An Elephant a Day 2.0

International Elephant Foundation Elephant's World (Thailand)

Boon Lott's Elephant Sanctuary (Thailand)
Wildlife SOS (India)
The Elephant Sanctuary (Tennessee)
David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation
Big Life Foundation

Monday, 4 November 2013

Elephant No. 63: Feature Artist Nick Brandt

Elephant with Exploding Dust.
Photo: © Nick Brandt
Source: http://www.younggalleryphoto.com/photography/nickbrandt/nb.html

If you've ever done an online search for elephant images, you've probably come across Nick Brandt's work.

Although the images are stunning on their own, Brandt's work is particularly moving for what it says about our vanishing natural world. Speaking about his decision to work only in black-and-white, Brandt has said, "Colour has a very modern feel on the whole, and since my feeling is that many of these animals will soon be gone, and are therefore from a bygone era, the black-and-white aesthetic further heightens that impression."

Elephant Skull
Photo: © Nick Brandt
Source: http://www.younggalleryphoto.com/photography/nickbrandt/nb.html

Born and raised in London, England, Brandt studied painting, then film. Moving to California in the early 1990s, he directed a number of award-winning music videos for artists such as XTC, Moby, Jewel and Michael Jackson. It was actually while directing a video for Jackson's "Earth Song" in 1995 that Brandt first fell in love with East Africa and its wildlife.

In 2000, Brandt began turning his attention away from film and towards photography, taking the first photographs in what would become a trilogy of books—On This Earth (2005), A Shadow Falls (2009) and Across the Ravaged Land (2013)—that capture a rapidly disappearing world.

Calcified Bat II
Photo: © Nick Brandt
Source: http://www.younggalleryphoto.com/photography/nickbrandt/nb.html

Brandt shoots his images in medium-format on film—a photographer after my own heart—then scans the negatives. Although he plays with contrast and light values after the fact, the images themselves are essentially as he captured them in the wild.

He also doesn't use long lenses, as many wildlife photographers do; nor does he tend to go for action shots. For me, part of what is so unique and compelling about his work is the sense of personal encounter—as if he'd asked the animals to pose, and they'd politely agreed.

Elephant on Bare Earth
Photo: © Nick Brandt
Source: http://www.younggalleryphoto.com/photography/nickbrandt/nb.html

In the afterword to his book, On This Earth, Brandt wrote, "What I am interested in is showing the animals simply in the state of Being. . . . To me, every creature, human or non-human, has an equal right to live, and this feeling, this belief that every animal and I are equal, affects me every time I frame an animal in my camera. The photos are my elegy to these beautiful creatures, to this wrenchingly beautiful world that is steadily, tragically vanishing before our eyes."

Buffalo with Lowered Head
Photo: © Nick Brandt
Source: http://www.younggalleryphoto.com/photography/nickbrandt/nb.html

In addition to his work as a photographer, in 2010 Brandt started the Big Life Foundation, which works primarily to reduce poaching in East Africa. Some of his most powerful photographs feature Foundation rangers holding the tusks of elephants killed prior to the Foundation's inception.

Ranger with Tusks of Killed Elephant
Photo: © Nick Brandt
Source: http://www.younggalleryphoto.com/photography/nickbrandt/nb.html

Since 2004, Brandt has been featured in exhibitions from Sydney to Los Angeles, and his photographs are found in numerous galleries, museums and private collections around the world. To see more of his work, click here.

Elephant with Tattered Ears
Photo: © Nick Brandt
Source: http://www.younggalleryphoto.com/photography/nickbrandt/nb.html

Elephant Lore of the Day

Earlier this year, poachers killed hundreds of elephants in Zimbabwe by lacing salt pans with cyanide, right near water holes. Elephants need significant quantities of both salt and water to survive, making this a particularly cruel trick.

Despite their size, elephants are just as susceptible to poison as other creatures, and cyanide results in an agonizing death. As if this weren't bad enough, carrion-eaters such as lions, hyenas and vultures fed on the elephant corpses, and also died. The water holes also became contaminated as the poisonous salt washed into it, killing many other animals such as antelope and water buffalo.

