Royal Botanic Gardens

Des, Paddy and I spent several hours in the Royal Botanic Gardens this morning, snapping off photo after photo. Out of close on 300 shots there are few that can be shared and even fewer that are Flickr-worthy.

All the Flickr-worthy shots ended up here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/codeedar/

Of the Flickr-worthy shots, there are a few that are Bubble-worthy, and they're here: http://www.redbubble.com/people/CodeeDar

A few of the remaining shots are at this blog so I can use them as a measure to guage progress. I am intending (hoping) to get better. :-)

Des, Paddy and I started at the Shrine where a Willy Wagtail took great interest in us.


This photo would have been fantastic... had it been in focus. Damn that wind and my shaky hands.

Again, another would have... if only shot.And yet another. Seeing a pattern yet?

While I was gnashing my teeth trying to get droplets in focus and correctly exposed, Paddy was minding my backpack. He's a good boy!

Tired of out of focus droplet photos yet?

Nah.....

This one was almost Flickr-worthy, but the focus isn't great and the exposure is iffy.

Progress... albiet minor. At least some droplets are in focus here.

Here's an over-exposed Paddy. Kinda freaky, huh?

Yes, I have a thing for droplets....

At one garden bed was a signboard warning of bees in the area. Above the sign was this.

Here's a tiny spider -- out of focus, of course. Goddamnit, macro photography is hard! Which is why I love it so. :-)

And a semi-in focus flower ends the day. :-)

Meet Des.

I have a new friend. His name is Des. He's small, chunky, super smart and will be by my side whereever I go. Any guesses what he is?

I adopted him from Micheal's Camera and Video where he had been sitting in the window, dolefully staring out at all the window shoppers who ogled the newer, smaller, fancier digital cameras.

Now that I've given the game away, you can read all about him here: http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/nikond70/

He's old, you see. He was born in 2004 which makes me something of a relic, but not to me. He's fast and fantastic and shapely and everything I could ever want. Best of all, he didn't break my bank account like those other fancier cameras would have.

Em helped me name him. He is Des the D70.

My old lenses work, though as far as Des is concerned, they don't. There's no light metering or auto focussing. That's not a bad thing. I'm in charge of aperture (via the lens ring) and shutter speed (via Des' command button). He came with an AF lens which is fully automatic and fun to use. Best of all though, I have my macro 90mm lens. I've always loved this lens ever since I first bought it. It's fully manual, but so bright and sharp (well, when it's clean anyway).

Crackles volunteered to be my first test subject.

The second lens is a 70-300mm Sigma APO manual focus lens that I paid a small fortune for about 15 years ago. It's been stiff to use for a long time, even when I used to use it with my film SLRs. I ignored it, to my detriment. Now the barrel is flaking off and zooming in and out is an exercise in pot luck. I use it infrequently, but I do use it. At this point I'm in ignorance of its impending demise. For now, Vaseline is keeping it mobile. I shall keep my fingers crossed.

Foggy morning

Before I start my work day, I ducked out of the house to grab a quick photo of the fog. With perfect timing, I caught a train coming out of the saturated haze.
I headed back inside with fog's mist on my face and a bounce to my step. First light photography makes me happy. :-)

Fishy, fishy.

From first waking at 3:30am, to starting work at 7am (after a 50 minute commute), today was a full and fulfilling day.


The venue for work changed to the city's biggest fish-tank, the Melbourne Aquarium where my colleagues and I brainstormed ways to work smarter not harder. We live in a complicated and increasingly stressful environment, with more and more demands placed on our time and our resolves. I'm not alone in feeling overwhelmed and somewhat bleak about the future.


To help us along toward a clearer path, a facilitator led us through fun filled exercises, a team challenge that involved mixing it with the kids and elderly -- no points for emergency room victims -- and the ready extermination of many wads of sticky notes and butchers' paper.

One exercise involved each of us choosing the most appropriate words to describe our team members. No, it wasn't a free for all. *lol* We were given a half sheet of paper with a couple of dozen descriptive words, each word in either red, blue, green or yellow. We had to pick six words to describe a person, and then we had to deposit that in the respective person's envelope that we'd each been given at the beginning of the day. It was like mail-dropping, only more fun.


After morning break, with each of us having five or more completed sheets, we tallied up the number of words in each colour to achieve a high score in one of the four colours. I came up blue, with yellow second. That means that I'm amiable and analytical, basically I'm friendly and don't take well to abrasive communication and I have attention to detail which works well for the job that I do. It was also enlightening to find out what other people's preferences are, and for them to know mine. The exercise was accurate and useful.

After the day finished, we were allowed to either return to work (urgh, I started at 7am, I'm not crazy) or to meander the dark caves of the aquarium. I'd charged my camera the night before, no guesses for where I headed.

Here are my favourite shots of the day.

I captured a shot of this fish in mid stone splurt. It gathered small stones in its mouth before expunging them in a grainy rush, thus the specks in the photo.

But let's start from the beginning.

My day begins with a stunning sunrise from my office window.

At the Melbourne Aquarium, I visually gorged on sea jellies.

The Aquarium offers accompanied diving for those daring enough to swim with the sharks. The person experiencing this deep sea miracle seemed somewhat less than confident. He (I assume it was a he) smiled grimly at his snap-happy girlfriend and the many gawking tourists, while breathing with a snorkle in his mouth and the dive guide at his back, holding him up. I admire his bravado.

This fish came in as top contender for ugliest marine animal. The winning place though is reserved for an upcoming contestant. Stay tuned.

And no, this isn't a plastic frog. It breathed. Truly. I saw it.Long-necked turtles... babies. Guh! Adorable or what!? Their activity, small size and low light conditions made photography a little difficult, thus the fuzzy face. But still, adorable or what!?

Here's Nemo!

Sea horses! *high pitched girly squeal*

Well, technically it's a weedy or leafy sea dragon. Both, actually, in the same tank. I'm pleased to have finally captured a somewhat blurless shot of one of these amazing creatures. These babies come in a close second to my love of jellies. Now, how big of a fish tank would I need to fit these in.... *ponders*

Here's the finalist for ugliest marine creature. This sucker wins, hands down. I have no idea what it is. I grabbed the shot and bolted. Who wants to be around that!?

Another ugly (but cute) sea creature. This guy is a cuttlefish. You know, call me thick but I never realised that the brittle looking cuttlefish that washes up on the beach, and is given to cage birds to wear down their beaks, comes from this creature. I feel almost bad now. This is an amazing and graceful animal, too incredible for its body parts to be given to pet parrots.

It is weird, yes, but look at those eyes and the leathery fronds that are its mouth, legs, swimming apparatus... or something else that Google would explain for me if I were so inclined to investigate.From cuttlefish to penguins.

Trying to get a photo of rapidly swimming penguins reminded me of the river otters at the Kansas City Zoo.

When I'd had my fill of penguins, not literally because if it were literal I'd be in jail, or hospital. Hmmm.

I went in search of the exit which required me to walk almost the entire building again, up and down levels, only to find that Antarctica (aka penguins) is right near the main entrance/exit. Duh! But, that extra walking netted me this googly-eyed fish.

Bug eyes is out of focus, I know, but the other fifty shots are worse. ;-)

Stuffed in the corner of a tank was this critter. Can you guess what it is?

Here's a wider shot.

Figured it out yet? If not, keep thinking.

Outside I went, mildly surprised and generally pleased that the sun was setting and I had managed to occupy myself for over 2 hours with fishes, jellies, penguins, sharks, frogs, ugly indescribable critters and big bug eyes. *blissful sigh*

And the sun setting over the Yarra River wasn't so bad either.
And here ends my day.