Oct 5, 2015 | Wildlife Photography
Well our new buddy, the Lewis’s Woodpecker has spent a week with us now, so we just call him Lewis. This immature male is a first for our property and getting to know him and his biology has been great fun. It would seem he is getting use to us as well because we can move about the inside of our house and he know ignores us. That’s great! This weekend, I worked with him more to the point where I could venture outside with the camera and photograph him. No more shooting through the windows and that vastly improved image quality. I have to sneak out the door with the D4s / 800 / Zenili rig but he does permit me to come and and play.
His general pattern is to fly into the Aspen in the front (top photo) and get warm in the sun and watch the activity at the feeders. Then he flies up to the perch next to the feeder (bottom photo) and suns some more and then feeds when he feels safe. At first, the other birds, squirrels and chipmunks kept him from the feeder. Basic immature kid stuff. But by Sunday, we was feeling his oats and he was driving off the other critters so he can eat. He’s a big woodpecker, about the same size as the flicker so he can easily rule the roost. He was fine except when Edgar would come in. Edgar is our “pet” Raven that comes by to talk every so often. Lewis didn’t like Edgar and that was the only time he wasn’t around. It’s been a real hoot to get to know Lewis. I’m on the road the next ten days but Sharon is there to watch, take notes and enjoy Lewis. Can’t wait to get back and work with him some more. When he has his adult plumage, he’ll be a knock out!
Oct 1, 2015 | Wildlife Photography
It started on Tuesday when Sharon called me into the office and pointed out the window at the bird bath. “What’s that bird at the bath?!” She was pointing at a big, dark bird and all we could see was its head, but that was enough. I said, “that’s a Lewis’s Woodpecker!!!” We’ve seen them in the Sierra before, rarely, they prefer the higher altitudes. We’ve seen them on the ridge above our home but never on our property. We watched it drink for a while, then it flew off behind Tree 1 and disappeared. Great bird and thought that would be the end of him as we’ve had a lot of birds come through for a quick sighting not to be seen again. But we were looking!!!
Then today it reappeared! This time, in the front at Tree 3. Being that I’d only gotten a couple of clicks of one decades ago in Montana, I wanted to very much photograph him (it’s a male). So we stayed inside and watched it through the windows. Hard to get any work done this morning as both Sharon and I were watching its every move. Now the Lewis’s Woodpecker is a big bird, the size of a flicker. And it would seem, just as shy. Now we have Red-shafted Flickers, Hairy & White-headed Woodpeckers and Red-breasted Sapsuckers nearly everyday at our feeders so we’re use to their reactions to us. We wanted to learn about the Lewis’s biology and how it would react to us so we just watched. The D4s / 800mm w/TC-1.25e were set up inside and used to watch the Lewis’s through the dual-pane windows. I need it to get comfortable with us moving around and watching it. Slow and easy wins the race! It wanted to come to the seed feeder, same as the flicker you see above (taken on the branch it kept going to). The feeder was so busy with other birds, smaller birds, that these two woodpeckers waited until it was empty to venture in. It spent a god two hours with us, last being seen as the sun set. Fingers crossed it will come back tomorrow. I didn’t want to work anyways!
Sep 29, 2015 | Landscape Photography
Yep, the amount, variety, intensity and quantity of fall color we experienced this last week in Cripple Creek, CO was simply … overwhelming! As I kept saying to Sharon the whole time, while we’ve got great fall color in the Eastern Sierra, we don’t have any of the grand vistas of slope after slope blazing yellow like we experienced in CO. It was truly hard at times to narrow your vision down to just the viewfinder because no matter the lens in use, you couldn’t take it all in. And you wanted to take in this blaze of color! But for us photographers, put our eyes to the viewfinder we must.
These three photos along with a lot of what I shot this past week was with the Df / 80-400VR3 and for a very simple reason. The overwhelming vistas we experienced often didn’t translate perfectly into the viewfinder with a lens like the 24-70AFS. I did use that lens a lot, but not nearly as much as the 80-400. This is because while our eyes and mind sees that grand vistas, it does a great job of eliminating unwanted elements that the cold hearted bastard insists in including in our viewfinder! In order for you to “see” what I was feeling, I needed to use more glass to isolate those clumps and stands and forests of color. These three photos are a classic example of what I’m talking about.
