Date: Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Day 181 - Safe Zone
We had a freak windstorm come up this afternoon and ended up losing about 1/3 of an Ash Tree today due to broken limbs.
No real free time, coupled with having to cut broken limbs off of Ash Trees damaged by wind, left me with little time for photography this afternoon.
So, today ended up being another "lawn rat" (rabbit) shot for my daily photo. This little baby rabbit is spending a lot of time under and near the front porch. He seems to be doing chores for his keep, as he's acting as a furry trimmer, eating the tall grass underneath the porch, that I missed with the traditional weedwhacker. I managed to get right above him to shoot this photo, while he watched me and grazed on the tall grass.
Categories: 365 Days
Posted On: Wednesday, June 30, 2010 @ 8:39 PM
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Date: Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Day 180 - Squished
The past couple of days have been poor for my photography, as I just haven't been in a "go get 'em" state of mind when it comes to shooting photos.
After another lackluster day of shooting my favorite "lawn rats" (rabbits) and a few macros of flowers, I was about to put up my camera for the evening since the sun was beginning to go down, when I went and had a look at a Mourning Dove in its nest. While shooting some photos of the bird still sitting patiently in its nest, I noticed something different. I noticed a head and an eye looking down at me, from under the mid-section of the Mourning Dove. One of the dove eggs has apparently hatched and the hatchling was literally looking like it was being squished under the mother bird, while peeking down at me.
Although the view of the hatchling isn't that good, this was the first signs of success from this Dove's nest and I'm hoping to get some shots before the fledglings leave the nest, so I chose this shot as my daily photo.
This photo is best viewed in the large size.
Date: Monday, June 28, 2010
Day 179 - Shelter Me
I was uninspired with my photography today. I was just feeling "off" as well as feeling a bit ill, so my photography was a little lackluster all day long. Well, I can't really say that, as I got a few nice shots of another baby rabbit, but I'm getting tired of the constant bunny shots. I need to expand my horizons away from around the yard/house shots, but the timing just never seems to work out right, to where I can roam around town. It is always one thing or another that interrupts my photography plans, so if I don't specifically have a planned community event I am going to, then I can pretty much expect that I'll end up doing something else, rather than getting out with my camera.
Anyway, since summer has finally arrived here, I decided I wanted a little more shade while shooting photographs, so I took a clamp-on camping chair umbrella and clamped it onto my tripod, which seems to work great for shading me and my camera. I wish I'd have had the umbrella idea, while trying to shoot photographs in that heavy May snowstorm we had, as I soaked my camera that day.
As the afternoon light had begun to fade, I saw the sunlight filtering in through the umbrella canopy and thought it looked interesting, so I shot a photo or two of the umbrella and framework. Today's daily photo was probably the most interesting photo I shot all day.
Date: Sunday, June 27, 2010
Day 178 - No Clouds To Kiss
My timing is lousy...I am going to remember to set my camera on a tripod before dawn from now on, so that I'll be ready for anything...
I hopped in the shower this morning and as I was climbing out, I heard Cloud Kisser III, Riverton's home hot air balloon, literally over the roof. I quickly got dressed and ran outside with my camera, only to find Cloud Kisser about 90 yards away, making its way South. I managed to shoot a few decent photos of their early morning practice run across the valley. The sky was a beautiful blue color this morning, with no clouds, for Cloud Kisser III to kiss.
One of Riverton's largest summer events is the Riverton Rendezvous Balloon Rally, which is less than a month away. I had been wondering if the balloon club was ever going to pull their balloons out for some flight time before the summer rally season. Hopefully, they will be able to fly a few more practice flights in the coming days, bringing them overhead so that I can practice my balloon photography before the rally.
Date: Saturday, June 26, 2010
Day 177 - Brownie
Today's daily photo is of a new baby rabbit that has moved into the wood pile out back. In this photograph, he's sitting just outside his "front door," if you will. He's just a little bit bigger than the palm of my hand. I've noticed him around for the past few days, but he's been difficult to get close to, except for this morning, when he let me stalk within a few feet of him.
