Our opening image comes from the heady, halcyon days of slide film, 1999 to be precise, and depicts a southern unstriped scorpion (Vaejovis carolinianus.) I was in no danger when obtaining this photo, since scorpions in North America have relatively weak venom, little more than bee stings, and anyway this one was dead. The cool thing about scorpions is how they fluoresce under ultra-violet light, which I’ve mentioned a few times before. Once I heard about this (which was well after obtaining this photo and giving away the model,) I have been on a quest to photograph this on my own – literally for the past ten years or better. I have possessed, and travel with, a nice UV flashlight solely to see what the light will reveal at night, and while there are no scorpions of any kind near me (possibly some in the NC mountains,) I have used the flashlight to pop up the occasional other subject here and there.
So how has my scorpion photography progressed since that point 23 years ago?
It hasn’t. Despite many searches when in likely areas, I have not ever found a single specimen, dead or alive. The handful of slides from the one photo session above, all of the same pose because of rigor mortis (or whatever the arthropod equivalent is,) are the sum total that I have of the species. Which is slightly annoying, but I can’t say that I haven’t made the effort. I can say that I haven’t dedicated any special trips to the pursuit, because no one’s paying for that (not that I would turn this down if some well-heeled reader feels inclined, mind you,) but when I’ve been in the right areas, I’ve certainly done my part is searching under logs and through leaf litter in deep darkness, looking only with the UV light because scorpions hide from visible (to us) wavelengths. I’ve even done research into sightings throughout various areas in Georgia to see where they’re most likely to be found – it’s a casual yet serious quest of mine to obtain such photos. But as yet, I haven’t even come close.
[I’d like to think that writing this post was motivation to try harder and actually move forward on this goal, but a) it’s February, and so not the time to even consider the task, and b) it involves travel to a good location, the closest of which is north Georgia, and that’ll happen when I have further reasons to make such a trip. Though as I said, should funds suddenly drop into my lap…]
Well, okay, no, this doesn’t actually count. I guess I need more qualifiers.
I’ve long had a standard that spring has finally arrived when I saw the first treefrogs, as I have tonight, but we’re not going to count this one. First off, it’s in the greenhouse, which is of course remaining unnaturally warmer than the surrounding climate, and while it got up to a lovely 21°c today (and thus much warmer in the greenhouse, peaking around 33°c therein,) it’s not sustaining that, nor has it been that warm long enough to flush the winterized frogs out of hideouts. Secondly, if we are going to count the greenhouse, I’m six weeks behind anyway; we had a run of warmer weather right as the new year was coming in, and I could easily have done the last treefrog of 2021, as well as the first of 2022, less than a minute apart, since a couple were active inside. I had unintentionally left the door cracked open that evening, so a few may have entered from outside, and I left it cracked for the next night or two so they could leave again if they so desired. I’d wondered if any remained, tucking themselves into the soil or crevices of the potted plants, and this one answered that – it’s been too cold to know before this. And yes, I’d purposefully checked, knowing the temperatures today might have brought them out in there tonight.
Meanwhile, it’s Darwin Day, and I’d like to tie this together somehow, but don’t really have a way without stretching. I’ve had the reminder popping up for the last week, without providing any inspiration at all for a post; probably should have just dug out Origin of Species and skimmed for some ideas. Ah well.
“Alright, you mooks, close into formation, and let’s keep it tight!”
“What is this? If I wanted to command a bunch of grandmammas, I’d open a bingo parlor! I said tight!”
.
.
“That’s better!”
[Just a couple of pics from today, down at Jordan Lake, as I get more of a post in order. These are double-crested cormorants, by the way, and I need to note that since their last appearance here, the scientific name has now become Nannopterum auritum instead of Phalacrocorax auritus, because taxonomists can’t leave a damn thing alone. Good thing I check on these…]
A few years back now, I received a very appropriate gift from The Girlfriend’s Sprog, in the form of a ‘Bio Orb‘* – a self-sustaining aquarium containing bioluminescent dinoflagellates. These are nearly microscopic phytoplankton that, at night, glow briefly brilliant blue when disturbed, and I say this was appropriate because I’ve had personal experience with them, back when I lived in Florida; during high summer, the Indian River Lagoon would play host to them, providing a fantastic natural light show at times.
