Appreciate Beauty of Nature with @phortun: round 223 (last one before break)

Hey there my Hive friends and followers!

Welcome to the 223rd round of my special weekly photo challenge known as Appreciate Beauty of Nature with @phortun :)

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Important note: I have been hosting this challenge in the same format for more than 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.

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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 ;)

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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.

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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 :)

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As announced a few times before, this round is the last one for some time. I cannot say how long the break will be, maybe just weeks but probably months. I already mentioned the reasons too but I may write one last post explaining everything for those who missed that info. My dwindling engagement towards the community has resulted in dwindling engagement from the community towards my blog and my regular initiatives, which is perfectly natural and I totally get it. There were only 3 entries in the previous round, compared to those 10 or even 20 per round that I used to get before when I was a Hive fulltimer so that felt just like another reminder that I should indeed pause my activities here until I have more time for them again. So yeah, this is the last round of this challenge for some time. Kind of a special occasion that also makes me go for a special shot. A photo of a creature that is one of my very favorite animals. The black spiny tailed iguana. A creature that I didn´t know before I came to Mexico where I fell in love with it. Over those two years that I spent in this amazing country, I must have taken hundreds of shots of these iguanas, including even cooler pictures with the lizards posing majestically on cliffs or beaches, with the crystal clear turquoise waters of the Caribbean Sea in the background. However, I decided to pick this picture as it was taken at a place where I had by far the most encounters with these curious little dinosaurs. It´s a basketball court and an outdoor gym in Playa del Carmen, a place that I visited almost daily and where I had many iguana friends. I even knew them by names that I gave them and I thought some of them were able to recognize me too as they often let me hand feed them fresh hibiscus leaves and flowers, their favorite treats. I miss those days so much but I hope to come back one day and show these fascinating creatures to my little daughter.

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In the last round of this challenge, we had only 3 participants so picking the winners was easy:

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@videoaddiction with this entry from Turkiye:

Hi @phortun mate! As I had a full-up weekend, I participate in your challenge two times in a row :) I took this photo nearby my favorite dam-lake where we go many times during the year. This time, I were there with my friend to have breakfast for the first time and we discovered a new place there. I think it is interesting to see cows still grazing in Istanbul :D Unfortunately, the around of the dam-lake will be closed for human entrance until October 15, 2024 due to fire danger. Looking forward to going there again ;) Location: Istanbul, Turkiye.

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@singa with this entry from Russia:

Good evening, dear @phortun. I'd like to share my new photo too. This is our famous Japanese garden, It was opened 2 years ago, but I visited it only last week. It is very picturesque and there are many interesting places for reflection and meditation. And it's a pleasure to go there. Several architectural groups and bureaus worked on its creation at once. And the landscape designers were not idle either... The art of combining water, stones, trees and shrubs together is also, in my opinion, not a small skill. Birds are singing all around. Having been here, many people's spirits rise. There are explanatory signs near the trees, and bridges and architectural structures tell the whole legends :-) It's really just a small part of all this splendor... This place is located in the city of Krasnodar, in the Kuban. Russia, Krasnodar Territory, S. Galitsky Park. "Japanese Garden".

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@alfrin with this entry from Venezuela:

Sometimes we spend in the midst of our stress and our thoughts of all our problems that fill our heads in such a way that our eyes do not have the opportunity to see the beauty hidden in plain sight in our eyes. I was climbing with my daughters on the outskirts of the ARISTIDES ROJAS park here in Venezuela and in the midst of the problems God gave me and nature this June 13th a moment of tranquility when seeing a GREEN IGUANA so close, which She remained calm and allowed me to take a photo of her, but then she ran and quickly climbed a tree while looking at us. When seeing one of these animals that are exclusively herbivorous animals, you should be careful because although they are not aggressive and will always choose to flee rather than attack, if they are cornered they have sharp claws and their tail will be used as a whip to defend themselves. So you have to be careful and as long as you just appreciate it and take photos of it and don't try to grab it, everything is fine. These animals are very good at camouflage so discovering them is very difficult, so seeing them here is a matter of luck and looking very carefully. What do you think? I look forward to your comments and suggestions.

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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!

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I post this series in the Amazing Nature community, a great community for all nature lovers. Feel free to check it out ;)

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This post was created by me for the Hive blockchain exclusively. All rights reserved.

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Thank you for visiting my blog. If you like posts about Nature, Traveling, Photography, Animals, Ecology, Crypto, Sport, Fitness and discovering secrets and beauties of the World, feel free to follow me as these are the topics I mostly write about. Have a wonderful day and keep on hiving, guys! :)