We’re halfway through now, and I regret picking this kind of topic a little, because many of these posts take a fair amount of work and I’m often pushing the deadline, like I am now. It’s not like there’s a firm deadline anyway, just the one I arbitrarily chose, and you probably couldn’t even tell me the one I blew by several hours. Still, I’m trying to be conscientious,
Category: Photography
Narrow windows
Astronomy Picture of the Day today had a lovely sunspot image.
… which they said was presently crossing the sun. We’re in a narrow window between scattered clouds and rainstorms that are due within hours, so I quickly grabbed the solar filter and went out to see just how visible this sunspot group was. Actually, not too shabby.
As always, it took several frames to get
Bar’s closed
Rather abruptly, I have a backlog of photos and two video clips to get up here, so I’m going to be working my way through these in the next couple of days, and we’ll see how many other things come up while I’m dealing with these.
We’ve been having two white-tailed deer does (Odocoileus virginianus) visiting for corn on a regular basis, usually a couple of times a
Can’t ask for more
I mentioned in the previous post that, after seeing the barred owl (Strix varia) family without a camera in hand, we may try to remedy that with another kayak excursion down there. However, yesterday I got busy on modifying the dock, and then the rains rolled in, so we never actually took the kayaks out.
Right around midnight, I was in the kitchen and heard the juvie call, and it sounded close
Tip Jar 25: Using the Clone or Rubber Stamp tool
Another entry in the GIMP tutorials, this one in patching grunge and unwanted doodads within your image. Generally a pretty straightforward process – until it isn’t, and this is intended to head off some of those stumbling blocks that can make things frustrating. Don’t get me wrong you will still have a lot of trial-and-error, back-and-forth attempts, especially
Where’s that thesaurus?
Welcome back to Tiny Tuesday, where we— wait, what day is it? They all run together. Minuscule Monday? No, it’s Sunday, so that makes it… hold on now…
Anyway, while you’re shouting out answers, we’ll plow ahead with two miniature subjects for today – one The Girlfriend pointed out to me, and one I had waiting in the wings that I decided to tackle after the
Oh, you weather!
Let’s start with, did I get out myself and photograph or video the occultation of Venus by the moon yesterday that I was alerting you of?
No. I mean, I did get out, and the day had been all nice and clear, but by the time of the occultation, the sky had produced thick yet wildly variable clouds that couldn’t make up their minds whether they wanted to be assholes or not. They apparently
Tip Jar 24: Dodging and burning
Another post on digital editing, this one for (as it says,) dodging and burning, which is lightening or darkening selected portions of an image. This used to be a common darkroom technique, though it’s probably a bit less-so now, but it’s still handy to know how to accomplish. This is definitely one where practice and experimentation will improve the results. So herewith, a quick video
Things to do
S’okay, not much warning on one of them, but if you’re here, you don’t really need the prompting, even if it’s prompting to not be here – you may not need that either. But tomorrow, June 13th, is National Get Outdoors Day, or at least, USA Get Outdoors Day; it may not extend beyond our own country here. Now granted, the heat index
Right on schedule
Out the other evening, I found something that, in the back of my mind, I figured was about due to start showing up, if last year was any guide. That would be this:
Yep, it’s a golden silk orbweaver (Trichonephila clavipes,) almost certainly female yet quite a young and small one, considering how big they usually get. I guess I should say was, since I just