Daily Image - May 2014 Archive

01 May 14. For today's Theatrical Thursday we'll take a peek at the much smaller cousin of the daffodil, the jonquil. The difference in size will not be apparent in this photo, as the two flowers are not presented side by side. If they were the diminutive size of the jonquil would be readily apparent, but by themselves they look almost identical to their larger relation. This grouping was in a small container siting on a bench along with many other similar sized flowers, all under 8 inches in height. It is almost like a having a miniature daffodil and I suppose if we named flower like we do dogs, we'd just call it a mini-daffodil. I've cropped this some from the original and run a "painting" filter on it to get the look you are seeing, but that is the extent of the manipulation. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 250; 1/200 sec @ f / 7.1

02 May 14. Those of you familiar with St John's Wort will likely wonder where I got this pale yellow variety of the plant as it is normally intense yellow, with emphasis on intense. In fact, this started looking just that way but I wanted to create a new variety of the plant with a little less yellow color. I was successful on my first attempt but unfortunately mine won't reproduce. This was taken at the Moments in Time Trail at the shoreline of Crescent Lake in Olympic National Park. While I'm not all that impressed with the portions of Crescent Lake I've seen so far, I've been told that I haven't gone to the right parts yet so that is on this summer's bucket list. The little trail however is a very nice spot to visit and depending on how many photos you take, a few to many, it can take anywhere from 20 minutes to a full day to traverse. It is basically flat as long as you disregard the normal rise and fall of any forest land. But you could navigate a wheel chair along the path. I spent almost 20 minutes just photographing the St John's Wort at the beginning, working with the bees that were swarming over the flowers so for me, unaccompanied, it is an all day experience. Nikon D330s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/640 sec @ f / 9.

05 May 14. With two days last week in the 80s, we figured we had best make a hurried trip to Hurricane Ridge to see the rocks before all the snow melted. With the company of good friends, we started our venture in Port Angeles visiting the waterfront for both a picnic lunch on the pier and checking out a discovery center we thought the cherubs might enjoy before a leisurely drive around more of the waterfront and then up to the park. The weather couldn't have been better, with a beautiful blue sky, lots of clouds, and sunshine from launch to recovery. The light was still more of a wintery type than harsh summer like, and it set off the mountains perfectly, so I took advantage of it to try my hand at a few hand held panoramas. So far I've played with just one of them, but it is what I'm sharing today. The image you see is a composite of 14 frames which I've stitched together then manipulated for the differences in the light along the mountain range. I have no idea as to the names of the peaks as all the material I have which lists the names show them as photographed from the west and this is a shot looking roughly south. The original, of which this is a reduced version for sharing via email, was 2GB in the layered state and 230MB is the flattened version, like those I send. It measures at 7 feet by 1 foot and I'll happily send to any of you who want a mural for a room; it will likely require transfer to a disc and sent snail mail. In addition to stitching together the 14 frames, I had to apply some controlled contrast adjustment to get it looking reasonably light balanced from left to right. It's still not perfect in that sense, but close enough for now. If I hadn't mentioned it you might not have even noticed. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority;ISO 200; 1/500 sec @ f /18.

06 May 14. Had the perspective been a bit different, this image would have been the 15th frame in the composite I shared yesterday. Unfortunately, it was not scaled to the same proportions, so I couldn't use it. But I think it will work as a stand alone and give you some idea of the way things looked while we spent the better part of 3 hours at the park. The cloud mass got larger and larger as we watched the light playing with the peaks and then, shortly after it became almost fully covering the sky dissipated leaving us with an almost clear blue sky. I had intended to stay and shoot the full sunset, but as we had been there for quite a while to get what I'm sharing, and it was going to be another couple hours for the setting of the sun, plus the fact the we were looking south, I called it quits around 1930 and we headed back down to Port Angeles. By the time we got there the sun was turning the sky a lovely creamy color to light our way back home. A fun day that provided for several different photographic opportunities. Starting with the color image, I duped it and changed the blending mode of the dupe to multiply masking out the effect on the ground. I then added some clarity to give the clouds and grass some detail, added some warming light, all for the color rendition, and then converted everything to B&W electing to use a blue filter to enhance the sky, just as one would do with film, but I obviously did it digitally. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority;ISO 200; 1/400 sec @ f /18.

