A Real Teddy Getting Ready For a Snooze

Both Pandas and Koalas are 'Teddy' Bears and this is a Koala.

His/Her snaggle-toothed yawn and closed eyes indicate it is getting

ready for a midday snooze. Your ratings and critiques are invited

and most welcome. (If you rate harshly and/or very critically,

please submit a helpful and constructive comment/Please share your

superior photographic knowledge to help improve my photography.)

Thanks! Enjoy! John

Priceless capture John

This guy looks like he has had some of my cooking! This shows incredible emotion, hand on stomach, eyes shut, mouth open, i'm afraid to ask what would have came in the next frame. Maybe he saw something gross on the discovery channel?

Priceless expression! I love this shot - I would not change a thing!

At least it isnt a squirrel and you did manage a good alternative to cute and cuddly which they are yet are not.

 

Knic

Thanks. Who'd have known that koala bears have pink and dark krinkly tongues, hunh?

 

Thanks again.

 

John

I'm reminded of a song relating to the Discovery Channel. Without relating the words exactly, it goes something like this -- Baby, you and me are mammals, let's do like they do on the Discovery Channel . . .

 

I guess that means falling asleep after a big meal of eucalyptus leaves. . . .

 

(S)he defecated just before in the absolutely most sanitary way one could imagine, but I'll just keep that photo on my hard drive . . . )

 

Just TMI (too much information).

 

;-))

 

John

Thanks for the endorsement. There were a number of OK shots, but I had to be patient, and there was a long line of people 'hanging out' and filing past this koala and another. I just moved to the back and snapped on my large telephoto and slunk off to the back . . . way back and tried to be unobtrusive so they wouldn't move me along . . . and that with two large cameras they'd understand that I wasn't just taking snapshots. I guess it worked.

 

When taking photos, I always try to look for something that makes a photo rise above a cliche. I have lots of photos of this particular koala (including the never to be displayed defecation photos), but they're so . . . ordinary . . . and this I think rises above that.

 

After all, who'se seen a koala yawning up close?

 

Thanks again.

 

John

I think you mean that they look cute and cuddly, but with that giant snaggletooth, appropriate for tearing into eucaluptus, one wouldn't want to tangle with a koala (afterall a raccoon can tear the guts out of a hound dog, for instance and they also look cuddly).

 

But the world over koalas are seen as the most cuddly of all animals, aren't they?

 

Look below for a story.

 

And thanks for stopping by again.

 

John

One night late between Sydney and Melbourne while driving a rental car through the blue gum (?) forests and passing kangaroo carcasses etc., I ran over a little animal that darted out of the darkness, and it looked as though it were a koala. I don't like to think about it, much less tell about it, but even then I was sure it was a koala, and I still think it was. I tried to tell an Australian, but oh the hostility even though it was an accident, so I just shut up about it.

 

Now, I confess, I probably ran over a wayward anestor of this little dickens, about a decade ago in Australia. I hope he and his ilk forgive me. I didn't mean it. (sob sob sob sob)

 

John

I think the aim of this shot is very well served - I have seen tonnes of koala photos - this one made me stop an look. Actually, it made me drag my wife in front of the computer to see it. We had a great laugh - the expression, like I already said is priceless! And as far as technique and so on, it is a flawlessly executed image. Good job!

This photo is posted for those who thought they had my photography 'style' 'pegged'. Many times comments below a particular style of photo will say 'I saw this photo and thought of you . . .' but how many viewers saw this photo and thought of me as a wildlife photographer capturing yawning koala? Thought so. I'm not above (or beneath) taking (and posting) a photograph of anything I think is an interesting subject, so long as I think I can make an interesting photo no matter what the genre.

 

;-))

 

John

John, there are some characteristics that just don't change across the species, wouldn't you say?

I was puzzled at first at the 'likeness' you referred to in your post of my photo of 'Miss Apple Valley, First Runnerup, and others in a local watering hole, until I noticed that all their mouths were open, as is the koala's mouth, and I suppose that is what the similarity is . . .

 

I do know that after I wrote that almost no one would expect that I had taken a photo like this, you make a post almost immediately which ties this post to the 'style' of the previous post.

 

Clever, clever, clever.

 

I'll bet you chuckled when you did that, and frankly, I have a big grin across my face at your cleverness.

 

Thank you so much for you attentiveness.

 

John

This photo has been slightly lightened/brightened through a simple slider adjustment; a detail I had meant to make when it first posted but I kept getting 'server error' messages that prevented it.

 

Now that it is lightened, if you previously have viewed this image, you probably will need to 'refresh' your browser to view the lightened image. (the difference is pretty subtle)

 

Thanks.

 

John