PhotoAbuse – The Blog

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It must be something about Saturdays lately. I got bored sitting around and thought it might be nice to go out and make a few pictures of the deer near me. The other day I wrote about looking around when you are out making pictures and that couldn’t have been more true on this walk.

I hadn’t even taken my camera out of my backpack yet and I noticed something crawling on a milkweed leaf. A pretty big caterpillar! I quickly pulled out my camera and  put my trusty Sigma 50mm macro on. Then I thought to myself, “Why not use a little flash?”. I busted out an sb600 and set it to a low power via CLS and started experimenting. Once I thought I had the picture I wanted, I shot a few more frames just in case and picked up my stuff and moved on.

I hadn’t seen any deer and was starting to think it might be a short walk when I saw a thistle with a few bees on it. I pulled out my sb600 again and thought it might be fun to see if I could make a picture of them flying around. It worked out better than I thought! Next time I might bring a small umbrella though to diffuse the light a little. Again, I picked up my stuff and moved on.

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I got bored this afternoon. Nothing really interesting on tv and I wasn’t in the mood to read anything. I would have ended up taking a nap!

I have been wanting to make some landscape pictures lately but it has been pretty darn hot out around here lately and I kept using that as an excuse not to.  Well, my boredom overcame my fear of heat and I took a stroll around the slough. My trusty thermometer showed 91f as I walked out the door.

I took my camera w/kit lens, my 50mm, sb600, and a tripod with me. Lately when I have been out in the woods I haven’t had my 50mm with me and really regretted it. It’s the only macro lens I have and to say there are lots of possible macros out there in the woods would be a big time understatement!

I drove over to Yankee woods and walked from there. It’s not that long of a walk to the slough but it seemed like it took a lot longer today. Things were very quiet in the woods today. Not much wildlife to see. I’m thinking they were all laying low until the sun went down.

This has been a good year for Dragonflies for some reason. Lots of them and they don’t seem to mind the heat in the least. I came across a few that were in the mood to pose. Glad I brought the 50mm with me.

A couple of hours later I was on my way back to the van and then back to the air conditioning! It was pretty darn hot out there but I’m glad I got off my butt and took the walk!

Not much of a story this time around. Just out making pictures whenever I can!

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3 out, 1 to go! The babies are leaving the nests. I have been watching 2 families this spring. Each family had 2 babies this year and they are heading out into the world this week. I have gotten so used to them peering down at me it seems odd to see them out, sitting on a branch 60 yards or so from the nest!

They look a lot bigger out of the nest too. They don’t fly yet. They just hop from branch to branch, usually in different directions. The parents will keep an eye on them and feed them until September or so.

The 2 babies near the slough hung out together for the first day but when I went out there later in the afternoon, there was only 1. That’s the guy in the picture. I have no idea where the other one went. I looked for quite some time to no avail.

The nest down the street from me still has one youngun in it. His/her feathers are still pretty light so it might be a few more days before it leaves. The other one was about 60 yards or so from the nest yesterday.

I don’t know if I’ll ever see them again. Sort of sad in a way. I tried to visit a couple times a week at least. They are amazing animals to say the least. Total stealth when flying and it’s also pretty darn hard to see them sitting on a branch. They blend very well with the surroundings. I will miss them but still look around for them on my walks. Even if I don’t see them, they’ll see me and think to themselves, “There goes that crazy guy with the camera again!”

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It still amazes me how many cool places there are around here that I never knew existed! I’m not talking about a long drive either. More like a 15 minute drive. Ok, there are some nice walks involved after the drive but they are pretty cool walks!

Saturday was a pretty lazy day. I just opened the windows and hung around the house but did take a ride over to check on some Owls down the road a bit. It was sort of breezy out but I made a couple of decent pictures. Mom was in the nest and the younguns were sitting pretty low. I could only see one. Those nests are a little deceiving. Much deeper than they look! Later on in the day, I made a few pictures of Simba, a neighbors dog, while we sat outside enjoying the weather. Later on, my neighbor came over to let me know a skunk just walked right by her! Couldn’t pass that up. I grabbed my camera and an sb600 and made a few pictures before he/she disappeared. I still have no idea where it went. Pretty crafty animal I’m thinking.

I had been thinking of going a little farther from home Sunday and see if the Pelicans were still around but decided to hang out with Wanneta for awhile. She was going for a walk on a trail that was supposed to be pretty cool and asked if I wanted to check it out. Sounded good to me and it was pretty close. I met Wanneta and her friend over there and was amazed that this place was right under my nose all these years. I used to go mountain biking near there but never went that far west. Now that the county has paved so many trails around here I didn’t know that and single tracks that long existed anymore. Boy, was I wrong. Read the rest of this entry »

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Another sign of spring! The Ring-billed Gulls are back around. Not that anyone misses them when they’re gone but the do provide some practice shooting a moving target! This is good practice in tracking a subject. It comes in very handy if you shoot sports a lot. By doing this every once in awhile I know what my camera will and will not lock on to and that makes for fewer wasted frames in the future. At least that’s what I tell myself…