Friday, August 9, 2013
Pepper Reflection

I love food, almost as much as I love photography. So it's always a natural combination to take pictures of the delicious things I encounter. This beautiful little pepper had such a cool stem it was just crying out to be a still life subject!

Monday, April 2, 2012
Fire Skimming Dragon

Looking back I see it has been a while since I posted a nature shot. For that matter it has been a while since I really spent some time outside with my macro lens, which is something I'm going to have to work on. In the mean time I found this beauty who was waiting in an old shoot of images from a small duck pond in Goleta.

This little Dragon is called a Flame Skimmer. The detail on his (or her) wings is so beautiful. I have always loved chasing them with my camera. This shot was taken while hanging akwardly off of a bridge over a small duck pond, it seemed that was his favorite spot. And while he would land other places, the perch over the side of the bridge was where he was comforatble enough to let me get close. It took some patience, but I was able to get close enough over the period of about five minutes to get the shot I wanted.

Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Icelandic Poppy

Although it's been a rough winter spring is just around the corner. Of course it's never far away here in California. The winter gives us beautiful sunsets, but now it's time for some amazing spring flower images.

Friday, September 5, 2008
Curvy Pepper

So we are trying to eat a little better. We stopped at the Farmers' market today to see if they had any good fruit. (The grocery stores have been a little weak lately.) We found some good peaches and strawberries then we found the cool peppers. My wife and I were looking for really interesting ones which caught the eye of one of the guys behind the counter. He started telling us that people even used to take these really nice black and white photos of these kinds of peppers. Like he was reading my mind. Well, except for the black and white part. But maybe tomorrow!

Saturday, April 19, 2008
Tulip Feather

More plants followed us home from the grocery store the other day. One of them was this beautiful Tulip. The bellows was still out from the recent Ladybug fest so this shot was inevitable really.

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.

Thursday, July 6, 2006
Red Lady

This morning I was playing in our little garden, and I found this little guy on one of our interesting plants. I don't recall ever seeing a Ladybug with no spots. The leaves it was exploring are on a small Plumeria tree (think of the sweet smelling flowers that most Hawaiian leis are made of) The tree has been with us for years but many times it has been fighting for life with no leaves at all. As you can see it is very happy now.

Wednesday, June 7, 2006
First Tomato of the Season!

I am sooo excited, this year is our second attempt to grow tomatoes in our small back yard. And I think my wife has figured out the secret as you can see. This guy is beautiful and smells perfect! (smell is one of THE most important things in picking a good tomato IMO) It is a "Pink Grape Tomato" it is only about an inch long, which is about how big it is supposed to be. And as you can see there are more on the way.

Friday, May 5, 2006
Bottle Brush

Well it is some sort of Callistemon anyway, there are quite a few and some of them are similar. Anyway, it seems to be from Australia. 'Course this particular one lives just up my street.

I was actually watching a bee, trying to get her photo, if you look closely on the right side of the flower you can see her through the red flower, and just make out a silhouette.

Sunday, April 30, 2006
Nun Bee

The sun came out today!!! Not something that would normally be such a surprise in California, but this year you have to take it one day at a time.

In honor of our beautiful sunny day we decided to take a bit of a rose garden tour. We went to the Mission rose garden and the rose garden at Fess Parker's Resort on Cabrillo.

This was one of my favorite roses of the day. I was actually taking pictures of it before the bee flew into the picture. She was quite the ham! She hovered all around in front of the rose for me.

Saturday, April 8, 2006
Palm Saturday Roses

Today we went to the Santa Barbara Farmers' Market to find Palm Fronds to decorate our church for Palm Sunday. We didn't find much in the way of palms, but there are always fun things to look at anyway!

Friday, March 17, 2006
Playin' With My Food (AKA This Little Piggy)

I am really enjoying the food photography thing. Two of my favorite things, how could it be wrong!?

