Firstly, what are promotional mugs? Promotional mugs are a form of marketing and advertising. They can be used to convey a brand and get your enterprise recognized throughout the country or even the world. Mugs are available in a wide variety of styles, colours, shapes, and materials. You can opt for a conventional ceramic mug, a stylish earthenware coffee mug, mugs made from bone china, metallic mugs, vacuum mugs, environmentally friendly plastic mugs and more. To cut a long story short, there is a promotional mug for everyone, and you should find out which is for you and your company. For example, an elderly member of the work force in a CEO position would be slightly more interested in a traditional and conventional mug made of bone china or even perhaps a ceramic mug. A trendy plastic mug will never catch their attention or come up to their liking. In contrast, when targeting the younger work force, designer promotional mugs will be much more effective than their conventional counterparts will.

To find the promotional mug style that is suitable for each member of the work force shall now be made easier for you, your promotional marketing campaign can get off to a flying start by taking into account the following steps. You don’t want to be wasting your marketing budget on mugs that your work force and customers will throw in the bin or hide away in a cupboard; you need to make sure the money is being spent on mugs that will be used time and time again.

What is the budget you have to spend on your promotional mug marketing campaign? Determining this will help you personalized promotional mug supplier find you the best mug deal.

Then you’ll need to work out who your target market is, who is your audience? You need to be considering age, sex, industry, position and other such demographic issues. Once you have identified your target groups you need to choose a mug style and design that will cater to their tastes including factors such as size, type, colour…

Here comes the most important part…branding! It is obvious that you will be branding you mugs, because otherwise there isn’t much point in spending money on this whole process! Again in this step you will have a number of choices: You can select the mug’s colour based on your company’s colours, you could add the logo of your company, you could even add a personalized message thanking customers, staff etc for their support or if you have a motto or a statement you would like to put across you might even like to consider adding that. Another quite interesting idea is adding a photo or image to your mug creating photo mugs, which can be slightly more alluring than your standard logo mug. Obviously, you don’t want the branding on the mug to be too overpowering, because we’re fairly sure your clients and staff don’t want to be feeling like they are walking advertisements for your company. Instead, how about trying to make your clients feel proud of having one of your mugs in their hands? There are a number of printing methods for you to get the right promotional mug for you business… You can choose direct screen-printing, silkscreen printing, laser etching, digital printing and sublimation for example.

If you’re still having trouble finding the right promotional tool for you, or if you’re not sure if mugs are the best promotional item for you there are always marketing executives available, take a look at www.yell.com for your nearest one. They will help to point you in the right direction by considering your needs and budget, they should be able to lay out a plan for your campaign and even suggest which market segment to design your personalized promotional mugs to. Enlisting the aid of a marketing expert might reduce the amount you spend in the long term on your advertising as consultation eliminates any element of risk that might appear when you plan your promotional activity yourself.

www.MugGifts4U.co.uk is one shop you can get promotional mugs from online, other shops include; http://www.t-shirts-mugs-n-more.co.uk.

In these modern times, cameras are everywhere. Whether it’s a tiny digital you keep in your pocket or a medium format monstrosity you use for a hobby, cameras have become an integral part of human life. With that in mind, let’s take a trip down memory lane and talk a bit about where modern photography came from and what it has meant to our civilization.

One of the most amazing things about photographs is how heavily we depend on them to record our history and tell our stories, considering the fact that chemical photography is a relatively new science. The first permanent photograph was created as recently as 1825 using pewter plates and a substance called “bitumen,” and later iterations of the photograph would be printed on glass; paper didn’t become more readily available into around 1888 as a result of the innovations by George Eastman (Eastman-Kodak).

In 1901, Kodak introduced the Kodak Brownie camera to the public. This was the first time that photography was so easily accessible to the public, in terms of ease of use and cost. It was during this time that developing film as an industry really took off. It is amazing to think that something like printing and viewing our pictures was a foreign concept just 100 years ago. The modern SLR camera has only been around for about 80 years, and even in that time frame hasn’t changed too much in terms of construction.

While black and white photography hasn’t changed much since the early 1900’s, color film has experience dramatic advancements over this brief period of time. Though color photography had always been a concept pursued by early photographers, color film and printing didn’t become accessible until the 20th century. Kodak’s “Kodachrome” was introduced around 1935, but it would be a while before color film became the norm. One interesting thing about the advancement of photography is how black and white photos are still being used despite the popularity of color photographs; how many people do you know that still have a black and white television?

