Daily Image - Feb 2016 Archive

01 Feb 16. The temps being such that it seems unlikely that we will have any chance of snow this year, the last snowfall being that of Thanksgiving weekend 2014, I went looking in the archives to find something that would at least remind me of what a local snowfall looks like, even if I can't actually experience one this year, at least not locally. I decided upon this selection from the ones I shot of the 2014 dusting of 3 inches which stayed with us for an entire two days. It was quite lovely while it lasted, didn't cause any problems, and at least hinted at there being something akin to seasons out here other then rain or rainier. I took this one late in the morning shortly after the snow had quit falling and the sun having made an appearance, something I find irresistible. This is a shot taken from the pad in front of the garage and is looking out in the general direction of the road. As much as I love the look of freshly fallen pristine white snow, I like it even more when the golden rays of sun give it a somewhat glowing look. It generally doesn't look that way for long, but while it is happening I love to be out in it. And with no need of any shoveling, it is all pleasure and no work. I adjusted the mid tones and highlights separately just a it to get the look you see, otherwise, no changes tot he original capture. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/400 sec @ f /10.

02 Feb 16. Growing up with a darkroom across from my bedroom and a father frequently in it, at least during my elementary school days, I was constantly exposed - no pun intended - to the world of B&W photography, so much so, that by the time I got my own "real" camera - a Nikon F2AS in the early 70s, I vowed that I would never shoot anything other then 35mm COLOR slides. And so it was until the early part of 2000 when I got my first digital SLR, but I still shot only color as my no B&W attitude was still firmly ingrained. Sometime in the late portion of the 2000s, a couple of software companies, nik and Topaz, released B&W plug-ins for creating B&W versions, naturally, of color digital captures. I purchased both as they did different things and each had its individual strengths. Somewhere along the way I got hooked on B&W photography, and now I make a B&W version of every image I share although , as I'm sure you are aware, I don't share them all. In the process of working with and learning B&W photography, I'm finding that not all of my material is equally suited for the conversion. What seems to work best for me are mountain scenes and water themed scenes. I have no idea as to why, but when I step back and look at what I've created, especially after a few days have passed between creation and review, this seems to be the case. For today's B&W submission I'm sharing another mountain shot, the color version of which I shared about this time last year. At the time of creation I was rather pleased with it, but today not so much so. It is still a reasonably good photograph, but compare it with the two B&W mountain shots I've previously sent. I believe you will notice a marked improvement this year over last which to my way of thinking is a good thing. I would love to provide a year to year comparison, but our trip to this location this year, which was within 1 day of being the identical dates, yielded barren mountains. So the comparison will of necessity have to be made with shots of different peaks. The images was given a small amount of micro contrast assist and then converted to B&W. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/400 sec @ f /11.

03 Feb 16. It's that time of the year to get some great shots of the Snow Geese flock that winters over on Fir Island. Depending on the day, you may see none of them, all of them, or smaller groups of the 10,000+ birds here and there eating in different fields. There is one field totally dedicated to them and they are often found there, especially in the evening. But it is a crap shoot and you can never be certain where they will be at any specific time. We've made many trips there over the past decade and have been skunked just once, but even when that happens there is much more to photograph in the general area. The best times are when the eagles or other flying predators fly overhead and the entire flock lifts off at once. The cacophony of sound is simply amazing and that, combined with birds virtually everywhere flying back and forth crisscrossing each other but never colliding is not only absolutely fascinating, but fun and a challenge to photograph. If I lived close to the area I would likely go shoot them several times a week. This is a shot of the birds returning to feed after having launched out following a predator fly-over. Can you imagine trying to pick out a single individual and following it to capture in this mass of critters moving left, right ,up, down, and reversing. All at the same time. For grins, pick a bird, any bird, move your eyes off the bird a little distance, and now look back again to find the exact bird. Add a little weather to the setting and the task of capturing a meal just gets a little more challenging. The base image was given some mid tone enhancement, a little micro contrast adjustment, and a texture added to give the shot some distinction. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 320; 1/1600 sec @ f / 9.