The great thing about the orb is that it’s, as I said, self-sustaining. I mean really. Dinoflagellates need very little to survive, and the globe only needs to be placed in moderate temperatures with some, but not too much, sunlight. Food is provided in the kit, but I’ve only fed them twice, because it’s only needed if there seems to be a die-off. This happened just once, as the migration of the sun through the year caused it to shine more directly into the window where I kept the orb, only in the morning, but it was a little too much. I shifted the orb back a little and everything has been going on its own since then, and that was probably two years ago now. From time to time, I pick up the globe at night and give it a little swish to see the burst of dim light that ensues. It’s pretty damn cool.
I did some initial experiments back then, mostly under the microscope, and managed to get a few photos of the individual organisms themselves. There’s really not a lot to them.
To be specific, this is a Pyrocystis fusiformis, a marine algae, one of the thousands of organisms known as phytoplankton. Length is less than a millimeter; I have a slide with a measuring scale etched into it, but finding one of these critters in the water sample can be tricky enough – somehow maneuvering it alongside the scale is a headache I have not yet tried to induce upon myself. This particular one, by the way, might be in the process of reproduction, since that nucleus appears to be splitting.
I also have to add another shot obtained at that time, which I pondered over.
When first trying to see the dinoflagellates, I found this and did a couple of shots with polarized light (thus the colors,) before I realized this was lint from the tissue that I used to clean the slide…
Anyway, as intimated in the previous post, I decided to tackle this again, getting the microscope back out, but also prepping some new equipment.
Microscopes, by nature, have an extremely short depth-of-field, so much so that they will often only get a portion of the subject in focus at once (which you’re going to see shortly.) One of these days I’ll start playing around seriously with image stacking, taking several photos and combining the sharpest portions of each into a new image. There’s software for this, I just haven’t messed with it yet, except manually.
I have a simple lensless adapter for the camera to fit onto the eyepiece of the microscope, but the eyepiece lens is removed. Due to this, the camera doesn’t get the same magnification (full-frame, anyway) that I can see, and focus always has to be readjusted. This image is with the 40X objective lens, but is less than 40X – how much so, maybe I’ll calculate someday.
But what I’d really like to capture is the actual bioluminescence. To say that this is tricky is putting it mildly, since it’s dim, within the long-exposure category but of course it doesn’t last anywhere near that long. Once while in Florida, I picked a good night when the dinos were active and set the camera up in the shallows of the lagoon, aiming down into the water (the camera remained dry, relax.) I then locked the shutter open and swished my hand around madly in front of the lens for a solid minute, just to see if I could get something to register. First off, let me tell you that swishing your hand madly in the water for 60 seconds straight is quite tiring. I’ve looked at the negatives a couple of times since then, and I managed enough exposure to delineate the edges of the frame, but nothing more than that.
The 7D, however, can kick an ISO up to 6400. Was that gonna be enough? Would I, for instance, be able to see an individual dino fire off?
That, for one, would take some very high magnification, but the microscope was probably out. I can’t say for sure even after my experiments, but it appears that the illumination might be exhausted for a short while after a burst, and the agitation of getting one onto a slide might well be enough – even using the pipette very gently, I could always see them glowing while traveling up the tube is if was dark enough. While within the orb, the amount of space for the dinos to float in would mean most of them being well out of focus. So what I needed was a very narrow space – still with good visibility.
My solution was a new macro aquarium, made by sandwiching two pieces of clear acrylic together and then cutting them into a U shape, as seen here. This made a 4mm thick spacer, which would go between two more sheets of ‘full’ size, making a deep narrow trough to put water in. The back was the same acrylic, but for the front I used just a piece of glass from a 4×6″ photo frame from a discount store; acrylic is terrible about scratches and cloudiness, and that’s okay for the back surface but the front should be clearer. This is just a larger version of one that I made with slide glass many years ago. Provided that you have the materials and, like, a motor tool with a few different heads for that shaping, this doesn’t take too long. Everything was put together with cyanoacrylate (“super glue”) because the surfaces were all clean and flat. The seams proved to be perfectly waterproof, so then I was ready to wait until nightfall for the experiments.
Why night, you ask? Ah, you didn’t go to that link on the species name, did you? Dinoflagellates will only illuminate at night, governed by their circadian rhythms, so just getting into a dark place wouldn’t work (which may explain why my experiments with an aquarium filled with lagoon water in Florida failed.) I gently transferred some water into my mini aquarium with a pipette, then set up the camera rig.
