Daily Image - Aug 2014 Archive

01 Aug 14. A different approach for close-up/macro Friday this week. When we lived in MD we decided to purchase a canoe with a broad beam for use in photographing some of the life abundant on Lake Whetstone, the lake just across the street from our home. We had shared a canoe with our good friends in Pensacola and gotten a lot of enjoyment out of it so having one in MD seemed like the natural thing. We made some use of it before it started to come apart shortly before we left to come out west but the company who made it stood behind it and gave us a new one upon our arrival. We had big plans for it but they never materialized and the canoe remained a virgin until a few weeks ago when the owners of the camera store I worked in borrowed it for an outing. I thought they would have a great time with it but as it turned out they didn't as they felt it to be unstable which really surprised me. Last Monday we decided to try it out and I didn't take the camera because I wasn't sure about the beast being stable and wanted to give it a go without having to concern myself with the potential for loss of any gear. When I purchased the original canoe the salesman told me that this particular model was THE one I needed for stability, not maneuverability, for my desires of photography. I had found the original to be just what he told me and again, on Monday's trip, I found it to be so. As we were paddling around a local lake about 5 miles from our house, Buck Lake, I was delighted to encounter literally hundreds of mating dragonflies and damselflies. But no camera!!! So I decided to make another trip on Wednesday to shoot the insects as well as the copious amount of blooming water lilies around a large portion of the shoreline. As it turned out, the hundreds of insects we saw on Monday were just dozens on Wednesday, but enough for me to try my skill at capturing them. For the most part my efforts failed miserably, but the water lily images came out just fine. I made a couple of mistakes when it came to the insects, the major of which was not setting the shutter speed fast enough. While shooting the lilies the shutter speeds picked by the camera were consistently over 1/1000 whenever I checked to see what was being set, so I foolishly never bothered to check to see what was being selected when switching to shoot the insects. For reasons I don't understand, the camera was selecting speeds like 1/100 to 1/400 for the insects, way too slow to capture the very fast moving critters. And before you ask, the other mistake was going out in the morning vice the afternoon. As it turned out these particular insects like the heat of day over the cooler temps in the morning that we prefer. So it is back to the lake early next week, in the heat of early afternoon, hoping that they are still active and I can try my hand again. As we were observing the mating behavior of the red darner dragonflies, we noted that the mated pair would ever so many seconds repeatedly dip the end of the abdomen of the bottom insect, which we assumed to be the female, just below the water's surface. Our assumption is that an egg or eggs were being deposited each time but we have no way of knowing if that is what was occurring. This is one of the few red skimmer shots that I got that is acceptable, albeit barely, even at 1/800 sec, but I thought I'd share. The size of the insects on my 17" (diagonal) screen is very close to actual size. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/800 sec @ f / 6.3.

04 Aug 14. We received an offer for 72nd birthday pie Friday afternoon that I couldn't resist, so after dinner we drove to a very good friend's house that overlooks Puget Sound for pecan pie and sunset. The pie was planned; the sunset was Another's idea, but one that was most suiting for the occasion. Now, if ever there was a sure thing for beginning photographers, it is a sunset. This is something that is hard to get wrong, and in addition, something that is easily "manipulated" in-camera. As a slide film shooter for decades, the old trick was to underexpose the scene by roughly a stop to get a very saturated image. With practice, and learning "how" your camera metered, you could finesse that exposure correction to get just the look you desired. With digital it is even easier since you can see what you are recording immediately after pressing the shutter button. The old tricks still work, as does selecting the brightest part of the sunset to get the camera to underexpose for you. My Nikon D300s body tends to overexpose everything by a 1/3 stop based on viewing images taken of a color chart on a calibrated monitor, so I have it set to always underexpose by a 1/3 stop. The result is that most of what I capture appears to be properly exposed. So if you are looking at the exif data I include with all these images, you will see that the exposure is calculated as being -0.33EV, or a 1/3 stop underexposure. This shot was taken from the deck of the house overlooking the Sound, and I zoomed out to grab just a portion of the sunset that was the most dramatic, occurring just as the show concluded. This is as straight from the camera as I can get a RAW capture with the single exception that I've elected to smooth out the clouds a little for a more romantic effect. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 400; 1/160 sec @ f / 5.6.

