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Hoppy Hour

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Oh my, you made me laugh so hard over your 'dipped in chocolate' comment. Too funny. :-)

I too, absolutely love the zoo!! Wednesday, the zoo is half price (5 bucks) and even though it is a good drive from my house, it's always so much fun. I love to photograph the gorillas, but at times, they have been very naughty. And I love the meercats. They always pose.

The Oklahoma City Zoo is so much better than the Fort Worth or Dallas Zoos (IMHO). The areas appear much larger and they have large swimming areas for the animals. The grizzlies were fabulous and appeared to be quite content when I visited.

Thank you again for your comments and for making me laugh. :-)

Sky
 
So very sharp and pleasing. I always look forward to your pictures-----which you don't post often enough. That 3rd bug has had at least one of its hopping legs disjointed. They can walk or climb without one of them, but can't hop very well or fly without both for launching.

I wish I could contribute a picture, but grasshoppers have almost been exterminated around here, by all the pesticides people use. The only hopper I could show, would be my little Manx cat, with her long and powerful hind legs.

She would eat any grasshopper she found and last night, she was crunching down a snail (with shell), that had come out when I watered the shrubs. In French, she would be, "La petite chatte qui mange escargot"!
--
Steve McDonald
http://www.flickr.com/photos/22121562@N00/
http://www.vimeo.com/user458315/videos



http://video.yahoo.com/people/4019627
 
It's a nice change from the bees.

Grasshoppers are a bug that don't gross me out at all. Maybe I saw a lot of them when I was kid and got used to the way they look. They don't sting, bite or suck either so they are not harmful in a direct way. However, they sure can create havoc with crops. My dad got so tired of them eating his garden that he actually gave up gardening for a while.
--
John Dunn

Portraits: http://www.fototime.com/ftweb/bin/ft.dll/pictures?userid= {8B9B811D-AD1C-4A7D-923E-A4D0930BB5EE}
 
Thank you, John. And yes - they sure can play havoc on crops.

I never used to care for insects until I could afford being passionate about photography. They all have a curious look - sometimes a frightened look. They have personalities. This is something I never noticed until I got up close and personal with them.

Thank you again, John.

Sky
 
Love 'em all.

Wonderful detail in #1. Great composition and background in #2. Beautiful light in #3. And my Fave is #4 (combination of all of the above).
Arctic Fox said:
My area is experiencing a wicked drought
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Here too. No measurable rain for a month.
Arctic Fox said:
We also had an abundance of hoppers. This year - nothing.
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Man, that is tough tough tough. Sounds like what Winter is around here - nothing.

Sorry you had to resort to last years' crop of Hoppers. Yikes!!!
Arctic Fox said:
So with this said - what are you photographing lately?
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Was out watering the flowers a couple of days ago and got this really funny feeling like I was being watched. Looked above me and there in my Variegated Dogwood on the end of a branch right above my head was this Big Green Eating Machine (over 3 inches long!). Dropped the watering can and grabbed my camera post haste.

Sony F717, Canon 250D close up lens. 1/1000 sec @ f8 with flash...


Arctic Fox said:
And here is wishing you all 'hoppy' shooting. :-)
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Must really be killin' you to have no subjects around Sky. Here's wishing you a Locust Plague. :-D

R2

--
*
Good judgment comes from experience.
Experience comes from bad judgment.

http://www.pbase.com/jekyll_and_hyde/galleries
 
R2D2 said:
Was out watering the flowers a couple of days ago and got this really
funny feeling like I was being watched. Looked above me and there in
my Variegated Dogwood on the end of a branch right above my head was
this Big Green Eating Machine (over 3 inches long!). Dropped the
watering can and grabbed my camera post haste.
Click to expand...
That's similar to something I saw that hatched from an alien pod in a horror movie. Any idea what it might become eventually?
--
Steve McDonald
http://www.flickr.com/photos/22121562@N00/
http://www.vimeo.com/user458315/videos



http://video.yahoo.com/people/4019627
 
Good grief - that's a nice shot!!! I really enjoyed that one, R2.

And thank you for your nice comments.

A locust plague, eh? Hum....that has potential....

Sky
 
Looks like it might revolve into a Brad Pitt to me. It's soooo gorgeous!! :-)

Seriously, the lighting is perfect. Wish I could be R2's apprentice - if only for a few hours.

Sky
 
Something we've always noticed. Your photos are exceptional.

My favorite insect to capture with the camera is the damselfly. I've been doing that with my Oly cam and lens. Do you have those? I find them near our wetlands ponds (which are drying up with the summer heat).
 
Than's great Sky. I am really glad you enjoted it.
Arctic Fox said:
Thank you!

