Double-click on any image to view it full size. Click the back-button to return to your place on this page. Greetings! Many of you know that my photographic motto could be summed-up in the phrase “If it’s got wings I’ll shoot it!”. This week’s pictures all meet that criteria, and all but one were taken within the past two weeks. Picture #1 may not at first glance fit the theme, but our 3½ year old grandson Richard, seen…
Double-click on any image to view it full size. Click the back-button to return to your place on this page. Greetings! For the past few days Ruthi and I have had house guests. This had been great fun, but as a result I have neglected my duties, and have not spent the necessary time and diligence to put together a weekly essay! Therefore I have rather than just declaring a holiday, I have blown the dust off an…
Double-click on any image to view it full size. Click the back-button to return to your place on this page. Greetings! Last week’s essay considered objects with literally astronomical dimensions; this week we return to my more usual size subjects, starting with the Dogbane Leaf Beetles (Chrysochus auratus), less than half an inch long, shown in picture #1. When I saw this couple just a few days ago, they were the first examples of this iridescent beetle I had seen,…
Double-click on any image to view it full size. Click the back-button to return to your place on this page. Greetings! Most of my favorite photographic subjects are rather small – typically only a few inches across. The most common exceptions are aircraft (or bridges), which may be a couple of hundred feet across. So let’s start today with an aircraft – a Virgin Atlantic 747 to be precise – shown in picture #1 – which is the only…
Double-click on any image to view it full size. Click the back-button to return to your place on this page. Greetings! Our most recent trip to Topsail Island provided the thought for – and some of the pictures in – this week’s essay. Like many of North Carolina’s barrier islands, Topsail Island was basically deserted before World War 2, and accessible only by boat. Then the military arrived. Topsail Island was a perfect location for a missile testing range (long…
Double-click on any image to view it full size. Click the back-button to return to your place on this page. Greetings from Topsail Island! Knowing that we would be here this week, and that I might not find anything to build an essay around, I prepared something before we left home. The phrase “Hat Trick” seems to be less well known in this country than in England, possibly because it originated from the quintessentially English sports of cricket…
Double-click on any image to view it full size. Click the back-button to return to your place on this page. Greetings! I have been thinking recently about just how much wildlife we are fortunate enough to see within our own community. Lansdowne Woods occupies some 44 acres of land. Much of this, not surprisingly, is taken up by the eight residential buildings, the community clubhouse, roadways, sidewalks, parking lots, and formal landscaping. But we also have some virtually untouched…
Double-click on any image to view it full size. Click the back-button to return to your place on this page. Greetings, with a special welcome to a number of new “subscribers”, and to two of you who are enjoying your first “post retirement” Monday morning, and to two others who have just moved to Florida! Yesterday (Sunday) afternoon was rather special for me. A few weeks ago I was invited to provide some of my photographs to be…
Double-click on any image to view it full size. Click the back-button to return to your place on this page. Greetings! The bad news is that less than 24 hours after we got back from our recent trip around North Carolina, my primary camera died. I was out taking pictures, and when I pressed the shutter release, it gave almost literally a scream of agony and went into a coma. My verdict, endorsed by the pros at the camera…
Double-click on any image to view it full size. Click the back-button to return to your place on this page. Greetings! We’re back! We had a great trip to the beach, and instead of coming straight home we went to the far NW corner of North Carolina to spend two nights with Ruthi’s brother and his wife, who have a home near Boone. This week’s selection of pictures includes some from both those locations in North Carolina, but starts…