Daily Image - Oct 2016 Archive

03 Oct 16 . We're Baaaccckkk. 2347 miles, 5,400+ images, and 9 days traveling with a friend of 40 years. What more could one ask for? Well, to start with, better weather (only 6 days of good weather of which two were in Yellowstone), more animals (fewest I ever seen on a visit to the park although the most black bears I've ever seen in the park), and far less government. I mentioned when we returned from the spring trip that the newest individual in charge was being referred to as the Park Nazi by both the locals and many of the rangers! They weren't over stating things. In the spring we noticed several signs saying do not park along side the road, use only the pullouts. We assumed, due to where we saw the signs, that it had to do with providing additional protection for the baby bison and elk. How wrong we were. Now the signs extend over the greater part of the western side of the park and are supplemented by blockages of all the roadside parking. It is simply awful. In addition to the road blockages are new fines for such trivial things as having your trailer mirrors extended without your trailer behind you and a totally arbitrary one in which you can be cited any time a ranger "feels" you are too close to an animal. Additionally there are plans to LIMIT the number of folks who can visit annually and an increase in the $30 entry fee by $5 - $10. Our park is no longer our park!! In all fairness we met several, not all, rangers who seemed to be in complete sympathy with the visitors and who were working VERY hard to make the visit as wonderful as they possibly could. Upon our return I was given the latest issue of National Geographic which is all about Yellowstone. Having perused it for an hour or so I realized why I cancelled my subscription years ago. Any relationship to what we experienced in the park and that issue of NG will cover very few pages. If you haven't visited the park recently and might be considering a visit, may I encourage you to go as soon as possible!! The base image was given a little dodging and burning and then I applied a filter to it - Topaz Impression 2 - to soften the blow of what has been done to our park. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture priority; ISO 500; 1/250 sec @ f / 8.

04 Oct 16 . Spent too much time today reviewing a friend's software (commercial product) and by the time it came to creating something for B&W Tuesday the eyes said they just couldn't do it. So I decided to fall back on a B&W of an image I've sent before but with some slight modification achieved via cropping. I elected to forgo shooting Gibbon Falls this trip as I have loads of shots of that falls and it being the autumn season the water flowing over the rocks was substantially less than it is in the spring. So this shot of the falls which is of the river below and not the falls proper was taken last spring in May. Plenty of water was flowing then and you can get a feel for it in this view of the river bed. Gibbon falls is an easy one to shoot and you can get several different presentations simply depending on where you are in the viewing area. This is from the very bottom end of the viewing area. For those more adventurous you can also climb down to the river's edge and shoot from there, something I think I may attempt next spring. I made a few minor adjustments to the original but nothing worth mentioning except that for this version I've cropped off the all the sky as it was too bright and pulled your eyes right of the image. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture priority; ISO 200; 1/200 sec @ f /10.

05 Oct 16 . Tackled that vision problem today with a visit to COSTCO, so now it is a waiting game for the new eyes to arrive. Meanwhile the nice tech in the store did some work on the existing set of eyes so let's hope her work proved fruitful. There are many ways to reach Yellowstone, but the most direct for us traveling east on I-90 is to take exit 256 onto MT 359. Just as you approach the exit which puts you into the town of Cardwell, MT, population 40 in the 2000 census, you have the view that constitutes the image for today. It is always a pretty view, but on this particular trip it was more so than usual with all the area dressed for autumn in hues of gold. Even the horse in the corral across from the exit was showing off apparently enjoying the scene as much as was I. The mid-afternoon sun made the area look as though Midas had just passed through even rendering the bird house as a glowing box. Couldn't have asked for a more spectacular sight if I had wanted. It looked much different on the return leg so I'm glad I stopped to grab a few frames before we pushed on to the condo. This is straight from the camera. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/160 sec @ f / 9.

