Photography

Davis is an Australian nature photographer. He currently lives in New South Wales. He is a professional photographer who specializes in the outback. Reporting for the Guardian, Davis’ captured a rare sight. The most stunning photo of all is that of the tree which has no leaves at all — what you’re seeing is a tree full of Budgerigars:

Wildlife photographer Charles Davis has been photographing nature for more than a decade. Budgerigars can usually be seen in flocks of about 100 birds, but after rainfall can number in the thousands. Capturing such a gathering was something he had always wanted to do.

[…]

Budgies taking flight from long dry Autumn grass. There were so many budgies flying around that Davis became cold from the volume of air they were displacing with their wings.

A great photo essay, but good lord — the cover photo is breathtaking if not shocking. Which, by the way is not a doctored photo. In fact, there’s a video that captures the moment exactly as it happened.

If you have been living under a rock, Texas recently had a historic snowstorm system decimate its poorly regulated infrastructure. It’s estimated that millions of Texans had pipes bursts, flooding, and countless more experienced blackouts for more than 48 hours. Some regions experienced below 0º conditions.

Devastating as it was, I was entranced to see this photo of this particular cave (and there are a lot of them out in the Hill Country) thawing out with a magical display of icicles:

I’ve been isolated in my Inwood (Manhattan) apartment since March 6th. I’m fortunate (and privileged) to be able to work from home. You could say things have been busy at work.

At home, during off-hours I try to keep busy to keep my mind busy. It’s important to keep myself occupied. I want to avoid the insane news cycle sometimes. Most of the time it’s nothing new. It’s just a never-ending story of horror-show.

Before the pandemic set-in, I ordered a new camera from eBay. I’ve been eager to find a camera that checked all the boxes for me. Living in NYC (at the moment), I really wanted to find a camera that could be my daily-carry. Maybe a fixed-lens, maybe not — but definitely lightweight and perhaps something small or akin to point-and-shoot cameras. Mainly out of laziness, I would prefer a fixed lens, but I was open to an interchangeable lens systems.

I love Sony glass, but I already own a a6300, and the Sony RX1R isn’t cheap (even used). I looked into getting a Leica Q or Q2, and wasn’t exactly in love with the price. Both are seemingly fantastic full-frame fixed lens cameras. But, I’m a huge fan of buying used cameras, and could just not find either camera at a decent used-price range within my budget.

So, I did what everyone else does. I bought a Fujifilm X100F. Buying used cameras on eBay was incredible. It was seemingly brand-new honestly (under 400 shutter count, which apparently isn’t very accurate for this model) — and boy does it deliver. I can see why the X-series is so wildly popular. Heck, some even call it a poor man’s Leica.

Here’s some images I’ve taken indoors and outdoors over the past couple of months while practicing social isolation here in NYC (none have been shopped or processed, these are just raw JPGs from the camera):

I came across these via the r/space subreddit. In the comments, a Redditor revealed that these images were processed by Seán Doran and Gerald Eichstädt and after looking through the photostream, I was completely blown away.

It’s nuts that we have a spacecraft out there in void. All alone. Snapping and transmitting these beautiful images of the Jovian giant to us. We are not worthy.

Where do these photos come from? The Juno spacecraft of course! This spacecraft and mission has planned to orbit the gas giant Jupiter more than 35 times (these have been organized into perjoves), and has a planned termination date for 2021. A remarkable achievement.

Near the city-center of Rome, lies the Vatican City (which is technically it’s own country and is one of the few countries who is unable to host foreign embassies on their soil). Much of Rome and Vatican City is so unbelievable beautiful. Don’t take my word for it. Listen to the real expert — Anthony Bourdain. It’s one of my personal favorite episodes of Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown. The food alone, is reason to visit the region.

Right next to Vatican City is the small, quaint, and just gorgeous little neighborhood of Prati. It looks just as charming at sea-level as it does from above (via Daily Overview):

The Maxar Worldview-3 satellite is a high-resolution commercial satellite armed with an impressive 31cm panchromatic resolution DSLR camera. Kottke shared this impressive low-angle shot the camera took of NYC:

Here’s a tighter crop which includes the Hudson river, East New Jersey, lower Manhattan, and Brooklyn (Prospect Park is huge!):

The Maxar Worldview-3 satellite is still in service today. It is not to be confused with the Maxar Worldview-4 satellite, which failed and ultimately lost control of the satellite mid-orbit earlier this year.

Old Harry Rocks are a uniquely gorgeous set of chalk rock formations in Dorset, England. Fun-fact, Dorset and the surrounding Isle of Purbeck are incredibly ancient. Known visitors to Dorset date as back to 8000BCE 😮