September 2020 - Various

A Red-backed Fairy Wren, streaked by light rain and seemingly not distracted by his froggy friends, sits among long grasses of the Ross River Dam in Townsville waiting to catch small insects. Try counting the frogs and see if you get the same number on your first two counts. I never do whenever I re-visit this image. A couple are hiding and easy to miss. Camera Nikon NIKON D80 Lens 18.0-200.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 Focal Length 200.0 mm (300.0 mm in 35mm) Aperture f/10 Exposure Time 0.005s (1/200) ISO 100 Date Taken 2008-02-03 09:29:13 Date Modified 2020-09-04 20:24:48 Flash Auto, Fired, Return detected Metering Multi-segment Exposure Program Aperture-priority AE Exposure Bias -2/3 EV Exposure Mode Auto Light Source Unknown White Balance Auto Digital Zoom Ratio 1 Contrast High Saturation High Sharpness Hard Subject Range Unknown Sensing Method One-chip color area Color Space Uncalibrated Scene Capture Type Standard Gain Control None Circle Of Confusion 0.020 mm Field Of View 6.9 deg Hyperfocal Distance 199.69 m Normalized Light Value 14.3 Software Adobe Photoshop 21.2 (Macintosh)
"Tuesday's Dead, Hello Wrensday!"
This female Red-backed Fairy Wren was not so interested in her froggy friends but rather would have been scouting for any small insects that might be on the long grasses growing at the edge of Lake Ross, Townsville. In fact, I think I can spot a couple left mid-pic. But she is looking the other way. Tune in next Saturday to see her even more splendid-looking scarlet and jet black mate, along with dozens of his froggy friends. (Trivia: Yusuf Islam, née Cat Stevens, contributed to the title - from his 1971 Teaser and the Firecat album. It contained his well-loved version of Morning Has Broken - based on a 1931 English poem/hymn and a traditional Scottish Gaelic tune. Camera: Nikon D80 Lens: 80.0-400.0 mm f/4.5-5.6 Focal Length: 185.0 mm (277.0 mm in 35mm) Aperture: f/16 Exposure Time: 0.005s (1/200) ISO: 100 Date Taken: 2008-02-03 09:55:17 Editing: Topaz DeNoise AI, Aurora HDR, Photoshop 21.2, Nik Color Efex Pro 4 Tonal Contrast and Lens Vignette filters.)
"Male and Female Red-backed Fairy Wren and Friends."
The frogs are easy enough to spot in this pic. But can you see a couple of grasshoppers? They are camouflaged in frog colours. This pair were photographed a few years back along the western wall of Ross River Dam. The male bears the black and scarlet plumage. (Tech info: See previous post. Main tools were Topaz DeNoise AI and Luminar 4, plus lots of cloning out of distracting rubbish in Photoshop 21.2)
"Male and Female Red-backed Fairy Wren and Friends."
The frogs are easy enough to spot in this pic. But can you see a couple of grasshoppers? They are camouflaged in frog colours. This pair were photographed a few years back along the western wall of Ross River Dam. The male bears the black and scarlet plumage. (Tech info: See previous post. Main tools were Topaz DeNoise AI and Luminar 4, plus lots of cloning out of distracting rubbish in Photoshop 21.2)
"Calm After the Storm."
An Australian pied cormorant, working the waters of Ross River Dam, dries its wings after a dive and subsequent soaking by a brief rainstorm. At over 1,200 metres Mt.Elliot rises abruptly out of the coastal plain south of Townsville. It casts a huge rain shadow over Townsville. Sugar cane stops growing at its southern base and does not appear on the coast again until about 80 km north. (Nikon D80, Nikkor 80.0-400.0 mm f/4.5-5.6 at 200mm f/5.6, Topaz DeNoise AI, Aurora HDR, Photoshop 21.2)

"Cheryl's Mum's Tea-towel." (Also sometimes known as: "Mona Lisa", "La Gioconda" in Italian or "La Joconde" in French.)
True story: One busy day a loud, broad Australian male voice piped up from the front of the crowd at the Louvre's Mona Lisa salon with the first two sentences seen below. A hush fell on the crowd. After a pause for dramatic effect he let loose with the last sentence. Those who understood English broke into fits of laughter. By way of a back story to my habit of adding texts to images: As an adolescent I enjoyed scrawling comical speech bubbles over magazine, religious text and school textbook pictures. Sometimes I would cut and paste them into three and four panel sequences. (My destructive habits were later channeled into making posters to advertise school events like fêtes.) I later learned about 'fumetti' - a word we have borrowed from the Italians (meaning "little puffs of smoke"). To English speakers it means picture comics and relates to the speech bubbles combined with photos, rather than drawings or other artwork, to create a comic or story book. Photo comics have at various times been popular in Italy and Latin America, but less so in English-speaking countries. This is an old, single-frame (rather than the usual sequential style) example of mine based on a true story I heard after I snapped this pic of the Mona Lisa in the Louvre. (Those of you who have tried know how hard it is to get close to her for a photo.) (Tech info: Canon PowerShot Pro90 IS, Comic Life 3.5.17 for Mac.)

“Caterpillar of the Leaf Case Moth.”
These caterpillars are amazing insects that live in a silken case. They attach leaves or twigs to cover it. I found this one a few steps from my back door in suburban Townsville. (Camera: Nikon D600 Lens: AF Micro-Nikkor 200mm f/4D IF-ED Focal Length: 200.0 mm (200.0 mm in 35mm) Aperture: f/18 Exposure Time: 0.005s (1/200) ISO : 2800 Software: Diptic Photo Collage app on an iPad Pro.)