On composition, part 23: Weather


Let me be up front about this: when the weather turns nasty, it is rare that I’ll be out in it, any more than the next person, and I don’t make a habit out of many of the practices I’ll be talking about here. So don’t take this to be preachy or anything. But if you find yourself itching to get out and chase photos but blocked by weather that’s read more

Checking off the list

[Repost of original posted January 5, 2015, destroyed by hosting failure.]


I have a lot of little things on a mental checklist to get images of, experiments to try, and items of that nature. It’s 2:30 am as I type this, having just come back from attempting one, the results you see here.

These are all moonlight shots. A low pressure system pushed through recently and brought a lot of rain and read more

Call it therapy


In years past I’ve done a gallery of my “Best of the Year” images, or various shots I’d edited for blog use but never posted this year I’m doing something different for the year’s end. Largely because the weather has been dismal around here, and much the same for large portions of the country – indeed, probably most of read more

Still getting out occasionally


Despite the weather and the holidays, I do still get out to do some shooting now and then, even though the pics in this post were from… jeez… ten days ago. These were taken, with one exception, at a botanical garden during a halfway-decent day. Above, a pintail duck (Anas acuta) provides a dozing pose as the cloud cover thickened up.

While UNC’s Botanical Gardens are dedicated mostly read more

Tanks for the memories

I really have to stop doing stuff like that with the titles…

As a section of the photo gallery shows, while I lived in Florida I ‘maintained’ a small saltwater aquarium – not exactly intentionally, and certainly not in the way that aquarium enthusiasts do. Instead, it was born simply from finding critters read more

Humans overboard, part two

This was originally intended to be part of the previous chapter, but it probably deserves its own post, plus that last one was getting kind of long.

I suspect most people would classify me as an animal lover, or at least leaning heavily in that direction. And on occasion, I have run into a shocked response when it is found that I am not a vegetarian or vegan. My reply to this has been to read more

No record this year

Last year, I was making it a point to post more than I had any year earlier, and did indeed reach that mark, just a few days past this date last year. It is safe to say that I won’t be setting any records this year, since with this one I am 44 posts away, and I don’t see me knocking out, like, three posts a day from here on.

The move to a new house had a lot to do with this, as did the read more

The days of yore, part three


Some time back, after posting a bunch of especially creepy pics, I added the above image and mentioned that I should do a post about it. As you can see, I’m right on top of that, having taken only nine weeks to get to it.

It is, like all images to be seen in this post, a zoo pic, the dreaded ‘captive’ subjects that seem so dire to people at times – real nature photographers read more

But of course

This autumn has proven to be one that I’ve rarely had the chance to take advantage of: a fairly good display of colors, peaking during clear weather, with no storms or even high winds to strip the leaves from the trees. So while this area has few vantages that provide the best display of colors – generally something that overlooks rolling hills with a wide variety of read more

Not according to plan


So, okay. I went out yesterday to check out the nature trails behind UNC’s botanical garden, for the first time in over a decade. You’d like to think that nature photographers are always in touch with every natural area nearby – and they probably are… it’s just that I’m not. Actually, read more

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