It’s funny. I grew up with a fear of spiders, and while it is maintained that this is a learned response, I have a very hard time pinning this down – I can think of no specific education I received that set spiders apart, aside from the idea that some were venomous. I knew the same about snakes, yet had no fear of them at all, perhaps because my father and brothers
Author: Al Denelsbeck
Gotta love it
For any of the four readers who might have been checking in vain for new posts, I apologize. It’s been a weird several days, and when I wasn’t involved with backups and system maintenance (backing up photo files takes more than a workday,) I was out trying to find photo subjects. And I did, so more will be along shortly. For now, I leave you with this.
Sometimes, the spam just seems so
On composition, part eight: Clean fill wanted
So now, let’s talk about another aspect of controlling your photography – well, actually, I’ll “talk,” you’ll “listen.” That’s how a blog works, unless of course you actually decide to comment (you are more than welcome to, you know.)
Anyway, the impression of many people is that nature photography means taking things as they are, capturing only
Oh, the humility!
Sometimes I get a kick out of the arguments for religion, because they’re so entertaining. Whether this is actively fostered or simply a by-product of our media, the most common style that I see anymore is the sound bite. By that I mean, the brief and memorable, sum-it-all-up sayings that sound good, even though content-wise they’re rather deficient. The comments on any article
New neighbors
It’s funny – a few weeks ago I had something like four or five ideas about posts, all having to do with religion, and no other topics coming to mind, nor was any other blog providing inspiration. I try to rotate and break up topics so I don’t appear obsessively obsessive, so I struggled with splitting them up and finding other things to insert between. Now, I have four nature-themed
Rewriting history
Ah, Ronald Reagan! The guy that ended the Cold War, that brought the Iranian hostages home, that brought America back to world respect, that…
Wait a second… who?!
From someone who came of voting age during his administration, I’ve been dumbfounded at the accolades that Reagan receives nowadays. It was abundantly clear, right from the moment an
Just pics
Nothing elaborate to say (for once,) just some pics from yesterday. I really liked the effect above – just the right light levels, I think. When I was a tiny little blogger, I used to be scared of jumping spiders, because of their menacing hairy appearance, near total fearlessness, and my mistaken belief that they were black widows (children get to hear the stories
Boo!
I’m of mixed feelings about this. The Freedom From Religion Foundation is now featuring a page where you can create your own “billboard,” much like the ones going up in various locations around the country espousing secularism. Upload your own pic and include your own sentiment to get your own billboard/banner, and who knows? You might
The lucky ones
Through both Ophelia Benson and Jerry Coyne this morning, I found out that the mother eagle we’ve been watching raise her brood on the EagleCam at Norfolk Botanical Garden, collided with a plane and was killed yesterday morning. The father is still around, but three is a large brood for eagles, and usually both parents are kept busy cycling the food to the rapidly growing youngsters.
In light
Denihilism
Humans are a really odd species – there’s just no getting around this. Maybe it’s a credit to us that we’re actually starting to recognize this, or maybe it’s a symptom of our condition that it’s taking us so long. It’s really easy to devolve into some kind of internal philosophical debate over that, but it’s pretty pointless.
What makes me say this,



















































