Daily Image - Jul 2017 Archive

03 Jul 17 About 35 minutes south of Ennis, MT traveling along MT Hwy 287 you come to a "T" in the road with the leg jutting westward as Hwy 87. Traveling about another 2 minutes along 287 towards Quake Lake Jan suddenly exclaimed "were those sheep?" I said I didn't see anything but lets back up and have a look. When I did we couldn't believe our eyes. There on a farmers field was a herd of more than 75 Big Horn Sheep, something we've never seen anywhere before and likely will never see again. They were all just hang'n out enjoying an evening's cud. I parked on the side of the road and shot for about 15 minutes before moving on. During that time they behaved as though we either weren't there or they just didn't care. For us it was quite a treat. Little did we know we were about to get an even better one in a few minutes which I'll share later this week and another shortly thereafter. This is a five pane vertical pano that I've cropped some for best presentation. Other than that it is straight from the camera. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; ISO 200; 1/640 sec @ f / 7.1.

July 4th When we have out of town visitors who stay for more than a day or two at most, we try to take them to locations that will give them a good idea of the area. On this side of the pond one such location is Mt Walker, a very short mountain only 2100 feet in altitude but a mountain with a spectacular view. From the lookout point at the end of the 1.75 mile road/trail, weather permitting, you can see unobstructed views of Hood Canal, Puget Sound, and the cities of Everett, Seattle and Tacoma –33, 30 and 39 miles distance respectively as the crow flies. In the distant Cascade range to the east, you can spot the volcanic peaks of Mt. Baker, Rainier, Adams and even Mt. St. Helens. To the west and up close loom the Olympic Mountains, with Mt. Jupiter, Constance, Warrior, Welch Peaks, and Townsend clearly in view. This location is the very best place of which I'm aware to get a grasp of what the PNW looks like - when you can see it. This last trip turned out to be the most photogenic we've experienced to date, and although it was a bit hazy, you could see much of what I've identified above. Zoom in and have a tour. A couple of things will be immediately obvious, the city of Seattle and Mt Rainier. Some of the other locations may not be quite as obvious, but give it a go and see what you can find. Three of the 4 peaks are visible, Rainier, St Helens, and Adams, as are Hood Canal (foremost body of water) and Puget Sound (next to Seattle). The Olympics are behind you and the other cities very difficult to discern. But whether or not you can find individual landmarks, you can still get a decent idea of the location in which we live. This is an 11 frame pano in which I've only adjusted the micro contrast a wee bit to help with the haze control. It is the haze that is causing the overall blue cast. Nikon D500; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/800 sec @ f /11.

05 Jul 17 Stayed up way past my bedtime last night shooting fireworks; by the time I got home was just too tired write this so a bit late today. Picking up where I left off with the herd of sheep in a farmer's field, we traveled another couple miles along the road with a rocky out cropping on our left and Quake Lake on our right. At this location the road has a steel barrier on the lake side to keep errant vehicles on the highway and not in the lake. On this section of Hwy 287 we drive much slower than the stated limit always on the lookout for animals, often on the road. When we noticed red lights on the car some distance ahead of us we decided to slow way down in hopes of seeing something interesting. Boy did we! Up on the hillside was a group of 5 half to three quarter curl Big Horn Sheep rams just watching the passerby's on the road. One of them has a mal-formed horn which might be a nice thing to have during hunting season. Of course we stopped and I shot for several minutes. It was immediately obvious that at least one of them didn't appreciate the attention, the center top most ram stomping his leg, so I positioned myself behind the barrier hoping that that would placate them. That apparently didn't satisfy him as he kept it up the entire time we were stopped. Almost without exception when an animal demonstrates this type of behavior I give them the space they desire; this was a rare exception. In this case I felt like the animal was being a bit obnoxious in that the group was way up on the hillside and we were off the edge of the road and I was further away still behind the road barrier. So I shot for a few minutes while they all hung out together. One moved a little further up, two returned to whatever they were doing previously, grazing on something I think, one was apparently just curious, and the other kept stomping his right leg. The five were still doing what they were when we drove off. I got some nice photos, they got their portraits recorded for posterity, and no animals were harmed in the making of this photo. Other than some small cropping this is straight from the camera. ISO 640; 1/320 sec @ f / 7.1.

