Tag Archives: drop

How Will the Heron Eat This?

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This story is one of a bit of frustration.  I took a while to get a good fix on this heron as it took off and, by the time I did so, it was heading away from me with no good angles.  However, it was an interesting subject.  The heron had caught itself a far larger fish than I normally see.  Instead of grabbing it, it had skewered the fish with its beak.  It must have had its mouth open at the time as the top and bottom mandibles had speared the fish separately.

It flew over to the shore and landed to contemplate its meal at which point one of the local eagles seems to have swooped in with the intent to steal the fish.  The heron got spooked by this and took off again but dropped the fish in the process.  The fish fell into the water and sank so I guess nobody got to eat it.  I don’t know how the fish did but two sharp objects through its body probably didn’t help it too much.

Drop Tank By the Road

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Sometimes you find the oddest things by the road.  Just outside NAS Whidbey Island, there is a drop tank sitting by the road.  I have no idea what it is doing there.  It seems to be on someone’s yard.  The shape was not something that looked like a Navy tank (which you might expect). I thought it looked like something from an F-111.  Fortunately, It had a data plate which showed a serial that seems to suggest a Fort Worth General Dynamics product so I guess F-111 is probably it.  Anyone know the story?

What a drip!

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A couple of years ago I had a go at shooting water droplets splashing around.  It was something I had been meaning to do for a long time so I tried setting up an arrangement to make it work.  It was a bit of an effort but I got some results with it although, I have to admit I was probably a little disappointed with the outcome.  Given how much of a pain it had been to set up, I was not hurrying to have another go.

Time ticks by and recently I was looking at the Facebook page of Gerry Holtz, a friend in LA, and he had been doing the whole water droplet thing as well.  Needless to say, he had done a far better job of it than I had.  The images were very cool and he had made some good use of color as well as alternative arrangements into which the water was dropping.   Very impressive stuff.

Seeing this made me want to have another go and I was mulling doing just that when I saw a link to a video online with a guy called Gavin Hoey in the UK demonstrating his setup for shooting water droplets.  Uncanny coincidence, don’t you think.  I watched his video which can be seen here and realized I had been making it all far more complicated than absolutely necessary.  So, I have inspiration by seeing someone do a good job and method from someone who knew how to make it a lot easier so what is stopping me from having another go?  Nothing!

So, this time I am feeling a little better about the results.  Some focus issues still to be resolved on some of them (and water doesn’t always splash in exactly the same place each time so guess what the focus will be on the most interesting shots!) but still, not too bad.  Certainly enough to encourage me to think about doing it again soon.

Here is a gallery to show you the results.