Working with the Light

Sonja recently got me a book on digital nature photography. As I'm sure you all have noticed, the natural world tends to be the most common subject of my photographs, and having some references to help improve my skills as a photographer is always a good idea. However, while I usually tend to try to improve some skill by simply futzing around and seeing what works and what doesn't work, the added complexity of using a camera like this makes that technique rather frustrating. While initially most of my focus will probably be primarily on the mechanics of using the camera, this book has some interesting assignments that will get me out in the field experimenting with various techniques while I learn what all the buttons do.

My first assignment is to practice working quickly with the light during sunrise or sunset. The trick is to try to take a variety of pictures quickly to capture the changing shades, hues and warmth of the light as the sun either sinks or rises toward the horizon. Since I am rarely capable of getting up early on my days off, most of my photography time lately has been during sunset, as these photos demonstrate (each one was taken on a different evening over the past month). Fortunately, sunsets here at the Well can be spectacular.

Sunset from the front yard.
(1/50, f18, ISO 800, Canon 18-55mm lens, focal length 33mm)
Even better than the light on the clouds right at sunset is the the light filtering in through the sycamore trees in the picnic area in the 15-20 minutes preceding sunset. The warmth of that light makes the white bark of the sycamore trees glow. Our crappy point-and-shoot was never able to really capture what this really looks like. But our new camera can...

Sonja and the dogs under the light of a sycamore.
(1/320, f5.0, ISO 400, Sigma 70-300mm lens, focal length 168mm)
As an added bonus, the fact that we live in a national park unit means there tends to be an abundance of wildlife around. Including a pair of Great Horned Owls that seem to enjoy patrolling this stand of sycamores almost every evening. This evening we made it into the picnic area just in time for the light to be nearly perfect. And one of the owls decided to stick around. But the damn owl is still fuzzy! Arrrghhhh..this is frustrating.

Great Horned Owl at Montezuma Well
(1/200, f5.6, ISO 400, Sigma 70-300mm lens, focal length 190mm)
I'm sure I'll take many more photos of the evening light here at the Well as time goes on (in a little over a month I've already taken over 1400 pictures with this camera). But these have been three of the highlights so far.

We also had what I am assuming was an immature black widow spider hanging out with some captured harvester ants on our garage door this morning. I'm not entirely sure that it's not a male, though. It was pretty darn small (note the size of the ants next to it). But in the second picture you can definitely make out an hourglass shape on the underside of its abdomen, albeit this one is biege rather than red. I'm not sure if male widows have that or not.

This spider looks deceptively huge in these pictures (this camera kicks butt at macro photography!). But remember, that big blob of stuff next to it is a collection of three ants tied together.

And there is the hourglass. I ended up moving her off of the garage door, though, to a quite little shrub out of the way of curious dog noses. Even itsy-bitsy black widows pack quite a punch.

Creepy Crawler Carnival #3: Black Widow!

Few creatures conjure up more irrational fear in people all over the world than spiders. And few spiders are more feared (particularly in the United States) than the ominously named subject of this entry into our Creepy Crawler Carnival.

Creepy Crawler Carnival #3

Black Widow
Latrodectus hesperus

For the sake of relatives that will be visiting us soon, I won't mention where I found this spider. Suffice to say, she was not inside the house. I was actually wondering how long it would be before I saw my first Black Widow. Sonja first spotted it last night, but just stood back and pointed at it. It was pretty dark outside, and by the light of our headlamp I wasn't quite sure what kind it was until I got pretty close. Then I saw the red hourglass on her abdomen.

I readily admit that my first reaction when I saw that was to flinch. My heart started racing and that irrational, primal fear started to emerge. I knew we would eventually find some of these around our house, but I was surprised how creeped out I was by it. All I could think of as I fell asleep that night was the fact that there was a "deadly spider" living outside our home. But I know better. I'm a biologist, for crying out loud. I know that the chances of getting bit by one are almost nonexistant...unless I go out and start poking it. I am concerned about our pets getting bitten, though. Particularly Annie, due to her small size and the fact that she likes to play with crawlie things. I think it was just because it was the first one I had ever seen. Cuz tonight, as I was taking these pictures, I was much more fascinated by her than repulsed. As you can see, she really is a stunningly beautiful creature (only the females of the genus look like this...the males are less than half this size).

So, black widow spiders (this one is a western black widow) are surprisingly common throughout the United States, and even into Canada. The genus (Latrodectus) is found worldwide, with all species possessing a powerful neurotoxin (the same type of venom found in cobras and coral snakes). Despite the potency of this venom, bites from these spiders rarely result in death, due primarily to the tiny fangs (less than 1mm long) and the miniscule amount of venom injected. The bite of a black widow results in the clinical syndrome known as latrodectism (named for the genus of which these spiders belong). As the name "neurotoxin" implies, it affects the nervous system, causing convulsions and intense pain. You can compare this to hemotoxin, such as that possessed by rattlesnakes and other pit vipers, that affects the blood.

Black widows tend to prefer living in the clutter that people often surround themselves with and as a result, out of all the venomous spiders in the world, more people are bitten by them than any of the more dangerous species. However, according to Wikipedia (and if it's on Wiki, it's gotta be true), there have only been 63 confirmed deaths from black widow bites in the U.S. between 1950 and 1989. That's well under 1% of reported bite victims.

I also thought this was interesting (taken from Wiki's black widow spider page):

Improvements in plumbing have greatly reduced the incidence of bites and fatalities in areas where outdoor privies have been replaced by flush toilets. Nearly ninety percent of the black widow bites reported in the medical literature of the first 4 decades of [the twentieth] century were inflicted on the male genitalia by spiders lurking underneath the seats of outdoor toilets.

Good thing there are no black widows living in Fairbanks, eh?

Black widows are surprisingly shy. When I tried taking a second picture of her she quickly disappeared under the eave, only emerging again after this moth flew into her messy web.

I really like this picture, since you can see her very characteristic body shape. I got to watch her wrap up this moth for a couple minutes, until she decided she wanted a bit more privacy and carried it back under the eave.

Finally, I thought I'd add a photo of our thermometer that Sonja took on Sunday. Since we moved here, we've broken 100 degrees three times, all within the last week. This is pretty unusual for early May, though. Normal highs this time of year are about 10 degrees cooler. It shouldn't be getting that hot until later in June and July. Even so, the temps really aren't as bad as I thought...unless you're stupid enough to stand out in the sun. Then it sucks. But as soon as you find some shade it's surprisingly comfortable.