06 Jul 17 Last night our "local" camera club hosted a fireworks shoot at a member's home. It was a beautiful setting and there were about 2 dozen folks in attendance. A pretty quiet group who were mostly interested in chatting about photography and food. Lots of wine was flowing to accompany many wonderful deserts and fruit, but I was good and refrained from indulging. Maybe it was the nasty wreck of a burnt to a crisp vehicle and melted highway I encountered on my way that had some influence. In any event, I had a good time and hope the club does it again next year. While I've puttered around taking a shot now and then over the last decade at 4th of July gatherings at my cousin's, I hadn't really done any serious fireworks photography since I was stationed at Pt Mugu in the early 80s when I could sit atop my APTU building and shoot unobstructed from the roof. Of course that was back in film days so I never knew what I was getting until I had the film developed. NOW things are very different, and so I decided I'd try skipping the single shot single exposure as I did in the past and go for long exposure multiple burst shots. This would be my first attempt at something like that so I elected to do just that for the evening. It wasn't as productive as I would have liked for several reasons among them being that I wasn't in the greatest position on the bank, but it was fun and I did get about 6 shots I liked. This is my favorite of the bunch so I thought I'd share it as a belated 4th of July image. This has been cropped some but not much and is otherwise pretty much straight from the camera. ISO 200; 14 sec @ f /20.

07 Jul 17 After receiving all the responses I did from the fireworks shot I was thinking of how I could effectively follow that. Of course I can't, but what I did select was a shot of a water lily bloom in the pond that has some nice color and form to it. In attempting to bring out the texture I think it took a little hit on sharpness, but overall it isn't too bad. Stand back about 6 feet from the screen and you'll get both the texture and the desired apparent sharpness. This is from a water lily we recently placed in the pond. Not only has it brought new beauty to the pond, but with the addition of its several pads with more coming almost daily the fish have decided it is now O.K. to be out in the open where we can see them. Best investment for the pond we've ever made. Thinking of adding another, this time either yellow or white. I've cropped the original to get rid of some annoying items and added a very small amount of contrast enhancement. Nikon D500; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 500; 1/1000 sec @

10 Jul 17 Driving between our home and just about anywhere, save for the very northern most point of this peninsula, we pass a small farm on the west side of Hansville Road that has been in existence since I was a child, although not now owned by the same family. It has, for the majority of the time we've resided here, but not currently, been home to a couple three head of cattle. It was always fun when driving by trying to find them when they were present and often we failed to do so. Now all that is there to view is the barn, a pond, and the grass. It's the grass that catches our attention. For the last two weeks it has been haying time in our neighborhood but this property has not participated so the land is a lovely carpet of yellows and golds. That is contrasted by a freshly red painted barn and a pond brightly reflecting the greens of the trees. For those of you not residing in our part of the country the greens of the trees can be somewhat impressive, not unlike I suppose the fall colors of the trees on the right coast for those of us on the left coast. I was reminded of this by an east coast visitor who commented frequently about that which we take for granted. I hadn't given it much thought in part because I tire of just green and long for the colors found on the other side of the continent so the comment at first surprised me but after hearing it a couple of times I realized how truly different are hardwood and softwood forests. So here is a shot of the small farm adjoining a softwood forest taken before the morning cloud cover had fully dissipated with just a hint of the blue poking through above the field of gold. That must make it a Swedish farm. This is straight from the camera save for some small cropping and a small amount of contrast enhancement for the clouds. Nikon D500; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 500; 1/1000 sec @ f / 9.

