[skipper954]

About 2 years ago, I took a trip to the Galapagos. This was one of the best trips I have taken. The animal life and pristine nature of the closely controlled environment was wonderful.

These are obviously two tortoises in the middle of an amorous relationship. From what the very knowledgeable guide said, they mate (the turtles, not the guides) for up to six hours. And the male organ is apparently his tail.

The clearly dominent behavior of the male and the clearly submissive posture of the female is very interesting to me.

I am not necessarily presenting this for critique on the photographic aspects, but if you want, please do so. Rather, it is a fascinating image of wildlife.

skip

[Dixie]

Am I missing something? I can't see it!

Dixie

[skipper954]

Sorry....didin't load the first time.

skip

[Rob Barron]

Great picture Skip. But somebody PLEASE tell me we don't need to put warnings on photos of animals doing what comes naturally? I would be more than happy for young people to see this sort of thing because if they are old enough to understand it is no big deal and if not they will think one animal is trying to climb on the other's back so again no big deal :o)

Anyway, back to the pic, I would love to visit the Galapagos Islands so I am very jealous that you got there Skip. Not having been with you, I have no idea what situation you were in so my comments here might be entirely impractical. I just think it would have been better so just lower your viewpoint a little rather than looking down from above the male. As I say, might not have been possible. Could this perhaps take a bit of cropping or do you feel the space is needed for context. The brancehs and rocks do give a half sense of scale, not actually anything that we can get a true measurement of, but then again most people know this subject is huge so maybe it doesn't need it.

The head of the male is a bit blurred, I am assuming this is from motion and I think that's quite humorous: after all, not often you get motion blur when taking a shot of a tortoise!

Anyway, good stuff, have you got more of this type of shot, the wildlife of the Galapagos Islands Skip, would love to see them.

Cheers,
Rob

[skipper954]

Thanks for your comments Rob. I was trying to be humorous in the title, in light of some of my other posts. You took it a bit to literally

If I remember correctly, we were all tromping along a ramp, so that I couldn't get to ground level. I thought about a crop, but I really like their natural habitat, and I think that it does add.

I have about 800 pictures of the combined Galapagos/Machu Picchu trip. I shall look through them and see if any are worth posting. Problem is that they were all taken in jpeg with my older canon s45, and well before I was thinking seriously about good photography, but I will see if I got lucky BTW, the s45 was MUCH easier to travel with than my d70.

Thanks.

skip

[Rob Barron]

It is one of my ultimate dreams to visit Machu Picchu so i would love to see some of those. Remember, you can always stick some in this sharing thread and put a note that these are for interest rather than for photographic criticism. Many pictures are simply down to interest and don't have to be 'perfect' (whatever that means) and I hope we can all still appreciate pictures simply for the record they create of a place and/or time without always worrying about whether the technicalities are spot on.

Sorry i took you too literally on the title, glad and quite relieved that it is not serious LOL. Look forward to hopefully seeing a few more.

Cheers,
Rob

[skipper954]

Will do, Rob.

Might have to wait a bit, though. This is Thanksgiving here, a national holiday where we stuff ourselfs with Turkey. My wife is busy in the kitchen, and calls me away at intervals to help, so this might have to wait

skip

[Rob Barron]

LOL, yup, I have friends who have gone over for Thanksgiving. Have a great celebration with your family, enjoy the turkey but most of all enjoy being together.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Cheers,
Rob