Monday color 3

I have a lot of purple in the ‘color’ folder, so I’m trying to space them out adequately, but I suppose they’ll be spaced out with other photos as we go anyway.

(“But Al,” you say, or at least there’s a greater probability of such if you’re female, “that’s not purple, that’s mauve/amethyst/heliotrope/whateverthefuck.” read more

Under the wire

So, in a post on August 10 of last year, and again on August 13, I mentioned a trip that we’d taken that I was going to feature “shortly.” Given that there is no firm definition of this word, I maintain that I still made this deadline.

Also, I had waited for both The Girlfriend and a friend who had traveled with us to forward me some of their own images to feature, which never actually read more

Monday color 2


This week’s entry for Monday color seems, on first impression, to be rather monochromatic, though a peek at the color channels shows no lack of other color registers – there’s just an emphasis on green. I imagine we can all use a shot of green right now.

Both frogs also hew fairly closely to the rule of thirds, but not perfectly, and certainly not by design – I just framed read more

You got… something on your face… right there


Part of my routine is photo sorting, which involves examining each image I take for (my standards of) quality, and discarding those which fail to make the grade. One standard is critical sharpness, so images get reviewed at full resolution, which means they’re much larger than the monitor size and I’m only seeing small excerpts at a time.

While doing this for the read more

Monday color 1

When I did the color post at the end of the year, I had selected quite a few different images, many of which did not make the cut because they were too similar to others, or I needed more reds, or a horizontal format instead of a vertical (yes, this confirms that I actually put some attention into posting, despite read more

Its spit is your grave

Well, okay, only if you’re a tiny arthropod and encounter it directly. No, that’s not exactly right either, because it’s hardly a grave, is it? Maybe I should have abandoned that title…

We’re going back in the photo archives for this one, seeing as how no one has gotten off their ass to ban winter. During warmer months, you may have spotted a blob of foam on a plant, read more

Truly, a bug

While redoing some drainage channels around the house, something in the dirt seemed a little too undirtlike [spellcheck doesn’t like that word, but I’ve long since learned that spellcheck is bigoted] so I scooped it up. Lo, it was a cicada, the first I’ve seen in the earlier instar nymph form, the phase that stays underground for freaking years and feeds on tree sap.


Not read more

Winter captives


A few days ago I demonstrated my vast disconnect from the parent mindset, because I went to the NC Museum of Life & Science, on one of only two Mondays they are open during the winter as well as a school holiday, and wondered if it would be crowded. I know, I know – don’t mock me because I’m beautiful. read more

Thar she glows

That was terrible, I admit it…

As comet C/2014 Q2 Lovejoy has been getting brighter, we’ve had zero visibility here, until tonight. I went out and did some searching with binoculars, finally locating it, then brought the camera equipment out to give it a shot. read more

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