Dainty Birdwing Butterfly

Dainty Birdwing Butterfly - Close Up

When I was walking down the street at Boreen Point (near Noosa) I spotted this butterfly resting in the Sun. It didn't seem to be moving, and presented the perfect opportunity for a photo. Butterflies are normally very hard to get on camera, as they fly all over the place only stopping for about 5 seconds at a time. This butterfly proved the exception however, and stayed still calmly while I got some close-up shots.

This photo taken with the Fujifilm S9600 digital camera.
Shutter speed 1/149, F3.7, ISO 100

Question: Have you ever Ego-Googled?

David McMahon posts an interesting question on his blog: Have you ever Googled yourself?

My answer to this: Certainly. I think that just about everyone who uses the internet frequently is overcome by the desire to find themselves in the vast realms of cyberspace. But for most people, the answer to the following question will be the same as mine:
Did you find anything?: No
Of course not all of us are famous, so we may not be within the first 30,000 odd pages of a Google search for our name. This really depends on how obscure your name is. When I Google my fake name which I sometimes use for dubious registration forms, I am at the top of the list. That is because nobody famous has that name. However, in a search for "David Webb", I'm nowhere.

What about you? Have you ever Googled yourself? If you want to answer this question, I encourage you to vote using the poll on the right hand side of this page. Next week we'll see how the votes fall - so keep posted!

Update: I have recieved a lot of feedback on this post, and everybody who has commented has pretty much the same story as me: they have Googled themselves, but they usually don't rank very high, if at all. This concludes the question - most people have Googled themseleves.

New Life - Green Leaves with Sun Shining

Wordless Wednesday

Green Leaves with Sun Shining Through - New Life

This photo taken with the Fujifilm S9600 digital camera.

Giraffe Neck Hairs Close Up

Giraffe Neck Hairs Close Up

Here's an interesting shot I got at the Dubbo Zoo - a close-up photo of a giraffe's neck, with the hairs and markings clearly visible. You can see that a giraffe does actually have a "mane" so to speak - there is a ridge of longer hairs along the back of the animal's neck.

It's evident from the composition of this shot that "more is not always best" as David McMahon says on his blog. Sometimes you just have to ignore the whole and crop in on a small part of the object to achieve a certain effect. This photo turned out extremely clear and sharp, and seems almost as if you could reach out and touch the rough fur of the giraffe.

This photo taken with the Fujfilm S9600 digital camera.
Shutter Speed 1/340, F7.2, ISO 100

Chook Behind Bars

Wordless Wednesday

Hen Behind Chook Pen Fence / Chicken Wire

This photo taken with the Fujifilm S9600 digital camera.

Emus on the Roam

As I mentioned in the last post, I've recently had the opportunity to visit the Western Plains Zoo in Dubbo, NSW. I took lots of photos (800+), so I've got lots of pics to post on this blog. For the first picture, I've chosen a subject that is uniquely Australian - an Emu.

The Western Plains Zoo has a good setup for photographing the animals. Instead of planting 8-foot fences between the people and animals, there is a sort of moat-and-wall arrangement, where you effectively stand on a mound of earth which puts you level with the top of the fence. This gives you a clear line of sight to the animals, which is great for photos

These emus were quite inquisitive, coming right to the edge of the "fence" to get their photos taken. With 10x zoom, I was able to get some good close-ups of the emus' heads.

The photo above shows a head-on view of the emu, while the photo below portrays the bird from the side. Both of these photos seem to portray a sense of action and alertness, as if the emu is utterly aware of your presence and is waiting for you to make the first move.

Overall the visit to the zoo was a fruitful exercise, and should merit a plethora of new photos for this blog. I look forward to sharing these photos, and I hope you will enjoy them too. I've been playing around with wide-screen photography, and the second emu photo in this post is an example of this. Hopefully I'll be putting up some of my shots in this format, it seem to convey a very different impression to standard 8x10 or 6x4 photography.

These photos taken with the Fujifilm S9600 digital camera.
Related Photos:

Lazy Sunday (Bearded Dragon Lizard)
Kangaroo in mid-air
Hairy Caterpillar

Holiday Time!

I'm going on a holiday for two weeks starting from tomorrow, so I'm not sure if I'll have internet connectivity during that period. If I do manage to get connected during the holiday, I'll try to get something up, otherwise, see you all in 2 weeks.

One of the places I'll be visiting is the Dubbo Zoo. This should be a great opportunity for some animal photos, something that I haven't had a lot of here lately. It's supposed to mimic African scenery, so that's even better.

Remember, while I'm away you could always try browsing through the "label cloud" on the right of the page, or use the search box above it. I've got over 140 photos up here so far, so I hope that's enough to keep you amused while I'm away!