Mostly Macros

Occupy --The last sign in the park-- a new year dawns

2011-12-29T21:30:00.000-08:00

Happy Holidays everyone! A new year comes, 2012. Some say it's the end of the world. End or not--I will keep shooting and shooting spider macros and learning more about spiders. 2012 is no different then 2000. And we all know how that went. I will also post events that my lens captures but don't get me wrong because of the Occupy photos and videos--I am a freelance journalist/photographer and NOT here to write a political blog about my views. I will post what I photograph and experience and to some degree that alone should show you what I believe.

Back to macro basics-- since I got my D7000 I have a load of new images I need to post. Until I get some stuff done first I will not be able to post as much as I want too.

"Foggy building UFO"
I shot this the night we covered Occupy Portland closing. The parks were closed and fenced off, they seemed cold and smaller without all those people. I will put more pics of that night up soon but suffice it to say as photos below show, little actual damage was done to the parks by protesters. I was really amazed at how cleaned up the park was and how little impact the demonstration seemed to have. The turf is replaced every year anyway--and it nearly did not look that bad. I expected far more visible damage. I encourage anyone who is interested in the Occupy situation to not just see it on the news and then judge the parks as being "trashed". If you actually seen it for yourself you may well not agree with what some media outlets said about things. I don't agree with all the varied and sometimes differing opinions we heard down there but I think it is an important right to protest and speak your mind to the government and the world.

And people say I take too many pictures! I don't know why there are 3 dishes and at least 5 security cameras on this building. I snapped this shot while riding the Max transit line and only this side of it is visible. One thing everyone should remember-- there is no such thing as not being photographed. Sometimes people also get mad at me for taking a picture with them in it. Almost always this is because they happen to be in the photo--not because I want to put them up on line or have a picture of any particular person. In this day and age, when everyone has a cellphone with a camera and security cameras everywhere-- no matter what you are going to be photographed weather you know about it or not and weather your like it or not. I ask when ever feasible but sometimes people over-react and asume I am photographing them. I understand the fears people have, but please don't take it out on photographers! I say this--if you don't want to be photographed--don't go to a public event such as Occupy Portland! I respect the wishes of people who say they do not want to be posted or photographed and have proven it many times. Clearly--many people do not.

"HAM RADIO OPERATOR" --this is my station--KF7DFP-- this is NOT a CB or those family radios.
I have not been talking much on Ham radio because I have been busy and I have power supply issues, but I am a licensed technician class radio operator. These are my main radios. A Kenwood 2M all mode TR9000 (Left) and A Radio shack TRX-10 (right). I also often use my portable, the VX-7R, 6m, 2m, 220 and 440Mhz transceiver with very wide TX/RX. My call-sign is KF7DFP and I usually listen on 144.2 USB 2M SSB. And on 10M 28.388-28.4 USB.

This is me and my new D7000. Almost 2 years saving to get this camera. It's not only a full 14bit 16.1 MP DSLR, it's also a full functioned 1080P video camera with pro inputs and other awesome features.

I have not seen this many birds in a while! I shot this from the Max in Portland.

Some Details of a spider I found. She is also at the top of this post. I have yet to look up this spider exactly. She was one of two that I found in a restaurant. They repelled down after ballooning into the wrong place. I photographed them and then released them in a better spot.

For these shots I let her walk on my bed but in future shots I will be shooting some spiders against a new background to show just how much I trust spiders and why people should not be so afraid of them.

This little spider was fast but my camera and I were faster and I got some cool shots of her before letting her go. I have been taking pictures of spiders through the winter and trying to find out more about the some species that live through the winter.

The size of this spider next do a quarter.

Abdomen and thorax details.

More details, I can get even closer and more detailed then this with some of the new macro setups I have been testing.

The start to all our travels, this is the Max transit system. Two lines run through Portland and a couple other lines run to other areas. A bus ticket will get you a ride on both buses and this electric train.

A Fall spider--she is building one of her last webs but may live into December if she does not get too cold.

Another shot of the same spider, she's a bit cold now but just a little sun and she will make repairs to her web. Spiders are born knowing how to make perfect webs, but over time they also learn how to make better/different ones and save time in repairs. This is the same species that shocked the scientific world when they built webs without gravity in the space shuttle. This was done after some experimentation on the part of the spiders but successful.

This was quite a find. My wife is holding up a heart shaped peace of a water melon which incredibly naturally seemed to fall out of the melon. I know it looks cut on purpose or with a tool, but this was a total accident.

My wife holds up the heart shaped melon.

"The Portland Building UFO"
The night Occupy was doing a vigl for loosing the parks, there was cold fog and it made for some awesome building shots. I don't know why this building has such huge spot lights on it-- they are not strong enough to be able to see the ground.

Lit by the same huge flood lights powered by portable generators, the 2 previously occupied parks are now fenced in. I have many important pictures I will eventually post on this site of that night once I get them ready to post. The parks were as I said, in really good shape and had I not known what had gone on there just a couple of days before-- I would never have guessed and wondered why the parks were closed down and fenced off!

Fences completely surrounded the downtown parks when we were last down there. There was almost no visible signs of any gathering of people. It was almost spooky.

"The Last sign"
After photographing the parks from many angles which I will post soon on this site looking for any sign that there had been anything going on at the parks-- I finally found one sign that remains. Somehow the Fall leaves had covered it up or something and thus it was missed by cleanup crews and those who helped cleanup the Occupied park when they left. Giving the amount of security, fences and lights-- I think it is amazing the sign was there. They probably spent more money on fencing off the park then they will actually need to "fix it" after all the "damage" was done. I was told that every year the turf has to be re-done anyway due to mud build up and leaves. I am glad that the Occupy movements are happening and people are standing up for there rights and the rights of the oppressed. People should pay fair taxes and there are many things about our society that seriously need to change. The people who work the hardest do NOT make the most money--and the criminal justice system is a mess--two name just two major problems I want to see changed.

First Dishes of the Revolution -- Occupy Portland

2011-11-16T23:47:00.001-08:00

"Occupy Interviews 1"
Produced/edited by: Gabe Beasley
Interview questions asked by: Alina Beasley
WARNING! This movie has been rated by me as "PG" due to some mild language content.
First Interviews taken at Occupy Portland. Here and see what a few people at the Occupy movement had to say in there own words, why they are there, and what they think of it. I am just learning movie making so bare with me as I learn and perfect my technique and use the video abilities of my camera. I have A LOT more to add, these videos take HOURS to upload and photos take hours to process for this site. If I interviewed you you will be on this or one of the next movies on this site and my YouTube site "Mostlymacros".

"FIRST DISHES OF THE REVOLUTION"
An on site documentary by Gabe Beasley
THIS is a PEACEFUL MOVIE showing the atmosphere and attitude one usually would have experienced. I made this video to show what it might be like to take a walk through the Occupy camp during this time. I did not know anyone down there yet and was met by a peaceful and awesome people. I want to show this side of things in contrast to the constant media and YouTube buzz of videos with bad language, brawls and other sensationalism that is posted too often. That JUNK misses the point! Most of it was and is a peaceful protest and usually people were NOT yelling at each other. This was and is a very peaceful movement with important and serious messages. I am not only impressed by most of the serious Occupy movement but ALSO by the Portland Police who showed far more respect for free speech here in Portland then was shown in many other cities around the world.

IMPORTANT ART NOTE:
Some art in this movie was done by unknown artists, signs, and beginning sign) If you do know who did the sign at the beginning of this movie PLEASE email me as I want to give them credit for there art which made the opening screen of my first documentary possible).

OCCUPY PORTLAND -- RECENT EVENTS -- MOSTLY MACROS
I Really enjoyed and agreed with most of the stuff I saw at Occupy Portland and my wife and I can be seen in this video as we got involved in the protest. When I was not taking pictures I was protesting as well. I really think it's time that corrupt people are shown what they have done and big changes are made in the way our government and the super-wealthy do things. We all deserve a chance and fact is we don't all have one. There are just too many unfair situations going on. Not only to human beings and not only in the USA. All over the world, injustices need to be heard and not simply ignored as another 'phase' to be put down. Because it WILL NOT go away.

"Golden Bee" 2006
I took this shot with my Kodak DX7630 back when I got going in digital. It was actually shot with a compact camera to which I had added a homemade closeup lens and a flash reflector to make shots like this possible without a hot-shoe for an external flash.

MOSTLY MACROS will be changing but for the better--some things will not--I am just adding more "Independent lens" Journalistic content.
I have often pledged to not talk about politics in Mostly Macros but for this I have made an exception because I feel there are important issues that need to be shown. As an totally independent jornalistic photographer I want to show the facts as much as I possibly can since the mainstream news media so often fails at this. At Occupy Portland I took 1000s of still pictures, night and day, dozens of videos, and several interviews my wife really helped me with. In time, many will be posted here and or on Flicker and YouTube but I want to start here as this is my main site. Sorry about the delay if I interviewed you and you don't see it yet. Because of budget problems I am using a very small and slow Netbook (Intel Atom 1Ghz processor--equiv. to about a 2003 computer) to process my pics and even compile some videos. It took me over 4 hours to make the 12min movie "First Dishes of the Revolution" and another 3 or so to upload it to my YouTube channel. This is my first YouTube video and I plan to make more but until I can get a regular laptop with Win7 and more then 1GB of RAM it will take time. I hope that eventually I will be able to afford a full laptop/notebook that has enough memory and a fast enough processor (about $500 cost) to work with video files and my huge RAW files which are often larger then 20mb with my Nikon D7000. I am a true struggling artist and trying to save but I have to take into account other costs (life) and have not yet been able to save up enough for a computer that can handle my needs. Even though a pretty basic laptop would do it. We are still recovering from our house burning down in 2009. I am hoping that eventually my photographic and artistic works will be more recognized and I want to go into documentary film making. As for Political opinions go, that's not really what Mostly Macros will ever be about. I may say my opinion on some issues--but generally I am here to show what I photograph--the facts and report. Some people may say things which I do not agree with in videos--but that does not mean I will not show the interview. I want to report on the issues I take interest in and photograph them. I also want to do artistic/photographic projects and even get into documentary film making. It is not my intent to make another political blog or news and views site.

There are many opinions in the world and many at Occupy--I do not agree with everything everyone is saying--but it is time for corruption to end and the poor should not pay for it. I know this is not a simple issue. The spider/nature and artistic shots are NOT over! I will be doing a number of articles about spiders and other pictures as time goes on. I am just announcing here that I plan to open Mostly Macros up a bit to some political situations, declare it to also be a jornalistic blog. I have a lot of work to do on it, but given time I think this will be a good looking blog. I will continue to try to keep Mostly Macros as G-RATED as possible. If there is content in videos or articles that I think will be a problem (such as bad language in an interview) I will post serious warnings before and under the video. I have still not decided if I will post such videos in this site as I want kids and schools to be able to continue to use it for information and projects on insects and spiders. Once I get a laptop that will let me edit videos I will be able to bleep out bad language in them. If a video does have such language there will be plenty of warning and NO VIDEOS on this site will have other types of questionable content. If you read this please leave a comment about content issues, your opinion matters!

Incredibly this small Intel Atom powered Netbook was able to cut my movie down from 720p HD which was HUGE to a smaller and more manageable 480p video. It was shot originally in wide screen HD but had to be cut to 4:3 in order to bring it down in size so that I could work with it on this computer (I can't watch even 720p HD on this computer direct from camera). This video took 4+ hours to process with this computer and it will take similar amounts of time to get other videos ready that I made at Occupy Portland. Give it time--and they will be up there. Thank you for checking out my site and don't forget there are lots of pictures on this site! If you want to link or have any questions please email. I will try to respond to comments in time. --G.Beasley

OCCUPY PORTLAND -- Pictures SET 1

2011-10-18T19:08:00.000-07:00

I have over 1,700 pictures from Occupied Portland Oregon that I took during 2 days and part of the night there. In my opinion it was a great event and these 'Occupations' are bringing out serious and solid social issues that MUST be changed sometime in the future. Being here was both an awesome experience photographically and in hope for our country and world's future. I don't believe in all these ideas, but many of them I do. I am breaking my long-held non-political stand on Mostly Macros. HOWEVER This does NOT mean I am no longer going to show you the spider pictures and articles I do or other nature shots I will continue to publish. While this is going however--my lenses are on Occupied Portland as the mainstream News media seems to want to act as if it means nothing and does not exist.

Not changing them and not listening to the people will eventually not become an option. America and indeed the world, may well be at a crossroads. This to me even though I was not born yet in the 1960s, is the greatest protest for civil-rights and liberties, justice, and accountability as well as the fight against greed since that time. I have a set of mostly SIGN pictures that I WILL release soon. This set 2 of pictures will have most of the expressed political views and artistic signs made by the protestors during Occupation Portland while I was photographing it.

NOTES: I DO NOT NECESSARILY AGREE WITH ALL SIGNS OR STATEMENTS MADE HERE! I will add text later if I am interested in a specific thing to agree with. Otherwise consider this simply what I viewed through my lens. Journalism as I think it should be done showing whatever I see--not just tiny snippets of what I want to see. Opinions were often common but a very wide number of views and issues are being represented by the Occupy movement in general throughout the world. I hope it is a peaceful revolution that will enact some serious change and spark some well doing in a now obviously desperate nation and world. Inequality and oppression cannot remain in place forever, such things cannot be ignored.

(2) IF you wish to have your photo removed please email me--(email on sidebar of this blog) IF you wanted to be on my blog and have not seen your shot yet--PLEASE WAIT--I have lots of pictures and work to get these up.

THE BEST PICS I GOT ARE YET POSTED HERE!
MORE WILL BE UP SOON--LOTS OF WORK SO JUST GIVE ME TIME!

(3) I HAVE MANY MORE PICS TO POST! This is only the first installment. I have the protest march, and many other events and activities I think should be shown. These are NOT the best pictures or the pictures I picked. They were just the first ones to fall on the top of my JPEG pile of over 1700 shots from that day. There is far more to see and come about OCCUPY PORTLAND.

(4) To view full size of any image double click on image. USE BACK ARROW on your internet explorer (such as Firefox) to get back to my site.

Here is my wife, doing a really great thing on the protest walk October 15th. She really helped me by watching my camera gear while I took shots and did the full protest walk. She's the best wife in the world for understanding my ideas and photographic life.

This is a married couple who were just married yesterday, hailed as "the first married couple of Occupied Portland". I promised I'd post there picture on my site. (Contact me if you see it and I will add your names--email me your names! :)

Normal pictures. Even at a high ISO, taking shots in near-darkness is not easy. So I got out my tripod and went for night-shots turning night--into day.

This shot was taken just a few seconds after the above black dark shot showing how dark it was in camera terms. With long exposures, you can get incredibly detailed shots of anything that stays still. However, if people move in the picture--the movement can be seen in an interesting and artistic ghost like way. Night-shots can be better then day-time shots. So I have a number of them more I plan to take and post of Occupied Portland.

MATING SPIDERS!

2011-09-28T14:13:00.001-07:00

You ever wondered how spiders make love?

This is a rare site let alone shot! Spiders in that act of mating. Spider sex has been stigmatized for years. Many people assume that spiders all act like black widows and kill there mates. This is not true at all. As these spiders showed me and my wife on a lucky day a few weeks ago-- the male and female get along very well and go their separate ways after mating.

These two will get along great and part their separate ways when done. But mating can be hard for a nearly blind predator. Some species actually commit suicide as the male moves his body into the females mouth and forces her to bite him, others it can happen by accident--but this species Araneus diadematus is down right loving when it comes to mating. Other species like the big-jawed spiders that live over water lock there jaws in a kiss while mating to insure they will not bite one another. There are many species who take precautions and mate killing almost never happens. This pair mated twice while we were there giving me the chance to take some rare pictures. Spiders even have a gentle side. This is the same species that amazed scientists by building perfect webs in space after hours of practice and experimentation on the part of the spider, proving that not all there actions are programmed at birth!

This is one of the most common and certainly the most commonly seen spiders here in the Portland Oregon area. However, just getting a chance to see spiders mating is an incredible thing. I have only observed it about 4 times in my life. Photographing it twice now. So this does not happen very often. It is the right season, to see mating spiders you definitely have to think about that. Late summer early fall is a good time. And you must be very still and not frighten them as when any 2 predators come together--a serious amount of careful communication is needed to make sure intentions on both sides are clear--mate and not meal!

