1/12/2006: Skins for Eid

A followup to yesterday's image? The rest of the beast? Not really, as this scene is in Bangladesh. And it's not really clear how we got here -- where these skins came from. The WaPo caption says Skin traders pile cow skins by the roadside as Muslims celebrate the biggest Eid-al-Ahda festival in Dhaka, Bangladesh. But it doesn't say whether the skins come from sacrifices, whether there's a pile of heads right down the road -- or if this is just routine Bangladeshi commerce on a busy day. Anyway, the WaPo put this one up this morning so I couldn't help but bring you more beef.

Photographs rarely invoke olfaction. This one, unfortunatly, does.

:vomitblu:

Bangladesh is well known in India as a centre for leather production (it provides 2-3% of the world's leather) and yes - the days after Eid-Al-Azha are a boom time for the industry.

Kitsune wrote:

Photographs rarely invoke olfaction. This one, unfortunatly, does.

You nailed it. My very first reaction when I saw the picture was "I bet that smells bad."

Looks like the boss-man is there taking notes, wearing a suit and sandals. And maybe that's his assistant with his back to us, wearing a suit and a... ski cap??

A lot of leather laying there. No hijack intended, but this image raises a question for me. I wonder if the animal rights activists who boycott fur wear leather shoes, belts, etc.? Wouldn't leather be considered cow fur? hmmmm.......

I worked for a taxidermist for awhile several years ago. It smells as bad as you imagine it does. It's actually not all that bad when the hides are fresh...the stink really starts if you can't get around to scraping and salting the hides for a day or two.

It's not the skin that stinks, it's the fluid and meat associated with it.

Woah,Now I got a flashback. Just remembered when I was assigned a job to transport a whole semitrailer of halfrotten mooseskins to a dump.This was more than 10 years ago.I don't remember how bad they smelled but I do remember that if you pulled lightly on its fur, it loosened easily. :dead:
Our regular truckwash guy had some remarks too...

capnhowdy wrote:

A lot of leather laying there. No hijack intended, but this image raises a question for me. I wonder if the animal rights activists who boycott fur wear leather shoes, belts, etc.? Wouldn't leather be considered cow fur? hmmmm.......

I love catching them doing that.

There's an awful lot of cow skin in those piles. The bottom skin must have been a bit on the smelly side by the time it was purchased. :shock:

axlrosen wrote:

, wearing a suit and a... ski cap??

Yup - you see, it's winter over there and high's of 25 celsius are frigid compared to the summer high's of 45 celsius. It's not uncommon to see the locals in wool sweaters and toques (look it up, eh!) while north americans tourists are sweating buckets in shorts and t-shirts.

axlrosen wrote:

Looks like the boss-man is there taking notes, wearing a suit and sandals. And maybe that's his assistant with his back to us, wearing a suit and a... ski cap??

The writer might be a reporter?
I was under the impression this is a one day deal......as in all the critters are sacrificed the same day, at the end of a multiday festival.
I'd bet that pile of hides will be gone at the end of the day. :confused:

capnhowdy wrote:

A lot of leather laying there. No hijack intended, but this image raises a question for me. I wonder if the animal rights activists who boycott fur wear leather shoes, belts, etc.? Wouldn't leather be considered cow fur? hmmmm.......

Let's not leave out film and photographic paper. It's gelatin you vegans! Not fur, but ears and toes of baby cows. :(

I mean :yum:

BWWWWWAAAAA HHHHAAAAAAAA!!

Oow, thank you, thank you, 3foot! Film and photo paper....good ammo. :evil3:

Very strange -- film was a concern.

Ah, my favorite medium has died, animal protien and all.

footfootfoot wrote:

Let's not leave out film and photographic paper. It's gelatin you vegans! Not fur, but ears and toes of baby cows. :(

Maybe that means we won't be subjected to any more pictures of baby seals with photoshopped tears running from their eyes.

Schadenfreud. It's what's for dinner. :sheep:

Course, I guess digital is an option.

Kitsune wrote:

Ah, my favorite medium has died, animal protien and all.

That's sad, but on the other hand, I haven't put a roll of film in my Old Nikon FE in at least 5 years. Maybe more. All digital since then. Film is too damn expensive.

Now if they would just make a digital SLR that would take my old manual focus Nikon lenses. The Nikon D50 looks promising, but the exposure won't work with my old lenses. I hate having several hundred dollars worth of optics just sitting on the shelf in my closet. Come on Nikon!

I'm with you there. Many $k in Nikkor lenses gathering dust.
For me it wasn’t the film but the difficulty and inconvenience of developing and QUALITY printing.
Of course it’s hard to beat the convenience of resizing and emailing without having to write a literate letter to accompany them. :blush:

glatt wrote:

That's sad, but on the other hand, I haven't put a roll of film in my Old Nikon FE in at least 5 years. Maybe more. All digital since then. Film is too damn expensive.

Now if they would just make a digital SLR that would take my old manual focus Nikon lenses. The Nikon D50 looks promising, but the exposure won't work with my old lenses. I hate having several hundred dollars worth of optics just sitting on the shelf in my closet. Come on Nikon!

The new D200 has some support for AI lenses. You have to tell the camera what the max. aperature and focal length are, and it only works in some modes. From the table on dpreview (look for "Lens compatibility"), you can use manual or aperature priority exposure, and "color matrix" (I don't know how that's different than regular matrix metering), as well as center-weighted and spot metering modes.

However, the D200 is much more expensive that the D50 ($1700 vs. ~$600), so unless you have lots of money invested in lenses, it's not really worth it to get a D200 just for this feature.