Somebody is fascinated by owls, for there are plenty of them in the photostream of Riccardo Cupidi. Self-titled “Looks” makes the Day for composition and for being interesting. C`mon, that is one fraking big bird. […]
Category: Living
Flickr a Day 213: ‘Cecil’
There are few events to take the Internet’s attention hostage like this week’s outrage over the death of a 13 year-old Zimbabwean lion. Vince O’Sullivan photographed the proud animal one year ago today—Aug. 1, 2014. He updated the caption to add context better coming from him than me.
“This is, of course, ‘Cecil’—the lion famously shot and wounded by crossbow fired by American dentist Walter Palmer in July 2015 and then shot, killed, skinned, and beheaded for trophies two days later”, Vince explains. “Living in a nature reserve, Cecil was completely inured to people in vehicles that didn’t interfere with him or his prey. So approaching him closely was never difficult, a daily occurrence for him and something he paid no attention to”.
When the Crowd Roars
The Internet backlash against dentist Walter Palmer for killing Cecil the lion is one of the best examples of mob journalism ever. The narrative spreading across the InterWebs is some ways well-meaning but in many more is destructive. Meanwhile, the force of collective-will tempts too many journalists to join the mob opinion, when they should stand aside and offer objective and responsible reporting.
Before writing another word, I must praise National Geographic for the best reporting about this event. The magazine offers broader perspective and, more importantly, puts big game hunting into larger context, while taking an objective tone. The raging mob’s perspective is myopic, and news sites supporting it fail the public good.
Flickr a Day 207: ‘Snapping Turtle’
Film photography is increasingly an art form—throwback to a time when the man or the woman was more in control of the shooting and developing process. There is something oh-so vinyl about print that appeals […]
Cali Caturday
I shot the accompanying photos on July 23rd and saved them for today. Cali played with some dangling thing from her perch and in rare form looked cute rather than ferocious. She’s a huntress that […]
Flickr a Day 204: ‘Planking’
Some fads are short-lived, while others you wish hadn’t been even that long. There is my reaction to planking four years ago. I was oblivious to the thing until someone commented on a pic of our cat Kuma posted to my social network. For fun, and no other reason, we begin three days of selections searched using the “P” word.
First up, from Patricia van Casteren, is the appropriately self-titled “Planking”, which she shot on June 21, 2011, using the Sony Alpha DSLR-A550. Vitals: f/6.3, ISO 200, 1/500 sec, 210mm. “Even the polar bears are totally hooked on planking these days”, she says, providing reference to a Wikipedia article for folks who don’t know what the hell the thing—also known as the “Lying Down Game”. I am surprised to see the origins go back more than three decades, given the sudden surge in popularity four years ago.
Apple Fiscal Q3 2015
After the closing bell today, Apple announced results for fiscal third quarter, which largely is congruent with calendar Q2 (End date, April 27). Broadly: $49.6 billion in sales, $10.7 billion net income, and $1.85 earnings per share. Year over year, revenue rose 33 percent and EPS by 45 percent. Apple guidance before the big reveal: Between $46 billion and $48 billion revenue. Wall Street consensus was $49.31 billion sales and $1.81 EPS. The Street’s estimates ranged from $46.9 billion to $53.64 billion.
Gross margin reached 39.7 percent compared to 39.4 percent annually and 40.8 percent sequentially. Company guidance: 38.5 percent to 39.5 percent. Once again, international sales accounted for most of the quarter’s sales: 64 percent, which is up from 59 percent the previous year but down from 69 percent three months earlier.
Flickr a Day 202: ‘Two Sport Athlete’
Photojounalism evokes some of the best storytelling. Because what are the pics about other than tales to tell? Alongside his professional business, Zach Frailey works part-time for the Kinston Free Press. “Two Sport Athlete” takes […]
Before You Buy an Indoor Cat House…
Neko wants you to know that spending $3.99 for an IKEA laundry mesh is more than enough. He and Cali play raucously inside their meshes. Well—he does. She’s smitten with the $1 moving box we bought for […]
Flickr a Day 201: ‘Selfie and Friend’
Please, someone move me to a French country villa with farm animals and cats, because the photostream of Nebojsa Mladjenovic is so evocative of a simpler and happier life on the farm. I wonder: How […]
Two Years Later
I begin with a nod of thanks to my wife Anne for struggling with the Fuji X100T, which she handled for the first time yesterday, to shoot these photos of me and several others. We couldn’t go outdoors because of heavy thunderstorms, which are quite unusual for San Diego. Finding a good wall in the apartment with adequate ambient light proved difficult. I turned 56 one week earlier; these are the first pics at my new age.
You see me here at 131 pounds (59 kg). That’s down from 182 (82.6 kilos) when I cut my carb consumption by more than than 90 percent starting July 15, 2013. But my weight is up from 127, or by more than 2.2 kilos, since late June. The long decline reverses as I carb cheat. That behavior stops after today—not so much to lose weight but to be healthier. The massive weight loss is but a side benefit.
Flickr a Day 200: ‘Carry a Longboard’
Our two-hundredth selection in the series comes from Steve Corey, who creates interesting art by bleaching out much of the color and drawing detail—and the eye’s attention to it—in shadows. Clever still, self-title “Carry a […]