While this week’s image was taken back in 2010, it wasn’t actually used until last year for one of the Profiles of Nature posts, which was actually the weekly topic for the previous year – I was just throwing more down as I felt like it. This is a cownose ray (Rhinoptera bonasus,) photographed at the NC Aquarium in Fort Fisher I believe – probably obvious because I had no ability to do underwater photography and I likely wouldn’t have caught one this close (and in this lighting,) much less while feeding. Now, I did see and photograph cownose rays while living in Florida, but always from above the surface and some distance off, so I never bothered featuring those shots here. Had I possessed the ability to do underwater photographs while living and snorkeling there – beyond using a little Kodak disposable film camera I mean, which I did attempt a couple of times – I likely wouldn’t have gotten much anyway due to the turbidity of the water: visibility was two meters at best, and not too many critters allowed that close of an approach. I know I tried it with a mother and calf manatee, slipping into the water quietly as they moved off about six meters away, but I never caught sight of them when I attempted to catch up.
That might have been the session where I fumbled the disposable camera while removing the snorkeling gear, watching it fall into a gap between the rocks and hearing it clatter down no small distance. I was quite distraught because I was pretty sure I had some cool shots on it, and no amount of maneuvering produced a glimpse of it; these were large rocks piled together to make the causeway, and so had countless gaps between the rocks. I shifted a few here and there, still never seeing the camera, a challenge in itself because my eyes were adjusted for the bright sunlight and I simply couldn’t see into the deep shadows under the rocks. I was on the verge of giving up when I climbed much lower and pulled out another one of the smaller rocks that I could actually move, and there sat the camera on the sand floor within this little cave, within arm’s reach even. I can remember the feeling that I’d recovered some potentially great photos (as great as they might be with a cheesy little plastic camera,) but honestly don’t know which of the negative pages holds those pics, or even what pics I thought I was losing. Memory’s a funny thing.
And so, we reach the end of September, or at least will in about 23 hours. This means we must, by tradition, leave it with an abstract image, though tradition has nothing to say about how abstract or what the exact definition of that word is, thank dog. Because that allows us to use things like this:
Obtained just two days ago, this was one of two contenders for this vaunted position from the entire month of… well, not shooting much at all. But everyone loves Spanish moss, right? Everyone that matters, anyway…
Yet, we find that we have another candidate, from the very beginning of the month. And that looks like this:
We know, we know, we know, we’ve had quite enough rain and dew drop photos at the end of the month, but this one has been sitting here waiting for us to do a post around it, which we never got to, so we’re slamming it down defiantly here and daring anyone to comment. Seriously, the comment section does actually work. You don’t even have to trust me on this, and can call my bluff.
Today is also International Podcast Day, but this is not likely to happen, given that we should have a truck to start unloading and the microphone is two hours away regardless. Maybe we will fill in a few days hence. No promises, now…
The function of getting established at the new Walkabout Estates is going much slower than intended, primarily not our fault – we’re still waiting for the truck with most of our belongings to arrive. Until that time, we’re bouncing back and forth between minor repairs/improvements and exploring the area, but this has included going down to the waterfront soon after sunrise on two separate occasions now, which is a nice way to start the day.
I had a faint concern that I’d be leaving behind my fertile environment for treefrogs and anoles, though with a pond out back it wasn’t a serious concern, and I’d spotted an anole even when we were first looking at The Manor. These concerns were completely eradicated within a few hours of starting the move-in; the Carolina anoles own The Manor, and are graciously allowing us to live here. They litter the property and can be found everywhere, including very often within the screened porch and once even within The Manor itself – luckily we discovered this before The Boogs did, and escorted the lizard back outside.
This was last night, on the light outside the back door – looks awkward, but the lizard seemed fine with it, and took its time this morning getting up and warming itself on the black dome on top. Another view:
Just doesn’t look comfortable, but it’s better than the one who chooses to sleep between the back door screen and the decorative framing, looking as though it got flattened within them, and that one has done it multiple nights.
