Yesterday, Mae and I went to my grandparents’ house to take some pictures (Mae already took a few earlier yesterday) of their dog and feed / play with him (they are on a trip down to Florida). We got some pretty good shots of him jumping for tennis balls and a stick (it was hilarious he almost did backflips). I used 18 / 55 (wide angle) and a 70 / 300 (zoom / macro) millimeter lens (though I wish I brought a tripod the 70 / 300 lens was super heavy). I had it on aperture priority and manual focus I was also trying to better / cleaner backgrounds. Towards the end Desi got tired so I took some close ups of a flower and a budding leaf with a thin strand of web on it using the 300 millimeter lens on macro mode. With Desi I was going for action shots and higher aperture so more of the picture is in focus, with the flower and budding plant I blurred the background as much as I could (using a lower aperture). Then this morning, I went back over to their house (with the 18 / 15 wide angle lens to get more action shots), and took pictures first so Mae got Desi after I tired him out. I got him when he was more active and wanting to jump higher and run faster than he did for me yesterday (which made some pretty good photos).
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The other day, Dad and I found a spring. It is a small three-inch hole in the ground at the base of our property. We found the spring while digging holes for gates for the fence. We had to dig trenches because of constant flooding in the area. Because the spring has not stopped flowing, even in the summer drought we had, the area was still flooded. The spring is spitting out salamanders (I managed to catch one), bull frogs and crayfish that are all trying to hibernate in the mud. The fact that it has barely gotten above freezing is not helping the animals. The crayfish was found last April, while moving into our house, it was in the middle of our field!
Top 5 Animals I Want to Catch and Why
Chinese Giant Salamander Where it lives: In rocky streams and lakes of China. It sometimes occurs in Taiwan probably due to introduction. It is considered critically endangered, unfortunately it is also considered a delicacy. Why: It is the world’s largest amphibian and can exceed 55 pounds! What else I would see there: Tigers, Snakes (like Cobras, Chinese Green Vipers, Mandarin Rat Snakes, etc.) and birds, my favorite is the Common King Fisher. For more information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_giant_salamander Japanese Forest Rat Snake Where it lives: It is only found in Japan and its Japanese name means burrower. Why: Their coloration is a beautiful vibrant red. What else I would see there: SNOW (depends on what time of year), the endangered Red Panda and a super cute Japanese Dwarf Flying Squirrel. For more information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euprepiophis_conspicillatus Mandarin Rat Snake Where it lives: Can only be found anywhere in Asia (which is pretty big). Why: Once again their magnificent coloration (neon yellow and glossy black) and triangular markings. What else I would see there: Asian elephants, mountain tapirs and giant pandas. For more information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandarin_rat_snake Green Anaconda Where it lives: In swamps, marshes, and slow-moving streams in South America and some parts of Florida (due to introduction). Why: Their sheer size. They can grow to be up to thirty feet. What else I would see there: Black Caiman, poison dart frogs and TONS of other snakes. For more information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_anaconda Wels Catfish Where it lives: in big warm lakes and slow-moving rivers in Europe. Why: It weighs about 880 lbs. and can be up to 13 ft. long. It is possibly the world’s largest fresh water fish. What else I would see there: European Elk, Brown Bears and European Mink. For more information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wels_catfish Photography
Week 1 (last week): the first assignment was to walk around and take twenty photos with a… blindfold covering our eyes. We had the camera set to auto focus instead of manual focus (which I’m usually a lot better at) so we could take photos without looking at what you are taking a picture of. We chose a room in the house that we had to take pictures in: I chose the living room/office while Mom and Mae both chose the kitchen/art/dining room. As you can imagine, this leads to wacky photos. Most were blurry but some turned out good and we really liked them. My favorites are a textured candle and a chair. Week 2 (this week): this week’s assignment was to take a lot of blurry photos on purpose (thankfully WITHOUT a blind fold). This time I took photos on aperture priority mode and manual focus. I chose to walk around the farm on several inches of snow from a week ago (it used to be almost fifteen inches deep). I worked on the project by myself this week, Mom and Mae were busy. I would take a crisp photo then a blurry one. I discovered I liked to have trees kind of in focus but not quite. The farm animals
