Daily Image - Jun 2014 Archive

02 Jun 14. The condo we stay in at West Yellowstone affords us a rather nice view with mountains surrounding the location in 270 degrees, and rolling farmlands for the remaining 90 degrees. Not a bad view. In the fall the snow starts falling high up in the mountains, and they remain covered in snow in varying amounts until early May. If you like mountains, and in particular snow covered ones, this might be a part of the country you'd enjoy. This particular area, West Yellowstone, gets roughly 160 inches of snow on average, and the winter temps are generally in the teens, but the rest of the three seasons are rather nice! When we first moved to Grand Terrace, CA, on our second tour in the Navy, the house we purchased had a very large picture window in the living room. We could look out at the smog with the greatest of ease. That is, until the first Thanksgiving, during which the night before the Santa Anna winds had reversed and to our amazement the view out that window on Thanksgiving day was to snow capped mountains! And so it was that we had 6 months of mountains and 6 months of no mountains (smog.) Not the case in W. Yellowstone; it's mountains 12 months of the year. Another small difference was what occupied our front yard; in CA it was a beautifully landscaped property, courtesy of yours truly, in MT it is a group of Bison munching on the grass and recycling it into "meadow muffins", as one local resident describes their droppings. The view you are seeing is from the property and is what generally greets you morning and evening, the large dogs (Bison in Maggie's parlance) included, the difference between morning and evening is the setting of the sun behind these mountains. And while they don't look very high, the property sits at almost 7K feet altitude. The white stripes with the blue center are the still frozen edges of Lake Hebgen. So, if the view isn't quite like this outside your picture window, feel free to print this to the same dimensions and paste it onto the window. When the heat of summer hits, it might be just the thing! Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/500 sec @ f /11.

03 Jun 14. Entering Yellowstone from the wet side, your first decision point is at Madison Junction where you must decide on which direction you want to travel, NE or S. Taking the NE approach you travel maybe 5 miles when you come upon Gibbon Falls. You can't miss it as there is a very large parking lot, lots of railed walking area, and a grand view, to say nothing of the warning signs and reduced speed signs. It is worth a visit and while it doesn't have the spectacularly place viewing stands at the top edge of the falls as in the Upper and Lower Falls of the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, with a bit of work you can get a reasonably nice shot. It looks very different in the spring than in the fall, but it presents well in both seasons. I'm rather certain it isn't all that bad in the summer either. This shot was taken near the end of the railed walk, with me leaning over the stone wall to get the perspective I desired. It is not a high falls by any means, but it is its breadth that gives it character. At the point where you can shoot the falls you are much higher than at any other place near the river, and as you travel north you will be at almost the same level of the river in less than a half mile. The same holds true for the more southerly part of the river about another half mile below the falls. It is only just prior to the falls that the terrain changes and starts a fast climb which levels off just beyond the falls. It is a rather interesting part of the landscape. Do plan on making a stop to observe it all, river area and falls, should you pay the park a visit. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 400; 1/125 sec @ f / 9.

04 Jun 14. IF you are traveling south after leaving Gibbon Falls, and IF it is near the end if the snow season, and IF the lighting is correct, you may get to see the hillside to the east of the Gibbon River sporting what looks like a grouping of trees, each in its own watering bucket. It will also require that you have a bit of an imagination, but not all that much. Of course, YOU may see the same scene as something else entirely different, such as a large chess board with LOTS of pieces all standing erect awaiting their chance to prove their valor in battle. Or maybe you'll just see trees in a snowbank that is almost melted which is, of course, the stark reality, but not nearly so interesting. However you see it, if you should, I'm thinking it will catch your eye if for no other reason other than it is a somewhat unusual sight. It immediately caught my eye when I saw it but I couldn't find a pullout anywhere close - so I just pulled the SUV over as far to the edge of the road as safely possible and hoped for minimal traffic. I got my wish as no vehicles passed in our lane for the couple of minutes I was looking for the best composition. I tried four approaches and didn't really like any of them after I reviewed them, but cropping one gave me what I'm sharing today which does a reasonably job of conveying what I was experiencing. What I really needed was either a step ladder or a platform on top of the vehicle to get the height, and perspective, I wanted. Maybe time to add an addition to the top of the SUV. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 400; 1/250 sec @ f / 9.

