I had originally identified this flower as a winter aconite, Eranthis hyemalis, but now I’m pretty sure that’s wrong – the leaves aren’t like that, and no image I can find shows this green translucent ‘berry’ springing from the middle. So if you know what this is, feel free to enlighten me. All I can say right now is that these are tiny flowers perhaps a centimeter across, that appear very early in the spring – last year they got nailed by one of the freezing rain storms and emerged none the worse for wear. They have a nice, delicate color that you’d have to be practically crawling on the ground to appreciate, unless you happen to know a friendly nature photographer that can provide close up images…
Well, hello there
Not too long after the various Chinese mantids around the yard molted into adulthood, they dispersed in various directions. I actually watched the rose bush resident fly off one evening, quite possibly to be immediately snagged by a bat – I saw something happen out of the corner of my eye, but when I looked directly there was nothing to be seen. Regardless, there has been little in the way of arthropodic activity in the yard since then. Which meant that, last night as I was watering the plants, I was surprised to find this guy perched on the Japanese maple.
At just 35mm in body length, this one was less than half the length of the recent residents and probably one-sixth the mass. From the size at this time of the year, I’d be inclined to say it was one of the smaller Carolina mantids, but the coloration doesn’t seem to fit – this may mean I’ve been unaware that they could be this color. For now, we (or I) will just consider this unidentified. It’s definitely a nymph, though. It also makes me reconsider the ‘typical’ abdominal girth of the species, remarked about a few days ago – perhaps they all look this pudgy. I’m sorry, ‘sveltely challenged.’
While coaxing it around for a better view, it scrambled onto my hand without a qualm, and I juggled the camera around one-handed for a quick scale shot. Then, as I tried to convince it to get back onto the maple tree, it resisted playfully and trotted up my arm all the way to the short sleeve cuff, before I could brush it back onto the tree. It would seem I now have a reputation for making mantids famous. Either that or my beard looked like a tasty bug – your call.
Once back on the tree, it remained on the upper branches (the tree is only a meter and a half in height) and provided several fetching poses for posterity – and you had chosen “tasty bug,” hadn’t you? Actually this is typical behavior when a mantis, or indeed many different insects, walk across people – they endeavor to clean their feet afterwards. Apparently we are just that icky.
Immediately after that frame, I turned to a wolf spider not far away that I’d also spotted, and shot it at the same focal setting, so these two images are at the same magnification and can be used as comparative scale. Yes, it was a sizable wolf spider, but I’ve seen bigger.
Actually, the wolf spiders have been noticeably thinner in the yard this year, and I have yet to see one bearing young. I’ll have to keep checking around with the LED headlamp for telltale reflections.
On composition, part 24: Planning the shot
It’s been a while since the last composition post, so let’s waste no further time and get into planning. Wait, somehow that doesn’t seem quite right…
No matter what the preferred style, sooner or later every photographer gets into planning a shot; envisioning exactly how they want it to appear, and then endeavoring to actually bring this out in the image. Some styles of photography largely demand this as a matter of routine (like studio portraiture and commercial model shoots,) while others rarely delve into the practice at all (nature photography, candids, etc.) It can be very nice to simply snap off the image that you wanted without planning or imagining it, but very often, the shot that is planned, at least to some extent, comes out better overall.
The image at top seems like a simple time exposure, taken from an overpass at night, but there was a lot that could make this weaker, or outright detract from the image. Headlight glare can be pretty intense, so a position offset from the oncoming cars was chosen. Too many cars will overlap and muddy the frame, but empty lanes can make the road seem unbalanced. This was taken right where an on-ramp merged in, so getting a single car in each of the eight lanes available, for the eight seconds of exposure time, would be pretty tricky. As it was, only two cars came through on the oncoming side, both sharing the same lane, and even one of the lanes beneath the camera was empty, yet the remaining vehicles helped balance out the composition – the one at far right was a truck with extra running lights, so it produced a nice collection of streaks without overlapping as multiple sets of taillights might’ve. Timing the exposure to start just as the close vehicles emerged from under the bridge maximized their time in the frame, and wonder of wonders, one driver was even captured using their turn signal properly. Must not have been a local…
From a nature photography standpoint, as well as portraiture, one of the better bits of planning is using the best natural light. Sunrise and sunset, often referred to as the ‘golden hours,’ offer softer, low-contrast lighting that has a pleasant warm hue, not to mention often producing nice displays in the sky, so being in position when this occurs can be very useful. If you don’t have a developed sense of where the sun will be, a compass and any online guide or app can tell you exactly where it will contact the horizon, allowing you to use this tiny window to frame the sun (or moon, as it may be) against some foreground interest. The colors change rapidly at these times, and the best displays may last only a minute or so.
