Category: Nature

Nature

Mating Damsels


It has been a while since I last took macro-shots of insects at the Botanical Gardens. While the rest of the northern hemisphere is having cold weather for now, we are experiencing the rainy / monsoon season which makes photography almost impossible. In fact, the skies were pouring non-stop for the most part of yesterday!

I took this picture of mating damselflies at the Botanical Gardens in 2004. I had quite soft lighting for the initial few shots I snapped. As luck would have it, the sun decided to make a strong appearance, bathing the two in warm and bright lighting. Lots of post-processing done on the original RAW file in boosting the colours and saturation… Wanted to give a Velvia-feel to the final result 🙂

Zen

Notice anything new here? 🙂

I came across the free blogger tool WordPress a couple of days ago at Photoblogs.org. I have never used the PHP functionality of my webhosting service so far. The friendly documentation and the support forums at WordPress got me hooked on trying the PHP-based software out on my photoblog. A few quick configurations and I managed to get my former Blogger posts (with comments and all) migrated with no problems. Exploring WordPress further, I came across the excellent photoblog template at Razzi’s Photolog and have since adapted it for use here. I like the stronger organization and categorization tools WordPress gives me compared to Blogger. The other big benefit is of course being able to log in from my workplace (since the Blogger domain has been blocked by my workplace server)!

The above picture was taken at the MacRitchie Reservoir boardwalk more than a year ago. I love the sense of peace and tranquility the picture evokes 🙂

Sapling


While it is time for many photoblogs to be posting their so-called obligatory autumn/falls shot, the weather continues to be cloudy and humid here in Singapore. My recent few attempts at wanting to get out to shoot pictures have been thwarted by poor lighting and weather. Decided to make do by shooting in my own front yard when the sun decided to take a peek through the clouds this evening. I spotted this palm-tree sapling being side-lit yesterday evening by the setting sun but did not get a chance to shoot it. Today, I was armed with camera, tripod, cable-release and black card so that I could capture this shot when the lighting was just right!

As an aside, there was some discussion among the folks at the RPS Digital Imaging Group that black is “out of fashion” as a background colour for such shots. I still like black best and beg to differ from that opinion 😛