And so we now travel to Montana – “we” actually meaning, “not me,” but instead Jim and family, and I suppose one or two other people that might have entered Montana that day a month ago; the sprawling metropolis of Floweree, Montana, to be exact, and no I’m not kidding (Jim might be, though.) It would be nice to consider these wildflowers, and I suspect Jim made a little effort to disguise the efforts at gardening, but I’m pretty sure we’re looking at someone’s planter, at least. The colors are vivid and the sky works well, but that pole is a bit jarring, isn’t it? However, it might have gotten into the frame from a simple trait of cameras: the aperture doesn’t stop down until the shutter trips (or it’s otherwise activated by the photographer.) This means the depth-of-field is as short as possible for that lens while looking through the viewfinder, and the pole was – potentially, anyway – more out of focus than seen here. Or it could be that framing it otherwise would have introduced even more unsightly elements. Or that Jim simply didn’t register it. It happens to all of us, more than I care to admit, actually…
Daily Jim pic 14
And we return to this bizarre landscape in Yellowstone National Park, with a series of odd pools. Here’s how I think they developed (you’re not really expecting me to do research for these posts, are you? That’s Jim’s job!):
Layered geologic strata weathers away over time, leaving a series of stepped slopes. Water that appears periodically, washes along, but as it stops it pools in the little depressions and low areas. Because of its high mineral content, as it evaporates it leaves a layer of minerals behind, and this layer reshapes the depressions and affects the subsequent flow of water. Eventually, higher and higher dams or walls are created since the deposits take place at the edges where they adhere to previous deposits as evaporation occurs.
Or not. Probably safer to go with that one.
It’s a shame the sky in that direction was clouded over too much; having a reflection of blue in the water surfaces could have added some really cool accent color.
Daily Jim pic 13
I’m conflicted on whether I like the anachronistic nature of this one, or am put off by it. The desolate, almost-barren nature of the landscape is contrasted by the blue sky and fluffy clouds – it really needs a dark and moody overcast, or maybe a pestilential deep red sunset. And then someone dressed in rags off to one side – long and tattered rags, mind you, the kind with no function whatsoever except to blow in the wind. Then perhaps a beat-up Ford Falcon XB GT sitting at the edge of the frame.
Okay, maybe I’ve been too influenced by movies…
You’re boned
I actually had a little time to do some shooting today, and was lucky enough to find a few subjects. More will be along later when I have more time to post about them, but for now we’ll cover a brief but dramatic saga.
As I passed a potted basil plant without the camera in hand, I saw a small black and white wasp traipsing across the leaves, which is not uncommon, but as I looked closer I could see it was burdened with a larva of some kind, and not its own. Realizing that it was probably futile, I dashed inside and got the camera in hand, fresh batteries in the flash and everything. Luck was with me on my return, since the wasp was still there. I figured there was a pretty good chance it would fly off with its prey, but I was going to give it a shot anyway.
It’s likely that the caterpillar was going to serve as food for the wasp’s young’uns, since that’s a common trait among many species of Vespidae, but instead of flying off bearing this new meal, the wasp was carrying it around on the basil leaf, sometimes on top, sometimes on the underside, seeming unable to determine where it wanted to be. I kept shifting to try and maintain a good vantage, but then the wasp cooperated and halted on top of the leaf in good sight. The caterpillar, it must be said, wasn’t putting up any fight at all, and could have been dead for all the movement it demonstrated.
I spent a bit of time trying to identify the wasp, with only moderate luck. I’m fairly certain it’s a potter or mason wasp, of the genus Eumeninae, but pinning down the exact species hasn’t happened yet. Here’s an example passage from a biological key that allows precise identification:
Metasomal tergum 1 with short overhang, the space below not serving as acarinarium (mites never present); base of tergum 2 usually with a row of shallow to deep pits
That’s just for one particular species. Even if I look up all of the terms that I’m not familiar with, there’s a good chance none of my images show the necessary details. Entomologists collect their species, while more often than not I’m shooting them “in the wild,” usually without native trackers or guards or anything; yeah I’m that badass. But it often means that key features simply never get captured in images.
Notably, the wasp paused a couple of times and jabbed the caterpillar vigorously with the end of its abdomen; while it might have been stinging it into submission, I think it’s far more likely that it was instead laying eggs within the body cavity of the larva. This is, after all, how caterpillars serve as food for the wasp larva. The wasp will then carry it off to its mud cocoon and seal it within, where sometime later the young, having consumed the paralyzed caterpillar (or spider, another frequent prey of some species,) will dig out of the dried mud and fly off. Meanwhile, I got to watch the wasp going to town on the caterpillar like a Chihuahua with an Ugg boot.
