In my garden

I was fortunate enough to spend some time with a friend this afternoon and take a bunch of portraits of her. She was very tolerant of my "four camera" method of photography, which involves (of course) four cameras (Lubitel with a flash, Fujica 6x4.5, Nikon 35mm film, and Canon G9) slung all over my person and switching on and off a photo flood. I have to take the color film to the lab and get into the darkroom to develop the black & white (I'm hoping I got decent exposures). I may post one of the digital images here in the meantime if she's okay with it.

Because it's so nice, I decided to wander around the garden a bit with the macro function of my G9. I was lucky enough to find this red ant covered in pollen in a dandelion. Unfortunately, this is the only somewhat sharp image I got. At one point I got so close to the ant that he landed on my lens - too close to shoot but it was cool looking - like a dark, ant-shaped cloud.

Hungry ant

I also shot this blue flower - pollen is so cool looking in macro!

Have I told you how much I love bees?

The poor maligned bee. Every yellow jacket and vicious hornet out there gets labeled by frightened people as "bees." Little do they know that a bee is a lovely little creature that just wants to go on its search for pollen and a good flower to laze out in. I once read that bees actually engage in a lot of downtime. So the phrase, "busy as a bee" really means that you're kind of a lazy person always looking for a sunny spot to have a lie down.

How I love the bees especially when they are hanging out in the dahlia garden at Pt. Defiance Park. The dahlias are exceedingly gorgeous right now so I would recommend a visit if you're in the Tacoma region.