Posts Tagged yellow
July 18, 2011 – Yellow Rose
Posted by Dave in - Best of Dave's POTD -, Flowers, Macro, Picture of the Day on July 18, 2011
Yellow Rose
Monday, July 18, 2011
Man, I really thought I had already posted this picture before, but my rudimentary method for keeping track of this stuff suggests that I haven’t. So, maybe it’s a re-post, maybe not. Doesn’t really matter, I’m sure even if it is, you don’t remember it from last time. In fact, I could probably replay the first 250 pictures that I posted and nobody would say a thing. Perhaps I’ll do that someday. But not today. No sir, this is not that day.
This is a rose. It’s yellow. Thus, the title of the post. I took it on a cloudy day last year, in the rose garden at Woodland Park. I’ve found that cloudy days work a lot better for rose pictures than sunny days, because you get a truer representation of the color than when you’ve got bright sunshine everywhere. It can be a bit challenging because of the lack of light, but it can make for some nice shots.
This one was taken with my Minolta-mount Kiron 105 macro that I found on eBay. If you’re the kind of person that likes to scour eBay for old lenses, I *highly* recommend trying to track one of these guys down. I’m always amazed at how nice the shots come out of this guy. It’s been awhile since I’ve busted it out, probably since around the time I took this picture. 
Man, I gotta get on that.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Kiron 105mm macro (Minolta mount). 1/160s, ISO 200. Aperture unknown.
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January 28, 2011 – Autumn in Vermont
Posted by Dave in Fall Color, Picture of the Day on January 28, 2011
Autumn in Vermont
Friday, January 28, 2011
http://davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=2373
Barely snuck this one in before the close of business on Friday. Whew. I spent some time over the past couple days going through some of the shots I got on a couple of the quick trips I got to go on last fall, one to New England (for a wedding) and one to Yosemite (was in SF for work). So, here’s one from New England. I think I’ve told the story before: we were only there for about a day and a half, and the weather started out marginal and became horrendous by the time we left. (Turns out a huge Nor’Easter blew through, dropping a bunch of snow and such. Lovely.) Saw enough stuff to convince me that I definitely need to go back some day, but didn’t really get too many great shots while I was there. Oh well, that’s how it goes sometimes.
I’m really not sure where I took this. We basically just drove around the whole time we were there. We stayed in Castleton, which is sort of in the central-west part of the state, and we ended up driving up to Burlington. So this was somewhere in that vicinity. We were there during the first or second weekend in October I think, so definitely past the peak of fall color for that area, but there was still plenty of color to be had. (Would have been great if the weather held out, grrr.) Although, at that time, the color was MUCH more intense further sound, specifically in southern and central New York, so the drive up there was FANTASTIC.
Have a great weekend!
Notes: Camera: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 lens. 1/250s, f/6.3, ISO 400. Focal length: 32mm.
Popularity: 11%
January 24, 2011 – Larches near Colchuck Lake
Posted by Dave in Fall Color, Mountains, Picture of the Day, Washington State on January 24, 2011
Larches above Colchuck Lake
Monday, January 24, 2011
http://davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1927
Hello, welcome back from the weekend! I was hoping that I’d be able to make it out this weekend to take some new pics, because it’s been awhile now since I’ve been able to get anything worthy of tossing up in this blog. But, no, the weather didn’t really work out, yet again. Sigh. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve still got plenty queued up in the backlog to last awhile. But still, it would be nice to get some new ones. I mean, the whole point of a hobby is that it it’s an activity that you enjoy. So I miss it, and that’s sad. Oh well, hopefully someday soon.
In the meantime, here’s a shot from last fall. This was taken very late in the afternoon from the shores of Lake Colchuck, which is outside Leavenworth, Washington. Those larches looked nice, with the last few rays of sunshine illuminating them on that rugged ridge way up there. It’s kind of a recurring theme about last fall, but I wasn’t expecting to see the larches changing color yet, I thought it was still 2 or 3 weeks early for that. On this hike in particular, I didn’t get to get up close and personal with any of them (although on the hike I did the next weekend, I did), so I had to settle for seeing them up on the surrounding mountains. But still, it was a nice sight.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Canon 55-250mm IS lens. 1/500s, f/9.0, ISO 400. Focal length: 179mm.
