October 4 celebrated the Feast of St. Assisi, the patron saint of animals. It has also been designated World Animal day, so this is perfect timing, says Where’s my backpack? to share our animal photos. Perfect timing for me, too, since I’ve recently returned from a visit to the San Diego Zoo, where my camera caught many animals just hanging around and being their charming selves.
Ok, ok. You can have a Twinkie, but you’d better be hungry for dinner.
Just click on any of the photos to access larger images in the photo gallery. (My apologies for some of the incorrect designations [gazelle, not antelope; bonobo, not orangutang; etc.] I’m trying out the gallery style and still have a few kinks to work out)
Ok, ok. You can have a Twinkie, but you’d better be hungry for dinner.
Balancing act
Looking for Mr. Rudolph
Just wishin’ and hopin’ and plannin’ and dreamin’
Hanging around
Wake me up when it’s tea time
Let me out and I’ll show you how cuddly I can be
You take the high road and I’ll take the low road
Having double-jointed knees comes in handy for my yoga class
Say what?
These are the latest ear fashions, dahling.
Twin Peaks
I’m so pretty, oh so pretty (pygmy hippo)
There & Back 
I love the hippo! I’m kind of nervous on getting that gallery thing up and working this evening. You did a great job.
LikeLike
Thank you Angeline. I was nervous, too, and did several things wrong. I just want the gallery on individual posts, not all, so I inserted the rectangular shortcode. That installed the gallery but left all the individual photos below it, so I held my breath and deleted everything after the gallery, and that worked. I always throw any old description in when I install the photos, but it shows up in the gallery style and you can’t change it, so I’ll have to be more careful from here on out. Blogging sure is a learning process 🙂
I thought the little hippo was adorable, too. It was on its way in for a swim.
LikeLike
Hi
I just went through – easily an hour – getting this figured out and you can change the description from what you have named it. If you like, I will be more than happy to write out what I did in your comment section, but wanted to ask you first, since it will probably be long! 🙂
KK
LikeLike
Hi KK, yes please do, and thanks so much for offering. If it’s in the comments section, then everyone can read it if they’re interested.
LikeLike
No problem. I need to get my cup of coffee first…………………then I’ll write out a step by step.
KK
LikeLike
Hi
Hopefully I can help clear up some confusion. Not that I’m a blogging or computer expert by any stretch of the imagination. I simply was given an overabundance of tenacity. It has served me well! 😆
Let’s start with gallery vs. inserting individual photos. You have two options when you want to add media. After you find the file you are looking for and upload it onto the media menu – you then have two options (this took me a while to figure out). You can click on the button which says “insert this into post” or you can simply ignore that and upload another picture. Clicking on “insert this into post” will insert pictures individually into your post – this is not the gallery option. (oh oh oh blog plug here! – 99.9% of my posts are individually inserted photos http://wp.me/p2zGQ7-iY) .The second (upload another picture ) is the gallery option. Individually inserted pictures are not affected by choosing the “Cool Mosaic” feature under Dashboard:Settings:Media:Image Gallery Carousel.
So, let’s say you want to do the new media option and add gallery photos. I chose to do 9 (http://wp.me/p2zGQ7-nw). I simply uploaded 9 pictures one right after the other. When I was finished I clicked the “save all changes” button. You will then automatically go into the “gallery” tab or you will need to click on it – it is at the top. Here is where you get to do the name of the file changing.
Unlike individually inserting a photo – where you put the name that you want displayed in the “Caption” section. Gallery photos are identified when you move your mouse over the photograph. In order to change what you have named it on your computer you need to change the” TITLE”. Once you have done that, go down to the end of the page and click “save all changes”. When you are done changing things click “insert gallery”.
Now this is where you get to change it into one of the cool new looks. When you are back in the “add new post” page, at the top you will see a tab called “Text”, click on that. You will see something like this: [gallery orderby="ID"] – you will want to change/replace it to one of the new options, like this [gallery type="circle"]. Viola – you are done! Here are the new codes just in case: [gallery type="rectangular"], [gallery type="square"], [gallery type="circle"].
I hope that helps!
KnowledgeKnut
P.s. I started a challenge too – it is called Friday’s Foto Fun and this week’s them is Faces – stop by and submit a photo: http://wp.me/p2zGQ7-mW
LikeLike
Thank you for taking the time to write out the explanation, KK. It seems complicated, but I will give it a try. I added the pictures individually, then entered the gallery code b/c I didn’t see a “gallery” option anywhere, but next time I will go through it in the manner you lay out.
A new photo challenge is always fun, and “faces” is a great way to start. I’ll see what I can come up with.
LikeLike
Wonderful! I can’t wait to see what you submit!
As for the directions – really not complicated at all and when you do it you will have (at least I did) one of those “Oh, I get it now” moments. 🙂
KK
LikeLike
That’s a really useful explanation. Thanks!
LikeLike
i love them all, Jennifer: but my favourite has to be the meercat…
LikeLike
Who can resist a meerkat? I can’t. They’re cute and adorable and have these perky facial expressions. Perhaps they remind us of our dogs and cats?
LikeLike
Indeed. 🙂
LikeLike
I am always strangely drawn to animal pictures and these are really good ones
LikeLike
Mahalo (thank you) Dallas. Not such a strange attraction, really (all the good people have it 🙂 ). A photo is a moment in time, capturing a personality and holding it for us to connect with. When we look into an animal’s eyes, we are connecting with another living being.
