The killing

I've just spent the last half hour or so reading about cabbage white butterflies on the web; I was shocked to discover that all most sites talk about is how to kill them. The one on the left, I can assure you, died a natural death and now lives on as a work of art! It was sent to me via post by Chantal of course, and I hope she'll forgive me for the fuzzy photo, because it is a very beautiful thing - not done any justice by my shaky hand and crappy mobile phone camera. My little bit of research has revealed some interesting facts about this lovely insect though, not least that the one pictured is female (because she has two spots on each wing - well she would have wouldn't she!), and, according to the BBC, they're also known as 'summer snowflakes' - how beautiful and descriptive is that! Why anyone would want to kill them off in favour of a cabbage is beyond me...one of the most foul tasting things on this earth - yuk. I bet even the butterfly tastes better, though being a vegetarian I'm not about to try it and find out for you, even for the sake of art.

As part of my 'research' (very loosely termed, believe me!) I did a picture search for the cabbage white and what I'd like to know is, just where do other people get all those lovely images from that they post on their blogs? Do they actually pay Getty or what? I can't believe they do, so where do they get them from? Are there a whole load of copyright-free images out there that I just can't find, or are there lots of blogger thieves, denying artists and photographers some control over how their images are used and a right to their meagre livings?!!! I mean, if artists and photographers, or whoever, were actually paid for their images it might mean that they could make more lovely images for us instead of having to do the whole gamut of low-paid, desperately un-creative work to keep the wolf from the door. The amount of exceptionally talented people out there that have to waste their time behind the counter at the local Spa shop is criminal. If you can't afford to pay the artist then take your own photos.

Well, I didn't know I was going to rant about that today! I think must've had a good week this week. I'm sure I only rant when I'm in a good mood; it's just too much effort when I'm not.