Grand Teton / Yellowstone 06/2010

Grand Teton / Yellowstone 06/2010

Blooming lilies

I took the suggestion of a friend and went back to the lake to catch the lilies blooming. This photo doesn't do the lilies justice as the whole cove is full of these huge leaves and flowers. I really needed to be in the water with a wide angle lens but they don't allow swimming in this lake and I don't have a wide angle lens yet.

I guess it's time to take a peak at e-bay and then "accidentally" fall in the lake!

Swiss Rocks

Found these interesting holey sandstone rocks while hiking this last weekend. Unable to figure out if this is from water or wind erosion as the rocks above the high tide mark seem just as eroded as the ones near the low tide mark.

The wicked witch is dead!

I have to admit that even for me, this is a little wierd. I went on a little hike yesterday, which in hind sight wasn't the smartest thing to do because when I started out early in the morning it was already 80 degrees with full sun and by the time I got to where I wanted to be about two hours later it was 97 with full sun and 60% humidity. It ended up being 100 by the time I got back to the car with a heat index of 105. It really sucked yesterday!

During my hike I came across a pair of four inch high heel shoes. Now mind you I wasn't walking on a trail or even anywhere near a trail. I was way off the beaten path and more than a mile from the nearest road or parking area. You can see in the second photo that I was out a ways so I'm not sure how or why these shoes came to be where they were.

When I found the second one I fully expected to find some human remains also because anybody dumb enough to wear those shoes in the mountains would probably never make it out.

I'm glad to say I didn't find a body but I'm still perplexed as to why anyone would even attempt to walk in this area with these kinds of shoes. Even more perplexing is how they got out of the area without the shoes.

People really do some strange things!

DIAMONDS !!

DON'T TREAD ON ME !!

Happened on to this reptile crossing the road last month while visiting and camping in Ron's neck of the woods.

Thought this might go with Ron's last post of Buffalo or things with Attitudes in the Mountains.

I did manage to gently persuade him back into the brush before he got into trouble with a car.mp

Escargot anyone?

Found a huge gathering of pea sized snales while hiking on a nearby beach yesterday. Never seen this many in one place like this before, so I took a picture...

That look . .

The one you don't want to see, where the head is down and the horns are coming forward. This means; "you are making me mad!"

We had a very big buffalo wonder into one of the occupied campsites last week. He was minding his own business, laying in the shade trying to cool off when the individual in the campsite, sitting at the picnic table, decided 20 feet away wasn't close enough. The camper attempted to sneak around behind the buffalo to get a photo of it next to the tent but the buffalo wasn't having any of that sneaky business.

He rose to all fours rather quickly and charged toward the camper. It ended up as a draw since the camper was smart enough to get behind a tree. The buffalo was on one side and the camper on the other, not a position I would want to be in.

The buffalo, apparently feeling like he proved his point, let the camper be after a few minutes but not before I got a couple of photos myself, from a distance, with a zoom lens I might add!

"STILL" FIDDLING

As I was coming from kitchen this early AM with coffee noticed these fiddles( my wife calls them Violins) sitting there minding their own buisness amongst her collection of glass , China, and crystal in the dining room. I found the poster board, borrowed the fidd-( VIOLINS ) , did some staging , opened the blinds for natural light and snapped?? some pics. Liked this one the best.

Ten miles west of Turkey lies Quitaque,Texas (kitty-kway) . A generous resident had unselfishly restored and preserved this unique architecture of " Full Service Gasoline Stations "

Pegasus always draws my eye! mp

I Am Sea Wolf

"Sea Wolf bursts out of the ocean depths in search of prey"...

I wonder what really goes through the minds of my dogs as they rough-house around on the beach?

Is that eagle looking for me?

OK, so it's not an eagle. The eagles don't show up here until December and January so another lizard photo will have to do!

Yet another Eagle picture

I haven't taken very many pictures for the last week or two with the exception of the bike races. So here is a picture from last month when I was getting a feel for the new Sigma 120 400.

Just Fiddiling Around

While camped out in my travel trailer at my favorite campsite in South West Oklahoma decided to visit Caprock Canyons State Park in West Texas. Rent was due by 3PM the next day. Motivation for move was a park I had never visited plus new hiking trails my feet needed to walk. On the way I happened on to Turkey, Texas.

The Welcome Mat was out at the edge of town. I was still learning the basic functions of my new Nikon. So made these feeble attempts of recording my "places visited".

Needless to say but these friendly folks are very Proud of their Native Son and rightly so. I was raised hearing "The Playboys" on the radio before we had our first TV.(1953). D-M,,,,I must have been born when they put the bark on the trees in Oklahoma!!!

Their Museum at the old highschool honoring Bob Wills is worth your time." Free Admission,Donations Accepted"
No,I'm not on the chamber or have any ties. Just a town with photo opportunities for a Pro or novice like myself. ( I am trying to move up in the rankings)!! mp

Shooting in the rain

We had a little rain storm hear on Monday, got a measly five inches of rain in just a few hours, and during a break in one of the torrential down pours I had the bright idea of driving to the top of one of the mountains to try to get some shots of lightning.

Yea, I know, I might as well be trying to take a plant away from a buffalo but it seemed like a really good idea at the time! I didn't get any lightning shots but I did get this shot of a cloud forming below me just before the sky opened up again. What looks like fog in the background is actually rain falling.

