But how? Part seven: Filling the hole

Al Denelsbeck

Walkabout podcast – But how? Part 7

I’m going to make a slight departure from the format of the previous ‘But How?‘ posts. So far, all of them dealt with how different concepts worked just fine without religion as an explanation, but this one will deal with the personal impact of leaving it behind. While I have no reason nor desire to swell the ranks of atheists, save for the beneficial affect it would have on the idiocy of religious persecution and privilege, I feel somewhat motivated to address some of the misconceptions and assumptions about discarding belief. Even more than most posts, this is from my own perspective, so while not everyone may have the same experience, it still serves as an answer to a question all too often asked: but what will I replace religion with?

First off, let’s get something out of the way: it’s not like atheism or agnosticism is a forced effort, with press gangs taking people away from their religion like refugees from their homeland. When you leave, it’s because you want to leave, because the thought of participating in the charade actually galls you. The respect is gone, like that for a once-liked actor who has revealed him or her self to be a douchecanoe. When the New/Gnu/Nv/Nouveaux Atheists speak out against religion, it isn’t intended to recruit new followers, but to eradicate the heavily biased privilege and poor rationales of behavior that have become too accepted within our cultures.

Now, despite the attitude demonstrated in countless other posts here, I was actually raised religious – relatively low-impact ‘moderate’ catholic, but with a friend-induced period in my early teens of fundamentalist baptist. I not only possessed the mindset that god had brought it all into being but, for a short while anyway, believed that judgment and ultimate consequences were very real and imminent. All of that is gone now, and none of it is missed in the least. Many of the posts on this blog are actually demonstrations that I find doing without them is distinctly more functional. There was no ‘hole’ to fill; instead, everything started making a whole lot more sense.

To a certain extent, many scriptural accounts never rang true, never approached being convincing. I can only speculate here, but I suspect most people find the idea of a worldwide flood and two of every animal housed on a boat for a year (no, it only rained for 40 days – the water had to recede afterwards) to be particularly hard to grasp. Most of the creation details, in fact, correlate poorly (as in, not at all) with what we have been finding out about the world for the past several centuries. While some might either ignore the misgivings in the back of their mind over such details, or simply dismiss them entirely in favor of scriptural accuracy claims, I was one of many who found that more answers were needed. Religion possessed a disconnect with what I could see every day, and it did not help that every answer provided for this referred to a realm of mystical unknown properties.

The entire time that I found the lack of decent answers to be curious, and eventually evidence of error (compounded to no small amount by the abject lies spread by religious leaders and a growing knowledge of scriptural history,) the realm of useful science was not only omnipresent, but continuing to grow. I found, or perhaps always knew, that science is simply observation and testing, not in any way an agenda-based ideology as it is so often portrayed by those immersed in, coincidentally, agenda-based ideologies. The only things that lay hidden in the realm of mystical unknown properties were openly admitted to be curious, such as quantum physics and dark energy, yet the evidence behind what we did know about them was readily available. Meanwhile, the remarkable nature of evolution, physics, cosmology, et al provided not just answers, but mutually interconnecting disciplines that even now continues to fascinate me. And more distinctly, human behavior began to make such utter sense in the realm of evolved traits that contributed to our species’ survival, as reflected in the tagline I chose for the billboard campaign of the Freedom From Religion Foundation.


As this disparity in function and value impinged on my consciousness it resulted in, as overused as this phrase is now, a paradigm shift. Religion revealed its apparent attempts at manipulation, denial, dodgy word games, and crass emotional appeal – this was not promoted in the least by science or anyone’s agenda, it was simply demonstrated by the contrast with scientific inquiry. It’s a bit like always thinking that your family or town is typical, until you see others. Examining the fervency of other beliefs was also instructional; religions the world over, throughout history, also claimed to possess “The Truth™” yet somehow so few of them agreed, and none provided much in the way of value. There was no sense of emptiness; there was instead a malignant growth to be removed in order to stay healthy. I had no problem with abandoning any rituals – let’s face it, any activity is only a ‘ritual’ because of the idea underlying it, the supposed importance, and when that’s gone, it just becomes a pointless exercise. As for the churches, I’ve had far more ‘community’ from the places I’ve worked, and have still been able to cope with leaving them behind in the interests of seeking better employment. Moreover, when you no longer agree with anyone’s worldview, you aren’t motivated to associate with them anyway.

Now, there is a difference in perspective that needs to be recognized here. I, like many, found it important to seek real answers and explanations, to gain a better understanding of the world and human behavior, so it was easy to ‘find comfort’ in that which provided the most accurate and useful knowledge. But what about those who find religion important from an emotional standpoint? Those who take comfort in such concepts as the afterlife, ultimate justice and reward, designed purpose, alignment with ‘good’ as an absolute, a beneficent overseer, and so many others provided by religion? When anyone asks about replacements and ‘holes,’ more often than not they are referring to the appeasement provided by such concepts.

However, these aren’t significantly different from answers of a more direct, scientific nature. Religions’ ability to provide these emotional comforts relies solely on claims; there is nothing concrete or demonstrable about these in any way, and it is this realization, in part, that helps spur the movement away from religious thought in the first place (to be sure, it is often the observed contradictions between religious claims and reality, like ‘good christians’ who are self-centered assholes and thousands that die in disasters even as they pray for deliverance, that gets people wondering about godly influences.) Just like the lack of real-world explanations, the crumbling of the emotional portion of religion means that there is little reluctance to abandon it. When anyone recognizes that they’ve been fooling themselves, they’re usually well motivated to stop.

Alongside these thoughts lies a nasty, far-too-common assumption that it’s disturbing to keep seeing in our species. It is often argued that, regardless of accuracy or functionality, religion makes people feel good, so they’re justified in maintaining it. But emotional appeasement is a remarkably feeble and lazy reason to maintain a worldview, and claiming that anyone needs it is implying that they’ve failed to develop emotionally past the age of five. In what other aspect of our lives do we ever find it okay to foster irrational beliefs because they’re soothing? Correct me if I’m wrong, but we consider this fantasy, and while this might be a pleasant (and perhaps even therapeutic) pasttime, when it forms the backbone of someone’s worldview we generally consider this a serious problem.

