Out with the Girls

End of the semester responsibilities are keeping me so busy that I do not see a photo outing in my future this weekend, but last Sunday I took a trip to the Greenwood Urban Wetland. I was hoping for the explosion of white peacock butterflies that I observed last summer, but I was still too early. I saw lots of dragonflies, though, and two willing females sat for portraits.

One was an Eastern amberwing perching in the grass beside the sidewalk. I know that she's a she from the smudges on the wings; males have mostly unmarked wings. This photo isn't my best female amberwing, but she was a cooperative subject, and I appreciated her tolerating my phallic 300 mm lens pointed at her face. I think that if I Photoshop the eyes so that they aren't so dark, the picture will be decent. I am planning to learn layers during my break between semesters so that I can fine-tune specific areas of a picture.

On the path through the wetland, I caught a yellow sparkle out of the corner of my eye. I discovered a beautiful female scarlet skimmer near the water's edge. The dark line down her abdomen indicates her species, the yellow her gender. I love that the tiny grass seed flowers complement the pink in her eyes. And I am always pleased to find something new.

I think that this photo is one of my best dragonfly captures. I like the depth of field and the rarity of the picture—I don't see many yellow dragonflies at any of the Flickr groups.

I anticipated lots of comments after I published this picture to my Flickr stream. That, however, has not been the case. Since last Sunday when I posted it, I have received only 13 views and 2 comments, many fewer than a dragonfly picture of mine usually gets. I don't know—maybe it's too green and yellow; there are no strong contrasts in color. Maybe the thumbnail that shows up on a person's "Contacts" page or in a "Group" collection isn't interesting enough to click on for the larger option.

I know that the number of comments by Flickr members does not mean that a picture is any good. Folks cultivate attention by making lots of comments on other people's work; those recipients feel obligated to return the favor. Flickr is often MySpace for adults, an online hangout where fragile egos get boosted with positive [though often undeserved] feedback. I have seen some ugly photos get tons of comments while real art [if the person doesn't have a huge Flickr audience] gets hardly any attention.

As proof, I give you the photo below, which, in my opinion, has uninteresting subject matter [a dragonfly ass!], bad composition, and distracting color. It, however, has earned its photographer 85 comments and 617 views as of this writing.


Compare it to this photo, by geckonia, one of my contacts. This is a brilliant capture; I'm thinking about contacting the artist to ask if I can buy a print. Despite its beauty, it has only 3 comments [one of them mine!] and 31 views.


Even though neither of my two "girls" from the Greenwood Urban Wetland garnered much Flickr attention, I still like them. I have that stubborn allegiance to my art that lack of Flickr attention cannot sway!

Of No Concern to Anyone But Me

Let's say that I maintain this blog for fifty more years. When I'm rereading my July 2006 posts as a 92-year-old in 2056, I probably won't remember that today Lebanon and Israel were lobbing missiles at each other, civilians be damned. I won't recollect that just yesterday President Bush vetoed a bill on stem cell research, claiming that "each of these human embryos [destroyed while discovering cures for debilitating diseases] is a unique human life with inherent dignity and matchless value." I will have forgotten how he tried to explain the importance of potential life while US servicemen in Iraq and Afghanistan or the uninsured here at home were regularly annihilated without any consideration of their realized dignity or value.

Long in the future, I'm also certain that I won't remember the appearance of a white peacock butterfly nectaring in the flowering ground cover that Elizabeth and I planted under the crape myrtles. But there the white peacock was this week, another thing to ponder beside the illogic and depravity of world leaders:

How It All Started, As Well As I Can Recollect

I bought my good digital camera last June. I had been reading/experimenting with blogs for a year or so [quickly abandoned efforts litter Blogger as I tried to find the right writing voice/purpose for my own little homestead in cyberspace], and I wanted to include photos since all my favorite blog writers had a word/picture combination. Two or three years earlier, I had bought a cheap $300 digital camera, one that proved the "you get what you pay for" adage with its poor clarity and color capture. When I plunked down the $1,000 for the Digital Rebel, I was planning to take pictures of the dogs, signs advertising gas prices, and other minutiae of my life, all of which would decorate the mini-essays at my blog.