Out front, a newborn had selected an oak tree sapling as its nighttime perch, much like the Japanese maple back at Old Walkabout Estates; on a previous night, it was so aligned with the shape of the leaf that it looked like a diseased section spreading from the middle, less so now that I finally got the camera in hand.
This was early this morning, and the dew deserved a closer look of course:
We’d seen this one in the same general location both day and night, never seeming to wander more than a meter, though underneath is liriope that offers plenty of camouflage and shade, and presumably food as well. During the same photo session, I discovered that another of roughly the same age (this year’s brood) was sharing the same patch, about two meters off.
This one had chosen a small sprig of greenbrier (Smilax) that was erupting from the liriope. Helpfully, this one had docked its own tail so they could be distinguished from each other – so cooperative! No, I doubt this was an injury from a territorial dispute, because they’re too young and I don’t think they really get aggressive about that until mating season anyway – I’ve watched plenty of closer encounters among the adults in the past few days and they don’t seem inclined at all, just giving one another barely adequate space. Both the greenbrier and the oak sapling will be removed from the decorative patch, but possibly not until late fall now, once the anoles have gone into shelter for the winter – I mean, c’mon.
Cute, right? Okay then, you can’t complain as we switch subjects.
Right alongside the front door as I came inside from the anole photo session, we had someone else standing guard high on the wall.
It’s funny what I end up doing when I start writing posts, because I just went out and measured the width of the brick to give an idea of scale: they’re standard bricks so about 60mm in width, meaning her leg spread is slightly more than that, while the body is somewhere around 25mm in length. This is most likely a dark fishing spider (Dolomedes tenebrosus,) as indicated by that ‘mustache mark’ that doesn’t show too well at this resolution, but the double row of eyes pegs this as the fishing spider family – wolf spiders have the posterior lateral (back outside) eyes well offset to the rear and more sideways. She’s still there as I type this, but high enough to require a step stool for specific measurements, plus my calipers are sealed in a box on a truck someplace that is not here. And as big as she is, she’s notably smaller than the next specimen.
That’s a golden silk orbweaver (Trichonephila clavipes) out over the pond, and her leg spread is at least half-again that of the fishing spider, but probably closer to double – she’s even harder to reach so specific measurements aren’t coming anytime soon, and this was shot with the long lens. My first attempt was thwarted by humidity and poor preparation, since the moment that I got the lens out the other day, it fogged over from the post-rain steaminess (having been stored in the air-conditioned house) and didn’t clear until the light was too crappy to proceed. I believe that direct sunlight hits this spot for a brief period in the afternoons, so I’ll try again another day.
But that takes us in the direction of the pond, so we go to a pair of pics captured while I was in the middle of writing this today.
This one surprised me a little, because the trees crowd in around and throughout the pond and didn’t appear to allow the longer glide path that great blue herons (Ardea herodias) need to go in and out, but here we are. The green stuff on the water is duckweed and not algae, but yeah, the pond is more Louisiana bayou than a country swimming hole. Fine by me, as long as it keeps attracting visitors and residents like these – I spotted a green heron here during the home inspection, so I’m groovy.
Those are all yellow-bellied sliders (Trachemys scripta scripta) and we have plenty of them, but they’re quite spooky and have to be shot with the long lens. Earlier in the day we saw a much smaller one among the cluster on this same hassock. And here I have to admit to something: I had vowed, many years ago, that if we obtained property with the right wet conditions, I was going to plant a bald cypress tree (Taxodium distichum,) because I think they’re great, but they really do need boggy conditions. We lucked out immensely with this property, because it has half a dozen right at the edge of the yard, all old-growth monsters – the ‘knees’ are going to make mowing a chore though, but I’ll cope with it.
And finally, we close with some more cuteness.
For two days in succession, we found a small herd of white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) at the edge of the back yard, and they’re quite spooky; this doe was small, but still might have been the mother to the next, close by:
You can see that this fawn is just old enough to be losing its spots, and while I was remaining silent, I was in plain sight up on the deck and the camera still makes noise, so they watched me warily for a few moments before electing to move off into the undergrowth that borders the back of the property where the pond doesn’t; this is really a slick area for wildlife, so I’ll be able to keep busy (to say nothing of the options within the surrounding region.) But, we’ll have to see how many new species I can add.