I nicknamed him Brownie, as his coat appeared to be a little more of a brown color than the others.
Date: Friday, June 25, 2010
Day 176 - Yellow Paddles
Today's photo is of a tiny Potentilla flower. These are tiny, yellow flowers about the size of the end of your finger. And being a bright yellow, they are a bear for me to photograph. At the higher resolutions, the petals of this tiny, yellow flower look like paddles.
I've rarely had good results while photographing yellow or white flowers, but this shot turned out half-way decent, which is why I chose it for my daily photo.
Date: Thursday, June 24, 2010
Day 175 - Umbrella
Today's daily photo is of an umbrella-shaped fungi Conk, protruding from a broken limb on a Hopa Crabapple tree. Hopa trees are notorious for being susceptible to diseases. This Hopa has just about run its course, as it has become weakened not only by repeated Fire Blight infections, but is also being eaten from the inside out, by some type of Armillaria fungus infection, that is now apparently becoming rampant throughout the tree. At least I think it is Armillaria, although I am not very well versed on fungi infections. Based on the large Conk that appear every year, as shown in my daily photo for today, I think it is some type of Honey Fungus.
I am amazed this tree has lived as long as it has, since this fungi infection has been present for years. Conk make for some interesting photos, so I chose this shot as my photo for today.
Date: Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Day 174 - Keep Your Chin Up, Little One
Although my morning photography started off a little slow, I ran into a streak of luck when it came to my daily photograph.
While sitting at my computer workstation, I heard a commotion outside of the critter persuasion. Grackles were after a Robin fledgling that had apparently been chased out of the nest too soon and the adult Robins were trying to keep this little guy safe from the inky marauders.
So, I hopped out of my chair, grabbed my camera, then ran the Grackles off. After chasing the Grackles away, I laid down on the lawn very close to the fledgling and shot about 200 macro photographs of the little guy, coming away with some very nice close-up shots of him.
All the while, the Robin parents, were complaining, swooping in low over me and jumping around on the branches of the crabapple tree, to try to get me away from their offspring.
After shooting more than enough photographs, I quietly backed away and let them all settle down. A few minutes later, one of the adult Robins came in and fed the fledgling and led it away. A short time later, I saw the fledgling in the branches of a pine tree, and I shot a few more photographs of him up in the tree.
All in all, today was a very good day for my photography.
Categories: 365 Days
Posted On: Wednesday, June 23, 2010 @ 4:59 PM
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Date: Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Day 173 - Mourning Light
I wasn't able to spend much time on my photography today. Subsequently, I only shot about 40 photographs. I have been trying to transition to a morning routine for shooting my daily photo, but I'm still not able to get myself acclimated well to a morning photography routine. I think I'll like shooting in the mornings more if I can get my schedule down, as the morning light always plays better for me.
In today's daily photograph, early morning sunlight shines directly on the head of one of the pair of Mourning Doves that have nested in the Crabapple tree. It should only be a few more days, before the doves have a couple of hungry a mouths to feed. When they hatch, I'll have to dress up in full camouflage, stealthily sneaking up into the nearby branches with a ladder and poke my camera through the leaves to try to photograph the little critters in their nest.
Date: Monday, June 21, 2010
Day 172 - Feelers
The first day of Summer left me with little time for photography. I ended up shooting a few photos of flowers around the yard and decided that my best photograph for today was a macro shot of a cluster of Mock Orange blossoms. The blossoms looked like they have antennae feelers sticking out of their centers, which appeared interesting, and I thought this shot would make a good daily photograph.
Interestingly, my always-present rabbit photo subjects were nowhere to be seen today. I may be losing them to Owl predation, as I saw an owl feather in the yard yesterday, right in the spot where one of the little rabbits likes to hang out. Time will tell, I suppose, but hopefully, they will be wary enough to watch out for predatory birds, etc.
