Hurricane is coming, but it’s beautiful
Category: 5 Random Thursday
Monster Truck Bike
Lake Sylvia, black and white
Photo of the Day: The otter abides
There’s something about otters that’s inherently interesting. They’re like water-cats, but as playful as dogs.
If you’ve visited aquariums or zoos with a glass shebang that lets you see them, they’ll do games with you, racing from side to side. And there’s all kinds of footage of otters playing in the wild, sliding down mud hills or snow. I used to love monkeys as a kid, and hey, they’re still fun to watch, but the otters are the one animal who seem to just have a surplus of joy.
Also, they are crazy photogenic. There’s an entire site dedicated to photographs of otters, and they found this photo earlier and put it up. Because otters are just that cool.
Related posts:
Photo of the Day: A castle passageway in Luxembourg
Castles are the best — but hard to shoot. The light in tunnels and dungeons is usually terrible. This passageway was a happy exception and I love how the shadows intersected.
This is part of a huge network of passageways beneath fortifications beneath a castle guarding the river in the capital. A great position. There was no cover, no way to get up the cliff, and there were cruder tunnels carved into the rock with firing positions. An interesting place. I’ve seen a lot of castles and this one was both ancient and well-preserved. Continue reading “Photo of the Day: A castle passageway in Luxembourg”
Photo of the Day: How many students can fit in this autorickshaw?
If you travel to India, autorickshaws are everywhere, working as cabs and hauling cargo. They have three tiny wheels, itty bitty engines and are more like motorcycles than cars, but they’re cheap and useful, especially in big cities.
These students commuting home after school broke what has to be a record for how many people can fit inside an autorickshaw. Well played, students. Continue reading “Photo of the Day: How many students can fit in this autorickshaw?”
Photo of the Day: Hand this tiger a script and he’ll read the nightly news
Sometimes, body language is everything.
When I shot this tiger with the Nikon of Infinite Beauty, the tiger didn’t even look in my direction. He didn’t care. I don’t think anything would phase him. Continue reading “Photo of the Day: Hand this tiger a script and he’ll read the nightly news”
Photo of the Day: This is NOT the set for a sci-fi movie
This looks like something George Lucas had his CGI wizards do for STAR WARS EPISODE 12: THE REVENGE OF JAR JAR BINKS, for the scene where Jar Jar lands his shuttle for serious diplomatic negotiations with Trade Federations robots or whatever.
But no, it’s a real photo. I shot it in Dubai, which has the craziest buildings in the world. Some neighborhoods look very old school, like it’s the 1500s, and others are going hard for the Buck Rogers vibe. And until somebody builds something bigger, they’ve got the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa, which Tom Cruise put to use in MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: GHOST PROTOCOL.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cloa9MnnII
Random Photo of the Day: Stoplight and local star join forces to create art
Have you ever kicked yourself for driving past something amazing and not having your Nikon of Infinite Beauty to shoot it?
This is sort of the opposite of that feeling. I was shooting up Denver, CO and didn’t think anything of a boring old stoplight and the blazing sun. But two boring little things combined to make a little magic.
Also: do not look directly at our local star, or expose your camera to our neighborhood starshine. Ruins your eyes and camera sensor. Be careful out there.
Mystery Monster in Backyard possibly not so mysterious
So we had some kind of animal lurking about, possibly a mountain lion, which is not a shock because we live smack up against a giant forest. Folks have spotted cougars on our hill time and time again.
The weird part is this critter has apparently decided to live in our backyard. Cougars have a ginormous range, all kinds of territory to patrol and deer to munch, so it’s rare to see them at all. This mystery cat is hanging around for eons.
In the same week, here’s this guy who now lives under a rock by the mailbox.
Plus five bazillion hummingbirds have taken up shop next door, which is great. Hummingbirds are fearless. They’re like, “Yo, I’m so cute and fast, nobody can touch me. Feed me more sugar water, human!”
HOWEVER: Back to the mystery monster, which freaked out our Hound of the Baskervilles a few times. He keeps barking at the tall grass and trees as if he smells a demon, and this is dog who happily went after a raccoon in the yard even after the went all claw on him, ENTER THE DRAGON style. Do mountain lions eat people? Yeah, sometimes. Wouldn’t want one to randomly pounce on my people.
Now this mystery critter has been captured in a photograph so fuzzy, it makes the Zapruder Film look like 4K high def.
It looks like either an adult bobcat or a baby cougar. Hard to say.
Here are two videos from the Series of Tubes, one of baby cougars and one of an adult bobcat. From the photo versus the videos, I’m guessing bobcat, though I’ve seen other photos and videos where baby cougars have pointier ears, more like the critter in the fuzzy photo, which doesn’t seem to have the short tail of a bobcat.
Won’t know for certain unless we go find it and ask for ID and maybe where its registered to vote. I won’t ask if its Democrat, Republican, Libertarian or vegeterian because hey, that’s personal.
Videos for comparison:
Baby cougars
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKFLVMVh748
Bobcat
Sidenote: For years, coworkers and friends in Olympia told me tales of a woman who walks a pet bobcat at night, though she tends to let the bobcat go off-leash, because FREEDOM. Buddy of mine got cornered by it while he walked to the parking lot. He was not amused. A different friend shot a photo of it outside the grocery store. Yeah, the woman takes her pet bobcat shopping when she’s low on 2 percent organic milk. Also, you would not believe how ginormous a bobcat’s paws get. If they had to buy shoes, they’d be size 16EEE.
The Red Pen of Doom 