discus

To people wondering how Mark captures his images, he's rather sensibly (and kindly - thanks for the contribution!) made a tutorial on insect macro photography. Take a look:

http://www.photo.net/photodb/presentation?presentation_id=188714

What makes this shot is that a couple of people went on missions with their glowsticks, making it a lot more dynamic and IMO interesting. Love this folder! Don't think I could bear to take camera gear to a rave though. keep up the excellent work!

Ahh, the joys of living in places with large scary venomous creatures. Africa is similar, but as Douglas Adams said in his amusing essay on Australia, that country is blessed with a surfeit of them.

I also have the joy of finding large, unpleasant arachnids around a suburban garden (in Johannesburg). Fortunately, few, if and are fatally venomous or particularly belligerent. Found a small scorpion in the kitchen drawer the other day. Which was nice. I have no idea how it managed to get itself in there, as scorpions do not appear to be all that athletic or able to climb... If only I could find these creatures in more photogenic locations than under windowsills (black and brown widow spiders), on intercoms (large, hairy spiders), or in kitchen drawers, life would be peachy... Fortunately, I have yet to have any particularly unpleasant encounters with any of them, although I did once wake up with a 15cm millipede crawling across my neck. It made a sound not unlike parting velcro as I peeled it off my neck. I've also been (accidentally) stabbed by venomous fish spines in the course of my duties as an ichyologist. There are some things that are better read about than experienced...

Oh, and great picture of what must be an amazing garden - I like "jungle effect" gardens a lot. Nice staghorn fern, but shame the orchid wasn't in bloom! You're quite right that the cheesy mask makes the garden (and the picture too I think).

J.

Thanks Tracy,

 

Yes, you can see trees in there too.

 

 

Eh, this doesn't look like an impala to me - more like a female kudu. Which taste great as biltong. Or steak. =)

 

Would look better without the feet cut off I think.

I don't know - I guess no one else noticed it - you can also see the outline of my

head (on the left - Boris noticed that) - I was really close to the cat at the time. The

sun was coming from behind me through the trees if I remember correctly.

 

 

Thanks for your comment!

Thanks for your comment on my photo

 

Taking the photo was pretty easy, I just put my camera on a tripod, (I'm

pretty certain used my 105mm lens, perhaps with a 2x TC, or maybe even

my 170-500 lens - this was quite a long time ago now), engaged mirror

lockup and self timer (minimise camera shake) and then let it do it's

thing. (I think I had center weighted evaluative metering on at the

time).

 

The moon was very bright (and full), and was casting nice patches of

light (on the sea in the distance) and on the very still river directly

in front of me. Fortunately, there were some reeds to add a bit more

interest to the landscape silhouette.

 

Exposure may well have been in the order of 20-30 seconds; I generally

use the smallest aperture I can that gives exposures of this lengthy of

time when I'm photographing relatively static subjects like this.

 

Yours is the first comment on one of my photos in about 6 months - so

thanks once again!

 

 

Yup, definitely eucalyptus bark, no doubt =0)jumped right out of the page and said "eucalyptus bark" to me!

Thanks, Andrey. Will bear that in mind for future uploads.

What an awesome place! is it a salt pan?

 

Good photo of it.

 

James.

That green blur of the foliage at the bottom detracts from the image to my eyes - otherwise, nice!

Velvia does great things with blues - if you go back that way, give it a whirl!

 

 

This has got to be one of my luckiest shots ever - one fish in the center stayed still while all the others moved - I really like the effect!

He usually looks like that - he was just sitting up on a sand dune watching the world go by; seemed to be having a good time! Quite difficult to get him to actually look at you! Eventually, he graced my with this quick glance.

Incidentally, anyone that caught the "Blue Planet" series on TV has seen these guys in action! I forget which episode it was, but they featured maybe 5 minutes of these guys running around on the beach and even "surfing".

 

Thanks Geraldine - It's proving difficult to find really artistic snails...!

In case you're wondering, his right ear got caught in the wind. Sorry about the scanning artifact on the left of the frame - I think this is indicative of dust on the CCD - I'll have to try clean it one day...

Yup, definitely meerkats (more correctly called suricates) - it's a long term ambition of mine to find some of these guys in the wild. Theoretically easy seeing as I'm in Africa, but I've yet to see them...

 

The wall unfortunately detracts from the picture, but the subjects are still engaging.

Thanks, Philippe.

 

I used only the incandescent lights that were available in the room- this was probably a 20-30 second exposure; I was aiming to have most of the light being backlight from another display while keeping the background dark (it is otherwise quite distracting) which I did with a piece of cloth carefully placed to block out just enough of the background to keep it from showing, while allowing the background lighting to still hit the fin.

 

Unfortunately, I don't have an off camera flash, and I think the on camera flash would have been a disaster in this situation. The colors in this particular shot are pretty close to what you see on the specimen itself, although some of the others in this folder are pretty far off, usually being rather too "warm", or having a greenish colour cast from the fluorescent lights present.

 

Incidentally, this (at 60m) is the highest spire in all of South Africa!

Taken in the V&A waterfront in Cape Town - what can I do to make this

and other night photos better?

 

Thanks!

 

James.

Awesome light! f8 and be there, huh?! =0)

 

Nice composition too.

 

J.

Jeff - where did you think little turtles came from!? =)

I love the colours, the barn, sky and grass, but for me somehow the cows ruin it! It would IMO be better without the cows, making a simpler, more pleasing image. But then you'd need a new title =0)

I don't know why people are against polarised almost black skies - personally, I love the effect; great photo.

 

James.

Having been subjected to Welsh weather for 3 years, this captures the brooding atmosphere extremely well; I think this is a great shot - well done; it is by no means too dark!

 

James.