Attitude

Maybe I need some more attitude in my shots. The show at Lone Tree wasn't the stunning success I'd hoped for, but then there are a lot of incredible pictures there. My two pictures seemed dull in comparison -- maybe that's a product of familiarity, maybe they were more dull. I brought Li Mei with me so I'd have someone there I knew. :) She made quite the impression in her little black and pink dress.

Tiny Forest

This is some moss growing in the runoff path of basement sump pump water. All the houses in the neighborhood have pumps to keep the clay soil from expanding beneath them.

Conservation

This is another photo I meant to post, but failed to do so due to distraction of the parenting kind.

Mid-March we visited the zoo. It was a beautiful day and the smell of varnish filled the air. At the old gift store by the now closed west entrance, two fellows were maintaining the animals of the Conservation Carousel. I felt as though we were getting a backstage look at the running of the zoo. My boys witnessed the human artistic connection to one of their favorite rides. The craftsmen told us that every two years each animal gets a few maintenance touch ups. They were nice enough to submit to a photos.

Icicle on the Gas Grill

I liked the line of bubbles down the center of this tiny icicle.

Happy spring fertility holiday! Ours morning was white and has melted off by early evening.

There is something poetic about snowflakes dusting the newly emerging rose leaves ... and something ironic about noticing that there's already an aphid sheltering under the leaves.

This was taken with the Canon Rebel XT and the Sigma macro lens.

Bored in the School Carpool

My kids go to a charter school whose student body is made up of kids all over the county. We don't have bus service so as school lets out there are a huge number of cars waiting to pick up kids.

I was bored and had my camera one snowy day waiting for my carload of kids. Snowflakes were falling onto my driver's side window and first I tried getting a pic using my new EX Sigma DG Macro 105mm 1:2.8. No luck. To that I added my Canon Close-Up Lens 250 D. Still no luck. Finally I added my trusty Raynox Macroscopic Lens Model M-250. A-Haha ha muhahahahahaha.

Escapee

We go to quite the lengths to protect our blooms from the gnashing teeth of the Suburbia rabbits.

Show Off

Everywhere I go, the animals are quite engaged. Rowan commented on the zoo's river otters to anyone who would listen, "One is giving the other a piggy-back ride through the water."

Golden Eagle

I was going into the Homestead Animal Hospital to pick up some meds for our geriatric cats when out comes a huge Golden Eagle perching on a person. I knew my vet handled exotics, but this took me by surprise. I was composed enough to ask to take a picture though and she (the person not the eagle) was nice enough to oblige. I didn't get a name though, I think they wanted to get their raptor back home quickly.

Isn't this a huge bird?

Frog-eyed Gekko

This little fellow lives at the Colorado Gator Farm.

Peacock Framed in the Conifer

I go to the zoo to see animals from all over the world and what do I always focus on? Flashy peacocks. Maybe I was a peahen in a former life, or a bower bird, any votes for magpie?

Purple Bits

The bugs can't be far behind.

Crocus Indicator

Spring is here, a-suh-puh-ring is here.
Life is skittles and life is beer.
I think the loveliest time of the year is the spring.
I do, don't you? 'Course you do.

Hi Fly

He was nicely lethargic and hanging out on my tripod in late afternoon. I think iridescent bugs are cool.

I should have caught him for my wolf spider, she would have loved him.

Lady Wolf Comparisons

Here are some more pics from the mini shoot (about 10 pictures).

The left picture has the reading light above and behind and "flattened" the eyes.

The center shot is without the reading light and re-white balanced to mitigate the hard yellow-orange cast.


The right has the light in front and to the right. I didn't like the depth of field and how the reading light gave unnatural blue highlights.

Lady Wolf

Here's our wolf spider. I found her in the morning, defrosting on the sunny wall of the 500 building at Fitzsimmons. I dumped the last bit of my coffee out, dried the mug and put in a little dirt and a stick, then nudged in the spider. It's saying something that I love spiders more than coffee. Okay, had it been a new full steaming cup it would have been a toss up. In any case, she's out guest now.

Her body is about three centimeters, but honestly I need to measure her for the real numbers. She's the largest wolf spider I've seen outside the Butterfly pavilion. It's also a pedipalp guess that this is a female. She's a beauty though and doesn't seem to mind her new home with central heating and food delivery.

Here I was messing with lighting (my three white LED reading light supplemented with overhead incandescents), long exposurse (between twenty and thirty seconds) and my new Sigma macro lens. Photo processing by Picasa leaves something to be desired, but I might fool around with it using Adobe.

Cellar Spider Pedipalps

So when I went to the Butterfly Pavilion, I finally brought my tripod. The lady behind the desk reminded me that only monopods were allowed in the pavilion, but I'd brought it for the spiders. The light is much lower in the "other bugs" room and it's much harder to get a good picture, especially behind all that glass.

