Charlie's Fake Blog

Macros From a Dewy Sunrise Some mornings are better than others for going out to take pictures.  There are days I look out the window at 6:00 am and think, "100mm macro".  Here are some pictures from one of those mornings. Dew Around a Leaf.  I don't know what caused water to bead up around these leaves but it looked pretty good through the lens. Sparkly Grass  I always try to shoot toward the sun with shots like these because the water drops get all lit up and sparkly. Mushrooms Later in the day I found some mushrooms growing under the lilac bush in the backyard. A Red Trillium This is from earlier this year.  I had never seen a red trillium before and thought it to be a rather pretty flower.

Jupiter at Conjunction  Jupiter was at conjunction this month meaning Earth and Jupiter were on the same side of the Sun so to speak.  This means Jupiter, even though still really far away, was closer to Earth than it would be ordinarily.   I got lucky and was able to take a fairly decent picture given the gear I have is not up to snuff in terms of astronomical photography.  Uncroped  This first image is what I got at with my Zoom lens set to 600mm.  First crop.  Same image as the first only this image is cropped in a good way and I can just start to see the latitudinal bands around the planet. Second crop. This is cropped in about as far as I would want to go.  At this level about all I can tell is there are stripes and if I had the patience I think I could count the number of pixels that make up this exposure. Useless crop. Just as a demo I did one more crop to show the futility of any further cropping. The...

No Longer 52 I haven't posted any pictures after march and it doesn't make much sense to  try to catch up. So, don't bother.   Starting with a silly picture of me.  Selfies are tricky. They can cross the line between experimental and pretentious in a heartbeat.  Rembrandt did a pile of self portraits.  He got away with it because he was really good at not crossing the line.  Sorry for this but there it is. This photo is the first in what I hope will be a series of fifty-two pictures to be posted one per week  on this page .

Don't mess with geese. This morning a blue heron landed at the near edge of the pond and I ran to grab a camera. By the time I got ready to start snapping pictures the nesting pair of geese had jumped in from the far side and had swam across the pond looking for a scrap. The heron was no match for a rampaging gander. Getting Ready This would scare me. Heron is no match for the goose.

Recently there has been quite a good number of mornings with mist and patchy fog.  I've felt challenged to find a way to see what kind of photo I can get out of that. The first two shots are the same image in Black and white and color. Of the two I think this one works best. The challenge here was to get the shot with the light on.

I tried making a new "Page" and it turns out that a page ad a post are two different and separate things.  So the new page is labeled Solar Eclipse 2017 . Click here   to go see the new page /post.  

For the past twenty-five years that I've lived here our cars have been plagued by the sap raining down from a poplar tree on the edge of the driveway.  We have been looking for someone to cut it down.  A contractor that was replacing the door to our deck recommended a fellow named Art Martello who has a tree trimming service.  We contacted him and after getting an estimate hired him to cut down the tree and trim some branches out of the Maple tree that stands next to the house.  He was here Friday and did a pretty good job. We had agreed to cutting the tree trunk up ourselves so that we could give it to a neighbor for fire wood.  So, there's a pretty big log laying along side the driveway. Newly dropped tree.  My Commander in Chief ( AKA Linda ) informed me that under no circumstances was that log going to lay there for years.  I was to get it cut up post-haste.  This morning I looked at the work I had top do, Looked at my old chain saw th...