Old Glory

I shot these close ups of a flag about a month ago when I stumbled across the funeral of the Fire Chief of Bradenton, Florida, who had passed away unexpectedly of a heart attack. They had suspended this huge American flag over a road, supported from the expended booms of two large fire trucks. Before I knew about the funeral procession, I'd turned down the road that the flag was hung over, and got to drive right under it. Once I figured out what was going on, I parked the car and started taking some pictures, some of which I shared with you earlier, but I'd forgotten to put up these flag pictures before now. For several weeks, I've had a detail from one of these as my desktop wallpaper, spread out over two widescreen monitors at work. It's quite the impressive display.

Young'uns

A second kid picture in less than a week? That's a little out of character. Anyhow, this is a young fan enjoying the rockabilly stylings of the band I just showed you, Midnight Bowlers League. There were plenty of kids at the show, and I think some of them actually had parents in the bands performing. You'd see people who had just been up on stage in the audience, playing with their kids and introducing them to the music that they love.

Rockabilly Ruckus-Act Two

Let's see, who was up next at Rockabilly Ruckus 2011? I believe this is Midnight Bowlers League. I don't know anything about these guys, but I think I saw them at a previous Rockabilly Ruckus.





I love those big upright basses. I think every band that performed that night had an upright bass. One of them switched to a regular guitar-shaped bass for a song or two, but then it was back to the big mama-jama.


I think I need to work harder at getting shots of the drummers. I've noticed that I always seem to forget about them back there in the back, slaving away at the beat, but never getting the recognition that the guys up front are getting.

Rockabilly Ruckus-Act One

As I think I mentioned, I went to a concert this past weekend at Skipper's Smokehouse in Tampa. It was called Rockabilly Ruckus and it featured a handful of bands all loosely associated with rockabilly. The act you're seeing here was actually the second of the evening, but the act that preceded them played twice, so we'll catch them later on. This is 6 Volt Rodeo, a fine musical quartet. The guy getting shot to bits above while introducing the band is actually one of the DJs from WMNF, sponsor of the evenings festivities. This was the beginning of eight full hours of musical mayhem that left me drained, yet wanting more.

Pay close attention to that bass player, Mike Daley, you'll see him in at least one of the other bands on the bill. That seemed to be a recurring theme, people showing up to play in a second band later in the evening. My memory for faces is terrible, yet even I noticed the same people showing up again.

Twice during their set, they brought out this lovely lady to sing some sultry lead vocals. There were lots of ladies in the audience wearing their best swinger chick 60's outfits. If was a more forward photographer, I'd have gotten more pictures of them, but I'm too shy, and their boyfriends are too big... Actually, most of the ladies were taller than their beaus due to the popularity of some extremely high heels.

The Littlest Pirate

I spent most of today at the annual Cortez Commercial Fishing Festival near Bradenton, FL. It's the sort of festival that pops up all over Florida this time of year, as it becomes warmer and warmer, but not too hot. One of the attractions is a large pirate ship on wheels, that's also used as a parade float, but here is just used as an attention getter for a local group. I spotted this young guy on the deck of the ship, all dressed up, but perhaps not entirely sure he wanted to play the part of a blodthirsty pirate. I don't usually shoot people, much less people I don't know, but I thought he was worth making an exception.

Shoes On A Wire

I don't know what the deal with shoes thrown over a powerline is. I see them all over the place. These three were on a wire behind Skipper's Smokehouse in Tampa. When I've worn out a pair of shoes, I just throw them away, not up in the air. Perhaps I'm doing something wrong.

FINOMNL

I went to Rockabilly Ruckus last night, a concert benefiting local public radio station WMNF, and they had a small car show out front. One of my favorite old cars is a '59 Cadillac, which they didn't have, but they did have a couple of '60 models, and that's what we've got here. The fins shrunk dramatically in that single year, but they're still way up in the air, and capable of killing pedestrians who get in the way of a backwards-moving car. And that license plate is great!  More pictures to come from all the great bands I saw after the car show.  I think I shot way, way too many pictures.

Local Bird

This is the hawk that has recently been seen around where I work. Nearly every day he's sitting outside, making all kinds of noise, flying back and forth, establishing a noisy presence in the area. I haven't found a nest yet, nor have I even seen his mate, but I figure it's inevitable. Maybe baby hawklings are in the works, one can only hope. I believe this is a common red-shoulder hawk, but I could be mistaken. I need to see him on the wing more clearly to see if maybe he's a red-tail instead. We found a rat in a trap the other day that wasn't dead yet, and we stuck him outside on the grass. Within half an hour, Mr. Hawk here had scooped him up and had a nice little meal. We later found the skin and tail in a pile where he'd left them. I wish there was some way to get him to come inside and save us from having to first trap the rats.

Down In The Mud

Last weekend when I went flower shooting, it happened to be at low tide, and Selby Gardens is right on Sarasota Bay. I spotted these two horse conchs in the mud on an exposed piece of bottom and thought they were pretty impressive. Hard to tell the scale in this shot, but each of those spiral shells is nearly a foot from point to end. It's pretty rare to find these guys this big, and even rarer to find them empty so you can take them home, but it does happen. These two were alive and well, if a bit high and dry until the tide came back in. I'm not sure, but I suspect maybe they were together for a little bit of mating, but it could just be a coincidence that they were in such close proximity.

