Time-telling flora

Many of us use the appearance of flowers in the landscape to signal seasons. Here’s Jun Gao doing interesting work with flowers and photography to mark time. I’ve been tired of straight-ahead pictures of plants, my own especially. Though his time-lapse images, some taken over many days, look aged and worn, they feel fresh.

Floral Life-Yellow Daffodils 2010.3.7-2010.3.21, 2010, Exposure Time: 15 days,Medium: 4×5 Color Film C-Print, 120cmx100cm
Copyright Jun Gao

He’s a Hey, Hot Shot! contender, and I wish him luck. See more in his floral gallery.

On the map

I was pretty excited to find out that Cornell Plantations used my images for the front and back of their new visitor map. These were taken on a pristine spring day among the blooming crabapples, when my only job was to be outside exploring beauty. I’ll take that job any time.

Happy Monday: covered in bees

Not writing on colony collapse or honey spinning, just laughing.

Simple sweetness, snow version

By Paul Octavious, Chicago photographer and designer

Better elephant news: babies!

Better news for elephants today, from the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust. When we were in Nairobi, we visited the elephant orphanage at Sheldrick, an incredible day. The mama and baby elephants in this video are at their preserve in East Tsavo. The orphans were rescued as babies when their mothers are killed, almost always by poachers. They are growing up and having babies of their own. Watch the community welcome the new baby. It’s really something special.

You can also read the story with photos and find out about fostering baby elephants here.

few things incite me to want to do violence

…like cruelty. Things like this make me fear and hate humans and our capacity for wreaking terror on other people and animals alike. For a buck. To beat the spirit out of this baby elephant, while her mother watches, screaming so she can be ridden by tourists. Full story:

Baby elephant tortured into submission before illegal smuggling from Burma to Thailand.

baby elephant tortured in the name of "training"

Sick irony, no? I should want to right this wrong, understand the economic factors beneath the horrific reality in this scene. But I want only to beat the head in on the guy wielding the stick, then his helper.

The photographer mentions two organizations doing work that could stop that scene from happening again; what, how many hundreds more times? Contribute to one of them if you can.
Elephant Nature Park and Elephant Conservation Network
It should go without saying that if you’re visiting Thailand, please don’t ride the elephants!

Elephant lives and habitats are at risk in every place they call home, and in Africa they’re being maimed by poachers’ wires if not killed outright. You can help baby African elephants orphaned by poaching, and assist strong conservation work by giving to the Sheldrick Trust. Knowing this place exists, and having seen the sweet babies playing together and the love of the care givers firsthand, helps a little.
But their mothers are still dead.

Influence: my mother’s windowsill

My mother always had something rooting in little jelly jars on the kitchen windowsill or in the sunny back windows.
She still does.