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#MacroMondays
#Party
Happy 17th Birthday, Macro Mondays :)
I joined Macro Mondays on 26 September 2016, and I'm a happy member ever since. A wonderful group that has taught me new photo techniques, lures me out of my comfort zone, saves me from the Winter blues, and kept me sane during those weird, time- and endless days of the pandemic. I also admire how the moderators manage to come up with new themes every week. Thank you, MMs!
And for "Party", it's Blingbert aka Bertie again. Of course, it had to be him ;) He got all excited when he heard what MM's Birthday theme would be about. "Let me come along!", he begged, "you know I love parties! Will there be Karaoke?" "I hope not", I answered. "Don't worry, Silke", Bertie said, "you don't have to sing, I'll do it!!!" He always knows how to talk me around. Bertie got even more excited. "I will sing an aria! How about something from The Valkyrie?" "What?!? No, you won't!", I yelled. "It's a party, Bertie, parties are about people having fun together. Fun. If you sing something from The Valkyrie the party will be over before it begins." Bertie looked seriously abashed. And I felt sorry for being so harsh on him. "Come on, I know you love Classical music. So let's take the 'Classic', and add 'Rock'. How about that?" "There's something like 'Classic Rock'"? He eyed me suspiciously. So what is more "Classic" in Rock music than the archetype of all things Rock? Rock 'n' Roll, of course. And when I played the YouTube video of Wanda Jackson's "Let's Have A Party" to him, he positively turned nuts. "Yessss! That's it! Why have I never heard this before? It will be a blast! And from now on, my second name is Wanda!"
You've seen "Blingbert Wanda" before (please see the first comment). For "Party", I retried my other idea for the (artificial) "Bird" theme: Bertie in front of a spinning fidget spinner. Back then, the backdrop had been far too busy. In my first attempt, I had used the camera's in-built "Live ND" filter, and didn't like either the colours, light, or the way the motion blur looked. So this time, I used a real ND filter, a Vario ND filter. It's also somewhat of a filter overkill because I wondered if I could combine the star filter with the ND filter because party = bling. I'm happy to say it worked, and this time, I also managed to get a nice-looking motion blur of the fidget spinner.
Setup: I glued the fidget spinner to a black tile with modeling clay. Next, I put Bertie Wanda on/halfway into a small glass Christmas bauble filled with tiny, shiny confetti stars. I used modeling clay once again to fixate the bauble on a small plastic box to get the right height. At one point, I also knocked the tile over when I rotated the fidget spinner, so the tile knocked Bertie on the bauble over, and all those tiny confetti stars got tossed onto the table, onto the carpet, everywhere... The joys of macro photography ;)
Size info: Bertie Wanda is 4,5 cm long, and the entire width of the frame is about 6 cm.
HMM, Everyone!
A quasi-sphere formed from green Buckyballs, the controversial adult desk fidget toy composed of spherical neodymium magnets. I tried to form it as round as possible, like a meatball, but it's difficult with 216 tiny (13/64" [5mm] diameter) polarized spheres with minds of their own.
As with any other shiny object, lighting can be troublesome. In this case, the unexpected pareidolia is a welcome bonus, even if it does look a little creepy. 😀
According to the linked article, these magnetic toys are banned in Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. (Bans may be in place elsewhere, but the article does not elaborate.) In the United States, packages without warnings on the packaging and, as seen here, the storage container were recalled, with little success.
For my initial fidget spinner study, I went with natural light and no flash and the result can be seen in the first comment. It was OK, but I wanted to see a bit more of the spinner so I included a flash. I placed the little fidget spinner that measures 2 5/8 inches across on a mirror with a black throw blanket for a backdrop. On-camera Nikon SB900 flash pointed at a white screen off camera right provided nice supplemental bounce lighting in addition to natural light. The exposure, 1/2 second, was set to get a decent amount of blur. The hardest part was spinning the thing and taking my finger off without it moving/sliding so I could keep focus on the insignia. By adding the flash, I was able to get a snapshot of the spinner, a cool reflection in the mirror AND the spinner motion. This worked for me and I was happy with the way it turned out.
