Mt. Rainier and Lenticular Clouds - Dec. 2008 copyright: JMM

October 21, 2014

Close Ups!

I was out looking for glass (I know, 'so what else is new?') at my secret spot and Scusset, and this time instead of greedily grabbing the pieces, I tried to take a picture of them on the sand first.  Then one of my friends gave me the idea of doing some sand close ups.  Since I had already come home, I made copies of the pictures and then cropped them super small to bring out the sand details.  I've been seeing a lot of pics online of what sand looks like under a microscope and I was thinking about buying a microscope but now that I can just crop the pics, I think that will work pretty well for now.

I didn't have my zoom lens this day, so I cropped the heck out of the pic of Cleveland Ledge Lighthouse. 

Finding a beautiful jewel among the rocks is such a treat.

Also at my secret spot.  I was surprised to see this guy on the flower!  Hard to believe it's October!


Very interesting bit of shell.  I didn't collect it because it was so fragile that I knew it would get crushed between there and home.

The next shots are the cropped pictures of the sand from Scusset Beach.  I didn't even notice the bubble when I shot the original, larger picture.

This is what the original picture looked like.

Amazing sand!

All those gorgeous colours!


That larger stone looks like the Millennium Falcon.

More microscopic jewels

I think this one is my fave with all the tiny shells.  These are almost impossible to see with the naked eye.  It wasn't till I cropped all of these pictures did I see all of the details.

This is an example of what the pictures looked like before I cropped down to one small section of the sand.

This sand dollar is only about a half inch in diameter, if that.  I found 3 tiny sand dollars that day.

14 comments:

  1. WOW, you captured some amazing shots!! Love them. It looks like the sand is mostly rock and would hurt your feet. :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The Bay side is very rocky, yes. But now and then the storms will clear the beaches of rocks. It was a point of pride, as a kid, to have feet tough enough to walk confidently on the rocks while the tourists picked their way to the water with many 'ows' and 'ouches'.

      Delete
  2. Amazing JoJo ! The cropped, close ups of the beach sand are incredible, you've just taken us into a beautiful world of the micro. So many tiny things that we pass by each and everyday but never realize they even exist.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks! Who knew that sand could be so beautiful and jewel-like? I still have a baggie of sand from Ruby Beach out in Washington State, so named because of the crushed garnets that render the beach pink sometimes. I will have to spread some out and take pics of it now.

      Delete
    2. I bet that will look awesome. :)

      Delete
  3. The Ruby Beach sand would be interesting JoJo. I love these sand pictures, I didn't realise cropping would produce such great results. Clever girl.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's my dirty little photography secret. When you don't have a super duper expensive zoom lens, crop the picture to obtain that look. There's a certain point where if you get too close the picture will be really grainy, so you have to back off on the crop till it looks better. I was lucky that the sand was in focus in the original picture too. That helps a great deal.

      Delete
  4. Awesome shots JoJo! Wow, incredible details - love macro shots. And yes, I DO see the Falcon!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Right? I'm glad I'm not the only one who sees that! "star wars geek alert". hahaha And thank you so much!

      Delete
  5. The fun of digital photos - being able to crop, and extreme closeups. Great study of the sand and the things we miss till we zoom in close. Well done!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks! It's funny but I swore I'd never switch to digital....I would remain loyal to film. What was I thinking?!?!?!

      Delete
  6. I love it! Thank you for taking me to the beach with you. I'm kind of home bound right now, but I could almost feel the sea breeze and hear the gulls while looking at your pictures. =)

    Unleashing the Dreamworld

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you for stopping by my blog! I'm sorry to hear you are homebound. :)

      Delete
  7. Love the photographs of the sand, especially the first one :) xx

    ReplyDelete