Daily Image - Aug 2017 Archive

01 Aug 17 I was informed last night that I've shared too many Yellowstone images so I'll just send two more, but not tonight. I had planned on taking the cherubs to hike Mt Rainier tomorrow but the weather plotted against me and we won't be going. I called the park last week to determine peak wildflower time and was told wait one week and it should be perfect. We are now in that week and the weather decided to get warm with predicted temps of over 100 for the next 3 days so even though I really want to go shoot the flowers before they are toast, I'm thinking discretion the better part of valor this go around. Maybe next week if the flowers are still worth shooting or next year and I'll invite an out-of-towner to go with us. But the mountain is still worth seeing even at a distance when the weather is clear and today was just such a day. I had to make a trip to Tacoma on a VA issue and decided to make use of the trip to visit the small community of Gig Harbor. Likely few of you know of this little city but it is just north of the Narrows Bridges - think Galloping Gerty - and sits right on the water. There are several spots along the waterfront where you can see the mountain, my favorite being immediately across from a small park at the northern end of the city. I've shared a shot of this a few years back, but this time I've converted it to monochrome and given it an "old" look, like something you might come across in an old sketchbook. Although it may seem unlikely, the mountain appears to be immediately across from the water and generally looks this way from this location when the mountain "is out" as is commonly spoken by the natives when the mountain can be seen. Nice little harbor community to visit if and when you are in the area. I've cropped the image a bit, given the rock a little micro contrast to counter the small amount of haze, and then obviously converted to a sepia tone using the Topaz plug-in Impression 2. Nikon D500; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/500 sec @ f /11.

02 Aug 17 Driving to church Sunday we passed a patch of fireweed that caught my eye so I stopped to take a closer look on the drive back home. To my surprise the plant was going to seed and I couldn't recall having ever seen such before. My bride tells me it happens every year and that likely my vision, memory, or both, along with a lot more, are failing as we see it every year. Well, I don't ever recall having seen it before or I would have shared earlier. Prior to writing this I did a web search for images of fireweed and found just one image out of several hundred that showed the plant in seed. Which leads me to believe other folks haven't paid attention to it either or they just don't think it appealing in the seed stage. I obviously find it attractive in seed or I wouldn't have stopped to take the shot. Up close the seeds attached to their "parachute" remind me a lot of milkweed (Jan says dandelion) so those of you familiar with that plant will have a reasonable idea of how fireweed looks in seed, although the seeds are MUCH smaller! Either way, flower or seed stage, I find it rather lovely and am thinking of adding it to our pond landscaping. I've cropped the base image a bit and balanced the lighting small amount to lighten the really dark shadows. Nikon D500; 18 - 200; Aperture priority; ISO 200; 1/ 640 sec @ f / 8.

03 Aug 17 You may recall my saying a few days back when I sent the shot of the Firehole Lake picnic area that I would share one of the entire lake, or at least how the lake looked when we were visiting. So this is it. This is looking left (north) to right (south). This is a view you can only get by either being in a boat on the lake or walking down the hillside at the road's edge to reach the shoreline. We don't have a boat. The brown is primarily cattails so it will give you some idea as to the depth of the lake when it is present. When it is present you generally see lots of waterfowl but I think we may have been a bit early for that on this last visit. The lake is a bit deeper in the middle as noted by the lack of vegetation, but overall this is a pretty shallow body of water. Some years it's so shallow it isn't. This is an 8 shot pano which I had to straighten a bit but that is all I did to it. Nikon D500; 18 - 200; Aperture priority; ISO 200; 1/640 sec @ f /10.

04 Aug 17 There is a very short section of road known as Riverside Drive that parallels the Madison river for perhaps 3/4 mile about midway between the West entrance and Madison Junction. We generally drive it either coming into the park in the morning or on our way out. It's nothing special, but you never know what you may see there, and about 50% of the time we are rewarded with something. One early afternoon we came upon a group of four cow elk, three resting on the far river bank and one all by her lonesome on a small strip of grassy land in the middle of the river. At this point in the river is normally no more than three, at most four, feet deep, so she likely needed only to wade across to get to the island. It was the first time we'd seen anything on that strip of grass and I was of the opinion that she was about to drop her calf and had decided that was a safe location for such. Never saw any indication later that such was the case, but it made for a good story. Usually the water in this river is a beautiful blue, but the run off from the heavy snows had it quite brown as were all the rivers we encountered on the trip this year. You can't see her fellow travelers but they are just to the left about 20 feet downstream totally stretched out enjoying a lazy warm early spring afternoon. I've cropped this some for composition, added just a wee bit of contrast enhancement, and brightened the shadow area to bring out her head. Nikon D500; 18 - 200; Aperture priority; ISO 200; 1/640 sec @ f / 7.1.