05 Jun 14. For today's Theatrical Thursday I thought it might be fun to take a second look at an image I provided earlier in B&W having it converted into what I think an old Kodachrome print might look like after many years of aging. To be certain, this is just my interpretation of how it might look based on lots of old family photos I'm currently scanning in hopes of both preserving and making copies available (digital of course) for all the family members who might want a set. It is going to take a long time to complete, but it is worth it in that it forces me to look at everything that has been preserved. It's the old color prints that have taken on a somewhat "rosy" look, perhaps "rusty" might better describe a few, that gave me the idea for the creation of what I'm sharing today. Some of you may even see a bit of the old Kodachrome slide "look" in this version of the image. Even if none of this makes sense, since you are not familiar with the properties of this film and the associated prints, I'm guessing that you will like the warm rendition. If you kept the B&W from last week, you might place them side by side for a look back into the "old" ways of making photos. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/800 sec @ f /11.

06 Jun 14. For today's macro submission I've taken a potted (meaning in a flower pot) iris from a stand in a nursery and moved it into a position on another bench to remove all distractions and placing it so that the background is a deeply shadowed area to give the appearance of it being black. A nice approach to macro photography when you can find these conditions, a good backdrop and a cooperative nursery owner. There are two such nurseries nearby which actually encourage photography on their properties which is a real treat from my perspective! This plant was about 8 inched in height, so it is a true macro! Other than adding a bit of micro contrast to the shot, it is basically a straight out of the camera approach. The dynamic coloration and nice textures in the petals made my work very easy. I rather like shoots like this one. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/200 sec @ f / 8.

09 Jun 14. Now those of you who have met Maggie know that she has at least a couple of not so endearing traits, such as barking and barking and barking at strangers of all kinds and being a total coward, actually often scared by even the slightest noise. The two behaviors don't go to well together. Add to this that she will take off paying no attention to what she is supposed to do if she comes across an interesting smell. So when I took her on her first walk among the bison I had her on a very short run, actually a 30 foot leash that I had hauled in to less than 3 feet. To my surprise she stayed right next to me and didn't even give the critters a solid look, let alone bark at them. Perhaps 1,500 pounds of mass, with horns, made her think twice! After that first exposure she walked calmly with me whenever we went walking among them which made my life a bit easier. However, on our last day there, as we returned from our long walk she spotted a lone red dog and just had to go after it. She didn't get far because the leash put a quick stop to the effort, but that didn't keep her from trying with her tail waging about 20 cps. She really wanted to play with the "little" guy. Much to my surprise, this lone calf, separated from the rest of the herd by about three blocks was just as interested in Maggie as she was in him. At first he ran away, then came closer to look at her carefully, then took off to join the herd and his mama only to return in about 2 minutes to have another serious look at Maggie. I have never seen a young mammal run as fast as these calves can go! Meanwhile, Maggie was going crazy trying to break free of me to go play with the calf. It was quite an interesting encounter, and I thought seriously of letting her off the leash, but since she doesn't respond to voice commands at all, I figured it was better to keep her corralled than to have to spend a couple of hours trying to get her back, especially if she had decided to play with the calf in the herd. Here is that calf on the return trip giving Maggie, who is at my side, a serious check out! Now there should be little doubt in your mind as to why they are called red dogs, at least not the red part. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/400 sec @ f / 7.1.

10 Jun 14. Growing up, the astute weather forecast was neither the one on the radio or the T.V, although the T.V. celebrity did a pretty good job of drawing a pretty picture. The astute forecast went "Look outside your window; if you can see Mt Rainier, it's gonna rain; if you can't, it is. Plan accordingly." Overall, on a yearly basis, that was the most accurate approach to deciding the appropriate planning. The local school where the cherubs attend has a special program for end of the year 3rd grade, in that the students get to spend roughly 50 hours over a continuous 3 day period at a church retreat that is located right on Puget Sound not all that far from where we live. Scheduled activities include beach discovery, outdoor skills, some artistic stuff, and more activities I don't remember. Grandma and Papa attended the first day along with Mommy (our daughter Jennifer) and participated in the beach event to differing degrees. Jan and Jennifer stayed right with the group and assisted the kids while I did some of that also along with taking a few photos, no surprise there I guess. There was some significant cloud cover when we arrived and as the day progressed it both increased and moved quite a distance 90 degrees to us. I thought it offered some dramatic presence as well as enhancing the photos, but it was also threatening to get us wet. So we decided to call it quits at the end of the beach activity and return home. Just as we got to the vehicle the rain began, so I thought my reading of the clouds, I could see Mt Rainier, wasn't all that bad. According to our daughter who elected to sleep over with us rather than the chill'ns, the rain was only momentary and didn't ruin the day's activities which I thought a nice ending. This shot was taken as the clouds were beginning to close in and get darker. It looks pretty good in full color, but since we are dealing with rain clouds I thought that conversion to B&W sorta completed the picture. Other than that conversion, and a very tiny bit of micro contrast enhancing to give it a little "grain," it is straight from the camera. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/640 sec @ f /10.