Of course, you can’t talk about photo history without mentioning the huge importance of the digital revolution. This technology, which feels like a normal part of life, has only been in widespread use for about 15 years. The first megapixel sensor wasn’t even made until 1986 and now it’s a common technology word in our vocabulary. Though digital photography hasn’t changed much about the way we take pictures (point and shoot), it has had an immeasurable impact on our ability to share our photographs with the world.

Photography is the way in which we record and share memories. A photograph can be as simple as remembering a birthday party, or as important as drawing attention to a conflict on the other side of the globe. They help add meaning and emotion to the words of reporters articles and help preserve history for future generations. Every photo we take represents some type of relationship, achievement, strength or weakness.

Creating free online photo stories that illustrate what is unique and good about you is a much better idea. You could post photos of yourself winning an award or playing in your favorite sport. You might also consider posting photo stories that feature you doing a service project for a local charity. Anything that makes you look like a responsible person that is looking to achieve great things in life will make you more desirable to potential college admissions officials. This makes a great compliment to your college application and the photo stories you post should reflect and support the information you give there. If you volunteered at the local animal shelter to gain experience for a future career in veterinary medicine, post a photo story of you working closely with the animals, for instance.

And you don’t have to wait and see whether the college admission reps are going to Google you or not, just include a link to the photo sharing site right in your college application letter. This will show great initiative on your part and let the college know that you are creative and comfortable with a computer as well as sending whatever message and image you have created with your free online photo sharing stories. Image is everything and while it won’t compensate for lousy grades or low SAT scores, it may just give you the edge you need to outshine the competition and make it into your college of choice.

You may not get a chance to meet with the college admissions board in person until after they have made their decision so the only chance you have to make a good impression is with your application and online photo story. Adding compelling pictures and stories to your site will help the board feel as though they know you and like you. You become a real person to them instead of just another paper application they have to choose from. It is much harder to say “no” to a real person than to a piece of paper.

You only have one chance to make a first impression and your free online photo sharing stories can make whatever impression you want to make. Let yours tell people that you are intelligent, honorable, active and a real go-getter. You never know what opportunities may lie ahead until you give it a chance. In today’s world it takes every possible advantage to succeed and your online photo stories are just one more way to create an advantage.

A GHOST’S WHISPER

A board falling flat to the floor is thunder to the heart. And so it was that when prison guard Clyde Sollars heard a hard clap, he stiffened in fear. For a few seconds he listened, breathless. Sollars looked at his wristwatch, an anniversary gift from his wife. The hands showed almost four o’clock. He reached into the canvas bag he had carried into the prison from the main office across the street. Inside the tiny mailroom that was nothing more than a cubbyhole with shelves, wedged at the end of a short hallway, he sorted the day’s last letters. That noise, sharp and urgent, echoed in his head. The convict carpenters working with hammers and saws near the deputy warden’s office must have dropped a board. The day suddenly felt used and cold, like frost on a flower. Feeling a chill that he couldn’t understand, he worked faster.

An hour earlier, Sollars waited outside the prison’s rock walls, across the street, while his wife Helen censored the last letters. She was the new matron in the Women’s Unit, a small stockade behind the main prison. They told her that if she worked with the mail superintendent for a few weeks she would know the prison better.  Every morning she and another matron marched eleven of the thirteen female prisoners from their quarters to their jobs in prison offices outside the walls. Clyde felt lucky to see her during working hours. He was one of two mail and transportation officers, alternating with another guard on road trips to return parole violators to Deer Lodge. The most recent assignment had been to North Dakota. The other guard asked for it, hoping to visit relatives along the way.

On this Thursday, April 16, 1959, Clyde Sollars might have been driving hundreds of miles to the east, free as a bird on the perpetual plains of eastern Montana. Instead he stacked mail into a bag, looked at his watch, and decided that before he ended his shift he would walk one more time into Montana State Prison. “See you at home, Mom,” he had said to his wife. That was what he called Helen sometimes. They had two daughters, grown and gone, and it felt good to speak to his wife as if the children were still at home.

