Sunday, November 6, 2011
November Butterfly

Our winter friends are back! The last couple of weeks have seen quite an increase in the number of Monarch butterflies around Santa Barbara. This one floated by as I was chasing a Hummingbird. The hummingbird turned out to be too shy, but there is always someone around who loves to have their picture taken!

Monday, September 22, 2008
Flexible Damsel

Well that looks kind of painful. If I sleep funny on my pillow I have to go to the chiropractor in the morning. Of course I guess that would not be a problem if I was that flexible.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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!

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

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 :)

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.

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.