I did several experiments to see what would work best. I wanted as much light as possible, so the reversed Sigma 28-105 (permanently set to f16) was out. I pulled out my old Sigma 105mm macro, because that was an f2.8 lens with a failed aperture (so, permanently at f2.8) and also the bellows with an Olympus 50mm f1.4 attached. I used a 36mm extension tube with the Sigma, and of course the bellows was significantly extended, so both of these cut down the light transmitted, but they were necessary to get the magnification needed to see an individual dino. The image below, by the way, is a full-frame shot through the sides of the orb with the Sigma macro and extension:
… while below is a nearly-full resolution inset of the same frame:
You can tell the dinoflagellates by their little orange centers. Not sharp of course, but close enough to see if any individual fired off at least.
So how did this all work?
Well, we’ve established that the brief burst of light can be captured on video, at least, though whether this will be possible at a high-enough magnification to see more detail than this is still in question. They need to be agitated to illuminate, so that generally means movement because my insulting their mothers hasn’t worked yet. So even if I have one pinned in the center of the frame in focus (which is what I was hoping for here,) the act of disturbing the water drives them out of the frame. There remains a chance that I could get one on a slide without exhausting its lighting ability (and I’m not even sure this is a limiting factor,) and then tapping the stage; I’m not holding my breath, but it might work. I may also try driving them down a clear plastic tube. But since I’ve been meaning to get this together for months now, I did at least make some progress on a project this winter, as well as preparing two macro aquariums (you have yet to see the other) for future uses. So there’s that.
* ADDENDUM: I linked to a source above, likely the one I received, but bioluminescent dinoflagellates are available from other sources not anywhere near as expensive. For instance, Carolina Biological Supply offers a living culture in comparable quantity for only $8.95 plus shipping (which is slightly pricey because these are biological specimens and have to ship 2nd Day or less.) Still, that’s a lot less than the above link, though you admittedly don’t get the classy orb and octopus stand. CBS is just down the road from me here, so I can just drive over for a new batch.
Ah, that’s the question, isn’t it? It’s taken a lot of prep work so far, and initial experiments have proven that the concept is sound, but will it pay off? We won’t know until at least tonight, possibly later.
At least none of the prep work will be wasted if the experiment fails, since it can all be used elsewhere. And it hasn’t cost me anything, except reducing my stock of adhesives slightly; all other materials were already on hand.
The experiment itself will provide at least a couple of answers, even if it’s, “You only have one shot every hour,” or, “You’re going to need more sensitivity than this.” I’ve already ruled out one lens, and in fact dug out an old, failed lens because of a specific trait.
Am I going to tell you what this is? Of course not – that would ruin the surprise if it does work. If you think waiting for a subsequent post is frustrating or something, bear in mind I’ve been meaning to get to this for well over a year, and in fact an initial image has been sitting in the blog folder since, let’s see… damn, it’s dated April 12, 2020! So, longer than I thought. Most of that is, of course, simply saying to myself that I’ll tackle it later on when it’s slow, but a little time here and there was spent hashing out methods in my head. Last night I finally made a few tries, and you may see the video shortly.
But anyway, something’s coming, though I yet don’t know exactly what.
We open with a shot from 2005, of Looking Glass Falls in Brevard, in the top two of familiar waterfalls in North Carolina. But this one isn’t the ‘best’ that I got while there, because I certainly got a lot closer, and did longer exposures to make the water all blurred and cottony, and all that. Instead, this was to illustrate the public access areas, as well as showing what was produced by Fuji Provia slide film in those conditions – which is admittedly different from the following comparison shot. Normally I got much better color than this, so I don’t know if this was a bad batch, or older, or got a little too heated in my bag, or what, but it’s not impressive in any way. Though while we’re here, we’ll take a look at where the overlook is (the splash of blue helps you to realize how far down it goes,) because this was shot from the roadside; there’s no parking ‘lot’ for the area because there wasn’t the room or the topography for anything that size, but the road had been significantly widened to allow roadside parking well down from here, and it was often pretty close to capacity. You also can’t really tell from this shot, but access outside of the railed viewing area is easy, and getting down to water level (and even right underneath the falls) is trivial to accomplish, so perhaps a quarter of those visiting, myself included, got down for different perspectives.
Look down to the lower right, where a crisscross of small trees is silhouetted against brighter background: that’s a very large fallen trunk right there, extending well out over the shallow creek leading from the foot of the falls.
Now we go a little more recent.