He had come to the prison in 1957. Like many of the guards before him, who found their way to Deer Lodge from the sawmills and the mines and the timber crews, he arrived at the prison with dirt on his heels. After leaving the Army after World War II he went to work in the grain elevators in Charlo, Ronan, Polson, Pablo and Paradise, all towns in northwestern Montana. Sollars was an ordinary blue-collar worker, as unadorned as the other guards who filed in and out of those imposing sandstone and granite walls. He was about to find out how plain men take on new worth in a crisis.

He swung the canvas sack onto his shoulder and walked forty paces across Main Street and into the lengthening shadows of two mighty cell houses. The fortresses stood four stories high. Castle-ike turrets clawed at the pale sky from each of the eight corners.  One cell house had been built before the turn of the century, the other, during Teddy Roosevelt’s presidency. They made an awe-inspiring sight to travelers who drove into town on Highway 10, a two-lane ribbon of asphalt, and stopped and pointed their Brownies to snap pictures. The forbidding prison, by some accounts one of the worst in the country, made for interesting vacation snapshots next to the more pastoral elements of Montana, like steaming geyser spray from Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park.

Like most prison guards, Sollars saw little romance in the rugged architecture of the cell houses. He thought them ugly and wretched because he knew of the misery that they hid. He felt them staring at him with their troubled swollen eyes. The prison had eyes everywhere. The hundreds of prisoners watched and remembered all they saw, as did the guards if they knew what was good for them. The seven wall towers watched what was inside, and everything inside stared back. Eyes watched from everywhere. It was said that the prison’s ears heard all, even a ghost’s whisper.

Wind swept the scent of spring snow off the mountains that loomed like a painted backdrop behind the prison. The scent stung his nose but felt fresh and clean. Only when Sollars arrived at the looming stone entrance did he shiver. Instinctively he zipped his blue uniform jacket. He tilted the bill on his police-style cap to shut out the sun, which already was fading behind the prison. Then he looked up. On the wall outside the tower, known as Tower 7 or the main gate, a guard stood with a loop of clothesline rope. He uncoiled it and let it drop twenty feet or so to Sollars, who unclipped from it a brass key that filled his hand. At the front of the tower, standing almost on Main Street where the cars rolled past, Sollars unlocked an ornate black grill door to enter the base of the two-story tower. Here, the easy innocence of small-town Deer Lodge dissolved into a dark cave of sandstone rock. A naked bulb cast dull yellow light that didn’t penetrate the corners. The room was cold and drafty. Sollars felt a change in him as he always did when he went inside.  He locked the grill door behind him. This time, the rope dangled through a round opening in the ceiling. The guard who had stood on the wall a minute earlier was now inside the tower, up in the eagle’s nest where he could see the guts of the prison through its broad windows. Sollars attached the key, tugged on the rope, and the guard above pulled it back. Seconds later the rope returned. A new key rattled inside the tin tube. Sollars used it to unlock a wooden door, as thick as his hand was wide, on the opposite side of the tower. He swung open the door, stepped into the prison yard, and locked it again. The other guard, standing outside on the wall again and facing the prison now, dropped the rope. Sollars surrendered the key.

He crossed a short courtyard to ten steps that led upward to another barred door. Behind it was Inside Administration, where guards brought their prisoner counts. Convicts came for medicine, or to get their teeth pulled in the dental office, or to shine the guards’ black leather shoes. In the photo office, they took pictures of the “fish,” the new men who arrived through the main gate and wrote descriptions of their scars and tattoos in case of escape. The visiting room was here, too. Inside Administration was the business district of this town of criminals.

The cell houses, like big brothers, pressed against the chalk-white Inside Administration on either side, dwarfing it. On the south end, to Sollars’ left, was the 1896 version. This cell house had buckets for toilets. Despite all the technological inventions before its construction, it more resembled a Civil War-era fortress with its galleys of wood and its cell doors that had to be locked individually.  It was made of dark brick, the color of dried blood. Its round turrets had roofs that came to a point, where in the early days big flags flew. To the north, the 1912 cell house was much the same in its rectangular construction, although its brick looked more orange by contrast and its square turrets flared at the top. Even forty-seven years after it was built, guards called this building the “new” cell house because it had plumbing and interlocking cell doors. None of the guards would doubt that this was Floyd Powell’s prison. The new warden from Wisconsin State Prison, a champion of reform, had proclaimed at his arrival eight months earlier that he would change this reputed hellhole into a model institution that would be the envy of every prison in America. Not everyone shared his enthusiasm. Some residents of Deer Lodge greeted his presence with skepticism, others with disdain. The town wasn’t accustomed to a warden of such outward determination, and the prospect of an improved prison was a new idea. In Wisconsin he had a reputation as a bit of a daredevil because he was willing to go into prison cells to talk inmates out of knives or other weapons. From childhood he lived a hard life and was determined to overcome it. As a boy, and the oldest son, he took over the family farm when his father became disabled in a car accident. He also hired out as a laborer to bring extra money home. He was a driven, determined self-made man.

