chuck & the truck magnets

As much as we can tell, Chuck Bear’s brain is organized into these categories of thoughts (listed by order of frequency):

1. Trucks!
2. Airplanes!
3. Wagons! (which he pronounces like an old German man: VAH-guns)
4. Bagels! (which he also pronounces like an old German man: BA-guls)
5. Ball!
6. Things to sort, take apart, and organize.

Sarah made the discovery of the week when she scored these truck and airplane magnets. They check boxes 1,2 and 6. And if Charles plays with them during breakfast, you can add box number 4. Vahgun-loads of fun.

Filed under: media, parenting, photos, wildlife Tagged: activities, baby, parenting, photography, texas, toddler, toys

More WildStuff over at wildthoughts.net

easter with chuck bear

Sarah managed to fit three of Charles’ favorite things in his Easter basket. And I managed to snap a few photos. Charles loves ducks, balls, and books. You can see the delight and curiosity on his face as he explores his Easter basket. I haven’t really picked up our “real” camera in several months. My […]



More WildStuff over at wildthoughts.net

j plus j equals christmas

Originally posted on pixelology:

[gallery type="rectangular" size="medium" ids="3193,3194,3195,3196,3197,3198,3199,3200,3201,3202,3203,3204,3205,3206,3207,3208,3209,3210,3211,3212,3213,3214"] When you’re looking through the view finder, what you see is only the start of what you get. The prints from this shoot in a Texas field are a perfect example of what I mean. You start with a good photo. But much of the magic –…



More WildStuff over at wildthoughts.net

turn an old drawer into a photo display

Take a cute baby and add a handy iphone that’s always in your pocket. The result? Lots and lots of photos. What to do with all those photos? It’s a question this old drawer is helping us solve. See, I’m lazy. So whatever process I put in place to handle this growing collection of digital […]



More WildStuff over at wildthoughts.net

lessons Chuck Bear learned last weekend

These are just a few of the lessons Chuck Bear learned last weekend from his nice Aunt Rachel and his weird Uncle Josh. Can you guess which relative offered what advice? And can you tell that Sarah, Rachel and Josh just might be siblings?



More WildStuff over at wildthoughts.net

Two Months and We Can’t “Bear” It

It's official – Chuck Bear is two months old. We can't handle all the cuteness ourselves. We have to share. So prepare to "Bear" the incredible cuteness. And a Brown Dog photo bomb.



More WildStuff over at wildthoughts.net

Chuck Bear Meets the Family

Chuck Bear meets Nana, Grandpa Owen, and Uncle Levi for the first time. Levi had never held a baby before, but he could have fooled us. He’s a natural.Filed under: parenting, photography, photos, wildlife Tagged: baby, Chuck Bear, family, photo



More WildStuff over at wildthoughts.net

The Brown and the White

It didn’t take long. The Brown soon realized that the white powder falling from the sky was just another state of his favorite substance – water. A Lab. His bone. And a flurry of snow. It’s time for you to rearrange your priorities. Drop what you’re doing and immerse yourself in the The Brown and [...]



More WildStuff over at wildthoughts.net

Variable Depth of Field Images

From the mad scientist video lab comes: Variable Depth of Field Images.

Variable DOF images are interactive photos that allow you to change the focal point of the photo while you view it. You click on a part of the image and that part of the image pops into focus. In other words, the focal point is "variable."

When I learned how to do this, it triggered my evil laugh reflex and I had to experiment. Here are a couple of my hastily assembled attempts.

Shout out to Eric for pointing me to this lifehacker post which features this nifty variable DOF generater by Chaos Collective.

Attempt #1: Kitchen Table

1. Arrange cactus and candy.
2. Use wide open aperture.
3. Eat candy.
4. Do not eat cactus.

Attempt #2: WildDog

1. Set up camera.
2. Bribe subject.
3. Work quickly.

Attempt #3: WildDog

the office

Here's where all the magic happens

the other side of the fence

the other side of the fence, originally uploaded by thewildpeople.

The worst thing about growing up is that as you get bigger, the world gets smaller. The world, and everything in it.

A few days after Christmas, I revisited the old neighborhood. My fuzzy blond head peeked up behind this white fence for the first twelve years of my life.

