If you can read this…

Al Denelsbeck

First off, your assignment for today: read the post found at The Diamond In The Window – it shouldn’t take five minutes. I’ll wait here and chase the cat off the keyboard.

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Done? Good. That was a great example of how too many school systems within the US have completely lost sight of their goals, and most especially, a demonstration of the issues with “teaching to the test.” I have no problems with saying that what I learned in English classes in school has virtually nothing to do with how I write, nor what I present here. I always did well in English class, and have been an avid reader since before I started school. But in my years of school, there was one book, just one, assigned in class that I actually enjoyed: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. On the flip side, I am completely lost as to why anyone would bother with F. Scott Fitzgerald or John Knowles, not terribly impressed with William Shakespeare or Ernest Hemingway, and think John Steinbeck was a ham-fisted amateur at tragedy.

At this point, English majors and those who think the word “literature” is a mark of esteem would all be preparing to rip my writing apart in retaliation (presuming they had not already fled in horror long ago,) or at the very least assuring themselves that I’m certainly not sophisticated enough to understand such magnificent works. Never realizing, perhaps, that there is nothing that will be considered good by everyone, and such labels are merely expressions of opinion. The Appreciation of Literature is not something that we should aspire to, anymore than we should all have the same opinions of politicians, food, or hobbies; writing is about communication. If I’m completely put off by unrealistic depictions of human interactions, or obvious attempts to instill certain emotional responses, then that author is not communicating effectively to me. This is no more a fault of mine than it is of theirs.

I cannot, in the slightest, diagram a sentence anymore, and I haven’t ever regretted this in my life. I occasionally misuse words (perhaps even words like “occasionally,”) and could certainly write a bit clearer at times. But if anyone gets the gist of what I’m saying, and can read through without wincing in pain or getting confused, then I’ve done everything that writing is intended to do. If, by some infinitesimal chance, I manage to produce something that someone enjoys reading, that strikes their fancy or resonates or illustrates or enlightens, then I’ve gone beyond communication. That would be great, because that’s what makes people want to keep reading.

The authors that I like – Terry Pratchett and Brian Daley, Isaac Asimov and Douglas Adams and Gerald Durrell – are nearly all dead the ones responsible for how I write… because what they wrote is interesting, compelling, and entertaining. Sentence structure and the flow of prose do not come from classes, workshops, diagrams, and anal retentiveness, but from frequent exposure. None of the writers above will be considered within the realms of high literature, but if their writing keeps the reader involved, what more should anyone demand? Most importantly, why should anyone try to develop a ‘taste’ for writing based on what someone else deems worthy? Isn’t that simply sucking up to a perceived superiority?

‘Teaching’ and ‘learning’ are two concepts that are, far too often, poorly understood. Learning isn’t a special activity, nor does it take concerted effort. Humans learn as a matter of course, and we’re eager for new, interesting experiences. What we perceive through our senses is automatically stored in our brains – if we have reason to attach significance to it. Teaching is presenting information in a way that helps instill the significance, yet even saying that gives the wrong impression, I suspect. Significance isn’t fostered by putting more emphasis on certain words, or repeating things, but by tying the information into something that stirs an emotional response from the student, whether it be the sudden realization of how this applies to some aspect of their lives, or the discovery that a writer was sneaking in a hint of things to come, or simply that it came through a humorous method. You can’t diagram or structure a good teacher – nor can you judge a teacher by any particular student. Someone that reaches one student extraordinarily well may not reach another, because students are not blank slates cut from the same mold, but individuals with their own personalities.

In this way, I’m not going to agree with some of the comments on that linked post, the ones in essence saying, “Let the teachers teach.” Some teachers simply aren’t very good, and there really does need to be a way of determining such. But we’ve gotten immersed in a pile of standards within this country that now have little relation to anything useful for students. ‘Proper English’ is a completely misleading phrase, because there is no such thing. Language is simply effective communication, and it changes constantly. Nor is there any reason to maintain strict rules about it. The main reason I dislike Shakespeare is that the language has changed so much that his carefully-crafted passages, relying on the structure of the times, needs translation into current terms, changing the activity from following a storyline into building an edifice of context. An offhand double-entendre requires five minutes of explanation; everyone knows that explaining a joke takes every last vestige of humor from it.

Never, ever make reading (or any aspect of learning) a chore – that’s what we call a negative influence. Don’t over-analyze books or language. The term “prepositional phrase” is a sign of having too much time on your hands. Let the kids find the emotional response, the identification, the surprise of lost time because the book is too damn interesting to put down. And this will be different for every kid, and should be. When the student, on their own, starts on the next book from the same author, that’s your criteria of success.

And a hint to anyone who is called upon to administer testing and school curricula: teaching, good teaching, is not just technical, but emotional as well. Not everyone who can do a particular task can supervise others for the same task, and not everyone who knows the material can teach. What’s needed is someone who can produce the enthusiasm and spark the interest in their students, and a lot of that comes from possessing the same traits themselves. Crush that by trying to quantify it in some statistical manner, and you effectively stop someone from actually being a teacher. Or simply think back on the teachers that you preferred, and what classes you remember most. You might also think back on the jobs you yourself have held where the pay was inadequate; were you a good performer then? Did the employers who were micro-managers and clock-watchers produce a better workforce? Were you enthusiastic about going to work each day? Because, for someone to spark the enthusiasm in a student, they need to be enthusiastic themselves. Shit pay and the Sword of Damocles overhead is exactly the opposite of what’s needed.

Granted, most of our political parties benefit from a populace dumber than a bag of lint, which might explain many current trends in our overall educational system, but that’s another post…

Not quite over it yet

Al Denelsbeck


I know this is a poor showing for National Wildlife Week, but hey, I think every week is National Wildlife Week, so chill. I been busy.