05 Aug 14. I set out today to create a B&W image just for this mailing, but by the time I was finished I thought it would work better as one in a three part series and so elected to go with something else. Further contemplation brought me to the conclusion that I should combine all three images into a three pane panel, a triptych if you will, but not one comprised of three different panes to make the whole but rather three versions of the same image. So that will wait for Theatrical Thursday, and for today we'll look at something else. The image is one which I shared previously on 21 May, but this time I reworked it for B&W striving for the best image I could get. Now there are perhaps a half dozen ways to get a B&W rendering from a color image, each approach resulting in a different "look." The ways of doing such might be the topic for another mailing should there be a desire for such, but for today's submission my approach was to work with the zone system, individually adjusting the tone in each zone to achieve the desired result. Nine of the 11 zones are present in this image; it is lacking the last two zones on the highlight end. IF you saved the image from the 21st of May you can compare them side by side to see which you prefer. IF you didn't and you are still curious, here is a link to that earlier image. I would suggest that you view this version of the image from about 2 feet from your monitor. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/250 sec @ f / 9.

06 Aug 14. In the bottom left hand side of the "8" the makes up the roadway in Yellowstone National Park is where you find almost all of the geysers / hot ponds. There are three major clusters named the Upper Geyser Basin, Midway Geyser Basin, and the Lower Geyser Basin, with the Lower grouping being at the highest level, or so it would seem, as the road runs downhill from the Lower to the Upper Geyser Basin. Each has something different to offer, and for most folks I'm rather certain that their favorite would have to be the Upper Geyser Basin since that is where Old Faithful is located. For me it is the Midway Geyser Basin solely for one hot pond-like area named the Grand Prismatic Spring. And it is aptly named!!! The image for today is of that pond and the colors are as they are in the pond. I have seen images of it on postcards when there was no wind and you apparently can see the entire area uninhibited, but every time I've been there the wind was obscuring the majority of the area by blowing around the steam coming off the top of the "spring." Even so, the colors are so intense as to color the "fog" and make for a spectacular site, one so strange that it is hard to believe such a place exists until you see it for yourself. Stories abound about how the early explorers, when they returned back east from visiting the area, where thought to be making things up when they tried to describe what they had seen and even drawings and paintings of the area were suspected of being phony. It was on the chilly side with slight winds when I took this shot, but the sun was blazing down and made for some very bright and very intense color. I desaturated the raw file so that I was only working with luminance to ensure that it had all the zones, 0 - 10, then re-saturated back (to the color version) to achieve what you are seeing. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/500 sec @ f /11.

07 Aug 14. At the very upper left hand curve of the "8" the makes up the roadway in Yellowstone National Park is where you find the North Entrance and Mammoth Hot Springs. Here is located another of my favorite locations in the park, Orange Spring Mound. I've been following the growth of this particular hot spring as well as that of a couple others including Canary Spring since the early 1980s. Each visit these mounds of travertine present a different look and I'm always anxious to photograph them. The Orange Spring Mound link above will give you an idea as to how different they can look on any given visit and why I find them so interesting. As I mentioned on Tuesday, I am sharing a set of three images of the same photo as a triptych today so you can compare and decide what you prefer, the "original", the B&W, or the usually color creative version. To my way of thinking each has its own merits and can stand on its own, but some of you will, I'm certain, prefer one version substantially over the others. The composite file was extremely large, in excess of 35 MB, so I've had to compress it to such an extent that the separate images have lost a lot of quality, but there really isn't any other good option. As such, the images look rather grainy, so just pretend that I shot them using some high speed film and all will seem O.K. The technical data was lost in creating the composite, but it is Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/640 sec @ f / 9.

08 Aug 14. My debate with myself for today's macro submission was whether I should submit the straight or creative version. It was more of a toss of the coin type decision as I like them both equally and to a large extent they are very much alike, but you get the straight one. Of all the summer flowers available, cone flowers are among my very favorite, and this year we decided to do a little barrel gardening in part because we haven't made any final decisions on landscaping and additionally because Jan got a book on container gardening, thus the flowers in a half barrel like container. My preference for cone flowers is two fold, the way they look and what they attract, in particular, pollinating insects. As most of you know I love to shoot these critters who participate in chemical warfare, and having them easily accessible is a nice treat. So far, in all the years I've been trying to capture them in photos, we've never had a battle so I guess I'm approaching the subject properly. This individual spent about 2 minutes going over this blossom as if it were looking for some important clue, and seemed to be totally oblivious of my presence. I appreciate insects who are so cooperative. Now if I could just get those nervous dragonflies to do the same. At the time I took the photos I totally missed the second visitor to the flower, not sure what it is, and didn't realize it was even there until I began to work on the image. Somehow I don't think that bee was as unaware as was I. I probably should have halved the ISO and doubled the shutter speed as the bee was moving all that fast. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 400; 1/1000 sec @ f /11.

