Dangerous Encounters

I had to stop cutting the grass in the back yard in order to take this picture. If you spend some time looking around the shrubs and plants in almost anybodies yard you can find insects that make interesting subjects for macro photography. Most people will not get this close but if your brave it's well worth it...

Camera Nikon D-300 / Lens Nikor 85mm macro

Iso-500 / Shutter speed 1/60 sec. / f-16

Water Lily Photohraphy

During the summer months it always a challenge to find and photograph water lily plants. Brookside Gardens (part of Weaton Regional Park in Silver Spring Maryland) has many oppertunities for all types of photography, so I hangout there often. I have found that if you use a polarizing filter and high f-stop (f-16 or higher) the results are not bad. Use your tripod and if you can show up on a cloudy day or early in the morning you will encounter less problems. Trying to do macro photography under specular light (high noon or later) presents problems (too much hard light), it can be done but it's just harder. It was a cloud overcast day with rain off and on when these pictures were done...
Camera Nikon D-300 Lens Nikor 18-200mm, ISO 200, Shuter Speed 1/13sec. f-18 for the close-ups and f-29 for the wide shot...

Fourth of July at the Washington Monument 2013

Since I have to be at work down the street last night I went in early and photographed the fireworks.The scafolding around the monument is to fix cracks caused by a minor earthquake. Nikon D-300 Lens Tamron 18-270mm

ISO-200, f 9-11, Shutter speed 1.3-2 sec. Manual setting