Things may go quiet again (I think the last six or eight posts were all written in advance to appear while we were busy with moving stuff, which isn’t even halfway done yet,) but I’ll sneak in the time when I can.
This week’s only-seen-here-once-before image is from 19 months ago, February last year, and I couldn’t tell you why I’d never photographed a yellow-bellied sapsucker (Sphyrapicus varius) before, or since, but here we are. I would have liked to have gotten closer, or a clearer view at least, but this guy disappeared before I could do much more, perhaps already aware that it had blown its cover. So yeah, it’s on the list of species to do a better job of, but I can even do this as a weekly topic because there are enough critters that evade my attention – I think I’ve eliminated just one potential appearance here because I snagged more frames of a particular species that was on my list of singular appearances when I started this topic. Let’s see if I can knock out any more before the end of the year.
And yes, I could go for several years decades with species that I’ve never photographed, but those would be boring posts, wouldn’t they? At least we have a pic for these…
So this isn’t really a proper holiday today, but we’re celebrating it all the same, and by “we” I mean, “The Girlfriend and I,” though you’re welcome to celebrate it too if you like. I can finally break the big news that has been brewing for a while and announce that Walkabout Estates is now in a new location!
Actually, we wouldn’t be anywhere near as far along if we’d actually moved Walkabout Estates – I’m not even sure how you’d go about that; how deep do you dig? But we’ve moved the various accoutrements that we had gathered within the old Walkabout Estates and shifted them to a new house – bigger, better, cooler, and so on. And part of that coolness was hinted at with last month’s holiday, because we have our own pond now! That was actually the factor that held off the closing date (which was scheduled then) because the deed to the pond was not perfectly clean and tidy, and had to be remedied. That’s done now – in fact, it’s been done for over a week, but we’re still in the process of moving in, much less getting things established how we want them. It’s likely even worse than I’m letting on, because this was written in advance and I don’t think we even have internet out there, uh, here, yet.
Plenty more will be coming, with undoubtedly a lot of new photos because we’ve already seen enough examples to believe this is going to be a productive place for such – you would have had some right now, except that I’ve barely had the camera in hand for the past couple of weeks. But for now, posts may still be a bit sparse – we really have far too much shit and it will be a while before it’s all in reasonable order, to the point where I don’t feel guilty chasing photos or writing posts instead of unpacking boxes and moving furniture.
Meanwhile, we’re taking suggestions on pond names, because it doesn’t appear to have one. Don’t go thinking you can poll bomb and get through some damn thing like, “Swampy McSwampface,” because The Girlfriend and I are the final arbiters, but if you manage to impress us enough that we adopt your suggestion, we’ll be sure to send something your way. In the meantime, we’ll be back up to speed here as soon as it’s feasible.
Early the other morning I went past the Japanese maple that has been hosting the newborn Carolina anole (Anolis carolinensis,) only it had been misty-raining overnight and I didn’t really expect to see the little lizard, since the species seems quite sensitive about rain – I’ve spooked them for cover on hot days when I just played the mist sprayer across them, and this is when they should have been most appreciative of it (the mantids certainly are.) But this guy, who’s been on the same small tree so regularly and far longer than I’ve ever seen an anole remain in one chosen sleeping spot, had to prove me wrong:
It should be noted that the rain did not drop the temperature more than a couple of degrees and it was still quite comfortable out there, at least if you ignored the humidity. I didn’t really have the chance to do more than a couple of frames, and to be honest, you’re kind of lucky to be seeing this now – I’ll explain more in a few days. I still like this capture from a few years ago better, but this one is certainly wetter – probably doubled its weight with all that water.
Pretty soon, by the way, I expect to have a few new charges to be chasing photographically, so don’t go away – the game is afoot, as some drug addict was known to say, which may explain why it’s such a really odd phrase when you think about it.
