skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Now these birds are much, much easier to capture in a photograph. They will sit quite still, gazing around with those intelligent eyes, probably just as curious about you as you are of them. It's easy to see why there is a temptation for people to keep them at home as pets - in fact one time, while I was living in Nacogdoches, someone gave me a white cockatiel, named Birdie, and I thoroughly enjoyed having her around.
I can see the reasons for bird owners to clip wing feathers to keep them from flying about, but have always thought that a cruel practice, to take away an animal's natural ability solely for our amusement. Thus, I allowed Birdie to fly around my little country cottage at will once I got home every day after work. Whenever I settled in for some TV she would land on the arm of the couch and nudge my finger for a petting. Once I started stroking her little head she moved it around, just like a cat, so that I wouldn't miss a spot. Really incredible behavior for one with such a small brain! They say birds form strong bonds, and I believe that it even extends to affection.
Back to some birds. There were dozens - maybe even a hundred - of these peach faced love birds in an enclosure to be fed by tourists. Made for some good photo ops but you had to be quick, and the relatively slow lens I was using on the Big Cahoona was not my friend. But occasionally a good shot would find its way in...
The tug from the post a couple of days ago got much closer to the shoreline, enabling me to get a few pics. The shot above is a little better compositionally, but for some reason the color turned out better in the pic below. Also, the smoke stream makes it look as though it were traveling backwards:
This was to the right of where yesterday's pic was taken. Very nice, really, but eerily devoid of people and activity - and never saw anyone on the slide. Maybe you had to pay extra to do that, too...
This is the enclosure area where they kept the dolphins and sting rays for observation and interaction. It was sad to see, really. Those that paid extra were given special equipment and invited to wade into one of the sections where they had the sting rays. One of the workers then would reach down and bring a ray to the surface, allowing the guest to touch, pet, and otherwise "interact" with the creature. While it might have been a positive experience for the guest, I saw stress in the animal as it desperately tried to flap its way back into its natural place, which was at the bottom. Glad we didn't pay to do that.
To "interact" with the dolphins the guests would sit along the edge of the section where a dolphin or two were swimming around. Then one of them would simply swim close to the edge along its length, where everyone could reach out and touch. If one could observe depression in an animal, it might have been seen in the demeanor of those dolphins, who swam slowly and lackadaisically through the entire performance.
But the angles and lines here made for a pretty good picture, so here it is. Got some closeups of the boat in the background which will be posted within the next few days.
Caught one of his friends for the briefest of moments. Gotta be fast, and they had to be still because of the slow lens I had on the Big Cahoona.
Below is a mix of the two types...different colors, same species (I think):
Things move fast in the world of birds, so it took just a nanomoment to go from the above to what you see below:
Of the three stops on this cruise - Cozumel, Grand Cayman and Jamaica - this one (Jamaica) was the best because there was something to do instead of just standing around on a beach. We booked an excursion that included observing dolphins in an enclosure, but that turned out to be a disappointment. The place was teeming with birds, however, which made up for it. These posts will include a lot of bird pictures.
This little guy was sort of by himself, so I zoomed in to the hilt and started snapping away. He appears almost to be resting in the shot below:
Got a pretty good pic of this bar early on, but later saw the pelican and decided that might add interest. This is a 3-shot panorama that might also make a decent print.
Now on to yet another cruise! The cruise we took this year was new to us, in terms of itinerary and destinations. Yet I determined during the trip that it would be our last on the Caribbean. We're just not beach people, and five of these guys - with beach-type activities making up a majority of the excursions - is enough. Do they offer cruises up in the mountains?
Basically the only reason we went was because, being off-season, it was fairly cheap, and we'd be joined with about five other couples, some with whom we were close and some not. But the most interesting aspect of the whole journey was that, about two months prior to our departure, my brother and a friend went on the same exact cruise on the same ship. He wanted to see the pictures and compare notes - so this one's for you, Mike!
Being that we would be on the same ship, I tried to convince him to get a Sharpie and put a mark somewhere on the boat that I could find when we got on later. Wouldn't do it, though...too much of a goodie-goodie.
The three-shot panorama above is probably the best captured during the seven days we were out, and one I'd like to print and mount on gatorboard for the wall someday.
Getting closer to the flower, I tried hard to get the autofocus to train on the stamen at the top, but it wouldn't hold and had to settle for the yellow pollen underneath.
The shot below reminded me a little of this post, captured years ago in Taipei. Sometimes even as I'm framing a shot in the present day a previous post will come to mind and I'll either try to duplicate or change the composition based on that image.
The other day we bought this hibiscus plant. Our collection of plants is certainly growing! The stock answer when the wife wants another one - so long as you're willing to take care of it! Of course I'm invariably roped in, and it's not so bad.
Shot below is same composition but focused on the background flower:
One more critter shot. These guys, nothing more than juvenile stinkbugs, are making use of those long Chinese beans as a pathway to the top canopy of the vegetation, where they gather in great numbers.