Usually following close on the heels of such arguments is another familiar one: religion is a personal choice. And believe it or not, I’m just fine with this argument; feel absolutely free to maintain any taste in deity, music, cuisine, or hairstyle that you like. However, such arguments are blatantly fraudulent, because it is not the personal expression that causes any problems whatsoever, but the idea that someone’s particular personal choice should have the faintest affect on anyone else. Nobody’s ‘personal choice’ forms the basis of their moral superiority, arrogance, and privilege, nor is it ever used to influence legislature and prejudice, and it’s insulting to keep hearing this. You will notice that the personal choice argument curiously disappears when it comes to abortion and homosexuality, nor is it ever fostered in children. And of course, what kind of mindless idiot would favor a politician based on something like their hairstyle or favorite song? Yet their piety – that’s a personal choice that’s significant somehow! It would be nice if, as important as most religious folk believe honesty to be, they tried not to keep perpetuating some of the obvious lies.

Another consideration among the emotional stumbling blocks is the concept of eternal life and judgment. Few people really have any issue with judgment being left behind, since it’s a source of no small amount of anxiety. The idea, however, of receiving a magnificent reward at the end is an appealing thought if your life is pretty miserable – no wonder, then, that churches often target disadvantaged and emotionally vulnerable people, and that religiosity is often higher in areas with low standards of living. As long as no one recognizes that such ‘tests’ of our mortal existence actually means we’re pawns in a game played by god, or that eternal reward is also a silly and pointless concept, and especially that recruiting tools always require the promise of a big payoff, then maybe there’s something to be said for the afterlife.

It also may be very hard to consider that death is a distinctive end – yet I’m not sure all that many people aren’t already on board with this. Funerals are not happy or mellow occasions for the devout, any more than among anyone else, and I suspect that the religious promotion of afterlife, besides being an attempted motivator of good behavior, is wielded more as a salve against the remorse of death than as an actual denial of it. The acceptance of oblivion, among atheists, is in part due to the ludicrousness [it really should be “ludicrosity”] of perpetual afterlife and its attendant fallacies, such as the idea that rewards and punishments are intended to influence future behavior, and the recognition that every emotion we have is a trait to help us thrive as a species. As many have pointed out, you have no more knowledge of oblivion at death than you did of pre-life before you were born. It is perfectly reasonable to fear death – all of the things that we enjoy and treasure, that we look forward to or want to accomplish, vanish at that point – but what we might desire to be the case doesn’t have any effect on how true it might be, and denial isn’t a trait that many want to engage in. One must consider, too, that if we had perpetual life, we would accomplish nothing – it is our limited time on earth that makes us strive to reach certain goals (and provides our sense of satisfaction when we do.)

Other people may simply be too influenced by longstanding culture, afraid to appear in any way different from their neighbors, worried about what they might think. This aspect has more affect than many think, because the cultural acceptance of religion, and the peculiar belief that respect should be automatic rather than earned, causes many to defer to social conformity rather than a rationally-supportable viewpoint. Ironically, this makes sense from an evolutionary perspective, since we are a species that benefits greatly from social cohesion, but it’s unfortunate that many people give so much weight to subconscious emotional reactions that they never stop to consider whether a standpoint is reasonable, or even functional.

This even applies to an unknown number of people who really are atheists, but make no public recognition of such for fear of consequences, which strikes me as a very conflicted way of existing. When you cannot be true to yourself and your reason, can you still derive benefit from the façade, or maintain self-respect? If it helps, I personally have seen minimal negative consequences from being openly atheistic – it might cut down on my photo students – but very few people have ever tried being directly disrespectful or derogatory toward me, even online. I admit that I was well away from giving a shit what other people thought before I left high school, so that probably helped, but it likely depends more on whether or not one is more comfortable being honest with themselves than in worrying about the opinions of others. And in my experience overall, religious bigots remain sequestered away in their own circles 99% of the time, and can rarely handle engagement over, for instance, many of the failures of religion that I’ve just related. Moreover, in the cases where you are challenged to defend your views, it becomes easier as you go along, as you get more experience spotting fallacies and recognizing how flawed thinking works – which also improves your own critical thinking and can help you feel confident that you’re, at the very least, applying due diligence towards your own views. The only way we can ensure that we’re not wrong is by first realizing that it is eminently possible.

Again, much of this is admittedly personal experience, and anyone else might see something different. What I’m (hopefully) demonstrating is that the idea of a “hole” or a feeling of loss is probably more of an assumption than a reality, and that at least some people find more liberation and confidence when religious thought is left behind. And as a final note, how curious is it that the question even exists, that people could contemplate their worldview from the perspective of the way it makes them feel rather than whether or not it is actually believable?

Trapped!

Al Denelsbeck

Sometimes you actually have some cooperation from your subjects, despite their best efforts. Mom paused for a nice profile, even allowing a view of her progenys’ meal, while one of the sprogs smiled (or something) for the camera in the opening of the nest box. It’s all because of clean living and pure thoughts.

And, something that cannot quite be called a ‘camera trap.’ Typically, camera traps are configured so that they can be left all alone and the subject, the bird or clouded jaguar or whatever, triggers its own photo by breaking a light beam or infringing into the infra-red sensing area, making a sound or even simply bumping a switch. Such setups permit the photographer to be quite far away, perhaps asleep in bed, and thus the animals are not concerned about anyone’s presence. In my case here, however, the camera was simply rigged with a long extension on the shutter release, so I was broiling in the sun, watching for ideal moments from behind the pampas grass. Plenty of images have bad poses and motion blur, but I’m pleased with this one.

I mentioned the remote release before, at the bottom of this post; the inclusion of the 3.5mm connections between the remote and the two adapter ends made it easy to insert a 6.5 meter (20 ft) headphone extension cable – you know, from the old days when people had stereo systems. The eastern bluebirds (Sialia sialis) weren’t concerned about the presence of the camera close to the nest box, as long as I wasn’t too close.

