A Photography Addict's Showcase...

Winter macros - inside and outside...

2012-01-23T13:24:00.000-08:00

On a particularly nasty day, I gave my new iPhone macro lens (part of an "Olloclip" set of three lenses for iPhone) a try and photographed an Alstroemeria blossom up close and personal.

A couple of days later, I ventured outdoors to capture some icy, snowy macro images in my garden since the snowy mix we'd had earlier in the week hadn't melted due to two days running of cold temperatures. Clockwise from top left below: Rosemary, Camellia in bud, Vinca covered with ice and snow and a faded Hydrangea blossom encased in an ice and snow mix.

I'm posting this to Macro Monday over at Lisa's Chaos... come on over and join the fun!

Montana images... beautiful in Winter too!

2012-01-19T13:49:00.000-08:00

I went to Montana to attend a pajama party given by friends on New Year's Eve. It was great fun but I'm not posting pictures from that here! ;-) When I go to Red Lodge, I fly into Billings, rent a car and drive the ~60 miles to Red Lodge which is south-west of Billings. The first image below is from a roadside stop along route 212 between Roberts and Boyd, MT. I watched the clouds over the mountains from the time I left Billings on I-90 (no place to stop there) and finally found a "scenic" and safe stopping spot from which to shoot them.

The image below is from a favorite spot on the West Fork of Rock Creek outside of Red Lodge. Silver Run is a cross country ski trail in winter and a biking, hiking trail in summer. I go to the parking lot there every time I visit Red Lodge and am always inspired to take yet more photographs. This is the first time I've been there in winter and I experimented with my Singh Ray VND (variable neutral density) filter with this as the result. Only the fastest running part of the creek was not frozen.

I have recently created an account at iPhoneArt, one at Twitter (toryporter) and one for Instagram (also toryporter) which is a camera/uploading app for iPhone. So I am in even more overwhelm than usual but I have resolved to work out a schedule where I am blogging AT LEAST one day a week and can devote time to posting on other sites/social media services on a rotating basis as yet to be determined. I am also on Facebook, Google+ and Flickr. I think I'm in overload mode!

Holiday Greetings... Cardinal Collage and Poinsettia Images!

2011-12-27T20:52:00.000-08:00

This will most likely be my last post for 2011 since I'm expecting family tomorrow and will be visiting over the next few days with them. On Christmas Eve, I will be cooking dinner for them, myself, friends and cousins who live locally. For your viewing pleasure during the holiday season, here are a couple of Poinsettia images and a collage of cardinals... my favorites in winter! Wishing everyone a joyous holiday season and a healthy, happy new year.(wrote this on Dec 22nd, had difficulty posting but here it is finally... I'm sharing this on Macro Monday (Jan 2, 2012) over at Lisa's Chaos... come on over and join the fun!)

Close-up of a miniature Poinsettia taken with iPhone camera, sharpened and cropped with PerfectPhoto, run through AutoPainter with Aquarell effect. Photo and paint layers blended in Iris with 35% opacity for the paint layer.

Image taken with Nikon D7000 and Nikon 105mm macro lens at ISO 250, f/3.5, 1/60 sec. Sharpened using Topaz In Focus plug-in in Photoshop... AMAZING! Text added in Photoshop.

Mr. and Mrs. Cardinal on snowy winter days. (Some of you have seen these before but I just love Cardinals in winter so here they are again, freshly put together as a collage in Picnik.)

Sunrise... Sunset... Four images of sunlight on the water in Cape May, NJ

2011-12-06T09:23:00.000-08:00

I keep letting life get in the way of posting on my blog... so sorry! With the holidays fast approaching and another trip in the offing (a short one over the New Year to ring in 2012 with friends in Montana), I'll make no promises that I cannot keep!

Meanwhile, while at the Cape May, NJ photography workshop recently (with John Barclay and George Brown), I spent quite a lot of time shooting sunlight on the water during both sunrises and sunsets. These four images were captured using a Singh Ray Vari-ND filter with my Nikon D7000 (new toy) fitted with a Nikon 18-200mm lens. The diagonally opposite landscape orientation images are from sunrise on the first morning of the workshop; the other two are from sunset the same day.

Fall foliage close-up... iPhone fun!

2011-11-20T14:59:00.000-08:00

I know I've been missing for a long time... cannot believe my last post was over a month ago... there's been quite a bit of upheaval in my personal life but things are now settling down somewhat. I hope to be a better follower of your blogs and a bit more regular at posting to my own blog!

That said... I've recently been on another photography workshop... this time to Cape May, New Jersey. This image was taken with my iPhone and processed on my iPad. I hope you enjoy the luscious colors as much as I do. :-)

I'll be posting it to Macro Monday over at Lisa's Chaos... come on over and join the fun! And if you have the time, you might like to visit my vacation blog where I've posted quite a few images from the Cape May workshop led by John Barclay and George Brown.

Scenic Colorado... what a marvelous place to be in the fall...

2011-10-16T16:43:00.000-07:00

Just a quick post of one of my favorite landscape images from the Colorado photography tour mentioned in my previous post. And Dutchbaby, if you are listening, check my vacation blog (all others are welcome too) if you want to see more about taking pictures with an iPhone and the apps I used.

This image was taken with a Nikon D90 and a Nikkor 18-200mm lens; three bracketed exposures were combined with Nik HDR Efex Pro. It will most likely be included in my upcoming gallery show (for which I've been frantically preparing since my return from out west) that opens November 5, 2011 at Photoworks of Glen Echo Park. I will be one of three photographers featured in the show.

Something new and different from me... iPhone photos!

2011-10-07T14:30:00.000-07:00

I recently attended a six-day photography workshop shooting fall color in Colorado. It was led by John Barclay and Dan Sniffin and was an absolutely fantastic experience. My brain has been filled to overflowing with new ways of looking at a scene in terms of how to shoot it. In addition, learning about a few applications (apps) for shooting and processing images on the iPhone has been mind-blowing in terms of getting me to think more creatively about presentation of images.

The two images in this collage were both taken with an iPhone 4g. (Please view full size of each using links in the following sentences; including in a collage meant cropping part of each of the images to fit the collage template.) The one on the left was taken with the HDR feature of the Camera app supplied by Apple and available on all iPhones. The one on the right was taken using a program called BracketMode (available for a small fee from the Apple App Store) that takes two exposures, one that is exposed properly for the dark areas of the image and one that is exposed properly for the light areas of the image. The two exposures were then merged using the Pro HDR app to get the final result.

(Note to self... learn how to make my own collage templates to display things as I want them displayed!) Note to readers: I've been home briefly for two days after having been away for three weeks. I am away again to visit family in nearby Pennsylvania for the weekend. I'll be back online properly next week and will visit blogs then.

Clouded Sulphur butterfly on Spotted Knapweed... Montana!

2011-09-19T09:48:00.000-07:00

Thought I'd post this collage today just so folks don't think I've dropped off the face of the earth while I'm traveling out west. I will get around to blogs eventually but am slower than usual while on travel.

I'm traveling light which means I do not have my macro lens with me. These images were taken with a 70-300mm Nikon telephoto lens (leftover from my film camera that works perfectly fine on my Nikon D90). The image on the left was taken at 300mm while standing about 10 feet away from the action. The other two were taken with the same lens from the same distance but using a 1.4x tele-converter to get closer to the action. I rather like how these turned out, especially since shooting from further away meant that the butterflies weren't disturbed by my presence!

I'll be posting this to Macro Monday over at Lisa's Chaos... come on over and join the fun! If you'd like to view the collage up closer, click on the image. The images on the left, middle and right are also available to view large if you want to have a closer look.

Experiment with Vari-ND filter... western exposure!

2011-09-16T20:54:00.000-07:00

I'm currently in Red Lodge, Montana and will soon be in Colorado for a photography workshop shooting fall color in the Rockies. A Vari-ND filter is one piece of equipment that it was recommended we bring with us to the photography workshop. Since I've never used one before, it seemed to make sense to spend some time learning a bit about it before the workshop.

The image below shows two shots of the same scene (camera moved a bit so the images aren't exactly identical). Compare the water appearance in the two photos and you will be able to see the difference between shooting with (on the right) and without (on the left) a Vari-ND filter. I have much more to learn about using this filter but wanted to share these images with you and let you know that I'm mostly away from blogging while traveling in the wild west.

This is the West Fork of Rock Creek as seen from under the bridge at the entry to the parking lot for the Silver Run hiking trail. I was balancing my tripod on rocks and myself as well so was having trouble keeping the exact same scene in my viewfinder.

Wildflowers of Sweden's alpine region... help with ID on two if you can...

2011-08-29T08:31:00.000-07:00

It seems my notes weren't as complete as I'd thought... I know the Common Yellow Violet and the Forget-me-not... but I do not know the two flowers on the right side of the collage (see ADDENDUM below for update on one of the unknowns). Click the collage for larger view; for the two unknowns, a closer view of the top right and/or bottom right may help with an ID if you think you know either of them. And if you do, please advise! And thanks for looking. I will be traveling soon and may find it difficult to post while on travel. In the meantime, this is my post for Macro Monday over at Lisa's Chaos... come on over and join the fun!

ADDENDUM: As montucky pointed out, this looks like Bunchberry dogwood (Cornus canadensis) and is, in fact, its sister species, the Swedish Cornel (Cornus suecica). According to one reference I found, "both have flowers that bloom explosively." And if you thought it looked like a dogwood blossom, you won't be surprised to know that this tiny shrub is a member of the dogwood family.

Backyard Birds... Spring and Summer, 2011

2011-08-24T18:21:00.000-07:00

Hope I make the deadline for World Bird Wednesday... whether or not I do, you should check it out! Feel free to click the collages to see a larger image of each.

Female Cardinal wondering what I'm doing; male Cardinal escaping from the deck and male House Finch posing.

Female (or young?) House Sparrow doing who knows what... have never seen such a pose! I put out some bread crumbs and blueberries on the table outside... the Sparrows didn't know what to make of the blueberries and left them behind when eating the breadcrumbs... I'm not sure which of the many birds visiting my garden finally ate the blueberries. Maybe a bluejay! In the last image, I imagine the sparrow is yelling to come and get it before he eats all of it!

Hoverfly approaching wildflower... whirr of wings... Sweden, 2011.