This came from 2017, actually the day of the total solar eclipse, just not at all during the eclipse. We were traveling south to get into the path of totality, and since we were passing, we had to stop. Deep haze and a different time of day changed the lighting conditions, but you’ll note that there are four times as many people here now. No, wait, you won’t, because I purposefully got down well away from where they might intrude, and waited until the family playing on the rocks near the falls (about midframe) got out of view. The overlook is just a little outside of the frame to the left, and I’m shooting from the end of that fallen trunk that I mentioned above, still there twelve years later. Now chasing the fartsy thing, I closed down the aperture to ensure that I’d get a longer exposure, in this case 0.6 seconds – not terribly long, but easily enough to blur the very active water, while also not giving others too much time to get into the frame again.
This doesn’t really illustrate the difference in slide film and digital, because I’ve gotten much better results from Provia than this, nor the improvements that I’ve made over the years, because I had done better images than the first even on that same day. But what it does illustrate is the difference between a snapshot and a scenic landscape, one able to be made into a large print for your walls (like the meter-wide canvas right over my desk here at Walkabout Studios.) Slightly more effort to get a good perspective, a little selective framing, a little patience to allow people to get out of the frame, and just a wee bit of knowledge of how to make the water more interesting – that’s all. The viewer has no impression of the incessant chattering of tourists off to the left, interspersed with the squeals and cries of the kids, and no sight of the various people traipsing through the waters. It’s all a lie, is what I’m saying, but one of those good lies…
[It’s not all a lie, really: the smells that you might be imagining, the feel of the humidity and even the spray in the air, the tricky footing underneath – those were all present and accurate to the image. Just not the implied seclusion.]
Did a quick pass around the nearby pond today, more to get out while the weather was actually pleasant than to chase photo subjects because the light was far from ideal, but I wasn’t so pathetic that I failed to take the camera. So when the little buff female mallard (Anas platyrhynchos) cruised by, I snagged a few frames, including a lovely portrait.
Of all the various summer residents that the pond has had, I’m kind of glad this one chose to stick around, because I like her coloration.
There was also a great blue heron (Ardea herodias) that could be found, like usual, but spooky enough not to allow too close of an approach.
Earlier, The Girlfriend and I had spotted it sitting low in the water like a duck, which I’ve never seen before. I never thought they swam at all, and certainly don’t have the legs or feet for it, but I’ve also never seen them wading that deep, so I can’t say either way. It wasn’t far enough out into the water to preclude a deep wading session, but I’ve never determined actual depth in most areas of the pond either. By the time we got closer (losing sight among trees as we did so,) it had gotten back to typical shoreline behavior as seen above. I had only taken the Canon 100-300 L along this time, for a light kit, and it didn’t quite peg focus too tightly, so this is what we have.
Meanwhile, the evidence of the beaver activity continues to grow.
A couple weeks back i had determined there were at least two North American beavers (Castor canadensis) by spotting one and hearing the warning slap of another while checking out the pond at about 1 AM. And then the overnight temperatures became too cold to merit staking out locations, especially with my sinuses. Last night it had actually been warm enough, but I never thought to check and immersed myself in the previous post and podcast anyway; by the time I realized how warm it was, it was far too late to begin a session.
But this afternoon, what I did find was where the lodge was. Probably.
I’ve never found one of the mid-pond lodges like most people imagine, instead noticing (in this immediate region anyway) that beavers have always made their lodges alongside tree roots in the banks of ponds or streams. My friend, one of the residents around the pond, suspected that the beavers were using the little island, and finding this just about confirmed it. Those are all beaver-cut logs and branches, and were certainly not there a couple of weeks ago, nor are they underneath any noticeable cut trees; I suspect that the entrance is just at the base of the larger roots towards the right.
Given that the temperature tonight was holding at a lovely 18°c, I decided to give it a shot, and this time The Girlfriend came along, hoping to catch a glimpse. I had coached her a little on using the reflections of the residents’ lights on the water to watch for ripples, to point towards a silent beaver cruising past while keeping the headlamps off, and so we sat down in a likely location and waited. There were a few false alarms, and twice the rain started very halfheartedly and gave up, about like my efforts to learn touch-typing. Then The Girlfriend directed my attention to some tiny, sporadic reflections on the opposite shore, ones that really shouldn’t have been there, and we became pretty sure the beavers were up on the bank there. I fired off a few test shots at extreme range, a measured 80 meters from our location (Google Earth is handy,) and got what was likely some eye reflections. Then we started circling the pond to get closer.
We were still about 20 meters from where we’d seen the reflections when the faint shadows of ripples crossing the reflection of the sky could be seen, and I used that for focusing and fired off a couple of frames, with the Vivitar 285HV flash at full power, the Tamron 150-600 at 400mm, and ISO set for 6400 – not ideal, but I was trying to make the most out of the light output. It worked well enough.
