Sunrise Colors

Love these colors. My feet about froze, though. Forgot the slippers add-0n.

Over the Gunnison

Took another walk today right about 4:00. I had been lazy all day, except to write in my blog this morning. When I realized the temperature was 49 degrees, I had to get outside.

I thought maybe I’d get some long light and see some wildlife moving around. I got long light, but I think any wildlife was probably scared off by the intermittent loud popping and banging of gunshots below. I watched for a bit, afraid I’d see something fall. Every time a shot rang out, an animal moved toward the river and then moved back and disappeared into the shrubs. It took me the longest time to figure out it was a dog. He seemed perfectly happy, so that eased my fear a bit.

I have no idea what they were shooting at, and I don’t have any problem with people shooting. Gun control for me, is using both hands. That aside, I was deeply annoyed by the noise that encroached on “my” quiet. And I wasn’t just a little uncomfortable sitting above them. I don’t much trust people with their guns in any case. I know they get careless; I read about it all the time in news stories. It wasn’t as fun as I thought it might be to sit above the river today and wait for something grey with big ears and curious eyes appear below me. But, I got some fresh air,  exercise, and I listened the water. Between shots, it was kind of soothing.

Geese flew overhead once and I got a shot of them. That was fun, even though the were a fair distance away, I caught some good color on them.

On my way out, the Mesa was pink with the sunset and I tried to capture that, as well. I’ll post that later in the week.

I processed this one a bit. I have a feeling what I saw was a more muted, but I swear, I SEE the color you see here. Never does the camera seem to capture all the wonderful color I find in the winter desert.

Happy Saturday night.

Rather than try to gather all the photos I’ve taken over the years and put them all in one place, I’m adding links in the blog to get you from here to those other places. I may eventually be able to get everything in one place, but there are reasons why those images are where they are, and I couldn’t see making the change just yet.

Flickr.com is probably where I will want to centrally locate everything—unless of course another, better photo storage/viewing option presents itself. For now, I like how this is set up. Because for a week or two I didn’t know exactly what I was going to do, and because I was learning and wanted to experiment, many of the recent images are in my Flickr PhotoStream. If you click on this photo on the right side of the screen, it will take you to Flickr.

TwitPic is sometimes how I post images from my iPhone because it’s so easy. I especially use this service if I want that photo to show up in my Twitter feed for others to see. If you click on this image on the right side of the screen, it will take you to my TwitPic photos.

Some stuff will repeat across the three websites, but there’s different images in each place if you’re interested in taking a look.

I have also added links to blogs I follow. They also appear on the right-hand side of this page. It’s a lot of fun to hear what others have to say (Shameless Moxie), to hear the thoughts about, and look at the pictures they take of their world (Sure…. Let’s Go!); and for me, it’s especially fun to drool over a gorgeous picture of some culinary delight, and then look to see if I might have the ingredients to put it together myself (Making Life Delicious). Check them out. You might also enjoy!

I have fiddled around quite a bit today and it’s past time to get outside. It’s beautifully sunny, and my weather bug says it’s to be 43 degrees. That’s a little off earlier predictions, but I’ve learned the only consistency in weather prognostication is its inaccuracy. I get it; it changes. But, I sure was looking forward to that 55-degree walk on the desert today!

Looks like snow for Monday. (Maybe THAT’ll be the 55-degree day!)

Get outside and enjoy.

Photo by Donna J Morton

Not much to say here; just playing with focus and boots.

Photo by Donna J Morton

What a gorgeous day this was! It was warm too, for Western Colorado at the end of January.

I packed a sandwich and my camera and headed to my high spot and sat on the ground (or laid on my tummy) to take a few pictures using slightly different settings. I’ve still got a lot to learn, but this is so much FUN!

In the spring, a bush like this will be a gorgeous and soft desert green. I like this golden brown, too.

Think I’ll try again tomorrow.

Yesterday I went for a much-needed walk on the desert. There’s a high spot out there where I can see everything. I can see Mesa County Landfill equipment; the Bookcliffs and Mt. Garfield; the Grand Mesa; most of the time, the San Juans in the distance; the Uncompahgre Plateau; red rock sloping from the Monument to Fruita; and the lightness and darkness of the canyons of the Gunnison River as it winds west. It’s such a nice place to be.

To shoot this, I used that software for iPhone called 360° Panorama. It’s a very cool software and Rick Castellini posted some really cool shots he got in Arizona using this software. They were so interesting and fun, I had to get it for myself. I just now started playing with it, though.

Yesterday (Tuesday, January 26, 2011), I also had an opportunity to watch a webcast interview of Trey Ratcliff, a pioneer in popularizing HDR photography. It was such an interesting interview, wherein he revealed he has no formal training in photography, that he shoots what he loves and posts what he likes. It was inspiring to think that he had no formal training and he gets such great photos. He uses lots post-processing to complete his “art.” I like that a lot.

