I have been limiting my blogging activities lately due to trying to figure out what is grabbing resources at my web host. I ‘ll post more about it when it is resolved. Until then, I’ll share a new image shot in my backyard recently. I still intend on doing my “Every 10 feet” project, but haven’t been able to dedicate some quality time to it yet. What attracted me this particular set of stamen were their alignment and their ’standing tall’ presentation. Sunshine was also coming in from the side giving the translucent tubules an incredible glow.
Archive for June, 2007
Standing tall
Tuesday, June 26th, 2007
Down time?
Friday, June 22nd, 2007Please bear with any possible issues any visitors may be having here, or comments not showing up. I am experiencing some issues with my hosting service that I am trying to resolve. I already lost some updates and perhaps a few comments. Thank you for your patience. It is the first time I am experiencing this particular issue with my host of “Excessive Resource Usage” and think it may be related to some Wordpress plugins I have installed.
Eye of the Swamp
Sunday, June 17th, 2007a tract of wet, spongy land, often having a growth of certain types of trees and other vegetation, but unfit for cultivation.. Swamps were generally seen as useless and even dangerous..
These are a couple of definitions I pulled off the web regarding the word ’swamp.’ I have often wondered about the negative associations with this habitat and their origins. The references to ‘unfit for cultivation’ probably gives a lot of hints about the historical negativity. If a piece of land cannot be used by man – it is deemed ‘useless.’ That says quite a bit about our regard toward certain habitats. What an arrogant species we are to label and assign value to everything according to our use for it. We see this same thinking pattern in arguments for pro-drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, that it is a barren, useless piece of land. To humans perhaps.
So today I went photographing in Lakeville Swamp, a preserved area covering 76 acres with more than 400 species of native plants. There is no camping, no hunting, no bike path, no boating – only a simple primitive path. I went specifically for Showy Lady Slippers as this is their blooming time of the year and happen to only grow in swamps. It never ceases to amaze me the diversity of plant life found here. Clearly some species find this type of land of great value, and in many other swamps across the country. On my way out I noticed this cedar tree root looked like an eye. I couldn’t help but think it was the “Swamp Spirit” watching this human cautiously and with suspicion.
Have no fear Swamp Spirit, your land is protected here – regardless of what some may consider the worth, others know the true value. We leave you to manage yourself, and may only visit now and then to say hello. (But if you could do something about those mosquitoes..)
Don’t ignore your own yard…
Tuesday, June 12th, 2007
I don’t spend enough time in my own yard photographing the many critters that come to visit here. I have been pretty fortunate to catch a few rare ones, like the Coopers Hawk that was visiting for awhile. But I haven’t really spent enough time photographing the more “common” visitors, like squirrels and chipmunks. Both of them are pretty comical to watch at times, you would think I have thousands of pictures of both. But I don’t.. hardly any actually. So I am going to make an effort to change that.
I happened to really like this particular shot of this chipmunk that I just shot today. Â. Life is hard as a chipmunk – just when you get your ears pierced, some other jealous one wants to rip it away. Â. 
Songs of Insects
Tuesday, June 12th, 2007I heard a fantastic story on my NPR podcast today, an interview with the authors of a new book on the songs of insects, Wil Hershberger and Lang Elliott. You can hear it here. As they mention in the story, there is an abundance of information about bird song, even frog songs, but hardly any (perhaps this is the first) on insect songs. So these guys decided to tackle that area in documenting these particular sounds of nature.
We all hear them in our backyards, or through our walks in the woods – and it is terrific that these guys have put together something that allows you to associate the song with the type of insect. Wil and Lang have also created a site and a blog in promotion of the book and this area of study, so check those out also.
Good work guys, looking forward to receiving my copy.
Safari for Windows – looks good!
Monday, June 11th, 2007
Apple seems to be on a command and conquer roll. They just introduced an update to their internet browser Safari, previously an exclusive for Macs, but now for Windows as well. Since I do all my web design on a Windows PC, it is difficult for me to check the appearance of how pages appear on a Mac or in Safari. Therefore this is a welcome addition in the area of web browsers for me. I only hope that it closely mimics how pages look on a Mac, perhaps it is only half way. As I am writing this post from within Safari, I can already see a thing or two that don’t quite work right from within Wordpress, but perhaps it is a setting somewhere. I do notice that from the limited surfing I have done in Safari, it definitely seems faster than Firefox as Apple claims. Some fonts also look quite different. But overall, my site seems to function well, no major hiccups.
I do like the clean look of Safari – the “no borders” appearance to web pages is nice. I’ll definitely have to kick the tires a bit more. Safari visitors make up about 5-6% of the overall visitors to my site, with Firefox users at 20%, Internet Explorer at 73%, and the balance with other browsers. I am willing to bet those percentages are going to change a bit with this new release. I can hardly wait to see the Mac & PC spot on this one.
A day inside
Saturday, June 9th, 2007
Despite a clear morning and fairly calm weather, I didn’t go out shooting today. A carryover headache from the prior night just killed my motivation. Instead I slept in and decided to catch up on some website tweaks and image editing I have had on my to-do list for awhile now. I am still very behind in keywording and getting more organized in Lightroom It was one of those days to open up the electronic closet and see if any older images might be worthy of some work as well.
So here is an older shot taken in Joshua Tree National Park – part of the spring bloom there, even in the middle of the desert. This dune primrose, paired with some old, knarly dried wood really communicates a lot about the environment there.
I have placed a new menu/information system in various areas of the site – wander around and let me know what you think.
Shaking the trees
Wednesday, June 6th, 2007
For the longest time now I have made these types of images that appear part painting, part sketch, part photograph. Really it is a bit of whimsical camera play just by making exposures while doing anything BUT holding the camera steady. The objects (usually trees) become large brushes on a bigger canvas. They are pretty hard to previsualize, because I would say only about 1 in 10 end up appealing to me. I have made them in the winter, spring, and fall – each ends up taking on a character of their own. Very little done in Photshop except for color and contrast. One day I will perhaps put them all together in a portfolio.
They usually work best when you have hardly any sky showing. Skies get blown out and tend to create really high contrast areas, and end up being more distracting than a contributor to the overall appeal. These images tend to remind me of the Peter Gabriel song, Shaking the tree.