____________________
As written in a recent story post, I lived on the ground floor in the back corner of a plumbing shop in Amarillo, called Charley's Plumbing. It was a fine arrangement - not much space but adequate for a summer tenant that was there only to earn college money before going back to school.
The owners of the shop, Charley and Johnnie Scholl, set up an apartment on the second level of the shop. Charley was a great guy to get along with and played as hard as he worked. Also as stated in the earlier post, his wife Johnnie was really something to look at, but I was attracted to her spirit more than anything...we got along famously and did a lot of things together, becoming great friends (and no, I never made a pass at her).
Whenever we were on the afternoon shift at IBP it became my routine to sit across the desk from Johnnie in the shop downstairs and visit before moving on to the rest of the day. Her son Chip was a toddler at the time and would invariably be exploring the place and darting here and there, having to be looked after. We both enjoyed that time together, and I would go on and on with stories of my adventures at the slaughterhouse. Finally, during my second summer there in 1979, it occurred to me that, after hearing so much about it, Johnnie might like to tour the place! She appeared eager, so I asked Glenn, our head foreman at B shift, and he gave permission.
The day arrived and off we went. Upon our arrival we both had to don white smocks, hard hats, boots and ear protection. Thus prepared, we stepped onto the floor. I was excited and proud for the opportunity to share with my friend the sights, sounds and places that I'd been talking about in the summer and a half that I'd worked there. We walked almost the entire floor, stopping at places where she had questions or where I wanted to explain something. Then up we went onto the catwalk - used almost exclusively by the maintenance team - to look down from that perspective. Johnnie was somewhat in awe at the operation because it's not something you see every day and, after all, in 1979 it was the fastest and most modern slaughterhouse in the world.
As stated before, Johnnie was a beautiful girl and we had to put up with a bit of whistles and cat-calling (I'd warned her of this beforehand), and the odd eyeball would fly by when we were up on the catwalk. But none of this phased either of us and the tour, in my view, was a success. It lasted the better part of an hour.
One of my favorite critter shots of the year. Some photographers actually carry a squirt bottle around to apply mist on the web; yet others will carry talcum powder in women's hosiery to dust it, making the strands of the web stand out more.
Back to the more traditionally beautiful...
No, I'm not done with the stink bug just yet! The difference between this shot and the one in yesterday's post is that, aside from framing considerations, here no flash was used. For the photo below I used the Autotone setting in Photoshop, which for some reason made the garage wall look blue:
Everything is beautiful in its own way...
Normally the afternoon sun would not be welcome to a photographer, but this time it hit just right.
The
background is our garage wall. I hung a hummingbird feeder from the
eave in the same area thinking I would capture one in a
picture, but discovered that taking pictures of hummingbirds is not
easy! Maybe one day there'll be a good enough one to post.
Well, maybe it's not dew, as I'd just watered the garden. Makes for a better-than-average snapshot, though...
There is such striking beauty all around. A lifetime of photos can be captured within the confines of a suburban yard.
There was once this film shown in the classroom - back in the '80's, when 16mm acetate was the standard - of heavy drops of water wreaking havoc on the life of bugs underneath the grass. For some minutes the giant drops fell from the sky with surprising effects on what lay underneath, in their world. Then, as the last scene, a dog was seen shaking himself dry and trotting off...
Playing with color, same shot below:
It's amazing what the Chinese and Vietnamese can do with their gardens. The wife always wanted to have a good one and it appears that now, after 28 years, we finally have one.
These are lofa plants, and lofa flowers above them. A majority of the following half-dozen or so pics were captured here and elsewhere in our yard...
It was only after post-capture that I noticed a person standing in the doorway looking up at our ship. Was amazed that you can go online and find all the details about this guy on a site called marinetraffic.com. And you can see exactly where it is at this moment on vesselfinder.com.
This will be the last post of the series for Cruise 2014. For the next several days will post a few pics taken around the house here in Houston, then on to another cruise posted by request, as my little brother Mike went on the same one and wanted to compare photos.
Staff meeting time on a cruise ship...
Never can sit anywhere for long without craning my neck, turning my head, or making a small step in one direction or another in order to frame a shot in my mind. Some count it as odd behavior, but those who know me realize that I'm just on another shoot inside my head.
During the last days of the cruise we were sitting around just talking, when suddenly I ordered my sister-in-law to move so that I could capture this shot, steadying the Big Cahoona with my elbows on the table. She gamely complied, then returned to her seat and continued conversing with her sisters about the big sale that was going on right behind us.
Another angle of same subject below:
The last food-related post from the cruise. They had a demonstration showcasing the artistry and work involved in carving fruit for the arrangements seen at various times while at sea.
Sure is hard to take pictures in dark restaurants, but this one came out OK. Think it was baked Alaska, or something similar. What got my attention most, though, was the artificial candlelight, as I'd never seen such a thing...
