If you enjoy my photos and would like to purchase some, I want to thank you! Simply visit my Zazzle online shop and browse the product offerings. If there’s a photo you would like to purchase but don’t see it in my shop, please contact me by using the Contact form at the bottom of my home page and let me know which photos you are interested in purchasing, and in what format / medium.
Today I’m taking part in the Macro Monday photo challenge. You can click on each photo for a larger view. If you like what you see, I encourage you to subscribe so you can enjoy the new photos I post a few times a week.
I have shared photographs of water drops on spider webs before but it’s always fun to find new photo opportunities. As much as I hate spiders, I really like how their spider webs look when water is dropped on it, whether it is raindrops, dew drops, or watering drops. These small water drops look like crystals reflecting everything around them. The background for these water drops wasn’t too interesting but it’s not that often I can see raindrops or other water drops on a spider web, so I took this opportunity to capture the moment.
Macro Monday: Water drops on a spider webClose-up of water drops on a spider web
If you enjoy my photos and would like to purchase some, I want to thank you! Simply visit my Zazzle online shop and browse the product offerings. If there’s a photo you would like to purchase but don’t see it in my shop, please contact me by using the Contact form at the bottom of my home page and let me know which photos you are interested in purchasing, and in what format / medium.
Today I’m participating in Floral Friday Fotos. You can click on each photo for a larger view. If you enjoy my photos, I encourage you to subscribe and receive updates when I post new photos, usually 3 to 5 times a week.
Before I start with this post, I’d like to ask for your feedback to help me organize my nature photography online store. If you were to buy a photo product, would you search by product type (e.g. print, canvas, mousepad, etc), or by photo theme (e.g. animals, flowers, skies, water, etc)? Which one makes more sense to you? I’d love to hear your thoughts so please feel free to comment below this post.
Going back to our Floral Friday Fotos theme, I found the loveliest pink lotus flower at San Diego’s Balboa Park a few weeks ago. This was the first decent shot I managed to get.
Floral Friday Fotos: pink lotus flower
After a large tourist family left that side of the pond (it’s a very popular photo souvenir spot at Balboa Park for good reasons), I managed to photograph this pink lotus flower from a better angle. By the way, it was the ONLY pink (or any color) lotus flower in bloom in the whole pond.
Pink lotus flower at San Diego’s Balboa Park
Eventually I managed to get even closer and snap this photo. The sun was hiding behind a few clouds at the time, so it made for a softer light and I really like the results.
Close-up of a pink lotus flower
Have you ever seen pink lotus flowers in real life? There are not that easy to find around here. I got lucky last summer when I captured this white lotus flower. Happy Friday!
If you enjoy my photos and would like to purchase some, I want to thank you! Simply visit my Zazzle online shop and browse the product offerings. If there’s a photo you would like to purchase but don’t see it in my shop, please contact me by using the Contact form at the bottom of my home page and let me know which photos you are interested in purchasing, and in what format / medium.
Today I’m participating in Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge and her theme is “water”. I encourage you to click on each photo to see a larger view.
If you like what you see, please subscribe to this blog to receive updates of the new photos I post, usually 3 to 5 times a week.
We see water in many forms and amounts every day. Without water there would be no life on earth, so let’s make sure we take care of it. Water can appear in front of us powerful and in motion, as in these waves of the Pacific Ocean on a cloudy and breezy day.
Waves of the Pacific Ocean on a cloudy day
Water can also be very still and peaceful, as in this small pond that was behind the house we stayed at in Virginia.
Still water of a small pond in Virginia
Birds drink water, and they also use it to take baths. This iridescent grackle bird was very busy getting clean in the gardens of the Smithsonian castle.
Iridescent male common grackle taking a water bath
Water is a habitat for many animals, including this frog popping its head out of the water to keep an eye on me.
Frog’s head out of the pond water
You’ll have no idea how many turtles can hide underwater until they come out to bask in the sun. Can you guess how many turtles are sitting on these rocks?