04 Feb 16. As I've written many times, I find the section of MT Hwy-191 that runs through the far western edge of Yellowstone National Park to be among the most beautiful drives in the U.S., at least to the extent that we have traveled them. I've forgotten the name of this small stream that parallels a portion of the road, but the rocks, the trees, and the grasses that surround it make for a truly beautiful location. I've never seen any anglers in this part of the stream/river, but I have seen them on the other side of the road where the bed is wider and the water runs faster. I thought this scene worth of being presented as an oil glaze and so have run a filter on it to give it just such a look. The filter was created by a friend who runs a couple of web sites, one of which called f.64 Academy, is dedicated to Photoshop and photography education. If either is of interest to you, consider paying a visit to the site. I took the base image and after doing my normal base adjustments ran the oil glaze filter on it to get the look you see. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 400; 1/125 sec @ f / 7.1

05 Feb 16. Today's macro/close-up isn't, but you are going to make it such by enlarging it to 100%. I'm going with another shot of the Fir Island Snow Goose flock. As I'm presenting it you are seeing a section of a field of geese starting to launch. I've written several times about how they all go at once but that is a wee bit of an exaggeration. The entire lift off takes perhaps 2 seconds from start to finish, and you can see the sequencing of such by looking from left to right in the frame. The birds at the junction of the middle and right hand thirds are the last to lift off in this shot. If you are fortunate enough in pressing the shutter at the instant of the lift off you can get a shot like this. Looking at this shot at screen size the birds will likely appear to be a blurry mass, but if you enlarge it to 100% - my close up suggestion - you will see that they are very sharp. Of greater interest however is that while you will see hundreds of birds, none of them are touching each other and they are simultaneously jumping up to fly off. Imagine all the cars in the super bowl this coming Sunday suddenly all departing at the same time and at full speed. Leaves one in awe at the design behind such amazing activity. You might consider cropping the image to leave just the section with the biggest concentration of birds; it will give you an entirely different picture. The base image received a little mid tone enhancement and that was followed by a little blue color assist. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 400; 1/1250 sec @ f / 9.

08 Feb 16. With today's absolutely BORING bowl game, as they so often are, featuring a cat and a horse, I thought I'd add to the menagerie with a bird. This one is of a feeding bird, more specifically one feeding at the peak of a very low tide, a -3 to be exact. The Great Blue Herons in the area I think mark their calenders for the extreme low tides that occur every June. Among their prize catches in these low ides are gunnel, an eel-like fish found in the intertidal zone primarily here in the PNW, but they can range to depth of more than 600 feet. They are safe from the big feathered predators except for these June minus tides when the seabed, generally under 20 to 30 feet of water, is exposed. When that happens these fish take a real beating as the birds love to eat them. I've seen one bird in the course of an hour eat a dozen or more which has to be hard on the species, sort of like our fishing boats scouring the sea. It is always a several minute battle between bird and fish, with the fish constantly wrapping its body around the bill of the birds, but eventually the bird wins, in part I'm sure because it keeps the fish out of water. It is quite the scene to watch, and in this case you get to see the fish in an extended position about to wrap itself around the bird's bill. This image is best viewed at 100%. The base image was severely cropped, then I added a small amount of micro contrast and lighted the eye just a tad. Nikon D300s; 80 -400; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/1000 sec @ f / 8.

09 Feb 16. Taking her majesty out for her morning ablutions we were delighted to have an adult Bald Eagle swoop down directly in front of us only to alight and perch on a tall fir next to our drive. Just moments later a murder of crows departed from another tree on the property to be quickly followed by what we think was the screeching of a large owl. That, by any way you figure it, is a good start to any day. But it was even better than that as it was all accompanied by a lovely blue sky and brilliant sunlight!!! My kind of day. So I thought I might as well go with another bird shot for today and as I began this mentioning a Bald Eagle we'll use a photo of same. This particular bird was shot last summer while we were taking some images for the book. This critter was a reasonable distance from us when it launched out and flew directly overhead landing on a aging fir arching out over the beach to the edge of Hood Canal. As we walked near by and eventually under it I couldn't help but think it was lacking somewhat in the area of personal hygiene. After some severe cropping, the base image was given a little selective lightening on the body of the bird and the blue of the sky was slightly adjusted before conversion to B&W. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/500 sec @ f / 7.1.

