Not too long after the various Chinese mantids around the yard molted into adulthood, they dispersed in various directions. I actually watched the rose bush resident fly off one evening, quite possibly to be immediately snagged by a bat – I saw something happen out of the corner of
Author: Al Denelsbeck
On composition, part 24: Planning the shot
It’s been a while since the last composition post, so let’s waste no further time and get into planning. Wait, somehow that doesn’t seem quite right…
No matter what the preferred style, sooner or later every photographer gets into planning a shot envisioning exactly how they want it to appear, and then endeavoring to actually bring this out in the image.
Not inspired
Once again, I observe that the posts are thin, which is a shame because I am/was well on the way to a record in number of posts, having already passed the total for both 2014 and 2012 (not combined, mind you.) A lot of that had to do with Monday color, which I’ll leave it up to you whether that should be considered cheating or not. But at best, they added five photos per month to the number
Monday color 32
So, Monday color was originally intended to be only for the winter months because they lacked color and/or subjects to chase. It had come from the overflow of images that I had pre-selected for an end-of-year color post. Since I ended up carrying it through the summer, I figure I’ll just
Convenient mediocrity
“Convenient mediocrity.” I mentioned it in an earlier post, and while it can be found in use here and there, it is not (yet) a common phrase, even if it is a remarkably common property. What it means (for my purposes here, anyway) is maintaining lowered standards because higher ones take too much effort. More specifically, it means accepting lower quality as long as it’s in a cool,
I know you are but what am I?
Some time back I created the ‘Ask an Atheist’ page linked above, prompted by a similar effort elsewhere, to provide anyone the ability to fire away with any questions they might have regarding atheism, secularism, or perhaps just my own personal outlook on some issue. Some time after that, I amended the initial paragraphs to reflect the bare fact that very few people ever bother to try
Stick with fashion
So, right outside the same porch mentioned in the previous post has been a pair of large orb webs occupied by barn spiders (Araneus cavaticus), both females – it was only one for a few days, then another moved in. And curiously, their webs were almost stacked while the centers
Coming together
When The Girlfriend purchased this house a little over a year ago, it was of course necessary to begin personalizing it, which is one of those things that goes slowly and I don’t think ever really gets ‘finished.’ This means that I often have several projects on hand, either planned or in progress, and sometimes they’re not always known to her until they’re completed.
The
Monday color 31
Looking at how the day is shaping up out there, it seems like this is a pink kind of day, so this image has been specially chosen to fit in with the conditions.
[Which is nonsense. I set up the Monday color posts usually several days in advance, and they’re scheduled to post at 2 AM. I have no idea what Monday is going to bring as I’m typing this.]
Zelus luridus is a fairly common
Quick! Go here before midnight!
If you were paying close attention, you might have noticed that I have a tendency to post religion-bashing stuff on Sundays, because I’m perverse – we atheists are mean that way. I wasn’t really planning anything of the sort, and have been working on site updates today, but Professor Ceiling Cat has a fun post over at Why Evolution Is True, and you should