Wukoki Pueblo Ruins

Sunset Crater Volcano Lava Fields

Woe, Dude, ... Nice Camera!

Send in the clouds, er, I mean the bees?

After a couple days of rain, Thursday afternoon came, and no precipitation. I thought I could squeeze in the shoot I had put off for more than two weeks. As I got all my gear together, something didn't seem quite right. Even when I stepped outside to load the car, something seemed amiss.

Then I looked to the sky, and it dawned on me ... There was no sun. In fact, I could see nothing but clouds -- and dense clouds at that. Everywhere. I needed the sun for the shoot I had in mind, and from the looks of the dreary sky, I sensed there was no hope of seeing it anytime soon before dark, so I glumly retrieved my gear and headed back toward my house when I noticed them.

The bees.

We got a hard frost in Central Indiana about mid-October, killing off most of my plants with blooms. My broccoli plants, which are hardy in cooler temperatures, were the lone survivors and still popping buds and yellow flowers, so the bees -- lacking any other pollination source nearby -- were flocking to them.


I had been wanting to test the bokeh (photographer-speak for the quality of the smooth, out-of-focus background) of my f/2.8 macro lens at its widest apertures for some time. I thought this would be a good time to try it since I already had my gear with me right there. Trouble was, one of my telephoto lenses was on the camera body, so ... I first fired a few shots of the bees with it. Then off came the telephoto, and on went the macro. The bulk of the 275 frames I shot were with it.

As I fully expected, it would be darn hard to get a lot of depth in focus on shots taken with a true macro lens wide open and as close to the subject as I was hoping to get. But still, I found the results intriguing ... and kept firing away. I did make some adjustments to the camera settings -- bumping the ISO up to as high as 400 and stopping down (decreasing the size of the aperture) one to three stops to adapt to the darkening conditions. But I stuck to the bokeh test plan.


Do I wish I'd have stopped down to 5.6 or 8? In a way, yes. I think these would have given me more spectacular pictures. But I got the answers to my curiosity: At 2.8, I found that my macro has some darn good bokeh ... and at 2.8, when I could nail the focus point on those jittery creatures and thin plant stems swaying in the day's higher than average breeze, I got some interesting shots.

The bees -- so many of them -- didn't seem to care that I was hovering over them. I think they were worried that if they didn't stay on course, they'd lose out to the next bee! I saw as many as four of them on one plant at the same time, three of which were within touching distance of each other!

And now, a sidebar story on the broccoli plants (a floret from which I include here): Usually, gardeners, if they want to grow broccoli as much as possible, have to rely on two plantings per growing season -- one in spring, another in fall. The brutal, sustained summer sun and heat (usually 85 degrees or more) kills off the spring planting at some point.


But we had such a mild summer in Central Indiana this year -- only two days of 90 degrees or more -- that I didn't need a second, autumn planting. Plants grown from seed planted in spring survived the whole growing season, and they're still thriving as of this writing.


If you're interested in seeing more images from the shoot, visit the Bees album at my online gallery. Follow this link:

Bees -- nature's pollinators

PP 'Photographer in the Spotlight' update: Trish van den Berg donates photo sales profits to Bahamas Humane Society

Here's a neat update on Trish van den Berg Vazquez, who in January became the first person featured in Photo Potpourri's periodic "Photographer in the Spotlight."

Trish, who has lived in the Bahamas for more than 20 years, was cited by bahamasweekly.com for donating all of her profits from photograph sales this summer at her art shows at Lyford Cay this summer to the Bahamas Humane Society.

A lover of animals, which she features in many of her images, Trish said it was a "no-brainer" to make the donation because she wants the society to help make the Bahamas a better place for all animals.

See the full story and some of Trish's images at the online version of the story by clicking on the first link below. To see the Photo Potpourri feature on Trish, follow the second link below:

Bahamasweekly.com article on Trish

PP's "Photographer in the Spotlight" feature on Trish

Moguls On The Hills

Thirty Miles From Nowhere

Critical Information In Navajo

Snow Greeting From Northern Arizona

Navajo Creek Bridge

Wow! Look At All These Chicks!

Flagstaff Alps

Short Stories

I have been wanting to write short stories as of late, nothing new to share, yet. Re-living my personal greatest hits.

No Demons
Rainbow in a ghost town
I Dream of Heaven
The Shepherd & Alpaca
I never thought the afterlife would look like this
Rooftop Sanctuary
Joe the Ugly Art Critic

But, I think my next story will have something to do with this quote “Ye are all GODS…and it’s about time you start getting good at it.” & a single billboard left to stand on a dead plant.

