Waiting for the Sunrise

A couple of weeks back I pre visualized an idea that I had for an image. I was walking down our driveway and a grasshopper jumped up in front of me and hopped across the driveway. Almost immediately I had the idea of an image of a grasshopper silhouetted on dried grass against the rising sun. Yesterday morning I gathered up what I needed to create that vision. I captured a grasshopper on the driveway and set up some dried grass on a table in my studio upstairs. What I could have really used was a wrangler to help keep the grasshopper contained. I almost lost it once before I finished photographing it and setting it free. I'm sure it has a whopper of a story to tell its grasshopper friends. God's love and blessings upon your day, chris This delightful image was created with a Canon 7D MkII camera and a Canon EF 70-300 f 4-5.6IS USM lens at 115mm. The camera was supported on a Manfrotto 055 XPROB Pro tripod with a Bogen heavy duty ballhead. The camera settings used were AV mode, ISO 800, F 11.0 at 1/80th of a sec.#TeamCanon

Wee Beastie

I'm starting to see more and more grasshoppers in the yard. Fascinating little creatures. Can you imagine having to dig your way to the surface after being born? Or have the ability to jump thirty or more times your body height and more than the length of a football field? On top of that having the ability to fly! How about having ears on your abdomen or the ability to play music by stridulating. Which is rubbing your back leg on the front of your wing to make music. Even though they are amazing they aren't friends of farmers due to the damage they can do to crops. Mine do a little bit of damage to the garden but not really enough to hurt anything. Here is one I captured off of the driveway photographed and then set free. Such cool looking little beasts. God bless, chris Image created with a Canon 7D and a Canon 100-400 IS lens at 150mm with a 36mm extension tube for close focusing. Camera was mounted on a Manfotto 055XB tripod with a Bogen 3055 ballhead. Camera settings used were AV mode, ISO 400,F11.0 at .60 sec.

Grasshopper

With the advent of the colder weather one of the things I least expected to find in the backyard was a grasshopper. I guess it found a way to hide out from the cold and chilly weather we had.So here is one grasshopper image and a couple of images from this mornings sunrise. God's light and love to everyone, chris

Creatures of the Meadow

Today I went back to the meadow to see what I could find. Here are a couple of creatures from the meadow. I love to get really close with my macro lens. I had some difficulty today as my camera decided not to work in aperture priority mode and it wouldn't let me set the f stops.Electronic stuff can be such a pain sometimes.

God's love and blessings to all,

chris

Mad for Macro in the Meadow

This morning I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I wanted to photograph some grasshoppers! I rolled out of bed while the rest of the house was sleeping. I grabbed my macro lens and a tripod and headed out the door. My destination was a small meadow below the dam at Lake Emily near my house here in Northern California. I knew I would find some grasshoppers there. The cool thing was is that I found quite a few other insects as well.There were bumble bees, butterflies,hoverflies and even earwigs. I had a great time crawling around on my knees and getting down low on my belly.I'm really happy with many of the images. Take a look and see.

God's love and blessings to all,

chris

The First Grasshopper of the Year

This morning went pretty much the same as the last few mornings. I created a lot of bird images. Some of them turned out really great too. When I finished my morning session I went out in search of some new perches. I needed some new rocks so I went up into the hillside pasture to see if I could find some nice lichen covered rocks for next time I'm out. I found a couple of nice looking ones. As I was picking up the second one I caught some movement by my right foot. There was a grasshopper barely moving. You could only guess that it had just hatched out due to the warm days we have been having. I just had to photograph it for today's photoblog. Besides we need a break from the birds once in awhile.

God's love and blessings to all,

chris