I said in a previous post I would share my amateurish experience on a photoshoot, so here it is! I encourage you to click on each photo to see a larger view. If you like what you see, please subscribe to this blog to receive updates of the new photos I post, usually 3 to 5 times a week.
A couple of weekends ago, I visited the SeaLife aquarium next to LEGOLAND California. They recently added a sea jelly exhibit (also known as jelly fish, even though they are not fish), which contains several tanks with various species of jellies swimming around. The lighting of the exhibit is very colorful, which makes it for a fun visual experience, but not so great for photos since many of the lights reflect onto the tanks, making for photos covered with many colored spots. The water tanks are cylindrical so people can view the sea jellies from all around. Again this is great for viewing but not so much for taking photos since you can see the people on the other side of the tank. If you’re patient, you can wait until they leave and find the right angle. Or you can play around in Photoshop as I did for one of the photos below since the background was very compromised.
There were several tanks with moon jellies but I won’t share any photos here because they didn’t come out well that day. I do have photos of moon jellies if you’re interested in viewing them.
These first creatures are called Northeast Pacific sea nettles. This is the second photo I took in the exhibit with my good camera.
Northeast Pacific sea nettle
And right then and there, my camera shut down because the battery was dead. Hum, no problem, I thought, I’ll just use the other battery I have in my bag. This would have been a brilliant idea if I had actually remembered to charge that other battery when it died a few weeks ago. So there I stood, dozens of cool sea jellies floating around me with no working camera. But wait, I had my cell phone camera with me. 5MP would work but how about the lighting? And that’s when I thought, what the heck, I have nothing to lose.
So here they are, the rest of my sea jelly photos, taken with my cell phone camera and retouched in Photoshop since I couldn’t change any settings as I took the photos. Even though a lot of the photos were blurry and useless, I’m quite impressed with the way these came out.
Northeast Pacific sea nettle
I love the golden brown color of their bodies, especially when it’s backlit as in the photo.
Golden brown body of a Northeast Pacific sea nettle
This next and last one is a spotted lagoon jelly, a smaller species of jellies. I took a lot of pictures of them but this is the crispest one I managed to get. However the background was horrible, between the many light reflections and several people standing right there. So I decided to delete the whole background and add one in Photoshop, almost black but not completely, with a light grain to match the not so perfect tank water.
If you enjoy my photos and would like to purchase some, I want to thank you! Simply visit my Zazzle online shop and browse the product offerings. If there’s a photo you would like to purchase but don’t see it in my shop, please contact me by using the Contact form at the bottom of my home page and let me know which photos you are interested in purchasing, and in what format / medium.
Today I’m participating in the A Word A Week Challenge. This week’s theme is “contrast”. I encourage you to click on each photo to see a larger view. If you like what you see, please subscribe to this blog to receive updates of the new photos I post, usually 3 to 5 times a week.
There are many ways to feature contrast in photographs, so here are a few of my personal interpretations for this photo theme. There can be contrast between light and dark, as in this backlight setting on Coronado beach in front of the Pacific ocean.
A Word A Week Photo Challenge – Contrast between light and dark
Or it could be contrast between light and dark at night, between the bright full moon in the background and the dark trees in the foreground.
Travel theme: Contrast – Moon rising beyond the trees
It could be the exact opposite with the trees in the foreground in bright light, and the clouds in the background in the dark.
Contrast between trees in the sun and dark sky with clouds
It could be both a contrast in size, small versus large, and in color, white and versus pink, as in this photo of a small white poppy right next to a large pink poppy.
Contrast between small white poppy and large pink poppy
Finally, it could a contrast between what you see at first glance, and what you really see if you look more closely, as in this map of the USA in the water puddle with the colors of the American flag, still one of my favorite shots so far.
If you enjoy my photos and would like to purchase some, I want to thank you! Simply visit my Zazzle online shop and browse the product offerings. If there’s a photo you would like to purchase but don’t see it in my shop, please contact me by using the Contact form at the bottom of my home page and let me know which photos you are interested in purchasing, and in what format / medium.
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