11 Jun 14. The Madison River, according to my reading of the Gallatin County maps, get its start from two other rivers, the Gibbon, whose headwaters is Grebe Lake inside the caldera of Yellowstone, and the Firehole, whose headwaters stem from areas high in the Madison Plateau of the Madison National Forest. At the convergence of these two rivers, the Gibbon and Firehole, is the beginning of the Madison. It runs westward for perhaps 20 miles before being dammed to form Hebgen Lake. The outflow is still the Madison and it flows a short distance before becoming Quake Lake, a lake formed by an earthquake and which is expected to drain in perhaps 50 years, and then continues west and north for hundreds of miles. The Madison is one of the countries best trout streams, and always seems to have an ample supply of fishermen standing in the middle or it. As I understand it, inside Yellowstone it is a catch and release river, but outside you can kept the spoils of your efforts. In between the two ends of the river resides Hebgen Lake which is also a very good location for trout fishing. The occupant of the unit directly above us went down to the shore of the lake a couple of days before we arrived to do some trout fishing and noticed out of the corner of his eye that a young bull bison was following him and appeared to be getting closer and closer as he approached his desired site. For no apparent reason, before he could wet his line the young bull charged him eventually forcing him to climb a tree to escape whatever it was the critter had in store for him. Apparently the youngster was not having a good day and was looking for someone/something with which to vent his displeasure. Fortunately, the neighbor was able to climb the tree in time to avoid any injury, something I would not have been able to do. Now it could have been nothing more than the guy not wanting to share his shoreline, we'll never know, but when you look at how the lake presents with a fresh frosting of snow and a bit of ice still clinging to the shoreline, you could imagine, perhaps just for a moment, that he was simply objecting to the intrusion of his most magnificent space. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/1000 sec @ f /11.

12 Jun 14 . Among the prime site we wanted to visit on the spring trip to Yellowstone was Jan's favorite location, that of Artist's Paint Pot. Much to our dismay, the road to the small group of bubblies was closed, so we missed out on one of the only things she lies to photograph, the pools of bubbling mud. I think it would have looked really unique to see stuff bubbling up with snow around it. Knowing that this is likely to be the situation when the snow is present, i.e. closed road, next trip we may have to consider a set of snow shoes and just walk to the area. It would add about a 1/4 mile to the path we have to take anyway, so it wouldn't add all that much to the excursion. This is an "aerial" shot of the lower portion of the area rendered as an oil painting. The parking area is that grayish at 9 o'clock almost centered in the frame. The boardwalk you see wandering through the middle of the photo changes into a trail as it climbs uphill and crosses over the top, where I was standing to take the photo, and starts back down again. As the trail nears the bottom it once again becomes a board walk. Round trip from the parking lot about 1 mile. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/320 sec @ f /11.

13 Jun 14. Some of you may recall that on my almost annual pilgrimages to Mt Rainier that among the flowers I really like to shoot is the Pasque Flower. Earlier this year I came across a crate of them in a local nursery so I bought a couple that hadn't let bloomed and brought them home for care in Jan's hot house. They grew as I had hoped and were very pretty for a couple of weeks before dying back down. Somehow in the interim it looks as though we have neglected them and that they are likely toast, so a careful eye will be required next spring to see if they recover; if not I'll be needing to purchase a few more. The best part of the particular flower is its seed head, and unfortunately I won't be able to show you that due to my neglect. So I guess that will provide the needed excuse to go back to the mountain and shoot them in place. While they were strutin' their stuff I took them into the studio and shot them against a black black drop. To drop all but the flower, I used frontal flash which blew out a small amount of the stamen but not enough that I felt it need to be addressed. So other than a wee bit of micro contrast enhancement, this is basically as the camera recorded it. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/60 @ f /18 with full flash.