They come together slowly, the male and female strutting the web with signals of substance. The female is far larger then the male here, but either spider could deliver a deadly bite to one another. We watched the entire thing twice as I fumbled to get my gear ready for a good sequence of shots and just see this at the same time. It is a rare site, let alone picture! In this species there is no bondage, but in some species the female actually gets wrapped up so that the male does not get bit while mating. In this case, she simply assumes a very submissive pose and the male recognizes that very quickly. He comes in slowly ready to run but confident and soon will embrace her.

The moment just before, she is in a submissive pose. The male who has his legs out--knows this and is ready with the two organs that look like 'boxing gloves' near his mouth. These are the palps. Males and females have them but they are enlarged in males so that the male spider can deliver sperm. The male must insert his palp (usually) into the females sex organ the epigynum. This is located on the abdomen, her underside which she has exposed here in this photo.

Here he is getting ready and she shows no signs of hostility so all is good. This was amazing to see. Someday I will have 2 SLR cameras and be able to do stills as well as HD video of this kind of thing without missing anything. He holds her in an almost loving way and she for the first time since she was a spiderling, lets another spider touch her.

The whole thing is over very fast. He delivers his package of prepared sperm that he put into his palps in a sperm-web (a small silk area made for transferring sperm to his palps before mating). She will store his sperm and he will go off to possibly mate again or mate with another female. No hostility was observed with these two. I was actually surprised by how nice they were to each other. Some species even give the female an offering of food, while other males are born to die--with no mouth--they live for only one reason which is to mate and die in the process. This is not the majority however. Garden spiders are mild tempered and a good thing to have in your garden. They are also called the "Cross spider" because some color variations seem to show a clear cross shape on the back.

After mating was done the male just walked out of the females web and she maintained her submissive pose until he was out of her web. Once this was done she took to tidying up her web taking some debris which had fallen into it while she was mating and removing them. That was funny to watch.
I was fighting the sun when I took these shots, my flash and the sun crated some lighting problems that I did not have time to correct. I got this shot just as I was fumbling to setup my gear for a day of shooting and finding the Triangle spider (article below). The male probably made his sperm web last night to make necessary preparations for transferring the sperm to his mate. He was in very little danger from the female with this species, despite the fact that she was in need of a meal herself. She can wait until she has had some good meals before she lays her eggs.

(Orange A. diadematus)
(Dark, Brown A. diadematus)
The two we saw mating were the Brown variety of the same species. There is also this kind which lives side by side and even a 3rd which seems related to the shamrock spider. I am not sure if this is a "race" of the species that does not often interbreed or if the color differences are just a genetic tag like eye color in humans which can be one or the other. The only way to find out is more observation and research. Both colors have the same webs and share the same name. They also build small areas to hide from the sun during hot days and make an egg sack. This large female has probably already mated and is ready to lay her egg-sack. They only live one year and lay one egg in their lifetime.

NEXT POST WILL BE: the 'Lynx' spider

THE ILLUSIVE TRIANGLE SPIDER

2011-09-28T12:30:00.001-07:00

This is the hard to find Hyptiotes or Triangle Spider. It is a member of the only kind of spiders that do not have poison glands. Uloboridae. This is actually true, a non-poisons spider! A common held myth (even among experts!) is that all spiders produce toxic poison. The Uloborids do secrete some digestive enzymes into there pray but lack the traditional venom glands.

This spider can be very hard to find. I frist discovered it in Oregon in one place back in 1994. Hopeing to find it again, I returned to the same small forested area near a park and incredibly found one doing very well. What amazes me, is that I have been unable to find this species or any of it's relitives anywhere else here. There is a state park less then a mile from this small forested area which is in danger of being developed. If it is--this species which lives in a 'island' of forest may be gone forever in this area. This is very unlikely, but not impossible. I have not
conclusively identified it completely or proved that it is isolated to this area but these kind of things can and do sadly happen.

I took extensive photos before I released the spider hoping I will be able to use them to identify it and find out if possibly it exists on this small island of forest for a reason. To protect the species I am not going to tell where it is right now. For all I know it may have survived and may actually be stuck on this island of green surrounded by buildings and development. The area was logged once, but the wooded area has not been logged since at least the early 20th century--I am sure this forest area is likely well over 100 years old.

Spiders, just like all other species are put in danger by development. Sometimes a species will survive one logging cycle and live on in the area when plants and trees grow back. But not one after the other over and over. I have spent a very long time looking for this species somewhere else to confirm it is not just on this small island of forest. I have yet to find it anywhere else. It seems unlikely but not impossible. Spiders often have sporadic populations where some species live in certain places but no longer can exist where humans are due to there habitat needs or other issues. If I fail to find this spider in the near by protected park--I will definitely take steps to alert people to the fact that this spider may be holding out there and once that land is cleared--so will be the spider. I admit this is highly unlikely, but not impossible.

The tiny and hard to see Triangle spider has to be spotted among the many very common webs of the Linyphiinae species. The Linyphiinae make upside down webs and are probably the most common spider found through out the forested areas of Portland and the Northwest. (Below)

The "Money Spider"--the British name for it. Here often called the Dome spider. This is the most common species of visible spider. Since silk is everywhere from these spiders which often make webs on top of each other. It can be very hard to spot the Triangle spider in all these webs. We nearly gave up and found it only towards the end of the day. (Below--Dome Spider)

Close up of a Linyphiinae species. Very common in Forest Park and most all forested areas here in the Northwest. I may be jumping the gun here--but I have done surveys of many areas around where the Triangle spider lives and over the years never found it anywhere except this one small forested area. I hope to get an email proving me wrong and that this is a common species. Virtually gone is the large yellow Argiope aurantia in this area-- I used to find them everywhere as a kid and plan to try to locate populations again out in Beaverton where they possibly held out. Most of their habitat has been decimated and worse off poisoned by weed and insect killers. However the species is not extinct and thrives in other places in the US such as Northern California. But here in the Portland area you are very lucky to see one. I hope that is not the case with the Triangle spider. The Argiopes are large spiders and require large insect pray, this may be one reason why they are so hard to find. They also in some areas live in patches where you may find lots in one place and none in another.

A North American spider Field guide puts this family of spiders in North America but I do not think that it is not the same species as shown in the guide and I know it is not due to sexual dimorphism (large changes in colors or looks between male and female animals often leading to people thinking they found a new species). Was it brought in and got introduced to this area of forest? Is it a last hold out? I don't know, but 16 years later I found out it was still there and thriving. I hope that they don't cut down this last spit of land anyway--it could make a nice park and it is more then big enough. They made another area a park near-by--but I hope this land remains the way it is. It has a rich and diverse spider population even better then the nearby official park. Human activity is going to cause problems. I don't like it when they start paving the trails and changing the environment of a park. The point is a natural area--NOT a place to drive golf carts!

I wanted to catch every angle and way this spider acted. This is the typical pose when she sits on a twig or branch holding onto her web or to disguise when there is no web.

This little spider can RUN! I had to move my large camera with big flash gear on it very quickly to try to get a good shot of this spider. I do not leave them in the refrigerator like some people do because I think it is cruel and can also be very dangerous to the spider. If you forget it will die. So I do my best to catch shots on the move and wait for the spider to stop to catch a breath.

Usually I either don't capture a spider at all--or catch and release on scene so that the spider is not displaced from it's habitat. In this case however, I had to leave since it was getting dark so I chose to take this spider back to take detailed shots of it. I wanted to get eye shots and other details that may be very important to exact identification.

(Blend in perfectly)
This is how I found this spider--the Triangle spider is appropriately named. She makes a 'Pizza slice' shaped triangle of an orb web that often looks like another spiders dammaged web until you look close at the detail. I was able to get good shots before I captured her, this is exactly how she sat with her web on her legs. She holds it tight and waits for an insect to fly in. They blend in incredibly to the foliage around them looking like a stem or a bit of bark or even a berry as shown here. Another reason why this spider is so hard to find. The spider is just to the right of the middle of this picture--camouflage that is truly incredible.

--Web drawing coming soon--

I realized that being deep in a forest it was very hard to get good shots of her web. You have to bounce a wireless flash off the web at the right angle. You get the idea about how it makes a perfect section of an orb web only. Just a slice of a pizza. How this came about I have no idea. She then holds it from the tip with the other sides secured to foliage.

Back when I started doing survays of spiders in High school I would note the technique of each species and in each area--as they can vary--that spider uses to escape when afraid. This technique can tell you something about the most common predators in the area of that species. One common technique shared by many web building spiders is to turn into a ball and drop down very quickly onto the ground. DO NOT PICK UP a spider in this position! You may hurt the spider and also the spider is afraid and thus likely to bite you. This spider is totally harmless but in some species it is a bad idea. The best protection against spider bites is to ware gardening gloves. This 'drop technique' makes it very hard for a predator like a bird or bat to find the spider once it's in deep grass or leaves. Here is the spider after it dropped in its' escape position.

(Spider Moss farm)
I found this hanging while taking shots of other spiders on our trip. I thought it was interesting.

Hit and run at 122nd and Burnside

2011-09-11T13:12:00.000-07:00

When my wife and I heard the crash we were frightened. It was loud and less then a block away. We could make out the rear headlights of this mini-van from our deck. I grabbed my camera, and ran down to get some shots. I do consider myself somewhat of a journalist when ever my lens comes across something I think needs to be shown or happens. This crash, apparently ignored by most of the media happened right next to our building and did a lot of damage. I want to note here, normally I show spiders and shots of wildlife on this site. However, if something near by happens that is important for any reason, I will post it.

As you can see it hit the dental office with almost enough force to go through the building. What is even more outrages is that the person driving this car ran the instant the crash happened.

Thankfully, despite these serious pictures there were apparently no injuries. There very much could have been. I can't believe someone would crash their car this bad and not only walk away but run away the instant it happened. After talking to the police who had arrived about the same time as I did, I gathered the car was recently bought privately and the only occupant of the vehicle ran off. Obviously, the person who ran from this accident was probably wanted or intoxicated. I am sometimes outraged by how many anti-smoking commercials and campaigns there are out there while liqueur & booze commercials seem everywhere and drinking hard is encouraged. The impact of alcohol on people's lives these days is often very downplayed in popular culture. While smoking continues to be the target by many people as the worst thing you can do for your health or around your kids--people continue to die from alcohol poisoning and crashes like this. You do not need to be driving anything to die from alcohol at a young age. Few people know or understand this. The MANY diseases that alcohol causes are rarely mentioned. Drinking the way many young people do today is more dangerous then smoking. Even if you don't ever drive drunk. The health consequences of alcohol consumption rarely mentioned by anyone and incidences seem to go ignored by pop culture. I don't think that's a good message.

I am just glad that nobody was hurt in this crash and hope that the person who drove this car is apprehended by the police. This was totally irresponsible. We could hear them doing some kind of burnouts or something before this crash. (who does burnouts in a mini-van!) I seriously was afraid that a family might have been in this car. Thankfully there was apparently only the driver who ran on foot. I heard several stories of what they looked like but they seemed to conflict probably because there were other people walking in the area at the time. One person who was on the sidewalk nearly got hit.

The engine block was almost smashed into the cab from the force of this crash. It's incredible it did not just keep going right into the dental office building. My wife and I are glad we live on a higher floor level!

This happened right next to the Max stop at about 122nd and Burnside around midnight. Obviously, airbags probably saved the driver's life. Young people need to understand that alcohol must be respected. Knowing your limit and when it is time to quit. Taking a stand also of coarse not to drive or be in dangerous situations while drinking. I do not know if this driver was intoxicated but I would bet they were and that might also be why they ran.

I usually don't like to bring up "issues" like alcohol on this site but this one hit too close to home. Literally, in this case. The police towed the car about an hour or so after the crash. Since it was over labor day weekend, I had a hard time getting in contact with local media. After calling 2 news papers and 2 more TV stations I gave up. The phone either rang and rang or I got no call back despite the fact I was the only one there with good shots of the incident. I really want to learn more about how to contact the media and if you can get payed for pictures of local news. I have had a hard time finding clear avenues online about this. My search was frustrating. I guess these days with most people having smart-phones and stuff they are flooded with pictures and you may need the 'apps' to make it easy. I don't have a smartphone. So I just put these shots here showing what happened. I would be very grateful if anyone in the news industry would write me an email letting me know about what to do in this area when I have some footage or video that might be wanted by the news media. It's not so much the money although we really could use it. Even if I do not get payed for shots I would like my shots published where ever they can be.

COMING SOON!
Soon I will get back to publishing amazing new pictures I got. A species of triangle spider I found here in Oregon, and a rare event-- the garden spider shown in my articles, Araneus diadematus in the process of mating! That is rare site let alone shot to get. I was very lucky recently. I should have it up in a couple of weeks.

Bricks and toylet paper -- the yard next door! :)

2011-08-31T18:29:00.000-07:00

OUCH! I think anyone who owns a car dreads this. I first want to start of by saying -- I DID NOT DO THIS -- and I do NOT know who did. I don't even know who owns the car. I asked the many small kids in the area who were walking around if they knew what happened but they were very tight lipped about it. I spotted this relatively new car totally TP'ed from my apartment yesterday. You don't see this everyday so I had to go take some shots before the cops showed up or it got cleaned up. I was loosing daylight quickly so I had to go back to my apartment to get batteries for my flash.

For kids of all ages out there--DON'T TRY THIS--you might end up in jail because this is vandalism. Joke or not it could be very dangerous.

Less then 15min later I came back with fresh batteries in my flash and noticed that there was even more toilet paper on the car! Someone had not only come along and done this while it was still light outside, they did it while I was walking back to get batteries! I could have caught them in the act on video had I known! As for the post-it notes, I looked carefully without touching the car. No message was written on the post-it notes. And incredibly, the cops never showed up as far as I know. The car was cleaned up by a couple hours later.

It was not just TP! Although no serious damage seemed done, there were rocks, grass and post-it notes all over the car. Someone obviously wanted to tell someone something but did not write it on the notes! Either that or it was a practical joke. Somehow, I think the message theory is more likely. What amazes me is that they were still doing this when I was down there and I did not even know it.

This was the scene when I first got there without my flash batteries. Most of it had been done. I was surprised to see that the car had not been scratched, no tires damaged and no obvious serious stuff luckily for the owner--whoever they are.

In the end my presence here with my semi-large sorta professional camera and flash became a bit too noticeable and I got out of there. Someone clearly came back and did more damage in the less then 15min it took me to get back down and take the flash photos!

TRACTOR PULL
CLICK on picture to see details-- use back arrow (<--) to return

After a nearby house burned down I thought it was a good idea that they tear down the houses next door. People were going in them and vandalizing them as well as using them to abuse drugs. But when they did, this excavator had an accident and I happened to catch it in one shot. I did a burst of pictures showing the situation. (below) The 60 year old home had a chimney which came down right on the windshield of the excavator! Here you can see the moment of impact almost exactly as well as the tempered glass shattering.

"Falling - - -"
The moment before the crash as gravity propelled the heavy brick chimney towards the windshield of the excavator. I was too shocked to do anything but keep shooting. I did not get this on video. However I took a very fast burst which captured each step of the fall. Don't worry, the guy driving this tractor was not hurt.

"Houses Revenge"
I have several other frames almost showing a movie of this crash but this is where it started. He must have moved something wrong and there was no time at all to move out of the way.

"Just another day on the job"
I was careful not to show his face here. You can clearly see the broken safety glass as well as a brick inside the cab! What a mess! What amazed me was not only was he not hurt, he simply cleaned out the mess quickly and got right back to work as if nothing had happened. This guy really is a hard worker and dedicated to the job!

Spider season

2011-08-31T17:57:00.000-07:00

A small Jumping Spider (Salticidae) on a hedge near our apartment. Two of there eight eyes are stereoscopic like ours. They can judge distances and have the best vision of all spiders. They are harmless. Some species in tropical areas will bite if harassed but from personal experience the bite is not nearly as painful as a bee-sting. 99% of spiders are HARMLESS to humans and spider hysteria still grips the USA. Recently, a poor species of harmless louse spider was featured as a "brown recluse" on a news program. I was shocked but it was too late for me to say anything. They did not even have anyone on hand to identify a captured spider. The press showed it and the "bites" that the woman suffered were probably a skin condition aggravated by scratching. People get a condition or painful sore and often see a spider and that's it. It's not fair and ignorant. Without spiders, we would be knee deep in dangerous insect species, many of which carry truly deadly diseases. They way people treat spiders often reminds me of a witch hunt in the dark ages.