11 Jul 17 Baring any have-to-take-that-shot encounters, this location on the West Entrance Road is generally my first stop every time we enter the park. About 50% of the stops turn out to be just a nice stop but the others make it all worth while. In the past there were lots of elk in the area, but not so much any more as the herds have been greatly reduced in size. This past couple of years we have seen the occasional bison grazing among the lush grasses, but this time around the amount of grazing space was severely limited. The frequent winter storms that dropped record snowfall resulted in many areas of the park being flooded and this was just the first such area we were to encounter. Directly below that main peak you can see a stump in the water. That band of water is the river's normal size and if you were to make a reverse "S" curve to the left and then turning to the right you would have the normal size of the Madison River at this location. For those of you who save these images I've shared several shots from this very location so you can search through your archives if curious. Or, you could jump out to the blog and look there. The impact of that winter snowfall was really impressive and provided a look to the park we hadn't experienced before. A couple locations where I had intended to do some specific shooting were unavailable being fully under water while other locations that we had visited several years ago and which had been dried up the last two years were now once again under water. This impressive amount of water also affected the animals as many locations where we always found certain animals were now almost totally devoid of them but areas where we seldom saw them were crowded with them. The role of water in the overall functioning of the ecosystem was dramatically presented and I'm wondering if I'll see a similar impact this fall if I go back. Stay tuned. I took the base image and added the cloud bank and its reflection as the blank blue sky was not only boring but somewhat distracting. Otherwise, straight from the camera. Nikon D500; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 100; 1/160 sec @ f /13.

12 Jul 17 The Virginia City visit was a fun stop on the day we were to arrive at the condo. By the time we got there it was HOT and the day was rapidly passing us by. Our plan was to make it to Ennis in time to both have dinner and take in the art walk - which wasn't to be - so we didn't spend as much there as we likely should have. Consequently we will be visiting there again on our next trip. But while we were there we both took in several sights meaning spending some time in the different stores that were open for viewing. We didn't spend equal time in the same stores and I of course spent my time with the camera. I already shared one of my favorite locations, the Tonsorial Parlor, and for today another, a mercantile that had a large number of musical instruments, and in addition an early form of Victrola with "records." Now these "records" were unlike any I'd ever seen before and there were only 14 of them in the showcase, but I just had to capture them to share with you. Unfortunately they were behind double glass, the store front and the showcase, and the store interior was reasonably dark. So I had to use flash and with the space available and no assistant handy to hold an off camera flash, the results weren't what I wanted. But, with some effort, I was able to remove the majority of the problems caused by the poor flash positioning so you can see what I saw. I'd love to have this set of "records" and the player as a keepsake but I'm rather certain the price would be astronomical. Be sure to look for this store if you visit the city. It and several others will make the visit worth your while. I took the base image and after leveling and rotating I first adjusted for max color. Then I made a copy of that layer and using a levels adjustment adjusted the exposure to darken the bright areas. I then cloned portions of this darkened layer onto the blown out portions of the original. That was a bit tedious and necessitated MANY small steps. But it worked fairly well. I then gave it a small amount of contrast adjustment to "sharpen" the overall look. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/ 60 sec @ f / 5.6 with full flash.

13 Jul 17 Sometime in the 50s King County in WA State began planting scotch broom along roadsides to hold the ground and keep it from eroding in the rainy season (Sept - Jun). I remember my father complaining during my secondary school years quite strongly about how it was causing him to suffer something awful from all the pollen it released. During that same time I was suffering from severe allergies from just about everything known to mankind. I underwent a series of injections (hundreds) to find out what was causing the problem and then spent the next 3 years in an immunization program to rid me of them. Got rid of all but 4 which wasn't too bad. Among all the things to which I was allergic wasn't scotch broom. In fact, the allergist flatly stated that scotch broom didn't cause allergies! My father never believed him or other medical folks who stated the same to his dying day. Considering ALL the things to which I was allergic, the fact that scotch broom wasn't one of them left me thinking the docs might be correct. This year I have been hearing folks in our congregation tout the same scotch broom is making me allergic theory. One day after having heard a couple of folks utter the statement I noticed while walking down our road the number of tall grasses - 3 feet or taller - that were in full bloom, or whatever you call it when they are full of pollen, along with the ground level counterpart also full of pollen. So I picked a couple blades of each of just the tall ones, 12 different kinds to be exact, and brought them home to photograph. I placed them in a vase and took them up into the studio to shoot. I left them overnight and shot them in the morning. By the time I got around to shooting them they had been in the house for perhaps 14 hours. To my amazement underneath the arching over grasses was a solid layer of pollen! The photo for today is a shot of the grasses with an inset at the top illustrating the pollen deposit. The black stripe in the middle is the black cloth that the vase is sitting upon; I ran my finger through the layer of pollen to show the underlying covered cloth. After seeing how much pollen was on the grasses as well as that which dropped in that short time, I betting that the cause of the allergies is likely not the scotch broom but rather the pollen from all the grasses lining the roads and growing in all the fields in our farming community. And I'm thinking it wasn't much different for dad. You judge for yourselves. The base image was slightly cropped, the cloth backdrop was adjusted to black, and that was it. The corner of the rectangular inset shows the black of the cloth sans pollen. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 400; 1/60 sec @ f / 8 with fill flash.

