Photo of the Day (4.15.10)

Leave it to Max Waugh, a.k.a. fiznatty on Flickr to capture a shot of an animal I’ve never come across. It’s a tamandua, a species of ant eater native to Costa Rica.

Max describes the encounter:

I was very excited to have an opportunity to photograph a tamandua again. It’s one of the first animals I saw back in 2005 and that encounter was very brief. This lovely girl stayed up in the trees, but out in the open, for quite a while (long enough to even get some video). The tamandua is one of Costa Rica’s three anteater species… I’ll let you guess what the giant claw and big snout are for.

It’s worth taking a look at some of the amazing shots Max has collected over the years. He’s one of our most popular contributors to the Photo of the Day at Gadling.

Are you a Flickr user who’d like to share a travel related picture or two for our consideration? Submit it to Gadling’s Flickr group right now! We just might use it for our Photo of the Day!

Photo of the day (3.11.10)

The wildlife photography of Max Waugh, a.k.a. Fiznatty on Flickr has been featured on Gadling probably more than any other user. And I just couldn’t pass up this one.

Max describes a Costa Rican beach:

The mouth of the Sirena River in Corcovado National Park has a nasty reputation. It empties into the Pacific Ocean and brings together some intimidating predators which scour the river and surf for easy prey. Big crocodiles come from the fresh water side while bull sharks swoop in from the ocean. Occasionally the crocs even head out into the saltwater. Recently 5 large crocs were spotted more than 3 miles from shore.

This fellow was much closer, but I did see him run headlong into a small bull shark. They both turned tail and swam in opposite directions.

I made a mental not that I wouldn’t be swimming on that beach anytime soon. Apparently Max’s picture came too late for one of his commenters, surfwax who wrote:

Oh my…I surfed this spot *before* finding out what you know so well. This photo is awesome, but also makes me think I was rather lucky.

Are you a Flickr user who’d like to share a travel related picture or two for our consideration? Submit it to Gadling’s Flickr group right now! We just might use it for our Photo of the Day!

Photo of the day (2.4.10)

Fiznatty aka Max Waugh is no stranger to our Photo of the Day. His latest is called “The Hunter and the Mountain.”

While trying to seek wildlife to photograph, Max instead managed to get this great shot of a the Andes in the Argentina portion of Patagonia. I’ll let him explain the long-exposure shot:

In case of poor animal sightings, seek landscapes.

That was the advice I gave to myself before the trip. Knowing beforehand that I may not have the best luck with wildlife, I wanted to be sure to visit a couple of Patagonia’s famous mountains in hopes of catching some striking sunrises on the massive towers of Mt. Fitz Roy, Cerro Torre and Torres del Paine. Of course, since I was pretty far down in the southern hemisphere and needed to hike to some of the more ideal viewpoints, this meant early wakeup calls. This time it was 3am, on another morning 2:30.

We arrived pretty early on this one particular morning, and with nothing better to do than avoid the trailside skunks and jog in place to combat the biting cold wind, I spent my time taking long exposures. Had I started earlier, star trails may have been in the offing, but at this point I was happy to capture Orion looming over the peak of Mt. Fitz Roy. Streetlights from the town of Chalten provide the golden glow reflecting off the hills in the foreground.

You don’t have to be a pro like Max to be featured on Gadling’s Photo of the Day!

Are you a Flickr user who’d like to share a travel related picture or two for our consideration? Submit it to Gadling’s Flickr group right now! We just might use it.

Photo of the Day (11/13/08)

This really is a shot of a lifetime. Max, a.k.a. fiznatty, took this picture of a mountain lion in the Wasatch Mountains in Utah.

I’ll let him explain the once in a lifetime picture:

When I traveled to Utah for a couple days in hopes of seeing a wild mountain lion, I wasn’t optimistic. My first morning in the tree stand was on par with my expectations, as only a few birds fluttered about.

We returned in the afternoon and I had been sitting in the stand for an hour-and-a-half when the sun dipped behind the mountains. I looked down and to my right, and noticed my guide in his ground blind, standing and taking pictures. I looked around to see what it was he was shooting, but there was nothing. I found out later that he was bored and was taking pictures of me.

So I sighed, settled back in my seat and looked over to my left toward the spring… and there it was, having just emerged from the woods.

I can only imagine how you felt, Max. What an amazing capture.

Are you a Flickr user who’d like to share a travel related picture or two for our consideration? Submit it to Gadling’s Flickr group right now! We just might use it for our Photo of the Day!

Photo of the Day (11/06/08)

Fiznatty does it again with today’s Photo of the Day. This shot, taken in northern Sweden, just screams winter, doesn’t it? He used a 25 second exposure and ‘painted’ the bath house with a flashlight while the shutter was open.

I like how the northern lights shoot upward above the house, almost as if the heat from the bath house generated the glow. Having grown up in Alaska, I’ve seen this kind of view a number of times, but I can’t think of a better place than Sweden to really experience the aurora borealis.

Nice job, Fiznatty!

Are you a Flickr user who’d like to share a travel related picture or two for our consideration? Submit it to Gadling’s Flickr group right now! We just might use it for our Photo of the Day!