Daily Image - Mar 2014 Archive

03 Mar 14. Walking distance from where the Little Firehole River cascades over Mystic falls on its way to join with the Firehole River in Yellowstone National Park sits Biscuit Basin. This group of geysers are not the big spectacular ones most folks come to see, but among the views to astonish you are several pools of steaming hot blue water. I imagine that they are a bit more spectacular in the summer when the air temps are much higher and there is less water vapor to occlude your view, but even with the mist rising above the pools, sometimes obliterating them for minutes at a time, they are worth waiting for a breeze to pass over and clear the area even if for just a brief moment. And the trade off of mist for vast crowds of people is well worth it for me. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/500 sec @ f /10.

04 Mar 14. Roughly 5 miles north from where yesterday's image was taken is found Lower Geyser Basin and Fountain Paint Pot. There is a boardwalk that takes you around the Paint Pot grouping of geysers which is handicapped accessible and thus easily reconnoitered, with lots of opportunity for getting some nice images, maybe even some great ones depending on the timing of your visit, the weather, and the cooperation of the thermal bed beneath your feet. The link above will provide you with a plethora of images from the area all in magnificent color, but color can sometimes distract from what is there. So I've taken the original color and converted it to B & W for today's submission. Now for those of you who go back a bit photographically, the mention of the Zone System, accredited to Ansel Adams, will be quite familiar, and for those of you who don't, here is a link to some background on the subject. If you are not familiar, I think you just might find this link to be of interest. Generally, this approach has been applied to film photography, but there is no reason why it shouldn't be equally applied in the digital world. One of the major players in the digital HDR realm has recently introduced his version of the Zone System approach to digital photography, which he discusses on his web page called Zone-Edit. For those of you who are seriously interested in digital B&W photography, may I subtly suggest you take a look at what he has to offer. I visited his web page a couple of weeks ago and decided that it was something I felt to be worthwhile; the submission for today is a result of spending some time with his material. What you see is the result of applying a curves adjustment layer for each zone in the image. I think the results should be obvious. This isn't going to be for everyone, but I feel certain that there are several of you who will find this material to be of value in your work. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/2000 sec @ f /10.

05 Mar 14. I mentioned quite a while back in 2013 that we spent one day visiting Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Reserve in between our three days of touring Yellowstone. The morning was a very foggy one and I had hopes of some wonderful shooting of the many different birds species that were supposedly abundant this time of the year. On the day of our visit the birds apparently hadn't read the script and we saw very few birds at all, and those which we did see were at a distance from our access points that they were nothing but dots in my images. With a lens of perhaps 4x the focal length I had available, I might have been able to capture something usable, but then for that cost I could also have had a new vehicle! So I made do attempting to capture some of the fall scenery, such as it was, as we were about a week to 10 days too early. Had we been there when the colors were prime, we likely wouldn't have been able to visit anyway with the park closures that occurred at that time. In lieu of the colors I had come to shoot, we were instead treated to some absolutely delightful cloud formations, so I did my best to capture the drama in the sky accenting the colors that were available. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/1250 sec @ f / 8.

06 Mar 14. For today's theatrical Thursday image I thought I'd go with another of the Eglon beach driftwood creations. This one plays primarily with the reds and yellows and was taken late morning in mid January so it benefits from that wonderful winter light. Living as close as we do the the shores of Puget Sound makes it easy to take advantage of visiting the shoreline on a regular basis. The beach being just over a mile away, it makes for a nice easy walk for all three of us, and gives Maggie a nice place to burn off some energy either running back and forth between us or chasing the shorebirds that always seem to elude her. She apparently doesn't mind as she is always ready to make another trip to see what awaits her visit. To get what you are seeing I've cropped the original capture just a bit, added a bit of contrast enhancement, and then ran a filter (plug-n) on it to convert it into the painting look. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/80 sec @ f / 8.