One year ago today, as I playing with my $1,000 toy, I took my first pictures of hibiscuses. These flowers are, for me, incredibly difficult to photograph artistically; I have only shot three that I believe are good enough for the photoblog:




Hibiscuses are important because they began my shooting affair with insects. As well as I can remember, stalking butterflies and their six-legged kin began like this: One sunny afternoon in July, probably after snapping some more overexposed portraits of my dogs, I took a few shots of the hibiscuses in Elizabeth's front yard. I remember thinking to myself, What hackneyed subjects, as I pressed the shutter button. But when I dumped the images into the computer, I was amazed at the detail in the petal texture and stamens. I realized that I had never really seen hibiscuses before; they had been just blobs of color hanging off shrubs I passed.

Elizabeth's hibiscuses were doing poorly last summer—everything required a year to recover after the three hurricane whippings of 2004—so I had few flowers to photograph. We decided to visit Leu Gardens, where we expected to find plenty of hibiscuses for me to shoot.

Leu Gardens was overrun with flowers, but not hibiscuses that first trip. The blooms of the other plant species were, however, full of insect activity. I reasoned that a flower picture would be nice, but a flower-insect combo shot would help the photo rise slightly above roll-your-eyes totally overdone to mere conventional, and the bug chase was on.

In those days, with the original 15 - 85 mm lens that came with the camera, I shot autofocus in "portrait" mode. As I was always taking pictures of my basenjis, portrait mode worked well, reducing the poorly landscaped backyard to a swirl of gauzy colors. Because I knew nothing about aperture settings, ISOs, and the like, I didn't realize that portrait mode was too slow for busy insects. When I first viewed the images that I took that day at Leu Gardens, recollecting the beautiful bees and butterflies I had aimed at, I was totally disappointed with the crappy fuzzy images on the computer screen, and the challenge was on. So I have worked on getting from bee blur ...


to in-focus bee butt ...


to a bee photo I kind of like:


I have always liked bugs, so taking portraits of them has been very enjoyable. I am a firm believer in nuturing new interests, and I enjoy learning to identify and understand the behavior of the creatures I am observing. Last summer, I couldn't identify lantana from pentas or butterflies from moths [I mistook skippers for moths]. I didn't know dragonflies were carnivores and ate butterflies. I couldn't distinguish a carpenter bee from a bumble bee, choosing just to get out of their way to avoid being stung.

I still prefer "feeling" the camera rather than understanding all of the many numbers and setting associated with photography. My excuse is that insects are so fast that I must let the camera do some of the work. But I do know that I need the 300 mm for the best pictures of dragonflies, the very fast focusing 28 - 105 mm for bees in flight. I know that a clear picture, though, is nothing special if it is bug butt poking at the lens. So I have also learned from observation when to anticipate the head shot I prefer. I know that I should have the sun at my back, but I'll get the best pictures if the day is overcast. And I try not to drop my hand as I mash the shutter button. I am also learning to use the more sophisticated features of graphics programs. I still prefer my old Corel Photo-Paint 12 but have purchased and begun experimenting with Photoshop.

I think after a year's experimentation, I have made some progress. I know clearly what I want when I find a subject; I just have to be better about insisting the camera give it to me.

Good Taste in Books, no. 2

Basenjis are devilish creatures. Owners of this breed of dog will say that the dogs train them more than the owners are able to train the dogs. Yo-Yo might know "sit," but I know to keep the closet door closed if I don't want holes chewed in my underwear, and I leave the TV remote, cell phone, and stapler out of the dogs' reach if I don't want to find a pile of mangled plastic components on the living room floor. Elizabeth, proud owner of basenji Pequod, knows to push the bananas and tomatoes to the back of the kitchen counter—or better yet, put them on top of the refrigerator—if she expects to have fruit for breakfast or salad for dinner. I think that most basenji owners reach happy compromises with their pets: In my house, I keep the toy chest full of smelly hooves, and the dogs don't eat the sofa.

Both Yo-Yo and Bug are way past puppyhood, but they can still get into trouble. Usually I conclude from their bad behavior that I am being punished. "You were gone too long, so we decided to chew the zipper out of this pillow," their faces say when I get home.

