Heron, Osprey, Yellow Jacket & Ducks - Photos from the Lake Vacation

As I wrote in my last post, I love vacationing at my mom's family's lake property in Eastern Washington. Quiet, peaceful and when we are there in the summer nice and hot. Of course when you are lake side, hot weather is always welcome as the coolness of the lake beckons to cool you down when the need arises.

Nature and Wildlife are my favorite subjects (outside of my kids) to photograph. While on vacation at the lake, I had several opportunities for photography while relaxing on vacation. We saw several Heron's and a few Osprey either looking for fish on the docks, or perched in the evergreen trees along the shore.

The Heron's were fun to watch, slowing walking along portions of the dock looking for fish. My 3 year old son and I got to see one take a stab at one, didn't have my camera with me for that one though. With the Osprey, I stood there watching him for quite a while – just waiting for him to take off to attempt to get a wing spreading take off photo. Well, as luck would have it, when I wasn't aiming up waiting my mom made a whistle or some other noise just to see if the bird would react. And at the sound, took off – missed opportunity!

On the Hunt for Fish

Taking off, the next shot in the series was not in focus

Yellow Jacket

Osprey Preening

Looking for food, waddled all the way up to the cabin

Till next time, hopefully I will get some of the take off shots I really wanted to get this go around!

Blessings,

Jesse

An October Flood Sunset

With all the natural beauty God has created here on this earth, it is amazing how beautiful a negative natural event can be - such as the picture below taken during the flooding of the Skagit River in October of 2003.  This shot is still one of my favorite sunset pictures I have taken to date, the colors are vibrant and I love how they reflect on the flood waters.  In the bottom portion of the picture you may be able to make out the yellow caution tape strung across the parking lot by the police department, and more visible in the lower right is the public parking sign.  This is where I would park virtually every day when I worked in down town Mount Vernon.

This photo was taken 12 years ago today.

Blessings,

Jesse

Hand Held Long Exposures of Multnomah Falls

Depending on your definition of long exposures, the title may be more accurate to read: hand held slow shutter speed photos of Multnomah Falls. On a recent trip to Hood River Oregon, we had one day where the plan was to take the family to Multnomah Falls. My two year old son absolutely loved it, as he was very excited to see the big waterfall - especially as we had been telling him about it for several weeks leading up to the trip. Our one day available to take the trip to the falls turned out to be an absolutely perfect day for it. The day included some cloud cover that kept temperatures comfortable and the light nice and even.

Now with no tripod and no filters to aid in achieving slower shutter speeds for the shot I was going for, my only option was to ratchet down the aperture as small as possible and brace the camera on a railing (OK, so not 100% hand held after all). I was actually very happy with the results.

All of Multnomah Falls

Lower Multnomah Falls

I was especially happy with how vibrant the colors were with the late spring foilage in a brilliant green.

Blessings,

Jesse

A Bald Eagle and His Rabbit Dinner

To set the stage for tonight's photos, we will rewind a month and a half ago or so to a return trip from my in-laws. We had just recently exited the freeway and were on the home stretch to arriving at home and on the side of the road not 20 feet from the pavement is a mature bald eagle standing there, likely eating some small animal. Returning from a weekend trip we had the camera in the car and everything, but as the kids have already been in the car for a good two hours I didn't think it fair to them to stop and prolong the impending arrival at home. Looking back I wish I would have stopped as, at the very least, I would have been able to jump out for a minute and a half and taken a couple quick photos of the lovely bird.

Now, fast forward to last Friday when I am on my way home after making two quick stops after work. My wife and our two kids are already at her parent's house and I would be heading out after work to join them for the weekend. I was actually thinking on my way home how sweet it would be to see another eagle on my way out of town as I will have the camera and no kiddos to worry about, making it quite convenient to stop for photos. Turns out I didn't have to wait until my way out of town to see one. Driving home I see what looks to be the unmistakable white tail feathers of a bald eagle flying away toward the foot hills and also nearby I can see two juvenile eagles circling around above the field. As I was passing the house adjacent to this particular field I look over just in time to see another eagle descending near the home toward the field. With time to spare before leaving town (my way of avoiding traffic, leave later and miss it all!) and an empty house, there is no way I am passing up this potential opportunity for eagle watching! I get home, change shoes, grab the camera bag, attach the 55-300mm lens, jump back in the car and head back out to see if the large raptor is still nearby.

