Appreciate Beauty of Nature with @phortun: round 102

Hi there my Hivean friends and followers!

Welcome to the 102nd round of my special weekly photo challenge known as Appreciate Beauty of Nature with @phortun :)

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 ;)

Obviously, there is no way for me to verify whether the photo that you submit in the challenge is really fresh or if it was even taken by you so I am relying on your honesty guys. The prizes for the winners (as described below) are more symbolical than overly motivating so I don´t expect too much fraudulent behavior in this challenge anyway.

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 one week.

Add a few words about the photo, at least where and when you took it.

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You can start submitting your entries to this round in the comment section below from now until the next round.

Prior to publishing the next round post, I will pick 3 winners, give my full upvote on their entries and feature them in the next round of the challenge. As long as the response is not too overwhelming, I will also try to give some smaller upvotes on all of the other entries to reward all participants.

I might change the concept and/or the rules of the photo challenge later on, depending on how things go. I usually host the challenge on Thursday but when needed for some reason, I can host it on some other day so better check my blog regularly not to miss out on it ;)

To keep up with you guys, I submit my own fresh natural photo to every round´s post too :) Here is my contribution to start out this round:

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After using all of my cool recent natural photos in my Mysterious Forest post two days ago, I have actually had a hard time taking a picture that I could use for this challenge. Today, I visited several different parks here in Krakow, Poland hoping to capture something interesting for you but the conditions were just so bad... It´s been very dark and cloudy today and the temperatures are hovering just above the freezing point so it still feels cold but it´s actually warm enough for all of the snow to start changing into the ugly, muddy slush... Yeah, not pleasant outside at all. Eventually, I decided to go for this "wannabe artsy shot" with the barren trees of the Jordan Park reflecting in a muddy puddle full of these miniature "icebergs". Not a fancy one, I know :/

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In the last round, we had 6 participants. After some thorough consideration, I decided to pick these 3 winners:

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@loulou1987 with this entry:

Hi @phortun, as it seems my favourite season has just started, I am going to annoy you with all the cold, freezing and snowy photos :) I am adding one taken on Saturday during our skitouring trip to Červená Hora in the Jeseníky Mountains, Czech Republic. The weather was awfully cold, windy and cloudy but for about half an hour, the sun was nicely shining. So again, one of my blue and white photos :)

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@bossel with this entry:

Here I am again. Keep forgetting to post, even if I get to ride around a bit. I noticed a distinct lack of close-ups here, so I got one for you. The shell of a limpet, found at the coast to the south of Patras, Greece on Sunday, 16 January. Nice composition, I think, with the sea grass bent around it. Weather on that day was fine with a lot of sun, but the wind at the coast was quite cold. This week I probably won't participate, because it's definitely too cold for me. When cycling below 20° C my eyes start to water, but when it's below 10° C, like this week, my nose gets runny, too. It's pretty annoying if I have to stop every few hundred meters to clean my nose.

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@crazy-bee with this entry:

Hello, here is my photo this time. It was taken when I was hiking looking for a high place to camp on the top of Hai Van mountain - Da Nang (Vietnam). Probably around 5 p.m. Tuesday. The clouds are swallowing the Sun for their dinner. The far side is a 550 KV North-South high-voltage power line. It was a bit chilly with the temperature on the top of the mountain, the last rays of warm sunlight were about to disappear from me and darkness took over as we still couldn't find a place to lower the tent. But it's worth stopping for a little while, isn't it?

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Congratulations guys! It was my pleasure to give you 100% upvotes on your entries :)

I am looking forward to what you will come up with in this round.

Have fun and appreciate the 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, Animals, Ecology, Crypto, Sport, Traveling, Photography 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! :)