Picture of the Day - 2/24/2010

Here's the last picture of the day for now. Thanks for joining me on this journey around four different western states! The next trip is planned to South Dakota (Black Hills area) and Yellowstone and Grand Tetons NPs in Wyoming this coming June.

The picture today was taken off Colorado 9 south of Fairplay. There is a large herd of bison grazing in the snow-covered ranchland there. Since I had to shoot towards the sun, the bison came out nearly silhouetted, so I lightened up its coat a bit with the Viveza Photoshop plug-in. This shot reminds me of the wild bison in Yellowstone during the winter.

Picture of the Day - 2/23/2010

Today, I drove from Delta, UT to Grand Junction, CO, where my daughter and son-in-law live. On the way, I made stops at Arches NP and Colorado NM. I wanted to take advantage of the huge dump of snow they both received last weekend. While most of the snow on the sunny sides had melted, the meltwater made for nice reflective elements in the foreground. This is a picture of the Tower of Babel. I positioned myself so that the sky was reflected in the pools, because I knew the blue would complement the earth tones of the rocks.

Picture of the Day - 2/22/2010

All I can say here is, "Only in the U.S."! I was halfway along Nevada's Highway 50, "The Loneliest Highway", and noticed this cottonwood tree with hundreds of shoes - a so-called, "shoe tree". I guess boredom results in strange behaviors! The story here: (Shoe Trees) -http://www.roadsideamerica.com/set/shoetrees.html, (Traveling Nevada) - http://blog.travelnevada.com/articles/highway-50s-shoe-tree-middlegate, (Loneliest Highway Shoe Tree) - http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WM1K67.

Picture of the Day - 2/21/2010

I ended up in Oakhurst last night after slogging through quite a heavy snowstorm on the way out from Yosemite. I was "gett'in out'a Dodge" just in time, as the Crown Vic isn't the best vehicle in snow! This morning, I left and headed back up towards Reno, stopping at friends Keith & Connie. I'll be heading directly back towards Colorado the next two days...perhaps stopping at Arches N.P., if the snow conditions aren't too bad.

Spring is here already in California! As I was driving up Hwy 99 from Yosemite halfway between Modesto and Sacramento, I ran into patches of yellow and orange aster hybrids the highway department had planted on the sides of the roadway. The fields were quite thick for several miles.

Tomorrow, I hit "The Loneliest Highway" - Hwy 50 - through Nevada!

Picture of the Day - 2/20/2010

The photo conference ended a day earlier than I expected - one of these days, I'll actually review the advance program more closely. So, I decided to drive around to the west side of the Sierras visit Yosemite N.P. I wanted to try the classic shot of Horsetail Falls in the setting sun (search for Horsetail Falls to see the result). As it was, the weather had different ideas and so there was no setting sun, due to the heavy overcast and rain that day. However, overcast weather is the perfect time to photograph forests and trees, because of the soft even light.

One subject I love to photograph is the oak trees in the rolling Sierra foothills. Here's a shot taken off Hwy 120 as I'm driving towards Yosemite. This picture has had a lot of post-processing to make it look the way I wanted. The grass was already incredibly green from all the recent rain California's been having and the oak trees had a very slight magenta cast to them (in real life). I boosted the contrast, which deepened the colors a bit. The original image had another row of trees above these and I cropped them out to help simplify the composition. The grass in the upper 1/3 was much lighter, so I used Nik Software's, Vivesa, to match the color with the grass below. I cloned out some distracting white rocks and the white tips of the metal fenceposts, as well as a couple stray out-of-focus blades of grasses in the immediate foreground. Interestingly, it turns out green and magenta are opposite hues in the color wheel, therefore, they go very well together. I think the result could easily hang on my living room wall!

Now, here's an experiment in B&W. I basically, took the above, and did a B&W conversion using Nik Software's Silver Efex Pro. After playing with all the possibilities, I decided to boost the contrast and make a more defined structure using the sliders. Otherwise, It's a pretty normal-toned image. Which version do you like best?

Picture of the Day - 2/19/2010

I'm having to dig into my earlier archives of this trip for the picture today, as I've run out of ceiling and rug ideas, much to the relief of some of my colleagues, who will likely never allow me to live down, this departure from the pure, natural, world. So, having previously skipped any images from my visit to Zion NP, I herewith present to you a segment of the Virgin River, which flows through the canyon. Because the day was mostly sunny - not great conditions for river pictures - I searched until I could find a few cascades in the shade. I was also able to include reflections from the sky and cliffs in the calmer water (lower right). Exposed at a 1.2 seconds at f16 and ISO 100 with a 28mm lens.

Picture of the Day - 2/18/2010

I'm halfway through my photo conference in Reno and in looking for the next picture of the day, came upon this reflecting ceiling in the kids game room of the Nugget Hotel where the conference is located. I'm always attracted to reflections, so this certainly fit the bill! This looks nearly like a collage someone put together, but it's just the various machines reflected upside down. Taken with the little Canon SX110 IS supported against a low wall. The uninteresting stuff was cropped out.

Picture of the Day - 2/17/2010

For some reason, I'm attracted to hotel carpets - especially those with abstract images like this one. I liked the symmetry of the pattern, as well as the colors. Sometimes by simple observation, you can find pretty cool pictures! This one may end up on our living room wall! This was photographed with my Canon SX110 IS compact camera with its built-in flash.

