Dragonfly

Dragonflies spend most of their lives in the larva stage (up to three years, depending on the species). The adult, winged stage only lasts a few weeks. Mating is the primary reason for their winged stage. So when you see a winged dragonfly, you know it's toward the end of its lifespan. Sad but true.

Though you can't see them all with the naked eye, the compound eyes of the dragonfly can contain thousands of tiny lenses. Because of their large, multifaceted eyes, the adult dragonfly can see nearly 360 degrees around it at all times.

Just 36 hours left...

Before the end of the world... no wait, that's not it... photo contest, that's it, just 36 hours left before the end of our September contest.

The winner will be announced on Friday (10/1).

To enter all you need do is leave a comment on any post and upload an image to our Flickr group (contest details here and joining Flickr here).

Below are more images uploaded by our talented readers and fellow Flickr group members.

(clicking on any image below will open it larger and in a new window.)

Lightening

Camera: Nikon Coolpix P80
Shutter Speed 8sec
Aperture f/3.5
Location: Sanpada, Navi Mumbai,India

Praying Mantis

photography by Thomas Philip

Did u know?
A Common name for the order is "Praying mantises", bcoz of its typical "prayer-like" stance.In Europe, the name "praying mantis" refers to Mantis religiosa.and  the most  closest relatives of mantises are the  termites and cockroaches. They are sometimes confused with stick/leaf insects and other elongated insects such as grasshoppers and crickets.An interesting fact about this insect is that, while they are mating, the female mantis eats the males mantis head.The female praying mantis "sexual predator or misunderstood"? still no one knows why?it maybe because of the protein in the male body that helps the eggs to develop. Praying mantis have excellent eye sight and they can view objects till 18meters.

Playing with content aware fill...

I was looking at an image shot with a point and shoot camera during our trip to Pennsylvania Dutch Country and thought "this would not suck as much of I cleaned it up a bit".

Again, it was taken with a point and shoot so there was a limited amount of pixels to play with so please be kind.

Below is the finished image, no fancy editing, for the things I wanted to remove I simply selected the item, hit the "Delete" key and then hit okay in the content aware dialog box. Only once did I "un-do" then "re-do" on one of the edits.


Here is the original image, see if you can find all of the things I removed. (kinda like a Where's Waldo hunt).


If you get tired of looking or just want to see the image with all of the items that have removed circled, follow this link.

(click on either image to open larger and in a new window)

A thank you note...

Many of you may remember a post I did just a couple weeks ago about Mary Lake, a Maine woman who makes (up to) a dress a day on a manual Singer sewing machine that she then gives to young girls in foster homes (you can read the post and see the video here).

After a long wedding yesterday I got home to find I had received a "thank you" card from Mary, as we had sent her a gift card (so she could pick out material and supplies she needed).

Here's a bit of it:

"I dropped off ten dresses last week and will drop off another 10 next week. Thank you for your kind and generous gift card, it will buy enough material to make (about) 30 dresses.

The small scraps of material left from making the dresses will be given to a woman how makes quilts for children in an orphanage and the large scraps will go to another woman who makes cloth dolls for little girls in Haiti.

So ALL the material will be used. Many thanks from us all."

Her words made me smile... so I read it again... and I thought of little girls dancing and spinning in their new pretty dresses.

Though I am not foolish enough to think I did anything of significance, it was Mary and her friends that took a (very) small act and turned it into something big and wonderful.

More contest images from our readers...

Below are a few more the outstanding images that have been submitted by our readers as part of the September contest.

For more information about the contest (prize - the David Honl 2 DVD set "Light") you can get contest details here. If you would like to add some of your own images to our Flickr group as part of the contest (or simply just to share) details for joining the group can be found here.

Well done everybody.

Clicking on any image below will open it larger and in a new window.