Anyway, in poking around today after staging a few shots for a presentation, I came across this little lovely, in a very typical place for such: on a rock, in a cranny sheltered by a clump of leaves. This is a southern black widow (Lactrodectus mactans) almost certainly a juvenile. When hatched, they are rusty orange with rows of dots on the backs of their abdomens, and none of the classic markings that we usually associate with widows. As they get older, they gradually change colors, becoming more glossy black and developing red markings – the classic hourglass on the underside of the abdomen, and often a row of dots or markings down the “spine.” I suspect this one is a male, but I’m not sure about that; the coloration of the legs and the larger pedipalps seems to indicate such, but I didn’t think they possessed the globular abdomen like the females do. All the entomologists reading can weigh in if they like. I did get a good look at the hourglass marking later on, which makes me confident this is the southern variant, since the marking was not separated in the middle as the northern variants display – yes, they overlap territory seriously, and both actually inhabit the entire east coast. I apologize for not having clearer pics, but I hadn’t attached a flash yet and was working with natural light. When I returned a couple minutes later with the flash, my subject had taken a powder.

That’s typical, too. Despite the potency of their venom, black widows are actually quite shy, nearly reclusive you might say (sorry,) and seek shelter almost immediately upon danger threatening. This one was kind enough to hold still for several frames, including the scale illustration below, before ducking out of sight again.

Now, I grew up arachnophobic, I’m not really sure why, and have made efforts to get over it, because spiders are cool macro subjects, and ubiquitous – I saw three different species in the immediate vicinity while shooting this one. I can handle most of the smaller ones, and actually like the various jumping spiders, even though my first memorable experience with spiders was with a jumper that I was convinced was a black widow instead [I removed a plastic protective cap from my backyard slide set one day when I was five or so, and a good-sized jumping spider leapt out and posed dramatically, hazzah! Since I had no idea what black widows really looked like, I figured the bigger and hairier, the more dangerous, not to mention only mean spiders would jump out like that; I screamed and slid down the slide simultaneously, and didn’t go back for days.]

I have gotten past that almost completely, enough to put my finger practically on this spider’s leg for comparison. Almost. My flash unit has a zoom head, a motorized mechanism within that adjusts the illumination distance for whatever focal length I’m using; also, the camera itself times out and shuts off after a few minutes. While poking around trying to find my subject again for better shots with the flash, the camera timed out and shut itself off, and the flash head reset with an audible bzzzt! – while sitting directly under my chin. Yes, I jumped. Not completely over it yet…

But that’s different!

Al Denelsbeck

To everyone reading this right now, kindly send me your Social Security number. I am a taxpayer, and I help pay to support this program, so you need to send it to me so that I may confirm that your own contributions are in order. I have no intention of carrying more than my share of the burden while you remain off of the grid, shrouded in privacy.

I also need to know what car you drive; make, model, color, and Vehicle Identification Number. You are on public roads, so this is my right to know. In fact, I really need to know what it is you do in your car, because this impacts everyone else. Most especially how often you play with that little Star Trek Tricorder of yours instead of paying attention to the road. I also need to know if your driving habits are contributing unnecessarily to the depletion of fossil fuels. If you drove an SUV into work with only yourself inside, this is a serious problem that must be resolved, for the sake of everyone.

I need to know what kind of eating habits you have, because this ultimately impacts the cost of health care in this country, and can contribute to the decline in life expectancy and even influences children in their developing years. I’m not very happy with those who publicly eat junk food where kids can see them, even if they don’t appear to be enjoying it. Waste products from food packaging also forms the majority of the bulk in our landfills, which affects everybody, so it’s important to know who isn’t doing their part in reducing waste.

I need to know whether you’ve been to counseling of any kind, and how your past relationships have gone – this requires corroborating info from family members, former spouses, and everyone you’ve dated. A very large number of the crimes in this country are committed by people with some shitty pasts, so this is for everyone’s safety. If you don’t want to answer, that’s fine, but you do realize this means you simply have something to hide, right?

I need to see the past seven years of your employment performance evaluations. Productivity in this country is a major contributor to its economic status, and in these tough times, we need to know who’s pulling their weight and who isn’t. Naturally, this also means a good record of your usage of company resources, especially computer and corporate vehicles. I will probably need to install some monitoring devices wherever you work. This is not your own time, after all. Remember, as a taxpayer, my curiosity must influence you since you’re benefiting from my dime, even when you’re contributing your own. Your taxes don’t count in this regard.

What you watch on TV, and the movies you select to view, are of paramount importance. You are potentially a voter, now or in future, and we cannot have effective leadership if the voters in this country are ill-informed. There is also the possibility that violent movies lead to violent behavior, as well as patriotic movies leading to bad foreign relations – since this makes perfect sense, I’m not obligated to actually support this with any kind of facts. Common knowledge is dependable knowledge. If I can draw a connection, it must logically exist.

While I’m on the subject of voters, who did you vote for in the last dozen elections? If they achieved office and made bad decisions, this means that you led us all in a downward direction, and perhaps we need to be looking at voter privileges a little closer. Responsibility is something that should be both earned and sustained.

Are any of your children struggling with school, or maintaining less than an optimum grade? This likely means you’re not a very good parent, and someone should be stepping in. I also need to see what entertainment materials you’re choosing for your offspring. We all know where an abundance of stupid kids leads: YouTube server overloads, and dumber advertisements on MTV. Everyone has to deal with these, you know, not just your own little brats.

I am saying all of this because I am smarter and more moral than you, and you need the guidance. You cannot be trusted to cross the street on your own. Those of us who have learned how to make simple decisions have a responsibility to protect ourselves from abject morons, and to be frank, the morons should be grateful to be controlled. Where would we be if we allowed people to give in to their desires, rather than letting someone else make rational decisions for them?

