|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
Think you might have missed a Home page “Feature Photo” since you last visited? Or you’ve just discovered this site and haven’t seen any of them yet? Perhaps you just want to take another look? |
|
|
|||||
Along the South Klondike Highway from the White Pass to Skagway, Alaska numerous waterfalls plunge through the rugged terrain which gets drenched in precipitation. I photographed this one on my way back to Whitehorse from a photography club outing to photograph wildflowers at Dyea, Alaska and it is my last shot of the day that earns this spot as a Feature Photo. I was trying out a new 10 stop neutral density filter to provide a very long exposure, which produces the silky appearance of the flowing water. But this exposure gave me something else I wasn’t expecting, an overall misty softness. The wind was blowing considerable spray at me when I was making it and it appears that some lens fogging resulted. I consider it a happy accident. As shot, the softness was excessive and the photo looked very washed out but adding plenty of both local and global contrast in software yielded this dreamy, mysterious image. Who would think that I shot this from the shoulder of a highway with a wide angle lens? Pentax K10D, Tamron AF 17-50mm f/2.8 XR Di-II LD @ 20mm, B+W #110 ND 3.0 filter, 89 sec @ f/16 |
|
|
|||||
After the long winter, the first really warm weather of spring is always a salve for the soul. This glorious evening the temperature was perfect for a relaxed stroll with long photography breaks, the air was still and the bugs were not yet out in sufficient numbers to be an irritant. The leaf buds that had gone unnoticed just a few days earlier were responding to a few days of these conditions by bursting open in translucent green splendour. Over this hillside meadow the atmosphere was alive with weightless particles, floating lazily and glowing pure white when backlit by the brilliant setting sun. I had to shield my eyes from the intense rays to see anything in this direction and that was a problem for my camera lens, which produced severe flare. This shot should have been a reject, but even in its original state I saw enough in it that captured my joy of the moment that I felt compelled to go to work in Photoshop and salvage a usable ... and emotionally satisfying ... image from it. Pentax K10D, SMC Pentax DA* 60-250mm f/4 ED [IF] SDM @80mm, f/11 |
|
|
|||||
Spring has arrived and the annual migration of the swans is well underway. They stage in large numbers at locations where the ice opens early over shallow water and they can reach the bottom to feed on vegetation. This photo was taken at “Swan Haven”, a particularly important staging area where Marsh Lake drains into the Yukon River at its source. This has been a record year for them with over 2000 Trumpeters counted at this spot at the peak, though they are dwindling now as warm weather makes habitat accessible further north along their migration paths. Starting to take their place are the Tundra Swans whose shorter necks necessitate that shallower water be ice free for them to reach their food sources on the bottom. Note the “headless” birds in the photo that are eating; in slightly deeper water they often look rather comical with their butts raised and feet clawing the air. I find photographing this congregation aesthetically somewhat challenging as it is quite a chaotic mass. Though you can get fairly close without disturbing them, a 250 mm lens still isn’t long enough to isolate more orderly groupings by framing tightly. Even this composition is heavily cropped from the original image. Pentax K10D, SMC Pentax DA* 60-250mm f/4 ED [IF] SDM @250mm, 1/500 sec @ f/6.7 |
|
|
|||||
This remnant of a toppled tree is partially uprooted, split and twisted to the extent that it is not entirely clear what is top or underside and root or trunk. The prominent textures and complex patterns in the weathered wood further provide a fascinating study of the tree’s history. The original image was somewhat washed out by a thin veil of flare. The Pentax 200 mm lens is more resistant to flare than most of my film era optics but it still wasn’t good enough in the brilliant ambience of a pure white snow covered landscape under the March sun. The subject itself was not that brightly lit, as evidenced by the slow shutter speed, yet it seems that stray light scattered into the lens from the surrounding snowscape was enough to overwhelm the darker content. A couple of simple adjustments in Adobe Lightroom salvaged this photo but other subjects would suffer unacceptable loss of shadow detail that could not be recovered. It has become clear to me that only a lens that is designed or revised for digital use will do in typical outdoor conditions at this time of year. Pentax K10D, SMC Pentax A 200mm f/4, 1/8 sec @ f/16 |
|
|
|||||||||||
