One year ago today I made my first posting on this blog, an image of a Blue Dasher dragonfly in a pose that I later learned was called the obelisk pose, and it seems appropriate on this anniversary to post a similar shot that I took yesterday.
I remember well that first day, when my photography mentor and good friend, Cindy Dyer, sat me down at her computer and helped me set up my account. She was pushing me to get more serious with my photography and she somehow sensed that a blog would be a good creative outlet. Given the fact that this is my 723rd posting on this blog, it turns out that she was amazingly prescient. I could not have done it without here constant support, encouragement, and inspiration. Thanks, Cindy.
I have learned a lot about photography this past year, but more significantly I have learned a lot about myself through all of these postings. I have also had the wonderful experience of being part of an incredibly supportive community of fellow bloggers, who have been extravagantly free in providing encouragement and assistance. I look forward to my daily interaction with so many of my readers.
Statistically speaking, I’ve had over 23,00o views of my previous 722 posts from readers in 85 countries. I am honored that 479 of them have chosen to follow my blog.
My audience is a diverse one—some of you take photos of the same subjects as I do, but many of you express yourselves in words and photos of different themes. I looked over some of the statistical formation that WordPress provides to see if I could determine what type of postings were the most popular, based on the number of views, and realized that there is no magic formula. Some photos with single posts worked well, but sometimes ones with multiple photos and a lot of text were equally popular. Creepy bugs and beautiful flowers—there seems to be an audience for all kinds of images.
I continue to follow the approach that I started with a year ag0, to post photos that I personally find interesting or beautiful and share some of my thoughts about the subject or the situation in which I took the photo.
Some of you may be curious about the posting that had the most hits this past year. I though about reprising the photos themselves, but I decided that it was better to include links instead, so that you could read the text that surrounded the images, in order to understand better the context.
Here are the ten most popular postings this past year on my blog, starting from the one with the most views:
The dominant theme that connects these diverse subjects my insatiable curiosity to know more about the world around me and to capture some of nature’s beauty in my photography. Somehow in the process of this ongoing journey of discovery, I have come to finally consider myself to be a photographer, and not just someone who takes pictures.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved
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Mike Powell 
Hummingbird Clearwing (part 2)
Posted in Art, commentary, Flowers, Gardening, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, tagged brookside gardens, Canon 50D, Hemaris thysbe, Hummingbird Clearwing, Hummingbird Clearwing Moth, Tamron 180mm macro, Wheaton MD on July 27, 2013| 14 Comments »
Is photography an art or a science? One of the reasons why I enjoy photography so much is that it engages me on both levels—it speaks to my inner artist and to my inner geek.
Growing up, I remember watching Olympic figure skating and I was struck by the fact that the skaters received two sets of scores, one for “artistic impression” and one for “technical merit.” In many ways, I use a similar internal scoring system for my photographs.
Some of my photographs rate high on one scale, but fall short on the other. Every now and then, though, one of my images stands out, with high marks all around, like this shot of a Hummingbird Clearwing Moth (Hemaris thysbe).
I posted an earlier photo of this remarkable insect and I thought it was really cool that I was able to get a close-up with the wings open and frozen in action, a somewhat impressive technical feat. This image, shot from a bit farther away, gives a better view of the moth in action and is a more interesting pose. The background, which I recall was evergreen bushes, is uncluttered. Even the flower cooperated by following the “odd rule” of composition, with three clusters of tiny flowers.
It’s hard to be objective when analyzing my own work, but I know that I like this image a lot.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved
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