Random Photos

[DennisN]

Some shots from January two years ago...

Chestnut bud:

Tree scene:

Same tree scene, but with intended lens flaring from the backlight:

(Lens used: Helios 44M7 58mm)

 

[DennisN]

Three shots of Western jackdaws...
...this species have over the years become one of my absolute favorite animals.
A little bit weird, since they've always been around here and they are very common here.
But if you study them closer you will find out that they are so clever, cool, fun and sometimes sociable.


Full shot:

On the lookout:

A little bit of food... (fed by me):

 

[DennisN]

Impressionism?
No. Pond art.

(Lens used: Industar-26m & B+W Pol. filter. The Industar-26m (50mm, f/2.8) is ergonomically a disaster , but I still like the lens. It's a fun and pretty good lens with character. But man, it can be annoying to handle it, at least for me.)

 

[nsaspook]

One of my kids and her husband in Japan.

 

[berkeman]

Pond art.

Some of my favorite photos I've seen are ones looking into a quiet pond where you can see the details of the bottom, the details of the things floating on the surface, and the reflection of the canopy above. The three-level composition is really amazing, IMO. I'll see if I can dig one up...

 

[DennisN]

Some of my favorite photos I've seen are ones looking into a quiet pond where you can see the details of the bottom, the details of the things floating on the surface, and the reflection of the canopy above. The three-level composition is really amazing, IMO. I'll see if I can dig one up...

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind! It sounds like a cool idea to do!

 

[jtbell]

I was going to drive to Knoxville, Tennessee this weekend, but something came up here and I had to shelve that trip. Instead, you're going to get pictures from my trip there almost exactly a year ago.

My first stop was north of Walhalla SC, where a project to build a railroad from SC to Knoxville before the Civil War was left unfinished at Stumphouse Mountain.

Water was dripping steadily from the ceiling, so I didn't try to go beyond the entrance.

I don't know whether this bit of railroad equipment is original, or was put there when the park was created.

 

[Point Conception]

13 N , 100 E Summer starts here with the prevailing clear Southerlies right on schedule. Afternoon to evening with her listening for the first time to Etta James singing 'Baby what you want me to do'

 

[pinball1970]

Walking home last night.

 

[jtbell]

In western North Carolina, highway US-64 / NC-28 between Highlands and Franklin passes near several waterfalls. I was going more slowly than expected because my route was very twisty (top speed usually 25-35 mph), so I stopped at only one of them which was right next to the road.

 

[berkeman]

so I stopped at only one of them which was right next to the road.

WITW? That's really weird. Was the roadway built up around the waterfall, or did the waterfall always fall into that hole that drains somewhere else?

 

[jtbell]

It's apparently always been that way! Originally the road ran behind the falls, but that bit became pedestrian-only after the road was relocated.

Bridal Veil Falls (Wikipedia)

Bridal Veil Falls (Romantic Asheville)

Next time I go that way to Knoxville, I'll stay overnight somewhere (probably Franklin) so I have time to see some of the other falls.

 

[berkeman]

It's apparently always been that way! Originally the road ran behind the falls

Free car wash!

 

[nsaspook]

The oscope can't decode the last part of the data stream. The machine needed to call it something.

 

[nsaspook]

 

[jtbell]

Just south of the Tennessee / North Carolina border, just west of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, is Fontana Lake, which was drawn down for maintenance on its dam.

The dam was definitely worth a stop, even though the visitor center was closed. Too early in the year.

One can also drive down to view the base of the dam.

Nearby is the Fontana Village Resort, a campground whose billboards promote it as the "Best Place for Your Dam Family Vacation."

 

[nsaspook]

 

[Flyboy]

“New” camera arrived today … a 1964 Nikon F.

Looking forward to putting some film in it and testing it out this weekend. (Weather in Iowa the next few days is dismal…)

… goddamnit, server. Why do you always rotate iPhone photos.

 

[DennisN]

“New” camera arrived today … a 1964 Nikon F.

I've got a couple of vintage film cameras at home, I'll put up some photos later.

 

[DennisN]

“New” camera arrived today … a 1964 Nikon F.

I've got a couple of vintage film cameras at home, I'll put up some photos later.

Here comes a couple of photos of old film cameras. I'm not a camera collector; a few of them I've bought intentionally (Yashica Electro 35 and Pentax Spotmatic) while others have ended up at home after I've bought vintage lenses online. I have thought about trying to shoot with film, but I haven't done it yet.

Camera nostalgia... who knows, some here may recognize a couple of these cameras.


Yashica Electro 35 (a quite famous rangefinder camera):

- I bought this for nostalgic reasons. This was a camera my dad had, and which I used as a child.
This one is in amazingly good condition.