06 Oct 16. Day two of the trip to Yellowstone was to be the first of the days of nasty weather. The wipers were on for the better part of the drive although as we neared the last 50 miles of travel the weather broke and we had a nice late afternoon / early evening to shoot. We made a rest stop on Hwy-287 around 1700 as the weather was breaking up. There were some very pretty pink colors along the bank of the Madison which bordered the rest stop and I wanted to try my hand at capturing their subtle colors. Walking back to the SUV my eye was attracted to something shiny on the pavement so I walked over to see what it was. With the light at the right angle the shiny stuff displayed a rainbow of colors and turned out to be a small patch of something oily. Some I suppose would simply see it as pollution but I saw it as both art and beautiful. You can make your own decision. I've increased the contrast some to really bring out the colors and applied a filter, Topaz's Impression 2, to get the final result. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture priority; ISO 400; 1/50 sec @ f / 9.

07 Oct 16 . Our travels to Yellowstone generally follow the same route. From our house we take the ferry to cross Puget Sound, grab I-5 and take it to I-90, and head east. First stop is usually at the McDonald's (Maggie's favorite restaurant) in Issaquah for a quick breakfast and leg stretch/potty stop for all 3 of us. Then we generally take another similar break at Indian John rest area on the eastern side of the Cascades where I also attempt a bit of photography of wild flowers in the spring and colors in the fall. Then we push on to Vantage and pay a visit to the Ginko Petrified Forest State Park along the northern bank of the Columbia River. Even though this is a regular stop, I almost always find something new to shoot or a different take on something I've taken previously. Such is the case for today's submission. This is a close up of a petrified tree, or at least a piece of one that stands upright next to the visitor center. I've shared a photo previously showcasing the entire log; this time I'm sharing just a small piece from the middle. This time instead of showing how it looked in the park landscape, I've selected a section illustrating both the differing colors as well as the differing structure found in a single piece of wood. I don't have sufficient knowledge to be able to identify what is what but you can clearly see that there are many different structures in this small section of the entire log. It's way too big to qualify as something macro, but I think I can get away with calling it a close up. At least that's my intent. This is pretty much straight from the camera although I did a bit of burning and dodging to balance out the lighting on the log. Plus I enhanced the micro contrast some to really bring out the textures. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/1000 sec @ f / 8.

10 Oct 16 . Continuing on from the oily rest stop on HWY-287 we passed Earthquake Lake where we got some lovely Aspen shots - likely Wednesday's image - and raced against the dimming light to Beaver Pond just outside of which we were held up by road construction. By the time we got to the pond the light was rapidly beginning to fade but as the clouds we trying to dissipate it was a bit of a trade off. Beaver Creek runs adjacent to the pond and at the very back of the pond is a beaver lodge. I have seen a beaver in the pond only once but based on its name I'm rather certain that they are there and the lodge would seem to indicate such also. At this time of year the creek is rather shallow as you can see in the photo, but the combination of rocky stream bed showing through the water surrounded by the yellow willows and a smattering of evergreens make for a very restful setting. It almost makes you want to camp there and in fact you can just a couple hundred feet up the road. We didn't see any fish in the stream but if we had seen some I'm betting we could have waded into it and just picked them up it was so shallow. Actually did that once in the summer post HS graduation in one of our WA rivers. It was a Steelhead and the river was so shallow that the poor fish could barely wiggle through the rocks so it was easy pickings. The only one I've ever caught by the way, and I didn't have a license for grabbing fish. Then again, I'm not sure you need a license for grabbing them, just for fishing for them. It was a very hot summer day, we didn't have a way to keep it cool, so we released it into a pool of water just downstream of where we grabbed it and never saw it again. This is pretty much straight from the camera. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 640; 1/400 sec @ f / 7.1.