Date: Sunday, June 20, 2010
Day 171 - Passage Into Summer
Summer begins tomorrow. The yellow crackerbarrel roses are blooming, but mostly way in the back of their large growth of bushes, near the brick where it is warmer. Photographing these early-blooming roses is a thorny, painful experience.
Luckily, this rose bloom was close to the end of the rose bushes, and I managed to shoot some photographs of it by climbing halfway in and leaning further into the bushes, only getting stabbed a little bit in the process. I was hoping for a lot of sunlight very early this morning when the sun was low on the horizon so I could capture the vibrant yellow colors, but storm clouds rolled in for a while, threatening to rain.
Although we didn't get any rain from this storm cell, it made it cloudy long enough for the sun to get high on the horizon, past the "magic hour" I wanted to shoot the roses in.
In any event, this photograph of one of the early yellow roses turned out nice, and I chose it to be my daily photo for today.
Date: Saturday, June 19, 2010
Day 170 - Rain Bird Rainbow
Today's daily photograph is a another small diversion into abstraction than most of my other photographs. While out shooting photographs this evening and dodging the sprinkler system, I noticed a rainbow appear every time one of the Rain Birds would get to a certain point in its arc. I ended up shooting a lot of photographs of the rainbow, when it would appear to try to catch the light just right. Interestingly, if I set the shutter speed high, the rainbow wouldn't show up, and I had to back it off a little for the rainbow to appear in the photo.
This shot turned out the best out from my experimentation with sprinkler rainbows, so I have chosen it as my 365 Daily entry.
Date: Friday, June 18, 2010
Day 169 - Masters Of The Wind
Despite multiple-pronged defenses, a few militant invaders invariably slip through the battle lines, digging in and putting up a counter assault that oftentimes succeeds, or in this case, seeds.
In this photograph a special operations dandelion has survived well behind enemy lines, long enough to go to seed. Fortunately, the invader was spotted, then removed from the lush green battlefield before its payload could be delivered. (Grin!)
Date: Thursday, June 17, 2010
Day 168 - Orange Rush
It is unbelievable that the second I get outside to shoot some flower photographs, the wind seems to know and makes a grand appearance to try to foul things up. Although the wind was blowing vigorously, I made the best of the afternoon sunlight. The poppies are blooming in force now, however they aren't lasting very long. I think the weather has been so cold at night, that the poppies are dying off rather rapidly.
Even with the wind, I decided to try my luck at the poppies, and shot some macros of the bright orange colors they are offering up. This shot turned out the best of the bunch, so I chose it as my daily photo for today.
Date: Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Day 167 - Bursting At The Seams
Today got dark and stormy in the afternoon hours, and we had a short thunderstorm. I shot some interesting photos of some small flowers, and I was going to post them as my daily photo, but for the life of me, I can't remember what they are called. So...as soon as I remember the name, I'll shoot more photos of them and perhaps post those as a daily photo in the near future.
For today's photograph, I chose a macro of the buds on the yellow crackerbarrel roses that are getting ready to bloom. I liked this shot the best out of the photos shot today, as it had an interesting bokeh. These buds are bursting at the seams, but haven't given me any significant color to photograph yet. Unfortunately, the pink crackerbarrel roses are looking fairly weak this year, but I think they will still give up some color to photograph before too long.
Categories: 365 Days
Posted On: Wednesday, June 16, 2010 @ 8:39 PM
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Date: Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Day 166 - Riding High
I got a late start on my photography this afternoon, even though I am making an attempt at shooting early morning photos, but that timing is not working out very well right now. I wanted to focus my subjects to flowers this evening, and shot a lot of Lilacs, Mock Orange, etc., but especially the Lilacs, since their blooms are winding down for the year. I shot some decent flower photos this evening, but something else caught my attention and ended up as my daily photograph.
