Daily Image - Jan 2017 Archive

02 Jan 17 After suggesting that I would be limiting the B&W images, Jan picked this image out from a grouping of 10 so I figured I'd better go with it. One neighbor south and east of us, an elderly lady, drives her small vehicle from her house to the street each morning heading south, then after having traveled about 12 feet stops, backs up about 15 feet, and heads back into her driveway stopping momentarily to pick up her paper before driving back to the house. It is sorta funny when you watch her do it. But do it she does, and every day without fail. Occasionally she is in the process when I take her majesty out for her morning ablutions, so when it happens during walk time we just casually observe. Her driveway is one of Maggie's favorite places to explore and I don't blame her as the driveway is absolutely beautiful with a moss lined center bordered by fir and cedar trees from one end to the other. As you gaze into this photo you will see a set of three mailboxes on the right although you may not be able to make all three out clearly. Directly across the road on the left is the entrance to our drive. The snowfall amounted to a full 1/4 inch which when combined with what we got a couple weeks back gives us a total of 3/16ths for this winter; exactly 3/16ths more than our total for last winter if my memory serves me correctly which Jan claims is a rare event and does not agree with my assessment. Off tomorrow early to shoot eagles, mountains, and whatever else we come across up in the Skagit. This is a straight from the camera shot converted to B&W using the Topaz bw effects 2 plug-in. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 400; 1/125 sec @ f / 5.6.

03 Jan 17 Picking up where we left off yesterday. Directly behind the garbage can and immediately in front of the address post in yesterday's shot you will find this bush. Every fall as we walk by it, which we do daily as it is on the path we take for morning ablutions, Jan comments on how lovely she thinks it is with its green leaves and bright red berries. I've tried unsuccessfully to get something I like with it bare, but with the snowfall I got a couple snaps that I thought I could do something with and this is one of them. I didn't fully capture what I was attempting which I believe was do to a lack of Sol, the idea being I wanted the melting snow forming water droplets to glisten, but I got this close. The droplets are all over, just not glistening. So today, as I mentioned at the close of yesterdays tome, we set out before sunlight to head up into the Skagit to look for Bald Eagles, Roosevelt Elk, Black-tail Deer, and any other critters we could find. Our score reads 2 Bald Eagles and a bunch, perhaps two dozen or more, hawks. Period. Apparently it was a holiday for more than just humans and the animals were not to be found!! But we did have great weather with crystal clear skies (wouldn't have objected to a few clouds for character) snow everywhere and ice as well, lots of ice, bright sunshine with temps in the low 20s, and absolutely gorgeous snow capped mountains wherever we looked. Plus a bit of adventure. I managed to loose my footing about a dozen times falling down hard six or seven of them (I lost track), plus while testing the handling of the SUV managed to put it into a snowbank from which I couldn't extract myself! Never done that before but learned a couple of lessons in the process. A very kind passerby offer to pull us out with his 4-wheel pickup but it took his four wheels and our four as well pushing and pulling in consort to move us off nothing more than a 6 inch grove of ice under each of our tires. Turns out our far cheaper replacement tires really aren't as good as the nice gentleman told us when we purchased. But now I know and will make the necessary adjustments. No damage was done save for a broken camera lens protective filter and all we really incurred was a 30 minute delay in our travels. Otherwise it was a great day, I got close to 500 shots a few of which I plan to both share as well as use for next year's calendar as Christmas show, and Maggie LOVED playing in the snow, one of her favorite things. The base image was severely cropped, a little distraction removed, and than I applied a filter from Impression 2. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 400; 1/100 sec @ f / 5.6.

04 Jan 17 Seven options for today; Jan selected this one. I'll share another in the future. Travel I-5 to Burlington, then take Hwy-20, also called the North Cascades Highway, to Marblemount. Exit Marblemount and at the juncture of the 90 degree left hand bend in the road and the bridge, take the bridge crossing over the Skagit River and drive up a bit, maybe 10 miles, on the Cascade River Road. Eventually you come to a small parking area where perhaps 4 cars can park. Often it is also the site where the road is no longer plowed, although yesterday that wasn't the case. The plowing had stopped much lower so it made for some beautiful driving not seeing an ugly road. At the parking area there is a three foot bulkhead the other side of which is both a fantastic view as well as a drop off of I'm guessing 500+ feet almost straight down to the Cascade River. Today's submission is the view from that parking lot presented as an oil painting. This is the kind of scenery we enjoyed for the better part of 10 hours yesterday. This afternoon I saw something even more spectacular and if I was able to properly capture it I'll share it tomorrow. If not, and the weather holds I'll re-shoot and share next week. This peak is part of the Diablo Mountains and try as I might, I couldn't find the name of the peak. Perhaps one of you PNW locals can identify it for us. This is straight from the camera and then I used Topaz Simplify to get the oil painting look. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/800 sec @ f /10.