07 May 14. Today's mailing is to advise everyone that the Daily Image is going on sabbatical Thursday morning taking about a week to recharge it batteries and go enjoy some sunshine. So, after receiving Thursday's mailing, there will be nothing for about a week. Having never seen Yellowstone in any season other than Fall, we decided it was time to see how it looks in the Spring, so with luck we may have some images of new born bison calves, flowers, and rushing water upon return to the homestead. The image for today is a typical late September look; soon we'll have an idea as to how it looks in mid May. I'm imagining that it will be lush green with perhaps an abundance of wild flowers. At least that's what we're hoping to find. For certain it will be other than the color we see it now. I doubt that we will have internet service, but if we do, and if I come across something that just can't wait to be shared, I'll do my best to get it out. Who knows, we could all be equally surprised. This lovely expanse of grassland has on other visits displayed a few critters grazing in the distance but was barren of activity last Fall. But with the colors being displayed all around, I didn't miss the animals. Perhaps this time around we'll encounter something new. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/640 sec @ f / 8.

08 May 14. Well, after sending yesterday's mailing we checked the weather to see how warm it was going to be for our visit. Surprise, the forecast is for rain and snow! So we spent part of today repacking our clothing for the trip. Now I suppose it will all change because of that and we'll wish we hadn't checked. The shot for today is Jan's favorite spot in the entire park, found at the top of the trail in the Artist's Paint Pot group of geysers. There are two of these pools of mud, and they gurgle and spit and toss mud up into the air in such a manner that it is hard not to laugh as you watch the activity. You are viewing the further away pool from the front of the closer pool. I know we will likely be visiting them on this trip and I may just take a bit of video to share. This image was pretty much straight from the camera save for some cropping before I converted it to a painting look. This will be the last mailing until we return. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/500 sec @ f /11.

19 May 14. Back from 8 days of travel covering 2,300 miles and visiting multiple sites in the process of traveling to and from West Yellowstone shooting over 4,000 frames. In the process we saw over 2,000 bison, more than 300 elk, 4 moose, 40+ big horn sheep, 20+ deer, plus 8 black bear (all on one day) and one grizzly yearling. Note that the bear sightings on this trip exceeded all the previous trips since 1977 combined. Spring seems to be an easier time for seeing bears than does the fall. Not bad for having actually been in Yellowstone less than 3 full days. All in all a very good trip if a bit hurried. Weather ranged from a low of 22°F to a high of 82°F and we incurred some rain, a nice amount of snow, LOTS of sunshine, and high winds on our last day of driving home. We couldn't have asked for a much better set of conditions save for the winds. Our first stop on day one was to visit the museum at Ginkgo Petrified Forest in Vantage, WA. It was closed so we just wandered around the grounds for a short while while I shot some of the petrified materials and took some additional shots of the rock painting I shared last year. Lighting was different so they had a different look. This time around I took a few more images of the petrified logs and decided I'd start the series of images with a shot of a rather lovely log that stands at one end of the museum. This chunk of rock stands over 4 feet in height and while not the largest chunk on display, it is the tallest in an upright position all the other large pieces lying horizontally on the ground. But while not the tallest/longest piece on display, it is the thickest and I'd estimate its diameter a something greater than 36 inches. It is as beautiful as it is impressive and is very nicely displayed. About a mile distant from the museum is the park proper with a self guided walking tour that we started to walk last year but didn't finish due to both a time constraint and it being quite warm. However, it is probably worth walking on a cooler day. This image is a crop of the original, has had a contrast adjustment made to adjust for some rather flat lighting conditions at the time I photographed it, and I've added a small amount of micro contrast to the rock itself to help display the textures that the camera didn't capture as precisely as I had wished. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority;ISO 200; 1/400 sec @ f /11.

20 May 14. We left Thursday morning in rather nice weather which I understand did not remain so after we departed but we experienced nice sunny weather with lovely clouds all the way to Haugan, MT. I guess I should have been suspicious of the weather as the cloud cover was increasing all day long but all I saw was beautiful clouds to record. We made a stop near Rose Lake in ID to shoot a couple of roadside scenes from a spot where I shot last fall and shared a couple of images. The weather was very different this time and I didn't have as much material to work with but I did have some nice lighting that offered some possibilities. By Friday morning the clouds you see in this shot had caught up with is and provided for rain the better part of that day. This being B&W Tuesday the image I'm sharing is of course in monochrome, but the conversion worked to show off the sky quite well. On the way out the lake was virtually devoid of animal activity, but on the return leg Jan saw a moose standing in the water on the opposite side of the road from where I took this shot. In yesterdays listing of animals we saw, I dealt with only the large mammals. We also saw some smaller mammals to include one wolf, three coyotes, two foxes (one lives in the community where we stay), LOTS of prairie dogs, and a beaver. A couple of weeks prior there was a cougar and a lynx visiting the premises and while we were there, although we didn't get to see them, two wolves and a VERY large grizzly were prowling around in the night for baby bison. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/800 sec @ f /11.

