Daily Image - Jan 2014 Archive

02 Jan 14. Welcome to 2014 and the start of year 9 of the Daily Image. Here's hoping that all your teams won, that you didn't party too much last night, and unlike in our neck of the woods, if there were fireworks that you were able to clearly see them. The day after Christmas I took a couple of guests down to the Point-No-Point Lighthouse and the neighboring nature reserve. Lining the path that traverses the reserve is a plant that has, in the winter, some very nice berries on some very prickly branches. While I'm sure Br'er Rabbit would find the bushes conducive to travel, most humans would likely not. But it is very photogenic and I found that I was having a good time trying to capture something a bit different from what I would normally shoot. After critically looking over what I got, I elected to go with one particular image and adjust the colors to a pleasing set of soft reds and then further adjusting the entire image to give it a fog like appearance. Not exactly a big stretch considering our weather these past few days. I placed a small border around it with a color selected from within the color set of the image but if you find that distracting simply make a small crop of about 5 pixels and it will go away. Obviously a creative image to start the year but it is Thursday so right on schedule. Think I'll dedicate Friday's to macro, so perhaps another from this walk but one likely concentrating on just a berry or two. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/60 sec @ f / 9.

03 Jan 14 My goal for a close up berry shot didn't pan out, so I elected to play with an African Violet in Jan's sun room instead. With it facing the sun, the back side was presented to me back lit and I couldn't resist. There were a couple of buds in the lower left that were a bit distracting, so I decided to paint them out with some black to match the rest of the image. There really isn't much to say about this shot save for the unusual situation of having just two plants blooming in the sun room at this time, this violet, and her Crown of Thorns which is a real challenge to effectively capture, so I took the easy route. I began this with the background layer (the original shot); added a layer to add some detail enhancement to just the two main petals; then a layer to paint out the distractions using the same black as in the rest of the image; then a layer for a small amount of overall contrast enhancement; and completed it with a noise reduction layer applied to everything but the two main petal to give it an overall smooth look. Nikon D300s; 105mm Macro; Aperture Priority;ISO 200; 1/60 sec @ f /20 with full flash.

06 Jan 14 . Watching the weather after Christmas for the "best" day to go view Bald Eagles in the "supposed" eagle viewing area of Western Washington, we took last Sunday the 29th as the best of what was available and the five of us (Jan &I, the cherubs, and Maggie) headed out to the Rockport area of WA state. The day was slated to be an "iffy" one and it held to its promises even if it strongly tended to stay on just one side of the iffy" which was a 20% chance of inclement weather. We got the 20% for almost the entire day, which presented itself in rain on the drive up I-5 and varying degrees of fog thereafter which lasted the entire trip. Apparently our eagles this year are of the fair weather type as we saw but 8 birds compared to perhaps 35 - 45 on most prior trips. The local eagle "experts" were blaming the poor numbers on a low fish (Chum Salmon) count but the local Seattle rag had been boasting just a week earlier on the huge eagle display. You may elect to decide who you wish to believe. Not seeing very much of what we drove the 300 miles round trip to see, I tried to shoot what was there and found this little church, directly across from one of the two prime viewing areas, to be of interest. It was as close to church as we got that Sunday. The fog was beginning to break up but what you see is about as broken as it got. The church is located at one end of a large field that holds beef cattle, so I'm not entirely sure if it is for the farmers or their cattle. I'm almost standing in the main highway while taking the shot, so you get a little idea as to the size of the road and some small degree of perspective relative to the church. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1.125 sec @ f / 6.3

07 Jan 14. We'll do something very different this week and look at the same image in three different ways. First, for B&W Tuesday, we'll look at it in B&W. Then again on Thursday for Theatrical Thursday as a creative image, and then again on macro Friday. While this may seem a bit odd, it is in response to several requests to see the original as well as the final but in a more expanded way. The B&W I'm sharing today is actually based on the creative image, but it could just as well have been base on the original. Since I felt this was the more interesting of the two B&Ws, I've elected to use it. The texture in the background is that of a piece of black velvet cloth while the subject itself is obviously a dried leaf, or at least a portion of one. You might like to take it and increase the contrast so as to get both pure whites and blacks, but I didn't do so because I liked the softer approach better. This of course, like seasonings, is something we each need to do to taste. I suggest you keep all three images for the week so that you can contrast and compare them with each other. I'll discuss the creation of these three files on Thursday. Nikon D30s; 105mm macro; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/60 sec @ f / 22 with full flash.