07 Aug 17 Likely heading out early tomorrow morning for a full day in the Cascades so the probability is high that Tuesday's mailing will be sent late Tuesday morning. The Elhwa River is a short river primarily located in the Olympic National Forest. It has its beginnings in the Olympic Mountains which can be seen from the visitors center at Hurricane Ridge and empties into the Straight of Juan de Fuca. It is now famous for the removal of its two fully functional dams which have been providing a substantial amount of clean energy for 98 years. They cost under a million dollars to build originally and $325 million to remove. The river was home to 9 species of commercial fish which had significantly decreased in number over the years and which are now returning but the commercial value of the fish will in no way replace the values of the lost clean energy. We had visited the river in 2009 when the dams were still in place and the debate to remove/keep them was heating up, a debate of fish vs people. A couple weeks ago we thought it would be fun to go see the results of the dams removal. We couldn't get near the area where the dams had been in 2009 but as far as we got it wasn't nearly as lush as the surrounding area had been prior. So not being able to see what we had drive over an hour to see, we began sight seeing and looking for new things to see. At one point we found a portion of the river flowing under a massive bridge with both upper level vehicle lanes and lower pedestrian access and drove across to find a narrow side road that took us down to the river's bank. We did a little exploring along the river bank and called it quits as it wasn't all that exciting. I took a few shots of the bridge and the river just because we were there but none of it was really something I'd recommend to you for your bucket list. I did stitch together four shots of the river which was very low exposing far more rocks than water which I thought was the most interesting view we had for the entire trip and that's what I'm sharing. Of all the versions of the pano I thought the sketchbook version the best. This is a four vertical shot pano of the river. I've stitched them together, cropped the result a little all around, and given it a little micro contrast enhancement before converting it to the sketchbook look. Nikon D500; 18 - 200; Aperture priority; ISO 400; 1/1000 sec @ f /11.

Having been informed Sunday by a congregational member that the wild flowers at both Rainier and St Helens were fully out, and on-line web cams confirming that the mountains were visible (we are presently being smothered with smoke from severe fires in British Columbia to our north) we set out before dawn to travel to Mt St Helens to shoot the wildflowers with what's left of the mountain as the backdrop. 300 miles of driving, the better part of 6 hours on the road and another 6 walking around looking for stuff to shoot, we returned home exhausted, hot, and for the most part busted. Mt St Helens was virtually totally obscured by smoke, the flowers with rare exception weren't, and the day rather warm. I think I might have had better results overall had we just shot in the area around our pond. With one delightful exception. Less than a mile below the Johnston Ridge Observatory (literally the end of the road and the last viewpoint of the mountain) is another nice vantage point for viewing the mountain called Loowit Lookout. There is a trail called the Boundary Trail which is a 4.5 mile section of a series of trails of perhaps 100 miles total that encompass the entire area north and east of the mountain. They are well maintained and easily traversed assuming you are in reasonable shape!! An 0.8 mile section of Boundary Trail connects the Johnston Ridge Observatory and Loowit Lookout. While I was walking around trying to make the best of a less than desirable situation, Jan and the cherubs had located a chipmunk that they thought looked a little undernourished and having an ample supple of treats in the van for her majesty, they selected a tasty one, broke it into small pieces, and placed them in a conspicuous place on some rock. The little critter just couldn't resist such a generous offer and proceeded to show her thanks by allowing me to shoot more than a few shots of her enjoying the delicious meal. Today's offering is Jan's favorite of the set. I've cropped the base image for best composition, and given the background vegetation some selective darkening to keep your eye in the frame. Nikon D500; 18 - 200; Aperture priority; ISO 200; 1/640 sec @ f / 8. Hope you enjoy, dave.

