Playing with the macro features of the new iPhone camera. Hello close ups!

Posted via email from Dave Schumaker’s Posterous

iPhone OS 3.0 was released today. One of the features I was most looking forward to is the ability to copy and paste.

So, here is a test blog post. I’m emailing a few photos taken with my iPhone that I copied from a photo album.

Here’s to technology!

Photo by Meghan Pecaut

This past weekend, a group of friends and I ventured four hours north of San Francisco, to California’s beautiful and isolated Lost Coast for a weekend of backpacking.

We stayed in driftwood shanties that were located south of the abandoned Punta Gorda Lighthouse.

One of the most exciting events this weekend, was an encounter with a lone elephant seal on the beach. While casually walking down the beach on Saturday afternoon near the lighthouse, we noticed a lone seal following us. We stopped and watched it come closer and took photos as it approached our group. The seal was adorable, though we couldn’t help but wonder if something was wrong with it. A lone seal approaching 6 adult humans didn’t seem like normal behavior. We indulged it for a little while, took some more photos, noted that it had an orange tag labeled 21940, and then we moved on (it still tried to follow us for a bit).

About 200 yards down the beach, we approached a pod of seals sun bathing. As we came closer, they became alert and scampered away from us and into the water. A striking difference from the previous seal encounter.

Curious about this whole situation, I did some research on seals and sea lions when we returned home. Courtesy of The Marine Mammal Center, I found out that animals with an orange tag had been rescued and rehabilitated at some point. I wrote them an email, detailing our encounter, sharing the photos, and was curious to find out more. They promptly wrote back!

Dear Dave,

Thank you for the information. The animal you saw with the tag was an elephant seal pup that we released at Chimney Rock in Point Reyes National Seashore on 5/13/09. This female weaned pup was sighted post release at Baker Beach in San Francisco on 5/17/09. We always appreciate post-release reports and pictures of our previous patients.

The behavior you experienced with this pup, commonly referred to as Buzz, is unfortunately not uncommon for recently release elephant seal pups. This pup spent nearly 2 months with us learning how to forage and compete for food; it was simply malnourished upon rescue. During rehabilitation it is difficult to avoid the patients associating people as a food source. Elephant seals in general are not fearful of people, but particularly pups that have been in rehabilitation are reported as approaching people in a curious manner.

The behavior of the group of seals sounds very typical of harbor seals, which are very skittish of people; so I suspect you were seeing entirely 2 separate species.

Thanks again for your reports and let me know if you have any further questions.

Shelbi

Fascinating! “Buzz” was observed here in San Francisco, at Baker Beach, just over a week ago. Since then, she’s managed to travel over 200 miles north. Buzz seems to be a pretty good name for her. Here’s to hoping she makes a full recovery and leads a productive life!

Thanks to Shelbi and The Marine Mammal Center for their prompt response to my curiosity.

Anyway, the trip was a blast, and it is one of my favorite hikes that I’ve ever done in California.

Some photos I took in Golden Gate Park last week.

My flickr account just passed 200,000 views this weekend! Awesome!

As I was browsing through the statistics, I discovered that this was my most popular photo.

This was taken from the balcony of our apartment near downtown San Francisco. It’s an HDR photograph constructed from 9 separate photographs.

At the beginning of 2008, I wrote a post summarizing my year in review (2007) – featuring photos I took throughout the year. 2008 has been an equally busy year, with a lot happening. Follow along as I do a photographic year in review for 2008!

Click below to read more and see all the photos!

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Wow. It’s hard to believe that it’s been nearly a year since I last posted! Thanks to graduating from college, getting a real job and figuring out how life works in the real world, I’ve sort of neglected my poor webpage. Perhaps 2008 will be a time to change that.

2007 was an absolutely amazing year though. How do I even begin to catch people up on what has gone on? Perhaps the best way at the moment is through Flickr.

Click on through, as I take you on a photographic journey of the last 12 months…

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