Daily Image - Jan 2013 Archive

02 Jan 13. Welcome to 2013 and the start of year 8 of the Daily Image. Here's hoping that all your teams won today, your heads are feeling fine, and that the Ball didn't hit you last night! Every Dec 3st/Jan 1st I put all the text of the year's mailings into a single document; even with one month off (3 weeks in Jan and one week in Sept) the text for 2012 totaled 93 pages. I must be getting very wordy. I have a volume for every year I've been doing this and it is fun to go back and read it as an annual diary. It gives me a good feel for the year and how it went. There were a few themes in the 2012 diary and among them were travel and weather. The weather this past year being one of extremes in duration of either dry or wet. And so far nothing of the white kind of wet to speak of other than a couple of days of flurries, but I can hope. These past few days have been cold, damp, and windy with the potential for some dramatic skies, so what better to start off the year than a pano of the big city taken from the water. This image consisted of 9 frames that I've stitched together to give a view of the entire waterfront, something that must have looked vastly different 150 ago. From this vantage point it is hard to believe that there were ever any trees on the hills at all. I would have preferred not having the Space Needle growing out of a tall building like it is, but one way or another it would be growing out of one of the buildings. Next time I'll just have to ask the Captain to reposition the vessel. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/500 sec @ f /10.

03 Jan 13 . Back in the first half of the 70s I spent my time in a hyperbaric lab doing research in decompression sickness, 4 years of which it was in a lab of my design and construct. Those were some of the best years of my career, and I often think of what might have been, as opposed to what actually was, had the Director of our Institute been of a different mindset. In short, he took everything he could from his employees and then got rid of them. In the process he spawned several good careers for others although I know that wasn't his intent. That brings us to the first part of today's submission, that of looking at a sea creature, the sea cucumber, Isostichopus fuscus. Normally found crawling along the bottom of the intertidal zone, they are easy prey for those feeding on them except for their habit of eviscerating themselves letting the predator eat the eviscerate while the animal leaves the scene. When frightened for any reason, this is a typical response. At the Poulsbo Marine Science Center they have one you are allowed to pick up and literally take out of the water. They do observe you carefully so as to not get the critter so disturbed that it does the escape trick. While we were visiting last week the grand daughters were looking at it and one actually held it for a while partially out of the water. Apparently the number of folks playing with it actually did over stress it while it didn't eviscerate, it managed to form a large air bubble (think decompression sickness) at the ventral end. For the last 30 minutes of our visit it was floating around the tank head down and tush up which no one there had ever seen occur before. On our next trip I'm gong to be inquiring as to how it fared. The tank in which it lives is relatively shallow, and as there is no current moving the water around, it gets a bit clutter with debris including a lot of air bubbles on the surface. The result was that the photos were not quite as good as I would have desired. Enter a new software product, the second part of this tome. Perfect Photo Suite 7 has a filter called magic ocean, and it really helped make this image presentable. Although designed I'm sure to deal with the loss of red light as the water depth increases, it worked well even in this shallow tank environment. For those of you without Photoshop due to its price, I recommend you look into this product. That said, have a look at a sea cucumber floating around in a touch me tank. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 1000; 1/60 sec @ f / 9 with fill flash.

04 Jan 13. Following an absolutely glorious day with blue skies and crystal clear air, we are back to more rain! From many folks around here, I've heard the expression in one form or another, that it is days such as today, rare as they are, that makes living here what it is. Not sure I agree with that statement in the least, but I have said over and over again that when it is beautiful here it is as beautiful as any place in the world. Now if the proof of the pudding is in the tasting, I guess one could say, although not as clever as the pudding comment, that the proof of what I just said is in the viewing. So here is a shot taken today from a local national retailer's parking lot; and one that got its start in Seattle. I've added a wee bit of detail enhancement to counter the softness inherent in all digital cameras. Otherwise, this was what we saw today as we were driving around on errands. You are looking at The Brothers, part of the Olympic Range. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture priority; ISO 200; 1/640 sec @ f /8.

06 Jan 12 . On occasion I share a Saturday Night Special, a play on words of course, but this one is for a special Sunday marking the end of the Christmas season for which I haven't been able to come up with a clever play on words. I'm hoping the title of the slide will give it all away, but since many of you never look at the image title(s), this is your hint to so do. The photo is of an original piece of work on the side of a building in Poulsbo, WA, of three Chinook salmon appearing as though they were jumping up a rapid. I thought it was a very nice piece of work as it was, but if I were going to share it I would have to redo it sufficiently to make it mine. So I've completely changed the background from a sandstone wall to a blue to simulate running water with sunlight filtering through it, enhanced the colors of the fish to their spawning finery, and made them look a little like they are reflecting back the light in the water. I've also imparted a bit of motion blur to further suggest swimming through the water. Obviously a creative image. D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/250 sec @ f / 8.