14 Jul 17 Since beginning to write these daily tomes, I have endeavored to remember those of my friends who have left this world and moved to another place. Hopefully in each instance to be with the Lord. None of them have ever been easy, but they have been something I deeply felt the need to do. Today I write another, but compared to this one the others have been easy. Today's remembrance is the toughest one I have ever had to write as it was 2 years ago today that we lost Scott. I couldn't bring myself to write this immediately following our loss, and last year right about this time it really hit me hard and I couldn't bring myself to write anything coherent. With time things get easier but never what you could call easy. But it is time to honor his all too short a life and the time he shared it with us. As time moves on it is easier to think back on all the wonderful times we shared together as well as some which weren't the best. But I'm sure that is true of every child and that our parents would likely say the same of us. As you can appreciate I really don't want to be writing this, and truly wish that he was still with us, but having said that I also have to say that I believe he is in a better place than are we and that we shall soon be together again. So this one is for you son . . . . . dad I took the base image and ran it through the fractalius program twice using a different filter each time, layered the two results on top of each other and then reduced the opacity of the second to 50% to get the blend I wanted. Nikon D500; 105mm macro; Aperture Priority; ISO 320; 1/640 sec @ f /11.

17 Jul 17 Our first day into the park had us traveling west to Madison Junction, then south along the main loop road to the cutoff for the Firehole Canyon Drive, one of Jan's favorite places in the park. This loop road has been closed as often as it has been open when we make our Spring trek generally due to snow levels of which we have yet to see any on the road. The road takes you along the bottom end of the Firehole River before it joins the Gibbon River to form the Madison River. In this section of the river is located the falls and it is a beautiful fall consisting of two sections, upper and lower, although not so named. The upper falls might be considered a Level 2 rapids at best, but the lower falls would easily be rated a Level 5 rapid. With the runoff form the heavy winter snowfall this year the lower falls looked liked a Level 5 on steroids! I've shared a few shots of the lower fall in the past, so if you saved them make a comparison between this shot and the previous ones. The water was really rushing over the rock and the sound of the crashing water was truly memorable. I likely should have made a video with sound to share to really give you an appreciation of what we were seeing. Unlike previous years the water wasn't white but brown. This was something we noticed on the drive to Yellowstone, the rivers being brown instead of the more typical bluish color. Where it was really noticeable was that instead of white water rushing over the rocks it was a muddy brown. I guess all that snow rapidly melting was causing a fair amount of erosion. Natures way of reshaping the land. I'm curious to see how it all changed from this year's runoff. Guess I'll see soon if I go back in September. I took the base image and lightened the shadow area some to let the trees play a part of the story. That's it. Nikon D500; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/1000 sec @ f / 9.

