View allAll Photos Tagged SharpFocus
Grote Bonte Specht - Great Spotted Woodpecker, Dendrocopos major - Spechten (Picidae)
A detailed close-up portrait of a beautiful Great Spotted Woodpecker (Dendrocopos major). I am thrilled with how the sharp focus highlights the striking contrast of its black and white plumage and that iconic splash of red.
It is always incredible to watch these birds up close as they scan the tree bark.
Have you spotted any woodpeckers in your area lately? Let me know in the comments! 👇
I started the morning on Hailuoto island shooting hawks during their early hunt and managed to get some amazing shots. While scanning the surroundings for more action, I suddenly noticed a curious Stoat (Mustela erminea) watching me from a gravel road.
I quickly lowered myself down to the road level to get onto its eye line. Instead of running away, the fast little predator started sprinting directly toward me, occasionally pausing at the edge of the ditch before getting incredibly close. It was an unforgettable experience to witness this elusive creature from just a few feet away!
"Yours is the light by which my spirit's born: - you are my sun, my moon, and all my stars.”"
E.E. Cummings
"To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides."
David Viscott
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"Time goes, you say? Ah no!
Alas, Time stays, we go."
Henry Austin Dobson
© Copyright Natalie Panga - All rights reserved. EXPLORED October 20, 2011.
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"When I compare
What I have lost with what I have gained,
What I have missed with what attained,
Little room do I find for pride."
Henry W. Longfellow
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"I cannot pretend to feel impartial about colors."
Sir Winston Churchill
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This striking studio photograph captures a young woman posing against a deep, seamless black background. She wears a vibrant, form-fitting red strapless mini dress that beautifully contrasts with her long, dark brunette hair draped over her left shoulder. Her right hand rests confidently on her hip, while her left hand gently touches her hair, casting a thoughtful gaze downward. Enhancing the alluring aesthetic, she wears sheer black thigh-high stockings paired with high-heeled platform peep-toe shoes featuring distinctive white accents. A powerful overhead spotlight illuminates her, creating rich highlights across her shoulders and arms while casting dramatic, soft shadows that ground her in the dark studio environment.
The technical quality of this image is exceptional, characterized by precise studio lighting and crisp details. The overhead key light acts as an excellent hair light and highlights the contours of her shoulders, while controlled falloff keeps the background perfectly dark and free from distracting noise. Exposure is well-balanced, preserving the vivid, saturated red of the dress without clipping, while maintaining subtle texture details in the sheer black hosiery and the glossy finish of the heels. The sharp focus captures clean textures on her skin and the fabric folds, resulting in a professional, commercial-grade portrait with strong visual impact.
A captivating close-up portrait revealing the mesmerizing depth of central heterochromia. A vivid, fiery golden-brown ring ignites around the pupil, bleeding outward into a warm, molten amber iris. This rare and striking gaze is framed by long, velvety dark lashes that cast delicate shadows across soft, naturally freckled skin. A slim gold hoop pierces the nostril, catching the studio light and adding a modern, elegant contrast to an intense, timeless expression.
"Dreams are illustrations... from the book your soul is writing about you."
Marsha Norman
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A striking close-up portrait highlighting a beautiful young woman with a mesmerising, two-toned gaze. Her unique eyes are a stunning, dual-colored blend of deep, warm brown and shimmering metallic gold tones that beautifully catch the light. This rare, vibrant hazel contrast is framed by thick, dramatic eyelashes and complemented by a delicate gold nose ring. With her dark hair pulled back and a gentle expression, this portrait captures a perfect balance of natural beauty and bold, expressive features. The soft background ensures all focus remains entirely on her radiant, distinctively dual-shaded eyes.
"I' th' East my pleasure lies."
William Shakespeare, Quotation from Antony and Cleopatra
"Now a soft kiss - Aye, by that kiss, I vow an endless bliss."
John Keats
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"To go by the asters
and breathe
the sweetness that hovers
in August about the tall milkweeds,
without a direct look ..."
Denise Levertov
"Hesitate in August.
Be shy.
Let your toes tremble in their sandals."
Anne Sexton (1928-1974)
"The paired butterflies are already yellow with August
Over the grass in the West garden;
They hurt me. I grow older."
Li Po (701-762), Chinese poet.
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"All great and precious things are lonely."
John Steinbeck, East of Eden
My all time aggregate views : 500,518 [10.34PM on 13th November 2012 (Tue)].
Thank you very much my dear visitors!
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© Copyright Natalie Panga - All rights reserved. EXPLORED November 13, 2012.
