Because I’m me

I actually took all of these photos before I shot the fossil rock for the previous post, but I intentionally posted them in this order to break things up a bit. It probably doesn’t help, but I get credit for the effort, right?

After the heavy rains Monday night and Tuesday morning, I went out to do a walk-through of the yard, and one of the first things I noticed was what you see here, a leaf read more

In old New York

So, in the recent trip to New York (the state, not the city,) the schedule was tight and there were several obligations, so I had only tentative plans to get out to a couple of areas to do some exploring and/or photography, and they never came to pass. One of those plans was fossil hunting, since there are several areas close to where I was that were surprisingly easy to find fossils within.

However, read more

Monday color 18

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 read more

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 read more

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 read more

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 read more

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 read more

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 read more

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 read more

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