Are you looking for a cute cat or kitten to adopt in Costa Mesa, California? Here’s a list of some of the cats currently available for adoption through Miss Kitty’s Rescue:
[Note: Click each cat’s image or name to see more information about the cat.]
If you’re interested in adopting any of these cats, please contact Mindy of Miss Kitty’s Rescue at misskittysrescue@yahoo.com. Some of these cats may also be available to be seen at the Petsmart at 620 West 17th St in Costa Mesa, CA 92627.
Miss Kitty’s Rescue is a cat rescue group run by Mindy Miller in Costa Mesa, California. Michelle and I adopted our two cats from Mindy; they were both former feral cats that Mindy tamed herself, and she turned the two of them from fearful, nearly wild cats into two kitties who love spending time with us.
As with most cat rescues, however, Mindy’s rescue is constantly full, and she has trouble finding people to adopt her rescued cats, especially since many of the cats need special homes. To help her out I’ve volunteered to take pictures of her cats pro bono, so she can use them in her own advertising. She has also asked me to do whatever advertising I can for the cats, and thus I’ve created this post, which will link to all the cats.
I write a lot of blog posts about pets. Most of them focus on my own two cats in one way or another, but I also do volunteer work for local animal groups. In this post I’ll maintain a list of my pet-related posts.
After taking pictures of pelicans at La Jolla this past January, Greg and I headed down to Cabrillo National Monument in San Diego to get pictures of Old Point Loma Lighthouse. I probably shouldn’t admit this, but the lighthouse was what I was really looking forward to when I woke up that day; birds and sunrises are fun and all, but I have a mild obsession with lighthouses1.
Old Point Loma Lighthouse stands on the top of a hill at the end of Point Loma, one of the peninsulas that shelter San Diego’s natural harbor.
The two buildings visible in that image are the primary lighthouse (the multi-story painted brick building to the left) and the assistant keeper’s house (to the right).
The lighthouse and its tower are entrancing with their contrast and symmetry:
The lighthouse started operation in 1855 with a Fresnel lens; its light was visible more than 25 miles out to sea. The lighthouse currently contains the Fresnel lens from the Mile Rocks lighthouse that was moved to the lighthouse in the 1980’s and installed with the light offset by a few inches (so it’s not nearly as powerful as it should be).
The lens and latern room are gorgeous up close:
I didn’t notice these fully while on the site, but when I processed the images I discovered that the edge of the tower’s roof is finished with beautiful details:
I love the cutouts on the roof’s edging, with their Escher-esque detailing. If you look at the metal itself, it’s cut into patterns of waves flowing into each other, yet if you look at the void spaces you can see either horns or birds (I see horns, Michelle sees birds). There are also gargoyles / lions at each corner of the roof. I wonder if these details are original, or a later addition.
As the lighthouse is no longer a functioning navigational light (it was decommissioned in 1891 due to frequent interference from fog), it’s open daily for people to explore. While the latern room itself is sealed off, visitors can climb the staircase to nearly the top of the lighthouse tower (to where the window is in the “From the East” picture above). Climbing lighthouse stairways is just awesome, and this one had a little landing Greg and I could set up on to photograph the beautiful symmetry.
That was one cramped little landing with all of our gear set up, and we both had to wait quite a while for an opportunity to capture images of the stairs with nobody else in the tower. But it was worth it, and how could one possibly mind spending time inside a lighthouse? 🙂
I’ll leave you with a final overview image, showing the lighthouse and it’s rebuilt concrete water-catchment basin with native plant landscaping:
Oh, and if you want to see the scale of the stairway in the tower, here’s a self portrait of me in the stairway:
Stay tuned for more lighthouse pictures!
1This will hopefully be the inaugural post of a multi-post series highlighting lighthouses I’ve photographed in the past year. And don’t get me wrong – the pelicans at La Jolla Cove turned out to be awesome.
Cabrillo National Monument: Old Point Loma Lighthouse is in Cabrillo National Monument, which is at the end of Point Loma peninsula in San Diego, CA. The national monument’s webpage has an excellent directions page, including a great regional map. From interstate 5 you’ll need to take a few turns on city streets that aren’t necessarily well marked, so print out a good map or have your GPS handy. You’ll also be driving through an active naval base to arrive at the national monument, so park hours are strictly enforced. You’ll need to pay an entrance fee; parking was plentiful on site when we arrived on a winter weekday morning.
Greg and I walked to La Jolla Children’s Pool Beach (Casa Beach) back in January after we got our pelican pictures at La Jolla Cove. La Jolla Children’s pool is a small area of sandy beach that’s been walled in by a beautiful brick sea wall, apparently with the plan being that children could go swimming. Seals have had other plans for the beach, though, so there aren’t many children.