As I near the field I can see that no more than about 50 yards from the side of the road the sight I was looking forward to seeing was right there: a beautiful mature bald eagle, picking at a dead rabbit. I pull off the road, get out of my car and start my evenings adventure of avian photography. The photo session begins with me taking pictures of the bird while he consumes his rabbit dinner, not a lot of movement, but nonetheless I am enjoying every moment.

At one point while I was crouching there watching the eagle eat, I hear the loud blast of a passing vehicle's horn. Slightly startled, I instinctively glance back at the road seeking the source of the disturbance. The loud, and brief, outpouring of sound also gave a slight start to our feasting feathered friend. As I shift my focus once again to the field and the subject of my evening's fascination, I am refocusing just in time to see his wings close up and his feet settle back down onto the valley's floor. My first thought was oh no, I missed it! Why did I turn and look away?! But this little disturbance would prove to be a God sent blessing as it would lead to my favorite and best photo of the day. Moments after my attention was once again fixated on the magnificent eagle, he took one little hop then spread out his wings to make the short jaunt of several feet back over to his momentarily neglected meal. Once settled back down to his evening's sustanence I checked my LCD screen to see that I had in fact captured his little hop and flap movement in focus with wings fully spread!

No wanting to miss anything, I stayed and watched the eagle until he took off and flew out my 300mm zoom lenses usable range for detailed photos of my subject. I did manage to capture a photo of him moments after take off, still clutching in his talons what was left of the rabbit meal just before he dropped it. Unfortunately, this photo wasn't focused perfectly though it is acceptable for viewing and might still look alright as maybe a 5x7 print. On my way out of town, I glanced over at the field to see if there would be reason to stop for an encore show. There wouldn't be this trip. The  two juveniles were still lingering around the field, but not close enough to make for any compelling photos with the gear I have. There's my story, now for the photos!

Picking at his rabbit dinner

Looking up from the rabbit

Spreading his wings with a hop-flight back to his dinner

Almost back to his dinner

Taking off with his rabbit dinner

I sure hope this isn't my last time being blessed with a similar scene to photograph along this road. With any luck I will either have a longer lens or a closer bird for a target! This sure felt like a small gift from God, as the thought was on my mind as I was leaving work and the timing was incredible given the travel plans of the weekend (no kids waiting at home).

Blessings,

Jesse

Fiery Sunset

One of my favorite things about photography is capturing moments in time that are unique and will not exist as seen again. The sunset photo featured tonight is one of those type of moments on two accounts. The first is the combination of the clouds and the intensity of the colors of the sunset. The other and less obvious is the silhouetted tree line. Since this photo was taken, one of the trees that is in this photo has been cut down.


One aspect of this photo I really like is how the trees form a visual valley that leads down to the setting sun behind the distant hills. It will be interesting to revisit another photo from the same spot and see how the picture may change with the tree no longer there.

Blessings,

Jesse

First Visit to Rasar State Park

As a photographer it's tough to beat state parks for scenery to photograph, bonus for lesser known or visited parks that present photo ops that aren't as cliché.

Here in Washington, our state parks are accessible with a yearly pass (called the Discover Pass) or a daily use fee. However, they do offer a handful of Discover Pass free days. Two of the free days for 2015 happen over the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday (which I had off from work). Taking advantage of the free day, I took my two year old son and my camera to the park hoping to do some eagle watching. As January also happens to be part of the peak season for migratory eagles in the Skagit Valley, I came sporting my 55-300mm lens hoping for some eagles and wildlife photos.

Well, the eagles weren't around while we were there and the only Raptor I saw was a hawk making a landing on a phone pole during the drive there. Wildlife viewing was minimal at the park as well, all we saw were a few small birds (probably finches) and some half eaten dead salmon. We even had some light rain at the park, even though it was dry and nice when we left home, so my little one didn't get any playground time as it was soaked.

View from the river's edge

On this trip I was sporting the wrong lens for the type of photos I would end up looking for. Times like this I can really start to see the appeal of all-in-one zoom lens like Nikon's 18-200/18-300 or Tamron's new 16-300mm, would have come in handy this trip!

Blessings,

Jesse

Revisitng and Re-Developing Old Photos

I'll have to admit, this post was indirectly inspired by my brother and one of his panoramic photos of Crater Lake in Oregon. For Christmas I helped my mom get his photo printed on a 16x48 canvas from Costco and seeing the print really got my wheels turning about some of the panoramic photos I have taken in the past. While I liked the photos in my archives, there were different flaws in them to where I wouldn't be happy with how they would look printed out (tilted horizons or the colors turned out flatter from the camera than how the scene looked in person).

