Appreciate Beauty of Nature with @phortun: round 98

Hi there my Hivean friends and followers!

Welcome to the 98th 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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As I already mentioned in some of my older posts, we have just been through a series of very cold days here in Krakow, Poland lately and it was during one of those days when I clicked this "wannabe frosty macro" just above the Bednarski Park. It was sunny and the low winter sun was lighting up these miniature ice crystals that formed on the ground. It took some uncomfortable crouching and a bunch of not so impressive attempts to take a decent shot with some focus. I think this is also my old, worn out phone telling me it´s not so written off yet :D

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In the last round, we had 5 participants. After some thorough consideration, I decided to pick these 3 winners:

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@wanderingkat with this entry:

Here is my entry for the challenge (really great to motivate people to go out in nature more, so well done on doing this!) Nature is always my safe spot and a week ago I had someone who kindly fixed my Nikon camera, I though was gone and done its job. But now that its fully operating again, I love to take it with me wherever I go and make some amazing pictures of nature. This beautiful sunset was seen last night as I went walking with a friend and his dog. The colours were just so beautiful and it was really breathtaking. Love to share this with you all, hope you enjoy it :) It is the beautiful Grange Beach, Adelaide, South Australia.

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@loulou1987 with this entry:

Hi, I have just taken this nice photo when crosscountry skiing in the Jeseníky Mountains, Czech Republic. It was taken about 4 km from the Paprsek Cottage where you can taste the best blueberry dumplings in the world :-) When I was looking at the scenery, I wished I had been just 5 cm short to climb the frozen "waterfall"😃.

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@trangbaby with this entry:

Hi @phortun, here is my entry. I just had a beautiful walk around the Lake Xuan Huong in Da Lat today with my friend. It was wonderful to walk around enjoying the scenery and breath the cold weather of this great place in the highland of Viet Nam. Hope you're having a great holiday and wish you a Happy New Year :)

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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! :)