05 Jan 17 As promised , here is a shot of something I've never before seen. You are looking across a part of Puget Sound with almost, not quite, the entire range of the Cascade Mountains in view at one time. The shot is somewhat deceiving in that you are viewing roughly a 135 mile span of rock. Mt Baker is at the left had edge of the frame and Mt Rainier is out of view about an inch beyond the right hand edge and not included in the photo(s). This is a 7 frame pano. I've shared many shots from this location, but this was a first for me, to see the entire range all clearly visible, with snow no-less, at one time. For those of you who are unfamiliar with our weather this may not seem like much, but for me it was a tremendous treat so I thought I should share. The thin light line at sea level across most of the image is a mirage are frequent occurrence when looking across the sound as we are in this image. For a better idea of what is happening, watch this video. I saw this same type of activity from McMurdo Station in Antarctica. Seven frames merged into a single composite with several adjustments made to get everything balanced. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/250 sec @ f / 5.6.

06 Jan 17 I borrowed another grouping of poinsettias from church last Sunday and did some more playing with them earlier this week. This was a multi-colored group, both red and white, but I've used just a portion of the red for the image(s). The base image isn't something that I'd want to print, but it was the perfect platform for creating some artistic versions. You may recall that I shared a shot of a dragon fly last year that I had converted into a six sided figure. Some folks really liked it and others, such as my bride, said "yuck." It's a matter of taste I guess. Today I'm sharing two creative versions of the base for your consideration. Sort of a combo macro-creative image so we'll consider it fair game for Theatrical Thursday and Macro Friday. These two are pure art, something akin to looking through that tube you had as a youth that contained a lot of thin mirror strips with a bunch of colored pieces of glass or something inside which made interesting designs when you rotated the end with the mirrors. You can now do the same thing with software so of course that's what I've done. So three images for today, the base plus to pieces of art. To create the art I used a program called Picture Window Pro, a graphics program built by the same individual; who wrote Lotus 1-2-3 back in the early 80s. Some of you may remember that piece of software as the savior of the first IMB-PC. Long story that is available on the web. I took the base image and cropped it tightly, then removed (painted out with black) anything I didn't want. Saved that and then created the two art pieces. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 400; 1/60 sec @ f / 9 with fill flash.

09 Jan 17 Our two week cold spell - temps in the low 20s - broke Sunday morning and with it the loss of the beautifully clear air and a return of rain. During that two weeks cold spell the splash of water from the waterfall in the pond created a simply wonderful ice sculpture all around it as well as along the water/rock interface and over several of the pond plants. I took a whole series of shots of the ice formation as it was being deposited and then started shooting Sunday as it was breaking up. My guess is it will not last long past this evening if that long. As I looked through the shots I found myself debating as to which to which look I would share, full pond showing everything, straight on of the waterfall, side view, or close up of just the area where the water exits and starts its downhill drop. Went back and forth several times even working up a few images which I discarded, before settling in on a side view. The slightly slanted streaky portion is the actual running water; everything else is either pure ice or iced over content. I'll likely share a couple more shots to give you the full perspective but this first one should give you a reasonable idea of how it looked at it's peak. This is straight from the camera. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture priority; ISO 400; 1/160 sec @ f / 6.3.