The last book that Bug ate was an expensive collection of plays by Euripides, my favorite ancient author. I was really looking forward to reading fresh, clean pages of the Alcestis, for instance, without getting distracted by marginal comments I had made in graduate school or while preparing for classes. I thought I understood that destruction, as I had gone out longer and later than usual one Friday night.

Sometimes, though, the destruction is inexplicable.

The most recent bit of destruction, for example, has no reason as far as I can figure. I had spent the whole evening at home. I was brushing my teeth, getting ready for bed. I heard a thump in Command Central, the spare bedroom I use for all things technological, and mistakenly guessed that Bug had jumped off the chair.

When I finished my bathroom routine, I walked past the open doorway of Command Central to witness Bug mauling my $125 dragonfly book, which he had pulled off the desk. Of all the things he could have chosen! I have poorly written/edited textbooks from school that I would have encouraged him to chew, dried out Sharpie markers, printouts I could have found again on the internet. But, no, he has to eat my most expensive book:


Eventually, I will forgive him. But I am left wondering why? Does the binding use really sweet glue? Did the guy who packaged it have greasy fingers from lunch at McDonald's? Can Bug smell cost and then intentionally chooses my most expensive purchase? Is Bug an incarnation of the Buddha, here to teach me nonattachment to material things? The little devil always eats books that are too expensive for me to justify replacing.

At least the book is still readable, unlike the collection of Euripides, half of which Bug vomited up during the 24 hours following its destruction. Ah, basenjis!

How can you stay mad at such a cute puppy, Ma?

Little World, no. 3

My neighborhood was once full of huge, ancient oak trees. When I pulled onto my street, the temperature dropped 10-15 degrees even on the hottest summer afternoon. Quite a few still line the roads, but the summer of 2004, when we took three direct hits from hurricanes, thinned the ranks considerably. Luckily at the time, I had only one oak on my property—actually half of one, as the tree straddled the property line—and my neighbor Elizabeth and I had already scheduled its removal after discovering a giant crack at its base. When we heard that Charlie was on his way, we called the tree company and begged to have it removed early. The dispatcher confirmed the poor condition of the tree with the inspector who had given us the estimate and sent out a crew the day before the storm hit, saving Elizabeth's roof and my driveway from annihilation.

The tree company was supposed to grind the stump right away, but Charlie—and then Frances, and then Jeanne—took out so many old oaks in Central Florida that the crews were busy removing trees from roofs and off crushed cars. Elizabeth and I didn't complain, knowing the damage we had been spared. Then one day, six months later, we came home to find a giant pile of wood shavings where the stump had been. We decided that we would cart the mulch into our backyards, but that was heavy, hard work, all the more depressing after the three huge yard cleanups—complete with chain saws—after each hurricane. So the mountain of mulch lay between our two houses for another six months.

One day a neighbor asked for it, and we gladly gave him permission, after which a big hole adorned the swath of grass. We considered our options, eventually giving the lawn guy we share the go-ahead to plant a row of six crape myrtles—a species of tree that does not flatten cars or crash through the living room window during 110-mph winds. Todd got a great deal on 9-foot sticks, all that they were in November. We took turns watering them everyday, even though I often doubted that they did in fact live. When spring arrived, the branches budded, and I got excited about the landscaping possibilities.

Having spent numerous hours chasing insects with a camera at Leu Gardens, I knew which plants had the greatest number of nectar groupies. Elizabeth and I made several trips to Lowe's to buy lantana and pentas, two butterfly favorites, which we planted underneath the crape myrtles, where they took off in a growing spurt I never imagined.

With the ring of flowering plants around each tree and the leafy tops above, a community of brown anoles took up residence, hanging upside down from the trunks, the males flashing their girlfriends with bright orange dewlaps. They all eat well on the numerous bugs that come to nectar at the plants.




Apparently, the lizards find the landscaping pleasing as I have observed plenty of romance:


I have seen—and managed to photograph—cassius blue, monarch, gulf fritillary, and skipper butterflies drinking either at the crape myrtle blooms or from the flowering ground cover underneath.





The occasional swallowtail always times its visit when I am out with Yo-Yo, who won't hurry her sniff-fest of the street no matter how urgently I tug the leash, trying to get back into the house to retrieve the camera.

Road sniffing has top priority, Ma.

It is constant joy to walk out to my car and scare off the tiny creatures who enjoy the oasis we planted.