That’s the head to the left, with the ruby reflection from one eye, and the body stretches just past mid-frame; obviously we caught someone taking food back to the lodge. Beavers use the larger limbs for building and damming material, often stripping off the tasty bark, and the smaller branches serve as food. Later on, as the new saplings appear and the pond plants start sprouting, they’ll switch to those because they’re more palatable, but beavers are strictly herbivorous; anyone that says they should be removed because of damage to the fish populations is talking out of their ass.
We kept advancing towards where The Girlfriend had spotted the reflections, going slowly because we didn’t know how many there might have been, but afraid that we’d already spooked away the only one. The spot was empty, though we found the newly-cut limb right alongside some wet spots on the trunk, so we knew right where it had been. But then, just before giving up to head home, we saw the ripples again, and they were close.
The bulk of the flash unit atop the camera makes it really hard to use a headlamp as an aiming and focusing guide at night, and I eventually tore it off and handed it to The Girlfriend so she could do the spotlighting, but it was more than enough to peg focus and framing. What it didn’t reveal, however, were the numerous small twigs that sat between me and the beaver, not illuminated by the headlamp. The flash got them, though.
I chimped at the frame, cursed, and shifted position before the beaver decided to dive. Full credit to this one, and to the species in general: out in open water, they often don’t feel threatened and will let their curiosity get the better of them. This one actually turned around after passing and paused, fully illuminated by the strong beam of the headlamp, and I fired off another frame, this time free of those damn twigs.
Granted, this was only 8-10 meters distant now, and the flash can cover that distance. I’d love not to have to use ISO 6400, but we may just have to see what happens later on.
This is not quite full-frame, by the way, cropped only horizontally – the original was a little wider than this. But right now, I’m good with it – it’s probably the best detail that I’ve gotten out of any beaver pics. So far, anyway – I’m aiming for better, especially if I can get one on shore, and an ‘action’ shot would be ideal. They are, occasionally, still out at first light, so perhaps I’ll try again some morning. The temperature is forecast to plummet again, but I don’t think these two (?) are going anywhere soon, and some young may be popping up come spring. We’ll just have to see what happens.
[As a throwback to the early days, I did this one as a podcast too, so you can hear the audio of it immediately below. But if sounds like a long-overdue brake job bother you, you can simply read the text version.]
Walkabout podcast – But How? part 30: Responsibility
This is one that I’ve touched on here and there before, but I was reminded of it while watching Julia Sweeney’s Letting Go Of god (they capitalize it differently, those sillies.) As a small aside, I can certainly recommend the video, and seeing her realizations develop over time is captivating, but I don’t feel compelled to comment upon it too much; like Richard Dawkins’ The god Delusion, I’m in total agreement, so much so that there are no insights therein that I want to highlight, because the path to godlessness is surprisingly consistent – things just don’t make sense any other way, and the evidence for creation and/or supernaturality is totally lacking. We have religion only through cultural pressure, and not because it works in any way.
So, instead of answering any questions here, I point out something that is never recognized by the religious, never examined or considered, which is personal responsibility. Sweeney was struck by it when first considering that perhaps there was no god, and realizing that, for instance, all of the people wrongfully imprisoned or suffering from circumstance, those that prayed desperately for deliverance or help, actually had no one looking out for them at all. Initially, this is a depressing and dire thought, especially when considered against an alternative that a god is capable of changing this somehow, and the very idea is so anathema to the religious that they, at the very least, often credit atheism as being distasteful and cruel. Taking away hope like that!
Which, naturally, has no impact on the facts regardless. How we feel about something is the last thing we should resort to in deciding if it’s true or not, and just about everyone knows someone who should have learned that lesson a long time ago, often about relationships or major purchases. More to the point, the ‘hopeless’ perspective only comes about because we, as a species, spend so much time fostering the idea that there is a magic sky daddy that can come to the rescue (change details as necessary.) The problem is not that anyone has taken away hope – the problem is that we’ve insisted that there is someone or something magical that can jump in when needed.
