Just because, part 15

In abject denial of the actual readership of this blog, I must apologize for being away as long as I have. What with the Grammys, and the Superbowl, and Groundhog’s Day, and then all the celebrity activity, well, you know how it goes. The up side of all this is, of course, that I have so much to post about now!

Yeah right. When you see me posting about anything of the sort, that’s the read more

Even for North Carolina


Like most of the country, we’ve been having some longer spells of cold weather, a bit lower temperatures than normal for this time of year, but Monday popped up clear, sunny, and shockingly warm, hitting about 20°c (68°f) – a new student who had been aiming for a day with good conditions to meet contacted me at the last minute, and I headed out. We met near read more

Photos without sight

The other day I began thinking about a subject that has been in the back of my mind for a long time: blindness. My eyes aren’t all that great, needing strong corrective lenses, and they’re gradually getting worse – one day, at some point in the future, the photography will halt, though this is likely to be far enough away that I’ll have retired from everything else as well.

But read more

Goes down smooth

I just happened to glance out the back door today to find a visitor to the yard, about as close to the door as she could get. After a couple of quick and low-quality shots through two panes of glass on the doors, I slipped out the front door to circle around and approach as unobtrusively as I could, which was sufficient.


She pretty clearly knew I was there, but I was in shadow and read more

Counterpoint



I think it snowed early this morning just to offer a counterpoint to the pics from yesterday morn. This is the first of the season here, and no, I don’t really count this as snow not from having grown up in central New York, and not in comparison to many other parts of the country right now. We have often had much heavier snowfalls than this by this read more

All up in yo’ face

After yesterday’s monsoon (which was hard enough for us to be watching for the signs of tornados,) there remains a fair amount of standing water in various places, and the yard is nothing more than a sponge right now. In a shallow pan this morning, I spotted a couple of spiders hanging out, one obviously a species of fishing spider. I pointed the largest out to The Girlfriend.

“Can he read more

History repeats


This morning I had almost the exact same conditions that I had last winter when I snapped a pic that I liked but wanted to redo, so I leapt into action, which turned out to be frozen so solid that I hurt my coccyx. But like then, I wanted to catch the red-shouldered hawk as it sat in the read more

On composition, part 21: Water

While it may seem that “water” is more of a subject than a compositional tool or element, there are actually so many ways to use it that it begs for greater examination. So let’s dive in sorry – sometimes you can’t resist.

The primary trait is, of course, reflectivity. It can mirror a subject on a lakeshore or provide a duplicate sky behind a subject without having to read more

The Great Unused of 2013

I have to admit, I’m really not one for rating things, especially comparatively – top ten lists and all that are not for me. I did it last year, mostly because a prominent blogger would feature any such posts on his own blog as a bit of promotion, so it was blatant opportunism. If you’re here because you found my blog from that link and are still following it, cool, it worked! read more

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