And then – it just flew off, leaving the caterpillar behind. Not what I was expecting.
I waited a short while to see if either a) the wasp returned, perhaps after prepping an ideal spot, to carry the larva off again, or b) if the caterpillar would roust itself and go on about its business, unaware that something bad was brewing internally. When neither happened, I picked up the caterpillar and was rewarded with a defensive wiggle, showing it was still alive, so I put it back where it was and left it.
Hours later, it was still on the same leaf, though it appeared to have reversed position, and was now gaining the attention of some kind of predatory true bug. Curious now, I collected the caterpillar and placed it within a small terrarium with a few choice leaves to observe it over the next few days. I suspect it may sprout some cocoons on its back after a while, and so there might be another part of the saga coming along eventually. I know you’re on the edge of your seat.
Daily Jim pic 12
Going slightly out of order with this one, just to break up two similar images. We’re just going to see how incorrectly I’m interpreting this one, but I see this as a drainage area for geysers and/or hot springs, and the yellow-tan color denotes the most recent still-damp runoff. As mentioned earlier, the mineral content in the water is off the scale, and much of the detail and shaping of the ‘rocks’ is due to deposits from the water itself, the same kind of thing that creates stalactites and stalagmites in caves. This would make those surfaces chalky and not terribly resilient, able to be shattered with a hammer, like the water-softening unit that gave up about a year after installation in my old house in central New York (we just had well water, but it was notoriously ‘hard’ and even left scale within the toilet bowl.)
But I’m probably going to be corrected by Jim – not about our water in central NY, since he wasn’t there, but about this scene from Yellowstone since he was. Confused yet?
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 a shame it doesn’t stand out better against the immediate background, but I doubt there were a lot of positioning or lighting options at hand.
I wonder if he got video?
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 you already know if you’ve followed enough posts here, trusting me is a stupid thing to do. Some tourist probably just dumped their pumpkin spice latté into the pool, and it ate that hole into the stone.
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 orbweaver (Nephila clavipes) – the bodies alone can be the size of your finger, which can make the leg spread larger than your palm. Their webs may be as large as 2 meters across, and while they’re usually up in the branches out of immediate encounter range, not always. I have distinct memories of my brother’s ejaculation of foul language when he nearly walked into a web at chest level; he still lives in New York and isn’t used to the subtropical effect on species size.
What I managed to capture in this was a curious trait of their webs, which is how the spiraling circular strands seem to run in close parallel pairs, like train tracks, as if laid down at the same time. While it’s possible that this is the case, and the golden silk orbweaver possesses a radical set of spinnerets, it’s not consistent, and possibly only due to a habit of their casting process. Nothing that I’ve found has made mention of this trait, so I can offer no explanation either way. I was pleased, however, to have captured the details of the web distinctly enough, something that often isn’t possible without some helpful mist or dew.
But also visible is how badly damaged this slide is, and I don’t recall how this happened. Some of it is dust, but the lines aren’t; this one got badly scratched somewhere along the way. And with detail like this, it’s damn hard and time-consuming to edit it all back out in Photoshop. I’m sure plenty of people would point out how much better digital images are over film in this regard, which is true – to a point. Because digital files get damaged too, and when they do, there’s usually no saving them. You don’t get little blotches and lines and so on, you have entire portions that simply go blank, if the file opens at all. And the nature of digital is, they will go corrupt: media degrades, hard drives fail, sectors go bad. Constant duplication is necessary, and while not particularly difficult, fate is entirely unforgiving if you fail to maintain decent and regular backups.
Meanwhile, I can touch up these images, including doing a rescan with a hint of nose grease or mineral oil applied to the slide, which does a remarkable job of vanishing such scratches. This slide dates from 2001, if I remember right, and I started first shooting digital in 2003. Almost none of the original digital media from that time survives in readable form, and I only have access to those digital images through repeated copying, while this slide (and thousands of others without such damage) will be viable for quite a while yet. Perspective is important.
Daily Jim pic 9
All this talk about global warming, but nobody has plugged this sonofabitch up yet. It’s a good thing Jim is providing the evidence to bring this to greater attention.