Month: December 2013

It seems to be snowing everywhere right now. It’s not snowing in Antelope but I had to go to Auburn to exchange my new iPhone for a bigger one (I guess I have too much music and too many audiobooks) where it is snowing. I didn’t want to go to Auburn just because it IS snowing there but the guy at the AT&T store told me that’s the only place I could make the exchange because the Auburn store is not a corporate store. OK, Ma Bell. What gives? While I was in the Auburn quasi AT&T store, it started to snow heavily, at first ball snow (tiny pellets) then huge flakes wafted down. By the time I got back to my car, the lovely, ethereal snow flakes had turned back into the ball snow. Nothing too interesting to photograph.

As I drove home, I saw this oak (?) tree covered in snow and thought it was beautiful. So. I pulled over and took several shots, never quite capturing what I wanted. And, when I got home and downloaded the photos, the tree wasn’t nearly as interesting as I’d hoped until I edited it in Silver Efex Pro. The effect I used is some sort of vintage antique plate. The snow on the trunk and branches is barely visible so it’s not obvious that the tree is covered with snow but the shot reminds me of an old book plate and I really like it.

I am not as complete a Bah Humbug at Christmastime as many of my friends think. Why, just today, I put up some Xmas lights to add a festive touch. After stringing them hither and thither, I decided they would look best surrounding my beautiful new glass-on-copper wall hanging that I fell in love with in Prescott, AZ when I visited Melinda last month. I love the look. The addition of the lights to the piece, as it appears on my wall, creates the illusion of a stained glass window in a church; quite lovely, but not quite what one would expect in my house, so for this blog post, I rotated the photo 90° so that no one would think I had moved into a church.

I find photographing the moon almost as fascinating a challenge as I do hummingbirds and the moon finds itself in my blog almost as often. The different phases of the moon create different scenarios and challenges. The crescent that appeared tonight above Venus drew me out and when I discovered that “Analog Efex Pro” was somehow newly in the list of editing possibilities, I had to try it out. This is one of 9 classic camera settings. It didn’t identify the classic camera being featured. I liked the result and saved it without further edits.

I had the 70-200mm lens attached to the D7100 and the 2X teleconverter as well, making it a 400mm lens. ISO 100; F/8; 1/80. Still, I cropped this slightly. With the teleconverter on the lens, the largest aperture available is f/8.

My sister-in-law called me this morning to ask me to text her photos of my hair so that a friend could get a similar haircut. I get lots of compliments on my haircut and am lucky that I inherited the Erickson hair, not the Agnew hair, so it is thick and does what I want it to do. I always keep it the same and get it trimmed every four weeks. Linda, my long time hair dresser, always does a great job. When I got home this evening after meeting a friend for lunch in Auburn and spending the afternoon with her, I remembered Sue’s request and since I hadn’t taken any photos yet today, I thought I’d try some selfies. The Oxford English Dictionary’s word of the year for 2013 is “selfie,” which is a term for a photographic self portrait, generally taken with a cell phone. I took mine with my Nikon D800, my 24-70mm f/2.8 lens, a shutter release cable, my SB 910 Speed Light, and my tripod, a slightly more complex set up than using a cell phone.

I didn’t really think about the background which is just the plain wall by the garage entry door so it is rather bland and uninteresting. I set the focal length of the lens to 62mm, the aperture to f/3.2, the shutter speed to 1/320, and ISO at 200. What pleased me with the shot is that the cable release automatically focused the lens on me. Hallelujah. Other “selfies” I’ve tried were an agonizing trial and error to get the focus correct.

So, here is my hair, featuring my hair cut which is technically (I think) a stacked bob.

It doesn’t jump right out at you but the only bright star showing in last evening’s sunset is Venus, a tiny white dot just left of center. Despite the title of today’s blog entry, the real subject, and the reason I pulled over to capture this less than dramatic sky as I drove home, is the horizon. My Flickr group’s challenge a few days ago was “horizon” and this sunset, highlighting the rather plain horizon, would seem to fit the bill. When I noticed the white spot in the sky, my first thought was that is was a spot on my computer screen but realized it appeared in different places on my images as I moved the camera to capture different views of the horizon. Google revealed that Venus rises in the southwest at dusk in December.

One of the privileges I have as the photographer for the California Foundation for Birds of Prey is that I am given access to events that I wouldn’t otherwise have. This goshawk is a falconer’s bird and a couple of weeks ago, when I took this photograph, it had emerged only moments before from surgery to remove a bone stuck crossways in its craw. A veterinarian is holding it and watching closely. It had not yet come completely out of the anesthesia so what is not visible in this photo is the vet’s other hand encircling the back of the bird to keep it upright on his glove because as is shown in the shot, the bird is not grasping with its talons yet. I am happy to report that surgery was a success.