My macro lens has not been my friend lately. When I first got it I just knewww I was going to love it… I just needed to learn how to use it right. I figured just getting out and practicing would help but I just haven’t had the time or the motivation to take it out. So, that plan failed. Or is at least, halted for a little while.
I did take it out a few days after we got back from Arizona. I didn’t use my camera at all in AZ so I needed some quality time with it! I took a walk in the feild behind our house right before sundown. This is theeee only picture that I took that I even remotely liked:( It felt great to lay in the grass and take pictures of random things but I was still not very comfortable with the lens so I spent most of the time just relaxing and messing with the dials. I was surprised that I even got one that I liked since I wasn’t really taking myself very seriously out there!
Anywho, if you’re ever in a slump, go lay in the yard and take random pictures of the grass. It did wonders for my stress:)

Rocco, our lovably retarded pitbull decided to bust through the bottom of the back screen door one day last week because he was scared of the lawn mowers! In doing so, he left a giant hole for all the Pope flies to zoom into my house through! And they have! Until I figured out how to tape the hole shut there was an almost constant buzz in the house. You could see five files at any given time buzzing around the rooms. Lily loved it! I almost went nuts!
I would stand at the back door and wait for 5 or 6 to gather at the glass and swing the door open really fast so they all got sucked back outside. It took a few days of doing that before I finally had some peace in here. And, yes, I am a softy. I didn’t kill any of them. But I didn’t fuss when Thomas went on a killing rampage either.
Anywho, my camera batteries were dead and charging for two of the fly infested days so I really only got one picture even worth showing. This little guy landed on my desk and chilled there for half an hour while I worked. It was pretty neat to have him so close and not have to listen to his annoying buzzing! It was well past midnight and the only light I had was from a lamp on the desk. So not much is in focus… but I’m happy with it nonetheless. Macro photography is tricky in the dark;)

And with that, I conclude my insect posts… for a few days at least! I promise there are more Lily pictures coming soon:)

While I was out back taking the picture in the previous post I spotted the tiniest little spider’s web in a bush as I was walking in the door.  It was the way the sun light flashed off of it that caught my eye and once I looked in and saw the tiniest spider I was in love.  The light on his web was gorgeous!  I have a hundred pictures of just the light reflecting in the silk strands but I won’t bore you with those;)   I’m sure you’re all pretty sick of seeing spiders anyway!  So I will leave you with these three and call it a night!  And promise to come back in a day or two with FLIES lol:)   Sleep sweetly…

Our little house guest has kept me MORE than entertained this week! She had this all wrapped up on Monday morning…

I thought it was pretty neat that the poor wasp was looking right at me the whole time I was shooting.
For whatever reason the spider unattached the wrapped wasp and let it drop to the ground below a few seconds after I got this shot. I guess they don’t eat wasps or maybe she felt threatened by me. I hope it wasn’t the latter. But I’ve tried to keep my distance all week, watching her mostly from the living room window with Lily. We had a little storm a few nights ago and when we woke up the spider was remaking her entire web! It was pretty fascinating since I had never seen it done before. It was so relaxing and she was so fast and precise!

[*These technically aren't macros. But I didn't want to make a new category just for them!]

Lily and I spent our Friday morning with my good friend, Adalynn and her two children at the Cape Fear botanical gardens! Adalynn is learning photography as well and wanted to take the kids out and play around with our cameras together. I love having friends that I can share this passion with!
I will be posting a few more times this week with pictures from that day, including some pictures of Lily and myself that she took for us! But for today I just wanted to share these cute pictures of a few treasures I found tucked away in a bush!

It is such a beautiful place and so relaxing. The employees are so sweet and it is totally kid friendly! If you’re local, please go check them out!

Yesterday I let the dogs out back and just happened to glance over to the left of the door and saw a huge spider’s web! I love stuff like that so I walked over to get a better look and This is what I found waiting there for me

I grabbed my Macro lens to try and get some good shots of her. But I had to stand on a rickity patio chair and the wind was blowing her around so I just snapped a few for as long as I could hold the image of me crashing through the chair and smashing my camera on the pavement out of my head and called it a day!
She’s a Banana Spider. We have tons of them in NC and from every experience I’ve had with them they seem to be very placid and never aggressive. But they do look feirce!

She is camped out right in front of the window to my living room. This is the view from inside the house!

Sorry that I didn’t get any good scale shots. But each of her legs are a good two and a half inches long. She’s the biggest that I’ve seen in person. I’ve been watching her all day and keep showing Lily through the window! I’m hoping she will catch one of the million flies around here so I can get some pictures of her wrapping it. Finger’s crossed;)

Friday night, Thomas and I decided to take Lily for her first trip to the North Carolina zoo! We went three years ago and have talked a few times about taking Lily but have never really gotten around to it. There didn’t seem to be any excuses this time so we set our alarms and got up a little early to make sure we got there when it opened.
The weather was close to perfect. No rain, minimum humidity. Lily slept the whole two hours there and back. She was scared of a few things like the statues, the carousel and the penguins! But besides that she had a blast! She even sat through the 4-D Africa movie about poaching! They told us not to take her in because she would probably be scared but we wanted to see it so we took her in! She even wore the 3-D glasses the whole time! She loved it:)
She spent the rest of the day checking out all of the animals and walking beside her Daddy and the stroller. It was a perfect way to spend our Saturday afternoon together and out of the house!
I just bought the Jill-e messanger style bag from HSN and was so thankful for it on this trip. I was able to wear my camera around my neck and still carry three other lenses in the bag with almost no hassle at all! My only complaint was that the neck strap rubbed my neck a little but that didn’t start until after I had been wearing it for 5 hours straight! Even though I brought a bunch of gear, I was having too much fun and didn’t take many pictures. But here are some that I got while we were there:

I think she looks so much like my little sister, Haley in this one:)

Just wanted to see what these looked like all blown up and gorgeous:)