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Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Fluttering Monarch
This was from a trip to a local nursury
just before Christmas. Santa Barbara is
a popular place for them to hang out in the
Winter. We actually have a grove of Eucalyptus
trees they congregate in. I'd love to
go take more shots of them, but the way
it's raining right now I don't think I could
make it through the mud.
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Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Hummer in Flight
She just hovered there for a while. I think she was
as interested in checking me out as I was interested in her.
She did not seem scared. (It probably did not hurt that there were about 20 other
hummingbirds around and I had not eaten any of them yet.)
She sat and ate casually after she was
done looking at me. I'm glad she stopped though, it made for a much nicer
shot.
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Monday, June 18, 2007
Resting Dragon
This is actually an older shot, one of my favorites. In fact
it is one of the images on my business card.
The branch is a dead branch on a ficus tree that we saved
from being thrown away. It was sitting on the patio
of our old apartment and the branch was hanging out over the
railing. Unfortunately, shooting straight out would have given me
a background of the next apartment building. I had
to lean out to get a better angle with trees and filtered sun
in the background. Even though the background is totally
out of focus, this made for a much nicer shot.
BTW, the ficus is much happier these days. It is in the back yard
and growing like crazy. We are a little crazy that way. We like
to save things and nurse them back to health. Plants, hound dogs
whatever needs a home! I must get that from
my parents.
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Tuesday, June 5, 2007
Evening Bee
My intention was to chase hummingbirds. But they must not have
been very hungry tonight. Of course the bees are always good
for a few nice shots.
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Saturday, June 2, 2007
Armored Bee
Well my description was not quite as scientific as I usually
like... "Big Black Bee!" But it's late and I was not able
to track her down. I did have fun taking pictures of her though!
Her copper colored wings were reflecting the evening sun
beautifully! I was trying to get a shot that really hilted the wings
and their amazing structure
but this ended up being my favorite.
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Friday, June 1, 2007
Sunset Dinner Flight
The hummers have gone wild around here lately. We have three feeders
up, but it is a little hard to compete with all the flowers.
There are actually three birds that fight over this bush regularly.
Even though the bush has plenty to go around.
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Saturday, February 17, 2007
Egret in Flight
This image was taken at the same time as the
happy seals. The seals were just to the left of this guy.
It was a fun day to be out with my camera!
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Tuesday, December 5, 2006
Popular Rose
It looks like there's gonna be a fight!
Actually, they got along really well and shared the flower.
At one point there was even a third bee.
I have been known to chase bees, but in this case I was
drawn to this scene by the same thing they were.
There are a lot of beautiful roses out there but
the yellow/red variegated varieties are my favorites!
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Sunday, December 3, 2006
Conducting Duck
She looks like she is conducting an orchestra. Or perhaps
directing traffic? Either way she is really into what she is doing.
She was actually alternating between stretching and flapping hard
and I got her in mid-flap.
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Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Somebody's Watchin'
This is a closer crop of one of my shots of the dragon
from a couple of weeks ago. (Sorry to any Entophobics out there!)
I like this shot not only because you can actually make out the hexagonal segments of his eyes.
Which is pretty cool, but also because of the shadows of the hairs. There are hairs
between his eyes, you cant see them, they are pointing straight at the camera.
But you can see the shadows on his eye.
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Friday, November 3, 2006
Blue-eyed Darner
We spent the last couple of days in Pismo Beach, it was a nice
place to spend a few days.
One of the places we wandered into after lunch was
a garden store that had all kinds of interesting plants
and things. The most interesting of them was this
Dragonfly that buzzed me when I was looking at a fountain (his fountain?)
Of course he froze when I found his perch which gave me a great
opportunity to get some nice shots of him.
His eyes are extremely beautiful, you can see the
hexagonal structure of the segments of his eyes in the
shape of the highlight on his left eye.
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Saturday, September 9, 2006
Anna
We when to a beautiful place in Carpinteria today called Seaside Gardens.
Seaside Gardens is a nursery and botanic garden. They had some amazing
plants. And it was a hummingbirds' paradise.
One of the things I liked about the Gardens is they had the plants
separated by country of origin, both in the sales area and the nicely
designed botanic gardens.
So, if you are in the area and you find yourself in need of a Lotus for your
Koi pond or anything else remotely exotic just get off the 101 at Exit 88
(Padero Lane or Santa Claus Lane) go toward the mountains and turn right.
Seaside Gardens will be on your left.
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Saturday, July 22, 2006
Bee Dazzler
The bees have been wild this year.
And, as I have yet to be stung, they
are still one of my favorite subjects.
Actually, I love photographing flowers
and the bees add some life.
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Thursday, July 20, 2006
Serendipity
It is really interesting to me to see the motion
in this shot. The bee is actually leaning into
the turn like a bike rider.
I was framing up the shot of the flower when the
bee flew in from the left. She made a beautiful
arc into the photo and I hit the shutter release as
many times as I could!
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Wednesday, July 19, 2006
Red Dragon
I like dragonflies and this guy and his friends
were putting on quite a show. They were diving
down to the surface of the water and skimming
across it (hence the name I guess,) I got a few
action shots but this is my favorite!
While I was trying to identify this guy I found
many sites incorrectly identifying damsel flies
as dragonflies. The way you tell the difference
is by how they hold their wings when they are
resting. This is a dragonfly, wings perpendicular
to the body. A damselfly holds it's wings back
against it's body.
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Monday, July 10, 2006
Glowing Bee
Today, when we took The Hound for her afternoon walk
we bumped into one of our neighbors. She was working in her garden like she does
almost every day. Part of her garden was particularly attractive to the bees,
so I took the opportunity to get a few bee portraits.