07 Jan 13. A couple of years prior to our departure from MD we were introduced to the Christmas light display at Brookside Gardens. It was such a delight that we visited every Christmas until we left. We we moved to Seattle we found something similar although not fully comparable in the Bellevue Botanical Gardens. In both gardens the grounds were fully decorated with incandescent light that photographed well, at least for me. Each year was a delight and every visit provided for a different experience. Last year we didn't go due to a change in the philosophy of the garden in Bellevue and as such there were no Christmas light images for the end of 2011 or start of 2012. We didn't attend this year either but we did find a new location to shoot right in our own back yard so to speak in Kingston at the Port Facility. It appears the the idea for decorating the Port was inspired by the Bellevue Botanical Gardens show. As in the past, the night I chose to shoot the light was really cold! but this year's exercise was the coldest I can recall. I wasn't very pleased with my results, and I'm not sure if it was the weather, the location (a decorated parking area rather than a garden) or the use of LEDs as opposed to the bigger and not as bright incandescent bulbs. While I'm rather certain that all 3 played a role, I'm thinking it was more the kind of lighting than the other two. Since I wasn't satisfied with how the "straight" images turned out, I've creatively altered this image to give the kind of experience I was hoping to experience but didn't. It is very festive it not factual, but I thought I'd share it as the 12 Days of Christmas have just past and if I waited any longer it might seem very unseasonal. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 100; 6 sec @ f /18 on a tripod.

08 Jan 13. Back in early fall we paid a visit to a very small community called Nordland, WA. We weren't headed there, but "found" it on our way to our actual destination. It reminded me of an Alaskan fishing village but of course isn't, but as it was enshrouded in fog, it really had that kind of feeling. There were a few fishing boats, a few sailboats, and a couple of small boats in the bay. One of them was situated just perfectly for a close up so I played with it for a few minutes. The fog was waxing and waning so each shot was a bit different from the other. In this one I had to add just a wee bit of color in the green to keep it from looking totally flat, not necessarily unnatural in fog, but totally flat is generally not all that interesting. Now all we have to do is find the vessel to which this little skiff belongs. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/320 sec @ f / 5.6.

09 Jan 13. After spending the short time we did in Nordland enjoying the fog, we traveled on into Pt Townsend where we had even more fog with which to play. You may recall the two images I shared last fall of the ferry and the Lady Washington. They were taken as we had lunch in a nice bistro up a couple levels over looking the water. After we finished we began a walk around town looking for "stuff" to purchase, and we didn't have a lot of trouble in so doing. Along the way the fog departed and the area became more active, both with people and critters. This critter was having lunch at what it might have considered a local bistro. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/800 sec @ f /10.

10 Jan 13. Here is another of the foggy morning images taken at Mystery Bay that Sept morn. In reality the colors were more muted than they are in the image, but it was so bland that I felt it could stand just a wee bit of help. So I've selectively increased the saturation in the sails just to keep it from looking like a sheet of gray. Just a tad bit of a breeze gave some definition to the water but not enough to completely interfere with the reflection. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/640 sec @ f / 7.1.

11 Jan 13. From the simple of yesterday to the complex of today. The day following the trip to Pt Townsend we made our way up to Mt Rainier. I wasn't thinking very clearly about what I was doing and chose to go to the Sunrise side of the mountain vice the Paradise side. That was a big mistake as the fires that had been raging during the month on the eastern side of the Cascades were still having a significant influence on the atmosphere on the Sunrise side which, if I had planned for, would have had us re-visit the Paradise side. The problem really wasn't noticeable until we reached almost the end of the road, a wide 270° hairpin turn with a parking lot in the middle. From there one can shoot a variety of lovely images of both the cascades including a right-in-your-face Mt Rainier and much of the surrounding valleys. But it was not to be with all the particulate matter floating in the air. So we shot what we could and moved on. Thinking about some of the creative techniques I've been playing with over the past several months, I thought I'd try to salvage one or two of those images from the visit as an exercise. Today's submission is one such attempt. All of the effort was concentrated on different contrast manipulations and while it wasn't 100% successful, meaning it doesn't look like what it would have had the skies been clear, it's still pretty close and for anyone who has never seen the mountain it just might be totally passable. I share this as an example for those of you who may have an "almost there" image or two and would like to try to recover them, something along the lines of restoring an old photograph. One could further refine it by applying some softening, hue adjustment, and white & black point settings as adjustment layers, but for this exercise I wanted to limit the adjustments to contrast only. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority;ISO 200; 1/400 sec @ f / 9.

