Powered by WizardRSS | Full Text RSS Feeds

Wet day, a camera, some fruit and flowers. You are warned.
Originally uploaded by gtveloce

Some light rain and even light under a cloudy sky – perfect for shooting flowers! (Oh, and just a touch of flash to light up the darkest bits.)

Wet day, a camera, some fruit and flowers. You are warned.
Originally uploaded by gtveloce

Some light rain and even light under a cloudy sky – perfect for shooting flowers! (Oh, and just a touch of flash to light up the darkest bits.)

There are always plenty of spiders around in summer but the orb-weavers – especially the Nephila and Eriophora – are surprisingly small for this time of year. I’m guessing that the early summer heat, coming as it did in late winter, drew the sap-sucking cicadas out a month or 2 earlier than usual, before the orb-weavers got going. Normally a fair number of cicadas would be caught up in the massive orb webs but with this mis-timing the cicadas have proliferated without fear, at least from spider predation. Finally the orb-weavers are weaving and catching food but with less around to eat they aren’t looking as good as last year. We need some rain as well as the ‘real’ summer heat to bring the food supplies up. Well that’s my take on it, anyway.
But here’s a lucky – if gruesome – catch for one of the Eriophoras, a grasshopper that was on the wing. Until it got snagged, anyway. Someone’s got breakfast, and lunch. Also a few other orb-weavers just hanging around looking beautiful.

There are always plenty of spiders around in summer but the orb-weavers – especially the Nephila and Eriophora – are surprisingly small for this time of year. I’m guessing that the early summer heat, coming as it did in late winter, drew the sap-sucking cicadas out a month or 2 earlier than usual, before the orb-weavers got going. Normally a fair number of cicadas would be caught up in the massive orb webs but with this mis-timing the cicadas have proliferated without fear, at least from spider predation. Finally the orb-weavers are weaving and catching food but with less around to eat they aren’t looking as good as last year. We need some rain as well as the ‘real’ summer heat to bring the food supplies up. Well that’s my take on it, anyway.
But here’s a lucky – if gruesome – catch for one of the Eriophoras, a grasshopper that was on the wing. Until it got snagged, anyway. Someone’s got breakfast, and lunch. Also a few other orb-weavers just hanging around looking beautiful.

This is Phyllurus platurus or a close relative, AKA Southern Broadtailed Gecko. They are slightly unusual (I think) in having that blue colouring on the back of the neck. There are 2 of them here, male and female (not that I checked in detail but at an educated guess) both pictured on a pathway in my tiny and slightly wild suburban garden on the Central Coast of NSW. The time was 11pm. Having promised @neerav some Gecko shots I thought I’d better get out there and find some small, flat, spiky reptiles. Armed with a Nikon D50 and an LED bike headlight (as spotlight and as an aid to manual focusing, not always easy in the dark – in fact quite a pain to do) I set off on my crazy night-time adventure. This could take some time and will require patience, resolute purpose and a keen eye I thought to myself as I set off down the path to the most likely Gecko-location, almost squishing my first Gecko in the process. Ah, there’s one, just near my left foot.
As I crouched down carefully to get close I realised a few things. Firstly, he’s decided not to run tonight (they usually run from cameras) and secondly the perfect camouflage for a stone pathway is also a great way to get trodden on. Then I noticed, to my right, a pair of tiny slitted eyes watching me focus on lizard “a”. Of course it was lizard “b”, doing the same frozen, camouflaged thing. As I was crouched over a funnel web hole at the time I thought I’d reposition myself both for safety (not wishing to die for my cause) and to take full photographic advantage of these rock-still reptiles before they realised I had a Nikon on me and bolted. With that thought lizard (b) sensed my weakness and made for the hills but – thankfully – once on the leaf-litter it froze again. Hence these shots, brought to you by luck, sheer chance and successful reptilian adaptation to the human built environment.

