August 6, 2014 by Mike Powell
Last week I turned 60, but I am happy to confess that I still chase butterflies with much of the exuberance (if not quite the energy) of a child. There is something really special about the delicate beauty of butterflies that draws me in and the idea of their metamorphosis inspires me.
During a recent trip to Meadowlark Botanical Gardens in Vienna, Virginia, I was thrilled to spot this female Eastern Tiger Swallowtail butterfly (Papilio glaucus). She was feeding on an identified plant that must have been tasty, because she kept moving from spot to spot on the plant, offering me multiple opportunities to get some shots.
I especially like the fact that I was able to get the sky into some of the images, reinforcing for me the idea of butterflies flying freely and lightly through the open air. Now that’s the way to live a life.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Butterflies, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Summer | Tagged Canon 100mm macro lens, Canon 50D, Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, Eastern Tiger Swallowtail butterfly, Meadowlark Botanical Gardens, Papilio glaucus, Vienna VA | 18 Comments »
August 5, 2014 by Mike Powell
Watching insects is sometimes like watching a Cirque du Soleil production, very colorful and incredibly acrobatic, like these mating damselflies that I photographed recently at Meadowlark Botanical Gardens in Vienna, VA.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Dragonflies, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography | Tagged Canon 100mm macro lens, Canon 50D, damselflies, mating damselflies, Meadowlark Botanical Gardens, Vienna VA | 10 Comments »
August 4, 2014 by Mike Powell
I watched and waited as the Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) watched and waited. When the crucial moment came, we both reacted and were rewarded—the heron got a fish and I got a photo. For a brief moment, each of us was satisfied.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Birds, Nature, Photography, wildlife | Tagged Alexandria VA, Ardea herodias, blue heron, Canon 100mm macro lens, Canon 50D, Great Blue Heron, heron catches fish, Huntley Meadows Park | 13 Comments »
August 3, 2014 by Mike Powell
The lighting was breathtakingly beautiful and the reflections were amazing when I caught sight of this Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) late last month at my local marsh. The heron was close enough that the 100mm macro lens that i had on my camera was the perfect lens for a portrait of this beautiful bird.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Birds, Landscape, Nature, Photography, Portraits, Summer | Tagged Alexandria VA, Ardea herodias, blue heron, blue sky, blue water, Canon 100mm macro lens, Canon 50D, Great Blue Heron, Huntley Meadows Park | 6 Comments »
August 2, 2014 by Mike Powell
I used to think that all black-and-yellow insects circling around flowers were bees, but quickly learned that many of them are flower flies (also known as hoverflies). There are a lot of different varieties of flower flies, but I think that they all belong to the Syrphidae family.
Yesterday when I was visiting Brookside Gardens in Wheaton, Maryland, I managed to capture this image of a flower fly just as it had inserted its head into a small purple flower. It’s a pretty simple composition, but I really like the way that it turned out, with a good amount of detail on the fly’s body.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Summer | Tagged brookside gardens, Canon 100mm macro lens, Canon 50D, family Syrphidae, flower fly, hover fly, hoverfly, Wheaton MD | 12 Comments »
August 2, 2014 by Mike Powell
Within minutes of my arrival at a garden in Maryland, I was able to photograph my first Monarch butterfly of the summer, but was also “treated” to the sight of the fattest, hairiest fly that I have ever seen, a true case of a beauty and a beast.
Brookside Gardens is a beautiful spot for photographing flowers and insects in Wheaton, Maryland in the suburban Washington, D.C. area. In one section of the garden, there is a section specifically planted to attract butterflies and it was in that area that I saw the Monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) along with more numerous Eastern Swallowtail butterflies.
I didn’t see a single Monarch butterfly last summer and feared that I might not see one this summer either, because of habitat issues in Mexico and the severe winter we experienced. I was therefore thrilled when I first caught sight of a Monarch and chased after them throughout the day at the garden.
My moment of joy was interrupted when I was buzzed by a very large fly. When it landed, I was startled to see that it was really plump and really hairy. Of course, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but it would be tough to consider this beast to a a beauty. I poked around the internet in an attempt to identify this fly and it appears to belong to the genus Juriniopsis, though I can’t identify a specific species.