10 Feb 16. On each visit to West Yellowstone there is a guaranteed stop that we make that for us is the portal to our destination. Beaver Creek isn't much of a creek, but it forms a nice little pond on both sides of the road where there is generally some form of water fowl to be found as well as the occasional aquatic mammal. But of greater interest is the weather that we always encounter there. It is never peaceful, often very stormy, and when not stormy threatening to so be. The parallel surrounding hillsides, actually mountains >7000', virtually guarantee that they will funnel any weather right down their center line passing over the area. It is always a good spot to visit if you are looking for something photographic and we have yet to be disappointed. This shot was taken in mid September as you may discern by the lovely colors on a day when the winds suggested that we might want to quickly take our shots and seek refuge elsewhere. The base image was give a little micro contrast adjustment and cropped some to remove a bit of unsteady camera holding (shame on me for not using a tripod.) Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/80 sec @ f / 3.5.

11 Feb 16. I know that I had promised something really special for today but unfortunately too many things got in the way this week and I didn't get it accomplished so I will try to do better and get it out either as a Saturday Special or as next week's Theatrical Thursday submission. Either way I do believe you'll find it worth the wait. What I've chosen to share today is a shot of a small stream that I've converted into what should look like a small tapestry. Burnt Mountain Road is near LaPush WA and you drive along it to get there. This shot is found right after you turn onto that road and it is easy to miss if you are not looking to find things to shoot. In fact, my guess is that most folks simply drive right past it and never see it. If you should elect to go visit LaPush, do look for this location as you turn onto Burnt Mountain Road. You will have to walk on some rather treacherous ground to get to a spot where you can take your shot, but if you are observant and watch where you walk you should have no troubles an be able to safely capture something similar. The base image was cropped some, receive a little shadow adjustments, and then converted using Topaz Simplify to get the tapestry look. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 320; 1/320 sec @ f /10.

12 Feb 16. I had a little bit of free time on my hand this afternoon and desiring to block out the depressing weather, I decided to produce the special image I had promised earlier for yesterday. I was going to give you a fancy shot of a film strip but for some reason I couldn't find any of the strips of film I've saved for posterity so then I thought about shooting a strip but that presented another problem of how I'd get it processed since we no longer have a darkroom. [Hate to admit I still have film in the refer ] So I figured if I was going to keep my word I'd just have to make my own, and so I did. Before I was through I had B&W, color negative, and color slide film. I'll share a four frame piece of the color slide film for today's image and as a bonus, each frame contains a new image I haven't shared before. That means you get 5 for the price of one, better than buy one, get the second at half price. Of course all will be much smaller than I normally share, but then a piece of film is only 24mm x 36mm so you can't realistically expect them to be be real big. Here's how it is done. First create a black document and then an exact white copy (layer) above it. Shrink the white layer to give a black outline to mimic a piece of film. Duplicate and paste the two side by side twice to get a four frame strip. Using the erasure tool, erase the "sprocket holes" on the top and bottom of the strip. Then select the white squares representing the pictures and delete them leaving the frames "empty." Paste any images you want into the "holes.". Then distort to any shape you want, and add a shadow to give it depth. At this point you could do anything else you desire. No shooting info as the image is a from scratch creation and not a photograph.

15 Feb 16. Looking through several hundred images this weekend trying to decide what I wanted to work up for the week, I decided to return to previous years and pull from that collection. Since I share roughly 1% of what I shoot annually, there is much from which to choose that I haven't shared. I also realized that while I've shared several Snow Goose images over the past several years, I've seldom shared any that complement their name. So today I'm sharing a shot of the geese actually walking around on snow. The shot is from the Hayden Farm Refuge on Fir Island, and it is a location to which you can drive and park your vehicle after having paid the appropriate ransom. There is a large field adjacent to the parking area that is owned by a farmer, if I understand the situation correctly, who has devoted it to the birds. On the opposite side of the parking area is another piece of property on which there is a large tree, home to a pair of breeding Bald Eagles which ensure there will be sufficient flight activity if you are willing to be patient and wait around for a bit. Whether or not you will find the birds in the field during your visit is a crap shoot, but if they are not there they are not far away. The base image was cropped but that was the extent of any additional manipulation. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/1000 sec @ f /11.

