Photos taken in March, 2011

These photos were taken on March 4, 2011 using an Olympus E-30 (1-2) and Sony DSC-TX5 (3), presumably in Mexico.

Mexique 196 By elienai | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Mexique 173 By elienai | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

DSC00198 By elienai | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Images: Mexique 196 | Flickr – Photo Sharing!
Mexique 173 | Flickr – Photo Sharing!
DSC00198 | Flickr – Photo Sharing! (under Creative Commons license)

Link:
Flickr: elienai

Photos taken in February, 2011

The first and third photos were taken on February 2, 2011 (Nikon D200 – Noct-nikkor 58/1.2 AIS – 800 ISO). The second photo was taken on February 13, 2011 (Leica M6 – Voigtlander Heliar 15/4.5 Asph – XP2).

DONNA (TUTTO SI FA PER TE) By Luca Rubbi | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

BARBAR!NA DOUBLE 15 By Luca Rubbi | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

ELEGANTE By Luca Rubbi | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Images: DONNA (TUTTO SI FA PER TE) | Flickr – Photo Sharing!
BARBAR!NA DOUBLE 15 | Flickr – Photo Sharing!
ELEGANTE | Flickr – Photo Sharing! (under Creative Commons license)

Links:
Luca Rubbi Photography
Flickr: Luca Rubbi

Photos taken in January, 2011

Who knows how many wonderful photographs are taken every minute, hour, day, week or month? In substitution for discontinued “Weekend Columns“, I’m starting a new column “Photos taken in…“. I have in mind to pick out a small fraction of photos worth to be seen (from my personal point of view, of course). Let’s start from January.

These photos were taken on January 28, 2011.

Standing Pose By poolski | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Hallway 2 By poolski | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Images: Standing Pose | Flickr – Photo Sharing!
Hallway 2 | Flickr – Photo Sharing! (under Creative Commons license)

Links: antispin – Kyrill’s Blog
Kyrill’s Blog on Facebook
Flickr: poolski

The following photos were taken on January 5, 2011 (presumably, in Slateford, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK – at least, the seconds one)

2 45 0001 By tobias feltus | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Rebekka TXO 1 By tobias feltus | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Images: 2 45 0001 | Flickr – Photo Sharing!
Rebekka TXO 1 | Flickr – Photo Sharing! (under Creative Commons license)

Links: Tobias Feltus: Createur d’Images Photographiques
Flickr: tobias feltus
Tobias Feltus on Myspace

4th of July

Happy Birthday America! By VinothChandar | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Image: Happy Birthday America! | Flickr – Photo Sharing! (under Creative Commons license)

True story: Down with Shame (1925, Soviet Russia)

In 1925 a society called “Down with Shame” was organised and legally registered. The members of the society undertook not to wear any clothes, and by way of propaganda some of them were sent on tour. One of the groups was proceeding via Moscow, Kharkov, Rostov, Mineral Waters. I saw them with my own eyes, when they were in Rostov-on-Don. I was passing near the Pokrovsky Market at the corner of Friedrich Engels Street and Bogatianovsky Street when I saw a man and a woman absolutely naked standing near a stationary tram. Even the savages of the Polynesian Archipelago wear some kind of cache sex, but this couple only wore a kind of sash, and that across their shoulders! It was a red ribbon with the slogan: “Down with the bourgeois superstition – shame.” In justice to the woman I must add that she also carried a kind of handbag in her hand! While I was looking at them, overcome by astonishment, a crowd assembled, and also a few militiamen to protect the naked couple.The crowd, among which were many people from the market, market girls, etc., were pelting them with tomatoes, eggs, and stones. But when the tram got moving the naked couple triumphantly entered it. In a second the disgusted passengers began to pour out. Once more the tram got under way in a hail of apples, stones, eggs, and similar missiles, empty now except for the naked man and woman and the unfortunate victim of duty, the conductor. About an hour later, when passing the General Post Office, I saw a huge crowd demanding the extradition of the representatives of the “Down with Shame” society. It appears that, fleeing from the wrath of the crowd, they took refuge in the post office. The Communist “cell” of the post office gave them some clothes and let them out by a back door. Such was the effect they produced in the city of Rostov. They produced a much greater disturbance and scandal in other cities. The Soviet powers, seeing that this kind of propaganda was not only abortive but threatened the “people without shame” with lynching, quietly liquidated the society after about a month, and abandoned the attempt.