07 Mar 14. Today's close up is of a flower that I saw in a local nursery and liked so much that I immediately bought one to bring home. When it began to bloom I was delighted twice, because it initially provided me with three blooms, then appeared to be done, and then suddenly brought forth 4 more. This shot was taken at the nursery but illustrates how the plant looks regardless of where it is blooming. it starts out straight up, but after a couple three days it starts to arch over and strays that way until it dies back. I should know the name of it but I don't and I'm not inclined to go out this late at night in the rain to try and find the name of it on the container where we have it. So if anyone recognizes it I'll assume you also have one in your plant collection. I've cropped this shot to just display the flower, and ran a filter on it to significantly increase the detail of the blossom. The colors however are basically accurate; it is an intensely colorful plant which is what caught my eye originally! Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/500 sec @ f / 7.1.

10 Mar 14. We've seen previously both the initial drop of the Firehole River Falls and the falls themselves, so we'll complete the picture with how the river looks immediately downstream of the falls. Where the water disappears on the left of the image is the falls proper. While it is not a particularly large fall by any measure, the rocks mid channel and timber jutting out into it would render it a rather dangerous falls to transit. But it is beautiful to both hear and see, and with the wind properly participating, you get the added benefit of a nice mist to make the experience complete. As treacherous as it might be to go down that falls, getting to photograph is exactly the opposite! The easiest place to grab your shots in the area downstream, although there is no specific location earmarked to take photos in this area. At the falls area is a decent sized parking lot and the area above the falls has a very nice parking lot however the access to get your photos is a bit obscure. None-the-less the access over all is quite nice and a fun site to capture. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture priority; ISO 200; 1/5 sec @ f / 25 on a tripod.

11 Mar 14. As you drive along the Gardner River you are greeted by one simply lovely sight after another. This view of a small marshy area alongside the road caught my eye in particular due to the bright orange features of the grasses in the water surrounded by the yellows of the grasses surrounding the water and the contrasting greens of the trees in the background. Now you will have to image all those colors as I'm presenting it all to you in glorious black and white. With the color not competing for your attention, you will be able to appreciate all the texture supporting all that color and, should you so desire, replace those colors with any of those you may prefer. Feel welcome to add your own moose. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/200sec @ f / 8.

12 Mar 14. Cold or whatever back for round 2; I guess it's time to take childhood advice from DuPont. So this will be another short narrative. Knowing that there are some on this list who actually do not like B&W images, a good friend being one of them, as well as Jan who is just beginning to appreciate them although yesterday's submission is not among them, I decided to share with you the original color version. Recognizing that the B&W images I share are not merely color images with the saturation removed, but rather creations of their own that build on the base color image, you now have both for side by side comparison. For those of you who do not like the B&W stuff you can forgo the comparison; for the rest you may find the comparison worthwhile. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/200 sec @ f / 8.

13 Mar 14. With the beach as near as it is, we have plenty of opportunity to visit whenever the desire for a quick get-a-way hits. Of course it is best to go at low tide to discover what might have either been washed up by the previous tides or uncovered by the same. Jan scours the beach each visit for glass and rocks, I look for interesting things to shoot, and Maggie spends her time running along the beach chasing anything that is willing to run from her. When that fails there is always something worthy of a good sniff and if it smells just right an opportunity to mark it as her own. In addition to looking for interesting driftwood compositions, I also like to see if I can discover any interesting unique shells or shells presenting in an interesting way. Lighting helps in that "interesting" department as is illustrated in the Theatrical Thursday shot for today. The sunlight was bouncing off the shell such that the hinge was in total shadow while the two shoulders were fully lit. With a couple strands of seaweed for a necklace, the composition was there for the taking. I've run a filter, obviously, to get the creative effect, but left everything else basically as it was. With the filter accentuating the color and the contrast of the original, you get a better "feel" for the design that is inherent in the shell. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/500sec @ f /10.

