On this date 51

holiday lights on railing with autumn leaf
In 2005, I was living alone and thus wasn’t decorating a lot for the holidays, but I did run a single strand of lights along the railing of the balcony deck. Generally, we get one snowstorm a winter in NC, January or February, so in mid-December it’s more likely to be rain. I decided to play around with the lights and the small-aperture starburst thing, and liked what was happening, but the leaf was too shiny so I dried it on my shirt and tried again. A different crop, leveled properly, made it into the site gallery and into a public gallery as well. Later on, I played around with a self-portrait by the same lights, and The Girlfriend liked it enough to have it framed.

A year later, I was back onto a vivid colors kick.

CD refraction and LED
I actually came across this many months ago, like March, and noticed that its origin date would fall on a Wednesday this year, so I saved it for this entry. That year (which would be 2006,) I was experimenting for a mildly-competitive photo mandate from a newsgroup, and I can’t even remember the topic but I think it was either Interiors or Technology, something like that. Anyway, I tricked out a faux CD/DVD reader image using the guts from an old laser mouse for the reader and an LED flashlight swept in a curve outside the frame to produce the rainbow refraction from the surface of the CD – it took a little playing to get the right angle for the effect. I was pretty pleased with it, but wish I’d had another light shining up through the center – not to be convincing or anything, but just for added emphasis. And while we’re here, I’ll point out that you can see the tip of the alligator clamp holding the circuit board for the mouse in the upper left corner.

A big jump to 2012 now.

leaf-footed bug Acanthocephala declivis in studio shot
ladybeetle Coccinellidae on unidentified plantThe full story is here, but the gist is, this is a studio shot with another photo print of mine serving as the background – the one at right, in fact (which was not shot on this date so don’t count it,) an image that also served as an example in my video on cropping images. It was rotated 90° widdershins, but you can see just see a hint of the ladybeetle at top.

I keep meaning to shoot a handful of images just to use as macro studio backdrops, out-of-focus photos consisting mostly of one color or hue, to have a selection handy, but keep forgetting about it when I’m in good locations to do so. I’ll task the Invisible Mr Bugg with reminding me…

And finally, from 2016.

sunrise colors under clouds with faint sun pillar
I’d missed out on a few gorgeous sunrises occurring right as I was heading off to work (you know, the drudgery kind,) so I made it a point to try for one on my day off, and this was the result – not as good as some of the others might have been, but more than acceptable. This was also posted back then, so take note: even though I could be inflating the uploads numbers by using unseen photos for these posts, I’ve been reposting some of the images already on the site – I’m not greedy, or egotistical or whatever might be used to describe such an attitude. Well, not that much.