One Word Photo Challenge: Dragonfly

This picture was taken in the backyard of a vacation home in the Sandbridge area of Virginia Beach. Technically this is a damselfly. When they are resting, dragonflies spread their wings like a helicopter.

Tuesday Photo Challenge - Fire

The Tuesday Photo Challenge is a weekly theme-based challenge for photographers of all kinds to share both new and old photography. #fpj-photo-challenge

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The Tuesday Photo Challenge is a weekly theme-based challenge for photographers of all kinds to share both new and old photography. This week's theme is fire.

I started to worry that I might not be able to complete this week's themed post. My original vision was to get a shot of a bonfire. I find bonfires interesting. I would have set my camera on a trip, changed my settings for narrow aperture, about f/8, and captured some long exposures of the embers coming off the fire. Instead of star trails, I would have had light trails of embers.

But as the week went along I realized I would need to think of something else. My wife suggested a photo of our fireplace. "Too mundane," I said. A candle flame? Maybe. I held out for something more interesting.

On Sunday my daughter asked if we could go out to eat. She wanted to try out Aja, the new pan-Asian fusion restaurant that opened in town. Aja is a Sanskrit word. It means goat. My wife is vegetarian and the restaurant. We debated over the menu for a bit, but my wife acquiesced due to my daughter's insistence.

The food was excellent, and the wait staff was attentive. I even got into a conversation about photography with our waitress. She loves to travel and take photos. She asked what I was doing when she saw me taking pictures of my wife's cocktail. I explained I was doing a weekly photography project and this week's them was fire. She immediately offered to help to suggest various things around the restaurant.

But it was not until we were walking out the door that I spotted this dragon; aglow in red.

I applied a Kodak Ektachrome filter, ran the photo through Google Nik Dfine noise reduction software, and then applied the maximum screen sharpening on export from Adobe Lightroom.

The Arcanum Sphere 1, Level 11

Water, Gorge, Rocks, Tree

It's taken me almost four months to get to Sphere 1 in the Arcanum. The brutal winter that swept through New Jersey from December through February limited my access to the outdoors. The pressures of project commitments also added to the delay. In fact I suspended my membership for two month and only stared up again in May.

I am looking forward to continuing my journey with a bit of apprehension. What will I learn? What will I accomplish? What challenges -- mental and physical -- will I have to overcome?

I have new apprenticeship challenges from my Master.

Please be reminded to submit a 2-3 paragraph discussion on your Sphere 1 focus areas and/or project to me before continuing on in Level 11.

I'm still trying to figure this out.