The elephants died only a few yards from the poisoned sources in numbers so great that one witness said, "We couldn't believe what we were seeing. At first we thought they were shot, because there were so many. Then we saw that their tusks were gone." In these days of mechanized poaching sprees, I find it especially depressing that a man's first thought was that such large numbers of dead elephants could only mean mass shooting.

Three fresh elephant carcasses, stripped of their tusks, among the bones
of elephants killed a year earlier.
Photo: © The Sunday Telegraph
Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2470219/Elephants-graveyard-
300-animals-poisoned-poachers.html

Zimbabwe has one of the world's largest African elephant populations, with an estimated 80,000—half of which live in Hwange National Park, where the killings occurred. For the most part, they've been fairly well protected. In recent years, however, destitute locals have taken to poaching in a big way, knowing they can sell a single tusk for upwards of $500—which will sell in South Africa for as much as $5,000 or more.

The killings are thought to have taken place primarily in July of this year, when the national park's security forces—which normally protect the herds—were temporarily reassigned to cover the national election and its aftermath.

Fourteen people have been arrested in connection with the poisonings, including local poachers and a South African businessman. According to some of the poachers, the businessman used an ivory buyer and a Zimbabwean farmer to distribute the cyanide to locals.

Vowing a massive crackdown on poaching in the wake of this incident, Zimbabwe's environment minister said that the penalties must be increased. At present, killing an elephant in Zimbabwe results in a lesser punishment than cattle rustling. To read more, click here.

One of Zimbabwe's embattled herds.
Photo: Jim Zuckerman/Corbis
Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2470219/Elephants-graveyard-
300-animals-poisoned-poachers.html

To Support Elephant Welfare

International Elephant Foundation Elephant's World (Thailand)

Boon Lott's Elephant Sanctuary (Thailand)
Wildlife SOS (India)
The Elephant Sanctuary (Tennessee)
David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation
Big Life Foundation

Sunday, 3 November 2013

Elephant No. 62: From the Archives—Tea Lights

Today is Diwali—the Hindu Festival of Lights, so I thought I'd re-post this entry from a couple of years ago. Enjoy!

Today it wasn't raining, snowing or windy, so it seemed like a perfect opportunity to make an elephant with tea lights. The snow we had yesterday is already gone, so even the ground is reasonably dry.

Tea lights are small candles in thin metal casings, allowing the candle to melt completely when lit. They have multiple uses, including heating scented oils, warming foods, as accent and mood lighting, and even as votive candles. Each candle is supposed to be able to burn for about three to five hours.

Modern tea lights are remarkably similar to the Hindenburg light, or hindenburglicht, which was used as a source of lighting in the German trenches of the First World War. Hindenburg lights were also used in air raid shelters in Germany during the Second World War, and were required lighting during blackouts.

Hindenburg lights were larger than tea lights, measuring 5 to 8 cm (2 to 3 inches) in diameter and burning for several hours. The case was made of cardboard and was filled with tallow. Later models were encased in tin, and sometimes had two wicks.

Hindenburg light, ca. 1943–1945.
Photo: Patrick Götz
Collection of the Museum Geiserschmiede, Bühlertal, Germany
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hindenburglicht.jpg

For today's elephant, I started by raking and sweeping the stray leaves and detritus from a flagstone area in our backyard, then let it dry out for a couple of hours.

I had 57 tea lights, so I laid them out in an elephant shape. I've never done anything like this before, so I wasn't really sure if I had too many or too few, or if they'd blow out as I was lighting them.

Sunset was at 4:20 p.m., today, so I waited until about 5:00 to light everything. Remarkably, every last tea light stayed lit, despite the light breeze that picked up while I was lighting them.

It was really pretty when it was all illuminated. I was a bit sad to blow this out, but it was too cold to hang around outside. Next time I do something like this, I'll make sure it's in the summer, so that I can sit outside for a bit and enjoy it.

Elephant Lore of the Day

John L. Sullivan, named after a famous boxer, was a tuskless male Asian elephant. Born around 1860, John L. Sullivan performed first with the Adam Forepaugh Circus in New York, and later the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus.

In his early career, the elephant and his trainer, Eph Thompson, performed a boxing act. A boxing glove was attached to the end of John L. Sullivan's trunk, allowing him to spar with Thompson.

