about greenlimabeans

Why greenlimabeans? Mostly because I was told firmly that peeinginthebushes.com was not appropriate. And fresh lima beans are pretty, a little off the culinary beaten path, and taste very good.

Navigation
In case you didn't notice, the text top left is the site menu linking to the main categories. If you want to find something specific, use the search bar or scroll to the bottom to view the archive or go through the post labels.

What will you find here?

• A fair bit of food obsession - the full gamut from growing food, to cooking, and of course, eating.
• The growing category is mostly food gardening of course, but with some flowers strewn here and there.
• I'm a biologist. so you'll have to deal with some nature - wild plants, wild animals, big and small.
• Although the previous items might convince you this was not possible, I am also a highly cultured aesthete, and I will share the beautiful things that cross my path.
• Food, growing, wildlife and pretty baubles all come from somewhere, and I will also feature these places - usually the Western Cape or the rest of South Africa, but also some travel stories from the rest of the world.
• And since this site clearly has no focus beyond things that tickle my fancy, there of course has to be a compete hodge-podge category of other random stuff.

Me? 
Heritage veggie grower and occasional traveller. Anal-retentive scientist type and obsessive reader. Despite the recent aspersions cast at the label, happy to identify myself as a Foodie as described and lovingly mocked by Barr and Levy, whose seminal 1984 handbook I of course own, also being a second hand bookstore and hopeless junk addict. Geekiness slightly rehabilitated by a chainsaw and motorbikes. Trained as a biologist and honed my skills of living like a millionaire with no actual cash during the usual years of university penury. I have worked as a pancake maker, farm manager & photographer. I've been a petrolhead at times, rebuilding a couple of cars and several motorcycles, and was  once insane enough to make a house during weekends, holidays and every spare evening for nearly 5 years. Yes, make, as in with my own two hands, except some of the bricklaying. A small house, but still.

I'm currently doing my best to help save the world as a conservation scientist in a global Biodiversity Hotspot that also happens to be home, while trying to bring a little more balance to life.

If all the above sounds impossible for one mere mortal, the skeptical among you could consult Google where you can confirm that have the blood of a Pendragon. I do confess that lately I have not been taking my duty to preserve the line of King Arthur very seriously.

Since a part of the reason for doing this site is to showcase my photos and practice writing in the hope that publishers and editors will stumble over it and instantly offer me a lucrative contracts, 1) please do not borrow my photos or writing without permission, and at least provide clear attribution, and 2) feel free to provide positive or negative critique in the comments, preferably with some kind of explanation for why you do or do not like a particular photo or piece.

All photos and text on this site are mine unless obviously credited to someone else - please read my Copyright Notice if you would like to link to or use any content.

I don't look much like this anymore...

CONTACT ME

Most of the photos on this site are shot as full-frame raw images, so if you would like to contact me to discuss purchase or commissioning of photos, they are usually available at high res suitable for publishing or printing.

For anyone desperately interested in the gear:

• I use a tripod whenever I can and am so happy with my Markins M10 ball head that I'm planning a review article soon.
• Most of what I show on this site will be recent: so the EOS 5DII with any of 70-200mm f2.8L ISII; 100mm f2.8 Macro (the non-IS version); 90mm f2.8 tilt-shift (bought on a whim from a dealer selling an order at half price after a client changed his mind - and now my favourite lens); 28mm f1.8 USM.
• Photos processed using Adobe CS4 CS5 CS6 Camera Raw and/or Photoshop.
• As of 3 years ago most photos geotagged to approx 5m accuracy from Garmin eTrex Vista HCx tracks using Geosetter. The Vista HCx selected because of it's ability to record a daily gpx track onto a micro SD card which means it never runs out of track memory. GeoSetter is Highly Recommended - it provides a fantastic GUI interface for working with embedded photo metadata, and available free from http://www.geosetter.de/en/.
• Older digital photos with the 5D - same lens lineup except with a very old 80-200mm f2.8L EF zoom instead of the brand new 70-200. Nearly as good optically, but not exactly the thing for candid street photography, with focus slower than slow.
• There may even be a few photos with an old 6 megpixel EOS Digital Rebel and the 50mm f1.8 plastic wonder.
• Once in a while there will be photos scanned from film in which case it would usually be Velvia or Provia for colour or T-Max for B&W, although there are likely to be a few other emulsions, often pushed to 1600 or so for low light candids, and shot on any of:
• Mamiya 645 pro with f2.8 80mm std lens
• or 35mm EOS 5 with the plastic 50mm, the superlative 24mm f2.8 Sigma lens which sadly was not compatible with my digital bodies, or the 80-200 f2.8L
• or 35mm Contax with 50mm f1.4 Zeiss
• or going way back, even a Pentax ME Super with a 50mm f1.8 (I think).