While I’m not entirely pleased with my seal pictures from the day, there was something else on view: waves crashing into the sea wall.
Big waves were somewhat infrequent, so I wasn’t able to get too many good captures, but I did get these two.
My only problem is this: I can’t decide which picture I like better. Each time I look at the pair I pick one that I like, but then I wait a few days, come back, and find myself preferring the other one.
So, I need you, my kind reader, to solve this dilemma for me. Which do you like better?
Getting There
La Jolla Children’s Pool Beach (Casa Beach): Found in La Jolla (San Diego), the beach is (to quote Wikipedia) “located at 850 Coast Boulevard, at the end of Jenner Street, in La Jolla, California.” Greg and I left our cars in the lot we used for our pelican pictures (directions can be found in this post) and walked; it was a very pleasant 10 minute or so walk. I have no idea how available parking is in La Jolla or what would be the best location to park, so I can’t help you much; sorry. The beach can be freely accessed by walking down a few concrete stairs, but much of the beach’s sand is roped off to allow seals to lay on the beach unperturbed.
As I was taking my oat grass guttation pictures, I kept an eye out for cute critters on my newly planted grass. And, of course, there were some:
That’s a young family of aphids, just starting out in life. Aphids are phloem-feeding plant parasites, so they’re sittin’ there having lunch. They have a proboscis they insert into the leaf’s phloem vessels, which they then drink like a soda through a straw. Phloem is just about as nutritious as soda, so aphids have serious problems getting enough nutrition and dealing with the sugar overload, but that’s the topic for another post (and probably another blog …).
The larger aphid is almost certainly a parthenogentically reproducing female. She reproduces asexually, creating more daughter offspring from just her own unfertilized eggs. Yes, kids, that does mean that she can have baby aphids without any daddy aphids around.
So, the six smaller aphids (called nymphs until they mature) are almost certainly her offspring. The mother will keep producing more and more offspring asexually, and these offspring themselves will almost certainly be able to parthenogentically reproduce as well1. That grass stalk won’t be happy for long.
It can often be hard to tell from web-sized images how much detail is contained in the original capture. Since I know you’re thinking that these aphids are adorably cute, here’s a crop of the image above focusing on them (see the same crop as a larger image here):
I’m not certain what species these aphids are, but I suspect they may be Diuraphis noxia, the Russian Wheat Aphid.
Oh, and the small drop of water at the tip of the grass stalk is there because the grass is guttating – exuding water from its tip due to root pressure. I write about that more in this post.
1 Winged and/or sexually reproducing individuals can also be born, typically when environmental conditions change dramatically (e.g., the onset of winter, or depletion of the food source).
I personally donate to the Humane Society, and am happy to help a good cause. As such, in addition to entering my images into their judged category, I’ve also entered them into their “fundraiser” competition. In this competition the entries compete for votes, which can be obtained by donating to the Humane Society:
“Kira”
“Lucca”
There’s no way I can win the fundraiser category, and I don’t want to try1. Instead, I want to use this as an opportunity to give you an excuse to donate a little something to a worthy cause. And, just to reinforce the idea that I’m not in this for the fundraiser competition prize, if I do somehow win I’ll donate the prize (an iPad 2 and iPod) to the Orange Coast College Disabled Students Center.
The contest ends February 29 at 10:00pm EST, so donate before then if you desire (by following the links above).
1 Votes are tallied per individual picture, not per photographer. So, by posting two pictures I’m possibly splitting any votes I get. But this way you get to vote for your favorite of my two cats!
Last weekend I got a few more pictures of my cats, this time focusing on the eye (as opposed to the tongue or third eyelid). Lucca was a great model with her beautiful green eyes and blue patched tabby and white fur:
The first one makes a great desktop background (and no, I’m not biased at all …); in fact, I can see Lucca’s nose and whiskers poking out just to the right of the window I’m writing this in 🙂
My cats love to nibble on grass, and so I grow tack oats (Avena sativa) from seed for them. About six months ago I figured out that on cool, humid mornings the grass could be seen guttating. At the time I lacked my macro lens, and so did the best I could and got this image. It’s an okay image, but I don’t like the choice of background in retrospect, and I also wanted to get in closer and show just a few stalks of grass so the water drops would be more obvious.
Over the weekend some newly planted grass was again demonstrating guttation, so I tried anew:
Guttation is caused by root pressure building up so that water is squeezed out pores (hydathodes) at the tips or sides of a plant’s leaves. It typically happens at night, under cool, moist conditions when the soil is well hydrated. As Wikipedia says, it’s important to note that guttation and dew are two completely separate phenomena.