I recommend Trey Ratcliff’s website for eye candy, inspiration, and HDR tutorials. He has taken beautiful pictures from all over the world and displays them there. He also updates his site almost daily with new photographs. I believe his last major trip was to China in the summer of 2010, and I know from following him a bit on his blog, his adventures were interesting and varied. I could barely believe some of the landscape he photographed. Case in point: I Found Pandora from Avatar. This one captured my imagination the day he posted it. He’s posted some exciting offerings since. Look around! It’s amazing.

PhotoNetCast presented this interview and it is episode #56. It has not yet been posted. I haven’t viewed other offerings at this site yet, but they look very interesting and informative. If you’re like me, an inexperienced and timid photographer, you might find inspiration in Trey Ratcliff’s take on his creative process.

Anyway, yesterday was fun because I had, and took advantage of, time to look around and get some inspiration.

I need to make every day as inspiring.

Photo by Donna J Morton

I went out today for a much-needed and long-overdue walk on the desert (Gunnison River Bluffs Trail behind the Mesa County Landfill). It was gorgeous out (as usual) and just cool enough that all my warming layers didn’t serve to completely cook me.

All I took was my iPhone, and only because it has my walking tunes. I took several pictures this time which actually turned out okay. I suppose I should have known these things already, and I’ve no doubt I read them at one time. But there are some tricks to focusing the silly thing. (I can only hope that I once read that and promptly forgot in favor of using a real camera. I do read things!) The results today weren’t so disappointing as they usually are. It’s still a pretty lame phone camera as they go, but if I don’t expect too much, it’s all good.

That being said, this photo was so grainy that it needed a lot of help. There’s no fixing that, so to “artify” it is what I did. I wanted to keep the rich colors of the original photo, but go on ahead and destroy any semblance of “real.” I think I succeeded. In front are yucca seed pods (I believe).  Below and to the left is an old pinyon, and behind is the river that’s frozen in several places.

Good walk. Fun photo.

Here’s another try at the moon. I saw on Twitter that there was a full moon so ran out to see if I could finally get a decent shot of it. I took several pictures, cropped them, compared them and picked the one I liked the best; the one with the most clarity. I also sharpened it and fiddled a little with the brightness and contrast to bring out more detail. It wasn’t bad to begin with, but this one is more fun, I think.

January 19, 2011

Once again, not anywhere close to perfect, but getting better. And, my hands are FREEZING.

This is like golf: Butt out; chest out; head down; arms straight but relaxed; breathe easy; swing smooth; and keep your eye on the ball. As with golf, the surprisingly good shot will come when I remember and execute every step correctly. One of those steps has GOT to be “gloves on.” The other, in low-light situations, “use the remote.”

I didn’t know there would be a moon this morning. I thought that had passed already. But I’ve gotten into the habit of checking CDOT cameras online in the morning. In some of the pictures, looking east on the Eastern Slope, I happened to see a bright light above the horizon. I was out earlier than this, but I should have also set the cam to use the remote and didn’t. Camera shake previous to this shot blurred those earlier images. The dogs’ ears are still burning.

It looks as though it will be another cold but beautiful day in Western Colorado.

Enjoy!

Oh, this was really exciting. As I was trying to pry ice and snow off my driveway, I heard the most wonderful sound — that honk, honk, honk of several flocks of geese talking to each other on their way over my house. I can just imagine them saying, “HONK! Get yer ass back INTO formation!” or “HONK! HONK! Can ya believe that Greta?! She NEVER takes her place up front; she’s SUCH a drag!”

After about four formations flew over the house, there went the sag wagon, I guess; one lone goose turned back north, honking, as though trying to hurry along the stragglers. Except, I saw no stragglers. I put the camera away and resumed my battle with Mother Nature’s driveway droppings.

Not long after, I hear another round of honking and here comes another flock over a neighbor’s house. So, apparently that lone goose, heading back north, knew more than I about the state of his “village.”

Anyway, this is my first attempt at using a newly learned setting on my camera; shutter priority. I can set the shutter to open and close very quickly and therefore suspend action without blur. Oh, this is going to be fun. Of course, this effort wasn’t perfect, but I had very little time to refer to the tutorial, or think a lot about what I needed to set. One thing I forgot to do was return the exposure compensation back to zero, so the original was very dark. And, although I’m shooting in RAW (not IN the raw), I can’t take advantage of that yet as I don’t have Photoshop CS5, which includes the RAW filter for my camera.

What a nice way to start this day and end 2010.

_______________________

The tutorial from which I’ve learned so much is called, Foundations of Photography: Exposure, by Ben Long. It can be found on lynda.com (@lyndadotcom). Lynda.com is a pay subscription (to get all the tutorials), but the money I’ve spent over the years, has more than paid for itself in my ability to learn how to use something quickly, or familiarize myself with something I don’t use often. I did this whole tutorial, but will go back, rewatch, and do the exercises Ben Long suggests. I wanted to watch it all at once, to first get an overall view of what I should know (and would learn in that tutorial); what I can expect my camera might do; and the practical application of all that information. That’s half the battle (for me) in unleashing my curiosity.

Anyway, I can’t wait to have further opportunities to try out ALL the theory touched on in that tutorial. This IS going to be fun.