The right photographer can bring out a surprising side of their subject. Photographer Johnny Kääpä reveals the different emotions of his local red squirrels. His portraits showcase the multiple facets of their personalities, from sassy to silly to surprised. Kääpä’s animal portraits feel relatable to us humans, making each image a delight.
Kääpä has spent a lot of time befriending the squirrels that live near his home in Sweden. Over the past year, however, he observed and photographed his friend Wonky and her babies. The creature and her kids had just moved to a new squirrel drey, aka their tree nest.
Kääpä photographed them using his outdoor squirrel studio, which includes lights and a reflector. Each portrait requires him to wait for the rodents to “step inside his studio” which he’s planned for by arranging flowers and greenery. But ultimately, the shot is up to the squirrel. “I try to find the best camera settings and angles to see what I can get,” he writes.
While there are many adorable moments in photographing squirrels, one stand-out memory is when Kääpä had the fleeting chance to capture the babies at play. “Some may worry that they would be disturbed, but if I get too close, they stop playing and just sit still. So, to get the playful pictures, you need a long lens, to keep still, and not have them notice you. This period doesn’t last more than one to two weeks.”
Scroll down to see Kääpä’s charming photos and then follow him on Instagram to see what he’s photographing next.
Johnny Kääpä: Website | Instagram | Facebook
Squirrel Saved by a Compassionate Redditor Comes Back to Visit Every Day
Squirrels Pose Like Tiny Superheroes Ready To Take on Big Battles
Curious Red Squirrels Interact With Tiny Props To Create the Most Adorable Photos
Photographer Captures Adorable Moment Squirrel Takes in Sweet Smell of Flower
The University of Pittsburgh and 1Hood Media, collaborated to host “This Thing We Call Hip-Hop,” an event celebrating Juneteenth and the 50th anniversary of the emergence of the popular music genre.
The Friday event included music, trivia, and a panel discussion with Pittsburgh native artists including Fedd The God and Hardo.
Five event facilitators sat down with us on video to discuss the event, Juneteenth, and the intersections of history, culture, and music.
Watch what they have to say in our new video feature: Talk to the Trib.
Zachary Gibson is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Zachary by email at zgibson@triblive.com or via Twitter .
In 2018, the professor S. Shyam Sundar led a field study about misinformation and “fake news” in India. The research team found that, as opposed to audio and text, misinformation presented in video format was not only more likely to be believed but also more likely to be shared. He discusses the experience on the latest episode of the Feature Shoot photography podcast, which was devoted to the subject of artificial intelligence (AI):
“Imagery is a particularly important area for its potential to cause a lot of damage. We tend to overtrust images.” – S. Shyam Sundar on the Feature Shoot photography podcast
S. Shyam Sundar is the James P. Jimirro Professor of Media Effects, the Co-Director of the Media Effects Research Laboratory, and the Director of the Center for Socially Responsible Artificial Intelligence at the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications at Pennsylvania State University.
In this episode of our podcast, he spoke with Feature Shoot’s Founder Alison Zavos about the potential challenges and opportunities presented by AI across media, with a focus on images. Their conversation took place shortly after an incident involving an AI-generated (fake) image of an explosion near the Pentagon, which briefly affected the stock market. According to experts, it might be the first time an AI image has influenced markets.
AI might have the potential to cure cancer or generate solutions to climate change, but we need to enter into this brave new world with caution. Right now, AI images can be nearly indistinguishable from photographs—and they will keep getting better.
With AI images already deceiving people, what can be done to protect the public from misinformation? Adobe has proposed one potential solution, and Sundar shared some of his ideas with us as well as part of the photography podcast.
For those of us in the photography industry, in particular, the future of AI remains uncertain. Will AI be just another way of creating and modifying images (similar to editing), or could the technology ultimately replace photographers?
“Photographers have to ask themselves, ‘How can I imbue a humanness that is distinct from a machine into my pictures?” Sundar suggests. “‘What else—in terms of the ‘soul of a human,’ so to speak—can make a picture inherently human and distinct from AI?’”
Listen to the Feature Shoot photography podcast here!
Miss our last episode? Check it out here.
