benhästen
I am a photographer.
I like lurchers.
horseofbone.com
maudkristina at gmail dot com
(stills photographer unknown)
“In 1920, the great Harry Houdini starred in The Master Mystery; a fifteen-part serial that introduced one of the first robot villains to the screen.
Actually, it turns out in the end that it’s really a man who calls himself ‘The Automaton’ and runs about in a robot suit for no thoroughly examined reason, which means that we have a two for one deal here: One of, if not the first robots in the cinema and the prototype for every blasted Scooby Doo plot ever written.”
via davidzondy.com
thank you monstercrazy
Photo by Birte Person
White Tiger Myth Buster video
“Did you know the only way to produce a white tiger is through severe inbreeding of brother to sister, father to daughter and mother to son? Did you know that there is no such species as a Royal White Bengal Tiger?
(…)
To quote from Dr. Ron Tilson, Conservation Director of the Minnesota Zoo and manager of the world renown Tiger Species Survival Plan, ‘The white tiger controversy among zoos is a small part ethics and a large part economics. The tiger Species Survival Plan has condemned breeding white tigers because of their mixed ancestry, most have been hybridized with other subspecies and are of unknown lineage, and because they serve no conservation purpose. Owners of white tigers say they are popular exhibit animals and increase zoo attendance and revenues as well. The same rationalization can be applied to the selective propagation of white lions, king cheetahs and other phenotypically aberrant animals.
However, there is an unspoken issue that shames the very integrity of zoos, their alleged conservation programs and their message to the visiting public. To produce white tigers or any other phenotypic curiosity, directors of zoos and other facilities must continuously inbreed father to daughter and father to granddaughter and so on. At issue is a contradiction of fundamental genetic principles upon which all Species Survival Plans for endangered species in captivity are based. White tigers are an aberration artificially bred and proliferated by some zoos, private breeders and a few circuses who do so for economic rather than conservation reasons.’
As for breeding tigers of any color, Ron Tilson says, ‘For private owners to say, ‘We’re saving tigers,’ is a lie,” Tilson says. ‘They are not saving tigers; they’re breeding them for profit.’
(…)
Consider this: Only 1 in 4 tiger cubs from a white tiger bred to an orange tiger carrying the white gene are born white, and 80% of those die from birth defects associated with the inbreeding necessary to cause a white coat. Of those surviving, most have such profound birth defects, such as immune deficiency, scoliosis of the spine (distorted spine), cleft palates, mental impairments and grotesquely crossed eyes that bulge from their skull that only a small percentage are suitable for display. Due to these birth defects the white tigers often die an early death. According to some tiger trainers, only 1 in 30 of those white cats will consistently perform. The number of tigers that have to be produced and disposed of in order to fill the public’s desire to see white tigers on display is staggering.”
Via Big Cat Rescue
Thank you allcreatures and blue nemesis
Famous Monsters of Filmland # 3, August 1959
thank you thesweetestpsychopath
California sea lion (Zalophus californianus)
Monterey Bay, California, USA
Photo by Kevin Schafer
“Monterey Bay is home to a large number of sea lions, many of which spend the day resting on rocky breakwaters at the entrance to the harbor. Intensely social, they often huddle together or use one another as mattresses or pillows. Here I was struck by the almost affectionate pose of these two pups trying to grab a nap amid the chaos of the haul-out.”
Via Ocean Views - Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History
Thanks to findout
(unnamed dog)
Polaroid by John Ryan Brubaker
“The Portrait Booth Project is a live photographic homage to the intimate, quirky and often amazing portrait photography of the late 19th Century.
It’s equal parts random street photo booth, old-timey family vacation photo and circa-1890 portrait studio. I’m shooting with a 1968 Polaroid on instant black and white film in a 7-foot-tall canvas booth. Weather permitting, I should be out capturing strangers in varying locales about Portland over the course of the summer.”
Photo by Brian Duffy
“The thing with negatives is they don’t burn as fast as you think they will. I’d thrown them into this fire bin and I just had to stoke them and I was pouring white spirit in to try and keep it going.”
Photographer of swinging sixties Brian Duffy to put surviving works on show
Chris Beetles Art Gallery, London
Duffy - 14 October until 7 November 2009
![(photographer unknown)
“‘I’ve consistently tried to create an alternate reality,’ she says. ‘I’m removed in my real life, and unable to express certain things face to face. So I have always found myself in this fantasy world. That’s why I started writing songs and stories from a very young age. I’d much rather walk around anonymously cooking up tales than face the people that I have known forever.’”
Jenny Lewis
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(photographer unknown)
“‘I’ve consistently tried to create an alternate reality,’ she says. ‘I’m removed in my real life, and unable to express certain things face to face. So I have always found myself in this fantasy world. That’s why I started writing songs and stories from a very young age. I’d much rather walk around anonymously cooking up tales than face the people that I have known forever.’”
The Eagle Has Risen: Stellar Spire in the Eagle Nebula
A billowing tower of gas and dust rises from the stellar nursery known as the Eagle Nebula. This small piece of the Eagle Nebula is 57 trillion miles long (91.7 trillion km).
Credit: NASA, ESA, and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
Photograph by H. C. Ellis
”’..we will explore hell.’ Mr. Thomkins seemed too weak, or unresisting, or apathetic to protest. His face betrayed a queer mixture of emotion, part suffering, part revulsion, part a sort of desperate eagerness for more.
We passed through a large, hideous, fanged, open mouth in an enormous face from which shone eyes of blazing crimson. Curiously enough, it adjoined heaven, whose cool blue lights contrasted strikingly with the fierce ruddiness of hell. Red-hot bars and gratings through which flaming coals gleamed appeared in the walls within the red mouth. A placard announced that should the temperature of this inferno make one thirsty, innumerable bocks might be had at sixty-five centimes each. A little red imp guarded the throat of the monster into whose mouth we had walked; he was cutting extraordinary capers, and made a great show of stirring the fires. The red imp opened the imitation heavy metal door for our passage to the interior, crying, - ‘Ah, ah, ah! still they come! Oh, how they will roast!’ Then he looked keenly at Mr. Thomkins. It was interesting to note how that gentleman was always singled out by these shrewd students of humanity. This particular one added with great gusto, as he narrowly studied Mr. Thomkins, ‘Hist! ye infernal whelps; stir well the coals and heat red the prods, for this is where we take our revenge on earthly saintliness!’ ‘Enter and be damned, - the Evil One awaits you!’ growled a chorus of rough voices as we hesitated before the scene confronting us.”
from Bohemian Paris of Today
by W.C. Morrow & Edouard Cucuel (London, 1899)
more images here
Big thanks to Eleanor
Painting by Daniel Peacock
“I’m always going for trickery (…) or a multi-dimensional thing. It might be a private joke that just never translates, you know?”
Thanks to liquidnight
Still from Simple Men
(photographer unknown)
“Disaffected suburban cowboys, who might have stumbled out of a Sam Shepherd play or taken leave from a Raymond Carver story, they lurch around laconically, making gnomic remarks which seek to explain the universe concisely.”
From a review by Adrian Gargett
