What?

No Poodles were harmed in the writing of this blog.

The photos here are from the I-beams of a small suspension bridge. 

What if we had paint that worked like that? Paint that would change over time to create a new look. Paint that would encourage rust instead of trying to eliminate it (Anti-Rustoleum).



 

Current desktop background.

I took a low light photo of a Mimosa bloom (highlighted with a cheap flashlight) and edited the shadows.

From Flowers

Big Sur Road Trip

Theses photos were taken somewhere in the vicinity of Big Sur.
Check out how sea salt and rust have corroded the fence posts.

Weathered Stone---Tafoni

These photos are of a curiously bizarre type of weathered stone called tafoni. The first photo looks as though it's some creature trying to force its way out of the stone---my imagination goes haywire with the shapes, textures, and random designs created in the stone. There are caves of Tibetan monks, the lunar surface, pits from Dante's Inferno, the demented work of H.R. Giger...







Here is a slideshow of the weathered stone tafoni at Salt Point.

Adventures in Bad Lighting and Indoor Weather

 Taking photos of the Mimosa flowers indoors sounded like a great idea---as opposed to the whole tripod on the roof thing. The first few photos were much too dark and some were blurry, as though a breeze had been blowing. My low tech and half-assed solution to the lighting problem was to use a flashlight. Yes, I admit, I was rather pleased with myself.
 After looking at some of the photos I realized what a poor solution the flashlight was. On the other hand, I was able to create very different effects depending on where and how I directed the flashlight---exactly the kind of 'educational mistake' I'm looking for.
As for fixing the blurry photos...I turned off the ceiling fan.





Here is a slideshow of ten of the photos. I edited the two pinkest photos with "auto color" in Picasa. None of the other photos have been edited, except for some cropping. I wanted to see what results I could get with the camera alone (and the flashlight).

I finally started using my new close up lens, the Canon 500D. I thought about getting the high quality Canon f2.8 100mm Macro lens, but it easily costs five times as much as the 500D (Over $500 for the Macro lens vs. under $100 for the close up lens). Am I ready to make a  serious commitment to macro photography or am I going to start out with a more relaxed and casual approach? In the end I chose the 500D, the close up lens for amateur photographers with commitment issues.


The Mimosa tree in my front yard has fascinatingly beautiful flowers. Setting up a tripod on the roof, to take close ups of the flowers, didn't seem like a very intelligent idea (that doesn't mean I won't do it some day). I opted to pluck some flowers and take them inside to photograph. Here are a few of the photos.