Macro photography, part 11: The lengths, the lengths

You undoubtedly remember the butterfly bushes that have served as a setting for some of the more recent pics here, but they have company – unintended neighbors, as it were. We maintain a compost bin, and use this as read more

Sunday slide 43


This has me conflicted, in multiple ways.

First off, right from the beginning I always felt this could be stronger, but somehow I keep coming back to it, so I guess there’s something visually compelling that is overriding my conscious thoughts on the composition. I mean, I like the effect, produced by placing the bright sun directly behind the trunk, but the shape of the tree isn’t quite read more

Haven’t found what works yet


So the content has been pretty damn thin here lately, and this post isn’t going to alter that a whole lot. This week in particular, it seems, just kinda went by without anything happening, which wasn’t exactly true, but just the way it felt. Partially, this was because I have been fighting off something, some virus or bug or microorganism or brain tumor or demonic possession, read more

Sunday slide 42


March 2000. On one of several trips to Florida specifically for photography, back before I lived there for a couple of years, I’d had a slow day shooting almost nothing at JN “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge and decided to check out a little attached hiking loop called Shell Mound Trail, not really expecting much. As it was, I shot many more slides read more

When is a hoax not a hoax?

It’s funny – I started this post out with entirely different intentions, but as I was researching the details, it had to change, yet I could still keep the same title. Bear with me a second.

This post topic came up when I was reading an article in Skeptical Inquirer that dealt with the curious progression of the ‘Bigfoot’ legend, from the badly-mangled interpretations read more

As the skies darken and the car starts making weird noises

Yes, it’s coming – on Sunday, to be precise. National Grouch Day rears its ugly head on October 15th, the one day of the year some sonofabitch isn’t allowed to rain on our raining on parades. But they will anyway, because if there’s one thing bright, optimistic people cannot do is put a cork in it.

I doubt you’ve noticed, but nobody seems to even try to recognize read more

Sunday slide 41


I figured, as I ended the run of Jim’s pics, that I would feature this particular image of Lower Cascade Falls in Hanging Rock State Park in North Carolina, because this was a trip that Jim and I took together back before he abandoned the state. If you wanted to know what Jim looks like, well, here you go.

Whaddya mean, “Where is he?” He’s right there! On the bank, over to read more

Jim pic 48


And so we come to the last of the Jim pics, at least for a little while. This one wasn’t among the stack that he sent me following his trip further out west, but one of the stack that he sent me following the total solar eclipse. He’d been clouded out during totality, but still got a few worthwhile shots, and I considered this one rather enigmatic. Since he didn’t read more

A million untold stories in the big wilderness

This is just a silly anecdote. I mean, even sillier than normal.


I found this little toy in the backyard – specifically, in the space under the raised and screened porch, alongside the lower deck. It’s not very big, essentially a keychain charm. I just don’t know exactly how it got there. Nobody here owned it, and it wasn’t there when we moved in, and doesn’t read more

Still creeping on the frogs


The initial pics in this post I took just to illustrate something, but we’re going to flesh it out a little more than that. Some time back, I found a pale green assassin bug (Zelus luridus) on my butterfly bush and moved it over onto the nearby ornamental sweet potato, potentially trying to interest one of the read more

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