11 Aug 14. Last Monday we all piled into the SUV and drove to our local Port of Kingston to join some friends for a cruise to the Port of Poulsbo for a picnic lunch and a fun tour of some of the local waters, including a cruise under one of the local bridges we've been driving across since my youth. It is also the location for the world's largest octopi, a spot in which I always thought it would be nice to SCUBA dive, but never did. So it was rather fun to pass under that bridge known as the Agate Passage bridge. On our return from lunch we made a short visit to Port Madison located just beyond the bridge at the NE tip of Bainbridge Island. It is a nice location where you can enjoy some of the casual living in Western Washington. I took a few shots of some of the abodes and have included one of the more relaxed settings for today's image. The site is called Treasure Island, and while it sports no pirates, it does indeed sport one home, the access to which is via a private bridge on one side and a private dock on the other. You're sure to recognize it as your typical laid back left coast life style. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/640 sec @ f /13.

12 Aug 14. For those of you who don't like reptiles, consider this an "R" rated image; you've been forewarned. This submission is one with which I spent considerable time trying to get the very best portrait of this individual that I possibly could, which was something of a challenge as I needed to emphasize the yellow of the individual while not affecting the yellow in the surroundings. After finally achieving what I felt was going to be the best I could do, I made my normal two copies converting one each to creative and B&W. It wasn't until I had made that final version, the B&W, that I realized how powerful the B&W image would be. So I decided I'd share that version of the portrait instead of the full color version. When first we started working on the house I frequently saw deer and on one occasion a black bear sow with cub on the property. After we moved in we saw fewer and fewer deer, likely do to Maggie, but an occasional something else, like a beautiful coyote walking down the drive last year. This year has been very different, with lots more birds than we've ever seen before, a bunny, a raccoon, both quite recently, and several snakes. This particular subject was resting on the side of the yard and was one of three I saw on the same day. I was photographing some of the wild flowers when I spotted them. The first two noticed me first and made rapid departures, but this one somehow missed my presence until it was too late and so froze hoping, I suspect, that I wouldn't notice it. But I did and began taking shots as I got closer and closer. The snake didn't twitch a muscle, but kept staring intently at me. I shot for maybe 10 minutes before repositioning the camera to shoot a blossom. In the instant that I took my eye off of the snake, it departed, literally in a fraction of a second. It was there, and then it was gone. All I saw was the last couple inches of the tail entering the brush. Had it not been for the rustle of the dried leaves, I wouldn't have known it was departing. These are truly beautiful animals, almost dark navy blue black with stripes of either yellow, in this case, or red and a hint of blue around the mouth; having one rest motionless as you study the lovely marking is quite a treat. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 400; 1/125 sec @ f / 8.

13 Aug 14. We'll pick up our walk along the boardwalk in the Lower Terrace of Mammoth Hot Springs and go all the way to the end, roughly another 100 feet or so. Now we are looking directly at Palette Spring and, for lack of a better description, we are watching it being created. Next time you get to look at it it will look different, not only because it is constantly being formed, but also because the lighting will be different. At the time on the stormy day I took this shot the sky was a total bland gray, so I've cheated a bit and substituted another sky from the same shoot that had a bit more color and material in it. The colors you are seeing are what was there when I took the shot, moments later, with the very bright stormy light hiding behind a black cloud, they looked quite different. I thought you might prefer the brighter colors over the duller ones. You can see the water containing the minerals that form the "rock" spilling over the top at the upper right hand corner. The wind was blowing sufficiently that they were not always falling directly over the top but rather being pushed over the side. And depending on which side they were being blown, one had to keep a close eye on the front element of the lens, which on the particular lens I was using had an expendable filter covering it. This is a marvelous place to visit, one where I can stand and watch for prolonged periods of time. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/500 sec @ f / 9.

