The humble onion -- Updated!

I was visiting my mom and dad's house this evening, and noticed that there were some irises and other flowers in bloom around the 1-acre lot. So I grabbed my camera and went crawling around in the grass, looking for interesting angles and/or critters.

The stunning flowers in the photos below belong to the humble onion. You know, the standard yellow/white onion you get for salads/burgers/sautee? Who knew they produced such a cool flower! I'm so glad my dad never got around to harvesting them from the garden.

I took lots of other photos, too, but these were my favorite, and I'm fairly certain at least one of them is going to be made into a painting for my paint studio, a Brush and a Beverage.




















4/29 Update! What did I tell ya? I had some free moments at the studio today and set to work on painting my humble onions. This painting looks a lot better in person, and I love it :)

Take a deep breath and make a wish

I love dandelions. Which is silly, really. But in this state, they're so beautiful! How can such delicate and fleeting beauty make such a mess of my yard?

Aperture: f/5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/800
ISO: 800
Focal Length: 90.0 mm
Lens: 28-90 mm
Flash: None
White Balance: Auto












And this is a 'just because' photo. Meet Jasper, one of our two cockatiels. As you can see by his crest standing up, he's not terribly fond of the camera. I tried to get him to do the feminine pose, but he insisted on doing the basic 3/4 pose. Such a diva. :)

Aperture: f/5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/80
ISO: 800
Focal Length: 90.0 mm
Lens: 28-90 mm
Flash: None
White Balance: Auto

O Tiny Toad on my Doorstep

Sounds like the title of a Keats poem :)

Got home from Gold's this morning and as I approached my front door, I caught a bit of movement near my feet. We've got hundreds of geckos and a dozen or so lizards that live on/around our house so that's not unusual, but when I looked down and spied the fairly-well-camouflaged critter, it wasn't a gecko or a lizard. My first instinct was to move it into the cover of the monkey grass so it didn't get eaten by a sharp-eyed jay, but after a few failed attempts at rescue, I dashed inside to get my camera.

Aperture: f/5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/60
ISO: 200
Focal Length: 90.0 mm
Lens: 28-90 mm
Flash: None
White Balance: Auto

Pretty sure this is a young female Woodhouse's Toad, though it might be a male that doesn't have the dark throatpouch yet? Cute as a button, regardless. A tad more than an inch long from nose to rear. She sat still for a good five minutes and let me zoom in quite close--I didn't want to risk taking the time to change lenses, so even at 90mm, the lense was within six inches of her. Good thing the neighbors are kind of used to seeing me crawling around on my belly with a camera in front of my face. I really like the angle of this photo, even though the DOF blurs out the texture of her skin.

Here's another pic I took before I got down on my belly (same settings as above). Not as much DOF on this one, so you can see the texture of her skin. Very cool, IMO.

She eventually lost patience and hopped into the tall grass under the bushes.

A wee bit o' November color

Just want to reiterate that my personal goal for NaBloPoMoPHOTO this month is to get decent shots straight off my camera. That means no color or exposure adjustments, and no cropping. I aim to resize for the web and maybe slap on my watermark, and that's it. I'm already good at post-processing--that's not where I need the practice. I want to master my camera, and make it do what I want it to do.

Which makes this photo a little bit exciting for me =D. I got out of my truck this morning and noticed that my neighbor's tree has fall colors! If you live in Texas, you know fall colors are fairly rare because we don't normally get enough rainfall to keep the leaves on the trees long enough TO change color.

So noticing the tree and the way the sunlight was was perfect and the sky so blue, I ran inside to get my camera. I adjusted the ISO, shutter speed and aperture before I took the first shot, and as it turns out, I only needed one. This is that shot! Normally I need at least one test shot to gauge and tweak. So this one got a little personal victory dance in my driveway.

Aperture: f/8
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 400
Focal Length: 44.0 mm
Lens: 28-90 mm
Flash: None

Buggin'

This guy was on the door of my very dirty white truck this afternoon as I left to pick up a kiddo from school. This is as close as my lens would let me focus (was running late, so couldn't switch lenses), but I totally love his shadow :) Click on the pic to see it bigger--the blogger resize makes it look awful.

Was tempted to crop a little bit, but didn't. Converted from the RAW, because the processed JPG looked too blue.

SOTC
Aperture: f/10
Shutter Speed: 1/640
ISO: 200
Focal Length: 90.0 mm
Lens: 28-90 mm
Flash: None

Woodhouse's Lovers

This is a pair of Woodhouse's toads. I love the sun on the water in this photo. Almost looks romantic. LOL. There are lots of toads hanging out in the pool now, and they're fun to watch, because you'll have a pair like this, and then another male will lunge sideways at the 'resident' male, and try to pry him off the female. The first guy doesn't let go, so the female is caught in the tussle, squeaking and grumbling her annoyance.

We've had to rescue several. They can get out of the water onto the top step, but the smaller ones can't jump high enough to actually get out of the pool.

Camera: Canon Digital Rebel XT
Lens: 28-90mm (analog)
Focal length: 90mm
Exposure: Auto
Flash: None

Three Frogs

The pump and filter system quit on my parents' pool, and it's going to cost mucho dinero to get it fixed. So all winter, the pool has been languishing and collecting leaves. Much to the delight of several frogs and toads. I haven't yet been able to identify their species, so if you know what they are, please let me know!

Camera: Canon Digital Rebel XT
Lens: 75-300mm (analog)
Focal length: 300mm
Exposure: Auto
Flash: None

American White Pelican

This is an American White Pelican photographed a few weeks ago in Jackson County, Oklahoma. The fin on the beak is only there during breeding season. I managed to catch a few in flight, too. They have beautiful black-tipped wings.

Camera: Canon Digital Rebel XT
Lens: 75-300mm (analog)
Focal length: 300mm
Exposure: Auto
Flash: None