Best Of
Re: Agaves
Thank you all for the comments. The first and third were shot with a wide-angle lens. I wouldn't ordinarily do that. Sometimes just changing lenses makes us break habits.
Brown Scale Parthenolecanium corni on Vine
Our grape vine is at least 30 years old and this is the first time I have seen scale insects on it. The species of scale is commonly found on wood plants in gardens.
Some of these images show ants in attendance. I was completely puzzled by the second image, until I viewed a stereo pair, when I could make out the posteriors of two ants facing away from us and facing the scale.
The whole range of sizes of the scales in shown in these images. The stereos are crosseye.
The ant in the last image is strangely pale but it is not a lighting effect.
Olympus EM-1 (aperture priority), Olympus 4/3 x2 TC, Olympus 4/3 50mm f2 macro, f10 or f11, hand-held.
Harold
Re: Glasses
I assume you mean in camera, not with retouching, right? With a light source fairly straight on, most glasses are going to reflect. Sometimes (particularly with lenses with non-reflective coating or weaker prescriptions), just a small adjustment like angling them slightly downward will do the trick. Or you need to move your light source off axis (sides or high in the air) so that the reflections aren't visible from your straight-on view.
Peaches and Cream Warm & Cool
This is a hybrid of Schlumbergera, a genus of cactus known variously as Christmas Cacti, Thanksgiving Cacti or Easter Cacti. This is a cultivar/hybrid sold as "Peaches and Cream".
The paler the colour of the flower, there more it is affected by temperature during bud development. Essentially, the whites are only true white at about 15C and above. Below that they tend to be fairly pink. The yellow varieties also tend to darken.
These images are from one plant, which flowered in mid December 2019 and early January this year. This time I placed the plant in a warm cabinet, at 15C minimum, in December. Last year it remained on the greenhouse bench, with a minimum of 10C. You might think that the higher temperature would bring on earlier flowering but it did not.
The first four image are from the warmer temperature, the other four from the lower one. Various lighting was used. The blue is actually blue sky and at least one other image was taken in sunlight. The fourth image was 1/25 at f11, ISO 5,000.
I have stereo images to process.
Olympus EM-1, (aperture priority), Olympus 4/3 50mm f2 macro, hand-held.
Harold
Re: Keyword Cloud settings
The Buy option will always appear on the /keyword pages (even if you have disabled the visitor shopping cart in your galleries), though you can remove the Buy button on the keyword pages using some CSS. In the Customize mode, click on the Entire Site heading. Under Content tab > Add Content Blocks > HTML & CSS, drag/drop a CSS content block to the main view. Add this code to the CSS block:
.sm-page-gallery-keyword .sm-gallery-cover-buy-button {display:none;}
Publish the changes. That will hide the Buy button from appearing on the keyword pages.
rnrjosh
Re: Gatlinburg Aerial Twilight
@David_S85 said:
We had made plans to visit Gatlinburg a decade and a half ago, but something came up and we cancelled the vacation. Looking back, that was the time to go, since it now seems like another Branson, MO. there (meaning it has jumped the shark). Smaller town values suffocating in all the tourism glitz. Looks like a spot for a family with young teenage kids to visit.@black mamba said:
That's a perspective of Gatlinburg I haven't seen before. That town is a funny place.....you either can't wait to get there or you choose to avoid it like the plague. The in-season crowds are overwhelming. If the best knife store in the world wasn't there, I would never get close to Gatlinburg. Still, I sure hate to see how the pandemic has caused so much grief to those folks there that are dependent on the tourism trade.
I grew up not far from this town, about 30mi north. I never thought I'd see it become what it has today...which is an absolute shit show. So disappointing to drive through Sevierville, Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg...flashy lights, carnival circus garb, and tons of people littering all over the streets. My ancestors would be mortified to see the place now.
At one time, there was a plan to build a beautiful bypass around all of that, leading directly into the Smokies. TDOT worked diligently to build a project that had everything...sound barriers to keep the road noise in the roadway, tunnels for wildlife crossing, etc. When it came down to the wire, the upper powers shut it down, stating that they wanted every bit of the traffic to go right through those three little towns, so as to not miss out on revenue. What a shame.
Don't get me wrong, the area is lovely, just outside of the towns. But the people have changed as well. Everyone is fast, nothing is slow, and everyone acts like you're in their personal way, blocking their progress...whether it's walking, driving, or just looking at something pretty. This trip gave me great insight to the fact that I'll likely never live in TN again, nor will I likely patron Gatlinburg much ever again.
Need a Simple Example for OAuth in Xcode
Does anyone have a simple and complete example. With some descriptions of Key/APIKey Token/Secret and how to get a good Nonce?
Thanks to anyone that can help.