The new warden arrived in Deer Lodge to repair decades of decay and mismanagement at the only prison in Montana’s vast landscape. It was an outpost of sorts, planted in a town of fewer than 4,000 residents in a tall empty county – Powell County, coincidentally – where Hereford cattle outnumbered people. The prison had stood at that spot along the Clark Fork River since Montana was a territory, when sluice miners crawled the snow-fed creeks and road agents fleeced them of their gold nuggets. It had been a familiar face to three generations of Deer Lodge folk who worked there. The old prison was a tolerated place, if not tolerable, a dark ripple in the stream of a good life. In a wide lonesome valley that felt like cupped hands beneath the heavens, the prison’s purpose was a spoiling, a footprint of humanity’s inevitable sorrowful deeds.  Montanans liked their prison kept quiet, much like ignoring a sleeping dog for fear of its bite. With Floyd Powell’s arrival, that was about to change. There, between folds of the Rocky Mountain Front that wore some of the best forests in Montana on its flowing cape, his agenda for reform took shape.

As summer waned, Powell charged ahead with uncommon energy, trying to change everything at once. He recruited Ted Rothe, his friend and ally, from Wisconsin State Prison. To make the prison safer, he hired more guards. To know the troublemakers, he started classifying prisoners by crimes and behavior. He even fired the “con bosses” who had supervised their peers in the industries and shops. Powell was a whirling dervish. In his quest to bring the prison into modern times, he was upsetting the balance of power inside of it.

Clyde Sollars felt a haunting at the prison. The prison felt dead and ugly. Knowing the men held inside was like ripping open a psychological veil. Behind it were the inmates’ victims and their personal agonies. Civilization built prisons to hide what they didn’t want to see. Sollars and all the other guards discovered that in the midst of convicted men they met hell, exposed and raw and full of pain. Guards coped with two evils: real dangers and apparitions. They sensed in Floyd Powell’s vision a change in wind direction. It felt like a storm building on the mountain. To many Montanans, prison reform was worse than a futile gesture. It was a violation of faith.

If anything, a guard’s life was a fertile field for conversation. On the outside, off shift, guards cracked their foaming Great Falls Selects and smoked their unfiltered Camels and ranted of how it was, how it really was, and lamented Powell’s policies and the joint and the torment of their working lives. At the top of the steps at the barred door into Inside Administration, Sollars pushed a button that sounded a buzzer.  Officer James “Little” Jones, the second-shift turnkey, appeared at the door. He was as short as his nickname implied, but a muscled, wiry man, and his hair was thick and black. “Last trip for today?” he asked Sollars. He opened the door for Sollars to pass and then swung it shut. Metal crashed against metal. He turned the big key until the lock slid closed with a thunk. Jones made small talk before Sollars entered a little hallway to his right. He had been sorting the mail for fewer than ten minutes before he heard the noise that scared him.

