Fotoeins Fotografie

location bifurcation, place & home

Posts tagged ‘nature’

Curly-tailed lizard, Nassau, Bahamas, myRTW, fotoeins.com

Fotoeins Friday: reptile resident of the Bahamas

Shortly after my arrival in Nassau, this little guy climbs up a tree to my height and gives me the once over. The curly-tailed lizard doesn’t look so curly with its tail stretched parallel to the branch. Curly-tailed lizards are omnivores about 10-15 cm in length. Satisfied I’m not a threat, the lizard scurries away to explore. I’ll see my fair share of the lizards over the following weeks in the Bahamas.

In the Bahamas during my year-long RTW, I made the photo above on 5 May 2012 with the Canon EOS450D, 70-300 zoom, and the following settings: 1/25-sec, f/5.6, ISO100, 300mm focal length (450mm full-frame equivalent). This post appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins.com as http://wp.me/p1BIdT-9BV.

Flowers aflame, Skagit Valley Tulip Festival

I was skeptical of a visit to tulip gardens.

“They’re just flowers after all.”

When I lived in Heidelberg, Germany, my friends wanted to travel to the Netherlands before pregnancy kicked into full swing. They wanted to visit Keukenhof and Amsterdam. I was excited about Amsterdam; I was unsure about Keukenhof.

But one step inside the tulip gardens in Keukenhof was enough to turn my head and my opinion about tulip fields spun completely around.

That was 2002, and this is 2017. I’m highway-bound along I-5 into western Washington State to see tulips.

During the annual tulip festival in April, the Skagit river valley is populated by fields of daffodils and tulips, in eye-popping yellow, red, orange, purple, and white. The overcast skies with diffuse grey light provides ideal light conditions with no strong shadows. The explosion of colour should surely melt hearts and convince minds, if the change to my once obstinate stance is any indication.

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Honu, green sea turtle, Halona Cove, Oahu, Hawaii, USA, fotoeins.com

Fotoeins Friday: sacred green ‘honu’ (Oahu)

With plenty of places along the South O’ahu coastline to stop for the view, one of the most memorable is the Hālona Blowout Lookout, and I catch sight of the sacred “honu”. “Honu” in Hawaiian is the green sea turtle, which to some first Islander families is a sacred deity not to be harmed or consumed. The green sea turtle is an endangered species, and according to NOAA Fisheries’ Pacific Islands Regional Office: “all green sea turtles in the Pacific Islands Region are protected by the Endangered Species Act.”

The Hālona Blowout Lookout and Beach Cove are about 30- and 40-minutes drive from Honolulu’s Ala Moana Center and the city’s international airport, respectively.

I made the photo with the Canon PowerShot A510 on 22 January 2007. This post appears on Fotoeins Fotopress at fotoeins.com as http://wp.me/p1BIdT-8G3.

Lavender and bee, Argyle Village Gardens, Ambleside, West Vancouver, BC, Canada, fotoeins.com

Fotoeins Friday: the promise of life (West Vancouver)

In West Vancouver’s Ambleside neighbourhood, there’s a “hidden” sight not far from the Ferry Building Gallery and Ambleside Pier. The community Argyle Village Gardens is full of sweet scents and colourful flowers. But there’s more: listen carefully, and there’s a buzz that’s not man-made. The multiplicity of bees bouncing and popping from one flower to the next makes for a happy hopeful sight. This is the fulfilled promise of summer under a bright yellow sun, in a light ocean breeze, of the natural cycle of life in full swing.

I made this photograph on 15 July 2016 with the Canon EOS6D, 24-105 L zoom-lens, and the following settings: 1/160s, f/14, ISO500, and 99mm focal-length. This post appears on Fotoeins Fotopress at fotoeins.com as http://wp.me/p1BIdT-8E6.

Kangaroo Island (SA): seals, koalas, & roos

Devastating bushfires in the 2020 Australian summer (December 2019-March 2020) wiped out a significant fraction of flora and fauna on Kangaroo Island. For many plant and animal species, recovery will require years to decades.

Kangaroo Island in South Australia was named for the large number of kangaroos, which were a source of fresh meat for the crew of the British ship HMS Investigator in 1802. The ship was captained by Matthew Flinders, who was tasked to chart the southern Australian coastline. Desperate without fresh supplies for months, Flinders named the island in gratitude for the abundance of roo meat.

Then again, the indigenous name for the island is “Karta” or “Island of the Dead.” That’s a little sinister, as something must have happened; either the aborigine population left the island or they died out.

But life bounces back, and there’s plenty of it on this island.

There are plenty of sheep where on grassy meadows, seals at Kingscote Jetty, young and adult seals relaxing and sleeping in the sun at Admirals Arch, free-climbing koala bears and free-roaming kangaroos at the Hanson Bay Wildlife Sanctuary, Ligurian honey bees at Clifford’s Honey Farm, and a lone echidna by the side of a dirt road in the middle of the island.

In making these photos, I used my long-zoom lens; no animals were harmed, poked, prodded, or ridiculed in the process.

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