16 Jun 14 . These last 3 days, Friday - Sunday, have been the traditional 3 days in June with the large low tides, these three recording at -3.1, -3.3, and -3.1 accordingly. I made trips to see each one with a visit to a different place each day. All three were quite disappointing as there seems to be a significant loss in invertebrate life compared to two and three years ago. In particular was the almost total loss of sea stars, which I learned today is due to a syndrome called seastar wasting syndrome. None of the "authorities" have yet to come up with the actual underlying cause of the disease by it has been attributed to bacterial infection, viral infection, and warm water. Apparently it has been around for a long time affecting the critters in small numbers, but this year it seems to have wiped out about 90% of the animals. Which will now trigger another problem, that of mussels over running the barnacles and similar siphon feeders. All this however is of no apparent concern - yet anyways - to the eagles and herons who have really been enjoying the smorgasbord set before them. There will be another on Monday, and to a much lessor degree, also on Tuesday. Walking around the pier area of the ferry in Kingston on Saturday I noticed a lone Great Blue Heron stalking amongst the rocks that form the sea wall between the sound and the marina. As I approach him he had just caught a snack and was looking for something more. He paced to and fro for a few minutes, then launched out to move to a new position about four feet closer to the breakwater. This particular individual is one of the most elegant I've seen in the 8 years we've been here, so you are going to see more of him, but for now, here he is just as his feet cleared the water. The setting was a fairly overcast day so the colors were quite saturated in the original; I've added just a hint of warming to remove the gray on the water. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 400; 1/400 sec @ f / 8.

17 Jun 14. Today's B&W submission was created from the beginning to be a B&W image, although it did start life as a full color photo. Most of the B&W stuff I share with you are one of three renditions of a single image, meaning a full color, a creative, and a B&W from the original color capture. In the case of what I'm sharing today I started from the beginning to make just a single B&W file. To get to where I ended up took a total of 10 adjustment layers in addition to the base photo layer, or 11 layers in total. The original was taken on a rather cloudy day, which is not unusual, as we live very near a convergence zone in northern Puget Sound. If you visit this website, and search through the pages for convergence zone videos, you will get a small idea of the extreme weather we have in our location. Here is a page with a couple to watch; it is worth taking a look! IF you watch a few of the others you will get a good idea of our weather throughout the year!! Now what I wanted to do with the image was to give you a sensation of the power of the winds that blow here above the Sound, so by taking out the color and substituting just shades of gray I thought it might be more meaningful. Notice the different layers and types of clouds in the photo. Starting with the original color shot I added a layer to darken the scene overall; then a layer for selective lightening; then a layer to enhance the micro contrast in order to provide separation of the cloud layers; then I converted it to B&W on another layer; did a tiny crop; then brightened selective areas on two different layers; removed an annoying shoreline that looked like a white line running across the middle; then smoothed out a bit of the contrast I added earlier; and finally did a selective brightening to add the final highlight in the clouds. So a bit of work to achieve the feel I wanted to convey, but fun to do. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1.1250 sec @ f / 8.

18 Jun 14 . The photo for today is of the same bird I shared Monday but this time it is just standing in the water considering the potential of the fishing spot it is presently occupying. It proved to be of some small value as the bird did catch one little fish, but it then launched out for a better position in the same location. This individual Great Blue Heron may be the most beautiful specimen I've ever seen, or it was just that the light falling on it was about as perfect as it could get. I've seen hundreds of these birds, but none have ever displayed any-wheres near the splendid feathering of this individual. Unfortunately the camera can't really collect all the information and process it as does the eye and brain, so I've endeavored to bring the photo to as close as possible to what I "saw." To do so, like yesterday, it took a set of 10 adjustment layers to get it to how I wanted it to look. Since the workflow was essentially the same as that for yesterday's image, I'll omit it for this image, but, if any of you want to know exactly what I did, send me a note so saying and I'll provide all the details. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200, 1/250 sec @ f / 8.

19 Jun 14. We depart from the starkly real for the first 3 days of the week to something totally non photographic, although it started out as a photograph. Not feeling quite up to working an image for today, I took the easy way out and grabbed a shot from the tulip fields up in LaConner and used a program specifically designed to turn photographs into painting-like images that are attempts to mimic the masters. This shot is of one of the Roosegaarde fields with a nice farm structure in the background that I turned into a Monet like "painting." Some of you will like it, and some not, but it was kinda fun to do and, as it is Theatrical Thursday, I thought it might be fair game. The image is made in a single step in the software, so nothing to describe. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/320 sec @ f / 8.