"Website"
Another benfifical species I have featured many times, Araneus diadematus the most common species of spider in much of North America and the first species of spider known to build webs in outer space. Several of them were taken up in the Space shuttle and to the amazement of scientists they built perfect webs without gravity. Adapting by learning they soon figured it out by trail and error in this strange environment. This cast doubt on the idea that fixed programming--instinct--is the only thing even invertebrates know. They clearly can learn.

This male of the same species has his legs set on a nearby female. He will pluck out a code specific to his species letting her know he's interested and keeping her from seeing him as a meal. For this species, the male is not eaten by the female and the usually part ways without incident after mating.

The same spider from another angle.

"Hot Spider"
This spider is of the same species as those featured above. She is VERY hot. An interesting observation I have made all over the world is that many very different species of orb web building spiders change how they sit in the web on very hot days. It was about 90 F when I took this picture. They seem to attempt to get there body out of the sunlight at least to some degree by changing there posture. I am surprised she has not chosen to go to a hiding place in the shade. Maybe there is not one, or maybe since she is in need of a good meal she wants to be ready for any insect that comes by.

HAPPY NEW YEARS PORTLAND!

2011-01-07T14:54:00.000-08:00

For new years my wife and I spent the cold days here in Portland at a hotel near the Loyd Center Mall. I got up early despite the cold (about 20 degrees Fahrenheit) and snapped (or rather opened my shutter and lens cap) for a number of long exposures after I finally found a good spot overlooking a bridge. We can't afford a car so I was on foot the whole time and really got chilled for these shots. This was a 25sec expsosure. These shots are not easy to do, especially in the serious cold.

Here is another 25sec exposure done with the D90. I was a bit concerned about it being so cold. With windchill the camera was totally frozen by the time I took these shots but she did well and I did not have any problems. Luckily, it's the only camera I've got! I was truely having a good time despite mild hypothermia while I took these shots. The first time you can make an image you have been wanting to do for a long time is quite a high. I was lucky to find such a great spot to capture both city lights and the cars going in and out early in the morning on foot.

NEW YEARS IN DOWNTOWN PORTLAND
These were also semi-long exposures taken at high ISO. Most of them I keep under 3200 to avoid serious problems later. The D90 is really good at dealing with noise however all the way up to high iso levels. This was the scene at Pioneer Courthouse Square in down town Portland just moments after the new years countdown.

The group of people on the right were doing countdowns every several minutes or so. It seems not everyone's clock was set right. With cellphones today most people are aware of the exact time. My wife and I really wanted to be down here for the moment but at the exact moment according to the atomic clock in Colorado (Coordinated universal time) we were on the train. Everyone was actually nice and lots of cheering on the train was captured by me in HD video but it's too large to post here for now.
This is the kind of train we were on, a long exposure of it going by. I think this was about 10sec exposure or so. Making the train seem transparent as lights made an impression on the sensor before the train arrived to put it's own imprint there. This is the light rail system here in Portland. Usually a great way to get around the city as long as it's not crowded.

The same morning I shot those highway overpass long exposures I also shot this exposure also probably 20-25sec of the area. Simple lights turn night into day and darkness into light. When doing very long exposures (30sec+) one can almost turn night into day anywhere with a good digital SLR. Often the white balance will be a compromise to this making for off colors. You can compensate sometimes with lots of work but I usually just try to make pics as I actually see them as best as I can. To me this early in the morning cold and by myself for this walk--these artistic statues seemed a bit creepy!

Skipping back to downtown Portland Oregon--here you can see a funny but real situation that happened. I have to admit I did not see quite as much drinking as I thought I would, these guys however spilled a beer can out the back of there SUV and there was even a man riding inside it as well when they took off without latching there back door. A low profile cop car they had clearly not noticed beeped at them when they did this but there was too much traffic and stuff going on so I guess the cops let it go. I wish I'd got it on video but a series of stills showed what happened. Drinking and driving is serious no matter what time of year it is. They are really cracking down everywhere. In California it is now as 12,000 dollar fine for just your 1st offense. I am glad they are clamping down on it. The only way to beat the Breathalyzer test is to not drink and drive.

Here are some of the lights in Portland with my lens at 18mm wide angle. They were beautiful but it's a white balance nightmare sometimes. I generally try to make it look as much like what I actually saw when I was there as possible. Some photographers go to great lengths to balance everything to white for an unrealistic view of how the lights really look. Learn how to use your manual settings. White balance is actually not new to photography. Film cameras also have to deal with color variations caused by electrical and artificial lighting situations. I also shot some pics downtown with my Nikon FE 35mm SLR.

This was a 25sec long exposure I walked into and then stood still for so that I would get imprinted by lights behind me into the shot. This makes for a ghostly image that looks like a double exposure. That was a cold morning!

Another ghostly effect created by the lens and long exposure. People walking through blocking light in some places and just being in certain places for slightly longer times can make for interesting art. No modifications were done to this photo--it's straight off the camera and it's sensor. Take a closer look at the strange creations both on the left and in the middle by clicking on it. Use your browsers <--back arrow to return to my blog site.

Another 18mm wide shot of Portland streets. It would have been brighter and lower ISO (thus higher definition) had my tripod not been found to be broken when we arrived at the hotel! That was a big bummer holding back many of the night-shots I wanted to do for the 1st of 2011. I was lucky to find a good tripod that can handle a heavy camera for less then $30 at the local Ritz Kits Camera store at the Loyd Center Mall and thus able to take those overpass pictures. It's almost impossible to shoot exposures slower then about 1/8th sec. even if your in a meditation state of mind (and even with image stabilization in lens or camera) without a tripod. Essential gear for exposures lasting half seconds or longer. $25 or so can get you a solid good tripod for all kinds of shots. Beware of really cheapo stuff.

Another Portland shot downtown of the lights and light-rail (Max line) with people in the distance. It was cool that night but I took over 300 exposures. At the time I shot these I had no tripod so I improvised as much as I could and used an image stabilized lens. I got pics to turn out ok occasionally as low as 1/5th a sec but that's rare and after years of learning how to hold a camera very still.

It looks like most people did not like 2010 much. It was another year, lots of people suffering. This popular news paper was all over town.

I didn't want to upset this guy who was watching me take pictures so I only took 2. I had to take long exposures at this point because of low light and lots of people in the area so not enough time to get my settings perfect. If you have a DSLR with auto ISO this might be a good time to use it--I find that comes in very handy but only if you turn it on! This guy was trying to catch some sleep just a few moments after the new year started. Showing the reality of so many people's lives these days. There is a recently publicized conception that giving money to panhandlers is not a good idea--I disagree. These people have nothing and no control over there lives--I think if you can it's always a good idea to give to them. If you have lived a life without living like this you can't understand what it's like or what it means and the truth about why people end up like this you won't ever really see unless you do yourself.

I lacked a working tripod at this point so I put my camera on a news paper box and managed to catch a few shots of cars passing by on that new years night. It was nice, everyone was talking to strangers and the spirit in the air was good. Why can't we make every day that hospitable to strangers??

Another long exposure with a ghost image. Honestly, I'm not sure who this is. Me, or maybe someone walking by. Or maybe a ghost--who knows. I was not aware this would be in this photo which I shot to capture the subtle effects of passing cars and there lights as you can see in the background.

After we got there just about 3min after 1200midnight the countdowns continued and I just went into taking as many night exposures as possible without a tripod.

I lit up the whole area with my SB-600 Nikon flash. I actually could have done a brighter shot had I noticed that my flash was not stopped down to -2.7 as it was flashing on it's display. I did not notice until later that I forgot to get those settings right in all the stuff going on. A large flash and the right settings can light up a very big area of people.

They turned the tree off and my flash was not fully charged when I took this shot. They turned if off only about 5min or so after midnight. Maybe 10 at the most. One guys shirt reflected my flash so much he looks like he's got a glowing suit on. Once again my flash settings were low as I did fail to check them before shooting during these. On a complex camera there's a lot you have to get right and when lots of stuff is going on its' easy to do everything from leave the lens cap on to forget a simple setting change you made. I make it a point (usually) to set everything back to a sort of "neutral" state for "general photography" when I'm done shooting and backup my gear so that I am ready as I can be and nothing is stopped down or offset in a way I may not expect. It's always a good thing to do. Also--when shooting in cold temperatures bring your camera back inside in a plastic bag so that it warms up without serious condensation. Most of all do not ever remove the lens or change lenses when going from a cold or warm environment very quickly. The last thing you want is condensation on the sensor.

Yes payphones are still around, being used, and incredibly going strong. But what shocked me most about this was the entirely un-protected Trimet LCD HD TV screen! Sadly vandalism of such devices or attempted theft is very common. This TV was very vulnerable and not enclosed in anything. And since when did you need an LCD HD TV to show bus schedules??! Jese--my wife and I don't even have the money for one of those. And we have spent more then enough to buy one on tickets since we moved here yet we have not been checked once. Not even once. So we could have gotten away with riding without a ticket and actually bought one of these HD TVs! I just think there is something wrong with this whole situation. I get upset when they don't check after I spend what builds up to 100s and then 1000s of dollars slowly in bus passes and nobody checks when your riding the Max. Then this is what they spend it on?? Come on. This high end TV is just being used to show bus schedules-- it won't last a year like this with the kind of vandalism that goes on. Why spend that kind of money especially without an enclosure to protect it from jerks?? Every time we get on that light rail it costs about $5 because there's no way to buy ticket that will last long enough or cover all "zones" to get where we usually need to go. I hate to see technology and money wasted. This TV does not stand a chance out here.

This is one of the first shots I took when we got to our hotel. The Portland skyline. I love doing night-shots but shortly after I took this one and planned to do longer lens shots I realized my tripod was broken and just in time. Had I not figured out what was wrong the camera could have been damaged.

Another 25sec exposure I took when I got to the bridge showing traffic going into and out of Portland. I was hoping I'd get a place like this to take pictures and I got lucky just by getting up early enough and taking the time despite the cold to take the shots. Full resolution shots and prints are available of all these shots if anyone is interested. Just email me. I only post 640 res. on here.

And here was a shot I took with remote. This was 1 of 3 tries needed. I had to stand still without moving at all in the cold for 25sec or the exposure got blurred. Yes it was cold but it was well worth it!

Again full sized high resolution files and prints are available of these shots-- just email me if your interested. All in all we had a good trip and New-years day morning these shots made it well worth while for me when it comes to photography.

At different apertures I can control the brightness and other factors all the way up to nearly turning night into day. Long exposures are fun but require some knowledge of photography and gear. We had a great time and hope everyone enjoys looking at these pictures as much as I do! Happy new years to all and lets make it a better year! --G.Beasley

Happy Holidays everyone! --Shots fired close to home

2010-12-25T00:41:00.000-08:00

Yeah that's right. It was snowing here but it only lasted long enough to setup my camera and shoot a few shots with both digital and 35mm. The only sunny day we had, incredibly, was the
day of the shooting.

Usually I would not post this kind of picture on my site. Then again, I post journalistic shots often. I am not going into detailed speculation about what happened. Only to say that a good friend of many people in this building and a man died at about 4am a few days ago. Darrel Dwayne Furgaican (forgive my spelling if that was wrong). Yes, that was the same apartment complex I live in. In fact, he had just moved in with his girlfriend to the unit right next to ours. Our door is on the left of this picture. I have respect for most cops. I have known a few and I think sometimes they get a bad wrap when they may not deserve it. Every cop I've met so far has treated me with respect and sometimes even let me off on a few things. All it takes though is one jerk. I have been lucky I guess. I do tend to side with the cops even though I know the system is a mess. In this situation I am not sure. My wife and I as well as the entire building were evacuated just a few moments after I was told to stay in my apartment. These shots are frames taken from a secret video I made as when we were finally allowed back into our apartment. We were taken to local Trimet buses to keep us warm and interviwed by the police there. I think this was a tragic situation. If you think it even could be the cops!-don't reach for a weapon of any kind! What puzzles me was how many shots were fired --20-- between two officers. There were five people in that small apartment. Bullets were found sprayed all over the place. One even hit the door jam. I was amazed at how inaccurate the firing was almost as if at random. Maybe he was running, we may never know the true story. All I know is I think police should examine a situation more careful and give a subject with a weapon a chance to give up before they simply open fire or pursue alternative means--especially taking steps to insure that not only does he have a real gun but that he really intends on harming someone. I don't want to get too political on this site but I will say what I want. Mainly I will say is that it was very sad and difficult for everyone involved and I feel terrible for his family. This is not that bad of an area. Things like this happen to much. Police should think sometimes a bit more before they chose to use deadly force. My wife and I knew him, he did not do so well when he was drinking but he was always as nice guy to us. Giving me the very table I put my computer on for free. He was not a potential cop killer or really violent man. But it is a fact that his very accurate replica BB gun had them fooled right up until the CSI investigation my wife and I actually heard through our door. He had used magic markers to make it look more real and possibly enlarged the barral. That is not a street smart idea. The cops shown here are CSI and security at the time. THEY ARE NOT the cops who were involved in the shooting.

My wife and I were woke up to rapid gunfire at arround 4 am exactly. I smelled gunpowder in the hallway and got a bad feeling. After hearing some well yell "he's bleeding, he needs paramedics " I looked out the door to see shell casings all over the place and a flashlight dropped on the floor. 9mm casings and a police issue flashlight. Quickly a man in serious black fatigues yelled at me to STAY IN MY APARTMENT SIR! So I closed the door. About 5 min later we were evacuated without hardly time to grab or prepare a camera. When we left our apartment there was two cops with a bullet shield, pump 12 gauge and a AR15 type assault rifle still aimed at the apartment. From this I can only asume they may have had trouble getting the rest of the 5 people out of there and been unsure of what or who was in there. We were on buses kept warm by idling engines for about 4 and a half hours. All in all, I think the CSI guys did a meticulous and professional job on the scene because I spent a great deal of time listening to them at my door and I heard allot of details not revealed to the public for a while.

This was a sad situation. AGAIN the POLICE IN THIS PICTURE ARE NOT the same police who fired the shots--I want to stress that. They are part of the CSI team or for security reasons. He had a BB gun that looked real and apparently showed it to the police or something. They claim he pulled the fake weapon, some say it was suicide by cop, others an tragic accident. No matter what it was--I feel sorry for everyone around and most of all for his family who were moved back into the apartment less then 24 hours after he died in it probably nearly instantly from 3 gunshot wounds. I have many more pictures of the buses and us in them as well as the close to 50 cop cars that showed up here and the media scene but I'm not sure if I will get around to posting it. The whole thing just was a waste that did not have to happen in my opinion.

I have a great many pics I wanted to get out before the holidays but family matters and other stuff has kinda kept me from working on too much. Here are a couple of shots I snapped recently. It snowed for a short while here in East Portland a few days ago only to melt. It was nice while it lasted. I have a backlog of pics I am working on that will be added soon. I just want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and and the best of New years. Everyone is settling in for this most difficult Christmas. I want to thank my mom for the chance to let my wife and I stay at a hotel in Portland for the weekend and get out of here for a while. We will almost surely be totally broke--but at least we get to stay in the motel room! If anyone is interested in macro shots or other photography please contact me at the email addresses on this site. We really need the money right now. Merry Christmas.

Harvestmen and the Lady!

2010-11-13T12:48:00.000-08:00

My wife and I were walking back from the store as things got colder and colder this winter. My eyes met this incredible sight! It is rare to be able to get a number of usable shots of a scene with 2 species in the frame. Even more rare have it happen naturally! I got several dozen usable shots at F16-F32 ISO L1.0 (100) to 400 all with my Nikon. D90 DSLR. These two posed for me and even moved sometimes and as you will see it got even better!

