My favorite 12 (part 1)

I have been a regular visitor of Ian Plant’s Dreamscapes blog, http://www.ianplant.com/blog/

I like what he and the other bloggers on his team have to say about landscape photography. Someday I hope to get to their level of imagery. They have a lot to say about the photography ‘rules’ that are supposed to be followed. The Dreamscapes photographers generally follow them but they also disregard them; the 'rule of thirds', 'do not use backlighting'... When I am out shooting I usually forget some of the rules because I am still concentrating on basic composition, exposure, focus and the 10 or so other things I can adjust on a digital camera. Most of the time they work out without remembering everything.  Afterwards I can usually look at many of my images and see where I could have improved the image by changing this or that; a little less exposure, different focus, move the camera a foot or two to the right, left, up or down. I will get better as time goes on; I just have to get off my butt more often and shoot more.

Digital photography is easier than film photography in some ways but more challenging in others.  Once upon a time you put a roll of film into a camera you would shoot making the normal adjustments of lens aperture and shutter speed based on the speed rating of the film.  The drawback was that you would have to wait some period of time before you would see results.  With the digital cameras you do the same thing; with the aperture and shutter,  plus you can program the camera to automatically under and over expose multiple images, change color balance, adjust the flash output, saving image quality, ...  The great plus with digital photography is the instant feedback and not having to stop and load a new roll of film after 24 or 36 images.  Does this lead to shooting quantity instead of quality?? Probably, you can always throw away the bad ones, 'images are free once you invest in the memory card of choice'.  You have to invest your time to find which images you want to keep, or not.  I can only suggest to those of you new to digital photography to purchase the 'XXX camera' book for your specific camera to understand the bells and whistles on your camera (I found the Canon manual for my camera far short in explaining all the different options).

Back to the real idea behind this post...

In the Dec 29, 2012 Dreamscapes post Ian talks about selecting your 12 greatest images over the last year. So I looked through what I shot since I bought my DSLR and selected 12 images I like. If nothing else these are my favorites, they remind me of what I did and where I went this year. If you have been following this blog at all this year you will recognize some of the images. Over time I’m sure some images will become a bit more abstract which may turn some people off, or at least leave you scratching your heads at what I was thinking when I made that image. Let me know what you think as I post images over the next year.

I will post a bit of commentary with some of these images. They are in no particular order so do not consider the first image the best of the 12.  I will supply the 12 images over two separate postings.

The first two images are from my trip to the Great Bear Rainforest.  No matter how much planning I thought I had done and checking camera settings I got excited when the bears made their appearance and didn't get as many good shots as I thought.  I doubt that will ever change unless seeing wildlife like this around you all the time becomes common place.

The next two are also from my trip to the Great Bear Rainforest.  Being in a boat full of photographers heightens ones senses to pay attention to the area around you for a great photo. 

The next two photos are shot with my 100mm macro lens.  I like shooting closeup photos, they show things going on around you on a different scale than most people consider.  You have to be lucky, or patient or both to work on this scale especially with insects.  They have a mind of their own and generally do not sit around waiting for you to compose and focus the camera.  The bee image is more luck than patience since bees were going back and forth on this particular flower.  I've photographed very few images of a bee in flight AND in focus!  The dragonfly image was more patience with some luck.  There is a dragonfly pond at the Albuquerque Bio Park where dragonflies are in constant motion.  I hung around the pond for quite a while watching where they were landing and camped out above one of the reeds where they would sit for a bit.  After several attempts at different dragonflies I finally got one in focus and in a nice position.  (No dragonflies were hurt in the making of this image)

Thank you for stopping by,

Mark

Jemez Mountains



Rio Cebolla valley



A few weeks ago before snow was promised a coworker, Byron, and I decided to go for a day hike up in the Jemez Mountains. He is a borderline fanatical fly-fisherman and has tried to recruit me to be a like minded fly-fisherman. To this point I have resisted. We get along fine on our hikes, he fishes and I photograph whatever gets my attention. We both have a great time!

We went up to the Rio Cebolla just north of the Seven Springs Fish Hatchery. The hatchery grows cutthroat trout which live in upper portions of the Rio Cebolla.

We hiked and fished approximately 2.5 miles up the valley, I’d guess 3 – 4 miles of stream, with all the twists and turns it takes. Byron caught four brown trout (catch and release) and I shot dozens of images. All we saw that day were two other fly-fishermen.

It was cold that morning when we arrived, the outside car thermometer said 19!  It warmed up to the low 50's by the time we stopped for lunch.  You can see ice along the edges of the stream in several of the images.



View around Gilman Tunnel



On our return trip back home we went by way of the Gilman Tunnels along the Rio Guadalupe.  The tunnels were created in the 1920’s for a logging railroad.



