes is using paints with different densities.   

'I had seen lots of ink-in-water shots and wanted to try something which had more body and which produced more organic forms,' said Mawson.

'I have had great responses. Viewers can see different things in them and interpret them for themselves.

'Sea creatures are a regular response but also dancers, old men and even Jimi Hendrix setting fire to his guitar.  












Mark Mawson art

Explosion of colour: Two different paints form a striking contrast in the inky darkness







When shooting, he needs to be quick with his camera-finger because the shapes last only for a split second.

'It's a laborious process but worth it when you see the images,' he added.

Mawson's work, currently on display in Sydney, Australia, is up for sale with no set prices.












Mark Mawson art

Drip drip drop: Multiple spatters of paint make for a delicate and complex pattern










Article: HERE

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Plant disease hits US veggies early and hard; tomato plants have been removed from stores in half a dozen states

 

 

http://completegarden.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/tomato-blight-on-leaf.jpg


Tomato blight on a leaf
Image: HERE

 


Plant disease hits eastern US veggies early, hard

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Japan may add noise to quiet hybrid cars for safety







A customer admires a Honda Motor's hybrid vehicle at a showroom ... 

AFP/File


AFP/File
Fri Jul 3, 2:05 AM ET

A customer admires a Honda Motor's hybrid vehicle at a showroom in Tokyo. Japan's near-silent hybrid cars have been called dangerous by the vision-impaired and some users, prompting a government review on whether to add a noise-making device, according to an official.

(AFP/File/Yoshikazu Tsuno)





 
Japan may add noise to quiet hybrid cars for safety

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Iran to put detained British Embassy staff on trial after they 'confess' to role in post-election unrest








Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, left, and Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, right, in Tehran in 2008. Today Jannati announced that some detained British Embassy staffers will face trial after 'confessing' to their role in post-election unrest

Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, left, and Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, right, in Tehran in 2008. Today Jannati announced that some detained British Embassy staffers will face trial after 'confessing' to their role in post-election unrest








Iran to put detained British Embassy staff on trial after they 'confess' to role in post-election unrest
03rd July 2009

 

Some of the British Embassy staff detained in Iran are to face trial after they 'confessed' to their alleged role in post-election unrest, a top Iranian cleric said today.

Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, who is close to Iran's supreme leader, has made the announcement in a Friday prayer sermon. He said the detained staffers 'made confessions.'

Downing Street said it was 'concerned' at the report.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown's spokesman said urgent clarification was being sought from the Iranian government regarding the claims.

Top Iranian cleric Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati made the announcement in a prayer sermon earlier today.

Eight embassy staff were arrested at the weekend amid rapidly deteriorating relations with Iran since the disputed re-election of president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Jannati did not say how many staffers will be tried or on what charges.

Earlier Iranian officials said all but one of the eight embassy personnel arrested on June 27 had been released, but European Union officials said they believed more than one was still being held.

Jannati is the head of the Guardian Council, a powerful body in Iran's clerical rule, and is close to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

He said today: 'In these developments their embassy here maintained a presence in which individuals were arrested and inevitably they will be tried as they have (made) confessions.'




Article: HERE

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A diver's very close encounter with a huge whale shark, in South Africa





Close encounter: Sam Bester did not even realise the whale shark was behind her as she swam off Durban, in South Africa 

Close encounter: Sam Bester did not even realise the whale shark was behind her as she swam off Durban, in South Africa







 
He's behind you! Diver's close encounter with enormous shark
01st July 2009


 
Looming from the depths, this huge creature looks as if it is about to swallow diver Sam Bester whole.

Luckily for her, it is actually a whale shark, which only eats plankton.
The picture was taken by Miss Bester's friend Fiona Ayerst off the coast of Durban in South Africa.
 
The diver had been completely oblivious to the shark's presence until Miss Bester pointed it out.
Whale sharks are the largest living fish species and can grow up to 65ft (20m) in length. Some experts believe they can live to the age of 100.

They are found in tropical and warm seas, typically with temperatures ranging between 18 and 30C.

And though the gaping mouth may look terrifying, it has a very practical purpose.

