I posted about WolfWood Refuge the other day. I was able to see a presentation on wolves that they rescue.
I posted photos to my facebook page from the event. I may add one or two onto this post later.
Behind the Scenes
A deer fawn wanted to get acquainted with a badger.
During dinner last night, a badger scurried through the yard. I quickly grabbed my camera to attempt some photos, but the badger was moving through tall grass and I could barely see it. I thought it was going to continue running out of range. I was wrong.
The badger must have found a ground squirrel hunkered down in a hole in the next lot over. It started digging and digging, disappearing below the ground in a matter of minutes only to resurface a few times with a spray of fresh dirt being thrown behind it. The process continued for quite some time with the badger staying underground for several minutes at a time.
Meanwhile, a Red Tail Hawk was also looking for dinner and perched a few times in the trees. At one point, I was not sure whether to point the camera at the badger hole or the Red Tail Hawk! I was lucky to capture some of my best hawk pictures yet.
During another period of time when the first badger was underground, a second badger wandered by and sniffed around. It must have known not to tangle with the first badger and ran off before any confrontation.
The first badger stayed underground for quite some time while all of the other action was occurring. It reappeared just in time for a quick glance of some deer passing by. Then, it disappeared below ground again.
The deer went up the hill a little ways and I thought nothing much of it. I thought they would continue to stay up the hill. Nope! Next thing I knew, the deer were heading almost straight for the badger hole, with a fawn in trail!
It was a great opportunity to switch over to video to see what would happen. The deer walked right over the badger hole leaving the badger perplexed about who just walked over. The real confrontation began when the deer fawn noticed this unusual creature stirring by the dirt mound. Of course, it was curious and had to go check things out! Oh boy! I thought, this cannot be good for the deer fawn. It circled around the mound of dirt walking closer and closer. The badger squared up and followed the fawn with its eyes. The deer fawn inched closer, sniffing and eyeing the badger. There were occasional lunges by the badger toward the fawn, which would jump back quickly.
Eventually, all three deer were having a look at the badger which started acting rather frantic and defensive. It rolled in the dirt and lunged. The deer held their own and even had the badger running backwards!
What a treat to see! I was thankful to capture some good photos and I am currently in the process of figuring out how to edit the long video that I shot. The worst part about the video was that it was getting dark. The autofocus was not able to pick up enough contrast within the scene so I was manually zooming and focusing. This leaves me with some cutting and splicing before the final video is ready for viewing. Hopefully, once the video is up, it will be as entertaining as when I actually saw Bambi and the badger!
June was a busy month with travels, as I noted in previous posts. It took a few days to settle back in after three weeks on the road. Part of that time was sorting through and processing photos I took along the way. In total, I uploaded 1,393 files. I know that sounds like a lot. I have heard of other photographers taking tens of thousands of photos in the same amount of time! Someday, I may be upwards of those numbers too.
Part of the reason why my numbers were smaller was that part of the trip was visiting relatives. It was not strictly a photography trip.
Our first stop was in Des Moines, Iowa to stay with friends. Then, we made our way to Naperville, Illinois [a suburb of Chicago]. After Chicago, we stopped in Canton, Ohio to see the Pro Football Hall of Fame. I did not take many pictures [other than a few documentary ones] along this portion of the trip.
The first major photography stop I had was at Niagara Falls, where we spent two nights. I shot three landscape galleries of photos there. One of my objectives at Niagara Falls became to get a few photos of the Niagara Falls Night Lights [as I am calling them]. In order to do this, I had to wait until after 9:00 p.m. and then fight the crowd to get a place along the railing where I could place my tripod! Yes, I think some people may have thought I was crazy to be sticking my tripod through the railing, but I had a death grip on it as well as another set of hands on one of the legs and the camera strap around my neck. It was not that bad because there was a gap between the edge and the railing so the camera probably would not have gone far anyway. But, it was an interesting experience none-the-less!
After Niagara Falls, we drove along the shores of Lake Erie and Ontario to the Thousand Islands area. Then, we drove down Lake Champlain and across Vermont, New Hampshire into Maine. This portion of the trip was mainly in the car putting miles behind us so I only had a brief opportunity to get a few pictures of some boats on Lake Champlain. We did stop to pick up some Vermont Maple Syrup which we are using on pancakes! If I have the opportunity to go back to any of these locations to spend some more time photographing, I will!
Maine was our primary destination. We spent a total of 6 nights in Maine, primarily in the Bangor and Mount Desert Island region. The first day was rainy, grey and dreary so we just spent that day navigating around and getting acquainted with the area. My dad wanted to check out the Old Town Canoe store in Old Town.
The next day was similar to the first. But, I did manage a few photos of the coast including pictures of the Bass Harbor Head Lighthouse which is featured on the Acadia National Park quarter. We also found some ferns and bunchberries.
The sun finally made an appearance the third day, which was also my mother’s birthday! So, we made the trek to the top of Cadillac Mountain. The mountain is the highest point on the Atlantic coast north of somewhere in Brazil [I think]. So, the sunrise begins before anywhere else in the US at the right time of year! I don’t think it was when we were there. We also made a loop around Acadia National Park for the second time and I was able to shoot more photos.