Shooting into the bright sky like this is certainly going to affect exposure, often producing a silhouette. While it was not a technique used in this particular case (you may notice that I don’t show recognizable people without express permission,) having a flash unit handy to throw some fill light into the scene can produce a better portrait – but it also has to be the right level of light. A manually adjustable flash unit, or a variety of diffusing materials to soften the output, can allow you to throw just enough light to see detail without looking like the subject is unnaturally lit, so you’d best have these materials on hand. A reflector can also work, but usually needs another person to wield it with accuracy.
Anticipating the action is also an important facet. This might mean setting up a complete rig to be able to capture birds feeding their young without being close enough to spook them, with light levels adjusted ahead of time so everything’s ready when the action starts. Or it might simply be knowing what pose or position is going to work best, and being able to trip the shutter exactly when it occurs, no matter how fleetingly. Most animals look better with a bright point reflection in their eyes, called a ‘catchlight,’ but don’t often pose where this can occur because it also means that light is making it hard for them to see; thus it might happen for a second or less. Yes, this takes practice and fast reflexes – you’re seeing the successes here, but I have enough misses as well. A little forethought made me position myself so that the bluebird’s head fell in the gap between the background branches, rather than intersecting them in a distracting way, and then it was simply a matter of waiting until the bird turned to look in exactly the right direction.
The more involved aspect of planning is, naturally, the studio shoot, whether this be a full modeling session or a small natural-looking setting for arthropods, or anything in between. It’s easy to imagine that taking an illustrative photo of an inanimate object for advertising purposes is easy – until you try it, and discover the issues with deep shadows, and reflections from shiny surfaces, and that there’s one angle that shows off the object with the necessary details, and so on. The same can easily be said for people, where different bodies or facial structures require different approaches to lighting, and the background has to complement the clothing, and let’s not even talk about trying to get the right expression from the model. But what all of these point to is having a lot of flexibility in equipment and approach, and this often means being able to cobble together something that works for the immediate needs. It can help to have a variety of lighting options, but it isn’t always necessary – a lot of effects can be achieved with homemade apparatus like reflectors, LED lamps, and tissue paper for diffusing overly bright or direct lights. However, you will almost always need something extra to make a studio session come out well, and it can take a lot of time and experiments to pin down what works best.
[A quick note: not long back, one of the primary tools of the studio photographer was a Polaroid back, an interchangeable film cassette for the medium or large-format cameras which permitted an immediate view of how the photo would look with certain lighting or sets. This was often necessary because the strobes used were not ‘constant’ lighting but fired only momentarily, and judging their exact effect couldn’t be done without capturing the instant of triggering. With digital, many studio photographers now have their cameras hooked into a large monitor for previewing in the same manner, because the dinky and poorly-corrected LCDs on the backs of the cameras just aren’t sufficient for critical evaluation.]
Above, a fairy shrimp (Anostraca) photographed within a custom-made macro aquarium that greatly limited its ability to move out of focus range, using a dark-field technique that brightly illuminated the body details against a black background. While not too elaborate to set up, it was a much easier way of illustrating a subject that measured only 8mm without a lot of aggravation trying to nail focus in an open aquarium, as well as not firing the flash directly into the camera lens.
Not inspired
Once again, I observe that the posts are thin, which is a shame because I am/was well on the way to a record in number of posts, having already passed the total for both 2014 and 2012 (not combined, mind you.) A lot of that had to do with Monday color, which I’ll leave it up to you whether that should be considered cheating or not. But at best, they added five photos per month to the number uploaded, and I’m way the hell out in front on that score this year – yes, even discounting Jim’s pics from Juneau.
Mostly, it’s been a combination of being busy with projects, finding fewer photo subjects as the season winds down, and simply lacking inspiration for other topics. It is what it is, though, and I refuse to let it obligate me.
About six weeks ago, when the saga of the local mantids was petering out as they reached adulthood and began to disperse, I was walking around the nearby pond when I spotted, out of the edge of my vision, a bit of leaf litter on my shoulder. As I was reaching up to brush it off, the pattern suddenly registered just before my hand made contact, even as badly unfocused as my eyesight was, peripherally and from behind the edge of my glasses; too late, however, because the small mantis masquerading as leaf litter saw my hand coming and vaulted away. This is always an amusing sight, because before the final instar they have no wings, so they throw out all of their limbs in an attempt to snag vegetation and arrest their descent, and it gives them an air of utter abandon, the pose of a dog leaping off of a dock. This was a Carolina mantis (Stagmomantis carolina,) much rarer around here than the Chinese mantis, even though I write this from North Carolina and not, shocking as it may seem, from China. The photo above is for scale, having swept it up for a quick pic – the tape in the edge of the frame was because I injured my hand and had two fingers partially immobilized to help the healing that was going slower than preferred. Below, a more natural image of the same mantis.
