Since it really is the last day of the month, we fall back, once again, on creating meaningless content with the end-of-month abstract. This time our featured image was indeed taken within April, so I feel better now – it’s from a brief trip to the NC Botanical Garden a couple of weeks back. This is a tighter crop from the original image, which was shot with the Mamiya 80mm macro wide open at f4, so you can see just how short the depth of field can get in those circumstances. It’s almost cheating to be using it in this way, because it’s pretty easy to create abstract images through very short DOF, but I wasn’t trying to shoot an image for the end of the month, so I remain blameless in this regard. It’s not often that I’m actually aiming to shoot abstracts (usually because when I try, they rarely come out as intended,) but I’m happy to grab them if something catches my eye. The flowers (azaleas I believe, but I’ll deny it if anyone asks) set off nicely against the blue sky – once I got into a position that allowed it, anyway.
Per the ancient lore, part 7
This week, we’re poking into the Leaves/Plants/Trees folder, to showcase this… something… found occasionally in Florida. The shooting angle implies that it’s tall, but not terribly so if I remember correctly; no more than five meters, but I think between three and four. What it really is, I couldn’t tell you. I shot it because I found it bizarre and rather prehistoric-looking, or so we have imagined such things to be from the fossil record, but it’s also notably geometric, vaguely asparagus-like (blerk,) and not exactly healthy in appearance to boot.
Yes, it has all of those qualities, and is not a boring, simple pic that I shot on a whim while passing. I don’t do that kind of thing. It’s just like all those examples of literature that you couldn’t see the appeal of: you’re just not sophisticated enough to understand the deeper meaning of it.
Milking the day
I’ve made two mentions of it now, but on a particular day last week I really and truly got out and did a little shooting – not anywhere near enough to make up for the poor showing in the first quarter of the year, but more than, say, nothing. And then the following morning I got some more, with both days contributing to the recent slideshow, but for this post we’re only talking about the first.
Unfortunately, a lot of the images didn’t pass muster, for a variety of reasons – poor light and shooting macro photos handheld among them – so we’re just going to review two of the other subjects from the outing. We’re still waiting for the boom that warm weather brings; I think most species have had their faith in spring completely ruined now and are hedging their bets, so subjects are still a bit sparse. A five-lined skink played tag with me around a tree, but one of the pond sliders bravely maintained its basking spot as I ambled much closer than I normally could – that’s the image in this preliminary post. I was kind of expecting to see it blind in the eye facing me, since that was the only way I’d gotten this close to one last year, but I could see it blinking in that eye at least, so I can’t offer a better explanation.
Near an inlet to the pond, however, I spotted a suspicious-looking tree root – suspicious in that I didn’t think a tree root had been there before. Attaching the longer lens confirmed my suspicions; it wasn’t a root, but a northern water snake (Nerodia sipedon sipedon,) delving industriously among the rocks and rootlets to make a burrow for itself.
I’ve seen one in the same location a couple of times before, and it’s likely this was the same individual – it was certainly sizable enough, roughly a meter long but up to 7cm in girth. We’d had an absolute deluge a few days previous to this, and it’s possible that the inflow right past these rocks clogged its former burrow with mud and debris, which it was trying to excavate. Eventually, it brought its head out of the shadows, but not in the most photogenic manner.
Due to the light and the path the snake appeared to be wending, I realized I’d probably do better coming from a different angle, which required getting to the opposite side of the inlet channel, a detour of a few dozen meters. On the way, I spotted another potential subject, but knew it wasn’t going anyplace soon while the snake might disappear, so I stuck with my first subject. Unfortunately, the opposite side of the channel wasn’t as good a shooting angle as I’d believed, with too much underbrush in the way, and I was left trying to maneuver for a clear shot while not alerting the snake to my now much-more-visible position. I succeeded, but for one frame only, and this is a tight crop from the original.