View around Gilman Tunnel



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you for stopping by,

Mark

Local stuff

Since I have gone back to photography as one of my hobbies I'll be sending along images from somewhere closer to home. This time I'll be walking along the Rio Grande.

Albuquerque has several Open Space areas where the city purchased land to leave alone for people to go out and enjoy. There are several pieces along the Sandia Mountains, the Rio Grande and in the Petroglyphs on the west side. The areas have hiking or walking trails through them and most of the time I take advantage of these areas there are very few people.

I usually walk along and up into the mountains but I thought I'd see the river from a couple different spots. The river is not very exciting, mostly brown from picking up the mud all along its path through New Mexico. It is very different from the few images you saw from my trip to British Columbia where you could see the bottom even when the river is several feet deep.

The banks along the river are not developed at all which means wildlife is able freely come and go. During my times of kayaking along the river I’ve seen herons, Canadian geese, ducks of all sorts, cranes, porcupines, coyotes and I’ve heard but not seen beavers. Cottonwoods line the sides of the river along with all sorts of shrubs and salt cedar, an invasive water hog of a tree. There have been many efforts to eradicate the salt cedars, some successful, some not. The areas where I walked have some but they were not overcrowding the natives.

I was hoping to make it down for the last of the fall colors, but missed it by about a week. The cottonwoods along the river turn a bright yellow/gold but the freeze that hit the previous week turned everything to a dead brown.

Since the striking colors are gone I had to rethink the scale of my photography. No large vistas of golden leaves, I have to refocus to a smaller scale and incorporate a leaf or two for accent. I took a macro photography workshop back in October with Mike Moats who has several blogs related to different types of macro photography (http://www.tinylandscapes.com/). He discussed his technique at length and I like his work. It’s easier from the standpoint of when you photograph a smaller area you are able to control what’s in the image along with the quantity and quality of light. Plus I am able to do it in my backyard when the urge hits.

These images texture driven. You may enjoy them, if nothing else you will see the forest from a different point of view.

Thank you for stopping by,

Mark

Last day

Midnight comes quickly, I looked out my window and the sky to the north looked kind of green but it was not very impressive. I’ve only seen the aurora in magazines and books so I decided to get up to make sure if it was making an appearance. It started slow with a few wisps of green and red zipping across the sky then it calmed down for a few minutes. I set up my tripod and camera and waited. It wasn’t like the photographs I have seen of this huge display of green sheets across the entire sky.

It took up maybe a third of the sky to the north but it was there. I made several exposures 20 – 30 seconds long making adjustments to enhance the images as best I could. Some of the aurora reminded me of the big search lights lighting up low level clouds for a grand opening, but there were no clouds to light up because I could see stars all around me.

I stayed up until 130 when it seemed to be fading for longer periods of time. I also heard whales or orcas swimming in the channel just down from me, I heard the blowing and taking in of air before they went back down under water. I went back to bed knowing that I can move going to see the aurora borealis down on my ‘bucket list’, down, but not off.

Next morning

I’m tired this morning from being up for a couple hours of aurora watching. As it turns out I was the only one to get up and photograph the aurora so I had to show them around.

The weather forecast was right, cloudy with occasional drizzle on the ride to Bella Bella. The flight was delayed an hour due to the weather. We sat in the ‘terminal’, a single room in the single room airport waiting for the plane to arrive. I was amazed; no removing of shoes, no X-rays, no luggage check; just give them the tickets and you are good to go. Oh for the good old days of plane travel. This plane was a bit larger; two seats per row on one side and one seat on the other. I made it back to Vancouver with everything being grayer due to the start of the cloudy skies for the duration of my time there. I already told you about my touring at the beginning of my story so all I can say is I really like Vancouver and would like to see it again.

The entire time we were traveling back and forth in the GBR between the Lodge and destinations I only saw two other boats. I only saw one other group of people during the trip, the people at the other bear stand on Gribbell Island. We are truly at a remote place on earth in the Great Bear Rainforest.

Return
I made the trip back to NM with no real excitement, just the way I like it.

I had a great time seeing and experiencing Vancouver again and the Great Bear Rainforest in particular. The people at the Spirit Bear Lodge are great hosts and hostesses; I can’t recommend them highly enough. I didn’t see a Spirit Bear but somehow that doesn’t really matter, I saw and experienced more things while I was there than I imagined the entire 6 months of planning for the trip.

The experience of being in such a remote place on this earth, seeing it thriving and the people working to care for it gives me the hope that when I come back again the Great Bear Rainforest will still be here to explore and enjoy. I believe I will make another trip sometime to see it.

I hope you enjoyed my story.

Thank you for stopping by,

Mark

Canoona River, Khutze Inlet

It turns out that last night the aurora borealis made an appearance above us. Several of the cooks came in asking if we had seen it. We all gritted our teeth and said no, we were busy sleeping, including me.


