I’m not great with spiders, but this one’s face looks quite cute in the first photo. Never thought I’d say that about a spider — just goes to show that we all have a good side. 
This is a few years ago - in October. Beautiful Autumn colors.
And this is now (about a week ago). Not the same place but the colors are very different.
We did have some rain lately but western Canada is a place where we expect a lot of rain. Slow and steady.
It is not like this anymore. The seasons are much more abrupt.
Reality is - I can’t complain in light of what @lphilpot is seeing but I just notice it - everybody notices it. The world around us is changing.
Here is when the fire hits the mountain. The flames are actually several story building high. And we had a lot of it in Canada.
And the beautiful places are shrouded in smoke.
Of late, I’ve been taking pictures like this:
to show folk in another thread in a hobby galaxy far, far, away. My main struggle has been white balance, with the mishmash of lights I have in my little basement cubby, LED bench light with a fluorescent workshop light. Yech…
As far as gear goes, I’m jonesing in this realm:
What ‘cher lookin’ at here is a little nubbin of aluminum that I faced, turned, and parted from less-pretty aluminum rod, my first cutting with the lathe in the background. In the spirit of rawproc, starting from the ground-up to learn machining well enough to cut scale model parts. Related to photography, I’m also noodling around the idea of making a swing-tilt fixture for my F-mount camera, for which I can use my old '70s lenses with their aperture rings.
The lathe itself is a bit of a study, made by Sherline Products. It’s a hobby machine, but the structure and tolerances are far beyond the Dremel-class stuff I’ve previously acquired. Completely constructed in the US (well, I’d bet some of the things like the hex nut to the right of the crank wheel are from Asia), but they seem to make money selling these high-quality machines in the decidedly business-unfriendly world we’ve constructed here in the US. And, they make a full line of accessories specifically to work with their machines. Kinda reminds me of Nikon in that regard.
Because of all this, I’ve not gotten out to take any fall colors photos, except in the yard. Shame, we had a spectacular fall colors season in Colorado. Anyway, here’s a couple, first one from the living room window:
The light was quite nice, so I actually got off my duff and went outside to get a few of those leaves down by the sidewalk:
Cycling through my three batteries quite nicely…
Another dry day, before tomorrow’s rain. All but the last one were taken from bridges over the River Tay, the first couple at the Tay crossing and the next pair in Dunkeld. The last was taken near Dalshien on the A9.
It isn’t quite the blue hour at 3:30 PM, but it is getting close 
Playing with this lovely shot inspired me to try some macro myself.
I stacked all the extension tubes I had behind my old Pentax 50mm f1.7, adapted the lot to the A7s - and started shooting. No flash, with the result that some were at rather high ISO. Never mind…
This setup gives something a bit better than 1:1 magnification and precious little depth of field.
I quite like some of these, although most don’t stand up to pixel peeping!
Gorgeous. I don’t normally care for macro but these are great. I like the out of focus areas and subdued palette and exposure. Look ethereal rather than clinical like lots of macro.
Last of the autumn leaves. I processed these earlier and again I’ve overdone them to try to compensate for poor exposure. Need to learn to be more subtle, I think.
Forget that, I find the most interesting ones to have variations in the illumination within the scene. Nice captures!
These are beautiful!
I like the deep colors.
At the end - photography is an art. Even in the B/W film realm outstanding photographers used burn, dodge and soften/bloom of images.
Many of the effects were even created by imperfection - process the film too much or over/under expose the paper. And they turned out to be beautiful.
So I only look at the final result and if I like it or not saturated or not - it doesn’t matter - what matters is the result and if you like it.
Thanks! I agree on the analogue dodging and burning. I remember seeing a documentary War Photographer about James Nachtwey and him working with his printer over weeks before a gallery exhibition. A lot of what we think of spontaneous photos have had a lot of work. Having said that, particularly the last image, looks overprocessed and I think sometimes i’m trying to compensate for bad technique. I had a tripod with me but I hardly ever use it and that last one really needed it.
and
Thanks! I think it’s mostly that I don’t have the patience (or interest I suppose) in doing it accurately enough to be clinical. 
I don’t know - I think they look great. Perhaps they do actually look a little more clinical… (I’ve got that word stuck in my head now) than my usual style, but none the worse for that.
Ha. Worked for the Impressionists.
I am currently corona-positive, only mild symptoms. But I can’t go to work and my attention span is somewhat limited. But it’s also boring in between. Here’s my photo exercise for today.
Edit: Version 2 with a little mor contrast
Great shot. Is it an egg? Or… no, a fruit? Doesn’t really matter.
Take care of yourself too!
It is an ostrich egg. The surface actually looks a bit like a citrus fruit.
We went up to Kinloch Rannoch for a talk on Gaelic in Perthshire yesterday (We live in Pitlochry, Pit Cloich Aire, or Baile Chloichridh in Gaelic, “Place of the sentinel stone”).
On the way, we pass Schiehallion (Sìth Chailleann, “Fairy hill of the Caledonians”).
Not the best of pictures of the mountain, but it does emphasise that autumn is at its end, and we are moving into winter.
Pixls.us is being colonised by cats. Next stop Shiba Inu