On christmas evening, the threatened storms rolled in, giving us the third snowfall of December. This is a fairly rare occurrence for this latitude, where we usually don’t get snows until January at least, and often not this heavy. While I learned how to drive in central New York, I don’t have a vehicle ready for winter driving, so when the roads get treacherous, I stay
Category: Nature
Cold weather tips
Six months ago, I provided some tips for shooting in hot weather, so I think this obligates me, by the unwritten laws of blog topics, to write about cold weather tips now. Just as a matter of amusement, I’ll note that in that linked post from June 30th of this year, I remarked about writing it at the break
As close as it gets
Yep, I’m actually out watching the lunar eclipse progress – or at least, I was. The conditions are deteriorating and I’m both too cold and too tired to stay with it. This is as close as I’m likely to get to live-blogging, by the way. I know that’s disappointing my legions of followers who have been waiting for an update.
In my area, we’ve got thin overcast starting
On composition, part six
Some of the things that create the difference between snapshots and compelling photographs are subtle. Nevertheless, they are extremely good habits to have. In this case, I’m going to talk about position.
Because we live in a three dimensional world, the relation and position of objects within the frame will change depending on how close you are to them, how close they are to each other, your
Book Review: Your Inner Fish
In a previous review, I talked about a book that dealt with the concerted efforts by creationists to discredit evolution, and the book was specific to the goal, but not aimed towards greater familiarization with evolution itself. Enter Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body by Neil Shubin, which tackles that aspect more specifically.
Shubin opens with some
Almost made history
A few years ago, I took a weekend photography trip to the Outer Banks of NC with a friend, and among others, took one of my favorite black & white photos seen here (and twice at least on this blog.) But I haven’t told the backstory, and how I nearly made history, until now.
While wandering the beach at Buxton, just south of the Cape Hatteras lighthouse, we came across a small placid tidal
Shuffling off his mortal coil
There is a reason, perhaps, why these birds are almost extinct:
The unlucky photographer is Mark Carwadine, who you might remember from an earlier book review, and of course Stephen Fry leaping catlike to his aid. You might be puzzled as to why Carwadine, um, held still and thought of England, but
Too cool, part six
Sometimes I just kick myself for being stupid. At Why Evolution is True, Jerry Coyne does a post on one of the most remarkable of animals, and of developed forms of locomotion: the Paradise Tree Snake, the only snake that flies.
Now, this wasn’t news to me, since I’d seen a brief mention in a book years ago, but then, before I started blogging, found videos of the research that was being
The color of magic
Okay, that was a shameless Terry Pratchett reference, but c’mon, I’m working alone, here. Editors are supposed to come up with the headlines…
A very key element of nature photography is doing a lot of shooting in the early morning and early evening, dawn and dusk. These are often called the “golden hours” and extend from roughly 45 minutes before sunrise (first light)
Book Review: Last Chance to See
Last Chance to See by Douglas Adams and Mark Carwadine is a curious book format. Adams, best known for his “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” series, writes with a distinctively quirky style, outside the box and off the wall, and he is supremely capable of taking the reader completely