Posts under ‘Macro/Close-up Photography’

On this day we had Aunt Stinne and Uncle Eric over for a belated Christmas get-together.  Little A loved his new Geotrax train they gave him.  It was a huge hit!

We were off to a slow start on this day because we were so exhausted from moving the day before, but once we got up and going we returned to our old house to collect some more things.  We had forgotten to bring sponges, trash bags, and trash cans with us and those are pretty important items to have. 

While I was in the backyard I started collecting all my little garden decorations to bring with us to the new house and I spotted this little silver argiope spider in the garden.  I just think these are the coolest and most beautiful spiders ever, not only because they are silver but also because their webs are so cool.  I’ve seen larger ones with webs that have their signature zigzag pattern in them.  This one was just a baby argiope so I think she still was learning how to make a zigzag pattern of cool sayings like Charlotte, or maybe she was still pondering what to say with her web?

I wish there was such thing as a Moving Fairy.  She would come to pack up our house and Craigslist all our unwanted stuff.  She would deal with all those flaky people and time wasters.  Then, with one wave of her magic wand:   ”poof, ” all our boxes and furniture just magically appear in our new place.  Then, she cleans both our old house and our new house.  Finally, she neatly unpacks it all for us.  Ooh, and the icing on the cake?  She’d even provide design advice by helping us to decorate our new place so we can call it home.  Alas, she doesn’t exist.  Hrmph!

Well, despite the fact that I’ve been drowning in a sea of moving boxes, tape and Craigslist ads, I’ve also been lost in lala land dreaming of how I think I want to furnish and decorate our new house.  First order of business?  The dining room.  I’m so excited we’ll have a formal dining room since we don’t have one here at our current house.  I dream of an old rustic farmhouse style table mixed with cool white Eero Saarinen-style Tulip Chairs.  I LOVE that mix of old and new together.  I’ll be hunting for this kind of table on Craigslist.  The chairs?  Well, they’re not something you’d ever come across on CL.  There are replicas being sold online for about $150 each (the original is $1200+…..yikes!).  I’d probably only buy two of them for the ends of the table and then buy these other cool, modern ones I found at Target for only $69.99 a pair.  Below is a photo of where I found my inspiration so you can see what those tulip chairs look like.  I didn’t take this photo.  I found it on www.houzz.com, which has been called the Flickr site for interior design.  What do you think?  Do  you like?

Today we went to Sea World to help Ani celebrate her 2nd birthday with her grandparents.  Happy Birthday Ani…..welcome to the twos Ani and Trisha!  It was a nice day to be there–not too crowded or hot.  We enjoyed the Bay of Play and the Garden of Discovery–our hidden little spot.  It’s an awesome cottage-style garden with a sandbox and child-size benches.  I always break out my camera at this spot because there’s this awesome miniature tree by the children’s benches and it makes for cute photos.  It was at this garden that I found a bunch of cool caterpillars on a shrub so I photographed one of them with my Cybershot on macro mode.  Does anyone have any idea what those orange things sticking out of its head are?  They didn’t come out until after Trisha’s Dad touched it, so I’m thinking it was a defense mechanism of some sort. 

This is a photo of a diamond necklace that my Grandma gave to me just a few months before she passed away.  I love this necklace and cherish it.  She said people often remarked that the pendant looked like a teddy bear.  On the rare occasions I’ve worn it I’ve gotten remarks like that too.  I often think of my Grandma, remember certain things about her and miss her a lot.  My fondest memories are of when she used to take care of my brother and I when we were really little.  She taught me how to play black jack when I was only five – LOL!  She also loved tending to her backyard garden.  She would water each plant by hand at dusk with a hose while whistling to herself.  Oh, and she used to make these cool hats out of newspaper to help shield her from the hot sun when working in her garden.  I wish I knew how to make one of those.  They were so cool!

This was shot with my 24-70 lens in my backyard (I had to give the macro lens back and already miss it…..waaah!).

I continue to be amazed by the amount of photographic opportunies I’ve found in my own front and backyard.  There isn’t anything special about our front or backyard but they are good enough for us–a lawn, some nice landscaping and just enough space for the mass of toddler toys we’ve accumulated and our herb and succulent gardens.  Probably the best thing about it is how private it is (nice and high fences).  But all in all, we have a pretty modest backyard, and that is ok with me.  But, this is why I’m so impressed with what I’ve found in my own front and backyard with a macro lens.  I love finding ways to present another world right outside my back door even though we don’t have a spectacular view. 

Last evening at twilight I ran around my backyard experimenting with the macro lens.  Yesterday and the few days preceeding we’ve had beautiful sky and cloud weather. On days like that I find myself gazing at the sky and admiring the cloud formations and the colors.  I shot the above photo by pointing the camera lens at the reflection of the sky, trees and fence in my French doors by getting pretty close to the glass.  I like this one a lot and am considering it for part of my photography portfolio/photo book.

Lastly, this evening when we came home from dinner I noticed a pretty big spider hanging out underneath our pot of succulents in a metal plant stand.  This was right outside our front door near our porch.  I got a flashlight to investigate as it was pretty dark.  It was a black widow!  I called the hubby to help confirm my findings, and yes, I was correct.  I grabbed the macro lens and shot a few photos.  This is probably the best shot I got of her because I didn’t want to get too close and it was very dark.  We admired her spinning her web for awhile and then destroyed her.  Yes I know, it’s sad.  I like to respect all life but when the spider is poisonous and residing right outside our front door, we just can’t allow her to stay. 

***Important Announcement:  I’ve amended one of the rules/procedures for my Project 365 due to my time constraints as a very busy mommy to a very active boy.  Sometimes I am so exhausted by the end of the day that it’s been getting too hard for me to get the day’s photo processed and posted on my blog and I end up staying up way too late.  So, sometimes I may post yesterday’s photo for today’s entry.  I don’t plan on doing this all the time but I think it is alright to bend this rule a bit and I reserve the right to do this as a sometimes very tired mommy in the thick of the terrible twos, tantrums and all.  I also have a lot on my plate right now with my “Building a Photography Portfolio” class and need to devote more time to the work required for this class.  I will never go further back than the day before though, unless it is something I shot on film and just got developed and scanned.  Lastly, when and if I do go on vacation in the next 300+ days (which I really hope I do) I will probably just catch up when I return home or post photos from my iphone camera since I have the Wordpress app on my phone.

With that having been said, today’s photo I shot last evening at twilight in my own backyard (surprise, surprise!).  I am really having fun with the macro lens I borrowed from my dear friend and I’m still in love with waterdrops and cobwebs.   The cobwebs and waterdrops set of photos I last shot were done with my Cybershot and I really wanted to do some with my DSLR since I only have this lens for a limited amount of time.  I also hope to include some of these photos in my Imagining Wonderland portfolio/book.  Hopefully the few who look at this blog aren’t growing tired of these kinds of photos yet.  As for me personally, I think I could stay in this world for a long while, continuing to navigate my camera into the land of bokeh and the pleasantness of dreaming in macro form.  What a lovely world it is up close, and, still even in my own backyard. 

Oh, how I want my own macro lens!  The list of camera equipment to purchase someday is neverending…..and now I think I’m adding a printer to that list (shh, I haven’t told the hubby about that yet).