14 Aug 14. Our "planned" thunderstorms with chance of showers Tuesday night turned into something of a downpour undoing a lot of work previously completed, but it also left a large number of lovely large pools of water (raindrops) on many of our container garden plants, so obviously I just had to photograph them. The best shots were those of a red Gerber Daisy and another plant commonly called Black Magic (Colocasia escuhenta). Today's image is one of the raindrops on a Black Magic leaf, but of course being Theatrical Thursday it is in creative format. One of the things that I like about working up these creative versions is the ability of the software to sense colors present in the original that we don't see and bringing them out. The leaf of this plant appears to be either a dark purple or black in sunlight, but the software found several colors that one can't see unaided, namely the greens and pinks. Nikon D300s; 105 macro; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/100 sec @ f /10.

15 Aug 14. Today's debate with my self ended in a draw, so Jan made the final decision and you get the color version of the image; the B&W may still show up next Tuesday so save this one until then if you like making comparisons. This shot was taken in the same batch as the one I shared yesterday, just after a somewhat heavy rainfall that had continued for the better part of 12 hours. Although I forgot to mention it yesterday, this is from a series of shots with the 105mm macro, some with, and some without supplemental flash; this one sans flash. The flower is a Gerber Daisy, which at least in our local nurseries come in a multitude of colors. The actual plant is a bit deeper and duller red, but not that much so. I have the camera's white balance settings set to cloudy which gives a little more color saturation to my images. Considering our weather patterns, leaving it set to cloudy generally proves to be the right choice. And since I shoot in RAW format, I can always adjust the white balance in the software to get exactly the color I desire. If the white balance and RAW stuff is all Greek to you, checkout the links I've provided to get a basic understanding. And of course I'm always available to answer any questions you might have. I've added a little micro contrast adjustment to this and adjusted it to include both ends (0 & 10) of the zone system but that is all, otherwise, straight out of the camera. Nikon D300s; 105mm macro; Aperture Priority; ISO 400; 1/320 sec @ f /10.

18 Aug 14. In the fall of 2008 we made a trip to the Oregon Fruit Loop region of the Hood River to celebrate a friend's 70th birthday and spent 3 wonderful days photographing in the area. If you are ever touring in this part of the PNW, this is one location you should consider visiting. One evening, after a long day of driving and capturing all we could in camera, we stopped at Tom McCall Park for both a rest and a snack. Something told me to look up and I saw the most amazing thing which was a cloud that looked like a rainbow. Having never seen anything like it I took several photos and used one of them for my Christmas Eve mailing that year. It garnered a couple of comments. That was the first and last time I ever saw such a thing until a couple of weeks ago, the day we had the engine failure out on Puget Sound. Upon returning to the mainland, I put the camera on the hood of the car and was helping to beach the boat when once again something told me to look up. Low and behold, the same thing was happening in the sky, only this time in the middle of the afternoon. It became momentarily incredibly bright and I just stood there looking before I realized it was beginning to fade quickly. So I ran to the SUV and grabbed the camera to take a few shots. I missed the best of the show, but still got a few rather nice images. I've now seen this phenomenon thrice in my lifetime and twice this year which, according to National Geographic, is a rare occurrence, so I guess I have to consider myself fortunate. I took the best of the shots I got, which were significantly lighter that the cloud when I originally began to look at it, and adjusted the colors to what they were when I initially began looking. Although the colors may seem extreme, this is what I saw at the peak of my watching and what lasted for perhaps a minute at most before fading. The image is of nothing more than the single cloud in an otherwise solid blue boring sky. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; ISO 200; 1/2000 sec @ f / 8.

