This photo is another in my series from Colorado last fall. I was excited to travel to Colorado and take some photos of the intense aspens and cottonwood trees. The colors that year in Utah were as vibrant as I have ever seen them. One of my side trips was to go to Hanging Lake Colorado and film that wonderful area in full fall color. The only problem was that Colorado had a super freeze that hit the area a few days before we left. There were only small pockets of color. This area was one of them. This is just as the creek is about to enter the Colorado River. By the time we arrived here it was about noon with a full sun. In order to blur the photo I used a neutral density filter and a polarizing filter. This decreased the amount of light hitting the sensor. I also dropped the iso to 100 and stopped down to f/22. Even with all of this all I could muster was a 1.7 second exposure. For this type of photo two pieces of equipment are a must. First a steady tripod with a strong ball head. I also used a cable release to minimize vibration.

I like the intense blue sky.
I like the color of the leaves.
I like the dead trees both standing and fallen over the water.
I would like to have more trees with color on them. Maybe next time.


The Specs:
f/22
Shutter 1/1.7sec
+0.7 ev
38 mm
iso 100

Thank you for visiting my site. Please tell your friends and family about this blog.
Feedback is always welcome. If you would like to see this photo large and on black just click on the photo.

~wr~

We had a quick moving heavy snow storm this afternoon. It was snowing so hard the visibility was limited. This prompted me to look into my photos for something that was winter. I found this photo from my trip to Eureka, Utah about a month ago. This photo was a three stop HDR. On this photo shoot I was sick. I had no energy, but I wanted to get out of the house. Because of this I shot everything that day hand held. I was too tired to put the tripod together for any of the shots. In saying this I still think they turned out pretty good.

Thank you for visiting today.

~wr~

I decided to take a vacation day from work today. My job today is to watch my baby while my wife takes our daughter skiing. As they were preparing to leave the house I looked out the back window and I saw several Cedar Waxwings. I have wanted to take pictures of these birds all winter. I grabbed my camera and threw the teleconverter and 70-200mm lens on and went out to take some photos. I was in such a hurry I forgot that my son had used my camera last to shoot an indoor high school game. The settings were iso 1600 normal large jpeg and automatic white balance. By the time I figured this out they had flown away. I am very pleased with how this photo turned out.

I like the orange color of the half eaten fruit.
I like the detail of the branches and how they frame the bird.
I like the quick drop off of focus. This adds additional focus to the bird.

Let me know what you think, and thank you for visiting.

~wr~

This was a sunrise that I took from my back porch. The taller tree is a plum tree in the back corner of our yard the other branches are sucker branches on our apple tree. I like the contrast of the blue, purple and reds.

Today is a short blog, but I thank you for visiting.

~wr~

This was photo I took a couple of years ago. I took the family out to Cedar Fort Utah in February when the Bald Eagles are coming to roost. I had the camera set for quick action shots of the eagles gliding into the tall trees for the evening. There were not very many birds on this particular night. I had spent the entire time looking in the direction the birds were coming from. Just as I was about to give up because the light was getting hard to get clear shots of the birds I turned around and this is what I saw. I took a couple of quick photos and we went out to eat.

This photo is a perfect example to me for several reasons. Whenever you are out shooting sometimes the best shot is not what you were first looking for. Turn around and maybe you will find better material. At this point in my digital experience I was afraid to shoot in RAW. This fear limited what I could do with this photo in post processing. This photo also taught me to always be aware of your camera settings. I shot this photo at f/2.8. Don’t be afraid to make quick adjustments on your camera. It is always better and easier to make these adjustments in camera then after.

Thanks for visiting today.

~wr~

Remember to click the photo for a large look on black.

I took this photo last spring as the sun was setting. This is a three stop HDR of Timpanogos Mountain overlooking a farmers field near Utah Lake. With today being the last day of February it got me thinking about some of the nice warm days coming in the near future.

Thank you for visiting.

~wr~