Your Daily Photo (Yet Again with the Oranges Edition)

Didn't get out to shoot anything new today, allergies acting up with the wind blowing hereabouts.

Will have stuff possibly of interest tomorrow, the rest of my California ballot propositions voting suggestions, along with an early take on Rock Band 3 (summary, love it), and maybe even a few words on the Lakers and Clippers.

(regarding the photo above, you'd think I'd be used to the vagaries of the autofocus on the 50mm lens by now, but nope, I still forget to press the focus lock and manually focus when dealing with a shallow depth of field and a variety of things to focus on in the field of view)

Your Daily Photo (This Is What Passes for Fall Colors in Santa Monica Edition)

Late October, and ripe oranges in the backyard. Life is good. Also, GO LAKERS!!!

Your Daily-ish Photo (Freaky Bumblebee Thinks It's a Honeybee Edition)

For your entertainment, a slideshow of a freaky bumblebee, deceptively colored like a honeybee.

My backyard is full of surprises...

Your Daily Photo (I've Got Your Brunfelsia Pauciflora Right Here, Buddy Edition)

So, didn't get around to shooting stuff, and the Lakers are less than two hours from tip, so I've got priorities bigger than wandering around this city taking snaps, but tomorrow, for sure, something will be captured.

Your Daily Photo (I've Got Your Romneya Right Here, Buddy Edition)

Same Romneya, different day (actually shot the same day, but being posted a different day, plan on taking some shots tomorrow afternoon, so if I can get them uploaded before the Lakers game starts, tomorrow's daily photo should actually be a photo from that day)

Your Daily Photo (Bloomin' White Flower Edition)

It's the return of daily photos, and daily blogging of some sort. Miss me?

UPDATE:

Looked up what kind of plant that is, it's a Romneya (aka Matilija), and is native to the region, and according to wikipedia produces the largest flower in the poppy family.

Your Daily Photo (Greenery is Really Green, Again Edition)

Your Daily Photo (Something Rotting in the State of California, or at Least Under My Orange Tree, Edition)

Nothing better than mangling Shakespeare quotes on a Friday afternoon.

(actually, there are lots of better things to do than mangle Shakespeare quotes on a Friday afternoon)

Taken Wednesday, inspired by the latest Gizmodo Shooting Challenge (along with those 'blue' photos I posted earlier), here's both monochrome sets as slideshows below. Enjoy the lack of variety in colors!

Your Daily Photo (Now I Kind of Miss the Bees Edition)

Your Daily Photo (Beepocalypse II, The Vacuuming Edition)

A special 'moving' photo edition of Daily Photo. Los Angeles County West Vector Control District sent out a representative with a bee suit and a reverse leaf blower to vacuum the bees out of the tree. Didn't shoot the scene of him working, no good vantage point to shoot from where I could have been protected from the bees he was stirring up as he was collecting them.

As this video shows, there are still a good number of bees hanging around, but doesn't look like enough to form a hive, and the vector control dude said this weekend's rains should disperse (or kill) the rest of the stragglers.

Also, shooting fully zoomed shots at 200mm with my telephoto lens is not conducive to providing steady handheld video, especially shooting a subject at a high angle like that.

Your Daily Photo (Is That a Ball of Bees in Your Backyard, or Are You Just Happy to See Me? Edition)

Gladly, taken with my zoom lens, would not want to be too close to that swarm. Watching them come in the backyard and pick a place to build their hive was an impressive sight, but one best viewed at a safe remove through a window. Once they were engaged in hive building, I felt pretty safe taking pictures, but given that they chose the upper limbs of my loquat tree to build, they're a good 20-30 feet away in the pictures I snapped.

Waiting for Vector Control to take care of the situation.

According to the vector control webpage, 80% of honey bees in LA County are Africanized, so probably best to get that hive out of here, given their propensity for aggressively defending their territory.

Your Daily Photo (More Bloomin' Flowers, Aloe Vera Edition)

Noticed bloomin' aloe veras on my Venice walk a few days ago (at a house that had a huge variety of impressively well maintained desert plants), then two days ago noticed that our aloes are blooming, too (below). Interesting and bold flowers, those aloes have.

Your Daily Photo (You've Had Your Parade, You've Had Your Bowl, Now Here's Your Frontyard Rose Edition)

Not sure why our bloomin' roses are blooming at the end of December, beginning of January, but there they are.

Your Daily Photo (2009 Ends, Not With a Bang, But a Hummingbird Edition)

This sucker was pretty camera shy. First spotted in my front yard as I pulled into my driveway, jumped out with my camera, but the itty bitty bird flitted away.

Later, spotted this shy hummer in the backyard, but it stayed about 25 feet away, and about 35 feet up, so best I could do is this shot that's a blow up of a small section of the original frame.

Your Daily Photo (Keep Your Surprisingly Capacious Bowls, I've Got a Freakin' Fruit-bearing Tree in My Backyard Edition)

Valencias are the best juicing orange, even if they don't always have the best cosmetic appearance.

And enjoy this sentence from the wiki on Valencias (which despite the name, were developed right here in Southern California, not Spain)

However, its excellent taste and internal color make it desirable for the flesh markets, too.

(That's what Tiger said!)

(and I may have altered one letter in the above sentence, guess which one)

(and here's a link to the post that inspired me to shoot my tree this afternoon)

(also, I may have gotten a bit crazy pushing those color curves around when converting these shots from RAW to JPG formats)

Here's a slide show of the whole small set (12 pictures) taken this sunny, but cool, afternoon (at least it's cool by our standards, fine, 59F isn't exactly cold, but it's not beach weather, either).

Your Daily Photo (Some Photos Move Edition)

After my fever broke, I headed out to the backyard to try out taking short video clips with my camera mounted to a monopod. Results vary, even with a monopod, it's difficult to be steady enough to shoot unshaky shots with a telephoto lens. Still, it looks pretty good in 720p, and when I was in focus, it's sharp. Flickr has a limit of 90 seconds per clip, as their philosophy on hosted video clips is that they are more of a photo+ deal, rather than a real video service like YouTube.

And anybody tells you all the bees have died, are full of crap, they aren't all dead, there are plenty buzzing around the groundcover in my backyard.

Your Daily Photo (Orange You Sick of Shots of This Tree? Edition)

Your Daily Photo (Dusty Old Valencia Orange Tree Edition)

Been awhile since we've had any sort of rain, as you can tell by photos like this.

Your Daily Photo (Ash, Webs, and Dead Leaves Edition)

You Daily Photo (I Bet You're Really Getting Sick of Grapes Edition)

Ha, more grapes for you! Tomorrow should be more Vegas-y, hopefully I can get internet in my room, or near the UNLV campus, otherwise, I'll have to backdate a few posts when I get back home Tuesday (I'm going to check out at least the Lakers v Clippers Summer League game, and might catch a few of the earlier games Monday, and might try and catch a game or two Sunday afternoon depending how the drive up goes).