19 Aug 14. All right, dig up last Friday's image and let's compare. Friday's shot was primarily a study in color (reds), today it is a study in luminance which we'll approximate with (B&W). Over the last couple of years you have heard me ramble on about shooting in RAW vs jpg and while I realize that those of you who are avid digital photographers understand the difference, I'm not certain that applies to everyone. So here is an opportunity to perhaps make that somewhat more clear. In simple parlance, luminance refers to just the light values in an image, ranging from total black to total white, and everything in-between. Think in film terms of a B&W negative which is basically nothing more than that. A RAW image is the same thing, a recording from the camera sensor of the light values that are striking the sensor, and nothing more. There is additional info that is carried along with those light (luminance) values that the software uses to add all the details into the final output - what you see either on the back of the camera or displayed on your monitor - but the RAW file itself is just a recording of the light values for each pixel ranging form 0 (black) to 255 (white). A B&W image is the closest one can get to grasping the ides of a RAW image but of course it too has all the additional info added to it. The advantage then of the RAW file is that we can manipulate it to be whatever we want the final output to be. We cannot do that with the jpg because it is already a manipulated RAW image, manipulated by the camera's software, to be what the engineers who wrote that software think is the best way to manipulate a RAW capture. The choice then becomes who gets to decide. Now let's play a bit with a RAW capture that I've provided in two versions, both now being jpegs. Do one of the following, whichever is easier for you. Either place the color image from Friday next to today's image, or place them on top of each other so you can cycle between them. Look first at the color image and study it for a few seconds, then look at the B&W and do the same. Do you notice anything different about them? Remember, they both started from the same RAW capture. Obviously one has "color" and the other doesn't. But that's not the question. In which photo do you see more detail? Think about it for a moment before you answer. What happens when the "distraction" of color is removed? Now if we were back in grad school I'd suggest that the answers to these questions are left as an exercise for the student. IF you keep what I send, and I know that some of you do, go look at other B&W/color couplets that I've shared throughout this year and make the same comparisons. What are your conclusions? Unlike the color version I shared on Friday, in which there really wasn't a lot of ways to present it that you would have found acceptable, in the B&W approach I can create multiple versions, all of which you would find acceptable because color is not there to get in the way. This version could have been created from a flower that was yellow, or orange, or white, or pink, or any of several other hues instead of red and it would still look the same if I so desired. What does this say to to you about color? Is it as important as luminance? Is it important at all? And just what does any of this have to do with photography? Nikon D300s; 105mm Macro; ISO 400; 1/320 sec @ f /10. ---- There will be a test.

20 Aug 14. The NWCCC makes a bi-annual trek to the end of the Mt Baker Scenic Highway, literally, and books a local church run lodge for a Friday afternoon - Sunday noon weekend of food, socializing, and photography, the emphasis on photography. The main attraction is Picture Lake with Mt Shuksan and the red huckleberry hillside reflecting off its surface. That's the goal, and one I've yet to achieve although I've been on three of the weekend outings and more solo trips than that. On two of the three outings we've had two days of rain and one day of great weather, and on the other it was two days of fog and one day of great weather. All three trips offered great opportunities photographically IF you were willing to get out of the lodge and work with the elements. Most of the participants on these trips were not so willing but I have yet to be stopped by the weather and gotten some truly wonderful images. I've shared a couple dozen, perhaps even more, over the last 8 years. There is a trip scheduled for mid October this year, about 3 weeks later than in previous years, which hopefully will provide for the red hillsides that we've not experienced in sessions past. But even if we don't get the red I'd love to see, there will still be much to photograph. Today's submission is from the very first visit, and was taken on a day with a totally bland flat gray sky, so I've put in a sky to make it somewhat more attractive. Normally, if one were attempting to sneak in a new sky, one would also have to add in that sky's reflection on the surface of the water, but in this case the reflection was coming from a different angle and is properly represented as is. One other change I made to the original was to remove a fair amount of blue from the rock in the mountain. It was in such deep shade that it looked very odd with respect to the colors in the rest of the scene. The graininess seen in the mountain area is due to there being just a dusting of snow on most of its surface, the snowfall having occurred overnight and was the first snowfall of the season. Less than two weeks later the area was closed for the season due to the snow. This area generally opens in early July and closes by the end of October. Two years ago it didn't open at all due to the snowfall. Average annual snowfall at this site is 640+ inches, highest resort snowfall in the world, with a record of 1140 inches (95 feet) falling during the 1998-99 season. Lots of great adventuring available for those of you who enjoying screaming down a mountain on a couple slats of wood. Nikon D300; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/400 sec @ f /6.3.