Almost immediately after this, I shifted position for a slightly better view and caught the attention of the snake, which launched itself towards me with obvious malicious intent shot into the water and disappeared, as they are much more inclined to do – you pretty much have to corner or grab them to get any kind of defensive response, and even then it might be half-hearted. I knew from experience that the snake would re-surface within about two minutes, being far less capable of going without air than turtles or frogs are, but it would also peek out among concealing cover, and wouldn’t venture from the water for several minutes more, so I let it be and went back to the other subject I’d found.
On the trunk of a tree a few meters from the water’s edge, a newly-emerged adult dragonfly was still pumping up and drying out its wings before being able to fly, perched on its just-molted exoskeleton. I liked the juxtaposition, but was working without the macro flash rig, so getting focus and depth together was a challenge, and most of the shots that I attempted were crapola, but I yet managed what I was after.
Now, the caterpillar to butterfly metamorphosis is pretty damn dramatic, when you compare anatomy, but it takes place over a period of weeks within a protective cocoon. The difference between the aquatic nymph and flying adult stages of dragonflies and damselflies is pretty significant too, and it becomes apparent in a period of minutes. Yes, it had emerged from that brown husk not half an hour before, seemingly at least three times larger already, but it’s the head that I get the biggest kick out of. The old exoskeleton is split apart along the edges of the eyes and down the middle back of the head, outlined by the white interior surface, but just look at how dramatically larger both the eyes and the ‘face’ are. And I can’t tell you where all this extra mass comes from, because the insect isn’t even drinking water for this to occur, and is in fact drying out slightly; at best, it might be expanding its interior organs with air, but the respiratory rate for insects is remarkably slow. I don’t doubt that the molted skin is drying out and shrinking slightly itself, but I’ve seen this occur with other species and the amount of shrinkage isn’t significant, or even noticeable.
As yet, I still have the full molting sequence, start to finish, on my list of photography goals, since I still haven’t come across one right before it begins to emerge, though I’ve had a few close misses. Let’s put that goal down specifically for this summer; that seems reasonable. What it’s likely to require is getting out early in the morning when I have plenty of time and watching the water edges carefully, then staking out any nymph that appears until the process is complete. We’ll have to see how that goes.
You can count on me
It’s the fourth Thursday in April, and you know what that means? It means it’s Put Something Off Until The Last Minute Day, and so I’ll let you guess about what time this is actually posting on that date. Chances are, you’re not reading this soon enough that you can actually take advantage of it, unless your timing is good or you actually have this blog in an RSS feed – does anyone even use them anymore? Did anyone ever, especially for Walkabout here?
But hey, just in case: if you are reading this while it is still Thursday, you have a special opportunity. Drop me an e-mail before, oh, a certain amount of time passes, and I’ll send you a free 11×14 print of your choice. It’ll be our way of celebrating the holiday. Act now – e-mail servers are standing by!
This is another of the images that I decided against when doing the gallery updates, though it was close, and by no means intended to imply that this is the print you will get, I just wanted an image for this post, though if you like it then feel free, but otherwise you can have your choice, just drop me that e-mail and we’ll figure out what you want.
Because a slideshow worked better
So, a pair of recent photo outings netted remarkably similar photo sequences, and putting them all up in a post would have made it disturbingly long, so I opted to make a slideshow/video. This also served as further wringing out of the new Linux operating system, to see if I could perform all of the functions necessary. Seems to have worked out well enough.
The players, in order of appearance:
Canada geese, Branta canadensis
Red-shouldered hawks, Buteo lineatus
Osprey, Pandion haliaetus
Red-headed woodpecker, Melanerpes erythrocephalus
Bald eagle, Haliaeetus leucocephalus
I will take this opportunity to (once again) stress the development and utilization of some basic skills, all of which came into play to permit these images.
Listen – And know your species calls. Your ears can often tell you when something is about to happen, and allow you to be prepared.
