Appreciate Beauty of Nature with @phortun: round 150

Hi there my Hivean friends and followers!

Welcome to the 150th 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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Just as expected, it´s been hard to switch from the tropical heat and lushness of Zanzibar to the dull and cold Central European winter. And it´s not even that cold actually, the temperatures have been lately hovering around 10 C (50 F) here, which is way above the average figures for this part of the year. Still, however, finding some other colors than just all those shades of the gray out there in nature is very difficult right now. These mushrooms can at least boast some cool texture. I took this close up shot of them while walking near the Asuan Reservoir here in the Prague neighborhood of Stodulky a few days ago.

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In the last round, we had only 4 participants so picking the winners was easy:

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@friendlymoose with this entry from Austria:

Zanzibar looks like a great adventure! I'd love to go there once. Happy new years greetings from Kaprun, Austria!

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@tommyl33 with this entry from Malaysia:

I start my new year with hunting some insect photo, just lucky to get some ant close ups. Taking those picture at our family farm behind the house in Sabah, Malaysia a few days ago.

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@jlinaresp with this entry from Venezuela:

I have called this photo "The watering hole"... It was taken on the morning of Christmas Eve (24-12-22) in the town of "Agua de Obispo" (Carabobo, Venezuela) and corresponds to a vision of the rural landscape full of dense fog... When the fog goes away, this place looks quite ordinary, but this time I went there at 7:00 AM and this is what I found... "The pond where the cattle drink hidden in the fog, with some waterfowl standing there like specters in the water"... Greetings to all!... ;)

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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! :)