The year is 1970, or maybe ’71. I am in kindergarten, embarking on a field trip in New Jersey to one of the many Revolutionary War sites in the area. Like all other boys in class, I have my colonial tricorn hat made of three pieces of blue construction paper stapled together. The bus ride isn’t long, and I remember turning off at the hospital (where I had not long before had my head
Author: Al Denelsbeck
But what if it is broke?
I’m very fond of pushing different perspectives, because I believe it helps us to understand many things better, and changes our predefined views of our world. Some perspectives, however, are heavily ingrained, and perhaps even self-perpetuating, so introducing something ‘new’ is complicated.
With the lead-in out of the way, let’s take consciousness, and to do so,
Moon of steel
Yeah, it was a non-event, even in areas that had good visibility – mass media really can’t handle astronomical events very well, but much worse is the social-media-fueled rumor mill. “Mars will be so close it will appear to be the size of Jupiter in the sky!” yeah, yeah…
Now, a curiosity. The haze is from the moon shining through scattered thin clouds, but the stepped
I had to
Couldn’t pass up this post, which is going to be long without being wordy. I know you don’t believe me, so watch carefully.
Some of my resident mantids have gone missing for the past week or so, but the brown one returned last night. This evening at dusk, it had no sooner ventured out than it snagged
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
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
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
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
The dude is hot. Or cold. So, so cold…
A few years back when I was still following the Bad Astronomy blog, Phil Plait posted an image of odd geological features on Mars, along
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