It’s easy to imagine that, in circumstances where ‘hope is all someone has,’ that denying this is being cruel; let them have a bit of fantasy, a vestige of optimism, and so on. And there is admittedly some merit to not introducing further elements of depression or despair to someone that is already having a tough time. Such situations tend to be few and far between, however, and even doctors are straightforward when the prognosis is not good, because they’ve found that solid information, no matter how unwanted, is much better than facile fiction. People may insist that they don’t want to know when they’re going to die, but the foreknowledge of such also gives them time to do the things that they want, or feel obligated to: taking final trips, getting affairs in order, reconciling with loved ones, and so on. Moreover, living one’s life in full recognition of how things are is not just easier, it means that we’re able to face adversity much better. We do not view misfortune as judgment or failure or even abandonment, we do not cling to desperation that a ‘loving god’ won’t really let this happen (or try to invent rationales over why it does,) we simply accept it as circumstance – we may not like such circumstance, but we don’t resent it as if it was a conscious decision of someone else. Perspective does count for a lot when it comes to mental outlook.
One of the common denominators among the new atheists is the recognition of how much they were told, were assured, were impressed with from religious sources, that turned out to be nonsense, often outright lies. People really resent misinformation, and this too may come on top of whatever adversity they were undergoing. In many cases, it’s actually condescending, because what it subconsciously says is that I may know what’s real, but you can’t handle it. While it can be argued that most religious people really believe in the power of prayer and so on, ask them how often such prayers are answered, how often they really work. Watching all the hedging and dodging is quite fun, but revealing in itself; no matter how often someone might urge prayer as a useful action, they know it’s hardly dependable.
Further along those lines is what affect this reliance on spiritual intervention has on those that believe it. It has often been pointed out (from reputable sources, i.e., actual scientific studies) that religion flourishes in the more impoverished and stricken regions of the country or the world, and we’ll leave the chicken-or-egg arguments for someone else. Again, there’s this hope aspect, but there’s also the aspect that someone else is taking care of things, and even that this is the way things are meant to be. That leads to nothing but complacency, and a completely guilt-free sense of it as well. Some may resort to the argument that prayer and/or waiting on godly influence is harmless, but this is true only if there are no other options. To settle on prayer instead of, for instance, donating money, time, or materiel, or fostering legislation, or really, any other beneficial actions at all, is not just incredibly self-absorbed, it’s this placebo taken in abject dismissal of positive action. Donating just one dime, ten lousy cents, to any cause beats prayer every time, because there is never any time when those ten cents doesn’t work, never an excuse that it has no value due to ‘god’s plan,’ never an attempt to explain away the utter lack of improvement. The effect is magnified exactly as much as the amount of money/time/attention is, as well. Every time.
[People will also argue that they’re giving to good deeds through their church, which is the major selling point behind soliciting donations/tithes/etc, and this may be true – to a degree. Nearly every church that I see is in pretty damn good shape, however, and in many cases, the staff attached to them are amazingly well off – funny, they don’t seem to believe that god provides. But okay, I’m sure the middleman serves a purpose, so I’m happy to help out in the same manner, and you can donate to me instead, because I have no overhead in the form of meeting places and landscaping and all that. I’ll see that the money goes to a good place. If the thought of that makes you suspicious, good – you get it. Now apply that same critical thinking without bias, or lame excuses.]
I’ve pointed out, too, that the idea of a supernatural overseer can potentially have dire consequences when it comes to responsibility for the bigger things, like taking care of our planet. President Reagan made it clear, multiple times, that he believed in Armageddon, and his environmental policies reflected that in spades; why bother trying to protect something that will be destroyed in a few years anyway? He’s gone now, but we’re still here, well beyond the time that he (and every self-proclaimed prophet) thought that we’d be done, and we – and our descendants – have to live with the wanton disregard towards sustainable resources and, really, cleaning up our own messes. Which is something that I was taught to do at an early age, but I can’t vouch for how ineffective any else’s parents might have been. Considering the opposing position for the sake of argument, I still would have thought that any god might bear some judgment on how well we’re able to take care of ourselves, and show consideration for others, and bear that same responsibility that my parents, at least, tried to instill, rather than sitting back and believing that it’s all under control, so why bother? It’s a bit like Pascal’s Wager, only if Pascal wasn’t aiming to justify pre-existing beliefs. If we take personal responsibility, assuming that we’re the sole proprietors of our lives and nothing will happen if we don’t make it happen, and there really is no god, then we’ve covered our asses and done everything that we could. And if there is a god, can we imagine that it would look unfavorably on such actions? Does anyone out there really believe in a god that would encourage complacency and selfishness? I certainly haven’t found a religion yet that espouses this, but too often you cannot tell this from the practitioners…
