Why can't we be friends ?

© Pawan Kumar / Reuters 

Like a ferryman these Toad helps the mouse to cross the water...
The source of the picture is Let's be friends a nice little blog which collect photos of unusual animal couples.

A rubbish dump ? no, just a river...

This is according to many sources the most polluted river all over the world. It's Citarum, one of the biggest rivers of Indonesia which passes also near to Jakarta, the Indonesian capital. It was once a gently flowing river, where fishermen cast their nets, women did their washing and children swam, now is just a poignant display of human disregard for the environment, choked by the domestic waste of nine million people and thick with the cast-off from hundreds of factories. Their occupants no longer try to fish. It is more profitable to forage for rubbish risking disease for one or two pounds a week if they are lucky. The carpet of rubbish is so dense that the wooden fishing craft which float through it are the only clue to the presence of water.




One of the obvious consenquences of this pollution is visible in this last photo. This June 275,000 fishes died in just three days due to the water poisoning.

The freeway becomes a river

AP

This area had suffered violent storms and rain that had caused grat damages. One of the most hit zone is the area  that had suffered floods. In the picture you'll see the Interstate 5 completely covered with the water coming from the Chehalis river.



AP

A desert full of water

Photo: © JA Galvez C, via this Brasil Travel Blog

Here we are, ready to speak about another natural wonder related to water, which in our opinion is not known and visited as it deserves. There is in the Northeastern part of Brasil, in the state of Maranhao a vast area which cover more than 1000 square kilometers (roughly the area of the Rhode Island). We are speaking about the  Lençòis Maranhenses, one of the most bizarre landscapes in the world.
It is a desert of white sand dunes which despite abundant rain, supports almost no vegetation, and what makes it so astonishing is that this desert is actually full of water! Infact each one of these dunes is separated from the others by cool water lagoons like emeralds scattered on a white sheet.

Two pictures taken by the Pbase Gallery of Marcio Machado, which is full of great shots:


Another picture taken from this Flickr Gallery of Ricardo Mendoça Ferreira 


The best thing you can do if you visit Lençòis Maranhenses is to fly over it. It's the only way to fully understand the dimensions of this amazing landscape

foto:Meireles Junior, source

This is a Nasa Satellite picture of a small part of the Lençòois region.

Photo: Nasa, via this Space.com Gallery

The last thing to say is that after having visited this world entirely made of Blue and White, you can find a lot more colour in the fishermans communities living on the borders of the region.

Photo: Irene Schmidt, via this Flickr Gallery

Roberto Rinaldi, 20 years under the seas

Roberto Rinaldi, world famous underwater photographer and filmaker, has just reached 20 years of career. 20 years passed sharing his love for nature and passion for photography with the millions of people that has seen his amazing documentaries, filmed in his true house, the Mediterranean Sea, as well as in the furthest places on earth. A long underwater road that had led him to work as official photographer on Calypso, the boat of Jacques Costeau, realizing reportages that had been published also on National Geographic, the "bible" of nature photography. During the years he had explored the waters of the world without rest, diving even in a lake at 5000m of altitude in the mountains of Tibet or in the Baikal Lake during the Siberian winter at -50 degrees, or even in the flooded holes that dips down inside the Perito Moreno glacier in Patagonia, exploring them for the first time in history. But Roberto is not tired yet, and keep on shooting, making documentaries, tv series, advertising, publishing book and reportages, always ready to dress his wetsuit and dive to the deep. Roberto Rinaldi is a SEAWAYphotographer and cameraman.

Here we have a very short selection of some of his amzing shots that Roberto has kindly described with his own words just for us allowing to almost feel the sensation of diving right beside of him....



©Roberto Rinaldi
"It was just an idea, a theory, but some Italian speleologists thought that the streams which run thtrough the glaciers surface and then disappear inside deep potholes, could act like the waters in the Karst systems. And so we found ourselves exploring, for the first time in history, the ice caves opened inside Perito Moreno glaciers in Argentina."


©Roberto Rinaldi
"Just arrived next to the shores of Antartic Peninsula, a big whale comes to observe us. It passes close to the boat and dives passing below of us."