Using a wireless external flashgun like the SB600 or better, or a macro flash ring (I can't afford one they are $400!) might be best but a wireless flash can be very good for macro shots. In this case I just shot with my flash on M 1/1 very high output so I can shoot at a distance at F22+. Just when I thought this shot could not get any better, a tiny yellow aphid joined the party! These kinds of shots nature photographers dream about getting! This day incredibly they did happen in real life naturally and she stayed put long enough for me to take dozens of shots with different light, angles and lenses. This shot is not a setup shot at all. I don't think I could set one up like this! 3 species in one shot is rare to naturally find. I got lucky and was tired from lots of shooting but had plenty of energy when I saw this harvestmen just laying here. The cold weather made them easy to photograph.

The ladybug is in no danger here. This is a deceptive shot. The "spider" you are looking at is not a spider at all! It is actually one of the 3 main species called a "daddy long legs" called a Harvestmen. Order: Opiliones

Harvestman do not spin silk, have only 2 eyes and only one main body section. They also do not mate in the same way spiders do. They are related to spiders but often scavenge on plant material and even already dead insects or other animals.

"Lady and the Harvestmen"
I dream about finding shots setup like this, usually don't!

They also tolerate each other and do not appear to be afraid of each other as they often can be found sunning in large groups and run into each other all the time. There two eyes are up on a turret at the top of there head, you can see them if you click on this shot to see it full screen. Harvestman are difficult to identify and there are few books seriously devoted to them but this is probably a Mitopus morio. At least Mitopus sp. In the Phalangiidae family. They have no silk glands so obviously spin no web and although they have similarities to spiders, they also lack venom and any kind of serious bite. Mild mannered with 1 body section and 2 eyes no silk ability I often jokingly call them the "humanoid spiders". They are truly harmless. The ladybug is in no danger of being eaten.

Here is a Harvestmen. NOT a Spider, but a close Arachnid relative. Opiliones and below is it's other daddy long legs counterpart which actually is a spider.

This IS a SPIDER
Here is your average other daddy long legs. This is the true spider version. Often said rumored falsely to be the most poisonous spider in the world. This is not at all true in fact they are harmless and helpful to humans and I have yet to see a study on there venom toxicology. Notice the two separate body sections of this female long bodied cellar spider or Pholcus phalangioides I shot down stairs in this building. They are very common in homes and the daddy long legs often seen shaking in the corner to avoid being seen.

In obvious contrast here is another picture I recently took of a Harvestmen. (Opiliones) Since there genitalia differ from spiders I am not certain if this is a male of the same species seen with the ladybug (top picture in this article) or if it is a different species. I need to do some more research on Harvestmen and really want to find some books on them.

I shot most of these with several extension tubes and a 50mm lens to take detail shots of these harvestmen hanging out on a fence. Here you can see other differences, this one is probably a younger member of the group.

This is NOT a SPIDER (read above captions)
Some Harvestmen get a lot bigger then this, they often have mouth parts similar to the Camel Spider which is also NOT truly a spider. This is my finger but it is in no danger as they are not aggressive at all.

A closeup showing the palps and chelicera which are different then those of spiders. (seen facing down in this shot) 2 eyes on a small turret on head can also be seen.

We also found some interesting and large mushrooms on this walk, some of these actually grew in just a few hours, larger then they were when we first found them!

"The mushrom Forest"
"Harvestmen bar stools"
"Mushroom flowers"
These are actually the same kind of mushrooms but the wind and time has damaged them interestingly.

I had to throw another spider in here somewhere. I recently have become interested in this common species the Araneus diadematus. I have made some observations about it and other species I will talk about in a future article.

"Lone mushroom"

This one popped up alone as well. It is very small not even standing an inch tall.

Of all the interesting things I have recently photographed--including a number of Harvestmen pictures most of which I have not posted and some other spider pics I promised but have not posted yet--this ranks very high as well. This tiny snail required an old 210mm 35mm manual lens to capture it. The heavy lens setup is over a foot long and can be cumbersome but really gets the detail when it comes to close shots.

With my flash mounted on my camera again using a laminated reflector that Velcros to my flash I was able to get these pictures at F22. This snail was only about 3-4mm long total. It was half the size of the eraser on a regular pencil! So small you could fit about 3-4 of them at least on my smallest fingernail!

The colors here were hard to match. For me it is rare to find a snail like this so small and still alive. Often you can find shells, but the living creature can be hard to find. Is it a baby or full grown? How old is it? What species? I do not know but the iridescent colors were amazing. I
am lucky I've figured out how to use my limited budget lenses to shoot so close and with such detail this kind of thing. On a serious note here--even tiny snails can be dangerous as they can carry salmonella, parasites and other diseases. Snails and slugs should never be handled for this reason. Be sure and click on this picture for a larger view--use the "back" arrow in your Internet browser (top left of your screen) to get back to my site.

WHAT KIND OF BATTERIES DO I USE?
A WORD ON GOOD BATTERIES--AA-NiMH 2500Mah--Being a photographer and a licensed Technician class radio operator I am qualified to talk a bit about this subject as well as experienced. Some people don't realize the power of NiMH--they almost always outlast ALL those other batteries. For years rechargeable AA batteries were not up to quality with Alkaline and Lithium. NiCD batteries lasted about half as long back in the old days. Now, in the past 10 years batteries have taken a quantum leap. They often seriously exceed them especially when used in high-power demand electronic devices. Don't waste money and the environment on buying AA batteries. Try the NiMH rechargeable batteries. With a small $20 inverter you can also recharge them in your car or even buy solar chargers. These are not the old NiCDs. I never know when I'm going to find something like this recent shot so if I can at all afford it make sure I have a backup camera battery and extra charged batteries for my SB600 flash. I nearly only use NiMH rechargeable AA batteries. You can get them up to 2500mah so they last far longer then even quality Alkaline/lithium batteries. 1700-2500mAh are great for flashes and even powering DSLRs with battery grips. I used to be able to run my Rebel XTI (Canon 400D) for 2 months or more--500 pics+ before I had to recharge! I got a battery grip that let me power the camera off of If I remember right, 6 or 8 AA NiMH batteries. My Canon XTi ran great for years like that and it was a high-energy 10mp DSLR. Sadly, it was destroyed in our house fire and like everything else not covered by insurance. The higher the mAh milliamp hour) number--the longer the batteries will last per cycle. They can even often exceed lithium non-rechargeable batteries (which get very expensive!) for camera and electronic gear. In my opinion and experience from compact cameras to pro-gear--flashes to just about any device like a long range 2 way radios--the AA NiMH battery is the best format for powering devices. AAA powered devices often do not nearly last as long as they are only 700Mah or so. Also--never buy a compact digital camera just powered by 2 AA batteries! You will spend more on batteries then anything else! However, I've had great experiences with every compact camera I ever used that used 4 AA batteries. I still use one that is 12 years old! Extra power goes a long ways. I point this out because people not only waste money by buying lots of AA batteries for stuff and not using rechargeable (cost pennies or less to recharge) they ruin the environment by doing so. Every year millions and millions of toxins go into the ground and air because of not using and recycling rechargeable batteries.

More pics coming soon-- Mother, eggs and babies--The life of a dedicated American mother spider and more Harvestmen shots!

SPIDER SEASON 2010 COMEBACK !

2010-10-23T01:13:00.000-07:00

I really wanted to make a sort of new look to Mostly Macros. For one thing I changed the intro picture and I will probably start doing one article at a time on one subject at a time since that is how blogger sets things up now. I have some personal stuff to take care of but I eventually want to start putting up more pictures. I also wish to join local photo clubs and learn more about art and photography sometime in the near future. I also plan to do more on line once I get a new full featured computer. That may be a while, so for now emails and responses as well as posts may be a bit slow. I apologize for that and hope nobody takes it personally. I guess I kinda got caught behind in technology everybody has all these avatars and large social networks being on a low budget I do not even have a cellphone at this time.

I want to first apologize for not updating my blog for a long time! I know there are some people here who do read or at least look at the pictures! I am very glad for feedback and comments. Please keep them coming and be sure to email them to me or leave them as comments here as I need to rebuild my Facebook account. When my only laptop crashed I was without much of a computer to spend the time necessary to prepare and post pictures on this site the way I would like to. I finally saved enough for a Mini HP Netbook which is just powerful enough setup photos for this site and move them off my camera but I cannot yet edit them with Photoshop as I still do not have a computer powerful enough to run even an older version. Money is tight right now. Without needlessly going into personal detail, we have had one thing after the next come up. I also feel bad because due to current situations I have not been keeping up with emails either. Sorry about that--I did not forget about you-- if I don't email you quickly again, please don't take it personally there is a lot going on in my life right now. Back to photography--

This spider is probably related to the Tetragnathidae. They often have huge jaws and are found near water. My wife and I walked up to Forest Park where I shot most of these pictures. This species is known for locking jaws during mating. I got some great shots of this female. She did not have a web and was just wondering around. These pictures were taken with my D90 using a 50mm manual lens at usually F16-F22 and extension tubes. I have found that shooting down below ISO200 can sometimes produce great detail even in newer digital cameras.

This species often elongates it's body to blend in. Here it can be seen in most of these shots on a typical wire fence link. These species are yet another virtually harmless species.

The power of macro can be seen here as a link in a regular fence seems to be a large metal wire. Eyes are visible here, be sure and click on picture for larger view and use your back arrow to return to the site.

These are all the same spider shot up at Forest Park. Blogger has changed the way pictures are uploaded so in the future I will probably do individual articles on individual species or subjects.

A combination of cropping can often make good results but using a macro lens or a series of extension tubes and a good diopter lens can produce really nice super closeups. I recently discovered a new way to use my extension tubes to get even closer.

I just kept shooting shot after shot, using an SB600 external flash in manual mode. I often compensate for not being able to afford a macro flash by adding reflectors made out of aluminum foil laminated with clear packaging tape and secured to my flash and camera with strong Velcro.

A typical pose for a Tetragnathidae, often found hanging like this near a loose orb web over water. A really interesting species. Be sure to click for larger view and use <-- back arrow in your browser to return to this site.

Another closeup, I can even get closer then this but I need to use other equipment I did not have with me in the field. I shot this on a sunny day right out in the open in the park. It looks like it was taken at night or in the dark because my f-stop was so high that only flash light was visible. Most of my macro shots are done above F22.

Here you can clearly see the chelicera and the clearly female palps. Male spiders have bulbs that look like boxing gloves (almost all species of spiders) on there palps.

Another comprehensive view, I got so many great shots of this spider I was not sure which ones to post and had to leave many of them out. I still am trying to find out what I can do with my work on spiders--what site I should post them on--and where to go if and when I shoot something that might contribute to science. I have a lot to do on the internet!

I was holding about 5 pounds of camera and my wife was great because she was watching out for me as I took these pictures which require complete concentration. So she was very helpful watching some of my gear and the area where I was shooting. Even with live-view, often I find myself with macro shots looking through the old view finder as I am used too. When ever you have a large expensive camera that is not insured and your on a really low budget you get nervous about what people might thinking.

This is another species, probably a Linyphiidae, there is a few species here and I want to find out more about them. They are one of the only species I've ever photographed mating. Luckily people are usually passive when your a photographer and do not get upset thinking your photographing them or something. I have a funny story I will tell you in an the next article I post that happened right here. Shooting spiders often looks strange because you go into shady places to find them. In parks however, this is usually not a problem but you never know what else might happen or people might think when your taking pictures. I lost count how many times I've had my ID ran by the cops! I understand that--it's protocol if you walk around with a camera. But really, usually people who are doing drugs or planning crimes are not walking around using large complex and expensive cameras! I wish I had some kind of shirt or "pass" so people know I am a photographer and not a criminal.

Another shot of what is probably a Linyphiidae.

The famous and well known garden spider--Araneus diadematus. There are variations in abdominal colors which I am interested in as well as shades of body color. Could this be "races" of the species?

Many of these shots were done with an older Zoom lens. 70-210mm. I really like Nikon because the older 35mm manual optical lenses. I don't have any but I have read and been told even the auto-focus lenses from the 80s operate on the higher end Nikon digital SLRs. (D90 and above). I often get great results using the manual older sometimes bargain lenses. They can lack depth of field because they max out at F22 or so, but that is usually enough for a great spider picture. Canon unfortunately changed there format so it is not possible to use older Canon non-digital lenses. This was one serious reason that after I lost nearly all of my gear in our house fire last year-- I decided to start over with Nikon as my SLR system. I saved for almost a year after the fire on my budget to get a D90 but it is a camera I would definitely very much recommend. I have been told that the optics in the older 35mm lenses are often higher quality then the optics in the new and even very expensive digital lenses and I believe it. So the manual focus part and manual adjustment might be worth it! Don't get me wrong, I loved my Canon cameras which performed very well. There are just many more lens possibilities with Nikon which can make it a good choice especially if you want to take awesome pictures and don't have the money for expensive new of gear.

This one is obviously and definitely a Linyphiidae. They spin the glossumer (spider silk strands seen in the summer sunlight) seen in the summer time and are probably the most common spider in this area and one of the most common spiders in the temperate world.

Linyphiidae from another angle, they build an upside down dome shaped web where they catch many types of insects that we consider pests. They are totally harmless to humans in and in fact I have never even heard of someone being bit by one.

I am not sure but I think this is also a Linyphiidae species.

My wife was really great being there for me while I spent hours taking these pictures in Forest park. I love it there and spent many summers with my grandparents up there. By the time I got to this species I was a bit too tired to take lots of descriptive shots. My new lens system should allow for better shots that will let me definitely identify more species I photograph or at least get closer.

The webs of Araneus diadematus are among the most well known and seen this time of year. These in the sun looked awesome. It should be noted that this species is also harmless. Getting bit from what I have heard is not only very difficult but if by some chance you do get bit it's not even as bad as a bee sting. I have never heard of anyone having a serious reaction to this very common and non-aggressive species which is critical in controlling the mosquito and fly population.

Side view of a probably ready to lay eggs female Araneus diadematus.

I really liked this large female, she had made a really good living catching insects here near by a lunch place my wife and I ate at. I took some ultra close up shots of her and noticed like some others both here and in other spots--she has slightly different body colors.

Some extra large shots of the Araneus diadematus with pray. She had no problem walking about with her catch and doing a few things while I took some closeup shots.

A new lens configuration I did not know I could use lets me shoot close pictures at subjects at even further distances with my gear. Instead of being 1 or 2 inches away I can shoot quality close up macro shots in a "teli-macro" kind of concept from up to more then a foot away.

This makes detailed shots like this far more easy. She did not seem to mind however even when I got close. I noticed her color was a bit shifted. Some are more red then others. She is very healthy and almost certainly ready to lay her egg sack.

I got lucky here and was able to get a good shot as she moved by waiting and watching her for over an hour and a half. Notice the color differences. This is the exact same species but she almost seems to have some colorations similar to that of the related species the Shamrock spider.

She gripped her pray and holds it. Some people think how spiders eat is gross. Killing with venom and then enzymes that break down tissues so that mostly the pray item can be drank down. We feed cattle the remains of slaughtered cattle (forced cannibalism which causes mad cow disease), raise them in horrible conditions with no room to move, milk them until they bleed, feed them with toxins and groth hormones, prod them with electricity--not even alow them to mate naturally and we somehow think that we have the right to say "spiders are gross". If people knew the truth behind most foods they eat and how bad it really is--they would think spiders are the humane ones. I'm sorry if that makes some parents upset by me mentioning this morbid topic--but people need to know the truth about such things and not judge other animals. By far human beings can be the worst and most disgusting animals of all. When I first heard how they treated cows and other animals I refused to believe it--then after doing research and seeing things for myself I had no choice. It's sad but true--spiders are far more human with there pray then we are.

More views, I could not get enough of how this female seemed to enjoy the sun and posing for my lens.

I thought I'd ad a few views here showing some of the best shots--maybe a few too many but I really liked this spider. She moved around a lot for me so that I could photograph her without me having to do anything.

Araneus diadematus with pray. A beneficial and harmless web building spider.

Here is where the Araneus diadematus gets interesting. This is another one found just a short distance away eating a bee-mimicking fly. This one clearly has a darker skin pigment. I want to figure out how and exactly why they have different colored markings in the same species that can change so much sometimes they nearly look like a sub-species.

Three Araneus diadematus webs stood out in the afternoon sun. This is a harmless and beneficial species, I can't stress to people enough that they are not only harmless but should be left alone and treated with respect because they help keep the mosquito and fly population under control.

Another one, this one photographed at Forest Park. The markings do change and appear different yet again in this one.

