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Jenni Gritters

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18 nature photos that didn't turn out as planned. Can you spot the mistakes?

Check out the photos that Instagrammer Samantha Pickertts doesn't usually share.

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Earth Day

Like most famous Instagrammers, Samantha Pickertts takes A LOT of photos.

She posts some of the incredibly beautiful nature photos she takes on her Instagram feed. But what you don't see? The thousands of photos she doesn't post, photos that sit in her computer's hard drive for years.

Sometimes the photos are left behind because animals or people got in the way of the shot. Sometimes Pickertts' fingers end up in the photo frame. But sometimes the mistakes are even tinier; they're mistakes that only a photographer would notice — a misplaced seagull, the corner of a tripod, weird lighting, or a wonky chunk of dirt.

"I can easily take hundreds of pictures on any given session," Pickertts says. "I consider myself satisfied if I wind up with one special image that captures something unique and worthy of sharing."

In celebration of Earth Day, we asked Pickertts to send over a stack of those photos that DIDN'T make the Instagram cut.

We wanted to show you what the world around us looks like without filters, perfect framing, Photoshop, or expensive equipment.

And we also wanted to help Pickertts share an important Instagram secret: Most nature photos aren't perfect because the world isn't perfect ... but it is beautiful.

Can you spot the tiny mistakes in these photos?

1. Bryce Natural Bridge, Utah


All photos by Samantha Pickertts, used with permission.

The tiny mistake: a dark finger swipe at the top left corner of the frame.

2. A glorious sunrise

The tiny mistake: Pickertts says this photo is underexposed, but you can barely tell because the natural colors in this Bryce Canyon National Park sunrise are so incredible.

3. Bullhead City, Arizona

The tiny mistake: "The background here is not exceptional," says Pickertts, noting that the animal started walking unexpectedly. "But it ended up being a fun photo because I caught the burro's shadow."

4. Crater Lake, Oregon

The tiny mistake: "The cloudy day yielded no reflection of Wizard Island on Crater Lake, which is what I was after," Pickertts says. What she did end up with? A snap of the incredible clouds.

5. A human footpath

The tiny mistake: "I couldn't get clean shot of lake without a bit of land on foreground," Pickertts says, remembering her annoyance with the shot.

Turns out, she gave the photo extra depth by capturing the land; you can actually tell where she's standing.

6. A delicate arch

The tiny mistake: Pickertts accidentally included a tripod in the shot. Oops!

7. Goosenecks State Park, Utah

The tiny mistake: I spy with my little eye ... a tiny human in this epic nature shot at Goosenecks State Park in Utah.

8. Lee Vining, California

The tiny mistake: Pickertts raced to catch the sunrise ... and missed it. Hey, it happens to the best of us, even famous nature Instagrammers!

9. A rogue seagull

The tiny mistake: Breaking one of the rules of nature photography, this seagull flew below the horizon instead of above it ... and right toward Pickertts.

10. Mono Lake, California

The tiny mistake: A man spending a quiet moment by himself interrupted this photo of Mono Lake in California. Or maybe she interrupted him.

11. Multnomah Falls, Oregon

The tiny mistake: "This bridge was under construction, which was totally unfortunate for me when I got there," Pickertts says. "I edited the scaffolding and workers out when I posted this image on social media."

12. Na Pali Coast, Hawaii

The tiny mistake: Check out the bottom lefthand corner. Yep, that's a fingernail.

13. Natural Bridges State Beach, California

The tiny mistake: "People got in the way of this shot, but I love it anyway: especially the bird formation above the natural bridge," Pickertts says.

14. Point Bonita, California

The tiny mistake: Even nature photographers can't control the weather! This shot got totally fogged-out.

15. Rowena Crest, Oregon

The tiny mistake: Can you catch the wind in these flowers? Pickertts says it was incredibly windy on this day hike, so it was tough to photograph most of her subjects.

16. Valley of Fire, Nevada

The tiny mistake: Pickertts says she didn't notice that she caught the back of the sign on the left side of the photo. Ideally, the front of the sign would have framed the left side of this gorgeous sunset.

17. Vance Creek Bridge, Washington

The tiny mistake: This photo was rendered unusable by Pickertts because of the challenging lighting situation, which cast the trees in the background into a muted tone.

18. Victoria Beach, California

The tiny mistake: Do you spot what Pickertts' photographer's eyes spotted? Yep, that's another photographer in the bottom left corner of the frame.

These photos aren't edited, and they're full of tiny mistakes. But they're also beautiful.

"The world is such a special and lovely place to begin with," Pickertts says. "I just feel very fortunate to be a part of it and do my best to capture a little bit of magic in my daily meanderings."

Her photos remind us of something really important: that taking in the reality of the moment and of the world around us (not through a screen or an Instagram filter!) is a great way to appreciate what we've each been given: a gorgeous planet to call home every day.

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People can't get enough of this new organic, vegetarian fast food.

Amy's Drive Thru is changing the fast food game, one vegan mac 'n' cheese at a time.

When you think about fast food, what comes to mind?