I continue to be fascinated by insects and at this time of the year you can usually find me chasing after them with my trusty macro lens, giving equal time to the beauties and to the beasts.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved
Posted in Butterflies, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography | Tagged brookside gardens, Canon 100mm macro lens, Canon 50D, Danaus plexippus, fly, hairy fly, juriniopsis, Monarch, monarch butterfly, Wheaton MD | 6 Comments »
August 1, 2014 by Mike Powell
Chasing a nymph through the woods–it may sound like I was living out some fantasy as a character in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, but I was only running after a butterfly, a Common Wood Nymph (Cercyonis pegala).
As is usually the case, I had never seen this “Common” butterfly before, but the large, yellow-ringed eyespots on the forewings make it pretty distinctive and I had no trouble finding it in an on-line identification guide.
I chased after the butterfly for quite some time before it finally came to a stop and perched on a tree. I am not sure why, but the butterfly chose to perch upside down. When I processed my images, I couldn’t decided if I should flip the image 180 degrees or not. Ultimately I decided that the flipped image, which is the first one, looked more “normal.”
Which one do you think works better, the flipped image, i.e. the first one, or the one with the original perspective, i.e. the second one?
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved
Posted in Butterflies, Humor, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Summer | Tagged Alexandria VA, Canon 100mm macro lens, Canon 50D, Cercyonis pegala, Common Wood Nymph, Huntley Meadows Park, nymph, Shakespeare | 15 Comments »
July 31, 2014 by Mike Powell
How often do you find yourself taking a shot of a subject with the wrong lens? If you are an opportunistic wildlife shooter like I am, it happens pretty regularly.
At this time of the year, most of the time I have a macro lens on my camera and I focus a lot on insects. Earlier this week, I was attempting to photograph a dragonfly with a 100mm macro lens when I heard the squawking on an approaching bird. Thinking perhaps that it was a hawk, I raised my camera and clicked off a series of shots as the bird flew by on the other side of a small pond.
Imagine my surprise when I looked at my images and realized that the bird was actually a Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus). There is something really special about Bald Eagles and I am thrilled every single time I see one.
Even with a crop sensor camera, a 100mm lens is not the right lens for shooting birds in flight at a distance, especially against a background of trees. I am posting a couple of shots simply to show that it is sometimes possible to get recognizable images of cool subjects even when the conditions and equipment are not optimal.
The images are also a reminder to myself to keep shooting and not wait for the perfect conditions to come together. If I wear out the camera, I can always get another one.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved
Posted in Birds, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Summer | Tagged Alexandria VA, Bald Eagle, Canon 100mm macro lens, Canon 50D, Haliaeetus leucocephalus, Huntley Meadows Park | 14 Comments »
July 30, 2014 by Mike Powell
Am I the only one who remembers a poster from the 1970’s featuring the slogan “Fly United” and depicting two ducks mating in mid-air?
That’s what immediately came to mind earlier this week when a pair of Great Blue Skimmer dragonflies (Libellula vibrans) flew by me at my local marsh. Anyone who has ever watched dragonflies mate knows that it is an acrobatic endeavor, requiring tremendous flexibility by both parties. Imagine trying to fly while still in the “wheel” position. Amazingly all of the wings seemed to able to move freely, though I didn’t notice if they were both using their wings for propulsion.
I was able to snap off these shots as the pair flew toward me over the water of a pond, which reflected wonderfully the blue sky and the clouds up above us.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved
Posted in Dragonflies, Humor, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Summer | Tagged Alexandria VA, Canon 100mm macro lens, fly united, Great Blue Skimmer dragonfly, Huntley Meadows Park, Libellula vibrans, mating dragonflies | 13 Comments »
July 29, 2014 by Mike Powell
A handsome little skipper feeds on a gorgeous purple flower and the result is simply beautiful.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved
Posted in Butterflies, Flowers, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography | Tagged Alexandria VA, Canon 50D, purple flower, skipper, skipper butterfly, Tamron 180mm macro lens | 6 Comments »
July 29, 2014 by Mike Powell
Normally when I think of saddlebags, I think of cowboys and the Pony Express, but there is also a species of skimmer dragonflies known as Black Saddlebags (Tramea lacerata). Someone obviously thought the dark patches on the hind wings looked like saddlebags.
Unlike many of the dragonflies that I often observe, Black Saddlebag dragonflies like to fly high in the air (and not low over the water) and some of them even migrate. I was alerted to their presence at my local marsh by a recent posting by a local dragonfly expert and fellow photographer Walter Sanford, so yesterday I kept one eye to the sky yesterday as I searched for subjects to photograph.