However, who you go to bed with, what you do when you get there, and how you deal with any consequences… that’s all none of my fucking business. It’s a free country, after all.

Macro photography, part three

Al Denelsbeck

I threatened earlier to return to this if you weren’t good, so you only have yourself to blame, but herewith, a quick tutorial on a method of macro photography called dark field photography.

Most times, this is used with microscopic subjects, which technically isn’t macro photography but photomicrography instead. The essence is, the visible background of the image is dark, yet the subject is backlit to shine light through the body and show very fine details. This is accomplished by using an oblique light source, which avoids shining light directly into the lens. For macro photography, this is very useful for small subjects, especially aquatic. It doesn’t require a microscope, but does require either a kickass macro lens, or using one of the varieties of high magnification tricks:

* Bellows – Essentially a long and highly adjustable extension tube. When you move a lens further away from the camera body, it magnifies the image on the film plane just as moving a projector further from the screen enlarges the projected image. Bellows can be used with a variety of lenses for different magnifications and effect, but usually require manually closing the lens aperture since there is rarely any connecting apparatus between camera and lens;

* Lens reversal – A wide angle lens can be mounted on the camera backwards, usually with an inexpensive adapter, providing significant magnification. This usually eliminates any aperture control whatsoever, unless you use a lens that lets you set aperture manually;

* Lens stacking – This means putting a shorter lens, such as a 50mm, reversed onto the end of a telephoto, also producing very high magnification. A tele zoom is recommended just for a bit more versatility, allowing the zoom adjustment to stand in for focusing – otherwise focus is largely achieved by moving the camera forward and back, because the standard lens focus becomes almost ineffective with stacking. Both lenses should be very sharp examples, by the way, because aberrations are compounded with stacking;

Now, here’s the rig:

“A” is the camera and lens setup, in this case a bellows and 50mm enlarger lens. It is highly recommended that this all be mounted on a slider of some kind to allow the camera to move closer to and further from your subject stage, which is how gross focus is achieved at such high magnifications. Here, I took pains to get the camera and stage at a height to make it easier to use from a chair, avoiding other pains such as a badly stiff back and neck from crouching. Learn from my trials.

“B” is the stage itself, a basic drinking glass. In the bottom sits a small piece of black cloth; in the top is lodged (perfectly level) a lens filter. Anything reasonably clear will work – mine is an old UV filter. Essentially, it’s a clear support for your subject, and for aquatic subjects it’s a shallow pool. Many filters aren’t perfectly watertight, so adding a little wax, petroleum jelly, or caulk to the underside edges will help prevent draining. All of this is placed on something to get it close enough to the camera to be in focus range, and for preference on a surface that allows sliding the glass sideways smoothly, which is much easier than moving the camera as your subject moves to a new location.

“C” is your camera strobe/flash, aimed upwards at a 45 degree angle or so through the bottom of the filter. The goal is for the light to hit the subject, but be aimed well away from your camera lens. While you can link this to your camera with a TTL cord seen here, this can also be triggered with a radio slave, optical slave, or even by hand if necessary. A strobe with manual power output is much more versatile, but you can adjust light on even a cheap strobe with white plastic bag diffusers, angling it slightly away from the subject, or by adjusting the distance of the strobe from the subject. Bear in mind that you’re probably going to be working at small apertures to force depth of field as high as possible, so a lot of light output is often necessary.

“D” is a strong light source so you can actually see to focus, since most of the lens options will reduce light significantly. With such a close subject and/or small volume of water, the light can heat up your subject to an unhealthy degree, so keep it as far as you can to still allow enough light to focus, and swap out your subjects and water frequently.

Also seen is the eyedropper used to fill the filter with water, as needed, and wrangle your subjects to the stage. With most tiny aquatic subjects, only a millimeter or three of water is sufficient for them to swim around happily, and will prevent them from going ‘deep’ and out of focus range. In essence, you’ve produced only two dimensions of movement (which still can be enormously frustrating, given the tiny view angle you’ll probably have, but much less frustrating than three dimensions.) It helps a lot to have some bit of debris or whatever in the water at the same depth/distance as your subjects, so you have something to do focus and light tests on that isn’t moving, and in fact a few of them provide visual cues as to just where you’re aiming when your subject starts going walkabout across the stage.

So, how does it work?

Fairly well I think, considering that nothing I used was designed to accomplish this. This is a daphnia, an aquatic microorganism that fits into the overarching term of “plankton,” but if you want more of a description than that I’ll urge you to use that link. This one is fairly large as my captured examples go, meaning the total body length spans about the size of a pinhead. I had several within the rig, and this one paused long enough in its mad perambulations for me to focus. The antlers are antennae that serve double-duty as swimming appendages, and yes, that’s an eye visible. I’m guessing that’s an intestinal tract and not a walking cane carried internally, but seriously, I just take pictures; someone else can expound on the anatomy.

The dark field method tends to give great views of anatomy and internal structure, though it is faintly misleading in helping someone spot one of these on their own, since it uses transmitted light and not reflected. Daphnia and copepods usually appear very pale brown in color, and little more than ovals, but they’re easy to obtain – I have zillions in the tank right now. I also, without trying, had snagged up some snails eggs that had detached from their adhesive sac, so these went onto the dark field glass too. If you want to have fun, show this picture to someone (preferably female) and see if their reaction changes when you tell them these are baby snails not long before hatching.


Aren’t they adorable? Yes, two of them are facing the camera (though I’m not too sure about smiling) and one is in profile – those are indeed eyespots. The diameter of the entire egg is roughly that of a straight pin shaft. Note how the light angle gives nice definition, if not a three-dimensional effect, to the transparent eggshells, and I have an even better one coming. Granted, less schmutz in the water is desired, but it’s hard to filter the water without screening out all the little cuties living within.

