Valkaria Airfest, February 18, 2012

Thought I would try my hand at photographing airplanes at a local air festival.  I have never photographed air planes before and figured this was as good as any to try my hand at photographing airplanes.  I do not have a very big lens for this type of thing.  I used my Nikon 18-200mm lens on my Nikon D300s.  I shot on Aperture Priority mode.  I took approximately 85 photographs, but narrowed it down to 20 for this blog.  I did some editing of each image in Photoshop CS5.  You will notice that not all photos are in color.  I processed some as B/W because I felt they looked best in B/W.

I love reflection shots, when I come across a neat looking reflection I will photograph it.  As you can see from the following three photos.

Walked around the area and photographed the various planes at different angles as best I could.  My son is learning about planes in school so he was giving me a blow by blow description of all the planes.  Made for an interesting day.  He surprised himself on how much he knew.

Yes I am sure it is :)

I loved this angle because it makes me feel that I was actually on the wing.

This part of the plane just felt like it should be processed as B/W

Time to put the toys away.

I really did end up enjoying my day photographing the Valkaria Airfest.  I will most likely do it again sometime.  The next Valkaria Airfest is February 16, 2013.  Check out their website at www.valkariaairfest.org

Hope you enjoyed your visit.  

Until next time happy clicking!

Butterfly World, February 19, 2012

Went to Butterfly World with my girlfriends, Judy and Robin, who I do the No Wimpy Girls Photography blog with.  If you are interested, our blog is  www.nowimpygirlsphotography.blogspot.com.  It is a 52 week photo project we started June 1, 2011, which has inspired me to start my own blog.  We try to take a photography trip together at least once a month.  We really look forward to these trips.  Nothing like sharing a day with friends who have the same hobby as yourself.

Butterfly World is located in Coconut Creek, Florida.  Their website is http://www.butterflyworld.com/.

The day we went was absolutely beautiful.  It was not too hot or too cold.  It was just right, as Goldilocks would say:)

As always, I took tons of photos (175 to be exact) but, I narrowed it down to 21 for this blog.  The neat thing about Butterfly World is they had other things besides butterflies.  They had an area containing some exotic birds and a garden area with a variety of passion flowers.  They also had an area containing the many variety of insects.  Most of these were dead on display, but they did have live spiders hanging in the corners on purpose, ICKY!  Spiders give me the heebie jeebies!

Alright now for the photos:

Troides Helena

Perrhyris Pyrrha

Heliconius Ismenius

Myscelia Ethusa

2 Troides Helena Making Love :)

2 Heliconius Melpomene Madiera

Not sure what this one is.

Siproeta Stelenes

Archaeoprepona Demophon

Yellow Butterfly (not sure what the official name is)

Love seems to be in the air!

Owl Finch

Another butterfly that just looks great in Black/White due to the distinct markings.  It is brown/white.  Unable to find out what it is.

Morpho Polyphemus, not with us anymore :(

Just loved the ceamy DOF in this one.  Framed the butterfly very nicely.

Heliconius Ismenius

One of the many varieties of passion flower.

Fawn Shafttail Finch

Fawn Shafttail Finch having a drink.

Bird who didn't want their photograph!

Nutmeg Mannikin 

They didn't want their photograph taken either!

Well, that is the end of the Butterfly World blog.  I sure hope you enjoyed it!  Until next time!