Black Saddlebags flew over me several times and I was fortunate to get some shots of one of them in flight. It might have been nice to have used a longer lens than the 100mm macro lens that I had on my camera at the time, but the shots turned out pretty well nonetheless. The first image is the sharpest image, but I like the entire sequence of the three images and the way in which they convey a sense of the environment in which I was shooting.
The fi
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved
Posted in Dragonflies, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Summer | Tagged Alexandria VA, Black Saddlebags, Canon 100mm macro lens, Canon 50D, dragonflies in flight, Huntley Meadows Park, Tramea lacerata | 3 Comments »
July 28, 2014 by Mike Powell
One of my fellow photographers pointed out this cool little crab spider on some Queen Anne’s Lace (Daucus carota) during a photo jaunt to Meadowlark Botanical Gardens in nearby Vienna, Virginia this past Saturday.
In this first shot, my favorite, the spider seemed to be expressing frustration that his prey had escaped his grasp (or simply wanted to show me his awesome biceps pose). Who knew that spiders have biceps?
Initially I tried to photograph the spider looking down at it, but I had trouble maintaining a steady pose and my shots were blurry. I decided to kneel down and get at eye level with the spider, looking across the plane of the flower, and that seemed to work a bit better. These shots look like they were done with flash, but the EXIF data shows a shutter speed of 1/320, which is higher than the synch speed of my flash, so these were actually done with natural light, with some exposure compensation dialed in.
The second shot, which preceded the first one in time, shows the spider trying to capture a small insect (I think).
The little insect starts to run away.
In vain, the spider crawled after the small insect, but it was too late. When I left the spider, it was at the edge of the flower, looking off into the distance, pondering perhaps what might have been, thinking about the one that got away.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved
Posted in Arachnids, Flowers, Humor, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography | Tagged Canon 100mm macro lens, Canon 50D, crab spider, Daucus carota, Meadowlark Botanical Gardens, Queen Anne's Lace, Vienna VA | 10 Comments »
July 27, 2014 by Mike Powell
The light reflecting off the water in the background was really bright, creating these disco ball highlights when I took these shots of a male Blue Dasher dragonfly (Pachydiplax longipennis) recently at Green Spring Gardens. Normally I try to avoid distinctive specular highlights, but in this case I decided to embrace them.
Why do I suddenly feel an irresistible urge to watch Saturday Night Fever?
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved
Posted in Art, Dragonflies, Humor, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Portraits, Summer | Tagged Alexandria VA, Blue Dasher, Blue Dasher dragonfly, Canon 50D, disco, disco dragonfly, green spring gardens, Pachydiplax longipennis, specular highlights, Tamron 180mm macro lens | 14 Comments »
July 26, 2014 by Mike Powell
Have you ever found yourself in a thorny predicament? Last weekend, I came upon this female Spangled Skimmer dragonfly (Libellula cyanea) that had literally placed herself in such a situation.
Fortunately, dragonflies are so small, lightweight, and agile that she was able to place herself in between the thorns, out of harm’s way. If you look closely at her wings in the second image, however, you’ll see that they are tattered, suggesting that it’s been a tough season for her, probably as a result of predators, including overly aggressive male dragonflies.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved
Posted in Dragonflies, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Summer | Tagged Alexandria VA, Canon 50D, Libellula cyanea, Spangled Skimmer, Spangled Skimmer dragonfly, Tamron 180mm macro lens | 6 Comments »
July 25, 2014 by Mike Powell
As I search in vain for larger, colorful butterflies, I continue to be amazed by the beauty of the smaller ones, like this Clouded Sulphur butterfly (Colias philodice) that I observed last week at Green Spring Gardens in Alexandria, Virginia.
Generally I like my closest shots the best when I am shooting with my macro lens, but in this case, I think I prefer the first shot below, that I took from a bit farther back. I like the way in which you can see the shadowy representations in the background of the stalks of the same kind of floweras the one one which the butterfly is feeding.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved
Posted in Butterflies, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Summer | Tagged Alexandria VA, butterfly, Canon 50D, Clouded Sulphur, Clouded Sulphur butterfly, Colias philodice, green spring gardens, Tamron 180mm macro lens | 6 Comments »
July 24, 2014 by Mike Powell
When I started shooting regularly two years ago, I followed the lead of my mentor, Cindy Dyer, who specializes in flower photography, and spent a lot of time in gardens. (She photographs a wide range of subjects, though, and I encourage readers to click on her name and check out the photos on her blog from a recent trip to Iceland.)
