This is one of my favorite pictures in your gallery. I really like the crab pictures too.

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Merrique "Blue 88" Richelieu

This is between me, you, and the holy grapefruit.

Those who would trade freedom and justice for saftey deserve neither freedom nor safety.

thanks! is there anything in particular you like about this more than the others? (for future reference... It's about Sakura time now and so if there's a trend here you can put you're finger on, please let me know and I'll try and continue it!) the crab ones were fun, I tried to get a few shots of them scurryinbg around in the tidal area of the bay, but the water's a bit denser in color and the shots are mostly of blurry underwater creatures... I'm glad you like what I did get though... (do you like the one where the flash went off better than the others?)

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N-Naru, Wait!

There was the angle that made the flowers look like they were tilting up and that the Washington Monument tilted. I like the way the light hit the flowers too. I could see all their textures and the light blush they have easier. There was the focus too. The flowers closest to you were so crisp and clear and it gradually blurred so nicely. I just love the angles and the clarity. It looks like you put so much heart into your pictures. The pictures look alive and so do the subjects, it's like I'm standing there and I could reach out and touch them.

I love crabs. I have a stuffed red crab named Crabby even. The pictures had a good calibur of quality. I think the water on this side of Cali is murkier though. I'd like to see more crab and critter pictures. Those are some of my favorites too.

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Merrique "Blue 88" Richelieu

This is between me, you, and the holy grapefruit.

Those who would trade freedom and justice for saftey deserve neither freedom nor safety.

Thanks, that's exactly what I was looking for! I'll try to keep doing them like that then! I'm often unsure of having the monument there, but it brings about a sense of locality, expecially for those who haven't a chance of seeing them here, let allone in Japan... Though one day I aspire to go to Japan durring there Sakura season and take pictures of them in their natural habitat-around tradational Japanese buildings~

I have a certain afinity for crabs too, and it's odd but I have a red plush crabby as well (actually I named her after an orange plush I saw at a 7-11 back when I was a kid-I longed for my orange crabby for so long, visiting it every time I got a slurpee until my mom promiced to get it for me for my birthday in July... when we got there Crabby wasn't there and I spent the entire rest of the summer brokenhearted-I think that was 3rd grade... when I got my red one-quite a few yearts later I named it crabby in memory) anyway, I'll try to get some more pictures of them when I get down to the beach this year... The other animals as well...

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N-Naru, Wait!

The new sakura pictures are beautiful too. I just love them so much!

I used to go to the beach a lot when I was little and there were tiny sandcrabs. I would look at them and I could never take them home or they would die. I was sad. Then, I bought a red crab sponge when I was in elementary school. I loved it so much and I named it Crabby. My cat tore up and ate part of the sponge a while later. So, my newest crab was named in memoriam and I sleep with it so that it escapes the same fate as Crabby I.

Oh, I liked the duck. We have a lot of ducks and Canadian geese were I live. Right now we have four white cranes too. I think it's awesome how you take all these great pictures.

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Merrique "Blue 88" Richelieu

This is between me, you, and the holy grapefruit.

Those who would trade freedom and justice for saftey deserve neither freedom nor safety.

I have a ton of Sakura pics-naturally some better than others... I seem to have moderately bad luck with weather when I go for my Sakura pics, hopefully this year I'll breake the trend and have some bluer skies... I want to get there durring a better time of day too, before everyone mobbs the area...
I go to the beach atleast once yearly (it's hard to get off in the summer) but used to go more frequently as a kid... I still catch hermit crabs and keep them for a few days, so I know what you mean... Once I accidently succeded in catching a little thing that looked like a small rounded blue water bug-the first of it's kind I'd ever seen. I went, under my mom's suggestion, to my uncle's a few doors down (my family on my mother's side bought a whole section of the beach, so we have a row of houses that are all run by relatives) and he said wht I had caught was a baby bluecrab... unfortunately this was before I had a camera, but I hope one of these days I'll have such strange luck again...
I'm glad you like the duck pictures too... Once ours are a little more friendly I'll take pictures of those too. Last time I saw they, they weren't happy with me for giving them pita bread instead of whitebread~ the geese tend to be photo hogs-I've several of them...that I haven't posted in a while, and I'll see about more herons... I'm not sure how much of my gallery you've seen, I do have some of all these here, though the majority are probabally from the old camera...

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N-Naru, Wait!

I'm still working on your gallery, to be honest.

The swans here know how special they are, so you have to pay attention to them or they sulk or get mad and ignore you the next time you visit. Geese are more forgiving. We have normal sized geese, but then we have these huge honkers of Canadian geese. That sounds like a nice story. I usually have to be careful where I step, you can really hurt yourself with a stingray. And you have to watch out for jellyfish in the water and on the sand, especially after hightide. They're like film when they dry out sometimes, but those stingers keep working.

It's nice to go out. I want to go to Ventura. The water is so perfect. And it's surrounded by cliffs. I couldn't really go anywhere this summer when I hurt my leg. It sounds so nice to have family own properies all in a row like that. I'm sure you'll find something cool this year. No worries.

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Merrique "Blue 88" Richelieu

This is between me, you, and the holy grapefruit.

Those who would trade freedom and justice for saftey deserve neither freedom nor safety.

Well I do have the better pictures of several years on here, so it might take a while yet...
Strange that you're swans seem so conceited... We don't really have any here, and the (canadian)geese act the same way...
As far as the beach goes, Yeah, I'm always careful. We stay on the bay side, so stingrays and their stingers aren't much concern though we do find their egg pods often enough... The worst obsticles on land are the dead Jellyfish, assorted crab remains, and shell pieces. Of course stepping on a disembodied crab claw can be far worse that finding a live one grasping at you're toes...(as far as the norm goes I really only approach the live ones cautiously as I pitch them back into the water or dodge around them in the water...
I'm sorry to hear you're vacation plans were curbed by you're leg... what happned? are you better now?

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N-Naru, Wait!