You might be looking at these photos and wondering to yourself, “is that color real?” If you mean, is this the color we saw, it most definitely is. If you’re wondering if I hit the saturation slider to make these colors pop, I most certainly did not. The first main factor in this great color is we hit the color perfectly! As we left town to go home, we could already see stands of color we photographed when we first arrived (bottom photo) with lots of bare trees! Next, much of the time since we were at 9424′ in altitude, we had a Kelvin temp well above 9000k. Auto White balance doesn’t work at that range so we set the camera to Cloudy. Then there is the incorporation of green in the photo and underexposure which makes the colors fly off the monitor. And finally, there were some finishing “tricks” in post to “fool” the mind’s eye to get the photo back to the blazing glory we witnessed. But you could hold these images up to the real thing and they would both look identical. It was simply, overwhelming!
Sep 25, 2015 | B&W Photography
Cruising down the road, I’m sure you’ve asked yourself, is there a photo? There are most definitely times you ask yourself that and there is no reason to stop. But then there are times when you say this when in fact, there is a photo. How can you help yourself to learn to “see” that unobvious photo whether you’re walking or doing 60mph? We went through that basic concept this afternoon as we waited for the edge of the light to wear off. And these are just a couple of our results.
You can teach yourself to see this, you need to read nothing or buy a thing. Shooting with any Nikon body with wireless capibility (I shot these with D750 / 14-24AFS) you can connect your iPhone/Andriod to the camera with the Mobile Wireless Utility. You take your photo with your camera, transfer it to your device, finish in Photoshop or Snapseed and instantly see on the device what the possibilities are and relate it to exactly what your eyes see. You teach yourself to see YOUR photo YOUR way with YOUR gear, it really gets no simpler or convenient. The only hard part is the stopping, after that it’s a piece of cake!
the scene as we saw it
Sep 25, 2015 | Landscape Photography
It’s just … gorgeous! We’re here in Cripple Creek, CO just a tad before peak fall color and it’s truly spectacular! The right combination of water and temperature has been right cause the landscape is celebrating the end of summer and the start of fall in grand fashion. So far we’ve been working almost within walking distance of of where we’re staying (the magnificent Carr Manor) there is just so much to see and work with. We have just begun our explorations for the week and we’ve struck gold!
One of the truly fun things once you have found great fall color is then exploring it photographically. One of the key things I personally do is always include some element(s) in the frame. That’s because the mind’s eye sees that green and then by association makes the yellow much more vibrant. By doing a number of basic in camera basics like this, you have to depend on far fewer in post (like the saturation slider which I never use) to make the color pop. Another basic has to do with White Balance. Both of these photos were taken with the Df / 80-400VR3 with the WB set to Cloudy. What, Cloudy and no red sky? Yep, we’re at 9494′ elevation with the Kelvin Temp about 9200-9400. Auto White Balance pegs out at 8000 so what occurs is you get a blue color cast. But manually setting the camera to 6000k (cloudy), while the numbers seem ascewed, you remove the blue color cast and thus the yellows pop as they are opposite on the color wheel. This probably sounds really confusing but if you get to this altitude and are shooting fall color, run your own comparison and you’ll see for yourself. I had the group do this today and they quickly said, they struck Colorado gold!
Sep 18, 2015 | Landscape Photography
This past weekend in the Eastern Sierra, the calendar turned a page and fall descended upon the region. There is now that chill in the air in the morning that lingers once the sun rises making one seek its light and warmth. Critters seem to take an extra minute to sleep in, rising only once they can take advantage of the mellow light to remove the nights chill. The Aspens in the meadow have just one or two yellow leaves. And the light itself, it’s turned the corner so even at noon, it wraps around all it touches so even the shadows seem inviting. This past weekend it all came together in one visual poem saying fall is in the works.
If there is a time of the year I look forward to more than any other at home, it’s now, fall. It’s hard to stay focused, itching to get out and walk amongst the trees and watch the small critters as they go at panic speed to store their last seeds before the snow hits (which they are saying might be this weekend). We’ve been cruising the region trying to get a feel when the storm of color might hit and all we know is it will be early and it will go fast. You need two important things for great fall color, lots of water and a good cold snap. We’re not had the water over the entire region but this weekend we should be having the perfect cold snap. That means that the Aspens along lakes and creeks that do get the water, it should be good. I’m hoping for the “grander” fall color photos than what you see here this fall. When the fall color is spotty, I tend to work them as you see here, shooting amongst a grove, shooting up with the 18-35AFS or working a small patch with a longer lens like the 80-400VR3. Then I find a complimentary color like blue or black to make the yellow even more vibrant. There’s a lot one can do to bring the romance of fall into their images, some of my favorite techniques are all here for you. With our drought here on the Eastside, color in some pockets has come and gone, others are still green. While I don’t expect a giant show this year, it’s still my favorite time!