Doug Neasloss is our guide today. Doug is one of the elders of the Kitasoo/Xai’xais, he is one of the founders of the Spirit Bear Lodge, a member of the Spirit Bear Research Foundation and an accomplished photographer. I really enjoyed talking with him learning all the things that are going on in the GBR and the implications of all the outside forces pushing against it.

Canoona River

Today the ride to the Canoona River is clear, no fog and very few clouds. The weather forecast for the next day is for clouds to move in and rain to follow in a few days. We have been very fortunate with the weather this week. Normally October experiences 25 days of clouds with almost that many days with rain. The rainforest area averages over 118” of rain a year, almost 10’! Here in NM we have been in a drought and haven’t seen 8” in a year for the past couple of years.

We hike along the river and stop for at least 45 minutes to over an hour in three different spots to watch for bears. No bears are seen; several of us have been watching the river and haven’t seen any salmon either. I think the 2012 salmon run has finished, and the bears have moved to other sources of food.

I had to include the 'tourist' photo of me to show that I was actually at the Great Bear Rainforest.  I'm in my rain jacket although I didn't need it.

This afternoon we’ll move over to the Khutze Inlet looking for grizzlies. Once we arrive we see a mother and cub digging the estuary looking for roots. Mom can tell something has changed with our arrival but we stay low and quiet so mom goes back to digging.  We give her a wide berth and walk up along the river.

Doug tells us that several hundred years ago this area used to have a village of several thousand inhabitants. There are several orchards of crabapple trees farther upstream along with remnants of a village. The valley is spectacular with waterfalls and snow topped mountains.

The tide moves quickly in this area, rising several inches every few minutes, overall tide levels vary up to 10’ between low and high tide. What had been a clear path 15 minutes ago we have to bypass because the water level has risen above the path.

On our way back we see more humpback whales swimming.

Tonight we will celebrate Thanksgiving in Canada, so this year I will get to celebrate Thanksgiving twice. When I was in Vancouver I saw signs advertising a Thanksgiving buffet at the hotel but thought “They sure are advertising Thanksgiving early here. It’s about as bad as the Americans advertising for Christmas before Halloween”. Then I noticed that Thanksgiving is on Oct 8th. One must pay attention.

We ate with the elders of the Kitasoo/Xai’xais nation, we heard stories of where they came from and how the village of Klemtu is progressing and growing. They had many nice things to say about Tim, the manager of the Spirit Bear Lodge. They really love him and the work he is doing with the Lodge.

After dinner I packed up most of my stuff. I have to leave out my camera and tripod, I’m getting up at midnight to see the aurora, if it’s there.

Thank you for stopping by,
Mark 

Gribbell Island

A number of different First Nations people live in the GBR. The Spirit Bear Lodge is owned by the Kitasoo/Xai’xais people primarily living in Klemtu. These two groups of First Nations people used to be separate until they were visited by Europeans. All First Nations people were devastated by the diseases the Europeans brought, because they had no immunity to the diseases. There was between 70% and 90% mortality in almost all instances. In order to survive the Kitasoo/Xai’xais people had to merge and subsequently have grown. Gribbell Island has much the same story to tell but is owned by the Gitga’at people. Fortunately all the groups get along and share their land for us to have opportunities to see the Spirit Bear.

Gribbell Island is a 2 ½ hour trip by boat, almost 60 miles north of Klemtu. Our skipper, Charley, told us several stories of when he was growing up in Klemtu and how the elder’s word is law. It’s sounds harsh by today’s standards but they do not seem to have any discipline problems. We went in and out of fog along the way but by the time we got to our destination the skies had cleared. A 20 minute walk into the forest brought us to the bear stands, our destination for the day. There were nine of us today counting our guide. By 10:00 we were all set up waiting for bears to show. Some of us stayed down at ground level, others went up top.  I set up along the side of the stand with a good view of the stream in either direction.

This is a stream, much quieter than the rivers we were along on the preceding few days. We talked with one of the Watchmen, a local First Nations person that patrols the area. He’d seen bears in the area but not a lot of activity. By the end of the day I noted that there were very few salmon running up the stream any more, probably the end of the season.  Note how wide the stream is around us, maybe 25' - 30' across at this point, think about that when you see images of the bears.

We all took lots of photos of the area; the stream, forest, mountains and whatever else caught our attention then settled in waiting for a bear to show.

I started wandering around, not very far just in case a bear showed, when I saw people on the other bear stand jumping up and pointing cameras away from us further upstream, a black bear! I quickly walked back to our stand and whispered “bear” everybody at our stand jumped up with cameras looking in the same direction for a black bear. She wandered down stream between the two stands looking for something to eat but didn’t seem to have much luck then wandered off into the forest again. We all got a couple photos then settled in for the next bear sighting.

