Every morning just after daylight, a horde of magpies descend into our backyard and their delightful calls prompt us to boil the billy and have a cuppa.
About 6.15am yesterday(Sunday), the magpies went into a frenzy, zooming down across the front yard at high speed, a yard or so above the grass.
Their quarry, a large fox.
The maggies had the fox totally rattled as it tried to dodge their bombing.
My iPad was handy and I took the following images through the window pane and the fly screen. The fox was in full flight and hows I managed to get the shot was more good luck than good management.
No sooner had the fox sped out of view the magpies returned to the back yard to await their breakfast of stale bread.
It’s incredible how well the iPad made the first two images, considering the fox was in full flight, I was panning the shots, the window was a closed and the fly screen mesh further obscured the view.
One of the Casa Creakingbones guardians. Taken with my Nikon D810.
I pointed out yesterday that I’ve been nominated by bCL Photography to post my three favourite quotes, one a day for three consecutive days and I’ve thanked bCL for the nomination.
Today posed a bit of a quandary quote wise and I thought hard and fast about it during the four hour drive there and back this morning to a meeting which lasted the whole of 21 minutes exactly, I kid you not.
Yes, I came to a conclusion.
No, you are incorrect, I didn’t conclude to tell the subject club committee where to gently place their AGM papers.
I concluded that today I’d have a bet both ways in the quotation department and suggest you take the decision which quote best fills the subject, JUSTICE.
Firstly, I was going to post the motto of my career employer:
‘Culpam Poena Premit Comes’. When translated from the Latin, it becomes,’ Punishment follows closely upon crime’.
However, as today is the shortest day, June 21st, I didn’t want you all wasting the daylight hours struggling with your Latin to ensure I’d got the translation right.
Accordingly I decided upon my real world favourite law enforcement quote, straight from the mouth of Jack Lord, better known as the famous Detective Sergeant Steve McGarrett from Hawaii Five O who continually directed his side kick Detective Danny Williams to, ‘Book him Danno’.
I’ve always thought that ‘Book Him…..’, has a much better ring to it that,’Place him under arrest’.
Of course, if the suspect happened to be female, these days I guess we would say,” Excuse me Madam but I must immediately take you into custody, please be careful of your hair style whilst we gently place you in the back of our sedan car for the short and comfortable ride to the nearest police station. Please fasten your seat belt’.
I must add in closing that I always remember McGarrett saying, ‘Take him down and book him Danno’. However my research indicates that those words were never uttered during the series.
So in closing, here are the three nominees for today with the reminder that acceptance is not mandatory:
When I was just a kid living in a small country town there was no money to spend on take away food. Anyway it was just after WW2 and there was no such thing as a take away place, not in our town anyway.
You can imagine my absolute amazement when my dad was transferred to a place called Cronulla. Three great surf beaches within walking distance of our house, and public tidal salt water swimming pools galore.
Suddenly I became a beach boy, no silly, not a singer, but a ten year old surfie, of sorts.
Then, joy oh joy, I was introduced by my beach going mates to apple pies with cream. There was a take away bakery in the main street, just a short walk from the beach that had all these fresh beauties on the shelf, ready for the application of lashings of fresh cream at customer request.
I can’t remember how much they cost but I can certainly, vividly, remember how wonderful they tasted.
Our little mob would buy one each and have them completely gobbled up by the time we got back to our spot on the promenade outside the surf club building. Then it was a quick dash into the surf, catch a few waves and back on the promenade to dry off, minus the crumbs and spots of cream from the pies that had been stuck to our little chests and bellies.
How I miss those carefree days in the sun and surf. It lasted for another thirty years. The original pie shop disappeared, to be replaced by two or three more, all competing for our business. Our gobbling eating habits remained the same and the ritual swim to get rid of the evidence on our skin remained a constant.
Now I ride a motor bike instead of swim and live hundreds of miles from the surf. However, all is not lost, we have two great bakeries in town, both sell apple pies with fresh cream. As I’m sure you will realise, it’s most unwise to ride a motor bike and eat an apple pie with cream at the same time. Remedy, sit on the bike at the kerb, watch the passing parade, gobble down the pie and cream, flick the pie crumbs into the gutter, wipe the cream off the leathers, then lick it off your fingers, put the gloves and helmet back on and quickly ride home for a quick wash. The bike that is.
At seventy five years of age you’d think I had more sense, but an apple pie and cream, what would life be like without one. In fact I think I’ll go and get one right now. Hoo roo.
I was sitting in an open cafe on the first floor of the Queen Victoria Building in George Street, Sydney, camera at the ready to do some candid street type photography of the passers by.
Looking around I saw, in the stainless steel underside of an adjacent escalator, reflections of the people passing by on the floor beneath me. A golden opportunity for some movement photos.
To avoid problems with the light I selected ISO 640. That setting suits my camera well when the light is only adequate. I wanted to freeze the motion of the people crossing the tiled floor so I selected 1/8th second at aperture f5.6. I should mention that from where I was sitting I couldn’t see the floor beneath me, only the reflection in the stainless steel sloping away above me and it was inappropriate for me to change my viewpoint.
Because the lighting was a mixture of fluorescent and incandescent I set my camera’s white balance at Auto to allow the camera to sort out the lighting issues. Then manually I selected the best focus point on the escalator and set the lens at 120mm . At this focal length, the only thing to be seen in the viewfinder was the reflected area on the lower floor. The following image shows, totally by a fluke and not my intention, a stationary foot as the body to which it was attached blurred with motion. The image was made hand held, elbows braced against the cafe table.
TWO MOVING FIGURES WITH A STATIONARY SHOE.
As the notes for today include a reference to panning, I stood in my back yard adjacent to a main road to photograph the speedsters as they shot past. I didn’t have to wait long. Just as I’d set my camera at 1/10 second at f18, ISO 200, 70mm lens, I heard a car approaching from my left. I began to pan from right to left and as the car hit the centre of the viewfinder I pressed the go button. Why did I pan from right to left? I wanted to capture the wheels of the car turning and their action would have been less interesting had I panned from left to right along the car’s direction of travel. Here is the result:
PANNING A MOVING VEHICLE.
I was unable to resist putting this next ‘movement’ image here. As you can guess, the event is a cycle race in town centre. I think it’s a fun shot with the casual observer and his dog stationary waiting to cross the road while the peloton rockets past. I took the shot laying down on the medium strip in the centre of the road to the amusement of other spectators. My camera settings were 1/40 second at f11, ISO 200, 24mm lens. My point of focus was the dalmatian.
THE PELOTON AND THE DALMATION
Hope you had as much fun looking as I did shooting.
CREAKINGBONES 