Daily Image - Apr 2018 Archive

23 Apr 18 Today's submission is really for me but I'm thinking you'll appreciate it after you read my banter. It almost didn't get to you today as last Friday while I was in the middle of doing some time critical work my favorite !@#$%^&*()%$!@#$%^ internet provider without warning shut me down again, 3rd time in a year, claiming I was spamming. I had some strong words for them! They called late this afternoon to say they had placed me back on line and I had some less than friendly words to say to them again. As a reminder to all, when you don't get an expected mailing from me, take the initiative and check the blog (www.sonofjohan.smugmug.com) to see what's happening. That's the same link you find at the bottom of every mailing. Based on everything I've written so far about the trip, you may find it a bit odd that I'm sharing the image I am, and even more so since it is just a plaque. A few of you, likely very few, may recall that I began my professional career working in the diving world and that I was part of a small group (5) of folks who were designing and building ultrasound devices (our Institute did some of the very early work designing the ultrasonic devices commonly employed today) which in my case I used to detect and monitor venous gas emboli (the gas bubbles that cause decompression sickness) in both animals - primarily sheep - and humans. Part of this work included writing a bubble free diving table for the U.S. Navy that was to become part of the new Vol 3 of the Navy Diving Manual but sadly publication of it never occurred nor was the table ever employed. Now the use of the ultrasonic devices employ the Doppler Effect to do the bubble detection. The discoverer of this sonic technique was an Austrian Physicist named Christian Doppler. Imagine my absolute delight to suddenly find myself outside his residence. Unfortunately I wasn't able to disengage from the tour and visit the location, but if I ever get back there well . . . . . . . . . Needless to say this was the high point of the cruise for me! This is straight from the camera. Nikon D500; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 320; 1/800 sec @ f / 8.

02 Apr 18 With most of our travel days along the Danube from port to port, we cruised under a blanket of dark arriving at our destinations in the early hours of the morning. But on two of the days we arrived late enough for those willing to awake before Sol did to see the sunrise. Of course on our arrival at our last port (Budapest) it was to be in the midst of a major storm, but on the stop prior, to visit the city of Bratislava, we got to experience a lovely pinkish/orange/reddish sunrise that attempted to set the tone for the day even with the arriving storm doing its best to compete. The clouds in the photo were to shortly link up to join forces and provide us with intermittent showers for the rest of our stay. I've cropped the image some for better perspective and removal of competing material and added a small amount of contrast enhancement. Nikon D500; 18 - 200; Aperture priority; ISO 800; 1/500 sec @ f / 6.3.

04 Apr 18 One of if not the biggest tourist sights in Bratislava is the Church of St. Elizabeth otherwise known as the Blue Church. It is really a very lovely building and would be worth seeing even if not a tourist attraction. It is an active church and based on all the handbills I saw tacked on one of the main doors I'm assuming very involved in local affairs. It was a very busy afternoon when I was visiting which means the opportunity of finding a suitable location for taking a photo was non existent but I did the best I could and took lots of images in hopes that I would get something usable. The shot for today shows only a portion of the building and even so not as well as I'd like, but it should give you a rough idea of what the building looks like. I'll share some more of it but thought that I should give you a general idea of how it looks before I share just portions of the construction. The link has a nice photo apparently taken from a position of height as you can't get the perspective on the ground. I've cropped and straightened the original some plus given it a small amount of contrast enhancement. Nikon D500; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 1000; 1/2000 sec @ f / 8.

05 Apr 18 If you recall I began the trip shots with a photo of an interesting time piece - a major tourist attraction in downtown Praha - the Astronomical Clock. Today we look at another interesting time piece from downtown Bratislava, although this one is not marked on the tourist map and I've seen no other pictures of it. It sits on the side of what I believe to be an apartment house directly across the street from the Blue Church. It was just by accident that I saw it, actually they, as there are two of them, in that they are just flat against two sides of the building. Being stormy and mostly clouded over, there wasn't much to catch the eye, but as I tend to look in all directions when shooting I caught a glimpse of something odd on the side of the building and decided to investigate taking a break from shooting the church. These appear to be two different versions of a sun dial with a layout substantially different from any I've seen prior. It appears as though 24 hour time is being employed but I'm not certain of that since we have different numbers at opposite ends of the lines. Study it a bit and see what you consider the basis for the design. I was going to share a creative version of this but my critic felt I should show you the real thing. I've straightened and cropped the original a small amount. Nikon D500; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 1000; 1/1250 sec @ f / 8.