08 Jan 14. Walk out the front door of the church I shared on Monday and go to the opposite end of the field and, at least potentially, you are home. I have no idea if the resident farmer & family worship in the church, but if they do they have a nice walk to and from with the only consideration being one of making sure where they step in the field. What you aren't seeing in either picture is the beef cattle that are grazing in between the two buildings. I took a shot of this barn once before in 2006 and it placed in a MD camera club monthly competition but it was a very different setting with the farm mostly enshrouded in fog and with the lighting casting an overall pinkish gray hue to the scene and overall it was much softer. Since they are so different I thought I'd share another version of roughly, although not exactly, the same setting. Some of you may recall that earlier shot. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/160 sec @ f / 6.3

09 Jan 14. So here is version number 2 presented as a creative image. As you look at it you may notice that it appears to have some depth. This was created using a process that simulates the use of a bump map. For those of you unfamiliar with the term or process, click on the blue link. This is a close up of an oak leaf that was blowing around in the yard. I brought it in and put it on a piece of black velvet to photograph using on camera flash and a macro lens. The dark background is obviously the black velvet cloth and for this image I painted it in black to remove all the texture one would normally expect from a close up, as was apparent in the image I shared on Tuesday. I made this version originally as just another water color, similar in appearance to many I've shared recently. But for a leaf with the basic structure revealed as is the case in this image, I felt that just the flat "painting" could be improved, so I added a bump map to the shot to provide for the texture that is lost in a 2 dimensional presentation. The addition of a bump map, at least in theory (small town situated between effigy and reality) can be somewhat complicated, but in reality it can be rather easily done for something that is rather flat, as is the case for this leaf, as opposed to something spherical. I it did it like this: background layer to start; then a layer to which I added some clarity and cropped to get just the amount of leaf I wanted showing; then I ran a filter to adjust the overall saturation but varying it in different parts of the image; next I ran a filter to give it the water color "look'; and then made a dupe layer and ran an embossing filter on that layer. Then the part that makes it all work, I changed the blending mode of the embossed layer to overlay. That's what gives the final look of the leaf appearing to have depth. I'll employ this technique on a regular photo in the future to show how it can provide depth when appropriate. Nikon D300s; 105mm Macro; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/60 sec with full flash @ f / 22.

10 Jan14. We complete the set of three images today with the third submission, this time just the image as captured by the camera with a small amount of contrast enhancement to improve on the rather mundane brown color of a dried leaf. Except for cropping, it is as shot. Now you can place the three side-by-side and compare. The only thing lacking is the leaf itself for comparison, but, if you can think of a dull light brown color from leaves you've seen in the past, you'll have it. With the three side by side, and I suggest you put the B&W in the middle, it should be fun to compare. It might just turn out the what you thought was your favorite earlier has changed. As before, ISO 200; 1/60 sec @ f /22 with full flash using the 105mm macro on the Nikon D300s.

13 Jan 14. Having been told that there were few Bald Eagles to be seen by the "experts" at the local eagle center in Rockport, we began to leave only to decide that I wanted to go have a look from the bridge where I normally find at least a few birds. Jan and the cherubs got there before me as I stopped to shoot a small creek that generally gets my attention and this trip was no exception. By the time I caught up with them they were "strongly" beckoning me to hurry up as there was an eagle right up close in the tree next to the end of the bridge, (left edge of the image). Before I walked the short distance it had launched out and was flying down the river. All I got to see was the bird distancing itself from all of us on the bridge as it made its way down river. I grabbed about three frames before it was just too far down the river to be more than just a dot. But at least I got to see one from the bridge so I wasn't totally skunked. Fortunately it was an adult, one of the three we saw that day, or I wouldn't have noticed it at all as it made its way to perch in the branches of some very distant trees. To salvage the shot, I took the background layer, did a levels adjustment for the highlights, added some detail enhancement, then adjusted the overall contrast both globally first, then selectively second, and finally ran a noise reduction filter to get rid of some of the "noise" created by the contrast manipulation. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/160 sec @ f / 4.8.