I wasn’t impatient, the last couple days of bear watching have taught me that, but I didn’t just want to sit around waiting doing nothing. I dug out my macro lens and started photographing the forest on a different scale.



Hobbit hat?



It’s a challenge changing the scale of what one wants to photograph. All this time I am looking for creatures two to three times my size at a great distance. Now I am looking for subjects anywhere from a couple of inches to a couple of feet tall. I shot a quite a few subjects, some came out, some not, but I had fun doing it.

Another black bear came out an hour or two later, again we all jumped up to photograph her. I say her because female bears are somewhat smaller and don’t seem to be bothered by humans showing up. We were told the males are larger and stay farther upstream away from human contact. She wandered across the stream and disappeared into the forest again.



Pine martin



In the mean time a pine martin showed up at our stand. Everyone jumped up and was shooting photos as it went back and forth, up, down and all around. After it left our stand we saw the people at the other stand jump up and around photographing the same pine marten. That must have been the most photographed pine marten ever. Pine martens are in the same family as mink, otter, badger and weasel.

As the afternoon wore on everyone really relaxed, the warm sun and babbling stream was really working its magic. Our guide told us we have to leave at 315, bear or no bear. We were all still hoping for a bear to make an appearance close to us. 20 minutes before we had (were supposed) to leave a black bear showed up next to our stand. She was really looking for something to eat.

Fortunately salmon, not humans was still on the menu. She walked back and forth across the stream not more than 100’ from our location looking and looking for food. Finally when she was immediately across the stream from our stand she found a salmon.

She took it to the opposite shore and promptly ate it right there. Shutters were clicking away like mad. Our guide kept telling us we have to leave; we only stayed about an extra 10 minutes because the bear had finished dinner and wandered back into the forest across from us.

There were lots of smiles on the way back to the boat. On the way back to the Lodge we saw another four humpback whales swimming in the channel.

We feasted on boiled shrimp in a spicy sauce along with salmon and pasta as appetizers.  We followed that with halibut, new potatoes, white beans in a sauce with peach kuchen and ice cream for dessert.  I know there was more on the menu, I just can't remember it all.

Jason, our guide for the day, who is studying wolves in school, gave a presentation on the coastal wolves living in this area. Over the past few days I have seen wolf tracks, but no wolves.

Tim met with us again to plan out tomorrow’s itinerary; the Canoona River and the Khutze inlet, black and grizzly bear territory respectively.

I went for a short walk in town. It is very quiet, and mostly dark because of the lack of streetlights. I could easily see the Milky Way even in the center of town. There is a fair bit of activity in the homes with people coming and going. Everybody it seems owns a dog, or two, or three. These are not the little wimpy dogs someone can carry in their purse. These are DOGS, the kind a small child could ride like a horse. The kind that can go through 50lb bags of dog food if you’re not paying attention.

Thank you for stopping by,

Mark

Mussel Inlet

Mussel inlet was named by one of George Vancouver’s officers. During their exploration in the 1790’s they had found mussels at this inlet, ate them and got terribly sick with one of Vancouver’s men dying. No mussels for me, I’m just here to see grizzlies.

The day starts off clear overhead but cloudy/foggy at sea level. We kept going between clear and foggy conditions up until we arrived at the inlet. It made for some great photography.

There are very few boats in this part of the GBR. We see an occasional fishing boat but not much else. My guess is that this part of the GBR is so remote and being early October, the end of the tourist season, are the main reasons for the lack of traffic.

We jumped into a zodiac for the ride to shore. I made sure to bring my tripod this time as we were not doing any bushwhacking. As soon as we arrived we walked less than 200’ to see grizzlies; a mom and her two cubs were fishing in the river and dining on salmon like we weren’t even there.

 At the same time a second pair of grizzlies was further up along the shore just doing whatever grizzlies do. The family in the river was not more than a couple hundred feet from us.

We stayed at Mussel inlet from about 930 AM to 400PM wandering about a mile up and down the river almost always seeing grizzlies.

Towards the end of the day we saw a mom and cub come over to our side of the river looking for a spot to dig up roots.

Once our guide spotted them rooting he motioned for us to come out from the forest to watch. We got just a little too close, mom was huffing and giving other indications that we were too close for her comfort. We backed off about 10 feet, just under the cover of the trees and then she was okay with us.

They were digging around and eating for 20 minutes or so before they decided they had enough and went back to the other side of the river. In all we probably saw 12 different grizzlies that day; at play, eating or just roaming around.

On the way out we came across humpback whales just swimming along minding their own business.

We returned to the lodge for another wonderful meal with appetizers and dessert. One could get spoiled living like this. Tim met with us again and planned out our next day; Gribbell Island and a bear stand to find black and spirit bears.

Thank you for stopping by,

Mark