Daily Image - Jun 2013 Archive

03 Jun 13 . Leaving for a trip to a local hands on aquarium a few days back, one of the cherubs spotted something that was very interesting to her alongside the gravel driveway and requested that I take a photo of it. So I did, several actually, and I'm sharing the best of the group, in my opinion, with you today. Now exactly what they are, besides being fungi, I have no idea. They popped up about 10 days ago, and now are all but forgotten. An interesting grouping of individuals, there are five different sets of these and they all appeared at the same time, and all have gone their way similarly. I significantly cropped the original as there was way too much stuff distracting from the subject, and I've added a small bit of detail to the splits, but not to the fungi as they held their detail quite well on their own. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 400; 1/25 sec @ f /16 hand held.

04 Jun 13. Back on the first of March I sent out an image taken near Rockport, WA which had a snow capped mountain in the background and lots of golden ground cover in the foreground; that's for reference. This is the same image but I've both converted it to B&W and inverted the colors. Now what I think I have is what an old printing glass would have looked like in the middle 19th century, a B&W negative if you will. The image you are seeing is VERY grainy, but the "original" from which I made this was too,although it was not as apparent in the colored version. I've not printed this, but if one were to so do I believe you would come out with a B&W version of what I originally shared. At first glance it is going to look like, WHOA, what happened, but study it for a few moments and I think you will see an amazing amount of detail, perhaps even a slight sense of a third dimension in the tree line. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/640 sec @ f / 8.

05 Jun 13. Taking an extra day for myself after the two day training session, I headed out to see what I might experience in the greater SL City area of Utah. I began the adventure with a small printout of a map taken from the computer, but as my intended route was blocked by snow, I was almost immediately on my own with "no direction home." I spent the better part of an hour trying to purchase a map, and was amazed at how difficult that actually was. It seems with the advent of GPS, no one wants a map because they can look at their GPS. But if you don't know where you are going, the GPS is basically useless. Eventually I found a map, and started out on my journey. First stop was Bridal Veil Falls, which, as it turns out, is just one of many falls sharing that particular name. There was a paved trail leading to the base, but the climb to the viewing area for the upper falls was a bit tricky as it was both steep and rocky, often not stable, and required some scrambling over large rocks to complete. I had failed to take along the proper shoes, not expecting to be climbing anything rocky, and managed to have my feet go out from underneath me requiring a rather hard landing on the hand connected to the shoulder recovering from surgery. That got my attention for the rest of the day, but didn't stop me from spending the next 12 hours enjoying the spectacular scenery in that part of Utah. The falls has an upper and lower portion, and this is a view of just the upper portion as that is all that is visible from the trail summit. It appears to be an afternoon shot sun-wise, and as I was there in the morning, it is not as colorful as I would have preferred. You'll just need some amber colored glasses. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 400; 1/160 sec @ f / 6.3. Hope you enjoy, dave

06 Jun 13. Having found my way accidentally to the site of the 2002 Winter Olympic Games, I parked my car in a lot that was, among other things, home to a very complete information office. Having driven around for an hour earlier in the morning trying to find the non-existent map of Utah, and then several more with the purchased one, the information office provided me with a couple of first rate maps that were far better than the one I purchased, plus additional material that will be very helpful this fall. The woman at the desk even made a few suggestions that were much appreciated. Walking out of the office and looking across the parking lot, I took some shots of a couple of interesting objects without having even the slightest idea of what it was I was observing. It wasn't until I had driven down the road a bit that it suddenly dawned on me what it was I was observing. So I turned around and drove back and took a few more images before making my way down the road. I hadn't gone far when I came upon a beautiful church sitting in a verdant green field at the mountains base. I remember commenting on how tough it must be to be a member of that congregation. A 1/4 mile or so further I came upon a delightful little marsh and so I stopped alongside the highway to photograph it; I'll say more about that marsh in a subsequent mailing. That beautiful church however sat a stones throw from one end of that marsh. I took several different shots of it and worked them up in different ways. This version is an attempt to create a tapestry look, an idea that came about from watching too many episodes of The Tudors. One thing that struck me as odd was the stained glass windows in the sanctuary; with a view such as this edifice is afforded, I can't comprehend how you could improve on it. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/500 sec @ f /10.

