Daily Image - Sep 2020 Archive

01 Sep 20 For those of you who are neither photographers or sunset gazers, it may not be obvious that the best part of the sunset happens after the orb has set and the sunlight from beyond the horizon lights the bottoms of the clouds. You miss all the show on a clear evening when most folks are inclined to be watching the sun set and obviously don't get to see anything at all on overcast evenings. But on those partially clear nights with just enough cloud cover the show can be spectacular. Such was the one night we shot the sunset. I shared the beginning with the shot for yesterday, today the shot is roughly half way through the show with the sun fully below the horizon and the clouds being lit from below. Tomorrow we'll catch the very end. This is straight from the camera. Start of the End Nikon D500; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/40 sec @ f / 9. Recall that the shot for yesterday was for 1/320 sec.

02 Sep 20 What began as a vibrant orange, morphed into a brilliant magenta, and concluded, as you can see, with a deep blue. As I was standing watching and filming this sunset my mind drifted back to the time of my first SLR in the early 70s. I was working part time in a hospital and had established a solid friendship with the hospital photographer, a highly talented individual from central Europe. Because of him I was able to do things I wouldn't have otherwise have been able to do and one of them was to get on top of the building to do sunset/star photography. One of my first attempts with my new SLR was to photograph a sunset almost identical to this one and all that came flashing back as I watched this one progress into darkness. All-in-all a nice way to conclude a long day. This is straight from the camera. Almost Over Nikon D500; 19 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/40 sec @ f / 9.

07 Sep 20 Those of you who have been on this mailing list since it started may recall that during 2009 I was playing around with something called HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography and that I shared some rather "interesting" creations. Several of those garnered 1st place ribbons in competition and I had a lot of fun doing them. At the time I was using a piece of software called Photomatix and the company, for the most part, had a lock on the process. The resultant images were given a generic description of "grunge" but it was a "look" I really liked. Over the ensuing years that look lost favor and the company updated its product year by year making it more and more difficult to create that look. As a result I quit using it and quit creating those kinds of images. Another product available at the time was the nik software suite. It was a very capable product that was bought and sold a couple of times and then kinda just disappeared. About a year ago a European company purchased it and brought it back to life adding a couple new features. ONE of those features is the ability to easily create that old grunge look with virtually no effort. I just added that new release to my stable of software and today's submission is my first go at it. The morning following that gorgeous sunset I shared last week found us getting up way before the crack of dawn for a very early breakfast and then a short drive to a location where we boarded a huge truck that was to take us over some virtually impassible roads to a parking lot from which we headed out on a 1.25 mile walk in almost total darkness save for our headlamps over some very icy "paths" to a huge ice cave. This was to prove to be the biggest disappointment for me in all the trip. While in Antarctica I got to solo explore subterranean ice caves that went on and on like an ant farm connected to the surface by a single rope and free to explore to my heart's desire. Here we were all in a group, only allowed to enter a very short distance of maybe 30 feet, and rushed to get out so another group could get in behind us. Pretty much a major bummer. But I did take as many shots as I was allowed timewise and will share 3 this week. This offering is a 5 frame HDR series and attempts to give you a perspective of being just inside a huge wall of ice which we had to crouch to get under so we could shoot from its backside looking out to the mouth of the cave. Our guide is posing with his ice axe to provide perspective. I must admit I was amazed at how long he could stand there motionless. Zoom in and take a good look at all the different "formations" of ice in this one cave. Other than the use of the HDR technique, this is straight from the camera. Icebox Nikon D500; 12 - 24 ; ISO 320; various shutter speeds @ f / 9.