24 Apr 18 Today's is of course B&W Tuesday and I was going to share just that but decided that I'd go with something similar instead, primarily a monochrome with some color. With the middle band of color removed this would pass for a monochrome in blue. As I believe I mentioned before, other than our initial departure from Passau, this was to be our only evening departure we could enjoy. With several low bridges to pass beneath the ship was traveling slow enough that I was able to hand hold and shoot at very slow speeds. This shot is a bit noisy due to the combination of very low light, high ISO, and dark colors. For my taste it reminds me of the old color film/slide days when you might elect to shoot for grain. In fact, there are now plug-ins for digital images for adding in grain (noise). Some of them are not cheap! The heavy cloud cover was the storm catching up with us with an eye of drenching us for the next couple of days. It even brought us some snow during our second day in Budapest. But storm or no, all the bridges we encountered throughout the trip were beautifully lit every evening. Other than some slight straightening and a bit of noise reduction in the sky, this is what the camera captured. Nikon D500; 18 - 200; Aperture priority; ISO 6400; 1/25 sec @ f / 5 hand held.

03 Apr 18 Having arrived in Bratislava to a lovely sunrise which we got to see, we departed sufficiently early that same day to observe the sunset and twilight following. This was to be one of three times anyone went topside to enjoy the deck during the cruise, the first being our initial boarding in Passau when we began our cruise and the last one our first evening in Budapest, in foul weather, for a night lights cruise. This evening we were being chased by the storm and as you may tell from the sky the storm was beginning to engulf us. But as we began our departure we had had weather that allowed for us to appreciate the many lighted bridges in the area under which we had to pass. During our initial safety lecture on the first day we had been told that the many bridges we would encounter would be sufficiently low that we would have to pay close attention to directions from the crew as we passed under. Passing under these several bridges immediately brought that safety briefing to recall. Not often can you count the rivets on the metal plates as you pass under a bridge. I'll wager that with a sturdy Pogo stick one could have reached up and touched them. I cropped the original some and did a little light balancing. Nikon D500; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 6400; 1/15 sec @ f / 5 hand held.

18 Apr 18 Recall that image I sent in November of our arrival into Budapest in the heart of the storm of the year. The rain continued throughout the morning and afternoon so our tour leaders decided to cancel the planned activities for the day and just take us on a bus ride through Pest. Our first stop was at Hero's Square with the rain coming down both sideways and straight to insure that those of us foolish enough to get off the bus to take photos would return DRENCHED; the weather accomplished its mission. But I wanted to get some shots and so I did. However I paid the price!!! Look carefully as this may be the only photo I've ever shared with a lot of people in it as well as a lot of bumper-shoots! The wind was as bad as the rain and having lots of folks to deal with on top of it made for an interesting 15 minutes. As it turned out Jan & I got back there again two days later in nice weather so I'll share a couple more images of this Square. Take some time to read about it via the link above and if it piques your interest search for a bit more info. Doing so will make the additional images more meaningful. I've left the image looking a little dull to give an idea of what the weather was like. The follow-on images will be bright and sunny. I've cropped the original a small amount, straightened it a tiny amount, and added a little contrast enhancement to keep it from looking totally gray. Nikon D500; 18 - 200; Aperture priority; ISO 500; 1/400 sec @ f / 8.

25 Apr 18 Back to the Budapest State Opera today and a look at a small corner of the main entrance. As I've written previously I was in awe of all the statuary we encountered wherever we went, and of course all the main buildings were adorned with multiple pieces of artwork. Obviously the stature of Franz caught my eye, but what caught it even more was the tacky - a bit of personal bias in evidence - plastic banner announcing some individual's upcoming performance. The juxtaposition of color, material, design, and gender was just too much. I couldn't help but think that it might have been intentional. But intentional or not, it certainly was tacky! Your opinion my vary. I was planning on discontinuing these trip photos once we left for Yellowstone, but after reviewing what I have yet to share they will continue for some time. As you all know I beta test for Topaz and try to keep those of you interested in their products up to date. Today the company released an announcement that they were putting ALL of their products on sale at 40% off through 07 May. For those of you who have looked at the free Topaz Studio editor, the Propack adjustment set with this sale would get you ALL 24 of the additional adjustments (plug-ins) for ($166.50) roughly 25% of the individual products. I took the base image, removed a couple very small distractions, and gave it a small amount of contrast enhancement. Nikon D500; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 2000; 1/400 sec @ f / 9.

