Each February, if conditions allow the seasonal Horsetail waterfall in Yosemite National Park in California to flow, the waterfall appears to be set ablaze by the setting sun. And it’s simply breathtaking!
Jay Huang via Flickr (CC BY 2.0)
The event is known as the firefall (apparently as homage to Yosemite Firefall). This photo was posted by Jay Huang on Flickr (CC BY 2.0). Thank you for sharing, Jay!
In early January we had some warm temps, but then the temperatures swung again. With new snow on the ground and temperatures well below freezing, I put my brand new mittens to good use. Aren’t they super?
In a perfect world, the blues would be a little less teal-ey and turquoise and lean more towards grey, but you work with what you’ve got, right?
Thank you so much, M, for knitting them! Lurrrve. ❤
We’ve had the first snow storm of the winter. In two days, we got about 12″ / 30 cm. It’s SO pretty with the trees loaded up with snow! And the sun is also trying to get out.
It’s going to be a great day, even if the town still hasn’t plowed the sidewalks. Then again, after two days of shoveling the driveway, I’m not in urgent need of a walk. 🙂
Spring is my absolute favorite time of the year, but fall does have its share of beauty besides the colors. The other day I gathered a few rose hips for a bouquet from some wild rose trimmings.
And just for a little more color and volume, I added one sprig. Understated but nice. 🙂
I’m both amazed and delighted over how long wild flowers blossom around here:
Granted, they’re not terribly flashy like cultivated ones, but they do give bees and other pollinators sustenance long into the fall season and provide splashes of color, too. (We keep our yard purposely toxin-free for the bees.)
Christian Spencer has photographed hummingbirds in Brazil’s Itatiaia National Park for years. He’s concentrated on the way light diffracts through the birds’ wings and breaks into a rainbow. The photos are GORGEOUS – here’s just one example:
Christian Spencer
Wow – the skill it takes to capture the hummingbirds just so!
Found via Colossal. Visit Spencer’s website for more.
Note: I wasn’t paid or perked to mention this; just passing along a good thing.
Artist Louise Jones known professionally as Ouizi works on many things – murals, printmaking, painting and drawing. I’m most taken with her outdoor murals: large-scale floral paintings on building facades, etc. My favorite so far is in Detroit, Michigan:
Trumbull Porter Hotel, Detroit, Michigan. Ouizi.
Normally I tend not to gravitate towards black, but this exterior is so vibrant and astounding I cannot but love it. The boutique hotel Trumbull Porter has even included a video of the painting process on their website. (If not found there, visit Trumbull and Porter Hotel Ouizi Mural on Vimeo.)
More of her work on the Ouizi website and Instagram.
Found via Colossal.
Note: I wasn’t paid or perked to mention this; just passing along a good thing.
While looking through my photos for the last snowfalls in recent years, I ran into this striking April sunset from a few years ago:
The little pond is just down the street from us. I quite like living in the woods! 🙂
The city of El Alto in Bolivia, high up in the Andes, is the country’s second largest city and right next to the third largest one, La Paz. Something that El Alto beats its richer neighbor in is unique eye candy right on the building facades.
That’s because an architect, Freddy Mamani Silvestre, is slowly working bright colors into El Alto’s red-brick and concrete scenery.
via Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 3.0).
Information on Silvestre seems scant in English. A member of the indigenous Aymara, he apparently started working on buildings as a bricklayer. There’s a feature on El Alto in The New York Times in 2013 and in The Washington Post in 2014. He’s referred to in a 2014 BBC News article on president Evo Morales. The Architectural Association, Inc., still has their exhibition info Salones de Eventos from 2015 available online. I also found two articles via the German Wikipedia entry for Silvestri: one in The Architectural Review and the other in Quartz, both from 2015. The best bet at the moment might be the 2017 book El Alto by Silvestre and Peter Granser. For Spanish readers there’s more, including the 2014 book La arquitectura de Freddy Mamani Silvestre.
Salón Montecarlo by Alfredo Zeballos / The Architecture of Freddy Mamani Silvestre. Via Quartz.
Silvestri draws on traditional shapes and colors in his designs. Some of the detailing reminds me of jugend (I believe the phrase art deco is used in the U.S. instead), but Silvestri’s work is clearly not derivative of it.
If the exteriors seem colorful and detailed, just wait until you see the interiors!
Wow! His style has been described as Neo-Andean, new Andean, space-ship architecture or, plainly, kitch. However you may want to describe it, the word colorful will have to be there!
Found via Colossal.
Note: I wasn’t paid or perked to mention this; just passing along a good thing.
Today is the Finnish Independence Day. We’re 101 years old!
As is our custom, I’m lighting two candles.
(In case you’re interested, here are my thoughts on the 100th anniversary.)