Use your peripheral vision – A tiny flash of movement or color is sometimes all you’ll have, but it can tell you where and when to seek a better vantage. The osprey, for instance, was first spotted from under a full forest canopy when it passed against a tiny patch of open sky, and that movement in turn pointed out the nest.
Patience – It should go without saying, but sometimes you have to wait around for something interesting to happen.
Switching subjects for a moment, I’ll note that this time around, the video editing package was OpenShot, largely because HitFilm isn’t available for Linux. Worked very well and was pretty much a breeze to set up the slideshow, but I already had the images edited and sized and the audio recorded, so…
I’ve got a few more images from the same sessions to put up, which I’ll hopefully get around to soon – maybe even later on today since I have the time. If not, well, they’ll be along shortly.
Per the ancient lore, part 6
This week’s entry, or entries I guess, come from the Lakes/Streams/Waterfalls folder, categories I had created long before I was using digital. But it’s inaccurate for this, because this is not from a lake, or a stream, or a waterfall. I suppose I should have a Lagoon or Sound category, which would have seemed superfluous when I first created them but became much more useful when I moved very close to the Indian River Lagoon, the largely-saltwater sound between the barrier islands and the mainland (which hardly seems appropriate itself – maybe “mainswamp”) of Florida’s Atlantic coast.
Now, think about this. As a peninsula, Florida has technically two sides: an Atlantic coast (meaning facing the Atlantic Ocean) and a Gulf coast bordering the Gulf of Mexico. But of course it’s all one body of water. For our human naming purposes, supposedly there’s a technical border or differentiation, but where is it? I would think, on initial introspection, that it falls on the southernmost tip of Florida, but Florida doesn’t just point southy, it trails off into the Keys which extend like a trail of bread crumbs mostly to the west. So should we count, like, the southernmost point of Key West to be the border? Or maybe, the westernmost point since it’s a string of islands heading in that direction? Do the southern beaches of, for instance, Vaca Key and Bahia Honda Key still count as bordering the Atlantic? And this says nothing of the variously-named sounds between the Keys and the mainswamp. Is there a point in the middle of the water someplace where you can float splayed out and be in four or five different bodies of water at once? I’m not gonna get any sleep tonight…
[By the way, as you already know I have a Beach category, but I don’t feel these images match that idea too well either, so for now, they’re remaining as they are.]
Where was I? Oh yeah, pics. So, the image above was from a particularly rough and windy day in the very area that I did most of my snorkeling while living in Florida, right off one of the causeways in the Indian River Lagoon. It was far too choppy to try and snorkel, but I was on a photography outing that day anyway, and shot several frames capturing the waves crashing against the rocks. These rocks did not occur naturally there, but were strategically placed as a breakwater and erosion control, and this illustrates why very nicely: the violent impact of the waves would be dissipated against these and not the actual foundations of the causeway visible just a couple of meters beyond, keeping the soil, plants, and supporting rocks therein in better shape.
We don’t think a lot about what’s in the water when we see waves like this, but I can tell you that the Indian River Lagoon is chock full of life. Most of it likely survives getting slammed against the rocks without issue, but I have to believe at least some doesn’t handle the collisions well. The green blankets of seaweed (lagoonweed?) that you see here were actually handy for me, because they blanketed and cushioned the underlying layer of barnacles and oysters that gathered very quickly on any available surface; I could sit on these very boulders and put on my flippers and mask without cutting myself to ribbons, because oysters are extremely sharp, and barnacles only slightly less so.
To illustrate a little better, this rock was from the same location, a few dozen meters away but on a much calmer day.The scale is deceptive: I could, if I was careful (or maybe reckless,) just fit my hand through that hole. I’m not sure any portion of the underlying rock actually shows in the photo – this is all barnacles, oysters, and dried lagoonweed (one oyster is visible hanging off at bottom center, while another mostly-round one can be seen a little above it and to the left.) Such creatures congregate quickly in the lagoon, borne in on the water and attaching themselves as the opportunity arises. Barnacles, in fact, are fascinating little crustaceans, and yes, I have that right – they’re not molluscs, and actually spend the early stages of their live swimming; you really should check them out. The plethora of these hard shells means that even casual contact can produce cuts, and I usually gained a few nicks with each snorkeling trip. And on occasion, more than nicks – I still have a few scars.