It has been several years since there last was a public fireworks display in Whitehorse and back then they always took place on Canada Day ... in the season of perpetual light!! A new annual tradition (hopefully) has begun this year with fireworks presented more appropriately at the end of February on the occasion of the Yukon Sourdough Rendezvous. They were shot off from atop of clay cliffs across the Yukon River from Shipyards Park where the festivities are held. In spite of the season, it wasn’t exactly dark with the full moon competing for brilliance in the same general area of the sky. If that detracted at all from the viewing impact of the incendiary bursts, the additional ambience certainly didn’t hurt for photography. |
|
|
|||||
Though the crystalline surface of the snow resembles hoarfrost, in this case it seems to be a product of recrystallization of the snow in mild conditions which have prevailed over the past month. These leaves, patterned with the telltale trails of the aspen leaf miner, undoubtedly had been clinging tenaciously to their tree until a gust of wind ejected them and transported them into my composition. Backlit by the sun, this was a high contrast situation and exposing to retain the texture produced by the specular ice blades rendered the leaves as near silhouettes. Photomatix to the rescue, I produced an HDR composite from different exposures and massaged it into this image, which I find pleasing and fairly natural looking even if it is a bit understated compared to the brilliant intensity of the original scene. Pentax K10D, Tamron AF 18-250mm f/3.5-6.3 DiII LD IF Macro @ f/11 |
|
|
|||||
On a brutally cold and windy evening just before Christmas, I went out with the photography club to capture the seasonal lights in the downtown area of Whitehorse. We wrapped up the shoot (somewhat hastily) here at the lower end of Main Street, standing in one of the busiest intersections in town at Second Avenue. Though traffic was light at this time, long exposures introduced an element of unpredictability as I never knew when or where vehicles might enter the scene during an exposure. In this case, a car turned onto Main Street from First Avenue shortly after I tripped the shutter. I find it a bit serendipitous how the headlights trail seems to connect with the base of the big Christmas tree in front of the historic White Pass and Yukon Route depot. The wind-induced swaying of the tree, evident in blurring and streaking of the lights at the top, helps support the whimsical illusion that it was the tree that left the light trail. Pentax K10D, Tamron AF 18-250mm f/3.5-6.3 DiII LD IF Macro @ 47.5 mm, 10 sec @ f/13, ISO 100 |
|
|
|||||
Let the magic of Christmas infuse you with whimsy. Let your most virtuous fantasies come to life. Have an enchanting holiday and a charmed New Year. The original photograph from which this image was produced is of part of the larger sculpture “Snow Queen” created by Team B.C. at the 2009 Yukon Sourdough Rendezvous Snow Sculpture Challenge. |
|
|
|||||
The days are short at this time of year and it can be difficult finding time for photography between the chores and other daylight activities. But the “golden hour” of warm, oblique lighting that photographers prize is any time the sun is shining, not just close to sunset as when this photo was shot. I made a series of bracketed exposures of this contrasty scene so that I could combine them using the HDR technique to have the full tonal range available. I almost chose one of the individual exposures instead; the light of the low, partly screened sun was gentle enough that the best exposure provided dramatic, specular lighting of the sunlit area in the foreground without blowing out the sun itself or the blue of the sky. This HDR version, processed in Photomatix and further adjusted in Photoshop for a fairly subdued HDR effect, won out in the end. The additional information in the shadows helps impart more of a sense of place without entirely stealing the drama. Also, this is the image I envisioned when I photographed the scene. Pentax K10D, Sigma AF 10-20mm f/4.0-5.6 EX DC @ 10mm, f/11 |
|
|
|||||
I recently flew down to Vancouver to attend the Abbotsford Photo Arts Club Annual Seminar, which featured Daryl Benson. It was a full weekend of lectures and presentations, no hands-on photography. Having arrived on the Friday evening, the only time I had to take pictures was after the Sunday session when I had a few hours before my late night return flight to Whitehorse. I ended up on Granville Island, which was the idea of my travel companion. Sleep deprived and getting weary of big city traffic and Vancouver's hard to navigate road network, I was a reluctant chauffeur into the urban core. The congestion, narrow road lanes lined with parked cars, and street configurations that defied my GPS had me quite agitated by the time we arrived. I was not happy to be there. I wandered the market area aimlessly and numbly until I came upon the tiny courtyard where this photo was taken. Tightly enclosed by a jumble of buildings and walkways stuffed directly under the 8-lane wide Granville bridge, it embodied the urban crowding that was oppressing me ... and yet, I found it strangely calming. It had plants, trees and water running into a little pool, a miniature park like setting that seemed an anachronism in this dark cave of a site. Photographing it helped relieve my tension and lift me from my low. Pentax K10D, Tamron AF 18-250mm f/3.5-6.3 DiII LD IF Macro @ 18mm, 1/10s @ f/4, ISO400 |
