Sometimes accidents produce interesting results. A few days ago Marian pointed out a spider web in our neighbor’s yard, so I came over and took a few pictures. Then I started diddling around to get something different. This meant leaning over the fence, pointing the camera in an uncomfortable direction, and then manually focusing—all while trying to keep my eye on the LCD screen since I couldn’t use the viewfinder.

Unfortunately, one of my few complaints about my camera is that it’s really easy to accidentally change the white balance. And that’s what happened here. While I was contorting myself, the white balance got changed to some weird custom setting that defaults to tungsten, which means outdoor light becomes very, very blue. And of course, the sky in the background was already blue. So I ended up with a picture of a spider web that’s a very bright, intense blue.

That’s not what I was after, but it’s kind of mesmerizing in its own way.

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BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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