Setting up such a photography rig is a little fussy, requiring a small devotion of time, but it’s hardly elaborate – I’ve done setups, a collection of frames on multiple subjects, and tore it all back down again within an hour. The tripod is the key – effective focus is a very tiny range, a few millimeters at best, and even going to minimum aperture doesn’t change this much, so you’ll want a camera support that doesn’t twitch or settle at all. You’ll also want to get in the habit of not touching the camera except when absolutely necessary, and then doing so gingerly.

As for lens choices, that really depends on what you can lay your hands on. I’ve used the bellows with a screw-mount Vivitar 135mm that I purchased for $25, an Argus Cintar 50mm, and a cheapo Omega 50mm enlarger lens. I have also done a combination extension tube and lens reversal. Since the bellows had come with Nikon lens adapters, the latter two lenses were mounted to Nikon body caps, drilled out to the right size to admit their mounting rings (Dremels are wonderful things.) Getting the lenses mounted perfectly centered isn’t absolutely necessary, since shifting a lens slightly to one side only shifts the image in the opposite direction – that’s how image stabilization lenses work, as well as perspective-control lenses – but having them mounted flush is important. Lenses are optimized towards a flat plane projection surface, the digital sensor or film, and having them tilted slightly will reduce depth of field, not something you can afford to do with macro work. These pics here, by the way, were with the enlarger lens.

You can also do dark field work directly through the side of an aquarium, camera mounted horizontally like normal rather than vertically as shown above, but this reduces your flexibility a bit. First off, you’ll be waiting for your subject to hold still against the glass, or choosing a fixed subject (no, you’re not going to nail a free-floating subject with magnification this high, and you’ll die of apoplexy trying.) You typically have to move the camera every time the subject shifts, and with focus this short it often takes a couple of minutes to get everything back sharp – or even find it! And the sides of the tank introduce more distortion than simply shooting through the top surface of a film of water – a lot more, if they’re plastic and in rough shape.

Here, I picked one of the egg sacs on the glass, catching the snails in the process of hatching. The soap-bubble-like diffraction shows empty eggshells, and you can see several fully-hatched snails, and one (center bottom) in the process of freeing itself. The flash is aimed through the top of the tank towards the back of the tank side, and coming at this oblique angle, with settings of f16 at 1/200 second, the rest of the tank went too dark to show in the background. I’d polished the scratched sides right over the egg sac (Dremels are wonderful things) so I’d have a better surface to shoot through.

Unlike the image below, where two egg-bearing copepods paused, with remarkable cooperation, right smack alongside one another long enough for me to move the rig and get some nice detail shots. The horrible condition of the sides is what produced the streaks, yet I still managed to get the image sharp enough to show more than a little internal detail. Notice the difference, however, in the resolution of the antennae versus the eggs, most especially of the one to the left. That’s simply a result of the eggs being a different distance from the lens than the antennae, and the very short depth of high magnification was enough to throw them out of sharp focus, even though we’re talking fractions of a millimeter.


So, put it all together and take a shot at it. It’s definitely very cool to see the details of something barely visible to the unassisted eye. Have fun!

What would it take?

Al Denelsbeck

All right, I suppose I have to comment on this after all – I usually try to let other bloggers handle things like this.

Long story short: In a discussion between Richard Dawkins (notoriously shrill and strident militant atheist, according to ‘media sources,’ which means vapid nitwits,) and Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, Dawkins noted his personal ruler of belief – on a scale from one to seven, one being ‘absolutely sure of god’s existence’ and seven being ‘absolutely sure of god’s nonexistence,’ Dawkins did not rate himself as a seven, just really close. This isn’t astounding news for anyone familiar with his very same statements many times in the past, but some media outlets (no doubt desperate to appeal to readers with the intellectual prowess of wet sticks) trumpeted it with great delight. This does, of course, imply that at least some religious folk are more concerned with the opinion of a prominent atheist than with half a million sources of unquestionable faith.

From a scientific, and for that matter logical, standpoint an attitude such as Dawkins’ is the only one that can be reasonably taken. There is nothing that is ever proven beyond all doubt, unable to be overturned later – the very nature of both knowledge and humans renders this an abstract superlative. What we have instead is the weight of the evidence, which can give us a nice precedent but does not actually prevent exceptions. Dawkins has simply, generously, admitted that he is not omniscient.

An interesting aspect of all this is the desperation of religious folk to find a crack to hold up triumphantly, but the very search for such things becomes hypocritical. Dawkins’ offhand statement is taken to mean that even the high priest of the atheists [bear with me, I’m being sarcastic again] has his doubts, yet if he’d said instead that he was 100% sure there is no god, that would be considered stubborn close-mindedness and claimed to be as much faith as a belief in god. The amusing sidenote about this is that in one stroke, faith has changed from being virtuous to being facile. The very trait that the religious want to be held in esteem for having is apparently not cool in anyone else.

The related question, posed so often in discussion forums by religious folk, is, “What would it take to make you believe?” I admit I have a hard time treating this as an honest question, but instead merely an attempt to force an admission of blind faith in god’s nonexistence, or alternately to begin to prey on ‘doubt.’ Numerous atheists have pointed out, however, that the typical definitions of ‘god’ are either too vague to be searching for evidence of, or self-contradictory (‘omniscience’ and ‘omnipotence’ rule one another out – if you know everything, there is nothing that you can do except what you already know will happen.) Some have quite simply said, “Give me your definition of ‘god’ as a starting point,” which is either dodged, or confuses the hell out of religious folk: “What do you mean? You know: god.” Which makes it pointless to try and demonstrate, for instance, that supernaturality is defined by being outside evidence in the first place, so the question is stupid.

