Selected Snapshots

Praying Mantis

2007-12-29T14:46:00.001-05:00

A praying mantis was lingering outside this fall. They look so beautiful up close.

Garden of the Gods, Colorado Springs, CO

2006-12-07T15:34:00.000-05:00

An honest-to-goodness mirage,

2006-05-24T14:06:00.001-04:00

Midway in the desert between San Ignacio in Mexico and the lagoons where the gray whales bear their young, there is an oasis. You can tell that we were approaching it because of the scrubby grass in the foreground. What looks like water in the back isn't - it's a mirage.

Gazela restoration

2006-02-27T16:35:00.001-05:00

View of the Gazela, a 3-masted barkentine built in 1883 in Portugal but now residing in Philadelphia. The ship requires constant maintenance, done by an all-volunteer crew (one member of which is Dan). --spleen

real person who looks like a statue

2006-02-06T11:39:00.000-05:00

A street performer who does absolutely nothing. He just stands there while [Michael Jackson's] "thriller" album thunders from his boom box. The real draw is the audience and their reactions. For this, they give him money! This strikes me as a purely American artist. Not only does he do little or nothing, but he gets others to do the work for him while he rakes in the cash. --Dan

poison ivy with "poison ivy"

2006-02-02T23:31:00.000-05:00

Revenge is a dish best served by insects. Poison Ivy, with "poison ivy" (actually mites). -Dan

Fish "cleaning station"

2006-01-23T22:32:00.000-05:00

A "Cleaning Station" seen off of Maeda point in Okinawa (Japan). The large fish is allowing itself to be cleaned by the small wrasse above it. Out of the frame, a line of other fish waited their turn. --Dan

Butterfly

2006-01-20T16:33:00.000-05:00

Barricuda

2006-01-16T15:43:00.000-05:00

Here's a picture of a barricuda in the Florida keys (mid-keys, near Looe Key). Barricuda can be more aggressive than sharks - the people on our scuba trip didn't want anything to do with them. You can't wear earings or jewelry in the water because the shiny metal attracts them and they might lunge for your ear.

There was a school of fish surrounding the barricuda, but they knew to stick to his side. The barricuda is thin and narrow, like an arrow, and they can shoot forwards at incredible speeds but cannot turn as quickly. The fish knew they could hug his sides but wouldn't go anywhere in his forward path!

The Pigeons of London

2006-01-04T13:35:00.000-05:00

Dan with some of the bold pigeons of Trafalgar Square!

Alaskan glacier

2006-01-01T14:16:00.000-05:00

Ice spires on the melting edge of a glacier in Alaska.

Sea lions of San Diego

2005-12-23T13:32:00.000-05:00

Sea lions in Monterey Bay, San Diego. They pile up on the buoy to rest and dive off for a swim. We kayaked close to them and Dan took this photo which is appearing in his 2006 nature calendar. Other pictures in the calendar include the Alaskan mudbeds, Long's Peak in Colorado, and my favorite picture of the orange fish among others. Happy Holidays everyone! -Holly

insect: walking stick

2005-12-22T12:31:00.000-05:00

This might look like a boring picture but look closely - the "hay" in the center is actually an insect known as a 'walking stick'. There are over 3000 varieties of walking sticks identified world wide. They are vegetarians. They have the ability to regrow limbs after several molts. When they lay eggs, the eggs drop to the ground and lay there until hatching. More info is here.

F-117 fighter jet

2005-12-20T13:49:00.000-05:00

The F-117 is so strange-looking that this picture looks like something out of a UFO investigation. I'm sure that it generated many grainy UFO photos when it was a black project. --Dan

Ginkaku-ji Temple in Kyoto, Japan

2005-12-19T12:15:00.000-05:00

Japanese milk

2005-12-14T11:08:00.000-05:00

Japanese vending machines dispense stranger (to an American) and greater varieties of stuff than machines in the US. They also dispense hot coffee and corn soup. I don't know what's in this bottle, but based on the picture, what happens to you if you drink it? Do you get a trinocular peanut-shaped abdominal parasite? Do you become one? I thought it was milk (which I don't drink), so I didn't try it, although I tried almost every other "strange" thing I found, including raw goat meat, jellyfish, etc. --Dan

view of Chicago from up high

2005-12-13T17:14:00.000-05:00

View of the city, looking west from the John Hancock observation deck.

