 We went to the beach for Memorial Day. And you're wondering where are the photos of gorgeous women in tiny bikinis. Well you can forget it. My wife sporadically reads this blog so I can't post that sort of thing. (Email me for the good stuff)
No, I went for a different sort of babe. You can thank me later.
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 Sorry. Couldn't resist a little Hitchhiker's humor.
Today, or more accurately, tonight, we have two of my photographic fascinations, night and telephone poles. Don't ask me why I find telephone poles fascinating. I just do. Transformers, wires, electrical thingies. It just looks cool. And when you photograph them at night? Awesome. For the record, that bright light at the bottom of the picture? That's not a streetlight. It's not anything man made. It's the moon.
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 I discovered this moth, completely motionless and thought, cool picture. And then I spent ten minutes trying every conceivable angle for photographing this moth. This is my favorite. You might note it's also a self portrait of sorts, as you can see me reflected in the lock.
This was the only angle that had some pop and depth to it. The moth is completely white. It's boring at most angles. Not to mention hard to get good focus on, due to its overbearing whiteness.
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 I should try to title all of these with movie quotes or titles.
So, yeah, this is late. Real late. The photo was taken mid-day but I've been at work and when I got home the powerful distracting ability of Netflix diverted my attention to Lost (catching up, only four years behind) and Dr. Horrible. Eventually I remembered that a photo needed posting. Have I mentioned before that I'm a bit ADD? So on to the pigeon. But wait, it's not a pigeon. No, I'm a country boy, so this is a mourning dove. I took several others that were cheerful and whimsical even. But I went with this grim depressing shot. Why? I just love that you can take a photo that completely misrepresents the reality of the moment. It's a big part of the power of cameras. It's what fascinates me about the process of film making. The ability to put something on film that is a completely believable lie. This photo was taken on a bright sunny day. You'd never guess it from this picture. That's very cool. Although not quite as cool as being scolded by my son for standing in the middle of the road to take the picture. I wasn't following the rules and he isn't going to stand for it.
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 These days I carry my camera with me pretty much everywhere. Because inevitably, when I don't, something pops up that would have made a great photo. For instance, this evening, I went out to do laundry and left the camera at home. It seemed like it would just be in the way. Naturally there was a gorgeous sunset, just begging to be photographed. This is almost as aggravating as Sunday when crossing the Throgs Neck Bridge on the way home from Long Island we saw one of the most stunning sunsets I've ever seen. And of course I'm the one driving, so I can't grab the camera to get a shot.
Anyway, this butterfly is an example of things going right because I brought the camera. On my way to the post office, this little fellow circled around me and plopped down right in front of me. Easy shot. What really surprised me when taking a close look at the photo on the computer, is how furry this critter is. He's sporting a Ron Jeremy caliber hairy chest. He's also sporting a really long... nose.
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 I love thunderstorms. The bigger the thunder the better. And lightning strikes are exceptionally cool to watch, provided of course they aren't hitting anything or anyone. We had a bit of a storm tonight. Nothing spectacular but it did feature quite a bit of lightning. I sat slightly under cover, taking repeated long exposure shots, hoping to capture some lightning strikes. This wasn't an optimal shoot. My tripod was at home, some I had to improvise. And I was in a parking lot, meaning street lights in the middle of the shot. Didn't care for that one bit.
But I did capture some lightning. This shot is actually a composite of three shots, so I can get all the best lightning bits in one photo. Yes, I'm cheating. But I'm very open about it.
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 Not long ago I felt like all the good photo ideas had run out. And now suddenly I can't limit myself to one post a day. Weird. But at the moment I'm enjoying the hell out of this. I'm also very pleased that I inspired a friend to try the same thing. Good luck to former writer for this site Drew Morton on his blog.
 So today we have two HDR photos. Yes, a lot of them lately I'm afraid. It's taking a lot of tinkering to get the feel for this process and it's pretty much always a mystery to me whether a particular shot will be worth a damn or not until I get it in the computer and start the process. The one shot is a little toy my son won at school today. Some sort of lizard thingy. The other shot is the sunset reflected in the back window of my van.
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 I was really tempted to cheat and use another photo from yesterday's family event but that's not really in the spirit of this blog, even if I could justify it within my vaguely defined rules. So here's a bee I watched while waiting for my son's bus this afternoon. Definitely click through for the bigger version, the eyes are pretty cool.
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Some days, the subject is chosen for you. And if you're lucky, that subject is a startlingly photogenic baby and her happy family. 'Nuff said.  
Yes Nicole, photo of the day indeed.
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It's my photo project and I'll decide what the rules are damn it. If I want to post three photos one day, that's my decision. Don't argue with me. It's late and I'm cranky. Now that I'm done yelling at no one in particular before they've had a chance to complain, assuming they wanted to, let's look at the bugs. I didn't set out to photograph bugs today but then the ladybug showed up and things sort of snowballed from there. The ant and fly shots are HDR pictures. The fly was on the window, making for a nightmarish scenario for getting a balanced shot. The ant was just outside the window, making for almost as difficult a shot. The fly turned out as the better shot but that mostly has to do with the ant being pretty much pure black.   
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