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Marty’s photo of the day #4548: In my first book, Cool Creatures, Hot Planet: Exploring the Seven Continents, I wrote about Antarctica, and the strict rules we had about not approaching any animal closer than 15 feet. The animals, however, could approach as close as they wanted to.
Marty’s photo of the day #4532: During the years 2001 through 2004, Deb and I explored all seven continents for my six-time award-winning first book, “Cool Creatures, Hot Planet: Exploring the Seven Continents.” Since that time, my mind has often wandered to the thousands of animals we saw during our journey. Are any of them […]
Marty’s photo of the day #4532: As mentioned yesterday, the first chapter of my first book, Cool Creatures, Hot Planet: Exploring the Seven Continents, takes place in Belize. The year was 2001, and during part of that trip we stayed at the Blackbird Resort on the Blackbird Caye (basically Gilligan’s Island). Just this morning, I […]
Marty’s photo of the day #4531: The first chapter of my first book, Cool Creatures, Hot Planet: Exploring the Seven Continents, takes place in Belize. The year was 2001, and during part of that trip we stayed at the Blackbird Resort on the Blackbird Caye. This photo is from that visit. Next fall, Deb and […]
Marty’s photo of the day #4515: Anyone who has read my first book, published in 2007, Cool Creatures, Hot Planet: Exploring the Seven Continents, knows that I didn’t get along well with water. That changed in 2016, when Deb and I snorkeled with sea lions and octopuses in the Sea of Cortez. Better equipment combined […]
Marty’s photo of the day #4465: I shot this orangutan photo back in 2003, when digital photography was still relatively new. I had purchased a Nikon camera for my Borneo trip that promised to be the best of its class. The camera arrived just before I left the United States, and I didn’t have much […]
Marty’s photo of the day #4452: My wife, Deb Essen, is one of America’s premier master weavers, and she has a three-book deal with Schiffer Publishing. My first two books, Cool Creatures, Hot Planet: Exploring the Seven Continents” and “Endangered Edens: Exploring the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Costa Rica, the Everglades, and Puerto Rico, feature […]
Marty’s photo of the day #4450: This is an eleven-foot-long African rock python. I caught and released this beautiful snake in Zimbabwe while working on my first book, Cool Creatures, Hot Planet: Exploring the Seven Continents.
Marty’s photo of the day #4444: I photographed this porcupine in the Yukon Territory while working on my first book, Cool Creatures, Hot Planet: Exploring the Seven Continents.
Day #1 of Seven Marty Essen Books in Seven Days, featured in order of publication. We start with the six-time award-winning classic, Cool Creatures, Hot Planet: Exploring the Seven Continents. “This is a wonderful book—a labor of love—that describes in soul-stirring language what it is like to live with the people, the animals, the birds, […]
Marty’s photo of the day #4659: As anyone who has read my first book, Cool Creatures, Hot Planet: Exploring the Seven Continents, or seen my college show, Around the World in 90 Minutes, knows, my wife, Deb, and I were attacked by a hippo on the Zambezi River in Zimbabwe. The hippo literally bit through […]
Marty’s photo of the day #4648: The expedition to Antarctica Deb and I did many years ago for my first book, Cool Creatures, Hot Planet: Exploring the Seven Continents, was absolutely magical. We’ve discussed doing it again, but we know that trying to recreate magic like that seldom works. Then, this week, we learned that […]
Marty’s photo of the day #4639: Being that this is photo 4,639, when I go through my photo files each morning to decide what to post, sometimes it’s frustrating finding something of high quality that I haven’t posted before. That’s especially the case when I go through the photos I took while working on my […]
Marty’s photo of the day #4620: For my final picture of the year, I’m posting the untouched photo for the cover of the First Edition of my first book, Cool Creatures, Hot Planet: Exploring the Seven Continents. That’s a tailless whip scorpion on my face, and my wife, Deb, shot the photo in the Amazon […]
Marty’s photo of the day #4541: Deb and I have enjoyed two long camping trips into Canada with our dogs. The first was in 2002, when Deb and I took Kate and Annie on a 5,572-mile-long adventure to the very top of Canada, which became part of my first book, Cool Creatures, Hot Planet: Exploring […]
Marty’s photo of the day #4514: This tail belongs to a gray whale named Indigo (read on to learn how I know that). While working on my first book, Cool Creatures, Hot Planet: Exploring the Seven Continents, Deb and I experienced multiple close-up humpback whale encounters off the coast of Antarctica. The whales would approach […]
Marty’s photo of the day #4500: In 2002, Deb and I and our dogs, Kate and Annie, traveled to the top of Canada in a 5,572 mile-long adventure that became the North American chapter in my first book, Cool Creatures, Hot Planet: Exploring the Seven Continents. That trip was as much for our dogs as […]
Marty’s photo of the day #4496: A short excerpt from the Australia chapter in my first book, Cool Creatures, Hot Planet: Exploring the Seven Continents, explains this photo: A few of the caves had entrances large enough for a human to squeeze through. Reaching the small chambers, however, would have required dropping through layers of […]
Marty’s photo of the day #4491: This is a tiny section of the Porcupine caribou migration, the longest terrestrial migration of any animal on Earth. I shot this photo in 2002, while traveling for my first book, Cool Creatures, Hot Planet: Exploring the Seven Continents. This spot is in Canada’s Northwest Territories, which, unfortunately, is […]
Marty’s photo of the day #4490: I photographed this gorgeous elk on Deb’s and my epic trip to the top of Canada for my first book, Cool Creatures, Hot Planet: Exploring the Seven Continents. For many months my wife and I have been planning routes and acquiring new gear to redo that adventure this fall. […]