21 Aug 14. The creative image for today originated at Fisherman's Terminal in Ballard, the old Scandinavian part of Seattle. I've shared many photos from there in the past, in particular a number of HDR composites of the boats and the buildings. I've also shared a couple images of what I'm offering today, but the earlier ones were straight shots of the entire object. In the center of the wharf that provides access to all the finger piers is a statue dedicated to all the mariners who have lost their lives fishing in the waters off Alaska. The statue consists of a tall column atop of which is a fisherman with a large halibut on a line and with numerous ocean creatures adorning the base of the column to perhaps a height of 6 feet. The creatures are both fish and crustaceans and they are very well done!! It is hard to get a good image of all this as the subject is tall and round, so I've shot just small portions of the base in order to get something that is somewhat sharp all over. In the offering for today all we have is a sturgeon and a flatfish, which could be either a sole, a flounder, or a halibut. You can take your pick because I can't be sure which it is. The work is by Ronald Petty and was done in 1987 and I believe is crafted out of a bronze like material. I've adjusted it a little to give it a somewhat coloring book look, but not so much as to make it fully abstract. If you are ever in this part (Ballard) of the city, I highly recommend it to you as someplace you'd enjoy visiting, especially in the off season when all the fishing boats are back home and moored in an area where you are allowed to walk out among them. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/160 sec @ f /16.

22 Aug 14. Scrolling through the choices of images for today's macro submission, I selected several from which Jan could choose and generally got the reply, 60s. This one at least got an O.K. so it is what you are getting. If you would have preferred the 60s style - meaning lots of bright color - you'll have to take it up with her. This is a shot of a type of water lily that is found in much of the shallow portions of nearby Buck Lake, where it comprises about 20% of the total water lily population, the other 80% being the typical pointy petaled white or pink variety. The more typical ones seem to be much more affected by the hot weather while these don't seem to be nearly as affected by the heat of summer. I find this variety to be more interesting to view as they remind me somewhat of a roulette wheel although I realize that is a bit of a stretch. The complexity of the flower makes me think that the design of it took a bit of work, as it is far more complicated than is the flower "interior" of most other blossoms. Shooting these lilies from inside a canoe is a lot of fun and can also be a little challenging when you have a couple of cherubs doing their "best" to sit still when there is sooooooooo much stuff to look at as well as reach out and try to touch. And even though it sometimes makes the photography a little bit more difficult, it is worth it to know that they are getting to see things that would other wise be unavailable to them while perhaps gaining an appreciation of the miracles of life. Setting the shutter to a much higher speed helps greatly in getting around the excitement and curiosity created movement. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 400; 1/1250 sec @ f /13.

25 Aug 14. As we traveled along I-90 starting mid-way across eastern Washington and on through Montana on our way to West Yellowstone, we frequently observed some startling yellow flowers along side the road. I stopped a couple of times in WA state to shoot them but never got an acceptable capture and had no idea what they were. However, upon looking at a new MT map we were delighted to see them adorning the front and to find a short blurb about the Arrowleaf Balsamroot inside. As you will observe from the image, these flowers are quite beautiful in their own right, and having them blooming in large accumulations along the side of the road made the traveling all that more enjoyable, especially in areas such as eastern Washington where it can be rather stark for a long distance. My ability at capturing a suitable image failed me until the return trip when we came upon a hillside that was both covered with them and easily accessible from the highway. This image is from that shoot and I've elected to go with the creative version as both Jan and I thought it was the strongest of the three versions. I've cropped the initial capture to emphasize just the flowers, adjusted it to ensure that all the zones 0 - 10 are present, individually adjusted the reds, yellows, oranges, and greens to get the best color, and then run a painting filter on it. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/250 sec @ f / 7.1.

26 Aug 14. After reviewing the three images of the flower I shared yesterday, and having Jan say she preferred the creative one, that's what I sent. Only upon sending it did Jan remark with words to the effect of "I thought you were going to send the creative one, the one in B&W?" Now one must ask oneself, how can two people who have been together for 51 years, 47 of them living together in the same house, fail to communicate on something so simple? Can't be you say. Yeah, right! So for today's submission I'm sharing the one I was supposed to share yesterday, and as it is in B&W, I guess it is appropriate in two ways. Having seen the color version first I think will help with this one, as there would be no way of knowing how the flower actually looks, but then, I guess that's true for the majority of B&W images. I've dolled this one up a bit with a grungy white border, but in this case I feel like the grunge works well with the subject. IF you still have access to what I shared yesterday, it might be fun to look at them side by side. I've endeavored to give this B&W version somewhat of a 3-D look, not excessive, just a trace of it. As I was working to convert this image into a B&W version my biggest concern was that of how light (white) should I render the petals. I bounced back and forth for the better part of an hour attempting to capture just the right feel, and what you are seeing is how I finally decided I wanted it to look. All the info is the same as that for the color image yesterday, Nikon D300s;18-200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/250 sec @ f / 7.1.

