Wootton bridge collapse and forensic photography

The camera has a long history as a means of recording phenomena from the first use by Daguerre and Fox-Talbot, such as astronomical events, eclipses for example, small creatures and plants when the camera was attached to the eyepiece of microscopes (photo-microscopy) and for macro photography of larger specimens. The camera also proved useful in recording crime scenes and the scenes of accidents such as the Wootton bridge collapse on 11 June 1861. The rail bridge at Wootton collapsed under the weight of a passing goods train on the line between Leamington Spa and Kenilworth owned by the London and North Western Railway Company.

For the first time, under the orders of the courts, photos were taken to record the scene using both long distance shots and close-ups of the debris. The photographs were used in courts of inquiry, and the technique is now commonplace in courts of law. Then photographs were made on a large plate camera with a small aperture and using fine grain emulsion film on a glass plate. When the positive prints are scanned at high resolution, they can be enlarged to show details of the components. The methods used in analyzing old photographs are collectively known as forensic photography.

Canon Digital Camera IXUS

The Digital IXUS (IXY Digital in Japan and PowerShot Digital ELPH in US and Canada) is a series of ultra-compact digital cameras released by Canon. The first Digital IXUS released in June 2000 fitted the technology of the PowerShot S10 into a body similar to the APS IXUS II. Between 2003 and 2004, starting with the Digital IXUS II, Canon moved from the use of CF cards to SD cards to create thinner cameras.

Canon's PowerShot A and S line of the time were being made as small as contemporary technology allowed. Canon used its experience with small film cameras, particularly the APS IXUS, to mass-produce good digital cameras smaller than anyone else had managed up to the time.

Pearl of Allah: the largest pearl in the world

The largest known pearl in the world, Pearl of Allah, was found in Philippines in 1934. It is a natural, non-nacreous, calcareous concretion pearl from a giant clam. It did not grow in a pearl oyster and hence it is not pearl-shaped, but instead, it has a porcelain-like surface, or glossy like a china plate. Other pearls from giant clams also exist, but this is a very large one.

This pearl is the product of a giant clam, Tridacna gigas, which cannot be grafted. The pearl is also a whole pearl, not a mabe pearl, and whole pearl culturing technology is only 100 years old.

Pearl of Allah is not a gem-quality pearl, but a rare very costly natural pearl. It measures 24 centimeters in diameter (9.45 inches) and weighs 6.4 kilograms (14.1 lb). It is an interesting piece of natural history surrounded by extraordinary stories and legends.

It was discovered by an anonymous Filipino Muslim diver, off the island of Palawan in 1934. According to legends, a Palawan chieftain gave the pearl to Wilbur Dowell Cobb, an American, in 1936 as a gift for saving the life of his son, who was stricken with malaria. The pearl was named the ‘Pearl of Allah’ by the Muslim tribal chief, as it resembled a turbaned head.

After Cobb took the pearl to USA, it was exhibited at the ‘Ripley's Believe It or Not! Odditorium’ in New York, and it was valued at $3.5 million. Gemologist Michael Steenrod in Colorado Springs has appraised the pearl at $60 million in 1982 and $93 million in 2007. Another 1982 appraisal, by Lee Sparrow of the San Francisco Gem Lab, value the pearl at $42 million.

Pearl Market in Beijing, China

Photo: The famous Pearl Market in Beijing, dated March 24, 2006. Dimension: 1600 x 1200 pixels, size: 373 KB. Click on photo for an enlarged view and save the photo.

A pearl is a hard, generally spherical substance formed within the soft tissue, specifically the mantle, of a living shelled mollusk, and made up of calcium carbonate (CaCO3) in minute crystalline form, which has been deposited in concentric layers. The finest natural pearls have been highly valued as gemstones for many centuries.

Precious pearls occur in the wild but they are very rare. Cultured or farmed pearls from pearl oysters make up the major chunk of pearls sold in the market. Seawater Pearls are more valuable than freshwater pearls.

Imitation or fake pearls are also widely sold in inexpensive jewelry. Pearls have also been crushed and used in cosmetics, medicines, or in paint formulations.

In 1914 pearl farmers began growing cultured freshwater pearls using the pearl mussels native to Lake Biwa, the largest and most ancient lake in Japan, near the city of Kyoto. Japanese pearl farmers recently developed a hybrid pearl mussel, a cross between Biwa Pearl Mussels and a closely related species from China, Hyriopsis cumingi, in Lake Kasumigaura.

Japanese pearl producers also invested in producing cultured pearls with freshwater mussels in Shanghai, China, which is currently the world's largest producer of freshwater pearls, producing more than 1,500 metric tons per year.

African-American Actress Hattie McDaniel

African-American Actress Hattie McDaniel (June 10, 1895 - October 26, 1952) was the first African-American to win an Academy Award in any category, winning the Best Supporting Actress award for her role of Mammy in Gone with the Wind (1939).

American gossip columnist Louella Parsons wrote about the Oscar night of 1940, "Hattie McDaniel earned that gold Oscar, by her fine performance of "Mammy" in Gone with the Wind. If you had seen her face when she walked up to the platform and took the gold trophy, you would have had the choke in your voice that all of us had when Hattie, hair trimmed with gardenias, face alight, and dress up to the queen's taste, accepted the honor in one of the finest speeches ever given on the Academy floor. She put her heart right into those words and expressed not only for herself, but for every member of her race, the gratitude she felt that she had been given recognition by the Academy. Fay Bainter, with voice trembling, introduced Hattie and spoke of the happiness she felt in bestowing upon the beaming actress Hollywood's greatest honor. Her proudest possession is the red silk petticoat that David Selznick gave her when she finished Gone with the Wind".