There’s also this very subtle aspect, that once we receive the (self-appointed) label of ‘good,’ then we’ve fulfilled our natural obligation and have no need to establish further ‘proof’ or maintain such a thing – there are, of course, no requirements or tests to becoming religious in the first place, so it’s an instant, effortless boost in status. But people cannot be ‘good’ or ‘bad’ – we’re all a mix of emotions and motivations and justifications, and such labels are a judgment call anyway, a matter of perspective. Actions, however, can be beneficial or detrimental; moreover, they tend not to lead towards a ‘once-and-done’ method of establishing status. Most people would be (rightfully) embarrassed by admitting that they performed this one good action five years ago…
I don’t think most religious people have consciously decided to be this way, and imagine most believe that they’re doing good in their own ways; it’s just the subconscious idea that some being can make things right (because, as we’re so often told, this being is nothing but good,) that fosters an idea that we all have backup. That’s part of what I do here: bring the subconscious, or assumed, or never-quite-logically-considered items out in the open to be examined. If we are to believe that there’s a supernatural entity that can correct our flaws or protect us from terrible events, we should be asking where it was during the Holocaust, the crusades, the countless purges (some of them perpetrated by, as we are so often reminded, those godless regimes,) the three centuries of witch hunts, the slave trade, the plagues, and so on and so forth – really, if you want a complete list it’ll take me a couple of days. And I think it’s safe to say that everyone involved did not somehow forget ‘the power of prayer.’ But then, we think that suddenly, notice will be taken when we get COVID, or some such triviality? How many ways can someone handwave away all the counter-evidence before they admit that we’re really on our own, and what we have is only what we make of it?
Further, when we see desperate situations in the world, they were never ‘meant to be,’ they are not ‘deserved,’ and no supernatural beings are going to set things right – we can’t distance ourselves with the idea that it’s not our responsibility, because it surer than hell isn’t anyone else’s.
Along these same lines, I’ll also suggest the post Bigger stakes than that, which highlights the oft-ignored aspect of consequence.
We’re going to go a little backwards on this one. We start off with a time exposure from August 17th, 1989, and despite it being on a negative with no date stamp, I can be this precise because it was taken following a total lunar eclipse, and I already knew the year and season. If I was really slick, I could give you a decent time too, because I know the precise location and the shadows from the moon will indicate where the moon was in the sky. I’m going to wing it, though, and say about 2 AM. The lights are from at least one big rig, but I think it was two, passing through the frame as the shutter was locked open, and despite the slight clutter from the other elements, the framing couldn’t have been much better.
But this image, an idle experiment while finishing off the roll, illustrated not only how cool time exposures could be, but how much light the full moon actually throws down, and that it’s not ‘blue’ as we imagine it. The original print received from the lab had been lightened more than this and appeared to be full daylight, but on examining the negative and ‘default’ exposures, I determined that it wasn’t quite that bright, and this is closer to the mark. It’s also the very first print that I had enlarged for display, and come the digital age, I made sure that it was scanned meticulously (actually, multiple times,) and archived – I’m not losing this one.
All this was with a borrowed SLR camera in the very early days of my photography – what I possessed then was my Wittnauer Challenger, a rangefinder with a fixed 50mm lens. But it was the start of a faint obsession with long exposures, moonlight, and light trails. So how has this progressed? Let’s take a look at perhaps my best version since then.
Nicely surreal, but honestly, no match for the first – I’ve never even done something comparable, much less exceeded that accidental effort so long ago. I admittedly don’t try too often, because the conditions have to be right, and I know that happenstance and luck contributed a lot to the initial image up there. This time around it was March 2000, on the edge of I-295 outside Jacksonville, Florida, the return leg of a trip through the state dedicated to photography. I saw the full moon glowing orange low over the highway and quickly pulled to the side of the road, set up the tripod, and waited for another truck. The very odd set of bars in mid-frame comes from a string of lights attached to the back of the cab, visible only briefly before the advancing trailer blocked the view again, while the uppermost lights came from the back of the trailer, indicating that I closed the shutter before the truck had gotten too far down the road. The moon was of course too low to illuminate the landscape (not to mention facing directly into it,) but this time I used it as an element instead, and the exposure was notably shorter; I can’t even go on memory for either, but from what I know about exposure now, I’d say the latter one was no more than ten seconds while the former definitely exceeded thirty, possibly a full minute or so.
I would have expected to have surpassed the quality of the first sometime well before 32 years had passed, but it’s never happened yet, and I have indeed tried several times. Really, getting a good location is a little more challenging than you might imagine, and the right vehicles in the frame count for a lot. But it also serves as a reminder that, in unknown locations throughout my stock, I probably have the best photos that I’m ever going to get of any particular subject. That’s not a good way to look at things really, and I’m always aiming to improve, well, everything. When (if) I beat that image up top, you’ll definitely see it here.
