June 12 - 163/365

28-135mm lens @ 135mm, f/6.3, 1/160, ISO 400

Today was a busy day with a photography event in the morning and a bridal shower in the afternoon. The photography outing was with my photography group to a butterfly garden in the area. What a next experience! Since the garden was indoors in a greenhouse-like building, the butterflies weren't wandering away, plus we were there early in the morning before they were super active, so they were very good subjects. :-) It was really hard to choose from all the photos which was my favorite, but I liked this one because of the colors and the fact that you could see some of the details of the head so well.

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April 30 - 120/365

Canon Power Shot SD600

I'm not sure if you have ever taken a minute to read my little bio on the left side of my blog, but it has a strange little word in it that has absolutely nothing to do with photography - scientist. Yup.... that's right. I'm a scientist by day, photographer/baker/traveler by night. Today actually happened to be the last day of my last full week as a research scientist! I am lucky that I have found a new job I will be starting when I get back from vacation, and the new job, while still in the science field, will no longer require me to do experiments. So I took a few photos of my lab space and the model organism that I do my research on - flies. Fruit flies to be exact. We keep and grow the flies in vials, like these, and do all sorts of crazy things with these flies. Trust me, you don't want to know. But while I am excited to be moving on to a new job, I will miss the flies.... just a little.

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April 1 - 91/365

50mm lens, f/2.8, 1/1000, ISO 800

Have you ever seen those photos some people have in their portfolio that show detailed birds in flight, or super close ups of insects? I've always wondered how they got those photos and figured the likelihood that I would ever happen to catch a bird/insect/etc at just the right time [and get it to stay still for me to capture] was pretty slim. Well today was my day. I went out in my backyard to check on the growth of a few new plants and two bumble bees practically smacked into me while in the middle of mating. Not liking bees, even "tame" bumble bees, I started to dash back to the house. But luckily, I stopped to watch them for a minute, and not long after, the female shook off her male mate and landed on a tree branch. And of course the male, not happy about being shoved away, hovered in front of the female, just waiting for his chance to pounce on her again. Lucky for me, I dashed into the house to grab my camera, even taking time to switch to my 50mm lens, and those bees were still there. I got as close as I could to them without scaring them off, but still needed to crop the photo a  little bit to really show off the bees. I love that I was able to capture this moment in nature, and can't believe I was actually able to get one of "those" photos that I have always admired in others work.

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