I still like the macabre, ‘mountain of skulls’ effect that this angle provides, though. I really should have come back when the clouds were tumultuous and forbidding.
Isn’t it always the way?
After, really, far too long without anything of interest to photograph, I finally got out to do some shots, and had some time set aside to write a post. Alas, other things intervened, and I’m here putting up a brief missive to fill in between two ‘ancient lore’ posts, because I don’t really have time for something more substantial.
I will say, however, that this is the first post from within the new Linux system, as I am making good on my threat/vow/rant and getting myself free from Windows. I finally got back to working on it, installed Linux Mint as a dual-boot on my primary computer so I could easily go back to my old operating system as needed, and have otherwise been making sure I have everything I need to perform all of the tasks that I routinely tackle. There have been a few pitfalls and frustrations, but overall it’s been going a little better than expected.
Anyway, more will be along as soon as I can devote a little time to it. Next up, however, is the (so far) weekly installment of digital images from the depths of history.
Per the ancient lore, part 5
Running a day late on this one, partially because I didn’t start it earlier and got busy, partially because I forgot what day of the week it was (weird schedules can do that to you.)
For this gripping episode, we have… eggs. Eggshells, mostly. I suspect the scale is pretty apparent, but they’re attached to a reed on the edge of a lake in Florida, so I’m going to say they’re likely snail eggs, and they came from the Invertebrates folder of my stock images. Which admittedly doesn’t have a lot of entries since the bulk of invertebrates that I photograph fall into the Arthropod category better. So, snails and slugs by a wide margin, and I don’t chase them too often. Going from memory, these eggs are about 3mm across
I would have loved to have captured new emergents from these eggs (or the other two or three patches of the same that I found on that day,) but no activity was to be seen. It’s easy to think something along the lines of, “Well, just come back another time,” (which I sometimes do as a self-accusation when I find I’m missing photos I think I should have,) but the reality is, these likely appear only during a certain time of the year, and hatch only when the conditions are right – this could be a span of just a couple of days. And since I wasn’t there to see it the first time, I couldn’t accurately say when these days might fall. These were shot June 5th, 2004, and I was only in Florida…
[Okay, this is just an example of how things stretch out longer than intended sometimes, and quite often when writing blog posts. I had it in my head that I’d left Florida in 2005, but wasn’t exactly sure of the date and thus whether I’d have had the opportunity to look for the eggs again. Then I started thinking it was earlier, and actually in 2004, and finally had to start doing some research and making connections with world events. I finally pinned it down.]
… until September of that year, when I’d moved back to North Carolina. If such eggs are found around here, they’d almost certainly be coastal, and I’m not out at the coast often enough. So here we are, fourteen years later, and still no further along in this pressing mystery. But before you make any further disparaging sounds, may I remind you that I’ve gotten photos of another species of snail hatching, oh, six years ago, and those were under water at the time, so stop being all highhanded.
[By the way, the “world events” I mention above happen to be hurricanes Ivan and Jeane, both of which hit the section of Florida where I’d lived only ten days apart – I’d actually gone back down to pick up the remainder of my belongings between the two storms, so wasn’t in state for either of them. The damage from the first was notable, but the second hit that region much harder, so it appears my timing was fortuitous. I may feature a couple of photos a little later on.]
Podcast: Getting the feel
I don’t actually think we’re going to have a spring or a summer this year. I think we’re going to just fluctuate in temperatures for the next several months, frosts and snow killing off all the things that start to grow when the temp is higher, until eventually the sun just gives up entirely and stays down.
[There – now I’ve established an excuse not to post too much and the pressure’s off.]
