Animals, God's Beautiful Creatures !!!

20+ Beautiful Sun & Moon Photographs

Daimler Riding Car, 1885. The World’s First Motorbike.

Gottlieb Daimler and his ingenious colleague Wilhelm Maybach moved to Cannstatt near Stuttgart in 1882. Differences between the fifty-year-old Nikolaus August Otto and Daimler, two years his junior, had led to the latter’s departure from the Gasmotorenfabrik Deutz on the outskirts of Cologne. Now a wealthy man Daimler, could afford to make himself independent.

For 75,000 Goldmarks he bought a villa in Taubenheimstrasse in Cannstatt and moved there with his wife Emma and five children in June 1882. The property was ideal for his purposes: not only was it directly next to the spa facilities Daimler regularly visited for treatment for his weak heart, but it also benefited from a large garden and spacious summer house. He had an extension added to the latter, and installed a gas and water supply – his test workshop was ready.

In early October, Maybach also arrived in Cannstatt. He moved into a nearby property and initially converted one room of his apartment into a design office. Here he kept the drawing board on which he turned Daimler’s ideas into technical drafts: Maybach was skilled at giving them a functional form – and Daimler knew the value of his technician. When the two men agreed a contract even before leaving Deutz, Maybach was guaranteed substantial remuneration.

The goal shared by the two men was to develop a small, lightweight high-speed engine that was above all suitable for powering a vehicle. They were not alone, however. All around the world others were working on the same idea.

In 1885, the so-called riding car was built in Gottlieb Daimler's workshop as a test unit to prove the suitability of Daimler's and Wilhelm Maybach's gas or petroleum engine for everyday use.

Without knowing of each other’s work, Daimler and Benz had by this time already come to a common starting point: they both opted for petrol as the fuel for their engines and they would be the first to realise their efforts. The decision to use this fuel, which had excellent combustion characteristics, was fundamental to their internal combustion engines for vehicles.

Birds Photographed Like Human Models

Red-tailed Hawk

When Bob Croslin asked to take portraits of the feathered tenants at the Suncoast Seabird Sanctuary in Florida, the staffers in charge thought he wanted to snap a few pictures of birds through the bars of their cages. That was not what Croslin had in mind. Instead, he planned to photograph injured birds as he might human models, setting up on-location studio at the sanctuary.

Getting birds to pose in front of a backdrop under lights is a challenging task. It was a bit easier in this case because his models were accustomed to being visited by humans. Still, birds will be birds. The injured animals would often get nervous and poop on the backdrop. Or they would simply attack Croslin and the handlers. 

But after four months, and many a beak injury, he’d managed to turn even the fiestiest red-tailed hawk into an elegant model. The end result is a collection that highlights each bird’s distinctive personality, just as Croslin might with human subjects.

Roseate Spoonbill

Barn Swallow

Reddish Egret

American Crow

Cedar Waxwing

Great Blue Heron

Injured Short-tailed Hawk