While it seems efficient to simply avoid playing senseless games with religious folk who either aren’t being honest or never considered the implications of their beliefs, I’m not a fan of dismissing such questions, because that plays into the hands of those who simply wanted to show atheism as a stubborn and intractable emotional crutch. Comments about pots and kettles here won’t cut it either. Instead, I proffer a simple analogy:

If you were to tell me some person is an excellent golfer, I’d want to see some nice low scores to agree with you, as well as watching them play. If you were to tell me this person was the best around, I’d want to see several playoffs among many other golfers, preferably under the auspices of an organization that was not only qualified to judge, but under enough scrutiny to reduce bias as a viable influence.

If you were to tell me, however, that this was the best golfer that ever lived or would ever live, you’ve presented a situation that has no possibility of being demonstrated. The statement has exceeded evidential support and has entered the realm of baseless assertion. While you might feel slighted that I dismiss your statement as meaningless, tough shit.

The various definitions of ‘god,’ of course, far exceed ‘golfer,’ as well as not even being restrained by something like the rules of golf. Most religious folk can’t even agree on whether god answers prayers or not, and dodge the subject by resorting to “mysterious ways.”

Part two of all this is even more damning, unfortunately. Some have pointed out that a large pile of miracles and sudden violations of physics might be leaning in that direction, at the very least – does that count? And, barring the possibility of doubting one’s own senses or sanity (which has indeed been offered as a response,) and allowing that we’ve relaxed the definition to forgo unprovable omnipotence or perpetual existence, then I might admit to the existence of a really powerful being or force. I’m not sure I would rashly label it as ‘god,’ though, with all the assumptions that entails. But hey, if all it takes to provide evidence of a remarkably powerful being is a lot of stunning physical demonstrations, well, go for it.

Although the ability to snuff out my life with a thought, or read my mind, or send me to torment for a long time isn’t enough to make me praise such a being. I don’t really think worship through fear is an honest response – ‘worship’ and ‘fear’ are fairly contradictory. I don’t even have the ability to be grateful for my life or the planet or anything of the sort, since it’s pretty clear that we see both good and bad, and face adversity on a regular basis. You see, I can accept that people dying in natural disasters is how things happen in an undirected world with countless variables. I can’t see any magnificence in someone who supposedly designed it to happen that way, with hardship and disease and competition over resources being, well, omnipresent. I find it hard to glorify life when any proposed supreme being obviously does not. According to the interpretations of some scripture, we were even created with the deck stacked against us, to see if we’d find the right path before we die, or stumble and face everlasting pain – and we cannot ignore the claims of omniscience, where god already knows the result anyway.

There’s a lot that gets missed with all of this. The benefit of knowledge isn’t simply knowing something, peace of mind or whatever, but in being able to use it – preferably to improve our lives in some way. Finding out that any scripture is actually perfectly factual, or even merely inspired by divine communication while getting some portions off a bit, doesn’t change the bare fact that countless portions are incredibly corrupt and vicious. Claims that we mere humans cannot understand the secret goals of a supreme being are not explanatory in the least; if scripture is the guide that’s intended for us, then it’s inept to not have it in a form that we can understand and value. Surely an omniscient being could manage this.

But that’s not the goal in the slightest. The goal is for adherents to feel self-righteous, backed in their particular views not by rational argument, but by an unassailable superbeing, the pinnacle of authority. That’s all that such approaches are trying to establish. No one gives a damn about what evidence really is – they simply want to find a way to forestall disagreement, or render their opponent as intractable and childish.

Lots of pursuits that we engage in as a species, from scientific endeavors to legal proceedings, from auto mechanics to medical exams, rely on a method simply enumerated as, “Here are the facts; where do they lead?” On too many occasions, however, people resort to something else: “Here is the conclusion that I like; how do I build support for it?” Operating in this way means that facts which do not lead in the desired direction are ignored – obviously there are some issues that are going to arise. What it does, to be blunt, is place emotional supplication over dealing with the real world – that’s not something that we should encourage in the slightest. It’s actually pathetic, and should be treated as such.

My god! It’s full of snails!

Al Denelsbeck


When I was in Florida, I maintained a saltwater aquarium in the most casual way possible, by simply replenishing it with water from the nearby Indian River Lagoon routinely. The occupants were primarily porcelain crabs, tiny hermit crabs, and grass shrimp, all hardy and easy-to-feed critters. Since grass shrimp (too often called “ghost shrimp”) are available at some aquarium shops in the area, I’m considering getting a few as photographic subjects (and just ’cause I like ’em) and so dug out the small, cheap fish tank that I have. And since aquatic life is already visible in the streams and ponds around here, I collected some local water and debris, kind of as a warmup to see just what could be found.

The main thing that I caught were snails and copepods, no surprise. Copepods are not-quite-microscopic aquatic organisms that are exceptionally common and definitely exotic-looking, but also hyperactive and hard to photograph, not the least because of their size. One can be seen in the photo at top, on the left. But the snails busied themselves with laying eggs all over the sides of the aquarium, also seen in that image, which means I’ll be holding off on switching this over to a saltwater tank for a little while, since this presents an opportunity that I don’t want to pass up: hatching! Seen here, one of the larger snails has been captured in the process of producing yet another egg sac, sticking it directly to the aquarium side. In natural conditions, such snails attach their eggs to rocks, twigs, and debris, usually in sheltered conditions – I had collected some others on dead leaves from the pond edges. If it helps, the snail itself is about 2 cm long – and the back end of the snail is towards the top of the image. Yeah, snail anatomy is kind of weird.

The gestation time varies with the species and the temperature, so I can expect anywhere from one to five weeks until they hatch, but likely on the shorter end of that because they’re indoors now, much warmer than the ponds outdoors. Somewhat frustrating, however, is the fact that the small tank is only plastic, and significantly marked and scratched, so it’s far from the best photographic conditions. I had planned to swap out one side with a piece of glass, like the macro tank seen here, but like a dummy I put the sample water in it before I tackled that project, and now I have to shoot through the scratches. My planning could have been a little better.