2011-08-21T21:11:00.000-07:00

Oh dear... it's very late in the evening, or early in the morning... and I just realized I need a post for Macro Monday over at Lisa's Chaos... so here you go! If you haven't stopped by yet to check out the lovely macro images, do stop by and have a look.

This is an image from our visit to the Västerbottens open air museum in Gammlia, Umeå, Sweden. If you'd like to read more about that visit, please check my vacation blog. As for this image, I just happened to wander over to some lovely flowers for a closer look and spotted the hoverfly... I've never managed to capture one 'on the move' before so hope you like this!

Busy bee on wildflower... High Coast of Sweden, 2011.

2011-08-14T17:42:00.000-07:00

Still wading through images from my trip to Sweden in mid-June... posted another day of travel on my other blog if you want to have a look. In the meantime, here are a couple of bumble-bee images from our visit to the High Coast area of Sweden. This bee is different from our bumble-bees here in the US and I don't know the wildflower either!

Busy Bumble-bee on unknown wildflower.

Busy Bumble-bee heading off to visit somewhere else...

I'll be posting this to Macro Monday over at Lisa's Chaos... come on over and join the fun!

Sharp-shinned Hawk revisited... from the winter of 2011.

2011-08-09T10:19:00.000-07:00

In March, as some of you may recall, I posted a single image from a series of images captured while photographing a Sharp-shinned Hawk perched in a neighbor's silver maple. He was EXTREMELY interested in the House Sparrows that he could see and hear cheeping in fear while 'hiding' down below him in the brambles of a wild rose bush that is about 10 feet in diameter and over 7 feet tall. The sparrows were either gathered on the ground or perched on the lowest limbs of the rose bush and were inaccessible as far as the raptor was concerned.

I was having breakfast when I spotted him on a cold day in March so I grabbed my camera and dashed outside, hoping to not spook him. He was clearly more interested in the sparrows than any silly photographer and I snapped pictures until I nearly froze because I'd run out without putting on a coat or gloves! While revisiting these images the other day, it occurred to me that some of them tell a story so here you go.

Is this my best side?

Or is this?

OK, I can hear the sparrows... but where are they?

What? Those sparrows are hiding in the rose brambles???

That's too bad... I think I'll see what's on the other side of the garden.

Aren't you tired of taking pictures yet?!

Between the previous perch and this one, he landed within 10 feet of me on the fence... I don't know who was more surprised between the two of us... the hawk or me! He didn't stay long here and by the time he landed here, I'd been out for 20 minutes or more in freezing cold so was finished taking pictures anyway!

I'll be posting this to World Bird Wednesday later on... if you haven't found your way there yet, do drop by and have a look!

A Mystery Flower from travels in northern Sweden - 2011

2011-08-07T15:41:00.000-07:00

In the category of you can please some of the people some of the time but you cannot please all of the people all of the time... at least one of you expressed appreciation for my images being posted full size rather than the smaller size used for the previous post. And although I quite agree, I am going to continue posting smaller size because people using an iPad to view my images won't see the larger ones properly.

I appreciate the suggestions I've received about Google's blog code doing things automatically... but I hacked the template I'm using now when I first started writing my blogs because NONE of the templates worked to display the images 'out of the box' the way I wanted to display them. One of these days, I will investigate using a different blog template to see if I can resolve this dilemma. In the meantime, I'm happy to have worked out the code to allow you to click the smaller image to reveal the full size one!

This lovely little wildflower is one of many we saw in northern Sweden while hiking with our cousins near their home in Vägsele and again near their summer home in Tärnaby. I had written down the name, both common and Latin, but have no idea what happened to those notes. If any of you know what this is, please enlighten me. (Addendum: august2011 of August Break knew that Melampyrum pratense is commonly called Cow-wheat and kindly supplied the ID for me!) The tiny, tubular flowers are approximately .75 inches (20 cm) in length and the plant is low to the ground and grows in forests. (I cannot recall whether or not we also saw it growing in full sun.)

I'll be posting this to Macro Monday over at Lisa's Chaos... come on over and check it out.

Flora of Sweden Continued... 2011

2011-07-31T20:47:00.000-07:00

NatureFootstep (visit his bird blog for some very nice images) commented on my previous post that he could not see complete images at the size I post them without expanding his browser size... for some time, it has bothered me that I don't know how to scale images properly for smaller screens and still give readers the ability to view the images in a larger size.

Between his comment and one posted by Vagabonde (a visit to her blog is a learning experience full of lovely images) on my vacation blog, I was inspired to try to figure out how to post smaller images... and to figure out how to include the code that would display the large size of an image by clicking on the smaller one posted here. Success! (I will not be going back and changing the code on every image prior to this post!)

I'll be posting this to Macro Monday over at Lisa's Chaos... make sure you stop by and check out the lovely macros... and join the fun! This collage represents three different types of flora seen while traveling in Sweden last month: mosses, lichens and other tiny forest plants, Northern Wolfsbane and a pine cone with just a few pine needles surrounding it.

I had asked last week for folks to let me know what they thought about the idea of combining my vacation blog (new post on Stockholm as of today) with this blog... results are mixed and I'm torn so will keep the blogs separate for now. I'll leave you for today with some information about Northern Wolfsbane (Aconitum lycoctonum, large image), a plant with which I was unfamiliar until seeing it in Sweden. It is a herbaceous perennial native to Europe and northern Asia that grows about 3 feet tall; all parts of the plant are poisonous.

Mallards... as commonly seen in Sweden as they are here in the US! Summer, 2011

2011-07-26T16:29:00.000-07:00

Female Mallard, Anas platyrhynchos seen in one of the many water features on the grounds at Drottningholm Palace, the official home of the Swedish royal family since 1981. Visit my vacation blog for more information and images of our visit to Drottningholm.

A few days and miles away from the female above, this Male Mallard was enjoying a pond at Gammlia, an outdoor park in Umeå. I'll be posting about our visit to Umeå on my vacation blog at some point.

I'll be posting this to World Bird Wednesday later on and would appreciate feedback on whether or not I should combine my vacation blog and photography blog into one blog? One of my readers suggested that idea to me and I'm definitely open to doing that since I cannot figure out how to do BIG pictures on my vacation blog. (Of course, BIG pictures don't scale for mobile devices and I'm totally inept at figuring out how to code my blog to downsize the images for mobile devices... keep hoping Google/blogspot will do it for me!) And while I'm open to combining my blogs, it will take some thought to figure out how to do it properly and not lose anything! (may have to call on a tech geek in the form of my brilliant nephew Dan for assistance should I go forward with the idea)

Flora of Sweden from June, 2011...

2011-07-24T21:05:00.000-07:00

Some plants we saw in Sweden I'd never seen before... but Wild Geranium grows in my own garden so this one was easily recognizable. The busy bee was a bonus.

Images of tiny mosses, lichens and succulents growing on the forest floor, seen while hiking near Vägsele, Sweden with cousins Sture and Inger.

I'll be posting this to Macro Monday over at Lisa's Chaos... stop by and check out the other entries.

Continuing with some images from Sweden and Iceland... BIRDS!

2011-07-20T09:39:00.000-07:00

I'll be posting this to World Bird Wednesday as the images are birds of the world outside my usual viewing environment. I do have one request for an ID on one of the birds shown in the collage of birds of Sweden, below. I'll be posting more of my adventures in Sweden and Iceland to my travel blog but am definitely finding that slow going... so far nothing new there since my fourth post about our journey added three days ago.

Viewing from the upper left corner, the birds shown are a Jackdaw, Coloeus monedula ssp monedula (Wikipedia reference); a Black-headed Gull, Larus ridibundus; a European Magpie, Pica pica; and the White Wagtail, Motacilla alba, which has been kindly identified by Andrew who writes rambles with a camera. I had noted when I first posted this morning that I needed an ID for the fourth bird and that it has a flight pattern similar to a lark... when it is on the ground... it darts around and is rarely still, making it extremely hard to photograph. We saw it in parks and roadsides nearly everywhere in Sweden and Iceland too. (the links on the bird's names take you to the full size image for each)

The Puffin images are not the best images of birds I've ever managed... but they were so much fun to see and watch. I hope you enjoy them. The large image shows MANY birds onshore and is more picturesque than it is useful if you are a serious birder and want to see details... the center image below is another picturesque view of the Puffin colony, this time with quite a few in flight, as seen from the distance while on a rocking boat... not the best of conditions for sharply focused images! And the others are two of the better close views (still not very close!) that I was able to capture of two Puffins at ease on the water and one of a Puffin coming in for a landing. From National Geographic's Puffin page, I learned that these birds are fast fliers... by "flapping their wings up to 400 times per minute they can reach speeds of 55 miles (88 kilometers) an hour." No wonder I failed totally at catching one in flight!

Heath Spotted Orchid by any name is a tiny wonder... Sweden, 2011

2011-07-17T09:45:00.000-07:00

This tiny orchid was blooming almost everywhere we hiked while in the north of Sweden near Tärnaby, Granås and Vägsele. I'm grateful to our cousin Sture's wife Inger who was a wealth of information about the native wildflowers. Her reference books came in handy for researching the scientific names and I came home with most of the flowers I'd photographed already identified.

This lovely flower is also known as Moorland Spotted Orchid and goes by the Swedish name "Jungfru Marie nycklar" which translates to Virgin Mary's hand. This specimen, Dactylorhiza maculata subspecies maculata, is one of many subspecies of this tiny orchid plant that grows about 50 cm high and blooms in June and July. It is a protected species in Sweden.

I have shown two images to demonstrate the difference between using the 18-200mm zoom lens alone (on the left) vs. using the same lens with addition of a Kenko 36mm extension tube. As you can see, carrying lightweight extension tubes allows one to get macro images without carrying a heavy macro lens. Using a true macro lens yields better quality images (based on comparisons done in my garden at home), but nothing beats carrying extension tubes for travel if one doesn't want to carry every lens in their arsenal!

I'll be posting this to Macro Monday over at Lisa's Chaos later. I'm so far behind everywhere that I have no business doing so but I've missed visiting other's macro images while on travel in Sweden and Iceland and am just going to make time to visit some of you every day until I've made the rounds of blogs I follow (and/or reciprocate your comments) and can then start over again! :-)

Pottery and tile through the years... samples seen at Göteborgs Stadstmuseum... Spring, 2011

2011-07-16T21:13:00.000-07:00

While visiting cousins in Göteborg, Sweden, we spent some time at the Göteborgs Stadsmuseum (Gothenburg City Museum) which houses viking and emigration history as well as a design exhibition that included a jewelry display by our second cousin (twice removed), Matilda. Unfortunately, I was unable to get a decent photograph of her jewelry due to my jet lagged brain not being able to figure out how to reduce the reflections from all the lights shining on the case in which her jewelry was exhibited.