Jones worked two grill doors that day. On the west side of the building, opposite from where Sollars had entered, two grill doors spaced twelve feet apart created a vestibule, where on most days one door would be locked before the other was opened. Those doors admitted convicts from the yard. Usually a second turnkey guard worked between the doors and had to work them with care to avoid being trapped with both sets of keys. Today Jones was working alone. On such days when the afternoon shift was short a man, the outside grill door was left open. Convicts who had business to do came up the steps from the yard on the west side of Inside Administration and walked right up to the second grill door in the vestibule. As a matter of policy, Jones would order them to step back before he unlocked the door. Standing now inside his claustrophobic mailroom, Sollars was thinking again about the noise that bothered him. Like other guards he had become accustomed to listening beyond clanging doors and crude language for true and ominous signals of trouble. This noise had ricocheted around the jungle of concrete rooms like a clap of thunder. Had he heard a board falling flat to the floor, blasting the air away? Or had he heard something else? His suspicion grew.  For a few moments only silence came to his ears, and in prison, silence deafens. Here, a dictionary of sounds lay open in Clyde Sollars’ mind, as it did for every guard, ready for quick reference. In this prison of a thousand eyes, danger usually came first to the ears.  Sounds that fill the prison alarm new guards. As months pass those sounds become a pattern of routine. The prison at its safest was a numbing routine and a guard was soon to learn that he should listen close when the routine changes. From somewhere in the maze of rooms came an urgency of shoes on tile. They weren’t squeaks of new shoes but the warnings of a struggle. Sollars felt curious and then afraid. He crept into the lobby. Here in this gloomy room, where convicted men had tromped a trail in the linoleum, he saw no carpenters, nor did he see anyone else. Where was Jones, the turnkey guard? And why were both barred doors to the yard standing open? That very second, as Sollars comprehended a guard’s greatest fear, a squat and sweating convict rumbled into the lobby from Deputy Warden Ted Rothe’s office. His big fist clutched a thin ugly knife, red with blood.

Sollars recognized him at once. He didn’t know the man well, in fact couldn’t recall a conversation with him, but in an instant Sollars sensed the man’s frightful confidence. Like a mad bull, Jerry Myles snorted through a flattened nose that listed to the left. Rivers of purple and red ran across his flushed face. His bully scowl, accentuated with heavy eyelids and full pouting lips, promised trouble. His high forehead, where only a tongue of wavy salt-and-pepper hair remained, shined with sweat. He tilted his head backward a bit, daring Sollars to defy him. Sollars had heard this man was nicknamed “Shorty” and could see why. Myles stood only a shade over five feet, and despite thick arms and a chest as round as a rain barrel, his feet were dainty like a woman’s. His shoes seemed too petite for a man who propelled his stout body with such authority. He was a bull on tiny feet.  Although a common burglar, Myles had a reputation among the guards as a jocker, meaning he stalked young men for sex. They also called him “Little Hitler,” alluding to his remorseless and domineering behavior in the cell house. He courted violations of the rules in an effort to draw attention to himself, and when he was caught, tried to make amends in pitiful ways. At 125, his IQ was far higher than most of his fellow convicts.  He wrote poetry, enjoyed the strategic challenges of chess, and had learned to play the violin. Had he not been a psychopath, he might have been a scholar. Little good had come from his intellect. Other than occasional regret over his troubled loveless life, he reserved most of his thinking for petty hates and distorted illusions.  Sollars thought he saw a flicker of compassion in the eyes of this mad bull before him. When Myles spoke, his voice came softer than Sollars had expected. “This is a riot and if you want to live, Cap, do what I say,” Myles advised him.

At first Sollars didn’t understand that Myles was even more dangerous than he appeared. Prison was his home. Now forty-four years old, he had spent most of the past twenty-five years at Alcatraz Island and five other federal and state prisons. Mutinies came to him as second nature. He thought he knew prison life better than anyone who had guarded him. Myles was determined to impress on his captors that because of his long history of confinement he deserved special privileges. It soon would become clear to everyone in Montana that he desired to run the prison.  Myles stepped toward Sollars. He guided the knife in front of his short bulk like he was trying to clear a path with it. Sollars didn’t doubt that Myles would kill him. He raised his hands in surrender.

Sollars had been to war and seen a few fights at the grain elevators but knew nothing about confronting armed convicts. Behind Myles came Lee Smart, the kid with eyes of ice. Sollars knew him as the teenage murderer. He was skinny and had a girl’s countenance but everyone knew he was a psychopath and gave him room. Smart had a sassy defiant way about him. He walked around the prison with his trousers drooping. Between Myles and Smart stood Sergeant Bill Cox. Blood soaked the shirtsleeve on his left arm from shoulder to wrist. He had a jaw of rock that made him look fierce but now his strength was gone and his face white and dazed. Cox worked in the captain’s office between the lobby and Ted Rothe’s office. As Sollars tried to understand what he was seeing, he wondered for an instant why the scene didn’t include Deputy Warden Rothe. Then he looked closer at the boy. Smart pointed a lever-action rifle at Sollars. He gripped the barrel not as a hunter would with a thumb on one side and fingers on the other for a clear view, but with his fingers wrapped all the way around. The ominous opening at the barrel’s tip looked larger than life. Sollars smelled gunpowder. He saw Smart’s other hand at the trigger, coaxing it. Sollars felt a violation of the basic order of life. He blinked hard behind his glasses. He wouldn’t forget Lee Smart’s blank cold face.