21 May 14. According to our mapping software it is exactly 775 miles from our house to the condo and it can be traveled in just under 13 hours total. Of course that requires no stopping and traveling at stated highway speeds with no traffic revisions. Since we have never made it across I-90 sans multiple traffic revisions and I drive much slower than stated max speeds, hard to make all those quick stops on the side of the roads to shoot when you do, we require two days to make the commute. Our stopping off place is Haugan, MT, just 16 miles from the western edge of the state, and exit 16 if you are looking for directions. We've made the stop there many times, but for some reason have never taken the time to explore the area immediately around the motel. As we were making the drive from here to the motel, I passed up a few opportunities to shoot that I shouldn't have, and one of those was along the exit to the motel. So we decided to go shoot the location after dinner only to realize that we were blocked from the road by a sturdy fence. So we hopped in the SUV and drove to the other side of the river (the road parallels the river for miles!) and found a nice spot to park and walk along the bank. What a treat that turned out to be; today's submission is one of the pictures from that walk. As you view the image, imagine the road - I-90 - just on the other side of the hardwoods, the evergreen on the other side of the highway. At the left had edge at the middle you will see a log; directly behind that was a beaver's dam and two lodges. And of course some beavers, but we were not to see one of them until the return trip. The walk was truly a pleasant way to end the first day of travel and could only have been improved had we taken a couple of folding chairs with us to occupy as the sun set, giving us a wonder show of clouds in the process. Next morning we awoke to the rain that had been following us but of which we were oblivious. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/250 sec @ f/9.

22 May 14. With this being Theatrical Thursday, and when anything goes, I thought I'd play around with an image of clouds looking as they were going to engulf the trees on a hillside outside the motel in Haugan as evening settled in. I'm not at all certain what kind of clouds these are, even though I spent some time trying to determine, but I'm going with Cirrus. More than likely I'm wrong, but it is my best guess. It was really a lovely sight to watch as the clouds seemingly formed out of nowhere and then began to change their color as twilight approached. This is of course a creative image, but the basic elements of hillside, trees and clouds are roughly as they were, the only changes being those of contrast manipulations. Having not shared anything so far this year done with my old favorite filter, Fractalius, I thought I'd start with that but didn't really like what I got with it, probably because I didn't play enough, and so I then tried a couple of the Topaz filters, Adjust and Simplify, ending up using a combination of them both to achieve the desired look. I also used some highly selective masking to work with just the blacks in the image, notably what would be referred to as Zones 0 - 2 in the Zone System as developed by Ansel Adams and his colleague Fred Archer. The final result is a somewhat dark scene that might be fun to use on Halloween. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; aperture priority; ISO 200; 1/800 sec @ f / 5.

23 May 14. Today's submission will fall into the category of close up as opposed to macro, but it is one in which you will need to zoom out to 100% to truly appreciate. The image is one of a small Lodgepole Pine, the only kind of tree that grows in Yellowstone, with small cones of ice and/or snow nestled among its needles. As I was walking up the boardwalk from the parking lot to the set of springs/pools that comprise the midway geyser basin, located between Madison Junction and Old Faithful (Old Faithful being part of the upper geyser basin), I noticed another photographer further up the boardwalk shooting a close up of a group of small pines, and so stopped at the same location to observe what it was he was finding so interesting. It took but an instant to see what it was, and I immediately decided I too wanted to play with those trees. The frozen water formations resembled, in my mind, frozen waffle cones sans the depressions, and conjured up the idea of snow cones. Now that immediately brought to mind an occasion in Pensacola one summer in the mid 90s, when two venders were selling snow cones (flavored shaved ice) at a local riverside fair. One vender had a very small line of waiting customers while the other had a hugely long line waiting to purchase from him. The ONLY difference we could tell with the two venders was that the one with the long line had a sign on his cart that read "cholesterol free." And I'm not making this up! I've cropped a small amount off the top, cloned out a couple sets of distracting needles at the lower corners, and done a wee bit of selective brightening of the pine needles. D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/500 sec @ f /11.

26 May 14. Not too distant from where we turn off I-90 to drive the final leg through beautiful farming county on our way to Yellowstone there is a rest stop the approach to which sports some of the most beautiful colors that you can imagine. I've seen it in the fall and it always elicits some comment from me but this was the first time I'd seen it in the spring. To my amazement, the colors were just about the same. As I was to learn on this trip, there is a variety of willows that grow more as shrubs than trees, and very close to water; their barks are various shades of red! Just beyond the rest stop we found a couple of small sections of the river bank where the shrubs were in brilliant display in spite of the approaching storm and the grey reflection it was painting on the river. I was thinking that having the river in a blue color would add substantially to the image but then the colors of the plants would not have been as intense. I've added a bit of small texture enhancement to the clouds and trees to recover some of the image that was a little too blah for my tastes. Otherwise, the colors are pretty much as they were. Used a high shutter speed to compensate for some rather blustery weather. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/1250 sec @ f / 5.6.

