This is one example of matching light to your subject. I often recommend that, when the light is bright and high-contrast, photographers should seek low-contrast subjects, and this is an example of the opposite: a high-contrast subject shot in low-contrast, near overcast lighting. The shadows are kept under control, but more importantly, the highlights don’t get too strong
Author: Al Denelsbeck
You animal!
You know, there are a lot of misconceptions about animal psychology and behavior out there, and they’re all over the map. I’m going to address a few of the more prevalent ones here, with the hopes of at least promoting a little more perspective and forethought among the topics.
Let’s get one thing out of the way right from the start: “animal” is a simple
Why so many?
Every once in a while someone remarks about how many frames I take, or why it might be necessary to take more than one of any given subject, or most especially, whether they should be doing this. It all depends on what one wants to get out of their photography, and what their end purposes are, but the answer is, “Yes.”
Took care of that one easily. Next post.
Okay, sorry, let’s
Monday color 17
The purpose of these weekly posts was to present a splash of color, originally in the winter when such was scarce, but either way just as a cheery visual thing. I’m not sure how well this works when the color is from a cluster of tiny spiderlings, but if you haven’t determined this about me by now, well, it’s par for the course.
I haven’t identified these, but they look to
Late last night
Or early this morning, if you prefer…
After the rains, I went out to try a few artistic photos with the water drops on the plants, but was having issues with the on-camera light I use to focus, cutting those plans short. I still had a headlamp, but it doesn’t aim well past the camera, especially not down right in front of the lens where it’s necessary for tight macro work. But while
Just an observation
We have a weird culture. The makers of edible, spray-on decorative food dyes in silver color are seeing a huge upsurge in sales right now, sure to come again around the end of October, for reasons that few could possibly have predicted. There’s nothing further I can add to this.
If you have no idea what I’m talking about, that’s okay – I’ll forgive you, eventually.
Grab bag
Just a handful of recent images, some from before the trip, some from after – no real theme or coherence here, sorry. Above, a newly-emerged adult decim periodical cicada (Magicicada septendecim) poses on a leaf of The Girlfriend’s badly-damaged rose bush before heading out into the big bright
Monday color 16 1/2
I’ve been busy largely with yard work today, but I stumbled across this one and had to feature it. A quite large jumping spider, likely Phidippus audax, was contemplatively grasping some iridescent beetle that was still struggling, and the flash rig brought out the collection of colors pretty well. By the way, “quite large,” translates to, “about
Monday color 16
We haven’t done red in a while, and it’s a color fairly well underrepresented in my stock, mostly because I dislike it – which is weird. Why should we like or dislike any one color over another? What thing in our brains is responsible for this? I mean, I can see the evolutionary benefits of recognizing bright colors as signifying ripe fruit or good weather and so on, but
But how? Part 18: A vague creative force
I would be remiss if I did not talk about this particular aspect of religion, the belief in a vague, indeterminate source of creation – and, honestly, I have, numerous times in the past, but always while dealing with something more specific. It deserves its own dedicated post, which will be many times more specific and detailed than the topic itself has ever been, so let’s delve into