I captured this image because I liked the colors and patterns of the pottery and tile in the showcase. Of course, being jet lagged at the time, I did not think to photograph the captions for the exhibit so other than knowing I liked what I saw, I cannot tell you much about it! I have posted a bit more from our time in Göteborg in my vacation blog if you are interested and have the time to look.

Lingonberry blossoms seen in Vägsele, Sweden... Summer, 2011...

2011-06-29T14:57:00.000-07:00

Lingonberry jam/jelly is something I remember from childhood as being typically Swedish. Our mother was born in the United States but her parents came to the US in the early 1900s and settled in Sheridan, Wyoming.

Although Mom spoke very little Swedish, she did know a lot about her Swedish heritage. These are Lingonberry blossoms... Lingonberry grows wild all over the hills and fields around Vägsele which is the area where her parents (my grandparents) were born and spent their younger years before emigrating to America. I've been posting a little bit about our travels to my vacation blog but am finding it takes a long time to prepare posts between having unreliable Internet access and using an iPad to prepare the posts!

For those who might want to know, this was taken with a Nikon D90 fitted with a 32mm extension tube and a Nikon 18-200mm lens. Using the extension tube with my 'all purpose travel lens' gives me macro lens capability without having to carry the macro lens. :-)

UPDATE on July 11, 2011: I've been back from my Sweden/Iceland trip for almost a week now and am finally feeling somewhat human. Recovery from jet lag is harder the older I get! Meantime, I posted this image 12 days ago thinking I'd post to Macro Monday over at Lisa's Chaos while I was away but that didn't happen. So I'm finally sharing it today! Head on over and check out the other posts.

Rainy day greenery in the Cathedral flower garden... Gothenberg, Sweden 2011

2011-06-20T16:05:00.000-07:00

While around Gothenberg on a rainy day... Our first full day in Sweden... We happened upon the main cathedral. While everyone else went inside, I stayed outside for awhile to photograph the flower beds. I rather like this image and hope you will too. I'd post it to Macro Monday over at Lisa's Chaos if I weren't so tired from a long day. You should go check out Macro Monday anyway!

Fun with a macro lens... not just for extreme close-ups!

2011-06-11T21:14:00.000-07:00

This collage is another set of images from the macro workshop at Green Springs Garden (mentioned in a previous post). Clockwise from the top left corner: a hoverfly and smaller unidentified insect on an unknown yellow flower (larger image), goslings (larger image), Ninebark 'Coppertina' (Physocarpus opulifolius flower (larger image) and Mama (or Papa) goose with goslings (larger image). I wondered when I posted an image on Flickr that was very similar to the last image how one could tell the sex of an adult goose... a couple of my Flickr friends referred me to a web article telling in more detail than I wanted to know exactly how to tell whether an adult Canadian goose is a male or a female. Personally, I think I will just continue to wonder!

I'll quite possibly be posting this to several linked blogs... Macro Monday over at Lisa's Chaos, communal global on Tuesday and World Bird Wednesday. I'm sort of running out of time to get ready for travel and will be posting to my vacation blog while I'm away. I've already posted my itinerary for those who might want to follow along with my journey.

In the meantime, I'm hoping to queue up a few blog posts between now and when I leave so that I don't completely drop off everyone's radar while I'm away. :-) I will try to visit blogs while on travel but am not sure how well that will work out since I'm traveling with no computer and will have only my iPhone and a Wi-Fi enabled iPad to use for limited connectivity from time to time as circumstances allow.

Rain-drenched Poppy images... Spring 2011

2011-05-29T20:48:00.000-07:00

This poppy (am pretty sure that's what it was) caught the eye of everyone who passed by it. This and the next image are from the macro workshop at Green Spring Gardens in Virginia... it is going to be quite awhile before I stop posting images from the workshops I've been taking lately!

I have no idea what this tiny insect is... but it is the master (mistress?) of all he (she?) surveys while standing tall in the center of this poppy.

I'll be posting this to Macro Monday over at Lisa's Chaos... come join the fun!

Sunset near Milford, DE... 2011

2011-05-26T20:57:00.000-07:00

This sunset sky is from the day before a photography workshop in and near Slaughter Beach, Delaware. We had dinner at a seafood restaurant near where we were staying the night before the workshop. During dinner we looked out the window and notice that it was raining and the sky was completely cloud covered. From our views out the window we were absolutely certain that we wouldn't have a sunset. By the time we finished dinner and walked outdoors, we had ample opportunity to "waste photons" taking numerous pictures of the lovely sunset across the fields near the restaurant. I hope you enjoy this one.

For our workshop, we had a naturalist and a Blue Ridge Workshops instructor guiding us in photographing and learning about the Horseshoe Crabs and the birds who migrate through the area during their breeding season. The Horseshoe Crab come to shore by the thousands during a two week (+/- a few days) period every May to lay their eggs. Migratory birds (as well as resident species) gather to feed on the protein rich eggs, giving spectators quite a show! Visit my other blog if you'd like to read more about this spectacle and see pictures of the crabs as well as of many shore birds and other sights we saw during our day at Slaughter Beach, DE (and nearby).

I'll be posting this to Skywatch® Friday shortly... check it out!

Flower duets... rainy day macro workshop at Green Spring Gardens... 2011!

2011-05-22T12:28:00.000-07:00

Once again posting a collage because I'm in a bit of overwhelm with MANY images I'd love to share with you. This collection of macro images are all part of the result of the macro workshop I attended on May 14, 2011 under the guidance of Blue Ridge Workshops staff. Clockwise from the top left (click any link to view the large size of that image), Foxglove, Digitalis purpurea, Columbine, Crucifer* and Spanish Lavender, Lavendula stoechas. I don't know the species of phlox or columbine but both were lovely after the rain stopped.

I'll be posting this to Macro Monday over at Lisa's Chaos; come join the fun.

If you visited last week and I haven't returned the visit, please know that I will do so... lost internet service at the end of the week last week and was then out of town for a couple of days. I do appreciate each and every comment and will be stopping by over the next few days to see what I've been missing on your blogs. :-)

*Dutchbaby pointed out that my "Phlox" was most likely a Crucifer (a flower with which I'm unfamiliar) since Phlox has 5 petals and the flowers in the lower right corner of the collage have only four petals.

Starling antics... after suet in my garden... Spring, 2011

2011-05-17T21:14:00.000-07:00

So I bought a suet feeder that is SUPPOSED to keep birds (such as Starlings and Grackles) from dining on the suet because they don't like to feed upside down. And I hung it temporarily where there is a way to access it from underneath IF standing in just the right spot and stretching to reach the good stuff. Or perhaps, mimic a hummingbird and flap wings rapidly while powering up to the suet feeder. Or, obviously, ignore the belief that Starlings do not like feeding upside down and just pretend to be a woodpecker and have at the suet until sated!

I do intend to move this suet feeder where approaching from underneath will not be quite so easy to do. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the images. I watched these silly birds for quite awhile today and snapped away like crazy. I'd have never done that with a film camera!

Maybe next week I'll include a series of images of a quite frustrated Catbird attempting a similar approach and not quite succeeding. In the meantime, I'll be posting this at World Bird Wednesday which you should definitely check out for some marvelous bird images!

'Blue Wonder' Catmint... tiny blossom... big bokeh!

2011-05-15T16:09:00.000-07:00

This image is from a workshop in macro photography given 'on site' at Green Spring Gardens in Alexandria, Virginia. The day started out with misty rain and then a bit heavier sprinkles but the rain soon stopped, leaving us with gray skies and cool weather. For the better part of our adventure, we had ample opportunity to explore the beautiful grounds and capture marvelous flowers (and even an insect, spider or geese and water features at the ponds) with our macro lenses. Blue Ridge Mountain Workshops delivered another fine adventure in photography!

This is one of my favorite images from the day... if you know this plant, you will know the flowers are TINY! This was taken with my 20mm Kenko extension tube plus Nikon 105mm macro lens... the pink bokeh is from the phlox flowers planted in and around the Catmint. If you'd like to view more of my images from the workshop, I've posted 26 in a web album. The slide show takes less than one minute to view.

I'll be posting this to Macro Monday over at Lisa's Chaos... come join the fun and check out all the lovely macro images!

Sweat Bee on Star of Bethlehem flower... Spring 2011.

2011-05-08T14:08:00.000-07:00

I believe this tiny Sweat Bee is Augochlora pura based on research in BugGuide. They move really fast while gathering pollen so it's tricky to get a clear shot. Their iridescent colors always catch my eye in the garden.

As for the flower, it seems to be a defective Star of Bethlehem in that it only has five petals whereas every other one blooming in my garden has the typical six-petal flower form of Ornithogalum umbellatum. The flowers are gorgeous and have volunteered themselves all over my garden.

I'll be posting this to Macro Monday over at Lisa's Chaos... you should check it out! Her blog is pretty terrific!

Backyard Birds... frequent visitors to the feeders... Spring, 2011

2011-05-04T04:22:00.000-07:00

To view larger images of the birds pictured here, just follow the link for each. Clockwise, from the upper left corner: a female House Sparrow (Passer domesticus); a male House Finch (Carpodacus mexicanus); a male Grackle (Quiscalus quiscula); and a female Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis).

I'm sharing this today at World Bird Wednesday... stop by to view other bird images and add your own.

Regulars might have noted from earlier posts that I've been having work done at my house (creating chaos) and also have been having computer problems... so I'm a bit behind at returning visits. The computer problem has been solved... the work at the house continues to create chaos! I'll be stopping by eventually to return visits and thank you for yours!

Squirrel proof... HA! I think not... Spring, 2011...

2011-05-01T20:32:00.000-07:00

So much for my newest squirrel-proof feeder. I will have to try to get a longer shot of their technique, but they have certainly figured this one out after a couple of months of failure at getting seed from it. Clockwise from top left (link in each description leads to a larger image):

on approach to the feed dispensing tray while hanging upside down from the side of the feeder
snatching food from the tray without putting weight on the bar that closes the ports
seeds in mouth, on the way back up top
enjoying ill-gotten gains before repeating the process until that mean, two-legged creature comes out of the house to chase him

Quick reminder that I might be slower than usual returning visits due to a floor refinishing and painting project causing chaos at my house... and while my house is torn apart... my computer will be in the shop. I'll still have my laptop but it slows me down a lot to use that!