|
|
|||||
When a significant snowfall and cold temperatures hit my neck of the woods around the beginning of October, usually they are here to stay. I wasn’t ready! The forecast had said it would be several degrees milder with rain when this happened. I nearly froze off my fingers digging my root vegetables out from under the snow and I finished just in the nick of time before deeper cold turned the wet soil to rock. (The lake also froze over shortly after I took this photo a few days ago.) A garden hose still lies buried somewhere out there. Close to a cord of firewood that I had cut but not yet hauled home will have to remain in the bush until spring. Oh well, I’m sure I have enough wood to get me through the seven months until then. The harvest from my garden is good. The weather has been a nuisance the past week or so but ultimately no harm done. Though an early onset of winter will make the season even longer than usual, I am still savouring memories of a summer that brought plenty of warmth and sunshine. Now, the premature forced end to my routinely intense autumn labours will afford me time to relax and reflect on what it all is for. Life here sometimes can be a bit challenging but that is part of what makes it vital and I would not give up any of it. By the time I sat down to my Thanksgiving dinner, I was feeling blessed. Pentax K10D, Tamron AF 18-250mm f/3.5-6.3 DiII LD IF Macro @ 78mm, f/8 |
|
|
|||||
One recent rainy day when I felt inclined to do some photography, I put a macro lens on my camera and went to work on a cucumber plant that I have growing in my sunroom. I made a lot of bad colour photos that day but I also exposed a few with an infrared filter on the lens and the monochrome results from these were more interesting, even though the infrared technique really had little effect on the tonalities. That prompted me to do this black and white conversion of an unfiltered image. I liked the composition and the possibilities for abstraction with the shallow depth of field, but the green hues of the plant defied abstraction and really looked rather ugly. It took some channel remixing, curves adjustments and application of a noise filter to get what I wanted. I generally have little use for black and white photography of natural subjects, but in this case going monochrome turned a reject into a satisfying and intriguing image. Pentax K10D, Sigma AF 70mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro @ f/2.8 |
|
|
|||||
When I went for a walk the other day, I was knocked out of my complacency. Scarcely more than a week earlier I had been basking in an extended heat wave, swimming in the lake by my house almost daily. It was an idyllic Yukon summer. The weather inevitably turned but the sun and warmth had been a recurring phenomenon this season and I anticipated another encore. But now, after several days of cool, wet conditions that seem to have settled in, the distinctive, musty scent of autumn stings my nostrils. In spite of the dampness, the ground crunches under my feet and aspen leaves rattle dryly in the wind. Granted, the aspens have not yet turned colour and their premature desiccation and shedding undoubtedly has much to do with the ravages of leaf miners and weeks of summer drought. Still, splashes of crimson and yellow erupting from the ground cover make it impossible to deny, our summer is over. Pentax K10D, Kiron 105mm f/2.8 macro @ f/13 |
|
|
|||||
Foxtails are a favourite photographic subject for their soft texture and glowing beauty. In this case, however, I employed them as a sort of filter, shooting through them at close range with the lens wide open and focused on the poppy. This is a popular technique to create impressionistic images but the fine, fibrous structure of the foxtails adds some flowing texture to the composition. I think the subtle striations may be a product of light wave interference because the grain heads themselves are too far out of focus for their texture to record directly. Pentax K10D, Kiron 105mm f/2.8 macro @ f/2.8 |
|
|
|||||
It is a warm, dry summer and I'm loving it. However, good weather does not necessarily translate to good photography and I have been struggling for visual inspiration. The landscape is not exactly parched but neither is it lush and the wildflowers have paled (literally) compared to the rich, prolific displays of recent cool, wet years. A persistent haze of smoke from forest fires saps colour and contrast from scenic vistas; it is even apparent within the tight confines of the composition you see above. Maybe it is more a matter of the heat making me lazy or perhaps I am just making excuses but, whether cruising the highways on my motorcycle or wandering the local trails, I'm rarely finding reason to stop and take pictures and the images I have made are not very satisfying. With little to choose from, I picked this image for my latest Feature Photo because it is representative of my summer, depicting a spot where I have been spending plenty of relaxation time. Frankly, though, these days I am getting more fulfilment swimming in the lake than photographing it. Pentax K10D, Pentax AF 31mm f/1.8 Limited @ f/9.5 |
