Baby it's cold outside!

Apparently, as I get older I am loosing my mind. For some reason I let Aaron convince me it would be a good idea to go outside and take photos of snowflakes.

 

It was 11 degrees outside with a wind chill of 3. I could barely feel my toes by the time we came in.

 

This is something Aaron came up with and I have to say it was interesting experiment. Something unfortunately, I will have to do again so I can get some better results.

Sunrise with The Sparrows

Brrr!

Wonder what it would be like to have a coat of feathers that you could poof up to ward off the cold Arctic temperatures? Guess you would have to be a bird, a Sparrow in this case, to give an answer.

Here Comes the Sun!

Sun was just breaking the eastern horizon as I raised the window blind by my coffee spot in the sun room. Patiently sitting in the dormant hibiscus bush were several puffed up sparrows waiting on the sun. Fancy That! Looks like a photo opportunity in the making!

Let's Eat!

All excited over the new food supply that had magically appeared overnight, it suddenly became a 'free for all' at the feeder. Greedy little beggars at best! I guess they think it will be their last bite!

more later

Winter came to Visit!

Snow Capped!

A little after noon yesterday was when the snow started. At first the flakes were small and only came down from time to time. As the day went on they began getting larger and steadily more numerous. Half dollar to silver dollar became the norm. Quite a sight it was and I'm not a big fan of snow.

Hare with no Snowshoes!

Oh the silence of a snowfall! It was still coming down when bedtime came and the neighborhood was unusually still. Made for a peaceful deep sleep!

Paired for Life!

After a brief dusting this morning, the sun finally broke through as the storm moved away to the east. Bright white snow and frigid temperatures remained behind. Perfect time to take these photos.

May your Path be Well Lit!

The colorful nandina berries and leaves, which keep their color all winter, seems a nice fit for the snow.

Avalanche!

Easy to see the storm was not accompanied by the usual high winds when these blue northers come racing through. Just enough to create a snow sculpture.

Snowy Streets!

Good day to stay at home. Never even started my truck today. Think I will just let the sun melt the snow from the windows of my ride. All pics shown in this post were either taken thru a window, from the open garage door, or the screened in patio out back. I'm not getting out in that stuff! Might get my house shoes wet. One more good thing about being retired and jobless!

Have a seat!

I found this bird chair and fountain outside a hotel/casino in Las Vegas.

 

I'm sure it is supposed to be some type of art with a deep meaning but being the redneck that I am, I just didn't get it. I did take a photo though!

Well, in Hawai'i...

Sorry, I couldn't help myself!

These first two shots were taken along the road to Hana on Maui.

The paddle boarder was working the waves on the windward side of Maui near Hookipa Beach

Back off Jack!

Get yer own fish!

Not the best light for pictures over here on the Coast these last few weeks, so don't look real close... We get this perpetual gloom thing happening. You know, the part where the street lights stay on all day, ugh!

Above the clouds Part II

Here's a couple of more shots from the top of Haleakala Volcano on Maui.

 

I found this on the web today and it got me to thinking about Hawai'i. (It doesn't really take much you know)

 

6 Reasons Hawaii Will Ruin Your Life

Maybe you've only been to Hawaii once. Maybe you come every year. Or maybe you come any chance you can get.

Regardless of your time spent in Hawaii, this list serves as a warning. And those of you who have ever left the Honolulu International Airport with tears in your eyes and that stinging, lump feeling in your throat, you'll understand why.

Because falling in love with Hawaii isn't easy. In fact, it turns your whole world upside down.

Below, the 6 reasons you should never fall in love with Hawaii if you ever want a chance at a normal life anywhere else:

1. Home will never feel like home again
Your own bed will never be as comfy as that lazy Sunday afternoon, dozing off in the sand at Papailoa Beach. And your favorite morning coffee spot? It's got nothing on your acai bowl breakfast ritual that left you rejuvenated and ready for your next waterfall hike.

2. Who needs a career path?
Spend enough time around dramatic cliffs, awe-inspiring valleys and scary powerful waves and your career goals will suddenly seem so insignificant. Who wants a fancy job title anyway? It's not that you've lost your motivation or drive to be successful; it's just that your definition of success has changed. Your goals have less to do with money and more to do with beating your best time up a crater and learning how to do a headstand on a paddleboard.

3. And work ethic? Forget about it.
It's your first day back at work after a few weeks on the islands. You look around at the co-workers who you once thought were so interesting and diverse and the buzzing office that once made you giddy with excitement ... and you let out a deep sigh. You spend the rest of your days dreaming about the wonderfully eccentric surf bums you met, the most refreshing cocktail you've ever tasted at a pau hana on the beach, and the uncontrollable urge to applaud the sun just for setting.

4. You will stop appreciating the beauty of your own city.

Sure, at one point you may have appreciated those city lights but now they just seem like a distraction from all the stars in the sky. And all those tall buildings? When compared to the green mountains in your memory, they seem pretty pathetic, not to mention depressing. By the way, where are all the trees? We should definitely be planting a lot more trees here...