Meanwhile, I'll be sharing this over at communal global shortly... my today was total chaos due to the above mentioned home improvement project so I'm sharing this collage of squirrels from a few days ago.

Color Explosion... Tulip Beauty... Spring, 2011!

2011-05-01T19:54:00.000-07:00

I've recently discovered that the size I'm using to post my images doesn't work well on smaller screens... and it also doesn't work on the iPad. So I'm experimenting with posting a smaller size and will be testing viewing on my laptop and elsewhere to see if this helps. Larger

I'll be posting this to Macro Monday over at Lisa's Chaos shortly... come on over and join the fun. Also, please be aware that I'll be slower than usual returning visits due to a floor refinishing and painting project that starts tomorrow... while my house is torn apart... my computer will be in the shop. I'll still have my laptop but it slows me down a lot to use that!

Song Sparrow on my garden fence... Spring, 2011

2011-04-26T06:54:00.000-07:00

House (also called English) Sparrows are every day visitors to my bird feeders. One day last week, I spotted a different looking sparrow and managed to snap one decent picture before it disappeared. Out came the books to attempt an ID. Fortunately, this one is different enough from others that I was able to identify it with 99% certainty as Melospiza melodia and then got confirmation from a couple of Flickr friends who are REALLY good birders!

I've posted this to communal global and will be posting it shortly to Sweet Shot Tuesday and later today to World Bird Wednesday. I'm fairly new to the notion of sharing images through other's blogs and am finding it fun to do so come on and join the fun! :-)

Bishops' Mitre (Epimedium x Rubrum) ... Spring 2011

2011-04-23T13:27:00.001-07:00

I do so look forward to these tiny flower blossoms every spring. Their delicate beauty fascinates me as do all the lovely details visible in a very close macro shot such as this one. In case you don't know this flower, the size of a single blossom is 10-12mm across (about the size of a dime US currency) so that gives you a sense of how tiny the ant is that was crawling around on this blossom! (taken while lying flat on the ground to get down to "eye" level with the blossoms)

This is a shade loving, low growing, ground cover plant that naturalizes slowly to cover a larger area of the garden each year. My garden has quite a lot of shady area!

I'll be posting this to Macro Monday over at Lisa's Chaos... on Monday, of course!

Washington Monument in late afternoon light... Washington, DC Spring 2011

2011-04-19T17:09:00.000-07:00

My cousin Jane and our friends Dennis and Susie took a photography workshop with Blue Ridge Workshops this past Sunday evening... we were learning about night photography while photographing the war memorials on the Mall in Washington, DC. This image was taken just as the sun broke through the clouds near sunset... it lit up the monument beautifully. Look closely and you'll be able to see the Capitol Building through the flags to the left of the base of the Washington Monument.

Posted to share at communal global for Tuesdays around the World.

Candytuft... perfection in miniature in the spring garden... 2011

2011-04-17T12:48:00.000-07:00

I'm finally getting back to somewhat normal after being away for a family funeral (mentioned in the previous post) and coming home with a miserable cold. Yesterday was the first day I felt mostly human again and it poured down rain all day. Today is bright and sunny and I was inspired to get outdoors and take a few pictures of the garden blossoms.

Last year, my attempts to photograph my Candytuft in bloom were mostly failures but I'm rather pleased with this image which required almost no post-processing except for a minor crop and slight brightness adjustment. Hope you enjoy this and that you have a marvelous week ahead of you. I'll be slowly making my way around to blogs over the next week or so... it's amazing how far behind one can fall by being basically off-line for only 11 days!

Posted to Macro Monday over at Lisa's Chaos... come join the fun!

In memory of Robin... August 15, 1937 - April 6, 2011

2011-04-09T19:42:00.000-07:00

My half-brother Robin passed away April 6, 2011 after a long illness. Many family members (myself included) were with him at the end. He was an avid gardener and spent many happy hours studying plants as well as growing many lovely specimens in his garden.

Thanks to montucky at Montana Outdoors, I now know the name of the flowering tree whose blossom I've shown here. My sister-in-law told me the plant name was "oo-me" which I spelled phonetically to represent how she pronounced it. I'd tried to find information about it by just about every possible combination and permutation of letters and had failed to find it. But thanks to montucky, I now know it the name is spelled "ume" and the tree, Prunus mume, is known by several common names, among them Japanese apricot and Chinese plum. The blossoms range from white to the deep pink shown here.

I'm posting this image in Robin's memory as it seems a fitting tribute to share something of beauty that he enjoyed. I promise to return visits as soon as I'm able but am spending family time this week and am not online nearly as much as usual. (did take a few minutes time today to post this at Macro Monday over at Lisa's Chaos... stop by and join the fun...)

Post for Tuesday's Around the World

2011-04-04T20:35:00.000-07:00

My cousin Jane and our friend Susie were on our way home from a day together exploring the nearby Maryland/Virginia/West Virginia countryside when we pulled the car over to see if we could find a spot from which to photograph the glorious sunset sky.

We had spent the day together, wending our way toward a visit to my favorite potter in Sharpsburg, MD with stops along the way to photograph whatever caught our eye. This was taken in Boonsboro, MD after we discovered we could wander down behind some buildings on the main street and get a mostly unobstructed view of the sky! If you want to read more of the story and see more images from our photographic adventure, check out my other blog starting with this post.

This post is for sharing on "TUESDAYS AROUND THE WORLD" at communal global. I've been writing my own blogs for awhile now and have only recently discovered a community of folks who share images based on a theme. I'm finding it interesting but am so busy that I'm also wondering if I'll be able to keep it up long term. Meantime, it's fun and a good way to meet other bloggers so you might want to give it a try yourself. (my previous post was shared too so check it out for another place to share images if you are into macro photography)

Raindrops on Helleborus Petals... Spring, 2011

2011-04-02T15:23:00.000-07:00

After the previous post, anything will look pale by comparison to the intense colors of the Crocus. This is another close-up with my 105mm macro lens... but no extension tubes were used for this one. I rather like the fact that only one droplet is in sharp focus on the Helleborus leaving the rest of the image to mostly recede into the background.

I'm posting this so it's ready for sharing on Macro Monday over at Lisa's Chaos... check it out and join the fun!

Extreme close-up of the heart of a Crocus...

2011-03-27T21:44:00.000-07:00

Shooting a Crocus with a 36mm Kenko extension tube + my 105mm macro lens makes for a shallow depth of field resulting in sharp focus for a very narrow range and bokeh everywhere! I don't normally add two posts back-to-back but just had to upload this one so I could participate in macro Monday over at Lisa's Chaos today. I keep forgetting to do that but finally remembered this week!

Recently resurrected roadside landscape from the Stanley, Idaho area...

2011-03-27T20:39:00.000-07:00

A friend stopped by today to learn a few tricks from me about using Lightroom 3 software for photo management. He's more of a novice using the software than I am and although I am by no means an expert, I was able to show him a few things that will give him a good basis for learning more.

The best part about our 'training session' today is that he showed me a marvelous trick for viewing images that are buried deep in my old iPhoto library from within Lightroom. Believe me, I do not want to put EVERY image I have in iPhoto into a Lightroom catalog... but being able to browse through my iPhoto library using Lightroom to pick and choose a few of the images for future editing is marvelous!

This image from a September trip to Stanley, Idaho in September of 2009 is one that I don't believe has been seen online before today. The area around Stanley, Idaho includes lakes, rivers and the beautiful Sawtooth Mountains. Just about anywhere in the area around Stanley, one can find scenes such as this one, taken with my D90 and the 18-105mm lens I was using at that time.

The other thing I learned how to do today was download a lens correction profile for that older lens and use it in Lightroom to correct for chromatic aberration, barrel or pincushion distortion or vignetting. Although many lens correction settings are built-in to Lightroom, some are missing and it was wonderful to discover that others have worked out those missing correction profiles and made them available online.

Camellia and Helleborus collage... after the rain stopped...

2011-03-24T10:13:00.000-07:00

I added a Helleborus close-up to complete this collage because I only had three Camellia images. This Camellia of mine produces all three of the bloom types you see here... it is really quite wonderful. And for the first time this past fall, it produced late fall, early winter blossoms as well as being COVERED with a profusion of spring blossoms right now.

A master gardener (which I am not) told me I should seriously prune this bush back since it is now over six feet tall. Since I have no clue when/how to prune it, I've let it continue to grow. It does need pruning so I'll research how to do it. When we get heavy, wet snow (as we did the past two winters), the entire plant bows down and kisses the driveway from it's perch a couple of feet above it in a raised bed along the side of the house.

Mrs. Cardinal has been at the suet! Explored on Flickr!!!

2011-03-20T12:42:00.000-07:00

I post images on Flickr and am quite excited that this one made it into "Explore" when I posted it. Explore is some magical algorithm that Flickr uses to figure out the 500 most interesting images posted to Flickr in a 24 hour time period. No one really understands it... but when one of my images gets that kind of recognition it really makes me feel great!

I'm just going to have to keep this new lens I guess! :-) Shot through my kitchen window using my Nikon D90 with Sigma 120-400mm lens at 400mm, ISO 800, 1/1250 sec at f/5.6. Edited in Lightroom 3 to crop and adjust exposure on the totally blown out deck railing on which Mrs. Cardinal was standing. Little else was done to this image.

Squirrel portrait... new lens is looking good!

2011-03-19T08:23:00.001-07:00

I've been frustrated at not being able to get as CLOSE to my garden creatures as I'd like, so I ordered a new lens recently and am trying it out... this is one of the first really good close-ups of one of the MANY squirrels regularly visiting my garden to raid the feeders. He is sitting on my warped deck rail and taking a break from trying to get in to one of the feeders. He's just picked up some stray seed dropped onto the deck rail by one of the birds.

The lens is a Nikon mount - Sigma 120-400mm f/4.5-5.6 lens with OS (Optical Stabilization). This image was shot hand-held from inside through my kitchen window... the lens is pretty well balanced for hand-holding as long as there is plenty of light. I also purchased a 1.4 teleconvertor... using that requires a tripod for sure! One day soon I hope to sit in the back yard with the tripod set up and the new lens + teleconvertor assembly. The birds don't really like me pointing this huge lens at them (even from INSIDE) so I'll have to bide my time until they get used to it AND me in the garden or I won't get any shots at all. My yard is too tiny to set up a blind of any kind.

