Ice and Frost, Winter is Coming

I haven't been as active with my camera the past month or so. Usually a good frost gets me out in the morning to get at least a few photos of plants and other subjects with interesting frost and crystal patterns. This year, I just finally got my butt out a couple days ago. I spent just 10 minutes or so photographing the ice and frost on a glass table on our deck. It was reminiscent of my "Sand Project" during the summer, but much more limited in scope. Here are a half-dozen of the images.


Ice and Frost I

Ice and Frost II

Ice and Frost III

Ice and Frost IV

Ice and Frost V

Ice in His Veins

Revisit

Every so often, I go back and look at photos I took, 5, 15 & 15 years ago. I recently was compiling & moving an album I created a couple years ago from my time in Sarajevo. A question someone asked about a photo prompted me to go back and have a look at all the photos I took at the time (fall of 2006, not too long after I switched to digital). Here are three that I don't believe I ever did anything with, that may be worth a second look, or in the case of the first photo, an example of why I passed it by.


Window and the Flower
Passed over, I didn't leave enough space around the flower in the lower right

Face in the Wall

Juxtaposition

On the Corner of...

The "Best" Camera - "Sad" & "Old and Tired Sad"

During my wanderings in October, a couple times I found myself just walking around the town while my friend got some work done. I didn't carry my "real" camera w/backpack and lenses on those walks, but I did see things I'd like to photograph. In those situations, I pulled out my "best" camera, the one I had with me, my old iPhone, Here is one such photo as color and then black & white.


"Sad"- Frostburg, MD

"Old and Tired, Sad"- Frostburg, MD

This Year's Version of Fall

I got around a bit these past couple weeks. No matter where I went, the trees were glorious, especially the maples. Here is a sampling:


Hoye-Crest, MD

Mt. Davis, PA

Earl H. Barnhart "Buzzard's Roost" Nature Preserve, OH

Out The Front Door, OH

Reflection Out the Backdoor, OH

Looking Forward to the Colors of Fall

Some of the trees in the neighborhood are getting "toasted" on top. Leaves are falling. Going to head out on a couple hikes in the coming week and I'm hoping to see some nice colors. Here's a couple shots, the first from last year and the second from 15 years ago (time flies).


Middle Falls, Letchworth State Park, NY

Lake Bled, Slovenia

Fall Arrives

And you can tell by all the spider webs around. Here's a spider and its web that I planted my face into. I went back the next day for the last two photos, after the busy big thing had repaired the mess my face made the day before.


A Mess of a Web

Hiding From the Prey Which Could Squash It Like a Bug

All is Repaired, Waiting for Suitable Prey

The Hunter Waits

Shelter From The Rain - Natural Umbrella Edition

I'm not good about getting up and going any further than my coffee pot in the morning, so I end up missing a lot of nice foggy mornings (such as today). However, on occassion I do make it out into the yard and garden after a rain. This orange cosmos has grown much larger than I expected and it's a favorite of bumble bees. Here a flower is being used as an umbrella.


Bumble Bee Takes Shelter from the Rain

To The Airport!

The oldest of my grandsons loves aircraft. This past weekend he was monitoring air traffic and noticed that a couple helicopters were taking off from Lunken Airport, flying a circuit and then landing back at the airport.

This reminded me that the "Warbirds" were there, so I had him accompany on and "errand" and I drove him down to see the planes. He especially seemed to enjoy the flyby.

Here are a few of the photos I took


"Doc's" B29 Flying Fortress Tail Gunner

One Fighter Lands, Another Takes Off

Taking a Look Through "Doc"

"Doc" is Quite Shiny!

The "Cincinnati Kid"

Fly By, B-25 in the Lead

A Fly-by of Two

The Ultimate "Bug Hunter"

I frequently go into my gardens "bug hunting" with my camera. I have a lot of fun and have loved learning about the various bugs I get photos of. I have a friend that helps me out if I get stuck. Because of her identification help over the last several years, that need for identification help happens less and less often. She still looks at almost all, and comments on many, of my garden photos that I post on a private platform.

Today, I came across a yellow garden spider. It's been a couple years since I've had a good one for photographs. Spiders are the ultimate bug hunter. Patient like the orb weavers, or stalking like the jumping spiders, I really like them and work to get my grandkids to like them instead of fear them. After showing the grandkids the actual spider and web, I also brought them to the computer monitor so they could see the spider up close. I hope over time, they'll learn to not fear bugs (except for mosquitoes, they suck).

Here are a couple photos of the Yellow Garden Spider, and two photos of "bugs" it may have been hoping to catch.



Yellow Garden Spider

Yellow Garden Spider

Wasp - Cicada Killer?

Skipper

Islands in the Sky

A photo I especially liked from the DLSR part of my The Sand Project



Islands in the Sky

Butterflies Are Free to Fly

Butterflies are one of my favorite bug "subjects". A few days back I was trying to get good photos of a Black Swallowtail, and especially trying to get it with a Yellow Swallowtail that it was sometimes hanging out with. I managed a couple decent shots of the Yellow, and none worth showing here of the Black. For one of the photos I tried to take of the two together, I was a hair too slow on the shutter, and the Yellow was flying away.



Taking a Sip

Profile, Environmental Portrait of a Butterfly at Work

And Off It Goes

The Sand Project, Part 2 - DSLR

The second half of The Sand Project
I spent a week at the beach recently and decided to do a "project" that would be naturally limited.
Images of the beach sand.

The project was limited by:
Time, I was only at the beach a week
Tide times, so the sun would be low enough to get decent shadows and contrast
People/crowds, I didn't want contend with too many people or footprints in my photos

I took two walks with my iPhone, and two walks with my "real" camera (A Canon EOS 6D Mk1 for those who might care).

Here are a half-dozen of the "real" camera images.


A Walk on the Beach

The Rapids

Sunrise

Calm

The Wilds

The Keys

Here By The Sea And Sand ...

Nothing ever goes as planned¹

During one of my walks working on my Sand Project I happened to see an interesting shorebird that I hadn't noticed before. My camera wasn't setup for bird photography and I didn't think to just snap a photo anyway. Instead, I figured I would just walk again later with a camera/lens combination suitable for birds and maybe I'd get a lot of gulls, terns etc. and of course some of this particular group of birds (Royal Terns btw).

So I mounted my 70-200 with a 2x extender and took another walk. As it would happen, I saw very few interesting birds, but I had a lot of fun with some high contrast scenes.


Pier

Shore

Recede

Shimmer

Watching