16 Feb 16. It is too involved a story to explain how I got to this point, but I became aware of a new program over the weekend dedicated to editing RAW images. For those of you who do not know what a RAW digital image is, just stop here and go look at the image. What I have to write today will not be of interest. For those of you who are familiar with the RAW format, please give Raw Therapee a look; you can find it here. I spent some time with it over the weekend and was most impressed; at first look I would say it is an order of magnitude more capable than anything from Adobe!! More importantly, it is a cross platform, open source program originally developed for Linux, much like GIMP. That makes it free of cost and of virus impact. You will need to download the official documentation found here and likely as well the papers found here under articles and tutorials. In as much as this is a very capable piece of software, the learning curve, at least at this point in my study, is somewhat steep. However, from what I've seen so far, it is well worth the effort. This software can read all the RAW formats, and gives you amazing control on their editing. If you are shooting in RAW, or might be considering doing such, do yourself a favor and check this out. You can also edit jpeg files with the program but of course, being jpegs, you are limited by that format in what you can do. After looking over this article on infrared, one of my favorite B&W forms, I knew I had to master Raw Therapee! I've played around with several faux IR programs, but none of them come even close to what Raw Therapee is apparently capable of producing. I was going to share with you a file I converted last year to B&W in an attempt to imitate IR, but decided to hold off on it until I could redo it with the new program and then share them both at the same time for comparative purposes. So instead you are getting a B&W of a spiny sea urchin which I took at the Seattle Aquarium. I'm sure everyone has seen a photo of a sea urchin before, but perhaps, like me, the pictures you've seen have not shown the filamentous tube feet (tubularia) with which the animal moves itself. Approaching 90 feet down in Puget Sound, this is how the urchin would look. The base image was cropped, converted to B&W, and that was it. Nikon D300s; 18 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200, 1/60 sec @ f /11 with fill flash.

17 Feb 16. Looking for a new challenge this weekend while working up the images, I selected one that I had taken of a sunrise first appearing on a salt water flat. The location was that of Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge which if you are interested you can read about here and which has changed substantially since my last visit accompanied by a mailing list member 5 years ago! The changes are such that I think it time to go visit again but it would require leaving here around 0400 to make it there for morning's break, one of the best times to visit. The original was VERY dramatic with the sun just cresting the mountain tops and gracing the water's surface.The temps were still in the freezing range and you can see the ice on the water's surface. I had hoped for a few water fowl to grace the shot but unfortunately on that morning there were virtually no birds to be found. It was a solid morning's walk, it being roughly a 5 mile round trip, and having a few critters grace the trail would have made it even better, but the company was good and I got quite a few acceptable images, several of which I shared back then. After getting the original shot to look as I wanted it, I then set about creating 5 more variations, one of which is today's submission. Since most of my life I've heard the phrase "Red sky at night, sailor's delight," and counting myself as such, I've elected to convert the morning sunrise into an evening sunset. The base image was adjusted to lighten the darkest areas so you could see detail in them, then brought into Topaz Restyle where I selected a color combination I thought appropriate for an evening look. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 400; 1/400 sec @ f / 9.

18 Feb 16. For today's Theatrical Thursday submission the creativity will be subtle. The Theatrical Thursday heading for these images was provided to me by a list member, a very good friend, former Navy colleague, and very talented individual himself! We were discussing the creative images I was submitting and I had commented on some of the negative reactions I was receiving and his observation was that with a different title they might well be received differently. A very astute suggestion to my way of thinking since having taken it and changed the name I've not had a complaint from any list member. When I began providing the weekly creative images they were generally obviously so and often way out there. There was at that time a group who really liked them and another who felt just the opposite. But I enjoyed doing the "different" thing and kept at it. As time has progressed I find myself looking at the idea of creativity from two very different positions, one leaning to the really far out stuff and the other to using the creative aspect very subtly. They both present artistic challenges in that I'm moving away from photography and into the art realm and for that 20% of my work I do think of it more as art and less as technical skill as I do with the remaining 80%. Since I am manipulating ALL the images I share to some degree, some could argue that it is all art. But for me it isn't art if all I'm doing is trying to produce what I saw in my mind when I took the shot (supplement the camera's lack of ability); if however I'm changing it into something that it wasn't, it is then art. I know that there are as many definitions of what is and isn't art as there are those providing them, but that's my simple perspective. Now where am I going with this. Today's submission is virtually what I shot from the parking lot of our "local" COSTCO. I've cropped the original and straightened the horizon and that was it initially. Then after saving that image, I made three more versions of it. One was a B&W, one was converted into an impressionistic painting (obvious manipulation), and the last into how the shot would look if it had been shot on Kodachrome and faded after several years of storage. This is the version I'm sharing. Since what I've done is to basically imitate the real thing - a faded Kodachrome - is it a creative (artistic) version or a realistic version? The alteration to the original is VERY subtle, so much so, that I doubt that any would even think it has been altered without my having indicated such. I still think of it as being a fair submission for Theatrical Thursday in as much as it isn't what was there, but the creativity is of a subtle kind that I'm finding both fun and challenging, the challenge being that of creating something that doesn't scream "manipulated' and the fun of pulling it off. The base image was cropped, straightened, and then color manipulated. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/640 sec @ f / 8.