Source: Moscow unmasked: a record of nine years’ work and observation in soviet Russia by Joseph Douillet. Translated from the Russian by A. W. King. Published 1930 by The Pilot press in London.

Comment: Joseph Douillet (1878-1954) was a Belgian diplomat to the USSR known as the author of Moscou sans Voiles: Neuf ans de travail au pays des Soviets (Moscow Unmasked: A Record of Nine Years Work in Soviet Russia) published in 1928. He lived in Russia from 1891 to 1926. He served as the Belgian consul in Rostov-on-Don. It has been said that he “had spent so long in the country that he was almost more Russian than Belgian.” In 1925 he was arrested in the USSR and was imprisoned for nine months before being expelled from the country. (Joseph Douillet – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Joseph Douillet could hardly be suspected of any sympathy for communist Russia. I’ve heard from an eyewitness that the reaction of the public wasn’t so extreme. Town folks were rather surprised than angry, at least in Ukraine. What is without any doubt is that the normal development of naturist movement was voluntarily interrupted by the communist authorities.

Boris Kustodiev's painting "Bathing" (1921) - Wikimedia Commons

Nowadays it begins to recover, even in Siberia.

Unofficial nude beach at the Novosibirsk Reservoir, near Akademgorodok by Obakeneko - Wikimedia Commons

Images: Boris Kustodiev’s painting “Bathing” (1921) - Wikimedia Commons
Unofficial nude beach at the Novosibirsk Reservoir, near Akademgorodok by Obakeneko - Wikimedia Commons
(This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license)

True story: Fraternity Elysia (1946)

Sept. 2, 1946: Police arrest more than two dozen men and women in a raid on the Fraternity Elysia nudist camp in La Tuna Canyon. (Valley Retrospective: The 1940s – LA Daily News)

In 1936, Charles and Lillian Richter moved into a small, elegant modernist house in Pasadena. It had windows up to ceiling height, which may have given their neighbours some unexpected views. For the Richters had become ardent nudists. A year earlier, in 1935, they had joined the Fraternity Elysia, located in the Los Angeles Hills on a 250-acre estate near Lake Elsinore and run by Hobart and Lura Glassey and their business partner Pete McConville. (The earth moved for him – Times Online. Report by Christopher Hudson – From The Sunday Times, October 29, 2006)

Charles Francis Richter (1900 – 1985), was an American seismologist and physicist. Richter is most famous as the creator of the Richter magnitude scale… (Charles Francis Richter – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Glassey v. State, 1947. “The facts of the case are as follows: Police officers using false names appeared at the entrance of the Fraternity Elysia, a property bounded on three sides by uninhabited hills, paid the customary visitor’s fee, and signed a registration form acknowledging acceptance of nudism as a wellspring or fountain-head of moral and health benefits. Observing a number of nude men, women, and children engaged in activities such as badminton, swimming, and sunbathing, the officers arrested a man and a woman who were acting as managers and charged them with violating an ordinance proscribing operation of facilities patronized by three or more nude persons not of the same sex. (Two nude badminton players not of the same sex would have been acceptable, it seems.) A municipal court found both guilty and the judge imposed sentences of 90 and 180 days for McConville and Glassey. The Supreme Court ruled that the appellants had not demonstrated that the ordinance unduly restricted personal liberties. The original decision stood.”

Source: Richter’s scale: measure of an earthquake, measure of a man by Susan Elizabeth Hough (Princeton University Press, 2007)

1935 nudist tea party By carbonated | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Image: 1935 nudist tea party | Flickr – Photo Sharing! (under Creative Commons license)

Plain: blood pressure (1977)

Bare facts on blood pressure
It’s possible there are more benefits from nudism than readily meet the eye. Results of a recent American Heart Assn. study indicate that residents of a Maryland nudist camp have a much lower incidence of high blood pressure than occurs among the general population.

Source: Popular Mechanics, Volume 148, No 6 (Dec 1977) p. 30

Project 365 #134: 140511 Under Pressure! By comedy_nose | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Image: Project 365 #134: 140511 Under Pressure! | Flickr – Photo Sharing! (under Creative Commons license)