Monday in Nature Weekly Photo September 29, 2014

[Laura Weishaupt]

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<p><strong>Basic Guidelines</strong>: Nature based subject matter. Please, declare captive subjects. Keep your image at/under 700 pixels on the long axis for in-line viewing and try to keep file size under 300kb. Note that this includes photos hosted off-site at Flicker, Photobucket, your own site, etc. Feel free to link your image to a larger version.<br>

<strong><em>In the strictest sense, nature photography should not include hand of man elements. Please refrain from images with obvious buildings or large manmade structures like roads. A bird on the fence post or bug on your finger is fine. Try to minimize man made features, keep the focus on nature, and let common sense be your guide. Let's post 1 image per week. </em></strong><em>More details please check <a href="/nature-photography-forum/00cgtY">here</a>.</em></p>

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<p>Greetings,<br>

Nature is full of just right moments, peak ripeness, the perfect wave, the perfect sample, perfect timing, perfect anything and everything. It's great to round a bend in a trail and have the perfect light coming down through peak season colored leaves making all around look like life through an amber stained glass window. Sit on a rock and a breeze takes leaves on a gentle dance through light shafts in the canyon. It's almost cinematic and lovely in superlative terms. Say you went out to your favorite cliff and a magenta sunrise was reflected of the rock faces. Would you quietly wish for a Dahl Sheep (or your favorite critter) to show up? And when one walks into the frame, well, isn't that just perfect? Yep. The perfect moment if almost intoxicating. There's all that giddy excitement. Did you SEE THAT? Did you GET THAT? I can't believe that just happened! Can you believe we found this? That was PERFECT! Of course you had your camera and you were ready.</p>

<p>Then beauty wanes, colors fade, mushrooms deliquesce, the bugs chew holes in everything above water, and the water gets kind of murky. That field of wild flowers gets to looking pretty sad. You start to wish for ice to cover the funky stuff in the pond. Somewhere between height of the season and detritus there are little surprises. The excitement starts all over again. These spent Woodland Asters are past prime, but their delicate curls are perfectly irresistible.</p>

<p>Had a brush with perfection lately?Let's see it on Monday in Nature.</p><div></div>

[jordan2240]

<p>Laura,<br>

You perfectly describe the emotions of the nature photographer. I was thrilled when this American Lady Butterfly visited the butterfly bush in the back yard (though I admittedly thought it was some kind of moth at the time), and happy to have a camera at the ready. Shot on the sigma 150-500.</p><div></div>

[Rick Bortnick]

<p>Though the season may wan, MiN still goes on.</p><div></div>

[cegeiss]

<p>Brush with perfection ... that's a tall order. The leaves are beginning to turn here, and add some welcome color. Went out for a walk yesterday and this is what I came back with.</p><div></div>

[colin carron]

<p>Here is a moment when our boat went past a guillemot. I always admire the way seabirds appear to be so well adapted to their environment though the frequent 'wrecks' where many of them die in winter storms show that perfect adaptation to their environment only goes so far. Photo taken near Inner Farne.</p><div></div>

[biomed]

<center><img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/17870230-md.jpg" alt="6D_105+tele 101B_J" width="680" height="453" border="0" /></center>

[paul_de_ley]

<p>Even a perfectly ordinary grass moth can be worth a closer look - albeit upside down in this case :)</p>

<p> </p><div></div>

[Andy Murphy]

<p>Nature can appear rough</p><div></div>

[stemked]

<p>Lovely start this morning.</p>

<p>This is from Western Australia near Port Smith. There was a 'friendly' Yellow Monitor at the campground I stayed at, generally these animals take off when encountering people. A really beautiful animal.</p>

<p><img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/17822338-md.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="451" /><br>

<br />Yellow Monitor. Pentax K3, 55-300 DA lens</p>

[vrankin]

<p>Usually, zoo lions have totally ignored me. This young male really engaged. For a few moments I felt intensely glad for the thick protective window between us. The image is from our point and shoot camera, which did pretty well. Moderate adjustments were made in iPhoto.</p><div></div>