Nikon 55mm f/2.8 NIKKOR Micro
Nikon SB 900 Flash w/Natural Sunlight
Macro Mondays Theme - Motion Blur
"Midnight and the moon is out
Careful you might hurt yourself
Pleasure leads to pain
To me they’re both the same
Sweat dripping down to the floor
Bite marks like an animal
You might be insane
But maybe we’re the same
Tonight
You came here
‘Cause you know what I need
And no-one likes to be alone..."
Miley Cyrus
A macro view of a Pop It Topper bubble fidget toy. The frame represents a span of 2⅛ - inches across.
Strobist/technical info:
The scene is a 4-image focus stack composite. It was illuminated by two Nikon SB900 speedlights and a single steady LED cube. The SB900s were placed CL/CR and fired in Manual mode @ 1/128 power through 24" gridded soft boxes and triggered by PocketWizard Plus Xs. The LED cube was placed at 11-o'clock.
Lens: Tokina AT - X M100 AF PRO D(AF 100mm f / 2.8 Macro) with a 12mm extension tube attached.
Grandson's new fidget spinner. Lighting was achieved by pushing an led light through a colour cube (new) to give the purple yellow split light.
Macro Mondays - Relaxation
These little spinning toys are meant to relax the mind. They came up here only a few months ago as a must-have among schoolchildren.
Adrienne sipped her drink, fidgeting with the hem of her borrowed top. Her eyes stayed fixed on Kayla, trying to read beneath her calm exterior.
Kayla didn’t answer right away. She lowered herself onto the sofa beside her, wine glass resting in her hands. Her gaze drifted—unfocused, burdened—before she spoke.
“When I said we were sent to find others like us,” she murmured, “I meant it. We needed help, urgently. That was just one part of the mission. But my team…” Her voice caught, and she drew in a breath. “They didn’t survive. Finding you… that was luck. Nothing else.”
Adrienne stiffened. The calm confidence Kayla usually carried had cracked, if only slightly—
Kayla stared into her glass but didn’t drink. “In my time, the reptilians began to rule openly. They didn’t bother to hide anymore. They fed on humanity—drained us like cattle. We fought back with everything we had. Fusion weapons. Desperation. We won… if you want to call it that.”
She sat silently then finally looked up, eyes dark. Her voice faltered… “The cost was everything. Cities reduced to ash. Most of the human race gone in a blink. The cataclysm we created was so massive that the earth’s crust shifted. The few of us left alive crawled into the earth to escape what we’d done.
Yet some reptilians survived. They too retreated underground to their subterranean cities.
Several million years have wiped everything I knew away. The human race had to start over yet again.
Adrienne felt a chill settle under her skin as Kayla recounted the last days of her civilization. This didn’t sound rehearsed. It sounded like someone trying to speak through a survivor’s guilt.
“It’s happened before,” Kayla said. “Five times. This world is on the cusp of it happening again.
Every few millennia, the reptilians rebuild their numbers. Their life span is 1,517 years—precise, calculated. Before one generation dies, a new one is bred and raised in secret, ready to take their place.”
Adrienne took a long drink of her wine, her eyes never leaving Kayla.
“By our estimates,” Kayla continued, “they’ve just laid their eggs. Billions of them. Each female can produce up to thirty eggs. They do it in one place… one big nest.
Then she turned to face Adrienne. Her voice, for the first time, trembled slightly.
This civilization won’t survive another cycle. That’s why I’m here. To stop the cycle.
before it begins again.”
She paused. “I can’t do it alone. I need your help to find the nest—and destroy it. Before they hatch.”
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You can view Quantum Fold episodes in order from the beginning in her album titled, Quantum Fold:
www.flickr.com/photos/199076397@N02/albums/72177720326169...