Last weekend I went back to my roots and visited a local garden with Cindy, where I spent some time with flowers and was only occasionally distracted by insects. Cindy helped me identify a toad lily and some zinnias, but we think the yellow flower is some kind of rudbeckia.
As I was shooting, I was particularly fascinated by the structure and patterns of the petals and by the amazing colors. The colors proved to be a challenge to render correctly and I am not entirely certain that I got the pinkish color of the zinnias true to life.
If you are viewing the original posting (and not it the Reader), click on any one of the thumbnail images to see the images in succession in larger size in slide show format. (I am still experimenting with using the Gallery options for displaying multiple images.)
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Rudbeckia
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Zinnia
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Spherical zinnia
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Toad lily
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved
Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Summer | Tagged Alexandria VA, Canon 50D, green spring gardens, rudbeckia, Tamron 180mm macro lens, toad lily, zinnia | 10 Comments »
July 23, 2014 by Mike Powell
Two years ago in a posting, I confessed to being obsessed with photographing Red milkweed beetles (Tetraopes tetraophthalmus). Inexorably I kept finding myself being drawn back to these bright red beetles.
I thought I had outgrown my obsession, until I encountered several of my little red friend this past weekend at Green Spring Gardens. I immediately reverted to my old behavior and began to stalk them like a paparazzo, trying to get a good shot or any shot at all.
My obsession continues.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved
Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Humor, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Summer | Tagged Alexandria VA, Canon 50D, green spring gardens, milkweed, obsessed, red milkweed beetle, Tamron 180mm macro lens, Tetraopes tetrophthalmus | 14 Comments »
July 22, 2014 by Mike Powell
Whenever I have my macro lens on my camera I seem to be irresistibly drawn to bees, like bees to honey. No matter what else I am shooting during the summer, I always seem to have some images of bees interspersed among my other photos. Here are some of my recent favorite bee shots.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved
Posted in Flowers, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography | Tagged Alexandria VA, bee, bees, Canon 50D, cone flower, green spring gardens, Tamron 180mm macro lens | 11 Comments »
July 21, 2014 by Mike Powell
Photographing any dragonfly in flight is a real challenge, but this past weekend I spent time chasing after some of the smallest ones, the Eastern Amberwing dragonflies (Perithemis tenera). According to Bugguide, these dragonflies are typically 21-24mm in length, which is less than one inch, with a wingspan of maybe two inches or so.
There were lots of male Eastern Amberwings buzzing around the edges of a small pond at Green Spring Gardens, one of the local gardens that I like to visit. They were within range of the 180mm macro lens that I was using, but focusing and tracking were my biggest problems. The dragonflies did tend to hover a bit, which helped a little, but it was tough to get them in focus when focusing manually and almost impossible to do so with auto-focus.
I took a lot of shots and was happy that I managed to get some in decent focus, though I did have to crop the images. As I was preparing this posting, I noticed that I spent some time a year ago attempting to photograph the same dragonfly species. I think the results this year are marginally better, but you can make your own call by clicking on this link to the posting from July 2013.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved
Posted in Dragonflies, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Summer | Tagged Alexandria VA, Canon 50D, dragonfly in flight, Eastern Amberwing, Eastern Amberwing dragonfly, green spring gardens, Perithemis tenera, Tamron 180mm macro lens | 7 Comments »
July 20, 2014 by Mike Powell
A dragonfly perching on a heron? In real life it’s highly unlikely that you would see such a thing, but a male Blue Dasher dragonfly (Pachydiplax longipennis) decided that the metal silhouette of a Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) in a pond at Green Spring Gardens made a good spot to rest.
Click on any of the tiled images to see all of them full-sized in slide show mode.
Blue Heron in obelisk posture
Perching on a heron
Metal Great Blue Heron in pond
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Birds, Dragonflies, Humor, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Summer | Tagged Alexandria VA, Ardea herodias, Canon 50D, Great Blue Heron, green spring gardens, heron, Pachydiplax longipennis, Tamron 180mm macro lens | 9 Comments »
July 19, 2014 by Mike Powell
Small skipper butterflies don’t stand out as much as their larger, more colorful brethren, but they have an understated beauty that I find striking. It’s a daunting challenge, however, to identify them.
