Janet Brien's photos with the keyword: webs

Please see our new group, Pictures for Pam , we would love to have you! You may read the latest news of Pam`s recoverery here (11/9/18): www.ipernity.com/home/christine.bentley ------------------------- Yesterday's hike to the top of the Upper Table Rock was great fun, partly because I took my husband's Canon 5D Mark III with me! I told myself to be reasonable with the pictures, but you know how it is…"OHHHH LOOK AT THAT!!!" A moment later, "OOOOOOOOH!!! HOW BEAUTIFUL!!!" And so I made my way up to the top, clicking away and immersing myself in the bliss of photography and appreciating the world around me through the lens of my camera. Do you feel as I do? That your camera is like an extension of yourself? I am so very thankful that I enacted my idea to take pictures for Pam to enjoy. After such a very long time, my unquenchable passion for photography has finally been reawakened. What a priceless gift. I truly did not know if I would come back to life again…I'd tried over and over again to reignite my inner flame, but it always sputtered out. Now we're cookin' with GAS!! :D By the time I got up to the top of the trail, I'd captured over 100 pictures, slightly embarrassed at my lack of control, but pleased that I was having such fun. I walked out from the shady oak forest and onto the brightly lit mesa, adjusting to the full sunlight with a big smile on my face. It's so cool up here! Covered with volcanic rocks everywhere, a prairie covers the top of this flat plain and makes a home to a myriad critters including a rare shrimp that completes its lifecycle every spring. A few moments later I was at the edge which looks out majestically over the lovely Rogue Valley. What a sight to see! I was perplexed at the haze in the air because I thought the forest fires in southern Oregon were pretty much out. Obviously I was wrong, I sighed. Snickering to myself, I peered through my camera's lens knowing what I would see. Hardly anything of course! That's because my 100mm macro lens is NOT wide-angle, and if I actually hoped to get an image of this view, it wouldn't be with this camera. Awww, poor I00mm…I do use it for everything but there's just no pretending with a huge view like this. So I pulled out my Samsung smartphone and took some pictures, including a corny selfie for my husband, which I sent to him as I always do when I hike up the Table Rocks. I wandered back along the mesa, taking some time to crawl around looking for some sporophytes to photograph or other nifty macro subjects. Drat--I'd neglected to bring my knee pads. Oh well! I did prepare myself with the likelihood that any macro shots would probably be blurry. Hand-held macros are something I'm pretty good at but I hadn't practiced. This meant almost certain failure, as macro photography is totally unforgiving. It takes patience and the willingness to make sets of various apertures and distances to ensure at least one good picture of a given subject will be a keeper. I wasn't in the mood. So I took a few pictures but didn't expect anything useable. I confirmed later that I got close with a few images but none of them were worthy of seeing the light of day. Deee-leeet! My hike down the trail yielded another few dozen pictures to be excited about. What a great day! How wonderful to be back in the game again! I looked forward to getting home to see how many turned out. Looking through my pictures on my computer, I was extremely pleased to find that the majority of my images were "keepers." It really does blow me away how much our photography skills mimic abilities such as driving a car…even though you may not have done it for a while, the skills come right back and merely need a brush-up to get back to where you left off! GROOVY!!! :D Working through the pile of images, I cropped each "keeper" into a pleasing composition in Canon's Camera Raw, chucking duds or unfavorable duplicates and after a while I looked up at the clock and realized I wasn't going to have time to create the collage I'd planned on. The Samsung snapshot came to mind which I quickly copied over and made it my picture for yesterday. The rest of the images I kept could be doled out over the coming days and weeks if I chose. It was a better plan. Today I sat down and opened up Adobe Bridge. I already knew the picture I would post for Pam to see! I remember walking up the sun-dappled trail and seeing a brilliant flash of yellow catch my eye. Coming closer with my camera, I found this lovely leaf glowing on its branch, with an added bonus of lovely spiderwebs to give it extra character. Talk about a winner of a leaf!! Hooray! Pam, I hope that you enjoy this beautiful treasure from the Upper Table Rock trail…it is as rich and warm as you are my dear! Feel better and take the glow of this beautiful leaf into your heart! :) Explored on 11/14/18, highest placement, #18.

I have a feeling that every nature photographer is crazy about spider webs. I am always looking for them!! So, you can imagine my excitement when I discovered these sugar-coated beauties to focus on! The bad thing is that these are NOT spider webs. They are webs created by a webworm, which are normally not a big deal but they were very distructive this past year. Something about the long wet spring we had in the northwestern United States caused optimal conditions for these pests and their population exploded. Webworms cover leaves and sometimes entire trees with their webs. Adult moths lay eggs on the underside of leaves in the spring and summer, which hatch into caterpillars and spin webs around the leaf, which they eat. This is normally ok if only part of a tree is covered. Unfortunately, countless trees were completely covered with webs from these worms and most or all of the leaves were eaten, killing the trees. We do not know if any of the badly covered trees on our property will recover, but we are crossing our fingers. If you would like to learn more about webworm moths and their habits, here is a Wiki page: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_webworm If you would like to see pictures of trees covered with webworms, here is a very good page: www.bugoftheweek.com/bow-reader.jsp?document_name=/wt/bug...

In early January I went on an early morning frosty picture walk around our property, and I was delighted to find this Oak leaf stuck in a frosted spider web! Upon closer investigation, however, I realized this was not a spider web. It was a web made by a "fall webworm." These nasty little creatures hatch from eggs placed on the undersides of leaves by adult webworm moths during the summer. In the fall, they hatch and eat the leaf they hatched on. The problem this last year is that this area of the country was overrun by a record number webworms and they have devastated thousands of trees. Affected trees usually survive webworm infestations, but not this time. This Madrone tree (only a branch is shown--the leaf you see is from an Oak tree), and about a dozen more on our property, has died. :( :( If you would like to learn more about webworm moths and their habits, here is a Wiki page: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_webworm If you would like to see pictures of trees covered with webworms, here is a very good page: www.bugoftheweek.com/bow-reader.jsp?document_name=/wt/bug...