14
This is a GoPro frame capture of my brother-in-law luring a tropical fish closer to him using a banana as bait. I’m guessing that naturalist wouldn’t like the fact that the fish have become somewhat domesticated. But it’s good for the snorkelers.
The next best thing to shoveling snow in a -20 F wind chill is to be swimming in the warm waters that wash the shores of the Virgin Islands. Our chartered sailboat last June was named Dakota Lullaby though we had no control over the specific boat we received. She was a dream and I long to return . . .
I wish I were in this picture, lounging on the pool-side chair. But it occurs to me that I am in every photo I take. You just have to look hard to see me sometimes. . . .
Dreaming of Mexico by Scott Shephard is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
If I had a true scientific interest in coral, I would have answers to the many things I wonder about when I look at it. I wonder, for example, about the many ways that coral seems to organize itself. I wonder about the age of coral we find along the shore. And in the case of this piece, I wonder what the pink substance is.
But I don’t have a scientific interest in coral and I don’t seek answers. In the case of coral I take comfort in my wonder.
Canon 5DIII 1/640s f/5.0 ISO200 100mm
We arrived back in Minneapolis last night from a week in Mexico. The temperature was a balmy 27 degrees F. But in Watertown, SD, it is -14.
And so I thought it was appropriate (and maybe even good for the soul) that I should post a photo of a tropical plant covered with rain drops that I saw yesterday morning at the resort we were staying at. But in spite of the 94 degree temperature difference, I am happy to be on the way home.
Meet the namesake for the language translation programs you see advertised on TV. . . .
When I say “Rosetta Stone” you probably think of a well-advertised foreign language learning tool. But the actual Rosetta Stone (pictured here), which is housed in The British Museum, was the key to translating ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics into English. There are three different languages/scripts on this stone, two of which were decipherable. But, in the the early 1800s, the top script, hieroglyphics, was still a mystery. A man named Champollion used the known scripts and pretty astute inferential reasoning to crack the code of hieroglyphics. So ends the history lesson.
If you are curious about the leap from grand daughter to son to Rosetta Stone over the last three days, don’t try to find the logic. There is none. Today, fearing that I would miss a day in “A Photo A Day” for the second time in five days, I just picked a folder of photos from 2010 and found this picture.
Your attention is no doubt waning by now, so I’ll say, “Thanks for looking.” 🙂
Canon 5DII 1/15s f/4.0 ISO1000 24mm (Notice the slow shutter speed. Shame on me!)
So today’s photo is a huge leap from what I’ve been posting the last couple days. Is there some plan that I have so that I can keep my viewers off balance? No. In fact, the number of views I get when I post kids goes way up. Today’s photo won’t get a third of the hits yesterday’s got. But that’s OK with me. . . .
Geographic Note:
The island upon which we have landed with our dinghy (that’s our larger vessel in the background) is called Sandy Cay, which is just a short distance from Jost Van Dyke. (Click here to see it on a map.)
Canon 5DIII 1/500s f/10.0 ISO200 16mm
Caribbean Shores by Scott Shephard is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Given that I talked a bit about the Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel yesterday, I thought I’d post my one and only photo of the ceiling, “accidentally” taken in 2004. Photography is not allowed, but in the crowded and somewhat chaotic chapel, my camera somehow went off. And this is what I ended up with.
See God? See Adam? See the brain? See the museum guard look at me with disdain?
Canon 5D 1/13s f/4.0 ISO1600 24mm
The phrase “changing of the guard” can be metaphorical but at the Prague Castle in the Czech Republic it is literal. But the event is also a tourist attraction. Deb and I just happened to be arriving at the Castle when the three men seen here were marching to their post. Their baby blue uniforms are traditional but not particularly “normal” when it comes to military garb. Maybe the intent is to make the opponent feel happy and non-violent.
Have I just returned from the Czech Republic? No. We were there in 2006 and I found this photo in the process of organizing my vast collection of forgotten photos. I call it “dumpster diving” and the fact that I got caught up in processing this photo when I should have really been culling it is a reason I get so little organizing done. Some day I’ll start on my closet, but I’ll have the same problem with old college papers that I have with photos . . . .
Canon 5D 1/320s f/7.1 ISO400 105mm
During our recent stay in Salt Lake City we had a room with a view. I took several photos of the courthouse as seen from our room but I liked this one best, largely because of the way the strong sunlight helps light up the building against the distant cloud covered landscape. I walked over to visit the court house but it is much less ornate in the interior public spaces.
Canon 5DIII f/8.0 ISO125 100mm
[maxbutton id=”20″]