Free Smiley, to brighten your day! ;-), originalmente cargada por kittymax.
And a short story to go with it! ;-)
Dedicated to those of you, my friends, who smile freely! So, please feel free to smile! ;-)
And for a bigger laugh, view large on full screen!
At the risk of being shunned by even my closest friends, I have to confess to having taken this picture using a hand-held, 'point-and-shoot' camera with a X10 Swiss watchmaker's eye loupe held in front of the lens! In addition, my style was severely cramped by the lack of an LCD screen, which had broken down and shone like a torch, requiring the pressure of both hands on the camera casing to display any kind of information! :-(
Needless to say, without the screen, focusing and framing were going to be a problem since the optical viewfinder would have been quite useless at such very close range. So I had to position the camera at an estimated point (about 1cm) in front of the subject's nose, say 'smile', press the button and hope that I was focused on the right spot. Fortunately, my model was patient enough to wait while I set up "my gear" and took enough shots to get it "just right"! ;-)
The smile on his face says it all! ;-)
Needless to say, without the screen, focusing and framing were going to be a problem since the optical viewfinder would have been quite useless at such very close range. So I had to position the camera at an estimated point (about 1cm) in front of the subject's nose, say 'smile', press the button and hope that I was focused on the right spot. Fortunately, my model was patient enough to wait while I set up "my gear" and took enough shots to get it "just right"! ;-)
The smile on his face says it all! ;-)
Mind you, the smile could also have been due to the fact that the "mating season" was in full swing! ;-))
On the upside, I have to say that the dragonfly (along with several of his admirers, jostling for position) was perched, at about eye level, on top of a fairly sturdy, 2 mm, chain-link, wire fence which, at such close range, I was able to touch very gingerly with my little finger!
I did this in a bid to achieve maximum stability and in fact, as you can see, contact was made, current flowed and his face lit up! ;-) One of the benefits, I guess, of having a camera with a built-in flashlight facility! ;-))
Incidentally, the "real flash" didn't fire! ;-))
Naturally, I had to wait till I got home to see the results of my efforts and when I did, I couldn't wait to get back. So I decided to return to the scene a couple of weeks later. On the way, it started to rain and when I arrived, I was very surprised to find them as I'd left them, albeit rather wet and quite depressed! ;-)
Laugh, and the world laughs with you. Weep, and you weep alone!
(Ella Wheeler Wilcox - 1850–1919), U.S. poet)
If you've come this far, please read on, and on, and on, ...