Pentax Spotmatic (a vintage SLR):

- Another famous camera, a real workhorse. I bought this to try shooting with film.

Yashica TL-Electro (a vintage SLR):

Nikon EM (a quite small, lightweight and basic vintage SLR):

Zenit 3M (a Soviet vintage SLR):

I bought this because of the lens which is attached to the camera below.
The lens is a 13-bladed Helios-44, which is a very cool lens and quite sought after.

Chinon CE Memotron (a vintage SLR):

Chinon M-1 (a vintage SLR):

 

[fresh_42]

That reminds me a bit of a chess clock we had at our recreation room at the university. We called it "Kalashnikov" since it was almost undestroyable.
https://i.etsystatic.com/20337121/r/il/7a528c/6189130699/il_1080xN.6189130699_hg38.jpg

 

[jtbell]

Highway US-129 through Deals Gap on the North Carolina / Tennessee border is apparently famous among motorcycle buffs as the "Tail of the Dragon" because of its many curves.

Passing Calderwood Lake and its dam:

Then the road drops down to a very gently curving section at water level along the shore of Chilhowee Lake.

After this, the sun set, with over an hour to go to reach Knoxville. Fortunately the worst of the curves were done with by then. I arrived at my hotel after dark.

 

[jtbell]

My excuse for going to Knoxville was a stamp show which I visited in the morning. Its theme was the 75th anniversary of the American Museum of Science and Energy in nearby Oak Ridge, so I figured it would be appropriate to go there in the afternoon.

As an undergraduate, I took a short course at ORNL during a vacation break with a group of students from my college, so I was also curious to see what Oak Ridge looks like nowadays. We visited the AMSE in its previous quarters. Now it's in a repurposed store in a shopping mall.

There are exhibits about nuclear science in general and the work done nowadays at ORNL.

And about the Manhattan Project during WWII.

"Silence Means Security"

No one outside Oak Ridge knew what was going on there, except for people with suitable classified clearances. Access was strictly controlled at checkpoints on the roads entering Oak Ridge. Ordinary civilians who lived and worked there had no idea about the work that was being done there. Mail in and out was censored.

The calutrons separated uranium isotopes using the "electromagnetic method". Ions in a magnetic field follow orbits that depend on their masses. The operators watched meters and turned dials whose labels did not indicate what they actually measured or controlled, following "cookbook" instructions which made no reference to what the whole thing was all about!

 

[Ibix]

The operators watched meters and turned dials whose labels did not indicate what they actually measured or controlled, following "cookbook" instructions which made no reference to what the whole thing was all about!

There's a comment in Feynman's autobiography about when he went to talk about the facility where they were processing uranium for the bombs. They guys designing it had been told that the stuff was a new kind of explosive, but no more. So they'd designed a containment facility with separate rooms containing only small amounts of uranium with water-filled spaces between to absorb blast. Unfortunately, water slows neutrons and makes them far more likely to be absorbed by an atom, so increasing the rate of reactions in the stored uranium.

He got permission to explain the basic physics to the guys building the facility.

 

[DennisN]

Some old newly processed photos...

Escalators going down...

Four escalators...

A subway station...

A subway tunnel...

Inside the tunnel...

 

[jtbell]

Stockholm?

 

[DennisN]

Stockholm?

No, Malmö.

 

[jtbell]

No, Malmö.

OK, that must be the Øresundståg tunnel that was built in connection with the Øresund rail bridge (built long after my brief visit to Malmö). I didn't remember Malmö as having also gotten a metro line, but now I see that there is a proposal for an Öresund Metro that would supplement the rail line.

 

[jtbell]

After visiting the AMSE in Oak Ridge, I drove to the K-25 History Center. The K-25 plant enriched uranium using the gaseous diffusion process. When it was built (in secret, of course) it was the largest industrial facility in the world. Its demolition was finished in 2017. The site is now the East Tennessee Technology Park.

The K-25 History Center tells about the site's history and has a collection of artifacts.

This mobile "Criticality Unit" was used inside the plant to respond to hazardous-material incidents. It's sort of like a fire engine, but sprays borated water. In front is one of the bicycles that workers used for getting around the huge building.

You couldn't simply toss documents in the wastebasket.

This was how Knoxville learned about Oak Ridge, the day after the first A-bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.

I arrived here about a half hour before closing time, so I could do only a quick walk-through. If I had known about this place beforehand, I would have come straight here and skipped the AMSE. It's much more focused on history than on general science.

 

[Rive]

We grow cats in the flowerbed

On the leftover from winter:

(Long-tailed tit - lucky shots: although they are curious and come really close, they are also very agile birds, never stay the same place too long.)