Today's submission is an attempt of making lemonade out of lemons. The smoke from the BC fires made out trip yesterday less than ideal, and that's stating it politely, but since I was there I took a few shots just to see what I might accomplish in the editing process. The image I'm sharing has in its URHC the original shot for comparing what we actually saw with what I was able to tease out of it. The final edit was roughly 1 GB in size before flattening (compressing) as it took MANY layers of manipulation to get the final result. I'd be curious to see what a professional might achieve. This shot was taken directly across from the mountain and about 100 feet south of the chipmunk shot I shared yesterday. I don't know the data for this exact spot, but from a location about 8 miles west at the time of the eruption the temp was recorded at 600 - 700 degrees F and the wind velocity at > 300mph. Must have been a rather impressive event. The narrow tan band roughly midway in the shot is the compacted ash deposited by the eruption. It is approx 30 feet deep and actually covers the original road. Meandering through this mess is the North Fork Toutle River. I remember when it happened Jan's Dad talking about the falling ash and how it obscured the sky; I'm wagering that it was something like what we experienced yesterday. As mentioned, I have severely manipulated the original. Compare with the inset. Nikon D500; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/1250 sec @ f / 8. Hope you enjoy, dave.

15 Aug 17 After completing the morning chores last Wednesday, I went outside to work with a neighbor who had come over to help me fell 7 trees around 120 feet tall & approaching two feet in diameter and break the surface "soil," much closer to concrete, - I'm not kidding - in an area averaging 50' x 15'. That required the use of the bucket on a backhoe elevating the backhoe as much as 4 feet with each scoop. Needless to say we did a bit of ground bouncing. So when I returned to the computer and found the email not working with a wrong password message, I just figured things got jarred a bit and it would be a simple fix. Not to be, with Centurylink accusing me of being a spammer. I'll skip the verbiage of our conversations, but they lied about what was happening and had basically terminated my account. Multiple calls later over 6 days finally got me connected with an English speaking gent who said there was nothing wrong with the account and all should be well. It wasn't. He eventually got me connected with a tech, "above his pay grade" as he termed it who took down the account and fully rebuilt it. Whereupon I had mail again. When questioned about what was really going on the response was once again "above my pay grade." [ Based on an email from a member on these lists I'm not the only one who has experienced this behavior from Centurylink in the very recent past. ] A few minutes later I sent out the message you received this afternoon, then got in the car and drove to Pt Townsend to visit Glass Beach. Jan loves to collect beach glass, so you can imagine her delight to learn about a "local" beach that supposedly freely gives up its bounty of glass on a daily basis. An hours drive distant, followed by a 2.7 mile trek across a nice beach brings you to Glass Beach after which the next additional 1.5 miles of beachfront is supposed to be full of glass just waiting for the taking. As soon as we arrived Jan and the cherubs took off down the beach leaving the driver to fend for himself. They made it to Glass Beach but didn't walk the additional 1.5 miles and found next to nothing; I didn't quite make it to the beach and found more of the same. A walker we met along the way said if you aren't there at the beach at the crack of dawn you will be too late to find anything as there will always be folks there at that time to collect the booty. I think she knows of which she was speaking. I of course had the camera with me and got a few shots, three or four of which I'll share, but all-in-all it wasn't one of those ventures I'd recommend for anyone's bucket list. What I did see was a lot of was rocks, even a couple rather pretty ones, but none a lovely as those in a street side walk we saw last May while visiting good friends in Spokane. So having been generally skunked on today's trek I thought I'd at least share something pretty rock-wise and go with the rocks in the Spokane setting I just mentioned. This is straight from the camera except for a little contrast enhancement. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/60 sec @ f /11 with fill flash.

16 Aug 17 The steamy runoff from Prismatic Spring channels its way over the hillside on which the Spring resides and splashes into the Firehole River. I have never heard an explanation for how the various rivers received their names, but it seems to me not unlikely that this flowing hot water into the paralleling river is the most likely basis for the river's naming. As it runs through the geyser basin, with many of the thermal activities dispersing their water over the surface of the ground, it has to go somewhere; that river would appear the most likely recipient. So the name Firehole seems fully appropriate. At the parking lot end of the footbridge that crosses over the river taking you to Prismatic Spring and a couple other attractions there is a large display discussing the thermal features you see, among them the hot water loving bacteria called thermophiles. They are named by both the temperature of water they prefer and their color. The image for today shows the runoff just prior to its dumping into the Firehole River. All the different bands of color, orange, yellow, and brown, are different species of thermophiles with the bright yellow liking the hottest water and brown the coolest but all temps that would have you removing your hand very quickly should you be foolish enough to place it in that runoff. I didn't measure the actual temps, but I considered them sufficiently hot to name the image as I did. This image received some small amount of cropping, followed by a slight amount of contrast enhancement. Nikon D500; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/800 sec @ f /10.