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"Waking up in the morning, I vow with all beings to be ready for sparks of the Dharma
from flowers or children or birds."
Robert Aitken
"This gardener will be out in the very early morning and from late afternoon, attentive to small changes
in the quality of light and the atmosphere, as well as to every nuance of the season, which combine
to create perfection."
Susan Hill and Rory Stuart, Reflections from a Garden, 1995
© Copyright Natalie Panga - All rights reserved. EXPLORED June 12, 2011.
The dream is forgotten.
Sharp focus captures the spray —
The world turned concrete.
Now everything is clear as glass. The monocle yields to the lens, and the dream scatters into drops of light. The horse is bronze again, the water cold again, and the city — alive, noisy, real.
Reality returns, yet it still carries the echo of dream, as if the frame remembers it once was a metaphor.
⚙️ Technical Credits
Camera: Pentax Spotmatic SP II (№ 5247478)
Lens: MC Macro‑Revuenon 28 mm ƒ 3.5
Film: ADOX CHS 100 II + dev. D‑76
Scanner: Pakon F235+
Date: 28 June 2018
Location: Manezhnaya Square, Moscow
Subject: Fountain “Four Seasons” by Zurab Tsereteli
Philosophy: “Sharpness is a cold shower for a lens that fell asleep dreaming of infinity.”
A captivating portrait of a young woman pausing to look at the camera while holding her smartphone. Dressed in a simple, casual black ribbed tank top, she offers a subtle, playful smirk that hints at a private thought or a pleasant message just received. Her dark hair is neatly pulled back into a sleek ponytail, highlighting her expressive eyes, long eyelashes, and a delicate nose ring. The vibrant pink phone case adds a striking pop of color against her outfit and the neutral, soft gray backdrop. The soft studio lighting accentuates her athletic build and creates a clean, professional look, making this image a perfect blend of modern lifestyle photography and candid human expression.
“Yes, I now feel that it was then on that evening of sweet dreams- that the very first dawn of human love burst upon the icy night of my spirit. Since that period I have never seen nor heard your name without a shiver half of delight, half of anxiety.”
Edgar Allan Poe
"He stood staring into the wood for a minute, then said: "What is it about the English countryside — why is the beauty so much more than visual? Why does it touch one so?"
He sounded faintly sad. Perhaps he finds beauty saddening - I do myself sometimes. Once when I was quite little I asked father why this was and he explained that it was due to our knowledge of beauty's evanescence, which reminds us that we ourselves shall die. Then he said I was probably too young to understand him; but I understood perfectly."
Dodie Smith, I Capture the Castle
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© Copyright Natalie Panga - All rights reserved. EXPLORED April 9, 2013.
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"Keep your face always toward the sunshine - and shadows will fall behind you."
Walt Whitman
"It is the artist's business to create sunshine when the sun fails."
Romain Rolland
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"Zest is the secret of all beauty. There is no beauty that is attractive without zest."
Christian Dior
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"I thank you God for most this amazing
day; for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural, which is infinite, which is yes."
e. e. cummings
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"Farther in summer than the birds,
Pathetic from the grass,
A minor nation celebrates
Its unobtrusive Mass."
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
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"Don't be afraid of the dark. Shine!"
Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration
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A stunning, close-up outdoor portrait capturing a high school senior from the graduating Class of 2027. Sitting comfortably on a wooden bench, she looks back over her shoulder with a radiant, candid smile. Her long, straight blonde hair flows beautifully over her shoulder while she gently gathers it with one hand. She wears her signature casual charcoal gray long-sleeve top, framed naturally by vibrant green garden bushes in the foreground and a softly blurred neutral background.
"I feel as if I had opened a book and found roses of yesterday sweet and fragrant, between its leaves."
L.M. Montgomery, Anne of the Island
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Bathed in the warm glow of the setting sun, this portrait captures a peaceful moment in a lush green meadow at golden hour. The subject glances back over her shoulder with a natural smile, creating a candid and inviting atmosphere. Her flowing wavy hair catches the evening light beautifully, while a simple light-colored summer dress adds to the timeless countryside aesthetic. Ornate western-style boots provide a rustic touch, complementing the expansive field and dark evergreen backdrop.
The soft sunlight creates a beautiful contrast between the illuminated subject and the rich green surroundings, highlighting the textures of the grass, hair, and fabric. The shallow depth of field gently separates the subject from the background, drawing attention to her expression while preserving the serene landscape. This image evokes feelings of freedom, summer evenings, rural charm, and the simple beauty of nature at sunset.
