Daily Jim pic 11


This one also got into the ‘Too cool’ category, and it’s a favorite of mine. This is (I’m pretty sure – again, Jim didn’t tell me when he sent the stack of photos) a geothermal vent that passes through a layer of grey clay, and so produces a witches cauldron of bubbling mud. And Jim was able to capture one of the bubbles as it popped. It’s read more

July leaves behind an abstract


It’s the colors that made me want to use this one, and I shot it specifically with the month-end abstract in mind. If you’re confused as to what it is, you’re just admitting that you don’t come here often enough, and I’m not inclined to put in extra effort for someone that cares so little.

Daily Jim pic 10


We’re still in Yellowstone Park, looking at the spring water sources. If I’m interpreting this one correctly, there are at least two different subterranean channels feeding this pool, apparently passing through different types of minerals/metals. The one centered in this image, I’m almost certain, is showing a high iron content, so yes, that’s rust. But as read more

Sunday slide 31


Yes, another muted color example, and I’m often enthusiastic about the vibrancy of slides (it just means the scene was really bland.) We’ll get into some nice color shortly. For this week we have a dual illustration, which is clear the moment you look closely. First off, Florida is home to more than a few examples of this massive spider, a female golden silk read more

Eclectic and farraginous

This post marks a particular milestone for the blog, as it is my first use (actually, in my entire life) of the word, “farraginous.” Which spellcheck doesn’t even have listed, so that guarantees that I’m sounding like a pompous ass. But I’m not going to make anyone have to look up the word to see what it means just to understand a simple blog post, so I’ll read more

Daily Jim pic 8


If you’ve ever wondered where they get the water to make those colorful freezer pops, it’s Yellowstone National Park. This is the ambiguous “berry” pool.

Actually, I think this is from copper, but I could be wrong. Either way, there are enough minerals in the waters of the park to -… I can’t think of a good analogy, but there are a lot. Yellowstone has water that read more

Daily Jim pic 7


And so we move on to Yellowstone Park, and a torrent in an as-yet-unidentified river. That stark dead tree is a strong element, but notice that it’s actually two trees, and the grey one contrasts nicely against the deep green of the background trees while the smaller still-living one sets off against the water.

However, I’ll never forgive Jim for not getting a bear catching a salmon in read more

Daily Jim pic 6


This is probably my favorite of Jim’s Tetons compositions, a nice use of the foreground stump mimicking the background mountain in roughly 1/13776 scale. I am guessing this is Jackson Lake, which fronts the Tetons from most of the public access areas.

I’ll take a second to talk about composition here, because I would also have liked to have seen a slight variation of this, from a smidgen read more

Of course of course of course of course

Poking around in the yard late last, I was silently lamenting the fact that the mantises (as well as nearly all other critters of interest) seemed to have moved on – it’s been days since I’ve seen any sign of them, but I’m not at all surprised, because the hot and dry weather has been taking its toll on the plants and so the favored lairs of the mantids are not very impressive read more

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