by David Clarke | Nov 6, 2012 | All, Insects & Spiders, Italy
During June and July, the lavender bushes in our garden in Tuscany are alive with the buzzing and humming of bees, beetles, butterflies and moths, all delighting in the sweet nectar.
A common visitor is the hummingbird hawk moth, and this one, the Broad-bordered Bee Hawkmoth Heparis fuciformis is also a regular.
These moths are a challenge to photograph since they are constantly on the move, darting from one flower to the next savouring the nectar, spending only a fraction of a second at any one flower.
I caught this one in mid-flight as he approached a flower. His proboscis is extended and already homing in on the target – it curls up like a spring once the nectar is taken.
Location: countryside south of Arezzo, Tuscany, Italy.
Canon 1DMkII with a Canon 300mm IS f2.8 lens, a Canon 1.4x extender and Canon 25mm tube.
ISO 250 f4 1/3200 handheld.
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by David Clarke | Oct 29, 2012 | All, Flowers, Italy
Chinese lanterns, aka Physallis, have beautiful orange cases containing the seed, which in this variety, is like a large bead. However, the beauty is not lost as the colour fades and the intricate structure of the lantern is clearer as it slowly decays.
Canon 1D MkII with Canon 28-70 f2.8L lens at 34mm. ISO 400 1/30 at f9
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by David Clarke | Oct 22, 2012 | All, Kenya, Wildlife
I photographed this fine fellow years ago in the days of film. It was our first trip to Kenya and the Masai Mara, and what a trip!
He was relaxing in the bush at around 9am, having long finished his breakfast. The sun was playing through the branches and highlighting his fur in gloriously brilliant patches. He was totally unfazed by us as we sat in the jeep watching him in awe for ages. Later, he raised himself, stretched and wandered to plan lunch.
Canon EOS3 with Canon 300 f2.8L lens on Fuji transparency film. Scanned and tweaked in Lightroom.
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by David Clarke | Oct 19, 2012 | All, Insects & Spiders, Italy
These amazing insects visit the lavender in the garden at our house during the summer months. They spend their time darting from flower to flower at incredible speed. They don’t settle on the flower but grasp it with two legs, their probosces flick out and back in a fraction of a second and then they are off to the next flower. Capturing their images therefore required a bit of patience and experimentation. I used flash for some, extension tubes and various lenses. Some of the shots remind me of old photos of military aircraft refueling in mid-air.
This one and others are also in the Showcase
Canon 1DMkII with Canon 70-200f2.8L lens at140mm and 25 mm tube; ISO400 f5 1/4000
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by David Clarke | Oct 9, 2012 | All, Dubai, Places
I’m not sure why, but this shot taken in the Al Mahara restaurant in the Burj Al Arab hotel in Dubai, is the most-viewed all all the shots I’ve posted on Red Bubble – 7313 views to date!
The image shows the centrepiece of the restaurant – a huge aquarium to mesmerise diners. The aquarium is lovingly run by a dedicated team who treat each of the 2500 fish in it and two adjacent aquariums as a friend. At the lower right of the shot, you can see a small shark on the gravel bed. She had just laid a couple of eggs on the coral that were a product of parthenogenesis, a form of asexual reproduction in which females produce eggs that develop without fertilization. This process is very rare among sharks and it is extremely rare for the young sharks, which are invariably female, to survive. Last year the aquarium had one that lived to three months but then died. As soon as he was aware of these new egg cases,the marine biologist in charge of the aquarium called one of his and the cases were retrieved, checked for viability and then kept separately to monitor their development.
The Burj Al Arab hotel is a seven star – yes seven – establishment that dominates the skyline along the coast of Dubai between the ‘Palm’ islands development and the even more exotic ‘World’ development – the latter still just a series of undeveloped islands of sand at present.
The hotel (burj is ‘tower’ in Arabic) is a magnificently impressive building from the outside. It soars up over 300 metres and is designed to resemble a sail. Inside it is no less impressive and leaves you standing there with your mouth open. If you stay there, you will develop a huge hole where your wallet used to be. All rooms are suites and the most modest of them costs around US$1000 per night. Interestingly, there are people who live there permanently.
There are more shots of the Burj in the Showcase, under ‘buildings’
Canon 40D with Canon 10-22mm EFS lens at 10mm at 28mm; ISO800 f3.5 1/15.
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