What had me pondering was the simple fact that I hadn’t brushed against any plants or wandered close to any trees, and as can be seen, the mantis was too young to be flying, so how it got there, and how long it had been riding along, was a mystery.
Not quite a month later, about two hundred meters away from that incident, I spotted another Carolina mantis, this one fully adult and, if that girth is any indication, soon to produce an egg sac.
I had a vague suspicion that it was the same mantis, but comparing the antennae I now consider this very unlikely – I don’t think they would grow back that completely, though I could be wrong. While I found this one on two separate occasions upon that same cluster of reeds, she abandoned them before laying her eggs and I have not found the sac.
I bring up that leaf litter story, gripping as it was, solely because it happened again, 12 days back now, and in almost exactly the same way except on the opposite side of the pond. And so, another scale pic for comparison.
[That’s two of my knuckles flanking the head, with my thumb peeking in at right.] This time, however, I knew exactly how it had gotten there, since I had just brushed past a low-hanging branch with that shoulder, so after the scale image, I returned it to its perch.
Right now, due to the variation in color, I am only tentatively identifying this as another Carolina mantis, though one with much less grey and more green in the mix. The Chinese mantids seem to have two primary phases, green and brown, and can switch between these (I suspect when molting) as they change host plants, so I’m going to crassly assume Carolina mantids are capable of the same. Now, I had originally assumed this one had recently consumed a massive meal, since that abdomen is quite swollen but the mantis still a juvenile, so we shouldn’t be talking pregnant here. However, I don’t think the hearty meal assumption is correct, since I have found that the mantis not only likes that tree, it likes that precise position on the outlying branch, because I keep finding it there.
This one’s from yesterday, and as you can see, that abdomen is still pretty impressive. I can’t offer a decent explanation as yet – the tree is hardly one to attract a lot of potential mantis-meals. I am not discounting the possibility that, had I not acted sooner on that first encounter, the mantis may have been fatter still, feeding from those like me who frequently walk around the pond. But the path I took is one seldom used, because the spiders tend to throw their webs across between the trees and, for some reason, most people don’t like walking face-first through a large orb web – I’ve pointed it out many times before on this blog, but people are weird. However, this might help explain the girth anyway. The orb-weaver spiders don’t often encounter mantids because of their own protective habits, sitting in the middle of the web where mantids cannot reach, but they do at least have to begin the web, which requires stringing the support strands, and the outlying branch that the mantis owns is potentially a good anchor for such. So maybe the mantis had been fortunate enough to stumble upon a self-stocking smorgasbord, as it were.
A little ways past this point I had discovered, a few weeks back now, a large black-and-yellow argiope spider (Argiope aurantia) in her web in a pine tree, also abdomenally enhanced. Judging from the current capture in her web and the two dessicated carcasses of a dragonfly and a cicada in the branches beneath, she was eating for dozens, and within a few days an egg case had appeared nearby. Within a few more days she was gone – I have yet to determine if this was the natural cycle or not, since some spiders die soon after producing eggs, while others remain around and protect the young for a bit. I wasn’t checking back often enough, though, because yesterday I found the egg sac opened, with chaff strewn nearby, and no sign of spiderlings anywhere.
While I was faintly chagrined at having missed the hatching, I wasn’t absolutely sure a hatching had occurred. The egg sac might have been found and raided by a predator, a hypothesis buttressed by the fact that there was no evidence of a large number of web strands left behind by dozens of departing spiderlings. Not far away, though, another argiope was perched, and her girth was also evidence of an impending sac – this was taken four days ago. The thorn bushes she had selected as her web anchors prevented me from getting a better viewing angle, but as you can see, her belly’s to the sun anyway.
These, by the way, are among the largest spiders in the area, with a body length that can reach 30mm and thus a leg spread up to 50 or 60mm. The fishing spiders are the only ones that get noticeably larger. Argiopes are the largest that people routinely encounter, though, due to their habits of throwing a large web across between two strong, low plants, always decorated with a prominent white zig-zag of webbing right in the middle where the proprietor sits, and often enough in gardens near something that attracts pollinators, thus the common name of ‘garden spider.’ I see them more often on the shores of lakes and ponds and think a name reflecting that would be more appropriate, but not as many people explore those areas I guess. There is also one right alongside the house at present, next to one of the rain barrels, but as yet she is showing no signs of a baby bump.