Further information about Jerry’s Riot is available at http://www.skybluewaterspress.com

Fitting in one more activity into your busy life may seem impossible, but free photo editing software makes creating your photo stories quick and easy. There are so many options in free photo editing programs for stories that allow you to simply click, click and go. Drag and drop in your photos, click the mouse here to reduce redeye and there to cover a pimple. Crop the photo to remove the garbage can in the background and resize it so everyone can see the cute little faces better. Click again and add your story in the text box. Click to choose your background and theme and choose the font you want. In just a few minutes you have created a priceless treasure to share with family and friends everywhere.
You can create photo stories for every occasion or none at all.

Maybe you catch a priceless shot of the kids helping each other with homework or the cat eating the cereal that got left on the table. Within minutes your great aunt on the other side of the country could be getting a chuckle from the scene in a creative and quick photo story you created with free photo editing software. Stories help your photos create meaningful memories that will last forever for you and the people you care about. Why not send create photo stories instead of plain old emails when it is so quick and easy to do?

Microwaves gave us meals in seconds instead of hours. Email gave us communication at the speed of light and photo editing gives you stories in just a few minutes instead of hours spent creating a scrapbook. Not only is it quicker and free, but you can share your photo stories with as many people as you would like to, no matter how remote or distant the relation. You can even use free photo editing software to create Christmas photo stories instead of sending Christmas cards or newsletters. People can view them whenever they like and never have to decide whether to throw them out or stuff them in a box somewhere.

In short, free photo editing for your stories helps you keep up with your high-speed lifestyle while still keeping your friends, family, acquaintances or even complete strangers up to date on the latest news in your life. There is no reason not to get started right away to create these lifelong memories.

Online photo sharing stories are the stories that are written to explain the scene in a photo that is posted. These two elements-the picture and the story-work together to capture the moment. Your online photo sharing stories take your most precious moments in life and allow you to preserve them forever. Sharing these stories online also allows you to make them available to the world or to just a select group of people that you decide to share with.

When you share your special moments with others it increases the joy and happiness created by those moments exponentially. Life is full of peaks and valleys and when a person is in a low spot they can be lifted up by taking a moment to get outside of their own issues and experience a joyful moment through someone else’s eyes. This offers a reminder that there is good in the world and may give hope to someone who has almost given up. It may even remind them of their own special moments in life and give them the strength to look forward onto brighter days. Sharing joy with others is a great service to the world because they can never be too much goodness going around. People are constantly bombarded with news stories of what is wrong in the world and they need reminders of what is right to help create a healthy balance.

Sharing your photos and stories through online photo sharing stories is so much more powerful than sharing them in a scrapbook. You can reach so many more people and give so much more joy. In addition to that you get the security of knowing that your stories and photos are safe from harm. Online they can be backed up in several places to ensure that your memories are never destroyed. House fires, floods and other disasters will not be able to destroy your precious memories when they created in online photo sharing stories. That gives you peace of mind and allows your stories to continue to inspire for many years to come.

Life’s special moments are more special when they are shared with others. Creating online photo sharing stories helps you capture these special moments and preserve them for future generations. Imagine your great-great grandchildren being able to look back and really get a sense of where they came from. Your online photo sharing stories can create a legacy that will extend well into the future and provide joy and understanding for the rest of the ages.

Special moments are captured forever when you create online photo sharing stories and share them with the world. Making the world a happier and more positive place is a great bonus that will bring you even more joy and happiness from sharing your online photo stories.

Springing up from the Central Highlands, it has an entourage of beautiful streams and waterfalls, and many of them come with legends attached.

Dray Sap and the story of an Ede girl

Situated in Dak Nong Province’s Krong Ne District where the Ede minority people live, Dray Sap is one of several Central Highlands waterfalls whose origins are steeped in mythology.

Legend has it that a pretty Ede maiden named H’Mi was pursued and proposed to by many wealthy men, but fell in love with a poor, but good-natured man.

One day, a giant monster with scorching eyes descended as H’Mi and her lover who were sitting on a rock and flirting with each other. The monster is said to have taken water from the river into its cavernous mouth and spit it out with force, knocking the young man unconscious and sweeping the girl away.

