cloud party over plattes and kenoshas
An image I planned to post last month. I wish it looked more like that now, we’ve nothing but sunshine today.
Studio is painted and about 1/3 of the new floor is in place. I’m working from our dining table until I can move back into the studio.
moon over lions head 02-11-09
Everything’s been moved out of my studio in preparation for installing a new floor. My living room looks like one of the homes you hear about where the people never throw anything away and can only move about the house through narrow passages.
My studio is a smallish spare bedroom of the house where I do all my after-capture photo work, processing raw files on my computer, printing, and framing. In a perfect world, I’d have separate rooms or a larger space for all these activities. In my world, I wonder how all that stuff in the living room will ever fit back into the studio.
Today, I paint the walls.
Moon setting over lions head 02-11-09
This was Jan. 10 at 5am, the morning before the full moon.
Had my days mixed up. I was planning to photograph the full moon setting at sunrise but the bright light of the moon woke me at 5am and I realized I was a day early. I went out and made a few images anyway. The next day, too warm and lazy to drag myself out in the cold, I only peeked from under the blankets at the moon setting at sunrise outside my window.
On the nut feeder this morning:
And, backlit on the same feeder this evening:
Outside thinking I’d photograph a tall tree leaning with the wind, I looked up to see a long roll of clouds that stretched across the sky like a giant frayed rope.
Braced against the strong gusts (forecast to 80 mph) I used a wide angle lens and polarizing filter to capture several images in the few minutes available before the wind drove the clouds eastward and away.
The sign in the foreground declares, “No Hunting”, but that’s exactly what I was doing – hunting images to capture.
A few days at our favorite hot springs in December yeilded the images below of the Chalk Cliffs, Mt. Princeton, plus a few more “riding shotgun” images – this time of South Park. Extremely low temps with wind and blowing snow made it too cold when I was there to do much photography. I didn’t get out of the hot outdoor pools, sauna, or my warm room in the lodge long enough to get the kind of captures I’d planned for this trip.
Note to Melissa, who feels cold when she views my winter images: This time it truly was cold![PSGallery=1ixe9akldc]
I rode shotgun (in the front passenger seat) to and from Steamboat. Rather than gaze out the windows at lost images streaming past, I practiced firing my canons at the landscapes through dirty glass and snow showers. I focused out and beyond the the spotted windows, adjusted settings quickly, made each image and then looked ahead to find the next view.
This sort of practice can be good for me. Don’t think, just do it fast.
In some captures I allowed a fence post or tree to blur in the foreground as we raced by. In others I went for the more distant view without the telltale blur of foreground objects.
Favorites are in the gallery below. Some will be kept to remind me of places I’d like to return to when I’m driving and the purpose of the trip is to hunt images and make frequent stops.
Click the first photo to start, then click next.
[PSGallery=1bya39t0g3][PSGallery=8310u9jnre]
You can’t see the lake under the snow, but it’s there. This image was made the same day (winter solstice ’08) and location as the one in my previous post, Hahn Peak.
I went to the park expecting groomed trails, but the ranger said there was not enough snow yet with only two feet or so on the ground. He marked the park map for me to show the location of a trail. I broke a trail through soft deep snow in that general direction enjoying the quiet solitude and beautiful views.
Yes, it was as cold and cloudy as it looks in the photos, but not too cold and dark to enjoy the exercise and capture a few images.
