Category Archives: Nature Photography

Spider

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For October, the Heart of Texas Professional Photographer’s Guild’s image competition subject was a black and white photograph of something in nature.  One morning while getting the newspaper, I saw there was a spider web on the front porch.  I thought maybe I could get a good macro image of it and convert that to black and white.  I tried a couple times during the day, but was never really happy with it. So, I decided to try at night.  When I went out to try, the spider was there. It was a pretty large orb-weaving spider and I started taking pictures of it.  I took several with my 90mm macro lens, but they weren’t what I was hoping for.  So, I used my 180mm macro lens and got some that were much better.  This was one of those.

Spider

I tried converting it to black and white, but I was never really happy with it. I entered another image instead and it didn’t do as well as I had hoped.  So, I wondered if I would have been better off with this one.

Sunflowers

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Friday, Debbie drove her mother up to Iowa.  When she got there, she texted me that there was a field of sunflowers on I35 in Itasca that were amazing.  So, Saturday morning I drove up there.  There were actually several fields on both sides of the highway.

Itasca Sunflowers

Wildflowers

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April is the month for wildflowers in Texas.  Bluebonnets and Indian Paintbrush are blooming at the same time.  On the way home a couple nights ago, we drove on Santa Fe and Whitehall Park was amazing.

Whitehall Park

Whitehall Park

Whitehall Park

Oak Leaf

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While looking out the window, I noticed how the sun was shining on an oak leaf and thought it might make an interesting picture.

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Goldenrods

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I mentioned in a previous post that on the way home from Galveston, I noticed that the goldenrods were blooming, and, since I have never gotten any pictures of them, I decided to run down highway 6 and get some pictures.

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Of course, there were a variety of insects associated with the blossoms, like bees.

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and a Beetle.

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Shooting in the yard

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It’s been kind of gloomy the last couple days.  I have found a couple things to shoot around the house.  This grasshopper was  on one of the hibiscus.

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This morning when I took the trash out, I saw a couple Wild Petunias next to the trash cans.

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Roatan Honduras

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The first stop on our cruise was the island of Roatan.  We took a tour to the Carambola Botanical Gardens.  It was an absolutely terrible day.  It was raining and humid.  I wanted to get some good flower pictures, but it was almost impossible.  I did get a really good shot of an orchid.

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Following that, our bus toured the west side of the island, stopping in a small village. From there, we went to a resort area.  I got this picture at the resort.  It took some manipulation to better balance the details and the contrast, but it was worth it.

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Bird of Paradise

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We went to the pool.  Behind the rock waterfall is a Bird of Paradise plant.  I have looked at it for quite a while, and thought it would be interesting to take some shots of it.  This time, the blossoms were perfect.  I used my 90mm Tamron macro.  I like that lens, but it was a little difficult under these circumstances.  The plants were between the rocks by the pool and an iron fence.  So, I had to get the picture by shooting between the bars of the fence.  But, it still came out nicely.

Bird of Paradise

Tamron 180 mm Macro Lens

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For a very long time, I have been wanting a longer focal length true macro lens.  I finally ordered a Tamron 180mm 1:1 macro.  I was somewhat concerned because a friend said he had a similar lens and rarely used it because the long focal length meant too much movement to handhold it.  I did some shots holding it by hand, and it worked fine.

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Although not super close, this one is certainly sharp for a hand held photo.  I noticed a ladybug on what was left of my dill plant and took some shots of it.  When looking at them, I could see the reason it was there – aphids.

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