I was going to delete this from the post but I thought I'd show one more time one of the more interesting spiders I found on a walk with my wife to Forest Park.

Yet another view of probably a Linyphiidae again. With new lens configurations eyes can be counted and I will be better able to identify species. Next article will be about an American house spider with babies I recently photographed. She has laid 3 egg sacks. They are not as common so whenever I find one I get excited. coming soon next time to Mostly Macros. I want to thank my wife for her on going support and help in my efforts and photography.

CHANGES SOON! I WILL BE ABLE TO ADD TO THIS SITE AGAIN

2010-09-03T05:20:00.000-07:00

Panoramic view of downtown Portland. Fuji S1500 compact superzoom was used for this one. More pictures and more comments of interest are on there way. Writing on this site I must minimize things. I will start a new one for other interests. Questions, comments and fanmail are welcome at: olngwb@yahoo.com I get TONS of junk mail so if I don't get back to you in few days it's not your fault. Please send me another. Take care and I thank everyone for there encouragement.

A blast from the bast.. a shot I took in 2007 probably with my old Canon 10d 6mp DSLR.

THERE SHOULD BE LOTS MORE NEW PICS HERE!
There are lots of pics I want to show you but my laptop total died! I'm currently using my wife's computer as a backup but she does not have the necessary room for me to run my photographic software on her computer. About a month ago, my main and only laptop computer.. a duel processor duel core HP dv9139us COMPLETELY CRASHED dead as a door nail. I can't even get the screen to come on. The system simply re-boots over and over again never finding a boot disk no matter what boot disc you put in it. I used Linux and Windows and even ordered the system restore disk from HP. Useless. The computer seems to have a problem with the motherboard that will cost over 400 bucks to fix. Put short.. at $599 a pop I'd be better off just getting a new one since I have other problems with the computer. It already had some kind of damage.. one USB slot died, and so did one color on the external monitor port. Hardware failure confirmed. So the motherboard has been in trouble for some time. After talking to HP and reading on line I have concluded that the system was possibly meant to crash in 3 years time. Literally dozens of models and 100s of people have had this problem yet HP does NOTHING about it! So that is what it feels like. Could it be that the latest laptops have built in BIOS problems that inherently require you to use Windows or have your computer crash?? OR is this HP trying to justify selling a good laptop with a terminal problem built in on purpose?? I am not big on conspiracy theories but it makes me wonder reading all the info. Was this computer built to crash in about 3 years so I'd buy a new one?? I don't know.. but whatever happened it's left me without a computer with enough memory to work with my images and therefor I won't be posting much for a couple of months or more. I don't know how long it will take for me to save up for a new laptop but it's top on my list. Just letting my readers know.

COMMENTS ARE BEING REMOVED the system has been abused. Due to the obvious abuse of the comment system on my blog.. I am going to turn OFF the RECENT comments view as it seems to be next to impossible to keep people from using my site for illegal adds and other ridiculous junk. Until the system is cleaned up more.. I can't afford to have what is in essence my face on the Internet covered with junk comments that could say anything. I'm turning them off. You can thank the fools that post stupid junk like recently seen from adds about adult material to chat about computers that has nothing to do with my site or anything on it. Please use the comment bar nicely or email me.

A shot I took right after the fire with my Fuji S1500 compact zoom at very high ISO and a long exposure.

COMEBACK EXPECTED with LOTS of new pictures in a couple of months or so.
When I do make my comeback in a couple of months I plan to do so with LOTS of pictures. I've been taking them and editing them in camera and just copying them to external hard drives.

After having a half dozen hard drives survive our horrible house fire being not only baked inside a bag but even melted in some cases.. and being submerged by watter for two days..they still survived. I've been checking the data. Incredibly the photos that can survive disaster are saved on my small external USB hard disks. (2) MAKE A BACKUP COPY of your hard disks as you fill them. PUT the backup drive(s) in another location or get an expensive backup system. I lost some 70% of my pictures in the fire. I had archived (like many digital photographers) all my stuff (as well as all my film work) on disks and negatives. Both of which melted. DVDs and CDs that survived with images on them only did because they were somewhere else during the fire. Everything that was plastic in that area melted or burned. The disks were literally vaporized. So.. BACKUP your pictures and DO IT FAST. As soon as you get back from a shoot.. any kind of one.. I recommend that you people use a professional backup like a RAID drive or-- last but most important.. back up "My pictures" and other such things to small drives. Nearly all my WESTERN DIGITAL drives survived the fire and being submerged in water. None of my DVD/CD picture collection or desktop external hard drives survived. The one's that did were in a bag that actually burned and melted into and around the drives. Incredibly I found them one after the other to work great. SO habitually backup your pictures on hard drives if you want them to last. (3) NOBODY can seem to give me a simple straight awns er on how long DVD disks last. Your average DVD/RWUSB computer cable itself. They average 350GB or so. You can get one for $100 bucks now and it's well worth it. Recently at Target I found a 1TB drive for less then $100! This would be great to make a large database of important pictures or make a backup of all your pictures to place at a friends house or other safe place. (4) Unless your going to thousands of dollars.. a safe is pretty much useless. Those one's only costing 100 bucks or so that you can buy at big stores don't do a much of a job at all. My grandpa's war diary, my passports.. and many other things personal were destroyed in the safe which was never found and apparently vaporized. The fire marshal told me these types of cheap "fire boxes" don't work very well for high-heat fires. Usually everything inside them is baked. So anyways.. that's my take on backup.

"No personal space" Fuji S1500 pic
Is Siemens going to build us any more Max trains?? We need them. It is nearly impossible to ride in many places during rush hour.

HAM RADIO NEWS
50.400 --AM frequency I can be contacted on 6m
53.13 repeater I often monitor
146.84 --sometimes on that one as well
I"m sorry I've been a backslider and stuff.. life has hit me with a lot of things I must overcome. My wife Alina has been incredibly supportive and I thank her for being there for me. I also want to thank everyone who has welcomed me at various times in this area since my wife and I moved out here from Portland. Recently I've been found to have very high blood sugar therefor I'm going in today to find out what the plan is and how severe the problem is. I know I will have a blast on the air again when I'm feeling a bit more talkative. With my laptop crashing right after I finally got my D90 after saving for nearly a year.. I have to wait again to start serious photography and my plans to market my pictures someday.

Dust on the lens

2010-04-27T17:38:00.000-07:00

"Dust me or how much time do you spend looking at me?"
D90 slide from movie
This photo shows 2 things, 1 that there's a new dimention to what I can do with video and 2 of course, we have a lot of dust here where we live. We are not sure why. Click on this photo to see how detailed it is. I will show you more later that were taken with the D90 in Video mode. Effectively it opens up the sensor completely and takes an image at about 24 frames a second. This is a high definition image so one still has about the resolution of a 2 mega pixel camera (I have a 2 mega pixel camera, an expensive one from 1998). Really amazing when you see things from frame to frame. And great for getting that shot of something that you don't want people to know you are photographing or something that you don't have time to setup the shot for. I think this feature to shoot HD movies in AVI format really is a tool for the still photographer! One who needs to shoot LOTS of frames just to have the right shot of something. Although focus is manual and quality is very good. Pictures that can be extracted from an HD source are good enough to be printed as stills. And so hidden photographs can be taken and moments frozen in time can be animated. This live-view option of taking HD movies with sound is supposed to add a video element to still photographers.. well in this case it lets me do even more still shots. As a still photographer having a video option in my camera was something I just thought might be interesting but really had no baring on why I chose to buy the Nikon D90. I chose it because it met several professional need specks and because it has virtually the same image processing sensor and system as in the award winning D300 and D2x.

When you want a quick picture.. hit high-def video record.

Taken from a high-def video shot with the Nikon D90
This form of image processing to get 2mp quality out of a 12.5mp camera why?? Why would video be important in a still camera..? I shot the above as other police cars drove by and captured this one drive right through this thourghfare. I wanted to see if the images really were 2mp quality.. good enough to say print in a news papor..post on a blog..or even print as a picture. Sure enough as long as the camera did not move it was taking streams as if the camera has a mode insteat of shooting 4.5 frames or so a second.. it could switch to shoot 25 frames a second. Not quite as controllable or as high resolution as regular photos but none the less that's what the camera is doing.

There are lots of power wheel chairs on the Max train. I've seen 100s of them and you see new one's every day.. but this one was by far the Largest.. Jese look at the size of those motors and this guy is riding in stile. I did not want in those close quarters to take my large camera at photograph him obviously right in front of everyone and not ask his permission. So I opened the shutter and hit record. I was able to get several perfectly in focus frames from a quick swipe of the camera that did not look like I was trying to get a photo.

"Power chair city"
Nikon D90 slide from AVI

These images were not even modified. Just taken directly off the video footage from the high definition video. Click on image to see a still from a high-def film.
Now as a photographer I can get pictures while blending in and get good ones. The D90 is the first camera I owned that for the first time I truely feel it can nearly "see" just as well as I can... for so many reasons in terms of taking pictures quickly and not missing a shot or even taking undercover shots.

And also awesome is using the high def movie mode to shoot with the old late 70s early 80s Nikon auto and even auto focus (Nikons prosumer SLRs can operate older lenses that requre a gear in camera) lenses with the F-stop control ring. You can set the Irus operating the D90 as a video camera by positioning a box anywhere on the screen.. also you can change the f-spot. So what does this lead up too?? No matter what you will get the shot if you are afraid you will miss something or want to take a somewhat covert picture.. just run the camera in video mode. Then I just use a simple frame by frame movie player to make still images of the movie. I just find the one's that are in the best focus and save that frame as a JPEG. It's really simple but it definitely adds a new dimension to taking photos. I knew I could do this with consumer cameras but the quality would be really bad. I did not know that my D90 had the quality to do this either.. it does as you will see.

"Walks of life"
Nikon D90 EFS 18-105mm lens
And this photo I wanted to make sure I posted. When ever I doubt taking pictures and finding new things in them I look at this one. There are so many moments going on at the same time in this picture it's like several TV channels. From the girl up front to the family on the side there are alot of things happening here. I thought that was interesting.

"Allready broke in"
And this door got SMASHED in. I don't know how or how many times.

This is long exposure spanning seconds.

"Train of Motion"
D90 18-105
Another long exposure

"Two things happening at once"
I thought that would be the right idea behind this. Clearly the train is gone.. or is it?? This is a long exposure that let in more light from the building then the train blocked or created thus making this effect.

Trash Comments

2010-03-31T21:19:00.000-07:00

I want to apologize for a problem that has been ongoing with this site. Comment scams. You have probably noticed the really trashy spam comments that have been added to my site. These are advertisements and links to sites that I have no connection to. They are down right vandalism and usually are about subjects which have nothing to do with my site. It really makes me mad when someone tries to advertise some type of adult toy or drug on my site. This site was set up as a g-rated environment and it's going to stay that way and get a bit cleaner. I will begin reviewing comments on a regular basis and I have taken measures to insure that if someone posts a comment here, they have to authenticate it. I will take stronger measures if this on line VANDALISM does not stop which may make it impossible for anyone who does not have a Google account to leave a comment. I hope it does not come to that.

Nobody likes an eye-sore!

I truly appreciate the hundreds of real comments left about my site. They are like fan-mail to me and make me feel really good about what I'm doing here. I also enjoy answering people's questions if I can. Please feel free to leave a comment about this site, my articles.. or my pictures how ever you feel about them. Just please don't leave links to trashy sites or ads for adult products. If you wish to write something for this site as a comment or email me directly you can do so by emailing me at=
a/l/i/n/a/n/g/a/b/e@yahoo.com
(the / slashes have been added here to prevent spam systems from getting our email address off this page)
--or you can use my old address olngwb@yahoo.com

Thank you,
Gabe Beasley (site admin)

This is the way my site should look. Here is me and my wife during a night time shoot I did a few nights ago. I took this long exposure (10sec approx.) by remote control with my D90. I've got more night-time shots as well as a whole project I've been working on for months. From "gutter-punks" to "shopping cart people" I want to show the many diverse ways people live and express themselves here in Portland Oregon. Look for that soon here on mostly macros.

Photographing in Portland and at home I took every picture on this site except the one taken by my wife about a year ago. The drug needle was laying out in the open like this when I found it. It's bad enough to do drugs but to just throw your durty needles down like this is a health hazard. The other more awesome pictures include a wide angle lens shot done with my super zoom and a few of a 1929 Radiola tabletop AM radio. It was a gift from a ham radio friend of mine. It works great and was one of the first AC operated AM tabletop radios made in the USA. Also shots from Mount Hood Community Collage where my wife had an apointment and other stuff from last year. To view close-up click on picture and then use your back arrow to return to my site.

These are two Collages of pictures I created composed of multiple images. The first one is just a mix of pictures I've taken over the past couple of months. The one above is 4 pictures in one. These cardboard signs I found laying on the ground where a lot of homeless people hang out and pan handle. Take a look at what some of these signs say! On the bottom of this shows a photo of homeless people waiting in line in down town Portland. Probably for food. Don't think I'm just a cold photographer behind the lens who does not care.

I myself have been homeless. I slept under an overpass in Portland not far from where these pictures were taken. When I was 18 I left home and went on an adventure ending up homeless and hitchhiking. I was lucky and finally came to my senses after getting pneumonia got off the streets. Many people however don't get that lucky. Some people actually chose to be homeless and live on the streets, others are forced there because of hard times. I don't want anyone thinking I'm making fun of these people.. I'm just showing you what I've seen through my lens. Awareness of social problems is the first step towards doing something about them. People should know what it's like and realize that every day with a roof over your head and food in your stomach is a blessing. Sadly, mental illness and drug abuse are among the biggest causes for homelessness. Another common cause is the fact that it's next to impossible to get a job if you have any kind of criminal record. This problem is ridiculous. I swore not to get into politics in my website blog but I think anybody who thinks and ends up writing something ends up writing about how they feel eventually. If people just knew. I mean really knew and thus could do something about the messed up stuff that happens in this world. Lets say you make one mistake in your life. Once you have a felony.. even if it's not violent.. nobody will hire you. You can't work. So how are you supposed to live? I think this is a gross injustice something should be done about. If you get out of jail and can't get a job because you were in jail what's the point of getting out?? Nobody will hire you so what can you do?? As one person put it.. our criminal justice system is criminal. It's discrimination on a hideous level. I think forgiveness for one dumb mistake should be the rule not the exception. They make it next to impossible. That leads to desperation, substance abuse and homelessness.

Portland Saterday Market-- The D90 comeback

2010-03-25T16:57:00.000-07:00

"Art day"

I went to Portland Saturday Market with my new Nikon D90. I got the D90 because it meets some critical professional requirements and it turned out to have some incredible features. It's an awesome camera. I was thinking of getting the D300s but in further research found out that it's not really worth the extra money unless you shoot allot of video. The D90 has the same imaging systems and sensor as the D300s. I'm mostly all a still photographer so the D90 with nearly 5fps was plenty of pro-cam for me. Iso flexibility that none of my other cameras came close too. I never dreamed I'd be able to shoot at 3200iso+ on a regular basis and get really good shots. It's an awesome camera that outperforms everything I had before the fire. It took me nearly 6 months to save up enough for it on our income.. but it was well worth it.

"Sitting around"
There were LOTS of people there.. people where having fun too. Including news cams and other photographers. The Portland Saturday market is a place for fun, meeting people.. selling stuff.. buying stuff.. taking pictures or doing arts and music.. just about anything you can think of during the spring and summer months is going on down there. It's fun for the whole family and definitely worth checking out.

"Tents of people"
The Nikon DX format-image sensor is truly awesome. I'd say it's definitely medium format film equiv. I can crop stuff as small as 1/15th the image and still get a nice 8x10 print. The D90 truly is an awesome camera. I did not miss a shot because of waiting for the buffer and I won't have to worry about that any more.

"Where's my Baby?"
Take a close look.. that's not a kid in that stroller. Where's the kid.. where's the parents??

"Cross walk"

"Look at the photographer"
As you can see from these shots there were lots of different kinds of people there. I caught some of them at there best, some who wanted to be photographed and some who might have not. I should mention.. if anyone requests that I do not photograph them or that I do not post there photo.. I honer there wishes even though I don't have too. That is one of the many differences between a photographer and a paparazzi.