The local wildlife has been a minor saga this spring. At about the time that the aforementioned red-shouldered hawk (Buteo lineatus) eggs should have been hatching, the mother abandoned the nest and did not return. I have no idea if something got to the eggs or they simply weren’t fertile, but there was never any sign of hatchlings. Both bluebird boxes that we erected this winter got early occupants, including a black-capped chickadee (Poecile atricapillus) who started a nest that got usurped by the bluebirds, but both nests became abandoned after five eggs each had been deposited.

Nobody around to keep my subject from escaping, so this is the "Hold in one hand and take the photo with the other" technique.
I was a little curious as to whether I had scared the parents off by mowing the lawn or something, but then a little while after this discovery I caught a black rat snake (Pantherophis obsoletus) nearby, who may have snagged the mothers while they were on the nests – this also potentially explains the abandoned Carolina wren (Thryothorus ludovicianus) nest I found in the stored patio umbrella in the backyard (the species is notorious for finding odd nesting locations.) I had felt bad when I inadvertently destroyed the nest by moving the umbrella, but the eggs were far too cold to have been recently tended.

Anyway, a second pair of bluebirds took over one of the nest boxes once I had removed the eggs from the first, and everything has been going smoothly so far. The young will be fledging soon, so I’m keeping my eyes open, not just for them, but for the neighborhood cats as well. And while I’m on the subject, I’ll mention something I should’ve months back. Fledgling birds rarely leave the nest with the ability to fly completely mastered, so people are constantly finding young birds that have “fallen from the nest” or are “injured and cannot fly away,” often considering them abandoned. But this is how they learn, by bailing the nest and developing their skills as they go, while the parents are nearby coaxing them along. You often don’t see the parents because they’ll stay well out of your range, to avoid drawing your attention to their young, while the young have the habit of freezing when danger threatens. If they have a complete covering of feather and at least short tail feathers, leave them be and watch from a distance – you will probably see one of the folks visit within half an hour.

So keep checking back, and we’ll see if I get any of the fledgling behavior, especially of the parents feeding them while they’re out of the nest.

What can you add?

Al Denelsbeck

The Richard Dawkins Foundation site pointed me to an article from The Raw Story concerning the rapid decay of the Galápagos due to eco-tourism, which I thought was worth a post, especially since it ties in with another that I’ve been working on that will be along soon.

Permit me to elaborate for a moment on what may be old news for three of my four readers. The Galápagos are a short string of islands off the coast of South America that Charles Darwin visited during his travels on the Beagle, and the specific nature of their environmental niches and the traits of the similar species therein helped him develop the idea of natural selection. The tortoises and the finches found on each island, while presumably the same species as found on the other islands, possessed certain traits that worked well for the foliage and conditions specific only to the island where they lived. In other words, natural selection had dictated which minor changes in their makeup would be best suited for their survival. And because of their location and especially isolation, these islands are unique in the world insofar as their native species and environment, including the lack of a fear of humans that many of the species display. All of these contribute to the idea of eco-tourism, where people visit to see the unique species and behavior and to see where Darwin’s theory was born.

Therein lies the problem, since where there is any kind of demand, somebody will look to exploit it, even in a thriving economy – this applies even more so to the fluctuating economy of Ecuador, of which the Galápagos is a province. Tourism is now the principal activity on the islands, and their development over the past few decades has been devoted almost solely to this. With this, of course, comes population pressures, land clearing, greater traffic, trash, pollution, and introduced species. In short, the very nature of the islands is now being irretrievably altered by the same people who come to witness it.

It could be easy to blame the government of Ecuador, which failed to introduce or enforce adequate safeguards against such exploitation, or the tour operators themselves who place the tourist income over the ecosystem – but this is similar to blaming our popular media for producing vapid pablum. It is the tourists themselves that directly contribute to the decline of the area, and ironically enough, solely due to the interest in it as an unspoiled region.

I touched on this before in the book review for Last Chance To See. A side effect of telling people about the rarity and delicacy of any particular ecosystem, most especially ones with their own distinctive fauna, is that it increases the desire for people to see this for themselves. I understand this, insofar as I have felt the same thing personally, but it merits highlighting just how utterly pointless this is. For instance, I might have the opportunity to produce my very own images of marine iguanas or Darwin’s finches, but this is little more than a personal accomplishment – photos from others abound, and none of them even required any kind of hardship or effort. Any contribution to “awareness” would be minuscule at best, and worse, even if it actually did confer some kind of status to me due to my images of such species, it’s an empty accolade, a plastic trophy for having the neatest desk (okay, a bad example.)

Yet to an unknown extent, those that have visited are a part of an elite club, or at least the perception of one. They’ve not only gone to an exotic place, but one that holds a special environmental/biological prestige – they’ve done something important on vacation. How many people feel they’ve been active in conservation efforts with such a trip, and have done their part for ecology? Since the islands are not (yet) resorts brimming with amenities or activities, the draw for such tours lies almost entirely with the allure of the Galápagos’ reputation, not the fun of clambering around rocky barren surfaces. Doing a search of “Galápagos tours” demonstrates what the companies (take note of how many) have found to be the biggest selling points, and even the conservation organizations promote tours as ways to support their cause, as well as reinforcing the concept of the unique experience. While it’s probably impossible to calculate the positive and negative effects of such efforts with any accuracy, it’s not hard to imagine that the small percentage of the package prices that goes towards conservation efforts does not offset the actual destruction that tourism brings. How many “conservation efforts” of such a nature would accomplish more by simply shutting down operations?

More importantly, how much would it take to convince people to find legitimate, worthwhile conservation programs and just donate to them without expecting anything in return, keeping damage to a minimum and realizing the best value for that money? This is an approach rarely used because people aren’t motivated solely by cause, but by their emotional experience – and in fact, this describes an unknown, but potentially very high, percentage of any activism in the first place. People want to see the pandas up close and swim with the dolphins, brag about their trip to Mauritius and distribute authentic souvenirs from the Amazon basin. In a culture where what you do for vacation implies both your success and personality, eco-tourism has a message all its own. Unfortunately, that message is not yet, “I care more about the impression of being environmentally conscious than actually doing something beneficial,” though this is too often the grim reality. Regardless of how legitimate any particular eco-tour is, avoiding any impact at all from human presence is better in all cases.