19 Apr 18 Our exposure to the opera included not only the Vienna State Opera where we watched a performance of Tosca but also a private tour of the Budapest State Opera where we were serenaded by two performers who sang three numbers for us of which I can recall only the selection from Phantom of the Opera. The splendor of these buildings is hard to describe but before I finish sharing the images I hope to give you enough shots to give you a rough idea. For the shot I'm sharing today the stairs and floor are of marble, the carpet over an inch thick, and the tapestry on the walls absolutely exquisite. Everywhere you look there is some form of art in the form of statuary, paintings, or architectural design. The tours didn't allow for it, but I could have spent many hours in each building just looking at everything before deciding which elements to photograph! And even if that could have occurred, nothing I could have captured would come close to the magnificence of these old buildings which even shows up in a creative image such as this one. I've taken the original capture and run it through a plug-in called Simplify 4 from Topaz. Nikon D5000; 18 - 200; Aperture priority; ISO 5000; 1/50 sec @ f / 7.1

26 Apr 18 Today we take a look at a lovely piece of art commonly known, among other names, as the Tree of Life. It resides in the courtyard of the Great Synagogue in Dohany Street in downtown Budapest. I'm going to use material taken directly from the Visit Budapest web page as I think it does an "adequate"job of telling about the Synagogue. We had the opportunity of visiting inside but decided against it due to time and health constraints. We likely missed out on something memorable, but since we had spent almost a quarter of a day in the Praha Synagogue we thought we had gotten a reasonable exposure to the events of WWII. In retrospect we likely made a big mistake. "The Great Synagogue in Dohány Street (also known as Dohány Street Synagogue) is the largest Synagogue in Europe and the second largest in the world, capable of accommodating 3,000 people. It was built between 1854 and 1859 in Moorish Revival or Neo-Moorish style, in the wake of Romanticism. Originally, there was a residential block next to the synagogue. In fact, Theodor Herzl, founder of the Zionist movement, was born in one of the houses located there. This site is now part of the complex and home to the Jewish Museum. During the inter-war years, anti-Semitism grew quickly in Hungary. A series of anti-Jewish policies were passed, and fascist groups like the Arrow Cross Party started to attract more followers. Hungary became an ally of Germany and the Arrow Cross Party damaged the Synagogue in 1939. During World War II, the Great Synagogue served as a stable and as a radio communication center for the Germans. Today, the compound serves as the main center for the Jewish community." I copped off a couple of big distractions (tourists) on the left otherwise this is what the camera recorded. Tried my best to get a shot sans tourists but ran out of both time and patience. Nikon D500; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 320; 1/800 sec @ f / 4.5.

30 Apr 18 As we were being bused around Budapest the first day we passed an unusual statue of a man and a dog in the Pest downtown area. The guide asked if we recognized what we had just passed. None of us did so she proceeded to explain that when U.S. television shows initially aired in Hungary, the very first show they saw was the Columbo series. The statue is of Columbo and his dog apparently known as Fang. Not much more to say about this shot other than it is an unusual stature of which we encountered two others. One I missed seeing by a few hundred feet and I had forgotten about but wanted to photograph is a statue of President Ronald Reagan. It is on the other side of town, the Buda side, and was actually a shot walk from where the boat was moored but as I didn't know exactly where it was, the day I was close by I wasn't even thinking of it and missed a wonderful opportunity. Other than warming the image a small amount this is just as taken. Nikon D500; 18 - 200; Aperture priority; ISO 800; 1/125 @ f / 9.

17 Apr 18 Back about 2004 I watched a video of the Red Bull Air Race that was held in Budapest flying over the Danube. Since that day I had wanted to visit Budapest simple to see the Parliament building. So when that music cruise came about it was the opportunity to see that building that convinced me I/we should go. Thus you can appreciate my great disappointment to have been joined to that major storm that made our two days there basically a wash cycle. Fortunately our additional two days brought us a little bit of better weather, with our very last day there, one which had Jan pretty much bed ridden, being actually sunny. So I did my best to see as much of the city as I could. My wanderings eventually got me crossing one of the major bridges, Margaret, and my return crossing coincided with a sinking sun bathing the Parliament building in some very golden light. I took a few snaps of that view and this is one of them. The Parliament building, a magnificent example of Neo-Gothic architecture (although displaying Renaissance and Baroque characters too), is just over 100 years old. Other than some cropping off of the river, this is basically what we (the camera and I) saw. Nikon D500; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 320; 1/640 sec @ f / 9.