This is Phyllurus platurus or a close relative, AKA Southern Broadtailed Gecko. They are slightly unusual (I think) in having that blue colouring on the back of the neck. There are 2 of them here, male and female (not that I checked in detail but at an educated guess) both pictured on a pathway in my tiny and slightly wild suburban garden on the Central Coast of NSW. The time was 11pm. Having promised @neerav some Gecko shots I thought I’d better get out there and find some small, flat, spiky reptiles. Armed with a Nikon D50 and an LED bike headlight (as spotlight and as an aid to manual focusing, not always easy in the dark – in fact quite a pain to do) I set off on my crazy night-time adventure. This could take some time and will require patience, resolute purpose and a keen eye I thought to myself as I set off down the path to the most likely Gecko-location, almost squishing my first Gecko in the process. Ah, there’s one, just near my left foot.
As I crouched down carefully to get close I realised a few things. Firstly, he’s decided not to run tonight (they usually run from cameras) and secondly the perfect camouflage for a stone pathway is also a great way to get trodden on. Then I noticed, to my right, a pair of tiny slitted eyes watching me focus on lizard “a”. Of course it was lizard “b”, doing the same frozen, camouflaged thing. As I was crouched over a funnel web hole at the time I thought I’d reposition myself both for safety (not wishing to die for my cause) and to take full photographic advantage of these rock-still reptiles before they realised I had a Nikon on me and bolted. With that thought lizard (b) sensed my weakness and made for the hills but – thankfully – once on the leaf-litter it froze again. Hence these shots, brought to you by luck, sheer chance and successful reptilian adaptation to the human built environment.

For day-to-day ‘mucking about’ with audio files I use Mixcraft as my first choice as it’s fast and easy. It can do most things pretty well, too. If it can’t load a particular VST or just can’t give me the control I want then it’s on to Anvil for composition, Reaper because it’s just great and Ableton Live because it came bundled with the M-Audio Keystation 61es MIDI controller (actually it’s also very powerful and full of great sounds). But for most purposes Mixcraft coupled with Audacity (free!) will do the trick. Both will load just about any of the zillions of VSTs you can get hold of on the Web and will accept input from USB audio devices like the Keystation and the Guitar Snake.

This quest for musical de-composition began with my Fender electric guitar, the PC (of course) and the Behringer USB GuitarLink, coupled with various digital emulations of famous amplifiers. Actually it really began when my real amp died and rather than just fix it I decided to get the signal into (and out of) the PC instead. One thing led to another and now, like my ditching of analog photography I’ve almost washed my hands of analog audio as well. Almost.

For day-to-day ‘mucking about’ with audio files I use Mixcraft as my first choice as it’s fast and easy. It can do most things pretty well, too. If it can’t load a particular VST or just can’t give me the control I want then it’s on to Anvil for composition, Reaper because it’s just great and Ableton Live because it came bundled with the M-Audio Keystation 61es MIDI controller (actually it’s also very powerful and full of great sounds). But for most purposes Mixcraft coupled with Audacity (free!) will do the trick. Both will load just about any of the zillions of VSTs you can get hold of on the Web and will accept input from USB audio devices like the Keystation and the Guitar Snake.

This quest for musical de-composition began with my Fender electric guitar, the PC (of course) and the Behringer USB GuitarLink, coupled with various digital emulations of famous amplifiers. Actually it really began when my real amp died and rather than just fix it I decided to get the signal into (and out of) the PC instead. One thing led to another and now, like my ditching of analog photography I’ve almost washed my hands of analog audio as well. Almost.

Lacewings and their relatives are everywhere in my Saratoga, NSW garden, and sometimes (like this one) in the bathroom as well. The eggs are laid underneath just about anything they can find in a white, U-shaped arrangement, hanging down as if on stilts. The larvae make their way (fall?) down to the ground (or into my washing) and look absolutely weird, even other-worldly. They have a gnarly, woolly look about them with false appendages and spikes on which to embed and display prey. One lacewing relative produces antlion larvae that live in sandy soil at the bottom of conical ant-traps. They all metamorphose into various types of wonderfully delicate lacewings, like this blue-eyed variety.

Lacewings and their relatives are everywhere in my Saratoga, NSW garden, and sometimes (like this one) in the bathroom as well. The eggs are laid underneath just about anything they can find in a white, U-shaped arrangement, hanging down as if on stilts. The larvae make their way (fall?) down to the ground (or into my washing) and look absolutely weird, even other-worldly. They have a gnarly, woolly look about them with false appendages and spikes on which to embed and display prey. One lacewing relative produces antlion larvae that live in sandy soil at the bottom of conical ant-traps. They all metamorphose into various types of wonderfully delicate lacewings, like this blue-eyed variety.

I’m not exactly sure what this guy was trying to do, but it was worth taking a shot. He (or perhaps she?) is either climbing out of their shell, or having felt the 40 degree C heat is getting back in. There’s another possibility I’d rather not consider, of course, and I’ll leave that to your imagination.

