Tag Archives: summer

The Dog Days of Summer, Version 2010

17 Aug

The only thing that seems to like the fact that the heat index has been over 100* (much of the time over 110*) this summer is our dog, and the Lantana.  I couldn’t think of a better shot for “dog days of summer” than Ebby sitting on her heated bed.  The dog days of summer are certainly here in south Alabama, the grass is all brown from lack of rain, the pond is all dried up, and you can’t go outside without getting swarmed by deer flies.  Some people like this time of year (I am guessing those who live in Montana, or Wisconsin, or Colorado, where the temps are in the mid-60′s right now), but down here, all I can think about is being able to walk without feeling like I am going to die, and being able to sit outside with a fire going in my fire pit.

I know those days are coming, because football season is the only thing being talked about down here now.  Only about 2 1/2 more weeks before Auburn kicks off the 2010-2011 football season, but at the moment, I am just thrilled the first game is at night.  With the temps at night still in the 70′s and 80′s, they should kick off this game at midnigh, but at least Auburn now runs some of the games like Talladega (they use to run that late season race during the day, and it was miserable too).

Fall is coming, probably 2 days in mid January, but the sun and the calendar says cooler weather is coming, but I think Ebby likes it just the way it is right now.  I still feel like she looks, and I am ready for something more like –> Samford Hall and Auburn University in the Snow.

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Pictorial History of a Tree in Year Long Time Lapse

14 Dec

This is not a true time lapse as we might think about today, but, a sequence of shots, taken over time, of the same subject. We have this great tree back behind our house and I usually take photos of it as the seasons change and I have been wanting to write one single post with all of the photos together to see how one single spot can change over time.  Below is where I sit in the summer and read, contemplate life, and view from the house in the winter and rain.  I love the warm open feeling it gives in Spring or Summer and the uninviting look of winter.  As the days count down for our departure to Virginia, this is one spot I am going to miss while we are gone.

The original posts that came from this photos can be found here:

Below is are some of the photos from the posts above.

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On Our Way to the Outer Banks // Friday Feet

14 Aug

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I haven’t posted a Friday Feet shot in a while so I thought I would get a few shots of Ebby before we left tomorrow.  After a long semester we are finally leaving tomorrow for Anderson SC (to worship at NewSpring on Sunday), then to Virginia to visit LU, and then over to the Outer Banks.  One of our favorite spots on the east coast, the Outer Banks, is also one of those gems we have in the U.S. that is very empty once school starts and has some of the greatest locals around.

I am looking forward to spending at least one full day on the quiet beach reading a book.  Till then, meet Ebby.  I did just cut the grass but she is still a little shorter than the grass is tall.

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Bumble Bee in Flight Using Macro Closeup Photography

4 Sep

Photo of a Bumble Bee in Flight

Something a little different for this afternoon.  A few photos of the busy bumble bees in our yard (I am not totally 100% sure they are actually Bumble Bees, but they were to small to be a Carpenter Bee, but I am sure someone will let me know species and Latin name) as they go about their business.  The last few days we have had about a hundred of these little guys enjoying all the weeds I have not cut down yet.  They were making so much racket this morning I had to grab the camera and see what I could come up with.

I was really trying to get these little guys in flight.  These were two that were sharp enough to post here but you can see from the flowers how shallow the depth of field was here.  I missed it just slightly on the bottom image where the focal point hit slightly above the bee and it was pretty on target on the first image up top.  Both images were taken hand held around 1/1000th of a second.  Notice the wings of the first photo are still in motion.  That one was taken at 1/1250th of a second, which means their wings beat faster than 1/1250th of a second.  In comparison, a Humming bird’s wings can usually be stopped with a 1/250th of a second shutter speed, so the bee wings move FAST.

Photo of a Bumble Bee in Flight

Proves to myself once again that there is always something to take a picture of if I would just open my eyes. Sometimes I can go days without shooting and think there is nothing anywhere around that is worthy of taking a photo, but I that is pretty much 100% wrong, all the time.

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Olympic Gold in China for Photos and Photographers

15 Aug

Have you been following the Olympics? Working from a home office gives me the advantage to have the coverage on all the time and it has been great. If you can watch during the day you get some of the less highlighted sports in the summer games like Badminton, indoor volleyball, fencing and more.