09 Apr 18 In previous mailings I've shared 4 of the 5 waterfalls we visited back in Jan when we were down in Oregon. This last one, Multnomah Falls, is the falls that most folks think of when you mention waterfalls along the northern Oregon border. The falls has two sections and there is a foot bridge above the demarcation of the two. There is also a visitors area at the base of the lower section that provides for some very nice viewing. Usually. But the fires of 2017 were such that the area near the base of the falls was severely damaged and that area is now considered so unstable that it is fenced off - you can see a small portion of the fence in the LRH corner of the image - and you can't get near the viewing area. The fire in fact I've been told almost took out the visitors center but stopped just a few feet from it. So now you can't get any of the pictures you can see on the web, some of which are located here. We had saved this falls as our last stop so we could spend the most time there but it turned out to be mostly a good idea and not much more. I did shoot a few shots, one of which I'm obviously sharing today, but due to the distance at which you must now shoot you can only see the upper section. This is basically what the camera saw. Nikon D500; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 50; 1.6 sec @ f /29 on a tripod.

10 Apr 18 Around here a large number of the old farm properties, those lands purchased around the time that my grandparents moved here at the turn of the last century, have old farm implements sitting on the property as decoration. If you were to spend a full day just driving around it is likely you could come across every implement needed back then to run a successful farm. Now days they just make for nice attractions. This particular shot was taken from the same spot as was that sky blue pink sunset I shared a couple weeks back and belongs to a neighbor a few minutes walk from our house and directly across from my grand parents home. It was in service about the same time as was the house next to it. I remember many stories my father shared about those times and still have to digitize several hundred photos taken back then to hopefully keep this period of time from being either totally forgotten or totally rewritten. Among the stories was how they got through the Great Depression which for them, living on a self sustaining farm, did not have the disastrous effect it did for those not so fortunate to be farmers. More than once I've thought that I missed something valuable by not having spent MUCH more time on the grandparents farm. This is basically what the camera recorded although I put a tiny amount of creative spin to it. Nikon D500; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/320 sec @ f / 9.

16 Apr 18 A few of you may remember a couple of shots I shared back around 2007-8 of the inlet to the Hayden Farms Reserve, one of which was a very creative approach and was bright red-orange. At that time the inlet was paralleled on one side by a large farm and on the other by a dike. You could walk along the dike for perhaps a half mile watching waterfowl on your right and lots of small raptors on the grassland to your left. Now all the land on your left has been converted to a shallow tidal basin while that on your right to something similar. Gone is the large hunting grounds for the raptors and the wet area on your right seems to have shifted the channel with widening for a large shallow to dry tidal area. Before this change the area at the end of the dike was prime waterfowl hunting grounds but now all that is gone also. All of this apparently in worship of the salmon who needed more room to spawn. The photo for today shows the new look and was created from 10 frames taken as I pivoted from left to right so it does appear to have been taken with a fish eye lens which isn't the case. IF you have copies of those earlier shots do look at them side by side. This is a 10 frame composite which received a fair amount of cropping to get the look you are seeing. Nikon D500; 18 - 200; Aperture priority; ISO 200; 1/1250 sec @ f / 9.

11 Apr 18 Another shot from the Fir Island goose shoot of a few weeks back. There isn't much more to add to that which I've shared prior so this is just a different look at how the flock acts. At a camera club meeting tonight another member who likes to shoot them said she was up there a week ago and the whole flock of more than 50,000 were together on one visit. Now that would be something to see. But for today you get only the smaller flock so have a gander at perhaps 30,000 individuals. This is basically straight out of the camera save for a tiny bit of leveling. Nikon D500; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/1000 sec @ f / 9.

12 Apr 18 About a mile prior to reaching the Hayden Farm area where I took the geese shots is Wiley Road. If you go down that road it takes you to a hunting reserve situated next to a slough which is home to a large number of birds, mostly waterfowl but not exclusively so. When we visited it on this last trip it had also been "improved" from what we were used to visiting and supposedly was now a better location for wildlife. While that might be so, it was our first visit when there was no wildlife at all so we found it a bit disappointing. Based on what we saw, compared to what we had experienced prior, I would be hard pressed to accept the "better" claim. I took several shots to document the differences and upon looking at them side by side I'd say the "improvements" are a monumental step backwards. I thought about sharing exactly what we saw but as Jan thought it very ugly, and I saw it as primitive, I decided to use one of the creative versions that could well represent how it looked before being "managed" by us humans. The original was cropped a small amount and that manipulated using the Topaz plug-in Impression 2. Nikon D500; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/640 sec @ f / 9.