|
|
|||||
It’s that magical time of the summer solstice when the light is eternal in the land of the midnight sun. Actually, the sun does set before midnight at my location in the southern Yukon. This photo was taken at 11:20 during its gradual descent before skimming beneath the horizon for a few hours of extended twilight. Pentax K10D, Tamron AF 18-250mm f/3.5-6.3 DiII LD IF Macro @18mm |
|
|
|||||
It was late coming but, when it finally did, we went from a few feet of snow on the ground to scenes like the one depicted in this photo in scarcely more than a week. The soft, halo effect on this clump of crocuses was achieved with a double exposure, one exposure sharply focused and the other completely out of focus. Actually, I blended two double exposures of the same subject made with different ratios of sharp and blurred exposure. Emphasizing one or the other in different parts of the image let me achieve the light and airy feel that the season inspires while maintaining much of the detail and texture of the subject. Pentax K10D, Kiron 105mm f/2.8 macro |
|
|
|||||
After near record winter snowfall and cold weather extending through March and much of April, spring has been very slow coming to the southern Yukon. Actually, it can be argued that we skipped spring altogether because a week ago it abruptly turned quite summery and temperatures have been hitting 20 degrees Celsius with intense sunshine burning down from mostly cloudless skies. I was warm in a T-shirt when I photographed this well preserved autumn aspen leaf, newly emerged from the rapidly melting snow. At this moment, all four seasons seemed to merge into one. Pentax K10D, Sigma AF 70mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro @ f/9.5 |
|
|
|||||
This is another macro shot of the same tree trunk that provided the subject of the April 7th Feature Photo. One of the rewards of macro photography is that one can find many distinctly different images within inches of one another. With imagination, you might also find many different images within the one photograph. The lack of surrounding context and the unfamiliarity of details at this scale provide great potential for abstraction. I hesitate to title an image like this by identifying something I see in it; for that matter, I hesitate to identify what the subject really is. You might see something completely different and I don’t want my labels to stifle your imagination. Let loose your creative mind and explore your own psyche when you look at something like this. I took the photo, ... you can complete the image. Pentax K10D, Sigma AF 70mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro @ f/13 |
|
|
|||||
Tree trunks are one of my favourite subjects for macro photography. They can be especially beautiful and intriguing where the bark has been damaged and the subsequent healing process and growth of the tree over time has produced colourful areas of varnished exposed wood, encrusted resin and residual bark fragments. The colours always seem to be richest and the textures most pronounced in late winter and early spring. This may have more to do with the lighting than seasonal changes within the tree as brilliant sunshine reflecting off pure white snow provides strong illumination from below. That bottom lighting was dominant in this instance where the subject area was on the shady side of the tree and much of the blue skylight was blocked by the spruce canopy but the surrounding snow cover gleamed in full sunlight. Pentax K10D, Sigma AF 70mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro @ f/16 |
|
|
|||||
Another major dump of snow and it really is getting hard to get around out there! After the snow it was back to deep cold ... but February cold is not so bad as the intensifying sun radiates some precious warmth. Ah yes, the SUN!!! It seems like an eternity since we last saw a few days in a row of sunny skies and it has been glorious. This image is another HDR composite of 5 exposures made at 1.5 stop intervals. I could not satisfactorily merge them in Photoshop ... the sky came out a mess with colour banding, a problem I have experienced before with Photoshop’s HDR ... but Photomatix did a fine job. I’m just using the trial version of Photomatix so it was back into Photoshop for tone mapping and touch-ups. Lots of touch-ups! The ultra wide Sigma zoom maintains good contrast when aimed towards the sun but it produces a lot of coloured flare artifacts. Cleaning up these artifacts as best I could was more work than the image surely is worth ... I guess that is the cost of my dedication to presenting current work here. Pentax K10D, Sigma AF 10-20mm f/4.0-5.6 EX DC @ 10mm, f/9.5 |
|
|
|||||
