Tag: photographs
Couple Photographs HUGE SASQUATCH in South Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains (PHOTO)
A South Carolina couple was hiking through the Blue Ridge Mountains near the North Carolina border. They encounter a large Sasquatch that roared at them. They were able to get a photograph.
“I’ve had this picture for a while but was too scared to share. The First Nations person who saw the photo stated to me it was in fact the real deal. The only reason I’m writing you sir is that I believe people need to see this.
My friend John had taken a lady friend for a hike near a lake in South Carolina heading into the Blue Ridge Mountains and then into North Carolina. This area is about as rough as we have. They had been walking for around an hour. John said he had that ‘being watched’ feeling for a while but wasn’t too worried because he had brought his .44 Magnum with him.
They stopped walking so they could take a break. John walked over to a tree slightly off the trail and relieved himself. Big mistake. That’s when the Sasquatch screamed at him with that high pitch scaring him to death tone. It then followed up with a deep bass roar that you could feel in your chest. It grabbed a tree and was shaking it back and forth violently. Somehow they’re able to get one picture, one only. Maybe she already had the camera up and it was just luck. I don’t know.
John stated they ran as hard and as long as they could back. They weren’t followed as best he could tell. John said he never even thought to pull out his pistol, just to run. Whatever they saw scared him bad. it was not a black bear, not a regular human either. You can see the hair almost glistening. I can make out a right nipple and you can see the cut in its chest. Long muscular arms, flat bulbous nose, no neck, dome head, etc.
The date was February 25, 2021.”
Transcribed Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1y5oqVFjhEc
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These photographs capture the dynamism and diversity of nature
Last month, London’s National History Museum announced the photographers who were “highly commended” in their annual Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition: a collection of stunning, and occasionally harrowing, images of nature worldwide.
Today, the winners of the competition are being crowned. Photographers from around the globe are being commended for capturing the depths of nature, from a fairy-tale-esque atmosphere in Mount Olympus, Greece to a giant sea star in Japan’s Kinko Bay. Elsewhere, the Tohorā whales of New Zealand find new life after being hunted to near extinction, and the “dying” Lake Amatitlá of Guatemala is seen contaminated by the likes of sewage and agricultural fertilisers. Categories ranged from “animal portraits” to “natural artistry”, and the corresponding images transcend these titles.
Here are a selection of the winners from this year’s cohort (warning: some of the images are disturbing).
Credit: Dmitry Kokh.
This harrowing photograph captures polar bears at a deserted settlement in Kolyuchin, Russia. The photographer Dmitry Kokh spotted the bears roaming the area, as they tend to do in the Chukchi Sea region during summer months.
“As they explored every window and door, Dmitry used a low-noise drone to take a picture that conjures up a post-apocalyptic future,” reads the accompanying caption.
Credit: Brent Stirton.
A harrowing yet touching image, “Ndakasi’s passing” won the photojournalism category. Photographer Brent Stirton once captured mountain gorilla Ndakasi’s rescue 13 years ago when she was a two-month-old, after “her troop was brutally killed by a powerful charcoal mafia as a threat to park rangers”. Now, he memorialises her passing in Democratic Republic of the Congo, lying in the arms of her rescuer and caregiver, the ranger Andre Bauma.
Credit: Agorastos Papatsanis.
Agorastos Papatsanis delves into the magical forest of Mount Olympus, where fungi and a flowing bed of water came together to create a storybook-like scene. The photograph won under the “Plants and Fungi” category. He waited for the right light, then “used a wide-angle lens and flashes to highlight the morels’ labyrinthine forms”.
Credit: Tony Wu.
Tony Wu photographed the reproductive dance of a giant sea star, winning the competition’s “underwater” category.
“As the surrounding water filled with sperm and eggs from spawning sea stars, Tony faced several challenges,” reads the caption. “Stuck in a small, enclosed bay with only a macro lens for photographing small subjects, he backed up to squeeze the undulating sea star into his field of view”. A “galaxy-like” scene ensued.
Credit: Mateusz Piesiak.
Mateusz Piesiak bagged the “Rising Star Portfolio Award” for his image of a cluster of birds in Poland. He managed to snap the exact moment “when a passing peregrine falcon caused some of the dunlins to fly up”, according to the caption.
Credit: Fernando Constantino Martínez Belmar.
“Every evening at sundown in the Cave of the Hanging Snakes, thousands of bats leave for the night’s feeding,” reads the caption for Fernando Constantino Martínez Belmar’s startling image. “It is also when hungry rat snakes emerge, dangling from the roof to snatch their prey in mid-air.”
Belmar photographed a Yucatan rat snake snapping up a bat, seconds before retreating into a crevice with its prey. The image was shot in Kantemó, Mexico, where the aforementioned cave is infamous.
Credit: Junji Takasago
An ethereal image, “heavenly flamingos” focuses on a group of Chilean flamingos high in the Andes. Junji Takasago created the dream-like photograph in Salar de Uyuni, or the world’s largest salt flat, located in Bolivia.
“Framing their choreography within the reflected clouds, he fought back his altitude sickness to capture this dream-like scene,” the description explains. Takasago won the “natural artistry” category for this one.
Credit: José Juan Hernández Martinez.
José Juan Hernández Martinez photographed a Canary Islands houbara’s courtship display, in which the bird puffed out its body after a “frenzied performance”. The performance is a flurry of movement, and Martinez captured the bird in a moment of rest, using the light of the moon. The photograph won for “Animal Portraits”.
Credit: Richard Robinson.
