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This year, I have found a couple of interesting things in the garden. What I thought was a blackened leaf turned out to be a petrified frog. What I could have mistaken for garbage was a bird skull. And then, there was Pullo’s baby teeth which kept falling out left and right in the house! I thought they were all quite beautiful and thought you might, too.

Here we begin with the teeth of our baby, Pullo. Pullo is our 7 month old kitty and is growing rapidly. I literally kept hearing his teeth hit our kitchen floor as they all decided to fall out in the span of a couple of weeks! It is rare to find so many from a kitten. They usually swallow them, poo them or just get lost in the carpet.

I found the first in our carpeted hallway, then two in the kitchen and another near the sofa. It was odd that I kept them, as I have never been a fan of loose teeth on humans or any other animal. In fact, my younger sister used to torture me and show me her extremely loose teeth to make me cringe! Thanks, Shara

All of the pics were shot underneath my seedling grow light. It gave a very daylight feel to the pics even in their raw state. I adjusted them, of course, to suit my wants. I really like how they came out!

My friend I-Li (owner and Master Chocolatier of Vice Chocolates) had given me a goodie bag of chocolate at the Blacksun Festival and I still had the paper bag on my shelf. I used the bag as a backdrop on a few of the pics so that I didn’t have to use material that I’d have to wash the death out of later.

Then comes the frog. His skin looks almost like wood or peeling bark from a tree. I almost stepped on him twice, which is why I decided to pick him up. I wouldn’t have been able to stand it if I had crunched those tiny little bones beneath my feet. “shivers down spine!!”

I shot the frog on white paper so his “frogginess” would be more prominent. I managed to use the “dodge & burn” tool in Aperture (V 2.1) which was quite lovely. I love tools that you can’t tell have been used!

Then comes my favourite shots of the day…the bird skull. I sat the skull on a blue/purple clipboard that I have. It is very shiny plastic. The luminosity of the plastic made for quite a beautiful floor for the skull. It’s slightly reflecting the skull and slightly water-like at the same time. It wasn’t my intention to make such a beautiful pic from a dead bird. I was merely seeing what it would look like. I was astounded by the results! Plus, just look at the intricate design of the bones and skull itself. All that complex work inside a bird skull. Amazing.

This is the full view.

This is the cropped view. I thought this view looked very much like an old mask design. I later found out from my friend Julia that a bird skull WAS one of the first mask designs made. Cool!

I could include more, but this is a nice summary of the shots of the day. I took these with my Fujifilm S1 Pro with my AF Nikon Micro Lens (60mm, 1:2.8 D) attached. No external flash was used. Just the light from the seedling bed. I shot them using an aperture ranging from 9.5 to 18. I like a smaller aperture. I always find it softens the light that enters the lens. But hey…that’s just me

I’m gonna head out now. So, in the meantime, if you feel you need to shoot something, use a camera!

Much Love,

cb

P.S. I’m still not at all happy with the layout of these pages. At some point it will represent my vision! Please be patient as I figure out how to make it look better.