14 Jan 13. With the morning temps hovering in the low 20s these past few days the myriad of puddles have turned into miniature ice rinks, resplendent with leaves, bubbles, and streaks decorating the ice. I've been attempting to capture them on the occasions when Maggie & Mini haven't found them places to crunch in their playing. Both dogs seem to like to walk on top of them which means I have to get there first. The front yard puddles don't have much of a chance, but several in the back are holding their own. This shot is of one of the back set which didn't seem all that interesting until the sunlight filtering through the trees hit it at just right sloping angle. Because we are having to visualize it in two dimensions vs the three that our eyes provide us, I've increased the structure just enough to make the ice look as it did when I was photographing it. Otherwise this is pretty much how it looked to me and how I wish the camera could capture it. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/60 sec @ f / 8 with fill flash.

15 Jan 13. Over the weekend I had a chance to view a couple of training videos on working in B&W. One really got my attention and gave me some ideas on working on a few older color images that I feel might be good candidates for conversion. Today's submission is one such image. I originally shared it in the spring of 2010 as a color image of the tulip fields in LaConner. It was a fairly decent image in the original form when I shared it then, but it sorta looked like it might be more impressive it properly converted to B&W. Now the catch is the word proper, and while I'm thinking I have a lot to learn about B&W images, just about every time I attempt converting one I like it sufficiently that I think I should spend more time so doing. So perhaps this year you will be seeing a lot more of the B&W stuff than in past. The particular thing that got my attention in the training video was the photographer's use of alternating bands of shades of gray (B&W). Remembering this image and how I had intentionally composed for rows of colors, I thought it might be a good candidate with which to start attempting to employ that strategy. I think it worked fairly well, but you can form your own opinion. D300; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 400; 1/500 sec @ f /11. Hope you enjoy, dave

16 Jan 13 . Today's image is the companion to last Friday's. Exhausting the possibilities that time was going to provide us at the Sunrise parking area at Mt Rainier, we headed, so to speak, right into the fire area paying a visit to Tipsoo Lake. There the environment was far more to our liking and we spent about 4 hours playing with the light. As it decided to depart the area we began to experience a rather nice, but not spectacular sunset, one however that not only provided us with some beautiful light, but light accompanied by the bugling of elk. That has to have been one of my more memorable shoots. IF ONLY, as is so often said, IF ONLY one or two of them would have elected to serenade us in sight. But I digress. While the sunset was nice, it was not a real keeper, so I've elected to add just a wee bit of color to make it more of what I would have desired, and rendered it in much the same manner as I did with an earlier mountain shot to look like it is made of torn paper. Not photographically real of course, but just as real a piece of art as any artwork in either paper or water color. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 400; 1/250 sec @ f /13.

17 Jan 13. We checked for the availability of birds (web page said the weekly count was over 300), made sure all the camera gear was in order (it appeared so), confirmed the weather status (Tue was to be the only day of full sun), and thus headed out before dawn yesterday (Tue) to go shoot eagles and geese. Got to the locality where we always shoot the eagles only to find a total of 12 that we could see at any distance, and none close enough for the gear I brought. Or for that matter that I owned. A 2000mm lens would have been the minimally acceptable lens for this trip. Twelve birds, when we usually count between 60 and 100 on any given day. Oh, and the weather wasn't what it was forecast to be, so we played tag with clouds all day long. Now the clouds made for some interesting shots as well as for some very frustrating periods when they completely covered what it was we were trying to shoot. But the light in between was simply magnificent, so by the time it was all over I shot about 400 frames of which likely 25 - 30 will make it to the DI. (We never got to the area with the geese.) We'll start with a shot taken from a bridge at the center of the eagle sighting area and one I've shared many times prior. You should be able to clearly see the Eldorado Mountains in the background except of course for the clouds, and normally you would also see perhaps 6 - 20 birds in the scene. I'll let you count them all, but don't expect much. This was what we encountered the entire day when it came to finding the eagles we went to shoot. In actuality, there happens to be two adult Bald Eagles in the frame, but I certainly didn't see them when I was taking the photo, and only by accident did I find them when post processing it. See if you can locate them. Which means we actually saw 14 birds. The stand of bare trees in the center right was very dark in the original, so I had to manipulate that area some which I did by creating a B&W layer, changing its blend mode to luminosity, and then painting it out of the photo everywhere except for the trees. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/320 sec @ f /9.

