Category Archives: Nature

Week 25 – Friend Bird

A bird waits on the steps of the castle on Saturday night.

I came home on Saturday night and this bird was sitting on the front porch of Chris’ house, right by the door. I was able to get nice and close for pictures, which made me think something wasn’t quite right with it. It didn’t mind the flashes and clicking. The following morning, the bird was still there, and equally unperturbed by my photographic endeavors. I assumed it would be dead once I returned from my tasks that day, but interestingly, it was gone. I’m really not sure what happened.

As an aside, anyone know what kind of bird it is? I don’t think pigeons usually come that color, but I could be wrong.

Week 20 – The Wild World of the Driveway

A tiny ant crawls across Chris' driveway.

In a somewhat last-ditch attempt for a photo this week, I surprised myself by getting a photo I am quite pleased with. I went and sat on the driveway with my poor man’s macro setup– one lens on regular, and then another lens focused to infinity turned around and held onto the front element of the attached one. Not the best or most controllable macro, and obviously there’s lots of issues with vignetting, but it is a technique that can produce usable images. It helps if your subject is less than active. I think this ant was alive, but not feeling too hot and wasn’t long for the world.

Week 18 – Quackers and cheese

A duck bobs on Lake Woodlands.

I didn’t get any outstanding photos this week– I didn’t put enough thought into taking pictures over the past 7 days. So I took some pictures of critters at Northshore. Duck pictures are a dime a dozen, but I picked this one out of a big batch and I like the composition. Hopefully next week will end up with a more unorthodox photo.

Week 14 – Spring Flowers

Shawna admires bluebonnets at Spring Forest park.

It was a nice day, and all sorts of flowers are growing now, so Shawna and I figured we’d go get some pictures of the bluebonnets we’d heard about. They smelled good.

I tried some artsy photos.

I also tried some silly ones.

But for this week’s “Official Photo,” a plain ole portrait worked. I used the fill flash on that one, but I’m not sure it showed. It was glaringly bright, so there were going to be shadows no matter what. Still, not many ways to mess up a picture of a girl sitting in some flowers.