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Falling Waters. June 13, 2012

Posted by littlebangtheory in Art and Nature.
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This afternoon on my way up to a fen in Rowe, I stopped along route 8A to take this photo of a spillway at the head of Pelham Brook:

As I readied to clean up what I thought were sensor spots in the sky of this photo, I discovered that they were actually dragonflies hunting at the dam’s lip, so I left them.  🙂

This is a hand-held shot taken with Ziggy, my Sigma 50mm lens, which I mostly reserve for macro shots because it focuses down to about one inch.

Perhaps I ought to reassess that call.

The Cooper-Jones Band. May 30, 2012

Posted by littlebangtheory in music.
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I had the pleasure to see the Cooper-Jones Band this past weekend, and was totally wowed.

This is a local group which rightfully ought to have a wider audience, both because of their component parts and their whole.

Leading the charge on guitar:

…and tearing it up on vocals, Brian J:

At his elbow, also smokin’ the strings and wailing on vocals, Mark S.:

Stroking a stack of keyboards…

Paul R, multi-keyboardist and vocalist:

Any tree stands or falls on the strength of it roots, and in this case the roots run deep – Bob M, a practitioner of Bass-as-Lead, meaning to say that he goes far beyond the minimum necessary to lay down a floor, and paints the walls as well:

…and keeping it all on the clock:

…drummer Greg T kept the train rolling while singing his share of leads:

This is a fine local band which ought be heard by more people, so if you’re in the area, watch for them.  I understand they’ll be at the  Iron Horse in Northampton on June 7th.  I hope to be there!

All of these shots are from Ziggy, my Sigma 50mm lens which  I got for macro photography (it lets me get within an inch of my subjects, and is fast,) but now serves me well as an indoor low-light lens.

A Freak Of Nature. May 3, 2012

Posted by littlebangtheory in Art and Nature, macro photos.
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Here’s a wildflower which I at first thought was a Yellow Trillium, but now believe to be an uncommon variation on our standard local red trillium:

…as witness its intergrowing with the more common red variety.

True “Yellow trilliums” are pure yellow, while this variant has reddish veins throughout:

Regardless, it’s beautiful, and apparently popular with the local invertibrates as well:

These I found up at McLeod Pond up in Colrain, MA and captured with Ziggy, my 50mm Sigma macro lens.

Wasps! July 29, 2011

Posted by littlebangtheory in Art and Nature, macro photos.
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All my life I’ve been terrified by wasps, at least since, at the age of perhaps three, I was badly stung by one.  I was playing outside my country home on a summer’s day when my carefree afternoon was interrupted by a sharp pinching pain in my left knee and, looking down, I saw a wasp sticking straight out of it, affixed by her stinger and doing a crazy Twist as she pumped me full of her venom.  I’m sure I wailed like a banshee, as I was that kind of kid.

At any rate, it’s taken me a fair while to forgive the whole lot of ’em and come to see wasps as a beautiful part of the natural world, to be wondered at rather than feared.  They’re amazing, really – many are solitary, and lead the same singularly productive lives their ancestors did eons before their birth.

On a recent trip to the Bridge of Flowers in Shelburne Falls, MA I got to photograph a couple of wasps engaged in what they do best, making love to nectar-sweet flowers.  In this case the flower was an Eryngium,  of the sapphire blue “Sea Holly” variety, and the wasps were of two kinds, Sphex pensylvanicus,  the Great Black Wasp:

…and Sphex ichneumoneus,  the Great Golden Digger wasp:

These are two large specimens, each approaching an inch and a half in length.

Both of these Femme fatales  dig vertical ground burrows with side chambers, then hunt for katydids and crickets, paralyzing them with a nice little sting and dragging them live into those subterranean crypts, where they lay their eggs on them.  The larval wasps hatch and devour their still-living hosts, growing beautiful and strong thanks to Mommy’s thoughtful gifts.

Isn’t Nature wonderful?

And aren’t you glad not to be a katydid?

These shots were taken by Ziggy, my 50mm Sigma macro lens, and were a bit of an experiment – I nearly always shoot entirely manually, preferring to chose all of the parameters involved in this art form, but here I decided to give Shutter Priority and Auto a go because of the windy conditions – I wanted to shoot fast enough to freeze the motion.  They did reasonably well, snagging some shots I doubtless would have missed fiddling with the dials, but the aperture was necessarily set at a low number/large opening, resulting in such a shallow depth of field that large parts of the wasps aren’t in focus.  The effect, while “artsy,” isn’t really what I had hoped for.

I’ll continue to explore these modes hoping to tweak them into compliance, but I’m thinking that if I can’t improve on the results, I’d rather miss a whole lot of shots and bring home a few I’m really proud of.

Your impressions are, as always, welcomed and appreciated.

Queen Anne’s Lace. July 24, 2011

Posted by littlebangtheory in Art and Nature, macro photos.
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Among the summer roadside flowers which I most love, Daucus Carota  tops the chart.  Its complex umbel of tiny white flowers is at first gilded with pink highlights:

…then flattens into a jungle of fine little blossoms:

…hosting a steady parade of predators and prey.  There are no obvious dramas unfolding in these particular shots, but I’m committed to finding you some.

Later, – TCR.

Small Wonders. April 17, 2011

Posted by littlebangtheory in Art and Nature, macro photos.
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I got out today, between showers, to see which of Nature’s Children might have been coaxed from their seasonal sleep.  All around there were signs of Spring, from green shoots to buds popping in the trees, despite the dampness and the chill wind.  Surveying the gently swaying world, I opted to hunker down for some ground-level investigation.

My first stop was an overgrown stone wall down by the Deerfield, and there I struck Photographer’s Gold – a world of miniature structures clinging implausibly to the weathered schist boulders stacked along the road to Rowe.

Wading into an ankle-deep slurry of last year’s leaves and this year’s run-off, I contorted my tripod in a way which the better ones accommodate and set to work with Ziggy, my 50mm macro lens.

The results were gratifying for an early-season foray – last year’s miniature perennials poking through a bed of lichen:

…the reproductive trumpets of another stage of that lichen:

…and a tiny fern asserting its presence in a crowd of lichens and moss:

These colors are right out of the box, not adjusted in any way; they’re pretty nice just as Nature made them!

Thank you, Mother Earth; thank you, Father Sky.

This Bud’s For You! March 6, 2011

Posted by littlebangtheory in Art and Nature, macro photos.
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I was in southern Connecticut yesterday, and couldn’t help noticing that, weather wise, things there have moved considerably farther toward Spring than they have up our way.

And I necessarily got to Jonesin’ for some color.

From our kitchen island, an iris bud portends the coming change of season:

…courtesy of Ziggy, my 50mm macro lens.

This bud’s store-bought (Trader Joe’s, if you care,) but it won’t be long until the first local color appears.

I’m psyched!

It’s The Little Things! September 12, 2010

Posted by littlebangtheory in Art and Nature, macro photos.
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Here are a few macro shots which I took over the weekend.

First, a little brown moth which I rescued from between our kitchen window and screen, here shot on a jade plant which it rode out the door:

Then there was this match-head size spider, hiding inside the shell of a hickory nut which had been gnawed open and eaten by a rodent:

…Thanks to Susan’s keen eye for noticing it when it was tucked up into a corner!

And last, this little beetle basking on a flower petal in our dooryard:

…looking for all the world like a little piece of jewelry.

Tomorrow we’ll return to the Big People’s World.  😉