Pictures for Pam, Day 11: Soft Feather for Macro Monday 2.0

NOTE: there are three inset images above! :)

I have been having such a great time reacquainting myself with the ipernity community since my return a week ago. It's been so much fun seeing your photography and leaving comments. I am overwhelmed at the positive response I've been getting to my pictures and the warm welcome back from everyone. It's so humbling and touching.

The other day I was admiring a beautiful macro of an apple and noticed that it was a submission to an ipernity group called Macro 2.0. I went to see what they were about and thought the group sounded like a lot of fun. I considered. Participating in group projects can be a lot of fun but one must be cautious about getting overwhelmed by joining too many of these activities. However, one group would be fine and this would be a perfect choice because I love macro so much.

The new project theme was posted and I mused over the single word, "soft". Hmmm…I had a week to come up with something though I immediately had the perfect idea: I would take pictures of our darling parrot's feathers in various ways and hopefully get one that said "soft" when you looked at it.

Feathers are a fascinating thing. Starting as reptile scales, they evolved over millions of years to become the modern-day feather. Nature is truly remarkable, isn't it? It may be hard to believe that feathers started as scales but one look at Pumpkin's big, scaly feet points to the obvious fact: her ancestors were undoubtedly dinosaurs.

Every bird is covered with many types of feathers, each with an important job—for example, some are used to help them fly, others offer coat-like waterproofing, and close to their skin are mostly-hidden fluffy down feathers which keep them warm. As soft as they look at a distance, a close-up reveals that every feather is incredibly detailed...and they don't look soft at all! Even the softest down feather is composed of dozens of hookless barbs which have even smaller barbules—these look a little bit like thin pipe-cleaners. (If you would like to learn more, here are two really good resources: Everything You Need To Know About Feathers and Anatomy of a Feather .)

This would soon reveal a problem with my idea. Using our nifty macro twin light flash setup, I got lots of well-lit pictures of Pumpkin's fluffiest feathers. The nicest were terrific with crisp detail, bright color and nice background blur. But though the previewed images said positive things they did NOT say "SOFT." Thinking about this, I changed my tactics. I used a shallower depth of field and just a hint of focus which drifted off into bokeh. After adding another bunch of pictures to my memory card, I left my macro setup and hopped on my computer. As I'd already noticed, most of my pictures weren't what I was after. Then I landed on the picture that I picked for today. "Now THAT is what I wanted...SOFT!" I did have another picture that would have worked too, but I think my choice was the right one. I included three inset pictures—one of them is my other choice, and the second one is a crisply detailed image that I really loved. It says "COOL" all over it, but it's in no way a "SOFT" picture! And finally, the third picture isn't a macro at all, but it does say "SOFT" and would you just take a look at our little star?! We do love our darling Pumpkin girl!!

Pam, I know you love stuff like this so I hope you get some enjoyment out of my adventures and subsequent images. Here's hoping that you get my packet of love and hugs through the virtual mailbox!

Explored on 11/20/18, highest position, #5.