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She made it!

She made it!

Marty’s photo of the day #4256: This is Annie. And yes, her jump was successful! She was an adoptee from an animal shelter. I still remember the day Deb and I brought her home. Annie was approximately two years old, nervous, and unsure of herself. The hallway to our bedroom overlooks the great room. It’s […]

The other hippo story

The other hippo story

Marty’s photo of the day #4230: Via both my first book, Cool Creatures, Hot Planet: Exploring the Seven Continents, and my college show, Around the World in 90 Minutes, the hippo attack Deb and I survived on the Zambezi River in Zimbabwe (the hippo bit through the center of our canoe and lifted us six […]

Beauty in British Columbia

Beauty in British Columbia

Marty’s photo of the day #4220: Here’s one of the many gorgeous lakes Deb and I passed on our epic trip from Montana to the top of Canada and back. This lake is in British Columbia. For our Canada adventure, we drove 5,572 miles. For comparison, the driving distance from Los Angeles to New York […]

Best campsite in Canada

Best campsite in Canada

Marty’s photo of the day #4216: I shot this photo from the best campsite of Deb’s and my adventure to the top of Canada and back. This short excerpt from my first book, Cool Creatures, Hot Planet: Exploring the Seven Continents, tells the story: The rest of our afternoon was uneventful—if you can call driving […]

Faro in the fog

Faro in the fog

Marty’s photo of the day #4215: Somehow, through the years, the file containing all the Sony Mavica photos from Deb’s and my 2002 adventure to the top of Canada disappeared from my computers. That old digital camera recorded onto mini-CDs. Even by today’s standards that camera took great still and macro photos (but lousy photos […]

More gold in a day

More gold in a day

Marty’s photo of the day #4215: As has become my tradition on Christmas, I present a photo from inside a church. I shot this one in Madrid, Spain (September 2003), where, as I wrote in my first book, Cool Creatures, Hot Planet: Exploring the Seven Continents, “The Catholic Church’s long history of wealth and power […]

Amazon outtake

Amazon outtake

Marty’s photo of the day #4202: This is an outtake from the photoshoot for the cover of my first book, Cool Creatures, Hot Planet: Exploring the Seven Continents. Yes, that is a real tailless whip scorpion on my forehead. They are mostly harmless, but having them crawl all over my face for the photoshoot tickled. […]

Lion on the Zambezi

Lion on the Zambezi

Marty’s photo of the day #4172: Deb and I watched this lioness and four of her companions hunt Cape buffalo along the bank of the Zambezi River in Zimbabwe. We didn’t see a kill, and after about an hour had to continue our journey downriver. I shot this photo as we canoed on by. This […]

Playing with humpbacks

Playing with humpbacks

Marty’s photo of the day #4168: Of the many adventures Deb and I had while traveling all seven continents for my first book, Cool Creatures, Hot Planet: Exploring the Seven Continents, the one that provides the most vivid memories was an incredible two hours in a Zodiac along the coast of Antarctica—playing with three humpback […]

Wandering albatross

Wandering albatross

Marty’s photo of the day #4154: I will use a short excerpt from my first book, Cool Creatures, Hot Planet: Exploring the Seven Continents, to explain this shot: Even though we were hundreds of miles away from any significant landmass, our Drake Passage voyage was never boring. I spent much of my time outside on […]

The bulky camera that could

The bulky camera that could

Marty’s photo of the day #4111: For the last month or so, I’ve been exclusively posting photos I took in the United States. It’s time to return to posting photos I took all over the world. I shot this white-lipped tree frog in Queensland, Australia, twenty years ago. At the time, digital photography was in […]

Holding up the world

Holding up the world

Marty’s photo of the day #4063: I’ve been posting a lot of photos from Montana lately, so I think it’s time to go back and post some photos from around the world for a while. Here’s one from Antarctica. The following excerpt, from my first book, Cool Creatures, Hot Planet: Exploring the Seven Continents, explains […]

Whip-scorpion photo shoot

Whip-scorpion photo shoot

Marty’s photo of the day #3978: For the cover of the first edition of my first book, Cool Creatures, Hot Planet: Exploring the Seven Continents, my wife, Deb, took over two hundred photos of me with tailless whip-scorpions crawling up my face. Even though we switched covers after the first edition sold out, traveling back […]

The Red Ape Trail begins here

The Red Ape Trail begins here

Marty’s photo of the day #3940: This is the waterfall Deb and I had to climb up alongside to begin our epic backpacking trip with the Iban tribe in Borneo. The two of us were only the third outsiders to ever hike the Red Ape Trail (an old Iban hunting trail). Our adventure included losing […]

The best way to do Europe

The best way to do Europe

Marty’s photo of the day #3820: When Deb and I traveled to Europe for my first book, “Cool Creatures, Hot Planet: Exploring the Seven Continents,” we had no GPS, no cell phones, no hotel reservations, and no plans at all other than to meet a friend mid-trip in Switzerland for two days. We started in […]

Marty Essen signed book special!

Marty Essen signed book special!

Signed books make great holiday gifts! Beginning today, I am offering a signed book special. Here are the prices: Cool Creatures, Hot Planet: Exploring the Seven Continents: $19.95 Endangered Edens: Exploring the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Costa Rica, the Everglades, and Puerto Rico: $19.95 Time Is Irreverent: $14.95 Time Is Irreverent 2: Jesus Christ, Not […]