Just a quick one here. I discovered this little lady Thursday night, after the rains had started, sitting up under the overhang of the porch endeavoring to remain dry. The rain continued all day Friday and she stayed in place the way the ground slopes down in the back yard, she was close to three meters over my head, so I had little choice in shooting angles and
Tag: Chinese mantis
Looking back, part five
This is the last of the ‘Looking back’ posts – calm down, calm down, you knew it had to end – because I’m considering myself caught up now these pics were taken the day before the first in the series. But now that we’ve gotten a little space and variety
Looking back, part one
In the past week, I shot about 600 images in four sessions or so, which partially explains the lack of posts. So we’ll play catch-up over a couple of days, and in the process see the difference in approach used, depending on the subject and circumstances.
For instance, in meetings with students, most times I’m not shooting at all, concentrating instead on instruction. However, in some
Too cool, part 28: Wholly molty!
Seriously, I really need to stop doing titles like that…
This is going to be the longest post on the blog. Not in terms of words, but in terms of images, since I am going to show a long sequence from the other evening, and they’re nearly all vertical format, so the linear dimensions of the post are going to be exceptional. This may result in some gaps between text blocks, so please excuse
Let’s check back with the mantids
Gosh, it’s been, what, six whole hours since I’ve posted anything about the resident mantids? I cannot apologize enough – I know how you must feel.
Okay, it’s been a bit longer than that, and in fact, this first image was taken nine days ago and not posted then. [See what I did there? I prefaced with hyperbole and followed with a contrasting statement, and now another
Just some morning pics
Most of the time recently, the skies are so clear at sunrise that they’re boring, lacking in rich colors and clouds to throw some textures into the mix. But this morning looked like it was going to be different, so I trotted over to the pond to see what would develop as the sun came into view. While the sky did not quite produce the qualities that I was hoping for, I received the cooperation
Value pack
So, yeah, it’s been a little longer than I intended to go between posts – the idea of having two Monday colors back-to-back is, I admit, additional motivation to get something up. I wanted to say that it’s a good thing I’m not paid for this, but that’s not exactly true getting paid for posting would be quite nice, actually. It’s
Chow’s on!
A couple of posts ago I mentioned coming back with more photos that followed the rains, and will repeat the warning here: this post is not just icky insects, but icky insects doing icky things.
The mantises have been growing at a noticeable rate, even though it varies among the many I can find. The ones on the Japanese maple tree seem to be finding the most food, and in some cases, it’s not
Call it a plus
And then, the rains did come.
After making that last post early in the morning and going to bed, I was awoken by another storm, this one centered right overhead – at least, if the explosion of thunder that loosened my fillings was any indication. This one brought rain with it, a good soaking, so I’m no longer conflicted.
I have not been neglecting my arthropod subjects, even though I’m
Monday color 19
This has appeared before, but it remains a nice color image so I’m using it again. Plus it has callback value!
The surreal effect was generated by shooting in natural light at f4, which produced an extremely short depth-of-field that let most of the frame go into soft focus while only a few portions of the subject stayed sharp. But there’s another detail to the effect that is visible