Yesterday, the same spider as above was noticeably deflated, as predicted, but I was unable to locate the egg sac. The foliage nearby was dense, and argiopes don’t put their eggs in the immediate vicinity of their webs, opting to go outside of the orb’s range a short ways (usually less than a meter) to place the sac. It was almost certainly there, but ten minutes of searching didn’t reveal it to me. I’m going to keep checking, because I really want photos of newborns, and if I capture them in the process of emerging, all the better. It will also be interesting to see if, now that the eggs are laid, this one disappears soon as well. Check back – if I’m successful, you know they’re going to appear here.
Monday color 32
So, Monday color was originally intended to be only for the winter months because they lacked color and/or subjects to chase. It had come from the overflow of images that I had pre-selected for an end-of-year color post. Since I ended up carrying it through the summer, I figure I’ll just close out the year with it – it has assisted in boosting my post count for the year, as well as providing some updates when I had too few things to write about. However, I may discontinue them come next spring when ‘current’ color pics should be available (especially if I follow through as planned and have a lot more flower species coming up then.)
What we see here are ripening porcelain berries (Ampelopsis brevipedunculata,) a type of grape that has apparently been introduced into the area, possibly by birds. They are often considered “invasive,” a label I pay little attention to since it’s rather arbitrary; apparently, if it was not found in North America before the Europeans landed, and competes better than the species that horticulturists plant on purpose, then it’s invasive. Fully half of the plants you might encounter anyplace in North America are not “native,” and of course food crops have been bred far apart from the way we found them. Meanwhile, loblolly pines spread just as fast and crowd out other species quite readily, not to mention being ugly, but they’re “native” and thus okay, in fact encouraged. People are weird.
Convenient mediocrity
“Convenient mediocrity.” I mentioned it in an earlier post, and while it can be found in use here and there, it is not (yet) a common phrase, even if it is a remarkably common property. What it means (for my purposes here, anyway) is maintaining lowered standards because higher ones take too much effort. More specifically, it means accepting lower quality as long as it’s in a cool, popular format.
I used it in terms of photography, and so we’ll examine that aspect in detail first. Really, not all that long ago when digital wasn’t an option, photographers had a variety of films to choose from, with distinctive color palettes and behaviors, and many of the professionals (and a lot of serious amateurs) would get so anxious about quality that their film would remain in the refrigerator until the day of the shoot, to keep the emulsion from degrading and thus affecting the colors it produced. There were portrait films and scenic films, high and low contrast options, fine grain and coarse, and naturally, a variety of ISO ratings to fit within the lighting conditions. I personally had four different preferred films, and my overall workhorse (Fuji Provia 100F) was usually shot at a third-stop overexposure because that produced the effects I liked. This says nothing about pushing films, varying developers and chemical preferences, filters, and on and on.
And virtually all of that is completely gone now. But digital has not replaced it at all – in fact, digital (despite countless assurances to the contrary in the early days) doesn’t even cover a moderate portion of these traits and behaviors. Digital color is expressed, still, in 32-bit format – each color has a value of 0 through 255, which isn’t a huge range, and has been in use for decades. Meanwhile, the digital sensors within the cameras have a fixed color register to them – they cannot be exchanged like one would exchange films, when switching from scenic photography to a wedding, for instance. The myth still persists that “you can digitally alter the color to your liking,” which is true only insofar as a) you stay within the 32-bit range, and b) the camera captures the color differentiation and details that you needed in the first place. If there were subtleties of foliage, delicate colors of a leaf for instance, that the sensor simply could not distinguish or differentiate, then the only ‘digital’ thing you can do to reproduce them would be to paint them in by hand, because the digital image has nothing to work with. The best example is shadow detail – if the camera didn’t get it, no amount of lightening or contrast adjustment will bring it back.
This is the most noticeable hit, to me. I have yet to see a digital sensor that comes even close to a decent portrait film – most skin tones in digital are horrible, and if you want to see the difference, pull up any magazine from the 90s and compare it to any today.
And then there’s resolution. There is no comparison between pixel count and what a film produces, since film grain is variable and, at times, microscopic, not to mention that color films have three layers of grain that produces gradients throughout the image instead of a fixed number of dots. Photographers that wanted the best enlargements used medium or large format films, which (comparatively) shrunk the film grain down for any given enlargement size, since a larger negative/slide meant the image would not have to be enlarged as much.
