Tags: Iceland Cold Sea mountain Wave sidelight sunset motion
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During a recent visit to a garden on Oahu, I unexpectedly came upon a gold dust gecko feeding on the sweet nectar of a carnivorous pitcher plant! I had never seen this before! Indeed, the little gecko allowed me the photograph the entire 15 minute encounter with my macro lens. :) The pitcher plant lures its prey with sweet nectar. Once the insect begins to eat the nectar, the unwary prey eventually loses its footing and falls into the trap. The sure-footed gecko never lost its footing as it moved from one pitcher plant to the next. I do not now what would happen if it had fallen into the trap. Would it be able to escape? See large. The photo was taken in April 2024, with my trusty Olympus digital camera. Enjoy and stay well.
P.S. Having just returned from vacation, I will be slowly catching up with my contacts.
Tags: Sweet, But Risky 1 gold dusted gecko nature wildlife reptile green gecko carnivorous plant carnivorous pitcher plant tropical garden Foster Garden Oahu Hawaii United States Olympus Olympus E - M1 macro Lens 50 mm f/6.3 @ 1/100 ISO 800 sweet risky tongue eating nectar
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Challock Hill Bluebell Wood, Kent, UK.
After what seems to be the most interminably dull and wet winter ever, we finally have colour and blue skies.
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I have managed to get a decent photographic session, at last... I went back to my favorite location, the meanders of the river Adda, yet a bit downstream the magical spot you have come to know (if you don't, you might have a look at my Silent banks album). A new location, under many respects, although the water of the river I was capturing were the same, only a few minutes down the endless stream of time. I aimed to capture the multifaceted beauty of the new, blossoming leaves. And a fresh sunrise, of course. It was a strange morning, full of surprises. The feast of colours occurred almost an hour before the official time for sunrise; I assume that it was due to the clouds being at a very high altitude. It was lucky that I was ready on that surprise time, albeit still walking towards the chattering banks of the river. Then, after a brief, glorious explosion of rosy and purple, the mood of the day progressed rather linearly towards a quiet morning bathed in a soft, veiled light that, combined with the mists from the river, lent the place a somehow ethereal mood.
When I took this exposure bracketing, the advance colourful moment was at its climaxing point, so I decided to capture the dialogue between the sky and the humble gold of the buttercups in a field. I hope you like it... [in this day of attacks I wish to dedicate this shot to my friend, Sh*]
Explored on 2024/04/15, two days after posting, a little beyond nr. 200
I have obtained this picture by blending an exposure bracketing [-2.0/-1.0/0/+1.0/+2.0 EV] by luminosity masks in the Gimp (EXIF data, as usual, refer to the "normal exposure" shot). Along the journey - post-processing always is a journey of discovery to me - I tried the inverted RGB blue channel technique described by Boris Hajdukovic to give a slight tonal boost to the scene, desaturating a lot and retaining mostly the boost to the tones.
As usual, I gave the finishing touches with Nik Color Efex Pro 4 and played a bit with dodging and burning.
Raw files processed with Darktable.
Tags: sunrise sundawn clouds rosy rosy light mornin early morning Adda river field grasses prato fiori bottondoro buttercups house mist fog misty flowers trees Airuno Italy silence chattering peace Nikon D750 the Gimp Darktable Nikkor 24-120 mm foschia bruma dark glow dawn soft light velide light primavera Spring countryside
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Tags: Z8 14-30mmS Nikon Norway
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