According to Wikipedia, there are more than 3500 recognized species of skippers worldwide, so I don’t feel too bad that my identification skills are weak in this area. As I looked through images on-line, I came across one identified as a Little Glassywing (Pompeius verna) that looks a bit like the one that I photographed, though my confidence level in this identification is pretty low.
I am confident, however, that I like the image I captured of the little skipper. There is a pretty good amount of detail, the background is blurred, and the leaves on which the butterfly is perched makes for an interesting pose.
UPDATE: A butterfly expert has definitively identified this as a female Sachem (Atalopedes campestris). Thanks to Joe Schelling and Jim Brock for their assistance in identifying this little skipper.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Butterflies, Flowers, Gardening, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Summer | Tagged Alexandria VA, Atalopedes campestris, Canon 50D, green spring gardens, Little Glassywing, Pompeius verna, Sachem, skipper, skipper butterfly, Tamron 180mm macro lens | 11 Comments »
July 18, 2014 by Mike Powell
In the shade of the flowering lotus plants, these two Eastern Pondhawk dragonflies (Erythemis simplicicollis) found a few moments for some summer lovin’. Summer lovin’, it happened so fast.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Dragonflies, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Summer | Tagged Alexandria VA, Canon 50D, Eastern Pondhawk, Eastern Pondhawk dragonfly, Eastern Pondhawks mating, Erythemis simplicicollis, green spring gardens, mating dragonflies, summer lovin', Tamron 180mm macro lens | 10 Comments »
July 17, 2014 by Mike Powell
Even before they have bloomed, the buds of the Lotus flower (Nelumbo nucifera) can be spectacularly beautiful, like this one I photographed this past Monday at Green Spring Gardens, just a few miles from where I live in Northern Virginia.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Art, Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, Summer | Tagged Alexandria VA, Canon 50D, green spring gardens, lotus, lotus bud, Nelumbo nucifera, Tamron 180mm macro lens | 5 Comments »
July 17, 2014 by Mike Powell
Although I don’t live in Ohio, nicknamed “The Buckeye State,” I think that I can claim that Virginia also is a Buckeye state, because we are a home to the uncommonly beautiful Common Buckeye butterfly (Junonia coenia).
I have seen few colorful butterflies so far this summer, besides the Great Spangled Fritillary butterflies that I featured in a posting in June. Where are all the Monarchs and Eastern Swallowtails? I don’t know if they were affected by the polar vortex of this past winter or if I am merely looking for them in all the wrong places, but their numbers seem to be unusually low this summer.
I was therefore thrilled this past Monday, when I caught sight of this Common Buckeye. Its coloration is so distinctive that I immediately recognized it and chased after it a bit. Fortunately I was able to capture several images of this beautiful creature before it flew out of sight.
Looking at these images, I am happy to proclaim that I live in a Buckeye state.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Art, Butterflies, Flowers, Gardening, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Portraits, Summer | Tagged Alexandria VA, Canon 50D, Common Buckeye, Common Buckeye butterfly, green spring gardens, Junonia coenia, Tamron 180mm macro lens | 13 Comments »
July 16, 2014 by Mike Powell
I simply love the exquisite beauty of lotus flowers. A sense of tranquility seems to fill me during those moments when I am able to drink in their beauty, especially when I am alone.
I took these shots in mid-morning at Green Spring Gardens, a county-run facility that has two small, man-made ponds, in addition to the extensive gardens. The ponds are one of my favorite places to shoot when my time is limited and in the past I have captured some wonderful images of turtles, frogs, birds, and dragonflies. What makes the ponds really special for me, though, is that there are water lilies and lotuses at this time of the year.
I am experimenting with presenting my photos in the Gallery format. If you click on any one of the images, you can scroll through each of them in succession in full size. Let me know if you think it works better than presenting each shot individually.
When the lotus flowers are completely open, it is a real joy to be able to look inside the flower and glimpse the cylindrical seed pod, which contrasts wonderfully with the delicate pink petals in color as well as texture. I took these shots in the middle of the morning, which is usually a less than optimal time of day for lighting. In this case, though, the light, which was often coming from behind the flowers, helped to highlight the flowers and created some interesting shadows.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography | Tagged Alexandria VA, Canon 50D, Fairfax County, green spring gardens, lotus, lotus flowers, Tamron 180mm macro lens | 15 Comments »
July 15, 2014 by Mike Powell
Some amazingly beautiful water lilies were in bloom at a local garden yesterday morning and seemed to be glowing from within.
