photography Archives ~ Page 2 of 9 ~ Rambling ranger

February 10, 2023

Monochrome: Shadows and Reflections

My approach to photography has generally been pretty traditional. My photos are usually realistic, no frills or special effects except perhaps a little color saturation, which I’ve loved since the old-school film days when I used Velvia slide film and underexposed half a stop to get that rich kind of color.

Monochrome reflections — Reflections on the McCarthy Road

But for this week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge, Patti asks us to share monochrome images with reflections or interesting shadows. I have a few monochrome images in my files, and found some that work well with this theme. But I’ve had a bit of fun re-imagining some of my polychrome images, too.

Seagull sunset at Beard’s Hollow, Cape Disappointment State Park

Here are a shadow (silhouette) and a reflection shot from Washington’s Long Beach Peninsula. They’re all about the birds.

You might have noticed that the seagull scenic wasn’t quite black & white, more of a blue. Monochrome means one color, not greyscale. Here are a couple of colorful monochrome images. Continuing on the bird theme…

blue monochrome image - living sculpture — a natural living sculpture

Williams, Oregon — Christmas morning, 2021

monochrome Bandon Beach sunset — Bandon Beach

I think the beach may be my favorite place to make monochrome images.

But there are so many nice reflections on the McCarthy Road, too.

Here are a couple of pond lily reflections from the McCarthy Road, one in infrared, one in standard greyscale, under different lighting, portraying very different moods.

Pond lily monochrome — Infrared in late afternoon light

Wrangell-St. Elias National Park & Preserve — Standard grey scale at midday

I transformed a pink dawn moonset at New Mexico’s Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge into a nighttime moonrise by going monochrome in this image.

Monochrome moonset on the Bosque — B&W moonset on the Bosque looks like a moonrise.

As I look over my catalog, I see a lot of reflections and a lot of interesting silhouettes, but not that many interesting shadows. Shadows can accentuate texture and be quite dramatic in their own right, but I guess I don’t readily “see” their potential when out shooting. Too much of that polychrome mindset, instead of exploring the possibilities of monochrome. Something I’ll have to work on, now that I’m aware of it. But here is an image where strong shadows help to create an impression. In this phot of Jug Handle Arch near Moab, the shadows accentuate the texture and power of the rock as well as the harshness of the desert sun.

My last image is a bit strange. I was exploring the ghost town of Goldfield, Nevada, which has an infamously haunted hotel. I peered into the window of the derelict building and spied an upright piano sitting amongst the rubble. I really wanted to capture a photo of the piano, but the glare from the midday sun and reflections from the brick wall obscured the view. The image I ended up with, though, looks uncannily like the piano is a reflection or even a mirage, oddly appropriate and haunting for a ghost town.

Thank you, Patti, for this week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge, Shadows and Reflections in Monochrome.

January 13, 2023

Favorite Images of 2022

For this week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge, we’ve been invited to share our favorite images of 2022. I’ve been sharing this year’s favorite images in my last two posts, so I won’t be revisiting those images here. You can go back and look at those posts if you missed them!

One of my favorite images of 2022 — The God rays are still one of my favorites!

But I would love to share some other favorites. A few of them I’ve published in earlier posts, but most are brand new. It seems my favorite images change weekly! Because of the scarcity of electricity and internet access during my summer months in Alaska, I have still not caught up with my image processing for the past year, and I discover new favorites every day.

Cascade Falls Moran State Park, WA — This is becoming my favorite abstract image for 2022.

There are so many photos I haven’t even really looked at yet, including winter in Arches and most of my fall shots from Alaska and Washington State. It’s like Christmas every day for me as I continually find new favorite images.

I saw some amazing places in 2022. One that has been on my mind continually this week is the California Coast. Most winters I spend either January or February on the California Coast. I’m not there this year, which may be a blessing. My heart goes out to all the folks struggling with too much of a good thing, with the atmospheric river and torrential flooding.

I spent the month of February 2022 housesitting in Pacific Grove on Monterey Bay. I was 4 blocks from the coast and made a point of doing photography nearly every day while I was there. That is also the batch of work I am currently processing, so a lot of my favorite images in this post are from that visit.

Another fantastic roadtrip was driving the Cottonwood Canyon Road in Grand Staircase – Escalante National Monument. It was on my bucket list for years, but usually this is a road that requires 4-wheel drive. I called the ranger station to see if it would be safe to drive in just a couple of miles to do some dispersed camping and the ranger told me the road was in great shape and my little Toyota truck would make it end-to-end just fine! Quick change of plans for me, I could not miss that opportunity. The highlight was visiting Grosvenor Arch, and it was every bit as beautiful as I had imagined it would be.

I’ve also spent a lot of time in Olympic National Park this year. I haven’t processed the fall images yet, but I’ve included a spring sunset in this collection.

My last post included a lot of my favorites from the time I spent at home in Alaska, but I am revisiting my favorite flower photo from this summer.