07 Jun 13. Having made the decision that I wanted to spend some time working the marsh, I pulled the vehicle far enough off the road to enable my being there not affect the fast moving traffic whizzing past me. As I was walking from one end of the marsh to the other shooting the area from different perspectives, I noticed what looked to be some trash on a pile of reeds which was a bit disturbing. As I got closer, I reassessed what I was seeing and I now thought I was viewing the remains of some unfortunate creature. I worked my way closer only to discover my deceased critter was a crane sitting on a nest of eggs. No matter what I did, and I was careful in everything I did do, the bird never moved off the nest and kept a sharp eye out for me. I'm thinking this was a Sandhill Crane, as they are reported to nest in Utah at the higher elevations in meadows and wetlands, and this was indeed a wetland at about 9000 feet just outside Park City, Utah. I couldn't get close enough - fence in the way - to get the shot I wanted, so I've had to do a little work on this one to make it presentable by some severe cropping, softening of all but the bird, and a bit of cloning. The image was quite sharp overall originally, but that much sharpness made it very difficult to see the bird, so I've made her a lot more conspicuous. Do zoom in on her as she is really sharp. If I were going to compete this image I would additionally clone out all the grass immediately in front of her, but by leaving it in you get an idea as to how well she was hidden. A casual walk by the site would not reveal the bird at all; you would have to be studying the area, as I was, to ever notice something there. A very lucky find is all I can say. Not all however, was so lucky which we'll save for another image. D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/640 sec @ f / 7.1.

10 Jun 13. Our visits to the beaches with the cherubs during the Decoration Day weekend low tides offered us lots of interesting sights in the intertidal zone area, and it afforded me much opportunity to photograph in areas generally under many feet of salt water. This particular shot was taken at the corner of a rock that would normally be under 20 feet or so of water. For those of you who SCUBA dive this would be a frequent sight, but for the land lubbers it becomes viewable only a few days a year, and half of those in the black of night. This image is pretty much what came out of the camera, save for some tight cropping, a bit of after the fact fill lighting, and some very slight texture enhancement to emphasize the detail in the critters, including the pale blue one in the center of the image I can't identify but which may be a shrimp. The others of course being sea stars and a female Dungeness crab. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/125 sec @ f / 8.

11 Jun 13. The last weekend in May saw a medieval faire being offered in our local community of Port Gamble. We've been to other such entertainment before, but this one was different in that it featured demonstrations of a large number of crafts that would have been trades in times of lore, as well as lots of sporting events in which you could participate if desired. We didn't. While I took a fair number of images of the individual crafts, and I'll share at least one later, the shots I tended to think were the best were some of those of the sporting events. This one in particular is a big picture view of the multiple arenas set up for jousting, and with it being B&W Tuesday, it is in that format; well almost. It looked O.K. as a B&W, but I felt it was made a much stronger image by adding a bit of tint, especially since I didn't have to work with those old messy compounds of my youth. I elected to selectively bring back the blues and a little bit of some of the greens, but not all. The result is an image in which I think your attention will be held primarily to the B&W portion of the photo; no doubt you will have to look at the color, but after having done so your eye will likely take you back to the monochromatic part. I began by painting in some enhancement to the clouds and the dirt path, then applied some strong noise reduction for a softening effect but painted it out of the trees and people sections, then converted it to B&W, and finally masked the B&W conversion and painted back in the color where I wanted it, using a 100% return for the clouds and about 25% for the grass. The combination provided me with my "tinted" B&W photo. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/640 sec @ f /10.