I’m not exactly sure what this guy was trying to do, but it was worth taking a shot. He (or perhaps she?) is either climbing out of their shell, or having felt the 40 degree C heat is getting back in. There’s another possibility I’d rather not consider, of course, and I’ll leave that to your imagination.

Rims_0138b
Originally uploaded by gtveloce

And identify. Velocity Razor road clincher on the left, a well and truly shellacked Mavic track single in the middle and a road-glue-glued Campag road single on the right.

You click on an image, the image enlarges and pixillates. You click again, it becomes a series of images. You choose again and click. On and on, deeper and deeper. No, I’m not going to keep going, I lost interest. Maybe it goes somewhere, maybe not? Try it.

You click on an image, the image enlarges and pixillates. You click again, it becomes a series of images. You choose again and click. On and on, deeper and deeper. No, I’m not going to keep going, I lost interest. Maybe it goes somewhere, maybe not? Try it.

• Whilst browsing Flickr I found this link to BigHugeLabs with some useful tools to make cool stuff with your photographs
• I realised a little while ago that you can blog from Flickr, just like blogging (or ‘sharing’) from YouTube. That counts as a plus in my book
• Speaking of Flickr, I’ve finally turned pro – meaning I’m paying for the privilege, but it’s (probably) worth it for the extra space. Nice little income stream for Flickr, and Yahoo, and anyone who buys Yahoo I guess (think Microsoft, but anyone cashed-up who needs to amp up their web services exposure)
• I also signed up to a small monthly fee on Skype (hmm, who owns Skype now?) which at least gave me a discount on things like phone numbers in other countries…
• Why you would you need a foreign phone number, you ask? Firstly it’s just plain cool. Secondly if you have a friend or customers in the US, say, but you are in Australia, say, well you can buy a US phone number (or 2 or 3) and let non-Skypers dial those numbers. Yes folks, some people still use real telephones rather than VoIP ones (bizarre but true)
• And with a real US phone number and caller ID from getinfo you can sign up to Jott and send yourself short text messages in numerous ways (like Jotting down a note to yourself, but over the phone or on the web). Jott will post these to your mobile phone as SMS text reminders, or to Twitter or Tumblr or whatever… cool, I reckon!

Just point and shoot. That’s all. Easy! OK, compose a little. Yeah, get your lighting right. OK, focus and depth of field, too. Shoot from different angles. Film or digital? Zoom or wide angle? Could it be better if I shade the lens, or maybe bounce my flash? What about a filter? Colour or black and white? Aaaargh, let’s fix it all in Photoshop instead! (I’m really not that lazy.)

Just point and shoot. That’s all. Easy! OK, compose a little. Yeah, get your lighting right. OK, focus and depth of field, too. Shoot from different angles. Film or digital? Zoom or wide angle? Could it be better if I shade the lens, or maybe bounce my flash? What about a filter? Colour or black and white? Aaaargh, let’s fix it all in Photoshop instead! (I’m really not that lazy.)

Originally an oil on canvas painting, then photographed and scanned and ‘shopped until…

Originally an oil on canvas painting, then photographed and scanned and ‘shopped until…

• My art gallery (of sorts!) contains a mix of oils, ink, texta and carpet cleaner
• If you like this sort of thing, my aviation pics blog is here
  
• More specifically my aviation gallery is here
• Even more specifically my airliner art is here
• My floral pics are in this gallery
• And also here, but with extra added animals as well
• And I have an automobile gallery – Austins to Volkswagens via Alfas

You’ll find lots of images if you poke around on those sites – some are scanned from negatives or prints, or photographed digitally – and some will be ‘Photoshopped to death’. I offer no apologies for this, it’s merely an extension of the weird and wonderful world of darkroom developing and printing that I entered a long, long time ago!

• My art gallery (of sorts!) contains a mix of oils, ink, texta and carpet cleaner
• If you like this sort of thing, my aviation pics blog is here
  
• More specifically my aviation gallery is here
• Even more specifically my airliner art is here
• My floral pics are in this gallery
• And also here, but with extra added animals as well
• And I have an automobile gallery – Austins to Volkswagens via Alfas

You’ll find lots of images if you poke around on those sites – some are scanned from negatives or prints, or photographed digitally – and some will be ‘Photoshopped to death’. I offer no apologies for this, it’s merely an extension of the weird and wonderful world of darkroom developing and printing that I entered a long, long time ago!