Craig's Buggie

I had a hard time choosing my favorite - I shot a bunch of this giant outside Cory's house. Cory believes it to be the same beast he captured and put in his lightbox.

I chose this one because you get a bit of a sense of the size of the monster, plus I like the way the sunlight plays on the rock and bug. I tried taking a picture of this guy with the ant parade that was happening, but you just can't see the ants. If only I'd brought my 200mm lens with me.

(Oh, and Q, your monster bug photo has given me nightmares since Cory shared it with me back when it was first taken. I think that might be the scariest bug I've seen outside of a Starship Troopers movie.)

Q's buggie

I struggled to find bugs this week (though I imagined to attract some fruit flies to my apartment, but they're not very photogenic), and I didn't want to miss two weeks in a row, so I pulled a photo from the archives.

This guy landed on my arm at a truck stop somewhere in south central Oklahoma or north Texas in the summer of 2003. He's pure evil, I think.

Ryan's "Buggie"

My long dead wasp, found in a window at the Peabody Estate.


/rl

Cory's Buggies

Buggies are something I've often taken pictures of over the few years I've owned a camera. One of my favorite early pictures is of a grasshopper, another is of a damsel fly, and yet another is of a dragon fly. Sometimes I take pictures of pseudo-buggies, and sometimes I even get real buggies and psuedo-buggies together in the same shot.

We had oodles of family in town this weekend, so we took them all up to the Peabody Estate for their air fair. While there I tried taking a new picture of some buggies over a lake, but I didn't really like how it came out. When I got home I found a GIANT beetle in the front yard, but since it was just one buggy it doesn't really count for "buggies". So I decided to post the picture above, which was also taken at the art fair. It's kind of a meta picture - a picture of pictures of buggies. If only it could have been a meta-meta picture - a picture of pictures of buggies made of buggies.

But this is good enough.

Next up: "Birds"

"Buggies" due in 4.5 hours.

/rl

Cory's Ordered Chaos

This is my little world of ordered chaos: my garage. It is a weird collection of stuff that was in there when we moved in, stuff we had before we moved in, and stuff we have collected since moving in. Everything has a slightly different amount of dust (both saw and otherwise) covering it, which makes it easier to put something back after moving it: just find the corresponding clean spot in the dust. It may look chaotic, but there is a very careful ordering scheme in use here. It revolves around the trash can being in its place on the left, and everything else going someplace to the right of that.

For completeness, here's a look from the other side of the garage.

Ryan's "Ordered Chaos"

While camping at Ponca State Park this weekend we discovered that the previous residents of our campsite had liberally sprinkled cookies about the place. Brief inspection showed that, when flung with the correct frisbee-like spin, I could hit my companions with them from across the campsite. Further inspection showed that they were covered in wee little ants.

Hundreds of little ants were swarming around the cookies - it was quite chaotic and difficult to photograph, so I moved one of the cookies and added a quarter to show scale. Despite the appearance of chaos, I am pretty sure it was quite orderly from an ant's point of view.

/rl

Next week: "Buggies"

"Ordered Chaos" due tonight.

/rl

Q's best of Q2

I feel a bit like Ryan, that there's nothing that stands out to me too much. But, I do like this picture from my trip to Ireland, on top of a cairn.

Ryan's "Best of Quarter 2"

I didn't really have too many truly great photos this quarter, but I had a bunch that I liked. It turned out to be a hard choice.

I met these guys while out looking for bagworms at work one day:

They cowered in the nest as I approached. As soon as I took the first photo they stuck their little necks out to the sky. Apparently they though I was going to feed them.

After looking at the photos at 100% on my computer I realized there was a bit of motion blur. I went back the next day to shoot a few more photos, but they would not respond to the flash. Perhaps Mom had warned them to beware humans with Nikons.

/rl

Cory's Best of Q2

This particular picture was just a test of the idea, but I think it is one of the best ones I took during Q2 anyway. Sometime I'm going to run down to the park and do it again, but I'll be more careful about not getting playground equipment in the background and trash in the tree.

Next week

Next week: Ordered Chaos

Best of Q2 due today!

Also, it was a year ago today that this little Weekly Photography thingy started. Happy birthday!

Q's Fourth of July

I'm late!

Craig's Fourth of July

Hey, I got net, maybe it's not too late to contribute!

Here's where I spent my Fourth of July - De Garre Pub, in a tiny alley off a street between the two main squares in Brugge. Snapped with my iPhone, stitched with an iPhone app called Autostitch.

Ryan's "Fourth of July"

This was my view of the 4th of July. Scroll down and read Cory's story - mine would be similar.

/rl

Cory's Fourth of July

Back when I was in high school, my parents got a "cabin" that I like to refer to as the "trailer by the sea". It is located at Lake Platteview, an exclusive gated community out on the Platte River. The playplace of the rich, we have a big party with a bunch of people out there every Fourth of July. This year the partygoers at a neighboring cabin spent their inheritance on fireworks, which they began setting up around sunset.

After night fell and everybody nearby had their lawn chairs set up, the show began. I got a few shots of nice fireworks, but I think the picture above best displays the craziness that was going on during the show. Amazingly, there were no reported injuries.

Then, after the show was done, we found the GIANTEST SPIDER EVER on the wall of the cabin. That's when we decided it was time to go home.

Next week...

Next week: Best of 2009 Q2.

Fourth of July due today!