Orchids, orchids, orchids... at the Philadelphia Flower Show!

2011-03-13T21:27:00.000-07:00

I wasn't super happy with ANY of the photos that I came home with from the Philadelphia Flower Show. Between the low light and the crowds, it was very difficult to get into position for "best shots." Because of my experience lugging a tripod last year, I chose to leave the tripod at home... way too hard to position a tripod without causing inconvenience to others... and hand holding was tricky too because of jostling by the throngs eager to see the displays.

That said, I'll probably post another collage eventually but the orchids were phenomenal so I'm sharing this one first. Putting the images together in a collage makes it easier to overlook the flaws! :-)

Raptor in the garden... Winter, 2011

2011-03-04T15:31:00.000-08:00

While having my coffee and reading the paper after finishing breakfast this morning, I noticed the absence of birds at my feeders... this usually means a raptor visit! In the past, I've been able to spot a hawk (thought it might be a Cooper's Hawk but have since found out it is a Sharp-shinned Hawk) high up in the trees nearby when I notice the absence of birds at the feeders.

Today, when I looked out the window, the hawk was perched down fairly low in the Silver Maple next door. I grabbed my camera with 70-300mm lens already mounted and stealthily crept out the side door of our house and tip-toed around to the back yard. After snapping quite a few (some quite blurry) images from a respectful distance, I decided to take my chances and creep closer to where he was perched.

I managed to get within 25-30 feet without startling him because he was VERY interested in figuring out a way to get THROUGH the rose brambles in the bush under where he was perched. He could hear the birds hiding there but couldn't get to them. Talk about frustration. If you want to see a few more images of this beautiful bird, there are 22 in a slide show that will take less than one minute to view.

UPDATE to this post... I have recently discovered sharing my blog with others through posting (using Linkys tools or other) links back to my blog on someone else's blog. As of noon Tuesday (Eastern US Time Zone), World Bird Wednesday is open for sharing bird images with like-minded souls. So I'm posting this there today... come join the fun!

Tiny blossoms of Mahonia signal spring in my garden... February 2011

2011-02-28T11:13:00.000-08:00

Along about mid-February every year, I have to go out in the garden and see what is happening... and ever since I planted a Mahonia bush on the north side of my house, these tiny yellow blossoms are one of the first signs that winter is over!

This image was taken with my 105mm macro lens and ALL THREE Kenko extension tubes stacked together (36mm, 20mm and 12mm)... which explains the soft focus and extremely shallow depth of field. If you are unfamiliar with Mahonia, the blossoms are each about the size of a green pea and will soon have bees buzzing about to gather nectar.

If you are unfamiliar with Mahonia, the plant has very stiff leaves with spiny tips (holly leaf shape) which make it hard to get close in to photograph the bees. Every year I try so I'm sure you will see at least one post later in the spring to show this year's attempt at capturing them busy at work.

Julia Butterfly under any name is gorgeous...

2011-02-23T14:44:00.000-08:00

Going back to images from our December visit to the Butterfly Conservatory of the National Museum of American History in New York (Manhattan), NY today, I realized I'd never posted this one. When I went looking for the ID of this butterfly, I found lots of references to it as Julia Butterfly (some even as Orange Julia). It wasn't until I looked at the Wikipedia entry on this beauty that I found the scientific name Dryas iulia correctly spelled. Wikipedia also noted that the scientific name is "often incorrectly spelled julia" which is most probably why we commonly know it as Julia Heliconian or Julia Butterfly.

Scenic vista along I-270 north of Washington, DC - February 18, 2011

2011-02-20T13:20:00.000-08:00

My cousin Jane, our friend Susie and myself decided to drive up to Foxcross Pottery (home and studio of a potter friend) recently and make a day of it... stopping wherever the spirit moved us to take photographs, have lunch and explore the countryside around both Shepherdstown, WV and Sharpsburg, MD.

Not too far from Washington, DC on I-270 before getting to the town of Frederick, MD is a scenic overlook which gives an almost 360° view of the countryside. It was a fairly hazy day and I wasn't happy with most of the images I took... this one pleased me, though, so I hope you enjoy it.

If you'd like to read a bit more about Foxcross Pottery and see a collage of images from our visit there, please see my other blog.

Great Eggfly Butterfly ... Butterfly Conservatory...

2011-02-12T20:35:00.000-08:00

The Great Eggfly Butterfly, Hypolimnas bolina, is also called the Blue Moon Butterfly and lives in the South Pacific islands, Australia, New Zealand, Madagascar, and southeast Asia. It also lives in the Butterfly Conservatory of the American Museum of Natural History which is where this photo was taken in December, 2010. The upper side of the wings of the female is dark brown and the female does not have the spots (white circles) that the male, seen here, does.

Balancing act while wondering... Which way to the food?

2011-02-06T19:20:00.000-08:00

This silly squirrel is another one of the rascals who is constantly trying to crack the code to get into the squirrel proof (mostly) feeders I have... the image was taken through my kitchen window, a frequent pastime for me in winter when it's cold outside. For someone who grew up in Wyoming and Montana braving temperatures way below zero at times, I've become awfully cold sensitive!

About the squirrel... he is perched on one of the arms of the two-armed post on which two different style feeders hang. (both supposedly squirrel proof) I imagine him to be contemplating which one of the two feeders he is going to approach first!

I'm now deeper than ever in learning new software... January 29 found me in a marathon ALL DAY Lightroom 3 class (from 8:30 am to 6:30 pm) and this past Saturday (February 5) found me back in the same classroom for a Photoshop CS5 'level 1' class although I left early due to a slight schedule conflict. I'll be in the level 2 class for Photoshop in another few weeks (again, all day Saturday). One thing I learned in the Lightroom class was how to add the copyright text to my images. This post (and the previous post) now have that information. (I'll be experimenting with alternative ways to include the copyright information as I go along... this is my first effort!)

If you want to watch a slide show of squirrels trying to crack the code to my "Squirrel-proof" feeders, use the link in the News Items box at top right.

Sparrow frenzy at the back yard feeder... December 2010

2011-02-01T12:03:00.000-08:00

Just to remind you (in case you think I've lost my mind which is entirely possible given the events of the last few days), when I put a date in the title of a post, it refers to the date the image was captured, not the date of the post. This image is from a sunny day in December of last year when the birds were going a little bit crazy for the food in my feeders. It is also the first image that I've posted where I did quite a bit of post-processing using many of the tricks I learned in my Lightroom class (more on this below).

As for the events of the past few days that have contributed to my absence (as far as visiting YOUR blogs), I took a Lightroom 3 class this past Saturday and have been struggling since then to master a few simple things that are FAR from intuitively obvious.

This is where the internet is a MARVELOUS tool... because one of the things I've been struggling with is publishing images to Picasa/Facebook/Flickr (and maybe others in future) straight out of Lightroom. Let me tell you about the Facebook fiasco... the Publishing Service for Facebook that comes WITH Lightroom 3 has sent my browser into never-never-land more times than I can count... in trying to troubleshoot the problem, I clicked the Plug-in Exchange button (not having a CLUE what it did) in the setup dialog for setting up the various Publishing Services in Lightroom. Voilà! That button took me to Adobe's Lightroom page where I could search for plug-ins for publishing to various web services. And I found a third party developer's plug-in for Picasa... the developer has already received a donation from me to support his efforts for Picasa. (and I suspect he will be receiving one for his Export to Facebook plug-in although I haven't set that service up yet because I wanted to send some images to Picasa first so I could blog this one today!)

And in case you are wondering... why Lightroom? I've used iPhoto on a Mac since first starting to use a digital camera almost five years ago. As much as I LOVE my Mac and the ease of use of iPhoto, I hate the way iPhoto 'hides' deep in the iPhoto library, images representing my originals AND another copy of the SAME image representing any editing changes thus increasing overhead as far as storing multiple copies of the same photo. And, IF I want to use Photoshop (either Elements or the full version of Photoshop) to further edit an image that I've put into iPhoto, I have to EITHER export it OR go find it (there are ways) where it is buried in the library and put a copy somewhere outside of the iPhoto library where Photoshop software can 'see' the image.

As you might expect, after awhile working with iPhoto gets awfully old and tiring and it is also limited as to the editing changes one can make if one starts to get REALLY serious about post-processing. So, I'm trying to learn Lightroom and hope to eventually stop using iPhoto altogether. The learning curve is quite steep!

Cardinal Collage... Mr. and Mrs. in snow... Winter 2011

2011-01-31T05:16:00.000-08:00

I just cannot resist the cardinals... especially in winter when their colors stand out so beautifully in the gloom. Later in the week, I'll post some full size views of these beautiful birds but thought you might like to see them enjoying my newest squirrel proof feeder and posing on my snowy deck rail.

Tropical Butterfly... something warm for a cold day...

2011-01-26T04:56:00.000-08:00

In the Washington, DC Metropolitan area, a little bit of snow often results in school closings... and when schools close... many other things get canceled as a result. Our garden club meeting has been canceled for today because of a little bit of snow falling overnight. It has changed to rain (maybe freezing rain) so roads might be slippery... but out my window I can see our street is mostly clear and cars going up and down.

The above is a long way around to introducing this image... something to warm us all in winter... an Orange Tiger (Dryadula phaetusa) butterfly! Also known as Banded Orange Heliconian and the sole representative of its species according to Wikipedia, it is "native from Brazil to central Mexico, and in summer it can be found rarely as far north as central Kansas." I photographed this one in the Butterfly Conservatory of the National Museum of American History in New York City during a December visit.

Squirrel in snow... First snow of 2011!

2011-01-18T07:28:00.000-08:00

Although we didn't get that much snow a week or so ago, this squirrel is covered in it! She (I think this one is female) had been searching around in the snow-covered deck to see if she could find some seed dropped by the birds... stopping to take a look at me... she posed so prettily!

If you've never seen a squirrel with this coloring before, I'm not surprised. She looks like a mix of black squirrel (common in the Mid-Atlantic region of the US) and American Red squirrel. According to Wikipedia, black squirrels are a melanistic variety of the eastern gray squirrel, individual black squirrels can exist wherever gray squirrels live. Gray mating pairs may produce black offspring, and in areas with high concentrations of black squirrels, mixed litters are common. In our area, black squirrels are VERY common as are Eastern gray squirrels and American Red squirrels. Intermingling is not surprising!