"Ready to save!"
Two bullhorns blasted with fundamentalist Christian extremism. It was too much for me and a few other people who yelled back at the "your going to hell" church of the screaming Bible people. Don't get me wrong.. I'm a Christian myself.. but these guys went a bit too far.

"Fountain of fun"
The weather was great and the water cycles so the kids can play. With the D90s large format sensor.. I can make a panorama out of any picture. It has twice the resolution of my Canon 10d which was destroyed in the fire.

"Jump!"
With a fast frame rate.. I the camera does not miss a moment. The kids were having lots of fun.

"Cool Kid"

"Big kid"
Not just the kids were having fun.. some older kids jumped in as well!

"Action shot"
This girl was amazing.. she gave a show for me and another photographer. She really knew what she was doing.

"Hula Girl"
The D90 can shoot almost noiseless shots at up to 3200iso. Leaving for freedom I've never had before in taking pictures. This day however was sunny and most of these shots were at F3.6-5.6 with an AFS 18-105mm Nikon lens. I can go as low as iso100 with the D90 or as high as 6400 or so giving a great range of creative possibilities. I shoot most daytime stuff at iso200.

"Hula girl 2"
She really put on an awesome show. On her bag there's a small sign saying "Free hugs".

"Hula airborne"

"Free hugs"
These guys were right behind the hula girl. The sign says "Free hugs". I had a good time at the Saturday market and everyone seemed to be having a good time as well. No fights, drunks or people getting arrested that we saw.

"Church of the screaming Bible"
These guys were on a mission. With a bullhorn screaming about how we are all going to hell and Gods really mad at us. I really don't think that's a way to win people's respect. Sorry to say but you just sound stupid or crazy or both when you scream through a speaker on the street about anything.

"The cross walk Saturday market"
This is a panoramic shot made from one print. I am a bit afraid that I processed this at minimum resolution to reduce file size on line. In short that means this set of pictures was a bit lower in quality then they should have been. Next time I proses them there should be more resolution. Don't forget to click on any image to see the full screen view. Use your back arrow to return to my site.

"Art class"
Photography and music were not the only arts in progress that day, several people were drawing or painting the schenes with cherry trees in bloom.

"Musical expression"
This thing sounded weird. I'm not sure what they were playing but it was not your typical Australian sound.

"Bad photo day"
I cought some people at there best.. and others deffinately not so much.
:-) This shot was actually an accident. Many pictures are not discovered until you review and or prosses.

"Photographing cameras"

"On the grass"

"The moments"
Just take a look at this picture and see how many things are going on in it.

"Portland lightrail"
My wife and I took the Max light rail train from our home in East Portland to the oldtown stop down town for the Saturday market. I took this shot a couple of days lator visiting my grandma.

"City scope"
This was a great day to get other photos so I drove around looking for places to take pictures and found lots more I've not posted yet. Down town Portland and some of the down town city life.

FOREST PARK 2010

2010-01-07T17:03:00.000-08:00

From forest park to the mall. Images taken Christmas 2009.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYONE!

2009-12-23T01:27:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas everyone! and have a very happy new year.. a better year.. a great time but PLEASE don't leave Christmas trees in bad places! (i.e. your neighbors back yard, the local park, etc..)

A speical thanks goes out to everyone who has helped us after the fire this year and to eveyrone who has helped make Mostly macros a well-viewed site. Pushing this year into over 30,000 full hits and over 100 thousand page views. Please don't be shy.. leave a comment or two. Also a thanks to all the ham radio operators who have given us a warm welcome here in Portland. And God bless everyone we know in The Dalles for keeping us in your harts and for your help. If you want to link to my site just email me at olngwb@yahoo.com (you may have to send several times as I get alot of SPAM on that address)

Happy HOLIDAYS

From Gabe and Alina Beasley 2009

new pics in 2010!

Blast from the past! --an un-posted article I wrote a few years ago and info on our wishlist

2009-12-23T01:10:00.000-08:00

OLD NEWS--
I came across this old post that had been archived but never published. It was from back in 2006.
This is the gear I worked with and showed my transition to having my first semi-pro camera.   Of course all this gear in this old article was destroyed in the fire.

POST FIRE WISH LIST --see fire pics a few articles below this one--
My professional cameras and home made gear was destroyed by the fire. Basically I want to ask this, being disabled and on a fixed very low income.. trying to become a professional photographer with high hopes to make myself known and make serious money at it some day.. I need to ask if anyone has any camera gear or even ham radio gear in any condition (I am a licensed ham radio operator--KF7DFP) or kitchen items for my wife and I like a blender or food processor etc. please email us.    at olngwb@yahoo.com.

I am currently saving for a replacement professional class Nikon camera, but on our budget it's going to take a very long time. Slowly but surely I will be a full photographer again and hope to go as far as possible in photography.   If anyone has any gear or wants to help in any way.. please email me at the email address above.   Thank you.. and thanks everyone for your prayers and support.

Our house in The Dalles after 8/2009-- we escaped through the window on the far right.

Not much was left.. see more pics on the fire below or just search my site for "fire" to find the whole story. Any help or gear would be greatly appreciated.

BIG NEWS (old news--this article was posted in 2006)
I get quite a few e-mails about what kind of camera I use. I have so far kept that kind of a secret. Without making these texts really long, I will try to explain. This is an early shot after I invented an adapter that lets me use lenses from old camera gear. In this shot, amazing as it is--there is no tape connecting this lens to the camera and it turns and operates freely. This is dangerous for the camera if you do not know what you are doing. It is two element diopter that has captured some of the most detailed close-ups I've ever taken. Like that reddish fly about a year ago. The fun part is that I honestly invented this all myself. Teaching myself optics by experimenting since my all-film days I learned on an old Practika SLR how to get shots right. 1000s of test shots done with different lenses. Finally when I started processing my own film I could build lens attachments to fit 35mil gear. Then I got my first compact and digital camera. An old M305 Hp. Most cameras have pop-out lenses that will turn off if they are overloaded. But if you want to try this---be sure to be very careful or you may break your camera! This is not something I learned on line or in an article--I figured out how to do it with a special recipe of ideas that are alot more simple then I thought. The lens is held on so well that I can shoot without worrying at all that it could fall off. A tight grip is held on by a plastic tube which holds on as if it were sensitive fingers. Just right so it does not fall off and will work with the pop-out lens. This took a long time to invent since I had to find the right adhesives. Of course this lens can be pulled of quickly and instantly brings the camera back to stock-ability. This is a Kodak 6.1mp DX7630. It survived a fall into a creek but only the memory card stayed stable. Rust or something made it impossible to work the dial that controls the camera's mode and power on, off. I now use the lens in other compact cameras. It is two eliments and amounts to create even at F8 (the limit for every compact camera I've met--why I do not know) lets you get stunning shots of insects and spiders or anything very macro.

AN OLYMPUS E-500 mounted with one of my home-made extened lenses. Useing plastic tubes and junk--I make lenses fit onto cameras safely and often very successfully with nothing more then rubber bands. I still do this often. This is a dioper with about a 5 inch reach. Farther if mounted on the larger lens.

My very first camera that I used for the things I like the most I also adapted myself. My parents could not afford to get me an SLR so I had to make do with my Polaroid. Taking pictures of even large spiders were useless until I got an idea about optics. This was before the Internet as well know it. I invented the idea on my own. Simple--but incredible--I took my first shots after 100s of test pictures. I had to guess and mesure because the Polaroid is not an SLR. The view-finder is useless in trying to figure out what the film will see. That is what SLRs are for. This is my first digital SLR. The Olympus E-500. I have nothing but good things to say about this camera except a frightening thing that I still can't explain. She has the highest pickup at 1600 ISO that I have been able to find. VERY low noize. If I want to shoot night exposures or in very low light--the E-500 is my choice. Shooting RAW and JPEG as well as having two card slots (one XD and one CF)--gives this camera lots of potential. But it is not sports-drink poof! What was a disaster turned into an incredible discovery when I replaced the destroyed very expensive 300mm lens for this camera and took apart the broken one.

Donations I still use now for both digital and film. I invented a special adapter (not shown here) I call the Phoenix adapter. Named because I was able to build it for my Olympus digital SLR. After a very expensive lens got splashed with a sports drink. I had to get another one, but decided to scrap the dead one for lenses. To my surprize I got the mounting bracket and was able to build an adapter out of a Pentax format extension tube. This is what you see when you pull up my My Space page under Gabe Beasley. Now, this specially built adapter will let me use any old Pentax screw mount lenses. As you can see from the Spot-o-matic--all those lenses except the SLR on the bottom and the 120 TLR are for the old Pentax sqrew mount lenses. Of course there is a change in the lens--but this makes it ideal for extreme macros. The object in the center is a bellows--if you checkout the profile of me on My Space you will see this setup in action. The "Phoenix adapter" remains the most incredible thing I have come up with on my own. I figured out how to use any lenses with this digital camera. Old gear finds new life for serious macros in this setup I am very proud of. I plan to dig up more pictures of this to show you lator. LET ME KNOW if you have questions and want to see something.

A laminated light reflector can be very useful to harness the power of a compact camera. Most of the pictures on my site were taken with modified compact cameras. I invented all this stuff, I did not read a book or look it up on line. This is a Canon Powershot A520. It works very well and is capable of time-laps photography when hooked up to a laptop. Here shown is an old movie camera grip I used to hold on

THEFT and RECOVERY
Sadly my interest in photography got stopped when I was just getting started with digital shots of spiders---my laptop, digital camera and Zip drive was stolen, and I found out that a guy I thought was my friend did it years later. Over $2500 in gear gone instantly and forever. I was devastated and it took me another 9 years before I was able to take up trying much photography again. I bought a video camera and did some stuff-made a few music videos as well as spider shots but it did not catch on with me like pictures do. I had no computer that was up to date. About three years ago a trip to a local thrift store changed my life. I bought an old 35mm mechanical Pentax-clone a Practika 35mm SLR. I quickly learned to use it and began experimenting with optics from other thrift store junk--busted video cameras and old cameras as well as some lenses I ran into. Great deal. Since I have have had yet another laptop stolen by a friend I nearly gave up on friends. I now have a security system but most of all carry my gear with me. It's good excessive and I am legally armed with a large can of real mace intended for large animals and stuff. What is most important as well--I never know when I want to show people my pictures, and any free-lance photographer will probably say they carry a camera of some kind anywhere. You never know when you will get the action. However, these paparazzi celebrity stokers and stuff makes me sick. I can't believe what is on the news and talk shows these days. Celebrities think they are gods. It is ridiculous. Nobody should get attention like OJ and others who belong in jail. I can't believe that garbage and how many photographers eat that stuff up. What is even more sick is that they actually make a lot of money doing it. This being a family website--I have to stop talking about this stuff but I'd love to.

THIS is what I termed an "aperture plug". Hard to make well, but very functional if done right. The lens is inverted into the plastic case on the right. Covered in duct tape only for looks and a bit of reflection. When I only had compact camera's I had to really on there cheap flashes. Laminating my own reflectors with tape made this far better. I cut them into peaces so that I can hold the camera and grip it in the right places with one hand. As usual--this lens also is a peace of re-cycled optics. In this case, the end of a scope. Just one lens--very good at stuff. And the "plug" goes inside the plastic tube between the lens add-on and the camera. This incredible setup actually works as long as the needle is in the center enough. I have a few great pictures taken this way, but compact camera flashes simply are not bright enough to work at an F-stop of 30 or so. This is a fixed aperture that can be removed to increase depth of field.

A SERIES OF TWO lenses mounted on an Olympus IS-50. This 35mm SLR is a really nice camera but only if you have a bag that does not let it turn itself on! Anyway, the lens in this case is secured and incredibly well--at the end of it's fixed lens. This is a true SLR but it can only accept extensions. This one is for macro. The higher your lens (the longer) the more easy it is to get great macro shots with just one adapter lens or dioper. The camera can shoot up to F22 and about 2FPS. It has a very bright flash and a smart system you can program to work manually by shifting two controls. It's simple but adaptable construction makes it a great camera for all locations. Added here holding on well as you might not image---it is able to see at a serious macro level. As you can see I use all sorts of bottles and things to hold this all together. The rubber bands can be replaced and because I use the right adhesive tapes--this thing will not fall apart anytime soon. One hint---DUCT TAPE does FALL APART. Electrical tape also degrades in fact so fast that you will have to give your lenses a "tape-cut" because it all slips outward. If you want to know what to use---e-mail me.

I did not just make macro lenses. This little thing is totally awesome. It is a truly 400mm scope for just about ANY DIGITAL COMPACT CAMERA with a pop out zoom lens! That is right--400mm equiv. 35mm. So with a digital compact camera you can shoot incredible shots! At one end is an old Polaroid lens that squres in and out (left side) to control the main extra focus of the whole long-lens. The camera port is extending out from the right side into a black larger plastic film can. The hunk of plastic with rubber bands--that is from an old dead video camera. The lenses are very careful lined up together. This you might call was a miracle lens. I use everything from rulers to a laser to get these lenses right. The pinpoint of light for this lens is dead-centered into that last section of tube that goes to the end of a pop-out lens camera like the Canon A520. The only problem with this thing is that you need your camera to be on a tri-pod and it is very sensitive. Taking pictures usually very hard without setting the timer to do it. And this lens works--incredibly well.

I also built a very wide angle lens I want to put into this. It doubles as a great serious diopter for close up insect shots or anything. Wide angle lenses are great and the lens itself takes great pictures of areas like the dinner table where you can see every face but the coffee cup is huge in the image. Not a full fish eye--but close. I have not used it for a while so when I find it I may post some more about it. So I have built now, from scratch, most common lenses--with calculations done simply by measurements and really good long-lasting adhesive. This is something to be proud of and shocks so far every pro I have met.

I left this shot and 100s more go un-published since I forgot them. Just a couple of years ago this destroyed building was someone's home that I watched get built. Destroyed by the same typhoon that caused my apartment to be looted. Guam is one hell of a place to live. Great for a long vacation but not to live there!

A fan of my pictures, I got this in the mail. She was very impressed. And to think--this shot was done with a compact camera at F8. That is a dandy lion flower- And this iridescent bee is only about half the size of a honey bee!

These kinds of shot are very possible with compact cameras only operateing at F8. It is amazing but works well. I am currently soon to go down to California where I plan to study this odd spider more. A sun loving daddy long lens? I am bringing books and such to find out what species this is. Notice the incredible markings and puffed up cephilothroax. This spider is very odd for it's family group--it does not hide from the sun and builds basic cob webs. Population densities are so high they must get along with each other more or less well. Most people do not know that there are number of species of communal spiders. Spiders that live together in one huge web taking care of young, sharing food, and mates. Far from the terrors of those 30 or so species out of about 30 some thousand species of spiders known to science that demonize spiders all the time.

A typical picture that you can get with a compact camera and a good home-made macro adaptation. Not one of those lenses I built requires you to hold OR TAPE the lens onto the camera--they can all be operated freely. I spent a very long time figuring this out.
One of the last local places I can take good shots. Mill creek is down there--and until they develop it, I will have a place to shoot that is in walking distance. I can't go anywhere right now as I explained--but hope it will not be developed for a while as the vacant lots that got me some of my best shots are now gone.

I am not sure if I posted this shot yet--future pictures will be only marked with my name and will be far larger so that when you click on them you get the same standard of detail that other sites offer. I have chosen to tell everything and answer questions about how I have built my gear and how I get unexpected shots from the most basic of gear. In the spirit of photography past I will now talk about the camera's I used and the situations I took them with. I believe I shot this with my Canon 400D and a 300mm EOS lens that gives you a 400mm at the D400s wide 10mp view. I will show more gear-pictures later. The body and starter's lens cost $900 when I bought it. The zoom lens, extension tube, grip-upgrade, flash, batteries and filters makes the kit puts is at about $2000. If you don't buy the good gear--you will not be able to do much. Prices have gone down. I have heard and am of the opinion that the Canon EOS 400D is a better camera then the Eos 30D which is slightly more expensive and only 8mp. It is all overkill past 8mp. I will go into my other cameras later. You can rent gear like this too-which is sometimes a good idea if you are on a very low budget but want the shots. On my income, it took me years to get this gear.

