Final post of 2013 Happy New Year!

Christmas light Bokeh 3

Christmas light Bokeh 4

Last sunset of 2013 2

Last sunset of 2013 3

Last sunset of 2013

Christmas lights and ornaments 3

Christmas light Bokeh 2

Christmas lights and ornaments

Christmas lights and ornaments 2

Christmas light Bokeh with ornament close up

Christmas light Bokeh

Less of a nature photography post, more artistic, unless you count the fraser fir (Abies fraseri) Christmas tree the lights and ornaments were hung on. If you open the aperture wide and are far enough away you can get a nice blurring of the lights. The Japanese call this bokeh which means “haze” or “blur”.  If you keep the aperture small you can get the star like effect from the lights. If you look around online there are other neat effects you can do with cut outs and such.

Lastly the last sunset of 2013 was particularly nice, though I find it hard to shoot in a suburban setting with houses and power lines everywhere.

Happy New Year everyone!

Year in Nature Photography – Day 7

What’s in a name? If you haven’t noticed by now I try to include the common and scientific names for my subjects, as time allows. Identifying organisms down to species can be difficult (hence the many sp?) and at some point I’ll devote an entry to the subject, but for now I’d like to give a brief lesson in Latin and Greek. Most scientific names contain bits of Latin or Greek which serve as descriptors. We used to buy live bulbed Christmas trees and plant them along our driveway, and this one has started producing cones. Pine trees are what botanists call gymnosperms which means their seeds are not protected by a fruit or ovaries. Translated, gymnosperm means “naked seed”. Gymno and sperm are of Greek origin with gymno meaning naked and sperm meaning seed.

The other picture is trying to illustrate the red branch tips of the red maple from the other day. I say trying because if you’re too close or it’s too in focus it doesn’t look as red. In the case of this name, acer is of Latin origin meaning sharp and come spring time when the leaves come out you’ll notice they are “pointy” aka “sharp” in shape. Most maples have these “pointy” shaped leaves and so most of them have the genus Acer. The rest of the name rubrum, is of Latin origin for the color red. The maple from which we most commonly get  maple syrup is the sugar maple or Acer saccharum. Saccharum is Latin for sugar. I’ll go more into names in other posts and at some point make a post specifically about naming organisms.

Red Maple (Acer rubrum) branches

Pinecone most likely from a Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga sp?)