The swimming is of great interest to those of us here in Auburn. The Auburn University Swim and Dive program has become one of the premiere training grounds for Olympic swimmers, worldwide, and it is really something to watch the swimmers from right here in Auburn compete so strongly in each event.

Auburn Womans Gymnastics

Auburn Men\'s Swim Team

One area of interest to me of course are the incredible photos that are coming out of Beijing. I have been following Vincent Laforet, an incredible photographer who is covering the Olympics for Newsweek, (see most recent post for Newsweek called Things Are Starting to Click—and I’m Not Talking Only About Cameras This Time) and each day he has brought the world more incredible images of the summer games in Beijing.

Watching these event on TV, like the U.S. Gymnastics team win gold or seeing Michael Phelps break his own world record, is great, but being there and taking those images with your own eyes must really be something. Vincent, through his photography of the Olympics can give us a perspective that shows the intensity of the competition, the agony of all the training that it took to get there, and the faces of winning a gold metal.

The Summer Games in Beijing has inspired me to get moving with our plans for the Winter Games in Vancouver 2010, now only a year and a half left before the opening ceremonies in February 2010. I hope our plans to go to the winter games in Vancouver will come to pass, if so, I will be lugging all my camera equipment to Canada to get what action I can get.  It won’t matter if I am shooting for a local paper, or something bigger, there will be some incredible photographic opportunities in Canada in 2010, and I plan on being there.

Of course there are thousands of photographers covering the Summer Olympics in China. Another also shooting for Newsweek, Donald Miralle, has also produced some fantastic images (see his latest post Badminton is My New Favorite Sport).  Another is Mike Powell (also shooting for Newsweek, see A Bit of Sun) who has captured some great shots of the gymnastics and kayaking.

Vincent also maintains a personal blog (latest post Things Are Starting to Click—and I’m Not Talking Only About Cameras This Time), although he requests comments be left on the Newsweek blog to save a bit of editing time on his end. Great job Vincent, Donald, and Mike, I love photos that inspire, that is what keeps photography alive and exciting.

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Cahaba or Shoals Spider Lily in Full Summer Bloom

14 Jul

Cahaba Shoals Spider Lily

We had a nice weekend of hot weather, but it finally started raining. We have been in such a drought that any rain at all is a welcome site. After the rain cleared out our unknown bulb started blooming, rapidly. We were given this and told it was a “4th of July plant” and it started looking very star trek like before the blooms opened.

Cahaba or Shoals Spider Lily

Once the blooms opened we could see that it was indeed what is known locally in Alabama as the Cahaba Lily. Hymenocallis coronaria (Cahaba Lily or Shoals spider-lily), is known within the state of Alabama as the Cahaba Lily (outside the state it is known as the Shoals spider-lily) because it grows on the banks of the Cahaba River. It is actually an Amaryllis bulb and should multiple quite nicely in our garden.

You can see from the image that it has several more blooms to go, hopefully we can get some more rain over the next few days and it should be very happy. What is funny about this Lily is we actually got it from Texas. My father-in-law ordered it online, probably at Jackson & Perkins, but we took it from the box in Texas, back over here to Alabama and planted it in the garden back in March/April.

The image was taken very late in the afternoon. I love photography of flowers, but the conditions have to be just right to be able to get a sharp image, with a good background, and in good light. Especially when photographing a white flower, special care should be taken not to overexpose the white part of the flower.

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Red Double Knock Out Rose in Bloom in Summer

10 Jul

Double Knock Out Rose in Bloom

This week has gone by in a blink. Yesterday we planted 5 oak trees before breakfast trying to avoid the mid-morning heat and by about 10am it was to hot to do anything outside. I looked over at our rose bush today, a red Double Knockout Rose (or aka a Double Knock Out Rose) and it was in full bloom.

Thinking again like I was yesterday, I went out to try and capture a photo of the bloom before it got way to hot outside. As my luck would have it, the wind was blowing like crazy.

The Red Double Knock Out Rose Bloom

Normally this time of year they are covered in red double bloom flowers but this one was not planted to long ago and it sat in the hot dry drought we have going on for several weeks looking rather pitiful. Two days ago Deb put some rose food around its base, and now, blooms everywhere.

