Assorted Items

Not quite the Great Pyramids of Egypt. Think a little smaller, like something you'd find on your keyring. This item above will get me into my apartment, and lock it up when I leave. I looked at several of my keys before shooting, and decided this one was most interesting within the very small crop area available for me to shoot.

I'm sure you can guess what this is below, kind of a cliché photo actually. A ballpoint pen has been shot many times already, so I'm not covering any new ground here. This particular one is a sparkly green ink gel pen, and you can see evidence of that on the ball and nib there.

I took a look at another writing instrument too. Below is the tip of a metallic gold paint pen. Notice that they can't use a ball (which might get jammed with paint) or a felt tip (which would dry out too easily) and instead created a writing nib from a cylinder of plastic housed in the metal tip.

While these may not be the most interesting Morning Macro photos ever, they are still a good add to the collection of mundane things we can be fascinated by, and find art within.

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Fastenation

I'm sorry I have not posted in about 7 days... we were out of town, and the past few days after getting back have been kinda hectic. But I'll try to keep pace here as we move through the rest of the summer.

Yes I know I spelled "fascination" incorrectly up there. It's a pun, freak. Today, we're looking closely at some fasteners.

Above you see the business end of a typical snap button. Looks a lot like a turbine jet engine, doesn't it? It's mate is below, reminiscent of a manhole in the street.

Below is Velcro™, or something like it. I think the generic name is fastening tape or sumthin'. This particular "fastening tape" was a feature on the of one of my girls' shoes.

I eat zippers. No, the thing below is not a monorail or a tiny tunnel for lower case n's. It's a zipper, silly.

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Critters

Say hello to my little friends.

Here are a few critters I encountered in the wild vegetation of my parents' back yard. If you haven't noticed, the last several posts have been plant related. I snapped lots of material in my recent trip.

The wasp above unfortunately had to be sprayed, since its nest was attached to the deck next to the pool where our girls spent much of their time. In the photo, the wasp is dead. Alive, its antennae would have been extended above its head, not curled down.

The spider below was a little surprise I found under the curled edge of a leaf. I had been shooting a spider web, and came across its foreman, on a snack break. Union workers, sheesh.

At the end of this post is an OOF (Out-Of-Focus) shot of some sort of fly. I've included it because I find it pretty for reasons other than being a good macro/micro photo. I like the softness of the colors and the buttery warm light. And that the fly appears to be made of metal and chrome like a motorcycle or a helmet.

We've seen critters here at Morning Macro before: some kind of butterfly, cicada wings, bizarre tiny creepers and their even smaller buddies, the cicada face, a slug, a teensy tiny snail shell, and a blue dragonfly.

Below are the petals of a clover, those tiny flowers among the grass that bees love so much.

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A Couple of Pretty Things

A macro of the curly end of a viney thing above which was hanging out twisted among the branches of one of mom's bushes. She didn't know that it was there and proceeded to rip out almost an entire bush-worth of vines! So FINALLY, eight-and-a-half months of macro photos have resulted in one practical use of them! Vine detective.

Below is just a photo I thought was artsy and cool. I've posted photos of water droplets before, here and here and here, and love how they warp and twist the light traveling through them.

Below are the petals of a clover, those tiny flowers among the grass that bees love so much.

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Just a Couple of Buds

I've recently found that I have several closeted Morning Macro visitors... friends who had, until we got together recently, never expressed any interest in the photo explorations posted here. So to all my vocal and non-vocal visitors, thanks! Let me know what you like, don't like, want to see more of, are curious about, or have ideas about. Considering that it would take about twelve of my highest-magnification macro/micro photos just to view an entire postage stamp, there is a lot of world out there that we can explore through these pictures.

These two photos are flower buds. The one above was about the diameter of a matchstick, the one below about the size of your average marble. I like how very different the two are.

We have seen flower buds up close before at Morning Macro, here and here and here.

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Portals to Other Worlds

Continuing with our plant theme, I've got a few that look like entries to other worlds or other dimensions. In a way, these actually are exactly that, entries to a diminutive dimension inside the blooms.

Above and at bottom are a couple shots of pollen stands greeting our journey inside the flower. Just below here are the complicated folds of a marigold. I've stripped the color from the marigold since we all know what they look like anyway, and removing the color helped emphasize many of the details of the marigold petals.

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Hairy Plant Parts

Plants seem to often be covered with a fine transparent fur. Stamens and stalks and fruits and leaves show this on close inspection. Here are a few photos to prove it!

Above is from the inside of a flower. The photo below is a very tiny early tomato, and below that, a stalk from a tomato plant, which clearly hasn't shaved in at least a week.

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4th of July Firework Flowers Superpost! Happy Birthday America!

In celebration of Independence Day, I'm posting a bunch of macro pics of flowers and flower parts that look like fireworks. I'll skip the penny comparison for these. Just go ahead and enjoy the show! Happy Birthday USA!

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The Rest of the Weird Plant Things That Violet and I Found

Alright, here's the rest of the weird stuff V and I found at the park. A strange pit-like thing covered in spines, some brown, some green. It looked like an alien egg or something.

I guess I'm too lazy to figure out what these things are. A google might turn up an answer. Or maybe not.

We found a really strange thing at the beach the other day. Totally strange and alien. I don't have a photo of it, but we think it's a seed pod or something.

And that's what these things appear to be too.

Here's the other seed pod thing. Again, with the size comparison on a penny, I think it's helpful!

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