Backyard Nature Photography

I took this photo of a praying mantis, Tenodera Sinensis, yesterday afternoon in front of my garage. It wasn't moving much when I saw it so I ran into the house to grab my camera and 70-300mm 1:2 macro lens. I wanted to get a eye-level view so I laid down on the hot asphalt and took a number of pictures. It's difficult to handhold a 300mm macro lens while getting the eyes in focus so the majority of those pictures I had to delete afterwards. Frustrated with my results, I decided to try my 17-35mm lens at f11 about six inches away from the praying mantis. It wasn't quite what I was hoping to get as I wanted to fill up the frame with the insect but it does convey a sense of wildlife displacement due to suburban development. (An all-too-familiar sight in Southern California I might add.)



Finally I decided to put it all on the line and got out my 60mm macro lens set at f9.0. 60mm isn't long enough in most cases to get close enough to creatures without spooking them, but since it didn't mind my presence I put my camera within two or three inches of the praying mantis and fired away blindly in hopes of capturing a dynamic portrait. Since I'm insectophobic, I was in no mood to put my face within three inches of the insect. Luckily for me it didn't move forward while I was taking pictures.



Several other macro photos were taken of the praying mantis eating, and looking upwards at me while I was shooting down at it. Apparently even insects have some sort of intelligence!

Corona Del Mar: Attack of the Camera Nazis

Several months ago I wrote on my blog about 1st Amendment rights after reading an O.C. Register article about the city officials of Newport Beach citing photographers for taking pictures at Little Corona Del Mar Beach. Well now that I have first hand experience of being hassled there, now I can back up my claims with authority.

Now if you have never been to Corona Del Mar, there are multi-million dollar homes situated on the bluffs right above the scenic beach. It IS a PUBLIC beach but the city has this policy that "professional" photographers (anyone with a camera in their mind) has to have a filming permit otherwise they will get ticketed for $100. Meanwhile everyone else on the beach is free to do as they please including have their dogs step on and eat everything in the tide pools leash-free.

So yesterday as I am walking onto the beach, a female city employee approaches me and asks me if I'm here to take pictures. I said yes, then she said, "This is a marine sanctuary and the tide pools are fragile, etc..." I told the lady that I used to work at an aquarium in San Francisco so I know how to respect marine wildlife. Knowing that she couldn't outsmart me, she resorted to, "are you a professional photographer?" I knew where this conversation was headed as soon as she said hello, so my response was, "We're just here for fun." "Okay well I guess you can take pictures as long as your tripod doesn't step anywhere your feet aren't allowed to. But if a police patrol comes down later don't be surprised if he takes down your driver's license number. If you are a professional, then you are expected to have a commercial filming permit otherwise you will be ticketed. Those people make a LOT of money so they should be expected to pay for permits." Goes to show how little she knows about the photography industry. And people who live in Corona Del Mar / Newport Beach don't make money? I could see her face light up once she mentioned the money they could swindle from photographers. I can understand a wedding photographer needing a permit as that operation requires props and numerous people which can be obstructive but a scenic photographer takes up no more space than your typical tourist. Nor does he make much more money in most cases...

I knew the lady was blowing smoke because that is so typical of wealthy cities to try and hog the beaches for themselves and drive away the outsiders. It happens everywhere from CDM to territorial surfers at Palos Verdes to David Geffen in Malibu. They figure if they scare off all the photographers then no more attention will be brought to the beach so it will be all for them. I've got a real simple solution. If you don't want lower-class tourists walking past your house, then don't live next to the beach. The sad part is that they are using the marine life as an excuse to drive people away. The lady had no interest in nor sufficient knowledge of the wildlife to even justify being out there making empty threats. Needless to say, a young woman with a camera came onto the beach moments after my conversation with the city employee and she was approached as well. By then I was already looking for my photos.

The High Cost of Sin

My brother and I just got back from a great three day trip to Sin City aka. Las Vegas, Nevada last night and I was going to post some photos and write a little about the trip but my portable hard drive crashed last night as I was attempting to upload the photos onto my computer. So I tried to use recovery software to see if I could get anything from my Compact Flash cards to only partial success. Then my wireless internet wouldn't connect anymore because of my F drive that bombed along with the portable harddrive, then my computer wouldn't start all within a two hour period. Today I had to reformat my computer for the first time ever and have been trying to salvage whatever photos I could from the trip.

Losing photos feels like losing a family member or pet, you do all you can and hope they come back to you. I believe I have all or most of Sunday's photos and all of yesterday's photos, but none of Saturday's. Digital does have it's drawbacks and this is one I hope to not happen again as my patience is being put to the test.



Thanks to my Uncle Peter for letting us use his timeshare condo.

Caught in the Act

Yours truly taking pictures last week at Red Rock Canyon State Park, California. Available too... :-)

Photo Credit: Patty Wong.

Okay back to being serious: This photo reminded me of this photography gallery I went to once in downtown Sausalito. The photographer's nickname self-moniker was "Photo Cyclops".

Travel Writing - Rant.

I read the L.A. Times almost everyday and I think it's a great newspaper with top-notch reporting and photos. The complaint I have about the paper is it's Sunday Travel section. The articles are nicely illustrated and nicely conceived but I find the travel recommendations for almost all of the articles to be useless for the middle or lower class traveler. If you don't believe me, then check out the paper for yourself on Sunday. It sounds great when something is called affordable until you actually see the prices of the accomodations and restaurants that the writers are referring to. Since when is a $200 / night accomodation considered affordable? Sure it's affordable when it's on the Times, or if you are in the upper tax bracket. Great. But what about the other 99.9% of people who read the paper? It's no wonder why many people feel that traveling is too expensive for them so they don't.

For comparison. The first time I visited Arizona several years ago I stayed for five nights at the Quality Inn in Flagstaff for $18.99 per night in the middle of January. It was a standard 2 star motel. Clean, decorated nicely, with tv and bed.

All I'm saying is just keep it real. By the way, I had a great trip.

Would you like some irony with your coffee this morning, sir?

I was at the San Dimas, California, U.S. Post Office this morning and saw a framed, $15 U.S. Department of the Interior commemorative stamp being sold that is entitled, "Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation."

I'm still scratching my head as I type this, and no I've never had lice.