I don’t mean to harp on this, but it’s necessary to illustrate the change, because while these factors were all in routine use, and even obsessively pursued, by photographers just over a decade ago, they were dismissed almost entirely when digital arrived. Why? Because digital is immediate gratification, even when the results are poor. Plus probably a degree of, “this is new technology and therefore cool.” The only significant advancement was not having to develop the images, and it’s hard to believe that lead time is supposed to be such a huge factor in photography that the decline in quality is justified by the immediacy, but this is assuming that factors are being weighed rationally and objectively. Humans aren’t particularly known for this, even when we believe it’s our strongest quality.
All of this has been referring to the DSLRs, camera bodies ranging from prosumer use to full professional – the idea of a camera phone departs these considerations by miles. Camera phones produce quality just a hair better than the Polaroid cameras that people abandoned in the 80s due to their horrendous results. But, a Polaroid wasn’t able to be held out so easily one-handed to do a poorly-composed and remarkably pointless self-portrait – isn’t technology wonderful?
I’ve ranted about smutphones before, but think about it. A few years back when “land lines” were the norm, we had advertisements about how you could hear a pin drop over a provider’s phone service; now, we’re lucky when we get 80% of the words uttered. I never talk to one of my friends when she’s home, because she has almost no cell service where she fucking lives! Had cell phones come first, we’d be falling all over ourselves when land lines came out, promising no possibility of dropped calls and remarkable clarity – for a third of the monthly fees, too, with no contracts or shenanigans to get you to buy a new phone. Seriously, perspective counts for a lot.
I’m sure you’ve seen the ‘memes’ online about how this little touchscreen phone can do all the jobs of this phone, and that camera, and this video camera, and this calculator, and that tape recorder, and so on – all this individual technology from a few decades ago. And yes, believe me, I don’t knock technology – I was thrilled to get my first TV with a remote. But in reality, a smutphone doesn’t do all of those things. It mimics them, doing each and every task half-ass, but unable to reproduce the quality of any one of them (well, except for the calculator – we’ll give them that.)
What this convenience means, however, is that their usage in all of these manners is frivolous – used because we can, but not because we should. The vast majority of the stuff produced through these phones – and yes, I’m including actual telephone conversations, as well as texts – is mediocre at best, strictly from the standpoint of content. We will never use the words enrich, or enlighten, or inform or educate or much of anything else related, when describing these offerings. At best, we can say they entertain – if our standards of entertainment are remarkably low.
But now, here’s the part I haven’t quite come to terms with. There have always been mediocre efforts out there – the amateur photographers, the people recording their music on cassette recorders, the cheesy home videos done with a few friends [*cough* What? Nothing. I don’t know what you’re talking about.] But at the same time, there remained the professional skills, and equipment, and services – no amount of camcorder-wielding relatives replaced the wedding portrait photographers, nor did they change the equipment that was available. But somehow, a new set of standards has arisen, or indeed befallen, and now it’s next to impossible to pursue the methods that provide the highest quality. Film developing is remarkably hard to accomplish anymore; music cannot be found outside of the dynamic range that MP3s can handle.
I recognize how ‘popular demand’ works, causing labs to close down because no one needs to have film developed anymore. What I don’t understand is how the reduction in quality was somehow justified by the convenience, the reason the labs had to close in the first place. Why is there no demand for portraits that no digital image can touch? Why does my digital voicemail sound worse that the little cassettes I used to use? How come every phone conversation now contains awkward gaps and pauses from transmission delay? This isn’t advancement in any way, and I’m confused as to why so many people think we’ve improved something.
I know you are but what am I?
Some time back I created the ‘Ask an Atheist’ page linked above, prompted by a similar effort elsewhere, to provide anyone the ability to fire away with any questions they might have regarding atheism, secularism, or perhaps just my own personal outlook on some issue. Some time after that, I amended the initial paragraphs to reflect the bare fact that very few people ever bother to try and determine what atheism really is; they just assume they know. And very often, this assumption is dead wrong, and to prove at least a portion of the old saying true, they succeed in making an ass out of themselves, anyway.