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Friday, June 9, 2006
Duck Taking Flight
I think these are the same ducks from our last trip to
the gardens! I think she said something to insult the Koi.
Because the Koi jumped out of the water near her and
made her take off like this. Of course I can't say I
blame her. The Koi was twice her size!
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Saturday, April 15, 2006
Alice's Ducks
We had another nice walk through Alice Keck Park
Memorial Gardens today. (Commonly mistaken as just
Alice Keck Park. As in Alice Keck's park, but her name was
Alice Keck Park, and it is her Memorial Garden.) I only
point this out because it was not entirely clear to me
until today. Actually, I guess I just never thought about it
before today.
So, on to the Ducks. They were chasing each other
around the pond the whole time we were there.
Ahhh, spring is here! :-D
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Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Freesia Buzz
This image was one shot before yesterday's photo of the day.
It was a good walk with the hound. Maybe because it has finally warmed up a little
during the day. (Personally I liked the snow! But I am not conscious early enough
in the morning to go play in it before it melts :)
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Saturday, October 8, 2005
Costa's Lunchtime
This is one of the higher speed shots I have taken of
the hummers in the Palm Springs area. I usually take a
slower shot that shows more motion in the wings, but
it is nice to try a variety of things. The shutter speed
was actually not that fast, it was helped out buy the fact that
I just happened to hit the shutter at the top of his wing sweep.
This guy has some amazing throat feathers that stick out on the sides.
I get a lot of questions about my hummingbird shots...
-
How fast was the shutter speed?
Actually, relatively slow. 60th to 250th of a
second.
And, it is not usually the shutter that
freezes the motion of their wings.
Normally a high speed strobe is used which can go
down to as little as a millionth of a second
because it does not depend upon the mechanics of moving a
shutter.
Some commercial shots are even staged with a high speed
strobe and camera outfitted with an infrared trigger.
The trigger fires the shutter (and the camera fires the strobe)
when something breaks the beam in front of the camera.
Cool use of technology, but if you depend upon the technology
completely you will get a very clinical image that does not
look at all life-like.
I don't use a strobe for two reasons. I think
the resulting photos look too clinical and just like any
other bird and, I don't have one. :-D
-
You must have an impressive lens, what kind is it?
Most of my hummers are shot with an average Canon 70-200mm
zoom lens. I am just very patient when it comes to watching
these guys, I have spent over an hour at times to let them
get comfortable with me.
-
Did you use a tripod? Did you set up the shot in advance?
Nope, with very few exceptions these are handheld shots taken
while wandering around where the hummers frequent.
I like the freedom to move around and get exactly what I want.
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Saturday, August 27, 2005
Posing Butterfly
This guy was posing so nicely. I particularly
like the color of the leaves he is perched on.
They go nice with his wings.
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Wednesday, August 10, 2005
Fly-thru
There have been some really important people interested
in my hummingbirds at the shows lately. :)
(see yesterday's post)
So I decided to look through some of the
images I still have tucked away.
This was one of the first ones that
jumped out at me.
The one in flight is exactly what I love to capture
when I am chasing hummers. His face is sharp
and his beak, but you can still see the movement
of flight. And, the guy on the feeder looks
like he is conducting an orchestra.
Many of the hummingbird shots you see
are done with a strobe, a very fast flash.
A strobe freezes the action and you do not have to depend
upon the speed of the camera's shutter.
The best cameras these days reach their limits at around 1/8000th
of a second, my AE-1
goes down to 1/1000th. This image was taken between 1/100th and 1/250th of a second.
Extremely high speed strobes
can go down to a millionth of a second, because they
do not depend upon mechanics like shutters.
Unfortunately strobe images come out looking a little
clinical for my tastes. But then again, they are all just tools
it really depends upon how you use them.
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Monday, July 18, 2005
Hummers
The top hummingbird is actually the same bird as
in this photo.
She was hovering around the feeder for quite a while
checking out the strange creature with the 200mm nose.
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Monday, May 23, 2005
Dropin' in for Lunch
It was a good weekend. It was the 40th anniversary
of the Santa Barbara Arts and Crafts show.
The show is usually only on Sundays, but since it was a special occasion
some of the artists were out there on Saturday too.
Unfortunately it was a big weekend for other things in town.
A car show and a Volleyball tournament combined with
temperatures 13 degrees above made for a slow weekend.
The good thing is, I am not just out there for the sales. :-)
I love talking to people about my photography.
Hummingbirds in particular seem to bring about
great conversations. I have heard wonderful stories
about peoples' interactions with these amazing creatures.
Today I talked to a very nice couple visiting from Germany, they had
been traveling the coast and seemed to be having a wonderful time.
We talked about Big Sur and
Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park
where they had been. And the wonderful hummingbirds they had seen.
The man told me how he had just mentioned to his wife how the perfect job
would be to travel up and down the California Coast and
take pictures of nature and wildlife, and there I was!
So today's photo of the day was his choice. From the selection
of Hummingbird prints I had at the beach, this was his favorite.
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Saturday, February 19, 2005
Dragon
Proof that dragons once roamed the earth! (or at least the skies)
Don't believe me? Well imagine this guy's great-great-great-gran'daddy
with a wingspan of well over half a meter. Making them among
the largest flying insects ever known, and the largest thing in the
sky at the time. Of course that was millions
of years ago. In fact, these insects were around long before the dinosaurs.
- Living fossils
Other interesting plants and animals that have remained
virtually unchanged
since pre-historic times.
- The Wollemi Pine
Perhaps that giant dragon flew over these trees. The trees
were thought to be extinct until 1994 when a small
grove of them was found near Sydney Australia.
You will soon be able to help preserve the tree
by purchasing one of them (cultivated in captivity) for your garden.
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