While shooting photos, I noticed a lot of Grackles in the Crabapple tree, harassing the Mourning Dove while she was sitting in her nest. After chasing away the Grackles, I zoomed in to my camera's maximum optical zoom and shot a couple of photos of the dove, as she seems to be sitting higher in her nest now. I am thinking she's now having to actively protect her nest from other predatory birds. Here's hoping the Grackles don't catch the dove nest unattended or the eggs won't make it to the hatchling stage.
One thing I have noticed about this dove nest. It is interestingly small. The doves' tail feathers stick way out the back of the nest when they are sitting in it. I've never noticed this about doves' nests, so I don't know if it is a normal-sized nest, or whether they just didn't have much room to build a nest on this particular branch. But it is interesting to sneak under it and see their tail feathers hanging over the back of the nest.
Date: Monday, June 14, 2010
Day 165 - For The Second Continental Congress
Today was Flag Day here in the U.S. Flag Day commemorates the adoption of the Stars and Stripes, by the Second Continental Congress, on this day, in 1777.
Without their risks and belief in Liberty, this Flag would never have made it beyond the 13 stars that adorned the first Flag of our nation.
Here is a toast, to those brave souls who had the courage to stand for Liberty, in the hope that we will someday find our way back to the path of freedom they originally intended for us to follow.
Date: Sunday, June 13, 2010
Day 164 - Color Balance
The rain has finally stopped, and the sun will soon be coming back. Monday is supposed to give us completely sunny weather, and that will be a welcome change.
Today's daily photo is of a water droplet balanced precariously along the edge of the petal of a Phlox flower. I haven't always been too successful at shooting water droplets, but I am getting probably the best results I can get out of this camera. So...now I have to upgrade my camera if I want better results than this. At least that is my claim for today.
Here's looking at a sunny day tomorrow.
Date: Saturday, June 12, 2010
Day 163 - Beauty Mark
Rain again today...All Day... And here I thought I'd be able to catch some time this morning for photography, but the weather just wouldn't cooperate. The few minutes I spent outside I decided to practice my water droplet photography again, and I managed to find a drop of water hanging onto the edge of one of the red leaves of the honeysuckle bush, so I shot a few photos of it, and this one turned out the best of the bunch.
It is supposed to rain throughout tomorrow. Hopefully, the weather will clear soon, especially so the floodwaters will recede for the folks living down by the river here, in Hudson and in Lander, as they've had to fight to keep their homes from being inundated with the snow runoff in the mountains, in addition to the rain storms.
Date: Friday, June 11, 2010
Day 162 - Bent And Prickly
Today was a dark, rainy day. In my daily photo for today, I shot this Poppy bud with a close-up on the prickly hairs of its stem, which is interestingly, bent in to a U shape, with the bud actually pointing downward. This Poppy is trying to bloom, but I don't know if it will succeed.
Since the weather continues to degrade during the latter half of the day, I think I'll try to move my daily photography time to the early morning hours. I've wanted to do that anyway during the summer months, so I can take photowalks early in the morning, during the "magic hour" and it appears that it is going to become a necessity if I'm ever going to find cooperative weather.
Date: Thursday, June 10, 2010
Day 161 - Face To Face
Today was dark and cloudy, except for when I didn't have time to shoot any photographs. Other than that, today was lousy. (Grin!)
Rain, wind and more rain dominated my photography time today, so the natural lighting around here was poor. Using a flash was almost mandatory, since I was shooting free-hand. It turned out today is another rabbit photo day, since my photography time was limited to the time when the weather was poor. But I am happy I got to shoot some rabbit photos, since I managed to get some very nice close-ups of a friendly young rabbit. This little critter toys with me quite a bit, letting me get very close to it, within about two feet, then he hops even closer, too close to get a decent photograph of him, then he'll kick up his heels, jump in the air, turns and bounds away about six feet. Then I have to reset to get close to him again. He's a feisty little rabbit.