So for giggles, I’m adding this post, which will review the claims about atheism that I’ve seen most often (though not in any particular order – I’m not that anal); if I miss any, feel free to chime in. And provided that the ones who need it the most actually stay to read what’s here, it might help a smidgen. I realize the probability of this is low, but hey…
Atheists are just repeating what they’ve been told to say by their parents – While there are cases where this undoubtedly exists, to believe that it is a defining trait of atheism is way off base; it’s not hard to find the conversion stories on any forum that even touches on the subject. The various ‘Out’ campaigns exist because of the large number of atheists who feel compelled to keep their beliefs from public view, obviously not a sign of a supportive household, and the rising number of atheists and ‘Others’ means that a certain percentage of them were not raised that way. It certainly is not true for me personally; my dad still does guest sermons at his church(es), and I haven’t even been disowned.
Interestingly, a pretty high percentage of religious folk are following in exactly the same faithful footsteps of their parents and community, so I’m confused: is this a bad practice, or a good one? Or is it one of those double-standards that I keep hearing of?
Atheists are just mad at god – It’s funny the number of times I’ve heard this, considering how ridiculous it is. Atheists don’t believe in god – does it really make sense to be mad at something imaginary? Oh, no, wait – we all really do believe, but we’re simply denying it because we’re mad? Does that even make sense? What are we mad about? All the good stuff he does? Or that there’s bad stuff too that we won’t dismiss with lame excuses? Seriously, I’m hoping someone who’s uttered this one can explain it to me.
This is one of the many condescending arguments, however; the implication that we have adopted an entire worldview because we’re petulant. This condescension is quite common, too.
Atheists are satanists – Even worse than the one above, so it’s surprising how often it appears as well. But no – atheism wouldn’t be so fucking asinine as to dismiss god but keep the attendant anti-god. It’s kind of a no-brainer, which doesn’t say much for those who forward it.
“But if you haven’t accepted god into your heart, that opens the door for satan!” Or whatever variation you wish to use – sure, whatever. I’ve addressed this in detail to cover all of the salient points not long ago, but in short, it’s a weak posit without any supporting evidence or even a logical premise.
Atheists are immoral – Because, you know, only religion can possibly provide moral guidance. Curiously, in various tests and polls that have been given, atheists have shown distinctly stronger moral tendencies, most likely through knowing the difference between morality (which by definition involves other people) and obedience, which does not assume any morals automatically. Not to mention that applying a label to oneself does not actually confer any properties – morality is shown through behavior, not title.
Atheists are nihilists – Because, you know, any meaning to life at all has to come through religion, despite the fact that most religions are either vague on the topic, or in conflict, or provide one that doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Meaning, however, is a personal thing, while still buttressed by the inherent desires common throughout our entire species. Nihilism is actually a pretty bizarre concept, one that I’m willing to bet cannot be shown to be held by anyone.
Atheists are hedonists – Because only god’s grace prevents us from being selfish, it would seem. While this one has the barest anecdotal support in the frequency of the stories of those who lived such a lifestyle before they “found god” (I’m guessing in the sofa cushions,) this is largely a misunderstanding due to oversimplification. Few former self-admitted hedonists were atheists, or failed to believe in god – they simply didn’t bother with religious behavior.
There are a few issues within all this, however. The first is, humans by nature act only to satisfy their desires, period. It’s just that a lot of desires are not selfish. Second, hedonism is another bizarre concept that cannot really be quantified, and is usually defined as desired (ironically.) And finally, the religious concept of salvation is actually pretty selfish in itself, as is the inordinate privilege assumed far too often. Let’s face it: every time we find someone who wants to dictate their faith to others – what the schools can teach, what people can do with their bodies, what laws should be, who has the right to speak against faith, and on and on – we’re not exactly talking altruism, are we?
Meanwhile, atheism speaks nothing to self-indulgence in any way, and secular humanism places it well behind the welfare of others.
Atheism is just as much a faith as any religion – This one is often addressed by saying that by the same logic, not collecting stamps is a hobby. But simply put, no one has faith that there is no Vegemite in the cupboard; they know there isn’t because there is no positive evidence that there is. Duh! Atheism is a term only because of the prevalence of religious belief; we don’t need to define the absence of anything else in our lives in a specific way. But damningly, faith is a requirement of religions specifically because of the lack of evidence; it is the denial that this lack is indicative of absence. Conversely, atheism is the acceptance of it.
There are three relevant observations here:
1. Aren’t we constantly told faith a virtue?
2. If both belief and nonbelief are a matter of faith, what value does faith possibly have?
3. Why does this insipid binary argument come up so often? We don’t consider every imagined premise to have merit when there’s no evidence for it – but this is supposed to be a solid argument in religious circles. Just because ‘supernatural’ is a term, rather conveniently excusing any need to show evidence, this doesn’t mean that it’s a valid concept.
