Or early this morning, if you prefer…
After the rains, I went out to try a few artistic photos with the water drops on the plants, but was having issues with the on-camera light I use to focus, cutting those plans short. I still had a headlamp, but it doesn’t aim well past the camera, especially not down right in front of the lens where it’s necessary for tight macro work. But while
Okay, it’s hardly the first frog of the year, but it is my first treefrog making that distinction would have ruined the aesthetic perfection of the title. I consider it significant that this one was found in almost the exact same location as the first one spotted when we
So, I was testing out a new flash attachment (not quite what I was after, but still functional) when I came across this little guy, quickly identified as an Enoplognatha ovata, but you probably said that the moment you saw it. You likely also know it’s a male, because that detail is kind of hard to miss, seeing as how it’s displayed in those boxing gloves right
The other day while doing some work on the deck I spotted a tiny spider, only a few millimeters long, and as I observed it for a moment I got this freaky focus problem while looking at its dark eyes. Having seen this before, I captured it for a quick photo session.
This is a very young magnolia green jumping spider (Lyssomanes viridis,) notable in that it is one of the few species where
Courtesy of Jim over at the Kansas branch of the blog comes this shot, taken while I have been trying to locate any resident mantis here for the last two weeks. I’m going to assume this is also a Chinese mantis (Tenodera aridifolia sinensis) having captured a white-lined sphinx moth (Hyles lineata.) Moth and butterflies are notorious for losing both
The other day I went out chasing pics again, and didn’t really snag much of merit. But while playing around with macro shots of honeysuckle flowers, I captured a few frames that illustrate a peculiar, and sometimes handy, photographic trait. It takes some explaining, so bear with me.
First, the illustration. These are two frames from almost exactly the same vantage point, with just a change
The newborn Chinese mantids have begun to disperse into different locations I have spotted them not only on the azalea bush neighboring the one they were born within, but many meters away near other flowers and on the dog fennel plants. This makes me self-conscious, because they
There’s always a tradeoff in photography, the bad that must be taken with the good. The primary one, the thing that negatively affects the greatest majority of photos, is camera movement caught by slower shutter speeds. In order to get adequate light for a good exposure, the shutter has to be open for a certain amount of time, and as this time gets longer in cases of lower
Like most of the country, we’ve been having some longer spells of cold weather, a bit lower temperatures than normal for this time of year, but Monday popped up clear, sunny, and shockingly warm, hitting about 20°c (68°f) – a new student who had been aiming for a day with good conditions to meet contacted me at the last minute, and I headed out. We met near
The weather has been spastic as all git-out, and I’ve actually postponed meetings with a couple of students because it’s been raining frequently and unpredictably, despite many meteorologist’s claims otherwise. Yesterday as the weather cleared I got out to a park that I don’t visit too often, having left early to beat the rush hour traffic, and had some time
