Laura Weishaupt

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<p>Thanks for the kudos.....you are the ones who make this party work. It's always nice to see folks who have been away for awhile. The focus of much of the day here has been our Memorial Day observances.<br> Roberta, incredible shot of a rare bird. <br> Paul DeLay, you need a Romulan lens.<br> William K, best wishes for improvement all around. It really will get better.<br> John Farrar, we're getting on a plane one of these days and flying to your side of the pond.. There are a lot of places I want to visit and photograph there.<br> Wonderful shots and birthday sentiments. Here's to the future.</p>

<blockquote> <p><br> </p> <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. Do you have a series of great shots to compliment your post? Please, tell us where they are so we can see them.</p> <p ><em >In the strictest sense, nature photography should not include hand of man elements. Try to minimize man made features, keep the focus on nature, and let common sense be your guide. <strong >Let's make this a true Photo of the Week and only post 1 image per week.</strong></em></p> </blockquote> <p>Happy Birthday Monday in Nature</p> <p>Well folks, light a candle, set off some fireworks, tip a lens cap, raise a cup of coffee, and hit us with your best shot...... well, your best nature shot. It's time to celebrate one full year of Monday in Nature.</p> <p>Each Monday it is a privilege and pleasure to open an ever evolving weekly celebration of the nature that we all love. Overall it's a success. You all love statistics, right? Over the last year we averaged 31 photo posts per week. That's pretty good given that we only post one photo. 129 people have contributed photos here. We'll never know how many folks quietly visit each week without posting. We've made an inviting place for nature lovers to visit and/or contribute. We've all learned new things. We've been shown places in nature that we may not visit or see in person. We appreciate humor when the holiday urge strikes. We even had a spammer. We all seem to be having a pretty good time.</p> <p>Let's see where the next year takes us. One thing I do know is that photography has an impact that we don't always feel or know. A student may see a photo here and be inspired to become a biologist or geologist. The photo of a place may bring fond memories to someone you'll never know. A couch potato may go hiking for the first time because a photo here pulled them out of the house. Documentary photos may help a county official make an important environmental decision. The click of a shutter, the click of a mouse, a photo goes out and takes on a life of its own. Thanks to everyone who has come along on the journey.</p> <p>I'm opening with my favorite things in nature, water and fungi. <em>Vibrissea truncorum</em> is a pretty ascomycete that grows on wood in moving water. It's very small and likely to be overlooked.</p> <p>It's a special Monday in Nature. Today is Memorial here in the U.S.A..</p><div></div>

<p>Ian Forsythe, welcome to MiN and thanks for rounding out our week with such a great shot.</p>

<p>OK, now it's targeted ads.</p> <p>Currently in Casual Photo Conversations there is <a href="/casual-conversations-forum/00cbEd">this </a>thread about scanning slides. There is also an as in the featured equipment deal box for a slide scanner.</p> <p>In B&W Photo Film and Processing there is <a href="/black-and-white-photo-film-processing-forum/00caMi">this</a> thread about film and an featured equipment deal box for Kodak T MAX 100 film.</p> <p>But the one in Nature is the best. <a href="/nature-photography-forum/00cbAB">This </a>thread is a request for a plant ID. Plant in question appears to be what many would call Russian Olive, though only the Latin name is used. But in the featured equipment deal box there's that Russian Olive hand turned bowl.</p> <p>And here right now is an ad for a gear bag. Hmmm. I did mention photo related products in the opening post.</p>

<p>Patrick, I missed that one. Four bowls, imagine the possibilities. Are they big enough to be converted into hard hats?<br> I'm always glad to see the featured deal box not open. If it can stay closed in some places, then I'll hold out hope that, in time, the others will follow. But it seems that if it has a product, a price, and where I can go get it, then it's an ad. I'll also hope for an explanation.</p>

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<blockquote> <p>"As a subscriber you should not be experiencing any ads if you are logged in - other than home page and sign in page....."</p> </blockquote> <p>The preceeding statement was made by Glenn Palm in this thread http://www.photo.net/site-help-forum/00ca89</p> <p>I'm curious as to why I have ads daily in the "featured" boxes throughout the site. This morning a wooden bowl sold from an Etsy site was in a featured equipment box in a thread on the Nature forum. This always happens while I'm logged in, but the occurrence is not consistent throughout the site. Ads seem less frequent than they were, say a couple of months ago and that is good. Most often they are for some photo related product, though the connection is sometimes hard to see. I see these featured equipment deals or featured photo gear boxes about 50% of the time throughout forum pages and threads.</p> <p>I just went to 3 threads in different forums and got camera ads from Dell, buydig, and Fumfie.</p> <p>Given this, what does photonet consider an ad? Based on the statement from the above mentioned thread, as a subscriber I should not get these. Am I missing something? Thanks for your time to help sort this out.</p>

<p>Speaking of aliens, here's an unidentified insect on an unidentified fern in the early morning. The bug might be a Mayfly.</p><div></div>