Friday, November 29, 2019
Australian Pied Cormorant Posing

Well this guy sure knows how to pose for his portrait! I found him preening outside of the Royal Botanic Gardens in Melbourne, Australia. Perhaps he was hoping to meet the Queen. He seemed to be encroaching on the territory of some other birds who were repeatedly divebombing him, but that didn't seem to bother him all that much. He hardly looked up from his important feather arranging. The range of birds, and particularly the calls from the unseen multitudes made the stroll through the gardens seem more like the middle of the rainforest than the middle of a large city.

Monday, November 25, 2019
Waikiki Harbor Storm

It's no secret that Hawaii, Waikiki especially, is known for its breathtaking views. But one of the things I enjoy in a place like this is capturing something a little different. Now don't get me wrong, I love a beautiful sunset view and have shot my share of them, but to my eye this has to be one of the most interesting and beautiful images I've ever captured in Hawaii. This is a single image, captured in camera, and not a particularly long exposure since the movement of the boats in their slips would make them unpleasantly blurry over even a matter of seconds. I'm always amazed at the beauty and complexity of lightning bolts as they try to find their way through the atmosphere, and after staring at the structure of these for longer than I probably could accurately estimate I'm convinced that lower one on the left was generally coming straight for us emanating from the bright point in the center of it. An absolutely beautiful evening, and the sunset that preceded it was actually something to behold too, I'll probably share that at a later date.

Wednesday, August 5, 2015
Reflections

Ahh sailboats, I know it seems like a theme lately. It's only partially because I really love them (especially the bright colors in this shot.) The other reason is, near the water is about the only comfortable place to be these days. The cool air coming across the breakwater is the only thing that makes a walk bearable during the day lately. Well that and the cool water if you don't time the waves right. Still humid summer or not, it's absolutely beautiful!

Thursday, August 29, 2013
Iridescent Jelly

This amazing little creature is a Comb Jelly. The lights in rows on the side of his body are rows of tiny cilia (tiny movable hair like structures). But the light does not come from bioluminescence, the cilia are like tiny little prisms refracting the ambient light as the jelly waves the cilia to move through the water. The resulting wave of small rainbows is quite a show.

Monday, May 27, 2013
Pink Epi Blossom

Ok, before you just dismiss this as just another flower, you should know this is a pretty cool plant. This is an Epiphyllum (or Hylocereus) Hybrid. It's a cactus similar to a christmas cactus, but bigger in every way. The pads are several feet long, and this blossom is about 9 inches across. His ancestors, were pure white and lived in one of the most unlikely places imaginable for a cactus, the canopy of Central American jungles, just like orchids (hence Epiphyllum, an epiphyte is a plant that grows upon another plant, like an orchid.) If that is not interesting enough, the large white blossoms of their ancestors bloomed in the evening for only one night. Why? Because their pollinators are nocturnal and some have fairly bad eyesight... bats and some large moths. I've always loved these plants. I have more than I really have room for, and each one is an amazing beauty.

Friday, August 31, 2012
Beet Salad at the Rhumb Line

More beautiful food from the Rhumb Line Restaurant in Ventura. This is the Beet Salad. I'm told it's one of their most popular dishes, and if it tastes as good as it looks I can sure see why! Once again this is right out of the camera, no fakery, and no inedible food here. This was right out of the kitchen, and ready to eat!

Saturday, August 18, 2012
I'll have the Pork

This made me hungry! Sam, the very creative chef at the Rhumb Line restaurant in Ventura shared a work of art with me yesterday. This is something new he is working on, and let me tell you the aroma was enough to make me want to put my camera down and pick up a fork.

Now we've all heard the stories about inedible food used for photography. After the shoot the staff at the restaurant ate this dish to try the new item. No trickery here, and no Photoshop work either. Other than a few specks of dust, this is right out of the camera.

Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Mission Carmel Bell Tower

This is from the inner courtyard at the Carmel Mission. I believe the tree with the white blossoms is a Flowering Pear Tree. This is thier time of year. There are some around here that are pure white with so many blossoms you can't see their leaves.

Sunday, January 25, 2009
High Speed Fountain

Today was a day of relaxation. Well, after the morning of spring cleaning it was anyway. (Yeah, spring comes early in California and it's not always a good thing.) One of our stops today was at Terra Sol Nursery on Patterson Avenue. We spend a LOT of time there for people who live in a place with a 10' x 25' back yard. But there is always room for one more plant. And there is always room for quite a few more cool plant photos.

We were trying to think of something nice to put in a newly cleaned space hoping it would discourage us from collecting junk... er, I mean, important things that have yet to find a permanent home. Today it was the fountains that caught our eyes. But those are more of an outside thing so we left uncharacteristically empty handed. Well other than for a few really cool shots of the water flowing from the fountains. This one is particularly interesting because just looking at the fountain the stream was a perfect column of water. But at 1/640th of a second you can clearly see individual pulses of the motor driving the pump. Usually the pumps pulse at 60hz (60 times per second) same as the electricity that supplies them.

In the spirit of simplifying things, and since the photo of the day has been a little behind lately, I have created a new category on the site: "unretouched". This image is just as it came out of the camera. Not to say that all the other images are heavily altered. But I am far from a purist when it comes to either recreating the scene as I remember it, or just having fun with a creative image. And recently I have been working with some massive panoramas that take days to get just right. So it will be nice to take some more spontaneous shots.

Sunday, January 21, 2007
Still Sleeping

When normal people go on vacation they sleep in. Then you have me and my hound dog. Miss hound seems to like to get up early when we are in a different place. Maybe because she knows that is when I get some of my best pictures. Or, maybe she's excited to go out and smell what there is to smell. (She has long since sniffed all there is to sniff at home.) At any rate, she woofs and since she has me wrapped around her cute little paw, we get up and go out. When this started I was not very happy about it, but I have learned that there will usually be a number of beautiful images that reveal themselves during our morning constitutional.

I would write more, but Zoe is sitting by the door right now. She is trying to remind me there is more to life than sitting in front of the strange glowing, humming box.