27 May 14. Assuming you are planing on visiting West Yellowstone and you are approaching from the north, unless you make a drive through the park part of your approach, you have but two options and both of those are off I-90. Your choices are either MT 359 through Cardwell and then MT 287 through Ennis to join MT 191 which takes you into West Yellowstone, or MT 191 which takes you off at Bozeman and south to West Yellowstone a good portion of which is inside the park. Whichever you choose you won't be disappointed!! One route is via absolutely beautiful farm land surrounded by mountains, and the other has you in the lesser mountainous portion of Yellowstone. Regardless of your pick, you won't be disappointed. While today's submission should be something in B & W, it isn't but the colors are muted enough to "pretend" it is a B & W. We elected to travel via the 359 & 287 approach through the farm lands and we were treated to a magnificently dark black threatening storm that left us feeling like we might be meeting Dorothy and Toto at any moment which subsequently gave way to a snow storm as we approached Quake Lake and then Lake Hebgen both just outside West Yellowstone. Having been playing tag all day with the rain, the snow was a wonderful change of pace. At times it was as if we were in a mini blizzard and I stopped along the shorelines of both lakes to take a few snaps. This one is of the southern end of Lake Hebgen and I was shooting through a reasonably good snow shower. The greyish areas on the frozen lake bed are clear spaces on the top of the ice while the more whitish ones are drifting snow. The soft character of the shot is the result of the light being diffused by the falling snow. While the scene itself was a pure delight to see, even more so was the thought of the engineering that went into creating all these billions of snow flakes, no two of which were alike. Hard to imagine such a feat! Nikon 300s, 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/320 sec @ f/6.3.

28 May 14. Our first full day in Yellowstone was one of flurries from dawn to dusk, and overall made for some wonderful photography! We had a late afternoon start into the park which started out with a viewing of several elk, then followed up very quickly with several groups of bison. Perhaps 8 miles into the park following along the Madison river we caught up with a small group of the large critters walking parallel to the side of the road, almost on the pavement. I decided to grab a few shots of a group of three adult cows that were munching on the new grass while approaching the end of the parking area where I had positioned the vehicle. None of the three seemed the least interested in what I was doing and came up to withing 20 feet of us. I just snapped away while they munched, but felt that they wanted to be where we were and so moved on to the next grouping that was temporarily blocking the road. Note the snow patches in the shady areas behind the group as well as the snow on their backs. Great way to spend an afternoon; I highly recommend it! Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/200 sec @ f / 8.

29 May 14. If I were to mention the name of any of our national parks, I feel rather certain that each would conjure up a specific entity of the park. For example, Rainier national park would cause you to think Mt Rainier; Mt Rushmore national park, the 4 monuments; Zion national park, The Watchman; Capital Reef national park, The Castle; Bryce Canyon national park, the Hoodoos; Yosemite national park, Half Dome; and Yellowstone national park, Old Faithful. Anyone come up with a different association? It is interesting to me how we associate specific features of each park with the park such that the mere mention of the feature immediately identifies for us the park. Today's Theatrical Thursday submission is of a feature in a park that at first glimpse might have you confused. A closer look will undoubtedly correct that initial miss identification if it happens, but the feature is close enough to another similar looking object that it is possible that a hurried look will miss lead you. Returning home on that Saturday late afternoon drive to a few westerly portions of the park, we stopped to shoot bison in the snow. As the weather settled in around us for a short period of time, several of the park features took on a very different look and provided for some very nice images. This one is among my favorites of some snow frosted rocks that looked good in all three renditions, straight, creative, and B&W. This one is of course the creative attempt. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority;ISO 400; 1/160 sec @ f / 9.

30 May 14. For today's macro submission I thought I'd try something a bit different and go with a "threefer," a slightly creative B&W closeup. Never done this before, so it was something of a new approach to working with a flower. This is a shot of a calla lily from a local nursery that I first worked up to maximize the colors and textures in the flower, then converted it to B&W, and then finally manipulated it just a bit to get the final result. This is one of those images you are likely to either really appreciate or not like at all. I doubt that there will be many who fall into the It's OK. group, simply because it doesn't really fit into any specific "kind" of style. I enjoyed playing with it to get it where it is, so my liking of it is most certainly biased by what I had to do to create it. No filters or creative software(s) were employed to achieve this effect, so it is something new in more ways than one. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/125 sec @ f /11.