Green Spring Gardens is a county-run historic garden just a few miles from where I live. I used to shoot there really often, but have been spending more time instead at my local marshland park. A couple of recent postings by Rob Paine on his blog I see beauty all around reminded me of the beauty of this garden and I spent several hours there yesterday, getting shots, primarily of the water lilies, lotus flowers, and dragonflies.
This image is a sneak preview of yesterday’s shoot, with more to follow in the near future.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, Summer, Urban | Tagged Alexandria VA, Canon 50D, green spring gardens, Tamron 180mm macro lens, water lily | 5 Comments »
July 14, 2014 by Mike Powell
It may sound like a new summer beverage sensation, but the title is meant to be literal. I encountered this tiny Eastern Amberwing dragonfly (Perithemis tenera) sunning itself on a rock in a small, muddy creek in the back area of my local marshland park.
It was a bit unusual for me to see a dragonfly on a rock (usually they perch on vegetation or on the ground) and I think the texture of the rock adds visual interest to the shot without being distracting the eye. I was pleased to capture so much beautiful detail of this cool little dragonfly and was particularly happy to see how well the amber wings turned out.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Dragonflies, Humor, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, wildlife | Tagged Alexandria VA, Canon 50D, Eastern Amberwing, Eastern Amberwing dragonfly, Huntley Meadows Park, Perithemis tenera, Tamron 180mm macro lens | 9 Comments »
July 13, 2014 by Mike Powell
Readers may have noticed that I rarely take photos of people and never photograph sporting events, but yesterday I found myself supporting one of my friends at the Capital Sprints Regatta in Washington D.C. on the Anacostia River. This was her first competition as a member of the DC Strokes Rowing Club and it was great to get some shots of her in action to commemorate the event.
I had never before been to a regatta and I took a lot of photos in an effort to capture the feeling of the experience. I selected a few of my favorites for this posting, including some close-up portraits as well as some action shots.
DC Strokes
Heading for the start line
Their first race (DC Strokes)
Proud mother gets photo taken with her daugher
Getting the boat ready to go into the water
Two in a shell
Mixed competition (DC Strokes)
Watching the races
More DC Strokes
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved
Posted in Crew, Photography, Portraits, Sports, Urban | Tagged Anacostia River, Canon 50D, Canon 70-300mm telephoto zoom lens, Capital Sprints Regatta, crew, DC Strokes, DC Strokes Rowing Club, regatta, Washington D.C. | 12 Comments »
July 12, 2014 by Mike Powell
How many views does your average post get? WordPress has a strange way of measuring “views” and “likes” that I haven’t quite been able to figure out, but I consider a posting to be successful if it gets about 30 views. A really popular posting might get 50 views.
As I close out my retrospective look this week at my first two years of blogging, I thought I would share again the posting that, statistically speaking, is by far the most popular. Out of the 1200+ postings that I have done, only seven have over a hundred views and the second most viewed posting has 138 views. The posting below has had 371 views.
Don’t get me wrong—I like these photos of the fuzzy white caterpillar, but I certainly don’t consider them to be my best or my favorite images. How did I get so many views?
Not long ago, Leanne Cole, one of my favorite bloggers did a couple of postings on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) that included a discussion of some techniques to make your photos and postings more visible when people do searches with Google and other search tools. I think I may have inadvertently used some of these approaches with the caterpillar posting, because the majority of the views seem to have come from people who found the images as the result of a search, and not from readers of my blog.
I don’t put a lot of faith in statistics and they don’t count for much in my personal estimation of the success of a posting. However, I am by nature a very curious person, so I can’t completely ignore them, even if they seem a little crazy.
Complete text of my 3 August 2013 “Fuzzy white caterpillar” posting:
It’s hard enough to identify moths and butterflies when they are fully grown—it seems almost impossible to do so when they are caterpillars, like this fuzzy white caterpillar that I encountered today at my local marshland park.
The caterpillar had so much long hair that it was hard to see the actual body, which might have been quite small for all I could tell. It was crawling around in the cattails on a day that featured intermittent rain. If you look closely at the first shot, you can see little water drops near what I think is the area of the head.
