Soft Leaves – Photography


The Dead and the Living – JK. Leahy Photography

DSC_0426 (1)
JKLeahy Picture©

Soft Leaves are part of the Dead and the Living Photography I often do. I try to feature my own artistic view of the subtle colours and structures of leaves, plants and vegetation, insects and wildlife that surround me. Sometimes I like the beauty and art in their decaying form.

DSC_0420 (1)
JKLeahy Picture©

The soft leaves pictured here fell from succulent plants I grow in hanging pots. Lucky for me, they fell into an old rusted steel wheelbarrow. A couple of small seedlings were saved as well.

I really like how soft the colours and the leaves themselves were. And to have various orange and grey mirrored from a cold hard rusting steel as the backdrop was totally unexpected.

I hope you like these pictures too.

DSC_0417 (1)
JKLeahy Picture©

 

DSC_0424 (1)
JKLeahy Picture©

 

DSC_0425 (1)
JKLeahy Picture©

 

Paper Flowers – Photography


The Paper Flower – JK.Leahy

DSC_0445-2

I’m told they are Spiraea crenata. They are tiny. Under the lens, they look like paper flowers. But, they sure are real. These beautiful white blooms look almost like bleached paper. There are several scattered bunches on the bush at our door. Hopefully by spring, more of these miniature bouquets will cover the whole bush.

DSC_0454

DSC_0448-2

DSC_0446-1
One flower head is as large as the size of an adult finger nail.

DSC_0441-1

DSC_0440

DSC_0433

DSC_0432

Pelleted Fungi – Nature Photography


DSC_0458-2

A cluster of dark brown to black pelleted fungi invaded one of my plant pots. I had never seen anything like it. They were tiny, but the use of micro lens helped produce these pictures. When each ‘lid’ – size of a tack pin head came off, the mushroom’s inside was full of black pellets.

DSC_0457-1

DSC_0459-1

DSC_0460-1

 

A Machine Learning – Jacob Werner


Jakob Werner, a 22-year-old animator and visual design student in Germany, decided to interpret the idea of machine learning a bit more literally “in order to create a sarcastic view at our society and into the future.”

Jacob’s result is a wooden automaton that appears to “read” by holding a book, moving its eyes as if scanning the words, and then flipping the page. “The secret behind machine learning,” he wrote in the video’s description. “This is how machines collect data.”

Motherboard (Editor Adrianne Jeffries) describes it as “so cute”, but “silly little robot”.  It thinks it can read.” I agree and I do like Jakob Werner’s idea.

Read More 

The Dead and the Living – Photography


DSC_0392

Some of you may remember this bromeliad (as pictured below) I posted on this blog on Christmas Day, 2015 and called it The Christmas Star. Well guess what? The star of Christmas 2015 is still alive and even as I write.  Pictured above in August, 2016 the gorgeous pineapple family flower has started to fade and slowly die but only in the last week. It is the longest surviving flowers I have had in my garden.

DSC_0548

DSC_0546

 

 

White Lines – Photography


DSC_0389

A lampshade made from spliced white wire fades. After months of open weather, sun and rain the lampshade now reveals its true colour of indigo before rust moves to invade its crispy white lines.

DSC_0388

I Don’t Want To Change You – Damien Rice


I really like Damien Rice’s music and took some time to read about him and found this quote Alexis Petridis wrote about Damien Rice in The Guardian that I thought summed up Damien’s personality.

Petridis wrote that Damien is polite enough, but it’s hard to miss his discomfort. His answers come punctuated by pauses so vast you could drive a truck through them: after a while, you just get used to sitting in silence while he searches for the right words. When he finds them, they’re frequently metaphors so convoluted they sound more like riddles. “I took a break, and I went off to do something,” he says of the period after 9. “People say, ‘What did you do?’ Erm, let’s say” – a mammoth pause – “let’s say I was a lover of the sea. And I …” – another pause – “I was a sea swimmer, that’s what I was doing. I went off to do a free-diving course, I learned how to scuba dive, I also learned sailing, I also learned surfing.” Read more here.