LONGVIEW, Texas — The rise of digital photography seemed to signal the end of analog for a Longview resident, but he’s aiming to change that by bringing film back to the community in a familiar way.
Jamie Maldonado is a local photographer with a master’s degree in studio art from Texas A&M Commerce. He previously served as an assistant at Kilgore College, where he said he fostered his love of photography. Now, Maldonado wants to give back to the community by opening a nonprofit community darkroom he’s calling the Piney Woods Darkroom.
Over the last several years, he’s been thinking of ideas related to film photography and the one he kept returning to was of a film lab, he said. After speaking with a fellow photographer friend who runs a community darkroom in California, Maldonado was struck by the similarity to what he used to do at Kilgore College.
Trucks are hugely popular across the United States, with pickups (and SUVs) ranked as the most popular segment of vehicles over the past four years. Unsurprisingly, electric trucks like the Rivian R1T and Ford Lightning are also doing well, with growing demand for vehicles with load capacity, EV efficiency and performance, technological amenities, and the option to get off the beaten path to seek adventure tempting car buyers into PHEV trucks in droves. But trucks today are increasingly oversized for everyday tasks, especially for those living in urban zip codes where parking a mid or full-size truck can prove challenging. TELO, a new electric truck arrives as the antithesis of the modern pickup, a small but capable EV pickup designed for urbanites who want all of the perks of a truck with a fraction of the parking space footprint.
In Japan, small alleyway width Kei trucks are designed to navigate the tightest spaces, aiding city dwellers and farmers alike with a myriad of tasks. But in the United States, even the smallest truck – currently the Hyundai Santa Cruz – still measures close to 200 inches in length and 75 inches in width. Compare those numbers to the 152-inch long TELO, an electric truck comparable in size to a MINI Cooper. Yet this wee work and play vehicle also is outfitted with the same as most Toyota Tacoma trucks (a 5-foot bed; though still smaller than this truck owner’s daily driver, a Tacoma with the 6-foot bed option), and a four-door five-passenger spacious interior.
With a pugnacious front somewhat reminiscent of the Canoo pickup truck, but smaller, the TELO’s modest proportions offer something beyond a parking space-friendly demeanor. This little EV can keep on trucking for 350 miles between charges.
The TELO’s 106kWh battery pack charges to capacity in just 20-minutes (20-80%), powering a 380 kW dual motor AWD for a total of 500 HP and good for 0-60 in 4 seconds, while delivering 350 miles of range (just enough to get you from Los Angels to San Francisco in one go).
The truck’s unique design is the work of fuseproject and Yves Béhar (far right), TELO’s Head of Design and Advisor, here with TELO’s co-founder, CEO Jason Marks and co-founder, CTO Forrest North.
“For us, the opportunity to design with the latest EV technology meant that we could create a category defining and environmentally mighty ultra-compact pickup truck,” says TELO’s Head of Design, Yves Béhar. “It is designed for city adventurers who want a vehicle nimble enough for city streets and robust enough for outdoor exploring, with plenty of space for their people and gear. It has been an honor to bring to life an unparalleled EV truck which offers best-in-class utility, safety and all around drivability.”
The TELO’s bed capacity is expandable thanks to a specially designed mid-partition between the back-seat and the truck bed. Folded down, longer items can intrude from the truck bed into the interior of the truck, enabling transport of items as large as 4-feet by 8-feet sheets of plywood, long ladders, or as shown here, an armada of 9-foot surfboards.
TELO is being aimed at “urban adventurers” seeking the practicality of a small footprint vehicle for the daily tasks with the load capacity and power of a traditional truck, and noting our own positive response to this design, TELO has a good possibility of establishing an entirely new segment sorely lacking in the United States market: the mini electric truck.
TELO will retail for $49,999 (not including State and Federal Electric Vehicle Tax Credits) and is currently available for pre-order with a deposit of $152 at www.telotrucks.com.
The opposition politician Alexei Navalny, his lawyers Olga Mikhailova and Vadim Kobzev and other participants appear via videolink during an external hearing of the Moscow city court in a new criminal case against Navalny on numerous charges, including the creation of an extremist organisation, at the IK-6 penal colony in the Vladimir region
Photograph: Evgenia Novozhenina/Reuters