17 Aug 17 During the summer of '61 the weather was such that Interstate 90 buckled blocking the east/west traffic for several days. I remember it well as I do a cartoon which I still have published in the newspaper the day of the buckling that showed a dude in the buff sitting in his lawn chair in his living room watching the weatherman on T.V. saying "Friends, its been hot today." The following summer of '62 was a bit cooler and much like the summer we are having this year. In the middle of that July a group of three of us thought a great way to cool off would be to go rafting on the Cedar River so we piled into one of our vehicles with rubber boat, boots, life jackets, etc, and headed to a location on the river about 90 minutes away ready for a fun ride rafting down the river. When we got to our lunch site we were a bit shocked to see mostly rocks with virtually no river. So shallow was it that we were able to chase a Steelhead through the rocks until we caught it by hand. The hardest part was picking it up and holding onto it without hurting it. Not often does one see a large fish with half of its body above water. That's one outing I'll never forget. Needless to say we didn't go rafting and we didn't get cooled off. Our visit to the Elhwa River a couple weeks back wasn't a whole lot different save for the fact that we didn't see any fish and the water, in places, was a little deeper. The shot for today is of that river and what looks like strong rapids is really the water flowing over rocks less than a foot in height. A salmon river it may be but one would be hard pressed to make that point on the day of our visit. I am standing in the river bed taking the shot. As it is Theatrical Thursday I've manipulated the image primarily to give the rocks prominence. It started out as a four shot vertical series that I've combined into a single frame. Nikon D500; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 400; 1/1000 sec @ f /11.

18 Aug 17 Everyone has their own opinion but for my money the best ferry ride in Puget Sound, excluding the San Juan Islands run, is the Seattle - Bremerton route. It takes an hour, twice as long as the other two main east/west runs, but it is by far the most scenic of all the rides including as part of its daily route passage along the waterfront portion of the Bremerton Naval Shipyard. That part of the journey can be rewarding enough, but for several months of the year there is a park on the Bremerton side that lies adjacent to the slip that features tall fountains that erupt high into the sky. The little park which contains the fountains is attractive enough to warrant a drive on a nice day to just go and relax, maybe even include a picnic, and watch not only the fountains but the ferries as well. In addition, there are a couple nice naval museums along the way and some very nice shops in which to part with your wallet if so desired. On the ferry, from the main passenger deck as well as from the more often than not misnamed "sun," deck you can also watch the fountains strut their stuff. As both the park and the museums - not the ferry - are free to all, it can be a fun way to while away the day regardless of how you get there. If you live in my neck of the woods, be sure to check on-line before visiting to make sure the fountains are operational. Other than a little straightening this is straight from the camera. Nikon D500; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/1000 sec @ f / 8.

50th Annivsary Edition During my 9th & 10th grade school years I had a paper route delivering for our local evening paper. It wasn't huge but it provided me with sufficient capital and a chance to run my own business (I had a lawn care business in our neighborhood prior but this was different) and an opportunity to meet some interesting individuals. One was the barber my Dad and I used and another was the son of a prominent Seattle custom jeweler who was following in the family business. Both of these individuals commented to me on how I ran my paper business and both made lasting impressions. The jeweler said at one point that if he could ever do something for me to just ask. I tucked that offer away. After graduating high school I attended barber school and shortly thereafter began barbering my way through university. That was prior to our country coming off the gold standard and at that time quarters were made of silver. Each time I got a tip for a haircut, I converted whatever the amount into the silver quarters and hoarded them away. (Still have many of them.) A couple of years past and I met a beautiful young girl at our church who when we met told her mother she had found the guy she would marry. Her mom just laughed at her then 9th grade daughter. A couple more years passed and we were engaged. Keeping in mind the comment of the jeweler many years earlier, I took a bag of the silver quarters to his establishment and inquired if he could convert the silver into gold (I still believe in alchemy) and craft for me a set of rings of my design. He of course agreed and after completing his work asked if he could display them in his showcase for a couple of months prior to my getting them. I agreed, he put them in the showcase, and generated several commissions off that work. He gave me (us) a real deal on the rings and I shudder to think what they would cost today. Once Jan got her engagement ring just about all the remaining family members HAD to have something similar which in truth really ticked me off as I wanted what I gave her to be special and to me all the family members getting something similar took away from that. Two years later, on this very day, Saturday, the 19th of August, 1967, we were married; that was 50 years ago. Her ring was based on the Seal of Luther, sometimes called the Lutheran Seal, which itself is based on a 5 petal rose. In my design I took the 5 petal rose, added a Christian symbol on each petal, and a diamond in the middle. The symbols are obvious when you see the ring; the diamond in the center is my bride, still shining in my eyes as bright today as 50 years ago. This one's for you you sweetheart! Thanks for putting up with me all this time. This is a composite of a rose grown by a good friend and a drawing manipulated several times. Nikon D500; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/2 sec @ f /11 on a tripod.

