Daily Image - Sep 2013 Archive

Labor Day Our (Maggie and me) late evening return from the visit to Tipsoo Lake brought with it a very pleasant surprise in my first sighting of an elk in Mt Rainier National Park, and only the second time I've ever seen elk in our Cascade mountains, although they flourish there in the thousands. I would have missed the entire viewing had it not been for a small jam up of vehicles on the side of the road forcing us to come to a crawl. That provided for ample and safe time to have a gander at what everybody was looking at along the road's edge. It turned out to be a rather large Bull Elk, a 6 point on this coast and 12 point on the east coast, that was having a late evening browse in a very lush wetland area. While you couldn't see the water - he was standing in a wet area reaching up to his belly - you could hear him slosh through it as he left the "easy" viewing area. Easy meaning that if you made it to the very edge of the shoulder of the road, and crunched down between the tree's low hanging branches, you had a slight chance to get a few shots. By the time I had managed to frame something minimally acceptable, and get off 2 frames, he wandered off to the right and up a bit of a grade almost completely out of sight from where I was parked. It truly was tripod time, but there wasn't time to set it up and he was moving his head to and fro munching on the succulent grass at a rate that would have rendered a long exposure a blur anyway. I grabbed my two frames as best I could and drove off. One was completely useless, and this one was barely acceptable. To give you an idea of the lighting conditions, look at the exposure data. I was VERY fortunate to get what I did. I've cropped away the greater part of the original, but otherwise it is pretty much straight from the camera. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 800; 1/13sec hand held.

03 Sep 13. For most of the last decade I've been planning on cataloging all my images of clouds for use as backgrounds whenever I need one. It's been one of those plans that just gets moved to the bottom of the list because there always seems to be something more important to do than that. Recently a very good friend commented on one of my images that he was going to steal the sky from it for use at a later date. That prompted me to get off my butt and get all the clouds copied to a single location as well as offer them for his use. I'm now 2/3 of the way through the project having copied all the images from 2004 - 2010. Just 2+ years to go to finally get the project accomplished. So far the files amount to 12.7 G of clouds and another 21.2 G of sky images which contain at least 50 % clouds. By the time I finish I expect to be able to fill a 50G small portable HD. While copying some of the images this evening I thought it might be fun to try a B&W cloud image of just clouds. So far this year I've shared close to a dozen B&W images that featured clouds as a major part of the landscape, but never one of just clouds, so this is a first attempt at so doing. The two areas in this image (5 & 9 o'clock) that look like areas of poor cloning, i.e., repeated pattern, are actually ice crystals. This is straight from the camera save for the B&W conversion. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 320; 1/400 sec @ f /10.

04 Sep 13. Based on the response to yesterday's submission, I know that just clouds are not appreciated, as I was "politely" told by Jan before I sent it. So we won't go there again. Now if my memory serves me right, there is an old saying that goes something like "early to bed, and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise." If my experiences has anything to say about it, having gone to bed at 2200 and up at 0200 through my undergraduate years, this saying is not quite on the mark, on any of the three counts. But it does sound good. My experience has been more along the lines of if you were to follow the advice, you would miss out on many beautiful sunsets, but would get to see all of the magnificent sunrises assuming the weather would allow for such to happen. This image is one such occasion when being up early made it all worthwhile. This one might even be acceptable for a magazine cover or full page spread such as those in outdoor Photographer, a magazine which seems to prefer the very dramatic to grace its pages. This was taken one morning on my way to go work on the house in 2010. I have done absolutely nothing to it so, for you purists, this one's for you. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 320; 1/160 sec @ f /10.

05 Sep 13 One evening while roaming around the finger piers at Fisherman's Terminal in Ballard shooting reflections of the boats, I noticed a couple of geese slowly making their way toward the area where they might get lucky and get a few fries from the folks hanging out in the restaurant area. What caught my eye was that they were paddling past a red boat whose reflection was on their right. It immediately brought to mind the mariners saying of "red right returning" meaning that when headed back into port you keep the red buoy abreast the starboard side of the ship. Somehow it seems, to keep my story working, that these geese had received some navigational training that went beyond basic flight training. I thought that the image would make for a good story. The original image has been altered somewhat to give it a bit of a painterly appearance in keeping with Theatrical Thursday. Nikon D300; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 320, 1/200 sec @ f / 5.6.