14 Jan 14. One of, if not the most, challenging aspects of playing photographer when visiting commonly accessed areas, is that of coming up with a shot that has not been taken before. With the millions of folks taking pictures today, that is a foreboding challenge. During our visit to Yellowstone last October there wasn't a lot of opportunity to get off the beaten path to get the never before taken images, but I'm hoping to change that in 2014. Today's submission is a shot that was taken from a spot that is likely visited by more than a million folks annually, so I've elected to share it in B&W which should be appropriate for B&W Tuesday. This is a shot that works very well in color, and in fact the color version of it came out quite nicely in that I gave it some artificial sunshine that rendered it well. But for today I elected to do some manipulation of the textures in the stone that hopefully substitutes for the effect normally provided by the missing color. I suggest you observe this image from a viewing distance of perhaps four feet from the monitor, assuming you have a "normal" sized monitor. For those of you with the big screens, I suggest you add a foot or two. I've never seen a shot of the Lower Falls of the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone rendered in black and white, so I'm hoping that this photo is unlike any you've seen prior. I've left the falls and trees alone, adding the detail enhancement only to the rock. To get to this look I started with the base background color layer, duped that and changes the blending mode to overlay which I applied at 32% ; then ran a global contrast adjustment but not to the falls; then added a color and contrast adjustment (this gave me the final color image I was after); then ran a B&W conversion, and finally another manipulation concentrating only on the fine detail. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority;ISO 200; 1/250 sec @ f / 7.1.

15 Jan 14. While it wasn't my intention to share with you the color version of the image, a couple of requests that I so do resulted in the decision to show you how it looks in color so you can compare the two images side-by-side to see the differences caused by both the removal of color and the addition of structure to the rocks in the B&W image. Recall from yesterday that what I did to get the B&W was to take the image you see today, remove the color (convert to B&W) and then add more detail to the rocks. Otherwise, these are identical images. For fun, zoom into the image at 100% and look immediately to the right just above the top of the falls. You should be able to clearly make out the viewing area platform with perhaps a dozen visitors taking photos from that vantage point. They are also clearly there in the B&W but not as distinct in the monochrome image. As was the case yesterday, Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/250 sec @ f / 7.1.

16 Jan 14. Going way out on a tiny limb today and sharing an image I'm wagering less than 5% of you will appreciate. Still, it is worth sharing if only as a lead in to both a type of photography and a photographer. The photographer's name is Kathleen Clemons and you can see some of her work by clicking her name and an excellent video she has provided here. She is a photographer whose work I would like to emulate and it is something at which I'll be exploring as the year progresses. She uses a soft focus lens known as a LensBaby which is basically a lens that provides for very soft focus for all but a small portion of the shot. Used correctly, these lens can produce some very lovely images, as the link for her name amply illustrates. They can also make some really ugly images in the hands of the inexperienced. A few days back I was taking some macro shots of an African Violet in Jan's collection sitting in the sun room when I accidentally tripped the camera's shutter when changing my position. As I was sorting through the shoot I noticed that frame and was going to just toss it out as it really wasn't anything usable for my typical work. But as I looked at it I suddenly remembered the work of Ms Clemons and decided I could use it to introduce her to you. Now this image is, as I said, the result of just a mistaken push on the shutter release, but it turned out as a very creative high key image that just might capture your imagination; but only for a very few of you likely. But consider it a teaser to get you to look at Kathleen's work. The shot also reminded me of the often stated comment of just take the shot, you can always fix it in Photoshop, or whatever piece of digital editing software you employ. Not true of course for garbage in equals garbage out, although, some of the plug-ins are making it easier and easier to fix relatively small issues. So here is the shot just as it came out of the camera except for the fact that I did very slightly decrease the exposure as the original was just a bit too high key. Nikon D300s; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 2 sec @ f /16 with the 105 mm macro.

