Hoboken Studio Tour/Tiny Lab: Diamonds, Tough as Nails

The diamond above was on the ring of a visitor to my Tiny Lab exhibit in the Hoboken Studio Tour. It is an antique and supposedly some kind of special cut. Being that I'm not a gemologist (if that's a word) I have no way of knowing just how special the cut is.

I do, however, find the diamond very beautiful, and am fascinated by the facets and patterns created by them. Amazing.

Below is a square nailhead in the floor. It's been ground down by floor refinishing. Lucky for us, that makes an interesting pattern of scuffs that refract and scatter light into little prismatic rainbows.

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Fuzzy Flowers Part 2

I think these look like lawn-sprinkler jets of water, frozen in time.

Two quick photos of blow flowers. These are the little seedy parts of a dandelion parachute ball, with their parachutes extending off their so-called pappi. Saw this in Muskoka and had to get a shot of it. These photos are not taken with my new lens, in case you were wondering ;-)

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Assorted Stuff: Penny with Salt, 17 Pages, and Serrated

Here are some early pictures from my new lens, a Canon MP-E 65mm dedicated macro lens. So, how's it perform? I'm still getting used to it and changing around the way I use light in order to accommodate it, but I have a few photos I'm happy with already.

Above is an almost microscopic photo of a penny on which I had sprinkled salt. The magnification is somewhere between 8-10x life size (in my camera, making it much greater magnification here on your computer screen).

Below are 17 pages of a book, viewed on end. It was regular paper, not extra thick or anything... this new lens just allows me to get that close a photo. I'm a bit amazed.

Below the paper photo is a serrated edge of a knife, about one full serration (if that's a word). It was clean, so I'm guessing that those little crystals are simply some bit of soap or dishwasher solution that may have dried on the blade, crystallizing in the process.

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Fuzzy Flowers, Part 1

The fuzzy flowers above were blooming on a tree—what kind, I don't know just yet. I like their fuzziness, and their almost acrylic-like sheen and twinkle. Like Barbie hair.

They were about the size of large BBs. In the closer shot below, you get a better view of the shining strands of a blossom. One detail I noticed, only after reviewing these photos later, were the odd little white spheres buried among the fuzzies. All the flowers had those tiny balls in them. I've included a detail at the bottom of this post. I am at a loss as to what they are.

Seeds? Insect eggs? Something else? I don't know, you tell me what you think they are!

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Bet you can't guess!

Can you guess what this is? I had no idea it would be so beautiful close up, and intriguing. The details like the curving and twisting stalks that make it appear to be swimming through moving water, and the stripes on these seed casings... Details I just didn't expect.

Actually, I didn't even take these intending to publish them. These were part of a series of test shots taken while I was fooling around with the camera and lenses. It was later that I realized I had something here.

You can see this item at the bottom of this post, with a penny. It's just a very normal stalk of grass, the kind that gets all seedy at the top when you forget to mow the lawn for a while.

I'll get back to the other assorted items--like fasteners--soon enough, but I've got a lot of nature shots to crank through from our recent lake vacation. Send me an idea for something you'd like to see big, if you care to break this cycle of nature photos!

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Fuzzy Shoulder Pads are So Hot Right Now

Back to the bugs!

Violet found this guy on the outside stairs at the Muskoka cottage, and thought it looked like a bee. I'm pretty sure it's some sort of scarab beetle or hairy scavenger beetle. I have not had luck specifically identifying it yet. It was about the size of a dime or smaller.

I do dig the superfly fuzzy shoulder armor, and I think the texture of the shell-like wings is pretty cool, see below. Good colors and nice Turtle Wax too.

Below is a slightly more artsy shot showing some diffraction or chromatic aberration from my janky lens setup. I am intrigued by the beetle's fancy antennae.

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85th Post, Some Planty Things

Let's take a short break from the bugs. Today we're looking at plantlife. The blossom above was about the size of a button on your cell phone. Judy and Kyla were there when this was shot, so they can correct my memory if I'm wrong ;-)

I understand why macro photographers shoot primarily bugs and flowers. They're endlessly fascinating and detailed. The smaller you go, the more detail you find. Bugs in particular are made up of all their plates of armor and bizarre hair and feathery scales, and spikes, and prismatic wings and club-like antennae and more.

But I contend that limiting one's self to bugs and flowers is an unfortunate form of tunnel vision. We've seen here at Morning Macro just how interesting the normal and boring items of our everyday life are. And, from recent conversations with some fans, I've found that this is part of the fun of the photos here—a game that site visitors play, trying to guess what these things are before reading to find out. It seems that the site's tagline, "think a little differently about the world around you" appropriately echoes the mindset of this audience.

So, this is my 85th entry to Morning Macro. I don't want to meta-discourse too long here, but I'm excited that soon we will see the 100th post here. That would put us at approximately 1 post for every 3.5 days, often with multiple photos. This venture is proving to accomplish my original goal: to make me create art regularly. So lets change that original goal to a new target.

I am going to aim for an art show of some of this content, and maybe some that has never appeared here. I also want to bring more Morning Macro to more people. This might be through something book-like, or video, or something else.

We'll figure out the details soon enough, but in the meantime, I want to ask my small (but loyal) audience to send a link to this site to their friends and family that you think might find this interesting, fascinating, beautiful, freaky, or any other emotion. In my mind if somebody has a vague to strong reaction to my photos, I've done some part of my job as an artist.

I want feedback and ideas for more photos. I want to know what you think might be interesting should we see it magnified. I want more ideas in more places. And we'll see where this little adventure goes.

I'm so thankful to those of you who have been following the past nine months.

Above, you see a cute little berry which was about the size of a BB. I like the fall-ish colors of this photo. Very Thanksgiving-y for those visitors from the U.S.

Below is a close-up of a spiky plant thing. I like the sense of dimension in this one as the object turns away from the lens. Also note the teensy tiny cobweb. I suppose it could be caterpillar silk or something else made by a little guest I'm not aware of. Either way, consider that this is the closest I can currently magnify an object, so the little guy that made that silk must be just about microscopic.

Thanks again for all your support and encouragement!

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Fly Me to the Moon, or Right Into a Lightbulb, if You're a Moth

And here come the creepier crawlers!

Above is the face of a moth. This was a rather small moth, actually. A larger moth would have had a larger head with more "feathers" and bigger eyes. However, I am happy with this shot anyway, because it's pretty much in sharp focus. Which is hard for such a tiny thing.

In other tiny-things-in-sharp-focus news, below is some sort of fly on a leaf. Maybe I'll find it's actually a bee and have to correct it like my last post.

One interesting detail I noticed is the little fly feet. I guess I've never seen or noticed what fly feet look like. Take a look at them, they're two little claw things, and two sticky pads. This particular fly appears to be missing the claw/pads on its left middle leg.

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Artsy Insects

I like the shot above because it kind of looks like a cool book cover or a poster for a sci-fi movie about flies taking over the world.

I have several pics of some bugs we saw in Muskoka (Peninsula Lake, to be specific), and decided to start you all off lightly with a couple more artistic, soft photos. We will get to the creepier, crawlier ones, to be sure.

Below is a bee who hung out on a leaf long enough for me to snap a frame or two. I like the soft focus and prismatic colors on the wings.

{CORRECTION: The insect below actually appears to be a type of hoverfly, likely a female Sphaerophoria scripta}

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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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