To demonstrate guttation in a typical botany science lab , a technician sets up a few-weeks-old pot of grass under a bell jar, waters it thoroughly, and leaves it for the night. The next morning tiny drops of water cover the plant’s leaves. One thing I like about my example is that it’s free of lab manipulation: this pot of grass was just sitting on my porch when I saw the guttation and brought it in to photograph.
If you’re curious how I photographed these, I used a technique much like1 that used with my poinsettia flower closeups; see my behind the scenes post for more details.
1 The first image is a single-frame capture; the second is a multi-image blend to increase depth of field. Both use a studio setup almost identical to the poinsettia setup, except I used reflected direct sunlight to aid in illumination.
Last month I spent a few days in New York City visiting family. One afternoon we walked over a bridge. You may have even heard of it. Apparently it’s called “Brooklyn Bridge”.
You have heard of it? Huh. Surprising.
So, yeah, we walked over the Brooklyn Bridge. And I had my camera with me. You know what’s coming.
The Brooklyn Bridge seems like one of those places like Half Dome: it’s been photographed by every photographer who’s come close to it since silver was capturing photons. I figure that by now every angle from every position in every lighting condition at every time of the day has been photographed (at least from the pedestrian walkway). So, when we decided to walk over the bridge I wasn’t super excited about getting lots of pictures. I figured I might take a few “I was there” shots, but that’s it. After all, we were on our way to Murrays’ to get cheese.
We got on the bridge, and I was blown away. It’s full of contrasts: stone and steel, cables and ties, pedestrians and cars, water and sky, clouds and sun. And I’ve never seen so many leading lines in a single location. My heart went aflutter.
Let’s just say that I took a “few” pictures, and leave it at that.
It was a blustery winter day, and as I walked the bridge I was awed by its age and grandeur that was mixed with city grit and grime. I tried to capture that feel with some high-contrast black and white processing in this image (which looks better viewed larger on my gallery website’s page for it):
The flags on top of the towers were blowing beautifully in the wind for most of the walk, making me have to play with the cables as leading lines on a cloudy, gray background.
But as with the bridge, the day was full of contrasts. As we continued walking the setting sun broke through the clouds for a precious few moments to cast a brilliant orange glow on the cables and brickwork, as the Financial District and the new 1 World Trade Center rose in the background:
I’m happy I was one of dozens of folks with DSLR’s on its pedestrian walkway that day. Oh yeah, and we did get to Murrays’ in time to pick up some good cheese.
New feature alert: I’ve always enjoyed reading other photographers’ “behind the scenes” and tutorial posts, so from now on I’ll occasionally post them. This post focuses on the “studio” and exposure blending techniques I used to create a macro image of a poinsettia flower.
Introduction
Last month I wrapped up a three-post series on poinsettias (post 1, post 2, and post 3). The images for the first two of these posts were taken back in December in an Orange Coast College Ornamental Horticulture greenhouse, which was a great location to work in as it had slightly directed diffuse light (sun shining through semi-opaque panels at the top of the house) and hundreds of plants to hunt through for specimens. Unfortunately, though, poinsettias have separate male and female flowers, and only the male flowers were visible during that shoot.
Thus I had to keep a plant at home and wait. About a month later the female flowers had emerged, and I was able to get some images and finish the series. The highlight of the series (for me) is this closeup on an inflorescence that demonstrates all of a poinsettia flower’s anatomy in a single image.
The image:
Lighting, equipment, and setup
Getting the shot was not trivial. First, I didn’t have access to the greenhouse, but needed to get similar lighting to maintain consistency between the images in the series. I found good lighting in a room of my house that faces east, and has white curtains and bright walls. In the early morning the sun hits the curtains and diffuses through the room nicely (while maintaing some directionality to the light).
I used my Canon 60mm ef-s macro lens in manual-focus mode, and determined the base exposure and set a custom white balance in-camera using a gray card (see this post by Greg Basco for why setting a custom in-camera white balance is useful). Said gray card was photographed out of focus, so it also served as a test for dust spots (which can be deadly during exposure blending for depth of field).
I’m tired of taking macro photographs with my camera hanging down from the tripod, so I supported the plant on a chair a few feet from the window, with my camera in between the window and plant. This allowed me to move either the plant, tripod, or tripod head to adjust framing.
Framing closeups of plants is tedious, as leaves and other structures often get in the way and cover up important anatomy. I put some leaves underneath the lens to corral them, but a few others kept popping up annoyingly. My solution was to weigh them down with my lens cap. High tech, I know.