The linked article illustrates why this continues to deteriorate. Not only was the reporter present in person to write the story, but she also mentioned an art exhibition, initiated by the Galápagos Conservation Trust and the Gulbenkian Foundation, that has sent a dozen artists to the islands apparently to produce a firsthand experience, which influences their art exhibitions. One artist, Marcus Coates, was quoted in the article:

“I had no idea that anyone even lived on the Galápagos,” says Coates. “There’s this huge conflict between people and animals and this bizarre situation where people are almost second-class citizens compared to the wildlife.” The impact on his art has been profound, he says; it’s made him entirely rethink what it is to be human.

Well, isn’t that fantastic? Coates is now profoundly impacted by information he could have gained over the phone. Yet, the profundity of it all is especially communicated in his performance piece of having walked around the island trick-or-treating as a blue-footed booby because, you know, nothing raises awareness and promotes responsibility like pointless confusion. Even if we assume, rashly I think, that someone actually got a useful message out of that, right there in an article decrying tourism is the direct implication that this artist’s personal visit was necessary to change his way of thinking. That’s exactly the opposite of what you really need to communicate.

I’m not arguing against the small amounts of damage that may be done in the interests of greater advances, and realize that film crews, for instance, can drive an impression home to millions of people who require the visual stimulation. But for most places targeted for eco-tourism, the information has been produced hundreds of times over in the past several decades and is readily available to some schmuck just sitting at his computer (ahem.) What is necessary is the fostering of a specific attitude towards genuine benefit, and especially efforts to highlight the misleading impressions of eco-tourism and activism. It’s not a difficult message: “Send your money, not your ass.” Your personal impression is only of value if you can reach thousands of people and are effective in changing their minds. Otherwise, explore a swamp near home, negate the carbon impact of the airliner and the cruise ship, and learn something real about ecosystems.

And while we’re at it, tackle a photo subject where an encounter takes real effort and skill, as opposed to having a tour guide walk you up to habituated penguins. You’ll be prouder of the results.

Too cool, part 15: Welcome our mantis shrimp overlords

Al Denelsbeck

I have been watching the development of the local praying mantises with interest, but this variety of ‘mantis’ is something else entirely. While at least one variety of these could supposedly be found in Florida when I was there, I never did locate one, which is perhaps for the better. But this means I have no image to use here, and will instead send you over to Not Exactly Rocket Science for Yong’s post on the weapon of the mantis shrimp.

While there, of course, you will also check out the related posts on the eyes of a mantis shrimp, and more on the eyes of a mantis shrimp, and the speed of a mantis shrimp. Let’s face it – they are our superior in every way.

Well, except for taste, since their color scheme looks like what happened when the animators for Yellow Submarine lost their inhibitions. The photos Ed Yong used for those posts don’t give you as good an idea of their overall appearance as this video does, however, which also demonstrates their abilities pretty distinctly:

Granted, I have a personal liking for the shy pistol shrimp, but I have to yield to the awesome power and exuberance of the mantis. This video shows more of their hunting prowess, including against my other buddies, the grass shrimp. For scale, know that grass shrimp are usually 2-3 cm long, though this video represents only one variety of mantis shrimp that range in size significantly.

I also feel obligated to point out, not that anyone should need the warning, that my introduction to the species came when I was researching photo needs for a potential client, and found the story of the diver that needed to have his finger amputated after an encounter. So um, yeah, cool as they are, put one in your aquarium at your own risk.

On composition, part 13: Purpose

Al Denelsbeck


So here’s a compositional aspect that I admit I have to remind myself of far too often: purpose. No, not the abstract concept that might be illustrated by someone striding determinedly with a clipboard in their hand, but the purpose of the image itself – what do you want to do with it?

For instance, I’ve already made it clear that I don’t really do ‘art,’ and instead try for illustration or interest. But, depending on your approach to photography (most especially, whether or not you intend to make any money from it,) it may serve you well to consider how many different purposes any image or subject can serve. It is just this aspect that is often addressed by specific photographic genres, like portraiture or journalism or abstraction, each requiring a different approach to the same subject. It can be very useful to consider multiple purposes when you have a particular subject handy, especially if it’s a rare or difficult subject. It can also do a lot for your employment opportunities, by giving you experience in different approaches rather than fixing you within a particular category.

When traveling, most people like to get their traveling companions in the frame with something that speaks of their location, which is great – but if it’s simply a pose struck in front of the Eiffel Tower, it only serves to document that you’ve been there. A more candid shot, however, may speak not only of the locale, but the activities, the appeal, the fun you’re having, the kind of people you’re meeting, what you’re eating, perhaps even opening or closing a story. Your frames might show both a nice introspective closeup of a chimpanzee (Pan troglodyte,) but also communicate the behavior of others in such circumstances, like the image at top. Very slight changes in shooting technique may turn lots of subjects into abstracts, which can be used in countless ways. You might illustrate the anatomy of a reptile, and its habits, its habitat, its food source, and throw in some artistic and expressive frames as well.

Even if you have a distinctive purpose in mind, such as an assigned shoot, it helps to periodically remind yourself what exactly the purpose is, and if there are multiple ways of approaching it. This might mean that, in an article about Alaskan wildlife, you not only get a photo of a caribou, but include something that speaks of the environment, conditions, or flora in the frame as well. And the more ways you approach something, the greater the opportunity for it to be used elsewhere. You might wait for a subject to look up or resume eating, or a model to appear relaxed or thoughtful. No one needs to smile for photos, and in many cases they’re much more expressive when you capture them in honest emotions, but the photographer should try for a range.

Remember, too, that when shooting people, they almost always see themselves differently, so getting a wider range of expressions and angles greatly improves the chances that you’ll get a shot that they like. A photo that you might be particularly proud of may be very damaging to your ego when your model rejects it out of hand, since you never considered how sensitive they were about their earlobes or whatever. Your purpose in such cases is not to promote yourself, but to please them, so you should be finding out more of what they like while getting a good variety of approaches anyway.

I will also stress something that I have to remind my students of: shoot both horizontal and vertical formats. While many subjects dictate what works best by their very nature, such as full-length portraiture nearly always working best in vertical, some subjects can appear well in both, and provide a different flair in either. I almost never shoot with the intention of using an image as a banner or panoramic, but the header images at top, which I keep adding to, prove that many frames can be altered to fit anyway. And again, this opens up further options for publication, since editors may have particular constraints depending on the layout they have to work within.