Fast forward a few years and now I have more experience with editing software and I was able to correct the shortcomings of my old photos. Now I can look at the digital image and picture how it would look on a printed canvas and be excited about getting the print made.

For comparison, below are two versions of a panoramic photo taken on New Year's day several years ago at Fort Casey on Whidbey Island. The first photo is the original panorama I had created, followed by the newly re-created and developed version.

Original from 2011, no edits - simply stitched

Newly re-done image. Re-stitched and further developed

All stitching was done with the Hugin Panorama Photo Stitcher and the image developing was done with The Gimp.

Revisiting older photos is something I would definitely recommend. Looking over older photos with a time removed eye, might just uncover a new favorite. Throw in a sharper skill set for digital developing and you just might find some new shots for your profile.

Blessings,

Jesse

Hummingbird on a Cold November Morning

I always enjoy watching (and listening) to the hummingbirds that frequent the feeder we have hanging on our front porch. Their little chirp is a pleasant sound and the hum/whoosh sound of their wings is really enjoyable to hear buzz by you. We recently had a week long cold snap, colder than we usually experience in late November in Western Washington, that froze the feeder contents solid as the temperature dipped into the high teens over night.

On the cold Sunday morning while getting ready for Church and the rest of the day, I noticed one of the resident hummingbirds was frequently perching on one of our hanging baskets waiting for the frozen food to thaw out. I of course thought photo opportunity and hitched up the 55-300mm and waited for him to come by. Once I saw the little bird, I slowly cracked open the front door (with the camera settings all set - zoom, focus etc...) aimed and took a few shots. Below are my favorites: one of him sitting and looking about and one just moments before he flew away.

Perched on a hanging basket, waiting for food to thaw

Spreading his wings to take flight

I typically see what looks to be the same bird sitting in nearly the same spot when I get up for work during the week. So hopefully I'll grab a few more shots of him in some different lighting, or even more fun shots of him spreading his wings out.

Blessings,

Jesse

The Moon Rise and Other Night Photos

Now that I have a camera where I have full control over the settings, I have been enjoying doing some night photography. Another bonus of exploring night photography in the Pacific Northwest: come winter time its dark at 5:00pm so you are limited to when you can take photos unless your exploring long-exposure night shots!

Tonight I have two photos of the nearly full moon rising over the Skagit Valley the night before the July 12th, 2014 full moon. While I was outside taking the moon photos, I noticed my wife's hanging plant sitting near some of our solar lights that were actually lit. Thought the light patterns and reflections could make an interesting photo(s).

The Moon Rises Over the Valley

The Rising Moon Over the Valley

Solar Light

Solar Light #2

With the sun retreating beyond the horizon sooner and sooner every night, it will be time to explore some more long exposure photography as our daylight hours will be minimal if any once I am off work during the week.

Blessings,

Jesse

Red Wolves, Bald Eagle and a Shark: Photos from the Point Defiance Zoo

Zoo's make great places to practice photography. The scenery is great and there is a variety of animals, lighting and situations to practice. They also make great family days with small kiddoes. Over Memorial Day weekend this year, my family and I spent an afternoon at the Point Defiance Zoo in Tacoma, Washington. And while we had more photos of our son and his cousins, I did manage to get a few good shots of the animals that I have below to share:

Red Wolf looking on from his resting spot

Red Wolf Looking on from his perch

Red Wolf resting, he looks so sad here...

A Bald Eagle at the Zoo

One of the Aquarium Sharks

The indoor exhibits can be challenging with low light so don't be afraid to boost the ISO a bit to snag a shot you would otherwise miss. The Photo of the Shark above was taken at ISO3200.

Blessings,

Jesse

Old Glory's Reflection

One of my favorite places for vacation is my mom's families lake property in Spokane. For the 4th of July one of my aunts put up an American Flag at the end of the dock and it has stayed since. On a warm August morning while on vacation I took this picture of Old Glory's reflection on the glassy water.  This was my favorite of the few I took, with barely any distortion of the reflection and some of the underwater weeds visible in the shot.

A Summer Day's Reflection

I tried looking at this image rotated so it would appear that the flag is in a normal orientation, but the effect was almost disorientating and didn't look right to the eyes. Anyway, this was one from the archives and a fitting image with the 4th of July right around the corner!

Have a safe and happy 4th of July everyone.

