Monster : Alta Dena, California
Declan at Catskill Animal Sanctuary : Saugerties, New York
Turkey’s are very intelligent, familial creatures who care for their young, mourn their dead, and form lifelong kinships - even with other species. They have emotional lives, feel pain, loss, and at least a rudimentary form of love.
Baby Bird : Trails End Ranch - Watsonville, California
This little bird and her family are living up under the gooseneck of a horse trailer.
Buddha at The Gentle Barn : Santa Clarita, California
Bisquit at The Gentle Barn : Santa Clarita, California
Bisquit was napping peacefully when we arrived today. We rubbed his belly (1000 lbs. of it!) and I quickly took this snapshot of him before meeting some of the other rescue animals. When I got home and really looked at the image, the significance of Bisquit’s nap became more profound. Here is a half-ton pig that was marked for death, and would have made for a lot of “bacon” - but instead he’s giving joy to many more people than he ever would have dead, and he’s getting to feel the joy of love and affection himself. He feels safe and happy, and so he can simply lie there and smile while countless toddlers tweak his ears and pat his tummy. Is he so different than our favorite pets, or even ourselves? It’s pure, dystopic denial that allows us to torture and kill magnificent animals like this.
I shot this with my beloved 20mm Lumix pancake, and then processed it with a correction I’ve really been liking lately - giving the blacks a deep blue-green hue. To emphasize Bisquit’s dream-state, I played around with chromatic aberration on the outer vignette. Some pig.
Chili Pequins
My grandfather used to pick these tiny peppers and bottle them with vinegar. He told me a dash of the stuff (on anything except possibly sherbet) would put hair on my chest. Apparently he was not kidding.
I’m really trying to have a photo up for every day of the month. To prove what, I don’t know.