While I’m not going to be moving the egg sacs adhering to the sides, I can still transfer other subjects into the macro tank for better images. Aside from having clean and unmarked glass to shoot through, providing less distortion and things to scatter the lighting from, the smaller tank means that I can keep photo subjects closer to the front (less suspended sediment to shoot through,) manage the setting easier, and put my lighting anywhere it’s needed, including behind or underneath the tank. Tiny yet perpetually active subjects like this water beetle still have a lot of room to hurtle around within, but will now pass within view of the camera more often, and remaining focused at the water’s edge improves those odds quite a bit. Using the bellows like I was here requires manually closing the aperture down after achieving tight focus, which darkens the viewfinder pretty much to the point of ineffectiveness, so it means align the camera, focus sharply, and then close the aperture down and snap the image quickly before the subject gets bored and leaves, all while not bumping the rig in the slightest. The aperture needs to be quite small to extend the limited depth of field as much as possible; even with this, effective sharp focus is usually measured in millimeters. But with a small tank you can pick a particular area that is distinctive, focus and set aperture, then simply watch the tank without having to have your eye at the viewfinder, tripping the shutter when the subject enters your viewing area. This is helped by using a fairly high shutter speed and a flash/strobe to prevent any motion blur. A word of warning for those who want to try macro tank photography, though: at high magnifications, you find out just how hard it is to keep everything clean, and tank sides that appeared perfectly clear will show the hairs and schmutz that sneak in constantly. Often it’s hard to stay on top of the air bubbles that form constantly against the glass, requiring their dislodging just when you think you’ve got everything arranged, and as seen here, a tissue is a lot less useful to clean the outsides than you’d expect – those white squiggles are paper fibers. It goes without saying that difficult subjects always choose to pose helpfully right alongside something that you don’t want in the photo.


Another capture was a dragonfly nymph, the larval form that is as serious a predator upon aquatic critters as the adult form is upon flying insects. This one is sporting some kind of atypical appendages that, while FAB-u-lous!, are probably some kind of fungal growth and none too healthy. While appearing to be less active than the water beetles, dragonfly larva have this habit where they wait until you’ve got focus nicely pinned down and then move a little bit or change poses, something that any child photographer probably knows only too well. Did I forget to mention lighting tests? Yeah, TTL flashes are pretty undependable for macro work, especially when using a bellows which won’t feed aperture info into the camera, so you’re going full manual lighting with such setups, and will spend no small amount of time adjusting both light intensity and angle. While a strobe with adjustable output is not absolutely necessary, it will make your life much easier, as will a manner of repositioning and angling it quickly. Nevertheless, once a few tests have determined just what power and angle are working best, that’s when the nymph goes behind your setting. You should rest assured, however, that a gentle nudge to move it back out into the open will sending it swimming frantically all around the tank instead.


It may take a lot of frames and an abundance of patience, but eventually some compelling images can be captured, and with aquatic subjects it doesn’t matter how much or loudly you swear (I say smugly to the child photographers.) Collecting these subjects, by the way, required a jar and access to a pair of ponds, assisted by no aversion to getting a little muddy, so it’s not like stalking lions on the African veldt. Coming soon, I’ll detail another method of getting extreme closeups that is easier to arrange than you might have suspected.

Occam’s razor

Al Denelsbeck

Occam’s razor is a proverb, if you will, that underlies critical thinking and the consideration of alternatives. In its most commonly used form, it reads rather simply: If there are multiple explanations for some observed phenomenon, the simplest one is likely the most accurate. As can be seen from that link, however, this is paraphrasing. It’s not exactly a law of probability, but instead a reminder that elaborate circumstances rarely exist in nature, and when they do, they’re usually obviously elaborate – the evidence of their complexity will be clear, and not mistaken for something simpler.

I don’t find the proverb itself terribly useful, but it serves as a starting point for something a bit more important to critical thinking. I don’t know if it has a name or not – considering that this is how philosophers justify their existence, it probably does – but in essence, it’s the idea that every explanation bears its own consequences. This is better illustrated by an example.

People who support the idea of a US government conspiracy behind the attack on the World Trade towers on 9/11 maintain that there is compelling evidence that the planes could not have caused the collapse, and that signs of controlled demolition exist. When we apply the idea of consequence to this, we start asking several pertinent questions:

  • Why would the government do this?
  • How could this be accomplished and kept secret?
  • What, exactly, is the evidence in support of this?
  • What, exactly, is the evidence against it?
  • Can the evidence for either be interpreted in more ways than one?

    • These cannot be considered unreasonable questions by any stretch, and in fact, our judicial system relies on exactly this type of examination. Virtually every court case requires the demonstration (aligned with the questions above) of motive, opportunity, means, and being beyond reasonable doubt. It also underpins the scientific method, where a firm conclusion (which is, again, defined as “beyond reasonable doubt”) is only reached by eliminating as many other options as possible.

    From a skeptical standpoint, the goal is not to automatically doubt any explanation, but to open the door to questions and seek support for any particular conclusion. If A is the case, then we should expect B and C to follow. If B and C are missing, A is thrown into question. With this rides another aspect, where A may lead to B, but so might Q and J; in order to be comfortable with only one explanation, the others must be ruled out somehow. This aspect of logic is routinely ignored when statistics are quoted, where rising intelligence and rising housing costs are considered connected in some way because they both rise. My example is silly, but this kind of mindless comparison is used far too frequently.

