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Everybody's yucca are blooming...except mine.
These are technically my yucca's elder siblings.

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I was forced to seek just vengeance for the vicious assault on my wife's defenseless foot.
I ravaged a large three tiered wasp nest wielding a 12 foot pool brush with extreme prejudice.

Mantastic manly man-ness

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I love macro.  The world is so vast when you have a macro lens.  With a normal lens I open my door and look at my yard, bleh...boring.

But with a macro lens (or extension tubes) my little 3/4 acre grows to Amazon proportions!  You can always find something interesting to shoot when your frames are 2cm wide.

First image is Physalis pruinosa or Ground Cherry blossom.
Second is a 2mm Anthrenus verbasci or Carpet Beetle sipping nectar from a tiny Dill flower.
Third is Sisyrinchium or Blue-eyed Grass.

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Visited the Union City Dam today.  I had no idea it was out there in the middle of nowhere.
I was very excited for a nice overcast gloomy photography day, the kiddos were being cared for and I was free to roam for a few hours.  I got in the car and instantly the clouds dissolved!   No, bright afternoon sunshine is not good for photography.  It's awful.  Clouds diffuse the sunshine and eliminate harsh contrasts.  This is why I chose to do a few HDR images today.  It's almost impossible to get a single well composed shot in full afternoon sun.  There's always blown highlights or clipped shadows.  So you take 3 shots, (+1 stop/normal/-1 stop) and through the magic of Photoshop you cam merge the exposures into one to compensate for your camera's inability to see in the shadows whilst preserving the highlights.

Unfortunately, out of nearly 200 shots, these were the only ones worth showing (and only the last two are HDR)

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Levitation with one of my favorite props.

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My in-laws are ultra bird feeders.  There's a 10+ hummingbird death-match in progress on the front porch every evening and the backyard is a virtual aviary world war over seeds.

I found 3 (yes, there are three in there) baby chickadees in a 2" clothesline pipe and shot them with the flash while Momma hollered at me from the treeline.
The best model award goes to the baby Oriole who sat on the branch right above the feeder while daddy had his snack below.  (First runner-up would be the blue jay but blue-jays are the assholes of the bird kingdom)

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     feed me  feed me  feed me  feed me  feed me  feed me  feed me  feed me  feed me  feed me  feed me  feed me  feed me  feed me  feed me  feed me  feed me  feed me  feed me  feed me  feed me  feed me  feed me  feed me  feed me  feed me  feed me  feed me  feed me  feed me  feed me  feed me  feed me  feed me  feed me  feed me  feed me  feed me  feed me  feed me  feed me  feed me  feed me  feed me  feed me  feed me  feed me  feed me  feed me  feed me  feed me  feed me  feed me  feed me  feed me  feed me  feed me  feed me  feed me feed me  feed me

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I'm so excited! 

I've had several orchids in the past and they've all lost the "buy me, I'm beautiful" flowers and died shortly thereafter.  This is the first time I've kept one alive for more than a few months and kept it happy enough to bloom again.  The first bud finally opened tonight!

Prepare to be inundated with orchid photos.

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I love my life.

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Shot nearly 400 exposures today.  Lots of good stuff but I'm in love with this one.

I was waiting (and waiting) in the parking lot of a large popular conglomerate grocery store and glanced up at the flag in my sunroof.  Interesting scene...snap snap.

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Spent a few minutes shooting the baby sparrow and the leaves at my parent's this evening.  Just more reasons to NEVER leave the camera at home.
Then we went to the opening night of the Thurston Classic hot air balloon festival.  Not as exciting for the kids as they had imagined.  Good photo-ops though

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I like square formats

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The first shot is the remains of the Hotel Evergreen, former strip-club turned pizza shop just prior to the fire (that's a pizza pan on the top step).  I had to pull my mid-size suv right up to the steps and set up my tripod on the roof but, alas, still not quite high enough.  Next time I'll bring the cherry-picker.  The second is an interesting building next door to the rubble.

The third and fourth are from the Spring House just outside our little town.  It's been sitting there for eons, who knows how many syringes and broken crack-pipes are in that pile.  I was standing on a pile of loose bricks, shooting handheld over a crumbling wall into the dark...fun.  I'll be returning soon, there's still a shot that's elluding me there. 

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I was out taking pictures with a good buddy today for a short while in the suffocating humidity.  After getting shot at a one location (just people target shooting towards an area they thought was abandoned, not really trying to hit us) we stopped by this house that I've been wanting to shoot for a while.


In the style of Jeff Brouws. (check the link, great stuff)

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A little creative fun this evening.

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One is the loneliest number...

(especially way out on 3rd base in pre-little league baseball)

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Solomon's Seal
Polygonatum commutatum


(couldn't decide so here's both versions)

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These are old glassless frames I picked up a few months ago at a local antique shop.  I do intend to bedazzle them in my own special way then fill them at some point but for now they are proudly displaying dust in a corner.

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Broke out the infrared filter this evening.  It's tricky to get right especially when you are doing a 24 exposure panoramic.   You'll notice the movement in the trees due to the extended exposure time needed for infrared photography even in bright sun.  The foliage reflects infrared most which is why it appears bright white.

I love it and will do it better, that's a promise (to myself).

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Visited one of my new favorite locations.  It's a fantastic decrepit, dilapidated, and mostly derelict industrial park with a ton of fantastic details.    

(are we liking the matted look or not?)