The Green Fairy

 While not strictly traditional, setting fire to the sugar doused in Absinthe is quite beautiful, though this fairy dances in blue.

 

The final step is to dissolve the sugar and dilute the spirit with distilled water.

These pictures were taken at Cafe Absinthe in Osaka, a fine restaurant bar specializing in Greek food and absinthe.

PL Fireworks 2014

This year's PL fireworks festival was a bit different than previous years as the wind, rather than clearing the smoke from view, blew it directly towards us.

 Since the smoke wasn't going away, I concentrated on the edges of the cloud and made it a part of the composition.

 "Burning Daisy"

"Porcupine" 

"Exuberance"

"The Beast" 

"Fireflies"

 "Embers"

 

The grande finale painted the sky red.

Into the small wilds

I took my 105mm macro lens out into the neighborhood, and a nearby rice field.

"Ballerina"

"Upon the Golden Sea"

"Onward"

"Cobalt Oxide Dragon"

Not only predatory invertebrates but a frog too! 

 

And even a hydrangea.

While flies are common, they can be somewhat glamorous.

Fireflies - 姫蛍

 By chance I learned that there are fireflies a moderate walk from where I live.

The neighborhood near the river has a group that takes care to preserve the river environment where the fireflies are found.  They have fenced the area off but allow visitors to view the fireflies from a safe distance in the early summer.

These are 姫蛍 - Hime hotaru, Luciola parvula, a species of flashing fireflies found in Japan and parts of eastern Asia.

Nanking Cherry

A year ago, we bought a Nanking cherry sapling, the first year it produced two cherries.

This year it produced many more: 240g of fruit!

 

Since I had the lights set up, I took a shot of some ice cream in a wine glass too.

The mint if from the 'garden' the 1m periphery that borders our house. 

Next time I'll clean up the smeared ice cream on the glass as well.

Cherries before being harvested:

 The tree gets a good location at the corner of the house, plenty of light here.

Cretaceous wonders

Diabloceratops: 

Devil horned face seems pretty accurate.

While Triceratops is perhaps the second most famous dinosaur in the world, it doesn't seem to be very big in our imagination.  Almost always depicted interacting with T-rex, which is a huge predator, Triceratops seems small in comparison.  It was massive.  Triceratops was 9m long, it's skull alone was 2m, with huge legs to support its bulk; estimated between 6 to 12 tonnes twice that of a large male African Elephant.  

Seeing a herd of these animals would have been breath taking and rather intimidating, the adults were about 3 meters tall.

The reconstruction below was on a 1m high platform so as to not take up even more floor space.

Standing on the same level I would bump my head on its chin.

 No exhibition of triceratops and its relatives would be complete with the predator which likely ate many of them: Tyrannosaurus Rex.  Though to be honest it seemed rather spindly compared to the triceratops next to it.

Xitang (night), Zhejiang, China

After dusk Xitang transforms from a bustling tourism centre to a bustling entertainment district.

It does still retain the old market town atmosphere, augmented with electric lights.

Many of the restaurants become night clubs, complete with video screens, live music and light effects.  

 The water taxis transport guests from point to point along the canals late into the night.

Free photography tip: if you're taking photos at night and want longer exposure times but forgot your tripod; put the camera on something (bridge post, bench, some random motorcycle) and use the timer to take the picture.  Putting the camera down will eliminate motion blur from holding the camera in your hands. Using the timer will isolate the camera from the shock of pressing the shutter button, this becomes an issue when taking shots at night that include light sources.