If you want to watch a slide show of squirrels trying to crack the code to my "Squirrel-proof" feeders, use the link in the News Items box at top right.

Birds and peanuts... two for your viewing pleasure!

2011-01-15T10:20:00.000-08:00

I bought some unshelled, raw peanuts at the Wild Bird Center the other day and waited until I had some time to spend in front of my kitchen window before scattering a few on the deck table to see whether or not the Blue Jays would stop by to dine. They really are not interested in the seed provided in my bird feeders.

The Blue Jay (Cyanocitta cristata) in the above image came in for a very quick grab, several times... then OFF he would fly to hide in the holly tree before coming back for another peanut. It was very hard to capture the action so I'll try again another day... this is the best image from my first experiment using peanuts to entice the jays!

Imagine my surprise to discover that not only did the Blue Jays enjoy the peanuts... but Mrs. Cardinal stopped by too to help herself (image below). How she managed to eat the peanut is a mystery because once she got a good hold on it... off she went!

Female Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) with peanut.

A snowy winter collage... January 2011

2011-01-09T14:44:00.000-08:00

Another collage experiment! These images are, clockwise from top left, a small portion of Leucothoe during our recent, light snowfall; masterful Mr. Cardinal strutting on our deck, an extreme close-up of Rosemary with snow and another extreme close-up of Nandina berries with snow.

The extreme close-ups were taken with a 105mm macro lens and the 36mm extension tube (from a set of 3 Kenko extension tubes) on my Nikon D90.

The snowfall the other day didn't amount to much but still lent itself to experiments in photography. Next time it snows, I hope to make it out before the snow stops falling and starts melting... would LOVE to capture some individual snowflakes one of these days.

Variable Cracker Butterfly... Butterfly Conservatory Image...

2011-01-07T14:47:00.000-08:00

There is quite a lot of information on the "Blue Cracker" butterfly to be found when searching for butterflies similar to this one. BUT, when a search was done on the scientific name for the so-called Blue Cracker, MANY references to the Red Cracker butterfly were found... but none of those images had the "red bar" on the fore-wing that this butterfly has.

More exhaustive searching around on Google finally turned up an image that looks very similar to this one, leading me to believe this is Hamadryas feronia, commonly called the Variable Cracker. The "cracker" part of the name refers to the noise the male of this butterfly species makes as part of their territorial display. Isn't he just gorgeous?! (I certainly have no idea if it is a he or a she butterfly... either way... I'm quite pleased with how this turned out!)

Pink Cattleheart or Transandean Butterfly... December, 2010

2010-12-29T13:51:00.000-08:00

After quite a bit of "googling" around, I believe I've identified this as Parides iphidamas whose common names are Pink Cattleheart or Transandean. As near as I can tell from having studied several different web sites and images, this is a female of the species.

There seems to be quite a bit of variability in the coloring and markings of this species and I'm by no means an expert! So I trust someone out there will correct me if I've misidentified this one. :-) It is resting on a Pentas blossom cluster... and I do know that Pentas blossoms are a favorite of butterflies everywhere they bloom so have vowed to have more of them in my garden in 2011. (Unfortunately, they are an annual flowering plant and are fairly expensive but I simply must find ways to attract more butterflies to my garden and don't have the room for a butterfly bush!)

Christmas baking... a family tradition!

2010-12-28T06:07:00.000-08:00

I've been making two of the four cookies pictured here (slightly smaller than actual size) at Christmas time (missing a few years here and there for some reason or another) for over 50 years and others of my family also make these annually. The recipes date back to when my mother discovered some recipe suggestions for Christmas baking, tucked into a bag of Gold Medal flour. She thought a couple of the recipes sounded like fun and would be delicious so we set out to make them.

My mother suffered from eczema and could not do the "hand mixing" that was required of both recipes (in the time before food processors came along). From the time I can remember, I was Mom's kitchen helper, doing most of the chores requiring "hands on" when she could not do those chores. So until my siblings were older and could help, Christmas baking fell to me with Mom assisting with chores that didn't require her to touch the ingredients.

Pictured above are Cherry Coconut Bars, Cream Wafers, Chocolate Truffles, Spiced Pecans and Russian Tea Cakes (or Mexican Wedding Cakes). The Cherry Coconut Bars and Cream Wafers are the two "family" recipes that I've been making off and on ever since I was a young girl... and once I discovered that the "hand mixing" could be done better and more efficiently using a food processor, I've been making them almost every year since. The other items are more recent additions with the Russian Tea Cakes being made for the first time this year.

Recipes for the Cherry Coconut Bars, Cream Wafers, Chocolate Truffles, Spiced Pecans and some other holiday treats not pictured here may be found on my other blog starting with Holiday Baking - Part 1 and I share ALL my secrets for simplifying the recipes.

Greetings of the Season... Winter, 2010

2010-12-23T14:18:00.000-08:00

Here's hoping everyone has a joyous holiday season ... whatever holiday you celebrate! This is my first experiment at creating a photo collage. (next experiment will be to figure out how to make "live links" to allow you, if you are so inclined, to click any one of the images in the collage to show a "full size" of it in a new window)

With thanks to Ginnie of In Soul for the hint to use Picnik to create photo collages. :-)

Three views of a Leopard Lacewing butterfly...

2010-12-19T20:13:00.000-08:00

It would be very nice if the folks at the American Museum of Natural History would post the names of the butterflies on view in the Butterfly Conservatory. That said, there is a certain satisfaction to be had in poking around on the internet to compare my photos with others out there and to see if I can find an ID on my own... in the case of these three images... mission accomplished! It took the visual guide downloaded from the Pacific Science Center plus a search of Wikipedia for Lacewing to find the common name of Leopard Lacewing and the species name of Cethosia cyane for this beauty.

I captured quite a few images of it trying to find the "sweet spot" for drinking nectar from these tiny Pentas blossoms the one above is during a pause in the action with the proboscis tightly curled up. (and note the ladybug on the leaf below the butterfly... not the point of focus but definitely visible once the image was out of the camera and viewed on a big monitor!)

This view shows the underside of the wings... in this species... the underside is perhaps more beautiful than the top side of the wings.

Another topside view... and another miss while trying to find the flower center!

Atlas Moths mating... Do not disturb... Butterfly Conservatory at the National Museum of Natural History`

2010-12-16T09:39:00.000-08:00

I'm a bit laid up with a bum ankle so am posting this as my apology for not visiting your blogs as I'd promised. I hope you all are having a better week than mine has turned out to be after falling yesterday and banging myself up… the sore ankle is making it quite difficult to do much of anything other than lay around! (although I may lay around WITH my laptop this afternoon and see how that goes because it could work to allow me to keep my feet up while on-line via wireless)

The Atlas Moth Attacus atlas) is believed to be the largest species of moth with wing spans that may reach 25–30 cm (10–12 in). We were told by one of the guides at the Conservatory that they mate for hours... they have no mouths so cannot eat... they do nothing except mate, lay eggs and then die. The female is the larger of the species and is mostly hidden behind the male in this close view that shows the lovely, feathery antennae of this species. Refer to Wikipedia for additional information.

I visited the Butterfly Conservatory of the American Museum of Natural History in New York, NY twice to get this picture... the first day we were there, they were mating on a glass window too far away for capturing and I didn't have my macro lens anyway. The next day, they had relocated (maybe it was even a different pair) to a MUCH better location AND I had my macro lens with me.

Excuse me... I was here first! Sparrows at my feeder... December, 2010

2010-12-08T20:43:00.000-08:00

It's kind of sad that the sparrows have mostly driven away the other birds that used to visit my feeders... and this morning, this feeder was the only one with any seed left in it before I went out to refill all of them. There were at least 30 sparrows sitting in a neighbor's rose bush and taking turns at the feeder... some were more polite than others but mostly it was a feeding frenzy!

I know this isn't the best in terms of sharpness of the image... in addition to the motion of the feeder due to the sparrows fighting over perches, there was a fairly stiff breeze blowing things around.

I'll be mostly off-line for a few days but will visit soon. I'm enjoying comments and promise to return your visits soon if I haven't already!

A trio of Hydrangea images... which one do you prefer?

2010-12-06T21:01:00.001-08:00

I love my Hydrangea blossoms when they are in bud, or bursting into bloom... and even when they are faded at the end of the blooming season. I keep hoping for frost so I can get some images of the faded blossoms kissed by frost.

In the meantime, I use iPhoto on a Macintosh computer for simple editing when I'm too lazy to do anything complicated with Photoshop. I upgraded recently to the very latest version... while poking around to see what new items were available for tweaking images, I discovered "antique" and "boost" effects, both of which were used to give interesting effects to the Hydrangea blossom you see above with the "antique" effect applied. Scroll down to see the SOOC (Straight Out Of the Camera) image followed by the image with the "boost" option at 2. I like them all ... which one do you like best?!

SOOC image of faded Hydrangea blossom.

Hydrangea blossom with color boost set at level 2 (using iPhoto on a Macintosh).

Late fall visitor to late blooming Blanket Flower... November, 2010

2010-12-02T21:14:00.000-08:00

Because I was expecting visitors for Thanksgiving dinner, I decided to go out and do some garden cleanup (dead/dying tomato plants and some other dead growth) so I wouldn't be embarrassed at the condition of my garden. Imagine my surprise to find this charming sweat bee exploring a Blanket Flower in search of pollen.

The weather has finally turned colder so I doubt I'll have any more opportunities to photograph insects in my garden until spring!

Two Confused Camellia blossoms for your viewing pleasure...

2010-12-01T05:48:00.000-08:00

This time of year, thoughts turn to the weather because the garden goes dormant and we have to wait until spring for color in the garden. BUT, our weather this fall has been unseasonably warm and my spring blooming Camellia has decided to bloom now instead of waiting until spring. It's quite lovely with white, bi-color pink and white (as you see here with just a splash of pink, but sometimes much more pink than white) and even a few solid pinks now and then. I fear this means I'll have no blossoms in spring so I've been out photographing a few this past week to have the images to enjoy now and again in spring.

I don't normally post two images but as I was typing the above image caption, I realized maybe you'd like to see the mostly pink blossom as well as the white and I have WAY more images than I have time to post them! The pink image is a touch out of focus because those blossoms are in a spot where I have to balance precariously in order to photograph them.