Aye, Aye, Captain

The ship that is my department floats now without the steady hand of a captain on the rudder. Connie, our dean, has moved downtown to her VP position; our campus provost is on vacation; and the one member of my department with the stomach to move into administration doesn't have an appointment to discuss her future with the provost until the end of the month. Power-hungry admin wannabes from other campuses are circling like sharks.

I have no doubt that we will conclude the summer semester successfully. We won't rip open our hull on some behemoth problem in Titanic-like fashion, nor will a black hole of indecision catapult us into trouble that only Captain Kirk-style leadership will help us escape. Because in reality, all we have lost is our Captain Stubing of Love Boat fame. Connie valued smooth cruises from Point A [the start of a new semester] to Point B [common course outcomes], and then back to port so that our passengers ... um, students ... could disembark, having had such a good experience that they would book a new cruise ... uh, register for the next semester ... to start the fun all over.

Connie had a high threshold for boredom [as most administrators must, their days filled with long meetings and the same student and faculty complaints]. I don't remember one single time during her tenure as our leader that we "rocked the boat" in an attempt to innovate student learning or faculty development. Her attitude reflected the current culture at my institution. No one here is interested in carving out a new post-secondary niche for the college [as the place was when it opened 30-odd years ago] or building its reputation [as we already have a pretty good one]. No, we value safe waters, a steady, measured pace, a pleasant ride for those "passengers" on board.

Before Connie, we had Captain Ahab at the helm. This dean chased technology as her white whale. She believed that computers could solve all of the problems associated with our department—they would make students write better, teach second-language students to master English faster, and relieve the paper grading burdens of faculty. Just as Melville's Ahab didn't understand Moby Dick, mistaken in his belief that the whale had eaten his leg as a personal insult [not while making an instinctual, self-protecting bite], our Ahab didn't really understand technology and its limitations.

When other departments were putting single computer-projector combinations into classrooms so that faculty could liven up instruction with PowerPoint presentations and full-screen movie clips or web pages, our Ahab was chasing bigger, flashier prey, entire rooms filled with machines to run software pushed by slick sales reps. The only problem was that no one—not the professors who taught the classes or the students along for the ride—could use those programs effectively. Even I threw up my hands in disgust, declaring the software techno-glitz with no real substance, after Ahab flattered me into a semester of freshman composition in one of those rooms. In three short years, the computers were obsolete—low-end models that came "free" with the ridiculously expensive licensing fees for the user-unfriendly software—leaving us piles of crap we couldn't upgrade to do anything new. When Ahab finally drowned in a sea of department disapproval, we had the fewest "smart" or "wired" classrooms of any department on campus, this despite Ahab's promise to make us rich with the technology she could harpoon for the department.

When I first began working here in 1985 [exactly one half my life ago, egad], the college had not yet hit its 20 year anniversary. My first year, the department was full of activity as CLAST, a state-wide exit exam, had begun, and the legislature had freed the universities from teaching "preparatory" classes, dumping them on the community colleges instead. These realities inspired significant changes in the way the college handled curriculum. The do-or-die exit exam [you didn't pass, and you didn't get your degree] and the influx of lower level students meant the college had new challenges, and my first dean behaved just like the unflappable, thoughtful Captain Picard of the Enterprise, steering us through the adventure.

Back then, the college valued innovation and versatility; administrators recognized the ability to make an impact, not necessarily credentials on paper in HR. All I had to say was "If you'll let me do X, I can solve the problem of Y for you," and I would get the go-ahead. As a reward, I got to teach freshman composition with just a bachelor's degree because I had demonstrated that I could affect the writing skills of students in positive, measurable ways. Our Captain Picard eventually retired, and no one since—at any level of administration—has engaged challenges with as much spontaneity and disregard for educational buzzwords and trends.

Today, I'm not sure I would be hired at all, definitely not with just a BA and a call from the dean of my alma mater claiming that I "had the gift." I think Connie would be insulted if she knew I called her a Captain Stubing or a contributor to the Captain Stubing mentality of the college, although I mean no disrespect. The inescapable fact is that the institution wants happy purchasers of its education product, so we don't "explore strange new worlds" or "boldly go" anywhere that marketing research hasn't determined is our mission.