The other benefit that thinking of purpose provides is weaning the photographer away from grab shots and straightforward compositions. There’s a thing called “inattention blindness” that has recently gained a lot of attention (a ha ha) on the web, mostly in videos featuring gorilla costumes, but what it means is we can focus all of our attention on one particular aspect of a scene and fail to even register anything else plainly within our field of vision. It happens very frequently in photography as we try to catch the action, establish the pose, or make sure our subject is sharply focused, so considerations of purpose leads to breaking this narrowed attention and examining the frame more, seeing the possibilities inherent from the background, or a change of position effects the composition, or different lighting, and so on.

I always strongly discourage the use of the LCD on the back of digital cameras for use as a viewfinder if the camera actually possesses an optical one, for numerous reasons such as stability, the inaccuracy of exposure, and the inability to tell whether the image is truly sharp. But among them sits the frequent display of camera info in the very frame you should be using only for your subject. Battery life, image number, jpeg compression, f-stop, and all that jazz serves only to crowd your composition into the middle, out from under all this unnecessary detail, so either use the viewfinder, or shut off the info display. You will use the whole frame, and get much more dynamic when composing.

And finally, to learn from my own difficulties, it helps to get a variety of angles not only of any critter you might want to identify later, but also of any plant that they’re perched on or eating from. Identifying characteristics vary greatly by species, so the more sides and detail you have, the better your chances of confirming the ID. When in a botanical garden or zoo, you can even take images of the identifying plaques or displays, having them handy right in sequence with the species in question, and even linked by date by the EXIF info within the image file itself. And of course, the exterior shot of the facility also serves as a reminder. When shooting weddings, I used to set up an artistic shot of the wedding program, which could be used not only as an album opener, but was my own reference for just who the happy couple was ;-).

So, apply a little thought, and keep those purposes in mind – it may come in handy down the road.

Unprecedented

Al Denelsbeck


Yeah, despite my kvetching, I actually got some breaks in the clouds during the transit of Venus right now, and the thin wisps allowing the sun to peek through actually made the light level manageable without a ridiculously expensive solar filter (that I would use once.)

During the previous transit in 2004, I was living in Florida and had a basic Galilean telescope that might have produced some nice tight shots from the sunrise event, had a single towering thunderhead not obscured the sun until well after the transit ended. It was, quite possibly, the same thunderhead that I’d been doing time-exposures of hours before, which I think means, “You win some, you lose some.”

The Girlfriend and I tried a few projection shots with binoculars for tonight’s transit, but without strapping them down firmly (which works only for a couple minutes before having to be re-aimed,) we weren’t going to get anything decent. My biggest annoyance was, just as I got a sharp projection and was readying the camera, an airplane actually passed in front of the sun and threw a distinct image on the projection board. In about a second, it was gone, before I could get off a shot.

But I can’t complain, and my favorite image is this one, nicely framed through the tree branches. For working without any specialized equipment at all, I’m good with it.

Closer than you ever wanted

Al Denelsbeck



My mother is actually getting a kick out of hearing stories about our little vegetable patch, because when I was growing up she had to threaten me with no more Star Wars toys, ever, if I didn’t get out and help with the garden. In my defense, our current patch is very small, nothing at all like the half-acre we’d planted in my youth, and our present plants are tomatoes and peppers, which I like – it was very hard to stir adolescent motivation with all of the vegetables my folks had planted that made me gag. By the way, for all of those who insist that in adulthood you’ll start liking all those things you didn’t as a child, let me just say, the attempt to feed me Brussels’ sprouts now is something I consider assault and respond to accordingly.

Anyway, yesterday I discovered that the creature scarfing the tops of some of our tomato plants was not the suspected deer in the neighborhood, but a fat tobacco hornworm, the larval stage of a six-spotted sphinx moth (Manduca sexta,) closely related to, and often mistaken for, the tomato hornworm, larva of the five-spotted hawkmoth (Manduca quinquemaculata.) The bane of tomato-growers everywhere, hornworms aren’t really difficult to get rid of, for the home grower anyway – while a little hard to spot, all you have to do is pluck them off and fry them up with a little vinegar and hush puppies. All right, seriously, don’t follow that advice, because hush puppies aren’t very good for you. But I suspect people have more of a fear of hornworms since they’re huge as far as caterpillars go, bloated like a Hut, and have a nasty-looking little rapier on their hinders. Since I haven’t ever been tagged by either end of a hornworm, even years ago while fretting over not getting a Star Destroyer for christmas, I’m inclined to say the fears are unjustified. My subject here reluctantly served as a photo model before taking a dip in a nice cool and refreshing bucket of water (they’re also terrible swimmers.) Hey, don’t judge me, this is natural selection; just like tearing into a beehive for honey is a bad move, messin’ with a human’s tended garden is Darwinism at its most efficient.

We can see my freeloader munching on a small amount of vegetable matter, and the full-resolution versions makes it appear to be regurgitated which, if true, perhaps makes me more of a kindred spirit with them than ever suspected. It’s easy to make out the small forelegs gripping its food; the hunched posture and little stubby arms up by the [ahem] ‘face,’ almost give it the appearance of a little infant with its bottle. Almost. But for some real detail, we have to go deeper.



Are you one of those people who believe you can tell everything about someone by looking deep into their eyes? Well, aside from the fact that you’re definitely on the wrong blog, go ahead and peer away, and tell me what you find here, since those are the eyes lined up at the edge of all the yuck. You might think that, with that many manipulative appendages, hornworms wouldn’t be quite so messy eaters, but I’m here to dash all of your misconceptions today.

“But Al,” you say (go ahead, I can hear you,) “don’t tell me you had one of these lovely creatures, shining example of the beauty of gods’ creation as they are, and did not get a closeup of its delicate lips.” [Yes, I’m really that tuned in to the thoughts of my four readers.] Fear not, I say in return, because I often talk that way. I would not deprive you of such an experience, for sleeping soundly too many nights in a row could become boring. Behold!