[Bill J Boyd]

<p>This<em><strong> Killdeer</strong></em> landed just a few feet from me at White Rock Lake in Dallas, Texas.</p><div></div>

[Charles_Sumner]

<p>Wow...what a start to MiN. Good show, everyone.</p>

[Jon Eckman]

<p>One of the last remaining daisies in my garden, I wonder where the visitor will wander off to next -</p><div></div>

[AJBart]

<p>Summers end.<br>

<img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/17870509-lg.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="603" />Summers end!</p>

[rmuckey]

<p>The sun, sinking behind the hills, briefly illuminated these maple leaves</p><div></div>

[johnfarrar]

<p>A spider's world. Perfect for me, who knows about the spider?</p><div></div>

[thadley]

<p><img src="/photo/17870201" alt="" />This one was taken in parc Tremblant in Quebec last Friday. Nikon D300 nikkor 70-300mm at f22 and 1/4s and ISO L10. </p><div></div>

[RickDB]

<p>Perfect timing (although serendipitous) caught this female d'Arnaud's Barbet mid-stride as it ran up the branch of an acacia tree. EOS 7d + Tamron 150-600mm at 350mm; 1/1600s at f/8 ISO 200.</p><div></div>

[DawsonPointers]

<p>The place to bee. </p><div></div>

[Gup]

<p>Viewed at 100% this late afternoon shot includes 41 Great Blue Herons. </p><div></div>

[David_Cavan]

<p>As usual some very inspiring shots this week. Gup - we are just back from a trip (last week) through Nova Scotia and PEI. Not enough time or memory cards for all the shots one could get there. We enjoyed it - I really like your golden hour shot - it captures the feel of the island well.</p>

<p>A series of photos taken over the past few years at our home in Virginia, with some Eastern Swallowtails and flowers in the yard resulted in a few I'm happy with. This one is a little blown-out in places, but I like the details.</p><div></div>

[sjmurray]

<p>Fall is here. The fuschias will be going soon.</p><div></div>

[michael_chuang1]

<p>Although perfection would be way too strong a descriptor, I'm pretty happy to have seen this moonflower (<em>Ipomoea</em> sp.) last night at home after spending all day in New Hampshire. The fall colors are coming along nicely in Crawford Notch and along the Kancamagus Highway. Due to the Chicago air traffic debacle I had to take my partner to Manchester, NH to catch a 5:40 AM flight, as the original BOS-MDW-XXX flight had been canceled (weirdly, the MHT-MDW-XXX flights were intact). So we left the house at an ungodly hour, and after seeing her through security (MHT has a little glassed-off section where you literally can watch the screening process) I was up MHT-way at 4:30 AM and thought, "What the hell, I'll catch the sunrise over Russell Pond in the White Mountains," about another hour north. Didn't make any great photos, but had a nice outing in the White Mountains playing with a variety of gear. </p>

<p>Anyway, I got home well after dark and was pleased to see the moonflower. Every year we stress (she stresses) over whether we will get moonflowers before the frosts kill the plant. So of course the day she goes away we get our first bloom! (A previous promising bud was pulled off the plant by someone or thing, a second bud opened only part way then shriveled. Such drama.) This was a grab shot with NEX-6 and kit 16-50 zoom. I have to admit, the moonflower blossoms <em>are</em> delicately lovely.</p><div></div>

[MarcelRomviel]

<p>Sunrise</p><div></div>

[hanappa]

<p>Here is a different view of the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail. Sometimes, even in the throws of death, there can be beauty. This fellow was being finished off by ants, though he could occasionally twitch a leg or half-flutter a wing. Although I prefer to see them wafting along on the breeze, defying logic at the speeds they can achieve despite such seemingly delicate wings, the near demise of this specimen allowed an opportunity to take a bit of a closer look at those wings. From this perspective, the structural elements seem robust, and the colorful scales are readily visible. Even in the common Nature still holds surprises when one gets a chance to see from a different angle.</p><div></div>