17 Jan 14. Today we shall look at some very tiny creatures as part of macro Friday. These individuals, called thermophiles, live in some very warm water and the ones we are observing today live at the northern end of Yellowstone National Park. Based on their color, if I recall correctly, we can judge this water to be in the neighborhood 130 - 150F. Not hot enough to do any serious damage to one's extremities, but hot enough to make it a bit uncomfortable to the touch. At first glance this image may not grab your attention, but give it a few moments of your time and you will soon see many different forms of life in this small area. The more you look the more you're likely to see. There is an artifact in the image that I should have removed, but since it provides for perspective, I've elected to leave it in. As close as I can ascertain, it is a leather workers needle and even has some thread still attached. That should give you some idea as to the sizes of the different clusters and/or colonies of these bacteria. The color is just as we saw it and has not been enhanced. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/1000 sec @ f / 9.

20 Jan 14. Always playing weather roulette here in the PNW, we took last Thursday to be a good opportunity to go up north and shoot some geese as well as other items. Our first item was to be the Snow Geese on Fir Island in the morning, especially with a nice fog adding to the ambiance, but as none were to be found, at least in the morning, we headed north crossing HWY 20 where we would generally go east looking for Bald Eagles. This time however I was looking for a group of old hulks on the banks of one of the sloughs to be found in the area. I've shared these hulks before in a series of HDR images, but on this occasion I wanted to shoot them in the fog. By the time I found them the fog was all but gone, but then, so were the hulks. None of the four remained from my last visit although there were still two to be seen, one so far gone that it was all but invisible, and the other looking like it had be through a tsunami. I took just three shots, all hand held, as it didn't look to be all that promising of an opportunity. After getting back home and downloading the files from the camera, I took a close look and decided that one of them wasn't all that bad, and that's what I'm sharing for today. The foggy look didn't really work as I would have desired, so I did some color enhancement to get the blue tarp back to the color I know it should be (I own several) and let everything else fall into place. The fog was to disappear moments after I took this shot, but it played tag with us all day, appearing and then disappearing, even until we made our way back home into more fog. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture priority; ISO 200; 1/200 sec @ f / 9.

21 Jan 14 . Arriving as we did in the fog in the Fir Island / LaConner area last Thursday, I attempted to do as much work in the fog as possible. My initial shoot was alongside an old tree that was our first stop to shoot tulips the spring of 2007, our first ever visit to the area. Then you could pull off the road where this tree, and many others, line the road, but now that is prohibited and the intersection where this tree lives is now a fancy round about. But as there was little traffic that morning, and the fog was just to interesting to pass up, I pulled off the road a couple feet beyond the round about and walked over to where I could shoot the tree. I tried several different approaches, finally settling on this one as the best I was going to get. I'm obviously shooting in color, so after I had gotten this image to look exactly as I remembered it when I pressed the shutter, I then made two more versions, one very creative, and this one in B&W. During the processing I added (created in the processing) a lot of noise which I've elected to leave in the photo to graphically represent the particulates in the fog. You will notice some phone lines at the lower left which, in the original color version are not nearly as visible, to give you some idea as to the density of the fog that morning. There was much in this composition that caught my eye, but the bob like cut on the bottom branches was one of the first things I noticed. You may be attracted to something else. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/800 sec @ f/ 7.1.

22 Jan 14. While we began our day in fog last Thursday, by noon it was a hit and miss proposition which then changed to all clear and then once again back to fog as we returned to make the trip across the sound home. Just before leaving the island the sun broke out in full force for perhaps a half hour, and we were fortunately at that time driving around the south eastern part and came across some rather spectacular looking trees, willows I believe, that were simply glowing orange in the late afternoon light. As these were providing the backdrop for a couple of old farm buildings, obviously painted barn red at one time in their lives, I couldn't resist pulling of to the side of the road as close to the dike adjacent to the road as possible, and taking a few shots. Fortunately there was zero other traffic as there really wasn't much of a shoulder available; in truth, there wasn't any, but we hugged the dike and all was well. The building in the image was close to just a blush of red as I shot it, but I thought it would look somewhat better with a little color so I gave it a quick coat of light red paint to better balance the intense orange of the trees. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/320 sec @ f /10.