10 Jan 17 A couple miles at most downhill from where I shot the mountain picture I shared last Wednesday we came upon a section of woods that were covered in either frozen snow or ice, I couldn't tell which from the intensity of the back lighting, but which made for a striking image. I took a couple shots from the vehicle as it seemed like we had become a magnet attracting all kinds of other vehicles on a two lane road rendered somewhat less by the snow. The two I got however served my purpose. I'll likely share another version of this tomorrow, but for today we are going with a monochrome version that reminds me of the kind - not the quality - of etchings we made in 8th grade metal shop, an opportunity the youth of today are not afforded, among many others! This of course far exceeds the kind of stuff I got to do back then, but considering the different applications this should be better. I never knew what eventually became of the metal shop projects I gave my folks but one was used for a number of years for roasting marshmallows in the family home fireplace, the spot where Santa Clause emerged on a regular frequency during our childhood years. Another was a 12" copper tray with fluted edges and an engraving of a butterfly in the center. It took a lot of work to make although in reality I don't think it was a very practical serving piece in that it was very heavy, a bit cumbersome, and tarnished easily. But the intention was from the heart. You might consider saving this one for a day or two. The base image was simply converted to what you see using the Topaz plug-in Impression 2. Nikon D330s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/200 sec @ f /11.

11 Jan 17 Today we go with what we actually saw, or at least I did, as it wasn't very visible from the passenger side of the vehicle. I got a fleeting glimpse of it as we drove by, realized we had passed something striking, and backed up to take the shot. It reminded me of an ice storm we experienced the winter of our first tour in PA in the late 70s about which I've written prior. I'm still not sure as to whether the branches in this shot are covered in ice or frozen snow, probably the latter, but it doesn't matter because either way the sunlight was bouncing off of them making for this brilliant sight. Temps was perhaps 22° F, the wind at that time maybe 2 knots - it had been gusting to 15x that a bit earlier - and the cloud cover minimal, but the trees were dong a thorough job of blocking the sunlight for most of the travel along Cascade River Road. This is straight from the camera. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/200 sec @ f /11.

12 Jan 17 The weather having turned to rain, the winds decided to return as well and drove the rain away resulting in once again freezing temps and crystal clear air! Returning home from errands late this afternoon Jan exclaimed "whoa" as we drove down Eglon Road and suddenly saw the moon. It was just above the Cascades when we first caught a glimpse through the trees so we went down to Eglon beach to have a look. It was gorgeous so I hurried home and got the camera (which should have been with me) and drove to a neighbor's who have a clear view overlooking Puget Sound and the Cascades. By then it was rapidly climbing above the Cascades and was much brighter than the rest of the scene requiring a grouping of exposures to get everything as close to right as possible. I didn't get it as I would have liked, so tomorrow if the weather holds and the moon cooperates, I'll preposition myself to have another go at it. Meanwhile, what you see today is close to what we got to see but it took a bit or work to make it so and to my way of thinking qualifies for Theatrical Thursday. The moon is correct, the water and land reasonably close, but I didn't quite capture the snow correctly on the mountain peaks. Either by getting it right in camera tomorrow or some better tweaking tomorrow I'll try to share a better version for Monday's image. Two frames composited, one for the moon and the other for everything else, were then adjusted with several curves layers and a bit of contrast adjustment followed by some noise reduction resultant from all the tweaking. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture priority; ISO 500; 1/25 sec @ f / 5.6.

13 Jan 17 Here's one you can use for a puzzle if that is something you like to do. This was the opposite side of the road from where we took the shot of that mountain peak I shared last week. The ice is in three different presentations in this one spot. The traditional downward pointing icicles, layered on top of some of the rock, and encrusting the plants at the bottom on the frame. This was a first for me although I've seen it present is two forms simultaneously many times and I've shared same with you on several occasions. The weather held for tonight's moon rise but I forgot about the fact that it would be delayed an hour which resulted in the supporting material, water and land, being far too dark to make for a nice image. But it was beautiful to watch. Checked for the best day next year and have written it on the calendar!! Meanwhile the cold temp is making for another nice sculpture on the pond. This is straight from the camera. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/60 sec @ f / 7.1 with full flash.

16 Jan 17 This is another shot from the visit we paid to the Mountaineers NAD Park back in November to photograph spawning salmon in conditions not suitable for doing such but more than appropriate for capturing the greenery of a rain forest environment. While this area is not listed as being an actual rain forest, I can't tell the difference between what you see in it and what is prominent in any of the three "official" rain forests in the far northwestern part of the state, so I'm going with the rain forest moniker. What actually first attracted my eye was the lone maple leaf caught at the end of the branch in the lower left of the frame. I put it where I did thinking it was a good source of keeping your eye in the frame and maybe, if I'm lucky, bouncing it up to the next level of branches to bring your eye back to the center of the image. And because of the holes in the leaf, you might even pause for a moment or two to check it out. This entire forest area is coated with moss just like this with some places even having it hanging down six inches or more. If you live in the local area, haven't been to a "real" rain forest but would like to visit one without the full day's drive, consider giving this park a visit. This is straight from the camera. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 250; 1/2 sec @ f /13 on a tripod.