Ad for the Adam Forepaugh Circus, featuring John L. Sullivan.
Source: http://bucklesw.blogspot.com/2010/01/
adam-forepaugh-bolivar-and-john-l.html

After he retired from performing, John L. Sullivan remained with the circus. He babysat the performers' children, led the elephant herd to and from the fairgrounds and the trains, and did heavy lifting. In 1922, in a publicity stunt honouring America's first elephant, Old Bet, John walked the 85 kilometres (53 miles) from Madison Square Garden in New York City to the Elephant Hotel in Somers, New York. When he arrived in the small town four days later, he laid a wreath at a monument dedicated to Bet.

John L. Sullivan lived to the age of 72—the average life expectancy for an elephant is 70 years—and likely died of heart failure or simple old age.

To Support Elephant Welfare

International Elephant Foundation Elephant's World (Thailand)

Boon Lott's Elephant Sanctuary (Thailand)
Wildlife SOS (India)
The Elephant Sanctuary (Tennessee)
David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation

Saturday, 2 November 2013

Elephant No. 61: Homemade Pizza

When I was growing up, my mother often made her own pizza dough, allowing my siblings and I to add our own toppings. I literally haven't made pizza since then, so today I thought I'd try it for the first time in years.

I thought about buying ready-made dough, or even a ready-made crust, then decided to make pizza dough from scratch. I'm not a huge fan of kneading dough by hand, but there's nothing like homemade bread, so I bit the bullet.

This is the recipe I used, should you feel inclined to make your own pizza dough.

• 1-1/2 cups warm water
• 1 package (2-1/4 tsp) active dry yeast
• 3-1/2 to 4 cups white flour
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon sugar

Mix yeast into water, and let dissolve for five minutes or so. Stir in olive oil, salt and sugar. Add 3-1/2 cups of flour, mixing until well combined.

Turn out onto lightly floured board and knead until smooth and elastic (about 6–10 minutes), adding flour if the doughs sticks too much to your board or your hands.

Form into a ball and place in an oiled bowl, turning to coat the dough with oil on all sides. Cover with a damp tea towel or plastic wrap and leave to rise for about 1-1/2 to 2 hours.

****

When the dough was ready to be shaped, I divided it into two balls. I gave one to my husband Terrence to make his own pizza, while I made an elephant pizza of some sort.

I sprinkled cornmeal on two baking sheets, then we stretched and pressed our dough into roughly oval shapes. To keep the dough from absorbing too much liquid from the toppings, I brushed each pizza crust with olive oil.

These are the toppings I decided to use:

• Basil pesto
• "Traditional" pizza sauce—from a jar
• Sliced Italian salami
• Fresh tomatoes
• Sliced red onion
• Sliced black olives
• Sliced mushrooms
• Sundried tomatoes
• Freshly shredded mozarella
• A blend of grated parmesan, asiago and romano cheese

I had no idea what I was doing, so I decided I'd try to make a picture with the available ingredients. I started with the basil pesto, making some green grass.

Next I added pizza sauce to the top, sketching out a bit of an elephant with the spoon.

I added onions, which I tried to use to delineate the elephant—rather unsuccessfully, as you can see.

To reinforce the elephant shape, I added sliced tomatoes.

Finally, some sliced salami, cheese, mushrooms and a single slice of black olive for an eye. I don't like black olives very much.

Terrence mocked as I made this, saying it was going to be weird to eat, and that I couldn't have any of his more traditional pizza.

I suddenly had a flashback to one of my tweenage birthday parties, when my parents set out ingredients for party guests to make their own ice cream sundaes. As a joke, there were a couple of bizarre ingredients on the table, including sliced onions. I remember my father saying to one guest that, if she did indeed put a handful of onions on her sundae, she was going to have to eat it—and, in fact, we were all going to have to eat our creations. I decided to quietly remove the onions from my own sundae.

I was torn, as I made my pizza, between wanting it to taste good and wanting it to look at least somewhat like an elephant. Because I had decided that I couldn't slice and carve the ingredients into more convenient shapes, I ended up with a lot of rounded things that didn't really work. The trunk was basically an impossibility, and I ended up with a pizza loaded with ingredients on only one half. Or perhaps I just lacked imagination today.

