My Butterfly In The Light

As I walked about our place one evening this week trying to get some fresh shots, my outside cat Butterfly, followed me around as she does on many occasions. As I headed around back I spotted two very small but highly attentive Praying Mantis. As I kneeled down to take a few shots my beloved Butterfly keep hitting my arm. It is as you know a cats way of saying ” I am the center of the Universe, pay attention slave!”, or something a kin to that. So instead of getting upset I decided to try to learn something new and use the situation as a test to challenge me. I knew the Sun was low and to our backs and both of our front profiles were nothing but shadows. So I tried using my flash to take a close up of her as she was at my side. I was using my Canon Powershot SX10is that evening. Since I am very familiar with the setting I dialed back the flash output, lowered the ISO to 80, set it to macro mode and set the shooting controls  to Aperture Priority for the next few shots in quick order. I did the latter because I do not have enough experience yet to use the manual mode fully for this type of shot. I used the Canon’s tilt screen as a guide to set up the shot (Author’s observation: Setting up a shot on a cat that is NOT asleep is like catching the wind and predicting what a two-year old is thinking…all at the same time). So here is an unedited shot of My Butterfly In The Light.

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Meller Yeller or A Few Roses

I had a great post ready earlier and was about to post when “it” happened. You see I was using WP “New Post” feature on the tool bar. It started well, like a great first date, then I noticed there was no auto save or save draft feature. That is when the date went bad like week old sushi because mid-post Windows 7 decided to update for no apparent reason. Computer updated. Post gone like a ghost into where ever lost posts go. I tried to recreate the magic of the first post to no avail. So tying into my last post theme of the color yellow is a replacement post. Not as yellow, somewhat more subdued or as we say this side of the creek, a “Meller Yeller” or a few roses for those on the other side.

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The Stray Garden On The Way

There is a strip of grass that butts up to the beginning of a few blocks of low-income and government supported housing. Though it is a busy street, and maybe to some a semi-scary street, a local business owner thought that small strip was worthy of a garden. If one looked at it a glance one would think it was a stray garden but in fact it is an act of love. Here are several shots of some Eastern Purple Coneflowers that reside in the stray garden on the way. IMG_0001 IMG_0007 IMG_0025 IMG_0018