On composition, part 18: Illustration


This one was inspired by this recent post, but let’s look a little closer at using photos for illustration.

While all of photography might be considered illustration to some extent, there’s also a more specific purpose, separating it from genres such as portraiture, journalism, art, and so on. If it helps, the idea is to visually represent something explained in accompanying read more

You don’t look a day over eighty

So not only is today the summer solstice, but also World Humanist Day – which is, admittedly, an odd thing. Not in that I believe we shouldn’t bother with it, but in the implication that there’s only one day to consider or celebrate humanism. It’s like having a National Don’t Set Your Neighbor On Fire Day it’s something that we shouldn’t read more

Meaningless milestone number, uh, whatever…


Today, I shot the 50,000th image on the old Canon 300D/Digital Rebel. That is, since I’ve had it, anyway – I got it secondhand, so from its own personal standpoint, well, I got nothing, since it’s a piece of electronic equipment and doesn’t have a personal standpoint.

Mind you, this is not the 50,000th image I’ve taken, because I passed that long ago, nor the 50,000th read more

Getting there

I’m starting with an image largely unrelated to the post topic, simply because I like it better. I did get a few dewy morning photos of the plant I’m about to mention, but this one’s much stronger, and it does illustrate the conditions nicely. Just don’t call it art.

In the attempt to get nice natural settings for subjects like hummingbirds (who are raiding the feeders madly read more

Just more arthropods


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 read more

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. read more

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,” read more

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 read more

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 read more

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