Monthly Archives: July 2006

Background Check

Our cat Scout sits in a catnip patch

One of the things I don’t like about our backyard is that it isn’t a very photogenic place to photograph the cats. We have a wire fence around the yard which is functional yet looks terrible as a background in pictures.

We’ve made some small changes to the yard, mostly just temporary changes until we’re ready to make some major improvements. This shot of Scout comes as close to a nice background as I’ve yet found, with the catnip growing beside her, the purple flowers of the clematis in front of her, and the pink blossoms of the purple coneflower behind her. It’d look even better if the fence and neighbor’s garage wasn’t visible, but it’s progress to be sure.

She’s such a beautiful little creature, perhaps no one can look away from her golden eyes to check on the background anyway.

Cure for Insomnia

Cure for Insomnia

I’ve been a night owl most of my life and have constant trouble adapting to the sleep schedule of an early-bird-gets-the-worm world. I’m insanely jealous of Templeton’s ability not only to almost sleep at will, but how he seems in perfect peace when doing it.

I’m thinking of wallpapering my office with this picture, to help me on those nights when I need the master’s help in drifting off to dreamland.

Death From Above!

Our cat Scout yawns while perched high on top of a door

NOTE TO WOULD-BE INTRUDERS: Make sure to look up when you enter our premises, as our security system is just as effective (and deadly) from above as from below.

We Meet Again, Mr. Bee

Bee on purple coneflower blossom

These fascinating little creatures are my mortal enemy. It’s nothing personal and not even their fault, I just happen to be allergic to their stings. Makes your heart beat a little faster when you’re photographing them a few inches away.

This particular bumblebee was covered head to stinger in pollen from the many coneflower blossoms it had already visited.

And Now For Something Completely Different

Bee resting in a purple coneflower blossom
When I first saw this little bee nestled between some purple coneflower petals, I knew I had a chance to take something other than the typical bee-on-a-coneflower picture.

However, all but the bee’s tail was in shadow, which usually calls for fill-flash to even out the exposure. The on-board flash would leave a strong reflected pattern in the bee’s eye and my external flash was too tall to penetrate the petals. A ring-flash would have been useful had I owned on.

Rather than give up on the picture, I decided to combat the effect in software by using an extremely low contrast setting when I converted the RAW image. I positioned the lens so that there were only three areas of interest: the bee, the out-of-focus blue/green background, and the mostly out-of-focus pink petals of the coneflower arcing across the image.