17 Jan 17 We'll go with a pure black and white for today in that we have a black dog on a bed of snow. Can't get much more black and white than that. This is Margaret, our Labradoodle, or Maggie as she is affectionately known, doing what her highness considers to be one of the best things in life, playing in the snow. From her perspective, real life actually consists of playing either in the snow or on the beach, snacking, getting rubs - LOTS of them, and sleeping. Everything else is just routines. The right side of the image is not sharp as that end of the dog was moving back and forth in conjunction with the tail that wags the dog. Had she had her way this day we would have just stayed where we were and spent the daylight hours romping in the white stuff. At one point she got so excited that she ran up a snowbank that was pushed up against the retaining wall the other side of which was about a 1000 foot drop. A moment of panic on my part before I got her down off it. A repeat of last year when she went over the bank to walk on the ice that didn't hold her this time would have been a fall that would have been an end of her. Fortunately she is very sure footed and STRONG so my concerns are likely highly over rated, but the thought of what could be I can do without. And yes, I could confine her to a leash but then I would be depriving her of all the fun!! This base image was corrected for significant color casts of blue, green, and yellow, and a bit of cloning out of some a couple problem areas was done. Otherwise, this is a straight shot. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/30 sec @ f /10.

18 Jan 17 Traveling to Poulsbo yesterday afternoon I noticed that "our" mountain was beginning to form some of its own weather, so I kept my eye on it and when I got to a location where I had a reasonably clean view I took a few shots. The temp when we got up was in the low 20s, but it began warming and by this morning it was in the mid 40s, so it isn't surprising that there was some weather developing while we were observing on Monday. The light at the time I snapped the frames was also putting on a beautiful show so the combination made for one of those times when one just had to take a photo. We were even given a tiny amount of atmospheric disturbance in the form of a small low lying cloud bank sometimes referred to as fog in a small section of one of the valleys. I've adjusted this a bit by employing a blending layer to accentuate the differences in the light "layers" that you see as you look from foreground to background in the frame. What I was seeing first hand yesterday reminded me greatly of oriental art but it was the real thing. I'm standing on the curb of the road on the edge of the Home Depot parking lot looking south east in the general direction of Dog Fish Bay, now know as Liberty Bay, but I still call it Dog Fish Bay as I think it sounds more authentic. The base image was given some micro contrast enhancement, then I applied the Darken blending mode to give it the separation that I saw but the camera couldn't accurately record. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority;ISO 200; 1/400 sec @ f / 8.

19 Jan 17 Here's another icicle shot that has been converted into something creative. There should be no doubt as to the subject, but the surrounding environment may not be so easy to decipher, intentionally. Depending on the specific location in which we were shooting that afternoon, sun shining on subject or not as in this case, the icicles were either stable or growing. These were stable. The last time we had this much ice I was able to actually capture in mid air the water droplets dripping off the ends of the icicles but this time I wasn't so lucky. So I took what was available hoping I might be able to make something out of it later. My goal in this manipulation was to give the impression of significant depth in the center of the frame by virtue of the very dark space suggesting an area where light couldn't reach even though in reality it is a rock face. Sometimes our eyes deceive us and that is what I tried to emulate. For this image I just took the original shot and used Topaz Impressions 2 to make the conversion using the da vinci sketch preset. Nikon D330s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/25 sec @ f / 7.1 on a tripod.

