CalevPhoto

Time for some ducklings!

I have the great fortune that right next to the building where I work in, there are some interesting ponds with a great number of things to photograph.  In particular, ducks are very common there.

I have learned quite a bit about ducks just from watching them each week.  Several months ago, I noticed the ducks pairing together and suspected that eventually I would see some ducklings.  I looked online and noted that the males usually leave the females when the eggs are laid.  When I noticed that the males were no longer with the females, I suspected that ducklings would soon be there.

Sure enough, several weeks later there were ducklings!

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The release of the queens

Several weekends ago, my wife asked me to weed in our backyard.  I obliged, but on my way to get some equipment, I noticed something very unusual in the backyard.  The carpenter ant colony was releasing their queens and males.

First, I am not a myrmecologist and my knowledge of ants and carpenter ants comes from reading several books and observing them in my backyard.  Therefore, some of the information below may be incorrect.  If you know some of it to be false, please let me know and I will gladly correct it.

To be honest, I’m not sure if all of them were queens, all were males, or if there was a mix, but I suspect the latter.  Their clearly were smaller winged ants and larger ones.  I watched and photographed the phenomenon for a good hour.  While in my opinion none of the shots are great on their own, altogether the tell a very interesting story.

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Progression in macro insect photography

For a fun post, I thought I would cover the progression that a macro photography typically makes.  This covers both where I have started as well as where I hope to go.

Stage 1

In this stage, you can recognize what insect the photo is of.  With these shots, you feel it is extremely cool that you caught the insect on camera.  What you miss is that the framing may be awful, the insect is out of focus, and the lighting may be poor.

Here is a good example from when I first bought my camera.  You can see that this is a fly, but it is looking the wrong way, is too small for this shot, and should not be centered in the viewfinder.  The focus could also be improved.

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Tips for focusing in macro

One of the single biggest problems new macro photographers have is the issue of focusing.  This is particularly evident in insect shots, where most of them are a bit out of focus.  In this post, I will provide some tips for focusing.

First, if you are using autofocus at all when shooting macro, turn it off.  In macro, when you change the focus using the focus ring, you are actually changing the magnification.  Generally, you care what the magnification is on a given shot. The camera, on the other hand, has no idea. Therefore, do not let the camera do this for you.  Set the magnification yourself (most macro lenses have it printed on the barrel) and focus by moving towards and away from the subject.

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How to take travel shots without people

I am a self professed introvert.  I am very close with my wife and kids and have several close friends, but if you are not in that list I am not a very chatty person. I do not want to smile and have a fake conversation with you, and most of all I do not want your picture.

I also do not want your picture because if you are in my shot and I want to sell it, I either must figure out how to clone you out of the shot or I cannot sell the shot.  So it is in my best interest to take steps to assure that you (and by “you” I mean any one of the other six billion odd people out there) are not in my photograph.

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Let’s Chase Some Pigeons!

Kids get different things out of a vacation than we adults do.  While Nelya and I marveled at the Blue Mosque and Haghia Sofia in Istanbul, Eitan and Nathan marveled at a square with thousands of pigeons they could chase.  To them, this was heaven and they spent ample time there chasing said pigeons.  Of course, I couldn’t resist getting my camera out to get some shots.

I am certainly no expert in pigeon shots – these being my first attempts – but the following is what I did learn.

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The Rule of Three Colors

I’m sure most of you have heard of the Rule of Thirds – which states that if you divide a picture up into thirds, the subject generally works best when it is not in the middle third.  I think this rule works quite well, though as with everything in photography there are times when it should be broken.

There are a number of other “Rules” in photography, but one of those I like most is what I call “The Rule of Colors”.  I’m sure it is not new – and there may be a more widely known name for it, but I did notice it myself before anyone mentioned it to me.

To illustrate this rule, what do these two pictures have in common?

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That does look a bit like a flea!

While photographing last week, I found a shiny green beetle that was kind enough to let me get some shots of it.  I found it curled up and hiding in a plant stem and managed to annoy it enough that it started walking around.

When it came time to identify this beetle, I didn’t have much hope.  After all, there are thousands of “shiny green beetles” out there and I didn’t have too much hope of figuring out what this is.

To my surprise, I think I do know what this is.  It looks a lot like a flea beetle (family chrysomelidae, subfamily alticinae).  I am not 100% sure, but it does look awfully like a flea from the front – doesn’t it?

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Time for a weevil

I’ve always had somewhat of a soft spot for the weevils that are common here around Seattle.  Sure, they are pests – but up close they kind of look like little dogs.

I have seen these a number of times around here but interestingly in many of the cases the weevils were dead.  This one was alive and moving around – probably having a good meal too.

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Scorpions in the Pacific Northwest!

This weekend, we were invited over to a barbecue at some of our friends house.  I had my camera along, as I had earlier photographed one of my wife’s listings, and their property was a bit wooded.  Of course, I could not resist taking out my camera to see what I could find.

While waiting near a fern where I had noticed some fly activity, a small bug caught my eye.  I decided to photograph it to see what it was and was quite surprised with the result.

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