Whales sharks are able to gobble up huge amounts of plankton, sieving out the water swallowed with each mouthful through the gills.

Although they are so big, they are one of the world's more elusive creatures and little is known about them.

Marine scientists dubbed them whale sharks because of their size. They have the skeleton of a shark and are therefore fish, not mammals.
 







Article: HERE

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Two poems by New England poet Amy Lowell (1874-1925): "The Giver of Stars" and "At Night"






The Giver of Stars
by Amy Lowell

Hold your soul open for my welcoming.
Let the quiet of your spirit bathe me
With its clear and rippled coolness,
That, loose-limbed and weary, I find rest,
Outstretched upon your peace, as on a bed of ivory.
Let the flickering flame of your soul play all about me,
That into my limbs may come the keenness of fire,
The life and joy of tongues of flame,
And, going out from you, tightly strung and in tune,
I may rouse the blear-eyed world,
And pour into it the beauty which you have begotten.




HERE





At Night

by Amy Lowell

The wind is singing through the trees to-night,
A deep-voiced song of rushing cadences
And crashing intervals. No summer breeze
Is this, though hot July is at its height,
Gone is her gentler music; with delight
She listens to this booming like the seas,
These elemental, loud necessities
Which call to her to answer their swift might.
Above the tossing trees shines down a star,
Quietly bright; this wild, tumultuous joy
Quickens nor dims its splendour. And my mind,
O Star! is filled with your white light, from far,
So suffer me this one night to enjoy
The freedom of the onward sweeping wind.




HERE





Amy Lowell (1874 - 1925)
Amy Lowell







Amy Lowell (1874-1925), American Imagist poet, was a woman of great accomplishment. She was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, to a prominent family of high-achievers. Her environment was literary and sophisticated, and when she left private school at 17 to care for her elderly parents, she embarked on a program of self-education.

Her poetic career began in 1902 when she saw Eleonora Duse, a famous actress, perform on stage. Overcome with Eleonora's beauty and talent, she wrote her first poem addressed to the actress. They met only a couple times and never developed a relationship, but Eleonora inspired many poems from Amy and triggered her career.

Ada Russell, another actress, became the love of Amy's life. She met Ada in 1909 and they remained together until Amy's death in 1925. Amy wrote many, many poems about Ada. In the beginning, as with her previous poems about women, she wrote in such a way that only those who knew the inspiration for a poem would recognize its lesbian content. But as time went on, she censored her work less and less. By the time she wrote Pictures of the Floating World, her poems about Ada were much more blatantly erotic. The series "Planes of Personality: Two Speak Together" chronicles their relationship, including the intensely erotic poem "A Decade" that celebrates their tenth anniversary.

Amy's dedication to the art of poetry was consuming. She purchased her parent's estate upon her death and established it as a center of poetry, as well as a place to breed her beloved English sheepdogs. She promoted American poetry, acting as a patron to a number of poets. Amy also wrote many essays, translated the works of others, and wrote literary biographies. Her two-volume biography of Keats was well-received in the United States, though it was rejected in England as presumptuous.

She is best known for bringing the Imagist movement to America. Her own work, full of lush imagery but slim on excess verbiage, was similar to that of H.D. (Hilda Doolittle), an emerging Imagist poet in England. . When Amy saw the similarity, she travelled to England to research the movement and ended up bringing back volumes of poetry to introduce Imagist work to the United States. Ezra Pound, the "head" of the movement, was most offended by Amy's involvement. He threatened to sue her, something which delighted her no end, and finally he removed himself from the movement entirely. She argued that this was good; he would ruin it anyway. Pound took to calling the movement "Amygisme," and engaged in plenty of scathing attacks against her.

Beyond the nasty slurs hurled by Pound, Amy was criticized for many more things that did not actually reflect her skill as a poet. Critics were offended by her lesbianism, by the way she wore men's shirts and smoked cigars, and even by her obesity. They argued that she must not have experienced true passion, reflecting a common prejudice that women who are overweight cannot possibly be sexual beings. In the face of these barbs, her literary career suffered, and she did not achieve the status as a poet she so richly deserved.

