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Tuesday 16 April 2013

White Hands


.

File:Hylobates lar - Kaeng Krachan WB.jpg

White-handed Gibbon (Hylobates lar), Kaeng Krachan National Park, Phetchaburi, Thailand: photo by JJ Harrison, 23 November 2012



rain forest
white knuckles
grasping the branch

vivid flurry of wings
ancient chromatic
explosion

 

in that last green patch
butterflies alighting
on elephant dung



File:Trachypithecus obscurus - Kaeng Krachan.jpg

Dusky Langur (Trachypithecus obscurus), Kaeng Krachan National Park, Phetchaburi, Thailand:  photo by JJ Harrison, 24 November 2012


File:Macaca leonina mother with baby - Khao Yai.jpg

Northern Pig-tailed Macaque (Macaca leonina) mother with baby, Khao Yai National Park, Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand: photo by JJ Harrison, 16 January 2013

File:Otus sagittatus - Kaeng Krachan.jpg

White-fronted Scops Owl (Otus sagittatus), Kaeng Krachan National Park, Phetchaburi, Thailand: photo by JJ Harrison, 24 November 2012

File:Hypothymis azurea - Kaeng Krachan.jpg

Black-naped Monarch (Hypothymis azurea), Kaeng Krachan, Petchaburi, Thailand
:
photo by JJ Harrison, 20 January 2013

File:Myophonus caeruleus caeruleus.jpg

Blue Whistling Thrush (Myophonus caeruleus caeruleus), Mae Wong National Park, Nakhon Sawan, Thailand: photo by JJ Harrison, 10 February 2013

File:Leiothrix argentauris female - Mae Wong.jpg

Silver-eared Mesia (Leiothrix argentauris), Mae Wong National Park, Nakhon Sawan,Thailand: photo by JJ Harrison, 20 January 2013

File:Butterflies on elephant dung - Kaeng Krachan.jpg

Butterflies on elephant dung, Kaeng Krachan National Park, Phetchaburi, Thailand: photo by JJ Harrison, 23 November 2012

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1c/Merops_leschenaulti_-_Kaeng_Krachan.jpg

Chestnut-headed Bee-eater (Merops leschenauti), Kaeng Krachan, Phetchaburi, Thailand: photo by JJ Harrison, 1 February 2011

9 comments:

TC said...

For more of the work of this remarkable wildlife photographer from Hobart, Tasmania, please do have a look at:

JJ Harrison: Birds of Tasmania and Queensland

Anonymous said...

humbleness and retrieval in nature...

Nora said...

These and yesterday's photos are gorgeous.

Mose23 said...

ancient chromatic
explosion

Harrison's caught this wonder. Such photography is a work of conservation. There'll be nothing left of that explosion but these lovely echoes; that's the grand fear.

Marie W said...

What an amazing picture, those yellow butterflies. Feeding... Funny to think that of all the goodies available around them, this is the delicacy they prefer. Hands down. It must be packed with nutrients. This photo is just superb...
Have you ever used elephant dung paper? it's really nice.

Marie W said...

I really like the eyes of the chap on the branch, the second photo from the top. He is all eyes. Talking about eyes, would you like a slice of unbearable cuteness?

vazambam (Vassilis Zambaras) said...

Aye, Marie--the ayes have it!

Nin Andrews said...

So beautiful. The butterflies always do like dung. I remember the Monarchs clustering on fresh cow pies,
opening and closing their wings as they feasted.

TC said...

Oh that Dusky Langur. The heart leaps simply at the imagination of the tree top uses to which that tail is put, there in the triple canopy.

Harrison's work done in the wild (what's left of it, less every day) has an elegiac feeling that is sad in a way quite unlike the doomed sadness of zoo photos (most of the "wildlife" photos one sees are zoo photos -- working in the wild obviously poses greater challenges, just as it yields richer rewards).

So then dung is making a comeback -- and none too soon, in our humble view.

(But were I those butterflies, I'd be keeping an eye out for the notoriously undiscriminating Bee-eater -- )

Marie, I love that textured elephant dung paper.

Once upon a time I had the opportunity to assist in a small-scale cottage papermaking enterprise with a bookmaker who had made himself skilled at producing beautiful paper from discarded fabrics, American flags, blue jeans and other materials (no elephant dung alas).

Though I had used paper for a long time before then, I don't think it had ever sunk in, that those marks we were making (back then) on the surface of the page, were actually sinking into something.

Thinking on this outdated technology these past few nights under media bombardment... recalling that "news media" once meant, mostly, marks sunk into paper, so much slower than what we have now... though at the same time, maybe, the "user community", if larger, has nonetheless not changed all that much in its capacity for suspension of disbelief.

Walter Benjamin: Journalism

Marie, the touching quandary of the homeless fish caught in the middle in that video is funny, but then I looked again and saw (or projected) a certain pathos in the situation, there in the tank.

Or then again, might one view the situation otherwise, reversing the vantage: the Greta Garbo fish peering out from its solitary housing unit is missing out on all the fun?