Via The Atlantic we have the winners, honorable mentions, and just plain great pictures from the annual National Geographic photo contest. There were so many great ones that I couldn’t limit myself to just one or two, so I’m highlighting fifteen. Captions are from The Atlantic.
As always, click to enlarge:
A male jawfish mouthbrooding eggs until they hatch. (© Steven Kovacs)
Many people pilgrimage to Uluru, but what is seen there often depends on where you’ve come from. (© Robert Spanring)
“Splashing”, Grand Prize Winner and winner of the Nature category. This photo was taken when I was taking photos of other insects, as I normally did during macro photo hunting. I wasn’t actually aware of this dragonfly since I was occupied with other objects. When I was about to take a picture of it, it suddenly rained, but the lighting was just superb. I decided to take the shot regardless of the rain. The result caused me to be overjoyed, and I hope it pleases viewers. Location: Batam, Riau Islands, Indonesia. (© Shikhei Goh)
Eruption of the Cordon del Caulle. (© Ricardo Mohr)
“Sulfuric Fire Festival”, honorable mention in Places category. Once a year, Formosa fishermen’s unique sulfuric fire fishing ritual is handed down from generation to generation. Location: Taipei (© Hung-Hsiu Shih)
An unexpected side-effect of the 2010 flooding in parts of Sindh, Pakistan, was that millions of spiders climbed up into the trees to escape the rising flood waters; because of the scale of the flooding and the fact that the water took so long to recede, many trees became cocooned in spiders webs. People in the area had never seen this phenomenon before, but they also reported that there were less mosquitos than they would have expected, given the amount of standing water that was left. Not being bitten by mosquitoes was one small blessing for people that had lost everything in the floods. (© Russell Watkins)
My second favorite:
“The Hunt”, honorable mention in Nature category. I personally believe that, beyond the formal representation of reality, mediated by the technical instruments necessary to fix an image in time, photography is made of insights. The shot is the last act of image capturing and in many ways the easiest part of the whole process. This panning effect, even in its imperfection, with the chromatic harmony of the background, with all the needless information eliminated and the luck of having the big cat’s lifted tail in symmetry with the impala horns, brings the observer inside the hunting without distractions. Location: Kenya, Masai Mara National Reserve(© Stefano Pesarelli)
“Waterway to Orbit”, honorable mention in Places category. Space shuttle Endeavour STS-130 launches into orbit toward the east, as the stars and waning crescent moon trail toward the west, leaving a beautiful reflection on the Intracoastal Waterway in Ponte Vedra, Florida. This 132-second time exposure of the final night launch of a space shuttle, from launch through SRB separation, was taken 115 miles north of Launch Pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center. Location: Ponte Vedra, Florida (© James Vernacotola)
Beluga whales in the arctic having fun. (© Dafna Ben Nun)
Yala National park of Sri Lanka is best known for leopards, but of course very difficult to get them in action. This is one of the well grown three cubs got excited and started jumping between branches. I got it against the light within fraction of a second.(© Lalith Ekanayake) You can find other entries from the contest here. All are spectacular.
This is a shot of one of the many thermal pools in Yellowstone National Park. (© Danielle Goldstein)
This is my favorite:
Flight of an Eagle owl Photo by Mark Bridger A large adult eagle owl in flight. (© Mark Bridger)
Climbing the Harding Ice-field trail in the rain, has its rewards. I stopped to admire glacier, only to find an adult black bear eating in front of a glowing blue glacier. (© Colin McCrindle)
Of course we must have a felid:
This lynx (Lynx canadensis) flinches its ear at bothersome gnats in the late evening summer sun in Alaska. (© Jimmy Tohill)
This photo was taken in the Upper Antelope Canyon near Page (AZ) and it shows the amazing effect of the sand thrown in the air and struck by the rays of the sun. (© Angiolo Manetti )
You can see all the winners, submissions, and editors’ favorites at the National Geographic website.
Very nice. If you like photography and you have an iPad you should get the 500px app — stunning photos that are continually updated.
On second thought, I don’t know why I even suggest this. You’ll either get it or you won’t because it’s predestined. 🙂
“On second thought, I don’t know why I even suggest this. You’ll either get it or you won’t because it’s predestined.”
That’s like saying there’s no point in feeding valid data to a computer because computers are deterministic; it’s fallacious thinking. Of course the folks who commit such fallacies are “predestined” to do so, but that’s a “predestined” causal consequence of their being broken in a certain way, which is a “predestined” causal consequence of their histories.
So, we suggest things to people because we want to influence their behavior … that we want that because we’re built so as to want it has no bearing on whether the suggestion is warranted.
I must be walking in on another conversation.
But regarding “predestined” do we not acknowledge that it is meaningless? In that (a) there is no god, and (b) scientific determinism may not reflect reality.
I] – Determinism – Everything follows natural laws, and (a) even if humans do not know those laws or (b) even it it is not _possible_ for humans to know those laws, such underlying order exists by which we can say everthing is natural.
Given this option, determinism is meaningless because we can’t predict anything anyway.
II] – Second option – Under some interpretations of quantum mechanics we would say that no only is it not possible to describe a system before observation, but such does not exist. Therefore predestination is meaningless and we cannot even say “determinism exists in some sense that we cannot measure”
I’m not talking about the BS pseudoscientific mysticism nonscientists sometimes latch onto with QM. I mean, this is a very real interpretation of physics which is logical and mathematically sound.
Given this option (arguably the more likely one) determinism is meaningless for more profound reasons.
I wasn’t aware of this app and don’t have an iPad. Now that I am aware of it I am a lot more likely to get it if I ever get an iPad as the knowledge of it is now part of the inputs of my brain.
You were predetermined to try to jab Jerry about predeterminism due to the input of Jerry saying predeterminism is the case and you apparently not believing it to be the case.
Is it just me or should the lynx be captioned “Why so serious?”
I should look as good as that lynx when I get up in the morning.
Thank you love?
😉
ps. Not in that way. hehe!
Jerry
You are a remarkable human being, I love you with all my ‘heart’.
xx
ps. predestined
Wow. So beautiful–thanks!
Wish we had those spiders here back during tropical storm Allison. Mosquito plague was horrible and the storm killed a good chunk of the bat population.
I don’t think that spiders made those webs. I think it is much more likely to have been caterpillars, which will do this kind of thing anyway, and would perhaps have an increased density on any given tree due to the flooding. The mosquito business is neither here not there.
If caterpillars, one would not expect the foliage to remain intact, as it apparently did. I find spiders more plausible for the webbing, but not necessary for the decrease in mosquitos. Many mosquito eggs require shallow flooding, barely covering them, to stimulate them hatch, and it seems more likely any waiting eggs were not triggered by such high water, or water movement killed the small larvae, or . . .
The above was unfinished. Delete if you wish, Jerry.
If caterpillars, one would not expect the foliage to remain intact, as it apparently did. I find spiders more plausible for the webbing, but not necessary for the decrease in mosquitos. Many mosquito eggs require shallow flooding, barely covering them, to stimulate them hatch, and it seems more likely any waiting eggs were not triggered by such high water, or water movement killed the small larvae, or . . .
I noted not one, but three felids in this collection, but not complaining.
They are all wonderful. The big cat hunting the impala could be a cave painting.
Why does the male jawfish have correctly coloured starboard and port eyes?
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