Donnie’s Blog

All my life there has been a constant presence at home - the old green refrigerator that my parents got when they bought their new house. They bought the refrigerator in March of 1975. Now, in September 2006, it finally gave up the ghost. That’s a pretty good run!

So, call me stupid for being all sentimental about a refrigerator, but I had to get a picture with it:

It’s older than me!

Now the hunt begins for a new refrigerator.

Pluto is like any other large asteroid now.

It didn’t even get a good low number like all the other well-known asteroids, since it’s so late in being classified as a non-planetary body. Pluto’s designation is 134340.

Well I guess it’s an easy number to remember, at least.

Late summer always seems to be the best time of year for me to photograph big orb-web spiders. They’re all over the yard, and they’ve had time to get nice and big. In the past I only had a film camera to use with my macro lens, so it always took a while to actually see the results. Then there’s the difficulty of getting a nice, sharp close-up at night. The depth of field on a macro lens is already very narrow, and it’s even harder when the subject is floating back and forth on its web…

But, this time both problems were solved. Now I have a good digital SLR that I can use with my macro lens, so I can see the results right away, and even correct any issues I might encounter. Also, the spider happened to build its web on the front porch, directly across from the porch light. (A good place for a web, I must say!) So, I took 20-30 photos of the little beast, and a few of them actually turned out OK.

Check out the photos! This is my new “Insects” album; I’ll be uploading some other photos of dragonflies and praying mantises that I took this summer too.