Category: Photography

Meet Shinji, Mindflight’s droll new co-mascot.

Photography

Nezumi here.  Mom’s busy working the camera and trying to get decent photos.  Something about “darn autofocus,” whatever that means.  I have bad news.  Very, very bad.

There’s a new cat in the house.  Do you hear me?  A NEW CAT.  For the first day or two I hissed at him all the time just to let him know who’s boss.  Then I eased up a little and just stole his food, and gave him the Demon Eyes when I saw him.  Then I just hissed at him when he meowed too much.

He’s something called a Siamese.  He looks funny, with stripes and pale patches and blue eyes and stuff.  He’s kinda small too, especially for a boy, and the Moms keep calling him “Minimeez” or “Permakitty.”  It’s a good thing they are both giving me treats and petting me a lot, or I’d have to evict him.

The other day, Mom laughed at me hissing at him, and said “remember when Orion used to hiss at you, back when you were a kitten?”  She thought that was pretty droll.  Orion was my best friend.  I still miss him.  It’s hard to imagine being hissed at by my adoptive dad!

The Moms told me all about Shinji.  He’s an old man!  He could be as much as fourteen years old, and I’m only eleven!  But he looks and acts like he’s three or so.  The Moms said I should be nice to him because his two legged mother died, and then his two cat friends, and he was living in a backyard, and he needs a loving home.

I might be nice to him.  Later.  After all, he is pretty good at ankle-winding, and the Moms like that.  For now I’ll just not growl at him.  Much.

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He’s not very good at having his picture taken yet, is he?  Oh well.  I’ll teach him everything I know.  Eventually.  Anyway, here’s me, the great Nezumi, signing off.  All this blogging has made me tired.

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https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/droll/

 

Peeking Feline

Photography

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Do I peek through the supplies and canned goods at Nezumi-chan?

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Or does Nezumi-chan peek back at me?

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Here’s a hole in my backyard I like to peek through… lizards often live there.

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Speaking of backyards, here’s a peek at the mountains through pine trees…

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I peeked through my zoom lens to capture this avian kerfluffle from across the parking lot.

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Here they are again as I peek under this truck.

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This is what they look like when I’m not peeking quite so much.

It seems that for me, at least, peeking leads to lower quality pictures but still I find them interesting to look at.

(Guitar Update:   Guitar Sensei has me working on some basic finger patterns on the fretboard.  I’m still at the getting-to-know-you stage.  I have the self assigned task of learn to get from C to G chord and back again.  My fingers are a lot tougher than they were.  I can do scales pretty well too.  I’m still settling down to my favorite kind of pick, and I find practicing standing up easier than practicing sitting down.)

 

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/photo-challenges/peek/

Wild Orange

Photography

On my recent zoo trip and photo spree, I saw all kinds of orange things.  Flowers, birds, a butterfly, a rather orange camel, the list goes on.  Here’s a break from Inktober, and some of the things I saw.

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The zoo had several bushes of these – I’m unsure what type of flower they are.

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Let’s play Find The Butterfly…

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A Malaysian tiger.  “Are you sure you got my good side?”  I have clearer pictures but I love this pose.

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The giraffes were very, very relaxed.  There was a Giraffe Encounter where you could pay a little money to feed them a carrot stick and some lettuce.  I did that and discovered giraffe tongues, aside from being very long and dexterous, are also blue!

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/orange/

You’d be brave indeed…

Featured Artists, Photography

…to confront this elephant cow on her home turf.  She might be gentle, but she’s so big that you’d have to be careful anyway!  Elephants fascinate me.  They have long distance communication using subsonics, both through rumbles and the pads of their feet.  They communicate across many kilometers, hearing the sounds transmitted up from the foot bones all the way up to their ears.  They do indeed have long memories.  Not only could a calf following her mother across the savanna during a drought remember that same water hole the next time, but she could lead her herd there fifty years later when she hadn’t been there in the interim.  It’s been said that a farmer who hurts an elephant herd will often find his crops destroyed by night-raiding elephants – he himself will be uninjured, and so will be the farms of his neighbors.  I often wonder if elephants are sapient.   This particular lady was seen at my local zoo this weekend.  She kept putting branches on her back and carrying them around.

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My sketch is going up first, then later I’ll upload the finished ink.  So if you like this sketch, check back!

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https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/brave/

Out of Focus – dark skies, flapping, and Mars

Photography

This week is a celebration of photos that represent focus.  I liked seeing the example of an out of focus picture that nevertheless communicates.  I must say I have a few photos that re less than sharp.  Okay, more than a few!  I do keep some of them because they are interesting in other ways.  They might make a good abstract background, or sometimes the blurriness helps tell the story.  Here are a few.

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These quail are really in a flap!  The blur makes me think of how active they were.

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This moon, though blurry, made a neat background for a poem about Halloween.

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There’s something I really like about this one – blurred, it looks like the eye of a great beast, and has an interesting mood.

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Although, to be fair, this is what it was supposed to look like!

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This last image is probably the best out of focus picture I’ve ever taken.  Not only is it the shaky track created by my trying to take a picture of Mars at extreme zoom, but it starts to spell out my name!

via Photo Challenge: Focus

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/photo-challenges/out-of-focus/

Lovely portraits of Betta Fish

Photography

I have had several betta fish, otherwise known as Siamese fighting fish.  They are smart, rather tough fish who can learn to be quite responsive to their keepers.  Oddly, they are quite peaceful when not facing off against another male of their own kind!  Here are some lovely aquatic portraits, fresh from the excellent Flowart blog.

 

Portraits of Siamese Fighting Fish by Visarute Angkatavanich on 500px Bangkok-based photographer Visarute Angkatavanich captures exquisite, surreal and elegant fish photographs of the multi-colored specifies. The intimate images feature a variety of breeds from goldfish to Siames fighting fish in a set of dramatic shots. Filmed against white or black backgrounds, Angkatavanich’s close-up portrait capture […]

via Portraits of Siamese Fighting Fish by Visarute Angkatavanich — FLOW ART STATION

Evanescent Flycatcher

Photography

 

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Meet the lovely Phainopepla, a Central American bird who graced a treetop near my backyard.  He landed in the middle of the city, as so many other exotic birds do.  My neighborhood is a haven for wildlife.  His visit was short and welcome.  My sharp eyed wife pointed him out to me, and a little research revealed his name – that of the northernmost family of Silky Flycatchers.

Now the cicadas are starting, summer is here.  The lizards are busy in the leaves.  The evanescent days of summer have begun to march past us.

 

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/photo-challenges/evanescent/