Monthly Archives: June 2011
June 20, 2011 – Glacier National Park
Glacier National Park
Monday, June 20, 2011
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Dang, dang, dang, dang. Dang. I’ve been meaning for more than a week now to toss up a picture or two from my northern-lights-chasing-adventure, but I keep forgetting to upload anything from my desktop machine at home. And now, it’s even worse, as I took some pictures of ladybugs this weekend that I was hoping to post, and I forgot to upload those too. Dang. Try again tonight, I guess.
In the meantime, here’s another shot from Whitefish Mountain Resort in Montana. This is a view over into Glacier National Park from the top of the ski hill, that’s why I labelled the post the way I did. Whitefish Mountain Resort (formerly known as Big Mountain), is, not surprisingly, just outside of Whitefish, Montana. It’s one of my favorite three ski hills in the world. Although, saying “in the world” is slightly misleading, as I certainly have not skied everywhere there is to ski. I *have* skied outside the US, so my opinion is at least an international one, but that was only just across the Canadian border in BC, so that’s hardly fair, even to the rest of Canada. But whatever, I still stand by my statement. This is one of my favorite three places to ski *IN THE ENTIRE WORLD*. Deal with it. Or, better idea, just go ski there. Perhaps it won’t become one of your three favorite places to ski, but you’re almost guaranteed to at least have a good time, and you’ll also get to try someplace new, which is also awesome. Unless you’ve been there before, in which case that particular incentive won’t apply.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 lens. 1/500s, f/10.0, ISO 100. Focal length: 50mm.
Subscribe to the Picture of the Day via: June 16, 2011 – Diablo Lake
Diablo Lake, North Cascades National Park
Thursday, June 16, 2011
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This is Diablo Lake (I’ve also heard it called Emerald Lake) in North Cascades National Park. It’s not a natural lake strictly speaking, as it is the size it is because it’s dammed (which you can just barely see on the far right edge of the frame), to generate power for the city of Seattle. Whether or not it was a (much smaller/shallower) lake before it was dammed is not something I know. Actually, it’s dammed on both ends, as the next lake up the chain, Ross Lake, which is a long, narrow lake that extends just over the Canadian border, is also created via dam, and spills into Diablo.
And yes, it really is that color. The water is primarily glacial meltwater, and as such it’s filled with all sorts of silt and mineralage, which is what makes it look all milky like that. We get a fair bit of that here in the PNW (like the White River which comes out of Mt. Rainier National Park – it’s only a little tiny river, but the water looks like diluted milk, kinda weird.)
So, have a great rest of the day and all that.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 lens. 1/200s, f/8.0, ISO 400. Focal length: 11mm.
June 15, 2011 – Bee and Poppy
Bee and Poppy
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
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Well hello there, folks. Looks like Tuesday never happened, huh? That’s too bad. This is the picture I was planning to post, before the day just kind of got away from me. Remember on Monday how I was talking about taking pictures of bugs that were flying? Yeah, turns out it’s hard.
The focus is really the hardest part. I mean, sure, you could just zoom way out and all that. But (in case you didn’t notice) I have a bit of a macro obsession. I want to get in close. I want to be able to see the little hairs on the bug’s body. I want to see the romantic bits of flowers. Actually, that’s jumping ahead a little bit. But since it’s done, I’ll go ahead and mention that: I figured the only way it would be even kind of possible is by hanging out near flowers. That is, hanging out near places where there’s a good chance they’ll be landing and/or taking off. Then you can at least try to just focus on the flower, and then be quick on the shutter when a bug flies by. There’s still a good chance that the focus will be a bit too close or far, but then you at least stand a chance. But it’s still tough, because bees like to go to where there are hundreds of flowers. Meaning, if you decide to just focus in on one in particular, you’ll probably be sitting there all day while they land on every single flower there except for the one you’re focused on. It’s annoying.
So, I compromised a bit. I didn’t get in as close as I’d like to, because then it would have been just plain impossible. I zoomed out a bit, and then I just took lots and lots of frames. And then a couple of them turned out okay. It was also annoying that the sun which I had been counting on disappeared behind the clouds as soon as I went outside. Meaning, I had to crank the ISO a bit in order to keep the shutter speeds fast enough. (That’s another problem. Those suckers are MOVING – so if you’re using anything less than like 1/1000s, you’ll get motion blur.)
So, right. It’s hard. Here ya go.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tamron 90mm f/2.8 macro lens. 1/1250s, f/5.0, ISO 400. Focal length: duh, 90mm.
June 13, 2011 – Mayflower Gulch
Mayflower Gulch
Monday, June 13, 2011
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Amazingly enough, I actually made it out to take a few pictures late last week and over the weekend. And no, this isn’t one of them. But I figured it’d be worth mentioning, so you can know what to expect once I finally get around to tossing them online. This weekend the weather appeared to finally be nice enough to allow the bugs to start coming out to play. So, I spent some time trying to take pictures of bees flying as they were either preparing to land on flowers, or just taking off from flowers. Turns out, it’s really hard. More on that later.
Also, late last week I went on an epic 14-hour adventure, chasing the northern lights. There was an aurora forecast that suggested that they should be visible from my latitude, so I went driving, hoping to find a location that was a) away from city lights, b) had a view of the northern sky, and c) wasn’t cloudy. I basically succeeded in those three after a lot of effort (I ended up at a location that, were you to drive straight there, would be just under 5 hours from where I live), but there were no northern lights to be found. BUT, I got some decent pics along the way, so you’ll see some of those eventually.
In the meantime, here’s a shot from Mayflower Gulch in Summit County, Colorado that I grabbed today just so that I’d have something to show you.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 lens. 1/250s, f/6.3, ISO 100. Focal length: 39mm.
June 10, 2011 – Ant, Lupine
Ant on Lupine
Friday, June 10, 2011
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Hey, lookie here, this is the 5th post this week! I actually did it – I actually posted one picture here per day on, umm, the picture of the day. I think I deserve a pretty serious pat on the back for that one. Also, I’ll probably over-compensate now by not posting anything else for a month and a half. Hmm.
These are lupine flowers. You see them a bunch up in the mountains here in Washington. That’s an ant. You see them a bunch just about everywhere in the world I’ve ever been. Okay, that’s all I’ve got.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel XT, Tamron 28-300mm VC lens. 1/200s, f/6.3, ISO 200. Focal length: 300mm.