19 Feb 16. With the cancellation of an afternoon appointment and a break in the weather, we thought it might be the perfect conditions to pay a visit to Hurricane Ridge (located in the mountains I shared yesterday) so we checked the govt web site to make sure it was open (have chains available and plan to leave before dark it stated) and off we went. A nice drive all the way to the park entrance and a closed road. !@#$%^&* Nothing like govt to spend your taxes wisely!! So we turned around, took a lake road only to find that the lake was walking distance from the main park road and surrounded by homes which prohibited access to the lake, and followed that to its exit onto a county road returning us to downtown Port Angeles. At that point we thought we'd take the road paralleling the water and visit the Port Angeles Coast Guard Station, a location we had visited before but couldn't enter the station proper because we had folks with us lacking military I.D. Made it all the way this time and got to see what little there was of the station but more importantly got to capture some really neat cloud shots and a few scenic shots along the shoreline, at least one of which I'll share shortly. In the process we passed a couple of marinas which reminded us of Fisherman's Terminal in Ballard but which lacked the easy and friendly access to the finger piers. With that in mind, I thought a close up of the sculptures on the tower of the monument to lost fishermen that is the key element of the dock at the terminal might be in order. The sea life found in Puget Sound and SE Alaska adorn the monument and are so realistic that you would swear if they were removed and placed in salt water that they would immediately come to life. Those of you in the area owe it to yourselves to take in this site if you haven't already done so. Do it on a windless day so you can also walk the finger piers and shoot the reflections in the water while the fleet is in. It is a lot of fun and you can get some very interesting photos. The base image was cropped, straighten a little and given some selective brightness adjustment to bring out the shadow elements some. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/160 sec @ f /16.

23 Feb 16. I did not send out an image yesterday; too much stuff got in the way. As I mentioned on Friday, this is a shot of part of the natural breakwater on Ediz Hook where we visited the Cast Guard station in Port Angeles. I thought the stack of driftwood that has been assembled into something that looks either like a carriage, a portion of a fortress, or some other thing, depending on your perspective, might make for an interesting image. I had been shooting the clouds just prior, especially the ribbon-like one just above the clear sky portion, and we were driving back toward town when we noticed the driftwood structure. As we drove past I said that would have made a nice photo and Jan strongly agreed, so we turned around and I played with it for a couple of minutes, trying for the best composition of structure, clouds, and water. I chose this one from the group as I thought it had the best composition although I suppose I should have removed the freighter. If you pay a visit to Port Angeles, do take the drive out on Ediz Hook and enjoy the scenery. The image was leveled to make up for my lousy holding of the camera, the center of the structure was lightened a bit to allow for seeing inside, and the clouds were given a wee bit of accentuation. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/160 sec @ f /11.