12 Jun 13. With the departure of the cherubs and family following a weekend sleep over 9th birthday party, Jan thought it would be nice to go look at something calming so we headed over to Sequim to drive along one of her favorite drives, part of which is a section of 2-lane road paralleling the Strait of Juan deFuca on the West and some VERY nice homes on the East. As we were driving along we noticed a small group of cars parked on the side of the road with folks siting in chairs with either binoculars or cameras pointing upward. We assumed they were watching something in the trees and figured we'd stop and inquire on our way back. By the time we returned there were fewer folks but we stopped anyway to inquire and as we did Jan spotted a large nest in the trees. The eerie belonged to a pair of breeding Bald Eagles whose previous nest had been blown away in a storm two years previous. This new nest was but two years old but looked large enough to have been in place for years. I inquired as to the activity and was told that there was one chick in the nest, that it had been walking along the edge earlier and that it had almost fallen off but was now safely inside the nest. As we were chatting the adults returned with mom joining junior with the evening meal and dad positioning himself a few trees away. When supper was over she departed with the debris leaving, I would imagine, a partially clean nest as we departed for supper of our own. The nest construction however was not as neat, so I had to clone out a number of branches obstructing part of her body and both wings as well as reconstruct her wings. Zoom in and take a good look at those feet. Wouldn't want to be on that end of the bird.Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/500 sec @ f / 9.

13 Jun 13. This past Saturday I had the opportunity of being a participant in the annual NWCCC Ed Day which featured a former professional Pulitzer winning newspaper photographer, an internationally recognized local photographer, and me as a filler. It was quite a privilege to be a participant, and while my talk wasn't on the level of the other two, I did have fun demonstrating how I do the creative images, such as this one for Theatrical Thursday. This is one I shard on Saturday, and one that got several positive comments. The talk began with a short slide show of before and after images, then a sharing of the stages involved in creating the images, followed by working on a couple from scratch. I didn't really make the best use of my time, trying to do too much, but I think the idea got across O.K. The talk gave me ideas as to how to go about it better, and I've already begun to put in some big refinements in case there is a next time around. The subject for today is the molt from a Dungeness crab which I found last June during one of our very low tides. The colors you see are the actual colors but they have been slightly saturated, perhaps by 10 -15%, which is not a lot. I thought the creative look made for a more interesting presentation, and if the comments I heard Saturday mean anything, I am not alone in that thought. This was a simple two step process, original background layer plus a second duplicate layer on which I ran the filter to create the effect. The two layers were flattened into one, and you see the result. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 400; 1/100 sec @ f /10.

14 Jun 13. Drift back to the two images I shared at the end of last week, and put yourself at the far end of the marshy area in which the crane was nesting. Walking from that far end all the way to the other side, the end where you could see the church, took me the better part of an hour, just looking at all the beauty in the marsh and trying different angles to fully capture what I was seeing, plus also trying to get the bird to show me a bit more than she did. I was so excited with what I was observing that I got into my car to call Jan to share with her that which I could. As the road noise was quite loud, I had the windows rolled up and the camera on the seat beside me. As we were talking, an osprey flew directly across the front of the car, made a sharp 90 and flew right by the passenger side of the vehicle, swooped down, and grabbed a fish right before my eyes and departed with the fish hanging beneath it. I got to witness it all first hand, and the camera was NOT in my hands. I berated myself for days about that loss of a great opportunity. On most days at home we take Maggie for a walk and I almost always take the camera along. One day last week, the weather not being as nice as I would like it, I left the camera home as we walked the mile to the beach. As we were watching Maggie romp around on the sand, this brown bird flew past us, went a ways down the shoreline, then suddenly dropped into the surf, and then made a return flight right in front of us almost at eye level with a fish in its talons. Another osprey, and another missed opportunity. Not often you are given two wonderful opportunities like that only to blow them both. Oh well, perhaps one day there will be a third time with the camera in hand. Not all was a loss, as the beach was rather nice to see, but it would have been oh so much better having captured that osprey with breakfast in hand. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/320 sec @ f /14.

