Living in the past XXIIX or XXVIII


We’re into 2016 now. The Girlfriend loves calla lilies and we’ve had them a couple of times, but they never seem to last more than a year or two. Still, while this one was blossoming, I got extraordinarily lucky in that a newborn Chinese mantis scampered around the bloom while I was there, and I got several frames. This one in particular became an art print and was displayed read more

Living in the past XIV

I threatened to do this, and it was not a mere bluff – I’m going through with it, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.

[Well, there probably is, but let’s not go there…]


We’re back to revisiting some of the images from years past that I particularly liked, and this one certainly counts – dating from 2014, it’s been a part of a read more

This evening, even fartsier

Again, sunset looked promising, so to the neighborhood pond I went. Again, sunset didn’t live up to its promise, so I chased a few other pics while there.

Notably, the bats were active, and while I had only the 18-135, I got a couple of frames that worked. You get to decide which crop works best for this one, though – vertical?


Or, horizontal?


I was just winging it (heh!), read more

For effort, anyway


On a (fairly) recent trip to the NC Botanical Gardens, I was making the attempt to shoot with more effort towards composition and all that, rather than illustration, but we know I don’t do ‘art,’ so we’re back to being fartsy here – define that as you will. And I could probably research read more

On this date 56

We have another sporadic throwback today, a peek at what was happening in years past, and this time we have two from the same day, which was 11 years ago. As I suspected, it was a weekend, a Saturday to be precise, and following a snowstorm the previous day or so. I had gone out once the roads were clear to see what might be found that was scenic, but the snowfall wasn’t significant enough read more

Mason Farm 1: Fartsy

I got enough photos from a recent outing to Mason Farm Biological Reserve to separate them into two broader categories, so we start off with the fartsy ones, since I don’t do art.

Actually, we’ll start off starting off with a setting one.


We couldn’t quite call this ‘fog,’ (or at least, I couldn’t, but Buggato had no problem with it) – read more

Macro photography, part 13: More than illustration


Once again, we’re going to delve into this deal where I tell you to work on mastering something that I haven’t mastered myself – do as I say, not as I do and all that. Except, I don’t really believe that anyone masters anything in photography there are simply different levels of skill, so let’s use the word ‘improve’ read more

Whatever happened to…?

… the mantises that we watched hatch?

Well, they’re still around, I just hadn’t seen much of them from shortly after the hatching, coupled with being pretty busy myself. There’s a vague suspicion that a skink that we have living under the front steps might have feasted on a lot of them, but at least a few can still be found, now grown to about 30mm.


They remain read more