In Focus Daily

The winter storms thrash the ocean waters at Cape Disappointment into violent upheavals of foam. The roiling waves toss debris and stun the occasional fish allowing the opportunistic Bald Eagles patrolling near the water to swoop down and catch an easy meal. The foggy mist envelops the area and shrouds the cliffs and the lighthouse. The waves are relentless. The waves are mesmerizing. Despite the stormy, wet, and windy conditions, it is exciting to watch the drama of the waves unfold. The scene had no color so I converted this image to black and white.

What a way to end a week of phenomenal photography! On our last day of shooting, the stormy skies calmed and the clouds gave way to a rainbow directly over the North Head Lighthouse at Cape Disappointment. The brief respite from the relentless rain storms that pummeled the coast was a welcome change and the rainbow was just the icing on the cake.

Standing on the edge of Waikiki Beach, bracing yourself against 30-40 MPH wind gusts and the cold, pelting rain, with a couple of friends and a Nikon Z6 at high tide is an exhilarating way to spend a morning. I was not on Hawaii’s expansive Waikiki Beach but rather in Washington State on tiny Waikiki Beach at Cape Disappointment where the mighty Columbia River empties into the Pacific Ocean. But as winter getaways go, I’ll take this over Hawaii any day. Winter storms and high tide create an unforgettable spectacle of raw power and beauty at Cape Disappointment. The waves are never the same twice and the wave patterns are not the same two days in a row. The roiling surf with its crashing waves is at eye level separated by a huge unstable pile of logs that shifts constantly by the powerful tide surges. The eye level view makes it possible to get photographs that create the illusion that the photographer is standing in the surf. What better way to get a feel for the magnificence and awe of the ocean?

“There be fury on the waves” said Nathaniel Hawthorne in his short poem The Ocean, written in 1825. A visit to Cape Disappointment in Washington State Sunday morning during high tide was a perfect illustration of the fury on the waves. We were standing in a parking lot facing the lighthouse at Cape Disappointment along with a few dozen other photographers there to witness the phenomenon. A Washington State Park Ranger appeared and for our safety, ordered the vehicles parked behind us to move immediately as the imminent high tide could force not only water into the parking lot but also huge sodden redwood logs that could crush us. The ranger came by often to ensure our safety and would have moved us out of harm’s way if the fury of the waves posed a danger to us. The waves are an incredible sight, no two are the same. What a way to start our latest adventure! I can’t wait to see what the rest of the week brings.

You don’t always need a macro lens to focus on and isolate the details of an interesting subject. The very handy and capable Nikon Z50 with the tiny Nikkor 18-50mm lens captured this image of a clump of mushrooms that created an interesting diversion from the drab winter sidewalk landscape.

The morning fog has been persistent in the Valley since the new year and on foggy mornings, I take my Nikon Z50 with me on my walk. It’s the perfect camera for this because it is small, weighs almost nothing, and doesn’t get in the way when I’m not taking photographs. I love the look of the massive valley oaks partially obscured by the fog.

The cool, damp weather has produced large clumps of Physalacriaceae, a form of gilled mushroom, along my daily walking route. Their shapes and colors are fascinating. I used my small Nikon Z50 DX camera with the 16-50mm lens to capture this photograph.

The little Pine Siskins at The Ranch in Montana were constantly on the move either pecking at the seeds in the feeders, jostling for space on the edges of the pond, or disappearing en masse as they all took flight at the slightest possibility that a predator was in the area. This is one of the rare moments that one took the time to sit still in peaceful repose for what was probably just an instant but it is frozen in time now. It somehow reminds me of a diorama in a natural history museum, its namesake pine muted in the background.

The tiny Red-breasted Nuthatch seems intent on whatever it’s watching beneath the perch at The Ranch in Montana last summer.

This female Anna’s Hummingbird was chilling out on one of the perches that I placed strategically in a pot near one of the feeders a couple of months ago. She was so relaxed that in about half of the shots I took of her, her eyes were closed and she looked like she was starting to fall asleep. The female Anna’s seem to be more tolerant of me and my camera and will sit in the open while I’m standing there. The male Anna’s are territorial and object to me being outside at all. In fact, I can always tell where they are because when I go outside, they start their squeaky sounding call. I don’t always see them right away because they are usually tucked away in the shadows unlike the females who are content to perch in the open but by following their voice, I can usually locate their hiding place.

After posting yesterday’s Anna’s Hummingbird photo, I revisited my images from Madera Canyon, AZ taken in July 2020. The male Broad-billed Hummingbirds are so delightfully jewel-like with their iridescent green and blue feathers that I couldn’t resist posting this shot.