06 Sep 13 Traveling in a counter clockwise direction from the Paradise Visitors Center in Mt Rainier National Park on your way to the Sunrise Visitors Center, you pass by many spectacular vistas and waterfalls. Depending on your willingness to spend an amount of time on foot, you can see some sights that will have you talking about them for quite some time. Even if you aren't of a mind to do some vigorous exercise, you can still view some rather rugged, as well as beautiful, scenery a few feet to a few yards from your vehicle. Among these easy to view locations is the Box Canyon of the Cowlitz. This canyon wall might be thought of as a miniature Grand Canyon in that there is a river, 180 feet below, that flows at the base of the two walls of the canyon. Given that the fence keeping you a safe distance away from the edge was removed, a very highly motivated individual could probably jump across from one wall to the other. But they would have to be very motivated, say perhaps, finding the motivation from a large brown critter in hot pursuit. The colors you see here are basically what the eye would see on a sunny day, but as I took this immediately post storm, meaning that it wasn't a really sunny day, I had to do a little enhancing to bring them out. I've employed a curve layer to brighten things up and improve the global contrast and a micro contrast adjustment layer to give it some life. Should you visit the location on an early fall day with decent sunlight, this is what you would experience. Nikon D300s; 18-200; Aperture Priority; ISO 400, 1/160 sec @ f / 6.3.

09 Sep 13. Returning from a busy day in Seattle last Friday which included picking up our Triptik for the first phase of our Colorado Plateau adventure starting the 16th, we made the mistake of deciding to take the Edmonds ferry vice either the Seattle ferry or driving around and found ourselves and the cherubs sitting in the vehicle with a 90 minute wait just to get on boat. By the time we finally reached our side of the pond the sun was rapidly setting and providing a most delightful display. Once the orb had dropped behind the Olympics the after glow began to turn the clouds many shades of vibrant red-orange, and I found myself unable to get into position to capture it at its height. When I was finally able to reach a position that would allow me to get any kind of a shot the real show was over. But I was able to get a couple of frames that had potential. Selecting one, I first removed the power lines that I didn't need, then did a curves manipulation to bring back the lost color but left it only in the sky and masked it out of the mountains, fog layer, and trees. Then I created a dodge & burn layer to selectively darken parts of the sky to keep everything balanced. That brought the image to what I had been watching as I raced the sunset to find a place to shoot it. The mountain range in the background is the Olympics. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/60 sec @ f / 8.

10 Sep 13. During a three hour session on Saturday in which I was teaching creative editing of digital images, I was a bit surprised to see the amount of interest in B&W editing. While we didn't spend very much time on it as a class, I noticed several members of the group working with the B&W plug-in all on their own. Based on the number of companies I see coming out with tools for creating B&W images from color captures, I'm going to go out on a limb - not that I'd ever do something like that - and suggest that there is a Renaissance in B&W photography unlike anything we've seen since the era of Ansel Adams and his contemporaries. I'll admit that I'm looking more and more into that type of photography, but I'm leaning strongly towards the IR side. Now I just need to get the equipment that will allow me to so do. Until then I'll just have to convert color images to B&W ones. The shot for today started out as a color capture of a group of St John's Wort from which I cut out a single blossom, converted it to B&W, and then played around with it until I got just the look I wanted. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/640 sec @ f / 9.

11 Sep 13. During the past two years in which I've been watching literally dozens of on-line training programs (webinars) in the use of various software programs, it has come to my attention that there is an aspect of photography that I'm becoming very fond of and one which I would like to explore. So, beginning with our return from the 1st leg of our Colorado Plateau adventure, which will be sometime near the 1st of October, I'm going to add a new dedicated day to the already in place B&W Tuesday and Theatrical Thursday, which will be Fine Art Wednesday. This is not to proclaim that I am a fine art photographer, but rather that I am going to start exploring that particular aspect of the craft. With multiple examples having been shared via the webinars, I do have an idea where I would like to go. For those of you who like the "straight from the camera" stuff this will not be for you, but for those who appreciate exploring new areas of photography I think we will both like where it ultimately leads me. For now, here is a very poor example of fine art. I'm thinking it needs to be a lot softer, both in color and detail, but for now it is a start. The shot was taken in Pt Gamble in a display garden maintained by the Port Gamble Dahlia Society. The original was duped, then that layer had a Gaussian blur applied which was then masked out of the center of the flower. To make sure your attention was drawn to the middle of the blossom, I also applied a white vignette to the outside of the frame. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 250; 1/1000 sec @ f /10.