If you're like me, you probably start salivating as you imagine greasy burgers, gloriously deep-fried onion rings, and calorie-laden milkshakes. Yum.

Basically, this. Image via Thinkstock.

A new fast food restaurant in California is aiming to broaden that image by introducing a vegetarian option.

Andy and Rachel Berliner, the founders of Amy's Kitchen, originally launched their line of vegetarian frozen, canned, and prepackaged foods in grocery stores (you've probably seen Amy's organic, vegetarian, and vegan food in your local grocery store) after they found themselves frustrated with the vegetarian options available at the time.

Then the Berliners decided they wanted to take their mission one step further, envisioning a fast food restaurant where employees (who were paid a living wage plus health benefits) served vegetarian meals full of fresh local veggies.

That idea became Amy's Drive Thru, one of the first organic, vegetarian drive-thru restaurants in the country.

As of their opening in July, Amy's Drive Thru has proven to be a ridiculous success.

On opening day, Amy's served over 500 people — most of whom waited for more than an hour in line just to order. And although they expected business to slow a bit in the following weeks, the demand has just continued to grow.

There it is — the restaurant that vegetarian fast food dreams are made of. All photos below via Amy's Kitchen.

Why the crazy business? An Amy's spokesperson told Upworthy that it's likely all about pent up demand. People love fast food, but they want variety. And Amy's is delivering.

Not to mention, the food at Amy's Drive Thru is getting rave reviews.

Amy's serves organic veggie burgers, burritos, mac 'n' cheese, pizza, salads, chili fries, and even milkshakes (and, yes, you can choose from dairy or non-dairy options). Every menu item at Amy's can be made either gluten-free or vegan as well.

The coffee, vegetables, and even the milk come from local farms, too. "Our relationships with farmers and our knowledge of how to make delicious food on a large scale has really made this project possible. We've been able to keep the quality high and the prices reasonable," Andy Berliner said in a press release.

Yep — that's fast food.

I know, I know — but this broccoli cheddar mac 'n' cheese is fast food, too. It's also vegetarian and chock full of local ingredients. Drool.


Allergic to gluten? No worries. You can order gluten free everything (including pizza) at Amy's.

So here's to reimagining fast food in a new way, and keeping low price points at the same time.

A single burger at Amy's will only set you back $2.99. And a bowl of mac 'n' cheese? $4.69.

I don't know about you, but this double veggie burger might convert me to vegetarianism...

Fast food has become popular largely because it's convenient, easily available, and affordable, but we're all ears for ideas about how to add variety to that description.

Amy's Drive Thru seems to have it in the bag: fair wages for employees, local farm support, low prices, and a sustainable business model. Their tables, chairs, and building materials are even upcycled and sustainable.

So ... who wants to take a trip to California with me?

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Scientists bred a frog that only lived for 3 days. It was an extraordinary achievement.

Once a species is extinct, it's gone forever, right? A group of Australian scientists would beg to differ.

There are thousands of endangered or vulnerable species in the world right now.

These include animals like the black rhino, the hawksbill turtle, the pangolin, and the Sumatran elephant.

A black rhino lopes through the Masai Mara Game Reserve in Kenya. There are only a few black rhinos left in the world. Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images.

Right now, these species have very little chance of living past the next 50 years. But one little frog could change all that.

In the 1970s, Australian scientists discovered a new breed of frog with some interesting behaviors.

The Guardian reports that the Gastric Brooding Frog was unlike any frog scientists had seen before.

As its name suggests, it swallowed its fertilized eggs and newly hatched tadpoles whole. Then the frog's stomach, which functioned like a uterus, would incubate the frogs until they were fully formed.

Scientists had never seen a species behave like the Gastric Brooding Frog, which made it an immediate topic of fascination. Image via University of New South Wales.

And how did the female frog get her frog children back into the world once they were fully formed, you ask? She projectile-vomited them, of course.

These scientists thought the Gastric Brooding Frog could lead to some huge discoveries.

The functions of this frog's extra-special stomach had the potential to help us discover new procedures that could be used in human medicine (think better treatments for stomach ulcers, new antibiotics or even improved fertility treatments).

But then, just as quickly as they popped up, the Gastric Brooding Frogs disappeared in the early 1980s. The same excited scientists determined that the skin-based chytrid fungus wiped them all out. The frogs were extinct.

Here's the cool part, though: 30 years later, those scientists are back on the Gastric Brooding Frog's case once again.

"This is definitely the most extraordinary frog that ever lived anywhere in the world," scientist Michael Archer said when asked about this particular breed of frog for an episode of the "Catastrophic Science" video series.

That's why Archer, a scientist at the University of New South Wales, chose the Gastric Brooding Frog for his next big project, titled "The Lazarus Project."

Archer wants to bring the extinct Gastric Brooding Frog back to life, a process he's calling de-extinction.

Archer hopes that with the help of a group of internationally renowned scientists, he can bring an extinct frog back from the dead. Image via University of New South Wales.

Where do you start when bringing back an extinct frog?