21 Aug 17 As I sit here Sunday evening I'm feeling really stupid! As we all know Monday is the event of the century, or the first time in our history, or the great cosmic event, or some other epic naming for the solar eclipse depending on which bard you read. Earlier this year I attended a camera club special meeting on how and where to photograph this event and have been hearing and/or reading about it off and on ever sense. But I didn't pay much attention to it as just about everything I read or heard said that all the viewing locations had been sold our for months, even years. So my thoughts were O.K., we'll just watch it from here and see what we can (92-94% coverage, again, depending on what you read). During a conversation Saturday with a long time friend I realized that our Yellowstone condo is directly under the center of the path of the eclipse and that we have actually had front row seats all along. And here we are sitting at home with some other family in our seats. Dummy me! About 7 miles as the raven flies from the condo is Avalanche Lake about which I've written prior. This is a shot of it at early evening converted to how it may look Monday at the height of the eclipse. As one on the members on this list lives in the same community as the condo we'll have to ask him if this is anywhere near how it looked at peak eclipse. I straightened the base image some - got to learn how to hold a camera level - then converted it to look like a sketch. Nikon D300; 18 - 200; Aperture priority; ISO 250; 1 /640 sec @ f / 7.1.

22 Aug 17 Hope you all had a great eclipse viewing today; we had a clear day with c94% coverage. It was fun to watch and we did it with a group of folks, mostly kids, just down the street. No pictures to share, but by now you've likely seen dozens of beautiful images from multiple sources. It was interesting to note the drop in temperature during the eclipse. I wasn't expecting that. As I've written many times before, we get some significant low tides twice yearly, June and December. Some years they are really low, -4 and lower, some years not quite that spectacular. It varies from year to year. Location plays a role also as the slope of the shoreline contributes to the effect of the lowered water level. About a 90 minute drive from our abode, west of Pt Angeles, one finds Salt Creek State Park, and associated with the park is Salt Creek Beach. It's a reasonably steep walk from the parking area down to the beach itself, and when you reach it you are primarily walking over rocks and not a sandy beach. It is a haven for marine life and the entire beach, of which there really isn't any, is the perfect example of the Pacific Coast inter-tidal zone. On the June tide we visited, a -2.3 tide, the weather was perfect and the water level such that we were able to fully appreciate all the algal forms living in that location. This is a shot giving you a good perspective of the "beach" and with Jan in the photo for comparative size, you get a sense of what we experienced. The top of the brown area on the left of the shot is approximately where high tide covers the algae with the remaining algae being nourished by the splash of the waves against the bank. If you live in our area and haven't visited Salt Creek Beach during a June low tide definitely put it on your bucket list. The is straight from the camera. Nikon D500; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 400; 1/800 sec @ f / 8.