Her admirers defended her, however, even after her death. One of the best rebuttals was written by Heywood Broun, in his obituary tribute to Amy. He wrote, "She was upon the surface of things a Lowell, a New Englander and a spinster. But inside everything was molten like the core of the earth... Given one more gram of emotion, Amy Lowell would have burst into flame and been consumed to cinders."


Amy's book, What's O'Clock, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1926, a year after her death.




HERE


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Idaho Fish & Game plan to kill pelicans hits obstacles. "Some anglers complain the birds eat too many sport fish, though Fish and Game concedes 90 percent of their diet is non-game fish like chubs"







http://www.redrockrvpark.com/blog/uploaded_images/WhitePelicanHead_097109-743618.jpg

Closeup of American White Pelican on Henry's Lake, Idaho
Image:
 
HERE







http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2a/Us-id-fremont-henrys-lake-aerial.jpg

Henry's Lake in Fremont County, Idaho
Image: HERE






Idaho F&G plan to kill pelicans hits obstacles

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Sears Tower unveils 103rd floor glass balconies (lots of incredible photos of people out on "The Ledge")






                          Anna Kane, 5, of Alton, Ill. looks down from 'The Ledge,' the ...


AP
Wed Jul 1, 4:32 PM ET
Prev 3 of 23

Anna Kane, 5, of Alton, Ill. looks down from 'The Ledge,' the new glass balconies suspended 1,353 feet (412 meters) in the air and jut out 4 feet (1.22 meters) from the Sears Tower's 103rd floor Skydeck Wednesday, July 1, 2009 in Chicago. The Ledge will open to public on Thursday.

(AP Photo/Kiichiro Sato)






                                                            Participants to the sneak preview of 'The Ledge,' stand on the ...

AP
Wed Jul 1, 4:31 PM ET
Prev 4 of 23

Participants to the sneak preview of 'The Ledge,' stand on the new glass balconies suspended 1,353 feet (412 meters) in the air and jut out 4 feet (1.22 meters) from the Sears Tower's 103rd floor Skydeck Wednesday, July 1, 2009 in Chicago. The Ledge will open to public on Thursday.

(AP Photo/Kiichiro Sato)







Anna Kane, 5, of Alton, Ill. looks down from 'The Ledge,' the ... 

AP
Wed Jul 1, 4:32 PM ET
Prev 2 of 23

Anna Kane, 5, of Alton, Ill. looks down from 'The Ledge,' the new glass balconies suspended 1,353 feet (412 meters) in the air and jut out 4 feet (1.22 meters) from the Sears Tower's 103rd floor Skydeck Wednesday, July 1, 2009 in Chicago. The Ledge will open to public on Thursday.

(AP Photo/Kiichiro Sato)






                                                           Anna Kane, 5, of Alton, Ill. lays down on 'The Ledge,' the new ...

AP
Wed Jul 1, 4:34 PM ET
Prev 1 of 23

Anna Kane, 5, of Alton, Ill. lays down on 'The Ledge,' the new glass balconies suspended 1,353 feet (412 meters) in the air and jut out 4 feet (1.22 meters) from the Sears Tower's 103rd floor Skydeck Wednesday, July 1, 2009 in Chicago. The Ledge will open to public on Thursday.

(AP Photo/Kiichiro Sato)





Sears Tower unveils 103rd floor glass balconies






Participants to the preview of 'The Ledge,' stand on the new ... 

AP
Wed Jul 1, 4:31 PM ET
Prev 5 of 23

Participants to the preview of 'The Ledge,' stand on the new glass balconies suspended 1,353 feet (412 meters) in the air and jut out 4 feet (1.22 meters) from the Sears Tower's 103rd floor Skydeck Wednesday, July 1, 2009 in Chicago. The Ledge will open to public on Thursday.

(AP Photo/Kiichiro Sato)





                                                                      Anna Kane, 5, left, of Alton, Ill., and Sophie Allaway, 4, of ...

AP
Wed Jul 1, 4:28 PM ET
Prev 6 of 23

Anna Kane, 5, left, of Alton, Ill., and Sophie Allaway, 4, of Glen Ellen, Ill., look down from 'The Ledge,' the new glass balconies suspended 1,353 feet (412 meters) in the air and jut out 4 feet (1.22 meters) from the Sears Tower's 103rd floor Skydeck Wednesday, July 1, 2009 in Chicago. The Ledge will open to public on Thursday.