08 Sep 20 We are heading right back into that same ice cave where we were yesterday, only for today's shot I've changed position and taken a snap looking directly out the mouth of the cave. This shot is one of two that you see on all the travel brochures, the other being taken from directly outside but about 30 feet in front of the cave looking towards it. Looking out the mouth to the sky and mountains "oval" you can see the terrain we were traversing in the pitch darkness on the way in. We left the parking area to start our walk roughly where you see the break in the mountains. By the time we got to the cave, a slow and careful mile and a quarter "walk," the light was beginning to break and it continued to get nicer the entire time we were there. This shot was taken about 10 minutes after the one I shared yesterday. Notice the light falling into the cave from the upper right. The arch forming the top of the opening was probably no more than 40" high in the center. We hunkered down and entered one at a time. After getting all the images I could I wandered outside to join another member of our group to speak with - actually, mostly listen to - the driver of our huge vehicle, a Glacierologist by training, and another of the local guides. He was a wealth of information and I wish I could have recorded the conversation to share with you as I've forgotten the vast majority of it. One thing I do clearly recall however was that he wasn't one of the "world's melting" group, discussing with us the normal activity of things ice as growing and melting, advancing and receding, and continuously repeating. His knowledge of the various types of ice we were seeing in this one location was fascinating; I could have listened to him for hours. Sadly that wasn't to be an option. A real treat!! After our negotiated undisturbed 15 minutes before the next group rushed in, we moved on to another spot just a very short distance from the cave to shoot some other interesting ice formations. Then we made our way back to the vehicle. More about that in another mailing. This is the same type of shot I discussed yesterday. Looking Out Nikon D500; ISO 200; the aperture f / 9, and the 5 exposures varied from - 2 to +2 with a base of 1/2 sec.

09 Sep 20 After leaving the cave and herding all the cats together, the two guides took us on a short walk to view and photograph a rather interesting arch, that which I'm sharing today. If either of the guides told us exactly at what we were looking I missed the information so I can't tell you any details about it. It looks to me to be a combination of basalt and ice but that is just a guess. A couple of us wanted to climb up onto the top of the arch but that it seems was a big no no! I do recall something about it being too dangerous, the crack to the left of center of the arch may have had some bearing on that, but after having walked a mile and a quarter in pitch darkness over rocks and ice and a combo of both with just a small headlamp to light the way climbing that arch seemed to me to be relatively safe. To reach the location from which we were shooting we had to scramble down a rocky/icy path somewhat similar to that in the center of the arch. Climbing back up was a bit easier than going down; crampons however made it all possible. Gotta love crampons!! Standing behind the arch was the other guide who drove the massive truck that got us there. He wasn't as capable of standing still so if you zoom in real close - don't - you can see that he is ghosted. By the time we finished our shoot outside the cave and started back to the parking lot the sky was putting on a real display and creating some lovely scenes on the ground. I'll share a couple of those compositions upon return from Yellowstone. This is a 6 frame HDR composite with one of the frames reused to give some needed color to the clouds seen through the arch which added to the ghosting. Posing Nikon D500; ISO 160; 1/60 sec @ f / 9 with -2, -1, +1, +1.5, & +2 stops for the full lighting capture with the 12 - 24.

11 Sep 20 I had several images in mind for this Friday's close-up/macro all of which dealt with lots of water droplets on foliage. My first idea was one of a large patch of grasses loaded with droplets but as I took it hand held in breezy weather I wasn't satisfied with the softness of a large portion of it even though the amount of water drops present made for a thoroughly charming image. So I then tried going with more isolated plants with plenty of bubbles but still wasn't satisfied with the results. In the end I decided to go with a brightly presented small grouping of grass stalks with a selection of perhaps 100 droplets. It's a composition that I'm hoping will bring a smile to your face. Many of the water droplets are magnifying the grass beneath them while others are doing a grand job of reflecting what's near them. Not all are in sharp focus as the morning breezes were playing the grasses like a symphony making the entire exercise of capturing them not quite a song. This will be the last mailing until I return from Yellowstone so look for the next image the last week in September as I won't be doing any mailings while I'm there. With a little luck I hope to bring back a bit of the Colorado Plateau fall in both colors and animals. I've cropped the original quite some to get this particular composition. Other than that this is basically straight from the camera. Twinkling Nikon D500; 105mm macro; ISO 640; 1/800 sec @ f / 9.