All right, it’s time to get controversial, because the movie we’re recommending here is widely regarded as a flop, a failure, unfunny, and on and on; moreover, it’s by Steven Spielberg, which makes it almost personally offensive to many people. Yet I have to say, I saw it when it first came out in 1979, and have watched it frequently ever since, and I have never seen the slightest justification of these views. Star Wars did not hold up half as well for me as the years wore on, but this one does. To a very large extent, far too many people are influenced by what critics say, and I’m convinced that a large amount of the ill-will this movie engenders is exactly because of this, repeated ad nauseum, and I’d be fine if I could see any of the points that the nay-sayers try to make, but I can’t.
The movie is 1941, a comedy starring a ridiculously large cast of notable actors; top billing is held by John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd of course, fresh from their Saturday Night Live days but before The Blues Brothers came out, though included within the cast are Robert Stack, Ned Beatty, Nancy Allen, Treat Williams, Dianne Kay, Warren Oates, Frank McRae, John Candy, Eddie Deezen, and many more… and then we have Slim Pickens, Toshirô Mifune, and Christopher Lee in there! And I can’t say that any one of them gave a bad performance – granted, it’s comedy, so believable characters aren’t the byword here. The style is just this side of slapstick, yet there is no mugging, no playing to the camera/audience, no tongue-in-cheek asides – the situations and dialogue are definitely warped, but the delivery is perfectly serious and deadpan.
The movie is set in the Los Angeles/Hollywood area just a few days after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, as war tensions were quickly giving way to paranoia. The residents are split between preparing for war, possibly an attack on the US mainland, and going on about their lives as before – some more than others. But a series of events begins to escalate the tension, and imaginations start running wilder, and this all builds towards a culmination where no one within really has any idea what’s actually happening. And here, writers Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale demonstrate a lot of effort, because many of the factors within the film are historical; they are based on true events, though these were spaced out much more than the film portrays. Racial bias was very distinct in those days, and the riots between servicemen and Latin ‘zoot suiters’ were actual events, while anti-aircraft emplacements were strewn along the California coastline… and Hollywood really was originally named, “Hollywoodland.” Most notable, however, were two actual events from February 1942, on successive nights even: a Japanese sub shelling an oil refinery on the coastal town of Ellwood, California, and the following night, the infamous “Battle of Los Angeles;” it is quite clear that Zemeckis and Gale modeled much of the movie, and the entire third act, on these two bits of history (right down to the reports of a plane crashing on the streets of Hollywood.) Unfortunately, neither event is very well known and thus the comparison, and the fact that the movie is far less fictional than it first appears, often goes unnoticed.
This is an aspect of the movie that deserves some attention: almost none of the actions by most of the characters are out of the realm of human behavior – impulsive or compulsive, certainly, but it’s more the consequences that get out of hand rather than anyone directly producing the wayward results. It’s only Wild Bill Kelso (John Belushi) and General Maddox (Warren Oates) that are truly unhinged, and Maddox only has an effect when he comes in trivial contact with Kelso. Everyone else merely suffers from bad judgment or bad timing – it’s the confluence of events that causes the denouement to be so chaotic, while the individual factors therein can easily happen – and often have (see the link for the Battle of Los Angeles again.)
Despite being based on actual events, more or less, there is only one character that is named and based on a real person: General Joseph Stillwell, played by Robert Stack. And despite his out-of-character delight at the movie Dumbo, he is the lone rational player in the entire ensemble, repeatedly steering the others within his influence back on track almost effortlessly. This is exemplified when speaking to an officer over the phone regarding the air raid that was taking place:
Stillwell: Has anyone in your command seen these Zeros?
Officer: No sir – but we’re shooting at them.
Stillwell: Now I want you to think about something:Bombs! I don’t hear any bombs! If they’re up there, if they came all the way from Asia, don’t you think they’d bring a few bombs along?
Officer: I don’t know, sir, but…
Stillwell: But nothing! You can’t have an air raid without bombs!
This minor exchange is the epitome of critical thinking – not even intended as amusing, but still a favorite of mine just for that.
[The actual Stillwell, it must be noted, had nothing to do with units in or around southern California.]