For those of you with little sisters, I will be happy to send you a full-resolution version of this for printing poster size, because I get kickbacks from psychotherapists. Just don’t ask me if you’re looking at a hornworm tongue here, since no source that I’ve located has diagrammed caterpillar anatomy that distinctly. Just bear one little bit of trivia in mind: this critter (well, not this particular one anymore) will metamorphize into a six-legged flying insect with only a siphon for a mouth. It will sport compound eyes and no little jaws or mouthfingers. If I could get ahold of an adult sphinx moth I’d show you the difference – maybe in a later post. But essentially, moths don’t run into their school classmates and remark how they’ve barely changed a bit.

Anyone that has ever pulled a hornworm free from their plants knows that they have a pretty decent grip with their hind legs, and this is why:



I’m really not creating any new fans of hornworms here, am I? I mean, who wouldn’t envy a species that can count up to 712, and imagine if they learned how to make tiny guitars? As you might have suspected, the pink background that you’ve been seeing here is my own fingers, since The Girlfriend seemed rather cranky about something when I asked for her help.

If you’ve been wondering what the difference is between tobacco and tomato hornworms, the answer is, “Not much.” Tomato hornworms have V-shaped white marks on their sides rather than stripes, and straight blue-black horns rather than curved reddish-orange ones. Since tomato and tobacco plants are both from the plant family of Solanaceae, along with potatoes and some peppers, it’s not surprising that the two species of hornworm have such a distinct resemblance, or that they will interchange their host plants and snack on some others. Last year, the hornworms didn’t appear until very late in the growing season, and the Braconid wasps already had things well in hand. Or whatever. This family of wasps lays their eggs within the body cavity of caterpillars, where the young hatch out and eat the living tissue inside, then go to the skin surface to spin their cocoons on the outside, eventually emerging from the tops as adult wasps. This, perhaps rather obviously, is not too beneficial to the hornworm, as seen here in a photo I obtained last year.



Braconids are part of the superfamily Ichneumonoidea (man, I always wanted to be part of a superfamily,) which was a specific focus of Darwin’s attention in his contemplation of the familiar ‘beauty of god’s creation.’ He wrote (in a letter to Asa Gray):

I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of Caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice.

Such things seem distasteful to us almost entirely due to the sympathetic tendencies we have as a social species, tendencies too clumsy to differentiate between our own species, where they have important social and survival functions, and any other species where they don’t. Note that this doesn’t rule out any form of god in and of itself, but it does raise some serious questions regarding the sympathetic and anthropomorphic nature of such a deity (or the assumptions we make thereof.)

Distilling this down, nature itself isn’t good or bad; it just is. The emotional reactions that we get from witnessing any aspect of nature are strictly our own. Hornworms eat our food plants, wasp larvae eat the hornworms; neither one comes from anything planned, antagonistic, or evil. They’ve simply adapted to the conditions available.

Brussels’ sprouts, however, are truly hell-spawn. You have been warned.

Moral: you keep using that word…

Al Denelsbeck

While I can’t say anyone has ever had the temerity to attempt to express this to my face (I’m not a little or meek-looking guy,) there is a very prominent tendency to automatically equate “atheist” with “immoral,” one of the little triumphs of religious influence – in fact, it may come second only to “faith is a virtue” in the realm of common beliefs that have no actual basis in reality. Atheism has nothing whatsoever to do with morals, as a moment’s thought will demonstrate – it also has nothing to do with political parties, child psychology, or the proper way to serve tea. Yet, we’re led to believe that morality can stem only from religion, and in most cases, one particular religion (which is, of course, the very same religion practiced by the person promoting this idea, imagine that coincidence.)

When one tries to find a useful definition for the term, the difficulties with the idea become clear – for something that dictates an ideal of society and permeates our conduct as humans, there is an inexcusable amount of vagueness in most sources, almost always dealing with “right and wrong.” This may be in no small part due to pressures from religions not to include any comments about common benefit, empathy, treating everyone as equals, or demonstrable advancement, all of which certainly have some say in my approach to morality while pulling the teeth of religious privilege. But overall, the lack of distinctive traits or measurements in the concept of moral allows people to insert their own ideas, or more often, buy into the definition promoted by religious leaders. Naturally, a supreme being would have final say on what’s moral, right?

But here’s the problem with that: The vast majority of religious morals are, as noted before, incredibly selfish, aimed only at individual behavior and not at, for instance, society itself. It’s true that any application of morality comes first and foremost through the individual, but if it applies only to the individual (“Don’t masturbate!”), then there is little application to society as a whole, and very little reason to elevate morality as a cornerstone. If I eat shellfish, or work on the sabbath, or covet my neighbor’s patio furniture, what hazard does this really communicate to anyone else? And why should anyone else concern themselves with my behavior? Obviously, what we think of as morals are intended to apply to everyone to provide community strength, promote justice, and maintain better relations – they involve codes of conduct between individuals, with the underlying implication that society is a greater concern than any one person.

This is why I find it amusing that atheism is considered so much lower on the moral ladder, if it appears at all, than virtually every religion in existence. The elimination of arbitrary rules provided by scripture for “personal salvation” means that morality actually deals with societal benefit, not getting muddied by individual piety or, worse but disturbingly prevalent, the selection of minute fractions of scripture to support a pre-existing bias. Without a supreme authority to claim as backing, atheists and humanists instead look to humans themselves when defining morality, seeking goals that actually support society as a whole instead of drawing circles around themselves to denote the heretics outside. Moral behavior becomes a practice of demonstrable and measurable benefit, and justice actually starts to have some relation to the statue of the blindfolded woman holding scales – it doesn’t matter what anyone calls themselves or what they wear around their neck, since it’s their actions that count.

Moreover, it helps lead away from the class consciousness that is also promoted by religion, as well as many other sources such as political affiliation, income level, or skin color. When any concept of morality revolves around an idea that a class of people has greater claim to the title, this actively works against both the idea and the benefit; just like “good” and “bad,” actions are moral, not people. Self-proclaimed authorities provide nothing of value to society, and are only examples of pompous attempts at manipulation.

