Intense Focus

Cats love to watch birds. In this case, Coco spies some birds in a tree from up on our deck. Her focus was singular. She wasn't bothered by me at all.

Shot using a Mamiya/Selor 135mm f2.8 lens.
The way this lens renders the in focus areas to the out of focus areas is just Purr-fect!

Hens & Chicks #1

While it was warm out in the garden last week I took the opportunity to take some close up shots of the garden waking up from winter.
A type of succulent that grows well here in Colorado. The red is the sign of aging, over-wintered leaves. To see these things you need to get low.

Hellebore Explosion

A macro shot of the inside of a white Hellebore flower. These plants are some of the earliest bloomers. Often forming flowers in mid February and sometimes even blooming while under the cover of a snow blanket. A very hardy plant to say the least! Just a beautiful surprise!

Like Water Off a Parakeet's back

This image, like so many of my water drop images just sort of came together. I had no real plans other than I wanted to shoot a macro shot with this tail feather from our Parakeet, Squeak.
Don't worry, Squeak was done with this feather.

Flower Squids

Experimenting using a 1960's projector lens. These lenses were never meant to be used like this, but with some adaptation and the right bits I got it mounted to my Canon R7 and have been playing around with it. More testing and experiments to come!

Whiskers

This looks like a B&W image and it is black and white, but it's a color image of my black and White cat Coco! Her eye whiskers shot at very close range using a vintage Konica Hexanon 40mm lens with an extension tube at f1.8.
This image is currently displayed in a local art gallery!

Cosmos Contrast

I've fallen behind on my posts here on BlueSky.
A simple white cosmos flower set against a very dark background. These flowers are just lovely.

Last year's Sweet William. I just needed some great color as this winter seems to be losing its grip on my yard.
Soon enough there will be new plants coming back up and with them, new color!
For now, enjoy these intense pink flowers!

Shot using a Konica Hexanon AR 135mm f2.5 lens. Vintage glass!

Down by the River

Shot using a 1970's Vivitar 70-150mm f3.8 Close-Focus lens on my Canon R7.
Shot wide open, this lens creates these lovely bubbles or the specular highlights.

One of my all-time favorite images I've ever taken of my two favorite things: my cat Coco and my flower garden.
Waiting for Winter to release its grasp and allow the flowers to come back. More coming soon!

The first new blooms of 2025 have opened up in my yard!
The king of the early bloomers Helleborus niger.

These tough plants keep their larger green leaves all winter long, even with snow on them. Then in late February to early March they start to flower and the blooms last a long time.

He can be very silly at times and sometimes he can be serious, like this moment.
Here he just stared straight into the lens of the camera and let me capture a great portrait of him.
I shot this using one of my vintage lenses, a Canon FD 50mm f1.4 SSC. Shot at f 1.8, one of my favorites to shoot.

Water droplets refraction photography has a lot more going on than snapping a picture. More like 20 of them...
Many hours went into creating this single image.

So in collecting vintage lenses I bought another one & it came with a camera!
Turns out this 1970's Konica FC-1 was stored perfectly & all it needed was a new set of batteries!
I've already ran 1.5 rolls of Ilford HP5 B&W film through it. Next I need to develop it & then scan the negatives.

Fly Me to the Moon

An almost completely full moon rising as this plane was descending on final approach to DIA.
Sometimes you just need to look up and take notice of things. Though I did have to wait a while for this image to work out.
I first noticed it when the moon was still too low.

A native wild flower, Erigeron grows in clumps and produces a lot of these small, 3/4" wide, purple and white flowers.

Image taken using a vintage Tokina AT-X 90mm f2.5 macro lens. Known by as "The Bokina" because what it can do with the out of focus areas of the image.
Love this lens!

First post here on BSky!
Done with FB and all of Zuckerberg's gutless BS.

Let's see what this is all about.
I'll start with a Splash!