A profound and wonderful photo from Paulgi who describes it thusly "the traditional festival in São Bartolomeu do Mar, occurs through out
August and culminates on the 24th with the famous “Banho Santo” (Holy
Bath), which the locals believe has the power to protect children’s
health and alleviate sickness."

He continues in the comments: "the child is coming from a sacred bath done by the fisherman. it’s an
ancient ritual against the devil, he must be bathed in the ocean by a
fisherman 3 times in 3 waves during 3 years."

And, completely unrelated to the above:

• I recently visited the car wash tag and discovered that there is a car wash joint in Seattle Washington whose neon sign is so photogenic that a cluster has developed around it: see tags/carwash/clusters/elephant-seattle-neon/.

• What are the odds that, spontaneously, two different Flickr users took nearly the same photo of the same solitary tree in a park in Gloucestershire within an hour of each other, and found out about it? 100%, of course. What’s weird is the coincidence was repeated the following weekend.

• Flickr user jurvetson has captured an amazing fraction of a second in the interaction between prey and bird of prey. Warning: this photo is NOT for viewers who would be disturbed by images of small cute things meeting their end – it is really quite gruesome. If that sounds like you, don’t click. Photo. Last Thoughts …