The Watchtower - the roof and the chimney of the old house in the oldest, the poorest and the most dirty and devasted part of Lodz - Baluty - the place where I live. It used to be a Jewish district of the town and the 2nd biggest (after Warsaw) and the long lasting ghetto in the occupied Europe during 2nd World War. Most of the buildings in the oldest part of the Baluty district haven’t been renovated since the time prior the last world war.
The title of the photo cames from the chimney… The pigeons look like the old warriors on the top of the castle wall and the chimney looks like the watchtower.
The purpose of taking that photo was actually quite simple. Couple of days ago I bought new lens for my Samsung GX10 (Pentax K10). I bought new TELE - Sigma 70 - 300 mm APO DG Macro. I just wanted to test it :)
Animals architecture lodz Poland
I have a new job for an Irish IT company who is working on new big service for people who care and for the non-profit organisations and charities. One of the first Polish non-profit charities I have contacted with was the one of the biggest in Europe pounds for horses - “Tara”. The name is rather taken after the story “Gone with the wind”, however it is related to the Tara hill. Irish Tara was the residence of the high king of Ireland, and Polish Tara is a kingdom of horses, usually the old, disabled and bad experienced ones. Horses are usually being bought straight from the slaughter houses, sometimes they are bought from the lorries that are going to Italy. Poland is a land of horses as Ireland, unfortunately many of our horses are breed in bad conditions and then sold to Italy and France for meat. They have to spend the journey in terrible conditions, crowded over limits in the lorries, without water, air and food. Luckily we have people who are devoting all of their time to save those horses from the death in one of the Italian, French or Polish slaughter houses, to save them from the cruelty, starvation etc. In Tara there is over 100 horses placed in the old German grange in the Lower Silesia that used to be a communistic state property farm (like Soviet kolhoz). They have plenty of land, meadows for horses and lots of buildings for stables, but the grange was partly destroyed by the former owner - the company who did nothing to renovate it.
The Pound is maintained by 2 people - married couple - Scarlet (that is her real name) and Peter with help of over 1000 volunteers. The horses are neither for sale nor for ride. They are retired, spending rest of their lives in peace. Horses in Tara reach the age over 30(More info on their website: www.ligon.chorzow.pl/tara)
Here is some photos I took during the visit in Polish Tara:
Animals horses ireland lower silesia Poland pound slaughter houses tara tara hill
26 October 2007, Poland, Lower Silesia, Pound for horses - “Tara”, one of the oldest horses in the pound. Pound for horses “Tara” is the biggest in Poland. There are more than 100 horses usually saved from being slaughtered in Italy after spending days being transported from Poland in terrible inhuman conditions. Some horses were bought from the slaughterhouses, some were bought from the people who treated them very bad. In Tara they are spending the rest of their lives in peaceful and very good conditions. Best retirement for every horse. It is very sad, that many of the horses who served human whole of their lives are being sold to the slaughterhouses in Italy or in Poland, sometimes they are racing horses who used to won a lot of medals and made a lot of money for their owners. When they are old they are not needed anymore. Luckily we have people like Scarlet and Peter and thousands of volunteers who are helping them to save our big friends.
Here is the link to their website (available in English, German and Italian, the last one only through Polish version of the website):
http://www.ligon.chorzow.pl/tara/en_index.php
Animals english german horses inhuman conditions italy lower silesia medals money Poland polish version pound racing horses retirement scarlet slaughterhouses tara volunteers
2006, Ireland, Burtonhall, co. Carlow, co. Kildare. Shire horse on the meadow. We were digging (archaeological excavation) just side to side with the meadows with horses. Every day we had many occasions to take great pictures of those powerful creatures. Camera: Konica Minolta A1 DiMage.
Animals archaeological excavation co carlow co kildare dimage horses ireland konica minolta Landscape minolta a1 shire horse
