Still trying

HepaticaHere, we’re still wondering if spring has finally decided to settle in, or if its meds are going to wear off and send it scurrying for safety someplace, wherever spring goes when it’s not around – my guess is a shop that does specialty jams. The past few days have been spent dealing with the peripheral effects of a minor surgery – not mine, but that of The Girlfriend’s Younger Sprog, removing a bracing bar they’d put in earlier (make up your mind.) The surgery only took 40 minutes, but all the hoohah around it, not to mention the rescheduling because of an emergency that occupied the surgeon, meant two days of, really, not a damn thing happening while taking a very long time at it. The weather wasn’t bad then, though still a bit chilly, but now that all of that’s past I was able to take advantage of today’s warmth and went out looking for stuff, knowing full well that it’s still early yet.

A few wildflowers are peeking out here and there, certainly not doing more that putting a speck of color among the dead leaves and needles. Macro lenses, of course, can make them seem a bit more impressive than a normal perspective, so you’re receiving the concentrated effect of the only two flowers for quite a few meters around (I think these are Hepatica, but if questioned on it I will change the subject in a clever and distracting way.) This particular area sees fisherfolk from time to time, though none happened along to observe me lying on my side in the leaf litter shooting these from ground level; I’m still slightly self-conscious about how weird I might look getting these angles, yet not enough to prevent me from doing so, because this is a significant improvement over the typical perspective from above.

SpringSpideyThere was one fisher around who certainly did not miss me, no matter how you interpret that wording, and this was a targeted find, meaning one of the specific subjects I was looking for on this little trip. The same comments about shooting position apply here too, since I was on my side on a rock in the river, head hovering only centimeters over the water to get this portrait. While it may seem like I’ve flopped the image, the fishing spider (genus Dolomedes) was hanging out in just this position on the side of a log in the water, warming itself in the sun. They’re often pretty mellow and will allow a cautious approach, but I admit to coaxing this one to turn this way after it had shifted away from me, facing down into the water in a position that would have required a waterproof camera to nail the eyeball shot. Which makes me realize now that an image of the spider reflected from the water’s surface would have been supremely cool to obtain, even though the river was too turbulent here to attempt that – I’ll keep it on the list. I need to point out the other face visible, an owl-like visage on the abdomen – had you missed it? And yes, I remain true to form; a post without creepy things would make any regular reader (is there such a thing?) wonder what happened to me.

The trees are still almost entirely bare; only a few buds can be seen with effort, here portrayed against the water tumbling over the rocks. No one’s going to do a bunch of scenic landscape images in this area for a while yet, so abstract semi-fartsy shots are all that can be coaxed out right now. But perhaps I can drag myself out before sunrise and capture a beaver. Check back with me.
LateBuds

Much ado about “fucking”

If the title didn’t clue you in and you’re not already familiar with other posts here, I’ll kindly inform you that I do not refrain from obscenities, vulgarities, expletives, blasphemies, curses, and potty-mouthing. However, it’s a public service, because there are people who actually judge what I have to say by whether or not a naughty word is heard or read, and since I really have nothing but contempt for those who need simple rules to guide their thoughts, accommodating such people wastes their time and mine.

Yet, there’s a lot more to it than that, too. I have long held the viewpoint that words only have the power that you give them, and that it isn’t what you say, but how you say it and what you mean. The word “boy” has appeared on nobody’s shame-shame list, yet it is still widely recognized as being derogatory and demeaning in certain uses and circumstances. Anything can be a curse, if used in a particular manner. But context often dictates the impact, too, as most people can watch stand-up comedians or movies about street crime and fully expect, and cope with, frequent swoony words. There really isn’t anything special about them – we simply have a cultural reaction, an expectation that we should be dismayed upon certain vocalizations in certain circumstances, and the more one thinks about it, the sillier it sounds. Have you heard them before? Well, then, you survived intact – hearing it again isn’t like chipping away at your sanity or morals or anything. Saying or hearing “bitch” three times, or a hundred, isn’t going to summon the demon Betelgeuse (or Batman.)

Here’s an example of how cultural expectations can make us engage in pointless exercises. Science Daily featured, in their quintessentially slop-journalistic way, a study undertaken about which characters in popular teen novels swore the most. Professor Sarah Coyne apparently thought that the connection between characters with higher social status and cussing would actually have serious impact on youth.

“From a social learning standpoint, this is really important because adolescents are more likely to imitate media characters portrayed in positive, desirable ways,”

And? No, seriously, so fucking what? My question is, did those characters eat their veggies? Let’s concentrate on the important things here.

Now, if you’re keeping up, you noticed that the insertion of an expletive above actually had a specific effect, which was to express even greater contempt than the sentence would have had without it, and that’s very frequently the exact point. The breakdown of western civilization is hardly going to occur if teens start swearing more, even if it could be shown that such novels actually influenced readers in that manner (which the article didn’t address – it was only believed to be possible.) I could go on at length to express my distaste for research on such a decrepit premise, but it isn’t worth the effort, and I run the risk of seeming obsessive or neurotic; I’ll just call it vapid horseshit and have time for dessert.

You have certainly heard the much-favored argument that cussing is childish, a sign of immaturity, which actually says more about the person using the argument than about those it is used to delineate. In cultures where parents get woozy when they hear children spout an abbreviated term (you know, like “C-word” and “E-word”,) it is precisely this reaction that creates the usage – there is a certain defiance of authority in bespeaking the words of power, only because somebody reacts in the first place. It’s great that you can produce a sharp reaction with just a well-timed utterance; otherwise you’d have to pour icewater down their cleavage to get the same response. But let’s be serious: this hardly applies to any grown adult using expletives to emphasize their point, and claiming that it does is only a lame attempt to make the claimant feel like a superior twat.

