Daily Photo - August 01-15
For 2020, I am photographing every day, and posting the best of each day in half-month increments.
2020 August 01, Saturday
Squirrels are remarkable little creatures. They're clever, quick, and capable of amazing aerial feats. I saw this one while on a walk near my parents' house.
Olympus E-PL9: f6.3, 1/1600 sec, ISO 640
IrfanView: Crop, Colour Balance
2020 August 02, Sunday
This has been a season of successive heatwaves. It's a very lucky thing to have the ocean nearby for a cooling splash!
Olympus E-PL9: f6.3, 1/1000 sec, ISO 250
IrfanView: Crop, Colour Balance
2020 August 03, Monday
Kids grow up so fast these days... I swear my niece was still small the day we went to the beach, yet in this shot she seems to be well over two meters tall! One of our activities during the visit was to predict when her brother will overtake her in height.
Olympus E-PL9: f8, 1/640 sec, ISO 200
IrfanView: Crop, Colour Balance
2020 August 04, Tuesday
My sister has requested that I take more pictures of insects. This one was investigating the train rail behind my house. I liked it so nice, I photographed it twice!
Olympus E-PL9: f6.3, 1/1600 sec, ISO 2000
IrfanView: Crop, Colour Balance
Olympus E-PL9: f6.3, 1/1600 sec, ISO 1600
IrfanView: Crop, Colour Balance
2020 August 05, Wednesday
I recently moved my windchimes to the trellis that arches over my back door. They're the closest thing I have to a doorbell.
Olympus E-PL9: f5, 1/250 sec, ISO 2000
IrfanView: Crop, Colour Balance
2020 August 06, Thursday
I am quite fond of W.B. Yeats' poem, The Song Of Wandering Aengus. In fact, it doesn't take much to spur me into reciting it while I'm out on a photo-walk. I suppose it's a stretch to call these purple plants "long dappled grass" and yet I can't help but think of the line when I consider how the light plays across them.
Olympus E-PL9: f5.8, 1/500 sec, ISO 800
IrfanView: Crop, Colour Balance
2020 August 07, Friday
Songbird populations have fallen off a cliff over the past forty-odd years, with numbers reduced by the billions. It's rare for me to see a big flock of any kind. When one flew past my window I raced to get my camera. It's a good thing I hurried; they didn't stay long.
Olympus E-PL9: f6.3, 1/1600 sec, ISO 800
IrfanView: Crop, Colour Balance
2020 August 08, Saturday
Who doesn't love a good strand of DNA? This one is made of Ramagon, a building toy from my youth.
Olympus E-PL9: f3.9, 1/160 sec, ISO 6400
IrfanView: Crop, Colour Balance
2020 August 09, Sunday
I went to Chisholm Park to photograph the Cenotaph, which will soon be moved to Columbus Field. I got some great pictures of it... Then I started wandering along the bank of stream and ended up getting a bunch of lovely pictures. It was quite difficult selecting one to post! This one strikes me as the niftiest.
Olympus E-PL9: f6.3, 1/200 sec, ISO 6400
IrfanView: Crop, Colour Balance
2020 August 10, Monday
In a similar story to the ninth, I went to photograph the spot at Columbus Field where the Cenotaph will be placed, but got distracted by a river. I was so intent on the reflection of the fallen tree that I didn't even notice the heron on the far bank until I was editing the shot at home!
Olympus E-PL9: f5.1, 1/250 sec, ISO 500
IrfanView: Crop, Colour Balance
2020 August 11, Tuesday
For all my living beside the sea, I don't seem to see many seagulls... But this one flew over my house as I was holding my camera, so I tried to capture it. Unfortunately, it's not in pristine focus.
Olympus E-PL9: f8, 1/800 sec, ISO 200
IrfanView: Crop, Colour Balance
2020 August 12, Wednesday
I find these caterpillar nests terribly unsettling, even though I know they are perfectly normal, natural constructs. It's strange how antagonistic Humans are to insects, especially considering how they underpin the terrestrial ecosystem.
Olympus E-PL9: f6.3, 1/1250 sec, ISO 2000
IrfanView: Crop, Colour Balance
2020 August 13, Thursday
It's difficult to feel stressed when you live in an ever-changing, beautiful painting. I sometimes worry that all my pictures are of the same old spots around my house. Even the things we think of as permanent are always in flux, though. There has never been and will never be a sunset exactly like this one.
Olympus E-PL9: f4.5, 1/250 sec, ISO 400
IrfanView: Crop, Colour Balance
2020 August 14, Friday
I'm quite enamored of zeppelins. For years they've fascinated me. One of my most prized possessions is this book, a history of the Graf Zeppelin written by J. Gordon Vaeth in 1958. It's a window into a nearly-forgotten world. The man in the picture is Hugo Eckener. A hundred years ago he was one of the most famous people on the planet, famed for circumnavigating the world and visiting the North Pole in the Graf. These days, those deeds are all but forgotten.
Olympus E-PL9: f5, 1/250 sec, ISO 800
IrfanView: Crop, Colour Balance
2020 August 15, Saturday
There's a story to why I took this picture... It was August 13, the day after the peak of the Perseid Shower. I'd only seen a handful of meteors over the past few days and figured the show was over for another year. I heard the horn of the train approaching, and went out to wave. Just after it passed came the most impressive meteor I've ever seen. It had a well-defined, sparkling head and a long tail. It's never easy to tell distances in the sky, but man, did it feel close! A few days after that, I figured it was high time I tried another astronomical shot.