In all fairness, there is nothing about atheism that promotes morality, either, nor any reason to believe the standpoint leads towards greater morality – it simply denotes no belief in deities. As much as this may be wielded by triumphant religious debaters, it doesn’t exactly have a lot of bearing on any argument, and anyone calling themselves an atheist tells us nothing about their approach to any other subject at all. However, once the conversation turns to morality, it becomes safe to say that atheists aren’t going to accept anyone’s choice of quote-mined scripture, and that morality is going to have a different definition than “faithful.” And humanism, which often correlates very closely with atheism, does have a specific approach to morality.

The other issue with religious morality is that it runs into serious problems when the debate turns to which religion; christians find that wielding their holy book doesn’t mean fuck-all to muslims doing the same, and the only thing they can resort to is exactly what any atheist or humanist does: either, “you have no proof of the accuracy of your book,” or, “morality should have more to it than arbitrary quoting from scripture.” Or, fairly frequently, the abject avoidance of any such debate in the first place. Atheism serves a nice purpose here in playing the evil enemy, allowing the religious to believe they’re all united rather than ridiculously at odds, with no arguments that cannot be turned against themselves.

On a related note, it’s not hard at all to find large numbers of people that seem to need distinct, firmly delineated definitions of any abstract subject, or they can’t seem to cope. When things such as abortion or human rights are discussed, they automatically seek any exception that can be found to any and every “rule” proposed, implying that without considering every possible exception, any such rule is worthless, or even that people won’t be able to handle any grey areas. But most people handle grey areas very well in the few circumstances when they have to, such as when it is appropriate to lie to someone (“I’m sure she didn’t suffer at all”), and the rare exception is no excuse to trash a distinctive benefit for 99% of situations. Simply defining morality as “providing the greatest benefit for society with the recognition of all humans as equal” covers most of the bases without issue; some qualifiers can be added of course, but that’s true of any definition, law, or guideline. Moreover, it automatically disqualifies any attempt to claim that legislation against same-sex marriage (and countless other examples) is morally backed. If no victim can be found, no detriment to society, who is the law supposed to be protecting?

While it might be nice to have all the important rules of life spelled out for us, since thinking is so hard (I know I expend as much as .003 calories per hour doing it,) finding our own way isn’t exactly something that we should feel threatened by. Most especially, if our thoughts on morality revolve around labels and titles, we’re not trying very hard. Which is rather disturbing for a species that considers itself so distinctive from all others.

Classical allusions

Al Denelsbeck

Just in case you were wondering what might have become of my Rubenesque models from this post, they’re still around, living happily (I’m assuming) in the azalea bushes out front – I make it a point to see if I can find them daily. The number I can spot varies; at least one is a regular resident, but at times I can spot two on one bush, then apparently a different one on another a day or so later, but it’s hard to tell for sure just how many are around. And two more younger mantises are now being found on the pampas grass nearby, which always houses a few each year.

Yesterday, I managed to capture some tonsorial rituals.


I should probably feel a bit insulted, since my model here (I believe this is a Chinese mantis, Tenodera aridifolia sinensis,) undertook its meticulous foreleg cleaning efforts immediately after I’d coaxed it to walk on my hand for the scale shot. Or perhaps this is a measure of mantis respect. My friend here is better than twice the size it was when I first found them and got the dew pics, about 4 cm in length, but still well below adult size (that’s my finger, in case it’s not clear.) Nobody has been cooperative enough to let me photograph the molting, even though I’m pretty certain it’s happened at least twice, judging from the color changes. The chances of my capturing this activity in images is slight, however; immediately after molting their chitin is still soft, leaving them very vulnerable, so they tend to perform the molt while hidden and remain so until they feel safe – the thick bushes provide plenty of opportunity for this. Still, I keep watching.

I’m pleased that I actually captured some of the facets in the eyes in the closeup pics – I can’t even speculate on how small these really are, but the head measures 4mm across the eyes. The little manipulative fingers alongside the mouth are called palps, similar in function to the pedipalps of spiders. We have lips, they have mouthfingers. Praying mantises cannot whistle, but we can’t clean between our toes with our mouths.


Well, maybe this isn’t exactly true. One of the benefits of a classical education is the connection that can be made to great works of art, such as the film gris chef d’oeuvre “Big Trouble,” specifically this scene with Stanley Tucci and Sophia Vergara:

I just have to note that I ripped and uploaded this video myself after finding that the clip on YouTube had been tagged as “adult” by some seriously uptight individual. I suspect it wasn’t because of the footie stuff, but that she smacked him with a crucifix…

Why would they lie?

Al Denelsbeck

There’s a common argument that crops up in discussions of UFO sightings, always from UFO proponents (which, for my purposes here, denotes those who feel that the large number of reports are indicative of something significant – there isn’t a consensus on exactly what.) It can also crop up in regards to paranormal and even religious experiences. Made in regards to eyewitness accounts and their veracity, the argument is, “Why would anyone lie about such experiences? What would they stand to gain from that?” It often goes on to say that there is little money to be made from such, and/or that anyone doing so is setting themselves up for derision and social ostracism. We’ll set these related points aside for a moment to tackle the primary one: why would anyone lie? This question was even raised by a book reviewer in his own defense recently.

The question itself seems remarkably naïve, but it’s possible that it doesn’t stem from naïveté, but instead from rationalizing a tendency to take eyewitness reports at face value because it serves as support for the favored notion of UFO sightings as ‘significant.’ Ignoring the pop psychology angle, the question is essentially the same as, “Why would anyone perpetrate a hoax?” It’s a question worth examining, but hardly very supportive of the idea that no one actually perpetrates hoaxes; of course they do, all the time really. One might as well ask, “Why watch sports on TV?” or “Why buy a car that can go 200 kph when the speed limit is 100?” and so on. It smacks of believing that humans are always and dependably rational.

Hoaxes, however, are an interesting topic, most especially those where no apparent gain is possible, or where a lot of effort is required to maintain them. Yet, a hoax is simply a practical joke applied on a larger scale, aimed more publicly (and usually impersonally) than a practical joke. A practical joke is not only done for humor, but often as a means of humiliation, or as a challenge: the perpetrator attempts to establish a form of superiority, however benign, over the victim in a battle of wits. Often, it is a manipulation of emotional reaction – the victim responds as if events are random or undirected, entirely differently than they would if they were aware that someone is trying to manipulate them. In these cases the joke exists solely because the victim does not consider the correct alternative.