Blessings,

Jesse

Photos of Local Trumpeter Swans

Here in the Skagit Valley we are blessed to have large groups of Trumpeter Swans that winter in the fields every year. These beautiful birds are the largest of waterfowl and typically range between 54 and 65 inches in length. Living in the valley, I am blessed to see the wintering swans in local fields on any given drive away from home. Most of the time I don't have my camera, but one day fairly recently my lovely bride gave me a call to let me know the Swans were in a field close by and could make a good photo opportunity.  The two photos below are my favorites of the few I took on a quick photo trip.

Trumpeter Swan Stretching His Wings

A Group of Trumpeter Swans

I still want to get some more photos of the birds before they leave the valley for the season, especially a few photos of them coming in for a landing - or even taking off.

Blessings,

Jesse

Rabbit Hunting with a Northern Goshawk

I haven't had any opportunities to photograph any of the local Hawk's as I usually see them perched on light poles or telephone wires while driving (usually on the freeway). That changed recently when I was able to join a friend on a rabbit hunt with his Northern Goshawk. I have always liked the birds and wanted to get some good photos of them as they are beautiful birds far away and even more so up close.

It was a great time and a good opportunity to work on my wild life/avian photography without the worry of only getting one shot of a Hawk in action before watching the bird fly away from the range of my equipment. Armed with my 55-300mm lens I was able to capture some good photos of the Hawk, unfortunately all but one of the shots taken of the bird in flight turned out blurry.

We also didn't have any luck on the rabbit hunt.  The Hawk did take off to chase after some small birds - which was quite cool to see just how fast the bird is - but didn't catch anything this time out.

The Northern Goshawk Perched and on the Hunt

The Northern Goshawk Taking Flight

Perched in the Blackberry Brambles

Next time I will have an idea on what to expect, and leave the camera on single servo AF instead of continuous. The focus with continuous-servo didn't seem to be the best when the hawk was sitting still and with how close we were to the bird it was not practical to try and track and focus on him in flight.

Blessings,

Jesse

Sailboat Reflections

As much as I like my D5100 and the quality photographs it produces, it's not something I bring with me everywhere a photo opportunity could potentially arise. Such was the scenario Saturday while my family and I were spending some time in Anacortes on a nice sunny winter day. We decided to bring our old compact Canon so we would have a camera and not have to worry about the Nikon.

While walking around by the Marina, I took a couple quick shots of the sailboats sitting in the still, glass smooth water. Below is one of the shots I took.



The reflection is so near perfect that I had viewed this image on the camera's LCD upside down and was thinking to myself that something didn't look right before I realized I was viewing it flipped.

Blessings,

Jesse

Developed RAW vs Developed JPG

When it comes to the RAW vs JPG debate, You don't have to look very hard on-line to find ample amounts of writing espousing the benefits of one format or the other and why you should or shouldn't shoot exclusively with either one. And despite what the title of this post may imply, I will not be debating the merits of either format but rather providing a visual example of one image edited with both formats as a starting point. Both the RAW and JPG file formats have their inherent advantages and disadvantages, but that's another post.

The photo below of a Giant Pacific Octopus was taken on a recent trip to the Seattle Aquarium. The photo was taken on RAW+JPG @ ISO 3200, with the RAW file then developed in Darktable and the JPG file in the GIMP.


Camera JPG


Darktable Edit


Gimp Edit
Of the two developed files, I think the Darktable version is closer to what the scene looked like. But then again, I don't recall exactly as I spent about as much time watching the Octopus as it took to take that photo. Chasing my highly active and very excited 16 month old son left little time to focus on taking anything more than the passing snapshot. On the other hand, in this case I like how the GIMP edited photo turned out a little better, the slight color differences change the mood and feel of the photo. I also could have explored more of the editing options in Darktable to get a similar look, but this was a fairly straight forward, minimally adjusted image for this comparison.

Blessings,

Jesse

Feeding the Gulls

A Pacific Northwest beach will never be short of Seagulls. Love 'em or not, they are a fixture on many a beach and they can make for some fun photos, and even challenging ones.

One thing is for sure though, if you feed one you will get an ear full and many sets of hopeful eyes waiting for any little morsel that might come their way. In this first photo, I like how the closest gull appears to be posing, while each of the other birds are nearly perfectly aligned and staring us down hoping for a snack.

Whatcha got for me?

Seagull in flight

Getting the in flight shot was not the easiest shot to get while being fairly close to the birds and sporting an Ultra Compact camera. Of course, most scenarios involving fast moving and unpredictable animals are not the easiest with more limiting gear - but they are still fun to take and satisfying when they turn out well for sure.

