Jan 24, 2019 | Landscape Photography
On a stormy, snow, blustery day in Yellowstone where the critters are back in the woods hunkered down, there’s one place I love to go and shoot. That’s Mud Pot Basin. It’s a moody place on stormy days, great for shooting. If you put in the time, one geyser will perform, Spasm. What I like about it is the spray tends to never be the same second to second. The steam on cold days, (0 with windchill) can be as much of the photo as the eruption. Shooting with the Z7 / Z24-70, I had the camera set to Continuous High Extended and when I say the eruption, just held the shutter release down. Then once back at the computer, picked the image with the best elements to finish. I just love the moode!
Jan 18, 2019 | Wildlife Photography
Steller’s Jay
captured by Z7 / 800mm
I don’t know if the storm blew him in or he just returned, but man was I happy to see him! At the height of our storm Thursday on my constant vigil of looking, I spotted this Steller’s Jay perched. Now why it wasn’t taking cover I don’t know but truth be told, I didn’t care. I had a bird to photograph!!!! Now, to make a photograph.
Steller’s Jay
captured by Z7 / 800mm
Shooting from the warmth of our office out an open window, I pointed the Z7 / 800mm and watched the blowing snow. And I mean blowing snow! There were a couple of tasks at hand, show the blowing snow, show off the blue and get a “clear” shot of it all. That translated into a fast shutter speed, 1/50, and shooting on Continuous High Extended and ripping off about 100 frames in a heartbeat. I took that many because as the snow blew by, at times it would create a fog and then there would be a clear window between the lens and the Jay. At the same time, I wanted the right pose. So when I saw the pose, I ripped the shutter until the pose disappeared. I came away with a number of frames I liked. These two just reminded me of, “Look right, now look left”. It was a glorious ten minutes, and then he was gone. As I tell my students when out shooting birds thought, it just takes one!
Jan 17, 2019 | Landscape Photography
Hoar Frost
captured by D4s / 70-200f4
As I blew the 18″ of snow that fell during the night, my mind started to wonder about all the white. You gotta understand I love living in snow, the white transforms the landscape into shapes, contours and mysterious forms setting the imagination on fire. And as I worked the snow, I was paying attention to what was catching my attention in the all-white world (besides Sadie who is always by my side playing in the new snow with such joy!). The answer was pretty obvious, once I stopped and thought about it. It was just a smidge of color!
Hoar Frost
captured by D4s / 70-200f4
I then came in from my three-hour fun outside and went to my files to see if my conclusion held true in my photographs. Now I have plenty of photographs where there is a smidge of white to set off the rest of the color in the scene. But with little effort, I found plenty of examples in my own files where just a smidge of color really set off the snowscape. In this case on a hoar frost morning in Fargo, ND a few years back, for just a moment the sun broke out and gave the slightest glow to the scene. And that small hint of color made a photograph that just minutes before and minutes later was solid gray. It’s such a little thing, so little that years and years and years in the snow and it just now reached my consciousness but I’m glad it did. I’ll look now a whole lot more for that smidge of color!
Jan 15, 2019 | Wildlife Photography
Douglas Tree Squirrel
captured by Z6 / 300PF
My neighbors probably think I’ve gone nuts; I probably have! With no birds and with my addiction to taking photographs every day, I’ve gone to playing cat and mouse around our property for the only game in town right now. Douglas Tree Squirrels! We have three that have decided that now’s the time to make new squirrels. To those ends, they are redefining, “squirrelly!” So having a severe case of cabin fever, I decided to race around the property in the hopes of making a click or two of their antics. And in the process, I found a brilliant combo I’m lovin for the chase!
Douglas Tree Squirrel
captured by Z6 / 300PF
One thing about these squirrels, they don’t hold still jumping from tree to tree so I needed a non-tripod, quick moving rig. I went with the Z6 / 300PF and so glad I did! This small rig permits me to just push the lens out the window or around the corner and get them squirrels in the viewfinder before they skedaddle. And at f/4, that narrow DoF at 300mm blurs out nicely the background. Then it’s just looking for the right light and moment when it all lines up for a click. In this case, that silly gesture squirrels are so good at and then when the environment provides an atmosphere like snowing. They are at least keeping me from going 100% squirrelly!
Jan 10, 2019 | Wildlife Photography
Dark-eyed Junco
captured by Z7 / 800mm
It’s that time of year when our bird baths (heated of course) and feeders are stuffed with a dozen or more species of birds. Normally I’m somewhere else in the country and not able to photograph at my favorite local, my backyard. Well, this year I changed my schedule up so I would be home to photograph all the great birds in the snow. For the last 50 days, ever since the first real snow of the season, we’ve had NO birds! Now I say no, we’ve had 3 Dark-eyed Juncos, 1 Flicker and a couple of doves. Last winter there was no way of counting all the birds and getting just one bird in the viewfinder was near impossible as there were so many. So what’s a frustrated wildlife photographer to do?
Dark-eyed Junco
captured by Z7 / 800mm
I started by talking with my neighbor, the forest biologist to see if our property was experiencing some fluke or if it was the norm. He relayed to me that there are no birds anywhere right now. Species like our Clark’s Nutcrackers which are nesting now are not even here. Our resident Chickadees that don’t migrate, that have been here every day since we moved here, aren’t to be found! With three Juncos my only subjects, I’ve been working just them right now. I have the Z7 / 800mm set up and when the light and weather is inviting, Sharon & I pace the house looking for one of the three Juncos. In all seriousness, I’ve shot only 78 photos this year on our property of birds! In a normal year, I would shoot that much in minutes. Sharon says I have a real bad case of cabin fever as I pace back and forth mumbling about no birds. All I seem to keep saying is, where they’d go?
Jan 7, 2019 | Wildlife Photography
Red-shafted Flicker
captured by Z7 / 800mm @1/5
It’s been a snowy weekend and that always has me looking out for photographic opportunities. My first thought is always the birds and they’re coping with the falling snow. So with that in mind, I grabbed the Z7 / 800mm and pointed it at a Red-shafted Flicker perched on tree four. Now to say it’s snowing in a photograph, you gotta see the snow. To see the snow falling, you need a slow shutter speed. How slow? The all depends on the size of the snow and how fast it’s falling. Birds in big snows tend to take to cover which means they are out of the snow and wind. This means slow snow and slow snow means a slow shutter speed. Trying to get the limited snow to streak required 1/5 shutter speed which often scares most. Using proper long lens technique and in this case, the Z7 with its gimbal made it simple. The variable in the sharp photo was the Flicker holding still. With that in play, I shot off thirty or so frames trying to get just one with snow streaking. Sadly, never got the shot I wanted but what I captured was sharp so the next snowy day, I’m ready to try again.
