When I was curating my gallery of happiness for this week’s WP Photo Challenge, it was immediately apparent that for me, happiness has to do with travel, and with animals – watching, marvelling, and hanging out with them. Strange that Ailsa, at Where’s My Backpack, should have set Animals as her Travel Challenge this week!
Having said that, the unadulterated happiness we see in children at play is every bit as contagious as happy elephants, or watching happy elephants, or watching my 90 plus year old mother’s pure delight, watching happy elephants. (Hit the first image to activate the new style gallery – which I’d like better, if I could designate which shots had prominence.)
Follow the link to other wells of happiness, and for that matter, lots of other Animals.
The Wanderlust Gene 
Love those happy, smiley faces, and yes, animals and travel make me happy too. 🙂
We’re a fraternity of happy travellers here, aren’t we?
It would appear so. 🙂
Lots of happiness here. Even the humpback whale looks like it’s smiling. And yes, animals and travel make me happy, too 🙂
I’m convinced the whales were having a … of a time, Jennifer – they were certainly showing off. But irrespective of whether they were happy, or were feeling a bit jaded at feeling obliged to put on a good show for us as we stood there in that boat that morning, they gave me one of the happiest days of my life! 🙂
You mean a “whale” of a time, right 🙂
Humpback whales are always awesome to watch, during the summer when they’re feeding, and during the winter when they’re the largest living acrobats, so I can see why they gave you such a happy day. They are thrilling to watch.
Yes, indeed, a ‘whale of a time’ – i shouldn’t have shied away from the obvious pun! Largest living acrobats is right 🙂
There is nothing like a a child’s happy face to touch your heart. You can almost hear the giggles in the pictures.
Well, of course, I can because I heard them in real time, but i’m so glad the shots resonate with their happiness Michelle 🙂
Hello, I have just nominated your blog for the One Lovely Blog Award:
http://brissiemaz.me/2012/10/06/one-lovely-blog-award/
I would be honoured if you accepted the nomination.
Mary (Brissiemaz)
Ah, Mary, that’s very kind of you – thank you, I am delighted you enjoy my blog.
I’ll pop over and investigate your other nominees, but I don’t play it forward beyond that any longer – I just can’t seem to keep up with the blogs I know, let alone finding dozens of new blogs to recommend at awards time. You’ll forgive me, I hope? 🙂
No problem – I know from experience how time-consuming it can be! Keep up the great work with your blog. I enjoy it immensely.
Thank you Mary, I appreciate it 🙂
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You made me smile 🙂
Success, then 🙂
Ah, someday I’d like to watch happy elephants too….
Believe me, it’ll blow your mind!
You know, when Mum and I came for a trip after Papa died, she wanted to see the place that had captured her daughter, but deep down, she didn’t want to like it. Well, if nothing else had completely tipped the scales beforehand, that afternoon, sitting in a jeep on the edge of the Mineriya tank, watching those two young elephants play turned her into a girl again and her delight flipped a switch for her.
I like the smiling children, the smiling/laughing elephants, and your snoozing doggies (I know that makes them happy). Ah, and then there’s travel….I’m happy with that too.
Yes, they do like a snooze Angeline – but hanging out together, doing anything I ask of them, is top of their happiness list – now isn’t that the most wonderful thing?
It’s a lovely series, with lots of joy spilling over.
How to contain ones self to six to eight shots of happiness? 🙂
What fun!!
🙂
That to me is exactly what happiness is about
I suppose there’s lots more, besides, but they did say a gallery of about six to eight so I decided to restrict myself – no walks in the wild, or gardening, or museums and galleries, no hanging out with my human friends … 🙂
these are all great, and they look really nice in the slideshow! z
You don’t think the gallery layout is too large, on the blog?
maybe it’s because i’m an artist, and i like to see/inspect detail, but i appreciate large images. it would be nice if we could drag and drop the images instead of leaving it to the whim of the odds! z
i too love the detail Lisa, I was just referring to the thumbnails in the blog, before you open the gallery. But i’m getting used to it – and i’m sure I’ll learn to manipulate the order of the gallery list so it displays to best advantage. Time consuming though – shame we can’t just designate. 🙂
Based on some of the comments on my three posts, I don’t think some of people open the gallery. If not, the larger thumbs help them appreciate what’s there. I admire you if you manually rearrange the images to fit the spaces! I couldn’t get the circle option to display anything except three rows.
Z
This rectangular option only has two rows, and the thing is to rearrange the menu order so the emphasis is on a shot you want emphasised – that’s as far as I’ve managed to manipulate it Lisa.
Thanks! Every little tidbit of advice helps! Z
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Love them! They all brought a smile to my face. 🙂
Good! Smiles, and pats, and happiness, that’s the thing 🙂
Beautiful smile faces and happy elephants! Great selections. 🙂
Bless you Amy – i do think the elephants were happy – paradise: water, food, friends, safety … 🙂
what a great series…that whale image is mind blowingly good
It was one of the happiest mornings of my life, watching them playing around the boat I was on – it was as if they knew we had come to see them – some of those tail spins were almost within arms reach of us 🙂
I like the way you’ve linked the two… I liked all the photo’s but ‘happiness is hanging out together’ gave me that warm fuzzy feeling 🙂
This new ‘hanging out’ layout is a new development – I wish there was some way to take a picture of my legs and the legs of the chair totally boxed in, as I sit at my desk … How you must miss your dog, especially when you’re in the country, sitting on the front veranda, or going for a walk. 🙂
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Lots of smiling faces… A Happy set! 🙂
Thanks Elizabeth 🙂
The little girl with the missing teeth – priceless. Kids love to play in front of a camera. They are the best subjects. Unfortunately, I haven’t been taking any pictures of kids or animals. It will have to go on my photo-to-do list.
Your have a great looking blog. I’ve been paying more attention to layouts, color backgrounds and gallery postings. I like the gallery slide show. I have been maneuvering around my blog trying to get it going. It is very time consuming as vision starts to go after awhile.
Do you have Photo Shop? They have a place where you can select the size of the photos for the best web sizing. I wish I could explain it but I’m just a novice and am barely figuring it out.
I went to file and then clicked For the Web …
Hope that helps. ~~~~~ : – O
They’re great anyways. Toodles,
Isadora
Thanks for everything, Isadora. I’ve always liked the gallery format as a means of viewing photographs, though I think the slideshow format is better with my old scans. I like the way the new gallery is displayed on our blogs, though I’m concerned the thumbnails are so large many people won’t activate the slideshow and so will miss out on the detail! I don’t have Photo Shop … I suppose one day 🙂
There are some free ones. I’m not sure what the name is. I will have to search through these lil scraps of paper on my desk and find it. I jot things down and then don’t know where they are. As a neat nick, I always remined myself that writers are allowed to do that. Hopefully, I’ll find it and whizz back to let you know. hahaha
Bless ya’ neatnick 🙂
At times it can be a handicap. ~~~~ : – )
A great gallery for both challenges – nicely done!! 😉
Thanks TRS 🙂
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Yup, they all made me smile 🙂
I can’t help thinking of an interview I saw with David Attenborough not long ago who. When asked what his favorite animal was, he said: the human child!
They’re usually ok at that stage!
What a perfect combination! And that last image of your girls is my favourite 🙂 Love the new gallery format…no more moving around images by size! Can’t wait to try it out.
I’m warming to the new gallery, though you do need to manipulate the menu order, especially if you don’t have many shots, or the emphasis goes on the wrong picture. You’ll see what I mean when you start playing. People had problems with the ‘circles’ option in the early days – haven’t heard anything more about it since, though come to think of it I haven’t seen people using circles for a while. 🙂