Picture of the Day - 2/16/2010

Since NANPA activities kicked off later tonight with a reception, I had another day off to photograph. It was recommended I visit the Stillwater NWR northeast of Reno for the birdlife and I left early, as it was about an hour drive. Once I arrived, I was disappointed to see that much of the wetlands had been drained. There was also a near total lack of life; birds or otherwise. I did manage to see a couple red-winged blackbirds and a red-tailed hawk soaring in circles, but that was pretty much it. However, bird photography, like any wildlife photography, requires patience! After giving up and heading back out, I saw the most wonderful sight - a group of eight American pelicans soaring in regular circles nearly straight overhead! I was able to capture dozens of flight formations as they circled above. Here are three that I call, "In Formation" (slightly cropped for composition). I was using my 100-400mm/f5.6 lens with shutter of 1/1000 sec handheld. It turns out there is a major pelican breeding area on an island in Pyramid Lake, just northwest of Stillwater.

Picture of the Day - 2/15/2010

This morning, I spent some time on the northeast shore of Lake Tahoe just past Sand Harbor State Park. The water is so clear and deep blue! I managed to find a trail down to near the shore through packed snow. Due to the lateness of the day, this was a pretty tough shot to expose properly - especially, since I was shooting into the sun. Digital (and film) capture can't quite record the extreme dynamic range between light and dark, so the sky was a little blown out and the shadowed areas, too dark. This was quickly resolved in Photoshop Lightroom, one of my favorite editing programs. Since I was shooting RAW, a simple adjustment of the Exposure corrected the sky and an increase in Fill Light opened up the shadows. The dust spot tool removed a couple specks from the sky, and I was finished! It took all of 30 seconds to fix everything. If I had captured this in JPEG mode, it would not have been possible to fix the blown out sky.

Picture of the Day - 2/14/2010

Another double header! Today, I photographed the sunrise with Telescope Peak reflecting in Badwater, Death Valley, CA. I had to walk quite a ways out on crusty salt formations to the edge of the water. As I left Death Valley for Reno, I stopped at the Alabama Hills Recreation Area (now managed by the BLM), located west of Lone Pine. Many old (and new) westerns were filmed here - Hopalong Cassidy, The Lone Ranger, How the West Was Won, Rawhide, Gunga Din, Maverick (new one), Tremors, High Sierra and Charge of the Light Brigade. Stars included Gene Autry, Gregory Peck, James Garner, Mel Gibson and Gary Cooper and several others. This well-known arch (to photographers, anyway) is located just to the north of the main movie locations and is about a 1/4 mile walk from the parking area. It frames Mt. Whitney (small grayish peak just right of center), the largest peak in the continental US at 14.495 feet. I've climbed it twice via the trail and nearly a third time where we managed to get about 3/4qtrs of the way up the face, until lightning chased us back down (20+ pitches of rappelling very quickly!).

Picture of the Day - 2/13/2010

Today was mainly spent getting across Nevada from where I ended up in Cedar City, UT, last night. I stopped at Cathedral Gorge on the way, but got there too late for the good light. Transiting across Hwy 375 (the so-called "Extraterrestrial Highway"), I stopped at the Lil'Alien Restaurant/Bar for a quick lunch and arrived at the Mesquite Dunes, near Stovepipe Wells, just in time for a fabulous - but all too short - sunset. I had to hike out quite a ways to eliminate the countless footprints closer to the road. I'm currently camped at Stovepipe Wells. Tomorrow, I'll shoot up towards Lake Tahoe for some more winter pictures!

Picture of the Day - 2/12/2010

Today, you get a doubleheader from Bryce Canyon NP. I "camped" last night at the Best Western - the new one across from Ruby's Inn - which is just outside the park boundary. Getting up early yielded some excellent sunrise photos of the formations. This first one is taken from Inspiration Point in a cold, blustery, wind. I finally put on some gloves, because my fingers were sticking to the camera - - kidding! It was pretty cold, though.


The second shot was taken from the same area a little later; just with my 100-400mm lens, so we could get more of a close-up shot. Notice how the rocks are glowing. The sun is just peeking over the horizon. The rest of the day was spent photographing waterfalls and reflections at Zion NP. I may have to throw these in if my pictures tomorrow are a bust. I'll be heading to Cathedral Gorge State Park in Nevada and then on to Death Valley for sand dune pictures.

Picture of the Day - 2/11/2010

I'm currently working my way gradually to Reno to participate in the NANPA Summit (www.nanpa.org) - one of the largest gathering of nature photographers in the world. As Sheila is still recuperating from an extensive spine surgery, she elected to sit this trip out, so it's just me in the cockpit. I started out early this morning without too much of a plan...but after mulling the options over, I headed for Bryce NP, where I'm staying the night just outside the entrance. Tomorrow, I'll catch the sunrise and then head out to Zion NP for the rest of the day.

The view here is looking north into Eagle Canyon - part of the San Rafael Swell region in central Utah. This whole region is peppered with ancient petroglyphs and pictographs in the cliff faces and is well worth exploring. The sun was getting low in the sky and providing some nice soft light. Most of the layers you see are part of the Navaho Sandstone, which extends throughout the Southwest.