14 Mar 14. If, like me, you see poetry and/or dance in the unfurling of ferns, then you are in for a ballet today in creams and greens. Wondering what I should share for macro Friday, we stopped in at one of the local nurseries and I shot photos while Jan purchased herbs. Not sure who enjoyed themselves the most, but the time I spent with the ferns was simply delightful, so much so, that I'm planning on a return visit Friday or Saturday. They don't stay in the furled condition long, so timing is critical. Don't think there will be anything to shoot by Sunday afternoon, so should any of you nearby appreciate ferns in this state I'd consider a shoot in the next couple of days. We have lots of these critters on the property so I guess it is time to do a little scouting to see what's happening all around me. If you live near a wooded area, I would think it might be time to pay it a visit. To get this final image I started with what the camera recorded, duped it and changed the blending mode to multiply at 50 %, the decided it would look better cropped so I cropped off the right hand side, then ran two filters on it blending the second with the first at 35%. This is the result. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/125 sec @ f / 9.

17 Mar 14. With Jan's birthday falling on St Patrick's Day, as it obviously does every year, I thought I'd go with an image in green. Now your first thought when you see this image will be something along the lines, I'm rather certain, that it should have been saved for Theatrical Thursday. However I have manipulated it only slightly and that manipulation was a simple contrast enhancement. The tree you are seeing is actually the green I'm sharing starting from the middle of the photo all the way up beyond where it exits the frame. It is covered by some form of either moss or algae, not certain as to which, as the form is almost texture-less and is tight against the bark. From the middle of the tree to the ground it is of a much lighter green, but green non-the-less, and all the way to the grass. There are a couple trees quite similar to this one nearby, but this one is the most apparent of that grouping. The colors of the leaves and the grass, this is a fall photo, will give you an idea as to just how little this image has been manipulated. If you've never seen a tree colored like this one, I'll happily take you to go see for yourself when you visit. Happy birthday Jan! Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority;ISO 400; 1/60 sec @ f / 7.1 with full flash.

18 Mar 14. Here's hoping none of you were too badly battle damaged on Monday for failing to wear a bit of the green. The image for today is one I shared with you last year in color; today, appropriately, it is in B&W. Rose Lake is found about 10 miles west and a little south of Kellogg, ID. The spot you are seeing is directly alongside highway 90 and I simply pulled off onto the shoulder to shoot it being as there was virtually no traffic on the road save for us at the time. Don't think I would have attempted it had there been a large number of vehicles whizzing past, but as it was there was just one other car on the road with us. The weather was threatening and by evening it was more than just threatening. This was the first day out on the trip to Yellowstone and it had been providing us with some wonderful white puffy cloud filled skies after we crossed the Cascades; prior to that it was just rain and more rain, so the crossing was the first bright spot of the trip. While the color version of this image was rather striking, I like the B&W version equally well for the detail that it provides which to some degree was obscured by the colors in the original presentation. All of the steps to create the color version apply equally here as it was that version that I then converted to B&W. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture priority; ISO 200; 1/100sec @ f / 9.

19 Mar 14. March 19th is the day the swallows return from their wintering over in Mexico to San Juan Capistrano, CA. We lived near enough to that small town for 3 years to visit it on occasion, but we never quite timed it right to see their actual arrival. 44 years ago, on this day of their return, a beautiful little girl arrived in our lives whom we named Jennifer, but perhaps it would have been more appropriate to have named her Juanita, which, had we been living in CA at the time instead of WA, we may just have. I don't have any photos of swallows to go with this story, so I've substituted one of a couple of swans I took last fall in Yellowstone. These are Trumpeter Swans and they live year round in the park as far as I know. We found them on only one day while we were there, but as we weren't seriously looking for them, I was pleased to find them that one time. As it turns out, they like to inhabit my favorite rivers there, so in the future I hope to document their activity a bit more as I will likely be in the areas they like as much as do I. Happy birthday Jennifer! Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/400 sec @ f / 7.1.