Today, I managed to get about a foot away from him sitting under the pine tree, where he was protected from the rain, and I ended up putting the camera right in his face for some ultra close-up shots of his furry face, and whiskers. Unfortunately, due to low-lighting because of cloudy weather, and being under the pine, in addition to my unsteady hand, I had to use a flash on him for this series of photographs.
We have about eight or nine rabbits of varying sizes that haunt the yard now, so the warren seems to be getting larger by the week.
Date: Wednesday, June 09, 2010
Day 160 - No Mourning Today
Today, I found a pair of Mourning Doves had set up a nest in the crabapple tree and the dove in today's daily photograph was patiently sitting in the nest, apparently watching over her eggs. These doves built the nest very fast, as I didn't see it there a couple of days ago.
I managed to climb a ladder into some nearby branches, and quietly moved the branches aside to shoot some photos of the dove in the nest without scaring her off. Unfortunately, the light was low due to dark clouds and a sun that was getting low on the horizon, so I had to shoot with a flash. After shooting a few photos I slowly made my way down the ladder so as to not disturb her nest. Perhaps tomorrow morning will give me more light and I might be able to shoot the male dove sitting on the nest.
Categories: 365 Days
Posted On: Wednesday, June 09, 2010 @ 9:19 PM
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Date: Tuesday, June 08, 2010
Day 159 - Chive Talkin'
In spit of the fact that I wasn't feeling very well today, I still managed to shoot 200 photographs. I shot a lot of flower photographs, Mock Orange, Phlox, Chives, Honeysuckle, etc., of which, many of these photos turned out fairly nice, since the wind gave us a break this afternoon and evening.
With many choices available today for my daily photo, the decision was a bit difficult, since I managed to get some very nice shots of the Mock Orange blossoms, which was yesterday's daily photo subject. So, today I decided that a photograph of a Chive blooming was a great choice.
These particular Chives started growing wild in the front garden a few years back, so they were left alone to take root. Along with the bloom, one of the focal points of this photograph was a trunk of a small Ash Tree that was killed off, due to it growing right next to the roadway. The stump sticking out of the ground is about to fall over from rot, so when the front garden gets cleaned up soon, that will finally be removed.
Date: Monday, June 07, 2010
Day 158 - Don't Mock This Orange
In spite of a cloudy evening, and a stiff breeze, I managed to pull off a halfway decent free-hand macro shot of some blossoms on the Mock Orange bush. As soon as the wind sees fit to give us a rest from blowing during my photography time, I'll try some of these shots again, to see if I can maybe get just a bit closer on the blossoms.
I only wish I could shoot flower photos as well as the photos I have been shooting of my rabbit subjects, as just about all my rabbit photographs seem to turn out excellent, with some great close ups of the little critters grazing in the lawn or eating flowers in the garden.
Date: Sunday, June 06, 2010
Day 157 - If These Jaws Could Talk
Today was a "down day," when it came to my photography.
After repairing a leaky pipe, the sun was almost gone, and there wasn't much to photograph outside the doors, so I decided a macro shot for today's daily was in order. I just happened to have a very old pipe wrench sitting on a newspaper, so I shot a few quick photos of it, thinking about how if the jaws of this pipe wrench could move on their own volition, they'd have some interesting stories to tell, given the welding splash on the sides of the wrench, the rust, as well as the scrapes and dents found in its tough hide. I have found that seldom is a pipe wrench used just for plumbing and is very often used for many other mechanical repairs that have nothing to do with its primary design function.
Anyway, this turned out to be my best photograph for the day, given my scant time for photography today.
Date: Saturday, June 05, 2010
Day 156 - Retina
I ended up skipping the mini-car show downtown today, as I had some work to get done around the house. The wind (more like a breeze, I suppose) is an absolute killer when it comes to shooting flower photographs, as I have mentioned before. I must have spent 20 minutes shooting this lone poppy that bloomed early, to finally get an acceptable photograph.
