I’ll probably have something more substantive up later today, but I wanted to share this picture I saw on twitter.
For those who can’t see it, The image shows a Canada Goose in the foreground, as though the photo was taken from just over its shoulder. You can see a bit of its body, in the bottom right corner, and its neck snaking in from the righthand side. Its head and neck are black, and its cheeks are white. Its bill is slightly open. In front of the goose is a small stretch of rippled green water, and then a log. There’s a Green Heron standing on the log, one big yellow foot facing the goose, the other apparently facing the first foot, with the heel sticking awkwardly out to the side. Its folded wings are blue with some white edging, its belly is gray, and its long, fuzzy, purple neck is fully extended towards the goose. There are a couple white lines running along its throat. Its head is a similar blue to its wings, with the sharp, blue-black beak open to reveal a pink mouth. Its eyes are bright yellow with black pupils, and staring ferociously.
First, really neat photo.
B: I remember seeing a confrontation similar to that while I was rafting on the Shenandoah near Harpers Ferry, WV (my high school summer job was ‘whitewater raft guide (and when the water was high enough, the ‘Doah has some real good class 2-3 whitewater (good for beginners, possibly boring if you’ve done the Yough, Cheat, New, Tygart, etc))). A Muscovy duck (or, as we called them, Shenandoah Dodo Ducks (things look really silly)) in a loud face off with a fairly small (immature) Great Blue. And it went on for more than five minutes. Not sure how it ended as the current took us down past the old mill and into the Potomac.
Lastly, add some teeth to the heron, maybe a little more bulk to the legs, and this would be right at home in the late Cretaceous.
Thank you.
And fourthly, (sorry, hit submit too early) your text reminds me of one of my ‘other duties as assigned’ when I was a National Park Ranger. I, somehow, got mixed up in the descriptive text for the visually impaired for images on our website. I very quickly discovered, along with the others in the group, that I was really good at it (as long as I had someone to come through and, basically, knock out every third or fourth word (I tend to excessive verbosity)). Anyway, fantastic descriptive text. Is this something you do as part of your job?
I love the descriptive text, I’d say “staring ferociously” is a *huge* understatement, although I wouldn’t know how to improve on it.
Thanks for the kind words, all.
Oggie – you could say that? Because of immigration reasons, this blog is my job, and that’s likely to be the case for the next three years or so.
I did used to work for the Wisconsin DNR back in the day, but I got into descriptive text to help out a deafblind friend of mine. I try to do it for all the photos I post, but there wasn’t room in the “alt text” thing for the full description.
Honestly, I might just do it this way going forward, since not all the media I post is visible on all platforms. I do try to make them as interesting as the pictures.
Abe Drayton:
Sorry. That was a privileged assumption on my part (middle class, retired with a good pension, health care, etc.). I often forget my early days with the NPS when I was a GS-02 temporary. With a family.
Anyway. Thank you for doing the descriptive text outside of the ‘alt text’. If it is done right (which you have done here) it is an art form in and of itself. Giving a description of the image, while giving the text much of ‘oomph’ of the actual image, is far too rare when it comes to descriptive text.
And I just thought of this: I am all in favour of putting the descriptive text right out there in front. I’d be surprised if more than 5% of internet users are even aware that descriptive text is a thing.
No worries on the assumption! I would not be relying on this I’d had another viable option, but I’m honestly very glad of my situation. It’s not sustainable, but it’s giving me the space to try to build something stable.
That said, I’m definitely open to gig work/remote work, especially if it’s this kind of descriptive writing.
And yeah, I hadn’t really thought much about it, but I think I’ll start having the descriptions in the main text, and see how that goes. Better to err on the side of accessibility.
And thanks again for the kind words!
And that heel sticking out to the side still just cracks me up!
My mind has inserted, DeNiro in Midnight Cowboy: “I’m walkin’ here!”