This is one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen, so I had to learn more – and discovered that there’s also a cool story behind it! Photographer Jim Richardson in National Geographic tells all:
Today it’s time for confession and this is a pretty good picture to be confessing about. There I was in Scotland, just happily looking through the viewfinder of a Nikon N90 (sweet camera for the era) mounted on my 80-200 f/2.8 Nikkor sitting on a tripod, staring at Rusty and Tufty, two of the hulkiest Highland cattle I had ever seen. I was there photographing whisky country for National Geographic Traveler magazine and so I was in the Highlands town of Dalwhinnie, home of the eponymous whisky. Highland “coos” (as the Scots like to call them) are not exactly a profound photographic subject but I wasn’t feeling particularly profound, anyway. I just couldn’t think of anything better to point my camera at.
When suddenly, out of nowhere, this guy with Mohawk hair and a leather jacket walked into my viewfinder. I never saw him coming at all. Hardly had a chance to pop my head over the camera to see if what I was seeing in the viewfinder was, in fact, real when he pulled out a loaf of white bread and started feeding Rusty and Tufty, who seemed to be well acquainted with the drill. Recovering swiftly (I try to do that when good fortune rescues me from my general incompetence), I hit the motor drive and let it run.
The best bit of the “nuclear wessels” scene, is that Nichelle Nichols and Walter Koenig literally went out and asked passerby. Not extras; genuine strangers on the street.
I want to emphasize: in 1986, during the Cold War, they had a man with a Russian accent thick enough to walk on wander the streets asking random people about nuclear technology. I’m amazed that people were (vaguely) helpful.
@mother-entropy DOCTOR GAVE ME A PILL AND I GREW A NEW KIDNEY
DOCTOR GAVE ME A PILL AND I GREW A NEW KIDNEY!
possibly my favourite line in any movie, solely because of the delivery.
I love this film so much I made my family go to Alameda to look for nuclear wessels.
Reason #1000 why we need Muppet Dracula: To see Miss Piggy as Mina getting super into vampiric seduction by Uncle Deadly as Dracula until she realizes he’s the one who tormented Kermit as Jonathan at which point she just fucking punts him through the window.
Also Gonzo as Renfield enjoying himself too much.
Muppet Dracula? Why have I never thought of this before, and why do I need this to exist so badly now?
glad too see the weather network started drinking early tonight.
(they mean the storm crosses the international date line and not that we are about to be swallowed by a temporal anomaly that will perpetually trap us all in an eternal 2020. just in case you thought the latter seemed in character for the year)
I want to go to this exact point and run around it saying “I’m in Sweden!” I’m in Finland!” “I’m in Norway!” until I get tired
i aspire to great things in life
According to Google Maps, that point is in the middle of a small lake.
So we’ll do it in January when it’s frozen.
actually that’s why they’ve helpfully dropped a big-ass cement block with a bridge surrounding it in the middle of the lake: for the express purpose of doing what OP aspires to do