17 Jun 13. There is a small landscape/nursery called Elandan Gardens located about half way between Bremerton and Port Orchard, WA, that we frequently pass by when traveling to Port Orchard and environs south, that has some interesting items on its grounds as well as some photographically challenging items in its shop due primarily to it being very crowded and poorly lit. We visited there once, after having driven by it numerous times always finding it closed (it closes for the "winter.") On the occasion we finally did find it open, it had been raining hard earlier in the morning and most everything on the grounds was very wet. That of course offered an opportunity to play with little drops of water glistening on the edges and surfaces of various plants. One evergreen in particular caught my eye and I played with it for a few minutes, resulting in a couple of what I felt to be usable images. I took one of them, enhanced the texture just a tiny amount to give the needles a bit more presence, increased the contrast some to provide for more sparkle on the rain drops, and then added a light gray vignette. Normally one tends to use either white or black for the vignetting, but as the image was already heading towards a high key look, I didn't want to push it further. So while the light gray provided for a light edge treatment, it didn't offer a brighter edge treatment such as might pull your eyes out of the image. The finished product might serve well as a greeting card of some type, a repeating pattern for something like wrapping paper, or maybe even a puzzle. Nikon D300s, 18 -200; Aperture Priority; ISO 250; 1/125 sec @ f / 5.6 to throw the background out of focus.

18 Jun 13. For this Tuesday's B&W image I've elected to go with a shot from out local beach, Eglon Beach, that I took one day with the cherubs. They of course were off playing along the surf line, while I was having a great time working with the clouds and the shoreline. Near the high tide part of the beach sits a large tree stump that washed ashore sometime back, and will likely be where it is until we experience another "get your attention" storm. Meanwhile, it is positioned such that one can use it for photographic purposes, and in this instance, I chose to contrast the texture of the bark with that of the clouds. The clouds received some separate work first, followed by a similar approach, but to a much lessor degree, on the stump. Then I converted the image to B&W - just for today - increased the contrast, removed a bit of "noise" from the sky caused by the texture application earlier, and finally added a subtle vignette. Then it was flattened and converted to a jpeg. The result is what you see. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/640 sec @ f / 9.

19 Jun 13. A half mile down the road from out home sits Eglon School, a now retired 8 grade school house that my father and his two sisters attended in the late teens and twenties of the 20th Century. My father attended all eight grades and then went no further as he was needed on the farm. He had a successful fishing career for 11 years before being frozen in at Boeing during the WWII. He had spent his fishing time off working as a sweeper for the company, but upon being frozen there he never returned to fishing afterward. Instead he stayed with the company for over 30 years rising from that lowly position as sweeper to the number two position in the company in the Maintenance Division. Not too bad a career for an 8th grader. My uncle, his brother-in-law, had a similar education at nearby Hansville grade school, leaving the farm to become the primary businessman in Hansville, owning and running the general store, gas station, cafeteria, boat house, resort cabins and was additionally the Post Master for the town. Again with just an 8th grade education. Today we routinely find high school and even college graduates who can't even make change! Makes one wonder what has happened to our educational system. Today's submission is a 10 layered image, the creation of which will be detailed in the following paragraph, in case such things might interest you. Back to the standard fare tomorrow. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/320 sec @ f / 8. Now here is what I did. I've included a thumbnail of the image (above) straight out of the camera for reference. Starting with the original image (background layer), I duped that layer as I always do and then cropped out a bit of stuff that I didn't think necessary. Duped that layer and cloned out a few wires and other annoying things.Then I added a texture layer to bring out all the details in the old wooden building. Then I combined all those layers into a new layer. At that point I created a new blank layer which I filled with 50% gray color and changed the blending mode to overlay thereby making it a dodge and burn layer, to be used just like the procedure in the wet darkroom with a print. This was needed because the lights inside the building were turned off and I wanted them on. To do so I selected all the windows (you can employ any and all the selection tools you like for this step) and then, using a white brush set at 10% opacity, painted over the selected areas (windows) thereby making them lighter resulting in the effect of having turned on the interior lights. I duped that resultant layer and literally painted in some clouds on the left side of the image to decrease the bright area there. Then I added a curves layer to adjust the grass, another layer to create a vignette using the same dodge and burn technique as before, and finally the last layer in which I did some selective noise reduction. This was not camera noise but graininess caused by the manipulations. The entire layer stack was then flattened and saved out in the sRGB color space for viewing on the web.

