Bel Homme XXVI

Image: Subject and photographer unknown.

Swimming Hare

Writes photographer Andy Smith:

“I captured this swimming hare last Friday, something I’ve never witnessed before. The hare was outside the hide and a group of volunteer newt collectors were working their way down the field collecting newts from the the traps that were sunk into the ground. The hare, seeing them, panicked and ran backwards and forward not knowing which way to go. On reaching the waters edge it suddenly just jumped in and disappeared into the reeds. I followed the splashes and the movement of the reeds then it came into view in a gap where I managed to fire a burst of shots. It then clambered out of the water and with great speed disappeared from view.”

– Source

See also the previous posts:
Wet Hare
Hare By the Sea
The Sea Hare

Image: Andy and Jan Smith Photography (May 2010).

Beauty and the Beard

The following is excerpted from a February 20, 2013 article by James Thilman.

While both dead sexy and totally awesome, beards are also a boon to your overall health. Researchers discovered that men with beards and moustaches actually enjoy numerous benefits including, but not limited to, instant handsomeness.

A study from the University of Southern Queensland, published in the Radiation Protection Dosimetry journal, found that beards block 90 to 95 percent of UV rays, thereby slowing the aging process and reducing the risk of skin cancer.

Got asthma? Pollens and dust simply get stuck in that lustrous facial hair. Additionally, all that hair retains moisture and protects against the wind, keeping you looking young and fresh-faced. What’s more, shaving is usually the cause of ingrown hairs and bacterial infections that lead to acne.

Have you tossed your razor in the trash yet?

To conduct the study, researchers left bearded mannequins, along with less attractive, follically-challenged ones, in the blistering sun of the Australian outback and then compared the amount of radiation absorbed by each.

Recommended Off-site Links:
The Amazing History of Beards – Greg Voakes (The Huffington Post, April 3, 2012).
The Troubled History of Beards – Daniel Lew (Damn Interesting, March 28, 2006).
Travels with My Beard – Rajesh Thind (BBC News, February 1, 2006).
Growing a Beard: The History and Philosophy Behind the Current Trend – Greg Brian (Yahoo! Voices, January 11, 2008).
Beards are Sexy
Sexy Men with Beards
Beards Are Beautiful

Image 1: Subject and photographer unknown.
Image 2: Hal Hunter (photographer unknown).
Images 3-5: Subject and photographer unknown.
Image 6: Photography by Travis Rock.
Image 7: Subjects and photographer unknown.

Tan Lines XXXVIII

Image: Subject and photographer unknown.

A Merman Named Eric

Note: The following is written by Elise Solé and was first published April 3, 2013, by Shine.

Like any other 22-year-old Floridian, Eric Ducharme loves to swim, except when he dives into the water, he trades his swim trunks for a floppy tail.

Ducharme is a self-proclaimed merman, a mystical male counterpart to the mermaid. As the legend goes, these seductive sea creatures with the upper body of a human and the tail of a fish, make themselves visible to ships during thunder storms and would lure the opposite sex into the water with their siren-like singing.

According to a story in The Daily Mail, Ducharme says he eats, sleeps, and breathes mermaids and mermen and tries to impersonate them whenever he can. "It's a lifestyle. It's a path in life that I have chosen," he says during a Wednesday night episode of TLC's My Crazy Obsession, a reality show that follows people whose adoration for objects has become an obsession.

His love for all things mermen began as a child when, according to his website, his grandparents took him to an underwater theater and a woman in a mermaid costume swam by blowing kisses to the audience; at age six, Ducharme's father hired two mermaids to swim up to a dock where the boy was eating his birthday cake. When he was 13, Ducharme created his company Mertailor, LLC and sold his own handcrafted tails made from garbage bags and various fabrics. Three years later, he put on his first show, swimming as the mermaid prince in the Weeki Wachee Springs Little Mermaid show. "Eric is obsessed with mermaids," says his mother Candy Ducharme. "We have our own passions. That's Eric's life."

"It's taking me a really long time to kind of understand my place in life," Ducharme says of his obsession. Three times a week, he slips into his shiny handmade fin to swim Florida’s natural springs, an hour and a half drive from his home in Crystal River. He calls it "mermaiding" a time to escape the pressures of the real world. "When I put on a tail I feel transformed," says Ducharme, who can hold his breath for four minutes at a time. "I feel like I'm starting to enter into a different world when I hit the water."

And although his boyfriend Matthew Quijano was initially shocked, he's accepted the mermen lifestyle. "When I first met Eric, I was introduced to the subject of mermaids, on our first date," he says."Your jaw just kind of drops and you're just like, 'wow.' When we go swimming I don't even see him because he swims off to his own little corner, it's all about getting away from the rest of the world…Sometimes we have to ask people what's with the scolding looks because they're just like, 'why is there a guy in a tail? It's supposed to be a girl,''' Quijano says, shrugging. "Haters gonna hate."

No matter. Business at Mertailoris booming. His mermaid and mermen wet suits (made from silicone, urethanes, and latex rubbers in different colors and textures of scales and fins) range from $185 for the spandex tail to $2,759 for the silicon version and there's even a kid's tail priced at $169. The tails have been featured in photo shoots on Germany's "Next Top Model", in advertisements for Skittles and on "Saturday Night Live" in the music video "I'm on a Boat" featuring T-Pain. Ducharm's client list even includes Lady Gaga.

Ducharme's mission is to make his costumes available to "every aspiring mermaid and merman who dreams of life in the sea."

See also the previous posts:
Merman
Merman II
Merman III
Merman IV
Merman V