10 Meter Photography Challenge

[vaneramos]

Try this challenge from Digital Photography School: "Your challenge is to grab your nearest camera (could be the one on your phone) and to take up to 10 shots with it within 10 meters of where you are right now."

If you do it, please post a link in my comment section, too.

See my gallery of six photos on Flickr.

Comments

[aboutlooking.livejournal.com]

This is a WOW!!!

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Being a poor housekeeper has its benefits. ;-)

[inishglora.livejournal.com]

Interesting coincidence on the cedar waxwing in one of the photos, as they have been swarming my pond the last few days. I saw one pair last year and figured it was a freak chance because this is a big city, but those two evidently told the whole neighborhood. Now they drop out of the sky like little parachutists. :o)

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Cedar waxwings are very important to me. The summer I was 16 I found a blind, featherless nestling on the forest floor outside our cottage. Returning it to the nest was impossible. We took it indoors expecting it to die. It did not.

Bandit was by far the most interesting and eccentric pet I ever had. He was intelligent, charming, gregarious, moody, feisty, guileless and gorgeous. He lived in my parents' sun porch for 14 years. 15 years after his death my eyes still water when I see a pair of waxwings dancing on a branch, feeding one another apple petals. He liked to steal food off our plates, but if you offered him a berry or another one of his favourite foods, he would start dancing and offer it back to you.

It is no coincidence (at least not on my end) that I have that photo from an old calendar on the cork board behind my computer, along with art cards and other objects that inspire me. Whenever I hear these birds whistle I am compelled to stop and listen; it's the closest I come to believing in a spirit world.

They do not nest until berries ripen in July. Until then they will continue to move in vagrant flocks wherever they can find food, so if you see one you will likely see an entire tribe. Besides fruit and petals they also eat insects.

[inishglora.livejournal.com]

Thanks for sharing such a wondrous story. 14 years is a long time! I've heard that they will line up on a branch and pass berries down the line, like a bucket brigade, until they all have their share. My mother told me that last autumn, they descended on a fruit-loaded crab-apple tree in her yard and got into a squabble with the robins, who believed the tree was their personal property. I don't know who won the argument though. :o) Mark told me more than once he saw 6 or 7 cardinals lined up on the fence, but not knowing we had a local population of waxwings, I dismissed that as probably purple finches, since cardinals don't ordinarily congregate. Waxwings are shaped somewhat like cardinals that I can see why he thought so. I'm happy to be wrong. :o)