Not among different races or cultures of people, of course – that’s just stupid, a sign of hopeless immaturity, actually. But among certain substances, it can be quite useful. Like among oil and water.
That’s what we’re looking at here of course, small droplets of vegetable oil in a shallow glass pan of water. That’s because today (the fifth Monday in January) is Household Ingredients Day, when photographers are obligated to screw around with whatever’s handy to create something fartsy. Or at least try. Fart is in the eye of the beholder, naturally, and all I can do is show you want I got. Then when you’re done giggling, you can look at the images here and judge them for yourself, but of course you’re going to decide favorably, because I already know you have excellent taste.
This is also a bit of a callback to the second monthly abstract, before this was actually a thing, because I’ve been wanting to play around with such things a little more, and the lack of a January abstract (and the holiday of course) was a decent excuse. Initially, I experimented with soap bubbles, and got some promising concepts but nothing that was particularly strong, so I cleaned that out of the pan and went with the oil and water.
I also played around with having different images displayed on a tablet underneath the pan, but these were too close to produce a good effect – the distance should be more than a centimeter or so, to allow the oil drops to act as lenses. So what we have here is actually a CD, illuminated by a strong flashlight at an angle to get some of the rainbow diffraction to show up. The spheres are overlapping a bit because some of them are probably air, since I vigorously stirred up the water to make the droplets as small as possible. I have a Manfrotto 3021BPro tripod, which allows the center column to be removed and mounted sideways, so the camera could be positioned directly over my work surface, in this case the black glass of the range top. Initially, I was using the Sigma 28-105, but the working distance was right on the fine edge and the zoom was creeping from the camera facing almost straight down, so I switched to the Mamiya 80mm Macro with extension tube. Most of these are shot at f4 because depth isn’t really necessary for this.
The angle of the flashlight was crucial for the various effects, and being close to aiming directly down from alongside the camera seemed to give better diffraction from the CD and sharper contrast, though for a couple of these images I boosted that slightly, because GIMP is a household ingredient too.
I recommend letting the pan sit undisturbed for a while, to eliminate the residual motion of the water and let the smaller air bubbles combine and surface, but don’t hesitate to experiment with the motion if you like, as well as shifted focus and perhaps even other substances, especially with color; oil in a very shallow layer of red wine, perhaps. Go nuts. My next attempt may be water or glycerin drops atop a glass sheet suspended much higher above… I dunno, something colorful and dynamic, perhaps a print, perhaps a collection of marbles, who knows?
[I’ve never tried the stuff yet, but glycerin is supposed to bead better and not evaporate, and is often used as ‘sweat’ or ‘dew in photography and videography, so give it a try if you like. But this time, only if you have it handy already, because the holiday doesn’t allow purchasing extra props or materials.]
The funny thing is, these are very two-dimensional, flat images since the droplets are all at the water surface, but the differing sizes and contrast kind of disguises that in some of the images, doesn’t it? As yet, I haven’t figured out a way to make it more three-dimensional easily, save for using spider webs like here, and that required one of those spiders that spin haphazard, messy webs – not something that I’m likely to find right now.
Anyway, experiment away today, because it’s required by law if you own a camera and I’d hate for you to do jail time, but I’m also a snitch and I’m not covering for your ass. I mean, we both know you’re not gonna top these, yet it’s only mandated that you try, and it’s a good learning experience anyway. Have fun!
A few years back now, I received a very appropriate gift from The Girlfriend’s Sprog, in the form of a ‘
My solution was a new macro aquarium, made by sandwiching two pieces of clear acrylic together and then cutting them into a U shape, as seen here. This made a 4mm thick spacer, which would go between two more sheets of ‘full’ size, making a deep narrow trough to put water in. The back was the same acrylic, but for the front I used just a piece of glass from a 4×6″ photo frame from a discount store; acrylic is terrible about scratches and cloudiness, and that’s okay for the back surface but the front should be clearer. This is just a larger version of 
Why night, you ask? Ah, you didn’t go to that link on the species name, did you? Dinoflagellates will only illuminate at night, governed by their circadian rhythms, so just getting into a dark place wouldn’t work (which may explain why my experiments with an aquarium filled with lagoon water in Florida failed.) I gently transferred some water into my mini aquarium with a pipette, then set up the camera rig.
