I would love to know who made an email attachment of my thieving duck and thank them. The Aflac Duck seems to be a well known part of American insurance marketing and people got a kick out of these ducks stealing money from a lady on the street!
Apparently my thieving duck has become “the most sent-around-ha-ha-look-at-the-duck photo evar” but I wish I had watermarked the image with my blog url. It has appeared on:
To those that linked back here, thank you. To the rest, shame on you, why didn’t you use Google and find my blog?
I’m still chuffed that an image of mine is now an “urban legand” of sorts. Not many can say that! More comments on flickr but please link here if you’re going to link anywhere!
Update on June 14th. It appears the News of the World newspaper used the Thieving Duck last Sunday. I sent them off an email this afternoon so hopefully I will hear from them within a day or two.
A crow flies off into the freedom of the air with a crumb of bread he found on the pavement. The railings of nearby houses are like those of a prison keeping humans in and trapped and closed off.
Cupid’s Arrow in San Francisco provides an interesting silhouette against the eveningsky. If you’ve payed close attention to my photos in the past you might think this is a duplicate of another shot but it’s from a slightly different angle and wider, and I feel stronger because of the pattern the birds make in the sky. What do you think?
A solitary swan swims on the calm waters of The Lough as the sun disappears at the end of the day.
Believe it or not, this is a 10 second exposure that turned out much better than I could have hoped! I balanced my camera on the edge of the Lough, set it to Aperture priority mode at f/11, dialed the exposure down two stops, flipped up the camera flash and took the shot.
How does this work?
By setting the aperture to a fairly high value little light is let into the camera sensor.
By setting the exposure down two stops the whole scene will be underexposed but bright areas will be exposed mostly correctly.
Given the above settings, any dark moving objects will be completely invisible so when the flash fired it picked out the swan swimming past and even created a nice reflection in the water.
Two teenagers watch a seagull on the way back from Alcatraz Island in San Francisco. The US flag flutters in the same breeze that keeps the gull aloft, who no doubt is hoping for food from the boat full of tourists.
I’m going to be shooting at a fund raising night for Cope Foundation tonight. It’s an Eighties Night in the Ambassador Hotel here in Cork. It starts at 9:30pm, tickets are €12.50 on the door, and there’ll be spot prizes throughout the night! All are welcome, especially if you can get out your 80’s gear again. Time for big hair, leg warmers and shoulder pads?
If you’re there, watch out for me and say hi!
Swans rush to the bank of the Lough looking for bread from the crazy guy hanging over the water with a large black object…
This shows off one of my favourite night-time techniques. Long exposure with a flash. The long exposure captures the background while the flash illuminates the foreground objects, along with some nice movement blur.
It works really well at parties when people are dancing, especially if you’re lucky to capture a laughing face while the body is in motion.
Yet another curious seagull on the island of Alcatraz in San Francisco. I think he has a stern, angry look on his face, probably because I disturbed him by waving a camera in his face!
Alcatraz Island is now inhabited by the birds and I presume security staff but I think the birds have a better life with all the tourists around hefting lunches and sandwiches from the mainland.
Imagine the scene, me and a few of the others scrambling to get a shot of this seagull. I had my wide angle lens fitted so I had to lean forward for the gull to fill the frame! It’s a sign of how tame they are that we got this shot even if he did eye me suspiciously.
A gull flies off after an inconsiderate photographer runs after it to shoot it. Beats having the kids do the running eh? They might fall!
This was taken in San Francisco, and that’s The Golden Gate Bridge in the background. I went through my shots from my August trip a few days ago and selected around one hundred images for processing. I’ll mix in a few shots over the next few week’s posts. There’s everything from bridges, streetpeople and furniture, Memphis Minis and Alcatraz so plenty for all tastes.
Note to self - when traveling to a new timezone, change the time on your camera!
A duck robs a poor innocent woman as she’s distracted by the cute ducklings. Moments later they all rush off with their ill-gotten gains!
What you don’t see is the camera crew, make-up and lighting people and a small crowd watching from behind them. This was for some advert and of course the woman in question is a model.
I shot this on State Street, Chicago after stumbling upon the shoot by accident. They didn’t seem to mind, and I even got a dazzling smile from the model!
2006-10-07 - John Marguess pointed me at Organized Crime which uses the same image in another joke email! Thanks John!
Here’s the text of the joke email (via snopes) for those of you who go searching for the origins of it. I’d love to know who concocted it in the first place!
Seems the Better Business Bureau got a complaint the other day about a scam in which AFLAC allegedly was taking advantage of women on the street and stealing their money.
Now we all at one time or another have thought that INSURANCE Companies have stolen from us; however, this scam is netting COLD HARD CASH from unsuspecting individuals.
The way it works is the thief uses children to distract the target. While admiring the cuteness of the kids the target is robbed of her cash and never knows what hit her.
I’m sending this out for all to be aware that this is happening and it’s right out on the streets in front of the general public.
A passer-by with a digital camera phone happened to capture the photo attached.
Review it carefully and use caution when distractions like this come along.
Good Luck, and don’t say you weren’t warned.
According to Snopes, it was an advert showing how safe Western Union money transfer system was. I really should have asked someone..
