Appreciate Beauty of Nature with @phortun: round 161

Hi there my Hivean friends and followers!

Welcome to the 161st 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. 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 in this post as well. I only check the entries submitted here as comments.

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. I also give some smaller upvotes on the other entries too so that all participants get rewarded for their engagement.

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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I have spent a lot of time outdoor in the past couple of days and taken many shots at different natural places including Divoka Sarka, an amazing nature reserve where I was earlier today but for some reasons, most of the pictures didn´t turn out well. For two main reasons actually. Cloudy skies and lack of greenery in nature. Both should improve very soon though since spring is already in full swing here so hopefully, I will not have troubles capturing some nice fresh natural photos for this challenge anymore. Out of the shots that I took during the past week, the one featured above is probably the best. Just a little meadow and some trees found under the Hemr´s Rocks here in Prague, Czech Republic. I took that picture two days ago.

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In the last round, we had 9 participants. After some thorough consideration, I decided to pick these 3 winners:

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@jlinaresp with this entry from Venezuela:

Hello! Here my entry to Round 160! Title: "Dawn on the road". A view from the ascent road towards the mountains of the Venezuelan central cordillera. Captured on March 18, 2023 (dry season) near Montalbán, Carabobo State, Venezuela. NIKON D7000 | 35 mm | 1/1000s | F/5 | ISO 200

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@deepresearch with this entry from Spain:

So this is my last week on Tenerife, Spain. This forested valley picture was taken 5 days ago, while I was coming back from El Teide hike. I like how you can see Gran Canaria on the horizon.

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@onlavu with this entry from the Czech Republic:

The day before yesterday, I took this one on the Red Mountain (1333 m) in the Jeseniky Mountains (Czechia). The highest peak of these mountains, Praded, is in the background. There's still some snow coverage, roughly half a meter.

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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, 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! :)