A life well lived... portrait of a great lady!

2010-11-27T13:34:00.000-08:00

Since I'm not real sure I should be posting full names here... I will just tell you that this image is a candid photo of a friend's mother, whom I met this past week. She is here visiting her son who hosted us and some other friends to a pre-Thanksgiving dinner on Wednesday. She is an amazing woman at 99 years young... friends in her home town of Memphis have told her that they didn't celebrate her 99th birthday because they plan a big party for her 100th! There is an article available if you would like to read more about her.

In the meantime, I don't normally post images of people and almost never take "posed" pictures... but this struck me because her dress almost perfectly matches the chair and I love the attentive look on her face as she is paying close attention to the lively conversation and chiming in often!

Balloon Flower Stigma... floating above rain water... Summer, 2010

2010-11-20T20:46:00.000-08:00

This is for Ginnie... along with a bit of a story. Earlier this month, I posted an image that shows an entire Balloon Flower blossom. And Ginnie left a comment about knowing who to come to if she needed help learning how to use her macro lens... so this is for her.

When the flowers turn their faces up, their "bells" catch water when it rains. I snapped this image after heavy overnight rains using extension tubes along with my macro lens. I think I used the 36mm Kenko extension tube with my Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/2.8 lens on a Nikon D90 body for this shot. ((I really MUST start taking notes... the other possibility would have been with the 12mm AND 20mm Kenko extension tubes together instead of the 36mm tube.) Using extension tubes allows for really tight focus on a very little bit of the field of view... leaving the rest as a dreamy wash of color. The stigma is about 1 cm (3/8 inch) in diameter.

Oh... before I forget... Ginnie is someone I'm getting to know through her marvelous blog... you should check it out!

Yarrow blossoms... shallow depth of field... Summer, 2010

2010-11-19T15:41:00.000-08:00

I think I've mentioned before that I've been experimenting with extension tubes when shooting some of my flower images. One thing about using extension tubes is that there is less light coming in to the camera compared to using the same lens without any extension tubes. (Stick with me, I don't speak "technical" when I talk about shooting pictures!)

Shooting with the aperture wide open results in the very shallow depth of field you see here. (The alternative is to use flash which isn't something I like to do when shooting flowers in a natural setting.) Yarrow is a perfect candidate for shooting with extension tubes because the cluster of tiny blossoms is nearly all in the same plane, making it easy to get a nice sharp image of the flowers with everything else "fuzzed" into the background bokeh.

Round Two Image for Photography Slam competition...

2010-11-17T13:27:00.000-08:00

The previous five posts qualified me for the Final Round in the Photo Slam competition described in this post. This image, entitled Mammoth Hot Springs... surreal landscape of the travertine terraces... is the one I chose for the final round where we were judged on a single image. Some of you may recall having seen it before when I posted it over a year ago after our September, 2009 trip out west.

The top three contestants in the photo slam will be featured in a gallery show at Glen Echo Park in November, 2011. I will definitely post more about that as the time draws near.

Fifth of Five in Round One Portfolio for Photography Slam competition...

2010-11-16T15:06:00.000-08:00

As I've been typing the titles for these images, I cannot help but think of Star Trek: Voyager and Seven of Nine (the Borg character played by Jeri Ryan). (OK ... so I like sci-fi on television... but I like to read sci-fi too!)

Anyway, this imge, Tiny dancer..., is of a hoverfly on a balloon flower petal and is the last of the images in my winning first round portfolio in the contest described in an earlier post.

Fourth of Five in Round One Portfolio for Photography Slam competition...

2010-11-15T14:21:00.000-08:00

This image, entitled Hydrangea wet with raindrops... is one from a year or more ago that somehow never got posted here. It is the fourth of five included in my winning first round portfolio in the contest described in an earlier post.

And I'm still floating on a cloud for having done so well in the contest... placing in the top three means that some of my photographic images will be in a gallery show during FotoWeek DC 2011 (about a year from now).

Third of Five in Round One Portfolio for Photography Slam competition...

2010-11-13T16:35:00.000-08:00

This image, entitled Bumblebee in Coneflower... may be a repeat of a post from 2009... but I'm sharing it anyway because it is one of the ones included in my winning portfolio in the contest described in an earlier post.

Second of Five in Round One Portfolio for Photography Slam competition...

2010-11-12T13:11:00.000-08:00

Pink Petal Perfection... dew kissed... is the second of five images from the round one portfolio entered in the Photography Slam competition run by Photoworks (a photography resource and education center based at Glen Echo Park) as part of FotoWeek DC 2010 (an annual photography event in Washington, DC).

I'm quite excited about having taken second place in a field of 40 photographers entered and will be posting the images here over the next few days. The prize for the top three entrants is participation in a gallery show at Photoworks during Foto Week 2011 (about one year from now).

If you have ever been to a poetry slam competition, you might guess that a Photography Slam is modeled after a poetry slam... The forty entrants were judged in 4 rounds of 10 photographers each with the top three in each round advancing to the final round. Audience participation was encouraged as well as bribing of the three judges (tongue in cheek). It was an exciting evening and I was thrilled to do so well.

Photography Slam 2010 Results... Second Place in a field of 40!

2010-11-12T05:35:00.000-08:00

Sharing..., three hoverflies on a wildflower, is the first of five images from my round one portfolio. With apologies to those of you who know this already and are probably bored by the news... I'm quite excited about having taken second place in a field of 40 photographers entered and will be posting the images here over the next few days.

If you have ever been to a poetry slam competition, you might guess that a Photography Slam is modeled after a poetry slam... As part of FotoWeek DC 2010 (an annual photography event in Washington, DC), Photoworks (a photography resource and education center based at Glen Echo Park), sponsored a Photography Slam competition.

Photographers entered a total of six images; five images made up a portfolio for the first stage of the competition. The images were projected and judged in four rounds of 10 entrants in each round. The top three entrants from each round advanced to the second round where one image alone was judged against the other finalists. My portfolio of five macro images took second place in the second round and advanced to the finals where my Mammoth Hot Springs image impressed the judges enough to give me second place overall. (missed first place by 0.6 point) The prize for each of the three winning contestants is participation in a gallery show at Photoworks during Foto Week 2011!

African Daisies... backlit and beautiful after the rain...

2010-11-11T12:14:00.000-08:00

Last year, I had three different varieties of these in my garden. They are described as tender perennials in our area... but they did not survive the winter of "Snowmageddon" or "Snowpocalypse" as many in the greater Washington, DC metropolitan area referred to our record breaking winter of snow in 2009/2010. This year, I bought one plant LATE in the season and planted it in one of the flower boxes on my deck (which is where this picture was taken). One day I went out to see how it was doing and found it on the ground, dead! I'm pretty sure it was done in by one of the rascally squirrels who had been digging in my flower boxes earlier in the summer. At least I got this one image before the plant was so brutally mistreated!

Wild Clematis, beautiful garden volunteer or weed? Flowers are lovely...

2010-11-07T15:11:00.000-08:00

This wild Clematis, botanical name Clematis vitalba, is a garden volunteer and was growing in a very weird spot when I first moved into my home almost 30 years ago. I kept it because of the beautiful fragrance when the tiny flowers burst into bloom in late summer. After a while, I finally had someone dig it up and move it into a better spot and now train it to climb a trellis and provide a lovely show every year!

While searching for the botanical name of this plant, I found an article explaining that this plant is not native to North America, is extremely invasive, and is therefore considered a weed!

Yoda... Bumble-bee in Plumbago larpentae... October, 2010

2010-11-06T14:35:00.000-07:00

The rear view image of this fat bumble-bee, wings upraised, immediately brought to mind Yoda, from the Star Wars movies, when I saw it appear on my computer monitor after uploading it. I hope this sight amuses you as much as it did me and that you are having a wonderful weekend wherever you are! (The very next image I tried to capture had no bumble-bee because he had taken flight.)

Platycodon grandiflorus is still blooming in mid-October, 2010

2010-11-05T20:30:00.000-07:00

I love everything about these flowers EXCEPT for the need to deadhead them if you don't want them to overtake the entire garden! They spread everywhere because I'm lazy about trimming the spent blossoms before they have gone to seed. Common names for this member of the Campanulaceae family include Balloon Flower, Chinese Bellflower and Japanese Bellflower.

If one DOES remember to cut them back once in awhile, they will continue to bloom into October and some of mine were blooming in the first week of November!

Something different for today... a view of fall colors from the inside looking out... November 1, 2010

2010-11-03T09:03:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I post the month and year... sometimes the entire date that an image was taken. It all depends on my mood at the time... so don't be confused if the post date is different from the date in the title of an image!

This is one of the images from a photo shoot during a class given by David Luria, founder and director of Washington Photo Safari. We were "on location" at Strathmore and spent time in the classroom i the Mansion and then on the grounds experimenting with various techniques, looking for the best light and angles for our images. The rest of the images I like best from that outing may be viewed in less than a minute as a slide show. I didn't include the macro images that I took in the slide show but will add at least one of those to this blog in the next few days. (For readers not familiar with Strathmore, check the link and remember for any time you visit the greater Washington, DC metropolitan area in the US... the Strathmore Music Center is a premier place for hearing marvelous music (fantastic acoustics) so keep it in mind in case you ever have the opportunity to hear music there.)

David had many excellent suggestions which we tried to follow in capturing our images... it's always nice to learn new things and be reminded of things once known from years of shooting with my first REAL camera which was a Nikon DSLR with a metal body. I loved that camera (cannot recall the exact model number) which I used for 12 years before it and all my lenses were stolen from the house into which I moved in 1981!

Mr. Bumblebee having a chat with a Spotted Cucumber Beetle in Basil... October, 2010

2010-10-29T15:58:00.000-07:00

I first saw a Spotted Cucumber Beetle (Diabrotica undecimpunctata) in my Korean Chrysanthemum 'Apricot' blossoms last year... they seem to enjoy flowers and munching on their petals quite a bit! Imagine my surprise, though, to discover one in my Basil while trying to get up close and personal to a Bumblebee! The imagined conversation goes something like this (from bumblebee to beetle): "Hey Beetle... what are you doing in MY Basil?!"

Pentas lanceolata... revisited after the cluster had fully opened...

2010-10-20T20:41:00.000-07:00

The previous post showed a single blossom in a Pentas cluster with the rest still in bud... a few days later... after a rainy night... this is what the plant blossom looks like. Enjoy!

