It's "Arachtober!"

One of my friends on the photo-sharing website Flickr recently informed me of an annual group posting called “Arachtober.” It is an invitation-only group, but you can inquire to the moderators to become a participant. Each member tries to post one spider image a day during the month of October. How appropriate given the Halloween season.

It is encouraging to see the spiders are not only getting positive publicity, but that they are becoming the focus of an increasing number of amateur and professional nature photographers. They certainly make wonderful subjects. Those that sit in webs are pretty easy to take pictures of, without the risk that the spider will run away.

”Arachtober” began on October 1, 2007 with the posting of a single spider image by one of Flickr’s users. An encouraging comment on the image from another user suggested that Halloween week should be deemed “Spider Week.” The user who initially posted the image responded that he probably had enough images to post one spider a day for the entire month. Thus, “Spider Month” was started.

Meanwhile, a third user started her own “Spider Blitz” Halloween week and in the process learned of the month-long effort of the other two users. This third user suggested “Arachtober” for that project and the name stuck.

In October, 2008, the Arachtober group finished with forty-five members and 599 image posts. The 2009 campaign was even better, with a total of 70 members finishing the month and 1, 088 images posted.

You are still welcome to join this year’s effort, which at present includes 74 participants. According to the founder of Arachtober:

”The group works like a short term 365 group, the goal is to post spiders to Flickr daily during October and have fun. When you shot the spider isn't important. To make it through the month, most of us have to save up over the year. Even if you don't have enough spiders for every day, you can still participate. You can either post them daily till you run out, spread them out every few days, or save them till Halloween week. Spiders are especially popular around then.”

I have sprinkled this blog post with some of the images I have already submitted to Arachtober this year. I encourage you to visit the Arachtober page and browse the collective. Here’s hoping you will participate, too. Arachnophiles unite!

Note: By custom, and to protect privacy, few Flickr users reveal their real names, hence the rather cryptic references here.

Flickr Photostream

I admit I might be cheating a little, but today I am re-directing you to my Flickr Photostream for some eye candy. Each of the new images there includes a little bit of information about the creature depicted, and/or the circumstances under which it was imaged. Hope you enjoy. I'll be back soon with additional posts.

I'm Not Ready!

There is one thing worse than not having your camera handy when something extraordinary happens, and that is when you are presented with an opportunity but have no clue how to operate the settings on your camera to take a good shot. Such is what happened to me on Friday, March 5 at John F. Kennedy Park in South Tucson.

Kennedy Park is a large, multi-use park with a lake, stage, and hiking trails. Near the amphitheatre I managed to flush an adult red-tailed hawk from its perch atop a utility pole. I noticed that it had not flown far, though, and surmised it landed on the next pole, farther away.

I carefully plotted how to sneak closer, where the 20X zoom on my Canon SX10 might still be able to register a decent image. The band shell of the concert area provided good cover, so, averting my gaze from the watchful Buteo, I strode to where it could no longer see me. I then came back along the stage, to one of the entrance/exit points.

I was quite proud of my stalking abilities, but got the start of my life when I looked out the “doorway.” In a tree not more than fifteen feet away, at virtually eye level, sat another hawk!

I thought my largely internal reaction was somehow going to manifest itself in my body language or audible inhalation and the hawk would immediately take flight. Such was not the case. It was clearly a fledgling, which no doubt accounted for its inexperience and tolerance. Still, I tried to keep hidden while struggling to get my camera working as silently as possible.

This was the unfortunate, typical result of not knowing what to do beyond point, zoom, and shoot on “Auto”: it would have been a perfectly good image of tree branches, had it not been for that silly red-tail in the way (sigh). How do you bird photographers do it?

The shade of the tree and the band shell didn’t help any, but I can’t blame the bird. Here it was early afternoon with the sun getting hotter by the minute. Eventually, I did manage a couple of respectable shots, which when cropped are in my own “tolerable” category.

Meanwhile, I got a good shot of mom (or dad), too, before they took off, guiding their offspring on another practice flight or hunting foray. I hope to do better the next time good fortune strikes, but at least I have the memories of this encounter no matter how poor the images are.