23 Jan 14. For this week's creative submission I've selected an image of a cone flower that is down to its last few petals. A critical eye will likely note that there are a number of small red colored areas that might be considered distractions and which I should have removed. I actually spent some considerable time doing just that but in the end felt that my efforts at removal were more of a distraction than are the colored areas. They of course represent other flowers in the background that add a bit of information relative to the setting of the cone flower. So, depending on your perspective, they need to be removed or they add to the whole picture. Either way, I'm hoping that your eye eventually decided to concentrate on just the cone flower. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/160 sec @ f /11.

24 Jan 14. The subject for today is the white frilly material with the tiny water droplets on the tips. The substrate for the frilly stuff I'll leave to your imagination. Since this is macro Friday, the goal here will be for you to look at this image at somewhere at or above 100%. Taking the girls for a walk last week on a rather foggy morning, I found several examples of today's image along side the road and took the time to try and capture this example of natural recycling. What initially caught my eye was the fungus, but the dew drops held it long enough to make me want to photograph it. Now for those of you, if any, who are seriously interested in macro photography, let me introduce you to an author/photographer whose has recently written a few good books on the subject whose name is Harold Davis. He is a CA based photographer who does a lot of close up nature photography who believe that the digital capture is the score and the finalized image exiting digital manipulation software is the performance. Two of his books may well be of interest to you and these two, among several he has authored, are Creative Close-Ups ISBN 978-0-470-52712-2 and Photographing Waterdrops ISBN 978-0-240-82072-9. This shot of water drops was taken prior to reading his books; next time I think I'll try a different approach. In addition to books on photography, he also had written a few on the digital darkroom that are really great for those beginning to work digitally or those who are somewhat intimidated by the software. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 400; 1/60 sec @ f /7.1 with full flash.

27 Jan 14. A couple year's after we were married, and were no longer living from day to day financially, we began to collect pieces of art to decorate our home. There were several approaches for us to follow among which our favorite was the annual art show held in Bellevue Square when it was still an open parking lot type of store groupings and the art show a part of the summer Seafair activities. One artist whose work we really admired was Nell Wheeler, a Canadian who had settled in the Seattle area and who passed away in 2007. We purchased 3 of her original works over a period of 4 years with the final purchase being one I saw her painting in a local bank and to which I committed when it was roughly only 1/3 completed. It was a painting of a large rock off the coast of Washington state shrouded in heavy fog with several seagulls flying in front of the rock. I immediately liked it even though it was only a hint of what it was to become when I purchased it and it is to this day still my favorite oil in all our collection. That purchase was over 40 years ago and until this past weekend I had always wanted to go see where she got the incentive to paint it. With the wonderful weather we've been experiencing all of January slated to end this week, we set out mid-morning Friday to go to the coast to an area where she might have gotten her inspiration. Considering the fact that an artist can paint what they see as they want it, I have no way of knowing exactly which rock she was painting, but I believe that we found it on this trip to LaPush, WA. The painting being one primarily of fog, the weather on Friday was perfect as it was forecast for morning fog burning off in the late afternoon. Absolutely perfect weather if I was to mimic her painting with my photography. And so it was. We arrived in moderately heavy fog that mostly burned off before the day was over and began to return as evening set in. I found the rock(s) I wanted and proceeded to photograph them all day long remaining until a bit past sunset. The image I'm sharing with you today is my version of her painting although her painting is depicting a much heavier fog with a greater number of seagulls. Still, it should give you a feeling for the large rocks that can be found near the shore along the Pacific Coast and how they appear, or don't, in the fog. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/2500 sec @ f / 8.