Moreover, the use of a phrase such as “goddamn lawnmower” has functionality only in that it is a shameful term, defined by culture to indicate a level of frustration. We create these curses to be used as curses, and then pretend that instead they came from somewhere else – aliens, maybe. We’re long past the point of believing that words could invoke demons or protection therefrom, or that we could actually send a lawnmower to hell. Avoiding the actual psychological functionality of curses is not only pointless and irrational, it can even increase our frustration rather than release it. Shouting, even forcefully, “misbegotten lawnmower!” is likely only to make matters worse as your kids not only fail to get out of your way for a while, they start giggling uncontrollably, the dickheads.

The issue becomes even more absurd when one considers the myriad ways that words can actually do harm, for instance by our reliance on the impression and interpretation that they’re given. Countless people in this country still actually believe that the US invading another country with excessive force on the ridiculous premise of either a) ferreting out terrorists, or b) protecting ourselves from the threat of “WMDs,” can still be considered proper and just – solely because that’s how it’s been presented through our media (I’m hoping you haven’t failed to notice the ludicrous nature of killing people under the title, “Operation Enduring Freedom.”) We are inundated with catchphrases such as “life begins at conception” and “marriage as god intended” and, if we’re stupid enough to think that repeating words gives them greater impact, we actually accept a premise invented solely to push an agenda. The hidden fault here is that we are far more concerned with our interactions with others than with thinking critically, with recognizing that something they said is irrational or unsupportable. It can’t even be described as letting others do our thinking for us, because this implies thought is actually involved. All too often, we find ourselves gasping at curses, confident in the majority opinion that this is ‘bad’ but unable to explain why. Alternately, we’re often completely unwilling to expose outright lies, frauds, or manipulation, despite the demonstrable harm that they do. That’s fucked up.

By all means, pay close attention to what people say – but know why you’re doing so, and what to look for. I’m going to be perfectly honest with you, yet will readily admit this is anecdotal and perhaps unsupportable by a proper study: it’s not the people who swear openly that comprise the vast majority of those trying to promote bullshit – it’s the ones who will never use the word, “bullshit.”

Bipolar season

When I was putting together the calendar and trying to include all dates that would be of interest to nature & wildlife photographers, and I had the chance to reflect on the event dates that had been chosen. For instance, National Pollinator Week falls in June. Now, pollinators can be found throughout the spring, summer, and even autumn months if you look closely, but why wouldn’t you place this event in the time period (April or May) when the greatest percentage of wildflowers were in bloom?

TinyBrown2And the same with National Wildlife Week, which has just passed. Sure, wildlife is visible throughout the year, yet there are still times when you’re far more likely to be able to spot it than mid-March. The northern latitudes are still waiting on spring and may even be seeing late snowstorms, and here at the mid-latitudes of North Carolina we can see activity of the birds, but the best season comes when the spring’s newborns are leaving the nests or dens, and the plants that serve as food for so many species are leafing out in earnest. And from a photographer’s standpoint, a setting that includes actual foliage is only going to help.

This year, spring has been rather shy and neurotic, peeking in quickly before being overcome with paranoia and hiding under the blanket of late winter, and conditions really aren’t noticeably different from Darwin Day, with the exception that the almond tree is leafing out like a boss. In past years, the red-shouldered hawks (Buteo lineatus) have established territory within easy reach, but this year the dominant male lives further south and the road marks the outskirts of his territory, judging from his calling and flight behavior, so the nest is probably far away. This is a residential area so creeping around with a telephoto lens aimed into people’s yards is not the most social of activities, even if it would inevitably result in meeting new people (and finding out what shotguns they own.) So, I’ve been turning over rocks on warm days to find the critters that are also struggling with the varying temperatures.

The brown snake (Storeria dekayi) seen above and below, a typical resident of the yard, was absorbing the warmth radiated downwards from a rock that receives sunlight most of the day (when it’s actually sunny,) but not quite enough to render it active – it was still sluggish when I captured it for these pics, and received more heat from my hand. Funny, it didn’t seem as thankful for this as you might imagine. But the torpor allowed me to do a few staged shots without having to restrain it, and my primary challenge was finding an interesting setting to photograph it within. Its diminutive size increased this challenge, since it could hide under a coin and at that scale, most landscapes just appear as ground litter (when they don’t appear as a jumble of ugly pink marble…)

TinyBrown3
Even the bluebirds haven’t settled into the nest boxes yet, which means my other subject for this post was also found under a rock. Ground skinks (Scincella lateralis) also like the area, but these are notoriously hard to photograph, since they’re very agile and shy, and are always found near adequate cover. Which makes me respect some unknown predator a little bit, the one that my subject here lost its tail to, because they had to have moved real fast. Despite my attempts to remain impartial and just observe, I happen to like reptiles, so my respect for this predator is limited, tempered by nonsense feelings of fellowship to the skink.

Taillessskink
Or maybe I’m just entertaining the possibility that this is one of the hatchlings I photographed a few years back, since it was in exactly the same location that I found the eggs and subsequently released the hatchlings. Perhaps I just love the metallic bronze coloration, the benefits of which I can only speculate upon since something this shiny seems ridiculously alliterative far more likely to attract attention than the brown snake’s matte skin.

