BASSWOOD SHUTTERS

The weather turned warm so I decided to take a walk to get my shot for today. I didn't get two steps before finding a baby Gopher Tortoise walking between the track of my hurricane shutters and the house. The path he's walking is 2 1/2 inches wide so he's a very tiny newborn. The babies have a very short attention span and I had to wait only a minute before he emerged from his shell. The adults on the other hand will stay tucked away for quite a long while. I always give up before they do and have never gotten a close shot of an adult. Adults have the size and comical appearance of military camouflage helmets roaming the lawn looking for tasty weeds. They are hated by developers due to their protected species status and by lawn perfectionists due to their nature of digging huge tunnel dens. Below is the front view. And below that is an adult at the mouth of his tunnel den. You can see how destructive he may seem if you're trying to have the best lawn in town. Lucky for him we aren't.

Taken for our daily challenge - walking

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The topic for this week was WEATHER. The forecast for today is cloudy with a little to no rain at all. This was a tough one. First, note...there was no actual rain outside, the rain effect was added by using a garden hose. There are no multiple photos combined to get this shot, it is one photo.
Second, it was 32F and I had a fan on steroids blowing in my face. Third, the umbrella was brand new and tortured by be to give you the effect of hurricane winds. In all, this was a fun shoot. Special thanks to David Krukovets for getting frostbite with me. Forecast fail: Expect the best, be prepared for the worst.

EOS 1D mark4 with a 50mm f/1.2L
Shot at f/8.0, ISO 100, Shutter 1/250
Strobist info: Elinchrom Ranger Quadra Packs, A-head left of camera at 1/4 power with no light modifiers, 2nd A-Head in back of frozen subject at 1/4 power. Triggered by Elinchrom El Speed Skyport.