10 Sep 20 This is the shot I had promised for Friday but changed my mind deciding to go with a twofer of water drops, the smaller amount today and a larger amount on Friday. Another of the Mexican Hat flower but this time the flower is serving the twofold purpose of hopefully keeping your eyes in the photo and weighting down the stalk in the shape of an arch to sustain the droplets of water. It is the drops of water that I want to showcase and in as much as it is Theatrical Thursday I've removed a lot of annoyances from the original to help in making that happen. Not a terribly difficult shot to take save for the plants being blown by the wind and the crowding of the plants such that there was no way to use a tripod and the busy environment making isolation at best a wish. Other than a lot of cropping and the removal of many distractions this is straight from the camera. Droplets Nikon D500; 105mm macro; ISO 640; 1/640 sec @ f /11.

04 Sep 20 This Friday's macro/close-up started out in one direction but got rerouted at the last moment in another direction. Earlier in the day I had been asked to participate in helping another in "improving" an image. Before I could participate in that endeavor our plans changed for the day and I wasn't able to do so but tomorrow is another day. This evening I thought I'd work up a similar image for this mailing but that got interrupted by a church Council meeting and by the time I got going on the hoped for image, and completed what I thought was acceptable, I realized it wasn't. What I had planned on sharing was a flower, actually the main aspect was its stem, coated in glistening water droplets. I still want to share it so I'll spend some time on it during the week and it will be the last image before departure for Yellowstone. So instead of the water droplets we'll look at some honey bees, lots of them, buzzing around their hive. Last year we "found" a new lavender farm we really liked and visited it again on our second lavender trip this year. It is located up in the hills behind the main part of Sequim and boasts the largest number of different lavender plants in the area. I mentioned this farm in an earlier mailing but didn't share an image from it. At the very back of the farm is a stand holding 4 hives all painted lavender in color. We've seen hives on several other farms and it seems like they all have them painted lavender. Must be a special kind of bee living there that just likes that color. Each of these 4 hives had a robust grouping of inhabitants waiting to enter but they were just a tiny percentage of those out working in the fields of lavender. I know folks who rather dislike all the lavender color in Sequim but for those of us who are just visitors it is kind of nice to see everything themed in that one color. Apparently the bees agree. Other than a small amount of straightening and some cropping for composition this is straight from the camera. House Keeping Nikon D500; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/800 sec @ f / 9.

03 Sep 20 It's Theatrical Thursday and I made 6 creative versions of today's submission of which Jan chose this one. Driving between downtown Sequim and the Straights on one of the main connector roads we came across a farm with a reasonably large fenced garden of sunflowers. Unfortunately we arrived minutes after they closed so I had to shoot from outside the field at street level. This rather severely limited what I could do with this wonderful discovery but I did what I could with the material at hand. My take on the shoot was that it was mostly a futile effort but I do love sunflowers and thought I should give at least one, this one, a try. I had to crop off almost half of the material and paint out some distractions but after that it offered some interesting possibilities. One of those was trying to tease out the seedhead so that it went from a black central disk to look almost three dimensional, something like a doughnut. Another was that of trying to make it look brightly backlit. This version to some degree accomplishes both. Other than the severe cropping and converting to this look using the Topaz plug-in Simplify 4, this is what the camera recorded. Backlit Nikon D500; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/500 sec @ f / 9.