The house on the left was ours.. and we found out we had no insurance on possessions inside.
AND ALL THAT GEAR WAS DESTROYED in the tragic fire just 4 months ago (see pics from Aug. 2009 below the next few articles). Luckily we survived but not much of anything did. So again please.. if anyone out there would like to help with some camera gear or other stuff for us.. please e-mail my wife an I at olngwb@yahoo.com

Thank you..and thanks again for visiting our site.

PERSPECTIVES

2009-12-23T01:05:00.000-08:00

A trip to downtown Portland Oregon-- NIGHT SHOTS

2009-12-15T19:22:00.000-08:00

"Just after dawn" 122nd and Burnside st. Portland Oregon

The following set of images were captured on three trips my wife and I took on the Max light-rail line here in Portland. I wanted to show both what it's like to ride at night as well as some of the Christmas lights and other lights in downtown Portland at night. Since I can't shoot RAW with my FUJI S1500.. this was the best I could do with my color temp settings.

THE BASICS ABOUT WHITE BALANCE AND COLOR TEMPERATURE

A lot of people do not know how to set white balance or "color temperature" means. Color temperature is a standardized scale that can be used to set, basically..what "white light" actually is in a photo or video camera. The term is actually more commonly known by those firmilar with professional video cameras only recently becoming important because of digital photography. With a digital camera you have simple options, unlike in film cameras. If this setting is not properly set, (especially if your not shooting in RAW format or don't have a camera that can) the colors will not look natural or worse. This is an often all too automated setting but it's just as important as f-stop or ISO. Digital cameras use CCD chips, sensors.. which only pick up colors in certain ways with white light being a base reference for all the other colors that are available. White light is not just made up of most of the colors but it also can be effected by frequencies used in it's creation. Such as 60hz.. in the case with florescent and incandescent lights. This can have an effect on the CCD chip. Without sounding too complex. It is very important in both digital and film photography to have your camera set for the correct white balance. My Fuji like most higher end superzooms has a custom white ballence setting. It's very easy to use to insure that you will have the correct color temperature (and thus see the colors how they were intended) or to create things like the image above. When setting white balance on a digital camera, the color temperatures will vary and the idea is to get the most white with the available light you are using to take the picture. Often cameras have settings for bright sunlight, cloudy and florescent bulbs as there flickering creates a change in the color temp. If you have a more professional camera that can shoot in RAW.. you can adjust these color temp situations later. However.. if you can't shoot RAW be sure to have a camera that can make your own white balance settings. It's easy to do.. just aim the camera when in the correct mode (in your manual) at something white while the area your in is lit by the light in intend to use (and this only applies if your not going to use a flash for the most part) and push the button on a very white surface such as a peace of notebook paper or printer paper with no color in it. If on the other hand you custom set your white balance wrong or off on purpose.. you can create all sorts of bizarre images. This was taken after I shifted my entire white balance to another color. I forgot which.. this is easy to do. In a bright light source instead of setting your white balance to have correct color temperatures with a peace of notebook paper.. try using a red soda can.. or maybe a green one.. or you get the idea. Thus the camera gets shifted past the color that you used for white. So the image will come out very strange. Sometimes these can be really cool but be sure you know how to go back to your original settings. Most cameras have a custom white balance setting that can be quickly changed to florescent 1.2.3 and incandescent as well as bright sunlight and cloudy day color temperatures pre-programed so this should be easy. When selecting a point and shoot or superzoom camera.. make sure it has a CUSTOM WHITE BALANCE or color temperature setting.. this way you can take advantage of lots of creative settings. Another important thing to look for when getting a new digital camera is MANUAL SETTINGS. A mode either on the dial or in a menu that lets you select the F-stop, shutter speed, and ISO MANUALLY. This is very important if you want to take creative images. A camera that's "too smart" and thinks all auto.. will not do if you want to get the image you like. I hardly ever use automatic modes, I usually take the time to set the f-stop, shutter speed and ISO myself for nearly all my pictures and often it's very important as the camera is automatically ready to take pictures like the one's below.. long exposures lasting up to several seconds. Most of the higher end compact cameras have manual functions.. but be sure to check because you don't want to be disappointed with a camera that thinks too much for you if your trying to be creative.

On the way I happened upon a common telephone pole. I can only imagine what each one of these nails, staples and other items used to tack on signs might have said.. lots of stories to tell from garage sales to missing pets.

This is an example of using creative manual modes. The camera would usually set a f-stop of 5.6+ for a shot like this. However.. I stopped it down to 2.8 in order to give depth to the image. This way the foreground is in focus but the background is not. It is always best to capture the image in field as close to as you want it as possible. Using Photoshop, Gimp, or Picasa later to try to get some effects will never replace a true image taken correctly.

I alsmost did not include this amatureish shot I took of the park. I just loved the colors of the leaves and the building in the background and how it kind of captured the scope of the park. Although the image is screaming for a wider angle lens! I will be really glad when I get a professional camera again!

I may have overblown the color here but for a while the leaves were incredible and I wanted to capture that. Only a few images were possible because it was raining when I took these shots in the park. When I had my digital SLRs (more professional cameras) I had a peace of gear which covered the camera for work in light rain and other stuff. They are not cheap but well worth getting to protect your expensive camera.

My wife stands to the left side of this image I took in the park next to Llyod center mall. These were really hard because I was shooting long exposures without a tripod. Usually I always use a tripod when shooting long exposures.. this time however I winged it and got a couple of shots I liked.

"Park of lights"

Another long exposure impromptu in the rain. This took a really steady hand. I'm not sure exactly how long I had the shutter open for but it was probably about 1sec or so.

The train comming"

It is important to remember to STAY OFF THE TRACKS a kid and several other people have been killed this year saddly because they thought they could beat the train. A subject I will get back to later. You can't stop even a light rail train on a dime.. it takes quite a while to stop any kind of train and you can't assume they will stop.

"Rush hour max"

Lloyd center max station going westbound was PACKED when I took this shot. Rush hour seems to start around 3pm and runs until about 8pm+ I'm not really sure. It's important to note however.. I like riding the max and usually it's not standing room only! Just be sure and pay for your ticket. You may not get checked but if you do and you don't have one you will be fined something like $200. There are no excuses for this, you can't say that "I forgot" or "I did not know I needed a ticket" unless your in the fairless square in downtown Portland.

I had a lot of fun taking these shots and had about 2 dozen of them I wanted to post but in the interest of not boreing people.. I chose to post these few. I love night-shots because they are difficult and show things you don't see normally. Night photography almost always involves long exposures with no flash. These can last so long that a care passing by or a person walking by will just be a blur as you will see.

"Here comes the train"

"Traffic"

A police car sits while another car comes into view as the exposure ends. That is the blur of lights on the left next to the police car. The blur of a long exposure can most interestingly be seen by the person walking through the frame. In the old days of photography nearly all shots were long exposures. That is often why the people in very old photos are not smiling as it often took up to a 60sec to capture a picture.

"The shadow"

A man walks on the right side as the train comes and cars with different color headlights light up the scene.

Buildings can be very interesting with long exposures.. this one captures them as well as cars passing by.

I liked the way this one brought out the train coming and the shadows I found in the image later.

The train is not out of focus.. it's in motion. The exposure lasted less then a second but that's still an eternity for the camera.. the slightest bump and the shot would have been a blur.

"The tracks"

At first you might thing this is some kinds of Photoshop setup. Nope. This is a pure image captured directly with the camera and is not a double exposure or anything. The car reflected light in only some areas thus we are able to see the road behind it since the car passed through the frame while the shutter was open. We see what light reflects off of it as well as the lights on it.. this is what I love the most about long exposures. It is that "bullet time" when you miss so many images that are there to see but too fast for the human eye without the aid of a camera.

"Reflections of a cyclist"

A bicyclist comes through this long exposure with a bright blue headlamp. I really like the way the light happened here. This was one of those awesome moment "YES" photos. The cyclist once again appears blurred and not even fully on the road because only the parts of the cycle that are lit up or reflecting light are exposed in this long exposure.

"Old town sidewalk"

We were in Old town Portland. The buildings in this shot were built back in the 19th century. A man walks by, light reflects on the ground from a shop. These schenes especially at high-resolution can be very interesting.

"Sitting in the dark"

Despite the fact that it was almost too dark for me to see the subject of this photo.. the person sitting next to the convenience store is illuminated by streetlights while the store itself gives off lots of light. This is our station stop and we will soon be catching the rush-hour light-rail.

"Waiting for the Max"

Street photography takes guts. Even at night. One thing you have to have is self confidence. Act like you know what your doing and your supposed to be there. If you hide and are evasive you might get trobble. Meet people.. ask them if it's ok for them to be in your pictures. It is not illegal to photograph people like this although the ethics of selling and or posting such pictures is hotly debated. I try to be a considerate photographer and even though I'm the kind of guy who would take a picture while falling off a cliff.. I still consider what other people think and get the gyst and feel of a situation before I start shooting. Some people do not want to be photographed and you should always respect there requests.. while others will beg you to photograph them especially if you have a serious camera on you and look professional. One thing is for sure..when I do shoots like this I am armed simply because at night or even during the daytime someone with a camera can be a target. This goes without saying.. but if you don't have a CCW permit do not carry a gun!!! And if you do carry a weapon carry something that is legal in your area in case you get questioned by the police. I've been questioned more times then I can remember just because I had a camera and I was in a place that was a bit odd. So don't carry illegal stuff. In most places a good can of Pepper spray such a Sabre in your pocket is a good idea. Another good one is a tazer or stun-gun however I feel people who carry such devices should have some training. I was a security guard in Seattle and learned how to properly use a stun-gun and mace. Always remember.. use of these types of weapons for anything but self defense is an instant felony. If you get a warning your best weapon is probably your cellphone. Even a deactivated cellphone will dial 911. That is required by law. If your on one chances are your less likely to be harassed. By being considerate to people and watching the signs. being street smart.. you should not have allot of trouble. For my most dangerous places I used to take less expensive cameras for the obvious reason that you never know what might happen. Be prepared but don't be stupid or too paranoid. Being sure of yourself and being aware of your surroundings is your best defense. I've got quite a few close-call stories but they are a bit long to go into here. There are some areas I would not go at night for sure no matter what I had on me. If someone screams at you to put away your camera it's a good idea to do so. No picture is worth getting shot or something over.

"The doors are closing"

The train arrives, this Max line is going to the airport. Ours is next. The intercom can get annoying but it's a great way to travel. And as I say.. usually, it's not nearly as packed as it is during the rush hour that I took the shots below on.

"Packed to the Max"

When I was in Thailand I saw a train with people riding on top of it. This was darn near close. Talk about no Personal space. We had none. During the worst of it people crowd in and are so packed together that your forced to get really up close and personal with the person next to you. It might be a good excuse to get close to your date! :) Otherwize as I say.. rush hours 3-6 or so are pretty bad but it lightens up quickly.

"Personal space"

Maybe I should have rode a bike.. oh..did you notice the sign above her head. Maybe not. Taxes on bikes! Frightening. I don't want to know what they are going to think of next.

"NOT COOL"

OF all the shots in this entire sequence I think this is the most important. Unfortunately I did not get this guys licence number. However, he obviously thought he could out-run the train. I'm not sure what the stastistcs are but people die every year trying to do this and just because it's light-rail does not make any difference. Trying to beat the train like this is illegal, wrong and really stupid. If this truck had been hit, not only would the driver been killed but the driver of the Train would have also been killed. It would have been a nightmare. Nobody should have to be in such a hurry that they need to take this kind of risk. They have clear warnings for a reason so there is no excuse for this. I have a ham radio friend who was injured in a seirous train accident. It's not funny, or cool to try to beat a train. The light rail will go by very quickly and theres never any excuse for this. I've watched cops in persuit stop for the train for good reason. Yet this guy seemed to think he had the right to take people's live's in his hands.

I wish I could put this picture in our local news papor. I'm still working on re-building and dealing with the aftermath of the fire in my hart and soul, but my wife and I have been doing better. For those of you who are ham radio operators I plan to be on the air more often and I am interested in talking about photography. Since my wife and I don't have a car.. any time to take a trip to take pictures would be great. I have a lot to learn about photography and feel that it is my future. I really am praying that someday I will be able to afford a professional camera again and be back to where I was before the fire here in Portland. Dispite my life-challenges and dissability, I want to rize into photography and make the best of my situation. I am very interested in many kinds of photography as my website shows. I want to sell my pictures and possibly someday make money doing something in photography that will be able to support my wife and I. I really feel I have a future and with determination and shear will power I go forward into a new year with high hopes. I want to thank all the ham radio operators who have welcomed me here in Portland and especially Jeff Damn (WA7MLH) for all the gear he's given me. I also want to thank everyone who's prayed for us and been there for us when we've had hard times since the fire. We are making the best of what we have and planning for what we can to be able to do more. Happy Holidays to everyone and please comment on my photos by clicking on the mailbox. I like to get fanmail or feedback. Thank you-- Gabe Beasley

It has come to my attention that my email address is hard to understand:

I used o/l/n/g/w/b@yahoo.com to keep the web-crawlers from spaming my e-mail address. To e-mail us you must remove the / slash marks from the address. So my email address is shown as o/l/n/g/w/b@yahoo.com then my email address would be olngwb@yahoo.com. <--not my email address just an example here.

So take the slash marks out and you will get our email addresses.

primary= a/l/i/n/a/n/g/a/b/e@yahoo.com

sec= olngwb@yahoo.com <--I get so much spam on this one that i don't care anymore! Please use the above one first as I don't check the old one very often.

We still need things so if anyone out there has any ham radio gear or camera gear they don't want please let me know by email and maybe we can work something out. See previous articles for my wishlist and other info about the fire.

Thanks again to everyone for the help and support we have gotten. HAPPY HOLIDAYS! and as we say in the ham radio world 73s to all!

How dangerous is that spider?

2009-11-06T10:14:00.000-08:00

As these images should show you, not very. I spent the better part of 15min handling this spider to prove to people just how safe most spiders are. I want people to know that the very common garden spider.. Araneus diadematus also called the "cross spider", is quite harmless. Although any spider can be dangerous if you by chance have a rare allergic reaction. Like taking medication. Spiders should never be handled mainly because it is so dangerous for the spider. It is very easy to expend all there energy or silk and kill the spider without knowing it. So PLEASE DONT TRY THIS! I just want people to know how safe they are. So I took these shots in the hope that people will respect them and not spray or kill them when they see these webs in there yard.

This shot was taken with my Fuji S1500 digital camera (10mp) and edited with digikam for Linux.

She did not want to bite me despite all the stuff I did to her. Indeed she did not bite even once nor did I feel she came close to biting me despite wanting to get away really bad! I had to capture her and then had her walking on me for at least 15 min. That is allot of stress.. yet no bite reaction at all. She clearly knew when she was on me and in contact with me yet she never bit. That is how non temperamental they are. I chose a healthy female for this test and returned her safely to where I found her.

This is the same species but of a slightly different race and thus color. What people should know is simple.. this spider is harmless and in fact very beneficial in controlling dangerous insects. I have been bit by this species back when I was a kid and a bit more careless. I did not even get a welt.. just slight numbness and about 1/8th of a beesting in pain or so.

I don't usually handle spiders because they are traumatized when you handle them and can be very easily harmed. Please do not try this at home with any spider. Even handling pet tarantulas can be dangerous to the spider. This can be of course very dangerous if done with the wrong spider and you never know what kind of allergic reactions you may have.. even though this spider is highly unlikely to bite.. please leave them in there natural environment. I can't stress that enough. I only did this to get a few shots showing how confident I am about how safe they are.

After these shots were done, she was fine and so was I. I found her at a good time when her web was already destroyed and thus she was ready to rebuild a web. Handling a spider can prove FATAL to the spider so please don't do this! If they use too much silk or get too stressed.. they will be unable to build a new web and die no matter where they are released. Also NEVER attempt to feed a spider sugar water or anything else. Pesticides are in nearly everything human. The only way to feed spiders this way takes a small lab and special sources. Also.. keeping spiders in such things as coffee cans or even some jars can lead to death due to pesticide residue. There is so much pesticides inside coffee cans that you can't rinse one out enough to make it safe for a spider. I learned this the hard way when I was a kid. And we wonder why so many people are getting cancer these days!

And of course I continue to do what I can with my compact camera and my 35mm SLR. These shots were taken with my compact digital slr and edited with Digikam for Linux.