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Mouse locks onto an eerie crying sound coming from a tanglewood south of the pasture.
A second later she and Fidget sprinted to the fence and told the world about it.
Most likely Chrysis ignita. Doing that run around then stop for 1/10 of a second, fidget, and run off again thing they do. Such a hard wasp to shoot.
Catcott
Taken for Macro Monday Squared Circle theme. This is a Kinetic spinning toy (1 3/4" round). When you spin it, the bottom stays still (it's flat) and the top spins and makes you dizzy if you stare at it. lol.. It's def mesmerizing. I tried to make the surrounding frame look like movement, but wound up with it looking kinda a vinyl record. Anyhoo.. hope you like. HMM! :-)
Fidget Pants.
A day of indecision that paid off.
I expected 6J37 to run early given the industrial action affecting Northern today.
My first choice of location was Lamb Roe crossing north of Whalley, but cloud was sinking south and so I shifted to the top of Wilpshire Bank on the bridge at Ramsgreave, but cloud was coming in from the west too.
So having seen that it had passed Clitheroe, I quickly moved to Wilpshire Tunnel where the sun was still in the V shaped wedge between the cloud advancing from the west and north. It would probably have been okay at Vicarage Lane too.
56051 and 56094 emerge from the cool and gloom of Wilpshire Tunnel with 6J37, 12.52 Carlisle Yard to Chirk.
I've wanted to bag this shot before the vegetation becomes too rampant. Job done.
© Leanne Boulton, All Rights Reserved
Candid street photography from Glasgow, Scotland. I fired this shot off at arms length with a hopeful aim and had just a split second to get the shot as he stopped fidgeting right after I caught this. I just love the faceless story in this shot - enjoy!
Fidget spinners became big in 2017. Supposedly they can help people burn off nervous energy.
For Macro Mondays theme "Motion Blur"
I wasn't going to post today, but when we got back Ethans new Fidget Spinner arrived in the post so couldn't resist!
HMM! Theme: Intentional Blur
Hello my amazing Flickr friends !!
Today is an orange day at Color my World Daily and the theme at Crazy Tuesday is something in motion. Who remembers the time when fidget spinners were a thing ? I do for sure !! My older son was about 7-8 years old at the time and the only thing he wanted in life was a fidget spinner. Apparently every cool kid in school had at least one fidget spinner !!! The damn thing was so popular that every store in a 100 km (and I'm not even kidding !!) radius from my house was « out of stock » for fidget spinners. We had to put our names in at least 6 different stores on a waiting list for a fidget spinner !!! And the price of that thing was around 20 $ (Canadian dollars). We ended up having quite a collection of fidget spinners. Our whole families (grand parents from both sides included), where on the hunt for fidget spinners ! At one point, I was under impression that there was way more fidget spinners than people on this planet !! Today, I can’t remember last time I saw a fidget spinner in a store. Maybe at a dollar store somewhere… But what happened to all that fidget spinners madness ?? And, what happened to all those fidget spinners ?
Mucho, mucho amor for you my friends !! Have a beautiful day !!!
Thank you so much for all your lovely comments / favs/ general support / happy thoughts!! Stay safe and well!! And see you soon on Flickr !
An artistic rendering of a macro view of a Pop It Topper bubble fidget toy. The frame represents a span of two-inches across.
Those who are not familiar with Pop It Toppers can click the below link to a Wikipedia article about them (with pictures). The version I photographed (in its entirety) is a very small topper with only four bubbles on it.
Strobist info:
The scene was illuminated by two Nikon SB900 speedlights and a steady LED light. The SB900s were placed CL/CR and fired in Manual mode @ 1⁄32 power through 24" gridded soft boxes and triggered by PocketWizard Plus Xs. The LED was placed @ 11-o'clock.
Lens: Tokina AT - X M100 AF PRO D(AF 100mm f / 2.8 Macro) with 12mm + 20mm extension tubes attached.