Street Portrait

Camera: Nikon D700
Exposure: 1/8000 sec
Aperture: f/5.6
Focal Length: 100 mm
Exposure: 0.00
ISO Speed:

Route 66 Memorial

Lost American Dream

Western Collectibles

Cottage Summer

Perennial outdoor color show, revisited

Inspired by yet another great day Monday, I shrugged off the cold that's been dogging me since Thursday and made another foray into Garfield Park in Indianapolis while the fall colors were still pretty showy.

This time, I took along -- and used -- my polarizing filter, and the hunch paid off handsomely, capturing some gorgeously rich blues in the sky and all but eliminating glare on a fire station window that reflected some brilliant yellows and oranges from nearby trees. My only regret was not bringing along a longer focal-length lens to see what it would have gotten me for the jet stream shots below. Instead, all of these were shot with my Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8 lens.

Above: Intermittent sunlight splashing through a maple

Above: First of three frames following a jet and its thin stream nearing a much-closer-to-the-ground yellow-leafed tree

Above: Past the first branch, heading toward the second

Above: Safely past the second branch, and steering clear of the rest

Above: Different trees, different skyscape, including clouds and (above) a jet stream swath much wider than the one above. Adding a special touch is the little bird perched on a leafless branch in the upper right corner.

Above: Fire Station 21, the bountiful tree's reflection cast on the windows along the side, as seen from the sidewalk flanking East Raymond Street, just west of Pleasant Run Parkway, North Drive

Above: A little closer look at the reflection off the fire station's window panels.

Above: Even closer ...

Above: A stately, but relatively young, tree in Garfield Park's Grove of Remembrance, just west of Fire Station 21, that was dedicated by the community in October 1920 in honor of the 387 Marion County soldiers and sailors who died in World War I (1914-18). Trees in the grove have been planted in intervals and are just west of the Fire Station

Above: A most unusual conifer that naturally curves at the top.

Above: Another frame of contrasting sunlight through a tree, allowing for some spectacular highlights.

Above: The coda image in this post is actually not from the park; it's from my backyard garden and features the vivid red leaves of a Henry's Garnet (itea virginica).

Life is odd...isn’t it?

The things we do just trying to stay alive are odd obsessions, don’t you think? We want to preserve the NOW while constructing a FUTURE, remembering (or better yet) trying to forget our PAST to build all things anew. When in the end we are all just squirrels trying to get a nut. Then we find out we're allergic to the nut.

Things that goes well together:
Miso soup with cumin,
Vanilla yogurt & pumpkin seeds,

Did you know when you have an almost 4yr old Halloween becomes a month long event? These are things that a hospital should tell you when you take home your baby for the first time.

~ Get the best dust buster that money can buy
~ Make sure you and your wife agree on what the temperature of tepid water is
~ Putting shoes on a baby is hard. Practice it, repeat the practice and deal with it. Dummy it's only shoes.
~ Little princesses enjoy trying on dress a lot, seriously a lot
~ Every holiday is no less than a thirty day event
(add to the list this could get honestly funny and useful)

Going to spend all of February in Florida this year. Stock photography, family vacation, in all truth it is a BIG step for me.

Looks like in March we will be utilizing a studio space.

“Ye are all GODS…and it’s about time you start getting good at it.” – mashed-up quote by Jesus, Stewart Brand & me

Life is odd, isn’t it? ~ but good, very good…

Chicago Shore Beacon

Clark Street McDonalds

Photo of the Week ~ Ambient Art

Toboggan New Mexico

Foggy Bay

The perennial outdoor color show

Recent trips to Garfield and Ellenberger parks and the Lockerbie Square and Irvington neighborhoods to capture fall colors proved photographically fruitful. Autumn's annual kalaidescope was in its prime in Central Indiana, and leaves were bountiful -- on the ground and en route to the ground.

I started my "tour" in Garfield Park, where I caught the picture at the top as well as the first three below. Lockerbie Square was next up (pictures at the very bottom), and finally, Irvington and Ellenberger Park.

Images from the shoots were added to the respective neighborhood profiles at my online galleries (links at bottom).

Above: Garfield Park

Above: Garfield Park

Above: Garfield Park

Above: Ellenberger Park

Above: Ellenberger Park

Above: Ellenberger Park

Above: Lockerbie Square

Above: Lockerbie Square

Above: Lockerbie Square

Above: Lockerbie Square

Garfield Park-South neighborhood

Lockerbie Square neighborhood

Irvington neighborhood

Autumn vistas

Autumn reds