18 Jul 17 The cherubs arrived Sunday evening to begin spending their summer with us, Sunday evening through Thursday evening until school begins, so we thought we'd take them to see something different each week and we started today by visiting portions of Hood Canal. Some of you are familiar with the area but most of you are not. We began out visit be driving along the shore in Shine and had barely begun our drive when Jan commented on the clouds. Making comments about clouds is more my thing, so you can just image how they must have looked for her to comment. Wait, you don't have to guess, they are today's submission. When I saw them I immediately knew they would be a B&W image when I was finished and of course that's what they are. Through most of the day we were treated to a fantastic display in the sky and I can't remember anytime prior when we've had a blue sky day with ever changing wispy clouds entertaining us for hours; a real treat! As I was watching the show today it brought back fond memories as a child lying on the steeply sloping back yard of a neighbor's home where we often played King of the Mountain and Red Light - Green Light just watching the clouds and seeing different things in them. Perhaps you can remember doing something akin to that in your youth. I took the base image, gave it a bit of contrast enhancement and then converted to B & W. Nikon D500; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 400; 1/2000 sec @ f / 9.

19 Jul 17 Likely third only to Old Faithful and the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone as main attractions in Yellowstone National Park is Grand Prismatic Spring. It is my favorite of all the attractions in the geyser basin and one I always visit whenever we are there. I'll wager you have all seen a photo of it at one time or another and likely it has been an aerial view. For the last two years there has been a trail to the top of the hill behind it that was to have opened, but on each visit we are told well "yes, but it isn't yet open". Perhaps by 2020. The parking lot for this attraction is generally very full but in the past one could park on the shoulder of the road and walk to the access point. Now all that extra parking has been placed off limits by the new warden so getting to see it is a bit more of a challenge. Parking as we did a fair distance from the Spring we were in a location that allowed us after a short walk to view the vapor coming up off the Spring which at first might not seem like a big deal, but with the correct lighting the vapors take on the colors of the various thermophiles that carpet the Spring. As a result you get colored vapor or mist or whatever you prefer to call it. You can also see it when you are next to it but it is far more impressive when you can see a large band of it instead of just what is in front of you obscuring your view of the hot spring. Uncharacteristically of me I left in a few naked apes for perspective. Be sure to place this attraction on your Yellowstone bucket list. This is pretty much straight from the camera aside form a little cropping for composition. Nikon D500; 18 - 200; Aperture priority; ISO 200; 1/1250 sec @ f /10.

20 Jul 17 When Mt St Helens erupted in May of 1980, all the environmental experts agreed that it would be a full decade before even the simplest forms of life would be seen on the devastated hillsides. It was stated over and over until whomever was discussing the eruption would repeat the unchallenged facts that the damage had been so great that all life forms had been totally annihilated. The very next spring the hill sides were covered in flowers, the most prevalent of which was Fireweed, Epilobium angustifolium. Around our part of the PNW Fireweed and Foxglove, Digitalis purpurea, tend to carpet the ground rather quickly anytime the ground is cleared by any form, natural or man related. The photo I sent a couple weeks back of Foxglove was taken of a hillside that was recently clear cut for timber with the result that these two plants have sprung up to hold the ground. Fireweed can be found growing alongside many of our local roads as well as in much of the logged off areas in the Olympic Peninsula. This shot was taken along the side of Hwy-104 last week while we were taking the cherubs out to enjoy a couple of waterfalls. It being Theatrical Thursday I thought I'd present it as a painting instead of a straight shot. The link above will show you a couple of lovey straight shots of the flower if desired. I've cropped the original image some for composition, given the sky a wee bit of contrast enhancement, and of course converted it to a painting. Nikon D500; 18 - 200; Aperture priority; ISO 400; 1/1600 sec @ f / 9.

21 Jul 17 Among Jan's favorite flowers, at least in the dried stage, would be teasel. Seldom do we drive along an area with roadside teasel that she doesn't comment on it and not infrequently we have to stop while she collects it for a future project. Unfortunately most of the time that cut material for a future project resides somewhere inconvenient until I finally throw it away in frustration of it having stuck me on more occasions than I would like to admit. Back during our first tour in the Navy she and a neighbor who were close friends used to employ the stuff for holiday decorations spraying it different colors and using it to decorate our Navy housing. That I liked as it served a useful purpose, but having it just lying around is a different story. One of the things we didn't do well when we built the current abode was to provide mantel space where we could display things like colored teasel and the like. As pretty as the dried teasel is, it is also quite lovely when it blooms, with its thistle like shape and tiny bright purple flowers perfectly designed for any small crawling insect or bird with a long thin bill, hummers being a perfect example. Today's submission is a shot of one stem in bloom. This is straight from the camera. Nikon D500; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 400; 1/640 sec @ f / 9.

