Back in June of 2008, we had a trip to California to see my family in Oakland. One of our favorite things to do is to take the ferry over the bay to San Francisco. This particular visit, we were greeted by this cheerful fellow:
This is a sculpture by Louise Borgeois, and it apparently left the piers of San Francisco not too long after I saw it there.
The spider sculpture may have left, but I believe that there may be other giant spiders in the greater San Francisco area. At the Oakland Zoo, for example, the playground has a super cool spider web made of ropes for kids to climb on. At least, I believe it to be made of ropes. It is just possible that it was made by a giant spider who was scared off by the swarms of small children.
This week’s friday foto finder challenge was to find and share photos of spiders. I’ve got quite a few photos of real spiders in my library, as well as photos of their webs. I have posted photos of real spiders before, too. (One of my favorite posts with photos was about a little green spider.) Come to think of it, I also have a fairly large collection of things with a spider or web motif, thanks to my love of Halloween. (I did, in fact, put spiderweb placemats on my wedding registry.) When it came time to post, though, this spider scuplture came to mind. (Perhaps because I missed the statue fff a couple of weeks ago.)
To see what other spiders have been caught, or to find out more about joining in on the foto-sharing fun, check out the fff blog.
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I feel I must offer an apology to Sally, who has a phobia relating to all sorts of arthropods, for the images and especially the title of this post. Sorry, Sally. I hope that I haven’t given you nightmares!
I also thought of YTSL, who has displayed many photos of interesting spiders and webs from her hikes around Hong Kong, including some real giant spiders. Check out her tag critter spottings to spot a few such critters. (Sally, I strongly recommend that you don’t do this…though you may enjoy some of her other photos of critters, some of which have fewer than 6 legs!)
collecting tokens 
I love the Louise Bourgeois!
I was just about to say that this reminded me of the giant spider sculpture in front of the Guggenheim in Bilbao, then a quick google showed me it’s by the same artist…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maman
Sally won’t mind looking at my spiders…
http://azahar.me/2013/08/16/friday-foto-finder-spider/
Now that’s the kind of spider I actually like! :)
Hi Alejna —
Thanks for the shout out!
To Sally —
The first page of the critter spottings is spider free… but yeah, be careful, I must admit to liking spiders as photography subjects, and Hong Kong really does have some really large spiders!
I’ll avoid the critter spottings, thanks for the warning!!
And Alejna, apology accepted! ;) (Luckily, since I live in Northern California, I sort of expected that the post would not in fact contain giant actual arachnids.)
I think I’ve also seen that sculpture before, but, ironically enough, in Boston! I think it was at the ICA at some point? It kind of creeped me out, but not as much as a smaller, actual spider would have!