Earth Day is Everyday!
Yosemite Valley
Earth Day is every day! A celebration of the diversity of life on our planet that should be observed, treasured, and enjoyed 365 days a year!
Spring is Taking Hold
Lee Metcalf NWR captured by Z 8 / Z24-120
While most of the plants have yet to dressed in their spring greens, it has made it here nonetheless! Sharon and I have been making continual drives to Lee Metcalf NWR to what the progress of birds arriving, and this past week the first big wave made it. Snow Geese were fun to see stop by. Pairs of Sandhill Cranes are moving about, setting up housekeeping. And finally, this morning, our Evening Grosbeaks made it to The Ranch. Though it is snowing on the mountain tops right now, it appears to be the last. So happy that spring is taking hold!
Cloaked in Mystery, Full of Life
A slice of Costa Rican rainforest captured by Z 6III / Z600f4TC @840mm
It had rained, rained really hard, all night long. As dawn rounded the corner, the warmth of the equator turned that fallen rain to fog that slowly flowed up to be trapped by the canopy of the forest. In that canopy is a vast ecosystem of mammals, birds, insects, and reptiles, it is simply spectacular the life found under its cover. You might have noticed I used a 600mm lens to make the shot and wondered why. The answer is sad, it’s because the forest all around this patch is gone, taken to the ground for as far as the eye can see. It’s a world deserving of your time, passion, it is cloaked in mystery, full of life.
Landscape or Plane Click?
Command-Aire-4C3, Lincoln Page OX-3, Long Wing Eaglerock captured by Z 6II / Z70-200f2.8>
Mt. Hood is a very gorgeous, picturesque mountain for sure. The Command-Aire, OX-3 & Eaglerock are spectacular aircraft. The early morning light is sunning. Making the click happen was pretty self-explanatory but when you search my files for “aviation landscapes,” you’ll find just a few. That’s because they are really hard to find and harder to capture. Why?
Your basic landscape photo needs certain elements to be successful. For example, for starters, a foreground, middle ground, and background. Most airports, the background is either flat with no content (great for statics) or busy with buildings (bad for landscapes). Your subject is often in the middle ground. One aircraft typically doesn’t cut it, you need multiple. Stacking up aircraft requires a longer lens, 200mm or more. When you add up all those basic requirements, one can understand the challenge. I’m always on the lookout for them, but my mind wonders, landscape or plane click?
Cold in Black & White
Hayden Valley captured by Z 6III / Z24-70f2.8
A snow-carpeted landscape easily grabs the imagination. Bringing in the cold can be one of the challenges to completing your story. We associate the color blue with cold, but in a B&W photo, you don’t have the color blue to work with. Or do you? Actually, you do but it’s not obvious. When you’re in ACR (Adobe Camera Raw) you have a B&W Mixer. There, you have a blue slider. There is lots of blue in the scene, from the sky to the sky reflected by the snow. By simply moving the Blue slider, you can bring out the cold, or, better said, the texture of the snow. It’s a little thing but it can lower the temperature bringing the cold in B&W.
Don’t Goooooo!
Hayden Valley Tree captured by Z 9 / Z70-200f2.8
For the last forty years, I’ve stopped to photograph this tree in Yellowstone’s Hayden Valley. While the tree has for the most part retained its iconic shape, the world around it is in constant flux. This particular morning, the snow cover was minimal as the fog danced about. We came around the corner in the snowcoach, and I saw it was pretty socked in. But before my eyes, the fog was lifting, revealing more and more. I had just made this click when the fog got dencer, but before I could say a thing, it thinned. I made the click before as the fog lifted more and more and all I could think was, Don’t go!