Appreciate Beauty of Nature with @phortun: round 17

Hi there my Hivean friends and followers!

Welcome to the 17th 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 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 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 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. Also, I haven´t reserved a fixed day for this challenge yet so it might be movable but it will definitely be hosted once every week.

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.

I still haven´t made it home yet (but I am already in the Czech Republic now, just about to take the last part of the journey) so I cannot share any fresh photos of the Czech nature with you yet but it´s ok because just before leaving the Azores, we took an amazing trip around some of the most beautiful places of the island. Here is one of many shots I took there. It´s Lagoa do Canario, one of the lakes of the famous Sete Cidades Volcanic Lakes Complex.

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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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@gingabida with this entry:

I am very amazed with sunsets. And this was taken one lazy afternoon last week. This was taken at our balcony, at Palo, Leyte, Philippines. The sunset was like a blazing fire, and I am so happy I captured it!

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@bigsambucca with this entry:

Sorry @phortun missed last week but i am back this week with this huge spiral Banyan tree with these long vines hanging down growing in this narrow pathway and launching itself all over this spooky haunted abandon house as if it is protecting this spooky haunted abandon house. I took this shot in Bangkok city walking along the river canal on my walk last Wednesday.

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@katerinaramm with this entry:

I love your challenge! I am not sure if this could be an entry, but it could be a reminder for us to recycle, to reduce our waste and to be more careful about what we do/throw to our planet... Today is World Environment Day, our Planet we share together. Let’s respect it every time 🙏💙

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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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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, 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! :)