He has such a cute little face. I love the snow pictures, too. You have a wonderful eye, even the ones that you snapped in a hurry still came out great.
Pictures! Some of these date back to April, so another batch with some not recent ones.
This one is obviously bad, but I'm pretty proud of how well I salvaged it -- it might make it to smaller Christmas cards if we have any made this year. Might. I'll have to dig through folders & find the original for a comparison, this almost comes across as dream-like, while the original says "Wow, you suck at this!" XD.
Last snow of the season. And yes, the snow melt "lake" back in the corner was frozen over.
A few months ago, I caught the ISS going overhead. 30 second long exposure, converted from color to B & W.
A robin nest near the back porch on a low-hanging branch. Mama was constantly pissy over the humans' proximity (hey, you picked the spot, not us)
A female cardinal. This took some software magic to make her color visible, she was back-lit.
Male cardinal.
One of the many that live around here.
Little Kid's Asiatic Lillies. We started out last year with just 4 bulbs. I had no idea they'd self-replicate this prolifically, or I'd have re-potted them before they got too big.
They really are quite a pretty flower.
Little Kid wanted to keep him for a pet :/
Geese at the park.
I'm not sure what this is. Thistle, perhaps?
Have I mentioned we have tiki torches?
They get regular use...
Especially when it's hammock time at night
And finally, an evening moon shot.
Queen of English Language Mangling, Master of the Edit button
These are amazing! The pine cones look like they were taken with a soft focus filter and not just random blurriness. The moon one is beautiful and the long exposure ISS one are phenomenal! I do believe you are right on the purple flower being Thistle. You have a wonderful eye!
Last Edit: Jun 27, 2016 12:24:57 GMT -6 by Glencairn
Aw, thanks Glencairn & Nugget ! I try to keep an eye peeled on everything around me (drives Spyder crazy sometimes out & about) I don't usually notice the finer details of things, that's half my problem trying to get a nice picture of things. I have to actively keep an eye on what's around me (as opposed to those lucky SOBs who are naturals at that)
Hrm, I can't find my original of the pinecones. I think I saved over it when I saved the edit. I'm used to Photoscape saving an original in a subfolder titled exactly that automatically. Right now, I'm learning Nik, a software Google acquired & released for free recently. It's excellent, but lacks that auto-originals folder feature. I didn't think to save a copy of the pinecones beforehand, derp. A mistake born of habit, ha.
I dug up a very similar picture of the same cluster and edited that one (made two original copies, lol! Better to be safe!) to show a comparison. The first pinecone I put up overnight was underexposed, hence the darkness of it even "fixed". I couldn't lighten it much more without making it look washed out. This second one was originally overexposed and a little less blurry. Actually, now that I've "fixed up" this one, I like it more than the above pinecones.
Original:
Edited:
Queen of English Language Mangling, Master of the Edit button
Wow! That touch up made it look like a completely different picture. I am always impressed with photographers and their work. My pictures are, I guess, functional - lacking a better word. I don't have the eye for what makes a picture have that special something and am content to enjoy the work of others who are able to capture a subject and make it look special. You definitely have that.
I think this is a Mantidfly. It was a royal PITA to get a clear picture of, because it's within a web-like nest here. That's why it looks hazy/blurry. It still looks suspiciously like a wasp, doesn't it? It's not, if you look real close at it's legs, you notice they're brown and look like a praying mantis' legs. Took me forever to google up what it was, I had no idea where to start with this oddball.
Spyder gets all the credit for spotting this one, no one else saw it until he pointed it out.
"Aw crap, just what we need hanging around."
Playful little thing, reacting to the kids. Since it was out in the middle of the day, I think it's safe to say this is a juvenile. They're active during the day, as opposed to adults at night.
Queen of English Language Mangling, Master of the Edit button
This past Saturday, we had a number of small tornadoes go through W MI, F0s (65-85 MPH on the enhance scale) & F1s (86-109 MPH on the enhanced scale) For reference for atf1886 & others in hurricane-prone areas, F0 is equivalent to strong tropical storm/weak cat 1 hurricane, and F2 is equivalent to a strong Cat 1/weak Cat 2 hurricane. The one that went through my neighborhood was an F0.
We're back in the trees a little, this was basically just outside our backyard. When that tree went down, it was a hell of a heavy thud. The line didn't go down quietly, either.
We found it amusing that the wild 'shrooms didn't get demolished. Half a fairy circle, lol!
One of many utility poles that actually was on fire. It was dying down when I got the picture, but just before, it was shooting some sizeable flames.
The power company was hot to get right out & stabilize these barely standing poles. Props to their responsiveness!
I can't remember if this was the same building, or another in this apt complex. Probably the latter, they had more than one FUBAR pole.
Spyder's response to this cracked me up considering the afternoon we'd had, "Yeah, until he decides he doesn't like you & gets his dad involved!"
This was a pretty large tree once upon a time. I have no idea where the top half of it went, it's looong gone.
Another angle for size perspective.
This was actually in their living room. Smashed their window at the roof peak there, and took out a big living room window & made itself at home. They had some pretty ugly damage to the masonry on the front of the house.
Another tree shredded. Like the other one, I didn't see any evidence of the top branches of it close by, either. Just the bottom-most branches on the ground.
Narrowly missed the house. This is around the corner from us, and we'd made an offer on it earlier this year (serious fixer-upper) when someone else snagged it. Almost a blessing in disguise in hindsight...
The neighbors behind us eyeballing damage from the third floor deck, & the tree that took out half their second-floor deck, french doors, & put a hole in their roof.
The next day, after removing the tree, replacing the doors already & covering the hole in the roof.
And Nugget , see, the sky did clear! It was dark around here overnight, it's amazing how you don't realize just how much light pollution there is until it's gone for a while.
We had not one thing out of order on our property. Even the kids' frisbee was (and still is) in the yard. Nature can be so oddly selective at times with it's choice spots for damage and/or destruction. Other places around the metro & rural areas were hit much worse, we really didn't get it too bad by comparison. I think the person who's mobile home was tossed in the middle of a busy road would agree! Or the blueberry farm that lost it's cold storage building
Queen of English Language Mangling, Master of the Edit button