For you who don’t know already, I recently bought a new camera and long telephoto lens, which opens new doors for me in the realm of photography. The lens that I have been wanting most is a decent telephoto; well I fulfilled my wish with a new Sigma 150-500mm OS lens. I have felt for a long time that a 300mm lens just doesn’t have the reach to get good shots of wary wildlife, such as hawks. In the open space near the house, I have seen Red Tails, Swainsons, even a rare Harlan’s race Red Tail. Most of which I couldn’t get really clear shots of, until now! This is the first test drive, so I am still learning a bit of what the camera is capable of, and getting used to the lens. Check out the details for yourself.
Swainson's Hawk on the lookout for a snack.
Swainson's Hawk
Swainson's Hawk
Swainson's Hawk
Swainson's Hawk
Swainson's Hawk
Swainson's Hawk
Amazing to watch thhem halt in mid air when they see something.
The day after my niece was born, both Jen and I were lacking sleep, and Malie was lacking human contact and wanting a walk. I grabbed my camera as we were headed out the door, and saw these dramatic clouds. I immediately visualized a black and white photo, and made the shot accordingly, to capture the contrast and drama. The tricky thing with shooting B&W versus color is that the photographer has to be able to see things in a different way; tones and contrast, instead of just the color. Even with digital photography and the ease of digital photo editing, not every color photo can be made into B&W and have the same feel as a photo shot strictly for B&W. If any of that makes sense to you, great! If not, here’s a photo:
Yes, I went to the same spot again. There is something about the area that draws me to it, I don’t usually visit the same location more than two or three times, but a couple weeks ago, I couldn’t think of anywhere I rather go and camp. Best part about the Brainard Lake rec area is that it offers some of the best scenery in the state, without driving multiple hours to get there. This was my fifth visit to Isabelle Lake within a year. First the infamous “lighting strike” trip, where myself, my Mom and my Dad shared a lighting bolt backpacking our way over Pawnee Pass to Crater Lake. Second, was the 15 mile, one day marathon from the Long Lake trailhead over Pawnee Pass, and down Cascade Creek to the Monarch Lake trailhead. Third was a snowshoe to Long Lake in the Arctic cold December wind. Fourth time was a longer snowshoe trip all the way from the winter trailhead a mile below Brainard Lake to Isabelle Lake. Which brings us to June 26, two days shy of my birthday, and the opening weekend for the Pawnee Campground at Brainard Lake. Usually when I go camping, I have the truck loaded the night before, and leave the house no later than 7:00 am. This trip was a bit on the spur of the moment, so I didn’t actually leave until Saturday morning at about 9:00. I arrived at about 10:30, set up camp in the almost full campground with a nice view of Brainard Lake. After a bit of an early lunch, I headed off to Isabelle Lake, and so did everyone else in the campground; or so it seemed. Of course after seeing the place in the winter, more than five people seems like a lot! I took my time on the way, as photographers do, making the two mile hike in about two and a half hours. My intention was to spend the the afternoon and evening up at Isabelle Lake, relaxing and watching the light change, waiting for that “magic hour” when the sun sets. I sat there watching the clouds build, sprinkle a few drops, and move on. This kind of nothing-too-special afternoon weather passed a few times, until finally the clouds built too a point that said to me “you won’t want to be up here in about five minutes.” I started down, leaving behind about 15 people who didn’t get the memo from the weather gods. Sure enough I got down to the cover of the trees, and the rain began, followed by the lighting and the hail. With my plans thus changed, I went back to camp to dry out and have some dinner. After eating, the weather was once again calm, and I made the decision to head back up the hill to Isabelle for the sunset I intended to photograph. The trip back up, I wanted to get there as soon as possible, and made the hike in 45 minutes. I was thrilled to see that I was the only person at Isabelle when I arrived at 7:45 pm. While I was hoping for more color in the clouds, I was not disappointed with the results. For anyone who hasn’t hiked in the twilight hours, I can tell you that it is one of the most amazing experiences one can have. The light is there, and it isn’t, you can see, but you can’t; it’s full of contradictions. I returned to the Long Lake trailhead a bit exhausted, but hoping to get back to camp and shoot some stars, but there was a thin layer of cloud that obscured everything but the full moon. I had also intended to wake early to get back up to Isabelle for the sunrise, but decided against it when my travel alarm went off at 4:30 am, instead I shot the sunrise at Brainard Lake (a mere 100 yards from my camp). After packing up camp somewhat early, I stopped at Red Rock Lake and made some clicks in the morning sun, and slowly made my way back home, stopping off CO 72 on the way to Nederland to make some more incidental clicks of a scene that caught my eye off the side of the road. Take a look at some of the results!
White Globeflower
Marsh Marigold, or Elk's Lip; named for the shape of the leaves
Spring runoff pours over the rocks
Runoff pours out of the east end of Lake Isabelle
Lake Isabelle from a familiar spot. I shot from here in April
Shoshoni Peak in the changing light
Large ice floes lazily melting in the warm sun.