11 Oct 16 . Since several of you have mentioned that you like the triptych approach to photographs, I thought I'd create a few from the trip as there are many shots that would lend themselves well to that type of presentation. Monday's offering is one of them that I think would work well, so for today I'm sharing a B&W version of the same image. Just to the right hand edge of the shot is the highway and the river goes under the bridge and supplies what looks to be a marshy area on the opposite side of the road. I'll share a shot of that marsh as we go on. The last couple of hours of light we had on that second day of travel made for some very nice photographic conditions, and in fact it may have been the best light we had during the entire 9 days even though the last 3 days all provided for some very nice opportunities. This B&W version of the shot is my favorite of all the versions I made, but if B&W is not your thing you will likely prefer the colored versions. I'll share the third panel of this series on Theatrical Thursday. Everything is the same for this image as it was yesterday save for the B&W conversion. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture priority; ISO 640; 1/400 sec @ f / 7.1.

12 Oct 16 . Going back on my promise for today's submission and also back in time to the late morning of the second day. Having finished a nice breakfast at the motel, we traveled along the Clark Fork River on our way to visit the St Ignatius Mission in St Ignatius, MT. More about the Mission in a later epistle. Driving along I-90 you cross over the Clark Fork multiple times, perhaps a dozen such before it leaves you for other meanderings. It is a lovely river and in some places simply spectacular. At the location where this shot was taken it separates mostly cattle ranches on either side with the occasional farm set in grain. As we were making our way to the Mission we were playing cat and mouse with the weather experiencing mostly overcast and rain showers interspersed with momentary sunshine. By picking a location and simply waiting we were able to get sets of the same location in both sunlight and overcast. Here it is in a fleeting moment of sunshine. The colors on the hills in this area of the river are something you have to see in person to fully appreciate. When the sun is obscured by the clouds, the difference in hillside color is hard to believe. The small scrubby stuff mid river had just started to put on an autumn display, but the grasses were putting on quite a performance from pale yellows to deep golden hues. All we were lacking were a couple pure red trees for accent. I've increased the contrast a small bit to bring out both the textures and colors and adjusted the color temp a little to the blue side. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture priority; ISO 250; 1/400 sec @ f / 8.

13 Oct 16 . For today's Theatrical Thursday submission I'm sharing the third of three shots for the triptych. I have two more versions of this image so for any of you who may want to play with 5 shots from which you can select 3 just email me separately and I'll happily send your way. Spent the day going through the 5,000+ images from the trip and selected roughly 3% as possible DI selections. I'll have to see how those pan out in the form of a sequential narrative of the the 9 days. I wasn't terribly pleased with what I shot when I was initially proofing them on the laptop will there, but looking at them today on the calibrated monitor I realized it hadn't been as bad a shoot as I originally thought. Of course beauty is in the eye of the beholder so you will have to be the final judge, but for certain I got a great series of a bull elk and his harem. Plus several nice shots of bison and pronghorn as well as a short series, shot from above, of a couple of full curl big horn sheep. All this and more in the coming weeks. This is the same shot as I shared on Monday & Tuesday so everything, except for the conversion, is the same. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 640; 1/400 sec @ f / 7.1.

14 Oct 16. Stepping out of character again today and sending a file that is a jpg straight from the camera save for some cropping. And jumping out of sequence in the travel scenario as this was a mid-week shot. Driving north along HWY-191 you follow several rivers on the right side of the road for the most part. There are lots of pullouts for slower traffic of which I am always a part in that keeping up with the speed limits mean I miss far too much of the lovely scenery. I found a small patch of snow berries at river edge in a location where I had pulled off to shoot the red bushes on the far side of the river. Had to move a bit from the beaten path to get where they were but it was well worth it. The rain had let up for a few minutes and water droplets were forming at the base of many of the berries. Even managed to find an inquisitive fly checking things out who wasn't disturbed by my presence. One never can tell what's available until you slow down and get out of the vehicle. Other than the cropping as I mentioned, this is literally the jpg from the camera. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 320; 1/320 sec @ f / 7.1.