This is a cellar spider, I assume male with those pedipalps. A female was nearby with a small egg sac.

Sidling Up to the Banana Bar

At the Butterfly Pavilion the butterflies are offered very ripe bananas -- owl butterflies are the customers I see most often. My guess on this hungry species is a postman butterfly.

Yesterday I was listening to a chapter on the radio in the "Crossing the Divide" topic, specifically in this case two brothers who differed in both politics and religion. Allen bemoans the fact that some have treated him "like an idiot" when he has mentioned his creationist views. I've heard this complaint before from a number of creationists -- two of whom resided in the math department. I have to say that I'm going against the theme of the program when I say, "It goes with the territory."

Yes, creationism is a belief, it is a matter of faith and I certainly think one should be able to believe whatever the heck one wants. That does not mean however that I think that belief is not dumb. I think of creationism like I think of flat earthers, those who hold a geocentric view of the solar system and those who think light travels through the ether. It takes such a large amount of mental contortions to reconcile the current science of biology, geology, astronomy with the guesses and poetic musings of some shepards 4000 years ago. It also takes some fairly hefty logical seizures to differentiate the Judeo-Christian creation myth as somehow more intrinsically valid than any other creation myth. So if you tell me you are a creationist, I am bound to think of you as deluded as those who think the moon landing was a government hoax, that tuberculosis is caused by vampirism, or that left-handed people and black cats are evil.

Live Specimen

We went to the Butterfly Pavilion today. I had taken all three kids to the dentist in the morning and, being as it was across town, it seemed reasonable to hang out there rather than rushing them back for an hour or so of class. I am also sick of the snow and lack of bugs.

Hanging out in an artificial rainforest seemed like just the thing. We were there for the 3:30 butterfly release in which a zookeeper, in this case Kevin, tells the small crowd about butterflies in general and the different species in specific.

I'm not sure the name of this newly emerged butterfly ... part of my brain recalls the phrase "Mock Swallowtail", but that same memory is laced with monitoring three kids and learning this new macro lens. I'll have to write to the BP and ask. I have a few more to get id'ed as well.

This was taken with my new 105mm DG Macro EX from Sigma. I could afford this one compared to the Canon of the same type. See I also needed to get a hard drive -- 450 GB LaCie (design by F.A. Porche). Too many pictures. My last notable purchase was the Mozy backup service. You never know when your computer is going to explode.

POST POSTING NOTE: Originally this didn't show, it was still referencing my localhost address rather than the blogspot one. It should be all fixed now.

Mind Flayer de Milo

I am a rather accomplished pack rat, so I manage to discover long lost treasures all the time... generally while trying to locate my keys or children or coffee cup.

At the bottom of a jumbo plastic cup, moonlighting as a pen holder, I found a miniature I made during my high school AD&D days. The arms had broken off, but otherwise the paint and Sculpey had held up really well. These were the days that Sculpey only came in one type and one color, but it was still the most fantastic stuff a broke high schooler might want.

Anyhow, it reminded me of the Venus de Milo and that I like making stuff.

So, here's the set up and a quarter for scale. The photo is from an art history website about Greece. I had an unfortunate computer shutdown while trying to bookmark it, but I'll just say here that it's not mine.

Playing with my Childrens' Toys

We're trapped again under snow. I made a preparatory grocery run as the first five or so inches of new snow fell. Our store was almost out of paper towel, cod, kitty litter and Diet Coke (the regular kind, not Zero or Lime or Splenda). I was lucky to find the secret end cap of Diet Coke. This could have been a bad few days.

As it is, we're "stuck" in our house with all our new toys. O woe are we!

In Albuquerque, at the Explora, I found a plasma night light about the size of a standard lightbulb and gave it to the boys for Newton's Day (Isaac Newton was born December 25th. It also flows better than the phrase "Atheist Families Get Presents Day"). Last night, I asked to borrow it for pictures; in the morning, the boys didn't recognize it as their bulb. That's one of the fun things about macros, it's a puzzle or at least a way of turning the visual environment into something surprizing.

Red Glow

 
Another jellyfish tank in the same darkened room. The tank had a red light focused on it. Checking out the stats, this was at 1/40s and 4.5/f with my Canon Rebel XT. Another one that happily surprised me. 

LED Laced Jelly

 
I'm amazed this came out. It's a tiny inch high jellyfish with, what looks like, multi-colored LEDs running along the seams. I took it through the glass and without much in the way of preparation or forethought.

We saw it in the aquarium in Albuquerque. I could watch jellyfish for hours -- as long as they or I am behind glass. 

Rowan's New Hobby

 
Rowan asked how to make a card house. He managed to make a variety of houses and repetitions of this pattern, three at once before he decided to move onto other things. I was impressed.