Tango neoclasico

Just some great modern classical music by the master of new tango, Libertango by Astor Piazzolla.
I just had to do it! Been thinking for more than a year, and finally did it!
Enjoy,
Leo

Very Berry

http://www.vimeo.com/22437850

As springtime begins to unfold and birds are preparing to nest, I thought I would share some photographs and video taken over last year (some are two years old).

What as always amazed me is the symbiotic relationship between trees/berry shrubs and birds to facilitate their survival and propagation. By swallowing the berries whole, birds digest the fruit’s pulp and over time expel the seed (nut) in a different locale. With luck and some help from nature, a new tree or berry shrub starts its life. Over the years we have been the recipients of such gifts and our home is surrounded by berries and trees bearing fruit. The more berries, the more birds, and so on and on… Thanks for the gifts!

Enjoy the show,
Leo

Elements used in this production:
~ I asked Don DesJardin at http://www.Vimeo.com for some clips of wild birds eating berries, and as usual he was generous and open to sharing. Thanks Don!
~ Have used HDR (pseudo) treatments of single photographs to accentuate the images.
~ Also, digital art has been applied to several other photographs.
~ Several images were gotten from the web (they were taken in Massachusetts and New Hampshire)
~ Sound recordings of birds are true to the species.
~ All berries are delicious!

Hopefully I was able to show the interdependency of flora and fauna to benefit each other in differing ways.

Metallic Nightmare

This production is based on thoughts and reflections elicited after having watched the monumental disasters that occurred on March 2011, in Japan. Despite all the high building standards, preparedness, modern communications, transportation networks, know-how, technology and esprit de corps, the disaster overwhelmed them. To this day they are still coping with multiple challenges, some caused by nature, some by human manufacture.

Many of the images attempt to express the disproportionate fate we have placed in technology and how that can backfire and cause tremendous damage to the environment and all living things. I also tried to present a contrast to technology by sharing images from underdeveloped societies and how they cope with the need to produce goods and food for sustenance.

As we begin to cross the seven billion human mark in this planet, conditions will become more acute if we do not reason out the long-term implications of deploying and using indiscriminate technologies to resolve short-term needs. I called it a nightmare because that was the feeling I experienced as I saw and heard what the Japanese people had endured and will be in the near future.

We are NOT in control of everything!!

Thank you for watching, and I hope to elicit some thoughts and a change in attitudes.
All credits are at end of video.