20 Mar 14. It may come as a surprise, considering all the birds that can be found in Yellowstone, that my favorite one says "nevermore," or at least is credited as being able to do so in the books of poetry. In fact, since I first saw them on our initial visit to Yellowstone decades ago, I've thought it would be great to have one as a pet. We've had, well more accurately, Jan's had all kinds of hook bills, and we both "shared" Tony the Mourning Dove she saved from becoming a meal while we were stationed at China Lake and who lived with us for 19 years, but something as regal as a raven has yet to grace any of our abodes. If you've never been around them, they are real characters and we both love to just sit and watch them. As I've watched them soaring over the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, I've often thought of how much fun it would be to hang glide with them over that area but I'm sure some over zealous park ranger would want to arrest me to doing something illegal even though it likely isn't! For now I'll just have to enjoy them doing the kinds of things I'd love to do. This guy was just having a nice lunch courtesy of several bison setting out the banquet table when I grabbed his portrait and I didn't ask for a model release either. Obviously a manipulated image for Theatrical Thursday, this was created simply by running a plug-in (filter) that makes for the painted look. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/200 sec @ f /10. Hope you enjoy, dave

21 Mar 14. The macro shot for today is of a daffodil that we purchased last week as a group of cut stems yet unopened. Bringing them home and placing them in water resulted in their fully opening in just over 30 hours. An absolutely amazing transformation! I had considered trying to shoot them sequentially as they went from straight skinny shafts to fully opened flowers, but it happened much too quickly. I wound up just playing with them after they had opened and did it as a table top exercise. This shot was taken on the oblique as you will observe from the areas that are in sharp focus. As you look at the flower you can see which parts were on the same plane by their relative sharpness; most obvious will be the tip of the stigma and the 3 o'clock portion of the trumpet. The original shot filled the frame just as you see it but I did fill in the top and bottom right hand corners with black to remove some slight distractions. I also added just a bit of micro contrast enhancement to show off some of the flowers texture. Nikon D300s; 105mm Macro; Aperture Priority; ISO 400;1/60 sec @ f /13 with fill flash.

24 Mar 14. Those of you who have been reading these mailings since 2007 may recall that I've written about vising Sequim many times, especially since we've visited the area more than 20 times since we moved back to the PNW. What I haven't written about prior is that the Sequim city signs feature a large bull elk and that there are cautions about them and even flashing lights to indicate their supposed presence crossing the main highway. In all our visits to and through Sequim we have never seen as much as the droppings from a elk, let along a single elk. Until yesterday when out of the corner of my eye while driving along highway 101 I saw the telltale markings of an elk and slowed down to a stop to see what was likely the entire herd! I couldn't believe my eyes, but there they were, calmly grazing across the road and over a slight embankment. So I went stalking the herd while Jan and Maggie waited patiently in the SUV. I shot as I walked and as I got quite close a group of 6 cows separated from the rest of the herd by perhaps 70 yards locked onto me as if to say, if we had weapons there would be a red dot on your chest. They kept their eyes on me until a car began moving into their field of view at which point 4 of them turned their heads to the left, in perfect synchrony, to watch the vehicle. When it passed, they all turned their attention back to me and when I had gotten "too" close, smartly moved on to join the rest of the herd. This shot was taken moments after they turned to look at the vehicle. I've cropped out one animal on the left of which there was just part of her head, added some detail enhancement to illustrate the shagginess of their coats, and increased the saturation a small amount over that which the camera recorded. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/200 sec @ f /10.