Today marks the start of the eleventh year of my blog, In Focus Daily. And as I have done almost every year from the start, I am featuring an Anna’s Hummingbird from my backyard as the first post of the new year. I took this yesterday on the last day of a year I’m sure everyone wants to forget. To me hummingbirds are a sign of joy and freedom, some things that were hard to find in 2020. So here’s to a healthier, happier, and cage free 2021!

Sax-Zim Bog near Lake Superior in Minnesota is a truly unique place. In the winter it’s cold and snowy and filled with birds. While owls seem to be the biggest attraction there, you can’t overlook the tiny birds like this Black-capped Chickadee fluffed up against the biting chill that was somewhere about negative 16 or lower.

In past years, the Central Valley in California has been infamous for its dense winter fog, sometimes called tule fog, that hugs the ground and limits visibility to just a few feet. Driving in tule fog is incredibly dangerous and multi-car freeway pileups especially during commute hours are not uncommon. Dense tule fogs have been mostly absent the past few years possibly due to the drought and overly dry conditions that have kept this fog from forming. We do still get the occasional foggy day and this past week, on a couple of days for a few hours during my morning walk, the fog returned. It’s a dense fog but it’s not nearly the dense tule fog that can so dangerous. Visibility was limited but it’s still possible to see three Valley Oaks in a row.

The foggy morning mist makes these large Valley Oaks appear like ghost trees, kind of eerie and foreboding. I’ve been taking my tiny Nikon Z50 with me on morning walks and when it’s foggy like this, I can get some interesting shots in Antelope Park. The equally tiny Nikkor 18-50mm lens, the crop sensor equivalent of a full-frame 24-70mm lens, makes it easy to have this combination camera and lens with me all the time.

My Christmas bouquet of all white spider mums turned out to be an experiment in light painting for me. I really enjoy light painting and the unique effects that I can create but maybe I should say “backlight painting” because although I started light painting this flower from the front and side, I realized as I viewed the images that those with backlit petals were more interesting and unique. So I decided to create an image where most of the petals were backlit. Since the light source for this technique is a hand held flashlight, no two images will be the same. Slight nuances can make a huge difference in an image. It’s absolutely necessary to view what you’ve done as you’re working because you will see subtle changes depending on where the light is directed. Some work; some don’t. What I’ve learned is that once I open the shutter, I start to develop a rhythm and a pattern so it becomes easier to duplicate a look and build on that. Each image is a long exposure so you can take as much time as needed to light paint an image so long as you’re in a very dark environment. For this image in my dark garage, I set my Nikon Z7 with the 105mm Micro lens to f/16, ISO 64, and the shutter to “Bulb” so I could hold the shutter open as long as I needed. This image took 20 seconds to create. This was a relatively short light painting because the subject was only about 6 inches in diameter and it took just a few movements to direct light through the translucent petals without overexposing them.

Yuletide greetings, everyone! This is, in fact, Yuletide, one of my favorite camellias that grows in my garden and that blooms bright this time of year in Northern California. In this light-painted image, I changed the image size in my Nikon Z7 to make it a 1X1 ratio resulting in a square image. With the aperture set to f/16, the ISO to 64, and the shutter to bulb, I was able to take my time in my darkened garage to decide just where to shine the LED pen light I used and for just how long. I set the white balance to 10,000 Kelvin to offset the blue tinge caused by the light I used so that the resulting red was the actual color of the flower.

While many are anticipating Santa’s visit tonight, this young White-crowned Sparrow was anticipating that the feeder above its head would miraculously refill itself. I got the hint and right after I took this photograph the feeder was full again.

The Track Ponds at Bosque del Apache are often the nighttime roost for hundreds of Sandhill Cranes and a few are visible in the lower right settling in as the sun sets. Since I’m still reminiscing about Bosque and missing it, I have been looking at some of my photographs from past years, this one taken last December. Besides the glorious colors of the sunset, what caught my attention was the large star in the upper right and if you look closely, you see a smaller star to the right. Since I’m not much of an astronomer, I’m not sure but I think this is Jupiter and Saturn. Since I haven’t been able to see this year’s great conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn because of fog in my area, I’ll settle for last year’s sighting before they got so close together.

Bosque del Apache was not on my travel list this year and I miss it. The Snow Geese and Sandhill Cranes are everywhere. It is such a unique experience and seeing thousands of birds in the air at once and hearing the roar of their calls and their wingbeats is unforgettable. When the cranes fly into their nighttime roost, like this one backlit by the setting sun, those New Mexico skies make for some spectacular visions. Bosque is calling to me. I’m glad I have some gorgeous memories in my photographs and hope to return again to see this wonder of the natural world.