Photograph shows half-length portrait of two girls wearing banners with slogan "ABOLISH CHILD SLAVERY!!" in English and Yiddish, one carrying American flag; spectators stand nearby. Probably taken during May 1, 1909 labor parade in New York City.
The US Library of Congress has free public domain photos taken before 1930. Meaning you can generally use it anyhow anywhere as you like. Go here for more examples.
Mandaean women walk out of the Tigris River after dunking themselves in the water three time to baptize themselves in its water. Some 15,000 to 20,000 people of the minority Mandaean religious faith live in Iraq. The religion, which predates Islam in the region of Iraq, holds John the Baptist as a central person to its history. The full name of the religion, Mandaeands Sabians, means baptized, from the meaning of “Saba,” and, knowledge of “Menda,” from the mandiac language. The name thusly means, those who are baptized and who know the religion of God, according to the Mandaean Research Centre in Baghdad, Iraq.
Baptism is an important ritual to the Mandaeans and as the sun raised on Saturday March 18th the beginning of Bronaia, five days of the celebration creation, began for the Mandaeans. To celebrate the Mandaeans baptize themselves and their cooking utensils to be used for the great feasts that will follow through the five days. Baptism starts with the reading of versus from the book of prayer with the followers holding the bottom, then the top, of the crossed limbs of an olive branch draped in a shroud. After the reading of the prayers, the believers walk to the banks of the flowing Tigris River and crouch by its banks asking for permission of the water to baptize themselves by dunking themselves in its water three times. The religion believes the world is made up of two sources, the world of light in the north, and the world of darkens in the south. On these five days the Mandaeans do not acknowledge the coming of night and celebrate five days straight.
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p>Interesting photos and click on the small plus sign under the photos to get the full text from the Max Becherer site. The photo essay is here. The Mandaeans live less than a three hour drive from where I’m sitting now. That is if I could cross the Iraq border and safely go there.
Or go to the page here.
Another great Ted talk (and music). A must listen. You’ll never listen to classicalmusic the same again.
I went to see a movie and take some photos at the Kuwait Science Center today.
I saw the Imax Movie about the oil well fires being put out after invasion in 1991. The movie was OK, but was only about 35 minutes long. I wished it showed more detail and information about different scenes. But it is what it is, and amazing on the big screen.
I took the photos below in the cafe area where the sun was shining through the roof.
The above photo is more or less, straight out of the camera. The rays of light are due to using a small aperture, F22. At the smaller apertures the individual aperture blades diffract the light and give a characteristic pattern. Different lenses with different numbers of aperture blades will give different numbers of points of light.
This is the same photo gone wild with curves in Nikon Capture NX2. The cure looks like nearly a sine wave with about 8 crests. Fun stuff.
Note, it is dangerous to look through the lens at the sun! But here’s a tip! The Nikon D300 and most newer DSLRs have a live preview feature which shows the image on the screen on the back so you don’t have to look in the viewfinder to aim the camera. Just be sure to hold the camera steady or use a tripod as the camera is not as stable when you hold it out to look at the screen on the back.