For Macro Mondays - a small (6.5 cm) fidget spinner on a black, gloss floor tile illuminated with a combination of window light and LED lighting. A single image processed in Lightroom (sharpening, contrast, detail, vibrance, saturation) and Photoshop (dust and fibre removal).
Laowa 58mm f2.8 CA-Dreamer 2X Macro - 4 Seconds @ f/8.0
Image is .65" Wide. This is a small 'Koosh' ball - www.kingsoopers.com/p/koosh-ball-classic-3-pack-purple-gr...
Title says it all. Lighting provided by kitchen sink light and flashlight. The toughest part to this set-up was getting the mirror clean! Made for the Macro Mondays group, reflection theme - HMM.
55mm Micro NIKKOR f/2.8
A macro view of a fidget spinner. The frame represents a span of 1¼ - inches across.
Strobist info:
The scene was illuminated by two Nikln SB900 speedlights, CL/CR, fired in Manual mode @ 1⁄16 power through 24" gridded soft boxes and triggered by PocketWizard Plus Xs.
Lens: Carl Zeiss Jena Pancolar (red MC) 50mm f/1.8 with 20mm extension tube attached.
It was another of those intentionally desultory afternoons where things were happening at a glacial pace. We knew we wanted to visit the National Trust property at Trengwainton Gardens near Penzance, but beyond that, all we’d really agreed upon was that we were staying out until late. We’d packed a cool bag with the ingredients of a promising evening feast, and after the usual lengthy period of late morning procrastination, we’d finally climbed into the van and set a westerly course. By now normal people would already have been at their intended destinations for at least two and a half hours, while true to type we would yet again arrive unfashionably late. Even we think we’re odd. By the time we’d arrived just about in time for lunch before the café closed, attacked the mixed bean chilli and followed this up with lavish dollops of ice cream, there were less than two hours to go until closing time. We mooched up to the viewing gallery from where you used to be able to see St Michael’s Mount before the line of trees in the valley beneath grew too tall, snoozing in the sun to the accompanying chuntering of the man who was talking to himself in the designated quiet space, before weaving gradually back down through the forest of tree ferns towards the walled garden, where Ali found an escaped fruit among the strawberry beds. She loves a freebie. It was delicious too – we really should try and grow our own again. By the time we arrived back at the plant shop an assistant appeared, apologetically informing us that they were about to close, so if we wanted to make any purchases then now was our moment. But there’s already a queue of perennials waiting to be squeezed into the remaining spaces in the flower bed at home. It was time to go.
We headed back to the van, thankfully now the only occupant of the small car park we’d squeezed into just three hours earlier. I’d left Brenda parked untidily at one end, taking up a space that four cars might have managed to fit into. With a lengthy episode of reversing through a narrow stretch of parked cars on either side the only option, I’d shrugged, abandoned her where she was and hoped nobody would complain. We really should have headed for the overflow in the first place. But now with nobody to pull up a chair and watch me blundering around and putting my trust in the reversing camera, it was easy to turn around quietly and set off for the second half of the day’s odyssey. But where?
In fact, the decision became quite easy for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the National Trust likes to release its guests back into the community at the exact same time the evening rush hour commences, and even in Penzance they have one of those. Heading back east at this time would only involve a nose to tail crawl at least as far as the St Erth roundabout. And I wanted to top up the tank while we were down this way, but the filling stations would no doubt be rammed at home time too. Penzance is always a few pence cheaper than home for reasons we’ve never fully understood. Secondly, the recent explosion in fuel prices has resulted in a reluctance to head more than a handful of miles in any direction by car. I’ve walked further in recent days in fact. But here we were only a fifteen minute drive from the Edge of Eternity, and so the decision was made.
