July certainly isn’t the first month that comes to mind when you want to see beautiful Antalya sunsets, but I happened to get lucky with a nice cloud formation on this particular occasion.

I ran across the Huebner Family Photos Flickr account quite by accident; it was one of those things where I was so deep into a trail of searching for things that I have no idea how I ended up where I did. But I’m so glad I found this account— if you have some spare time (and if you don’t, make some), their photo collections are well worth a look or three. Basically it seems they’re going through all their old family photos from the past half-century or so, many of which appear to be slides, and they’re converting them all to digital uploads. While that in itself might not be so interesting to anyone who isn’t in their family, where it becomes of interest is the fact that these people travel a lot, and they were traveling fifty years ago, too. They have nearly 4,000 photos up there at the moment, many of which are from Europe in the late 1950s, stretching all the way through to the present day. Also, they appear to be a family of very skilled photographers, which helps.

I can’t even describe how many different kinds of photos are there— you just have to go see it for yourself. The above photo was taken from my favourite set, Czechoslovakia 1988-89. I find that set particularly interesting because I was dating a Czech guy at that time, and it’s amazing to see that his descriptions of his homeland were so incredibly accurate.

I’ve been told by a very reliable source that this is just the beginning, and there are more sets of photos coming soon, including a set from Europe, dated 1961. Can’t wait to see those.

So many people are taking to their balconies to work and play. It makes perfect sense, since we’ve been having such a mild summer.

I’m kind of fussy about visual art, drawing and painting and such. I have a few artists I really love, but mostly I’m hard to please.

Albert Cerriteño’s work, however, is simply amazing. He has an incredible eye for detail, and his sense of quirk is more than admirable. I’d love to own one of his pieces someday.

There are places in Turkey that are prone to earthquakes; Antalya is not one of them. Nonetheless, that didn’t stop an earthquake of magnitude 4.1 from happening 11km from my home yesterday. It was the most bizarre experience you can imagine; I was sitting here minding my own business, when suddenly it felt like someone had grabbed our building by the collar and given it a good shaking. It lasted for about twenty seconds and then slowly faded away. People who were even closer to the epicentre have reported much more violent shaking that actually caused people to run out into the street. While I thought the earthquake was certainly interesting, I’m happy for that to be the last one we have for a while.

How great is this? It’s a photo by Jack Williams, taken two weeks ago right here in Antalya. Jack has a lot of great stuff in his photostream— be sure to check him out.

If you find yourself today with a few extra minutes today and want to see something cool on the web. check out The Incredible Shrinking Man. This is a research site built on the premise that one way to relieve the current strain on the earth and its resources would be to genetically engineer smaller people. The eventual aim, according to the site, would be to have a planet full of humans who are 50cm tall and weigh 2kg. To quote the site directly: “It has been a long established trend for people to grow taller. This has many consequences, like the need for more energy, food, and space. What if we decided to turn this trend around and use our growing knowledge of genetics to actually shrink mankind?”

When I first stumbled across this site, I thought it was a satirical mockery of the green movement. Then I started reading and paying attention. These are real researchers who are serious about this idea, and frankly I find it fascinating. Well worth thinking about, even if you don’t buy into it in the end. Link

Summer breakfasts: heavy on the fruit. Cherries are beautiful this time of year.

Roof shot on one of the many stormy evenings we’ve had this summer.

I love looking at other people’s photos of Antalya, just to see how a traveler’s eyes view this fair city. Daniel MacKenzie took this gorgeous shot of three boats in the Old Port, and it’s the best Antalya capture I’ve seen all week, hands down. Great work.