23 Aug 17 Sharing the spotlight to a lesser degree with Grand Prismatic Spring in the Middle Geyser Basin is the Excelsior Geyser. For the most part this is a post geyser in that it made its debut many years ago with a gigantic explosion and is now more of a hole in the ground with a rock wall at one end and pretty much level at the other with a small amount of aqua blue water at its bed which is visible now and then through the fog? that is constantly blowing off the geyser. At the rocky end is the best view with several display boards providing information about it. Near the seven o'clock portion of the basin is one rock with a bit of green life growing on it in a small band appearing for all intents like it is tenaciously holding on for dear life. It is colored from green to brown with yellow interspersed to give it a bright outlook. It immediately caught my eye as I was walking past and I thought I'd try to contrast it against the rock - easy - as well as with the blue water - a bit trickier. But patience paid off and there was one brief shining moment when I could capture it all and so I did. The water really is that color and the mosses or whatever life form that is are also that brightly colored. I don't recall having seen it on previous visits so it is either something new or just doing a better job of showing off on this last visit. This is basically straight from the camera. Nikon D500; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/500 sec @ f /10.

24 Aug 15 As you will no doubt recognize from the image title today's submission is an abstract and, as it is Theatrical Thursday, I consider it fair game. I was reading an investment letter today dealing with experimental antibiotics that are addressing some of the new strains of super bugs. Part of the discussion was addressing the problems associated with the FDA in the approval process that has been holding back the availability of new drugs. According to the letter the situation has become significant enough that they have substantially changed the rules for completely new drugs in that these new drug types must only be better than the placebos and not "better" than existing drugs. That's an over simplification of it but it is opening the door for new drugs to fight the strains of super bugs that for all intents and purposes are just laughing at many of our current treatment procedures. That was some encouraging news. When I came downstairs to where Jan was getting ready to make a couple of blackberry pies there was a tray of frozen berries on the island and Jan suggested I take a snap or two of the berries. I did, but of more interest than the berries was the berry stained parchment on which they were resting. As I looked at the patterns of stained parchment and berry parts I was reminded of undergrad days in the micro lab looking for hours through a microscope at tissue slides with what I was seeing looking a lot like H & E blood stains. At the same time I thought about the current fad in photography of layering a "texture" with a photo to get an artistic look. So here you have a texture/tissue/microbe all rolled up into one. You can call it as you see it and apply it accordingly. This is almost straight from the camera save for a tiny bit of cropping for composition and the addition of the sparkles. D300s; 105mm macro; ISO 400; 1/60 sec @ f /10 with fill flash.

25 Aug 17 While doing a bit of maintenance in the area surrounding the pond Wednesday I noticed this sole bumblebee hard at work inadvertently collecting pollen while concentrating on getting a full meal. So attentive to what was being accomplished I was able to shoot for the better part of 10 minutes while this critter scoured the flower. I was using a 105mm macro lens so I was reasonably close to the bee and generally when I'm this close they only stick around for a short while, but this one was still hard at work when I finished my shoot. One of the things that caught my eye was the hairdo and the other was the amount of pollen distributed literally over the totality of its body. The bee even managed to provide me with a catch light in its eye so overall it was a very good subject. I would suggest incrementally zooming in to observe different aspects of the bee. I'm a bit behind in my insect shots this year so thought it time I shared one. This is a severe cropping of the original but that's about it. Nikon D300s; 105mm macro; Aperture Priority; ISO 400; 1/320 sec @ f /10.

28 Aug 17 With Harvey being the major headline these last several days I'm reminded of the power of nature and how anything we do pales in comparison. Our first year of our three year tour ('95 - 98) in P-Cola presented us with three hurricanes. The first which was a < Level 1 occurred while we were house hunting; the second, a Level 3, the day were were packing out of Pt Mugu and heading to P-Cola; and the third, a Level 5 offshore that diminished to a 2 as it hit the shore, about two months after we moved in. The following year there was one (Daniel) that veered off and hit Mobile, AL and actually hung offshore for over a week literally sucking Mobile Bay dry! You truly have to live through these storms to appreciate their RAW power. Seeing them via some electronic device just doesn't provide an appreciation for what they can do. Likewise with an earthquake several of which we lived through growing up in the Puget Sound area. To a slightly lesser degree are winter storms and the snow storm I got to experience last February in Yellowstone really gave me some idea of the power contained in the Midwestern storms. That winter snowfall brought a lot of stored water for the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and the benefits of it were readily observable this spring. I've written several times about the amount of water we saw in the rivers, lakes, and elsewhere when we were there in May, but thought this panorama might help in appreciating what occurred. You will likely need to blow this up to at least 50%, preferably 100%, to fully appreciate what it shows. I spent a lot of time working on this at an 11% magnification thinking I was seeing a few problems when I finally realized that most of them were just do to working at such a compressed size, so do blow it up. There is a lot of curvature in the image due to it being a 12 frame pano so just be aware that all that curvature you see in the front green area isn't curved, it is mostly straight. In the LRH corner, next to the copyright symbol, you will notice a set of several stumps sticking out of the water. Normally they are on dry land. ALL of the water behind that curved green band is normally dry land, and the water covered area in front of the light blue curved band is generally dry land. About 1/4 the way in from the left in the middle of the photo is a dark spot which, when you enlarge it, will be seen as a large stump. The width of the water - river - at that point is it's normal width, and the water generally bends around not exceeding the inside edge of that light blue contour line that curves around the entire picture. A huge difference from the normal width of the river combined with a much higher flow rate. All from one winter's snowfall. So while we can appreciate this for all the life giving water provided the park, I think we can get some very tiny idea of what Harvey has to have done to the areas under it's path where the water deposited was more harmful than beneficial! As I mentioned above, this is a 12 shot pano. I've cropped the resultant merge for best composition, tried to balance the lighting as best I could but didn't quite get fully there, and added a small amount of micro contrast enhancement for the sky. Nikon D500; 18 - 200; Aperture priority; ISO 200; 1/500 sec @ f /10.

