Illustration and editorial

The photos in this post were all taken during a brief outing to the NC Botanical Garden back in late April – I was planning to do a detailed post, with a lot more images, and just never got on top of it. So I’m simply going to feature one aspect here. This male southeastern five-lined skink (Plestiodon inexpectatus) was aware of my presence, but I held still long enough read more

We’ll start with the reptiles


Yes, I know that’s not a photo of a reptile… or, is it? Your challenge is to find the six reptiles in the frame.

All right, don’t bother, unless you’re masochistic – there are no reptiles visible in the shot. I just picked up an ultra-wide lens, a Tamron 10-24mm aspherical, and I’m showing it off because I’m quite pleased with it. The ‘aspherical’ read more

Eye eye, Captain!


Aw, c’mon! Some titles you can’t resist!

This jumping spider (genus Phidippus, perhaps a Phidippus audax) produced a great pose while I was working with it, appearing to salute with its pedipalp, or maybe shield its eyes form the sun. In reality, it was cleaning its eyes, perhaps trying to wipe away the spots in its vision from my strobes going off right in its face. read more