It doesn't hurt that we have a variety of very cool props around. This little piggy has been on our cool stone table for a while and I decided that it was time for his photo shoot! ('Course, the coffee table is not usually that clean :)

Thursday, February 23, 2006
Satin Bud

This is another image from the same trip to the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History as this one. And, like the odd lighting on that image, this one benefits from the tight quarters and strange shadows. This is pretty close to a raw scan, the deep red color is real and I love these flowers for their intense colors. This is not the first Dahlia to be the photo of the day.

Incidentally, these are named after the Swedish botanist Anders Dahl.

Tuesday, February 14, 2006
Valentines Rose

Ahh yes I have been slacking off a bit lately. (Actually it has been a very busy week!) But, I thought this image from one of my cards was a good image to get back on track with! I hope you had a wonderful Valentine's Day!

Tuesday, February 7, 2006
Bougainvillea Bracts Close-up

This is one of those plants like a Poinsettia. The red things are actually technically more like leaves than actual flowers, they are called "Bracts." The real flower is a small white bloom that comes out from the center of the groups of red leaves. You can see a couple of the buds in this photo.

Although they are not technically part of the flower the bracts serve an important role in the pollination of the plant. They act as kind of a beacon for pollinators that might otherwise miss the small white flowers as they fly by.

Daisies are another type of plant with a similar structure. What is commonly called a daisy flower is actually a cluster of small flowers (called the Capitulum) surrounded by bracts. In this image the bracts are white and the capitulum is yellow.

Saturday, January 21, 2006
Soft Rose

This is an early photo I took when I first got my close-up lenses on eBay. The low aperture gives a nice softness that we have dubbed the "Fuzzy Flower Filter".

Monday, December 26, 2005
Birthday Sunset

This one was posted a little late. But, it is a belated birthday present for my best friend who is now (January 16th) my wife. Yesterday, she asked me what picture she got for her day. And, due to some major wedding preparations at that time I was getting behind on the photo of the day so she got to choose her own.

Monday, December 5, 2005
Icing Inspiration

I'm starting to practice decorating cakes for a special event the end of this month. I have seen some beautiful roses created in icing and decorated with powdered food coloring so I was looking for an image to use as a reference. If I come close to this I'll post a photo of the buttercream version. If not... well, I'm sure it will be a delicious failure. :-D

Tuesday, November 29, 2005
Dahlia in the Sun

This is another image taken as a reference for my best friend's watercolors. An earlier Dahlia appeared here on April 12th.

Strange though, I haven't seen any watercolors come from these yet. I'll have to talk to her about that!

Wednesday, November 23, 2005
Rancho Super

I like taking photos at night and this was a great subject.

This guy lives at a carwash off of highway 111 in Palm Desert near Palm Springs, CA.

Wednesday, November 9, 2005
Possibilities

My favorite roses are yellow in the middle with red edges. Yellow roses stand for friendship, red for love. My best friend recently told me that yellow with red edges means "possibilities".

I guess that makes sense.

Monday, November 7, 2005
Hovering Bee

If you have been watching the site for a while you know that I like to chase bees. So far this has turned out well for me. I assume my luck will run out eventually, but for now it's making for some really nice shots.

This one even made it to one of my greeting cards.

Monday, October 10, 2005
Lucifer Canna

My mom gave me this Canna many years ago and it is blooming again. It was never very happy in a pot until we got two very tall (2.5 feet) skinny (12") pots. It seems to love to put its roots down, way down.

It is called a Canna "Lily" but it is more closely related to Ginger and Banana plants.

Thursday, September 29, 2005
Orchid

I grow a lot of my flower pictures. But this is one that I purchased while it was blooming from the Santa Barbara Orchid Estate. And, they are having an open house and sale in the beginning of November. So, I'm thinking it is time to buy some film. :-)

Perhaps while I am there they can refresh my memory as to the proper name of this guy so I can stop calling it the "red and Yellow Orchid."