20 Jun 13. Back to the norm for Theatrical Thursday with a watercolor version of a rather interesting purple flower I encountered at one of our local nurseries. To be sure it was named, but at this particular nursery what you mostly get is the scientific name of the plants you are viewing/purchasing. I have trouble enough with the common names, so there is no way I'm going to be able to identify what this plant is called. No doubt one of you will recognize it, but for me it is just "another pretty face." What caught my eye was the tightly wound deep yellow center petals surrounded by the dark sides of the unopened blossoms which were further surrounded by the lighter fully opened flowers. I'm sure there is a set of correct terms for what I've shot, but I can't recall having ever run into them, so my weak description will have to suffice. The original was nice, but I prefer the stylized watercolor over what was shot. The relatively large blade of yellow grass arching across the URH corner can be viewed as either a distraction that needs removal, or as a guide to return your eye back to the flower. The choice is truly yours and I know there will be a split decision as to which it does. This was a simple two layer image, the background and a dupe on which I ran a filter to create the stylized watercolor look. I then adjusted the opacity of the stylized layer until I got the "look" I wanted. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/320 sec @ f / 9.

21 Jun 13. Not being much of an architectural photographer, I may as well share with you the only other photo of that type I have. This one is of a small church, Eglon Community Church, located across the street from the school house I shared Wednesday. And it happens to be the church in which my grandparents worshiped and played in the church band, both of them being members of the Salvation Army, the organization who built the church. By the time I was old enough to participate in activities in the church my grandparents had stopped worshiping there; I never learned why. About the time we moved back here from MD, I was given a card with a painting on it of this old church. It was very stylized in that the artist had removed everything not desired and even added a bit of foliage to accent the overall look. I decided I'd try my hand at making a comparable picture, but as I was going with a photograph, it would be somewhat more realistic. It's a tough shot to pull off as there is a lot of "junk" between the photographer and the church, and not a lot of free room in which to move back to compose. But I gave it a go and came up with what you see. After having shot the church I thought the school house would be a good partner, that's why I shot it, and have now combined the two structures, the oldest remaining community buildings in Eglon, as far as I know, (the dock mentioned in the link was built by my grandfather and father along with several more Eglon residents of the time), into a single image for use in creating a card for the community. The creation of this church image followed steps very close to those used for the school house image. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/800 sec @ f / 8.

24 Jun 13. Something very simple for today but in my eyes very elegant. Walking along the road from our home to the beach we pass through what would have been underbrush before a section was chopped out to make the road. As such, the sides of the road are rich in vegetation, much of it fruit producing and protected by stickers! The fruit comes in yellow, orange, and red colors, but the plants producing the fruit are all green, and many hues of it. If you look very closely at the leaves you will notice that there are occasional portions of the leaf where the sugar manufacturing engine is not functioning, and you get a hint of how the leaves will look come Autumn. If you tease that color a bit with software you can create a rather lovely representation of how things will look come October, or thereabouts. To accomplish this I first cropped and cloned out any element not necessary for the final image on a dupe layer, then added a clarity layer to enhance the fine texture, and finally did a hue adjustment for the hues yellow, orange, and green to accentuate the color that was lurking underneath the green. All simple and easy adjustments. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/250 sec @ f / 7.1.