The tohorā, captured by Richard Robinson, are “a population of whales that has survived against all odds”, according to the caption for the image. Robinson photographed a pair of whales ready to mate, signifying “new hope” for the animals. The image was shot under a New Zealand Department of Conservation permit. For the image, Robinson won in the category “Oceans: The Bigger Picture”.
Credit: Daniel Núñez.
Daniel Núñez used a drone to take this vivid image of Lake Amatitlán in Guatemala. The photograph embodies a stark contrast between the forest and the algal growth that has contaminated the lake, which takes “75,000 tonnes of waste from Guatemala City every year”.
“It was a sunny day with perfect conditions,” the photographer said of the moment he got the image, “but it is a sad and shocking moment”.
“Efforts to restore the Amatitlán wetland are underway but have been hampered by a lack of funding and allegations of political corruption,” according to the caption. He won for “Wetlands – The Bigger Picture”.
Credit: Nick Kanakis.
In Colombia’s Tatamá National Park, Nick Kanakis caught a grey-breasted wren foraging in a patch of leaf litter. The photograph won for capturing the behaviour of birds. This particular wren was seen “pressing its ear to the ground to listen for small insects”. Kanakis won for capturing the behaviour of birds.
Credit: Laurent Ballesta.
The seabed off of Adélie Land, a territory in Antarctica, sees large batches of sea life. In this image, taken by Laurent Ballesta, a tree-shaped sponge is covered with giant ribbon worms and sea stars. The photograph was taken 32 metres (or 105 feet) under East Antarctic ice, bagging the “Portfolio” award. Ballesta, a biologist in addition to photographer, explored the biodiversity in Antarctica via an expedition that “took two years to plan, a team of expert divers, and specially developed kit”.
Credit: Karine Aigner.
In South Texas, Karine Aigner used a macro lens to photograph an instance where “a buzzing ball of cactus bees spun over the hot sand”. The dynamic image won under the “behaviour: Invertebrates” category.
Credit: Karine Aigner.
Aigner also won the “Photojournalist Story Award” for this image of a Cuban bullfinch. The caption reads, “A Cuban bullfinch is positioned alongside a road so that it becomes accustomed to the hubbub of street life and therefore less likely to be distracted during a competition”. The competition being referred to is the long-running Cuban tradition of keeping songbirds for bird-singing contests; the birds “have provided companionship, entertainment and friendly competition within the community.”
Credit: Anand Nambiar.
In the Kibber Wildlife Sanctuary, situated in Himachal Pradesh, India, a snow leopard is seen charging towards Himalayan ibex, moving closer to the mountain’s steep edge. Anand Nambiar photographed the movement “from a vantage point across the ravine”, winning the “behaviour: mammals” award.
Credit: Daniel Mideros.
Daniel Mideros captured a bear, whose species are often found across western Venezuela to Bolivia, looking across a natural – and disappearing – landscape in Ecuador. The image won for “the animals in their environment” category. Mideros “set up camera traps along a wildlife corridor used to reach high-altitude plateaus”, reads the caption.
Wildlife Photographer of the Year is developed and produced by the Natural History Museum, London. For more information, you can visit the website here.
iPhone hack: Tech whizz reveals how to draw perfect shapes on photographs and screenshots
Dad Photographs Son for Doctor. Google Flags Him as Criminal, Notifies Police
Mark’s wife grabbed her husband’s phone and texted a few high-quality close-ups of their son’s groin area to her iPhone so she could upload them to the health care provider’s messaging system. In one, Mark’s hand was visible, helping to better display the swelling. Mark and his wife gave no thought to the tech giants that made this quick capture and exchange of digital data possible, or what those giants might think of the images. With help from the photos, the doctor diagnosed the issue and prescribed antibiotics, which quickly cleared it up….
Two days after taking the photos of his son, Mark’s phone made a blooping notification noise: His account had been disabled because of “harmful content” that was “a severe violation of Google’s policies and might be illegal.” A “learn more” link led to a list of possible reasons, including “child sexual abuse & exploitation….” He filled out a form requesting a review of Google’s decision, explaining his son’s infection. At the same time, he discovered the domino effect of Google’s rejection. Not only did he lose emails, contact information for friends and former colleagues, and documentation of his son’s first years of life, his Google Fi account shut down, meaning he had to get a new phone number with another carrier. Without access to his old phone number and email address, he couldn’t get the security codes he needed to sign in to other internet accounts, locking him out of much of his digital life….
A few days after Mark filed the appeal, Google responded that it would not reinstate the account, with no further explanation. Mark didn’t know it, but Google’s review team had also flagged a video he made and the San Francisco Police Department had already started to investigate him…. In December 2021, Mark received a manila envelope in the mail from the San Francisco Police Department. It contained a letter informing him that he had been investigated as well as copies of the search warrants served on Google and his internet service provider. An investigator, whose contact information was provided, had asked for everything in Mark’s Google account: his internet searches, his location history, his messages and any document, photo and video he’d stored with the company. The search, related to “child exploitation videos,” had taken place in February, within a week of his taking the photos of his son.
Mark called the investigator, Nicholas Hillard, who said the case was closed. Mr. Hillard had tried to get in touch with Mark but his phone number and email address hadn’t worked….
Mark appealed his case to Google again, providing the police report, but to no avail…. A Google spokeswoman said the company stands by its decisions…
“The day after Mark’s troubles started, the same scenario was playing out in Texas,” the Times notes, quoting a technologist at the EFF who speculates other people experiencing the same thing may not want to publicize it. “There could be tens, hundreds, thousands more of these.”
Reached for a comment on the incident, Google told the newspaper that “Child sexual abuse material is abhorrent and we’re committed to preventing the spread of it on our platforms.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.