MonochromeLensThere’s a reason that I show mostly tight closeups in pics taken locally, and it’s because my immediate surroundings are loaded in every direction with ugly landscapes – houses, fences, wires, cars, and so on. So presenting a better idea of how bad this time of year is for wildlife photography would require driving someplace more scenic just to show how un-scenic it is anyway, which seems almost pointless for a blog post. But perhaps I can still pull it off – this pic is from just now, out in the yard. The drop from the steady rain is acting as a lens, and what you see through it (inverted) is the bare tree that represents most of what’s visible right now – couple it with patchy brown grass and dead leaves on the ground and you have the idea. This is, by the way, a full color shot. It’s still an improvement over living in New York, but not by much, and I can’t help thinking we’re overdue for much better conditions. But at least you know what’s to blame for too many posts ripping philosophy or religion ;-)

Not once a year

I had toyed around with a couple of ideas for a spring equinox post, but haven’t gotten to any of them – perhaps later (I still have an hour!) But here’s something I just spent some time doing this evening, so I’ll remind you to do it too: clean your lenses!

Hopefully, you’re doing it routinely anyway, but this is my scolding reminder to do a spring cleaning. And since too few places outline how to do this well, I’m going to provide a quick guide. You will need:

  • A soft brush
  • A squeeze-bulb blower, or a can of compressed air, not anti-static
  • Lens cleaning fluid, or a 50/50 mix of alcohol and ammonia
  • Lens cleaning cloths, or a microfiber cloth
  • [A ‘lens pen” can be substituted for the above two in a pinch, but should not be a permanent replacement]

    Hold the lens above your head, with the glass facing downwards, and use the blower to dislodge as much dust as possible. Despite many dire warnings, using canned air is fine for this, as long as you maintain a little distance, and always fire off a blast at nothing first, to clear any fluid that may be trapped in the valve – this fluid can stain or damage whatever it touches (it’s not freon, but it might as well be.) Note that the anti-static cans contain an additive that may have to be cleaned off, so don’t use those.

    Still holding the lens in that position, use the soft brush to gently dislodge any remaining dust and stuff, turning it often. Do not scrub, just wipe gently. The goal with these two steps is to remove any coarse grit that may get trapped in the cloth and actually scratch the glass.

    aperturebladesTurn the lens so the glass is facing upright, and apply a drop of lens cleaning fluid to a cloth – never directly onto the lens. Gently, with a circular motion, wipe the lens surface from center to edges. Since some alcohols often leave a residue, you may want to follow up with a dry cloth (or corner thereof) to completely clean the lens.

    If you really want to ensure that you’ve done a good job, examine the lens with a blue LED flashlight held at an angle – this will reveal any remaining oils or residues that may remain. That’s all – you’re done.

    In the field or for quick cleanings, a lens pen usually works fine, but follow the same procedure as above – blow, brush, then wipe. You can blow by mouth but be careful, since it’s very easy to introduce some moisture when doing this.

    I’m pretty careful when swapping lenses, and try to keep the insides of the camera clean, but it’s impossible to be perfect about this, and it means the digital sensor will get dusty, or even have stubborn stuff adhering to it. While I have brush-cleaned the sensor numerous times over the years, I had finally reached the point where it needed a “wet clean,” and the Eclipse™ that I’d ordered had arrived today. This is a very pure form of alcohol, even purer than most medical suppliers, and evaporates very cleanly – it can also be used for lenses, but is expensive and usually overkill. Following the directions for DIY cleaning found at CleaningDigitalCameras.com, I produced a spotless sensor in just a few minutes, a task that camera shops charge $100 and up for. Be warned that it is possible to damage your sensor doing this, and that’s a very expensive repair, but it’s not hard if you’re willing to take the precautions. I used a soft #10 artist’s brush for the first pass, and a homemade sensor wand and a microfiber cloth instead of the store-bought versions for the wet phase. I also do lots of crafty/fiddly projects, so season to taste – if you can’t use a cotton swab to remove something from your eye, it might be better to let a shop do the job.

    While you’re at it, shake out your camera bag, or give it a good vacuuming – it’s easy to collect grit and stuff that can get into the camera. And clean all of your microfiber cloths and handy towels too – I just use baby shampoo for the microfiber cloths, since it removes oils without leaving a residue, but rinse numerous times to get everything out. I do the same for all the brushes I use. Store them in a small case to keep them clean, and if there’s the slightest chance they’ve been exposed to grit or sand, get them out of the bag so you won’t accidentally use them and scratch a lens. Just little things that might save you some frustration or expensive repairs.

    Know your own way

    I’ve mentioned that I find skepticism and critical thinking to be slightly different concepts; to a large extent, this is in perception only, where many people consider skepticism (or being skeptical or a skeptic) to mean cynical, disbelieving, dismissive, and so on. In current culture, skepticism is sometimes considered a pursuit or even a movement, making it an ideology. Critical thinking, on the other hand, is something that we all use to one extent or another – some more than others to be sure. There isn’t a club to join or a subculture to embrace, there’s simply the recognition that there are myriad ways to be fooled.

    One prime discussion factor that critical thinking can counter, especially when it comes to certain topics, is redirection. It can be quite subtle, and when we fail to recognize it we allow particular assumptions and perspectives to hold sway, even making it hard to debate the merits of any viewpoint. But let’s not be so vague, and deal with an example instead. Within discussions on countless topics can often be heard the argument that “science doesn’t know everything,” which is true enough, but not really relevant to anything. The assumption is that the true existence of the topic of discussion hides in the realm of stuff we haven’t discovered yet, but no one who ever uses this was trying to argue for ‘potential’ or ‘possibilities’ – they were, only moments before, maintaining that [topic] really does exist, and that we have good reason to believe it. If we have any form of evidence, however, that’s science. And if we don’t, well, what makes someone argue that we should be supporting the topic?