LikeLike
Wonderful Photos!! I love the Apes. Wonderful! (oh, I said that already) Thank you for sharing such wonderful photos!! 🙂 😉
LikeLike
Please feel free to write all the “wonderful”s you want. I won’t object 🙂 I’m an animal lover, and I’m just so glad you are all enjoying the photos. I had to look it up on the zoo website, but those apes are bonobos (who knew there were so many different types of apes?). They have such expressive faces, and they seemed to be having so much fun (I would too, if I could play on all those ropes and climbing apparatuses).
LikeLike
great images – that hippo is really stunning
LikeLike
Thanks Jo. I’ll be sure to tell her. She’ll be so pleased you said so 🙂
LikeLike
Beautiful photos! I tagged you for an award http://dianne-jones.blogspot.com/2012/10/tagged-in-2-in-1-award.html
LikeLike
Wow! Thank you. You made my day, and I am honored.
LikeLike
they are all wonderful images! great job! z
LikeLike
Thank you, z. I’d like to extend most of the credit to my subjects, the representatives of nature’s awesomeness on our amazing planet.
LikeLike
I haven’t gone to a zoo in nearly a decade. Seeing imprisoned animals just makes me depressed. I’d rather watch a wild finch or crow than fund animal captivity to look at the most magnificent animal in the world. I highly recommend reading “Thought to Exist in the Wild: Awakening From the Nightmare of Zoos” by Derrick Jensen, photographs by Karen Tweedy-Holmes (here’s a link to it on Amazon, http://www.amazon.com/Thought-Exist-Wild-Awakening-Nightmare/dp/0972838716/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1349662837&sr=8-1&keywords=thought+to+exist+in+the+wild )
About the book, Bill Maher writes, “Finally, someone has the courage to question zoos. Animals in zoos are not ambassadors teaching us about the natural world, they’re unwilling prisoners, teaching us how we as humans seem to need to dominate every living being on the planet.”
I’m not judging or looking down on anyone, just trying to educate and get people to think about our nonhuman brethren, to challenge the dominant culture’s wildly destructive anthropocentrism. It’s nothing personal, writecrites =)
–Love and Liberation–
Jan
LikeLike
Jan, I understand and appreciate your position. My husband works at an aquarium, so I have an insider’s view as well. Our aquarium here has recently taken in a young seal that had gone blind and would have died in the wild, for example. Most U.S. zoos at least (but not all, of course) treat their animals with a great deal of care and respect, but I can see both sides of the issue. Human beings do a lot of damage in the wild, too. Poachers of elephants, for example; the clubbing of seals, netting of turtles, finning of sharks, etc. So many species have gone extinct in the wild. Zoos can and do help stop extinction from happening to other species by propagation. It’s a complex issue, but thanks for weighing in and adding to the conversation.
LikeLike
Yeah, they do some good…they just do much more harm, teaching children (and adults) that it’s okay to hold animals captive for our amusement/entertainment. It’s subtle, but it’s deletarious to our psyches regarding wild animals and the natural world. To say nothing of how miserable so many of the animals are–the boredom and depression experienced by animals who in the wild would roam over hundreds of square miles, instead have closer to hundreds of square FEET.
LikeLike
I love these animals! Nice photos – my favorite is the polar bear!
LikeLike
Thank you, Christina. I’m glad you enjoyed them. The polar bear is a stunning animal, indeed. Whenever I’m lucky enough to see one up close like this, it makes me even more determined to do what I can to help save its wild habitat.
LikeLike
those are some nicely timed shots 🙂
LikeLike
Thanks, joshi. Timing—that’s an element one has to think about in photography, isn’t it. The leopard cub was moving constantly and I had to use manual focus because of the fence; the gazelle stood on its hind legs only briefly and I was lucky to be there at that moment. I watched the hippo for several minutes before taking this shot. Another few seconds and it would have been submerged. And so on.
LikeLike
All beautiful captures… my favorite is the ear fashion shot!
LikeLike
Can’t you just see that design on a pair of big, dangly earrings.
LikeLike
Love the pygmy hippo. He or she looks very vulnerable somehow.
LikeLike
I know what you mean. Perhaps because its features are much more gentle than a regular hippo? Or perhaps it’s the look in its eye. It seems to be entering the water with trepidation, perhaps genetically watchful for potential alligators.
LikeLike
Wonderful selections. Great pics you took at the zoo! Thank you so much for stopping by my site!
LikeLike
Glad you liked them, Amy. I’ll be back to your blog for more 🙂
LikeLike
Lovely photos! 🙂
LikeLike
Thanks so much, Imelda 🙂
LikeLike
Great shots! Hippos are pretty cute animals! I’d love to invite you to participate in another weekly photo challenge!
Our Wild Weekly Photo Challenge encourages bloggers to head into the wild (or the backyard) and photograph something that they feel fits the weekly theme. Our current theme for this week is “Fall”
http://www.letsbewild.com/photo-challenge/
LikeLike
Hi Nick, yes the pygmy hippos are definitely cute in a roly poly kind of way.
Thanks for stopping by, and for the heads up on your Challenge. I’m going to check it out (although I may be a bit late for the Fall theme).
LikeLike
These are great shots, and the look on the meerkat’s face is just precious! Nice capture.
LikeLike
Meerkats look so adorable, don’t they. I think they all perfect that “look” to get us to like them. It works 🙂
LikeLike
Great job on the gallery rectangular and of course the animals. I tried the rectangular patr of the post and looked like c–p . You did a good job.
LikeLike
Thank you for the pat on the back, mhdriver, but I must admit I’m still learning when it comes to these new formats, and don’t have it down yet. I think I just got lucky with the rectangular one, and must go back to the directions next time. I tried it again for my more recent post on Easter Island, and it came out totally differently. Oh well. Practice makes perfect, they say.
LikeLike