    Applying this to our 9/11 conspiracy claim (it doesn’t qualify as a theory,) we have to determine useful answers to the questions listed above. Some of them, such as how the government could have kept it secret and how they could have mined the incredibly busy buildings with demolition charges without anyone noticing, already start to strain explanatory scenarios. Moreover, neither one culminated with the collapse of the buildings, but need to be maintained in secrecy, even to this day, and thus require a support structure that must continue through changing administrations. And there had to be a purpose to all of these shenanigans, which supposedly was to goad us into war with Iraq. The fact that the ‘pat explanation’ of this being Al Qaeda’s doing had nothing to do with Iraq, wasn’t sufficient to convince Congress, and wasn’t needed anyway since Bush simply pushed the war through without them, all make the ‘motive’ part rather lame.

    Then, when we look at the evidence, we find such marvelous things as offhand comments made by firefighters (during a massive disaster,) puffs of ‘smoke’ (supposedly demolition charges) from a 200,000 cubic meter office building already in the process of collapse (we have to assume, I guess, that the dust clouds that covered dozens of city blocks were also demolition charges, and not caused by displaced air,) and that jet fuel does not ignite at a high enough temperature to melt structural steel. The last is the only one that seems to have a smidgen of science behind it, in that someone actually looked up flashpoints. Perhaps it would have been nice if they had progressed beyond the smidgen, though, or even just remembered that blacksmiths hammering horseshoes are not working with iron that is melted, but merely softened for pliability, and that the furnaces to accomplish this are fired by fuels with a lower flashpoint than the melting point of iron, too. Flashpoint refers to ignition, not resulting heat, which depends on the enclosure and supply of fuel. Yet, these little bits of highly questionable ‘evidence’ are claimed to support the vast idea of the conspiracy.

    It is important, in fact vital, to ask if the evidence is solid, incapable of being misconstrued or misinterpreted, before even embarking on scenarios that might support such evidence. Can the observed traits be explained by means other than the initial posits? In the case of the puffs of smoke, supposedly from ‘squibs’ (explosive charges,) there are countless other possibilities, especially since the collapse of such huge buildings would have required several hundred charges, and they would have detonated before the collapse began. We’ve already addressed the jet fuel issue, and it could be pointed out that having the buildings fall almost immediately after impact would have made more sense to most viewers, not to mention keeping a million different media cameras off of the collapse. The collapse of the third building, Seven World Trade Center, should have occurred commensurate with the destruction of the twin towers – there is no earthly reason to let it remain standing for the entire day, nor for any ‘responsible party’ to utter the supposedly damning comment captured by news crews. The claims that the damage was insufficient to bring down the building are trashed by seeing the photos of the damaged side of the building, where the North Tower debris ripped through perhaps 20 floors, not the side opposite, which is the only side that the conspiracists ever show.

    Which is another point in itself. All too often, when conspiracy claims are made and the supporting evidence presented, it takes little effort to find that such evidence is not understood, poorly presented, or outright edited – but it takes the motivation to look for it. Taking any claim on faith, no matter what side, is exceptionally uncritical – there is no method of ensuring that any source of information cannot be wrong, nor reason to believe such a thing. And it says an awful lot that most conspiracies throughout the ages only survive by being selective about evidence. Claims that the cryptic line, “We’re going to pull it,” is demolition jargon turn out to be completely false, and photos showing how strong the building was before collapse should not be solely of the undamaged side. The same goes for things like the Kennedy assassination, where a faint haze in one photo and a witness’ claim that the gunshots came from the grassy knoll are used, totally ignoring the countless witnesses who claim the shots came from the book repository, including those that saw someone up there. Witnesses that saw no aircraft anti-collision strobes from the ‘mysterious light in the sky’ do not magically override those that actually did see the strobes.

    Going yet further with the application of critical thinking with our first example, we can imagine ourselves as the government trying to spark a war, and think of what kind of apparatus would be sufficient. Considering that the towers had already been attacked earlier by a simple car bomb, it seems rather elaborate to switch to hijacked airliners – an explosion at ground level would fit the planned demolition scenario far easier. Even if sold on the aircraft idea, a cargo plane with a small nuclear device would have been tons more effective in communicating the threat of Al Qaeda/Iraq/whatever, and not subject to passenger interference either. The construction workers that reinforced the Pentagon months before the attack would have had a legitimate excuse to be deep in the bowels of the building planting explosives, and could have done far more damage to the building than what actually occurred. As a conspiracy, it’s actually incredibly inept.

    That’s how Occam’s Razor is wielded. As explanatory scenarios get more elaborate, they require a supporting structure of details, that we either should be able to find easily or must have explanations why we do not. Those explanations themselves must also be plausible, and have supporting evidence or good reasons why no such thing is available. The very first part of the claim – that the US government (or some faction within) planned it all – is an attempt to explain how the buildings could collapse if not because of the planes, but lacks any kind of direct evidence at all. Everything related to it is simply wild speculation about how and why, a supposition just to try and patch the very first holes in the conspiracy claim, but bearing nothing at all to bolster it. Something of this nature would be huge, and require untold hundreds or thousands of accomplices – in other words, a structure of vast proportions that is still completely secret. To maintain this as a plausible scenario, one must create more and more elaborate circumstances to explain away the total lack of evidence that could lead anyone to suspect it in the first place. It’s not actually possible to keep building a structure on the scaffolds of the next structure – somewhere in there must be a foundation.