It has been a brutal couple of months and most of my time outside braving the elements has necessarily been dedicated to the perpetual tasks of clearing snow and handling firewood while my camera has sat idle. But this day just past, finally I had the opportunity to strap on the snowshoes and set out to take some pictures. The trail that had been well packed earlier in the winter was now deeply buried and I didn’t make a lot of distance as the snowshoes sank almost knee deep with each step, but it was good to be out there, enjoying temperate weather and the strengthening February sunshine and seeing the world through a viewfinder again. Deep, undisturbed snow offers one great benefit for a photographer: it buries all but the tallest plants, providing a wealth of wonderfully simple, graphic compositions like this one. Pentax K10D, Tamron AF 18-250mm f/3.5-6.3 DiII LD IF Macro @ 120mm, f/11 |
|
|
|||||
One day last week I heard a bang resound from the direction of my sunroom and I went to find this owl sprawled upside down on the adjacent deck, flapping its wings helplessly; clearly it had flown into the glass. It was still when I went outside to check on it and I wasn’t sure if it was even alive. I left it for a few minutes and returned to find it perched three feet from a kitchen window on this 2x4 post that helps support a cache of firewood. There it sat for a few hours until dusk. That gave me plenty of time to photograph it but conditions presented a challenge to getting a good image. Aside from the bird not looking its best in its dazed state, frontal lighting was poor, the background was cluttered and there were problematic reflections in the window. I did my best and, with a little help from Photoshop, produced this shot. I believe the subject is a Boreal Owl; someone correct me if I am wrong. Pentax K10D, Tamron AF 18-250mm f/3.5-6.3 DiII LD IF Macro @ 170mm, f/8.0 |
|
|
|||||
This is the image that graces the front of my annual Christmas card that I sent to close friends and family members this year. It is another HDR creation which I produced from 4 different exposures of the scene, covering a range from -1.5 ev to +3 ev. It comes out of the same photographic session as my December 15th Feature Photo and is another view overlooking the valley near my home. I am blessed to live here! I want to wish everyone the best of the holiday season and a New Year that blesses you and yours with health, happiness and satisfaction with your lot in life. Throughout the world, may peace and love prevail and prosperity return in 2009. Pentax K10D, Tamron AF 18-250mm f/3.5-6.3 DiII LD IF Macro @ 48mm |
|
|
|||||
One week last month when hoarfrost gilded the landscape and imparted a magnificent glow under the low winter sun, I photographed many compositions with multiple, widely bracketed exposures, intending to later merge exposures into HDR (high dynamic range) images. This is the product of one of those efforts. It was created from four exposures bracketed at 1.5 stop intervals. That allowed colour and detail to be brought out of the bright sky surrounding the sun, even while the forest is exposed satisfactorily. Pentax K10D, Tamron AF 18-250mm f/3.5-6.3 DiII LD IF Macro @ 23mm |
|
|
|||||
The title says it all, this is November in the Yukon! Pentax K10D, Tamron AF 18-250mm f/3.5-6.3 DiII LD IF Macro @ 180mm, f/11 |
|
|
|||||
Winter comes early to this part of the country and, as of October 17th, it looks like it has settled in again for the next six months. The snow and cold temperatures held off a week or two longer than I often have seen at my home and that gave me more time to lay in plenty of firewood and otherwise prepare well for the long, cold months ahead. Meanwhile, my camera sat idle for a few weeks while all my energy went into the heavy autumn chores. With the arrival of the snow, when some people would be putting their cameras away, I am shooting ... and Photoshopping ... again. This close-up scene had more depth than could be captured sharply in a single exposure so I made separate exposures focused on the rosehip and on the foreground plants respectively, then combined them in Photoshop. Pentax K10D, Tamron AF 18-250mm f/3.5-6.3 DiII LD IF Macro @ 155mm, f/16 |
|
|
|||||
The aspen leaf miner is a minute larva that has affected the region’s aspen trees profoundly in recent years. It tunnels through the cells of the leaf surface creating tight, wavy patterns and giving the leaf a dull, silvery appearance which makes the trees appear quite sickly. But after the chlorophyll had retreated, I was attracted by the more delicate translucence and added patterns of colour in the fallen leaves so I went to work with my macro lens at close focus. It was only when I later examined the images on the computer at 100% magnification that I saw the surface texture of the leaf, beyond the acuity of the naked eye but resolved by my lens. This gave me new direction and the image here is an extreme crop of the original to offer something close to that 100% view in a web image. (Click on the image for the enlarged view that best shows the texture on your monitor plus a view of the uncropped original image.) It is a tribute to the Sigma 70mm macro lens that the image quality holds up so well at the pixel level. Pentax K10D, Sigma AF 70mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro @ f/13 |