Perfect for themes of outdoor portraiture, country living, summer fashion, natural light photography, and golden hour storytelling.
"Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts. I was better after I had cried, than before--more sorry, more aware of my own ingratitude, more gentle."
Charles Dickens, Great Expectations
"Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears."
Edgar Allan Poe
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A professional close-up portrait featuring a high school senior from the grad class of 2027. She poses with a calm, serene expression, looking directly into the camera while running one hand smoothly through her long blonde hair. She wears a casual charcoal gray long-sleeve henley shirt with button details. The background features beautifully blurred green trees and soft outdoor bokeh, pulling all the focus onto her natural features and subtle nose piercing.
"All the world is made of faith, and trust, and pixie dust."
J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan
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The Fragaria virginiana is the wild ancestor of cultivated strawberries. The small plant, with white flowers and tiny, red berries is a member of the rose family. The ripe fruit can be harvested from April through June. It is a perennial that loves filtered sunshine, and can often be found growing wild in old fields or on forest edges. The wild strawberry has many uses, some of which date back hundreds of years. The leaves and roots have medicinal properties, and have long been used as an astringent. Strawberry juice is a folk remedy for blotchy skin, and strawberry leaf tea is a good source of vitamin C.
www.strawberry-recipes.com/wild-strawberry.html
"In wilderness I sense the miracle of life, and behind it our scientific accomplishments fade to trivia."
Charles A. Lindbergh, Life, 22 December 1967.
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"Colors are the smiles of nature."
Leigh Hunt
"Why do two colors, put one next to the other, sing? Can one really explain this? No."
Pablo Picasso
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"Just a bit to say I did a classic."
Jim Varney
"In science, read, by preference, the newest works; in literature, the oldest.
The classic literature is always modern."
Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton
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A professional photography session capturing a high school senior from the grad class of 2027. She is pictured mid-stride, walking down a peaceful urban sidewalk lined with manicured green hedges and mature trees. Golden afternoon sunlight catches the rim of her blonde hair, creating a beautiful halo effect. She looks off-camera with a thoughtful expression, casually running a hand through her hair while showcasing a relaxed style with a charcoal long-sleeve top and loose wide-leg blue jeans.
To all of you, of every age and country...
Today is your day!
(8th March is being celebrated as International Women’s Day all over the world.)
"If women didn't exist, all the money in the world would have no meaning."
Aristotle Onassis
The good old greeting cards for March 8 --- Please visit and smile :-)
Self Portrait: Recalibrated: A quiet self-portrait captured after a year of steady progress and discipline. The physical transformation of losing 105 poinds is obvious, but the goal here was something more grounded, an honest, current self-representation.
"Thoughts are the shadows of our sensations -- always darker, emptier, simpler than these.”
Friedrich Nietzsche
"For the man sound in body and serene of mind there is no such thing as bad weather; every day has its beauty, and storms which whip the blood do but make it pulse more vigorously."
George Gissing, "Winter," The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft, 1903
My all time view counts (5.02AM on 5th December 2011 (Mon)) - 216,146
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The Savior of the Apple Feast Day (sometimes the Saviour on the Hill is an Eastern Slavic folk holiday, which is observed on August 19, falling on the Feast of the Transfiguration. It is one of the three Saviour (Spas) days. The holiday has a pre-Christian origin and is associated with harvesting of ripe fruits, especially apples.
(from Wikipedia)
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© Copyright Natalie Panga - All rights reserved. EXPLORED August 18, 2012.
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A full-length studio portrait featuring a smiling young brunette woman posing in profile against a neutral grey studio backdrop. She is looking back over her shoulder toward the camera, highlighting her fit, athletic physique, toned legs, and glutes. She is wearing a simple black cropped tank top paired with high-waisted, frayed acid-wash denim shorts, standing barefoot to complete the casual, minimalist look. The soft studio lighting emphasizes the muscle definition in her legs while creating smooth shadows that add depth to the portrait.
“Rochester: "Jane, be still; don't struggle so like a wild, frantic bird, that is rending its own plumage in its desperation."
Jane: "I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being, with an independent will; which I now exert to leave you.”
Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
Daisies With Shepherd's-purse.
Capsella bursa-pastoris, known by its common name shepherd's-purse because of its triangular, purse-like pods, is a small (up to 0.5m) annual and ruderal species, and a member of the Brassicaceae or mustard family. It is native to eastern Europe and Asia minor but is naturalized and considered a common weed in many parts of the world, especially in colder climates,
It is commonly used as food in Shanghai and the surrounding Jiangnan region as food, where they are stir-fried with rice cakes and other ingredients or as part of the filling in wontons.[citation needed] It is one of the ingredients of the symbolic dish consumed in the Japanese spring-time festival, Nanakusa-no-sekku.
