Least interesting

According to this script http://bytesmasher.com/leastinteresting this is my least interesting photo (on 02/27/2011). I don't know quite why, and I can't say I agree. Surely, this photo is less interesting. In any case, it was a lovely day was we took the ferry from Budapest up the Danube River. Flickr, sorry to let you know, but this is really not my least interesting photo, at least for me.

Perspective

I love the DC Metro. Not only is it a good way to get around much of the city, but I think the stations are amazing places for photos. I love the perspective, the motion of the cars, the dim lighting that allows long exposures to blur the cars and create light trails.

Points of view

The same ride, different frames of reference. What does this say? I'm not going for anything deep, but riding on roller coasters, and watching them being ridden is fun, but generally too short.

Washington Monument by night from a train

Most of the photos that I take from moving vehicles at night are composed of wild, violent streaks of light, however in this case the slight gentle motion of the train made for a pleasing painting with the light. The landmarks, are recognizable if you know the scene, to left is the Washington Monument and to the right is the Jefferson Memorial. I don't have much else to say, but take chances to find the happy accidents.

Monkey's inmonkeyity to monkey

This is Duke. He is a mantled howler monkey living in Costa Rica. He was found abandoned on the forest floor as a baby and brought a local animal sanctuary. He is a perfectly healthy male, so why did the staff at the sanctuary hypothesize he was abandoned? You can't see it in the picture, but he has white patches of fur on this tail. The staff suggested this difference might be enough to make his mother reject him.

Living around three species of monkeys for a week was quite an experience. I had always thought them interesting, but I had not thought much about them beyond that. In observing them, it became clear to me that there are so many traits that I thought to be human that are distributed more greatly in the evolution of primates. Their ability to learn and reason, to predict. Even the expressiveness of their faces surprised me. Sadly we saw evidence of their response to abuse which seemed "human", and happily their ability to recover.

One of the many episodes I remember that demonstrated just how smart they are occurred in our last few moments at the facility. We were paying our bills and had put out some money as a gratuity for the staff. One of the spider monkeys saw the money grabbed it and reveled in the commotion it caused. She only ate a portion of the bills. After it had settled down and the money was recovered, my wife tucked the money away in what she thought to be a safe place, inside the pocket of a folder. Well, the monkey had been playing non-chalant but keenly observing. When we moved from the table, she sprinted across the yard, jumped to the table, opened the folder, and the entire scene replayed itself. Monkeys are, unsurprisingly, human-like.

Returning to Duke, it is interesting that that difference may have such terrible consequences in monkey society, and sadly it something apparently shared with humans. But as my friend Jeff often says, while we are products of evolution, one trait we have is our ability to transcend our evolutionary past, if we try. I have seen our ability to move beyond what once might have been adaptive. I hope we can do it more often. I wonder whether that ability is more broadly distributed in the evolutionary past?

And, Duke? He apparently got over his rough start in life and is leading his own troupe of "misfit" howlers.

Putting Madison in a good light

I am preparing materials to used when inviting my colleagues to Madison for a conference. I am having a bit of a hard time determining what might be short enough to be effective but not so long that it bores people. Then, I look at this picture. I think in many ways the city sells itself (at least in the right time of the year).

Best viewed large

I like this photo, but I encourage you to view it larger. Look at the eye of the bird in this size and at the larger size.

One frustration I have about looking at my photos in Flickr, and most sites that resize images is that I optimize the brightness on a larger view. As such, they are suboptimal and generally appear darker than I would like at the reduced size. If I optimize for viewing at the "normal" Flickr size, they are washed out at larger sizes.

Just a little whine for the evening, but perhaps a suggestion in there as well. Do others experience this? Could Flickr develop an algorithm that boosts brightness of images just bit the images that they are rendering down to a smaller size.