12 Sep 13. Today's theatrical Thursday offering is a creative playing with another dahlia, plus three insects this time, a bumblebee, a honeybee, and a fly whose name is escaping me at the moment, but one that pretends to be a bee. I tried something new this time, ran out of energy to do it properly, but guess that most folks won't notice where I cut corners. Feel welcome to point it out to me. To get this particular look, I duped the background layer and after selecting only the green background, saved a copy of the selection first and then applied a Gaussian blur to the background selection. After combining those layers, brought back the mask, and then inverted it to select just the flower. On that flower selection I applied a filter to simplify it, then erased the effect on the insects. Then I created another layer and applied an overall soft focus. I like the results some, and will utilize the approach again, but when I have more time to correct the one flaw in the image, which, is the most difficult part of creating what I did. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/1250 sec @ f/ 8 in some strong breeze.

13 Sep 13. Although one might think I'm sharing this image due to the record setting temps here in the Puget Sound area, I'm not. Rather, I thought it a fitting image for our sendoff on Monday for two weeks on the northern third of the Colorado Plateau. We'll be taking in three National Parks, all of which we've visited before, a few other areas we've also visited prior, and several new locations for which this will be our initial exposure. With luck we'll even meet up with another photo family from the Mountaineers who will be in one place at least at the same time as will we. Hoping for 5-10K frames with which to provide you with some views of the area during the month of October. If the weather holds, and that equates to no rain and the fires extinguished, I'm hoping for some nice autumnal photography, perhaps even taking in the rut in Yellowstone. We got to observe the elk in this time frame on our last visit; it made for some wonderful photography. This is a straight from the camera image. For now, we take our leave; see you in October. Nikon D300; ISO 200; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; 1/160 sec @ f / 9.

30 Sep 13. Well, here we go, with the fist of many images for the first third of our Colorado Plateau adventure. We left early on the 16th taking the Bainbridge ferry to Seattle to quickly get on I-90, but it didn't happen as quickly as anticipated. We were traveling with a new Tom-Tom gps and it got lost as soon as we exited the ferry in the city, so getting to I-90 was as quick as we had planned (we let it take us the way it wanted just to see how well it navigated which in downtown Seattle was poorly, but thereafter it was right on the money). As we hit Seattle the rains began and followed us all the way into eastern Washington, whereupon they vanished leaving us with what can only be described as spectacular clouds. Our first stop was at the Ginko Petrified Forest State Park in Vantage, WA, which will also be the first photo I share. It was very windy while we visited requiring fast shutter speeds to keep most everything that was not "tied down" from moving. Even so, the plants were hard to get crisp, so I've elected to make them a little soft for effect. Now, for those of you who generally read the narrative before looking at the image, stop reading and go look at the image, then come back to this point. The selection for today is one that in its original is not what you might consider worthy of sharing, but I wanted to use it to talk a bit about image creation. The shot is not a creative one in the normal sense of the creative images I share, but rather one in which I've endeavored to take a mundane starting point and making it something better. If I've done my work right, your eye went directly to the yellow flowers in the middle of the photo, then to the petrified wood at the bottom, and then either to the clouds or back to the flowers. The yellow flowers should almost stand out as if the image was in 3 dimensions. Here is what I did. Starting with the captured image, I duped it as a new layer in which I used a filter to increase the micro contrast of just the clouds. I then combined those two layers onto another layer and enhanced just the yellow flowers using another filter. Next, I selectively lightened the petrified wood at the bottom of the frame, and then adjusted the contrast of the entire selection using a curves manipulation. Then I employed yet another filter to selectively brush on some additional micro contrast and finally added a layer in which I removed the "noise" in the sky resultant from the macro contrast manipulations. Then all that was flatted into a single layer and given a color adjustment for computer viewing. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture priority; ISO 200; 1/800 sec @ f/ 9.