Aug 26, 2013 | Landscape Photography
The Rim Fire is a beast (4th largest fire in CA History) that has taken on a life of its own. Our prayers are with all the ground and air fire fighters fighting it along with all that have been affected by its anger. Many have reached out to us asking if we’re OK. We are grateful for your concern but we are about 40 miles away from the fire. It’s about 37 miles west of the ridge you see in this photo which is behind our home. The Sierra is dry, dry, dry an fire is a major concern and while we had one just a 1/2 mile away this past week from a lightning strike, it was dealt with quickly. Keep all those involved in all the firefighting in your prayers, they perform a thankless task on our behalf!
Aug 16, 2013 | Landscape Photography
So, back in my room overlooking Bandon after a great dinner at The Loft, I’m typing away when the gray light is replaced by a golden glow. I look out to see a whole in the fog lets the setting sun stream through. I grab the D4 / 80-400VR3 and makes some clicks.
Now here’s the deal with these types of photos, not everyone likes them. They have no definitive subject and really depend on the mood and experiences of the viewer to work. They also lack a real defined black and that is a very important color. Now I like these images, don’t love them but I do like them. They are so full of atmosphere that can’ help by leave me with a warm feeling. But then again, they are my photos.
Aug 7, 2013 | Landscape Photography
On my flight back from Oshkosh, our flight was deverted to the north of this huge storm over Missouri. It was quite a show! I pulled out my Coolpix S9100 and shot a couple of stills (a challenge with a Coolpix) and then shot the video. The storm was really talkin!
Aug 1, 2013 | Landscape Photography
The great prairies of North America had to have been one of the greatest wildlife theaters on the planet in the early 1800s! You read the Lewis & Clark Journals, Edward Warren or Jedediah Smith and you can’t help but drop everything and head to our midwest to see what’s left for yourself. The one critter they talk about a lot in great reverence and romantically is the Pronghorn. I think it was that and knowing it’s our fastest mammal in North America first took me out to the Black Hills and Custer State Park to spend time with this majestic animal.
If you receive our BT Journal, you know who much I love to spend time with these critters since I have a whole issue on them. They are so connected to the prairie that everyday they live a slightly differently than the day before or they will tomorrow. This flow is what makes them great to just watch. It’s what makes photographing them not on a challenge, but incredibly rewarding. Now you can find Prong in many places throughout the US but I prefer Custer because the restrictions are not restricting. If a Prong walks right up to you, you don’t have to run, you can enjoy the moment and photograph them. And it’s very common when you stay in your vehicle and simply give them a moment, they will do just that! And they have great eyes!
Photographing Pronghorn I turn to my favorite combo: D4 , 200-400VR2 mounted on a Wimberley / Gitzo for the video. For the stills, I was inside the truck so handheld the rig. Still wanting to do a romantic video with zooming while shooting was in my mind but as you will see, I didn’t achieve that goal. But getting more serious about my video, I continued to use the DP-6 which makes a HUGE difference in following action and smoothly. This is an edited down video from the hour of video shot to just 5min. I did the editing on the iMac with all the vid residing on the ioSafe N2 and doing the editing right in Premiere Pro CS7. My only regret is that my video panning skills are not even up to the running of the Prong. I was stubborn and kept trying to do it with the long lens which is difficult, especially compared to shooting with a shooter lens. I’ve not given up though and with more practice, I’ll get that video I want to express the grace of these prairie critters. Mother Nature is just amazing!
Jul 31, 2013 | Landscape Photography
Next to Moose & Griz, Bison fill my files more than any other mammal. Them “Shaggy dogs” just suck me in every time! The challenge is always to get something new, though what “new” might be until you’re in front of them is often a question mark in the process. This was my first opportunity to photograph Bison with the D4, that was what I was going to start with as my “new” this time out. May in the Black Hills of South Dakota is a great time. Especially at Custer State Park where the Bison are dropping their calves.