24 Feb 16. A few weeks back I shared with you three shots taken of Mt Baker on the trip when Maggie tried walking on water. This is another from that same trip but taken near the end of the day and looking north of Mt Baker. I'm not sure of the name of this body of water but have heard it called Lower Baker Lake. The main Baker Lake is formed by a dam and this is below that location and resides behind a small earthen dam. The so called spillway for this earthen dam is to the right of the vertical stick and at times during our visits there has been a fairly fast flow exiting into the lake. You can get a small idea of the temps by looking at the amount of remaining surface ice. The sky was bouncing a lot of blue light off the snow so I had to adjust the color of it to make it look correct. Of course it looked white to our eyes but the camera wasn't gonna be fooled and recorded it as sky blue. Walking distance to the left of this shot is a large campground with lots of activities available for kids. A nice place to visit any time of the year. I had to use a few adjustment layers to get the snow the color of white I wanted, as well as adjusting the sky color to make everything look balanced, but that was about all I did. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/500 sec @ f / 8.

25 Feb 16. If you are anything like me, you probably get tired of all the junk that gets sent your way every day, one of the reasons I've always said in the welcome aboard letter that when you get tired of this daily spam, sing out, and I'll turn it off. But as a photographer, I do enjoy getting links to collections of great photographs as it gives me material to strive for even though I know I'll never have the talent of many of the photographers whose work I appreciate. For example, I'll never match the work of Ansel Adams, but studying his work helps me improve, at least somewhat, on my own B&W attempts. Without challenge there is no improvement so I really enjoy studying the work of others. In a similar vein I enjoy even more the links we all get ever so often to works of 3D sidewalk chalk artists. That blue link is to a page titled The 5 Most Talented 3D Chalk Artists and includes the work of Julian Beever with whom you are likely most familiar. I never tire of looking at their work and simply marvel at their talent. Not in a million years could I do something like that, so . . . . I decided to take an image and layer it over a cement texture to give it a look as though it had been painted with chalk on a sidewalk, only problem is, . . . mine is in boring 2D. Not even close to what those 3D guys can accomplish, but fun to do nonetheless. Perhaps one of you talented artists can embellish this to give it the 3D assist it desperately needs so we can have some "real" depth in it. That would be really neat!! Now this sort of thing is very elementary and requires nothing more than placing a texture file on top of the image and blending them together. So if you happen to have a photo of cement, and certainly something easy to acquire if you don't, and another photo you'd like to pretend was drawn on a sidewalk, try layering them together to see what you can create. Lots of fun even if you don't get the "perfect" result the first time you try it. The base image was given some selective contrast adjustment to balance the sky, mountain, and water, and then layered with the cement texture to get the final look. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/250 sec @ f /11.

26 Feb 16. At the edge of the drive to our house is a tree that appears to have had a Siamese twin associated with it at some distant time. The small amount of tree that remains is about 10" in height and for the most part hollow, except for the detritus that fills it and is home to group of small mushrooms that appear each spring and fall. They made their spring coming out early last weekend and are now showing sings of retiring until autumn. They share the location with a kind of moss that carpets much of the area and the combination of green and orange/brown makes for a nice color combination. The cap of the sporophore of this particular kind of mushroom has its bottom edge ringed in black which gives it a very distinct look. I haven't bothered to look under the cap, but I'm betting that the black edge is just the ends of the gills. This spring's group decided that the interior of the "tree" wasn't sufficient room for them and have spread out covering the outside of the tree as well and the interior. All-in-all, they make for a very nice splash of color alongside of the otherwise grey gravel drive. The base image received a small amount of contrast balance and that was it. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/60 sec @ f /10 with fill flash.

29 Feb 16. A couple years back when I was visiting Utah to attend a few days of training classes, I took a side trip to visit Antelope Island which is a state park that butts up against Great Salt Lake. The weather was a mixed bag and as such I got to see the area from different perspectives. You may recall that I sent a few shots back in 2013 after I returned from the trip. If memory serves me right, all of those shots involved wildlife of some type. This time it is just a pure landscape shot but one of a nice rock that really caught my eye. The rock reminded me of what it might have been like in the gold rush days as its surface was shimmering as if it had been coated in gold. Sitting there as it was with a beautiful cloudy blue sky above it and the snow capped Rockies behind it I couldn't resit trying to capture what I was feeling as I was walking by it. The RAW capture didn't do it of course on its own, but I've made a few tweaks that gets it close. The base image was given a little micro contrast adjustment to the clouds and rock, then I applied a filter to make it look really odd by turning it very white, modified that with a multiply blend mode which converted it to almost what you see, and finished it off with a curve adjustment to get the final look. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/320 sec @ f /13.