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. :)

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    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'.

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  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.

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    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.

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    2. I bet that will look awesome. :)

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  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.

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    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.

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

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

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  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!

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

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  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

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

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

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