Atheism is fostered by college professors – This one almost has a smidgen of truth to it while still being wrong. I have heard of only one college professor who has made such an argument (and I’m not even sure about that one,) which is a far cry from being a concerted effort in higher education; considering that religious folk can get their panties in a twist over prayer banners being taken down in schools and all that, I can’t imagine how anyone thinks the majority of colleges actively teaching against religions wouldn’t cause holy wars, but yeah, so many of these arguments only show a dismal lack of sense. The smidgen bit comes in, however, as students learn how things really work, and how many traits that they assigned to their gods are readily explained by physics, and in fact may be really easy to accomplish without (and often demonstrated.) And while it is true that the religious student that attempts to repeat the blind assertion tactics that they’re used to hearing from their churches may at times get their ass handed to them, this is notably different from actively proselytizing atheism. Meanwhile, those little verities vouchsafed by their holy leaders are shown to be bold-faced lies, which certainly doesn’t help matters any. Naturally, to prevent the lies from being revealed, holy leaders have to keep their flock away from such sources of info, and so we learn what “demonization” actually means and how this belief even arose.
By the way, the waning of faith upon exposure to college most often comes not from the professors, but through other students, who are often much more blunt about the topics (or any topics.)
Atheists have their own high priests – What, you mean, like damn near every church in existence? Good heavens! Somehow, behavior that the religious engage in constantly, that even defines “religious,” becomes detrimental if atheists are accused of engaging in it, which has always confused me. No, that’s not true – I simply put it down to people who cannot make a decent argument to save themselves (a ha ha.)
The high priests of atheism are, it seems, people like Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Jerry Coyne, and so on. You know, the ones given exalted titles, holding their own services, issuing dire consequences of not following their lead, soliciting money from followers, and all that stuff. Apparently, anyone who has gained any recognition of their views can now be considered a priest – which pretty effectively makes the title next to meaningless, doesn’t it?
It is worth knowing, and highlighting, the difference between the tactics of religious leaders and pretty much everyone else (save for fascist dictators.) Only religious leaders state “Truths™” that can never be demonstrated; only religious leaders discourage questioning of their assertions; only religious leaders promise dire punishments for failing to follow their instruction. And they pretty much have to, because everyone else is capable of presenting a decent argument and has no use for fear-mongering.
There are probably more that I’m just not thinking of right now, but that’s a good start anyway, and all of these are surprisingly common.
You may have noticed that most of these claims are actually pretty condescending, assigning superficial thought processes to atheists as a whole; the irony is almost palpable when the claims are as facile and naïve as these. I’ve heard, countless times, the old complaint that, “atheists never address sophisticated theology,” which I guess is theology that knows what wine goes with what cheese – I have yet to see any form of theology that doesn’t assume the posit, so we can’t be using the term to define an objective and conscientious approach. In contrast, atheism is not sophisticated or nuanced at all; it’s amazingly simple, and can be summed up pretty quickly: every religion is considered as mythical, nonsensical, and flawed as every other. Yet a ridiculous number of people cannot seem to grasp this, and most especially assume that anyone disagreeing with them must be an idiot. Because, you know, religious belief is always arrived at through careful and lengthy consideration…
There is a positive side to all of this, though. Every religion places emphasis on both truth and ethics, and churches can disseminate information on a weekly basis. With multiple sources demonstrating the fallacies of these assumptions, we can expect to see them disappear very quickly as those religious folk who had been repeating them correct themselves. So it won’t go on much longer.
Stick with fashion
So, right outside the same porch mentioned in the previous post has been a pair of large orb webs occupied by barn spiders (Araneus cavaticus), both females – it was only one for a few days, then another moved in. And curiously, their webs were almost stacked; while the centers of the orbs were not aligned, the webs themselves overlapped only about 10cm or so apart, while the spiders sat in their alert positions about 30cm offset from each other. Barn spiders tend to rebuild their webs frequently, usually using the same anchor strands, so their positions changed over a period of about a week. I kept thinking I should do a shot that included them both, but couldn’t work out an angle that would work.
Sometime in the last 12 hours, that opportunity passed, along with one of the spiders. I have no idea what transpired, but one of them was proudly displaying its meal of the other. And you thought beauty pageants could get cutthroat…
Competition among individuals of other species can at times be pretty distasteful to us – sure, we might kill our rivals, but not eat them! Almost never, anyway. But behavior is a widely variable thing, dictated by the winning lottery of natural selection. Think about it: each spider is competing for both food and mating privileges, and in one move (well, okay, it might have been quite an altercation) this was eradicated. Spiders have no reasons whatsoever to cooperate, so the only decision about what constitutes “food” is whether it’s too dangerous to tackle.