27 Aug 14. The furthest NW you can reach in WA state, and likewise in the contiguous 48 states, is Cape Flattery. It was named by Captain James Cook on 22 March 1778 during his search for the NW Passage because "there appeared to be a small opening which flattered us with the hopes of finding an harbour ..." I believe this to be the only cape similarly named. The trail from the highway to this lookout point is easily traversed, takes about 15 minutes of walking on a very well maintained trail, and affords many magnificent views at its termination, as well as some nice views of heavily forested land along the way. The trail is not handicapped accessible, nor would folks with walking difficulties find it welcoming, but otherwise not difficult at all. The rocks, on the day and time of our visit, seemed to me to have a rather unusual texture to them, which may have been due to the evening lighting which was very contrasty in the cove. The camera did not record what I was sensing, and while what it recorded was likely a more accurate version of how the rocks actually are, the capture didn't come close to what I was experiencing. As such, in an attempt to convey what I was experiencing, I've increased the micro contrast of the rocks to render them closer to what I "saw." When you visit I'll wager you see them very differently from what I saw when we were there. Nikon D300s; 18 -200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/1000 sec @ f / 8.

28 Aug 14. Over the weekend we began preparation for our final landscaping. The first part consisted of mowing a fair portion of the grounds on the side and in the rear of the house. Always a potentially grave danger for the local critters, I was delighted to find no signs that any of them had met their demise in the process. Wednesday I transferred a large accumulation of bark from the side of the house to the front where we have it collected for drying for use as wood stove fire starter. As soon as I uncovered the pile I noticed a discarded wardrobe quite possibly from the very garter snake I saw earlier in the year and whose portrait I shared previously. Thinking the owner might be residing in the pile of bark, I looked carefully as I tossed the pieces into a wheelbarrow for transport to the other location hoping to not injure or frighten the critter if it was living there. I never saw any sign of that snake. But on the third trip, as I was unloading the wheelbarrow, I saw a sudden movement of black and low and behold, there was the snake starting to crawl up the side of the wheelbarrow, over the top, and down to the ground as it found its way to a new home between two logs touching each other as to form a "roof" for the abode and close enough to the other pile of bark to use as a cafeteria. No camera nearby this time, so no pictures of the individual moderately making its way to that new home. Since I didn't get any new shots, I've taken the creative version of the B&W of the snake I shared before, and manipulated that creative version three times using my favorite filter, Fractalius. After making the 3 new creative versions, I've placed them one atop another to form a vertical triptych. Each one is distinctly different from the other, and if I didn't tell you what they were it is likely that you might not immediately even think snake. With a close look it is obvious, but first glances could be deceiving. Same info as for the single shot I shared prior, Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 400; 1/125 sec @ f / 8.

29 Aug 14. For today's macro/close-up submission we'll take a peek at the exact opposite of what I shared yesterday by looking at a plant shot in a nursery and straight from the camera. This is a potted (in dirt, not high) Gerber daisy sitting on a display rack at Valley Nursery in nearby Poulsbo. I've done nothing with this shot so as to use it as a teaching tool. Its positives are the strong colors, grouping of three blossoms (a concept held as sacred in photography circles but one for which I can find no truly reasonable basis) and it is clearly sharp across the three red flowers. The negatives are the orange flowers in the upper RH corner that should either have been removed in editing or, preferably, in the original composition and the very soft (blurry) info card located at roughly ten o'clock. Now, if I were to put this into composition, the negatives I've listed would garner it a low score and without much doubt there would be a comment about if only . . . . . . But this was the best I could get with everything else I had to contend at the time of the shoot. So I should have removed both the orange flowers and the card before sharing, doing a bit of digital "gardening" as it were, gardening being the term the Brits use to mean remove the offending material at the scene prior to taking the shot. Had I done so you would never know what was originally there, and I could argue that the photo was just as I saw it when I pressed the shutter, which could actually be true if I failed to check the corners before I took the shot, but the reality is this is what was there. So here is the question that must be dealt with by every photographer, do I, or do I not, adjust the image before using/sharing/ etc. A painter has no such quandary, and no one would ever even think to ask if the painter did or didn't add to or subtract from the scene being painted, but the photographer is always up against that question. By now you know my approach, and as I attempt to portray my photography as art, such that it is, as opposed to documentary imagery, I elect to remove whatever I don't want. Except in this submission. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 400; 1/500 sec @ f /10.