These traits apply especially well to hoaxes. A successful hoax draws in as many people as possible, which implies that the hoaxer is more clever than all of the victims/believers, in effect raising the hoaxer higher in status (within their own perspective, at least) than all who succumbed. In many cases the hoax is intended as a comment on society, targeting the fixation on a particular explanation without considering alternatives; it may highlight the reliance on social support (all of these people believe, so I should too) that humans utilize a bit too often, instead of individual examination and weighing of the factors alone. Most hoaxes are non-harmful, victimless exercises, breaking few if any laws and rarely even disadvantaging anyone. The level of anyone’s involvement is dictated solely by themselves – if they either fail to fall for it or simply treat it as lacking significance, they are free from any ill effects. This means, in all cases where such traits are applicable, that the victim has simply done it to themselves.

True, not every hoax falls into such categories, such as fake bombs being planted in public areas – here the hoaxer preys on substantial fears and, frankly, rational erring on the side of caution; such ruses are both malicious (whether intended to be or not) and criminal. But the large majority of hoaxes avoid such targets in favor of harmless applications.

In some cases, hoaxes start out small, but gain more notoriety than intended or imagined by the perpetrator, and quickly pass the point where revealing the hoax would still be greeted with rueful laughs and shaken fingers – the Cottingley Fairies are a great example. The hoaxer is then placed in a position where they must either face serious public reprisal and embarrassment to reveal their intent, or maintain the charade until such a time when the revelation is either foregone or considered irrelevant. But this serves to explain how a hoax can become extraordinarily elaborate without any intention or planning, like a child playing with matches. We need to recognize that hindsight cannot be reasonably applied; a simple hoax that grew just a little too big might engender some fear of scolding from, for instance, parents or local authorities, which may be enough to discourage the hoaxer from admitting their stunt. As it continues to grow, the potential blowback becomes commensurately greater, making the parental scolding seem ridiculously tame in comparison – but is it safe to believe that any hoaxer could accurately predict how far it could reach? To assume that a hoax would be admitted before it got too big, therefore any large-scale public attention is evidence against a hoax, demonstrates a lack of perspective.

In situations such as UFO reporting, the willingness to believe of the majority of proponents is already well-known, and little support other than earnest storytelling is needed to perpetrate a hoax; this makes the task far easier. In fact, this can even result in the hoaxer gaining accomplices from the victims themselves, as the victims become reluctant to admit that they fell for it or that a hoax even exists, and struggle to find ways to support the premise of the hoax rationally. And this doesn’t just happen in UFO circles, as anyone familiar with the name “Chris Mooney” knows.

Seen from the hoaxer’s standpoint, every credulous remark, every news story, every believer, all feeds into their ego, racking up points on an internal scorecard. It really is no different than anyone pursuing sports records or high test scores, since these are also methods of placing any individual above a large number of others. In fact, it can even be said that the hoaxer accomplishes far more than the athlete, since not only are their skills more likely to be applicable to career functions (marketing, politics, sitcom writing,) any emphasis on reducing gullibility and increasing critical examination within the general public is solely beneficial. On rare occasions this is even recognized (“Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me”), but overall, hoaxes are resented more often than appreciated, generally from embarrassment over being caught – this is unfortunate when compared against the utterly pointless and selfish pursuit of sports trophies, and the generally positive reaction to such.

Returning to the question of what someone might stand to gain from a hoax aimed specifically at the UFO (or paranormal, or religious) community, one has to be unfathomably ignorant to ignore the amount of money someone can sell a story or a photo for, much less speaker’s fees and book rights. And in some cases, it may be true that “the general public” might find someone less than reputable, but the UFO community isn’t too discriminating and is more than happy to shower praise and huzzahs on even the weakest and least substantiated stories – and continue to do so for decades, long after the general public has stopped paying attention. It’s strange that more people don’t take advantage of this, really.

Consider, too, that any hoaxer who is treated as a crackpot or mental defective by any portion of the public knows that their story is a charade, specifically intended to provoke a response. They are far less likely to be embarrassed by such attitudes because they have no reason to take them personally – it’s an act. Any stage actor who plays a villain and provokes negative responses over their “evil” is proud of this, since their goal is to be believable. Failure, to any hoaxer, is only provoking no reaction. But what this also brings up is that it is much more likely that anyone honestly relating an actual encounter, personally and emotionally involved, is the person who will feel embarrassed by public derision and the loss of their reputation – which probably makes it more likely that a prominently publicized account is a hoax rather than genuine, at least when considered from the emotional standpoint. Note that this is exactly opposite how the argument is usually forwarded.

Finally, there is the notoriety aspect to be considered. While any claim of an encounter may generate certain amounts of both good and bad public reactions – support from UFO proponents on one hand, and ridicule from cynics on the other – both of these are considerably more attention than any individual typically garners. People are arrested all of the time for such pointless acts as streaking and public nudity, destruction of property, disrupting social events, climbing monuments, and various other less-than-reputable actions. Numerous celebrities are especially well known for being assholes. For some, it’s not a matter of good or bad attention, merely attention, sometimes in whatever manner works best. Consider, too, the practices of the internet troll, whose sole motivation is to provoke a response and “push buttons” – it is a form of manipulation, the psychological equivalent of using an opponent’s strength against themselves, and hardly qualifies as being a respected practice in the least, yet there is no shortage of these.

Failing to recognize the possibility of hoaxes naturally makes someone a prime target for such, and within the realm of UFO proponents and enthusiasts (and again, other topics as well,) this failure is far too prevalent. When most of the evidence advanced in support of extra-terrestrial visitation et al consists of personal accounts and indistinct photos and video, hoaxing is remarkably easy. Denying this makes it even easier. Worse, it opens the door to dismiss UFO proponents (et al) as not just unworthy of being taken seriously, but gullible and fatuous, by anyone who notices the lack of rigor. And while this seems nasty, one must ask how else such terms are reasonably defined?

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