One drop melded with the balcony rail

Sadly, I am out of photos from Madrid.  I arrived there a week ago Sunday and came home a week ago Friday.  During that time, I spent Sunday afternoon wandering around downtown and then was ever-after stuck in the hotel where the conference was held.  I guess I could have taken some shots of the Madrid airport, but I was pretty beat by then.

So, time to move on to new subjects.  When I returned home, I noticed a perfect little spiderweb on our balcony railing.  Then, I spent the next five days laying around, working as much as I could, and trying to get over a sinus infection.  So, it really should come as no surprise that by the time I got around to attempting to shoot that perfect little spider web, it wasn’t so perfect anymore.

In fact, it was pretty much in shreds.

I took a spray bottle out on the balcony and misted what was left of the spider web in the hope of getting some nice water droplets on it.  Then, I set up my camera with a 100mm macro lens.  I used a flashlight to try to get some soft, glow-y sunset-like light on the water droplets since none of the actual sunset light was coming my way.  After all that, this is the best shot I got of the remains of the spider web:

One remnant of a once-perfect spider web

Not exactly what I was shooting for.

However, while I was trying to reposition to see if I could get something more interesting, I noticed the water droplets hanging off the bottom of the railing.  I ended up having a lot of fun with those water droplets.  I made a few attempts to catch one dripping, but didn’t have enough patience (I’ll use the fact that I’m still recovering as an excuse) to wait it out.  After a few misses, I gave up on the dripping water shot.  Maybe tomorrow.

In the process of shooting the clinging water drops, I noticed I got an interesting round orb in the background.  This turned out to be an out-of-focus street light positioned far in the background.  I kind of like it.  So, I moved the tripod around a bit, trying to get the orb in a position I liked.

Water drops without flashlight

As seems to be par for the course, I didn’t come close to getting the shot I had in my head when I started, but I still had fun.

Same droplets but with the flashlight

I sometimes wonder what my neighbors would think if they saw me.  Out on the balcony with a giant camera on a tripod, spraying the railing with a mister, and shining a flashlight on it.  It would probably make me wonder what my neighbor was up to if I saw them doing something like that.

If I weren’t into photography myself, I would probably not be able to come up with a good answer.  I might think they were trying to do a super-thorough cleaning job.