Archive for October, 2008

This is easy to reduce a color photo to a B&W image (any photo software or any B&W photocopier can do it). But the reverse operation seems difficult at best, impossible in most cases. However, a team of French scientists from the French INRIA (Guillaume Charpiat, Matthias Hofmann et Bernhard Schölkopf) presented recently an algorithm that succeeds to rebuild the color information from a B&W photo. And with some success.

On the image on the left, Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa has been converted to black and white (A), using color data and textures from a similar image (B), the algorithm built a color image again (C) not too far from the original (D).

Analyzing this work, I’d say that part of the differences between the result (C) and the original (D) come from the quality of the conversion to Black & White which led to an image quite hard (a bit more contrast than needed).

Impressive result on photos, you can expect to see it applied to moving images (and movies).

Source: Futura-Science.

Found in the morning, this lionness had just kill a gnu (wildebeest). After eating most of it, she actually tried to hide the carcass in order to avoid seeing it stolen by others (hyenas or vultures, for example).

Lionness - Copyright 2008 Yves Roumazeilles
Lionness - Copyright 2008 Yves Roumazeilles	Lionness - Copyright 2008 Yves Roumazeilles
Click on the thumbnails to enlarge them

Lion (Panthera leo, Lion, León), Masai Mara, Kenya, September 2008.

When I look into the logs of my web site, I sometimes discover bizarre little gems. For example, I recently noticed that somebody reached my web site through a search engine looking for : “buy a giraffe“. I still wonder whether he or she was looking for the real animal or a poster or photo of the animal. I probably will never know (except if the guilty conscience of the poor guy leads to informing me).

It made me look on Google for the very same thing. And I was surprised to find that there is advice to buy a giraffe (a real one). The first tip is: Do you have enough room? For sure, I would not recommend the giraffe as pet if you live in a flat at the fifth floor…

Internet will always bring me surprises.

In the coming days, I will post a number of images taken in Masai Mara National Park, Kenya, of various carnivore animals after or during lunch. Beware, it may be a little more disturbing than most subjects, for sensitive or young people. However, this is routine observation in the wild: Big cats are nice but they eat animals. Raw.

First, this is not a feline. A spotted hyena found in the morning, in a small water pool, after an early lunch.

Spotted hyena - Copyright 2008 Yves Roumazeilles

It is easily forgotten in savanah folklore as recorded in our Northern countries, hyenas are not only carrion eaters stealing their prey from less powerful animals (like cheetahs), but also successful hunters who compensate for their slow running speed with a rather considerable endurance. They kill about half of their food.

Spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta, Hyène tachetée). Masai Mara, Kenya, September 2008.

I always recommended the excellent CDBurnerXP for burning your CD and DVD discs. It’s free and does all the commercial programs do.

Now, the editor publishes CDBurnerXP Portable (download it for free). It goes on a USB stick and can follow you everywhere.

Some of my best images are available are posters, cards, prints, laminated prints, etc. on RedBubble.com. I like the quality of their service, their prices and the broad support (including good discussion forums about photo).

What you’ll like even more is that they reduced the shipping costs to NOTHING for a week. They are celebrating their shipment of 100,000 photo/art masterpieces around the world. At this moment, they decided to offer one week of free shipping. You just have to use the following coupon code when checking out: ‘100000masterpieces’

PS: The promotion will expire at 2359 on 30 October (GMT). Just in time to prepare your gifts for Christmas or for your 2009 new year’s cards.

Buy my photos at RedBubble

• Cards,
• Matted Prints,
• Laminated Prints (between shiny plastic sheets),
• Prints mounted on hard support,
• Canvas Prints,
• Framed Prints

If you are interested, you can find some of my images about big cats (lions, leopards, cheetahs) on my new web site YLoveBigCats.com. As you certainly have noticed, some of these images come from my recent trip to Kenya (Masai Mara).

Lionness, Kenya (Copyright 2008 Yves Roumazeilles)

Some have been surprised by one little habit of mine around my PC (I should say ‘my PCs”): I keep a detailled log of everything I do on my PC in a plain old school paper book. It may be a software installation, a parameter change on another software package, the update of a driver. Everything goes in there.

Main advantage: When my PC stops working perfectly, I can easily recognize what changed. Usually, I (like everybody else) say that I did not touch anaything before it stopped working. Bit when I check, I can find wat I did.

It also works for the configuration of a Local Area Network… even in a company. But beware of not writing down passwords that would then be left in an open paper book…

Young black-backed jackal (Copyright 2008 Yves Roumazeilles)

Black-backed jackal (Canis mesomelas, Chacal à chabraque, Chacal de lomo negro o chacal de gualdrapa). Kenya, Masai Mara, September 2008.

The Great Migration: This is the name of this major and annual animal move between Kenya and Tanzania. Between 1.5 and 2 million gnus (wildebeests), several hundred thousands of zebras and some more antelopes follow a wide triangular geographical pattern to find the lands with the best possible grass depending on the rains and the temperatures.

Since they have to cross rivers, this quickly becomes a difficult task. All the more because all kinds of predators know the locations and are waiting for them. The gnus strategy is simple: Overwhelm the predators. If a lion takes 1 gnu out of 10,000, it is better than 1 out of 10. So, they regroup themselves in enormous herds before rushing through the waters.

Gnu	Gnu
Gnu
Gnu's crossing (Copyright 2008 Yves Roumazeilles)	Gnu's crossing (Copyright 2008 Yves Roumazeilles)

The predators (lions, hyenas, crocodiles) are waiting. And they are taking a life toll on the herds.

Since this is quite graphic (Mother Nature is not often very nice with the weakest animals), the following images may be reached separately. But young and sensitive minds should avoid looking at the following depiction of a Nile crocodile attack on a swimming Burchell’s zebra (in the Mara river).
(more…)

The “Great migration” in Kenya and Tanzania is the move of gnus (wildebeests) but also of zebras. Usually, I have a tough time to find inspiration when shooting these animals. But in last September, I believe that I found how to draw a few good images of these zebras.

Zebras on the Musiara plains (Copyright 2008 Yves Roumazeilles)
Burchell
Burchell	Burchell
Burchell

Burchell’s zebra (Equus burchellii, zèbre de Burchell, cebra de Burchell). Kenya, Masai Mara, September 2008.

All images: Copyright (C) 2008 Yves Roumazeilles (all rights reserved).

Two lions (Copyright 2008 - Yves Roumazeilles)

A few images of lion females on YLoveBigCats.com (Kenya 2008).