Marigold 1.6

Marigold 1.6, originally uploaded by RMStringer.

This whole series was an experiment in Depth Of Field (DOF) for me. I used many different settings to get the effects that are seen here in this set of photographs. I love the flowers to the front being in sharp focus and the ones to the rear getting more and more blurry or called by the correct term, Bokeh.

Exposure: 0.001 sec (1/1000)
Aperture: f/5.6
Focal Length: 300 mm
ISO Speed: 200

Sunflower 1.8

Sunflower 1.8, originally uploaded by RMStringer.

Another in the Sunflower Set that i took about two weeks ago. I wonder what it is looking at. I love the fuzz that is lighted up due to the direction of the sun. If you look closely, you can see a bug at the 9pm position on the left center.

Exposure: 0.002 sec (1/500)
Aperture: f/6.3
Focal Length: 180 mm
ISO Speed: 200

Another shot!

Taken with my LGVX8600 1.3Megapixel phone.
From RMStringer

Evening sky!

Taken with my LGVX8600 1.3Megapixel phone.
From RMStringer

Mack's Acceptance Speech

 

Thanks to Mac for letting me publish this on my Blog.

 

Take That, You Rascally Republicans

 

All the world turns its attention to the upper midwest this week, because when you're talking about Republicans in Minnesota, you're talking about some serious excitement, boy!  When Uncle Edgar and Aunt Mabel wear their funny made-in-China Uncle Sam hats and start chugging some discount-store champagne on the convention floor, sooooeeeee, look out!

 

I just want all of You People out there beneath the embracing wings of my private jet to know that I am waiting for The Call to serve you, my little People, you 'umble little working men and women who keep the wheels of American industry turning, as your next President and Saviour.  Indeed, I pre-pre-release my pre-prepared pre-acceptance speech, for which in return my underground banks of secret computers manned…um…personned by my operatives are even now mining your personal computers for information:

 

My fellow Americans,

 

As I stand here tonight, bathed in the glorious reflected light of myself, the guy for whom I have been waiting, pushing the envelope and thinking outside the box, I just want you to know that the future lies ahead.  The past is behind us.  Tomorrow is another day.  We have nothing to love but love itself. Nothing stands between us and the spirit of victory except the spirit of defeat.

 

Yes, we can – we can use commas to set single nouns of affirmation apart from independent clauses.

 

My running mate is a Washington outsider who brings years of Washington experience to the ticket in order to call upon veteran lawmakers to revolutionize business as usual in order to bring America to a brave new dawn of hope, because, after all, yesterday is gone, and tomorrow is a new day, and the sun shines on all persons regardless of creed, color, or walk of life.

 

As we open a new chapter of life on the long and weary road to a brave new world, the key to the future will unlock the envelope of opportunity for all, equality especially for the marginalized who build this great country daily with the sweat of their tears and the muscles of our toils. 

 

Let us ensure that never again will Joe Six-Pack and John and Mary Catholic be burdened with having to think too much about errant hyperbole or have to deconstruct shades of meanings, or meanings of shades, because the blue-collar little people need to sit around their kitchen tables as they plan in hope the riding of their bicycles to their humble little jobs as they save the planet from global warming caused by a failure to think outside the pre-paid mailer and the inefficient recycling of fueled fossils and solar wind power for all the people of the world in peace, love, and harmonic convergence because life is like a delicate flower that must be gently nourished so that it will grow to be like a mighty oak sheltering the world from America's occupation of Tibet.

 

My fellow Americans, let the nuance go forth from this second and minute and hour and decade from this night which defines a new generation of nurturing and loving souls who are passionate in their dedication for an America which looks more like the world, and a world which embraces each other in her loving arms because at the end of the day the bottom line is that we are all children of Mother Earth who is crying for her children through tears stained by pollution and a failure to love as the green torch of hope is passed from loving hand to loving hand and from loving windmill to loving windmill in the ever-expanding passionate quest from renewable energy sources under the selfless guardianship of my old pal T-Bone, who also just happens to own most of the ground under which those windmills sit.

 

I also want to thank my spiritual leader, The Reverend Doctor Bishop Brother Billy-Bob Hairdo of the Bright Light Free Will Four Square Full Gospel Holiness Sanctified Temple Fellowship Outreach of the Lord Jesus Christ of the Lamb and Taco Stand, your Visa Card welcome.  I know he would love to be here with you tonight, but he got crossways of the district attorney and is even now being brutally tortured in a FEMA trailer.

 

With an unfailing confidence in the future that the sun will shine bright on a new America cleansed of last week's news because it is all so last year, I pledge to you, my fellow Americans, my pledgeness that I will pledge to serve you in my beingness of soul and extend my blue-collar backgroundness through my simple Spode china dinner settings at a table open through all the highways and byways of this great land to all God's / Buddha's / Allah's / Gaia's children.  With all my layered humility I pledge to thank you with all my heart and soul and prayers and thoughts.

 

-30-

 

A casual perusal of the Democratic Party Convention reveals that that all the delegates are old and wear funny hats, rather like Uncle Bert and Aunt Ethel getting giddy on Sam's Club champagne on New Year's Eve, and wearing lampshades. Where are the young Democrats?

A Fly...Crop

A Fly...Crop, originally uploaded by RMStringer.

I just wanted to see what a cropped photo of the fly would look like. It is a little soft but a good photo non the less.

Exposure: 0.005 sec (1/200)
Aperture: f/5.6
Focal Length: 300 mm
ISO Speed: 100

Sunflower 1.3

Sunflower 1.3, originally uploaded by RMStringer.

Not ready just yet to open. I need to go and check to see how big it has gotten.

Exposure: 0.002 sec (1/640)
Aperture: f/6.3
Focal Length: 210 mm
ISO Speed: 200