Going down!

Day two at the races went well. Lots of good riders, no serious injurys and it didn't rain!
Though I got a number of nice pictures I didn't get any spectacular shots... I have been trying to figure out what I did last year different than this year. Still learning what works and what dosen't, but that's half the fun of photography!

Gi-Normous Lillies

And yes, where I come from gi-normous is a word!

I came across these lillies in the lake just down from my house. They are taking over the entire cove where they are growing. The leaves are as much 18-20 inches across on these things and they are growing out of the water as much as a couple of feet.

Had I been drinking I might have been tempted to try to walk on them. :~)

Differences

A few weeks ago I decided I needed a smaller and lighter camera to take on my "other than photographic" hikes so I purchased a Nikon D3000 as a sidekick for my Nikon D80. Although the D3000 is a fine entry level DSLR the differences between the D80 and the D3000 were pretty drastic.

For the last year I have been shopping for an upgrade to the D80 and had been giving serious thought to the Nikon D700 since it was a full frame camera. The more I thought about this the more I decided I didn't want to have to buy all new lenses so I opted for to stay with the APS-C sensor and jumped up to a Nikon D300.

The difference between the D80 and the D3000 is nothing compared to the difference between the D80 and the D300! The D300 is really a fantastic camera and jumps into the pro level of DSLR's. (I need all of the help I can get!)

Of course I've just strating playing with the new camera and it will probably take me a month or so to get really comfortable with it but I am glad I made the jump. I'm adding a battery grip to the camera and stocking up on 16 GB memory cards for a trip I hope to take later this year. Now I need to start shopping for some super fast lenses!

The three photos above were taken rather quickly with the D300. I was curious about the frame per second rate and buffering so I started holding down on the shutter release to see what would happen. You can rack up a couple of hundred photos in under a minute if you really want to! I just picked these three out of several groups that I shot.

Lots of bells and whistles on the D300, so many that the owner's manual is 400 pages long!!

OLD GLORY!

FLAG DAY

Photo taken at Ft. Sill National Cemetery.

Long May She Wave!!
mp

To Close!!!

Around the first of May this year Tornado Sirens began to go off. Went to the front door to see what was going on and this is what I saw! We had the local weather on ( Gary England-Ch. 9 ) Watched their live view and ours at the same time ,well maybe not at the exact same time. Luckily no damage was done as it touched down in an open field about four miles from my house. This is looking due west.mp

Day one at the races

Though I don't race I really enjoy taking the camera to the annual bicycle races in nearby Port Alice! Here I get a chance to get real close to the action and hone my photography skills. This picture was taken with the Sigma 10-20 ultra wide at 10mm. The rider nearly ran over my camera...

Today was the cross country portion of the races, tomorrow is the faster downhill races! Hopefully the weather co-operates and I get a few good shots.

Anybody for a quick game of basketball?

A couple of days ago my wife and I woke up to a fine mist falling here in the mountains and when we looked out the window we found a herd of buffalo in the front yard.

My wife was very excited to see them, they even had a calf with them but the longer they stayed the more interested they became in her newly purchased green plants. She wanted me to go out and scare them away from her plants.

Now mind you, I will be the first to run out into the yard to photograph a tornado but as far as I'm concerned, a 2000 pound buffalo can eat what ever it wants!

Blooming weather!

Normally one or other bush or flower will come into bloom then fade quickly away, but not this year. Everything continues to be in bloom as we have had cool damp days with very little sunshine for a number of weeks in a row. Makes for a colourful garden anyway!

What do they say about . . .

PAYBACK!!

Several weeks ago Paul perpetrated a little sneaky photoshop gag on me that worked very well, turning two boulders into four. I have been waiting ever since then to get even!

I know, using Hawaii for payback is cruel and unusual punishment but I thought Paul could handle it. I didn't really go to Hawaii over the weekend so, sorry Paul, there won't be any new Hawaii photos for a while! As you can see, I did a little photoshop work of my own on a calendar I have hanging on my wall.

Even though no one has offered to fly me to Hawaii for my engraving designs I do have a regular customer on Oahu that buys my gift tags. I just shipped a box of them this week and that is what gave me the idea for the payback.

I am also working on some designs for a couple of the hotel chains to see if I can get them to buy also but this is still a work in progress. The one below is a prototype I just sent to Hawaii for approval.

This makes us even, right Paul? LOL

Just for Paul

For the last few weeks I have been negotiating with one of the big hotel chains in Hawaii to do some custom laser engraving for them. Last week I received an e-mail with an airline reservation attached asking if I could come to Hawaii over the weekend to show them my designs. Any guesses as to what my answer was?

Suquash

Is the local native name for a place a few miles from where I live on Vancouver Island. Suquash was the sight of an old Coal Mine, much natural coal mixed with the rocks and clam shells on the beach there. Also an interesting find, an old insulator nearly grown into a tree from the old telegraph line that ran the length of Vancouver Island.
There is some talk of coal mining again in this area which would be good for the local economy.

I Need One..

Noticed this sign as I was exploring western Oklahoma. It was on an abandoned building on Main street in Roosevelt.
Paul see if your Barber will honor these prices.mp