    Another example is frequently seen in religious discussions. It is often argued that religion is a personal choice, which I haven’t seen .05% of people argue against in the slightest – but what is usually being discussed is how often religious folk try to apply their ‘personal’ choice to anyone else (occasionally, everyone else.) It’s not the freedom to make their own choice that they wish to protect, but the privilege of being considered an authority, or even just that they’re special (“good christian”) solely because they’ve made this choice. This also extends to martyr complexes when they’re “denied the right” to pray before government meetings or dictate what everyone learns in schools, rights not guaranteed by anyone’s personal choice, and in fact not rights at all.

    Philosophy is absolutely riddled with redirection, though more often this manifests in common terms that haven’t actually been established with the rigor that most assume. Consciousness, for instance; try to find a definition of this that isn’t vague and wide open for interpretation. Yet lengthy, convoluted, and above all tedious discussions are constantly taking place over this as if it’s a specific and measurable trait. Admittedly, there is a certain degree of usefulness in formulating a posit, declaring a potential circumstance and then hashing out what the consequences of this being true might be; this is actually the underlying premise of all theoretical sciences. Two of the biggest errors in philosophy, however, are arbitrarily defined posits, and assuming that if a logical argument can be made then the posit has been established. Imagining traits or abstracts, as well as the consequences of them, remain fictional unless evidence can be found that supports them – and only them, which is also key. All other possibilities have to be ruled out at the same time.

    Redirection can often appear as a challenge to social decorum or emotions: “Are you saying all of these people are liars?” All of a sudden we’re dealing with hurt feelings or the idea that we’re making judgments on integrity, when before we simply recognized that people are not only fallible, they can be mistaken, they can exaggerate, they can infer, they can fall for illusions and suffer delusions, and yes, they can commit hoaxes, tell stories, and indeed lie. Considering all of these is perfectly rational, but if we’re confronted with the attitude that it isn’t, we can immediately question our perspective, often more influenced by how someone responds than whether we’re making sense. Redirection frequently works to put the receiver on the defensive.

    In some cases redirection is unintentional, fostered by people having to defend their views and stumbling onto a more appealing approach. Yet it can also be perfectly intentional, calculated to produce responses, and this manifests often in contentious topics. Evolution is yet denied by arguments that we still have monkeys, and the second law of thermodynamics wouldn’t let it happen, even though both of these are blatant misrepresentations. Conspiracy theories thrive on the idea that the lack of evidence, or existence of counter-evidence, actually demonstrates a plot to conceal or counter the conspiracy; “Big Pharma” pays to make people believe we landed on the moon, and satan wants you to believe fluoride is innocuous (sorry, mixing it up a little there.) I’ve frequently heard the question of why the military would keep anything confidential, if not to hide their knowledge of aliens. National security, and not blabbing details of defensive measures, somehow isn’t adequate.

    Which brings up another aspect of redirection: dichotomous thinking. If anyone questions the policy decision of a politician, it must be because they’re members of an opposing party and automatically at odds (therefore can be dismissed.) If someone opposes abortion restrictions, they must think life is inconsequential. Such polarization is often accompanied by the stigma of extremism, and ties in closely with both straw man and ad hominem fallacies.

    Yet, there’s something else to be aware of. Not every example of redirection is an attempt, either known or subconscious, to evade the thrust of the argument. In some cases, it’s merely evidence that someone does not actually understand the point being made, or started with different assumptions, or has conflicting experience. In such cases, treating redirection as a deliberate manipulative tactic is making a rash assumption on our part, and stands a good chance of preventing a functional discussion. I’ll be blunt: I’m not a huge fan of taking the high road and bending over backwards to accommodate someone who plays the disingenuous game – I’ll generally call them on it instead. But there’s much to be said about correcting just the specific point, only the argument, rather than any underlying attitude or tactic – or our assumptions thereof. In fact, this kind of mild, non-confrontational approach in the face of an honest mistake is far more likely to generate more support for our views. This itself is admittedly an emotional rather than rational response, and not what I’d encourage (I believe people should judge on merit and not charisma,) but it may still serve to get past initial resistance.

    The hardest part is recognizing redirection, which is where forums give a significant advantage over verbal debates, since we have time to compose our answers and see where the redirect lurks. Another spotting tip that I’ve stumbled across is when some new word or concept is introduced, especially if it seems to trump previous points. And anything that puts us on the defensive can be suspicious, but this is not a good rule; we can be defensive over anything, and in some cases our arguments really aren’t as good as we’d like them to be, so merely finding ourselves on the ‘losing side’ (I don’t like the concept that discussion is a ‘win/loss’ issue, but you get the gist) isn’t a firm indication of redirection.

    The worst is when we redirect ourselves, by making assumptions or failing to recognize where the topic isn’t strictly defined (see philosophy again – in fact, see the opening statement about skepticism and critical thinking.) It also happens frequently when we misinterpret a comment, especially if it falls close to some pet peeve that we have. The only solution to the first is paying attention, and recognizing that assumptions are very prevalent. As for the latter, this isn’t hard to address for online purposes: always work in draft form, most especially if the topic stirs a strong response, and come back to the draft a little later to see if your response still seems appropriate – at the same time, re-read whatever prompted your response to see if you’re remaining on topic. In spoken discussions of course, things get much harder, since we feel obligated to respond quickly and don’t often have time to consider things carefully. It may help to become very Zen and imperturbable, or have the mindset of a tennis game and remember to always return to center court; it’s not necessarily the analogy that works, but the awareness of the problem (or potential thereof) that matters most.