Bog Bean flowers — I love the pattern displayed by the flowers and their shadows in this image.

My best sunset/sunrise of the year was traveling south down Canada’s Cassiar Highway. Every image in the series is so rich and so different. That sunset went through every shade a sunset could possibly have. Intense. I did a series on Instagram last week with a few of these images, 7 Shades of Sunset.

This image looks like I tweaked the color in LightRoom, but honest, it was really that red. I did not saturate the color, I even used Adobe Neutral as my color profile. I published a different swatch from that evening’s palette of hues in last week’s post, ‘cuz this one looked too over the top to me. But now I think it is my favorite.

I traveled the Mt. Baker Highway for the first time this fall. Although the conditions were less than ideal due to wildfire smoke, I was amazed at the astounding views and the easy access to hiking in the alpine. I can only imagine how stunning it must be when there’s no smoke. A new favorite place, I will definitely be checking that road out again!

And of course now, I’m on Orcas Island for the winter, where there are some lovely waterfalls. This image is a favorite.

I look forward to seeing what favorite images 2023 will bring. If you have been following my travels on Facebook, though, it seems that Facebook has not been circulating my posts much lately. I urge you to subscribe to my blog instead, so that you won’t miss a post.

Happy 2023!

North Cascades National Park — I had to include some fall color.

March 23, 2022March 23, 2022

Curves

In life, as in art, the beautiful moves in curves.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

I love curves. They’re far more interesting than straight lines. Nature abhors a square, after all. Think about it. A path through the woods or canyon is so much more intriguing when you can’t see what is coming around the next bend. It’s tantalizing. The anticipation and curiosity build, drawing you irresistibly onwards, like iron to a magnet.

Don’t you wonder what’s around the next bend?

There’s something feminine about curves. They exemplify cooperation, going with the flow instead of forging straight ahead. They teach us that compromise is not losing, that sharing space and allowing for a little give and take can help everything thrive and grow.

Curves are strong. There’s strength in flexibility. That’s another lesson they teach us, how to bend and not to break.

Cultivate your curves – they may be dangerous but they won’t be avoided.
Mae West

Often life throws us curves. If we’re not ready for them, they can be dangerous. We can’t see what’s coming for us around the next bend and we approach it way too quickly. The curves of life can send us spinning out of control, sometimes sending us crashing and burning.

Magic lives in curves, not angles.
Mason Cooley

But if we’ve learned those lessons, about flexibility and cooperation, about going with the flow and being open about what we might find around the next bend, the curves life throws us can be opportunities, chances for us to grow. Embrace your curves! Bend, don’t break.

Many thanks to Ann-Christine aka Leya for this week’s Lens-Artists Photography Challenge, Curves.

“May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view.”
― Edward Abbey

March 18, 2022March 18, 2022

Close and Closer

Have you ever taken a photograph and when you looked at it later, you couldn’t figure out what attracted you to the scene? If that ever happens to you, the answer might be to move in closer. This week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge is Close and Closer. For this week’s challenge, I decided to use some examples from Death Valley.

In the feature shot, I moved in a little closer to the rock layers in the walls of Golden Canyon, creating a much more satisfying photograph of what really attracted me to the scene, the sculpted shapes and pastel colors of the canyon walls.

In the above gallery, I have a few images of Mosaic Canyon. I moved in closer on the upper center image by cropping. The left and right images were made by moving closer and zooming in. I was intrigued by the colors and textures of the rock layers that made up Mosaic Canyon. In this selection though, I don’t necessarily think closer is better, it’s just different perspectives and I like them all.

When it comes to flowers, though, closer is usually better.

With flowers, though, in my experience, closer is usually better unless you are going for the image of the whole field of flowers. The above gallery is a good example of that.

Thank you, Patti, for this week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge, Close and Closer.

March 3, 2022

Sanctuary

(1) – a place of refuge and protection

(2) – a refuge for wildlife where predators are controlled and hunting is illegal.

(3) – a holy place

Pacific Grove Monarch Butterfly Sanctuary

(1) – All of the above

I kept putting off my visit. Why should I seek out a place that would only depress me? The last time I was there I only saw 3 or 4, and I had to use binoculars even to find the dismal few. I heard a rumor that they were coming back. But I also heard that last year none returned at all.

Since it was my last week in Pacific Grove, and the sanctuary was close by, I decided to bite the bullet and check it out. I’m glad I did.

I had only taken a few steps into the refuge when the passion and the drama took place right before my eyes, practically at my feet. They were fluttering by, flirting, chasing each other when things suddenly got serious. He slammed her to the ground. They wrestled. They danced. Then he brought their lovemaking to an entirely new level. He clasped her close. She went limp in his arms. He carried her high into the sky, up to the very tops of the trees.

When it comes to sexual endurance, the Monarch Butterflies put humans to shame. A pair of Monarchs will mate for up to 15 hours! They start mid-afternoon and finish shortly after sunrise. Afterwards, the female flies off to find a milkweed plant to lay her eggs on. In the two weeks or so that she has left to live, the female Monarch will repeat that act again and again.

