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 […]
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Tag: Cool Creatures
Shooting Swatch Critters
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 […]
African Rock Python
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.
Yukon Porcupine
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
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, […]
Hippos, the second day
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 […]
Magic at 3:00 a.m.
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 […]
Orangutan find
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 […]
The untouched first book cover photo
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 […]
Stealin’ dog food
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 […]
Indigo’s tail
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 […]
For the dog
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 […]
At some point you have to run
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 […]
The Porcupine caribou migration
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 […]
A big Fuck You to the Republican Party
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. […]
A Canadian redo?
Marty’s photo of the day #4482: This is a scenic shot from somewhere on Deb’s and my epic journey to the top of Canada for my first book, Cool Creatures, Hot Planet: Exploring the Seven Continents. We’ve been hoping to redo that 5,572 mile-long adventure for many years. For the past year, we’ve really gotten […]
First Canadian campsite
Marty’s photo of the day #4464: This was one of the first campsites on Deb’s and my epic trip to the top of Canada for my first book, Cool Creatures, Hot Planet: Exploring the Seven Continents. Ever since, Deb and I have hoped to redo that 5,572 mile-long adventure. We were going to do it […]
The six o’clock cicada
Marty’s photo of the day #4452: from the Borneo chapter of Cool Creatures, Hot Planet: Exploring the Seven Continents: One creature that did follow a schedule was an insect called a “six o’clock cicada.” I was familiar with a variety of cicadas but had no idea an individual species could accurately tell time. According to […]
Repeating the adventure
Marty’s photo of the day #4440: For the North American continent adventure in my first book, Cool Creatures, Hot Planet: Exploring the Seven Continents, Deb and I and our two dogs drove from Montana all the way to the top of Canada and back. That drive was longer than driving from Los Angeles to New […]
The pig cobra
Marty’s photo of the day #4417: The following short excerpt is from my first book, Cool Creatures, Hot Planet: Exploring the Seven Continents. For this adventure, Deb and I are on the island of Borneo, and Stephen is our guide from the Dusun Segama tribe: Eventually we rose to our feet and started toward the […]