A little over four years after publishing the first series of photographs from the National Arboretum in Washington, DC, here’s part two, containing a mix of photos from the outside gardens and various enclosed ones, including the Bonsai Exhibit.
Selected photos from the set are highlighted below and you can find all of them by going through the gallery posted at the bottom. Enjoy!
In my book, there are only a handful of things that rank as high as taking a walk in nature, in the midst of soft, lightly glowing morning fog. This was one of those beautiful mornings I won’t soon forget.
Photos taken in the Virginia countryside, near the very interesting rock formation called Natural Bridge.
Video from Kuroshio Sea, the 2nd largest aquarium tank in the world, by Jon Rawlinson. Set it to play full screen and enjoy it. It’s quite peaceful. Seeing the silhouettes of the people set against the backlit aquarium will give you the proper scale for all the fish in there. Great stuff.
Kuroshio Sea – 2nd largest aquarium tank in the world – (song is Please don’t go by Barcelona) from Jon Rawlinson on Vimeo.
Over the course of a few days, I recorded macro footage of flowers, then picked the best sequences, edited them and set them to a nice, soothing soundtrack. The end result is this — a short video that should get you nice and relaxed. It goes along nicely with my video of garden insects, also filmed in macro mode.
You can see the video at blip.tv, Vimeo and YouTube. There are a few photos that go along with this as well.
A couple of weekends ago, I was walking on the quay near the Casino in the city of Constanta. There was this girl sitting on one of the benches with a guy, supposedly her boyfriend. Her curly hair reminded me of my wife, so I watched them for a bit, to see how they fit together as a couple. I was disappointed.
The girl seemed nice, but the guy, a classic douchebag if I’ve ever seen one, kept forcing her to kiss him, pulling her toward him, and fondling her. She tried to resist, to keep a little distance and admire the view (it was a beautiful spring day) but all this douchebag wanted to do was to feel her up. Finally she gave in and let him have his way. That’s when I turned away, disgusted.
There are so many girls who simply give in. They’re pressured into relationships they don’t really want to have, into sexual acts they don’t really want to perform, into marriages where they’re not happy, and the list goes on, ad nauseam. They think a douchebag is all they’re entitled to in their lives. They think they’ve got to put out in order to get the relationship started and keep it going. They think abuse is normal.
None of that is normal. You can do better! Have a little self- respect. You will get the right guy, and he’ll be nice to you. You just have to be pickier, and have a little patience.
Have a look at my wife. It goes without saying that I think she’s hot. She could have had plenty of guys. But when she dated, before we met, she demanded respect from all those guys, didn’t fool around, and kept herself for her husband. You know what? Instead of being scorned for not putting out, she was respected all the more for her decision.
So really, it all comes down to how much self-respect you have for yourself, and what you choose to do with your life. If you’re not going to respect yourself, no one else will. Don’t put out. Don’t be like the girls in this other post. Wait for the right guy, or even more, look for the right guy. Don’t give up along the way. Don’t let every stranger that enters your life have dessert before they get through the main course. Put them through plenty of tests before they get to the goodies. Don’t cheapen yourself. Each and every one of us has a God-given capability to be more than we think we could be. I say reach for the sky, and see what happens.
Raoul Pop 