I discovered this morning that Shadow Shot Sunday, a blog hop I used to play in was still running. The idea is to take a photo of a shadow and post it. So I quite happily took my new cheap camera (my good one is still on order) outside and went hunting for shadows – it is a gorgeous sunny day today, so perfect 😀
I ended up down the side of our house where we grow plants that need a little protection from our scorching sun. We have a philodendron that I bought years ago as a tiny 20cm high plant. It has now busted out of its pot and taken over a good part of the shade house. It has leaves half the size of me, so it was great for shadows.
While I was photographing, I came across this.
Now we rarely see these guys during the day. I’m guessing he was up for a little sun baking and my presence was probably terrifying him. I had the camera and so I grabbed the opportunity and took some shots. Unfortunately my very cheap 16Mp camera is very cheap and can’t take a decent shot at all. I don’t know how they can claim it to have such a large megapixelage since when you zoom in the image is shite. I know I’m spoilt with my then $1500 4Mp Nikon Coolpix 4500 back in 2002, and then my $700 Nikon Coolpix P520 18Mp (which broke twice, hence my current predicament), but this little $200+ Lumix DMC-FT30 16Mp which I bought for underwater photos, really can’t cut it. Even if I’d had my little 4Mp camera or even possibly my phone with its 8Mp probably could have done a better job. So there are no wonderful closeup shots of his eye or anything arty because the camera I had in my hand couldn’t do it, aaargh! And he posed so beautifully in his terror at my presence.
Here are the shots I did manage to capture.
Here are a couple of previous shots with my better camera. The difference with these is that they were taken at night, the first one in pitch black and the second with minimal back porch lights.
I really hope that I didn’t blind either of them with the flash ::insert guilt here::
This is a Marbled Gecko (Christinus marmoratus), the most common reptile in the Greater Adelaide region. It loves to live in piles of wood or bricks, places with lots of cover. It eats insects, spiders and other small invertebrates and is nocturnal, which is why seeing one this morning at about 10am was such a surprise. We usually only see them during the day if we disturb their cover and they go running. The reason for this was amply illustrated a couple of weeks ago when a magpie landed outside our window with a gecko in its beak. I’m sure the local kookaburras would also love to dine on them.
We once had a large female redback spider kill a gecko just outside our back door. I was not impressed and struck back at the redback for all vertebrates, and after two attempts (this was one hell of a redback) we finally got her. Thinking back, she was probably doing it self defense since geckos eat spiders. There is a very, very short list of plants and animals I am willing to kill, and redbacks are on it, mostly because I have kids and because they have kinda flared up here and we need to keep the population under control. I usually let the ecosystem flourish as it sees fit.
So since my shadow shot also became a Critter feature, I’m also going to share this as a late submission to Saturday Critters.
Don’t forget to drop by both Shadow Shot Sunday and Saturday Critters to see all the wonderful things our world is sharing with us.
Art Always!
Best wishes,
Liz
Comments
9 responses to “Life in the Philodendron”
Ciool pictures of the little critters and love all the greenery. Think my favourite green is ‘Banana Palm Green LOL
Know what you mean by being fristrated by Megapixels and non performing cameras. I have a camera that does over 20 megapixels. And took it on holiday to the USA and took 1000s of photos. Only to return home and find it toiok FOREVER to download all the photos. Computers could not deal with it due
to slow speeds. And i tried several. Many of the
photos I never ended up keeping (sigh) as it took too long. So only kept the ‘good photos’ and erased the
rest. This all went on for about a month-not talking
downloading over one afternoon it was for weeks with small progress. Anyways, for our next trip I set the same camera for 6 Megapix. That is all you need for good pics and no probs downloadiing. Didn’t need poster size pics. So next camera for me not going to
look at megapixels at all. My camera is a Fuji F800 camera. Not great at night events but takes great dayrltime, portrait, through glass (aquarium pics). I am still looking for the perfect camera…
I think I’m learning that it is not the megapixels at all but the quality of the sensor. This new camera is only 2 Mps short of my broken one, and its image quality is horrid, while my 18Mp more expensive camera could almost be up there with a DSLR. My ancient camera can still outdo all of them on the macro side of things (I wouldn’t have upgraded if it wasn’t for the size of the images being too small – 15 years and the thing is still working).
Regarding the downloading – Hubby’s camera is always much slower on the download than mine, despite the same 18Mps for both. His is a DSLR, mine is high end zoom compact. There are so many technical aspects of photography and cameras that I get lost. I guess it is the amateur pile for me in this art form forever 😀
And yes, the greens in that leaf – love them 😀
Thanks so much for dropping by and commenting. It is always great to see you here.
Best wishes,
Liz
Those macro shots are exquisite! And, amazing night shots too.
In answer to your question if I find having to fly to the other islands restrictive-not really. It could be because I grew up having to fly to get to another island or destination. Some flights are exspensive, depending on which island you are flying from and to. On Molokai, there is small company that caters just to those who live on Molokai and offer round trip flights to Oahu and Maui fro $100.
Funny you mention Kangaroo Island as I know of it. It is on my fantasy list of destinations I’d like to go to. I do know that it isn’t easy to get to, but perhaps someday I will. Or, my desire might change to something else (New Zealand has lots of appeal too).
P.S. Welcome back to Shadow Shot Sunday!!
Hello, your plant and leaves sounds huge. Neat shadow shots and I love the cute Gecko. I think your photos turned out fine, but then I am not a professional on cameras and lenses. I use a point and shoot on the automatic setting. Thanks so much for linking up and sharing your post. I appreciate your comment and visit too. Enjoy your day and week ahead.
Wonderful shadow shot and love the little critters ~ first photos seem much more detailed ~
Happy Sunday,
A ShutterBug Explores
That’s such a bright leaf. I love the gecko, we don’t see many reptiles where I live except snakes.
lovely shots of the wee little gecko- I adore them especially hearing them at night…hard at work eating up bugs!
Have a lovely day!
Great shots. I can feel the sunshine in that plant. And it is made better by the gecko.
P.S. You are a true artist!