It can even illustrate a simplified facet of evolution. If one of these spiders was aggressive and ‘cannibalistic’ while the other wasn’t, one of them is far more likely to win that encounter. And now, with the competition gone, the winner stands a much greater chance of passing on her genes. it is entirely possible that this scenario played itself out numerous times in the past history of this species, and so now all of them will view other females only as a tricky-to-obtain collection of calories. Humans are a cooperative species, because it worked better for us in hunting and farming and such, and to foster this we have strong feelings about interactions among our own species; thus we might look upon this behavior within the same species of spider and find it abhorrent. Yet it’s only about what worked best among the available options, and from a survival standpoint, this works well for the spiders. Sometimes we have to ditch the emotional reactions to fathom the functional aspects.
Coming together
When The Girlfriend purchased this house a little over a year ago, it was of course necessary to begin personalizing it, which is one of those things that goes slowly and I don’t think ever really gets ‘finished.’ This means that I often have several projects on hand, either planned or in progress, and sometimes they’re not always known to her until they’re completed.
The house has a decent-sized screened back porch, and almost immediately, we affixed a string of holiday lights along the ceiling edge – I had discovered long ago that multi-colored dim lights are actually very relaxing, and so this provided mood lighting for this space, and we often eat meals out there. After a period of time, The Girlfriend obtained a nice outdoor glass-topped table to replace the small, basic one that we had placed there initially, the only one we had to spare when we moved in. The textured glass gave me an idea, so while she and her daughter were away for another surgery, I arranged a second set of holiday lights under the textured glass surface to surprise them when they returned. I ended up with a lot of the string left over, so I poked it up through the hole in the center of the table (intended for an umbrella) and stuffed it into a mason jar, creating a simple lighted centerpiece.
This went over very well, and even increased the amount of times we ate out there, but The Girlfriend noticed one night that the mason jar could build up quite a lot of heat if the lights were left on for a while, and I figured we needed something ventilated. Brainstorming occurred. Shortly, I located what I was looking for on eBay and ordered it, for far less than I imagined I would have to pay.
What I found was a vintage barn or railroad lantern, and it arrived in “as found” condition, complete with old spider egg sacs (barely visible to the lower right of the chimney.) It took a while to clean up, and the kerosene had stained the enamel around the base, but I figured that just added to the rustic charm. Despite the grime, it was in good enough condition that I could have filled it and lighted it immediately, and I debated about cleaning it up and reselling it, but I liked the look of it too much. Once cleaned, I removed the wick assembly and drilled a large hole in the bottom of the kerosene tank, then fed the lights up through the bottom and clustered them within the glass chimney. From discussion to result was less than two weeks, and from arrival to display less than two hours.
It looks quite nice in place, and my only regret is that it is not self-contained and running from batteries, with that fill-spout serving as the power switch. Even during the day, it produces a nice effect, but at night it really comes into its own. I know there are some people that think multi-colored lights are garish or old-fashioned; good for them. We’re pleased with the ensemble, and that’s the only criteria we need.
So when I’m not posting as often, occasionally it’s because I’m chasing some other projects – this is just one that I decided to show off. The starbursts in the image below, by the way, are courtesy of a small aperture, in this case f22. It’s a simple trick.
[And if you’re surprised that nothing “buggy” is evident on this porch, well, let’s be realistic: the photography is a pursuit, not a lifestyle, and doesn’t have to be present everywhere. But the metal ants seen earlier are actually out of sight on the porch railing to the right ;-) ]
Monday color 31
Looking at how the day is shaping up out there, it seems like this is a pink kind of day, so this image has been specially chosen to fit in with the conditions.
[Which is nonsense. I set up the Monday color posts usually several days in advance, and they’re scheduled to post at 2 AM. I have no idea what Monday is going to bring as I’m typing this.]
Zelus luridus is a fairly common little green assassin bug, and they loved the azalea bushes at the old place – actually, everything loved the azalea bushes. But it was simply a matter of time and patience before I would capture their bright green bodies against the vivid pink of the flowers, despite the fact that they were standing out about as much as any insect could. But c’mon, look at the size of that braincase – we’re not talking geniuses here…
So what do you think? Do you suppose I should have cropped a little tighter on the top right and gotten that tiny splash of green out of there? Did you even notice it? I wonder about these factors sometimes.