Macro

What do you need and how do you do it? I am almost finished writing my book on macro photography.  It has over 125 images (all colour except a few diagrams) and goes over most of the macro photographic equipment available today for the macro enthusiast. It is 94 pages long (as of this writing) and contains many tips, techniques, and suggestions on what you can do to improve your macro photography. It is the second edition, featuring a major revision of my first book on macro photography.  I cover a great deal including photos taken from a huge range of macro accessories and equipment.  It is meant to give the reader quite a range of options for capturing close up pictures.  We look at everything from simple and inexpensive to high tech and pricey.  It is meant to get the reader out and shooting with new ideas and perhaps a plan for the future.   The book will be available in bound form (8½ x 11 inch) and should go for about $40 canadian.  I hope to make it available on line

Golden Orb Weaver Spider - Florida My wife and I enjoy cruising.  We were booked on a cruise to the southern Caribbean, leaving out of Ft. Lauterdale, last spring.  I discovered some time ago that if you have to be somewhere anyways, it is a good idea to get there early and explore a bit.  So, we took a flight to Florida four days ahead of when our cruise was to leave.  The plan - check out the area and relax a bit to get ready for the cruise. I had booked a motel near the area we wanted to check out.  It was close to the beach and a major water way, and there was a wildlife park nearby.  So, all things considered, the price was right and the timing was perfect.  We arrived and got to our destination with four days to spend getting to know the place.  That was when the unthinkable happened - my travel laptop computer picked up a virus.  I am not sure where it happened; I have Norton and update it frequently.  But here I was, a hostage to this electronic villain. There is always

California sea cucumber  The coast of British Columbia offers some of the best diving in the world.  The oceans abound with life of all kinds, much of it visible at low tide or in tide pools.  The California sea cucumber is a good example, I have seen them during low tides in shallow water while kayaking.  This particular specimen was photographed in an open tank with a water depth of only a few inches.  The tank itself was designed so people could get a good look at whatever marine life happened to be present. Sea cucumbers belong to the same group of animals that include starfish, sand dollars, and sea urchins do.  This phylum is the echinoderms, and it contains some of the most bizarre and interesting organisms you could expect to find.   One of their wonderful features is the ability to regenerate lost body parts.  In the sea cucumber this is often related to it being attacked.  The animal will eviscerate its internal organs, which will crawl off in a safe direction, while th

Horsefly photographed from the side using bellows and reversed 50 mm lens. The horsefly, nature's prototype sewing machine, is the bane of all who venture outdoors during the summer.  As true flies, they have a life cycle which goes from egg to larvae (maggot) to pupa to adult.  It is the adults you are familiar with.  Like mosquitoes, the females are the ones which do the biting.  They draw on a blood supply from mostly mammals, but there are species which will attack birds or even reptiles.  When not dining on flesh, they and their male counterparts are busy visiting flowers consuming the sugary nectar to sustain their energy.  Some may parasitize plants and suck their juices. Horseflies lay eggs in the late summer, after participating in Dracula's pastime and having mated with the non-parasitic males.  The eggs are laid in a raft like structure on a plant suspended above the water.  The newly hatched larvae fall into the pond or stream and begin the process of growing. 

Solifugid Sun Spider Chances are you have never seen one.  That is partly because they live in arid climates, although they have been found in some of the drier prairies.  They do live in Canada, but only the very southern reaches of BC, Alberta, and Saskatchewan.  I found this one in Northern California, about an hour out of Sacramento, back in 2008. They are a type of arachnid; related to spiders but they belong to a different order.  Other orders of arachnids include the mites and ticks, scorpions, and daddy long legs (phalangids).  The order they belong to are the solifugids, also called sun spiders or sometimes camel spiders.  They do not produce silk, they are not venomous, and have only a pair of eyes instead of the eight eyes that spiders have. The first thing you would notice about a sun spider are the jaws; they are enormous.  Massive, muscular, and solid structures designed for one purpose - to crush its prey to a pulp.  All arachnids are liquid feeders.  Spiders inje