As mentioned earlier, this film also possesses what is likely my favorite soundtrack of any movie, adeptly composed by none other than John Williams, and yes, it’s even better than the Star Wars films, because those stood alone. Here, Williams had to incorporate the feel and sounds of the era, from the tensions of post-Pearl-Harbor California past the triumphant military themes to the Big Band dance competition, and the choreography of the dance/chase/fight scene is exemplary. At the same time, numerous shots and framings are intentionally reminiscent of the popular films from that time period; as the hero and ingenue kiss atop the tank, the turret spins them around as the camera crane pulls up for the long shot.
The film was intended as a spectacle, as the movie poster implies, yet this was well before CGI, so the effects are all practical, large sets and models for much of it, and well done overall. Sure, the sharp-eyed IMDB fanatic will pick out small issues here and there, but there is little to take one out of the moment, and wherever possible, real vehicles and life-size sets are used – and, destroyed (it’s a war movie, after all.) And yet for all that, Spielberg, Zemeckis, and Gale included a specific, small detail: despite lots of destruction, no one dies or is even injured, save for perhaps The Dummy. At the very end, two of the characters that were ‘lost at sea’ can be found at the edge of the scene.
There are additional small easter eggs. Not only is the opening sequence a satire of Jaws (which Spielberg needed no permission to do,) it uses the same actress; the same can be said for the gas station and the proprietor, both originally appearing in one of Spielberg’s first films, Duel. Wally (Bobby DiCicco) is ‘beckoned’ to take command of the tank crew by Sgt Tree (Dan Aykroyd) in a direct homage to the 1956 version of Moby Dick. I was even suspicious that the line from Herbie (Eddie Deezen,) “Safety bar? We don’t need no safety bar!” was intended to refer to The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and contacted Eddie Deezen about this, who graciously replied and admitted that he didn’t know, and that I should ask Bob Gale; I could find no way to do so and determine this for sure.
Admittedly, some of the humor is contrived, such as when the tank turns too early and crashes through two factories in appropriate succession, but even then, the effort that went into the throwaway gag is enormous, entertaining to watch just because of the staging. I also find myself hard-pressed to find a comedy movie from any era that is not contrived; bear in mind that Airplane! came out only a year later. But in comparison to offerings like American Pie and even Dumb and Dumber? Neither of those can hold a candle to this film, and both had multiple sequels. What gives?
Perhaps the biggest shortcoming of the movie is that there is no character for the viewer to identify with, no real hero or island in the sea of chaos, though Stillwell comes closest – he does little, but avoids getting roped into the morass through sound judgment at least. And at the same time, there are no real villains; the two prime candidates aren’t actually dangerous enough to count. So the emotional involvement of the viewer is only to be entertained by the events and satirical aspects – which the film has in abundance. It is better written and better produced, many times over, than the vast majority of comedies from the past two decades, but… one of the things that it lacks is strong, repeatable quotes, which perhaps prevents it from entering into the meme consciousness like other films.
All that said, if you haven’t seen it, give it a shot. And if you have, re-watch it with a fresh perspective. I will refund you your wasted time if you still find it lackluster. But if you consider it a bomb, well, that issue’s all your own.
Just a couple of photos that don’t belong anywhere else – clearing out the blog folder a little.
From back during the Eno River outing, I spotted this mushroom from better than 10 meters way, because it stood that tall – somewhere between 15 and 20 cm. I have no idea what it is, but it might be related to the image below from 2015.
I just want to point out that both images benefited from getting right down to ground level, as well as a short depth-of-field and natural lighting. I didn’t have the opportunity for sidelighting for the top image, given the time of day, but it might have made the textures more dramatic – you can see the increased contrast on the tattered piece of the bottom image. You could possibly also achieve this with an off-camera flash, but at the risk of becoming too contrasty as well as dropping the background into darkness. Plus they’re mushrooms, so decide for yourself how much effort they’re worth in getting fartsy with.
Another, from the butterfly bushes at home.
This is likely a juvenile blue dasher (Pachydiplax longipennis,) but that’s not important right now. What I want you to do is find the four wingtips.
