Hey there my Hive friends and followers!
Welcome to the 216th round of my special weekly photo challenge known as Appreciate Beauty of Nature with @phortun :)
Important note: I have been hosting this challenge in the same format for almost 4 years but I recently decided to introduce some major changes to it so please read all the updates below. The essence of this challenge stays the same though so the intro part will be the same as it was before.
I know a lot of photo contests with nature as the main theme were/are/will be hosted by various people on the Hive blockchain but I wanted to come up with something more than just another photo contest where participants would submit their best natural photos. Therefore, I decided to go for quite an unusual concept that I am going to introduce in the following lines.
The aim of the Appreciate Beauty of Nature with @phortun photo challenge is not to make you dig up your photo archives and submit the best pictures of nature that you have ever taken. Instead, I want you guys to go out and appreciate the beauty of our nature right now.
The internet (and the Hive blockchain as well) is flooded with picture perfect shots of landscapes, mountains, forests, beaches etc. taken years ago. But this is not what I want to see in this challenge. I want to see shots that may not be necessarily stunning but they must be fresh, proving that you have just physically spent some time outdoors in the fresh air. But remember that nature comes in many forms. It doesn´t have to be a pristine jungle or a deep remote forest. An urban park, a botanical garden, a little grove on the outskirts of your town - pretty much any place with some trees, plants, rocks, bodies of water or any other natural features would be just as fine ;)
HERE COME THE UPDATES
Originally, the prizes for the winners were just my full upvotes given to their entries but since, unfortunately, I lately had to power down significantly, my upvotes are not that big and motivating anymore so I decided to reward the winners of each round with additional 1.5 Hive each. So now, the winners get my full upvotes on their entries plus 1.5 Hive each. All of the other valid entries will be rewarded with some smaller (usually 50%) upvotes too so that all participants get rewarded for their engagement in this challenge.
In the past, I usually hosted this challenge on Thursday but because of the reasons described below, I cannot guarantee that anymore so now, I may roll out the new round on Thursday, Friday or even Saturday so if you guys don´t want to miss out on the fun here, please check out my blog regularly.
Also, in the past, I always tried to lead by example and thus open each new round with my own fresh natural photo taken during the previous 7 days. However, as you might now from my recent posts, me and my wife are now taking care of our newborn baby and it takes just so much time and energy that I simply don´t have the time to go out and take fresh natural photos anymore (btw late autumn and winter here in Central Europe are not favorable seasons for natural photography anyway) so instead, I will be using my old photos from cool natural places around the world that I have been to. Hopefully, in a few months, I will be able to go out to nature regularly again and take a nice fresh picture for each round just like I did it over the years but before that happens, I will show you some beautiful natural places that I got to see during our travels. It will also be a nice way for me to remember and relive those moments from the times when it was just me and my wife, traveling around the world - happy, young and free :)
THE RULES
I want to keep the rules of this challenge as simple and benevolent as possible so let´s agree on just this:
Only one entry (photo) per person per round.
The photo must be yours and not older than 7 days.
Add a few lines about the photo (at least 50 words) including the date and location.
You can start submitting your entries to this round in the comment section below from now until the next round. If you want to create a separate post as your entry, you can do that but please always remember to submit your entry in the form of a comment here under this post as well. I only check the entries submitted here as comments.
Prior to publishing the next round, I will pick 3 winners, give my full upvotes on their entries and send them 1.5 Hive each as the prize. The winning entries will be featured in the next round of the challenge. I also give smaller upvotes on the other valid entries as I mentioned before.
So that´s it. Let me now open the new round of my photography challenge called Appreciate Beauty of Nature with @phortun :)
I opened the last round with a scenic shot from the Azorean Islands and in this round, we won´t wander too far from there. Just some 1500 km southeast of the Azores, there is another amazing volcanic archipelago that is actually much more famous and visited than its Portuguese counterpart. Yes, I´m talking about the Canary Islands. I spent some time on Tenerife, the largest island of the archipelago, back in 2016 and I loved hiking around its scenic and very diverse landscape. The picture above combines both - landscape and seascape. You can actually see a lot natural features there that are very typical of Tenerife - black volcanic beaches, majestic cliffs, vast banana plantations and deep blue waters of the Atlantic Ocean. Tenerife is a spectacular island for sure but unfortunately, mass tourism is kind of ruining its original atmosphere of a remote and peaceful, yet wild and rough natural getaway.
In the last round of this challenge, we had 6 participants. After some thorough consideration, I decided to pick these 3 winners:
@jasonmunapasee with this entry from Indonesia:
Nature will always give me hope and coolness to see as I showed above about beautiful nature in the river and surrounded by high mountains and green trees. A few days ago I entered a very natural forest with my friend who is in this picture and we wanted to look for beautiful content, one of which was beautiful nature and unique insects and even beetles that we never find in ordinary places. We know that unspoiled nature has many insects and beetles that are difficult for us to find. So here I just want to enter a contest about nature and I show a picture above. I took this picture on April 22 2024. Yesterday, Saturday, which is located very far from where I live, it probably takes me more or less 3 hours to get to this place by motorbike. And I'll show you the location here. This place is in Bireun City, Cot Kruet Village, Peudada, Aceh Indonesia.
@triplug with this entry from Romania:
I'm very happy to be here today with a new entry, I hope you like it. Today, being Sunday, I wasn't planning to visit anything, but rather wanted to rest because the past week has been a demanding one, and the coming one promises to be the same. I rested for a while and then we decided to go to a traditional restaurant about 40km from my house. (I know they have really good food here). But today it's not about the food but about the park next to the restaurant, a very beautiful park where besides the places to relax here we also find a river where some wild ducks and even a black swan live quietly. I've seen that many people choose to come here for a quiet stroll after leaving the restaurant. This is exactly what we did today 21.04.2024 somewhere near the town of Ineu, Arad county, Romania. Btw, in order to continue my walk in this lane I had to give priority to the two ducks.
@friendlymoose with this entry from the Netherlands:
The variable weather of the past week didn't allow me to go outside for a walk very often. This weekend was also a bit strange. The sun and rain alternated constantly, and we even had a brief hail shower today. But by checking the rain radar app we found a timeframe where we could go outside for a walk. We went to the dunes with the family for a nice walk. At least we found it a nice walk; the kids (teenagers) thought differently about that :) Greetings from the Netherlands.
Congratulations guys! It was my pleasure to give you 100% upvotes on your entries and send 1.5 Hive each, you can check that out in your wallets :)
I am looking forward to what you all will come up with in this round :) Have fun everyone and don´t forget to... Appreciate Beauty of Nature!
I post this series in the Amazing Nature community, a great community for all nature lovers. Feel free to check it out ;)
This post was created by me for the Hive blockchain exclusively. All rights reserved.