18 Jan 13. Not having had any success with the eagles, we headed further out for some mountain shots and having accomplished that, began our return with the idea of stopping off at Fir Island to shoot geese. We never got there. Instead, we took a fork in the road and headed up towards Baker Lake to see what we might find. I had been part way up the road but never to the end which we managed to do. Along the way we encountered a fair amount of snow, something that had been missing from the earlier part of the drive. Some of it was to be found in the form of mounds floating above a frozen something, be it a pond, marsh, very small lake I'm uncertain, but a body of water of some designation. The mounds of snow appeared as big cotton balls and easily got our attention. You can take a look and decide for yourself what they actually are. The image is basically straight from the camera but has been cropped to remove distractions in addition to some slight structure increase to help show off the refraction of the light off the crystalline nature of the snow, which Jan was describing as being rather shaggy. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/800 sec @ f /10.

21 Jan 13. Since I started this Daily Image mailing back in 2006, I've sold a total of two, and only two, images, both of which were nighttime images and both contained the moon. One was of a tree in an open field with a quarter moon shining down on the tree in early 2006, and the other was of the rising moon over the Seattle cityscape in 2007. So I thought it might be time for another nighttime moon scape - that may seem redundant but the moon is often quite visible during daylight hours - this time with some mountains. So I've selected an image from the trip last week up to shoot the eagles, and one that I shot a couple years ago, and put them together, much as I did with the image in 2006. I have no illusions that this will be the third seller, just thought it might be time to go with something that has had appeal on previous attempts. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/160 sec @ f / 8.

22 Jan 13. After having given it some serious thought, I've decided to make a major change to the Daily Image mailings and dedicate Tuesdays to B&W. That may be either good or bad news depending on your like or dislike of B&W, but it is something I think may prove to be worthwhile, if for no one else, then for me. This was taken relatively late in the morning with a fair amount of fog present. The color version is primarily of a blue hue, and while it is relatively interesting in blue, I felt it was a stronger image in B&W. If I had spent more time in my Dad's darkroom as a kid, I could identify the type of paper on which I would have liked to "print" this shot, but I can't and I haven't found that look in any of the filters I currently have available. Sooner or later one of the filter makers will, I'm sure, expand their list of active "paper" looks and I'll have that look available to share, but for now, we'll just go with this. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/250 sec @ f / 9.

23 Jan 13. In between the two playoff games on Sunday, I took a stroll down the road only to see a large fog bank headed up the road. So I turned around and returned to the house and jumped in the SUV to drive down to my cousin's farm to shoot it in the fog thinking that if we had fog, he would have much more being closer to the water and in a valley so to speak. I arrived to bright blue skies and brilliant sunshine. Perfect shooting weather! But not quite what I was hoping to find, so I returned home and drove down the road into our fog. By then it was lifting but the sunlight was streaming through the trees providing for some spectacular shots. I took several there and then drove back to house. Turning down our drive I was again presented with some very nice rays of light shining through the trees. So I shot that as well, and this is one of those. I've increased the detail in the rays to give a better idea of how they looked, but otherwise not changed anything else. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture priority; ISO 500; 1/60 sec @ f / 5.

24 Jan 13. The last leg of our Highway 20 trip last Tuesday saw us driving up to the Baker Lake area. Formed by a dam, Baker Lake offers some nice scenic areas in which to ply the art. Below Baker Lake proper there is another very small mud dam that forms another lake, but it is very small and I have not been able to find the name of it yet. There is a nice park associated with this small dam and plenty of camping area for those so inclined. You can also drive right out to the end of the dam, and from what I can tell the roadway across the top of the dam is open seasonally, or at least that is my perspective as I've only been there late in the year and both times it was closed. But you can walk out there if desired or just remain at the campground end and shoot, which is what I did on this last trip. Looking out over the lake you can see Mt Baker to your left, or at least it topmost portion, and directly across from your lake viewpoint, Sloan Peak in the Henry M. Jackson Wilderness. At 7835 feet it is by far not the most impressive peak in the Cascade range, but in as much as it looks a lot like the Matterhorn it will get your attention, even from a distance. And even though most of its sides present a difficult ascent, on one side is a scrambling trail all the way to the summit. While we were there it was playing a very active game of peek-a-boo with several layers of clouds, such that I thought of originally naming this image, layers. The temp was about 28ºF with a small amount of wind, so it was a bit chilly, but well worth being there. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture priority; ISO 200; 1/640 sec @ f / 8.