I'll try to remember to occasionally publish the shooting information but generally shoot all my macro images with aperture priority, adjusting ISO to allow me to shoot with a fast enough shutter speed (in the case of shooting insects) to prevent motion blur and to give an F stop that gives me the desired DOF. I'm not a super geeky photographer and can never remember from one time to the next what I was shooting so always have to rely on pulling up the EXIF data after the fact.

My equipment includes a Nikon D90 with a 105mm VR Nikkor lens for the macros and Kenko extension tubes when I want to get super close. I'll try to remember to tag/label when I use extension tubes.

Pentas lanceolata... also known as Egyptian Star Cluster or Star Flower... Summer, 2010

2010-10-19T08:46:00.000-07:00

Pentas lanceolata is not winter hardy in our zone so this is the first year that I've tried it in my garden. Apparently, butterflies and bees as well as hummingbirds LOVE this plant... but I cannot vouch for that since I planted it in an area of my garden that is surrounded by Plumbago larpentae ground cover which has blue blossoms that are a real attractant for all manner of pollen gathering insects. Perhaps next year, I should plant more of this in a different area of my garden... and also plant different colors since pink is not one of my favorites! However, this tiny, perfect, first blossom caught my eye... later on... the entire cluster of tiny buds opened for a very nice display!

Skipper Butterfly series... From my garden... 2010

2010-10-18T14:22:00.000-07:00

Earlier (just a few seconds ago) I published a sunrise post from a camping weekend in Virginia. Since I'm SO far behind posting to my blog, I'm going to include a series of shots of a Skipper butterfly drinking from one of the many flowers of my rampant Plumbago larpentae ground cover in this post. When viewed in the order in which they were taken, they sort of tell a story. Here he is drinking nectar...

There simply MUST be more nectar all the way at the bottom of this flower!

Well, I think I got ALL the nectar there is here so it's time to stop drinking from this flower...

And it's time to move on to the next flower...

Early morning rising has its benefits... Sunrise at Douthat State Park, Virginia... September, 2010

2010-10-18T14:00:00.000-07:00

As always, I have good intentions to post an image a day... but somehow that just doesn't happen. For today... I'm going to post several to catch up with some of the backlog.

First a sunrise from a camping weekend at Douthat State Park, Virginia in September.

A sure sign that fall is on the way... and now it is here!

2010-09-30T12:59:00.000-07:00

Once again, I seem to have fallen WAY BEHIND on posting here... not sure why but things do seem to get in my way. This Coneflower image is from the end of July when our unusually hot summer had taken its toll on my garden... causing the Echinacea to finish blooming earlier than usual. This fading blossom struck me as photo ready so here you see it!

Something different for today... wild horse from the Pryor Mountains... Spring 2010

2010-09-09T13:40:00.000-07:00

The Pryor Mountains, which span the Wyoming/Montana border, are home to a herd of wild horses. Although I grew up in Wyoming and Montana and have visited numerous times since heading east years ago to attend college (and staying after that until the present date), until this past June, I'd never visited the wild horse preserve. Now that we visit annually due to our ownership of a house in nearby Red Lodge, Montana, I spent a day with a high school classmate (an accomplished photographer) searching out the horses and photographing them. This is just one of the many images from our adventure... and I'm quite proud of it!

A dreamy image of tiny flowers... Summer, 2010

2010-08-27T07:36:00.000-07:00

Another extension tube experiment... these are Plumbago larpentae blossoms... it is a lovely ground cover that, once established, may spread to areas where you'd rather not have it! BUT, the fairly shallow root system allows for easy removal. The tiny blossoms are about 20 mm in diameter and appear starting in mid to late July and continue their display well into late fall. (every year, I swear I'm going to note when it starts to bloom but time has a way of getting away from me rather easily)

Bumblebee on Blanket Flower... Summer, 2010

2010-08-26T13:04:00.000-07:00

I've been experimenting with extension tubes paired with my 105mm macro lens. The trick is to follow bugs and snap a shot without using a tripod... hand holding a heavy lens with the added extension tube(s) is quite tricky but every now and then I get lucky! Hope you enjoy viewing this image... I was sure happy to see it once I got it onto my computer.

Update on Spam jerk who keeps trying to post comments on my blog: Blogspot finally has it set up so we can flag jerks such as this one by clicking the "Mark as spam" link in the message received when comment moderation is turned on. And I've followed up on a few of the reports I made by trying to find the jerk and his account generally disappears in short order. So I'll keep clicking the "Mark as spam" links and MAYBE one day he's going to give up completely.

Dawn's Early Light on a Field of Sunflowers, July 2010

2010-08-12T12:14:00.000-07:00

Rising early in the morning has its benefits. This image is another one from a photography workshop given by Blue Ridge Workshops on July 11, 2010. If you are in the greater Washington, DC metropolitan area and interested in a truly marvelous early morning workshop, this is given every year in July and well worth the money!

Hoverfly on Sunflower Petal... July, 2010

2010-07-20T05:05:00.001-07:00

Another image from the Sunflower Workshop given by Blue Ridge Workshops on July 11, 2010. If you are in the Washington, DC Metropolitan area and are not averse to being an early riser, I recommend this workshop for the excellent advice you will be given and the many opportunities for spectacular pictures as the light changes throughout the morning. The workshop is given annually in July.

Although I could have cropped this image closer to concentrate more attention on the hoverfly, I like the bright yellow of the petals against the dark background bokeh and am rather pleased with how this turned out.

ATTENTION fellow bloggers who are getting spammed by the person unknown who repeatedly tries to post comments with embedded links to multiple undesirable sites. I hope you have already turned on comment moderation for your blog so that you don't get these nasty comments showing up for others to see. This morning, I discovered that clicking the link that includes, in part, ...blogger.com/profile/... takes you to the jerk's profile. IF he has a blog listed, then click the link to the blog (nothing will be on it, he changes ID over and over and over again) and then click the "Report Abuse" link at the top of the page to report him. (The link to click is the first link IN the email you get asking if you want to Publish or Reject (yes REJECT) the comment from this jerk.)

Google is aware of this jerk and repeatedly deletes his Google accounts and all pages associated with him... he just comes back in another guise and continues his naughty ways.

Shy sunflower... hiding from me... or the sun? July, 2010

2010-07-14T11:10:00.000-07:00

I just LOVE this sunflower with its demure look... hope you enjoy it too.

Sunflower blossom... not yet opened... Summer, 2010

2010-07-12T12:28:00.000-07:00

It's been awhile since I've posted here... partly because of travel and generally being quite busy otherwise... also because of frustration with the nasty troll who keeps trying to post inappropriate comments on my images (has already tried a dozen times or more on the previous image). Guess he keeps hoping I might slip up and approve one of his tedious comments once in awhile... NOT GOING TO HAPPEN!

Meanwhile, this image is from a photo workshop led by Blue Ridge Workshops... held Sunday July 11, 2010 in a field of sunflowers near where I live in the Washington, DC metropolitan area. We were at the field shortly after 5 AM to take advantage of the early morning light. I learned a LOT and have WAY TOO MANY Sunflower images to post here without boring you all to tears. (all 23 of my somewhat regular followers plus whoever else shows up from time to time) I particularly like this one for the graceful way the bloom is starting to unfurl.

Mr. Froggy with plenty of 'thyme' for sunning himself... Spring, 2010

2010-06-06T11:53:00.000-07:00

Visited my brother and family in Easton, Pennsylvania over Memorial Day weekend... Robin has a lovely pond in his garden and Mr. Froggy is just one of the residents. He could be heard more often than he was seen but I did manage a few photos of him sunning himself in the bed of thyme planted near the edge of the pond.

Extension tube experiment... Orange Gazania center... Spring, 2010

2010-05-29T11:22:00.000-07:00

Must confess to being a bit discouraged about posting here as a rather NASTY troll has been attempting to post comments on EVERY image I post. (each comment he posts is filled with links to MANY pornographic sites) I do have comment approval turned on so nothing makes it to public view but it's extremely discouraging to post and then get a porn filled comment after doing so!

That said, I've been experimenting with using extension tubes and my 18-55mm Nikon lens to see if I can get adept at the combination in order to get macros without lugging my HEAVY 105mm Nikkor macro lens when traveling. Think I'm FINALLY getting the hang of it and realize that I simply MUST use my tripod in order to reduce blurring that occurs when shooting with extension tubes. Meantime, here's an image taken today that, in spite of blurring, I rather like and hope you enjoy too.

Forget-Me-Not... the real thing! Spring, 2010

2010-05-18T10:00:00.000-07:00

A little over a month ago, I posted an image of False Forget-Me-Not that had been photographed in my garden. A couple of weeks later, I happened to be touring a lovely garden nearby and found she had planted "true" Forget-Me-Not. If you scroll down the page, you'll be able to see the earlier post (assuming you see this shortly after I publish it) and will maybe note the difference between the two plants... the most significant difference is the white (False Forget-Me-Not) central feature vs. the yellow (true Forget-Me-Not). I don't know what caused the brown spotting on some of the petals of this plant but that is not normal.

Fading glory... gorgeous tulip in a showcase garden... Spring 2010

2010-05-15T08:34:00.000-07:00

Seems that spring has overwhelmed me with gorgeous color and I've been so busy looking at images that I've not found time to post... this is from a few days ago when I visited a showcase garden in our area. The owner opens her gloriously landscaped garden to the public once a year in spring. Spotted this beautiful tulip as the blooms were on their way to being done for this year... hope you enjoy seeing this as much as I enjoyed capturing the image.

Queen's Wreath Vine in Amonoka Villa gardens, St. Croix, USVI

2010-05-06T12:17:00.000-07:00

Petrea volubilis (Queen's Wreath, Sanpaper Vine)is a high-climbing vine with rough surfaced dark green leaves and clusters of lavender-blue or white flowers. From a posting on Flickr, I learned the name of this plant and that it produces graceful clusters of short-lived purple (or white flowers) enclosed by much longer-lived purple or violet calces.

The tiny flower that appears to have been sunburned about the edges falls off quite easily and led to one of the funniest things I've seen in nature... As I was focusing with my camera on one of the tiny blossoms that had fallen onto a leaf, a bee decided to visit in search of pollen (or nectar) and landed on the fallen flower... at which point... both flower and bee tumbled off the leaf!