In a week when the world situation is looking especially grim, it sure is nice to be able to share some good news. The Monarch Butterflies seem to be making a bit of a comeback.

I’ve written before about the demise of the Monarchs. The last time I visited the Pacific Grove Sanctuary, California’s Monarchs had plummeted to less than 1% of their former population. Numbers had dropped from 4.5 MILLION in the 1980s to 28,429 as of January 2019.

Last year there were no butterflies at all found in the Pacific Grove Sanctuary, and less than 2,000 counted in all of California.

This year there were about 14,000 in Pacific Grove alone and just over 247,000 in the total count for the California coast. Good news!

Perhaps some of our actions have helped the Monarch. Pacific Grove is a town that takes safeguarding the butterflies seriously. In this town, messing with a Monarch carries a $1,000 fine! The city has planted butterfly-friendly plants in its parks and along the Coastal Trail. Many residents have also planted butterfly-friendly plants, avoided RoundUp, and eaten more organic food since hearing about the Monarch’s plight.

Action is even beginning to take place on the federal level. There were two bills for butterfly conservation included in the $1 trillion infrastructure package that passed in November. These Acts, the Monarch and Pollinator Highway Act and the Monarch Action, Recovery, and Conservation of Habitat Act, will provide grants for replacing invasive species with native pollinator-friendly plants on highway roadsides and medians. They will also charge highway crews with being mindful about when they mow, avoiding mowing during key times in the Monarch migration.

The resurgence of butterfly numbers this year is wonderful news. But it’s not really a comeback, it’s more of a reprieve. We dodged a bullet this time, but 250,000 is a drop in the bucket compared to the 4.5 million found in earlier years. Monarch Butterflies still face the looming threats of pesticides, habitat destruction and climate change. They still need our help to grow back into a healthy, thriving population.

Help the Monarchs. Eat organic. Don’t use pesticides. Please do what you can to provide sanctuary, and help the Monarch butterflies survive.

Thank you, Karina of Murtagh’s Meadow, for providing this week’s Lens-Artists Photography Challenge, A Special Place.

February 26, 2022

Pacific Coast Sunsets

It’s a good year to miss winter in Alaska. The snow started early, on the last day of summer. I wasn’t lucky enough to miss that storm. It complicated my travel plans. It took me a couple of extra days to close everything up on the homestead and get out of town.

Then the snow took a brief hiatus, making way for the extreme cold. It was 40 below for weeks at a time in McCarthy, even dipping down to -60. The coldest I had ever seen was 53 below. Glad I missed the cold spell.

See what I mean about a good winter to miss? It was just getting started.

It’s been snowing back home. And snowing, and snowing….. more snow than anyone can remember ever falling in McCarthy. Buildings are buried. And it’s still February. March is usually the snowiest month. Yikes!

California sunsets — Sunset in Pacific Grove

Which makes me super grateful for where I am spending the winter, further south on the Pacific Coast. I have really been enjoying those Pacific Coast sunsets.

I spent January at a housesit in Anacortes, Washington. The weather was generally dark, drab and dreary, with snow, rain or fog practically every day. My SAD syndrome kicked in, but I kept reminding myself about what the weather was like back home and felt pretty thankful to be someplace safe and warm where I could avoid driving on those occasions when the streets were icy.

Deception Pass State Park — Sunset at Rosario Beach near Anacortes, Washington

The day before I left, I did have one nice sunset.

Then my luck changed. I had clear weather for 3 days in Olympic National Park! What a rare and wonderful occurrence! The skies continued to stay mostly clear as I traveled down the coast to my February housesit, in Pacific Grove, California.

Mostly clear, except every night as I passed through Oregon there was a thin band of fog on the western horizon in otherwise cloudless skies, effectively extinguishing any hints of color from the setting sun. I’ve included a photo from an Oregon sunset I took on another trip, so you can see the potential and understand my disappointment when things looked so hopeful each evening but didn’t pan out.

Skies have been clear almost every night here in California. There has only been one day with any precipitation at all. It was just a sprinkle, but I was able to capture some fabulous God rays between storms. Check out the feature shot and you’ll see what I mean.

I feel a little like Goldilocks and the three bears. Although I am grateful for all these beautiful sunsets, we could use some rain. Although there’s too much snow in McCarthy, the drought in the West is severe. According to dendrochronology, the science of interpreting past climate through tree rings, in some places it’s the worst drought in over 1500 years. So I pray for rain, and hope that if it comes, it also brings big waves, god rays and rainbows.

Pacific Grove, California — Praying for rain and big waves

Thanks to Anne for this week’s Lens-Artists Challenge, Water.

Tag: photography

Monochrome: Shadows and Reflections

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Favorite Images of 2022

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Curves

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Close and Closer

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Sanctuary

Pacific Grove Monarch Butterfly Sanctuary

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Pacific Coast Sunsets

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Pacific Grove Monarch Butterfly Sanctuary

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