Pink Peony
I was going to post flowers and roses for Memorial Day, but the skies go in the way.
Chuckles
Spunk kiss!
Iris partying with Dr. Huey.
Rose bush, Marina’s Incognito Pear Tree, Julie’s Giant Dr. Huey, and the tops of Gigi’s and Tiffany’s trees in the background.
Spunk eyes!
Another pink Peony
The sky from sunrise to sunset.
Thirty-nine wild skies. One for each year Laurie and I have been married. Be sure to click on the gallery to view a slide show of the photos.
All of the clouds to the north at sunset tonight were contrails.
The owlets were lined up tonight in their order of age. Major Tom Peepers on the highest branch in front. Mona Lisa in the middle, and Sleepy mostly hidden farthest back.
I am super excited about this collaboration between Resa at Graffiti Lux Art & More and ArtGowns, and me. Resa mentioned that the construction project to replace the 130 year old sewer lines that run under the street in front of where she lives in the old area of Toronto, Canada goes on “all day and all the night through!” I told her that would make a good parody. Resa wrote the parody lyrics to go to All Day And All Of The Night by The Kinks. I go the music and recorded the first round with my vocals. I sent the music to Resa and asked her to try singing her parody. When she sent me the audio file of her vocals, I was like “Wow!” she sounded super good. I mixed her vocals in with the music, Resa sent me video clips and photos of the construction from her window, and I put the parody music video together. Laurie was reviewing the video and she thought there needed to be more desperation in the chorus, and asked if I could add construction sounds to the chorus. I pulled the scraping sounds off a backhoe video and added snippets of the scrapping and clanking to the chorus and solo. That was enough to give a better sense of desperation to the parody.
When Resa first told me about the construction I really felt sorry for her. When we lived in Madrid, Spain, the city constructed a new Metro stop about 100 feet from the apartment building we lived in. The construction noise went on 24/7 for a year. It was horrible. However, we were not in lock down, and so it was easy for us to simply go to parks, museums, and bars to get away from the noise. Toronto is still locked down with stay at home orders, so Resa cannot simply say the heck with it, go out and get away from it all. She can go on walks, but she is very limited in her activity under the lock down orders.
ALL DAY AND ALL NIGHT THROUGH
By Resa McConaghy
Oh they have got loud work to do in the day time
Evac, jack hammers and backhoes too, all the night through
There is no time nowhere to hide losing my mind too
It’s cruel they pound and crash then roar all of the time
All day and all night through
All day and all night through
All day and all night through
I believe this crazy work will always be there
Oh yeah all day and night time through – PTSD
There is no time nowhere to hide losing my mind
Evac, jack hammers and backhoes too, not a good time
All day and all night through
All day and all night through
Oh go away
I just know that they will be here forever
Oh yeah all day and night time through, fixing the sewer
There is no time nowhere to hide losing my mind
Oh they have got loud work to do in the day time
All day and all night through
All day and all night through
All day and all night through
Gwendolyn is into Voodoo Ranger Catnip.
All of the blood moon photos were shot between 4:30 am and 5:04 am. I changed my exposure allowing the non-eclipsed portion of the moon to washout. When there is no cloud cover it easier to keep the non-eclipsed portions of the moon from washing out. The bright parts of the moon cast a glow off of the thin cloud cover that turned into heavier clouds as the moon sank toward the horizon. After the moon slipped behind the tree I walked up the road to where I could barely see the white sliver of the moon through the haze. After that it disappeared. The full eclipse was at 5:18 am, but it had slipped behind the clouds and out of sight.
More flowers and roses for the Super Flower Blood Moon.
All three owlets have flown into the bosque. They are near the Tangle Heart Tree. Can you find them in the above photo? I’m not sure you can see Mona Lisa from the photo. I believe she is blocked by a branch. This is a higher resolution image than I normally upload, so you can click on it to see the full image and enlarge the image to help find the owlets.
A super-wide view of the area the owlets are in with the Tangle Heart Tree on the right.
Contrails when I got home.
Wild sky of the Sandias and Rio Grande.
More wild skies. The last shot was sunset tonight.
The Flowers: Mutant Peace, Peonies and Rio Samba.
The western clouds were beautiful, but not promising for a clear sky in the wee hours of the morning when the Super Flower Moon gets bloody. I’ll get up a 3:00am and check the sky.
The Super Flower Moon Rise.
Super Flower Moon
Super-wide-angle view of the Super Flower Moon rising over the Sandias and Rio Grande.
Super Flower Moon in the clouds.
Can you find Venus?
You should be able to see Venus in the above photo.
There was nice color in the west, but I missed most of it photographing the moon.
At 5:18 am Wednesday morning, I should be able to see and photograph the Super Flower Blood Moon, which will be a full lunar eclipse. We have had two days and one night of crystal clear skies. The forecast is for clear skies tomorrow, but clouds on Wednesday. The big question is will the sky be clear between 2:47 am when the eclipse begins, and 6:02 am when the moon sets on Wednesday morning? We’ll see. In the meantime, I present you with our first fully bloomed Peony and the moon at 97.7% full.
I was going to buy a ultra-wide-angle lens for my Fuji XE-1 that I used to use as a carry camera. But the 10-24mm zoom lens is quite large, which makes it not as desirable to carry when I’m also carrying the Bazooka on a 7D Mark II body, and the 70-200mm zoom lens a 5Ds body. I have been using my iPhone XE for all street photography and wide-angle photos, stitching together panoramas for ultra-wide-angle shots. I finally decided that since an iPhone 12 Mini was the same price as a Fuji 10-24mm lens, I might as well upgrade my iPhone to the iPhone 12 Mini. The 12 Mini is the same form factor as the old iPhone 5, which is my favorite style of iPhone case, and the camera has wide-angle and super-wide-angle. The iPhone 12 Pro has telephoto, also, but I have the Bazooka and the iPhone 12 is bigger than I like.
What’s really nice with the iPhone 12 Mini is the “Portrait” setting works for any abject or critter as you can see in the photos of the kitties and the America Rose above. The “Portrait” setting on my iPhone SE only worked on human faces. When I tried using it on the cats, or anything else, it said “No faces recognized” and would not take a photo. I’m really happy with the camera on the iPhone 12 Mini.
All photos below were shot with the Bazooka 400mm lens on a Canon 7D Mark II body.
Spunk is really getting into orchiding.
Crows hanging on in the wind.
Sleepy, with Mona Lisa behind him, trying to duck out of the wind. Major Tom Peepers has flown to another tree.
A fly on Taboo.
Swallows from below and above.
Rose in the late afternoon light.
Bird on a line, owlets in the cottonwood. Sleepy is wide awake.
Moon through clouds.
They sky was crazy tonight. It had me running from one end of the property to the other the get all the angles.
Intermission: I walked up to the fence along the north side of the property to do another panoramic photo, and got a horse kiss.
The end of the crazy skies.