The fourth day was another somewhat dreary day. However, we did another loop trip in Acadia National Park because we noticed that the Lupine flowers were everywhere! A park ranger noted that Lupine are not native flower to the park and are actually taking over like a weed. I thought they made for a good photo anyway. I also got my feet wet at one of the only swimming beaches within the park! The water is actually really cold!
The fifth day was spent touring Mount Desert Island on a bus tour. We actually went for a cousin’s wedding and the tour was part of getting to know more of the extended family and friends of the couple. I took some more pictures from on top of Cadillac Mountain. After the tour dropped us off at the Asticou Inn, we had some spare time so I went into the Asticou Azalea Garden with my macro lens. It was fun photographing the flowers and some bees that were busy collecting nectar. I also took some photos from the lawn of the Asticou Inn looking out into Northeast Harbor. I ran back down at night during the dance party to take some long exposures which I think are neat!
I have not processed all of the photos from the sixth day. We went on a windjammer boat ride from Bar Harbor on the Margaret Todd Schooner.
The next day, we began our trip home back across Maine, New Hampshire and part of Vermont. Then across New York to Pennsylvania.
We stopped in Erie Pennsylvania for the night and ran down to a bay where we watched the sunset. I had an objective to get a sailboat at sunset back in Maine, but it never worked out. Luckily, I found some sailboats at sunset on Lake Erie!
After Lake Erie, we finished up our trip home by crossing Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa and Nebraska. This took several days and we stopped along the way to see more relatives and friends.
That sums up the 5,300 miles in the car! I will be working on composting some high dynamic range photos as well as a few from the Margaret Todd Schooner ride to post fairly soon. Enjoy the photos!
*we refers to my parents*
Stay away from my girl!
The reason I am sharing this photo out of the Sprague Lake Walk album is that as we were walking around Sprague Lake, we came across a pair of geese. They mingled along the side of the trail and did not mind us that much.
We continued down the trail and thought we left the geese behind. Not exactly! A little ways farther down, they came swimming along and we noticed that a goose from the other side of the lake [the one in the photo] was getting agitated.
Needless to say, they honked at each other for a little bit of time. This goose finally decided the other pair was getting too close and wanted to chase them back. I think it is an interesting photo because the goose was so focused on chasing the other pair of geese away that it literally crossed in front of my dad within about 5 feet!
I captured more photos of the geese, and they can be viewed in the gallery: Sprague Lake Walk 5-18-2013.
Upper Copeland Falls
This was a fun photo session [as I call them]! I was attempting some “silky” water photos during a walk along the North St. Vrain River in Wild Basin – Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado.
In order to show how shutter speeds relate to stopping action, I took several photos with fast shutter speeds. I also took several photos with a slow shutter speed which results in a longer exposure time. The longer exposure time allows the water to flow through the frame and creates the “silky” water look!
A middle of the road shutter speed will partially stop action and partially let action move. This is what is going on in the photo above. The shutter speed was not quite long enough to get “silky” water, yet it was long enough to show motion.
I will be attempting a few more of these later on. I have a few more water falls to hike to that I can attempt the “silky” water look with. It is not possible to shoot such a slow shutter speed hand held, which means a tripod is necessary to have strapped to the backpack!
I am a little late posting the: “Owlet yawn. Or it is saying ‘Happy Mother’s Day!'” photo. The reason why I think the owlet may be saying “happy Mother’s Day” is that I took these photos near Endovalley in Rocky Mountain National Park on Mother’s Day. My mother requested a drive in the park and we just happened to find the location of the owlet in the nest with the mother owl.
The latest word is that the owlet will probably be fledging in about a week. It is already moving around a lot more – stretching and testing out the wings!
This is more of a shout out for the Glen Haven General Store in Glen Haven, Colorado. They opened last weekend for the 2013 summer season. It is somewhat of a tradition to get at least one of their cinnamon rolls during the summer! The cinnamon rolls are honestly some of the best. Stop by the Glen Haven General Store and try one!
Meeker and Longs Peak from the Upper Beaver Meadows Road – Rocky Mountain National Park. *HDR
This is an example of a recent High Dynamic Range [HDR] image I took on 5-7-2013. HDR images are a composite of at least two images – one overexposed and one underexposed. They are typically three images – one underexposed, one exposed properly, and one overexposed. The advantage to an HDR image is that it can bring out details in highlight and shadow areas to make the image more realistic to what the scene actually looked like.
I always know spring has definitely sprung when the Pasque Flowers blossom. I captured these photos yesterday. My favorite one is of this – “Bee on the Pasque.”
No, this does not mean that I was distracted while taking a picture! Rather, I was on my way home from a meeting and spotted a Great Blue Heron walking near the edge of the lakes not far from the house. I continued home and grabbed my camera and went straight back.
The unfortunate part about trying to photograph birds is that most of them have fairly decent eye sight. There was not really anyway I could sneak up on the Heron. Luckily, there are a few different ponds/lakes in the area and it just flew to the next one over. This provided a little bit of an opportunity to get a little bit closer. The heron got spooked again after I took some photos of it walking around the edge of the pond. It then flew back to the first lake and I missed the takeoff and flight shots. It was still a fun experience, and I am guessing that the heron will be around for awhile.
JUST PhotographIN' 