Popularity: 18%
October 29, 2010 – Larches at Heather Pass
Posted by Dave in - Best of Dave's POTD -, Fall Color, Picture of the Day, Washington State on October 29, 2010
Larches at Heather Pass
Friday, October 29, 2010
http://davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=2064
Speaking of larches… These guys were just below Heather Pass in North Cascades National Park. I’m mentioning that solely so that Google will notice. Hi, Google!
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 lens. 1/200s, f/6.3, ISO 200. Focal length: 45mm.
Popularity: 16%
October 18, 2010 – Harriman State Park
Posted by Dave in - Best of Dave's POTD -, Fall Color, Picture of the Day on October 18, 2010
Harriman State Park
Monday, October 18, 2010
http://davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=2095
Hey everyone! You may have noticed that I failed to post a picture for most of last week. The reason is, I was out of town! I have decided that in general, it’s probably better if I don’t mention it ahead of time, since, umm, then one of you might decide to come break into my house and steal all my stuff. That would be really disappointing for both of us, believe me. But, I’m back now! So now I will post more pictures!
The logical next question is of course, “Where did I go??” (Well, the question would actually be “Where did *you* go”, because most likely it would be “you” asking it, not me. And you was in quotes because it probably wouldn’t actually be you per se asking it, but it would be whoever was playing your part in the conversation in which the subject came up.) The answer is: to the northeast! I had a wedding to attend in New Brunswick, New Jersey over the weekend. So we decided to head out a few days early to go check out the fall colors in New England, since that’s been on my to-do list basically my whole life. And, unfortunately, since we had such a short time there, I’m now even more determined to go BACK someday, hopefully sooner rather than later.
Yeah, it’s pretty incredible, there’s a reason it’s got the reputation it does. We flew in and out of Newark, NJ, then rented a car to drive up to Vermont. If you beeline it, it’s about a 5 or 6 hour drive, but we took our time. So, as a result, we didn’t get up to Vermont proper until it was already dark. We had one full day there, then the next day we had to drive back. That was NOT enough time. We barely saw ANYTHING. Plus, some bad weather rolled in on our dedicated-to-Vermont day, and got even worse for the day we drove back. That didn’t dampen the experience, but it did have a huge impact in my ability to take the kind of pictures I was hoping to take. I still got some that I’m pretty happy with, but I’d need to be up there for way longer than a day to really do what I want to do up there. (Also, most of the good pictures that I did end up getting weren’t even from Vermont, including this one.)
Those of you who are my friends on Facebook should be familiar with this picture – I’ve already posted it there. My original intent was to get a different picture ready for today’s post, but unfortunately after I got back to Seattle yesterday afternoon, I was so tired from flying and driving that I passed out before 8pm, and slept straight through the night. So, since this one is the only one that’s handy, I decided to roll with it. For those of you who were hoping to see another one, umm, sorry.
As I hinted earlier, this picture was NOT taken in Vermont, which was our destination for fall color. This was taken on the way up, in Harriman State Park, which is in southern New York. The colors were fantastic the whole way up and back, so we ended up spending more time than we had intended in non-Vermont locales. (If we had gone straight to pick up our car, then driven to Vermont without stopping, we could have gotten there around noon. As it was, we rolled in around 8:30 pm.) The best weather we had was also on that first day, but since we were driving, most of the pictures I got from that day were either right along side the road, or of the road. Shrug. Also, most of the second half of our drive was along a road called the Taconic Parkway, which heads north through New York. It was a really beautiful drive, highly recommended, but there are very very few places where you can pull off if you wanted to take a picture. There aren’t even shoulders on the road. It’s probably better that way, since had I been able to pull off, we would have rolled in even later, but it also limited the number and quality of the shots I was able to get. I just need to go back, that’s all there is to it. Hopefully that can happen in the next couple of years, we’ll see.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 lens. 1/250s, f/13.0, ISO 400. Focal length: 17mm.
Popularity: 19%
October 8, 2010 – Mountaineer Creek
Posted by Dave in Fall Color, Picture of the Day, Washington State on October 8, 2010
Mountaineer Creek
Friday, October 8, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1933
Well, I missed yesterday, and I came pretty darn close to missing today too. Phew, just made it in, under the buzzer. Of course, that means none of you will be reading this until Monday anyway, but hey, I don’t actually care when you all read it, I only care about getting it written before some completely arbitrary mental deadline. Because it matters, that’s all I’m saying.