The background was another issue. It was clearly going to be out of focus, but I needed the color to not be glaring. For the first two shoots in the greenhouse I simply grabbed an additional poinsettia or two and put them behind the first plant. Voila! Instant matching background.
For this shoot my first background was a white closet door. The white became a bit jarring for the composition above, though, as there were just a few white spots shining through the red bracts. So, I grabbed a black shirt and hung it on a chair behind the plant. The background disappears, and you probably didn’t even know there was a black background behind the bracts (which is exactly what I wanted).
Here’s a picture of the setup:
Settings and image capture
Next came the old debate of settings. I wanted sharpness and depth of field, and didn’t care a whit about exposure time thanks to being indoors and able to turn off the wind (read: turn off the heater). I’ve found that the lens is sharpest around f5.6 – f8, but at the focal distance I wanted to use my depth of field at that aperture is miniscule. For the first images of the day I was able to get everything I wanted in focus composed in a single plane, and thus I pushed the aperture to f11 and f13 for a bit more depth of field in a single image with acceptable sharpness.
But for the image above I needed more depth of field, thanks to that giant ovary and large cluster of male flowers. Thus, I fell back on my old standby: image blending for depth of field. Greg Russell has a great tutorial on image blending which summarizes the technique beautifully.
The technique I used boils down to this: I started by setting the focus and exposure to manual and focusing on the closest subject I wanted sharp (the pollen grains on the front of the ovary). I then took a series of images at f8, adjusting the focus backwards by as small a margin as I possibly could as I focused through the range I wanted sharp. Using a macro-rail tripod head to change the camera’s position as I changed focus would have been ideal (since the field of view of the lens changes as it focuses), but as I lack a rail slider I couldn’t do that.
As a side note, assuming that you don’t have a rail slider, always compose your exposure-blended images at the closest focus you plan to use. That’s the focus with the narrowest field of view, and thus the one that will most likely limit your cropping post-exposure-blend.
Processing
I then imported all the RAW images into Lightroom 3.6 and did my typical adjustments (white balance, exposure, black point, brightness, contrast, saturation, noise reduction, spot removal, etc.). I shot a series of 11 sequential focal planes on this particular composition, but ended up choosing only the first eight to use for the final product, as the last three put distracting elements of the flower into sharp focus. I know some people who exposure blend try to get everything in focus (creating infinite depth of field), but I often find this to be distracting; having the background and foreground out of focus provides depth to the image (and also isolates the subject).
Here are the eight processed images that form the base of the final image:
Exposure blending
I used Lightroom’s “Edit in Photoshop as layers” feature to get the adjusted images into Photoshop CS5, aligned the layers using Photoshop’s built in tool (Edit / Auto-Align layers), and then blended the layers for depth of field (also using Photoshop’s built in tool: Edit / Auto-Blend layers).
Exposure blending rarely works perfectly on the first try, though, so I looked through the blended image at 100% to check for errors. Sure enough, there were a bunch: a few “points of light” where photoshop puts a bright spot into the image near the edge, and also a few areas where Photoshop chose the wrong layer to use (thus adding an out-of-focus area into an area that should have been in-focus). Here’s what two of them looked like:
On the left Photoshop has selected a line of the plant stem at the correct focus, but then used incorrect focal planes for the remainder of the stem (both above and below the in-focus portions). A single image has everything from the in-focus portion up perfectly in focus; Photoshop has just chosen … poorly. On the right Photoshop has added what I call “points” or “bars” of light, blending errors (often near the edge of an image) where Photoshop inexplicably adds in a bright streak or point.
To fix these I un-did the blending, found the incorrect layers Photoshop had used, and erased the parts of those images Photoshop had selected. Then I re-blended the image, checked again, and continued this until I got an image I was satisfied with.
Scale bar
To add the scale bar I captured a separate image with a ruler in the frame next to the flower (after I had finished shooting, since putting the ruler in the frame could easily damage the flower), then copied that image as a layer onto the final blended image and made sure the flower was precisely the same size in the ruler image as in the blended one. A quick use of the line tool got me a subtle scale bar that I could move wherever I wanted in the blended image. I chose to put it in the shadows near the bottom, so it’s visible, but you have to look to find it.
Final notes
And that’s it; head back to the top of the post to see the final product!
Using this layer blending technique is a bit cumbersome, but it allows me to maintain optimum image sharpness while precisely controlling the depth of field (by choosing how many focal planes to blend together into the final image). It’s worth doing, but only for those images that really need it.
Thanks for reading! I’d love any suggestions, and would be happy to answer any questions.