It’s neat to see the emotions and social structure of other animal groups. This is a photograph that I took in the Serengeti when we came across a herd of elephants. The young elephant on the left was previously playing with a baby elephant and got a little rough. In this picture, the adult female on the right is telling it to knock it off and calm down. After I took this picture, the young elephant started pouting and wandered off moping. If you are out in the world for a while, you start to see that human behavior isn’t really all that exclusive to humans. We are just one group on a long list of complicated, self-aware, creatures.
There is something neat about spending time with things in nature that transcend human lifespans. These bristlecone pines are some of the oldest known individual living tree species. Some trees in this grove are over 4,700 years old. It’s neat to think of these trees as little seedlings 200 years before the pyramids at Giza were built. Although some of the bristlecone groves are very well known, it is neat to run across a small grove in the middle of nowhere in the high mountains. A few times we have sat in a grove and had lunch while out hiking high in the Sierras, and it’s just neat to think of how our modern world is just a tiny moment in time to the tree we are sitting next to.
I’ve been thinking about latitude and climates a lot lately. It’s neat how much climate variation you can see just by going to the other side of a mountain, going up in elevation, or going a little further north. Although I enjoy the mild climates and abundant life of the tropics, I find that I really like to visit the harsher climates of the higher latitudes. The variety is just interesting.
The lava tubes and volcanic features in Hawaii are really interesting. It’s neat to explore freshly created geography that is, in some cases, only a handful of years old.
I photographed this little beaver in the middle of the night in the Canadian arctic neat the Peel River in the Northwest Territories. There were more beavers in the arctic and sub arctic than I expected. Seeing them in that environment, I can’t help but picture them cozy in their dens hibernating during the long winters waiting for those endless summer arctic days, but it’s interesting that thy don’t actually hibernate in the winter.
I was surprised how close this puffy little Anna’s Hummingbird let me get for this photograph. Hummingbirds are such amazing little creatures. I’ll never get tired of their bright colors or crazy social antics. And, if only I could fly like that…..
I took this over/under photograph on a tributary of the King River in Alaska. The fresh runoff was super clear. The small stream wound its way through a green forest of young trees. As I took this image, butterflies darted around. A good memory of a beautiful place.
Michael Fuchs Photography 