My chin once strained to rest on the top of the slats as my blue eyes elevated in search of the ice cream truck. It never occurred to me that all the other chins and eyes on the fence were brown. Or that most of of the treats on the truck were Mexican candy.

Now, the fence ends at my waist. Now I have no difficulty seeing over it.

The yard offered plenty of room to shoot water guns, practice soccer kicks, and shove paper balls of gunpowder down ant hills, light them and run behind a tree to wait for the victorious snap. Now, the truck I'm in rumbles past the entire ramshackle estate in less than a second.

Don't blink or you'll miss it. Unless you want to miss it. Then, go ahead and blink. I couldn't decide which I wanted, so I closed one eye, squinted through the other and took this picture.

In my memories, the fence, the yard, the house -- the world -- all seemed so much larger. I think I liked Big World. More space for possibilities. More room to run. And back then, I didn't know why the rich kids from church on the north side of town never wanted to come over.

The world's smaller now. And everything in it.

curious & foxy

Check out this colorful little guy! I'm finally having a chance to process a photo here and there from my trip to Santa Rosa Island. I thought I'd share...

He's a critically endangered Santa Rosa variety of Island Fox. They are endemic to Santa Rosa Island which, I learned, means they're native too the island and are only found there. A few of these foxes are also kept and bred at the Santa Barbara Zoo. These creatures are curious and playful and grow to be no larger than a house cat.

Santa Rosa is part of an isolated national park where only a few dozen people visit annually. With limited contact with humans, this fox didn't have any fear of me. Once I worked my self into a position down wind of him on a hill, he couldn't leave me alone. He was so curious and playful that I finally had to shoo him away before he climbed onto my lap! What can I say? Foxes love me.

You can see a few more great shots of him on my flickr page.

Can you help identify this mystery chief?

Someone brought a vintage photographic plate into my parent's print shop this week, and we're looking for any clues regarding the subject of the portrait it contains. What tribe is he from? Do the garments indicate any specific dates or regions where this Native American may have lived?

Here's what I do know

The image to the right is a scan and inversion of the plate, showing what a print made from the plate would look like. Judging from the material of the plate, I'm guessing it's a Tintype (also known as a Ferrotype) plate. Tintype caught on as a photographic method in the US around the mid 1800's. Although still in use as a novelty as late as the 1950's, Tintype was eclipsed by better technology by about 1910. If this is in fact a Tintype plate, the date of this image would most likely fall between 1854 and 1910.

That's almost 60 years of history spanning the Civil War until the years before WWI -- a very wide span. We're going to have to rely on the subject of the portrait to narrow the scope.

Here's what I'm guessing

I am not very knowledgeable about vintage Native American attire, but I think the eagle feather headdress our mysterious subject wears is a warrior bonnet and indicates he is a chief. It could also be a clue about his tribe.

Elaborate ceremonial head wear was common to most native tribes, but the particular style of mystery chief's bonnet seems to resemble that of the Plains Indians. To me, it looks very similar to the headdress worn by the Sioux chief American Horse in this photo from c. 1900. The Cheyenne also wore very similar garments, as seen in the photo below, also from around the turn of the 20th century.

In the mystery photo, it seems that a portion of a teepee can be seen over the shoulder of the chief. If so, that would further confirm a connection to a Plains Indian tribe.

In her email to me, my mother describes some further details in from the plate scan:

I got to handle the plate for the photo! It was a piece of art in itself. The owner wants to believe he is a medicine man because she can’t see an arrowhead on the shaft. When I scanned the plate and inverted the image in photoshop then adjusted the levels, I’m seeing a pretty good sized arrowhead...do you? There is a tee pee a bit blurred in the background behind his headdress and I believe human hair on his shaft [of the lance in his hand]...The scalloped edge of his sleeve and the 4 point beaded star at his temple are all clues.

Beadwork was common to all Plains Tribes, but the geometric star pattern at his temple appears to be one of the best unique identifying marks in the image. From my research so far, both the Sioux and Sans Arcs were known to incorporate star patterns into their geometric bead designs.

Here's what we've done so far

We've combed the Library of Congress online image archive and scanned the Smithsonian's National Anthropological Archives with no matches. Both collections are extensive, so we're hoping some of our history-loving friends can narrow things down.

Any ideas or insights are appreciated! We'll keep you posted.