Leigh Anne DelRay

I recently met a person so exceptional that she deserves to be featured in both of my blogs, just to make sure you can’t avoid getting to know her. We met via (what else) the Bugguide.net website where she has started submitting images. While she is a certified animal enthusiast, from the feathered and two-legged to the hairy and eight-legged, her passion for life and art is contagious.

Leigh Anne has endured serious tragedy and drama in her life, but you wouldn’t know it from her affectionate, sunny disposition and creative and intuitive personality. She has a way of turning her experiences into a shared tapestry through her evocative photography skills and choice of subjects. Many of her images literally bring me to tears, but Leigh Anne recognizes the power of imagery and uses it to remind us that places, people, and stories are worth knowing, if only briefly.

One of Leigh Anne’s favorite pursuits is hunting meteorites. It has been a real education for me to learn just how popular a “hobby” this is, and the great value, both scientific and monetary, that is attached to “space rocks.” She recently invited me to a party at her employer’s house to watch the television debut of Meteorite Men, featuring her boss, Geoff Notkin, and his teammate Steve Arnold. Who knew Kansas was such a mecca for meteorites? About 30-40 friends of Geoff’s were packed into his living room, riveted to the TV screen, tuned to the Discovery Science Channel. A fun time was had by all, and I thank Leigh Anne for continuing to introduce me to more fascinating people. I’m not the most sociable sort, but she may change that.

Leigh Anne is well-traveled, too, and embraces all that a given location has to offer. While she was in Los Angeles she successfully auditioned as an extra in several films and popular television shows. For example, she was a patient with a broken leg on an episode of ER, and stood in line behind leading man Kevin Costner in the airport scene in the movie Dragonfly (alas she was left on the cutting room floor in that one). That kind of spontaneity speaks to her adventurous nature.

I should really let Leigh Anne’s work speak for itself, so I encourage you to visit her website, Callisto Images, and see if you, too, are not moved by her profound vision, the intimacy of her subjects, and the playfulness that she expresses. Thank you, Leigh Anne, for helping me re-awaken to the depth of life around us, and reminding me to “live in the moment. Oh, and lest one get the wrong impression, Leigh Anne is with another wonderful gentleman who is a gifted woodworker and a caring, upstanding individual in his own right.”

Before and After

First let me say that I owe my friend Cheryl Malone a debt of gratitude for turning me on to digital photography back in February. She lent me her PowerShot SD1000, one of the “Elph” models that Canon puts out. The ability of that camera to overcome my timidity and total incompetence was amazing. I barely know an F-stop from an aperture. The experience was so satisfying that I knew I had to get a camera of my own.

I wanted to be able to shoot images of both insects and vertebrate wildlife, so I started doing research, and asking advice from photographers who’s work I admire. Since I was losing my job imminently, I also had a pretty strict budget.

The little Elph is likeable for its compactness, ease of use, and astonishing close-up capabilities. When it comes to getting an image of a bird smaller than a turkey, however….For example: You pretty much have to take my word for it that the red blob is a vermillion flycatcher. The 3x zoom, and added digital zoom, really doesn’t cut it very well.

Several photographers tried to talk me into getting a refurbished DSLR with a versatile lens. They were being politely optimistic. No way am I sophisticated enough to wield one of those, and if I were to lose it or damage it, I couldn’t easily replace it. Thanks to a saint named Troy Bartlett, who actually went to a camera store and examined the two camera models I had narrowed my choices to, I confidently purchase a Canon SX10 IS, a “super zoom” that is just a step below a DSLR.

The kind folks at Greg’s Camera Shop here in Tucson spent an hour with me last Friday going over the basics. They even turned off the automatic digital zoom, which often destroys an image rather than enhancing it. The next day I took it for a test run, and could not have been more pleased.

I honestly had no idea what this bird was when I zoomed in and took the shot, but after downloadloading the image to my computer and cropping it, Voila! It’s a black-throated sparrow! This camera, with a 20x zoom, even overcomes my inability to stalk a subject.

Cheryl probably didn’t know what a wonderful new world she was going to open to me, simply by trusting me with her camera and encouraging me to “Go play.” I’d like to pass along the same sentiments to anyone else contemplating digital nature photography.