29 Sep 20 Expecting the worst, and having already prepared ourselves for it and looking forward to the requisite new/newer truck, we visited the tranny shop this afternoon to ascertain the damages. Much to Jan's chagrin I was informed that the tranny was in excellent shape although it needed a thorough cleaning, fluid change, and new filters, and likely all that was/is needed is to replace the EGR valve and make a few tweaks. So a 4 day shortening of the Yellowstone visit and a stressful drive home all for nothing. Oh well! Departing as I did on the 14th with the Puget Sound area fully smoked in, couldn't see the ferry dock until within about 200 yards of it, I started across I-90 thinking all the way that this stuff has to end soon. Not quite the right attitude. By the time I had made it to Wallace, ID I was beginning to acknowledge that it wasn't going to get better. The shot for today was taken in downtown Wallace at 2 p.m. Once at the motel I called friends in West Yellowstone expecting to hear it would be nice there only to be told it was fully smoked in and had been since the day prior. At that point I said maybe I should just turn around and head back home but was encouraged to come and visit anyway which is what I obviously did. The drive was most discouraging as I was unable to see anything I recognized further than a couple hundred yards away at most. Never saw any mountains on the entire drive and only after 5 days at the condo could the mountains surrounding it be visualized. No animals were out during the entire drive save for 3 hawks and one dead coyote on the highway. Same was true for the first 4 days in Yellowstone - nothing but vegetation and smoke. But I shot what I could anyway and then developed a group of settings in software that effectively serves as a smoke filter. For today's submission however I haven't employed those settings giving you a rough idea of the conditions in which I was working. NOT looking forward to doing so again if I can help it. Other than a wee bit of cropping this is straight from the camera. Smoked Colors Nikon D500; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 640; 1/800 sec @ f / 9.

30 Sep 20 A bit over two hours out from the condo is the tiny town of Silver Star. I'm just guessing but I'd wager it is population 50. But what it lacks in population it makes up for in scenery. This trip it was a blaze in yellows and one can only imagine how it would have looked with a blue sky instead of smoke for the background!! As you'll note the mountains which should be forming the backdrop are all but gone although if you look closely you can see a faint outline of where they should be. It's been a very long day and I'm rather bushed so keeping this narrative very short. Thinking this shot is missing a dog, sheep, and a shepherd. I've cropped the original a bit and removed a fair amount of the smoke to accent the yellows. Pastoral Setting Nikon D500; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/800 sec @ f / 9.

28 Sep 20 Back a bit early from Yellowstone: 2,400 miles, 3,500 images, 7 days of smoke, 3 days of clear weather for shooting, and a blown transmission in the SUV. Not exactly what I had planned on!! But Jan has been bugg'n me about getting a new truck for quite some time so now I guess it will happen. The big story while I was there occurred on the 18th which I learned about dining with good friends on the 19th. You can watch all about it here . Apparently a large 6 point bull elk had been battling an even larger bull and lost, having been injured in the process. Going his own way a large grizzly, #791 and 9 years old, caught wind of the injured elk and ran it down in the Yellowstone river and then feasted on it for for 10 days. The weight of the elk was estimated at 600 pounds as supposedly is the weight of the bear. Imagine eating your own weight in chow over a 10 day period. Having see a portion of the fight on one of the diners phone, I decided to get up early the next day to go see if I could get any shots of that bear and the kill. I departed at 0530, in 24°F weather - colder than Iceland in February - to get there before the crowds so it turned out that there were only about 250 others there before I arrived and courtesy of the park Nazis only had to park a half mile away. That resulted in my making a few bad decisions in not taking my longest - and by far heaviest - lens, nor the cable release, and a much needed stool all of which I had with me. I did luck out and find a nice location into which I could squeeze in without encroaching on anyone else and then spent the next 4 hours watching a mostly sleeping bear - guess that's what you do most on a FULL belly, while the fog rolled in and obscured the view for most of the 4 hours. When the sun finally burned it off the lighting was about as HARSH as I've ever encountered and the bear had positioned the elk and himself such that he stayed, for the most part, in the shade morning til night! So with that in mind PLEASE look at this offering as mostly a documentary shot and not something that I think is worth sharing other than it completes the story. The two links below, for those of you curious about all this, bring you up to date as of the morning of the 27th. IF you watch the last one you will see that all that is left of the elk is the rack, head, and hooves. Nothing went to waste! https://www.facebook.com/31315334396/posts/10157812542354397/?extid=ygLUpELEmwdfd73i&d=n https://www.facebook.com/1339235569/posts/10223961619331875/?extid=2BW8vZqs8bq5RWdh&d=n This is a tight cropping of the original to which I've don a lot of manipulation to get it where it is. Shooting through fog to get something sharp is a talent I do not possess. Nap Time Nikon D500; Aperture priority; ISO 800; 1/400 sec @ f /6.3 with the 80 - 400 (600mm equivalent).