28 Jan 14. The second trip up to Fir Island provided us with a day of mostly sunshine after the morning fog dissipated around 1100. As the fog was making its final stand, the mountains began to really show off their stuff, and Mt Baker in particular put on a wonderful show all day long. At one point, as the sun was making its final assault on the fog, we experienced a couple dramatic shows of sunlight falling on the farmlands as lines of light, much as if the ground had been laid out like a gridiron with the sunlight pretending the be the chalk lines, albeit a bit wide. As lovely as it was in color, I liked the composition even better in B&W, so that's what I'm sharing today. About 15 minutes after this shot was taken the fog was fully dispatched and we were on our own to come up with whatever creativity we could muster. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/500 sec @ f / 9.

29 Jan 14. We made a short trip over to Pt Townsend Sunday afternoon, one of Jan's favorite places to visit, especially for shopping. It is an old location, having first been visited by George Vancouver in 1792 and officially becoming a settlement in 1851. The city has endeavored to maintain a mid 1800s seaport "look" and some of the old architecture dating back to the days of sail can more than make the trip worthwhile. But I'm not a very good photographer of things architectural, so while the old building are wonderful to view, they don't serve as much of a photographic target for me. However, on this past trip I "discovered" the local marina and shipyard. Now it has always been there, and we drive past it twice each time we visit, but on this particular trip we drove into the property and I asked if it would be O.K. to take photographs of the boats and was told yes. That was all I needed to know and it made the visit for me most profitable photographically. I shot a lot of reflections of the boats, but the best part was one Great Blue Heron who obligingly posed for me for several minutes. Actually he/she didn't really pose as much as he/she allowed me to quietly photograph the process of searching for supper. I got quite a few shots and all of them turned out nice. One of them in particular, which I'm sharing today, allowed for the feet of the heron to be seen under water. I've adjusted the image just a little in the shadow under the bird to make the underwater view a bit more visible, but other than that, this image is pretty much how it was captured. The water was quite still as it is the marina behind a large break water. Thus the motion you do see, the ripples around the bird, is caused by the bird walking. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/160 sec @ f / 5.6.

30 Jan 14. Based on the number of responses I got to Wednesday's image I'm going to have a hard time consistently meeting that bar, if ever again. For today's Theatrical Thursday submission I've picked a piece of driftwood that sits on our local beach, and I'm guessing it will be there for some time to come. As it was in the original capture it was interesting enough, but the conversion to a water color format, perhaps even better described as a paint-by-number format, resulted in a much more interesting image to me. When I was taking the picture I imagined the old log as an apartment house for many small critters. I didn't see anything living there save for some small insects, but somehow it struck me as being available for much more. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/80 sec @ f / 8.

31 Jan 14. For today's macro offering I've selected what might be more properly termed a close-up as opposed to macro as the object only 1/8 life size. This one is straight from the camera save for some serious cropping. I put this together last summer and it has been sitting around waiting to get its turn in the show. I find this image to be of interest primarily for the color and the somewhat unusual plane of focus. When I was taking the set of images of which this is but one, the bees were quite active as was the wind. The flowers were moving back and forth and the bees traveling along the petals at the same time. The intent was to have a sharp bee and anything else sharp that might happen. As it turned out, the plane of sharpness is along the rear of the bee as well as portions of the petals around the left middle of the flower. I have no explanation for this, and from my limited understanding, it shouldn't be so. There are at least two things I might do differently today from what I did last summer. The first is that I'd change the perspective from that attempting to show the expanse of the flower bed to just emphasizing the single cone flower and bee by cropping off the entire right hand third of the shot, cutting it off at the edge of the short petal. Then I'd rework the cone portion of the flower to give it more detail and a bigger part of the show. I didn't do that originally when I worked this up as I felt it wasn't sufficiently sharp and thus would detract from the overall impact but I now think it would actually enhance it. Two judgement calls, one then another now. But by leaving it as it is you can conceive of both options as opposed to having made the changes and not giving you sufficient material with which to understand fully the choices. With the shallow depth of field there is a bit of texture in the soft focus areas which I could have removed but left alone as I feel it substantially adds to the overall feeling. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/800 sec @ f / 6.3.