For reasons yet to be determined, there are no more numbers on my wall calendar past today, starting over at 1, so this has to mean it’s time for the end of the month abstract. Only thing is, I didn’t really take any abstract images this month, or at least if I did, I already posted them, so what we have here is kind of a cheat, but I figure if I’m gonna fudge it, I’ll do it twice.
Is it obvious what this is? It is to me, but I took it and cropped it ridiculously tight to eliminate context, so I may be biased. How about another crop from the exact same frame?
Chances are, even if you didn’t tumble to the first, you know it by the second as a butterfly’s wing, specifically an eastern tiger swallowtail (Papilio glaucus) in yellow phase. Actually, the original frame was the entire butterfly (well, the dorsal view anyway, because they still haven’t created cubist digital cameras,) shot freehand in the botanical garden, and I just cropped in for the detail in the wings – forewing at top, hindwing following (and why isn’t it simply called the followwing?) A wild specimen that wasn’t restrained in any way except by its love of nectar, so revel in the remarkable sharpness and clarity from a true professional photographer.
Ah, what the hell – one more.
I have to include this one lest my ego get too unwieldy, though admittedly it was shot in July. I was up on the deck landing at the top of the stairs trying for some deer photos (which reminds me that I have to dig those out,) and spotted a bumblebee on the hosta flowers below, so I fired off a couple of frames with the 150-600mm lens, again handheld – obviously they did not come out ideal, but I kinda liked this one because of the faintly impressionist quality, and I boosted the saturation a little, because cheating is addictive I suppose. Plus it boosts the uploaded image count for the month. Whatever – say goodbye to August, and we’ll see what September brings.