17 Oct 16. Shortly after sending out the image Thursday night the remnants of the typhoon arrived and we lost power until early Friday morning, then again in late Friday morning for perhaps 90 minutes, and then it was frequent minor interruptions until late this afternoon. All told we've received over 6 inches of rain with the forecast calling for another 6 days of rain without a break. A few more days like we've had and the fish will be swimming over the edge of the pond! I'm not kidding. With the power situation as it was, this is the first time I've had the computers on since Thursday evening. My plans to work up a "few" trip images over the weekend didn't materialize, so hopefully with the winds abated tomorrow will allow me to do so. Meanwhile we'll take a look at the other side of the pond from where I left you on either Monday, Tuesday, or Thursday. Normally I don't find this side of the road as interesting as the side I shared last week, but this time the light was perfect, everything was in fall plumage, and the color combination simply stunning. In the park there are many areas that display dead trees like those you see in this shot, but those in the park are associated with thermal activity and I have never seen any indication of such in this location so I'm a bit puzzled as to what caused their demise. There is animal life in that pond area so it doesn't seem likely that minerals are the problem either. For now I'll just have to be curious. Running across the back edge of this flat area is a large power line but I've removed it as I don't think it contributes much to the image. Now all I need is a bull moose or elk with full rack to make it complete. I've straightened this from what I shot, added a small of contrast, and did some dodging and burning to emphasize the certain section of the image. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 400; 1/100 sec @ f / 7.1.

18 Oct 16 . I've mentioned many times that the Madison River is one of the top trout streams in the nation. When you drive alongside of it paralleling MT Hwy-287 it is a rare day when you don't see one or more, usually dozens of fishermen wetting their lines. There is one in this capture I made the morning of our departure. I've recently added a GPS to my camera body with the idea that I can now locate exactly where I took the shot. For grins I clicked the link in the metadata on this image and Google Maps pinpointed the exact spot where I was standing on the edge of the road when I pressed the shutter. Kinda fun PLUS it provides a view of the area I can't get when standing on the edge of the highway. Try it for yourself. This is a major fishing resort area and I'm rather certain the cost of staying there is more than I could afford. But then, not a problem as it is only a 30 minute drive from the condo, assuming I don't stop to take photos and it is a very good bet I will. Just beyond the left side of the image is Hebgen dam which forms the lake on whose shore the condo is located and just a short distance past the right hand side of the image is Quake Lake of which I've written previously. The roadway you see on the right hand side of the photo is Ghost Village Road and provides access to the resort areas. The base image was given a little contrast adjustment and then converted to B&W. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/320 sec @ f / 8.

19 Oct 16. Got enough requests today for the color version that I figured I might as well just share it with everyone. The solo angler is easier to locate in this version plus you get a better idea of the mountains in the background. Looking closely at the fly fisherman you can get a little idea as to the size of the willows, the yellow bushes in the image. Seeing it in color might just make you want to pay that part of MT a visit someday in the fall. Not much more to add from what I shared yesterday. Same info as yesterday except no conversion. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture priority; ISO 200; 1/320 sec @ f / 8.

20 Oct 16. There is a feature in Photoshop called smart filters. In short what it provides is the ability to preserve an image's source content with all its original characteristics, enabling you to perform nondestructive editing to the layer at a later time. It is a nice feature but it significantly increases an image's size. This image was created using such a feature for the first time in my case, and so far all I can see different is the file size. Of course if I should want to go back and edit it again sometime in the future I can, but in reality I don't see me doing that so this likely is also the last time I'll use the feature. But it's fun to know that it can be done should I ever work on an image that it so important that I need to have that ability. The shot is of course of Artist Paintpots of which I've written several times before. Didn't get there during this fall venture so this frame is from our spring visit. It's still Jan's favorite place in the park and one I enjoy visiting whenever we can as it is not always open during our May visits. Being Theatrical Thursday I thought I'd play with it some as all the previously shared shots have been non-creative. I've given it a bit of a breezy effect and then turned it into something akin to a tapestry. Nothing extreme, just enough to make it look like something that might hang on a wall in your parlor. This is pretty much straight from the camera with the two above mentioned effects applied. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/640 sec @ f / 9.