20 Jan 17 Our failed trip to record eagles produced lots of images if not of the birds. As we entered the town of Marblemount the winds picked up from the gentle breezy type we had originally encountered to periods of gusting in the neighborhood of 35 MPH. Snow was blowing everywhere and depending on our relationship to the sun, it made for some really nice shoots. This is one across the street from a location where I generally can get some nice shots of the Diablo mountain range (a section of the Cascades), but on that day such was not happening. Walking back to the vehicle from where I had hoped to get the mountain shots and failed I noticed the wind having some fun with the snow on the roof of an older wooden building. With the sun at its back, the snow was being fully lit from behind and it made for some colorful shots. This is what I got to watch for a couple of minutes although the snow wasn't constantly being blown around, rather it would come in bursts and it was more a matter of a ready and waiting game than anything else. Being prepared, and sorta patient, had its rewards. The building was rather blah looking so I've turned on the lights digitally. The snowbank at the bottom of the frame is the edge of the highway which was in the original capture but which I removed as I don't think it added anything to the story. The base image was straightened a little, severely cropped to show just what I wanted seen, and then I added the lights. Otherwise, this was how it looked. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/500 sec @ f /10.

23 Jan 17 Back on the forth I sent a photo of a mountain peak and mentioned that you could anticipate my sending another. Today is that "another" except that this time I've put six frames together to give you an idea of that entire section of the Cascades called the Diablo Range. From where we were parked the road continues up a fair distance before dead ending in a parking area from which you can launch out to climb the area you're seeing. Haven't yet had the urge to make that climb, but who knows, from what I can visualize it doesn't seem impossible to make the journey from a left handed approach although I would never consider attempting it from the right. Perhaps one of you could do it first and give me some advice as to the best way to go about it, if at all. I took the six frames and blended them into a single frame using the photo merge feature of PS. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/800 sec @ f /10 on a tripod.

24 Jan 17 Two fond memories of my youth include holding a shell to my ear to hear the ocean roar and looking inside a "panoramic" egg to see the scene inside. Our grand daughters like to do the shell thing when they find an appropriate shell but I have never seen them gaze into a "panoramic" egg. I know the mollusks are still making shells but I'm not certain about the "panoramic" eggs. However, when playing with the image I shared yesterday I came up with my 2-D version of what might be inside a "panoramic" egg. I probably should have incorporated some very small skiers on the left hand slope but that will have to wait until another day. Not much more to say about this shot as I think I said it all yesterday. This is the same shot I shared yesterday but with the Topaz Impression 2 da Vinci sketch filter applied at full strength. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/800 sec @ f /10 on a tripod.

25 Jan 17 The trip to the Skagit had much to offer us in terms of just beautiful scenery which I tried to capture as much as possible. That day we had what I considered to be a late sunrise which really wasn't the case obviously but it took until late morning before the sun really made itself known. This shot was taken around the time that was occurring and combined with a fair amount of "breeze" made for some fun shooting. On the right hand side of the image, where the trees meet the snow covered frozen ground, you can see a small band of color that looks like a blurred line; it is actually fast blowing snow. This was to be the case in varying degrees throughout all of the morning and a goodly portion of the afternoon. Recall the photo I sent on Friday of the snow blowing off the building. This is pretty much how it looked that morning save for a bit of color enhancement rendering the shot a bit more golden than it actually was and the addition of some extra clouds to fill the big empty blue sky in the top 1/3 of the shot. First I cropped some of the image to give a better presentation, then I tried something new and added the set of three clouds using the brush tool to "brush" them onto the canvas. Before placing them I first used the eyedropper to pick up the color of the clouds on the right which then set as my foreground color. The brush tool uses the foreground color as its palette so the clouds were added using the "correct" color. I then used Topaz Adjust to give the entire photo a slight color boost to what you are seeing. The original looks almost like this just a bit lighter in color and sans the extra clouds. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/6400 sec @ f / 5.6. And yes, I certainly could have swapped shutter speed for aperture but I wanted the foreground to be a little soft and the background tack sharp to minimize the frozen ground's importance in the photo plus I was dealing with a bright sun in the corner of the frame which I removed in the cropping.