|
|
|||||
Autumn comes early to the Yukon. The first tinges of red and yellow appeared in the ground cover around the middle of August and now we are fully into it, with the aspens and willows rapidly transforming from green to gold. This image was shot with the lens pointed straight up at the treetops in an aspen grove. As I pressed the shutter release, I rotated the camera while zooming inward from the Tamron’s 18mm wide angle setting. The blurring softened contrast and created an impression of fog, but it was actually a bright afternoon and a neutral density filter was required to allow a slow enough shutter speed to achieve the effect. A note to users of the Tamron 18-250 zoom: shooting wide-angle with two stacked (low profile) filters is a no-no and severe vignetting required use of Photoshop’s clone tool in two corners to salvage this photo. Pentax K10D, Tamron AF 18-250mm f/3.5-6.3 DiII LD IF Macro with ND8 filter + Polarizer, 1/4 s @ f/22 |
|
|
|||||
I have been experimenting with a Hoya R72 infrared filter on my lenses this summer. My biases lean strongly towards colour photography and none of my monochrome conversions of infrared images have inspired me much, but a week of very rainy weather has seen me trying other things with them in Photoshop. Here, I have blended the colour from a regular RGB exposure into a b&w version taken with the infrared filter. The hues and saturation did not translate well to the different tonality of the infrared image and insipid pastels seemed inappropriate for the hazeless clarity that infrared renders, so the colours have been heavily tweaked. The K10D strongly attenuates the infrared spectrum so exposure times with the filter are long, 30 seconds in this case, and motion in the clouds is evident. Cloud movement complicated blending of the images and necessitated more manipulation. The final result thus is remote from the original component images. Such attempts to remanufacture reality tend to be dicey and I can’t decide whether I love or hate this creation. For better or worse, I put it out here for your reaction. Pentax K10D, Kiron 105mm f/2.8 Macro @ f/9.5, 30s with Hoya R72 / 1/250s unfiltered |
|
|
|||||
Another petunia close-up. This one collected some rainwater, which also created a pattern of redistributed pollen, adding interest to the center of the flower. Sunshine fell obliquely on the petals, highlighting their structure as well as producing a bit of sparkle. Pentax K10D, Kiron 105mm f/2.8 Macro @ f/16 |
|
|
|||||
Usually I am more inclined to photograph wildflowers, but when friends recently left their petunia baskets with me to tend while they were away on vacation, eventually I was drawn to explore these showy blossoms through my macro lenses. I almost missed the opportunity while waiting for calm enough weather. That would have been a shame because ultimately this subject provided me with a couple of very satisfying and productive photo sessions. Pentax K10D, Sigma AF 70mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro @ f/19 |
|
|
|||||
Windy, cold, damp and dreary! The evening I shot this photo offered a rare bit of sunshine but I fumbled with numb fingers and impending hypothermia as I worked the scene. The frequent rainfall and low temperatures have produced a profuse, persistent display of wildflowers but the incessant wind has limited my ability to photograph them as they are in constant motion. For this image, I wanted to work with the conditions and try to capture a sense of the wind by intentionally letting the flowers and grasses and trees blur, so I used a neutral density filter to extend exposures to as long as 1.5 seconds. I made 5 exposures at about 1-stop intervals to cover the brightness range from the brilliant sky surrounding the sun to darker foreground elements. In Photoshop, I merged these into a 32-bit HDR (high dynamic range) composite and then remapped the tones to compress the range for the final 8-bit JPEG that I can show here. Note: The motion effects in this expansive wide-angle photo show best in enlarged view. Click on the image. Pentax K10D, Tamron AF 18-250mm f/3.5-6.3 DiII LD IF Macro @18mm, f/13, Hoya Pro 1 ND8 filter |
|
|
|||||
The lupines put on an especially luxuriant display this year and our cool, damp June prolonged their blooms for almost a full month, though a couple of warm days last week finished them off shortly after I exposed for this image. I wanted to create an impressionistic portrayal of the rich growth that would also blur out the distraction of forest litter. I made a series of focused and unfocused exposures to blend in Photoshop as well as an in-camera double exposure. Ultimately, I liked the double exposure best except I wanted more definition and "solidity" in the tree trunks so I blended that in from some of the other images. Pentax K10D, Sigma 70mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro |
|
|
|||||