29 Aug 17 This is a shot I took during our trek to Glass Beach about which I wrote a few lines a couple weeks back. Those of you who may have watched the mini series Shetland which was filmed in the Shetland Islands and featured about 30 hours of jaw dropping beauty may see some similarities between a certain cliff and what you see in this image. Shetland it isn't, but it still holds some raw beauty. This shot is taken about three miles distant from the parking lot with another 3/4 mile or so to go to reach the "official" Glass Beach location. This was the extent of my walk but Jan and the cherubs made it to proximal end of the beach electing not to walk the additional 1.5 miles to its end. As I walked along the shoreline looking for tiny pieces of sea glass I had several folks tell me to forgo the walk as there was just as much glass anywhere you sifted the sand as there was on the Glass Beach portion of the shoreline. By the time Jan and the cherubs had made it back to the vehicle they were in agreement. So I doubt that we shall return until such time as there is a major storm when the chance of lots of glass being uncovered/deposited is high AND I can get some nice weather images. The cliff that you see at the right offers some very interesting photographic opportunities and I'll share a few of those over the next several weeks. I had to do some light balancing on this image as the exposure for the water/sky and the side of the cliff were different enough that the base capture did not resemble what I remember seeing. Nikon D500; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 250; 1/1250 sec @ f / 8.

30 Aug 17 Back when we lived in So. CA during our 2nd tour in the military we made it a point to visit the chain of 21 Missions that linked San Diego with San Francisco. Each was located a one day mule ride apart so the Padre's could travel up and down the coast with guaranteed room reservations. They all promised to keep a light on for the travelers, if only one candle. One of these Missions was located in Redlands, just a few minutes drive from our home in Grand Terrace, which we visited more than once. Living in a location that was smog bound about 6 months a year, it was of interest to read the diaries of the Padres in which they described this "smog" phenomenon being present in their time and how the area was know then as "The Valley of Smokes." They wrote about the smoke being present for roughly 6 months then being blown out by high winds and then the process reversing with high winds blowing it back in. Interestingly just as it was when we lived there in the early 80s. We get something vaguely similar here when the winds combine with smoke from fires and blow it over our area. Today was just one such day and it reminded me not only of what the Padres wrote about centuries ago but what we experienced a few weeks back that made for a photographic challenge when we visited Mt St Helens. So today we have another of the photos taken on that St Helens trip but this time in B & W. That was not my original intent, but going monochrome made for a much nicer image. Looking at the group of trees in the upper left portion of the frame, move your eyes just a bit to the right to a down sloping hill. Immediately above that hill is Mt St Helens only you can't see it for the smoke. The bare eyes could see it - just barely with hard concentration - while we were there, but I had to point it out to the naturalist who couldn't see it even knowing exactly where it was until I pointed it out to him. In all fairness, it was a matter of the smoke density constantly changing that allowed for the occasional momentary viewing. One of the best reasons for not flying in inclement weather! I adjusted the base image for max contrast, then did the conversion to monochrome. Nikon D500; 18 - 2--; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/1000 sec @ f / 8.