Christmas Eve . With the rush of the Christmas season requiring her constant presence to insure nothing is removed from the house or the vehicles, plus the invasion of her space on the floor of the house by another who equally enjoys her time crawling around on the floor, Miss Maggie has been feeling the effects of the season. As if having to share her home with visiting family wasn't enough, she simply apparently had reached her limit the other day when Jan's sister told her she wasn't supposed to be lying on the couch. With that, she slowly removed herself from the couch, walked over to where her sister was siting, climbed up and got straight in her face as if to say "if I want your opinion I'll ask for it", then stepped back down and walked back over to where she had been and returned to her place on the couch. Perhaps our non-human family members feel the strains of the holidays as much as we do. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/60 sec @ f /11 with fill flash.
Christmas. I had hoped to have been able to share with you a very special image particular to the day, but my best efforts have failed me miserably. So as a result we'll just go with a very simple image of light piercing through the clouds in hopes that it might pay reverence to the thought of Christ as being the light of the world. A bit of a stretch perhaps, but a thought I felt appropriate for the day. Regardless of your religious upbringing, may the spirit of the season be yours today and throughout the year. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/1000 sec @ f /13.
26 Dec 12. As we were watching the Christmas DVD this afternoon Jan made the offhand comment that this is her favorite of all the insect photos I've taken this year, so I figured I'd share it with everyone. Always looking to get the perfect insect shot, I shoot them whenever the opportunity arises. This particular shot has a couple of features that are exactly what I'm looking for in the perfect shot, but several aspects that are not. I probably should just crop it really tight, you can do it yourself to see what I mean, to include just the top central third of the shot. In fact, that idea sounded good enough that I did it for you. Now we loose a lot of perspective, but as most of us know the relative size of a honeybee, and probably recognize the flower as a cone flower, some decent perspective remains. I watched her as she crawled up the flower shooting the entire time as she made her way to the top. This is my favorite shot of that series. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/250 sec @ f / 8.