    Like everything, it comes easier with practice, and even becomes a kind of game: can you spot the flaw? But unlike many games, it can produce more than just a selfish feeling of accomplishment, because others will often be influenced by foiled redirection. It’s almost like an optical illusion that is suddenly revealed, giving a sense of discovery that people often want to produce on their own – or at least, that’s been my experience. Regardless, being able to peg redirection when it occurs can be a worthwhile tool in critical thinking, and simply a fun exercise.

    Conversation

    BebeSpiders1“Hello?”

    “Hey, Al, whatcha up to this afternoon?”

    “Uhh, wrangling spiders.”

    Long pause. “Wrangling…”

    “Spiders, yes.”

    Another pause. “Is this difficult?”

    A shrug [yes, I shrug and gesture while on the phone.] “It’s frustrating at times, but a skill set like everything else.”

    “Probably not like everything else.”

    “Well, okay, true.”

    “So, why are you wrangling spiders?”

    “How else are you going to get them to produce the right poses for pics?”

    “Right, where was my mind at? Is this a regular Saturday afternoon practice?”

    “No, only on the days that I discover a buttload of newborns swarming on the holly tree.”

    “This occurs often, does it?”

    “This is the first that I recall, actually.”

    “So, I’m trying to picture this. Does it involve tiny little lassos?”

    “Don’t be silly – they have less of a neck than Henry Rollins.”

    “Poor things. What, then, does it involve?”

    “Mostly choosing a useful setting, then trying to get them to remain on it while they’re dead set to run away. It involves a little probe, a card to scoop under them as they run across the table, and lots of patience in dealing with their draglines all over the place.”

    “Why aren’t you photographing them where you found them?”

    “I did, quite a few frames. But the wind isn’t cooperating and I wanted some shots detailed enough to submit for identification, or use for anatomical illustrations. So I opted for more controlled conditions.”

    “I am inferring from this that they don’t take direction.”

    “Not the newborns, no.”

    “But the adults?”

    “Not them either.”

    BebeSpider2
    “Just how big are we talking, here?”

    “Three to four millimeters in body length.”

    “You’re more nearsighted than I thought, aren’t you?”

    “Well, a few thousand years ago I would have died early from mistaking a mastodon for a storm cloud.”

    “Never take our modern life for granted. So, are you taking your mad spider skills on the circuit?”

    What, and sully the purity of the form?!

    “I apologize – I’m thinking like a plebeian. Plus I imagine there isn’t much competition anyway.”

    “What do you mean?”

    “Well, I’ve never been in conversation with someone at a party and heard that they wrangle spiders.”

    “You’re still not keeping up.”

    “Ah. You’d have to be invited to a party first, wouldn’t you?”

    “Yes.”

    “Didn’t mean to rub it in. But tell me, why do they have ten legs?”

    “What makes you say that they have ten legs?”

    BebeSpider6
    “I’m looking at the illustrations while we talk.”

    “Right. No, the front two are pedipalps. Pretty much like legs, but used for manipulating food and during sex. Normally they appear much smaller, but these are newborns so I suppose that’s the difference.”

    “Al, you do know that most people would find this creepy?”

    “Yeah, but, you know? Most people need to get over it. Spiders aren’t very different from the rest of the arthropods, and certainly not dangerous – it’s so hard to actually tally the number of spider bites because the symptoms are identical to half a million other things, including tick bites and infections. Motor vehicles are thousands of times more dangerous and no one shrieks when they see one.”

    “You’re pontificating. Almost like a blog post.”

    “Sorry. I suppose you didn’t call to find out about spiders.”

    “Yeah, actually, I was checking to see if you wanted to watch the game over a few beers.”

    “No, seriously? Why would I want to do something that pointless?”

    “Hey, a lot of people like it.”

    “Yeah, go back to that pontification bit.”

    “All right, never mind. Have fun with the spiders.”

    “Thanks, actually, I am.”

    [Yes, this is a fictional conversation – no one I know would have to ask about spider wrangling. Plus they’re familiar with pedipalps.]

    Just because, part nine

    Drosophila
    Nature photography is still a bit slow yet and the weather’s been going back and forth, so I’m just tossing out this curiosity from last year.

    Seen here is a vain fruit fly, Drosophila genus, on the bathroom mirror. I’ve definitely done sharper, better shots, but this one has a distinctive property. You’ll notice that there is one view from the back, and three from the underside. The one from the back is the fly itself, while the other three are reflections in the mirror. Since this was taken at an angle to the glass, the brightest reflection is the main one, staggered away from the fly by the thickness of the glass since the reflective coating is on the back side.

    So how did there come to be two more images? Well, it’s tricky. The faint image between the two bright ones (the real fly and its main reflection) is a reflection of the fly itself from the top surface of the glass. But the other, at far right, came from the main reflection itself reflecting from the underside of the glass, and off the mirrored backing again, before making it to the camera. It is a reflection of a reflection of a reflection, the light zig-zagging its way to us.

    I had originally thought that the first faint image (second image counting from the left) was also a secondary reflection that coincidentally lined up perfectly with the fly’s feet, but realized as I wrote this post that the viewing angle would not have permitted a secondary reflection of the main reflection (third image from left) to be staggered in that direction. Another interesting realization is that I only have such good illumination on the underside of the fly because the camera strobe, above and to the left, bounced from the mirrored backing itself.

    superreflectionPondering this led to another thought, and a brief experiment shown here. Tweaking the brightness curves almost off the scale in Photoshop revealed yet another reflection staggered further right (you will note I did not remove the mirror spots in this image.) The light had dropped too faint to make it easily discernible, but the digital sensor still captured it. Sometimes there are subtle traces captured in digital images that can be brought out with editing, and I’ve used this to evaluate several ‘ghost’ and ‘UFO’ photos (which is not often appreciated.)

    halation2Now for some more photographic reflection trivia. This next pic is a portion of a frame taken while living in Florida, a time-exposure at night on black & white film. An effect called “halation” is plainly visible, the halos around the bright lights of the streetlamps. Also visible are starburst patterns, occasionally seen in star photographs, which is an artifact of using a small aperture – I’m leaving this for a later post, because I’m still doing research on how exactly this occurs. So for now, I’ll stick with the halos because I can tell you precisely how this happens.