VD 25

And this is the end of my Valentine's Day flower spectacular! Hope you've enjoyed all the flower close-ups. Now I can go to sleep, it's been a long day!

VD 24

Well, it wouldn't be Valentine's Day without a rose, now would it? So here's the first rose of the day, from the rose garden at the Ringling Museum.

VD 23

I've changed venues slightly at this point. Instead of shooting flowers at Selby Gardens, I'm shooting flowers inside the Ringling Estate. And this time, I think I know the name of the flower. I think this is an Ice Flower, or something like that. I first saw these in San Francisco almost ten years ago. I think they were an invasive exotic from South Africa. I don't remember all the details, but I know they make pretty pictures.

VD 22

Enough with the purple, I think it's time for some yellow. Many of these shots show the very narrow range of focus when shooting macro lens at a wide aperture. Only some of the shot is in focus at a given time. I had a hard time holding the camera still, too, and add in a little wind at the same time, and I was lucky that any of these shots came out at all. But on the whole, I've been pretty happy with them.

VD 21

What's that? You didn't get enough purple before? No problem, here are a few more for you.

Hope you're having a great Valentine's Day!

VD 20

I think butterflies loose a little of their beauty when you get too close to them. They start to look more like bugs and less like flying works of art.  I might be able to get a clearer picture if they weren't constantly moving...

VD 19

A little more purple for you, this time from a much smaller flower. The fuzzy purple glow in the foreground and background are more flowers, way out of focus. Cool effect, I thought.

VD 18

Don't you just love purple?

VD 17

OK, the reason I was out looking for flowers yesterday was in hopes of finding one of these. This is a bombax tree, and it puts out these giant red flowers right about this time of year. This one had only started blooming, and all the flowers were 50 feet off the ground. Thus, all you can see are the backs of them, and I think they loose a little something in the distance. But I had to show you my motivation.

VD 16

OK, so this isn't a flower. It's a leaf, and it's got some sort of fungus on it that's making these spots. But I still thought it was colorful enough to shoot and share with you.

VD 15

Another blossom from the bromeliad family. Which reminds me, it's got to be getting about time for another plant show and sale at the local exotic plant nursery. That's always good for some great flower pictures.

VD 14

The flowers at Selby Gardens are many and varied. No idea what this is, but it's cool looking.

VD 13

Lucky number 13 and halfway through today's Valentine's Day flower spectacular. Hope you're enjoying some of these great pictures. This is some sort of bromeliad, no idea which one, and I shot it at Selby Gardens. They've got lots and lots of great things to see and shoot.

VD 12

Don't forget that I'm taking all these flower pictures with a 100mm macro lens. Those flowers above are less than a quarter inch across. I'm amazed at how well come of these came out. There are plenty of ugly ones that I'm not showing you, but most of them came out surprisingly well.

VD 11

Sort of the opposite of a black-background picture. In this case, the flower in the foreground is relatively dark, so when I expose for it, the background gets too bright. It's not a bad look, but I think I prefer the black background.

VD 10

There's that black background again. I think there have to be three or more stops of difference between the foreground and the background for it to go black like that. The flower was illuminated in the sun, and the background was in dark shade. It's great when things work out like that.

VD 9

So many fine little details in there... If I were an insect, I'm sure I'd quickly become trapped and eaten.

VD 8

Uh-oh, an orchid. That must mean I'm in the greenhouse at Selby Gardens. They always have the coolest stuff in there, even in the middle of February.

VD 7

When you get in too close, sometimes it's hard to know what you're looking at. These are the stamens deep inside of a yellow blossom on something. I think stamen is the word. I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong. I love being able to get in there and shoot things this small. I didn't even have to crop this one. I'm really learning to love this lens!

VD 6

Two for the price of one this time around. Hope you're having a great Valentine's Day!

VD 5

Way back when I first started getting interested in photography, these were one of the flowers I was always trying to shoot. Problem was, I could never find them near the ground. I always saw them up in trees, 30-40 feet off the ground. I found these on a fence near Selby Gardens, so I was able to get nice and close.

VD 4

While there is technically a flower in this picture, for me it's all about the bee. Click on the shot so you can see it really big. These guys don't just collect the pollen, they wear it. She's covered in the stuff. And there's another little bug on the petal way out to the right. No idea what that is, but it's awful small.

VD 3

More flowers from Selby Gardens. Don't you love the total darkness in the background?

VD 2

Here's another entry in today's flower-palooza in honor of Valentine's Day. I just love how flowers look when you get in really close. There's so much detail in there that's so easy to miss if you aren't looking for it.

VD 1

Happy Valentine's Day! I know it's been a while since I posted many pictures on the blog, so to make up for that a little, I've got a whole bunch of pictures to share with you today. I think they're all flowers, or at least some sort of vegetation, and they're all extreme close-ups with my new 100mm macro lens. So sit back and enjoy some great color. Most of these were shot at Selby Gardens on Sunday, and I have no idea what any of them are. Some are fancy rarities, some of them are just your garden variety ornamentals.