On top of things

Ha! That title’s a joke on so many levels. HA! Levels!

But first a story. Yesterday afternoon, I was working at my desk and would hear this little tapping sound, every once in a while, quite randomly. Yet it kept repeating, and did not appear related to any motions of the desk that I might have made, and was consistent enough in tone that it warranted investigation. The problem was, it was read more

Profiles of Nature 2


Continuing our profiles of various nature photography models, here we have Fionnuala, a southern flying squirrel (Glaucomys volans) with crippling acrophobia. Because of this, she doesn’t actually fly and in fact has not ascended a tree beyond a meter in height this has made her very good at distracting cats and small children, as well as read more

A valiant effort

Well, okay, you’ll probably have to be the judge of that…

A few days back, in the previous post, I mentioned that the rising moon the next day would be this itsy-bitsy little crescent, a mere 0.6% illuminated, preceding the sunrise by a little over 20 minutes. I also mentioned that the weather here wasn’t amenable to pursuing it.

In the interim (within a day, really,) the moon became read more

Too cool, part 45: Lunation libration animation

I’ve mentioned, many times, the curious wobble of the moon known as libration, and of course the different features and details you can see when photographing anything other than a completely full moon. Now, courtesy of Astronomy Picture of the Day comes a wicked animation of it, with lots of additional details.


The video was created by NASA’s read more

The shit I get up to

So let me tell you a little story, which will not only illustrate what it takes to compose a specific photo, but presents the question of how much of this is creativity with attention to detail, and how much is pointless obsession ;-)

The previous post was a book review that had been started, as I said, many years ago and I somehow didn’t get around to finishing it – it just kept getting read more

Profiles of Nature 1

I know you’ve been sitting there wondering if I’m actually going to do a weekly topic this year, and I’ve been wondering that myself. I was thinking of featuring something from the film archives again, but with the system change I haven’t gotten the scanner working yet, so we’re skipping that idea for the time being. And I could always just keep going with the ‘On read more

Cleaning out the fridge

I mentioned earlier that I might do this, and you’d hoped that I wouldn’t, I know, but here it is anyway because I’m sadistic. In sorting video clips, I realized I had a handful (well, 25) that I’d been pleased to get – they just weren’t enough to justify editing and uploading, and while I’d waited to see if I’d get some more to make a complete read more

Auspicious?

So yeah, my first post of the new year is gonna be a trivial one, and I’ll let you read into that whatever you like, because I know it’s mostly due to a lack of available time. I have a few things planned or in process, but they’ll be a little while in coming.

Right now, I’ll tell you that the Quadrantids meteor shower is peaking tonight – I should have been along with read more

On this date 54

I know, I’m cheating, and trying to shamelessly increase the photo count for the year, but we all know about me and shame by now (“we all” meaning, of course, me, because who the hell else is reading this?) But I promise, this is the last ‘On This Date’ post of the year – no sneaking in a ’54-A’ or anything like that. Other posts with photos, read more

It’s another day

Well, specifically, it’s the end of the month, and the end of the year, but really, these are just arbitrary lines drawn in the sand. Still, they’re lines I’ve chosen to recognize with things like the end of the month abstract, and here’s the dealio: when I opted to alter my schedule slightly to have two ‘On This Date’ posts for this read more

1 97 98 99 100 101 225