Filming Nature Footage Arduous, Amazing, Disgusting, Beautiful @2:45 PM
Nice piece in the Times today about the process that went into filming the state-of-the-art nature footage featured in the Discovery Channel's new series "Life," which debuts Sunday. "In that first episode viewers see a strawberry dart frog’s tadpoles come to life, then watch the mother carry each baby up a rainforest tree to a safe perch inside a bromeliad plant. Then they see the mother lay eggs to feed the newborns until they can move on their own, weeks later. Without any dialogue the shots tell a gripping story about a mother’s commitment to her offspring." READ MORE 12
Inaccessible Vistas More Accessible Via Internet @12:00 PM
It's so good that different people are equipped to do different things. If I was to try to assemble my own motorized paraglider and fly over the Sahara Desert taking pictures, I would die probably ten minutes into the assembly part. Luckily, there's folks like National Geographic photographer George Steinmetz in the world, so I can do what I do best: sit at my computer. Breathtaking photography is here. 3
That Tsingy Is Too Tough @12:40 PM
Places I'd like to visit if my feet were made of giant foam cushions reinforced with kevlar: The Tsingy de Bemaraha national park and reserve in Madagascar. "This 600-square-mile protected area is an island unto itself," according to a National Geographic story with a gorgeous photo gallery, "a kind of biofortress, rugged, largely unexplored, and made nearly impenetrable by the massive limestone formation-the tsingy-running through it." Made up of jagged, 300-foot-tall stone spires called "grikes," the tsingy is apparently like Manhattan combined with the most horrible gravel driveway you ever stepped on barefoot. READ MORE 8
