Community lens

The world through your eyes

Calling amateur photographers! Have you taken a great picture that you’d like to share with the world? One with action, great lighting and/or interesting subjects? E-mail it to communitynews@ajc.com. Please no selfies, for-profit promotional pics, group shots or anything you wouldn’t want your grandma to see. Diane McWilliams took this photograph in Java, Indonesia. “It is a sunrise photograph taken from the top of Borobudur Hindu temple. The mountain is the volcano Mt. Merapi,” she wrote. According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, this famous Buddhist temple, dating from the 8th and 9th centuries, is located in central Java. It was built in three tiers: a pyramidal base with five concentric square terraces, the trunk of a cone with three circular platforms and, at the top, a monumental stupa. The walls and balustrades are decorated with fine low reliefs, covering a total surface area of about 8,200 square feet. Around the circular platforms are 72 openwork stupas, each containing a statue of the Buddha. The monument was restored with UNESCO’s help in the 1970s. Catherine Beckham submitted a photo last year of this Eastern phoebe that hangs out in her yard. She’s updating the bird’s progress with a new one. “We marvel at her antics especially when we are trying to accomplish yard work,” she wrote. “I enjoy taking photos of her many angles of landing on my hand for those yummy meal worms.”

Carol Collins said she enjoyed meeting this little raccoon on a swamp tour in Slidell, La., a city on the northeast shore of Lake Pontchartrain. According to TripAdvisor, one of the best things to do there is a tour of the Honey Island Swamp, one of the least altered river swamps in the country.