Author: jwilce
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Moonset in the Mountains 17March2022
Until recently, a huge frustration in shooting the bright moon and its dimmer context was this— I could 1) brighten the whole image in order to make the context visible, washing out the features of the moon, 2) dim the moon and make the context even less visible, or 3) use a brush to change […]
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Puddingstone Reservoir February 2022
“Puddingstone” is the common name referring to the artificial lake at Frank G. Bonelli Regional Park in San Dimas, southern California. It is an excellent site for birding. I was there, outdoorswithcamera, on February 8 and 9. This post focuses on waterfowl photos, all available as digital downloads. I am still saving up for a […]
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Night Photography
Star Trails Over San Francisco Peaks Another photo from my pre-dawn photo-walk yesterday (2/17/22) morning…another shot at night photography (pun intended). What I am attempting is to minimize noise while maximizing light on my subject— the peaks and the stars above them. This involves the following settings— ISO 1000, f/2.8 at .50s, shot on my […]
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Snowy pre-dawn morning
I confess— I’m a super early riser. So this photo was taken at 4:45 today (February 17, 2022). My fingers were cold. My face was cold. The temperature was roughly 15F at that time. All that aside, I wanted to take a walk and I was looking for a particular scenario to photograph— the moon, […]
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How to take a photo of the filtered sun and get a starburst effect
Taking the shot It’s dangerous to aim your camera at the sun. You could harm it as well as your eye, especially if you loook right at it for a prolongued period of time, or point the camera likewise. I am an amateur like many of my readers, so I am not 100% sure this […]
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A Tale of Two Butterflies: One Native, One Exotic (Queen and Doris Longwing)
If you live in Arizona—or in many spots in the Old or the New World!— you can easily see Queen butterflies and Doris Longwing butterflies. But, if you are in Arizona (or any place other than Central America or the Amazon), you are only likely to see the latter, however, in a special place called […]
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More Parallelism in Nature: Geology
In early December I posted a series of photos illustrating “parallelism in nature”. The term refers to pattern or “patternment.” Parallelism is the key to poetry as a tradition around the world. Rhyme is parallelism. Meter or rhythm is parallelism. Patterns involving repetition exemplify parallelism. And it is seen in nature as well as poetry. […]
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Pattern Repetition: Parallelism in Nature
Scroll down now if you want to skip the musings of this former academic and just see the photos! Most of my professional life was spent in linguistic anthropology— that subfield of anthropology dealing with the role of language in culture and society. Many of us linguistic anthropologists study poetics. Russian emigré and Harvard professor […]
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Launching My Photography Business With This Post! Birds, Bees, And Their Habitat in Claremont, CA
For the very first time, I am making it simple for people to buy my photographs. Read more to see what photos are for sale, how to buy them, etc.! Claremont California occupies a special place in my heart, not only because loved ones live there but because many of my formative years were th […]
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Afterglow of moonset on morning of November 17
.I found that, as often with sunsets, it is not the hot white globe, even in setting, that is most compelling to me as a photographic subject, but the aftermath especially on a cloudy morning. The photo below can best be viewed, and is available for sale, on SmugMug
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Noise, one of the enemies of clarity in photos—and, a solution!
Once upon a time, in the days of film cameras, photographers struggled against “grainy” shots. “Noise” is the equivalent in the era of digital photography. If you blow up one of your photos you might be surprised to see irregular blotches throughout. Blurriness is a different problem. Blurriness is caused by camera jiggle or movement […]
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In Camera “Special Effects” By Olympus
My Olympus E-M1 Mark II camera offers a “high res shot,” a jpeg whose resolution is higher than, well, the sorts of photos that the camera takes otherwise. Among other things, we see less “noise” in the high res shots, making them very attractive. The down side? You can only take them with a stable […]