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Nikon D4 | ISO 800 | 500mm lens | f / 4.0 | 1/8000 second. Nothing like a day game to freeze the action with a silly high shutter speed.
View in FULL size. Rocks slide across the dry lake at Racetrack Playa, Death Valley, California. Some people call this the Devil's Racetrack, but I didn't see no devils! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racetrack_Playa
For Sliders Sunday
You may have heard of the man in the moon, but what about the man in the laundry?
After I pulled a load of white socks and underwear out of the dryer on a recent day, I glanced down at the laundry basket and saw what appeared to be a face staring back at me. I gently set down the basket and went to get my camera. It wasn’t until after I had taken a photo of this phenomenon that I noticed what even appeared to be catch lights within the eye sockets.
For this week’s Sliders Sunday, I used the solarization slider in Color EFEX Pro 3 to enhance the visibility of the face, and then added some appropriate color.
The result? Say hello to Underwear Man!
HSS!
photos from an undated box of Kodachrome slides. Writing on slide reads, "View from Restaurant, near Geneva."
The pond slider (Trachemys scripta) is a species of common, medium-sized, semiaquatic turtle. Three subspecies are described, the most recognizable of which is the red-eared slider (T. s. elegans), which is popular in the pet trade and has been introduced to other parts of the world by people releasing it to the wild. Hatchling and juvenile pond sliders have a green upper shell (carapace), yellow bottom shell (plastron), and green and yellow stripes and markings on their skin. These patterns and colors in the skin and shell fade with age until the carapace is a muted olive green to brown and the plastron is a dull yellow or darker. Some sliders become almost black with few visible markings. The carapace is oval with a bit of rounding and a central crest with knobs, but these features soften and fade with age, adults being smoother and flatter. For determining an adult slider's sex, males typically have much longer front claws than adult females, while females usually have shorter, more slender tails than males. Their lifespans range from 20 to 50 years.
Etymology
The origin of the name slider stems from the behavior of these turtles when startled. Groups of sliders, sometimes quite large, as well as many other types of less abundant freshwater turtles, are often seen basking and sunning on logs, branches, and vegetation at or even well above the water's surface, but they readily and quickly scramble if they sense danger, shooting back in and darting away to safety underwater.
Distribution
Pond sliders are native to the south-central and southeastern United States and northern Mexico.
In the 1900s, many pond sliders were captured for sale. In the 1950s, millions of turtles were being farmed and shipped abroad as part of the pet trade.
These turtles often compete with native species for food, habitat, and other resources. Eventually, they bully many native species out of basking sites, where sunlight (and warmth) is available for the species. When basking, pond sliders commonly bask on birds' nests, thereby killing the eggs. They also prey on young birds.
Turtles that were raised in captivity can develop diseases that are unfamiliar to native species, which can be harmful. Turtles raised in captivity are often released because they become too much to handle or grow bigger than expected. Not uncommonly, they also escape.
Conservationists have warned owners of turtles to not release them into the wild. Many states also have passed legislation to control the possession and release of pond sliders. Two states have completely banned the sale of these turtles.
In Europe, T. scripta is included since 2016 in the list of Invasive Alien Species of Union concern (the Union list). This implies that this species cannot be imported, bred, transported, commercialized, or intentionally released into the environment in the whole of the European Union. By the first quarter of the 21st century, this species has spread widely across the waters of Europe and Southeast Asia, and is also found in the Urals and Siberia.
Hybridization between yellow-bellied and red-eared sliders is not uncommon where the ranges of the two subspecies overlap.
This was a possible contender for the Saturday challenge for 2nd April, ‘units of measure’. Well, there are plenty of units here, though what they’re measuring I’ve long forgotten, if I ever knew! I bought this slide rule in 1965 when I went up to University to read for a science degree, but I never really got to grips with it - and indeed I never really got to grips with the degree course either, perhaps because it was about then I discovered that there were far more exciting things in life! And complex mathematical calculations weren’t really called for during my Customs career, as long as I could work out how much VAT was on something at whatever %age was in force, so the slide rule has remained in the back of a drawer ever since.
And who uses a slide rule these days, with all the calculating power you need right there on your tablet or phone? Though of course a slide rule never needs recharging, so this one’s as ready for action now as it was 57 years ago - if only I could remember how to work it!
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33rd British Coach Rally
Chessington World of Adventures
Saturday 24 August 1987
Copyright Steve Guess MMXVIII
A playground slide and hazy crescent moon.
SD1 with 10-20/3.5 at 10mm ISO100 f/6.3 30sec NR: C0.00/L0.00
Visits to China Motor Bus (CMB) depots at North Point and Chai Wan
Monday 11 February 1991
Copyright Steve Guess MMXX