This variety of rose is a sister to the Knockout Rose which can get to be a very large, tree, shrub sized rose bush. The Double Knockout is quite a bit smaller and well suited to our very young garden. I took this shot this morning, about 7am, before it got really hot outside.

The wind gave me fits as it decided this morning was the morning to blow, continuously, but I was still able to enjoy a small amount of time to smell the roses this morning before I went to work.

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Photo of Spiderweb in Fog Shows Delicate Beauty

7 Jul

Spider Web in Early Morning Dew

What a busy weekend it was this past week. Being a holiday weekend with the 4th of July on a Friday it was just a little chaotic but all tranquility of a Monday has returned. I think I would have to qualify a Monday or Tuesday in January or February as the most tranquil, but this one will do.

For those of us in the south, the summer bring little rest from the heat but a rare foggy morning is one of those reprieves for July. We have been in a horrible drought for the last few years and this summer has proven to be more of the same, except a few mornings where fog blankets the grass and trees.

Fog in Alabama Summer

Our tree swing has quickly become one of my favorite places to eat breakfast and today, it wasn’t cool, but it wasn’t hot either. I took the photo of the tree swing about 5:30am right out my bed room window, and by the time I grabbed a bowl of cereal most of the fog had burned off, but still left a quiet misty pasture to look at while I ate.

The spider webs I just love early in the morning. They are transformed into some pearly design only nature can create. Now as I write this post, it is full blasting sun at what feels like 95* or higher. Guess if we didn’t have the heat the cool foggy mornings would get boring, but I don’t think so.

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Sumertime in Alabama Equals a Butterfly on Lantana

18 Sep

Sumertime in Alabama Equals a Butterfly on Lantana

I thought I would post an image of the day post once in a while here so here is the first one. This was taken about a week ago in my back yard on some very overgrown Lantana (see description below). A good photographer and teacher once told me that you don’t have to go to exotic places to take some great photos, sometimes you don’t have to look any farther than your own house.

Some times it is very hard to find those images when you are looking at the same place day after day, but there are usually all kinds of great opportunities that we overlook just by looking at the same thing every day.

These butterflies come to this plant all day every day, and have done so now for months, I just didn’t think about taking a photo of them until the end of the summer.

Butterfly on Lantana in Alabama Summer

Images Details

  • Camera Body : Nikon D100
  • Lens : Nikon Nikkor 105mm f/2.8 Macro
  • Mount : handheld
  • Exposure Value : -1.0
  • Focal Length : 157mm
  • ISO Speed : 400 (this was a mistake, didn’t check the setting)
  • Aperture : f/8:
  • Shutter Speed : 1/1000
  • File Format : NEF converted to .jpg

Characteristics of Lantana Plants: [Lantana camara (sometimes misspelled Lantana camera), 'Spreading Sunset']
Known for their hemispherical clusters of small, bright-colored flowers (see picture above right), lantana plants can reach 6′ high (with a spread of 8′) in Florida landscaping. The flowers may be yellow, orange, white, red and purple, and often colors are mixed within the same cluster. Most people dislike the smell of lantana flowers, but the foliage is quite fragrant, smelling, in fact, like citrus. Lantana plants are salt-tolerant, and they’re drought-tolerant once established.

For those of you who were looking for a ham radio type of entry, the butterflies often land on my vertical high gain VHF antenna that is mounted at about 50 feet. If you have any comments or questions just post them below.

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Long Drought in Alabama and Southeast Continues

24 Jun

Drought in Alabama, Pond

The water in the pond is gone. The fish are easy pickings for the birds these days and the plants are all struggling too. We have been in this drought all spring (and really going back into the winter) and the pond has just slowly gone away. Here is what it looks like now.

This pond at one time was filled to the brim, which would make the entire pond about 10-15 feet deep in the middle, now you can practically walk across the pond.  You can just see the pipe going into the pond on the right.  That was completely under water and unseen last year and the total volume of water this little pond holds is enough to be visible on Google Earth, but not right now.

This summer we are having to go around and water individual trees to keep them alive.  A high pressure system remains over the southern part of the United States and just will not give up any ground.  So, we are left with these scortching clear skies every day.  No clouds, no rain, no humidity (which is really strange for the south in the summer), just a clear blue hot sky.  Eventually it will have to start raining again, but it doesn’t look like it will happen for a while.

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