    Let’s start with how lenses work; for ease of illustration, we’ll use a single point light source like a star or small bright light. The light that it emits expands everywhere, in a globe surrounding the source, so no matter where we stand we can still see it. The camera lens collects every part of that globe that strikes its front glass surface, and we all know that lenses bend light – essentially, all of the light that comes through the lens is focused down, concentrated back into a single point right where it contacts the focal plane, the film or digital sensor. This means the incoming light from the star actually forms a cone between lens and focal plane; the lens forms the base of the cone while the film/sensor sits precisely on the point. It is worth noting that all light through a lens does this, but it’s easier to imagine with a single point of light. (See also this page for more illustrations.)

    Since photons are not solid objects, they won’t interfere with one another like solid matter does, and if nothing is at the tip of the cone to intersect them, they re-diverge past the point into a cone facing the other way. If the focal plane falls on either side of the precise focal point, that tip of the cone(s), you won’t see a nice point of light like the original star, you’ll get a circle from the cross section of the cone wherever the focal plane intersects.

    HalationDiagramNow the fun. The emulsion of film is not perfectly opaque, and can let a little bit of light shine through it. So even when a bright light source is perfectly focused on the emulsion, which sits on the front surface of the backing acetate of film, some light goes through, re-diverging into another cone. This light can bounce off of the back of the film, or the pressure plate in the camera which holds the film flat, and reverses direction to contact the emulsion layer again from the back side. Now it’s out-of-focus, however – even that tiny bit of additional distance is enough to defocus noticeably in the scale of a 35mm film frame – and what results is a halo around the light source. If you go back up and look at the B&W image again, you’ll see the halos are all the same size, regardless of the apparent brightness of the lights; in some cases it’s almost overwhelmed by the flare.

    Most films have an anti-halation layer to help prevent this, and though the film I used (Ilford Delta 400) was supposed to be among them, it might simply have been overwhelmed by the amount of light admitted by the long exposure.

    The flare is a curious effect as well, since there can be several causes. Both film and digital can be affected by light scatter from the lens, where the glass causes minute amounts of light to deflect from the focusing path slightly – this is often only seen in cases of over-exposure where the cumulative amounts of light are captured. Film can suffer from two additional effects. The first is where the halides in the emulsion, which crystallize when contacted by light, can generate a ‘sympathetic’ response in neighboring portions that are not receiving as much light, producing a result vaguely like using too much ink. And the second, very similar to the lens effect, is where light that passes through the emulsion can get scattered by the film base itself.

    CorbsIt is worth noting that both flare, and the circles caused by unfocused point light sources, are often mistaken for UFOs and ghosts and other paranormal things. These effects can occur anytime, and often do, but because they involve diffuse light they’re usually overwhelmed by the sharper, more intense light from the focused parts of the image, and are most noticeable only when small bright points of light exist against a dark background where no other light interferes. Many intrepid ghost hunters with no knowledge of simple optics capture ‘orbs’ when their strobes illuminate airborne dust too close to the camera to be focused, visible because the rest of the frame is dark. It’s a very easy effect to duplicate; the image seen here was created with corn starch blown into the air. Either that or my apartment was haunted out the ass…

    How to bake a human

    Walkabout podcast – How to bake a human

    I probably shouldn’t ever look at the searches that get linked here because of that title. Be patient, and it will become clear what it means.

    I have, on numerous previous occasions, examined the various drives and emotions that we have from an evolutionary perspective – for instance, that morality is (almost certainly) an offshoot of inherent traits that make us a social species. We’re not individuals; we need others around, we seek their approval, and we see importance in community. It’s hard to argue that these did not benefit us hugely, and if we had the ability to abandon them right now and become as individualistic as reptiles, we would vanish from this planet in a short period of time, mostly because our offspring are pathetically helpless. But I haven’t tackled another aspect as often as I think I should have, so it’s time to look at humans as violent, selfish, and competitive.

    If, right off the bat, that sentence made you uncomfortable or even defensive, good. That means your own traits towards community are stronger than the competitive traits. Yet, we cannot deny that we have them, even when we deny how often they manifest, or rationalize them as they do. The tricky thing about finding them distasteful is that we try to ignore or minimize them, instead of recognizing that they not only exist, they have strong affects on our decision-making processes.

    First, let’s look at competition. Natural selection is a ‘competitive’ process, in that it on average promotes beneficial traits, weeding out those less beneficial or even harmful. I placed emphasis on the word “competitive” in the previous sentence to help differentiate it from the assumption that it implies a goal, rather than a process as simple as water vapor in the atmosphere collecting together until it’s heavy enough to overcome gravity as rain. The path that any species takes in developing over thousands of generations is guided only by out-reproducing others of the same species with slightly different genetic makeup. There’s no ‘goal’ possible; what results is simply what was more efficient from among the existing variables.

    But then, there’s a curious development of sexual reproduction, where individuals start to actively choose which mate to have. This tiny change in attitude, this internal desire to be selective, is responsible for accelerating the selection process well above, for instance, random mating. Closely related comes the aspect of competing for favor, and this time the word does imply a goal, and specific activity. It is in any individual’s best genetic interest to reproduce, at the expense of other mate choices. It’s still natural selection, because no species can change their genetic makeup, and the traits selected as portraying a better mate are beneficial to the species – again, on average.

