The new lights keep buzzing

The weather got nice today and I was doing some other photos outside, when the persistent buzzing finally got me to look up and see what was going on. It seems this European honeybee (Apis mellifera) thought our holiday lights looked rather appealing, and checked out numerous bulbs along the string before flying off.

Knowing that bees are often guided by how much ultraviolet is reflected by flowers, read more

Lend some character

A few months back, I shot this Tolkienesque scene on the side of the river nearby, actually on the same outing that I chased down this special assignment. To get this angle, I was flat on my belly on a rock at the edge of the river, with my legs extending behind me into the water, far enough that my shorts were getting wet. That’s the kind of extremes I go to in pursuit of my interests.

Okay, read more

Just stuff

There have been a couple of things I’ve been working on and trying to update, and I finally have them available, so this post is simply a short list of new things available on the site.

I mentioned earlier that I would include a tutorial on removing noise, and so I read more

Amateur naturalism, part four


I didn’t initially intend it this way, but we’ve been working through a scale of increasing difficulty and effort in this series, starting with insects, then working through birds, read more

Just because, part five

This is, unfortunately, a great example of a photo that’s far too busy – too many different things clashing together, preventing any strong focal point and destroying the uncluttered composition that every photographer should strive for. Given what I was after, though, there wasn’t much I could do about it, and catching the spray of water was the main accomplishment.

Back when I read more

Book Review: Big Bang

This was a book that, I admit, wasn’t on my reading list, but when I came across a copy I began reading it out of interest. It is a credit to the author that I stayed with it, and chose to throw it into the review lineup.

Big Bang by Simon Singh is named in a very straightforward way, read more

Amateur naturalism, part three


Our next topic in the series is reptiles – you can also refer back to the posts about insects and birds if you like.

Reptiles (and amphibians, which I’ll also refer to here but will use the same term for each just for convenience) are perhaps the most misunderstood of animal classes, which is unfortunate because they’re actually pretty cool. They become more prevalent with warmer read more

Do you like exploring?


Google Earth is a fun program, allowing the user to examine just about anyplace on earth (and elsewhere) from the vantage of aerial and satellite photos I spend no small amount of time checking out areas of interest, finding places I’ve been and little curiosities.

Along those lines, I finally finished a project I’ve been planning for a while, which is to upload some Google Earth placemarks read more

Sylvan Heights continued

And so, our saga resumes where it left off, with our heroes trapped within the confines of a completely non-treacherous and non-threatening bird park…

As I mentioned before, Sylvan Heights Bird Park provides great opportunities for close encounters, and to the photographer, the urge to do personal portraits of the birds is practically irresistible. read more

Too cool, part 11: Sylvan Heights Bird Park


As I indicated in the previous post, we had a trip planned that might produce some new images, and while I’d like to build the suspense to the point of frustration, I find this a hard thing to do, especially when I lead the post off with a header photo. So yes, we did get some useful stuff, and this will be another multiple post.

Nature photographers, as well as amateur naturalists and simply read more

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