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Detailed view of the waxing gibbous Moon photographed from Tønsberg, Norway. Visible lunar maria, craters and surface detail captured through a telephoto lens under clear winter skies.
R.E.M. Man on the moon lyrics:
"Man On The Moon"
Mott the Hoople and the game of Life yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Andy Kaufman in the wrestling match yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Monopoly, Twenty one, checkers, and chess yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Mister Fred Blassie in a breakfast mess yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Let's play Twister, let's play Risk yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
I'll see you heaven if you make the list yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Now, Andy did you hear about this one?
Tell me, are you locked in the punch?
Andy are you goofing on Elvis? Hey, baby
Are we losing touch?
If you believed they put a man on the moon
Man on the moon
If you believe there's nothing up his sleeve
Then nothing is cool
Moses went walking with the staff of wood yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Newton got beaned by the apple good yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Egypt was troubled by the horrible asp yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Mister Charles Darwin had the gall to ask yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Now, Andy did you hear about this one?
Tell me, are you locked in the punch?
Andy are you goofing on Elvis? Hey, baby
Are you having fun?
If you believed they put a man on the moon
Man on the moon
If you believe there's nothing up his sleeve
Then nothing is cool
Here's a little agit for the never-believer yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Here's a little ghost for the offering yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Here's a truck stop instead of Saint Peter's yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Mister Andy Kaufman's gone wrestling yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Now, Andy did you hear about this one?
Tell me, are you locked in the punch?
Andy are you goofing on Elvis? Hey, baby
Are we losing touch?
If you believed they put a man on the moon
Man on the moon
If you believe there's nothing up his sleeve
Then nothing is cool
If you believed they put a man on the moon
Man on the moon
If you believe there's nothing up his sleeve
Then nothing is cool
If you believed they put a man on the moon
Man on the moon
If you believe there's nothing up his sleeve
Then nothing is cool
If you believed they put a man on the moon
Man on the moon
If you believe there's nothing up his sleeve
Then nothing is cool
"If we are not happy and joyous at this season, for what other season shall we wait and for what other time shall we look?"
‘Abdu’l-Bahá (1844-1921)
"People from a planet without flowers would think we must be mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us."
Iris Murdoch
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"We’re born, we live for a brief instant, and we die. It’s been happening for a long time."
"If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right."
"There is no reason not to follow your heart."
Steve Jobs (1955-2011)
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I am a morning person.
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"Thou art the Iris, fair among the fairest,
Who, armed with golden rod
And winged with the celestial azure, bearest
The message of some God."
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, from Iris
(Since Iris is the Greek goddess for the Messenger of Love, her sacred flower is considered the symbol of communication and messages.)
"These my sky-robes spun out of Iris woof."
John Milton (1608–1674)
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A beautiful, professional high school senior portrait from the Class of 2027 senior shoot, continuing the casual, timeless look from her session. This image features the confident young woman pausing on an outdoor concrete staircase, looking back over her shoulder with a bright, radiant smile. She wears a form-fitting dark gray long-sleeve top paired with relaxed, wide-leg light wash denim jeans, highlighting a classic and youthful street style. Her long, straight blonde hair catches the light as she poses elegantly against a green, rustic background.
This portrait showcases exceptional professional photography technique with a focus on natural integration. The background is composed of a weathered dark green metal railing and dense, lush green foliage that adds a soft, organic texture to the frame. The photographer utilized a shallow depth of field to keep the focus entirely sharp on the subject while gently blurring the steps and leaves. The lighting relies beautifully on filtered, natural daylight streaming through the trees, acting as a soft rim light that illuminates the edges of her blonde hair. A subtle, soft fill lighting from the front ensures her facial features are bright, clear, and perfectly exposed without harsh shadows.
August Generosity: Cornelian cherries, cakes, tea and honey, accompanied by wild flowers.
"...in August in Mississippi there’s a few days somewhere about the middle of the month when suddenly there’s a foretaste of fall, it’s cool, there’s a lambence, a soft, a luminous quality to the light, as though it came not from just today but from back in the old classic times. It might have fauns and satyrs and the gods and---from Greece, from Olympus in it somewhere. It lasts just for a day or two, then it’s gone. . .the title reminded me of that time, of a luminosity older than our Christian civilization."
William Faulkner, Light in August
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