David and Sherry Buck – June 9, 2007
This past weekend I was privileged to be the photographer for David and Sherry Buck’s wedding. It was a really nice day and a great testimony of God’s working in their lives. Congrats to you, Dave and Sherry!
If you happen to be in grade 5 and in Alberta you may get to see one of my photos in your social studies text book.
Several months ago I was approached by a company in Canada that wanted to use an image of mine for a school book, “Voices of Canada”. I was a bit surprised.. I didn’t even consider it a good photo.. it was a photo of my beloved Tantramar Marshes, but not one of my favorites. Anyway, they found it on my photography site and wanted to use it. So I scratched my head for a few hours to figure out what to charge. “If I charge too much she won’t buy, too little and and I would be showing how little I know and selling myself short..” After much thought and discussion with a few friends I made an offer and they took it! We just received the cheque last week.
If you see one of the 42,000 copies of this book around, please rip out the page with my photo and send it to me.
So here it is, Early Morning Mist, my first sale.
For Christmas Naomi got me a set of Hoya close-up lenses for my camera. Basically, they are magnifying lenses that screw on the front of a camera lens. They allow a camera to focus much closer than you normally could. With Spring finally here I have been testing them out..
Pollen
Specks of yellow pollen are scattered throughout the flower.
Tiny Bee
This bee is on a small daisy. The center of the flower is about 1 cm (less than half an inch), making this a very small bee!
Blue
Ready to Open
A tulip that is ready to pop open.
Spring Pollenation
A European Bee doing his thing.
Style and Pistil
Thanks Noami for the great gift! And thanks God for your beautiful creation!!
I love taking photos of many different things in nature. Sometimes I combine it with one of my other interests: astronomy!
Another picture of the lower half of Orion with the even larger blue giant star, Rigel, in the lower right:
How large are these stars? Watch this video for a hint of their mind-boggling size
I went out the other night to get a picture of the sky just after sunset. Venus was quite bright in the twilight sky.
Venus in the Trees
Taurus and the Pleiades are visible in this night shot. So is the orange sky-glow from the city of Owen Sound..
[click the image to see more details]
God’s creation above keeps me looking up.
Today I spent a bit of time outside with my camera and my new monopod (Its sweet!). I was trying to get a shot of a male Cardinal in the tree, but it suddenly took off. The bird is totally out of focus, but I thought the effect was neat.
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I was able to also get this photo of a female Cardinal behind the house.
See more photographs of cardinals and other birds at www.troyjohnstone.com/bird_photography/
Last night the sky was almost clear.. almost. There was just enough high altitude clouds made up of ice crystals to create a beautiful halo around the moon. For awhile there was actually two rings.. it was quite spectacular. There were also some students out with their cameras and tripods capturing this rare event.
My love/hate relationship with the windows in our house continues.. On a few windows the glacial ice sheets retreated and were replaced with frost again this week, while others saw drops of condensation freeze overnight.
The windows of the house we are renting are the old sliding aluminum framed type, which are only slightly better than the older wooden framed sliding type, which are only slightly better than stiff paper. They at least keep the snow out, and usually stop most of the wind. Each window has two sets of single pane glass, and none of them shut real well.
Anyway, with the cold weather lately they tend to frost up. Let’s see how the weather looks outside today, shall we?
Nope, can’t see out the kitchen window..
Hmm.. can’t see out any bedroom windows. Maybe the sliding door.
A little bit..
When it is cold we can often only see out the picture window in the living room, but even that sometimes steams or frosts up because the seal is broken on it. Our first year here it was so cold that for weeks we could only see outside if we opened the door.
The upside to this is that it gives me an interesting photographic opportunity. Crystal growth.
Click an image for a larger view.
I don’t know why I can’t seem to sleep in anymore. The days that my alarm is set I can hit the snooze button five times before getting up. On days that I don’t have to get up I wake up about 10 minutes before my alarm would normally go off.. and I am wide awake! Irony is annoying.
Anyway.. I didn’t sleep in on Saturday morning of Thanksgivings Day weekend, and I decided that I would take off for a few hours to see some of the sights of a cold Fall morning in Ontario.
The fall colours this year are not very vibrant. I think it is because it has been warmer and we only had our first frost two nights ago. It is still beautiful, but we don’t see as many reds as in previous years.
Ever wonder why leaves change colour?
Photo taken one moon-lit night. Many dark clouds, but each with a silver lining.
See the rest of my night time images at www.troyjohnstone.com/astrophotography/
