Digital Postcard Series: Sea Monsters, Scilla, Italy

Digital Postcard #0002



Facts About the Scilla Town
Scilla is charming little town in Italy once destroyed by earthquake in 1908. It is also traditional site of the sea monster Scylla of Greek mythology. The rocks of Scylla, are described in ancient poems [Homer's Odyssey] as a danger to shipping.

Geographical Location
Scilla, Calabria, Italy [38°15'0"N 15°43'0"E] lies in front of the Strait of Messina, a narrow section of water between the eastern tip of Sicily and the southern tip of Calabria in the south Italy. Archived photo from my travel gallery - Italy, September 2006.

NOTE: Digital postcard copyright My Only Photo. Digital postcard artwork by My Only Photo. Download for personal use only, and ask for commercial use. To download full printable size - click on the image, then Save as. File size 4x6 inches [800x1200px], @ 200 dpi. Picture hosted at Atpic.com.

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A Rare New Bird Species Discovered in the Woods - Woodchuck the Long Beak

This weekend supposed to be my postcard post, and 'what you know' I am behind again. Well, my excuse - more baking. I had to attend bridal shower, and now I take every party I attend as an opportunity to bake. Why? Because my husband and Matthew are not able to keep up with my experimental baking, and on the parties who does not like to try sweets, or even better more of my experimental cookies. I guess I will have one more week to think about second digital postcard then.

Now let's talk about my new bird species discovered. I think you know that I am just kidding. This image actually fooled me. I am glad that I can actually zoom with my telephoto lens and look closer. However, when I found this wood looking bird, I said wow - here is photo for my next post. I know what some of you thinking. No, no not enough time to make this as a postcard.

I guess today is the day for a short and sweet post. Enjoy your week and this ending quote by Frank Lloyd Wright, 'Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature. It will never fail you.'

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Digital Postcard Series: Wonders of the McKenzie Marsh, Aurora Marshland

Digital Postcard #0001



Facts About Great Blue Heron [Ardea herodias]
Two interesting facts about Great Blue Heron's diet. In addition to fish, they also eat small animals and sometimes choke to death when it is too large to swallow. Their main diet is small fish in the small lakes, ponds, marshlands or wetlands. They also like to spend some time at fish farms, but it was found that they mainly consume sick fish which will eventually die.

Facts About McKenzie Marsh, Aurora, Ontario
Located in Aurora, Ontario, Canada [44°1'8"N 79°28'1"W] on St. John's Sideroad between Bayview Avenue and Yonge Street, McKenzie Marsh is a man-made pond that evolved into a beautiful marshland full of many different bird, animal and insect species, one of them - Great Blue Heron.

NOTE: Digital postcard copyright My Only Photo. Digital postcard artwork by My Only Photo. Download for personal use only, and ask for commercial use. To download full printable size - click on the image, then Save as. File size 4x6 inches [800x1200px], @ 200 dpi. Picture hosted at Atpic.com.

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Introducing Digital Postcard Series

It isn't that easy to post a picture-less post on this blog, but I don't really want to have all this rambling with my new digital postcard series post. However, before I introduce the new post series, I want to share with you this. On August 9th, 2009 during major electrical storms [3-4 of them] storming through our area I saw ball lightning. It lasted for a split second, and dissipated into rays similar to fireworks. Secondly it was interesting to see how birds react to the heat. When they are hot, they usually walk with their beaks open, and yesterday it was hot and humid. While driving on the mall parking lot, my husband notice seagulls in the diagonal line right across. Guess what, they were all standing in the shade of the light post, about 10 of them. Please do not ask me where was my camera for both events.

And now to my blog enhancements. As I mention before, I am introducing digital post card series. I have so many photos, and because I like postcards, I will be creating some too. So my blog will now consists of the following: a regular photo post, a knowledge post and a digital postcard post. The digital postcard post will be featured 'hopefully' once a week and posted on the weekends. Just to make every one's life easier, post will have little or no text. All postcards will be hosted at Atpic. Not sure of their reputation, but if you have issues displaying photos on my blog hopefully you will complain. Lastly, I don't have that feature on my Canon camera, but to best of my abilities I will be specifying location on all my photos where the photo was taken, that is latitude and longitude.

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A Bit of Knowledge: Disadvantages of the Extended Focal Length or Telephoto Lens

I don't know about you, but I always learn from my disappointments. I remember when I got my first SLR and 75-300mm Canon lens. I was zooming at everything. At 75mm focal length I had good results, and soon as I extended a focal length to 300mm. Boom! It hit me with blur and fuzziness - even higher ISO didn't help. So lesson learned. The longer the focal length, or if you zooming on something that is far away, it takes longer for the light to travel to your sensor in DSLR, thus the bad result. I know the tripod helps, but again my objects of interest are always on the run, and I am not running with the tripod around. The conclusion, before you blame your camera, it is all about light, light and light. My advice is, if possible get closer to the object and avoid zooming in - especially when the light is low; or ask object to come closer, like I did. This also applies to the point-and-shoot digital cameras. Note, on the good sunny day, this is not a issue. However, you know what - I still didn't learn when I got my 100-400mm Canon lens - I love close ups, especially zooming at the birds, the intention of my telephoto lens. Here is my action shot - something I asked for. I said to my husband, 'What does it take for the kingfisher to get closer to me so I can take his photo?' My wish was granted during my birding walk, the Belted Kingfisher [Ceryle alcyon] flew closer and sat at the bridge plank. But for few seconds only, and since I extended my lens to 400mm focal length and the sun was almost at the horizon, I didn't get the super clean photo of him. Lucky me to use higher ISO. Just small fact about the Belted Kingfisher - it is the only one found in Canada. Tell you - very nice bird to watch.

Lastly, let me tell you about my little hobby I used to have. I used to collect postcards, and I still do. But with a digital technology, it seems like I didn't need to buy them anymore. My photos of landscapes met the postcard expectations. Like Sky Watch, Flower of the Day posts, etc. I am going to introduce a post that will use my photos and the end result will be a digital postcard. To make long story short, I am going to create digital postcards from my photographs. It may be good for further exercising my creative mind. Still in the plans, but I am already having full head of ideas.
'I'm disappointed, but I'm not going to run around like Dennis Rodman and head-butt somebody.' ~ quote by Greg Norman

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