Really?? This building has not even been built yet!?$# Right??

I have been working on sunset images on the tracks near where we live. This is one of my favourite shots. I hope it's not too dark on your monitor. Some of my pictures appear too dark on some monitors due to gamma differences. I'm working on viewing my website from other computers to insure this problem does not continue. I may re-post old pics that seem to dark on other people's monitors in the future.

My wife and I wish to thank everyone who has prayed for us and helped us since the fire in 8/09. I also wish to thank the local ham radio operators who have welcomed me to Portland. Despite the steady stream of stressfully insane bills it will take most of ours lives to pay off.. we are doing ok and getting over the disaster one day at a time. My mom, dad and family have been very helpful and a very special thanks goes out to them as well for everything. Godbless.
--Gabe and Alina Beasley

FUN WITH FILM--THE NIKON FE 35mm SLR

2009-10-11T10:38:00.000-07:00

When I first got into photography digital was hardly a thought. Now, film is being very quickly replaced in nearly all aspects of photography. However..film has qualities that you can't really get very easy with digital. The look and feel.. the expectation and not knowing if your shot turns out until it's processed still has me hooked on film.

IMPORTANT
I want to thank the local ham radio community for welcoming me here in Portland. I have been off the radio for a few weeks and may be so because of stress with bills and just dealing with all that has happened. I'm sorry if I talked to you on the radio and did not respond lator or just been off air.   We have had to do all kinds of hard stuff to setup medical and dental for myself and my wife as well as continuue to proses what has happened. We need some down time.. I'll be back on the air soon! And thank everyone who has welcomed me here.

WE HUMBLY ASK-->
We do humbly ask if anybody out there has ANY ham radio gear or photographic gear they would like to donate to a new ham trying to rebuild to please e-mail me.   I wish to thank family and friends for the donations of basics like furniture and other items.   It's amazing how much you lose in a disaster like this.    If you do have any surplus gear for a new ham trying to get re-started or photographic gear and you wish to help the e-mail address is olngwb@yahoo.com I know it sounds like begging but with our expenses the way it is right now I hope it does not hurt to ask. I am trying to rebuild. If anyone thinks they can help you'd be surprised with what I can do with old camera gear. I am so glad that this family in Guam was nice enough to realize that there Nikon FE might help me! Yes it will! No it's not digital but it's a start and makes me feel like a photographer again as well as lets me shoot stuff I can't do with the S1500.   EMAIL ME please if you have anything you would like to donate.

--ANY lenses, camera gear, flashes, film development stuff, tripods, cameras, video cameras..broken/old or not!

--ANY radio gear, ham radio stuff..antanias, coax, parts..etc. radios.

--ANY digital SLR camera

--A SIT DOWN WALKER! I have avasular Nocrosys in both my hips and chronic pancreititus which makes it almost impossible for me to stand for more then about 10min without severe pain often causing me to squat even at the checkout line in a store.   Pancreititus is a very painful disease and I'm trying to get a POWER WHEEL CHAIR or scooter.. However my insurence is not good enough to pay for it.

--ANY POWER CHAIR/power wheelchair/scooter Electric scooter/ We don't have a car and having a dissability that makes walking just outside my apartment very painful it seems like they should approve me for a power wheel chair.. but they have stalled the proses.   It probably won't happen anytime soon. Too many people took advantage of those "little or no cost to you even if your insurance does not cover it.." claims on TV commercials. This is something that could drasticly improve my quality of life letting me have a means of transportation to take pictures and run arrons..as well as a way to get arround without causing further dammage to my hip joints which painful walking does. If ANYONE KNOWS OF A POWERWEELCHAIR or ELECTRIC SCOOTER they will sell for under $300 or donate.. please let us know!
send an email to: alinangabe@yahoo.com --or-- olngwb@yahoo.com
thank you.. this is my most important request. I pray that sometime someone out there will read this and tell me they have one they don't need or use that i can have. I can provide proof of my dissability if it's needed.

IF YOU E-mail me I can either find a way for you to send it to me in the mail (I will pay for that) or we can meet at say.. down town Portland or Beaverton. Please..if you have anything..let me know. My wife really needs cooking books and winter cloths as well. We go to thrift stores when we have the money but it's not been very easy for Alina.

God bless and thank you if you make the effort to help us in any way and God bless everyone who already has.

--Please just send us a regular e-mail at: alinangabe@yahoo.com --or-- olngwb@yahoo.com

I got the Nikon FE film SLR kit from a friend of my mom's who had taken very good care of it. Complete with the case, it's a 1980s high quality professional SLR. I even got a flash, a 50mm lens and a 40-205mm Macro lens which I used here to capture a funny moment with my wife. No flash was needed here I shot this with ISO200 film indoors.

I used to love to process my own film and plan to do it again. I just need the gear and the chemicals which here in Portland should not be too hard to find. This shot shows the effect film has. It was taken with a very low aperature setting thus giving it real depth. It's been a while since I've used a film SLR and so these shots were the first few I've ever taken with this camera. I bought a 3volt battery for it and the Nikon FE was ready to go. It's got an auto-shutter speed that's very acurate, multi-exposure..and many other cool features. However..shooting film these days this way is not very practicle since it costs allot of money to process. However.. now that I have an SLR again..there's some stuff I can do with film and I can also most likely use the Nikon lenses that came with it if I eventually buy a Nikon digital SLR again.

This shot was taken with a flash and allthough its a bit over exposed it shows the best way to capture a portrait. Make sure you have a flash that can angle upwards brightly or to the side so that you don't hit the subject directly. I angled my flash nearly up to the sealing for this shot. I left the camera on auto shutter which would be 90 and put the TTL flash in the correct mode for my 200 iso film. Aperature adjustment is critical when useing film with a flash because it's the only thing keeping your film from being overexposed.

This is a nightshot long exposure. I held it down for about 1/2half of a sec. or so..just enough time for a car to go by. Of course the car is not visable because it was not in the picture long enough thus you only see the headlights and reflective surfaces.

Like the shot above this shot was taken on a tripod with a shutter release cable. This is criticle when doing night exposures to avoid camerashake. The exact same vantagepoint here only this time you see the local light rail (The Max) train going by. It's lights and reflections made for more and more of an exposure.

Another nightshot of a local back yard. This was a shot I just thought I would try on my own, holding the shutter open in B-mode. Useing a shutter release cable with the camera on a tripod..it was probubly about 20-30sec exposure with iso200 film.

The stars can be seen in this night exposure as well as some blur caused by the wind while the shutter was open. I left the shutter open for this shot for nearly 60sec.

Another shot showing depth.. focus on what you want to see the depth in. For example.. set your lens for f4 or it's lowest setting and then focus on the tracks. Thus the objects in the foregroud will be in focus and the background will be slightly blurred giving a depth. This time I focused about half way..giving a comprehencive view.

Shooting spiders is not easy and even harder with 35mm film. Espeically with the limitied two lenses I have here and the fact that I have not used a film camera in a long time! But I did ok and managed to get quite a few good shots. This was when the spider was climbing out to catch a small fly that landed in it's web.

When shooting macro shots with a 35mm film camera I've found that it can be very important to use a digital camera to see what your pictures exposure will be like if you have one. Set everything up exactly as the film camera will be, ISO, white ballence to sunlight..shutter and aperature. Digital cameras are built to emulate film cameras so they can give you a good aproximation. Most film SLRs have a sensor for light mesurement built twards the center of the immage. But you will get an overexposed picture unless you set your shutter for a bright image. So if shooting in direct sunlight, setup your shot (aperature and shutter for correct lighting) on something well lit with the same sunlight. As a small spider or other reflection will not give correct readings with most film SLRs. You can compinsate with EV+/- or by setting up a shot where most everything in the image is as illuminated as your intended subject. Otherwize you might get an overexposed spider as in this shot.

This was one of the shots I just had to trust on. I used the flash and set the camera to both take advantage of that and natural light. Setting up macro shots from a distance with a flash can be difficult but even older equpment often has charts on it to work out distance settings for the flash. You can sometimes compinsate by covering the flashes sensor or setting it to manual and adding more light as well as upping the Fstop to F16 or higher to compinsate for the bright flash. It will take some practice. It's a good idea to mark your shots. Each picture what your settings were in a small log so you can go back and find out what you did wrong later. I use a digital recorder for this purpose which stores files one by one.. so I can go to each picture and recall what my settings were so if it did not turn out I can figure out why. This was the first time I've ever used a Nikon FE and the first time I've used a film SLR in almost 2 years. It came back to me quickly. The FE is an automatic camera except for the film advance and apaerature controls if you want it to be. It also has a wide range of creative settings including multiple exposure ability and the link for a moterdrive. When I was a kid and dreamed of taking pictures of spiders for the first time, this was a very expencive high-end camera.

This one turned out best although I wish I had better film to work with. I also am limited to Wallgreens scanner which makes 1mb JPEG files out of my negitives. That's not bad.. but not as good as it would be if scanned with a pro-scanner.

Webs are easy to capture in bright sunlight but often spiders wont' want to show themselves. They can be coaxed out of there hiding spots but that does not always work. This is a case where I should focus on a group of leaves nearby thats fully lit to find out what settings I should use for my camera and then use them on this area with the spider because the background is so dark. The spider can very easy be overexposed if you don't compensate. Make use of natural light when ever possible because it's the best light. Focus will be very fine so be sure you set your f-stop to give you enough depth of field for the shot. This is a small spider and the web was in a good place. Shooting with film can be exiteing and interesting as effects happen with it that often don't with digital. I also like the anticipation of not knowing how good the shot is and then getting better and better at knowing if it will turn out or not. Once again.. a good mesure is to "clone" a digital SLR or camera to your film camera's settings and see how well it's doing. Keeping logs of how well you did and what your settings were when you took your shots can be very helpful in the future. It's all about practice. You can use programs like Photoshop and Picasa to adjust some degree of color temperature in 35mm. It may not be as good as a RAW file, but it is worth trying if your pictures are off color.

I want to express my deepest thankyou to Mike and Julle Mudd for donating this camera to me after all my SLRs were destroyed in our house fire. It will take me years probably, but eventually I plan to buy a Nikon digital SLR now so that I can use the lenses I already have. Even Nikon's older manual lenses can be used on new digital SLRs. You just have to focus them manually and also remember to set the f-stop manually. Hopefully by the time I can afford a new digital SLR that will still be possible because there are alot of good lenses out there!

You can't keep a good photographer down

2009-09-29T17:46:00.000-07:00

The first thing I had to do after the fire was get my medical stuff in order which still remains to be done. The first thing I wanted to do came next.. after moving to Portland right after a doctors apointment my wife and I went for a walk to a park I spent many of my teen years in. It was a trip back in time to good memories as well as proof to me how much better life will be now that we have a public transit system and so many places I can go to take pictures. Saddly, the first documentery I made on video when I was 15 did not survive the fire..however (I tell people now to DIGITIZE EVERYTHING).. I was able to walk back through memory lane and find many of the old places I have captured some of my best spiders and spider shots. Right next to a max staition there is still a forested area and hopefully wont' get developed any time soon since it's the only place I've ever found the triangle spider. That will have to come later..since I did not get a chance to go there yet..but it is only a light rail trip away and that means I can nearly go anytime I want.

Araneus diadematus (The Garden spider, Cross Spider)

Probubly the most commonly noticed spider in this area. Development has pushed most compeditive species such as Argeope away. However I hope to find some in isolated pockets.. I know a few places. For now however..I was astonished at the number of large and harmless garden spiders that were out here. About 2 or 3 per 10 square feet is my guess in the park. They are all large this time of year as they only live one season. This female may well be ready to lay eggs and was photographed right on the same sidewalk I used to walk to high school every day on.

Another one.. and this is not white ballence. There are actually varriations in color just like you get with human beings. Spiders have races and genetically pass there traits on. In large populations like this it is easy to spot some that are slightly different colored then others and have some other different charicteristics. This is no different then races of people. A note on racisum here. Race is nothing but a tiny genetic difference. I have no tollerence for racist people and don't understand racisum at all. I strive to be colorblind when it comes to humans. When it comes to spiders however I am interested in how these variations spread and what causes them.

As you can see I have near full control of my shutter and apterature with the Fuji S1500. I am restricted in that I can't use high aperature numbers.. however getting arround that is not very hard. If I had my pro-cams I'd be able to take this shot showing both the background and forgound in near perfect focus. Most compact cameras are limited to F8. Why I don't know.

Merlo Station High school. I went there for the 9th grade when the school first opened. I was among the very first students. It's a converted Techtronics bulding. I had a good time there.. allthough I can't say I enjoyed school. I did not have a very easy time being a teen. After being moved from one school to the next and one naighborhood to the next every year of my life it became hard for me to learn how to blend in and make friends. I went to the Science and Technology program wich was the frist of it's kind allowing us access to computers (before the internet was what we know it to be now) to do most of our work on. It's a good school and for the most part I liked most of my teachers even if I sometimes did not let them know that. Being a teen is not easy.

From there my wife and I walked down into the park access way through Beaverton school headcorters. The park is really awesome and offers allot of really cool shots. This was a nice day and I was able to walk through it dispite the pain I am in just because I am so glad I can finally be in the park again. It is such an incredible feeling not to be stuck in The Dalles like we were. That really was difficult. Honestly.. even though I lost everything in the fire..we would have had to move somehow and I don't see how with our income. Don't get me wrong, I would do nearly anything to go back and stop that fire.. but moving to Portland has been a Godsent for us.

My wife enjoyed seeing some of the park and stuff allthough she was more into her book most of the time. She was determened to finish a book in two days. I'm not sure if she shares my love for nature and the outdoors.. but she puts up with me taking hours to setup shots and stuff so that's just fine for me.

Besides spiders.. I could not help but notice the fungus and mushrooms growing in the park. It was amazing. This is a shot striaght up a large tree that had come down probubly in a storm. You can see silk on the left hand side of the picture where a large wood louse spider has made it's home.

Fungus does not last long.. but when you catch it you can get quite the picture. The right lighting and the right control of your camera and you can get a good shot with nearly any camera that has manual functions.

More of the mushrooms and fungus.. I dont' know what type this is but most kinds are dangerous and should not be touched. Also.. you should never destroy these things because for us photographers they make for great subjects! Not to mention many spores are very harmful and stomping on mushrooms for whatever reason can be dangerous. Some forms if inhaled are even deadly.

Another shot from a different angle.. click on any of these pictures for a larger view and use your browesers back arrow to get back to my site.

More of this kind of fungs/mushroom. It was nearly as large as a dinner plate in some places.

Mushrooms come and go very quickly. They make for interesting shots.

Cyclosa conica or Cyclosa sp.

I was watching this show on TV called "Hoarders" about people who keep there garbdige and junk until there houses are filled. Well.. this is your spider equivilent. This species of spider however does it to survive. Keeping junk it finds in it's web, garbidge insect parts from kills, and even it's own skin sheddings which are often mystaken for dead spiders in a row with a zigzag pattern. This spider is also harmless and very small so often not noticed.

A low light shot I tried to enhance. If I recall male and female Cyclosa have totally differnt abdominal colorations. This is called sexual dimorphiszum.

This was a shot of opertunity.. this spider no bigger then a letter in a news paper article was hanging and I just happened to get it into focus in the right light as it hung down from it's web after I startled it. Spiders have different escape proceedures depending on where they live.

A classic Cyclosa and spider situation. That is actually the former skin of the garbidge collecting Cyclosa. The reason why they keep such things in there webs is to confuse preditors. The zigzag patterns lined with remains of old kills and other items make it difficult to tell where the actual spider is.

This was a difficult shot to get but I happened to get it.. this one is pale..possibly because it's a jovenile. I'm not sure.

Another shot of a femaile A. diadematus, this one most certainly full and ready to lay eggs soon. This is spider season and the population is very large. They were everywhere!

Yet another sunlit shot of the same species.. this female has yet to eat enough or has yet to mate so that she can lay eggs.

And here we have a money spider.. or dome spider. Family, Linyphiinae. I have a picture which was on my wall of this species mateing. A rare shot. Now that I live so close to so many habitats and they are in range of the public transit system..who knows what I will find in comming months and next summer. Some spiders do live through the winter here. We are doing better and dispite limited equpment my photography will continuue.