Actinotus helianthi

Flannel Flower

It rained and rained and rained....

My Photoblog- My Third Eye...!

To much time on my hands lol

A minnow looks enviously at a drip of water that has broken free of the beak tip of a juvenile Tri-colored Heron on Horsepen Bayou.

I love watching drops as they gather along horizontal surfaces. Forming a tidy row, they start small and grow in size, plumping and stretching. The bigger they get, the better I can see the fantastical, upside-down version of my world inside each watery orb. Pulled by gravity, they tremble to hold on but eventually they fall and the cycle begins again.

Like a giant metronome of life, they measure the moments.

Drip, drop. Tick, tock.

First attempt playing with water drips

Long-billed Dowitcher drains the long bill on a small pond near Jamaica Beach, Galveston Island.

Writing about human suffering runs many risks, and most of these risks have been the subject of to much commentary. But there is also the artifice of packaging something so it offends the senses, but not too much. Surely, this too is a marker of a lost innocence. I have come to terms with the fact that I will never be asked to write, or even reflect overmuch on what is described in these pages, because in Haiti, I am asked to do only one thing: be a doctor, to serve the destitute sick. And since none of my patients can pay for my services, it is my job, my great privilege, to draw attention to the suffering of the poor and to bring resources to bear on the problems that are remediable. Most are.

I contemplate my own loss of innocence with resentment, sometimes in even in tearful silence. From whom can I demand it back? As Garcia Lorca said, "Things that go away never return-everybody knows that."

Everybody knows that things that go away never return.

-Paul Farmer, Cange, Haiti, March 8, 2000, afterword to the Pathologies of Power

male mallard leaves the pond to join some friends across the wetlands park

That's the 6/17/17 theme for Macro Mondays, and since I've made numerous attempts to try to perfect this olive-drop-into-the-martini shot, I decided this was a good excuse to give it another try. I got several great splashes, but that *&%**! olive rarely cooperated and insisted on turning its back to the camera, and without the red pimento showing, the shot was a failure, no matter how great the splash.

Actually, this time I got two shots I wanted to post to the MM group, but one's the limit, so I posted the other one in the first comment below. I'd appreciate knowing if you think I made the right choice...

captured during the downpour. cats and dogs, i tell you.

EXPLORED =]

on a rainy day in the indian ocean

Etta; Cataract Creek, Lawson

Taken and edited on my iPhone

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This magical place is an easy walk not far form Mudgee. Magnificent rock formations.

MD, Catonsville MD.

This Rattlesnake master's (Eryngium yuccifolium) leaves have small inconsequential thorns that must act as a dew collector.

Samsung NX1 & LZOS Jupiter 9 - 85mm f/2

26mm Macro Tube | 15 Aperture Blades | f/4 | Manual Focus | Available Light | Handheld

All Rights Reserved. © Nick Cowling 2017.

A really heavy thunder shower today. It showed me I need to check the drainpipes as they were overflowing. I know it's not all that clear, but it was raining very heavily and not for long.

52 in 2016 Challenge #29 Drips

Kahn getting a little wet on our walk today.