Red Fox

I tried to be a camera minimalist last week and shot this with my iPhone. Apparently the locals feed cat food to foxes on the trail. Technical: iPhone image cropped vertical.

Friday Harbor

One of the benefits of traveling is seeing new subjects and trying new processing techniques.  This early morning fog in the harbor seemed mystical so I enhanced the image to fit my mood. Later fog burned off, other tourists woke up, and the magic faded.

Big Bog Morning

This was taken early one morning at Big Bog Recreation Area. It's a tough shot to get the color balanced between the warm sky and cool foreground. I've been working on this shot intermittently for two weeks.  My usual rule of thumb is to pitch an image that takes more than a couple minutes to enhance but this one would not leave my mind.  

We are heading to the northwest for a week, starting on San Juan Is. north of Seattle tonight.  This will be a computer vacation. Well not quite, I'll cheat and look at my wife's iPad. Then there is always the iPhone, but no image downloading or processing. Back in a couple weeks.

Astro landscape Photography

This is a popular form of photography in Oregon and Washington where there is much less light pollution.  Here we have to make the most of what we have or get way north.  The best I could do with this light pollution was adjust the white balance to make it work with the rest of the image. Technical: 30 seconds at ISO 3200, f 3.5. For information on the location of the Milky Way anywhere in the world check stellarium.org for a free download. It's a little complicated to use and contains more info than most photographers will ever use. 

Milky Way

I did some night photography to celebrate July 4th. I am an early bird but 2 AM is a little too early so this photography might not happen very often.  The conditions need to be right with a moonless, clear night to get the stars to "pop". Technical: ISO 4000, 30 second exposure.  For a detailed but understandable tutorial see Beginner's Guide to Astrophotography by Ben Canales.  Ben is a young photographer with an unbelievable future ahead of him. The next post will tell you how to find the Milk Way.

What is Reality?

Going through the latest batch of photo magazines made me wonder what is real in photography. The top image has been enhanced in Lightroom, below it is the RAW image. In the era of film a split neutral density and warming filter would have been used to create the top image. I didn't see either of these images only the two similar shapes balancing each other in the frame. The enhancement is only used to emphasize the shapes. Are current images less real than the ones created using multiple glass filters? Some images are just made to look at and not worry about the process.

Composing a Bog Image

"A"

"B"

Sometimes a slight change in position or focal length creates a significant change in where your eye goes in an image.  My eye path in image "A" seems to stop at the top of the green foreground, eventually leading my eye to the left upper corner.  "B" starts my eye at the bottom, leads it to the upper left, over to the upper right, and out of the frame. Where does your eye go?

A Stroll in the Bog

This is an easy stroll in the bog but unfortunately no flowers are here, it's too dry. I was using my iPhone compass until I hit  a dead zone so could only use it to take this picture resorting to my trusted hand compass to lead me out of the bog. Technical: a tough lighting situation with any camera. I used the PureShot app  to lock exposure so everything was within the histogram, then worked Lightroom magic to get a decent image.

Bog Landscape

When our daughters were growing up one of their questions was "Are we going on a hike or a walk?  A walk was on a groomed trail and a hike was on an uneven trail.  Going through the bog is beyond a hike. I used this for a desk top image for a couple days but got claustrophobic and took it down.

Orchid & Mosquito

 This gives you an idea of how small the flower is when its compared to a mosquito.  In addition to biting us, mosquitoes are pollinators of several flower species.  Yes, they do serve a good purpose in this world and I've been told only the females bite so (I guess) we can be thankful since it could be twice as bad.

Small Round Leaf Orchid

Small is not an exaggeration with these orchids.  However, they frequently grow in groups of 10-15 so are easy to spot on the bog floor.  No two flowers have the same design of spots and they are beautiful in their intricate detail. An unfelt breeze seems to keep them in constant motion. Technical: ISO of 1600, 1/125 second, 180 macro with close up filter

Ladyslippers

I've been looking for orchids the last couple weeks and the showy ladyslippers are at peakin northern Minnesota.  This shot is in contrast to the previous ladyslipper post which was shot from below.  In my orchid search there has been more adventure and blood loss than image production.  I'll be eating liver to restore blood lost from mosquitoes before I head into the bogs again.  Technical: 85 mm kit lens, f 22, human shadow for light diffusion