When we were ready to cook the pizzas, I put them in the oven at 450˚F (232˚C) for about 12 minutes, then took them out and let them sit. I loathe scorched cheese, so this was done enough for me.

It looked even less like an elephant when baked, but I hoped it would taste okay. If I hadn't known I'd have to eat the final result, I probably would have outlined an entire elephant in olives, and filled the middle with cheese. However, I'm the kind of person who carefully picks off excess cheese and olives, so the very idea of a pizza loaded with olives and cheese was not for me.

I did eat half of my pizza—including the part with only mushrooms and pesto—and it was pretty good. But probably not as good as Terrence's. You can see what he called his "elephant pizza" below.

Elephant Lore of the Day

In addition to tusks, a prehistoric elephant called a platybelodon had a strange flat pair of teeth on the front of its mouth that scientists believe were used to chop at tough vegetation.

Artist's rendering of platybelodons.
Image: ©American Museum of Natural History/Biodiversity Heritage Library
Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2446532/Prehistoric-
elephant-giant-spoonbill-instead-trunk-built-scythe-used-cut-food.html

Platybelodons were thought to have lived in and around water, using their lower front incisors to shovel and dig up food from swamps and rivers. Although their trunks were shorter and wider than those of today's elephants, scientists think they grasped vegetation with their trunk, then sliced it with the lower jaw.

Fossilized platybelodon jawbones.
Image: ©American Museum of Natural History/Biodiversity Heritage Library
Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2446532/Prehistoric-
elephant-giant-spoonbill-instead-trunk-built-scythe-used-cut-food.html

Platybelodons lived in Asia, Africa, Europe and North American between 8 million and 20 million years ago, dying out in the Miocene Epoch. To read more, click here.

Three-dimensional modelling of platybelodon.
Image: © Alamy
Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2446532/Prehistoric-
elephant-giant-spoonbill-instead-trunk-built-scythe-used-cut-food.html

To Support Elephant Welfare

International Elephant Foundation Elephant's World (Thailand)

Boon Lott's Elephant Sanctuary (Thailand)
Wildlife SOS (India)
The Elephant Sanctuary (Tennessee)
David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation

Friday, 1 November 2013

Elephant No. 60: Leftover Hallowe'en Candy

It was raining here for Hallowe'en last night, so we didn't get many trick-or-treaters, and are stuck with leftover candy. I always try to buy stuff that we like enough to eat after the fact, but it's still more than we can face. So, for today's elephant, I thought I'd arrange the surplus loot into some kind of interesting pattern.

This is what I had to work with. There were also bags of potato chips, but I didn't think I wanted to try to work them into an elephant shape.

At first, I wasn't sure if I wanted to unwrap everything, or try to work with the packages. I decided to try making something with the packaged candy first.

I started by making the body, then adding legs, then fleshing it out with a head, ear and trunk.

Pretty abstract and almost unrecognizable as an elephant, so I assessed my supplies again. I had 14 mini-boxes of Smarties that I hadn't used for the first elephant, so I decided to open all 14 boxes and use them for elephant number two.

I began by making a vague elephant shape, then removed the dark brown Smarties so that there would just be one for an eye. To finish it up, I placed yellow Smarties where I thought a tusk might go.

This whole activity took me only about half an hour, which is always a plus for me. In the end, I rather liked the Smarties elephant, and may even try it on top of a birthday cake sometime.

Elephant Lore of the Day

My husband Terrence came across the image below which—as with all unusual elephant photos—I found intriguing. It's widely available across the Internet, but I was pretty sure that this couldn't be the original sign, cute though it is. So I did an online search.

Doctored photo of young girl at London Zoo.
Source: http://idreamelephants.blogspot.ca/2012/02/
strictly-no-elephants.html

I found the actual image (below), which I think is just as fun. Taken in 1927 at the London Zoo, the picture shows a little girl who arrived at the Zoo's Elephant House with her own pet elephant, only to find that the Elephant House was closed for the winter.

No Visitors, London, England, January 1927.
Photo: Fox Photos/Getty Images/Hulton Archive
Source: http://www.gettyimages.ca/detail/news-photo/young-
visitor-and-her-toy-elephant-finds-that-the-elephant-news-
photo/3317065?Language=en-US

To Support Elephant Welfare

International Elephant Foundation Elephant's World (Thailand)