    Even science operates with this idea constantly, as scientists test posits through the consequences of their supporting structure, sometimes quite ingeniously, but it always must come back to something fundamental, or at the very least (like the counter-relativistic rules of quantum physics) a dependable set of results. This also requires accepting what the evidence says, which is usually the hardest part for we humans to get past. We have a strong emotional tie to solving puzzles, and get a serious sense of accomplishment from it. In fact, this is likely the prime motivation behind conspiracy claims and paranormal explanations in the first place; something abnormal is noticed, and various explanations for such are contemplated (occasionally abetted by other desires or beliefs, such as feeling like a victim of the government or a belief in realms outside of the merely physical.) The sense of pride inherent within the idea that “I figured it out” is naturally much more powerful than, “Oh, wait, that isn’t right” – this can even be applied to those who did nothing to piece anything together, but merely feel they are part of the elite few who know. Yet the emotional attachment to ‘knowing the solution’ makes us reluctant to let go of an explanation when the evidence fails to bear it out, so we need to be aware that this is emotional, and nothing more. Quite simply, when a good idea cannot be supported through a few specific tests, it wasn’t actually a good idea in the first place, and it’s time to let it go. Adapting critical thinking skills from the outset actually makes this far easier, since the tests are being applied right from the start, before we convince ourselves of how good an idea it is.

    Interestingly, it also switches the emotional sense of accomplishment to a different puzzle: not whether our hypothesis is correct, but if we can effectively test such things and catch the errors. Rather than feeling disappointed when a hypothesis fails to bear fruit, we can feel triumphant that we caught the problems – especially before someone else did! Like much of what we do, we get a better sense of self if the trials that we face are tougher, and we constantly raise the bar on ourselves.

    Spoke too soon, perhaps

    Al Denelsbeck

    In yesterday’s ‘Too cool’ installment, I lamented not being able to illustrate the topic with my own images, and suspected I’d have no opportunity to do so. This was an abject ploy to make you feel sorry for me.

    However, I soon became wracked with guilt over such blatant manipulations. Not to mention that, while searching through my images last night to illustrate a couple of presentations, I came across this insect photographed not six meters from my door one summer. While the wings are not being held in the right position, compare their pattern with that illustrated by Alex Wild in his post. This isn’t sufficient to demonstrate how the illusion works, but it does mean that I might be able to do so later on, without traveling to the tropics.

    This is how the mind of an insect photographer works. This goal will remain in the back of my mind (along with many others,) and every tiny fly is going to be examined from now on to see if it might be a target species. if spotted, I’ll be trying to achieve just the right angle to illustrate this trait, at the same time watching to see if I can ever catch the function in action with a jumping spider. I admit to spending a lot of time crawling around looking for this kind of thing, but think about it: how often have you yourself ever seen, for instance, a jumping spider catch any prey? This could be a long time coming…

    I am reminded on one of my past frustrations, when two jumping spiders faced off against one another on a railing. I scrambled to get camera out, missing the action where they launched to attack, but capturing the two of them clutched tightly together and dangling from a dragline, spinning madly. After regaining their perch on the railing, I could see they were belly to belly; both faces peering at me, though the smaller one was upside down on its back under the larger one and, I suspect, dying.

    Then, somehow, I lost that roll of film from my bag. I never found it, and have never seen such a thing since. It is, as they say, a first-world problem, but considering that most of my sense of accomplishment comes from nature photography, I’m going to reserve the right to be annoyed over it.

    Too cool, part 13: I’m a spider, raargh!

    Al Denelsbeck

    Since I have yet to obtain any images illustrating this (and because there may not even be examples of such within this country, I may not ever, sniff,) I refer you to Alex Wild of Myrmecos fame, guest-blogging on Scientific American’s site, for his post on “The fly that banks on arachnophobia.”

    If you wish, pause for a second and try to imagine how a fly might benefit from something being scared of spiders, like I did. Chances are, it’s better than you imagined. Most especially, when you see a different (and more appropriate) angle provided by Warren Laurde in the comments.

    It all leads me to wonder, how long before spiders develop secret signs amongst themselves, like visual passwords, to flush out the imposters?

    *      *      *      *

    My competitive side tells me not to link to Myrmecos, since Alex Wild is a much better photographer than I, but the unwritten rules of the net dictate that he reciprocate, right? And if that works, I’ll be praising Canon for their MP-E 65mm soon…

    More classes

    Al Denelsbeck

    Now that the details are finalized, I can announce that I’m instructing another photography offering, sponsored by Youth Community Project in the Chapel Hill/Carrboro area of North Carolina. This is a basic photography seminar, open to youths aged 12-18, and will run for six weeks on Thursday evenings from 6 – 7 pm at the Street Scene Teen Center on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill, starting March 1st (that’s this coming Thursday.) This is a community involvement project, and it runs under a ‘suggested donation’ system, meaning that there’s no fixed fee but donations are strongly encouraged (it helps pay for things like instructor’s fees, ahem.) You can download the PDF right here, with contact and registration information available therein. If you have any issues with downloading the PDF, contact me and I’ll send it directly – I get enough spam comments on this site that I’m not publishing e-mail addresses openly.

    It’s a loose structure, without grading or assignments, but including suggested exercises and experiments. Doesn’t matter what kind of camera you have, or the level of experience, and everything’s casual. Should be a lot of fun – I know I’m looking forward to it.

    And if you’ve read other items on the blog and are concerned about me expressing my views to your kids, relax – that’s for the blog, and has nothing to do with photography. I do have a bit of professionalism. The same goes for my other instruction offerings.

    You'll even find out what I'm up to here
    There is still space in both day seminars held at the North Carolina Botanical Garden as well. Nature Photography: Within Your Grasp is held on Saturday March 10th from 9:30 – 11:30 am and gives an overview of how to seriously approach nature photography and what to expect, as well as a few war stories. And the Spring Garden Photography Seminar is a hands-on workshop that includes both a brief classroom session and the opportunity to try it all out in the garden itself. It’s held on Saturday, March 24th from 1:30 – 4:30 pm; definitely bring your camera! Click here for descriptions and registration information.

    By the way, while both of these are listed as adult classes, mine are open to all ages and experience levels. Even if you shoot in “green mode,” you shouldn’t have any trouble with either of these.

    So if you’re in the area, come on by – we’d love to have you! And be sure to check out the other offerings from the NCBG as well.

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