20 Jun 14. I must say I was surprised by how many folks commented on yesterday's painterly approach to a photograph, so I'll be doing more throughout the year, and I'll attempt to select subjects of the type that each painter was known for doing. Might be fun. Today's close up is of a stand of Lupen that we came across in Sequim,WA one afternoon on one of our many visits there to just enjoy the scenery and watch the deer decorating many of the yards that look out to the Straights of Juan de Fuca. We came across many wild patches of isolated Lupen and I took shots of most of them, some isolated plants and others so dense that they made for hedges, albeit not very permanent ones. This shot of two were blowing in the wind and I had to time their movement to get the shot. Not really all that hard but as it was also drizzling, it made for a little bit of a challenge. I decided to use the creative version for today as opposed to the straight one as Jan liked it better and had it not been for her wanting to go to Sequim in the first place I wouldn't have gotten the shot. This, unlike that of yesterday, is not supposed to be of a form that a famous painter would have employed, instead, it is just meant to be a simple watercolor vs a "real" photograph. I was looking for something more of a pastel approach and wanted to play with the softer colors that I believe are truly available only in watercolor or chalk. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/500 sec @ f / 5.6.

23 Jun 14. I mentioned earlier that after having attended a business meeting in town that went way over its time allotment, we headed out to see what we could on a late Saturday afternoon. By the time we thought it best to return home the snow was once again falling but nothing more than a lovely shower. Enough however to cover a herd of bison with what looked more like a powered sugar dusting that was giving them a nice white frosting to their chocolate cake layer below. Several groups of perhaps 20 - 30 animals each made up the entire herd and in most of the individual groupings there were several young bulls practicing their sparing arts in preparation for the summer circus. One pair was directly in front of where I was standing and was putting on quite a show for the better part of 30 minutes. The snow was falling as they practiced and it gave a muted view to all the action. This was the first time I got to see the animals in a snow setting and it was truly a delight! I've cropped off a bit of material from the top ( parts of a couple of animals) and the bottom (some out of focus grass), selectively brightened the medium browns and darkened the brightest whites, and added a very tiny of micro contrast adjustment. Nikon D30s; 18 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/250 sec @ f / 9.

24 Jun 14 . While watching a couple of videos this evening by an apparently very famous Scottish photographer, probably in his late 70s or early 80s, but one whom I've never before heard of, I was a bit taken back by his philosophy on photography. He was discussing it at length and talking about the number of images he captures on an outing. His comments were about the cost of a standard trip, $35 - 45K, to include him and his three assistants, it's length, about two weeks, and at that cost the need to get the right image(s). He went on to suggest that about 16 images would be about the correct number. I then went out to price out his equipment and was equally shocked: based on just the cost of the camera body, $34K, I'd estimate the system he was using was in the range of $75K. Now I really know why I'm just an amateur!! He shoots in color but likes to convert at least a few of his captures into B&W. So we have at least one small thing in common. But I'm certainly on the opposite end of the spectrum of everything else he discussed!! The B&W we are seeing today was taken at the end of a shopping trip to Bozeman. Montana Highway 191 travels generally north/south between Bozeman and West Yellowstone with the majority of it traveling inside the westernmost edge of Yellowstone National Park, although there are no gated portions and your only indication that you are within the park boundaries are signs that say you are inside the park. We had taken Maggie with us and she had reached the need to empty her bladder so we stopped alongside the road to let her take a rest stop. The sun was beginning to set and casting long shadows on the snow which made it a bit scary for our timid pooch! So while she was finding that required perfect "safe" spot, I was playing with the clouds and the trees in the shadows.There had obviously been a fire a few years prior so there where lots of tall bare trees to cast some interesting designs on the snow's surface. To provide for some depth to separate the layer of trees, I have selectively lightened the darker mid-tones and darkened the brightest of the highlights in the trees. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/1000 sec @ f /10.

25 Jun 14. As we were standing in the parking area watching and photographing the bison in the snowfall, a pair of Canada Geese made a flyby covering almost the entire meadow area before deciding that this wasn't the place they rally had in mind and continued on flying into the snow and disappearing amid the white. They were halfway across the valley before I even realized what was happening so I swung around and panned with them getting off but three shots. One was a total bust and this is my preference of the remaining two. I've added a bit of micro contrast enhancement to pull some of the background out of the snow as well as accentuate the pair of geese. What looks like noise in the sky is just the falling snow. Not a heavy flake type but rather a very dry tiny flake type. I'm rather certain the Eskimos have a specific name for this type as I believe they have names for 22 types of snow, but not knowing what they are I've just described it as well as I can. This shot breaks just about all the rules of composition, but I think it works O.K. just the same. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 400; 1/400 sec @ f / 9.

