Saturday, May 02, 2009

We Can Never Escape Nature



Another week in the books my friends. It started off by me calling my doctor, who barely recognized me after not seeing him for 3.5 years. Yes, I'm married now, and I even have a little one. A quick look up my nose, and sure enough, he diagnosed me with a sinus infection, prescribed a round of my favorite antibiotic, amoxicillin, and I was free to go. As the week progressed, I felt the battle going on in my body, good guys vs. bad, and by Friday, I felt like the good guys had vanquished the foe almost completely. I'm finally back to feeling somewhat normal. Not normal enough to go out and ride my bike five miles, but almost normal.

It was a quiet week underneath the old bur oak. Weston may have caught a little bit of my original cold, but by yesterday he seemed back to his old self. Another big step this week- moving him to his big boy bed (crib) in his room all by himself. We're all sleeping better, and that, is simply priceless.

Even though I dearly miss my proximity to the Olentangy, especially now since the ground and sky are screaming late spring, I keep surprising myself that I can get interesting and eye catching nature images right in our backyard, and this week was no exception.









Twenty minutes in the backyard with a nice tool made in Japan and this is what I was able to capture. These creatures are tiny, tiny, tiny. The image of the little pudgy bitty thing on the leaf is a 100% crop, meaning this insect is only a millimeter or less across. Yes, I do have to dig deeper in the backyard to find nature, but it is there. Spiders, slugs, insects, all doing their thing, running the ecosystem, no matter how hard we try to fool ourselves that a giant line is drawn between the human and natural realms. Although our culture does its absolute best to separate ourselves from "nature" and "wild places", we just can't get away, and to me, that is my consolation for living in the manicured suburbs.

Tom

For more blogs about animals, please see Misty Dawn's Camera Critters Meme.

17 comments:

  1. Those are some awesome bug shots !!

    I like that last one, of the insect on the snail .... that is one tiny insect !!!

    I so need a macro lens !!!

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  2. Very cool! Where was the spider? Yuck!

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  3. Eeeck, the spiders! Those are photos nightmares are made of! Great photos none the less!

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  4. I am just flabbergasted! These shots are phenomenally good:)

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  5. Great Blog! I look forward to following and learning!

    Craig Glenn

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  6. Great macro captures Tom! What lens do you use? I have a Nikon D90 and am looking for a good macro lens.

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  7. Awesome, awesome captures. I so love the macros. I especially like the last photo where an insect is on top of a slug.

    Glad to hear that you & family's feeling better. :)

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  8. Aw scary creature but it's beautiful shots!

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  9. I agree. No matter how people seem to try to distance themselves from nature or consider themselves "masters" over it, we are always just yet another part of it & it's everywhere you go...Even in the city.
    That's not to say that I don't prefer the country, of course!

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  10. When I saw your blog title, my first thought was, "and why would we want to?"

    Brilliant photos! And I cast a vote for spiders. Any spider-haters out there should read "The Life of the Spider" by John Crompton. He paints spiders as fascinating and downright endearing creatures.

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  11. you have lots of creatures there, nice shot!!!

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  12. eeewwww....bugs....you did a great job capturing them though!!!

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  13. Great shots! You really zoomed in to the details. Love the insect on the snail. I hope those spiders are much smaller than they look :-) We all know that when we are gone the cockroaches will still rule this world! Just look at the tiny "bug" that sent you to the doctor! Man, superior...LOL! Glad you feel better and that Weston is now giving you both some sleep. Babies are lots more fun when you aren't too tired to enjoy them!

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  14. Great shots Tom, you really got up close and personal with your subjects !!

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  15. Tom: Wonderful photography of these tiny subjects. I enjoyed the eye on the slug.

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  16. When I see apost like that it makes me think of all the things I'm stepping on each day and how self important we take ourselves to be. -Nice photos too.

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  17. Thanks everyone for another great Camera Critters meme.

    Tom

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