06 Apr 18 Another twofer macro Friday and again the subject is daffodils, but just a single blossom. This time around I've taken 9 separate images, probably should have shot two more, and put them all together to form a single image using the sharpest sections of each shot. Today we have a white tulip with a salmon edged trumpet. This shot was one of Jan's favorites from a set of 50 images shot this way ranging from 2 to 11 separate frames. Fun to do although after a while the eye does tend to tire looking through that little viewfinder so after about 30 attempts I switched to live view and decided from now on that will be my approach! After putting the shot together using software that does just that and only that, I brought the composite into an editor and made 7 different versions of which I'm sharing the original and one creative. Details above with the addition of the Topaz Impresion 2 plug-in. Nikon d500; 200mm macro; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/30 sec @ f / 9.

06 Apr 18 Another twofer macro Friday and again the subject is daffodils, but just a single blossom. This time around I've taken 9 separate images, probably should have shot two more, and put them all together to form a single image using the sharpest sections of each shot. Today we have a white tulip with a salmon edged trumpet. This shot was one of Jan's favorites from a set of 50 images shot this way ranging from 2 to 11 separate frames. Fun to do although after a while the eye does tend to tire looking through that little viewfinder so after about 30 attempts I switched to live view and decided from now on that will be my approach! After putting the shot together using software that does just that and only that, I brought the composite into an editor and made 7 different versions of which I'm sharing the original and one creative. Details above. Nikon d500; 200mm macro; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/30 sec @ f / 9.

13 Apr 18 Today's close up is of a Pasque flower shot in the studio against a blackish backdrop using a ring flash for balanced lighting. My first attempt using the viewfinder for focus and the shutter release button to make the exposure resulted in less than satisfactory results. So I next tried using live view for focus which helped immensely but still didn't cut it so I added a cable release to the equation to get the desired results. My initial acquaintance with this lovely little flower was in the alpine region of Mt Rainier and for several years I thought they were just an alpine flower. A couple years ago I found them in one nursery and then after that in many nurseries so that suggested that they grew in more locations than just up in the mountains. Having found them in the nurseries I bought a couple two years ago and planted them in a whiskey barrel. They are now a nice sized clump and from the original two that had two flowers, the group is showing 20 blossoms as of this morning. When full grown they get to between 6 and 12 inches so they are a nice addition to anything along the lines of a rock garden. While picking out some sweet pea seeds yesterday for Jan at a local nursery I noticed a small selection of these lovely little 6 inch beauties in full bloom and picked up two more for the garden; this is one of them. I've cropped the original a fair amount and cloned out the container holding the plant as it was most annoying. Nikon D500; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/2 sec @ f / 9 with ring flash on a tripod.

20 Apr 18 A combination of Spring flowers bursting forth and lots of rain falling upon them provides for an opportunity of capturing the plants with drops of water adorning them like little jewels. Last Saturday was one of those days with the right combination of flowers, rain droplets, and good light so I took the opportunity to play with a field of dandelions. I found a spot near a park that had multiple groupings of three dandelions, some about to burst open, some fully open, and some past prime. This is a shot of two of the three, about to open and fully open, as I couldn't find a spot where I could get all three groups of three individuals. But I did get then with jewels of raindrops and in nice light. Only part that didn't work as I'd like was that I couldn't get any good reflections off the surface of the rain drops. This is a rather simple image, but depending on your likes, it could be a good candidate for either a puzzle or wallpaper. This is straight from the camera with some cropping. Nikon D500; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 320; 1/400 sec @ f / 8.

April 27 With temps this week hovering in the mid 70s to low 80s, the yard is rapidly becoming a display of shapes and color. Since Friday is a close-up/macro day, let's look at one of my very favorite early Spring flowers, the Bleeding Heart, sometimes called Lady in a Boat. We had a huge plant, about 3 feet in diameter at our Ballard house, but unfortunately it didn't make the move. To make up for it we've planted several of the plants along two sides of the house and they are all doing their best to catch up with the one in Ballard. At the present growth rate they should be over two feet tall next Spring. Today's capture is showcasing a single blossom although there are several more in the background and one directly next to it. The colors are exactly correct as captured, they are very richly colored with either red, magenta, or white flowers contrasting vividly with the green foliage. This particular stem is roughly 18" in height but they arch over when fully flowered; with each plant displaying an unlimited number of stems, with the flowers remaining for weeks, this plant is truly special. I've removed a lot of distractions and heavily cropped the original, otherwise, this is what the camera recorded. Nikon D300s; 105mm macro; Aperture Priority; ISO 400; 1/ 125 sec @ f / 9 and fill flash.