Late Summer

Late summer is one of the most difficult times to try and photograph hummingbirds at my house. The bees are stocking up on nectar for the upcoming winter. In the process they absolutely overwhelm my hummingbird feeders. This morning it was impossible for the hummingbirds to try and feed. In moving the feeders around I was surrounded by bees and a constant buzz. It felt like a beekeeper at the hives. I finally gave up and came back indoors.


I went up to my office and started looking through old files and I came across one of my favorite images.When we were in Bora Bora my kids began catching Hermit Crabs along the beach. They kept them for a little while and then let them go. The kids as well as myself found them to be fascinating creatures. I love this image it for its simplicity and the beautiful color combination. What a cool little creature!



God's precious love to all,

chris

Note: The bee image has only about half of the bees that were on it. When I lowered it down to photograph it about half of the bees fell off or took off before I photographed them.

Sharks

I spent a good amount of time sorting old images this morning and I ran across some of my shark images from Moorea and Bora Bora in French Polynesia. On Moorea Annika and I got to go on a shark feeding trip with just she and I and the Polynesian guide Calex. We were supposed to just go and feed the sting rays but Calex asked us if we wanted to do something special. When he told us it was feeding the sharks we readily agreed.




We moored the boat in about two feet of water on a white sandbar just off a motu. Next to us was a deep blue channel running through the coral out to the ocean. Calex had brought a can of chopped up batfish with us. He began tossing small pieces out into the water. Immediately Black Tipped Reef sharks began streaming out of the channel and grabbing the fish bits almost at our feet. Sometimes two or three sharks would come by us at a time.



Lowering myself down into the water with sharks racing by less than four feet away was frightening and a bit uncomfortable at first. But once I realized that I wasn't on the menu it proved to be exhilarating. The sharks would dart up out of the channel and then race by grab a piece of fish all in one quick motion. It was incredible how fast they could turn and bite. Some sharks just sat close by and seemed to be waiting for the bigger pieces. It was a bit disconcerting to look at that their eyes.



Calex eventually ran out of bait and the sharks mulled in tight circles below us. One bold shark came right up to Calex with its mouth open heading right for his midsection. Calex promptly rapped it on the snout with his bait container and it sped away.
It was an amazing experience. We swam two more times with the sharks on the trip but they were done in a very controlled way and we were with large groups of people so it wasn't nearly as exciting.



The majority of the sharks we saw were Black Tipped Reef sharks which are not usually known for aggresive behavior towards humans. We also got to spend some time with some Lemon Sharks in an enclosed lagoon. They were well fed and not the least bit interested in us. Though Lenore had one inhale a yellow angel fish directly in front of her as she was snorkleing along!
I photographed the sharks in all three situations but he time spent with Annika and Calex was the most memorable to me.

God's blessings to all,

chris!

Non Photo Days

The past few days have been non photo days. The vast majority of yesterday was spent dealing with computer issues. I'm donating one of my old computers to Lenore's class room and I had a bunch of photos backed up on it from Bora Bora that I needed to transfer to a back up hard drive. The problem was that my computer wouldn't recognize the drive on the old computer. A lot of time was wasted doing a work around to get the images all transferred. When I finally finished I spent some time cleaning my office which has been a bit neglected and needed some attention.









Today was spent ferrying children to and fro and doing a doctor visit to the dermo to have too much sun in my past burned off of my face. Ouch! When picking up Annika in the afternoon from her "Rock Camp" I saw a pretty cool yellow flower in front of a nearby house and I created a quick image of by adding some texture to it from another image.



God's special blessings to all,

chris