21 Oct 16. Just back from a camera club meeting at which I submitted 3 images for critique with the judge being a very accomplished photographer whose comments I appreciate. One didn't fare too well, one did well, and third got a "it's perfect as it is". So, batted .333 tonight which, if I were wearing a ball cap and funny pants, would earn me a multi million $$ salary. Too bad photography isn't in that league. The image that got the kudos was the oil slick I shared a few days ago. For today we are looking at a couple of leaves from a shrub in the front landscape which I'm calling a hazelnut which it apparently isn't but looks like one to me. I took this one day after our big storm surprised that all the leaves had managed to hang on, only to find two days later that they were all on the ground. Not sure how to account for that, because they still have the same color, just not hanging on the branches of the shrub. On our first posting in CA I asked my neighbor - who had a great sense of humor - how to tell when it was fall in So.CA. His response was, when the leaves are off the trees and on the ground, that's fall. Guess it could also be true here, at least with respect to this one plant. For today however the leaves are still on the plant and still retain on their surface some of the storm water. I did my best to get a fully sharp capture of these brightly colored leaves but with the breeze we were experiencing this was as good as I could do. This is basically as shot except that I did a tiny amount of detail enhancement on the leaves to accentuate their structure. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 500; 1/250 sec @ f / 8.

24 Oct 16 . Something different for today in that it is an interior shot of a building and I don't shoot building interiors, so this was a bit of a challenge especially as it was taken with a lot of others in the building doing something similar although primarily with cell phones so the individuals were really annoying always stepping in front of me because they had something important to do, which included standing around for prolonged periods of time doing whatever it is that cell phones users do after they snap a photo. About 4 miles east of the motel where we stay when we travel to Yellowstone is Exit 20, St Regis. Ninety minutes NE of St Regis is found the little community of St Ignatius. To get there you follow the Clark Fork river for most of the drive and that time alone is worth it if you do nothing else. But in that little town is found the St Ignatius Mission, a small Catholic parish in need of restoration, but one in which Sunday services are still held. You don't visit for the service, but to look at the art work on the walls and ceiling. One of the priests, Brother Joseph Carignano (who was also the cook), over a period of 10 years, painted 58 depictions of Christ's life in the interior of the Mission to resemble the Sistine Chapel. This photo will give you some idea of what is there, but you have to see it in person to truly appreciate it! The space available for taking photos is adequate but you need a view camera to do it justice, so I've had to "adjust" this quite a bit for perspective distortion in the original capture but you should still get a reasonable idea of how it looks. If you ever take a trip via I-90 I highly recommend this as a side trip along the way. As I said above, I've done a lot of perspective correction and also evened out the lighting in the building, but otherwise this is a straight shot. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 800; 1/40 sec @ f / 5.6 hand held.

25 Oct 16 . Our first day of the return trip home had us leaving in mid morning in what can only be termed beautiful light accompanied by a little bit of fog on the lake. A little west of where the condo sits on the highway side of the lake we came upon a solo fishing boat very slowly motoring relatively close to shore as if they were just barely trolling. We never saw any activity in the boat and from my perspective they were likely wetting a line just for an excuse to bask in the beauty of the moment which may have lasted for an hour or more as far as I know. We stayed there for perhaps half an hour walking up and down the road attempting to get the perfect composition which likely we didn't but it was a lot of fun trying. B&W really shows off the scene but tomorrow I may share with you the color version just for your comparison. The sky that morning was the only photographic drawback in that it was a solid very pale blue so I've replaced it with a sky from later in the day and also added the reflection of the sky into the water. Otherwise, excluding the conversion to B&W, this is a basically out of the camera shot. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/1000 sec @ f / 7.1. And yes, I could have swapped a bit of shutter speed for aperture, but with the subjects all at infinity I opted for the faster shutter speed to offset any camera motion.

