tales of interest: Monarch Woods Park

After canceling numerous times due to pre-wedding activities (sounds much nicer than "freaking out before the wedding"), I finally fulfilled my promise to go on another photoroam with my good friend Richard. We decided to trek into the previously unexplored Monarch Woods Park near my house. No monarchs were spotted, but we did catch some of that evening sun, which always makes shots interesting.

I've been experimenting with some backlighting lately.

Afterwards I had Richard over to my house for dinner that I had prepared in the slow cooker. Unfortunately this was the first time trying this recipe, and I overcooked the chicken, and the sauce ended up congealing in the pan. Fortunately my awesome wife Carolyn fixed up a new sauce to mask the chicken (which at this point had a very leathery appearance). Serendipitously, the congealed sauce made for an excellent super-macro subject.

With Richard snapping away at some flowers, I conjoined my 70-210mm and 50mm lenses into an überlens. With this much magnification at your disposal, you can really see another world.

I took a little artistic license with this photo: I applied the "watercolour" effect in Photoshop Elements. I normally don't like resorting to such blatent manipulation... but I do like the effect.