24 Jul 17 Ground breaking for a new project, in this case our house, is generally an exciting time, but for us it was to hold an additional treat besides the start of a new home. Shortly after we began work this beautiful large golden dog looking more lion like than dog came strolling down the future drive to pay us a visit. We had no idea from where she had come, but she stayed the day with us and left to return elsewhere as we departed. From that day on she was to be a constant fixture on the property anytime there was some human working. She turned out to be our neighbor's dog, a Leonberger by trade, named Mini Cooper. The breeder from whom she was obtained had named all the puppies in her litter after cars, and being the runt of the litter, she was called Mini Cooper. By the time she came to visit us she was 5 years old and a loving playful 135 pounder. As far as I know and from our experience with her, she never met anyone she didn't immediately love. Even Maggie! Maggie's first exposure to her was friends forever, and that never changed. As we progressed in the building of the house Mini made more and more friends and was especially good at sharing lunch with the workers . . . their lunch. None of them could ever look into her big beautiful brown eyes and not give in to that "please, please, I'm starving, just a nibble" look. Midway through the construction I was asked to house sit for her and her two roommates, a couple of cats, for two months while the owners went on a two month cruise. I agreed as it would allow me to have a place to stay and not have to commute for two months while working on the house. During that time Mini and I became fast friends and we spent much time together. When we moved into the house Mini became a constant fixture generally arriving early in the morning in time for our morning walk with Maggie. Mini always accompanied us and soon we became the morning walkers of two dogs. Return from the morning walk was water and treat (single dog-bone) for each dog and a dish of ice water. Then it was nap time for the two dogs for an hour or so before playtime began which was off and on all day long. It was Mini's job we were told by her family to come and protect our house and she was totally reliable in that responsibility. She would often stay on our porch when we went away awaiting our return several hours later. She was a bit unique in other ways especially in that she didn't bark - we heard her do so only once - but was quite a talker and when we would go on vacation for a couple of weeks at a time upon our return we would be given an ear full, sometimes for as long as 20 minutes. And there was no getting away from her until she was through giving us a piece of her mind. In April Mini turned 13, an amazing age for a breed that used to make it to just 8 and more recently reaching 10 - 11. So 13 was a special birthday but it was obvious that she was beginning to show her age. About the time we returned from Yellowstone this May Mini had stopped visiting us on a regular basis and by June she visited no longer. We inquired as to her health and were told she was failing and that she needed to stay at home. That was a sad message but not something we didn't expect. Late Wednesday afternoon I got a call informing me that she was failing fast and that I should come down and say goodby if I wanted. I immediately paid her a visit only to find her stretched out on her lawn struggling to breath. When I arrived she perked up, raised up to a normal resting position and I was able to hold her head and stroke her fur for about an hour as we had our last conversation. It was very hard to leave and she made it clear that she didn't want me to go. The next evening she left us for a better place. If it is true that all dogs go to heaven, or at least the good ones, she surely is there now. This one's for you sweetheart! Other than cropping, this is straight from the camera. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture priority; ISO 400; 1/320 sec @ f /10 .