Blessings,

Jesse

2013 Pumpkin Cavings

Its that time of year again, fall is in full force and its time to carve pumpkins! As we do every year, we pick out three pumpkins from a local pumpkin patch and with the Pumpkin Master's templates create our yearly jack-o'-lantern's.

This year had the added ambiance of a string of festive orange lights hanging on the porch to add to the orange glow of the candlelight, while the street light casts a shadow from the shrub growing in front of the porch.

3 seconds @ f/8 ISO 200

One of these years I will find a better backdrop for the hollowed out glowing pumpkins - maybe next year!

Blessings,

Jesse

Fun Photos With Legos

Lego's not only make entertaining toys to build nearly anything your imagination can conjure, but they also make fun photography subjects. Most notably they make excellent macro subjects, giving ample opportunities to experiment with depth of field. Of course the miniature nature of the Lego figures and structures mean they can be repositioned and experimented with in a very short period of time, leaving plenty of different scenes to be captured with a camera with out an undue time investment.

The three photos below are from my archives, taken at my aunt and uncle's house during a birthday party with one of my cousins. First we have a pair of photos with R2-D2 caught in the middle of a tense situation (and maybe joining in a little too!) and after R2's troubles comes a Lego race ready to begin.

Caught in the Middle

Maybe he can hold his own

Ready... Set...

These were are taken with my older Canon SD950, I would definitely like a chance to experiment with some Lego photos using a Macro Lens on my D5100.

Blessings,

Jesse

1964 Chevy Impala SS

This is a photo that brings back memories. Though I have never had an Impala, or other classic for that matter, I have owned two Trans Ams and a base model Firebird. And during the time I owned these cars I took plenty of photos of them, and other similar cars during outings with my car club buddies. So on a recent weekend trip to my in-laws for a wedding I got a chance to take some photos of my father-in-law's '64 Impala SS.

1964 Chevy Impala SS

I only took seven shots in a quick impromptu photo shoot in the afternoon. Having the car parked in the grass with the sun filtering through the trees looked like ideal light for a good photo. The photo above is my favorite of the bunch, the others were either very similar or had the house in the background.

Blessings,

Jesse

Converting an Image to Black and White with the GIMP

Some photos may not come out the way we anticipated, the weather may not cooperate when you are traveling or have the time to take photographs which could end up leaving a final image that is simply missing something. Or perhaps the scene just doesn't seem as interesting upon final review as it may have seemed when framing the photo in the viewfinder or LCD screen. And sometimes, a scene just lends itself to be more appealing as a monochrome image.

The image below is one from my collection that wasn't anything very eye catching as a color photo, but after a black and white conversion is vastly improved. This photo was taken in Seattle several years back on a trip meeting up with my brother.  A simple tutorial on using The GIMP program to convert photos to black and white follows the images.

Original Color Image

Black and White Version

Converting a photo to black and white with the GIMP program is a simple task that takes a little bit of experimenting with for the best results. The following is a simple path to follow to convert your images.

Step 1: Open the channel mixer, located under the color menu - components - channel mixer.

Step 2: Check the preview and monochrome check boxes. You can also resize the channel mixer window to get a larger sized preview image.

Step 3: Adjust the sliders (red will be defaulted to 100) to get your base settings close to optimal, we will add an extra adjustment after the channel mixer step to fine tune the look. I have found that on many images having the blue channel fairly close to the inverse of the green channel (say, 40 green -50 blue and/or similar combinations) yields pleasing results. When you are happy with the preview box, click OK. You can even save the slider settings for later use with the save option/button. Being able to save the black and white settings is a useful tool. To make things quicker I will typically size the image down before starting, get my channel mixer settings the way I want and then save them so I can apply them to the full sized image - this is a handy trick to boost performance if you find the channel mixer slower to respond.

Step 4:  To fine tune our conversion after editing with the channel mixer we are going to duplicate the background layer and change the mode to multiply (to darken the image slightly) and lower the opacity so that we are just darkening the image slightly. You could of course, leave the opacity at 100% if the extra darkness works for the image. If you need to lighten the image slightly we can change the mode to screen and drop the opacity as needed.

Step 5:  Export your image to JPG (or preferred format) for printing or web use and you are done. When doing edits like this I like to save a copy of the image in the native GIMP format (.xcf) so I have a working copy with all my extra layers if I need to revisit or tweak the image at a later time.

The black and white skyscraper image I have printed and hanging up in my office, this is so far my favorite black and white image I have made.

Blessings,

Jesse