But life goes on, and so does my droning voice, which means it’s time for another podcast. This time, it’s an extension of the earlier equipment monologue. And yet, I wouldn’t do these if I didn’t think there was some redeeming value to them.
Walkabout podcast – Getting the feel
Not a lot to link to or illustrate with this one. I mentioned exposure compensation, and also white balance, so there are those links. Most of what you want to be familiar with, however, will be found in your camera manual, and if you don’t have one, typically they can be found online.
A quick note, something that I tell my students all the time: don’t worry about not understanding what some particular function or option on your camera is for. Manufacturers are now trying to make just about every body useful to any shooting situation, and not only is it not necessary to understand all (or even the majority) of these functions to use the camera effectively, in many cases you will never use them all, regardless of your experience. Some are only for very specific techniques; some are even virtually worthless. Remember, not that long ago there were just a handful of primary controls on any camera, and these are still the ones that have the greatest impact on your images (for the record, that’s shutter speed, aperture, and ISO.) So don’t think that you have to read the manual cover-to-cover to know how to use the camera. However, it’s not a bad idea to flip through it occasionally, and if there’s something in there that you have questions about, the webbernets is a handy resource. Even plugging the term into that search bar over to your right might generate a useful post that I’ve done in the past.
Nothing else that I’m thinking of right now, so here’s the first Copes grey treefrog (Hyla chrysoscelis) of the year, at least for me – this came from April 3rd when the weather was normal for this time of year. By the way, the snow/sleet mentioned in the ‘cast never did come to pass, though the temperature dropped very close to that. Definitely a weird season.
BIAB: Down the rabbit hole
It’s disturbing how many posts I start to work on and find out they’re a lot more complicated than I originally thought – and in this case, underpinned with ethical considerations.
Let’s start with copyright. Original creations in the US, and many other countries, have a degree of protection under copyright laws, which roughly mean that they can only be used under the permission of the creator. For photography, this had a reasonable amount of control until the intertubes came onto the scene and anyone could, with little effort, snag an image and republish it elsewhere – and a really disturbing number of people believe this to mean that if they can, then it’s perfectly legal to do so. Simple (really, only) answer: no. If you didn’t take it, then you need the photographer’s permission to use it. For anything. Memes and Pissinterest and backgrounds to shitty ‘inspirational’ poems included.
[Small, semi-related side note: Jim Kramer, whose name you might recognize, once found that an image of his was being used without attribution or permission on some sappy religious site; Jim is as ardent an atheist as I am. Moreover, they were hotlinking it, meaning that not only were they using it, their site was ‘calling’ it from Jim’s own, so his own site bandwidth was being used to display it instead of the thief’s site. Jim simply replaced the image with a scathing rebuke of unethical practices and, if I remember right, a dig at religion at the same time – the image was named the same, of course, so the thief was now displaying this instead. It remained up for a couple of days before it was discovered and the link removed. I like Jim’s approach to such things.]
Now, music is a curious aspect of this. Ostensibly protected under the same laws, music is publicly ‘displayed’ all over the place – that’s kind of the point; it’s by far the primary way that musicians actually get successful. Imagine if the only exposure to someone’s music was through their live concerts. But there’s this weird, poorly-defined demarcation of what’s permissible (for instance, radio play,) and what’s not (distribution of a digital music file without paying the recording companies.) It’s very convoluted, and the artists and their ‘representative’ sponsors often disagree wildly on this aspect.
And then there’s derivative works. Essentially, any creation that uses a recognizable portion of someone else’s work in their own is not ‘original,’ and copyright still lies with the originator – if I take someone else’s photo and edit it into a collage or creative composite or whatever, they still retain the rights to it regardless of the work that I’ve done.