26 Oct 16 . As I mentioned yesterday, here is a color version to compare with the B&W from yesterday. If you still have the B&W from yesterday, try cycling back and forth between them. The golds that morning were something to behold and in truth were almost hard to believe. No snow of any consequence so you could still see the colors of the ground cover higher up and that morning light was showing it off as I've never seen before. It was hard to leave, really hard, and it only became more so as we drove on. A few miles farther along the road we came to the bend from which I shared the fly fishing shots and that stopped us for the better part of an hour. More color stuff tomorrow. This is exactly as I commented yesterday save for the B&W conversion. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/1000 sec @ f / 7.1.

27 Oct 16. More color as promised. This time for Theatrical Thursday the creativity isn't all that creative but rather just an attempt to create a water color like image. But what is a bit different is that it is an attempt of a still life like the old masters used to do so well. This isn't anywhere near the quality of their work, but still good enough to share. I did an oil version of it also but my two critiquers tonight voted the water color the better of the two so that's what you are getting. In our kitchen has been sitting this bowl of fruit for several days and on Sunday, when the pears were green, I said I'm going to shoot the bowl as a still life. Today I realized I'd better get on with it as the pears had turned yellow likely on their way to brown. So I took the bowl up into the studio, carefully removed all the stickers on the pears and apple and shot away. It wasn't until I was looking at the images in the computer and too late to fix the problem as Jan had made the pears into a pie, that I noticed one of those sticker fully visible on the end of the squash. So I found myself carefully removing the sticker digitally before I could work up the image. Funny how the most obvious thing is the one you totally overlook! The base image was corrected to remove that pesky sticker, then converted to a "painting" using topaz Simplify. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/60 sec @ f /16 with fill flash on a tripod.

28 Oct 16. About 5.5miles from our house is an intersection I knew as a child as Four Corners, but it was known by other names as well including George's Corner which is how it ultimately wound up being called. It is home to a couple of gas stations, a couple of banks, a major chain grocery store and several other small businesses including a nice Mexican restaurant. It's also one block from our church. so we find it a handy spot for picking up those small things that one frequently requires, like milk and salad mixin's. In the fall it is also a spot where I like to go and shoot the red leaves that have fallen off the maple trees that line the parking area. In particular, it is a good location to go after a rain has fallen - almost any day - and accumulated on the leaves in the form of water droplets. Last week we had one day that was almost perfect in that the light was from an overcast day - God's light box - the leaves were all piled up on the shrubs lining the parking area, and they had received a fair amount of rain the night before. So that day I took a hundred or so shots looking for the right combination of leaves of color, leaves with water droplets, and nice greenery beneath them. This was one that made the cut. Other than a very small amount of micro contrast enhancement, this is straight from the camera. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture priority; ISO 250; 1/500 sec @ f / 8.

31 Oct 16. About 1% of the time I know before I even press the shutter release that the photo I'm about to take will be a Daily Image. Today's submission is one of those. From the moment I saw this scene I knew I had to share it as it is I believe a once in a life time shot! I've never seen anything like this before and with the ever increasing encroachment of one ability to observe wildlife in Yellowstone I doubt very seriously that such an opportunity will ever present itself again. This was taken on our first day into the park in some rather stormy conditions and I was initially rather depressed at how things were developing. We came upon a herd of elk where we used to find them in the Madison Valley a decade ago but there was no activity of interest and after about 15 minutes I gave up and went to take a nap in the SUV while my friend stayed to shoot. When he eventually returned to the vehicle he said that things had gotten interesting so I went back out and shot for the better part of an hour. Some of those pictures will be making their way in a while. Having completed that part of the shoot we drove about two more blocks where I spotted these guys fishing in the Madison. As I got into position to shoot them I couldn't believe my eyes, so I just stood there for a few minutes staring before I started shooting. It was on opportunity I couldn't hardly believe. Take a look for yourselves. If after looking this image over you don't understand why I was so impressed keep the image until tomorrow when I share with you a B&W of the same thing taken with a different perspective and I assure you you will! This is straight from the camera. D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 400; 1/1600 sec @ f / 8.Choice of shutter speed and aperture made to ensure a sharp image.