It's just as tough as it sounds.

First, the scientists had to locate a freezer full of dead (but preserved) Gastric Brooding Frogs. From there, the project looks a lot like an "Orphan Black"-style cloning mission.

At a basic level, the scientists take one cell from a frozen Gastric Brooding Frog and put that cell in the DNA-less egg of another, more common Australian frog. That egg will develop into a tadpole eventually — but it should develop into a Gastric Brooding Frog, rather than a common frog.

Remember when scientists cloned Dolly the sheep? This project builds on that research, but scientists are hoping for even better results. Image via University of New South Wales.

The project has been successful so far, but there are still many obstacles.

According to the scientists on the research team, they're well on their way when it comes to creating the second coming of the Gastric Brooding Frog.They've seen embryos divide, which is an incredibly good sign.

But those embryos have only lived for three days so far, so there's still a lot of work to be done.

This little extinct frog could teach us how to (literally) bring species back from the dead. Image via University of New South Wales.

The ramifications of this project for other near-extinct species (and for humans) are huge, though.

"There is increasing interest in the fact that many animals are becoming extinct all over the world," Archer says in the "Catastrophic Science" video. "We're losing biodiversity. We need to find some animal that can be demonstrated to be brought back from the dead."

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4 reasons to embrace your mistakes, as told by a 'wrongologist.'

What if being wrong is actually kind of right?

If you're like me, you probably spend a good chunk of time trying not to be wrong.

We try to ace every test in school, we attempt to answer our boss' questions correctly in the workplace, we aggressively follow the directions on that difficult Pinterest recipe ... we even try to say the things our partners want to hear after they've had a bad day.

Most of us try to avoid being wrong at all costs.

But what if being wrong is actually really good for us?

Kathryn Schulz is a writer for The New Yorker and a self-proclaimed "wrongologist." She spent five years studying what it feels like to be wrong, and now she has some theories about what being wrong can tell us about being human.

The best thing about studying wrongness for five years? "No job competition," Kathryn joked in a recent TED Talk.

According to Kathryn, when we try to be right all the time, it might mean that we're doing it ... well ... all wrong. Here are four of her most surprising findings:

1. We don't actually hate being wrong. We hate realizing that we're wrong.

You've seen the cartoon where Wile E. Coyote chases the Road Runner off the cliff, right? We laugh hardest when Wile E. just keeps running, ignorant of the basic laws of gravity — that is, until he looks down and realizes that he's midair. That's when he falls. That first moment, when he's hanging there? That's called "error blindness."

"Error blindness" means you're wrong but still totally happy. (Ignorance is bliss, right?)

Kathryn explains that being wrong itself isn't what makes us feel terrible. Instead, it's what we tell ourselves when we look down and realize we're wrong. We assume all kinds of bad things about ourselves in that moment, which sends us into a spiral of angst, frustration, and bad feelings.

2. We're taught that being wrong = failure.

Those angst-causing assumptions usually come from cultural misunderstandings about being wrong.

Think about seeing red marks all over your childhood math tests. We're taught from a young age that those red marks — and being wrong — won't lead to success. It's shameful. It's painful. It means we're bad people.

"By the time you're 9 years old, you've already learned that people who get stuff wrong are lazy irresponsible dimwits," Kathryn says, "and that the way to succeed in life is to never make any mistakes." Image via Thinkstock.

The worst part of this is that we identify being wrong as having something wrong with us personally, and that's not helping anyone. We're wrong a lot more often than we're right, so embracing wrongness as a learning opportunity would be a more positive approach.

3. Assuming we're right isn't always very good, either.

It's actually pretty tough to know whether you're right or wrong. Of course you think you made the right choice — that's why you picked it! But our attachment to assuming our own correctness can hurt us.

Why? Because when we assume we're right, we assume that people who disagree with us are wrong. Or we assume they're ignorant, or idiots. And if they're actually smart? Then we assume they're acting maliciously.

This leads nowhere fast, pitting people against each other instead of working together to find solutions. Embracing our imperfections makes for a kinder world all around.

4. Maybe being wrong is actually the only thing we can count on as humans.

According to Kathryn, there is only one thing we can actually expect out of life, and it's this: When we imagine one thing for ourselves, something else usually happens instead.

Without wrongness, the story of humanity has no climax, no intrigue, no surprise — it doesn't work. (Think about every story you love, and then imagine it without a few mistakes. See, not as good!)

Being wrong isn't an embarrassing defect. It's fundamental to who we are.

Looking at it this way makes being wrong seem (a little bit) smarter than being right.

Kathryn says that when we're obsessed with our rightness, we put up walls between ourselves and the world — and her mission is to "normalize" being wrong. What if instead we embraced wrongness as the thing that most helps us connect with the people around us?

Listen to her whole TED Talk to learn more about her research.

"It is possible to step outside of that feeling" of being wrong, Kathryn says. "And if you can do so, it's the single greatest moral, intellectual, and creative leap you can make."

On that note: I'm making a pact to embrace my mistakes more lightly. Who's joining me?

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