Well sort of. “Do you want to go to Porth Nanven, Cape Cornwall or Botallack?” I asked Ali. “You choose,” came the reply. She’s notoriously indecisive. We discussed the options. The narrow track to option one in a big van when it might be busy down there ruled out Porth Nanven. We’d save it for a Tuesday afternoon in October we agreed. The sun will be setting near the Brisons again by then too. Cape Cornwall has a sloping car park at the end of another winding road that even the levelling blocks wouldn’t iron out. No use trying to cook when the pans might slide off the hob and disappear into the sea. But Botallack has easy access from the main road, and a big level car park. It’s great when the lack of a plan turns into something fun isn’t it?
Our chosen spot was a veritable bounty of wildlife too. After spreading across the mostly empty car park extravagantly in our camping chairs with cups of tea we headed off along the track, disturbing a kestrel who’d made friends with a very small rodent. So much so that she carried it off with her in a hurry so they could converse further on a distant outcrop. The stroll towards Kenidjack Castle found us meeting a noisy family of Choughs nesting in the abandoned engine house at Wheal Owles, before spotting a hungry looking fox padding along the path ahead of us. Cronking Ravens, low flying Cormorants and a lone Black Backed Gull kept us company as we wandered, surrounded always by the rustle of rabbits racing for cover among deep green swathes of bracken. Far below us near the rocks, a Grey Seal popped its head above the water now and again, while the appearance of what may have been a Rock Pipit sent the family whatsapp group into identification overdrive. Pipits, it seems are a confusing species. But still no dolphins. I keep promising her we’ll see them here one day. I did once, but I was with Lee and we were busy taking photos with lenses that were never going to capture that particular moment from this distance. A pod of twenty of so of them just a short distance from the base of the cliff, beating lazily yet rhythmically through the surface of the water on a course towards Land’s End. Sometimes it feels as if that moment happened in a dream. Even from our home less than an hour up the road this place of dreams feels like it belongs to another world; another time.
Later, after a restorative supper made from the leftovers of the previous evening’s barbecue, I headed back down to the cliffs above the Crown Houses, catching the rare sight of the sun setting so close to them from this angle. The ocean lay flat like a sheet of burnished grey glass, catching the reflection from the peach coloured sky, and all the while there was hardly a breath of air on this silent June evening. Cornwall at its summer loveliest. When it’s like this and there’s nobody else around, it really doesn’t get much better. Two nights earlier we’d been at Godrevy to witness the summer solstice. Half the world seemed to still be hanging around when the gates were due to close on the big field at 10pm.
The supermarket petrol station was also quiet when we arrived back at Penzance. I tried not to cry as Brenda’s capacious tank swallowed a hundred pound’s worth of diesel without even belching. And she was already half full before I’d even reached for the nozzle. And then the fun started. The replaced fuel cap refused to lock. We both tried. I checked the tyre pressures while Ali fidgeted unsuccessfully with the malevolent cap, then racing towards the store five minutes before it was due to close, returning armed with a roll of gorilla tape. With the cap now at least no longer in danger of falling out along the way, we set off, arriving home just before midnight to discover that our errant front door had managed to double lock itself, delivering a second bout of key related frustration within an hour. Quite how the catch had managed flip into the down position, rendering the front door key useless we’ll never now, but it’s a good job Ali knows how to break into her own house in an emergency. That’s all I’ll say on that matter, I think. Inside secrets and all that. She’d make a great cat burglar. If fuel prices keep going up we might need to get her a black jumpsuit and a stocking to go on top of her head. She could use the rest of the gorilla tape to suspend herself from ceilings like Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible. Then one day, if the petrol cap functions properly again, we might be able to buy another tank of diesel and come back to the place of dreams once more.
For the motion blur challenge today, I balanced a colorful fidget spinner (2 1/4") on my fingertip and used a slower shutter speed.
I normally handhold the camera, but had to use a tripod and used the cool Wireless Remote Control to control the camera for focusing and pressing the shutter button. A fun time! :-) HMM!
Construction:
fidget spinner on a mirror
sidelight from the right
red paper in the background reflection
turning fidget spinner
press the trigger and wait
HMM!