Mouro to the max

Just browsing photos on the Net, and came across this one of the Mouro lighthouse by Max Billder on Pixdaus.

The Mouro Island Lighthouse or ‘Isla de Mouro’ Lighthouse is located on the island of Mouro at the entrance to the Bay of Santander, in Cantabria, northern Spain.

Built in 1860, the unpainted conical stone tower with lantern room and gallery rises from the centre of a circular single-storey stone keeper's house, an additional dwelling house is attached. It is 39 metres above sea-level and the tower is 20 metres high (do your own math on the height of the waves).

This highly exposed lighthouse was a dangerous assignment for its keepers (one was drowned by a great wave in 1865). In February 1996, a severe storm swept over the tower and extinguished the light. The original lantern was removed around 1990. In 2003-04, the lighthouse was restored and in April 2004, a new lantern installed by helicopter. The island is a restricted nature reserve only accessible by boat, with the site and tower closed.

I searched further and came across other dramatic shots on Flickr.

"Power of the storm II"

Rafael G. Riancho's wonderfully dramatic colour photograph of the lighthouse among the airborne spume of the waves. You can follow the link to Rafael's Flickr page to see the rest of this series, even the aftermath ones are spectacular as you see the wind-blown water cascading off the parapets.
Pablo Higera's stark black and white one speaks of storms and shipwrecks.

"Waves on the lighthouse"

And finally a peaceful scene of the island and silhouetted lighthouse at dawn, by Jamie Juan.

"Momento 1"

All in time for International Lighthouse Weekend 18^th and 19^th August.

Kanamaroo weekend

Just realised what I was doing this time last year (as it is Kannamaroo Festival weekend). Last year we were in the throes of the building renovations, I was uploading photos, and while that was chugging away, strolled down the street to check out the food vendors and didn't quite make it back before the heavens opened with peals of thunder, lightning & wind driven rain.

Have McLachlan Street blocked off by the Dodgem Cars, which besides frustrating many, must have confused one driver who left the Mibus Centre carpark turned right and drove down the left-hand lane to the amazement of all - pedestrians and other cars.

Just exquisite

Morning light

Found this beautiful photo of Balmoral on Pixdaus.
Has to be one of the best things about winter approaching - the chance to capture views of misty mornings, and in sharp clear air.

On a wave

Time to say goodbye to summer, despite the temperature currently being in the 30s, it's almost the end of Day-light saving, so here's one last hurrah to summer & the beach

The other extreme

I had forgotten I'd downloaded this from Pixdaus, this shows the dust storm that swept from Outback Australia across New South Wales and Queensland in September 2009. My brother and his family were caught up in it in the Flinders Ranges and were concerned for the rest of their party who'd gone up the Birdsville Track.

It was nearly a month after my dust storm experience at Mutawintji, when the dust swept in while I was out hiking to the gorge.

Beautiful bridges

 So I'm not alone.
There are other people out there in the Net-world who take an interest in photographing bridges.
Here is the link to the Top 20 most popular bridges in the world
(By the way, the Sydney Harbour Bridge makes it at Number 3).

Wistful wishing

Bubble web

I'm still amazed at the photos on Pixdaus, especially some of the macro and stop-motion shots, including this one of a bursting bubble.

#64 One hit wonders

This Thing involves evaluating the following websites
CopyPasteCharacter.com
You find the character you need and copy and paste it into your document. I just use the symbol option in the drop-down box in Word, its especially good when I have to Tick √ those PDF forms

Kuku Klok
An online alarm clock that promises to work even if your internet connection goes down. (The alarm will go off until you flip back to that page and make it stop, great if you’ve chosen the military trumpet – a hit with the neighbours). I prefer having my sound system programmed to start playing from my Ipod and it also turns itself off.

Stormpulse
Tracks Atlantic & some Pacific tropical storms and hurricanes. There were no 'active', but a 'potential' storm >30% in the Pacific basin off Guatemala on the map. Even Queensland was cloud free, though there were some swirly bits down near Antarctica. Cyclone Tracy didn’t rate a mention in their Archives.

Pixadus
Social-ranking of nature photography, you post a photo; other users rank it. Unfortunately it is slow to load, but I love it, found a heap on beautiful lighthouses. I’ve added some themes to this post, namely Winter and Autumn (the detail & resolution looks better when you click on the image), will keep doing more I think.

Fake Name Generator
There's times you need a fake ID on the Internet, maybe it's the upteenth time you've signed up for an email account because they keep changing the process, maybe you just want to hide your real self. No matter what your reason, Fake Name Generator sets you up with a fake name and details. Seems a lot of effort, I might just stick to using themes like all the Beatrix Potter characters – Mr Jeremy Fisher & Miss Jemima Puddleduck, lots more fun.

PicApp
Search for photos (artsy or news-related) to use in your blog posts, all perfectly legal. You can create an account, but there's no need to unless you want to create a lightbox to save your favorites into. I prefer the look & quality of Pixadus, but PicApp having the embedding code is a good idea.