    We cannot think of this in terms that are too simple, though. Kin selection is the idea that competitive traits (as well as cooperative traits) are very likely shared by members of our immediate family, so competition isn’t necessarily limited to the individual. For the millions of years that led to humans as we are now, life was a nomadic existence in small tribes or clans, very likely made up of closely-related individuals, so the social traits that we developed, allowing pack hunting and child care and even farming, also contributed to both survival and reproduction.

    The other side of this is encountering another clan or tribe. They would not have the same genes, so selecting mates from outside the tribe isn’t as likely to promote the same genetic makeup, ‘watering it down’ and taking the chance that our own genes lose out to another more dominant collection. By nature, kin selection would be stronger – and by nature, desiring to maintain kin selection would be stronger too. Competition, at this point, extends beyond just mating behavior to the idea of the tribe or clan as a unit.

    The difficulty herein is that selection has not, at least yet, produced something that is very specific. We still have the ability to decide what constitutes our ‘clan,’ whether it be our family, our alma mater or home sports team, our church, our country – whatever. At different times it flips back and forth, as we compete fiercely against our neighbor over social decorum but bond as a nation if we perceive a threat from outside that imaginary boundary. The key word there is “perceive,” because in reality there is precious little that actually constitutes a threat to us, especially to either our survival or our genetic heritage. And the clan perception is also arbitrary, since we cannot walk up to a state line and see the difference on the other side, nor even tell whether someone ‘over there’ is a native or visitor. Racism is such a prevalent trait in our species, despite the fact that we are all the same race, because by sight we can determine that someone is not from our immediate clan. It’s not that this has a rational meaning, any more than ‘our’ sports team, it’s only a vague way that we have been encouraged by our development to favor our own genes.

    The really funny thing is, asexual reproduction, which does not require mating and thus does not mix genetic lines, fares less well that sexual reproduction, so we actually benefit from mixing. Seem contradictory? It is, to an extent, but again, random mating does not promote beneficial traits as well as selective mating. We tend to think in terms of what’s best and aim high, but selection can only use the choices available, which might provide a minuscule advantage that barely registers. An average benefit overall can still contain examples of extreme, even fatal, detriments – and in fact, we can find these easily. They’re just outnumbered by the beneficial traits.

    In an earlier post, I mentioned that there are two kinds of competition, even though this may be simplifying things a bit too much: there is improving oneself, as in Olympic sports, and then there is the aggressive response, as in removing a threat. Ideally, we should concentrate on improving ourselves, since it’s hard to argue that this is not beneficial. But going back to the sexual selection idea (especially if we consider other species,) both can work. Whether an individual, built by their genes, is honestly better than all other suitors, or merely succeeds in chasing off other suitors, either way it gets to pass along its genes. The tribe or clan that did better in the hunt can also thrive by avoiding raids from other tribes, protecting those hard-won resources; alternately, stealing from others may at times be easier than hunting on one’s own. This sounds nasty, but it occurs frequently – bald eagles (which I take a certain perverse delight in pointing out serve as our national symbol) often nest near other species of fishing raptors and harass them into dropping their catches, gaining an easier meal than hefting their vast bulk out over the water in pursuit of their own fish. The smaller raptors expend less energy in catching meals and can thrive without eating everything that they capture. Again, our developed traits make us uncomfortable with this, but it still works.

    The biggest issues, in our societies, stem from being prompted by these internal systems but not having a good way of differentiating the useful manifestations from the misfires. The “illegal alien” that crosses the imaginary line of our country is not any more or less likely to steal our jobs or taxpayer money than the newborn two doors away. The idiot driver that cuts us off on the road, while both dangerous and stupid, has not stolen our mate, job, food, or anything else, and only defines themself as someone we don’t want in our tribe, mostly because they did not display any community feelings towards us. So did we select them as ‘outsiders,’ or did they? Who cares? It’s total nonsense, prompted only by emotional reactions that are far too vague to be functional in the circumstance.

    This desire to define the tribe is stronger than one might initially think; we draw lines all over the place, from political parties to social leeches, jocks to nerds, bitches to princesses (either of which, in our weird culture, can be compliments or insults)… and most especially, good to evil. These words are almost meaningless, but what we hope to express with them is ‘beneficial’ or ‘detrimental.’ A significant problem is that we draw these lines, and are quick to place someone else on the far side, but social interactions are never about just two choices, nor is labeling very accurate. If you’re coming to the conclusion that our two-sided thinking is another evolved trait, well, you might be right. Evolutionary psychology is, however, a haphazard field because it’s extremely difficult to tell what happened in the past, and what genes even promote certain types of thinking – we don’t even know where in the brain this might be seated, if it’s specific at all. And then there are the deep-seated cultural influences which are impossible to remove from any set of test subjects, meaning that any behavior may have nothing whatsoever to do with genes. Suffice to say, however, that falling for the “either/or” idea can make our decisions simplistic and wildly inaccurate, doing a huge disservice to the nuanced brains we tend to be very proud of otherwise.

