17 September 2009

This is one of those cracked glass orb things you hang in your garden.

06 September 2009

This one is for Keith...



He didn't know what a sea urchin skeleton/shell looked like.

05 September 2009

It's a Stash tea rainbow! :)

29 August 2009

Keith, Tom, his girlfriend Shelby, and myself all went camping this weekend!


We only stayed for one night, but we had fun on Sunday with a 4-5 hour innertube float...



Today and tomorrow's pictures were both taken with a Fujifilm waterproof, disposable 3.5mm camera. The place we went camping is the same place where I broke my Olympus.

28 August 2009

The top of a snapdragon :)

26 August 2009

A (delicious) cucumber from our garden.


Two or three thoughts:


1 - I think the thing with the red fuzz is a little raspberry sprout. Our raspberry bush is near where I took this picture.


2 - My mind is stuck in portrait orientation and it can't get out.


3- For some amazing "landscapes in portrait orientation" shots, look here.

21 August 2009

Granted, this is not the greatest quality.


But I am super excited that I caught the spider shooting out its web :)


I am also a huge nerd and love being able to see what the spider looks like up close. Nature works in weird ways, that's for sure...




(This was after I ran into its web, noticed it crawling in my red hair a few minutes later out of the corner of my eye, and threw it on the bricks.)

20 August 2009

I've been wanting to take a shot like this for a long time!

19 August 2009

More raindrop (aka: sprinkler) fun :)

09 August 2009

(Click for full view)


Daddy long legs on our corn :)

01 August 2009

I made salmon for the first time tonight... I am a salmon goddess!


It helps that this recipe is truly AMAZING and stupidly simple to make. I'm 90% sure you already have everything but the salmon sitting around your house. I only wish I had the time to make some steamed broccoli and white rice to go with it!


They recommend using foil for easy clean up... It probably is easier, but please be green and build some muscles by scrubbing the pan :)

On the photo: I was using a low ISO setting on this, and my manual mode. Unfortunately, my manual mode does not utilize my image stabilization mode. So most of my shots turned out either blurred, or too soft. Oh well, I'm learning still!

30 July 2009

(Click for full view)



A male Pacific Forktail damselfly (Ischnura cervula) hanging out on the fence by our garden.



I didn't try fiddling with my ISO settings today (I can't use image stabilization when I do that, and I needed to take a quick shot). I definitely notice more noise here.

29 July 2009

(Click for full view)


Playing with my ISO again, as well as my (limited) aperture settings. I'm still learning what these things are and what they do.



I'm pleased with it as a start; there is less noise, and I have a nice bokeh effect going on.



I also had a very cooperative wasp (Vespula vulgaris?) helping me out. It was enjoying the cool of dusk and our sprinkler, cleaning itself on our raspberry bush without caring how close I got to it.

25 July 2009

(Click for full view)


I've been trying to look up the plants/animals I take pictures of. I think that this is either willow-leaved dock or golden dock.

23 July 2009

(Click for full view)



Missy eating a cherry stem.

I'm going to keep uploading the landscape shots in full size until I get things figured out. Click them to see the full picture. :)

22 July 2009

(Click for full view)



These are six black-margined loosestrife beetles devouring a patch of invasive purple loosestrife plants. I found them while I was doing observations for my Animal Field Behavior class on the school's wetland reservation. Using beetles to get rid of the plants is a greener way to exterminate the plants, as long as they don't let the beetles become pests too.


From far away purple loosestrife looks almost like fireweed, but up close you can see the difference (fireweed is on the left).



Edit: Ugh. This layout doesn't automatically resize large photos. I'll work on this, probably tomorrow. You can only see four the beetles now.

21 July 2009

Those aren't bugs. They are pieces of the corn's male flower (aka: tassel) that have fallen on to the corn leaf.

17 July 2009

Grapes from Keith's back yard.

16 July 2009

I'm really happy with this one... All I did was soften it and adjust brightness/contrast.

10 July 2009

Tom, my dad, and myself picked cherries today.




However, none of my cherry pictures looked even close to as cool as this picture of a corn stalk.