We The People

Timothy Price1 Comment

We got our first hard frost last night. I noticed a lot of water dripping off the roof over the catio this morning, so I climbed up on the roof to find it covered with thick, wet ice, and the hose to the swamp cooler split and spraying water. The split was close to where the hose connects to the swamp cooler, making it easy to cut the hose and reconnect it to the cooler to stop the leak. Otherwise, I would have had to change my clothes, crawl under the house to turn off the water to the cooler, clean up and change my clothes again (I turned off the water to the cooler after I got home this evening).  After I fixed the hose, I got my camera and took photos of the balloons before heading off to work.

Although it got cold enough to freeze a half inch sheet of ice on the roof, frost the top of my car, and the leaves on all the plants, most of the plants were not showing much cold damage tonight, and the zipper spider was actively repairing her web when I checked on her this evening.

A Rose, Rose & Stretch

Timothy Price5 Comments

I had the first three photos of the rose, Rosencrantz and Stretch prepared for the blog, but I couldn’t remember the name of the rose. I went out to look at the label in the twilight, and there were two gas balloons floating by — lit up by the glow from the sun that had set some minutes before. I got the name of the rose, Cabana, then sat down on the bench in the middle of the circle garden and watched the balloons disappear behind the trees. Then I sat on the bench for several minutes and reflected on the sunset in the gazing ball.

Pass the Hat

Timothy Price2 Comments

October is the birthday month for our family. We celebrated Laurie’s and her mom’s birthdays tonight, out on the the deck. Even though I had the outdoor heater running, it still got cold enough to pull out the jackets, fleece blankets and the hats. The nights have been cool enough for the vines to turn red and the cottonwoods to turn yellow. The long photo is of a volunteer cottonwood that came in with the ditch water, which is only about 8 years old. The fifth photo gives you one of our views of the layers of cottonwoods that we see from the house. A bee flew into the Zipper Spider’s web and the spider pounced on it and wrapped it in silk in seconds. The last two photos show the Zipper with her bee right after she wrapped in up and her in action fixing her web after the capturing the bee. She let it dangle on a strand of silk while she worked on her web, and then ate it for breakfast.

Beauties and Beasts

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We went to the 24th Old Church Fine Arts Show at the Old San Ysidro Church in Corrales this afternoon. The show runs through October 14th, but our good friend and fellow photographer, Susan,  has a wonderful photo of a lily in the show, so we went to the opening. While looking at the paintings and photos, we got on the subject of manipulating photographs. There are many purists who think you should use photos how ever they come out of the camera. I’m of the opinion that if it calls for manipulation, manipulate the heck out of it!  The post processing is where a lot of the art comes into photography, especially digital photography, with all the great software that’s available. One can argue that it has more to do with a person skill at using the software — but I say that’s part of the art. After spending years in the darkroom, manipulating images with chemicals and dies, dodging, burning and using exotic films and papers to get various effects, I view the digital darkroom as much safer, more environmentally friendly avenue for manipulating images, and a whole lot more fun. So to celebrate the art of manipulating photos, I manipulated some of the photos I took of some of the beauties and beasts I encountered downtown on my way to and from the Man’s Hat Shop at lunchtime today.

Puck Eye

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When Puck decides to get in your face, he does. Earlier he was giving me those big, liquid, pitiful kitty eyes like the kitties do in the “Puss in Boots” movie with Antonio Banderas, but when I tried to photograph Puck giving me the “Puss in Boots” eyes, all I got was a “Puck eye!”  A peach colored dahlia bloomed, and I can’t resist shots of the Sandias.

 

 

 

All Eyes Are On You

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A little jumping spider was sitting on a blanket between me and Guildenstern on the couch. It didn’t seem to mind me shining my flashlight in its eyes to get enough light to get really close shots with my macro lens. It was also nice enough to hold very still for me. The depth of field is almost nil, but I got a clear shot of its eyes and pedipalps.  Jumping spiders look very black to the naked eye, but as you can see they are quite colorful up lose and personal. It also has eyelashes, which you might not expect to see on a spider.

More Fall Colors

Timothy Price2 Comments

Fall colors are in — even the neighbor’s horse was sporting fall colors backlit by the low afternoon sun. Since I don’t have the time or energy to climb the face of the Sandias to get a closer look at the aspens putting on their yellow, I used my 600 mm lens to get a a little closer view of them by stitching seven vertical images together.  Stretch has improved so much over the past couple of weeks, that we gave him a day off from waterboarding today. He was out contemplating French and “Intelligent Life” this afternoon — a jumping spider was hanging out with him.  The last photo is a panorama of the Sandias using a 100 mm lens (2 vertical photos stitched together).

Caveman Tim

Timothy Price10 Comments

 

While working on the bathroom remodel today, I got scratched and bruised, so the by the end of the day I looked like a caveman. Laurie wanted to do a photo of me to show my scraggly look with scratches and dried blood on my cheek.  The kitties come in at times with scratched up faces, but I don’t think they’ve been out fighting with bathroom cabinets. The second photo is the what the bathroom looks like after fighting with it all day. I may not look like it or feel like it, but I think I won the battle.

The leaves are turning yellow, and the last two photos are of the Zipper Spider multitasking. She is eating the wasp she had wrapped up and hanging in her web yesterday while spinning new silk to repair her web.