Go see Happy Feet (2006). It’s a wonderful and entertaining movie. The animation’s great, the message is inspiring, and there isn’t one dull moment. C’mon, haven’t you ever wanted to see a penguin dance? It’s hilarious! I like the message of the movie as well: if we just do our best with what we have, we’ll get our point across and get what we need. It’s also nice that the movie touches upon environmental awareness. We humans are like pigs in the way we use the environment. Seldom do we stop to think about the consequences of our behavior on nature and other species. This movie serves as a clear reminder of that problem, and it’s a good message for the kids to hear. Robin Williams is great in his three, yes three roles as Ramon, Lovelace and Cletus. As an added bonus, the other cast voices are well known names as well: Hugh Jackman, Nicole Kidman, Elijah Wood, Hugo Weaving and, posthumously, Steve Irwin, the “crocodile hunter”.
Tag Archives: nature
Saying goodbye to fall
Autumn is always a bitter-sweet season for me. I still remember it as the time school starts. When I was a child, I dreaded September, because I knew school was coming. Those feelings lingered through college, and they tinge my thoughts even now. Autumn also meant harvest with all its bounty: apples, grapes, corn, potatoes, and so on. How I’d love to help my grandfather pick them from his garden! Maybe I was just happy to get away from homework, but I loved it. His delicious Concord grapes, crisp from the vine, were just the ticket for me on a cold autumn day. My grandmother would beg me in vain to wash them as I wolfed them down in sheer delight. Ah, youth, it’s wasted on children…
Then there are the colors of autumn. Is there a season more colorful than it? Winter isn’t it. Spring may be colorful, but only so in concentrated spots, like gardens with flowers or flowering trees. It’s mostly brown and green and blue. Summer is constantly and mostly green and blue. Winter is just dull. It alternates between the brown of mud and the white of snow, bespeckled here and there with an occasional cardinal bird and some evergreens, to speak nothing of the mostly dreary sky. Now autumn, that’s the ticket for color! Where else will you find different colors everywhere, even in lowly trees you wouldn’t otherwise notice?
I’ve been taking photos of fall colors for a few years now. I probably got some of my best shots this year, and I wanted to share a few with you. Join me in saying goodbye to autumn. In memoriam…
The sun rises
On a freezing cold January morning, the sky called out to me. It said, why don’t you venture out in your pajamas and take a photo of the sunrise? I obeyed, of course. 🙂
Cabin John Regional Park
This summer, Ligia and I visited Cabin John Regional Park here in Potomac, MD. It’s a lesser known park, and it doesn’t really get as many visitors as it deserves, but it’s a pretty beautiful place. To discover that beauty, you need to get off the beaten path, as is the case with many things in life.
We did get off the beaten path when we visited it, so much so that we got lost, and getting back onto the path was an adventure in itself. At least we got some good photos out of it.
This tree almost looks like someone with their legs in the air.
There was a nice little brook running through the forest, and some of its riverbed was exposed. Not only did we find beautiful pebbles, but we also found some great sand patterns.
The light reflected beautifully off the water’s surface.
Lichen grew abundantly on a fallen tree trunk.
We also found thick moss, colored a deep green, growing on another fallen tree trunk.
After almost two hours of wandering the forest, we were relieved to find the path once more.
Fantastic fall foliage
If you live in a place where you don’t get to experience the wonder of nature called fall foliage, then you’ll probably enjoy the photos I took on two trips to Shenandoah National Park and its most prominent and well-known feature, Skyline Drive.
I wrote about our September trip to Shenandoah a few weeks ago. Ligia and I took a trip in October as well, and that’s when I got some pretty cool photos of the changing leaves. I think it’s pretty hard not to get good photos from Skyline Drive. The landscapes are just amazing. The road hugs the very mountain peaks, and you get to peer down into the valleys of Virginia and toward the peaks of the neighboring mountains. The overlooks are plenty and offer tons of scenic opportunities, although sometimes I wished I could just stop the car in the middle of the road to take photos.
It’s a gorgeous place! I’d like to take a week’s camping trip out there with a quality dSLR, batteries, lots of CF cards, and a good tripod, to see what photos I’d get. And maybe a good book to read in the quiet evenings, by the campfire.
Skyline Drive is shown below.
What’s wonderful is that one can see little villages and houses in the valleys below the mountains. I took these photos from various overlook points on Skyline Drive, and as you can see, the valleys below are quite picturesque.
Taking advantage of the wonderful zoom on my Kodak v610 point and shoot, I was able to get fairly close to the lake in this photo, even though it was quite far away.
Some of the slopes were just getting some autumn colors in them.
Some slopes were already fully colored, and they were quite a beautiful sight.
A short walk through the forest yielded even more beauty.
One of the other impressive sights was that of the lone peaks arising from the valleys adjacent to the mountain ridge. I found them quite unusual. In shape, they resembled hills, but they were as tall as the mountains we were standing on.
And with that I close. The Shenandoah valleys and mountains are quite beautiful, and I invite you to visit them if you get the chance.
Incidentally, the Shenandoah Valley is part of the story in “The Howards of Virginia” (1940), a movie about a colonial family that played a part in the American Revolution. The title role there was played by Cary Grant.
Raoul Pop 