26 Jan 17 For the last couple of days I have been working on the Alpha release of a new product from one of my favorite software makers. A group of us have been asked for our ideas in the development of this new product. One of the requests from a subset of the group has been to have the program incorporate the ability of having layers available for use in non-destructive editing as do many of today's best digital editors such as Photoshop, onOne Photo RAW, ACDSee, GIMP, etc. Others in the group are of the opinion that layering is unnecessary and just creates bloated files and that presets are the way to go. There is now an ongoing debate hosted by one of the moderators who is in the presets camp; I seem to be becoming the defacto spokesman for the layers group. It is an interesting discussion. For now, I've challenged the moderator to give us a webinar showing why his idea, which he calls the ultimate solution, is so much more superior but he refuses to do so. Perhaps his ultimate solution isn't. In reality I'd love to see him put his talents where his mouth is so I can see if he is perhaps correct. If so I'd be willing to learn something new without hesitation. In the meantime I'll keep badgering him to put up or shut up, not that he will, but at least I'll make my point. Today's submission is one of the LAYERS from one of my "bloated" files as he calls them. Just a couple of miles from Rockport the Skagit River makes a big sweeping bend coming up and tightly hugging the road. I honestly don't know if the road was built right up against the river which I think unlikely or the river changed course to come up to hug the road. But at this spot in the river the forest service folks have placed a very large number of cement logs simulating a log jam. In fact there is a sign identifying the material on the river bank as being a man made log jam.It really catches your eye as you drive by and I had to record it. The day we made the Skagit trip was bright and sunny and I shot the scene several different ways. Being as it is Theatrical Thursday I thought I'd share a creative version of the shot especially because it turned out to be a very good representation of how bright and sunny was the day. This is pretty much a straight from the camera shot but one modified with the Topaz plug-in Simplify 4. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/1250 sec @ f / 6.3.

27 Jan 17 A very different approach to macro/close-up Friday for today. This is totally creative and quite likely not identifiable without a little background information. Our heat pump system produces a bit of moisture during its operation and the liquid from it accumulated at its base and froze. Also at its base were a "reasonable" amount of fallen leaves which found themselves encrusted in the ice. I shot the leaves in the ice with the idea of having them appear as if they were submerged. The shots I got were O.K., but not as great as I would have liked. But not awful either, so I thought that I would try playing with them using several different approaches to see if I might come up with something I really liked. And I did, but much to my surprise it wasn't along the lines I initially intended. There is one filter that makes for some rather bizarre looking designs and I've shared two or three of them in the last 6 months. Today's image began by employing the filter, then I played with the blending modes to get the base look I wanted and from there played with color and contrast to get an intermediate result to which I added a texture in the form of a group of yellow circles. You are looking at a cement slab with its edge running along the left hand side of the frame; leaves captured in ice comprise all of the rest of the frame with the venation of the leaves making up the striation in the shapes which are the leaves. The bright yellow areas are the result of the overlain yellow circle texture. It is obviously totally abstract, but not unlike what you see when certain biological entities are illuminated with black light and fluoresce. The base image was treated as described above. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 400; 1/50 sec @ f / 8.

30 Jan 17 This is another panorama from the trip up in the Skagit, this time a set of 8 frames smooshed into one. At the time I took this shot the wind was blowing so hard I could barely open the vehicle door which combined with mostly ice underneath my feet made for an interesting, to say nothing of exciting, exit. Once out of the vehicle I slowly made my way across the 2 lane highway and onto a farm road and walked as far as possible to get this photo. Just beyond where I was standing there was too much "junk" in my view to get anything worthwhile so I shot all the frames from that position. Unfortunately for me I couldn't get the sky evenly lit from that position so you will see the sky in this composition as not being equally lit but it isn't too distracting. I love these type of cold and clear days although there could be a bit more cloud activity as in a Richard Harris / Vanessa Redgrave setting (ie. Camelot). I merged the 8 frames together, cropped off what didn't merge fully, then used warp to get the resultant image straight up and down as the merge left it looking like I had taken it with a fisheye lens with pieces of the lens missing. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/400 sec @ f /10.

31 Jan 17 This is the same location from which I shared about 3 photos last year of the back side of Mt Baker. By back side folks mean the side you can't see from I-5 and locations west. You get yet another very different view from the SW corner of British Columbia, Canada. During our visit this time, unlike last year, there wasn't a cloud to be found and we could have waited until dark but we weren't going to get anything interesting in the sky. So I went with what I was given and then "fixed" it up in the computer. Everything save for the cloud and the shadow beneath it are as it was when I took the shot, but I've added the cloud stuff in to make for a more interesting shot. Getting the cloud behind the mountain was going to be the challenging aspect but it was very simple once I thought about it. All I needed to do was to erase it right where it meets the mountain and then thin it just some immediately above that. The result is that it appears as if it is blowing over the mountain top. Aside from a small amount of detail clean up, adding the cloud, and then being converted to B&W, the image is straight from the camera. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture priority; ISO 200; 1/640 sec @ f /10.