Dogs Lucy: she is the strangest dog ever and loves to be outside in the sun and play with her brother Desi. Our other dog Winter does not get along with Lucy at all, they always fight (definitely NOT play fighting) but other than that, and when she noses me off my bed, she is a good dog. Desi: the biggest trouble maker ever. He will eat any garbage FROM THE GARBAGE BIN, sure I love him but he needs to not make such a big mess. We have to put him in his crate if we walk out of the house for even a second. Once we walked over to our grandparent’s house (they gutted it and redid it THEMSELVES, it is almost finished) when we came back one second later, he had a whole bread loaf ripped apart and all over the house. When he was a puppy he toilet papered the house! Winter: the most loving puppy ever. She loves to jump up on you and play with sticks (she will drag the sticks all around the property). She is our farm dog/guard dog and will eat anything she comes across on our walks. She is then sick for a day or two, then fine as if nothing ever happened. She is a great pyrenes. My favorite thing about her is that she loves to be petted and cuddle with me. Sheep Kalmia: she used to be the friendliest, but now she does not come to us except for when Ivy and Charlotte are being pet. Then she will finally come over and be her dog-like self, which is rubbing on you. Ivy: by far the friendliest, she will run up to you and just wait for you to pet her. Then she’ll rub all over you waiting to be pet (unless you’re a stranger, then all the sheep would all be terrified of you). Typically she loves to be scratched really hard. Wendy: not one for loving, but will occasionally come to you if all the other sheep are over. She looks like a cow because of her white patches around her eyes in a sea of black. Charlotte: has freckles all over her face and is the second most loving sheep we have. She loves to be scratched under her chin and petted on her freckly snout. Chickens: Foghorn leghorn, her breed is a Leghorn Hawk, her breed is an Ameraucana Little Chipmunk, her breed is a Double Laced Barnevelder Polka, her breed is a Barred Plymouth Rock Dot, her breed is a Dominique Penguin, her breed is an Australorp Red, her breed is a Rhode Island Red Sunflower, her breed is a Delaware Fish, her breed is a Salmon Faverolle Cuckoo, her breed is a Silver Cuckoo Maran Fry, her breed is a Silkie Bantam Frenchie, her breed is a Silkie Bantam Bully, his breed is a Silver Laced Wyandotte Buff, her breed is a Buff Orpington Hermione, her breed is a Golden Laced Wyandotte Cats Stingray: the most energetic cat ever! She loves to run full speed at all the toys in our home (including our feet) and attack them. She will occasionally jump onto walls and do a wall run (she leaves dirty prints on the walls). There is also a calm side to her, it almost only comes out when I’m on the computer, which makes it hard to do anything. Zita: super calm and docile. But loves to play with... wet hair! She will attack it at any given moment and then try to eat it (she has an eating problem). Typically she just lies around sleeping and purring for no apparent reason. I’ll walk up and put my ear to her side and she will burst out purring as soon as I touch her! This week I was focused on using a fifty mm lens for bokeh (according to Wikipedia, "the way the lens renders out-of-focus points of light") and landscapes, though I did pull out the telephoto lens (using macro) a little later in the slide show (the last two) but I only took a few.
For the sun coming through the trees, Mom had to get me up really early in the morning and asked me how fast I could get up and get the tripod ready, which was pretty fast (I have a quick connect and disconnect). Then I threw on my big red jacket and the closest pair of pants and charged off... The bokeh, I took once again in the early morning, but this morning I chose to try bokeh because I saw some neat pictures of it and really liked the style. (I wish my cat could be still for even a second...) For the macro, I went down to our sheep and chickens to get some fairly easy pictures, because typically chickens don't move too much. At least that's what I was used to, but today I found that they would not stop pecking and scratching the ground. Whenever I focused on them they would try to peck me! Within this last week I have taken TONS of photos (two memory cards full!) of dew, birds, bugs, sheep, squirrels and streams.
Today I was focused on using a zoom lens on macro mode (not all zoom lenses have a macro mode) the macro mode enables you to zoom really close in on things (dew drops, small insects, the veins on a leaf and stuff you can’t quite see with your eye’s) I had aprture priority so I can lessen the time it takes to take a pic or lengthen the time. I was also equipped with a tripod where the camera can easily be removed and put on when necessary and the center shaft can flip down and turn sideways. I really enjoy taking photos due to the adventure and excitement of getting the perfect photo. MY CAMERA: I use the Pentax k 10D with the cool zoom lens I was talking about. Five Facts On White Squirrels
The other day Mom, Mae and I went to the Brevard library to get some more books because earlier that day we got a new library card for the Hendersonville library and we only could get two books per person. On the way we stopped at the French Broad (our local river and the third oldest river in the world!) to see the flooding. It had rained for a few days, and the waters were lapping at the parking lot’s edge! The boardwalk can float, normally it is almost flat (it is about 160-degree of an angle) but this time the upper half was covered in water and it was about a 270-degree angle. We left a stick to mark the water height in the parking lot, but I just set it down and did not stick it in. On the way back we found some insane flooding, a few days before it was a campground and now is a lake! Once we got back the stick had drifted off, but it left a mark where I put it. We estimated it to have risen five feet in an hour and twenty minutes. That’s about three quarters of an inch a minute! |
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