Deception Pass State Park, WA

2005-12-12T13:01:00.000-05:00

This is Dan climbing a ladder at Lighthouse Point, Deception Pass State Park in Washington State. This is a truly beautiful area. Read about hikes and scenery to observe on your travels here (from the Seattle Post-Intelligencier).

Maasai village

2005-12-06T00:31:00.000-05:00

Maasai Mara, Africa - A small village just outside the Oloololo gate. Although the walls are still made of cow dung, the modern expedient of corrugated metal roofing has been adapted. The building on the right is a tavern.

Siberian mountain range (aerial view)

2005-12-02T10:06:00.000-05:00

A Siberian mountain range as seen during Dan's polar flight to Japan. This region looks so vast and so desolate that I feel like I cannot grasp the enormity of our planet.

fish statue, wearing shorts

2005-11-28T16:10:00.000-05:00

My theme lately seems to be gaping-mouthed sea dwellers. Well here's a statue of one, in the middle of a parking lot seemingly in the middle of nowhere, in Washington State (on the Olympic Peninsula). ?? It didn't seem like a publicity tool - none of the stores near it had anything to do with fish or clothing.

me, before applying nightly mudmask

2005-11-23T22:05:00.000-05:00

Ok, I am being bad... but I sometimes feel like this!

smiling dolphin

2005-11-22T22:42:00.000-05:00

From Seaworld, San Diego, a beautiful smiling dolphin from the dolphin pool. They say not to lunge for their faces as dolphins can be pretty sensitive to that, not having any protection around their eyes. Maybe this one came close because we weren't being overly aggressive. Or maybe it thought (hoped?) we'd feed it.

camouflaged bottom-dwelling fish

2005-11-18T13:07:00.000-05:00

Eel in Florida

2005-11-17T16:17:00.000-05:00

Eel have the funniest "expressions" on their faces. Here's one in the Florida keys, off Marathon and Looe Key. The fullsized picture is in Dan's archive. If you click on it, it will enlarge to a 1280x1024 photo you can use for your computer wallpaper. (All his photos are like that, btw.)

View of Alaskan mud beds

2005-11-13T02:43:00.000-05:00

Picture from Alaska. What looks like sand dunes in front is really mud.

Dan in the infrared spectrum

2005-10-21T20:42:00.000-04:00

In case you were wondering what the photographer looks like, here he is, in the infrared!

About this photo he says "You can see the heat of my body pouring out through the ears and other 'hot spots.' We're like furnaces in the infrared!"

bird silhouette (looks like a nectar-drinker)

2005-10-20T17:05:00.000-04:00

Butterfly photo

2005-10-19T12:58:00.000-04:00

Getting out of the realm of the creepy and into the beautiful... here's a butterfly.

largest spider I ever saw

2005-10-18T13:27:00.000-04:00

I am a true arachnophobe. I will jeopardize my own health to get away from a spider. The faster they are, the worse it is. The night I saw this monster (a "rapid wolf spider" and "rapid" here is actually part of its name but no question as to why), I was sick with a high fever and ambled deleriously into the bathroom where I proceeded to simultaneously hit the ceiling and hemmorhage my uvula.

My sweetie came to the rescue. He has designated spider-removal duty in our house. But instead of removing it right away, he spent about an hour photographing it, and then posted it as his computer wallpaper. He has two monitors so a quarter of the room screamed the presence of the hairy monster and I couldn't check my email for two weeks. (He has even more spider photos online.)

School of orange fish

2005-10-16T22:53:00.000-04:00

I love this photo. Dan writes, "These small fish schooled inside the discarded frame of a small aircraft lying near the wreck of the Mahi." This was taken in Oahu, Hawaii.