This image was made at about the darkest point of the night, which was perhaps not quite as dark as it appears in this exposure, depending upon the brightness calibration of your monitor. With the sun not far below the northern horizon, the full moon skims just above the southern horizon and it was visible only for about half an hour before it set behind the mountains Pentax K10D, Tamron AF 18-250mm f/3.5-6.3 DiII LD IF Macro @250mm, 4 sec, f/9.5, ISO 100 |
|
|
|||||
It has been a while since my last post and I know I promised a warmer weather theme for the next feature photo. Well, ... maybe next time. In all my years here, I have never before seen a snowfall like this in June. It caps off a late and generally miserable spring but, to be fair, it hasn’t all been bad and we even had a week of summery heat in the mid-20’s C, as evidenced by the fact that the lupines are blooming. My garden is prepared and seeded, though fortunately I had not begun transplanting the starter plants that are crowding their containers in my sunroom. Now the spring rush of urgent outdoor work is slackening and I hope to resume more photography with a bit less time between posts again, although I’m also somewhat preoccupied with setting up a new notebook computer (Dell XPS M1330). Pentax K10D, Tamron AF 18-250mm f/3.5-6.3 DiII LD IF Macro |
|
|
|||||
It seems rather late in the season to still be posting pictures of ice but a late spring has kept it relevant, though it was a bit more so a week ago when I started preparing this post. I got delayed while working out some site refinements, including the ability to view a larger, higher quality version of this image, tailored to your screen resolution. (See the post in the What Else is New section.) My next feature photo should have a warmer weather theme (I hope!). Pentax K10D, Sigma 70mm F/2.8 EX DG Macro @ f/16 |
|
|
|||||
I love getting really close to a good subject with a macro lens. From a normal human viewpoint this was a boring, ugly puddle, but at this scale, details and textures we normally don’t see with the naked eye are revealed while identifiable objects and features are largely excluded. This gives free reign to the imagination and such a photograph can be like a Rorschach inkblot. This is a sort of image I can stare at for hours and keep discovering new things in it. Because it takes time to fully evaluate such abstract imagery and shooting extreme close-ups can be difficult and physically awkward and uncomfortable, typically I find the image I want within my original shot only while viewing it later and I crop out extraneous content for my final composition. I photographed this at near 1:1 macro and cropped fairly heavily, effecting further magnification. Pentax K10D, Sigma 70mm F/2.8 EX DG Macro @ f/8 |
|
|
|||||
The spring melt is underway! The scenery is blah at this time of year but getting really close with a macro lens reveals a magical micro landscape where last year’s plant life is released from the crystalline, shrinking remains of the snow that has preserved it in all its delicate forms. I am enjoying the flexibility my new SLR provides for this sort of photography, including the shallow depth-of-field I chose for this photo. It will be hard to access subjects for the next couple of weeks, though, as there are now too many bare patches on the trails for snowshoeing but still too much soft, deep snow for walking. This part of the season always frustrates me. Pentax K10D, Kiron 105mm f/2.8 Macro @ f/2.8 |
|
|
|||||
Our weather has not been particularly warm for late March so there has been little melting of the snow and things still look quite wintery. Hence, when I came across these bursting pussy willows I guess it had an impact on my psyche and I feel compelled to share them as a feature photo. Focussed close at full 1:1 macro, there was insufficient depth of field even at a small aperture to capture the entire pussy in sharp focus and very small apertures produced enough definition in out-of-focus background elements to create a busy, distracting background. Thus, I created this image by combining three separate exposures using “photomerge” in Photoshop and masking the layers to show the part I wanted from each. Two exposures taken at f/19 with slightly different focus provided sharpness in the outline and in the closer central area of the pussy while another shot at f/11 contributed the soft background. Pentax K10D, Sigma 70mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro |
|
|
|||||
A snowshoeing neighbour down the road recently broke a trail connecting to my network of snowshoe trails, giving me easy access to an area further down in the valley where I seldom explore. It is mostly swampy ground with scrubby brush and no scenic vistas, but it adds some welcome new subject matter to the too familiar surroundings along my usual circuit. In this area there are many heavily weathered stumps that appear to be remnants of an ancient forest fire, including these ones which piqued my imagination with their arrangement. Pentax K10D, Tamron 18-250mm f/3.5-6.3 DiII LD IF @ 35mm, f/11; image inverted horizontally |
|
|
|
Click on any thumbnail below to view a larger image and description: |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
 |
|
|
| [Home] [About] [Galleries] |
+ 