The grief-stricken man stood rooted in grief, and was transformed into a large tree clinging to a rock. The spot where the young lovers were attacked became a waterfall, the sound of which is the boy’s call for his lover and the mist around it, the tears shed by two pining hearts.

Dray Sap means “Smoke Waterfall” in the local Ede minority language. The crashing waterfall has indeed created a mist with a smoky effect. Dray Sap is also called the “Husband Waterfall” commonly known as “Thac Chong” in Vietnamese.

Seen from afar, the three-tier Dray Sap Waterfall is a striking picture against the backdrop of mountains and forests. The water flows especially strongly in the rainy season, when the fall is about 12 meters high and 120 meters wide. In the dry season, the landscape is just as vivid with the white water contrasting perfectly with the vast blue sky.

For visitors, a suspension bridge facing the waterfall offers great photo opportunities.

There are also many hiking trails through the surrounding forest that take travelers through dense foliage to small springs. The area is home to a variety of singing birds that provide soothing musical accompaniment.

Dray Nur and the golden bamboo rat

Not far from Dray Sap is Dray Nur, probably the jewel in the waterfall crown that the region wears with pride.

Dray Nur bisects Dak Nong and Dak Lak provinces. It is considered the most imposing waterfall in the Central Highlands, pouring from a height of over 30 meters and a width of 250 meters.

In the dry seasons one can go past the water into the large cave underneath.

Several auxiliary falls give visitors the option of bathing in the falls and refreshing themselves in body and spirit.

Dray Nur, needless to say, has its own story to tell.

Dray, in Ede language, means waterfall and Nur means bamboo rat.

The story goes that there was a prince named Nur, who enjoyed the scenic landscapes of the area, wandering through the forests. Nur was the son of Yang Ea, king of the water world.

One day, he came across two pretty girls whose father, a chieftain in the region, was killed in a battle with another tribe. Without any support from their family, the two maidens had to go to the forest to search for food to survive.

Moved by their plight, the prince used his magic powers to supply their house with enough food and other necessities

As the days passed, his compassion turned into love and the prince married the girls.

Shortly afterward, the prince left his two wives to return home and see his father, who, unhappy with what his son had done, forbade him to return to the forest.

The son refused and escaped. But he began to miss his father before long even as he lived a happy life with his two wives who were very devoted to him. They stuck by him wherever he went.

One day, the prince turned himself into a golden bamboo rat and dived into the waterfall next to the king’s palace.

His wives were sad and parked themselves at the site to wait for their husband to come up.

The waterfall was then named Dray Nur to commemorate the prince.

The Dray Nur waterfall is also known as “Thac Cai” or “Wife Waterfall“ in Vietnamese.

From the town of Buon Ma Thuot, Vietnam’s coffee capital in Dak Lak Province, it takes about an hour to get to the waterfalls by car.

VietNamNet/Thanh Nien

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Human beings are prone to sadistic attributes at times and with ease. Humans have the tendency to get hold of almost everything, even those having least value. There are people in everyone’s families who never step out without keeping up with their regular cameras for capturing every instance of circumstances. They prefer remembering each occasion with the picture to talk about. This is definitely not being funny. One can always maintain photos in an unusually memorable manner. The real world would want us to remember our memorable past with pictures being the best tool to be started upon.

2. People often do this

What do most people do with photos and pictures which mean a lot to them? Most often they are forgotten in some darkness of their rooms. They could as well be stuffed in boxes having accumulation of dust over them. Sometimes we have photos we love boasting about to people who care. In such cases, the pictures are often framed. But then the question arises as to what we would do to the rest of them in the album. It is wise for a person to keep the important stuff aside; else it could easily turn to be a regular stuff.

Luckily, there are innumerable suggestions on topics such as scrapbooking which would help in suggesting the best possible method to safeguard important memories. Your pictures would be ensured to be as they are; memorable.