25 Mar 14. Today's B&W image will be the first of three of the same scene, Wednesday's being a full color version, and Thursday's a creative expression of the same thing. Let's see how they stack up. Having pegged the fun meter fussing with tax preparation for days on end, I threw in the towel late Saturday morning and decided I just had to get away for a while, so while Jan tossed some staples into the ice chest, and some treats in a bag for Maggie, I gathered up the camera gear and we headed off for the coast. By the time we had reached Olympic National Park the rain had found us and followed us to the edge of the continent, where we stopped just short of falling off, and back again. We decided on the way that spending a night or two roughing it in motel rooms would be fun, but the combination of no room in the inns and foul weather found us returning back home the same night. On the way to the coast we stopped whenever possible alongside Crescent Lake to shoot the myriad of little streams gushing over the rocks and spilling their water hoping to imitate their much bigger water fall relatives. I decided it would be fun to shoot each and every one of them but the rain and rapidly dimming light limited my effort to about six. My approach this time was to shoot at several different shutter speeds capturing each in a variety of poses. For this set I'm going with the "cottony" look. After dodging and burning the original to get a better balance between the highlights and shadows, the shadow areas being very dark due to a deep forest setting, and the ferns in the front suffering a bit of blowout from the flash, I converted the resulting image to the B&W I'm sharing today. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 400; 1/5 sec @ f /14 with full flash on a tripod.

26 Mar 14. Today we'll take a second look at the same image as we shared yesterday. The only difference between the two will be that this is what it looked like prior to being converted to B&W. Everything else from yesterday applies to this image; it is exactly the same image, just in color. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; aperture Priority; ISO 400; 1/5 sec @ f/14 with full flash on a tripod.

27 Mar 14. Today's submission is the third of three of the same setting, this time as a creative effort pretending to be imitating a painting. Once again, it is the same as the previous two and everything that applied before also applies now. This will be the last in this series and we'll not do another for several months. Next time around it will be something quite different and I'm presently thinking of providing three different aspects from the same original shot, something perhaps along the lines of a vertical slice, a horizontal slice, and a section of the whole. No promises of course, but something along these line come summertime. If any of you have a specific request, feel welcome to present it; you don't have to wait for June. Actually, anytime you have a request, feel welcome to send it my way. A return to "normal" tomorrow with the regularly scheduled macro/close-up. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 400; 1/5 sec @ f/14 with full flash on a tripod.

28 Mar 14. Back to the mundane after our three day image comparison. Since we are visiting Macro Friday, and it is Spring, at least in my part of the PNW, let's look up close at a tulip. We have lots of flowers poking their heads up out of the ground, but this shot was taken at one of the local nurseries and after taking the series of photos from which I pulled this, I purchased a few to bring home and shoot in the studio setting. I shot several on Thursday in the studio setting and was thinking of sharing one of them but the computer was not cooperating so I gave up and decided to fall back on what I already had prepared. I've added some texture enhancement to this shot just to give it an old film (grainy) look that I thought complimented the anthers perfectly. It you look closely you will observe that the stigma has yet to open which gives you an idea as to how newly opened the flower was when I shot it. I'm rather certain that had I been there a couple of hours later it would have been a different situation. Hang onto this one as you will see it again later. Nikon D300s; 105 mm macro; Aperture Priority; ISO 320; 1/1250 sec @ f / 7.1.

31 Mar 14. As you begin your stroll around the circular boardwalk that surrounds the Fountain Paint Pot viewing area, the initial phase is along a sidewalk that abuts a straight area of boardwalk proper. Along your left of the sidewalk and the right of the initial straight phase of the boardwalk you are basically walking over a portion of runoff that I can only assume was an active area sometime in the past, most likely during our lifetimes. The acidification of the water is most obvious and the "destruction" to any and all vegetation that used to grow there is complete. Based on the few individuals taking photos of this portion of the walk, I'm of the belief that most of the visitors do not fully appreciate what they are seeing. I took lots of photos of this area, in fact, more here than of the paint pots because I found it far more interesting and I also didn't have to be concerned about acid spray hitting the camera equipment, but more so because I found it fascinating to be able to observe the reduction process in action. The shot you are seeing has been cropped from the original to remove material that didn't add to the photo, and I have ever so slightly enhanced the detail in the log. Otherwise, this is how it looks. Make sure you give this part of the walk its due time and don't just blow it off. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority;ISO 200; 1/500 sec @ f / 8.