©Roberto Rinaldi
"In Indonesia we have discovered some gorgonians upon which live the world smallest Sea Horses. They are known as Pigmy Sea Horses and their overall length don't reach one centimeter.. The structure of their epidermis is shaped in a way that allow them to camouflage perfectly with gorgonias. Just a powerful flash shot allow us to completely reveal this curious little fish."


©Roberto Rinaldi
"We were dipping over a reef off Sidney, in Australia. Very high waves, a violent current. Suddenly the shoal of King Fishes crowd together. We realize in a brief time that it's all about a shoal of sharks that are behaving like they would be a pack of wolves: all together they are encircling the fishes. The latters, press against themselves in the attempt to find protection, forming a shape similar to a sphere. Nevertheless the aggressors insist, and push the sphere to the range of a shark laying in ambush, which is going to launch his attack."


©Cousteau society/Roberto Rinaldi
"It was the first day of April of many years ago. Captain Costeau came to wake me up in my cabin and told me: “Wake! Hurry up! Let's go to film the elephants swimming”. “And why not the flyin' donkeys? Good April fool trick, Captain”, the answer was obvious. Instead the swimming Elephants were really there. We were in the Andaman islands, local people don't owe boats so big to transport the elephants, used for the hard jobs in the islands. So they make them swim. The show was not up to much, just an indian crouched on the head of the the plunged animal and the top of the trunk emerging like a snorkel. So, why don't dive and shoot the scene from the bottom?"

This selection is just a brief appetizer. We advise you all to explore the larger and amazing SEAWAY Galleries. It will be certainly an immersion you will not regret.

Global Warming Collection

"Prepare yourself for future seasons. High temperature and nonexistent glaciers: A perfect coupling that causes rising of the seas and destroys the shorelines. Earth is changing his aspect. In a more and more uncomfortable way."

Picture and words are part of an advertising campaign by the Italian Ad Company "D'Adda, Lorenzini, Vigorelli, BBDO" about the Global Warming.

(Creative Directors: Giuseppe Mastromatteo/Luca Scotto di Carlo, Art: Dario Agnello/Giuseppe Valerio, Copy: Cristiano Battista/Valentina Amenta, Photo: Armando Rebatto)

Disguise !

This is a funny advertising found on Internet.
And here another image. Same idea, same fun.

Creatures from the Abyss

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We are used to think that nowadays earth has almost no more secret for human beings and that the explorers has reached almost everything on our planet even the more hidden recesses. This is a common mistake due to our habit to just consider the land above the sea and forget the ocean deeps. Instead the oceans offer 99% of the space on Earth where life can develop. And the deep sea, which has been immersed in total darkness since the dawn of time, occupies 85% of ocean space, forming the planet’s largest habitat. Yet these depths abound with mystery and so their inhabitants. It has been calculated that the number of species yet to be found in the deep sea vary between ten and thirty million. Here we have 6 examples of deep sea inhabitants taken from a wonderful bigger Gallery that worths your visit.

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The Castle of Cotton

Our world is full of marvelous places which beauty is directly related to the presence of water. Canyons, waterfalls, lagoons and so on. We will present some of them in the posts to come, trying to choose places that are not as famous as they deserve. One of them is certainly  Pamukkalean extraordinary natural wonder of Turkey. Its name in Turkish means "Cotton Castle" and it's due to the shining white appearance of the place. It is the water from some springs, with its large mineral content that created Pamukkale. Water contains large amounts of hydrogen carbonate and calcium, which leads to the precipitation of calcium bi-carbonate.

The effect of this natural phenomenon leaves thick white layers of limestone and travertine resembling a frozen waterfall, terraces with a shallow layer of water where it's possible to have a relaxing bath, stalactites, propping up and connecting these terraces.

Here are some pictures, too see more click here












This is instead a video about Pamukkale and Hierapolis, the ancient city built on top of the white "castle".

Fire and Water

Awesome idea. Incredible Photoshop realization. This is an advertising campaign by Platinum an image conception studio from Brazil. This is their
Site. Take a look to their gallery. It's worthy.