I waited until the sun was low on the horizon this evening, in order to get the sunlight to stream through the back of the poppy, so the bright orange color would dominate the photograph. However, the wind kept blowing the poppy out of the frame of the photograph, which was about to drive me crazy. I managed to catch one or two good shots when the poppy would rebound into the frame, but how I wish I could have set up using my tripod and photographed a completely still flower.
This shot ended up being the most interesting photograph today, as it appears almost like a retina of an eyeball, hence the title of the photograph.
Date: Friday, June 04, 2010
Day 155 - Color Clash
Today I swore I was going to shoot some decent flower photographs, however, the wind was playing games with me all day and all evening. I did shoot more very close-up shots of my rabbit pals, but I decided I wanted a flower for my daily photo today.
For some reason, every time I tried to shoot macro photos of Phlox and our first giant orange Poppy, the wind would come up and trash my shots. It seems to be a pure nightmare this year for me to shoot a simple flower photo.
Later on in the afternoon, I finally shot a couple of acceptable photographs of the tall-stemmed Phlox that is growing in the lawn, right next to a sprinkler head. This photograph turned out the clearest of the bunch, so I chose it for my daily photo.
Date: Thursday, June 03, 2010
Day 154 - Stretch And Posture
I am feeling a little torn. When it comes to my 365 Project I want to post varied subjects, but I also feel I should post my very best photograph for the day. Too often, it seems that posting my best photograph, means posting photos of subjects that I have covered way too much.
In some ways, it makes me feel like I'm not succeeding very well, when it comes to my 365 Project, as I think I should be getting out and shooting photographs of anything and everything, but I haven't been able to succeed in devoting the time to do that. I need to expand my horizons more in the coming days, before I risk becoming bored with this project.
With that in mind, another day, another rabbit photo... I woke this little guy up after his nap under the pine tree, and he leisurely got up and stretched, then sat up straight and tall, then stretched more, while I photographed him from about 3 feet away. Being under the pine tree, and next to the Honeysuckle bushes, the light was a bit low, so I used the compulsory flash to bring the shot in better focus. I need to soften my flash just a touch, as it is a bit overpowering to the scene.
I am beginning to think these rabbits are becoming a little too comfortable around me and I am considering hazing them to give them a bit more fear of people. They aren't even scared of the 18.5hp lawn tractor now and I had to shoo one out of the way before it got mowed down, while cutting the lawn tonight, which isn't a good thing.
Categories: 365 Days
Posted On: Thursday, June 03, 2010 @ 10:41 PM
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Date: Wednesday, June 02, 2010
Day 153 - Sweet Spring
I ended up shooting quite a few photos today, although I didn't spend much time shooting due to spending much of the day running around trying to get things done. The Lilacs started blooming recently, even though I thought they might not, since they aren't even fully leafed out yet, due to our late spring. I think Lilac blooms are one of my favorite flowers due to their uniquely spring scent. It always seems very peaceful to leave the windows open at night, and have the scent of Lilacs coming in through the windows, while trying to sleep...when I try to sleep at night, that is.
I shot this photo later on in the afternoon, but, I want to try to shoot these tiny flowers again, this time in the early morning during the magic hour, to see if I can get the purple colors to really stand out. Hopefully, time might actually permit me to shoot some photos of these flowers early in the morning.
Categories: 365 Days
Posted On: Wednesday, June 02, 2010 @ 10:21 PM
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Date: Tuesday, June 01, 2010
Day 152 - Grumpy
Ok, today is another rabbit photo day. :-)
Most of my photography time was spent over at the hospital visiting someone, and my time for setting up and photographing the Lilacs which are starting to bloom, just wasn't there.
So...one of the semi-wild rabbits that hang around let me shoot some photos of him. I think he finally got tired of me in his face, as he kind of got a grumpy look on his furry face (which is when this photograph was shot), and he hopped right between my feet, then disappeared into the bushes behind me.
Oh well, at least "Grumpy" gave me this photograph to post before he decided he didn't want to be my photo subject any more this evening.