Appreciate Beauty of Nature with @phortun: round 142

Hi there my Hivean friends and followers!

Welcome to the 142nd 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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Although the weather is not so amazing anymore, it was still unusually warm and sunny last weekend so we took advantage of that and went for a little hike around the Prokop Valley here in Prague, Czech Republic. The valley itself was quite crowded as many people obviously had the same idea of where to spend the lovely Sunday afternoon so I didn´t really take many photos down there. However, on our way to the valley, I stopped by this beautiful little water reservoir and clicked this colorful picture for you ;) As you can see in the photo, a decent portion of the foliage is still hanging on the trees, which is, again, quite unusual for late October / early November. Perfectly fine with me though ;)

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In the last round, we had 10 participants. After some thorough consideration, I decided to pick these 3 winners:

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@onlavu with this entry from the Czech Republic:

Hey @phortun, last weekend, I trekked a bit around the mountain Králický Sněžník (Czechia). I slept out there. Here is a shot from the spot I was accommodated at. The view shows low clouds below / sunrise above (sun was hidden behind the clouds) the main mountain ridge of the Jeseníky Mountains.

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@gornat with this entry from Mexico:

Hi @phortun thanks for this iniciative. I reacecently was wandering in search some fresh images for my last post in the community and I stumble with this. One of the of the foundations of Current biodiversity. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did. It is not edited, just as I tok it. Date: October 24, 2022. Location: Ciudad Universitaria, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), (University main Campus), Coyoacán, CDMX, México.

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@kellyane with this entry from the Philippines:

It's another week again meaning it's another round of your appreciate beauty of nature photo challenge. Hello to you @phortun and everyone here. Here's my entry for this round from the beautiful country Philippines. It's in Valencia again but this is in the elevated part. Well, I would say I fell in love with Valencia. The place has certainly stolen my vulnerable heart. The lush, green and stunning mountains will always left me an awe. It's a holiday yesterday so normally if we don't have work we will come here and hike that's the reason why we came here yesterday. We went there at around 3:00 in the afternoon but since the weather was not that nice most mountains were covered with fog. Luckily, this part was not yet covered so I was able to have a photo of it. I think you now understand why I fell in love with Valencia.

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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! :)