Yellowjacket Wasp

        This yellowjacket wasp was grooming herself when I ran into her. I was taking pictures of some construction in the road when she landed, had a quick bath and left.

Zebra Longwing (Heliconius charitonia)

        The Wild Animal Park, in Encondito, CA just wrapped up a special “Butterfly Jungle” exhibit this past weekend. The entire park, including the butterfly jungle was a great experience and took up an entire Saturday, as well as over 5GB of space on my Nikon D5000′s memory card. After spending a few days sorting and selecting my favorite pics of that day, I found that I had too many keepers for one blog post. I’m going to split that exhausting day into three posts: Butterflies, birds and mammals, in that order.
        This post will feature butterflies. These pics were snapped at 1/500th or faster, and most were at full 450mm zoom. That means the ISO was pretty high (1600-3200 ISO) so there is a bit of noise. Since I know next to nothing about what makes a butterfly tick, I won’t sully their wonderful colors or elegant, nectar slurping lives with any more of my words except to say, “Enjoy.”

Orange-Barred Tiger (Dryadula phaetusa)

Giant Swallowtail (Papilio cresphontes)

Malachite (Siproeta stelenes)

Paper Kite Butterfly (Idea leuconoe)”

Malachite (Siproeta stelenes) & Blue Morpho (Morpho peleides)

Postman (Heliconius melpomene)

Amaryllis Tries To Start A Family

        What was, on March 13, 2010 just an amaryllis bulb has grown into a 6 flower metropolis, with an additional two under construction. The pic above is a macro shot of the reproductive area of one of them. The high ISO I used (3200) enabled me to use a a very fast shutter speed, which then enabled me to handhold the camera while using the full 450mm of my lens. I remain impressed with the very low amount of high ISO noise my D5000 produces.
        Something that I an really enjoying about my D5000 is that because it is a Nikon DX camera, it’s sensor size gives me a 1.5x crop factor, so my 70-300mm (non-DX) lens is attached, it is a 105-450mm for me. Same for my 50mm f/1.8 prime lens. It is a 75mm when attached to the D5000. Ken Rockwell wrote a great article explaining crop factor, and it is well worth reading. His entire site is actually very informative. Knowing how a lens is going to act on your camera before you buy it can save you some possible buyers remorse later. Full stats for the pic are: 450mm, 1/500th, f/5.6, 3200 ISO

Photography Helps Us To Reflect

        After all, we are human beings and not vampires. With or without a mirror in front of us, we should be able to reflect with impunity. I believe that photography enables us mere mortals to do just that. Ever since 1826, we have been able to reflect on events that took place before our birth and reflect on places we have never been… All thanks to photography.

Iceplant Flowers

Sunset As Seen From Downtown San Diego

        Just to the south of my subject lies the Hilton, and immediately to the north is PETCO Park. The sun was just above the frame of the photo, so a tiny aperture and a shutter speed of 1/1200th was necessary to capture this particular moment in time.

Blood Vessels Under High Magnification

        Macro photography is a favorite style of mine because it makes small things look so big! With macro photography, people get to see something totally new and relatively different.

Alien Visitor Attempts To Make Contact

        There are two things you should do when dealing with a life form that is not from Earth. First, do what they say. They’ve traveled very far, and don’t need to deal with your attitude. Second, don’t be afraid. The distance traveled by an alien is inversely proportional to the likelihood of them probing your butt.

Fast Shutter & Photoshop Make The Sun My Bitch

        The orb in the photo above is the sun. I have opted to cross-dress his highness as a lunar queen because… As the title says, the sun is my bitch.

Water Evidence On An Alien Planet – As Seen From An Orbiting Satellite

        Back in the 1970′s, NASA launched a series of deep space probes. Mostly forgotten today, some of them have finally managed to reach planets outside our own solar system. The image above was taken from 150 miles above the surface of a planet named “NIROBI”. The visible geographic features could be giant, wind-swept sand dunes or even a series of canyons made by liquid water.

Our Universe Milliseconds After The Big Bang

        In a laboratory, amongst particle accelerators and radiation, scientists have managed to reproduce a microscopic version of THE BIG BANG in a controlled environment. Incredibly enough, was there with my camera, and it’s amazing macro capabilities so I was able to capture the shot above.

Objects Very Similar To The Hubble Telescope’s PILLARS OF THE EARTH Photo

        Fractals have been something that I struggled to wrap my mind around. After taking this shot, however, I can see that patterns do repeat themselves from small on up to immeasurably large. You have to use a bit of imagination I suppose, but to me, this sub-atomic photo of a laboratory created BIG BANG looks like the famous Pillars Of Creation photo taken by the Hubble Telescope in 1995. From microscopic to telescopic, I am now a believer in the “Universe In Our Fingernail” concept.

Flower, Shadow, Sunlight, Bee, Blue Sky

        Balboa Park is not exactly a spooky Halloween place, at least during the day. What seemed to me to be a unique combination of sunlight, flower and insect prompted the pic above.

Cactus Needles Backlit By The Sun

        Wow! Cactus needles backlit by the sun. No one has ever done that before! I’m not kidding, you are seeing a marvel of modern photography!

This Is A Great Shot Of A Waiting Orb Spider

        This spider was milling about about The House Of Poland in Balboa Park, San Diego, CA.

Apollo Lunar Lander As Seen In November, 1969

        I was fortunate enough to be part of the pre-landing party back in 1969. We all drove out to a remote part of Texas teleported to The Sea Of Tranquility, on the lunar surface a few hours before the those arrogant, rock star astronauts arrived. After spending the afternoon watching them play golf and fumble around, while being recorded at 220 frames per second, I realized that I needed something a little more real than lunar exploration to satisfy my photographic needs.

I Want To Be A Real RocknRolla

When Life Becomes A Palindrome

        My goal today was to snap 680 digital images, which would fill up my SD card. Simple math says that if I shot 1 frame each second I would be done in just over 11 minutes, but simple reality said instead that it would take most of the day. How can it be that after attending 3 events in the San Diego area that I have exactly nothing to show for it? Those in the know will understand this next, paraphrased line, “You ain’t leadin’ but two things, right now: Jack and shit… and Jack left town.”

The Peak Of An Empire Is Measured By The Inevitable Decline

        I think I do better when I don’t try. This happens for no reason in particular, it just is what it is. Of course I might be wrong but what difference would that really make?

Announcing Your Plans Is A Great Way To Hear God Laugh