Elk's Lip enjoying the high waters of South Saint Vrain Creek below Long Lake
Mount Toll in the late afternoon
Lake Isabelle in the fading evening light
Sunset at Lake Isabelle
Twilight in the forest
Sunrise greeting the Indian Peaks, from Brainard Lake
Okay, so this is a little out of the Wilderness Hunter’s realm of photographic experience. I am not usually an event photographer, but when my Dad asked me to shoot a concert he and my uncle were playing in, I couldn’t say no! In fact, it really got my creative juices flowing, as well as presenting a challenge. The concert was a tribute to a musician friend of my Dad’s that passed away a couple of years ago, and tragically, was only in his mid-fifties. The setting itself was in a small stage room at the Walnut Room in LoDo, and proved a major challenge to shoot, because of the darkness. The camera meter kept reading only the black of the shadows and not much of the light, so shooting in manual mode was a must. Even at an ISO setting of 1600, the fastest usable shutter speed I could get was was 1/6th with the aperture wide open between f/4 and f/5.6. This setting worked well to expose just the lit parts, even though the camera wanted a shutter of 2 seconds in aperture priority mode. I use the same method to shoot the moon (except a crescent like here). The problem was the guys kept moving around! Just kidding of course, but it was a chance for me to practice an action photo technique known as peak of action. Basically, instead of shooting a stream of images at a high frame rate, you watch for the pause in the action and make the click. This works well if you have a camera with a slow frame rate (like mine) and have used quite often shooting wildlife; which just proves to me that no matter if you shoot landscapes and wildlife, the same techniques can be applied elsewhere. Here’s a couple of shots from the evening.
This was the only photo of the bunch that received any kind of digital post-processing. The rest were straight from the camera.
While I tried, I couldn't quite capture the 'glowing' keys of Dad's keyboard.
For anyone that knows their guitars, this is Dad's original Gibson SG.
My Dad, doing what he loves!
Charlie drummin'
My uncle Matt, playing bass.
I love this shot, it's really just him and the SG at that moment.
Taking shots of the moon is always a challenge because of the extreme contrast of shooting a bright object on a black background. However, shooting a crescent moon versus shooting a full or half-full moon is a whole different ball game. !!WARNING!! Photo-geek content ahead!! Trying to get a proper spot metering on a crescent moon requires a longer telephoto lens than I have, so many of the shots the bright part of the moon is way over-exposed and the partially visible dark part of the moon vanishes completely! So I tried using an exposure bracket +-2 EV, and still got over exposure. So I tried another bracket adjusting the regular exposure to compensate by using a faster shutter; still too much exposure. I tried an HDR image (basically blends the exposures of several images to get one well balances image) using the collection of images from these attempts, and I hit a serious limitation with my equipment. The result was too much noise, and you could almost see the rows of pixels of the camera sensor. Using the HDR technique can bring out in a scene things you wouldn’t see in a single shot. So what you see here are the best single images (no HDRs) of the evening.
The first shot.
The second try, actually quite decent.
At this point I abandoned the focus on the moon, and went for a wider scene, with Venus in the lower right.
I was driving to work yesterday morning toward Boulder and saw this through the windshield; I just had to stop. Whenever I set out to capture moments like this, they never come; too many clouds, not enough clouds, I get setup too late to get that nice morning light. But when I have to be somewhere and can’t hang around to wait for the scene to change, or just enjoy the moment, the perfect ones happen. Often the simple clicks are the best.
Long's Peak rising above the fog on a front range morning.
Once again, I couldn’t resist the draw of the Indian Peaks wilderness. Something about it calls to me on such a deep level, I cannot explain. Twice I have been there in the summer; absolutely beautiful. Now twice I have been there in the winter; absolutely beautiful in a totally different way. As most of you know, the seasons in the Rockies don’t follow the seasons on a calendar; for winter above 10,000′ lasts well into what we know as summer at the lower altitudes. That is why, on Wednesday this week in April, I refer to this as my second trip to Indian Peaks in the winter. Six feet of soft snow everywhere, snowshoes strapped on, jacket, gloves, wind-proof pants, all the while in Boulder the temps reached into the middle seventies! I love the diversity of climate that living near the mountains offers; something for everyone! I headed out again from the winter trail head about 2 miles below Brainard Lake, and pushed all the way to Isabel Lake, four miles distant, through some mostly un-tracked snowy wilderness; this is the kind of stuff my dreams are made of! What a feeling to be one of a very few to venture this way during the snowy season. Anyway, my thoughts of it are totally incoherent, so here are the photos!
The Raven, my totem, or spirit guide.
Navajo Peak from Long Lake
The fast moving clouds made for some great sun patches on the mountains.
Shoshoni Peak in the brief sunlight.
Me and my hardy mountain dog, below Isabelle Lake with Shoshoni Peak in the background.
Navajo Peak.
The trio visible from Isabelle Lake; Navajo, Apache, and Shoshoni Peaks
Navajo Peak again.
Mount Toll (left) and Paiute Peak (right)
Niwot Ridge leads in from the left to the point of Navajo Peak, and the bulkier Apache Peak on the right.
Monday was feeling just like Monday, that is until Kasia called me with a desire to get out of the house and shoot some digital film. I couldn’t resist; it was a gorgeous day, and I was thinking to myself minutes before that I shouldn’t be wasting such a beautiful day inside. So after lunch we headed westward without much destination in mind, and we landed at Chautauqua, since most of the higher elevations received a light coat of snow the night before. Here’s what I came away with:
This pipe looked a bit incongrous to the rest of the surrounding vegetaion.
Spring runoff in the meadow beneath the Flatirons.
State flower of Oregon...in Colorado? Oregon Grape enjoys the fine spring day on the Front Range.
Flatiron #1 framed by the branches.
The tender green shoots of grass basking in the sun caught my eye.
I have this lovely plant growing either side of my pond in the back yard, and it grows into a thick green mat with little white flowers that bloom in the late-spring/early-summer. My friend Kasia came by yesterday (during the brief time where there was no rain) to let me play a bit with her Olympus E-3 and new telephoto lens. She saw the moss, and promptly fell in love with it and wants her whole front yard covered in the stuff. Which I admit would be damn cool to do! So this post is for Kasia…
