Macro
Soft Touch

I’d like to tell you that I took this photo of an exotic plant in some exotic foreign land but, alas, it was taken in the kitchen of our home. I was working on my camera, making micro-adjustments to the focus of my various lenses. It’s a process of fine tuning the auto focus function to account for the minor differences in lenses. Even lenses of the same brand and model can have minor differences. The camera will focus each of them the same so focus could be off…usually just a bit and mostly unnoticeable, but still off. Of course, we’re typically wanting a very precise focus on most of our images so tweaking settings to get it as close to perfect is a worthwhile endeavor.
So, after making my micro-adjustments, I just snapped a few photos to test the focus accuracy. This is one of those test shots. The plant is one my wife keeps on a cabinet in front of a window in our kitchen. I focused on it, taking advantage of the pleasing green of our lawn outside the window as the background. Of course, the lawn is out of the range of focus so you’re not seeing blades of grass; you just see a solid green background. You’ll also notice a kind of cross-hatch texture in the background. That effect was created by the window’s screen.
Sometimes, if your looking, you’ll find “interesting” and “exotic” in the most common places.
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Full Body Tattoo

I found this uniquely decorated spider hanging around in my wife’s flower bed. In our part of the world we call these large arachnids, yellow garden spiders. This spider falls under the Argiope Aurantia classification.
The markings on it’s abdomen remind me of a tattoo. I think it looks like a tattoo of some space alien.
Because of this spider’s size, it looks menacing but the Argiope genus are harmless to humans. Like most garden spiders, they eat insects, and they are capable of consuming prey up to twice their size. The etymology of Argiope is from a Greek name meaning “silver-faced”.
Because of the very sparse web this one is hanging on, I’m guessing it is a male since the females tend to have a large, more complicated web with a prominent zig-zag pattern in the center. (Here’s an example from my collection – Found On the Web.)
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Predator

This bee was persistent in his attack of this dandelion. My getting close didn’t seem to dissuade it. As I approached, it would leave the flower, hovering a few inches above, and then settle back down for the work. That made it easy for me to get a good shot. The tiny butterflies I was trying to capture were considerably more shy. They vacated the blooms anytime I got within range.
This scene was captured on my own front lawn. I titled this one, “Predator,” because I think the bees face makes an ominous impression. I know I wouldn’t want to meet one in a dark alley.
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Early Morning Stretch

This shot appealed to me for several reasons… The green glow of the plant in the morning light, the tiny drops of dew still clinging to the plant in the cool of the morning, the graceful curve of the vine-like shoot and the small buds that will bloom a pretty purple flower.
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All of the photos I post are available for purchase. If you’d like to buy one, click on the blue “Buy this Online” bar below for a variety of print and frame options or contact me for digital purchase and licensing options.
World of Chaos

The globe thistle is a unique, flowering thistle and is garden friendly. It provides an appealing contrast of color and texture to the flower bed in mid summer.
I didn’t know these were called “Globe Thistles” until I looked them up to provide more info for this post. This photo was taken in one of the flowerbeds at our home.
According to Gardening Know How…
Echinops is the botanical name for globe thistle. They are stunning flowers with deep dark blue petals set in a spiky frame. The leaves are deeply notched, dark green on top and slightly silver underneath and slightly hairy. The plants are native to Asia and Europe and the name means hedgehog in Greek, which is appropriately referencing the prickly blooms. Globe thistle flowers make excellent dried displays and last for years as part of an everlasting flower display.
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Wildflowers of Yellow

A delightful collection of flowers blooming wild and free in Northeast Wisconsin.
These wildflowers were spotted along a trail at the Barkhausen Waterfowl Preserve, in Brown County. It was a beautiful day for a walk and a terrible day for misquotes. On this particular hike, every time we stopped we paid a price in insect attacks. Of course we survived, but we had to keep up a pretty good pace, continually swatting at the air and our arms. Might have missed a few shots in our hurried state.
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All of the photos I post are available for purchase. If you’d like to buy one, click on the blue “Buy this Online” bar below for a variety of print and frame options or contact me for digital purchase and licensing options.
Frog Days of Summer

On a pleasant summer day, hiking through the woodlands of Northeast Wisconsin, we found this frog chillin’ in a small creek. The sparse sunlight, filtering through the trees, seemed to highlight the frog and made it an interesting scene. I rather like the blueish reflections on the water.
We were hiking on the trails of Barkhausen Waterfowl Preserve, in Brown County. I used a 250mm telephoto lens to get close enough to this critter without scaring him away. Even then, I had to crop this image quite a bit to get a good view of the frog.
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All of the photos I post are available for purchase. If you’d like to buy one, click on the blue “Buy this Online” bar below for a variety of print and frame options or contact me for digital purchase and licensing options.
Summer Jubilation

The day lilies are abundant this year in Northeast Wisconsin. These are a couple of specimens found in our front yard.
Every year we have a clump of day lilies that bloom around the utility pole in the front yard of our home. This year, will all the rain we’ve had, they are putting on quite a show.
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All of the photos I post are available for purchase. If you’d like to buy one, click on the blue “Buy this Online” bar below for a variety of print and frame options or contact me for digital purchase and licensing options.
Some of Your Beeswax

I was able to capture a close-up of couple of honey bees as they feasted on some old honeycomb.
One of our sons has become a beekeeper. On a recent visit to his homestead in Ohio, I snapped a number of photos of his bees working over some old honeycomb he had set out for them. It was a great opportunity to grab some macro views as they were docile, content and, seemingly, oblivious to my presence. I will post another image or two from this shoot sometime in the future.
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All of the photos I post are available for purchase. If you’d like to buy one, click on the blue “Buy this Online” bar below for a variety of print and frame options or contact me for digital purchase and licensing options.
Fuzzy Stump

This tree stump has hair! What looks like redish hair sprouting from this decaying stump is moss sporangia. The forest is full of these tiny life forms this time of year.
I’m always intrigued by these tiny plant structures, often found while walking through the woods. On a recent hike, hunting mushrooms, I spotted this collection growing from the moss on a stump. A small stream of sunlight was filtering through the trees to illuminate the spot. I also like the cocklebur stuck in the moss near the top of the stump.
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All of the photos I post are available for purchase. If you’d like to buy one, click on the blue “Buy this Online” bar below for a variety of print and frame options or contact me for digital purchase and licensing options.