Agreeable Tiger Moth

Thematic Photographic this week is 'Turning Colder'
I haven't been out with my camera recently, so I trawled through the archives and decided to give this guy a requiem.
He's an 'Agreeable Tiger Moth' as far as I know, which isn't very far!
I've no idea who he was so agreeable with to warrant such a fine name, maybe he nods his head a lot after crashing into the light bulb a few hundred times:)
Anyway he was chosen for this chilly theme because it looks like he has on a large fur collared cape .
And I think these moths die as the weather turns colder.
If I didn't know any different he could simply be in repose, like a mini Dracula moth!
After all they are both night creatures.
Halloween must be getting to me:)

Illustration Friday 'Transportation'

Illustration Friday is 'Transportation' this week.
I'm afraid mine is a rerun , but I thought it was quite fitting for the theme, the transportation of pollen by Mr. Busy Bee.

Blue eyed Spider monkey!

Now I know I messed around in photoshop with this photo, but amazingly, the blue eyes are for real.
They call her Ol' Blue Eyes and she lives in Fota Wildlife Park where you can read all about her.
I didn't notice her blue eyes when I was taking the photograph as she was too far away. It was only when I saw them on the laptop and even then I thought it a trick of the light, the blue sky reflected. It is so unexpected.
The idea behind turning it into black and white was to try to high light the blue eyes, but I realise that it actually just discredits them.
I've put in the original photograph below just for the unbelievers!
I do like the black and white though, it reminds me of the old Tarzan movies I loved as a kid.

Thematic Photographic this week is 'Branched'
Well Ol' Blue Eyes would have branched out into the modeling business, given her most unusual features, had she been given half a chance.

Carbon footprints

Illustration Friday's theme this week is 'Beneath'.
These are my baby's footprints at six months old.

May the grass be always green beneath your feet, my darling one.

I used beetroot juice for the original, which came out a lovely soft baby pink, perfect!
But it has faded terribly since, you could hardly see the print when I took a photo of it.
So off to photoshop we go and kill all the cuteness.
Now it's more like a thermal image or what a carbon footprint might look like:)

Mosaic floor in Honan Chapel

As I was going through my photos for this weeks Thematic Photographic, which is 'Parallel', I came across these photos of the Honan Chapel's mosaic floor by Ludwig Oppenheimerin 1916.
It's a stunning work of art, my photos do not do it justice.

I love that Oppenheimer seems to pay little or no deference to the fact that it's a catholic church floor he's designing .
You are greeted at the water font by the twelve zodiac signs and then ushered up the aisle by what looks to me like a Japanese river god, but maybe it's meant to be God pouring forth life, or something!

It's been a few years since I took these photos, I'll have to go back with my camera and get the full story.
I cant remember, but I've a feeling Adam and Eve should be around somewhere.