Hattie McDaniel in her acceptance Speech delivered on February 29, 1940 at the 12th Annual Academy Awards said, "Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, fellow members of the motion picture industry and honored guests: This is one of the happiest moments of my life, and I want to thank each one of you who had a part in selecting me for one of their awards, for your kindness. It has made me feel very, very humble; and I shall always hold it as a beacon for anything that I may be able to do in the future. I sincerely hope I shall always be a credit to my race and to the motion picture industry. My heart is too full to tell you just how I feel, and may I say thank you and God bless you."

In November 2009 the acclaimed star of the film ‘Precious’, African-American actress Mo'Nique said, "I own the rights to Hattie McDaniel's life story, and I can't wait to tell that story, because that woman was absolutely amazing. She had to stand up to the adversity of black and white society at a time when we really weren't accepted. Mr. Lee Daniels is going to direct it, of course, and I'm going to be Miss Hattie McDaniel. I really hope I can do that woman justice."

Mo'Nique went on to win the Best Supporting Actress Oscar Award at the 82nd Academy awards and, in her acceptance speech for the award, Mo’Nique said, “I want to thank Miss Hattie McDaniel for enduring all that she had to so that I would not have to.” Mo’Nique was dressed in a blue dress, with gardenias in her hair, as homage to McDaniel, who wore the same dress for the Oscar Award ceremony in 1939.

Hattie McDaniel’s first film appearance was in The Golden West (1932) as a maid. She made her last film appearances in Mickey (1948) and Family Honeymoon (1949). McDaniel was also a professional singer, songwriter, comedienne, stage actress, radio performer and television star. In her film career McDaniel appeared in over 300 films. In 2006 Hattie McDaniel became the first black Oscar winner to be honored with a US postage stamp.

Jonas Brothers at Kids Inaugural: We Are the Future

Photo: The Jonas Brothers perform at the ‘Kids Inaugural: We Are the Future’ concert at the Verizon Center in downtown Washington DC on January 19, 2009; photo courtesy Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Mark O'Donald.

The Jonas Brothers is an American pop rock boy band consisting of three brothers, namely, Kevin Jonas, Joe Jonas and Nick Jonas, which became popular in the Disney Channel children's television network. They hail from Jersey Shore, New Jersey. In the summer of 2008, they starred in the Disney Channel Original Movie Camp Rock. They have released the albums ‘It's About Time’, ‘Jonas Brothers’, ‘A Little Bit Longer’, and ‘Lines, Vines and Trying Times’. In 2008, the band was nominated for the Best New Artist award at the 51st Grammy Awards and they won the award for Breakthrough Artist at the American Music Awards. They are active since 2005 and known for Pop, Soft Rock, and Teen Pop genres.

The dormant volcanic Mount Ararat in Turkey

Mount Ararat is a snow-capped, dormant volcanic cone in Turkey having two peaks: the Greater Ararat, the tallest peak in Turkey and the entire Armenian plateau with an elevation of 5,137 meter (16,854 ft) and the Lesser Ararat with an elevation of 3,896 meter (12,782 ft).

The Ararat massif is about 40 km in diameter. The Iran-Turkey boundary skirts east of Lesser Ararat, the lower peak of the Ararat massif. It has been reported that this flank had been used by Kurdish rebel tribes to organize uprisings against Turkey in the past.

In Judeo-Christian tradition and belief, Mount Ararat is associated with the ‘Mountains of Ararat’ where according to the book of Genesis in the Bible, The Noah's Ark came to rest. This mount also plays a very significant role in Armenian nationalism.

The Dolmabahce Palace, Turkey

The Dolmabahçe Palace, or Dolmabahçe Sarayı in Turkish, in Istanbul, Turkey, located at the European side of the Bosporus, used to be the main administrative center of the Ottoman Empire from 1856 to 1922, except a twenty-year interval from 1889 to 1909 in which the Yıldız Palace was used. The Dolmabahce Palace was built between 1843 and 1856 under the orders of the Turkish Empire's 31st Sultan, Abdülmecid I. The 45,000 square meter mono-block palace stands on an area of 110,000 squire meters. Hacı Said Ağa was responsible for the construction work of the palace, while the project was conceptualized by architects Garabet Balyan, his son Nigoğayos Balyan and Evanis Kalfa.

Golden Gate Bridge

Golden Gate Bridge view from the Presidio in San Francisco to the northwest, towards the Marin County headlands, photograph taken on 19 April 2002 by Peter Craig.

The Golden Gate Bridge, an internationally recognized symbol of San Francisco and California, is a suspension bridge spanning the Golden Gate, the opening of the San Francisco Bay into the Pacific Ocean. It connects the city of San Francisco on the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula to Marin County and was the longest suspension bridge span in the world when it was completed in 1937, but now surpassed by other bridges. The bridge still has the second longest suspension bridge main span in the United States, after the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge in New York City.

Combate Naval de Iquique: oil painting by Thomas Somerscales

Combate Naval de Iquique, oil on canvas painting by Thomas Somerscales (XIX century) shows the Naval Battle of Iquique confrontation that occurred on May 21, 1879, during the naval stage of the War of the Pacific, a conflict between Chile and the alliance between Peru and Bolivia.