We’ve been seeing some steamy weather lately, high heat preceding wicked thunderstorms, and I was dumb enough to go down to the river in the former looking for subjects. Between bad sinus reactions and sweating buckets, without finding much of anything to shoot, I elected not to stay long. But I did bring back an eyed click beetle (Alaus oculatus) to get some more
Author: Al Denelsbeck
Is “natural” a good thing?
This is another of those ponderous, philosophical posts – I’ll try to follow up with pics and fewer words soon, I promise…
Given that we understand that evolution by natural selection is effective, in sometimes astounding ways, but also a bit haphazard and imprecise, questions sometimes arise about whether conscious decisions might be able to accomplish better results more directly.
TL;DR
Those letters are internet shorthand, not for, “Transgender lifestyles Dominican Republic” as you might expect, but for, “Too long didn’t read.” It’s the battle cry of the short-attention span, the post comment meant to be critical, but instead illustrating the missing depth of the commenter. “Reading is hard,”
A peek at the process
We had gone through a longish period with no rain, and the azalea bushes were started to suffer from it. So I pulled out the hose and gave them a good soaking, with a heavy stream directed at the base to reach the roots, then a light misting over the top to make the insects happy. Almost immediately, the one brown resident mantis scampered excitedly into the water. I really can’t
Palming my face, I am
I’m not counting on anyone remembering this, but that blogroll on the sidebar used to contain a link for the Richard Dawkins’ Foundation forum, which for years had been a pretty good message board. After their site changes, the commenting system went to hell, plus they (for reasons unknown, unexplained, and unmentioned in their site anywhere) removed links both in a username and in any
Therapy
I’m making this post because I have to face up to my problems if I want to defeat them.
“Hi, my name is Al and my powers of observation suck.”
[Chorus] “Hi, Al.”
I took this image a week ago at the local botanical garden, when the light was less than optimal – just noodling around. And while I’m pleased with the effect, it was literally only a few minutes ago
Too cool, part 19
This past Tuesday I met with a student down by the river, and afterward poked around to see what items of interest could be found. In the distance I espied a great blue heron (Ardea herodias) that appeared to be hunting, but a closer look revealed that it had been successful. I hadn’t brought the tripod and thus should not have been shooting with a long lens handheld,
Bigger stakes than that
Walkabout podcast – Bigger stakes than that
Pascal’s Wager is a well-known argument among atheists, and for that matter among evangelists too, even though it appears a lower percentage of those know it by name. It’s a line of superficial reasoning that makes an attempt to logically support theism.
Frustrations, part 10
We’ve had a couple of bluebird nest boxes in the yard for the past two years, attracting occupants each spring, and of course this means I’m attempting to get some decent images. What I’m most after are the newly emerged fledglings, the young whippersnappers just leaving the nest, but while waiting I try for feeding shots as well.
The folks are a tad shy about me looming over their
Macro photography, part seven
I mentioned in an earlier post about experimenting with a new method of lighting macro subjects, so now we’ll take a close look at it. One of the chief pursuits of photographers is getting the light just right,