3. Creative Scrapbooking

As you go about a creative photo album, you not just maintain your already taken snaps but also preserve the memories as well. There are many ideas which arise when a photo album is created which finally makes the album a lot more than a mere picture album. There are varied styles and patterns followed in scrapbooking. When things and ideas are mixed, we often get fascinating results. It is more fun in sharing stories of memorable incidents along with pictures and maintaining the same together in a scrapbook

4. Make the choice well

Many a time people go about grabbing more things than they can actually hold, as though they are more significant than can ever be. It often happens when newspaper cuttings are scrapped out. At some later point in time, one would wonder why the article was cut to be separated at all, in the first place. However in case of photo albums these things are not the same. Writing a story besides a picture or sticking up few stick-on would make lots of difference. Again, it would be a good idea to check for suggestions within your family. You can as well keep all the pictures and album where they ought to be unless the place catches fire.

Scrapbooking is undoubtedly an excellent idea. If you think you need assistance about the same, there are quite many books available hinting upon various styles.

Fortunately people today have a choice. Free online photo storage stories create a type of insurance for your most important memories. When you store your photographs on the internet, you are ensuring that they will always be there when you need them. No matter what happens to the pictures and photo albums in your home, you can rest assured that all of your photos are safe and secure online and can be retrieved, viewed and even reprinted at any time you need them. This can be quite comforting, especially when you are passionate about photography and preserving family memories.

Life is full of ups and downs. There are good times and bad times. Our photographs preserve the best moments of our lives and allow us to call on these happy moments when we are down and need a boost. Keeping these valuable treasures safe with online photo storage means your stories will always be there when you need to remember what is good in life. The memories we store in our minds can sometimes be clouded when our emotions become confused, but the free online photo storage allows you to see your stories as clearly as when they happened. Keeping focused on the happy times allows you to have a more positive outlook which leads to more happy times.

Even if nothing devastating ever happens to your photos you can count yourself lucky and the free online photo storage stories you have will still come in handy. Sometimes even with the greatest of care, one photo falls out of or becomes torn in your photo album. With free online photo storage stories, you can quickly locate the picture and have it reprinted and sent to you. Another occasion might be when an extended family member comes for a visit and sees a great picture in your album that they would like a copy of. No need to worry over whether you have a double print buried in a box somewhere in the house; you can just order a copy and have it sent straight to their home.

Your photography is an expression of who you are, where you’ve been and where you are going. It is a part of you. The loss you would experience if anything happened to these photos is incalculable. Free online photo storage stories are the best free insurance policy you could have to ensure that your photos last for the rest of your life and beyond.

Which publications will use a photo story on your subject? a) Check WRITER’S MARKET and PHOTOGRAPHER’S MARKET (www.f&wpubs.com). b.) Look up publications you’re interested in on Google or at the library or at newsstands. Study several issues. Check mastheads for correct spelling of the current photo or feature editor’s name. Make sure that they haven’t published your photo story subject in the recent past, nor do they have it scheduled for the near future. (To find out the latter, request their editorial calendar.)

The Slant

Figure out the angle or slant or “hook” of the article, based on your research of the publication and your personal point of view.

Your Research

Research your own subject thoroughly. Illustrate it with meaningful photos.

Query

Write a one or two-page query letter on professional-looking stationery. a.) Format: Typewritten (word processed), in accepted business letter format. Open with “Dear Mr. or Ms. Last Name,” not “Dear John or Joan.” Spell check, proofreading it as often as necessary, to make it flawless. One typing error or misspelled word can spoil the professional impression you want to create. b) Content: Your first paragraph should provocatively refer to your story idea, with a question, a brief story, a quote, an event, etc…. You must grab the photo editor right away or you’ve lost him/her. Your next paragraph or two can explain your photo story idea in more detail. Following that, in the next paragraph, say something about yourself, your credits, or whatever else you think the photo editor ought to know to underscore your track record and position to deliver what you promise. Include information about your website and a sampling of on-line photos and their resolution. Your closing paragraph should mention that you look forward to hearing from them.

Contact and Delivery

Most editors welcome a postal query, others prefer email. A Google search of their website will generally inform you of their submission guidelines.

Send out your query letter and sit tight. (Or better, continue researching and sending out other story queries.) It takes anywhere from two to six weeks to hear from a photobuyer on a query like this. (No news is good news.)

The Response

When a photo editor answers: If the answer is “no,” be ready with other appropriate markets to send your query off to. If it’s “yes,” begin your negotiations to receive payment. If it’s “yes, on spec” (meaning no guarantee of publication and payment, but if you send the piece they promise to give it attention), you might consider taking them up on it, especially if this is your first submission to this market.

The Future

Once you have several photo stories to your credit, you can open many doors by referring to them with a link to your website.