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Give up yet? One of them is trying to hide, but you can see it if you look carefully. It’s the second from left, and extends down across part of the dried flowers. One edge, well out of focus, sits right alongside the edge of the first wing (again, from left.) Don’t be fooled by the wings on the other side, or the leg that bends sharply to grip the flower horizontally. This just shows you how short depth-of-field can get, because we’re only talking about 15-20mm from the defocused wingtip to the sharper body (and especially the opposite wing) of the dragonfly. You’re seeing the first wing, its companion, better because it’s virtually edge-on to the camera – it’s still well out of focus, but darker and more distinct from being ‘concentrated’ in one spot, rather than flat like the second wing.
Today we have a Mabee’s salamander (Ambystoma mabeei,) likely. When I initially featured this one I was unsure if it was this species or one of the slimy salamanders that can be found in the region, because the markings are almost completely interchangeable. However, since that time I have handled a white-spotted slimy salamander, and it was incredibly sticky while also staining my skin, so I feel comfortable saying that this would have created an indelible memory had it occurred when I was photographing this specimen. So it’s a Mabee’s. Maybe.
Given that I’ve featured, to memory, four five different salamander species herein, and the other three four were distinctive, I can firmly claim that, whatever it is, it hasn’t appeared here more than once before anyway. Go ahead, prove me wrong.
This was intentionally over-exposed to bring out the skin detail, given that the flash unit that I was using at the time was too direct and contrasty, so the dark areas tended to be really dark. It was images like this that prompted me to develop macro softboxes, which helped tremendously, but then I didn’t get such good specimens to experiment with for a while. And of course, when I had the aforementioned slimy salamander on hand, I wasn’t carrying the softbox – listen, if I took along all of my various photo accoutrements to each outing I’d need two porters.
If you know anything at all about salamanders, you know the bottom photo isn’t very convincing of a ‘natural’ shot – they don’t tend to scamper across leaves in bushes, like, at all. The top shot is a bit better, but they’re both studio images – see the bit about ‘porters.’ I brought this one home to do the detailed images, and released it back where it was found later on. Getting nice profile shots of something nestled into rotting wood pulp underneath a log is pretty demanding on location. Oh, I can do it, I’m just lazy.
It’s been a while, hasn’t it? I’ve had a couple of images set aside for this purpose, and just added a few more. Let’s see what we have now.
The color version can be found here, but in this case, after converting to individual color channels, I reduced the topmost Red channel to 50% opacity over the underlying Green. Sometimes any one channel is too contrasty, or lacks details that another has, so mixing them in this manner can occasionally produce a useful blend of elements.
Same basic idea, but here, it was the Green channel reduced to 50% over the Blue, necessary to balance out the sun among the clouds – in the Blue channel, the sun was merely a partial disk with no flare, but the Green lacked contrast within the clouds.
This one was Red at only 25% opacity over the Green, mostly bringing out details that had little green within them.
And now for some more recent ones, without any blending.
As I was looking for candidates, there was no question that this had to be tried, since it was already pretty sharp in contrast to begin with. In this case, only the Blue channel was necessary. As usual, it produced a little blotchiness from the background, but so did the Red channel, and the Green made the background too bright, so here we are.
This is only the Red channel, with a slight tweak in contrast, but it’s cropped differently than the original, mostly to eliminate the foliage which became just an expanse of low-contrast darkness without detail – the Green channel would have improved this but then it reduced the contrast of the sun rays too much. The Blue channel, as is often the case, didn’t have much to contribute overall.
And now a curiosity from the same general subject.
The Blue channel held its own here, despite the prevalence of green from the color version – most especially, it highlighted the subtle spots on the skin behind the head onward, ones you might easily have said weren’t even there (I know I did.)
But then there’s this:
This time it’s the Red channel, and while those color variations were much more visible this time, they’re highlighted more in the monochrome version – well, you know what I mean. If you’d only seen this first, you might suspect that the color pattern on the anole was more varied than it really is.
So play around a bit, more than simply converting to greyscale – you might be surprised at what you can bring up. It doesn’t always work – I rejected as many as I included here – but sometimes you stumble upon a nice new variant to use.