(AP Photo/Kiichiro Sato)






Children wave to a helicopter from 'The Ledge,' the new glass ... 

AP
Wed Jul 1, 4:27 PM ET
Prev 7 of 23

Children wave to a helicopter from 'The Ledge,' the new glass balconies suspended 1,353 feet (412 meters) in the air and jut out 4 feet (1.22 meters) from the Sears Tower's 103rd floor Skydeck Wednesday, July 1, 2009 in Chicago. The Ledge will open to public on Thursday.

(AP Photo/Kiichiro Sato)






                                                           Children stand on "The Ledge" a five-sided glass box ...

Reuters
Wed Jul 1, 4:06 PM ET
Prev 8 of 23

Children stand on "The Ledge" a five-sided glass box 1,353 feet (412 meters) above the street in Chicago July 1, 2009. The Ledge is part of Skydeck Chicago located on the 103rd floor of the Sears Tower. It opens to the public on July 2.

REUTERS/Frank Polich (UNITED STATES SOCIETY TRAVEL)







                                                                      Members of the media photograph the view from "The Ledge", ...

Reuters
Wed Jul 1, 4:05 PM ET
Prev 9 of 23

Members of the media photograph the view from "The Ledge", a five-sided glass box 1,353 feet (412 meters) above Wacker Drive in Chicago July 1, 2009. The Ledge is part of Skydeck Chicago located on the 103rd floor of the Sears Tower. It opens to the public on July 2.

REUTERS/Frank Polich (UNITED STATES SOCIETY TRAVEL)







                         Five-year-old Anna Kane (L) and four-year-old Sophie Allaway ...

Reuters
Wed Jul 1, 4:04 PM ET
Prev 10 of 23

Five-year-old Anna Kane (L) and four-year-old Sophie Allaway look through the glass floor of "The Ledge", a five-sided glass box 1,353 feet (412 meters) above the street in Chicago July 1, 2009. The Ledge is part of Skydeck Chicago on the 103rd floor of the Sears Tower. It opens to the public on July 2.

REUTERS/Frank Polich (UNITED STATES SOCIETY TRAVEL)








                            Members of the media photograph the view from "The Ledge", ...

Reuters
Wed Jul 1, 3:38 PM ET
Prev 12 of 23

Members of the media photograph the view from "The Ledge", a five-sided glass box 1,353 feet (412 meters) above Wacker Drive in Chicago July 1, 2009. The Ledge is part of Skydeck Chicago located on the 103rd floor of the Sears Tower. It opens to the public on July 2.

REUTERS/Frank Polich (UNITED STATES SOCIETY TRAVEL)
 

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Two rare white lions, male and female, cuddle/spoon in the South African sun






Cat nap: A lion and his lioness snuggle up in the midday sun
The lion sleeps tonight: The big cats spoon in the midday sun






 
Big cat nap: A lion and his lioness spotted spooning in the South African sun
02nd July 2009

 
It's hard work being king of the jungle and keeping up a fearsome reputation.

So perhaps it's not surprising that every now and again even the toughest lion in the pride feels the need for a bit of a cuddle with his favourite lioness.
This pair were spotted snoozing and snuggled up together in the shade of a tree in a South African animal reserve. 
 
They are rare white lions, their pale coats the result of a recessive gene. They were pictured by Eliane Graham, who spent a few weeks volunteering at the lion park earlier this year.

Miss Graham, 38, from London, said: 'I was going for a drive though one of the reserves when I saw this pair. I have never seen two lions lying like that before.
'Lions are very social animals and like to live and sleep together. It was quite human, the way they were holding each other.'

Miss Graham was working at The Lion Park, near Johannesburg, which is home to more than 80 lions, as well as other carnivores such as cheetahs and spotted hyenas.

It is estimated there are only 30 white lions remaining, both in the wild and captivity.






Article: HERE

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Photo: a Japanese cat takes a nap alongside a farmer's workboots as seasonal rains pour down outside







 
 













HERE



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