The herd is always on the move, even during calving season. It’s pretty simple biology, a whole bunch of mouths to feed and only so much grass. The system is pretty cool though because the Bison never mow down one spot to nothing. In a very generalized looking at a week of grazing, the Bison tend to be back at the same spot within 8 days. You could easily think of them as walking lawn mowers and the prairie responding to them like your lawn. It’s pretty simplistic compared to the color of them calves. I mean really, orange? They can walk almost seconds after birth and run within an hour, all to avoid predators. So you’d think with that evolution, they would have come up with a better color than orange. Photographically of course, the color is very cool. And watching calves, you can’t help but get hooked on Bison! On this morning, we were fortunate to be in the right spot as the herd, on the move came up a valley and rolled over the ridge and down in our direction at sunrise. It’s just one of natures’ great spectacles!
Shooting with a D4 , 200-400VR2 with TC-20E III mounted on a Wimberley / Gitzo, I wanted to see if I could do some fancy zooming while shooting. Getting more serious about my video, this is the first time I used the DP-6 which makes a HUGE difference in following action and smoothly. Shooting my first time with this rig, I was happy with the results but know a year later, they can get way better! This is an edited down from the 2hrs of video shot to just 4min. I did the editing on the iMac with all the vid residing on the ioSafe N2 and doing the editing right in Premiere Pro CS7. I wanted to convey the sweep of the herd coming over the ridge and down in front of us, kind of a “How the West was Won” kind of feel. I didn’t get it. I needed to be shooting with more than one camera. When I do it again, one thing I’ll seek is permission from the Rangers to drop some GoPros out on the ground. Mother Nature is just amazing!
Jul 30, 2013 | Landscape Photography
Jake and I had been up on the Arctic Plain for a four days chasing the never before photographed Alaskan Marmot. As part of that project were getting photos by us of Hoary Marmots, a population not habituated. For example, you can basically pet the Hoary Marmots in Denali at Savage Rock as well as many other locations. The Hoary Marmot range is south of the Yukon River, the Alaska Marmot is north of the Yukon River but really now is just north side of the Brooks Range. Well, the biologists knew about this one Hoary Marmot colony not too far north of Fairbanks but way in the hell up a mountain and away from anybody. So Jake and I made the trek to spend time with them. The plan was to spend a couple of days at the colony.
The key phrase with this entire project is, “that was the plan.” Mother Nature has a mind of her own and when you combine that with politics and money, well nough said. Eating blueberries we picked as we climbed, we reached the rock out crop that is the home for the colony. We were guided by the two biologists who, once we were in place went back down the hill and left us to our photography. Now marmots have really only a couple of predators, the most common being Golden Eagles (since we don’t fly, we don’t look like them) and bears (which we could be mistaken for). So like normal, for the first few hours, the good light time, we saw only the occasional eye staring at us from a rock crevice. By late afternoon, a good 6-7 hours into our shoot, they started to go about their daily routine within site of our lenses. What you’ll see in the video is the fun unfold. Many have heard me joke about flying dust spots. That reference normally pertains to gulls flying about. In this video though, flying dust spots take on a whole new meaning! Those aren’t dust spots…them are flies!
The Alaskan Marmot for comparison
All the still shooting was done with the D3x. For video I swapped out the D3x for the D3s with both stills and video being shot with 600VR2 with TC-14e mounted on a Wimberley / Gitzo, carrying the entire rig over my shoulder through the forest and up and down that mountain. That’s because if we came across something like a Wolverine (which were in the area), I didn’t want to miss a shot taking time to set up. That’s my general MO. I did the editing on the iMac with all the vid residing on the ioSafe N2 and doing the editing right in Premiere Pro CS7. With the way the day turned out, we didn’t make the trek back up the next day. While it was a really, really, slow start, the end of the day was great! One of the Hoary Marmots ended up coming right up to me so with that, Jake & I knocked out the rest of the photos we needed for the project. And those flies you see in the video, lucky for us they only plagued the marmots, they left us alone.
