Focal Point

Photographing flowers is always so rewarding. A pretty flower can make a pretty picture and you do feel good when you get a good picture.

Sometimes we do need to look closer and see the beauty in minute details. Like this flower for example. It's really pretty as a whole but even when you get really close you can see there is much more to it that is waiting to be explored.

So details are important and we need to look closer and appreciate little tiny things :)

Light Painting Vase

I've tried getting back to light painting because I haven't done it in a while and I'd forgotten how much fun it was. Of course it requires a lot of patience but it's worth the effort.

This particular picture was part of a "welcome home" banner that I did recently out of light painting.

I wanted to do something unique unlike the previous banners that I'd done and I thought light painting would be a good place to start.


Painting this vase wasn't too difficult but took a lot of time because I really wanted to get all the details so I had to go in and paint each flower separately and then the vase itself. The white streaks you see are actually reflections of the torch I was using. I used a home-made diffuser (ok, it was just a piece of paper).

Silver Lining

"Every Cloud Has A Silver Lining"
That's what I was thinking when I took this shot.

The dark, stormy cloud with the sun behind it creating a nice golden border just looked out of this world.

Would have loved to get a shot of the entire cloud (which was massive) but the buildings blocked the view.

Anyway what I was able to get wasn't half bad so I'm actually quite happy.

Sun Bathing

You'll find a lot of these dragonflies out and about when the sun is shining. That, to me was strange in the beginning because we were always taught in school that dragonflies come out only when it's about to rain.

Of course that proved to be false, like so many other things they tell us and I'm glad that it isn't true.

If it was then I wouldn't have been able to get this particular picture.
This dragonfly stayed pretty still till I took this picture and then it just flew off.

I was amazed by the details in the wings and the entire dragonfly when I zoomed in after I'd copied the pictures to my computer. Just goes to show how amazing God's creation really is :)

Throne Of Light

I haven't done a lot of light painting lately so I decided to get back to doing it.

Once I set about painting with light I realised I was out of practice and what would have taken me 5 seconds earlier took me about 15 seconds. I definitely need more practice.

Anyway I really like this particular chair and I've never done any light painting with it before so I thought I'd give it a shot and see how it turns out.

Just creating the streaks around the chair weren't enough and I had to light up the design on the headrest and the two chair legs as well. I used a home made diffuser for that (a piece of folded paper...doesn't get any simpler than that).

I'd forgotten how much fun light painting actually is :)

Btw if you want to get started here is a light painting tutorial for you to check out. (Just click on "light painting tutorial").
Weather permitting I'm going to try creating some orbs today with some torches (not ideal but it's what I have).

Red Dragon

I happened upon this red dragonfly when I wasn't prepared. The camera wasn't with me and I nearly went too close.

Fortunately the dragonfly stayed in the same place long enough for me to go grab my camera and get a good shot of it. These red dragonflies aren't very common here so it's always a treat to see them. They're really beautiful.

I find that these red ones are more easily spooked than the other dragonflies. I wonder why that is.

For all you skeptics out there - The colours are all natural. I haven't added or subtracted any colours. These beautiful creatures do exist. Just the beauty of God's wonderful creation :)

Two Eyes

I went out to shoot a dragonfly and on the way back I noticed this gigantic moth. It is probably the largest moth I've see in real life.

It was beautiful. I'm still trying to ID it but I'll update this post as soon as I find out.

The design on the wings was just beautiful and just goes to prove that God indeed is the best artist!

The design looked like four eyes (two on each wing) looking and staring at me. It was in a weird position so it was difficult to line up the shot perfectly but this is what I was able to get out of it.

I've also attached a picture of the entire moth just in case you are interested :)

UPDATE: Thanks to +Andrew Hardacre I now know that this is a Tussore Silkmoth Antheraea mylitta.
Thanks Andrew :)

Creepy Crawlies

What's that? You don't like creepy crawlies? Ah well it's just a picture. Plus they weren't really crawling about. They were just huddled together.

Oriental Garden Lizards are great right? I had noticed this lizard on a tree and when I went to take a picture of it I noticed these caterpillars on the tree. They were huddled together. There is probably some scientific term from this but I don't know what it's called. Some kind soul on Google+ or Facebook might tell me what it is :D

Anyway I've seen this before but this time the group was really large and there were multiple on this tree. I'm told that they will eventually destroy this poor and helpless tree.

Buff Striped Keelback

Some kind souls on Facebook ID'd this beautiful snake for me. I didn't know it had such a cool name!

Buff Striped Keelback! I mean, Come On! That is cool! :D

We get a lot of these snakes here but it's very difficult to get a good look at them because they quickly go and hid in some bush and since there are a lot of bushes here, they have loads of places to hide.

A Harmless Visitor

My dog started barking a lot so when I went out to see why I saw this little snake in front of his kennel. It wasn't really bothered by the dog but it tried to get away when I went close.

I grabbed the camera and got a few quick shots before it went away. We get a lot of these here specially during the rainy season and I enjoy them. Although I don't really like it when cobras come close...

A few weeks back there was this snake that was trying to eat this frog that was a whole lot bigger than it's own mouth. I threw a stone somewhere near the snake and it slithered away really fast and left the stunned frog behind. The frog hopped away and was never seen again.