25 Jun 13 . It was supposed to be a wet Monday but it waited until today when it came down as if we should be scouting for an Ark. So I've chosen a subject appropriate for the day. The original shot was taken a few days back and towards the approach of twilight, so the colors were a bit on the muted side but the clouds and their reflection on the water made for a nice composition. As the scene was one of an approaching front, I thought it might tell its story more poignantly in B&W, as opposed to color, so I converted it and liked what I got. This is another easily created image; base image was duped and that was cropped to give just the perspective I wanted. Another layer was added to which I did some contrast enhancement, then another layer that became the B&W conversion, and a final layer in which I applied some slight noise reduction to soften the overall appearance. Since noise reduction algorithms create their effect of noise reduction by slight blurring of the image, they can be used creatively for softening any image. This photo will likely view better from a distance as opposed to sitting right in front of your screen. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/800 sec @ f / 9.

26 Jun 13 . A 20 minute ride from here is Valley Nursery, a wonderful full service nursery that is very photographer friendly. I find that I'm there several times a month to play with the flowers in bloom while Jan is frequently finding things there to bring home. That may be the idea behind being photographer friendly; if not, it works well on its own. With 6 acres of grounds stocked with everything you can imagine, and then some more, there is ample opportunity for finding something of interest any time you visit. Even better, they allow you to move things around, as long as you are careful, to get the shot you want. Hard to find a business like that these days, and I do my best to make certain that I am as careful as possible and stay out of the way of those shopping while I'm photographing. So far I've been fully welcomed. I've offered them my work but it has been turned down saying they have their own photographer, but I plan on just giving them a disk of photos to do with as they like. Who knows, they made need a coaster to place near the till. Today's shot is of a plant I can't accurately identify, but it is likely a member of the family that includes Hibiscus. This image is along the creative line in that I've taken a sharply back lit subject, softened the petals somewhat, and added a white vignette. I've left the rest of the plant in sharp focus for balance. Again, a simply created image that goes as follows: background layer which was duped for cropping and cloning; then a layer for the localized softening, and finally a layer for the vignette. All flattened to create the final output. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/500 sec @ f / 7.1.

27 Jun 13. Sitting on our rear deck amid dozens of other plants that either don't fit into or belong in Jan's plant room (sun porch) is a lovely primrose but of a variety many of you likely have not seen before. The plant produces a tall spire, or set of spires, three on this particular individual, that are surrounded by a myriad of tiny red buds that turn to purple when they open. The plant "blooms" from the base up to the tip of the spire, resulting in a red tipped purple spire. It is quite impressive in my mind and we bought one from Valley Nursery last year. It was a bit on the smallish side when we purchased it, but this year the spires are somewhere around 18 inches in height. It being Theatrical Thursday, I decided to share a fairly creative version of the photo I took of the plant in bloom, and even though I've really manipulated it, it does a rather good job of representing the complexity of the blooms on the spire. This was a very easy image to create: background layer (original photo); dupe of background to get the crop I wanted; a dupe of that layer to perform some cloning and removal of unwanted foliage; and finally a dupe of that layer on which I ran the filter to create the effect. Everything flattened and saved as a sRGB (for web viewing) jpeg image. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/400 sec @ f / 7.1

28 Jun 13 . As a youth I can remember hearing the phrase "in a storm any port will do" applied to many different things, but all relating to finding something necessary in a time of need. Sometimes the application of the phrase was meant to be funny, other times not so. But it generally got the idea conveyed that the speaker wanted. While we were walking on Scenic Beach a few weeks back during one of the low tides, I couldn't help but be reminded of that phrase when we came upon a couple of sea stars that were doing their very best to stay out of the elements, in this case a beach minus the water. Most of their compatriots were making the best they could with an occasional rock or patch of seaweed, but these guys had found an old container coming to their rescue. I've enhanced the texture of the container a fair amount to make up for what is being lost to decomposition, and also added some, to a much lessor degree, to the sea stars to show off the beautiful designs on the animals. The rest of the scene is basically what the camera captured. Background layer was duped for the texture application of the container, then duped again for the animals. Both layers were masked to limit the application to just the objects desired. All 3 layers were flattened to make the final image. The background (beach) softness at f/9 may seem odd, but this was a very close shot resulting in what you would generally associate with 4.0 in a normal scenic. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/125 sec @ f/ 9.