27 Jul 17 I've written a couple of times discussing the effects of the large snowfall during this past winter. Directly to the west of the Firehole River and south of the Firehole Lake Drive can be found Firehole Lake. That is to say sometimes. You won't find it on the map of Yellowstone the park rangers give you upon entering and you may not find it at all as there is no road sign saying Firehole Lake as there is for both the river and the drive. In fact, even if you know where it is, you may not see it at all! That's because it may not be there when you visit irrespective of the time of year. The lake is dependent on snow/rain fall, and when there isn't enough there isn't a lake. In 5 visits we've seen it 3 times; 2013 yes, 2014 yes, 2015 no, 2016 no, and 2017 yes and over flowing! There is a picnic area on the map where the lake can be found when present. For our 2013 -2016 visits the picnic area was open and accessible with a nice lake in front of it for 2013 & 2014, just a dry lake bed in 2015& 2016, and totally inaccessible and under water in 2017. It was simply amazing to see the difference this year compared with the previous four. In the image for today the "normal" edge of the lake is behind the tree that is lying horizontal with grass on each side and the orange stump immediately in front. The water behind that fallen tree is usually the shoreline of the lake. At the right hand edge about 1/3 the way down you can make out a picnic table that is standing in about 18 - 20 inches of water. In the past that picnic table was roughly 50 feet from the lake edge when the lake was present. It was like this in many areas through the park and made for some really impressive sights. I'll share more in the future including a pano of the entire lake area as we saw it that week. Other than a tiny amount of micro contrast enhancement, this is straight from the camera. Nikon D500; 18 - 200; Aperture priority; ISO 200; 1/320 sec @ f /10 with a -2/3 stop exposure compensation.

28 Jul 17 I've been collecting portraits of all the wild flowers growing alongside our road to put together in a collage. I had two to go which were a strange form of dandelion - never could get one in bloom not in a wind storm - and a member of the thistle family commonly referred to as a Canadian Thistle in these parts but it may have a much different proper name. I began shooting the thistles last week as they were just beginning to bloom but was hoping to work with them for a week or so as they fully blossomed out. Yesterday I heard this horrible noise coming from what seemed like it might have been street side so I walked out only to see the county tearing up all the road edge vegetation including ALL the thistles. Not cutting the plants but literally ripping them apart and doing a pi** poor job of it. Two years of no cutting and then a wholesale ripping out of the plant life leaving the material to clog the drainage ditch. Fortunately I was able to get a dozen or so shots of the thistle earlier in the week so I'm sharing one of them for today's submission. I've added a little micro contrast enhancement, painted out some background annoyance, and applied some small cropping for composition. Nikon D300s; 105mm macro; ISO 400; 1/60 sec @ f / 8 with fill flash.

31 Jul 17 You may recall a few days back I wrote that we have been waiting for a couple of years for the walk behind and above Grand Prismatic Spring to open lamenting that at the rate it was going it might be 2020 before it happened. No sooner had I sent that message than Jan got an email via facebook -- ugghhhh -- that the walk had opened that very day with a picture taken from the top of the walk to prove it. So now I can go take my aerial shot and share next year. Had serious thoughts of returning for the fall season to do it but the condo has been booked into October so that settles that. Now, thinking of the walk, perhaps I should write about some more of the things I want to see accomplished. I can think of a few. For today however we'll take another look at Grand Prismatic Spring. The spring occupies the entire bottom half of the picture and gives you some idea as to the colors found along the edge of the spring. This hot spot is a little hard to comprehend until you see it in person, but I'm hoping that once I can get a top down shot it will all make more sense. So might I suggest you hold onto the images I've shared from ground level to compare and contrast with the aerial I'll send next May. Or for those of you who don't like to clutter up your HDs I'll just remind you to go look on the blog to make the comparisons. And for those of you who plan on visiting and seeing for yourselves remember to allow yourself lots of time to really take it all in. A short walk along the boardwalk will not do it justice and will cheat you out of a marvelous opportunity. I took the base image and added a tiny amount of contrast enhancement, deepened the blue of the sky to more closely match the blue color reflection in the water, and added the very faint cloud layer on the right to break up an otherwise totally boring sky. My trade off was shoot with the "fog" of the spring "helping" the sky but obscuring too much of the spring or going with a cleaner shot lacking cloud material with the opportunity of added in some later. I took the second approach. Nikon D500; 18 - 200; Aperture priority; ISO 200; 1/1250 sec @ f /10.