31 Oct 19 Anytime you'd like to take a lovely drive consider the Skagit Loop Scenic Highway. At 390 miles round trip it will be an all day affair and considerably longer should you elect to take along your camera. Actually, I can't imagine making that drive without a camera. No matter the season it will have something memorable to offer, but for me the optimum time for the drive is in the fall. Portions of this loop can rival the right coast colors although not for large expanses at a time. One of my favorite portions of this drive is through the Tumwater Canyon paralleling the Wenatchee River and taking you through the community of Leavenworth. You can spend a short visit in this Bavarian town or make it an over niter before moving on. Oktoberfest and Christmas are delightful times to visit but so is almost any day of the year, especially if you pay a visit to the Christmas Store. It's also a great place to stay for a day or more to photograph the autumn colors and the area between Leavenworth and Steven's Pass - the Tumwater Canyon - can offer some truly lovely fall color. The road is only 2 lanes wide and in some places one of those lanes will be right up against the side of a mountain and just a few yards further on the edge of the bank of the river. If you take your time you are almost guaranteed of at least one good shot, maybe dozens or more. Today's submission is somewhat typical of what you can see as you drive through the canyon. For those of you who don't mind getting a little wet, that river is often less than 18 inches deep and you can easily ford it if you would like a little serenity. Another attraction but one that was missing on the day we were there is the Steelhead spawn. When that happens you can watch literally hundreds of fish on both sides of the river in the shallow areas near the edge. Often more of the fish is out of the water than in; it's a sight you won't easily forget. Other than a small amount of dodging and burning, this is what the camera captured. Missing the Steelhead Nikon D500; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 800; 1/250 sec @ f /9.
18 Oct 19 For today's macro/close-up I'm going with a species of fern that primarily grows on our trees and not on the ground where we live called Licorice Fern, Polypodium glycyrrhiza. It thrives in a humid climate, prevailing in areas with cool and moist summers and warm and wet winters. It is often found growing on the trunks and branches of winter deciduous trees, particularly Bigleaf Maple Acer macrophyllum (whose leaves turn deep yellow in the fall) of which we have many on the property. It takes advantage of the mild, wet winters and the substrate of deciduous trees to photosynthesize and grow during the cold season when most other temperate plants are dormant.In other words, it is perfectly suited to a narrow strip in southern Alaska, southwestern Yukon Territory, western British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, and northwestern California. This shot is of a small group growing low on a Bigleaf Maple at the edge of the driveway and was easy to capture compared to almost all the others growing high on the trees. While it is a rather striking plant on its own, I thought making a creative version of it provides it with some additional character. Jan agreed. This is straight from the camera save for some cropping off the top and the creative aspect. A Turner Nikon D500; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 1/60 sec @ f / 9 with fill flash.
25 Oct 19 It's that time of year again when Jan's Christmas Cacti start putting on a real show, 5 star like. With three different plants vying for 1st place choosing which one to share was a challenge. In the end I picked a magenta & white one that I was lucky enough to capture with the light shining through it from above and behind. As I was playing with it I got an email from out of the blue from Topaz announcing a new product, one which apparently none of us in beta test were informed of or at least I can't find any notification and none of the other active beta testers have acknowledged, offering me a chance to purchase at discount. The product is called Mask A I. It looks pretty much like the old Remask but this one is apparently built from the bottom up with artificial intelligence as its base engine. So, I thought to myself, why not give it a go on the Christmas Cactus image as it is rather busy, and so I did. The two images I'm sharing for today's macro shot are the before (small file) and after. You can take a gander and see what you think. I like it enough to purchase but everyone's taste differ. I've cropped the original quite some and then extracted the blossom using Mask A I and placed the extraction of a black background whose opacity I've reduces a slight amount. Solo for the extracted image and Tiny for the original. Nikon D500; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/8 sec @ f / 9 on a tripod.