    Our brains rely, very strongly, on the emotional reactions that color every last bit of input – much as we might not like it, we are still creatures of instinct, even when those instincts are haphazard and have developed solely for other purposes. Yet, we have the ability to form rational decisions as well, and our desire to do so is also a trait, and an emotional system itself – all desire is. Yes, this does actually mean that we have an emotional encouragement not to rely on emotional encouragements, which helps to explain why rationalization occurs so rampantly in our species, even though the process itself sounds self-excluding. Yet we can override initial emotional reactions very easily, if we recognize that they’re not useful – ‘bad’ rather than ‘good.’ And this brings us around to the labeling thing again, because we always want to believe that we are good. What this really boils down to is that we feel it’s important to pass on our own genes. The abstract ideas of ‘good’ and ‘bad,’ or for preference ‘benefit’ and ‘detriment,’ should apply to actions and even decisions, because that’s the only way that benefit and detriment can apply. We can label ourselves, and others, with any concept we imagine, but this has absolutely no meaning to anything unless it can produce some specific change.

    There are no rules that are going to come out of this; we cannot rationally say, “competition should only be expressed as forms of improvement,” because, at times, we really do need to protect ourselves and our families, even from members of our own species. Actually, that sentence is wildly misleading; it is almost entirely, by a huge margin, from members of our own species. It is this realization that, hopefully, can make us recognize that our evolved traits can often be more erratic than a rational approach, and our biggest saving grace is that we have a desire for rationality as well. We don’t get to choose the ingredients that evolution hands us, but we do have control over how much of each that we use to generate a successful recipe.

    I need to tack on some thoughts here. Several places within this post I pointed out how evolution has produced some traits that can lead to less-than-reputable behavior such as racism. All too often, there are those who will take this to mean that we are destined or ‘meant’ to behave in this manner, and shouldn’t fight it. This confuses the vague emotional prods within our brains with specific instructions for behavior, as well as ignoring the traits that we have for social cohesion and ‘fairness.’ What we have within are very basic positive and negative reward systems, responses that can be triggered by a wide variety of stimuli – and these stimuli can also change, as indicated by how much our cultures have changed over the years, far faster than our species could possibly have evolved different responses. Some of this comes from different impressions or assumptions, such as how a once-liked actor or politician reveals through some action that they are not as we believed, and some of it comes from whether those around us approve or disapprove; the desire to ‘fit in’ overrides the desire to draw the “us/them” line where we once had it.

    Note, too, that evolution works on two immediate aspects: the reproductive angle, where the continuance of the genetic line (or not) is part of selection; and the survival angle, where the individual must live long enough to reproduce. If you want to consider this the same thing, that’s fine, but it does mean that survival still depends on having enough cooperative individuals in one place to maintain the group benefit. Someone not viable as a mating choice to continue the genetic heritage (someone of the same gender, for a crazy example) can still assist with survival.

    And then, there’s the ‘average benefit’ point, meaning that not every trait that we have is beneficial, or refined as much as it could be – we are not a finished product. When we can clearly see that some action or attitude is not going in a useful direction, we can easily halt it, and even develop those new perspectives outlined above. This is what critical thinking is intended to accomplish, and the very first part of it is pausing and wondering if some behavior is indeed considered and/or beneficial, or simply a reaction. Once this process is engaged, many of the little foibles that we evolved to possess, or that we misinterpret, can be overcome, rising above the simplistic function of reproductive success. This is the nice thing about brains and, curiously, how they evolved to be.

    The trend begins

    Daring
    Last year was largely devoted to arthropods, even though I’m not actually trying to limit myself – they were just what I had the greatest opportunities to tackle. And it seems this year may be largely the same.

    The same holly trees that appeared here have been playing host to several specimens of crab spider, all the same species as near as I can tell. And what species is something that I cannot, as yet, provide – most of the Thomisidae family are brown, and my model isn’t really sporting many defining characteristics, is it? Some faint dorso-lateral stripes, or at least I think that’s the term I want – I’m not an entomologist, I just play one in a small jazz band on weekends. The fly seen here actually intruded into the scene after I’d gotten the macro bellows set up, and I fired off the shot before I even leaned back to the viewfinder to see if it was in the frame; once the camera is on the tripod and locked into focus, you can fire off frames with the flash in different positions without having to be behind the camera. So this is a lucky capture, especially since the fly departed before I got the chance to confirm the framing.

    The next one is not the same spider, but half-a-meter away on the same plant.
    Dared
    Before I’d even fetched the tripod and bellows, I’d spotted both specimens, and I’m not sure this one had made its capture then – it was a nice discovery as I was setting up. Even though the tip of a closer holly leaf is partially in the way, I’m pleased that the flash angle was sufficient to capture the dragline, the little bit of safety web that most spiders maintain routinely. It allows them to throw themselves off of their perch if danger threatens, and still return without having to climb the entire holly tree again. I’ve taken advantage of this trait many times, because it allows me to collect a specimen by catching the dragline as it bungees away. In fact, if the position on the tree is any criteria, I did just that with my model at top yesterday, who bailed as I got too close with a different lens (hoping for a nice eye-to-eye-to-eye-to-eye shot.) As it descended on the web strand, I caught the line and reeled it in, lifting it back up to my level and, more by chance than anything, depositing it back into the exact same position it had launched from. This might have been utterly confusing to the spider, producing some esoteric theories about the curvature of space-time, had it possessed the brainpower; I suspect this is a little beyond their abilities, however.

    Both specimens about 4mm in body length. Macro bellows at unrecorded extension with Vivitar 135mm 2.8 at f16, Metz 40 MZ-3i flash off-camera.

    Sunny days in early spring

    0313RSH2
    0313RSH1They make the red-shouldered hawks (Buteo lineatus) go into courting mode. The hawks are easy to spot because they’re anything but quiet about it, as indicated by the open mouths.

    I’m fairly certain the perched one here is the same female I’ve photographed in the past couple of years (her belly, seen in shots not good enough to keep this time, is distinctively red overall,) but the flying male appears new. No signs of the nest yet, but I’ma keep lookin’.

    That’s all.

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