AND - the wedding exceeded my greatest expectations. The photos
turned out beautifully. I'm still processing them (there are over
1,000). My brother and my dear sister-in-law came out Sunday and
were just thrilled over them - and they hadn't even been processed at
that point.
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I know this feeling. We also come home with an average of 1000-2000 photos and the processing phase, although fun for itself, takes lots of time. The problem is that clients do not understand that sometimes you spend much more time on processing then on shooting and they think that you charge only for the work done on the wedding day.

I have started recently to use Lightroom for my PP and this really saves lots of time.
Arctic Fox said:
The wedding had about 200 people there and there was a beautiful
wedding cake - and a yummy chocolate groom cake. At least, it looked
yummy. It was gone in less than 10 minutes. Tom had wanted a piece,
too. :-)

They had a chocolate fountain and a beautiful silver punch fountain,
too. It was quite formal as weddings go. I had purchased a very
expensive gown at a local store that had a grand opening - with a
twenty spot (gasp!!!). It's a gorgeous gown, and my mom bought me
high heels to match as a gift. BUT, I soon realized that I couldn't
take photos in that - so at the last minute I purchased a knee-length
formal dress and a pair of silver flats.
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Wedding dress for female photographers have always been an issue. My wife is photographer too and we always cover a wedding together so I'm a bit aware to this problem. For us men it is easy. I just wear a dark suite. But for a woman, finding a dress that would be elegant, very comfortable and have enough pockets for essential stuff like batteries, cards and maybe a lens, isn't an easy job.

I am subscribed to an online wedding photography forum and along posts dealing with what lens to take, you'll always fine threads about what shoes to wear.
Arctic Fox said:
In the end, I didn't get to do any of the special shots I'd wanted to
do. There just wasn't time. The church was extremely dark, so that
was challenging. The fuji really performed well. Most of the shots
had an ISO of 400. Both of us 'nailed' the wedding kiss. The couple
paused as they headed out of the church (the groom to kiss his mom
and the daughter to kiss her mom) and Tom ran to the back of the
church and got some terrific shots of them coming down the isle.
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That is great. Looks like you really did very good and captured some unforgettable moments and this is what wedding photography is about.

Don't be sad for the special shots. Usually, these shod be planed and agreed upon in advance with the couple and reserve a time slot and it is not always possible. On the other hand, you ended up with lots of great unplanned stuff which is wonderful.

Also It is a big advantage of being two photographers on a wedding. Not only you can shoot from two different angles and different styles but also, you have much more chances to perfectly nail the very important shots like the first kiss, the toss of the bouquet etc.
Arctic Fox said:
Everyone is now suggesting that we do this as a sideline. NO WAY!!!
Good grief, I know why wedding photographers charge what they do.
It's worth every penny, too.
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LOL that what we always try to explain our customers. But seriously if I were you, I wouldn't exclude this option and give it a second thought because I believe that you have all the necessary ingredients to make it a success.

My wife and me started shooting weddings by coincidence. We had an exhibition few years ago and there was this lady who came and said she enjoyed our photos and asked us if we would agree to photograph her son's wedding. We told her that we didn't do a wadding before but as she insisted, so we gave it a chance and it was a success. I must say that we really love and enjoy very much shooting wedding and when you love doing something, it reflects in your photography.
Arctic Fox said:
And I decided not to go with a wedding book. I ordered a book from
BLUB containing my nature shots - just to see how it would turn out.
The photos are superb, but the quality of the book isn't. Some of the
pages were still stuck together and when I went to separate one of
the pages, the ink on the bottom of the page came off. I can touch it
up - because by the time I send it back, it just isn't worth the
trouble. With shipping, it cost $42 - so I had expected a bit better
quality.
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You did rightt. Although many photographers use them but it is rather for proof books and not real wedding books. as a matter of fact, you can't find a decent wedding book for less than 100$
Arctic Fox said:
AND OH - I set up my H2 and it filmed the entire wedding (about 34
minutes in all). That was a wonderful surprise. :-)
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That is another great idea. I wouldn't have thought about it, we sometimes forget that these little gems can also take videos.
Arctic Fox said:
Because the photos were taken with non-Sony cameras, I won't post
them at the forum. After I get them processed, I will be glad to
share a few with anyone who would like to see how they turned out.
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I think that if you put them up somewhere and post a link here in the forum, no one would mind because at the end of the line, it is all about photography. I would love to see what you did.

Cheers
Moti

--
ARPS - ABPPA
 
Stephen McDonald said:
That's similar to something I saw that hatched from an alien pod in a
horror movie.
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LOL. That's about what I thought when I first saw the huge bugger. My eyes about popped out of my head.
Stephen McDonald said:
Any idea what it might become eventually?
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I Googled it right away and apparently it belongs to the Giant Silkmoth family (Polyphemus).

http://www.royalalbertamuseum.ca/natural/insects/bugsfaq/polymoth.htm

I've never seen the larvae or the adult around here before. I feel really fortunate.
R2

--
*
Good judgment comes from experience.
Experience comes from bad judgment.

http://www.pbase.com/jekyll_and_hyde/galleries
 
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