5. Your Hawaii stories have stopped being charming and are now just annoying

(I know Tex can relate to this. LOL)
Your first few stories about those spontaneous fire dancers at sunset or that 3 a.m. hike up the "Stairway To Heaven" will be fun to hear, but when every sentence starts with, "Well, in Hawaii..." all of your friends will be rolling their eyes. Soon, you'll find that you have less in common with your friends and more in common with those drifters sitting on the sidewalk.

And yes, your neighbors are tired of hearing you play the same songs over and over again on your ukulele.

6. Eventually (after you've finally made the big move), your family and friends will hate you
Well, not really. They'll think you hate them. They'll say that you have abandoned them for a care-free breezy life in Hawaii and they'll always refer to you as "the free spirit that ran away to the islands."

But you won't really care. After all, you've fallen in love with Hawaii, which means it will still be worth it, every day, when you look out to the horizon during the "golden hour" and watch the sky change a thousand different colors. "Yes," you'll say to yourself then, "I am so very lucky to live Hawaii."



Ospreys

These are a few more shots that I took in Oklahoma back in September. I was using the Nikon 600mm lens with a 1.4x teleconverter.

Country Cousins and City Slickers

Wary!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL!

Seems hard to believe that another year has rolled by and it is Turkey Day again. Looking back at old photos of Turkeys gave me a chuckle. In the photo above we have a Rio Grande wild turkey cautiously feeding in the undergrowth. Country Cousin didn't get that ground dragging beard and large body size being careless! 

Early Morning Forage!

Fresh off the roost from the branches of a tree where they spent the night, these big old Toms are ready for breakfast!

Urbanites!

And then we have the City Dwellers! Seems to me caution and being wary was thrown to the wind! Just happened to glance over the the back fence and across the street. Here's a whole herd of wild turkeys casually strutting across the neighbors yard! They need to remember where they came from and take a lesson from their country cousins. Be wary or risk being the centerpiece of a Thanksgiving Meal! 

Copy dogs

Couldn't decide what to call this post... Copy dogs or Doggy see, doggy do!

I'm not sure just who was copying who but it was sure funny to see these two chawing away on their sticks!

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Shooting above the clouds

I'm back to digging through the old files once again. It's too cold to go outside and take photos here, at least for me anyway.

 

These were taken in 2005 with a Sony 5mp point and shoot at the top of Haleakala Volcano on Maui, elevation 10,023 feet. It's the only place you can go on Maui and see snow.

 

 In retrospect, the little point and shoot automatic didn't do too bad of a job, especially since I was in shorts and a t-shirt, freezing my rear end off and barely able to hold the camera still since I was shaking so much from the cold.

 

I am going to go back though. Next time I will have a pair of long pants and a jacket!

Wintery sky

An interesting sky hanging over the North end of Vancouver Island this morning...


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Been A Little Preoccupied

       Well I haven't been on here much and there is a good reason for it. I would like to introduce the newest member of my family.

 Emery Lee Thompson    Born 10-30-13

All of these photos where taken in our home, using a white sheet as a back drop and a single hand held light with a collapsible soft box attached to cast the shadows.

Twilight at Hardy Bay

Took several pictures of Hardy Bay a few minutes after sunset, it was surprisingly calm at the time. The reflective tide pools on the beach made for an interesting foreground.

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One more sunset

 

For now anyway!

 

This is an HDR image made from five shots taken at a nearby lake. For the one or two of you that might be interested, this was taken with the Nikon D800 and after stacking the five images the file size was 1.24 GB!

Using one silver reflector with 50mm f/1.4.

Candle light exposure.

Window light.

Window light.

One silver reflector.

Eyes on the Prize

Out on a Limb!

Caught this squirrel by surprise. It and another one were having a big time chasing each other around the trees. Only had time for one pic before it dodged to the other side of the cottonwood it was on.

The Prize!

Close by was a pecan tree whose fruits were starting to open with a few nuts already on the ground. The squirrels will be busy gathering and burying the pecans for winter food. They better stay busy! They will have human competition in gathering these Prize morsels!

Shooting the moon...

... at 300mm straight out of the camera with the Nikon 28-300mm lens.

At 1200mm straight out of the camera with the Nikon 600mm F4 lens and 2x teleconverter.

 

Yes, I took Aaron's suggestion and bought a 2x for the 600mm lens. It seems to work pretty well as long as your subject is "contrasty" against the background. The autofocus seems to be about 10-20% slower than normal but well within working speed for shooting whales or a slow moving subject.

Aaron has been teaching me some astrophotography tricks for a project I have planned. We spent about an hour the other night shooting across a neighbors pond when the full moon was coming up. I was even lucky enough to catch a shooting star just above the moon.

Somewhere out there a little gray man is wondering why I am laying on the ground in the cold taking pictures of the sky. Seeing the stars on a full moon proved difficult but we wanted to see how the FX sensor compared to a DX sensor on night time shots.

"Painting by Moon Light"

 

This is actually the moon, can't you tell?

 

While walking back to the house the other night Aaron accidentally hit his shutter release and decided since it was set on a long exposure he would move around a little and see what happened. I couldn't let him have all of the fun so like a couple of goobers, we were both swinging our expensive cameras around in the air and laughing our heads off.

 

My wife said we were acting like a couple of three year olds. That's a good thing, right?