Day 135: Mantis Lesson Two - Intimacy

I was intruding on a private moment, but they didn't seem to mind.

Day 134: Mantis Lesson One - Copulation

Hello children, today we will start our lesson about copulation using the photograph as our example. Copulation is...

Oh I feel I am failing miserably at making this tactful. I shouldn't be blogging when I'm so sleepy. I'm just gonna say it, my favorite part about this photo is that they are both looking right at me while I photograph them in the act. You caught me, I'm a dirty bug pornographic photographer.

Day 133: Coolest Spider Ever

Coolest Spider Ever. That's what I'm going to call this guy because he's wearing my favorite color in the world. Green. Green is fabulous. Green is magnificent. Green is Beautiful! Not only do I like bugs, I like the color green and that means I double like this photo. *happy sigh*

Also, check it out....

Day 132: Hungry Spider

This little guy was enjoying his meal on the edge of my door. I had to chase him over to the wall because my door is black and I wanted him to really stand out and not fade into the background. I really like this image because, while I've shot many spiders being spiders on their web, I've never shot one with such a big meal in his grasp.

Day 131: Pondering Mantis

She was such a good little model for me and her curiosity for my camera lens really made this shot. Did I mention before I love bugs?

Day 130: Hopper, Grass

The bugs were incredible out today. It is as though the Autumn weather has sparked a sudden increase in their population. The next few posts will be of bugs. Bugs, bugs and more bugs. I love bugs. They're a challenge and they're also so fascinating to photograph.

Day 129: Cheer Tower

The cheerleaders for Knox City High School are spirited ladies. In a small town, everyone does a little bit of everything. In this small town, one of the cheerleaders was also a saxophone player in the marching band and went out on the field with her instrument and in her cheer skirt without a second thought. It was an entertaining game, and these girls sure were excited about their football players.

Day 128: Football Fan

I went out to watch the Knox City Greyhounds and while I was there, instead of focusing on shooting the game, I looked for the fans reactions. There were so many kids running around and they were all so cute, dressed up in the colors of the team they were rooting for, I couldn't resist.

Day 127: Too Much Tongue

Sweet Sue just can't keep her tongue to herself!

Day 126: Chewing on a Pig Hoof

Sam was really getting into chewing on his pig foot. I shot this with my 300mm out of respect for the moment Sam was having with his snack. :)

Day 125: Blue on the Prowl

Oh no, it's a picture of a cat. But this is a photo of Blue! He's on the prowl through the jungle of foliage in pursuit of the juicy snail I was positioning on a rain covered leaf!

Day 124: Snail in Evening Light

Sue was trying to figure out just what this little snail was about the other day and out of curiosity I wandered over to visit with her and saw it lying in a pool of wolf drool. I may have rescued him from Sue, but I'm pretty sure Blue got to him later. You may be wondering, "Why would anyone save a snail?" My answer - I've never shot a snail in good afternoon light.

Day 123: High Contrast Portrait

I am exhausted and it does not help matters that today is a warm day. I really like high contrast images of myself because I am crazy in-love with my eyes. Honestly, I believe everyone needs to have such controlled high opinions of themselves. Confidence is key. Yeah baby!

I've been off in my head a lot lately, trying to figure things out, and while for the most part I do know exactly what it is that I want to do, the process of getting there is still a little foggy. There are so many paths to take but which road will I choose? I can't help but be thinking it over.

Day 122: Little Dancer

Jordan is such a beautiful lady and such an incredible person to be around. A group of us loaded up in a car and drove down to Abilene, TX to swing dance for the evening. It was hot, but the place was gorgeous and while the scene was small, they were very inviting. Before we left, I took a couple of pictures of Jordan (literally, these are the only 2) and while the lighting was terrible, I took it as an opportunity to get a bit artsy in my post-processing of the images.

Day 121: Mushrooms Overnight

After the rains came through these mushrooms popped up all over the yard. I shot this with my 75-300mm at f/5.6, ISO 200, 1/320.

Day 120: Rusty Plastic

How dangerous does this look? It was just sitting around the store waiting to give somebody tetanus. Eek. As terrifying the thought is of getting poked by this thing, it's still pretty cool.

Day 119: Portrait Session with a Praying Mantis

This little guy was just chilling on my door, so I threw on a 10x filter and caught a few shots of him giving me his best "Praying Mantis" look. I think he did a good job for his first time modeling. :)

Day 118: Benjamin Lightning

Believe it or not, this was my very first time to ever photograph lightning. I don't know how I have gone this long as a photographer, with beautiful West Texas skies around me without, but it was exciting and frustrating.

At first when the storm rolled around the lightning was staying in the clouds but then as the storm moved over us the lightning began to break out of the sky. Walking down the road a bit was all I needed to get this shot.

There's supposed to be another storm tonight. Hopefully this one has an even better light show.