25 Jan 13. After having had a good experience at the Poulsbo Marine Science Center with the two cherubs we made a second trip a couple weeks later with a bit more equipment to counter the bad shooting conditions. The staff was very interested in what we were doing and tried their best to help, until the Director showed up and started giving me the 10th degree as to what I was doing, who I was, and why HE hadn't been informed as to my visit, and what exactly was I planning on doing with the images. Needless to say the visit was a short one, and we'll never go back. And I plan on sharing the experience with the community. Even had he not been such a jerk, my efforts there did not pay off, and probably never would, due to the difficulty of the setting. But I did, literally, get a couple of images I decided useful for creative efforts and by now I'm sure you realize this will be one such image. Now those of you around my age group will remember, perhaps vividly, the many monster movies of our youth. I had my favorites as I am sure you did also. Of course most of them were built around reptiles of some sort, and an occasional mammal. None however were focused around sea life, that wasn't to happen until the mid 70s. So I've created my own sea monster based on a cnidarian, one normally displaying red and green body parts and dozens of flailing white "arms" known to the locals as the Creature from Dogfish Bay. Contact with this voracious monster can result in instant paralysis while it slowly ingests you for a fate of slow dissolvement. Any sightings should be immediately reported to the local authorities. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture priority; ISO 200; 1/60 sec @f / 8 with fill flash.

28 Jan 13. With the inversion layer that hung around here for the better part of two weeks, we had some rather interesting temperature layers that made for higher level melting and lower level freezing. The day trip during which we went looking for the eagles saw temps around 40°F at 5K feet and 28°F at 4K feet. So snow melting at higher levels was running off and refreezing at lower levels. Made for some very nice ice sculptures. Perhaps what one might expect to see in a florist's shop as opposed to the kind of ice sculptures you see on a cruise or at a wedding. These were located right beside the road and as such were generally in the shade, but every so often we came upon a grouping where the sunlight was filtering through the trees and nicely illuminating the subjects. This looks to be a portion of a cedar branch that has been captured by the process. Above it was a series of rather large icicles which may be the subject of another mailing. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/400 sec @ f / 8.

29 Jan 13. Working our way along Hwy 20 I stopped now and then to take in what I thought might make for a nice image. The gray skies with patches of blue made for a nice background for the bare trees and the bluish-green water. There was sufficient light to offer a choice of several equivalent exposure combinations so I picked a set to give adequate depth and lack of movement, both on my part and the subject's. The original was a wee bit dark in the trees on the far bank, so I had to selectively lighten that small area. Other than that, the shot was pretty well balanced exposure wise. Converting it to B&W offered a couple of challenges, especially in the small tree branches at the top of the tree. After solving that problem the image was as close as I was going to get it without printing it on the appropriate paper, the kind of which I'm still trying to remember. Looking through an old Kodak spiral bound lab book today I came across a paper that was close to what I want, Kodak Medalist Paper J, but still not the exact thing. After saving out the image and downsizing it the way I always do for the small file size, the tree top was a mess so, I had to take the large image into a separate program made for doing nothing but re-sizing. This time it worked. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/500 sec @ f / 8.

30 Jan 13. I was mortified this evening when a good friend commented on the tire tracks in yesterday's image that I had totally missed, not only when I shot the image, but while I was processing it and during my sending it out, so we'll shift gears and go somewhere else while I review all those images taken on that trip to make certain I didn't overlook even more. Just down the road in front of our property about 1/2 of a mile is a small farm, The Broken Earth Farm, that grows organic farm crops ( as opposed to synthetic ones I guess ) and has a few old farm implements either "decorating" the area or simply left there when they were no longer of use. Among them is an old stove, or at least portions of an old stove. It is in very bad shape, what there is of it, but beautifully rusted; it was the rust that initially caught my eye. I tried several different approaches to capturing it but only one angle worked, and that is what I'm sharing here. I've shot it very tight, and were it not for a couple of handles lying at the bottom corner, it is unlikely that it could be identified as a stove. I've exaggerated the texture of the rust to bring out its beautiful colors, and cropped out some distractions at the top, but other than that it is straight out of the camera. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/60 sec @ f / 7.1 with fill flash.

31 Jan 13. Not seeing any eagles (more a testament to my vision than the supply) at the Rockport viewing area, I spent a few minutes photographing a very small stream that was splashing over a few rocks and branches. The branches were being nicely coated with creamy ice, while the water hurried its way towards the river below. I wanted to try something a little different, showing the water as a cottony flow over the rocks while stopping the splashes in mid stream, two things, that when you think about it, should be mutually exclusive. After a few attempts at different shutter speed/aperture combinations, I came up with what I'm sharing today. Not perfect, and I don't think a single exposure can be, which this is, although I think it quite possible by stacking two or more images, I have the water smoothly flowing over the rocks while the splashing water in the middle should appear to be stopped in its flow. The trick is in the write up. Take a gander and see if you visualize it the same way. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/60 sec @ f / 9 with fill flash.