Over by the stairs to the garage, I encountered my other friend Max the Mooch. Max is always hanging around, looking for attention. She's pretty sweet to humans, but is a terror to other cats.

Because I had work to get to, I was just taking snapshots rather than really thinking about or putting effort into my photos. That shot of Max really shows that; it is a record of Max being at that spot, but it's not engaging or appealing to the viewer at all. A lot of this has to do with the camera angle (and some of it is to do with the cat's gaze); if I would have gotten down closer to the ground, things would have been different. Compare Max with the previous photo of Smudge, which is about at eye level. There we get a better idea of the character of the cat and we feel a part of his world. These two photos illustrate why I'm always lying down and crouching and bending myself into strange shapes when I'm out there in the field; the camera angle is a very important part of photography.

My friend Annie was also out in the courtyard, chewing on some of the new grass that her mom Jodi had planted. I got some similarly-bad shots of her doing this.

As I started down the stairs to the garage, I found one more subject, this one a proper subject for a macro lens. This guy is a Zebra Spider (Salticus scenicus), which is a type of jumping spider. I often see these little fellows on the wall by the stairs.

Work absorbed most of my day, and so I wasn't able to sneak off for any photos during work hours. After work, I went to my yoga class, and when I came home I made a little trip around the courtyard and found a few more of my friends out and about.

Here's a high-angle shot of Cadbury, one of the kitties from the corner. Here I'm using flash to light her up, mounted on the bracket to the left of the camera.

And I even saw my young pal Easter Bunny, who gave a real deer-in-the-headlights stare. The angle and the cat's gaze are slightly better on this one, but the photo is still not very good. Here you can really see where the flash is, by the big black shadow behind the cat.

E.B. went bounding off after that shot. He's a pretty energetic little guy.

So let this entry be a lesson to all you budding photographers out there, and don't shoot cats from a high angle like I did here. Look over these photos until you can really tell the difference between the first cat photo (Smudge) and the rest. It's a major difference and it should really jump out at you.

The same idea applies to almost anything with eyes, including spiders. The spider below is another jumping spider; I think it's a Sitticus palustris. Again I have a high angle on his face and we're seeing his eyes from above. Often that's unavoidable with insects and spiders, and often it can make for a nice photo. However, a photo showing those big middle eyes straight on would have been much more exciting.

Well, that's probably enough of a photography lesson. Somewhere during that explanation I had stopped by my condo to change and put down my yoga gear, then ventured out to the riverside part of the property to try to get some more real macro shots. That's were I found the spider, and that's where I found this rose that was just a little past its prime.

It was getting dark by this time and I was tired from yoga and so I called it a day.

Spending a day at the wrong height,
Tom