26 Jun 14. By the time we moved into our new home in Eglon the building had been, for all intents and purposes, open to the outside for over a year. It wasn't long before we began to notice little dropping in various places but it took us several months to connect the dropping with the depositors, field mice. At first it was kinda cute to see one now and then scurry across the floor, but before long we realized that we had a rather nasty problem on our hands. Our first effort was to live trap them, and we caught quite a few, but before long word got out and they were all avoiding the delectable extra crunchy peanut butter being offered, so we called in the big guns. They got the job done and in the process showed us why Maggie's food was going down faster than we thought it should. After they thoroughly rendered the problem non existent, we had a mouse free house. That is, until about three weeks ago, when Jan went into the coat closet to get an umbrella and saw one cute little critter sitting on the top edge of the barrel-like container that holds all the bumpershoots. Upon seeing Jan it immediately dove to the bottom of that container which she then took outside and we released it into the "wild." Not fully appreciating what we had done for it, it just sat in the driveway and looked at us. So I got the camera and took a few portraits and then gave it a little incentive to remove itself into the woods. I'm assuming this was a one time event as we've seen no more nor any traces thereof and we are now making a little more effort to keep doors to the outside closed. The portraits came out rather nice, but I thought it more fun to create something different that might be appropriate for a child's book. So here is a creative field mouse, perhaps one whose distant relative was a coachman on Cinderella's carriage. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/125 sec @ f /10.

27 Jun 14. It's that time of year when the collection of lilies on the back deck display their full glory. We have two pots of them, one red and the other yellow, that really put on a show and we should consider breaking them up to create a larger display for next year and continue so doing until we have a whole wall of them. Likewise our half barrel of Lupines which have outdone themselves this year giving us reds, yellows, blues, and purples! If we collect and properly care for all the seeds they have and are producing this year, we could soon have a hedge of them which would really set off the house. The lilies likewise could add some rather spectacular color to the yard instead of being on a deck where no one can enjoy them but us! This shot of the reds was taken with the plant sitting on the top plate of the deck railing, and even though there was virtually no visible wind, Jan had to hold a wind break to the side of the plant to keep it almost still. I was focused about 8 inches away from the plant using a macro lens on a tripod balancing the aperture with the shutter speed trying for a combination that would get the majority of what I wanted in sharp focus. I was roughly 85% successful so it didn't turn out too bad. Attending a local camera club meeting tonight I submitted, among other images, a B&W macro of a tulip, the one I shared with you on 08 April this year, and was a bit taken back by the pro photographer who was commenting on the photos that he had never seen a flower presented in this manner. This one for today is in color, although it is also in monochrome, in this case the single color accompanying the black being red. I've cropped away a little from the right side and top, and added just a touch of micro contrast to really bring out the pollen. Otherwise, pretty much right out of the camera. Nikon D300s; 105 macro; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/500 sec @ f /10.

30 Jun 14. With Jan having been in MD at the time of the oldest cherub's birthday, and with the desire to have the party here, it got postponed until this past Saturday. It was to be a sleep-over with two friends and a visit to the Olympic Game Farm for them and the entire family. We've been there several times before, but this turned out to our last trip as the new rules and regulations are now so restrictive as to take most of the fun out of it. The birthday girls had a great time save for younger sister who turned out on this visit to be HIGHLY allergic to elk!! But then who wouldn't have a great time when adult elk and bison stick their heads as far into your vehicle as physically possible, only their size combined with the size of the opened window limiting their access. Which isn't totally accurate as they still can stick out their tongues a "bit" further! Of course that is true only of the ungulates; you don't get to fraternize with the omnivores, the critters I really want to photograph. The weather on Saturday was a mixed bag with sprinkles, clouds, and periods of sunshine. During one of those sunnier periods we were driving around the bear enclosures, and got to watch them do their various things, including a pair separated by an electric fence that wanted nothing more than to have a go at each other. Others were content to relax in the local spa or just sit back and await lunch being tossed their way. One was having a bit of a time with some itchy spots and was spending her time scratching where it itched. I got a couple shots of that activity and thought you might appreciate one. She was positioned such that parts of her bod were in deep shade, so I had to selectively lighten those areas as well as add just a hint of contrast enhancement in some areas. Otherwise, pretty much right out of the camera. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/500 sec @ f / 8.