Some Cool Aerial Photography

[hausdok]

I think you guys'll like this. It's another link sent to me by my old Platoon Sergeant, Jerry Llewellynn.

Hope you enjoy it.

Earth from Above a collection of aerial photography produced by Yann Arthus-Bertrand

ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!!

Mike

[kurt]

Pretty cool stuff.

[mgbinspect]

Nice![:-thumbu]

[Robert Jones]

That is fantastic. Thanks.

[Ben H]

Wonder who mows the grass outside the circle in Denmark?

[Inspectorjoe]

The thing that intrigued me about the Denmark photo was the minuscule parking areas in the center of the circles. It doesn't seem that there would be enough parking to allow even one car per house. Don't all of the homeowners have at least one car? If so, where are the rest parked?

Also, there doesn't seem to be paved walks from the parking area to the houses.

It's pretty cool how the yards are walled off from each other. That's pretty rare in most areas of the US. It kind of reminds me of my back yard that I lined with an 18' hedge.

Click to Enlarge

82.76 KB

[Mike Lamb]

Rob got it right with, "Fantastic."

I'd hate to pick a favorite but, "Coal mine in S. Africa," is a killer. and the LA freeway, and the cattle in the water, and all of them.. Great photography.

[kurt]

The thing that intrigued me about the Denmark photo was the minuscule parking areas in the center of the circles. It doesn't seem that there would be enough parking to allow even one car per house. Don't all of the homeowners have at least one car?

Nope. It's not an auto-centric society.

[hausdok]

I lived in Norddeutschland for one tour and used to go all the way up to the Danish border for investigations. I'll bet my eye teeth the fields between those cul-de-sacs are farmed. Lots of dairy farming in Denmark.

The Germans don't have those circular cul-de-sacs, at least I've never seen one exactly like those in Germany, but they have the same idea of separation with fences. Over there, the yard isn't a yard, it's a garden and the front of each property is paved with open interlocking concrete pavers so that grass or moss can grow up through the middle of it and they can still use it for parking.

The houses are set far back on the lot with a tiny little back yard area to sit in private and the front yard is usually lavishly planted with flowers or has arbors on both sides and they pull the cars right in on the lot almost up to the house, sometimes two deep. The houses aren't big - usually less than 1200 square feet.

Another strange custom is folks over there have a weekend garden. They purchase tiny little pea patches out in the country and they put tiny little cabins on them. you've seen those little garden sheds you can purchase at Lowe's or Home Depot? Well, they take those to a whole new level over there and they are laid out like tiny Medeterranian villas.

These little pea patch resorts look a lot like the RV campgrounds we have over here without the RVs but with tiny elaborate little camping cabins. In the summer they go out there on the weekends, tend to their little crops or their flowers and have barbecues. It's a little strange to be out running on the moors and to jog past one of those pea patch places and see a line of cars and a bunch of guys and gals whooping it up with the grill going the way we'd do it on a deck back in the states. It always intrigued me how they would never party back at their homes unless it was something very formal, like a wedding, and whenever they wanted to let their hair down they'd go way out in the country and then party in a 15ft. by 30ft. yard with a little cabin and garden.

Kurt's right though; lots of folks over there live within bicycle commuting distance of work and they don't have to drive to work. They also don't stock up the fridge like we do; they usually go down to the market, bring back just enough in a basket on the bike for a couple of days and make the trip every couple of days.

My last tour over there was in the 90's though and it was in southwestern Germany a five minute drive from the French border. There was a big place that had opened up called Meyerhoff the last year I was stationed there where I'd seen Germans buying stuff in bulk and thought, after two tours over there, that it was strange. I didn't realize until I'd gotten back to the states in 1995 that it was basically a copy of a Sam's club or a Costco.

I thought the pictures of the western-style housing in Beijing was interesting. I'd heard that some American contractors were pulling down some pretty good dough as Construction Project Managers over there basically helping rich Chinese developers emulate western-style housing for the new Chinese upper middle class.

ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!!

Mike

[Phillip]

I really enjoyed the photos. If it wasn't for pictures I would never get to see the beauty of places far away.

[kurt]

Good fences make good neighbors, and all that. Frost had it right.

And if you're gonna have fences, you might as well make 'em really cool.