The second shot may look like it was done with flash, but the darker background was caused merely by changing the settings on my camera and deliberately overexposing the image.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved
Posted in Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, wildlife | Tagged 55-, Alexandria VA, Canon 50D, caterpillar, fuzzy caterpillar, fuzzy white caterpillar, Huntley Meadows Park | 19 Comments »
July 11, 2014 by Mike Powell
Which of your images are unusual or distinctive enough that you genuinely feel like they are “once in a lifetime” photos?
Of course, all photos are unique captures of a subject at a particular moment. As the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus is reported to have said, “No man ever steps in the same river twice.”
Somehow, though, it seems like we could capture similar images in many cases if we returned to the same locations under similar conditions and were patient and persistent enough.
As I celebrate my two year blog anniversary this week, I’ve been doing a few retrospective re-postings of favorite posts from the earliest days and am continuing in that vein today with some photos of a North American Beaver (Castor canadensis) breaking through the ice of a beaver pond from below on a winter day early in 2013.
A lot of things had to work together perfectly for me to get these images and it’s hard to imagine that confluence of factors ever happening again for me. The photos and the accompanying prose help to document that very special moment.
Besides the uniqueness of that moment, there is something particularly enjoyable about posting icy winter photos as we continue to suffer through a seemingly endless cycle of hot, humid summer weather. I hope that you feel as refreshed as I do when viewing these images.
Complete text of original posting “Breaking through the ice from below“ on 30 January 2013:
The beaver had disappeared from the small open water area of the ice-covered beaver pond. Wondering if he would resurface, I stood in silent readiness with my camera still in my hand.
My eyes were focused on one area of the pond, but my ears detected a sound emanating from another location near the edge of the pond. Somehow I knew instantly what was about to happen—the beaver was about to achieve a breakthrough. The light had faded a bit and I couldn’t see well enough to focus perfectly, but I aimed at the source of the sound and got this shot of the beaver poking his head through a newly-created hole in the ice. From this perspective, it looks like the beaver is pretty small.
As I watched, the beaver placed his front paws on the ice, which appeared to be able to support his weight, and gradually pulled his body out of the water. Naturally, the small hole became a lot bigger as his large body came increasingly into view.
After the beaver was completely out of the water, he bent down over the opening that he had just created. Perhaps he was trying to decide if he needed to enlarge it further or was trying to free a tasty-looking stick from the ice. It almost looks to me, though, that he is peering into the water, wondering if one of his fellow beavers is going to be popping up to join him.
The beaver did not linger long at the new location. After a few seconds on the “outside,” he dove back into the icy waters of the pond.
There are few moments in life that are truly “once-in-a-lifetime” experiences, ones that would be impossible to replicate, but I have the sense that this was one of them. So many things had to work together to make these photos happen—the timing, the location, and the ice, to name a few.
It is supposed to get up to 70 degrees (21 degrees C) today and the ice will almost certainly be gone by the time I am able to return to the marsh this weekend. Perhaps I will get to observe the beavers eating or working or playing or maybe they will remain in the lodge. In either case, I can be happy, knowing that we shared a really special moment together.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved
Posted in animals, Nature, Photography, wildlife, Winter | Tagged Alexandria VA, beaver, breaking through the ice, Canon 55-250mm zoom lens, Canon Rebel XT, Castor canadensis, Huntley Meadows Park, ice, North American Beaver | 13 Comments »
July 10, 2014 by Mike Powell
When I am walking through the woods adjacent to the marsh, I often see small brown butterflies flitting about, but it’s rare that one lands in a place where I can photograph it. Last week, however, I got lucky and I was finally able to get some shots of one of these elusive butterflies.
Now that I have the images, I am faced with the difficult task of trying to identify the butterfly. There are a lot of brown butterflies with a numerous eye spots on the wings and to my untrained eyes, they all look pretty much the same. I think this one may be of the genus Lethe, but is it a Pearly Eye, an Appalachian Brown, an Eyed Brown, or something entirely different?
For now, I’ll fall back on an old habit and make up my own name for the butterfly and call it the Beautiful Woodland butterfly.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Butterflies, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, wildlife | Tagged Alexandria VA, butterfly, Canon 50D, Huntley Meadows Park, Lethe genus, Tamron 180mm macro lens, woods | 6 Comments »
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Mike Powell 