Which brings us to this. Remixes of well-known songs have their own little niche, and for a particular reason: it takes something that we like, but perhaps have been hearing too often, and gives it a fresh spin, an extra bit of character or even a different tempo and feel. For instance, I had some misgivings a bit earlier when I featured a remix of an album track that was probably unknown to most people, because I suspect the strongest impact of the remix came from knowing the original very well (I’d had it on the album for decades.) This might mean someone hears the newer version first and likes it, then finds the original very flat – I felt that way with The Beatles’ ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,’ having become familiar with Elton John’s version first; I later found The Beatles’ original to be flat, nasally, and uninspired.
But I believe we’ve effectively thwarted that possibility here, because the song I’m about to feature is Peter Gabriel’s ‘In Your Eyes,’ and if you don’t know this song by now submit yourself for scientific study. Gabriel himself did umpteen versions of it since its original release on the 1985 album So and within the soundtrack of the film Say Anything. Even the 45 RPM vinyl release had two versions – both of which differed from the album release (you may be familiar with the truncated lyrics of the single.)
According to what I just discovered, someone named Bobby Clark, who also went by the moniker “808,” melded these two vinyl versions together to produce “808’s Extended Mix.” This was apparently featured on his own blog until the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) requested that he take it down. Which is where things get interesting in this whole copyright business.
All of the music was Peter Gabriel’s, and released through his recording company in two separate tracks. I don’t want to assume too much without knowing the actual facts in the case, but if a) attribution was provided, and b) the song was publicly ‘played’ on a site without requiring any payment or fees or whatever, this is exactly the same as radio play, except to a significantly smaller audience – the only difference is, you can’t purchase this version from the artist or the recording/distributing company. Or anyone else, so there’s no actual loss of potential sales revenue. The same recording company didn’t pay anything or push to have it played on the site, which is what they routinely do for radio stations – insofar as it prompted anyone to develop any interest at all in Peter Gabriel’s music to the point where they purchased something, it actually saved the companies a little money. This is largely why artists are at odds with the draconian practices of their recording companies, because the artists know that exposure results in increased sales. Recording companies often feel that any usage should be a sale, while artists often recognize that any sale is better than none.
[It’s a little different for photographers, because virtually no one ever sees an interesting image and says, “Wow, I like that! I should buy some of their photos!” Most people don’t even look down at the watermark or attribution to note who took it. Which means ‘exposure’ is entirely different between music and photography, even though there are some parallels between freely downloading music files and right-clicking on a photo to republish in a Twit. “Who performs this song?” is asked a billion times more than, “Who took this picture?” I’ll let you ponder the reasoning behind this…]
Anyway, as I dance along the borders of hypocrisy and selective ethics, I present to you Peter Gabriel’s ‘In Your Eyes’ as remixed by 808/Bobby Clark from the two single versions. Right at the beginning, you can hear the telltale hiss from the vinyl sources.
In Your Eyes (808’s Extended Remix) – Peter Gabriel
There are several reasons why I particularly like this version. I’d known about the additional lyrics included in some versions for a while. Curiously, the 45 RPM single seemed to have truncated some of the lines from the chorus, but then added a stanza at the end before the fade out (“Accepting all I’ve done and said…”) – which seemed to thwart the typical reason for clipping lyrics, which is an ‘acceptable’ length for air time. This added section was some of Gabriel’s better vocalizations as far as I was concerned. The extended B-side included these lyrics, with subtle changes, at both beginning and end – but then didn’t really have the primary lyrics of the original(s) within, which is what 808/Clark remixed to include. The B-side also featured the addition of a lot of background vocalists, among them Youssou N’Dour I believe, as well as someone really kicking the bass vocals. It builds up a lot better, more dynamic than the typical Top 40 offerings then or now, with instruments taking turns in appearing within the track.
If you’re only familiar with the popular versions, this one might be slightly disconcerting since the lyrics don’t drop in right where you might expect them, but it didn’t take me long to get used to this. Notable, too, is the extended bass (guitar) and drum work – the original, still audible among the familiar lyrics, is a bit simpler. ‘In Your Eyes’ is a great track in any version; I just found this one to be even richer. Illegal though it is.