This is another shot from my recent hikes, from two weekends ago this time, when I hiked up to Colchuck Lake. For some reason, I’m still feeling a little bit of a mental block that’s preventing me from posting the pictures that I consider the “best ones” from recently, so instead you get another so-so one. This is Mountaineer Creek. As you hike up to Colchuck Lake, first along the Stuart Lake trail, then on the Colchuck Lake trail proper after it splits off, you hike along (or near) this creek for almost 3 miles, crossing it a few times in the process. Most of the time, it acts exactly like you would expect a mountain creek to: it tumbles noisly over a bunch of rocks and stuff. But shortly after the junction (of the trails for Stuart and Colchuck Lakes), you get to a very calm stretch, where it looks to have a nice, sandy bed, with even a bunch of moss growing here and there. This was fall, I’m not sure quite what happens in the spring when all the snow starts melting, as it doesn’t look like there’s really anywhere for a bunch of extra water to go. Hmm, maybe I’ll have to come back and check it out. The water here is COLD though – I think this is the drainage of Colchuck Lake, which consists of glacial meltwater. (Well, I’m assuming that’s true (the drainage of Colchuck Lake part), I don’t actually know.)
Anyway, I hope all of these fall color pictures I’ve been posting has inspired you to get out and see some color near you, wherever that is. (and yes, I’m deliberately discriminating against any potential southern-hemisphere readers with that remark – Northern Hemisphere Rules!!!) Around Seattle, there is supposed to be heavy rains (and even snow!) in the mountains this weekend, so I’ll probably be chilling out around the city. But, if you’re somewhere else, you should get outside! And take some pictures! And tell me where they are! Because I want to see them!
Okay, that’s it for this week, enjoy the weekend!
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 lens. 1/125s, f/10.0, ISO 400. Focal length: 21mm.
Popularity: 9%
October 4, 2010 – Larches near Maple Pass
Posted by Dave in Fall Color, Mountains, Picture of the Day, Washington State on October 4, 2010
Larches near Maple Pass
Monday, October 4, 2010
http://davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=2029
Hey everyone. I hope your weekend was as amazingly awesome as mine. But I doubt it was. Sorry.
I took advantage of our second consecutive nice-weather-Saturday to head up to North Cascades National Park. I picked out the Maple Pass Loop trail, and omg omg omg it was fantastic. The trail guide suggested that there’d be some good views, but WOW. Definitely in the running for the most incredible trail I’ve ever hiked. Stupendous views nearly the entire length of the trail. And it wasn’t even that much of a butt kicker. (7.2 miles, 2000 vertical feet – enough to make you feel like you got some exercise, but it definitely won’t kill you.) And the color. Oh my god the color. I figured some of the bushes and such would be turning nicely, but I had no idea that it would be to that degree. And the larches. Holy effing crap, the larches. Based on past experience, I figured the larches were still a couple weeks away. But no, they were right at the peak. So that was a totally unanticipated bonus, as if the rest of the trail wasn’t amazing enough already. If you were hoping to get out to see some larches this year, DO IT NOW! They may not last too much longer. If you can take off during the week, I absolutely encourage you to do so, you’re running out of time this year to see color like this!
I suppose I should mention: larches? Yeah, they’re these pine trees, you see. But unlike just about every other kind of pine tree, they actually turn in the fall and drop their needles. You’re looking at larches in today’s picture. They turn sort of an aspen-like gold, and when the sunlight hits them just right, it’s downright glorious. Especially when you’re wandering around in a high-alpine wonderland in a sea of golden glow. Oh man, it’s a sight to see. And this is a great trail to see it. You start out at around 4900 feet, and you top out just under 7000. It’s a relatively easy way to get up to the high country, my kind of hike.
You’ll definitely be seeing more from this hike over the coming weeks/months. I’m just getting started going through the pics, although I’ve still got to go through most of the pics from my other hikes this summer too, so, umm, it may be awhile. But it’ll be worth the wait!
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 lens. 1/200s, f/7.1, ISO 200. Focal length: 31mm.
Popularity: 10%
September 23, 2010 – Merritt Lake Trail
Posted by Dave in Fall Color, Picture of the Day, Washington State on September 23, 2010
Merritt Lake Trail
Thursday, September 23, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1147
So, as promised, here’s a shot of some fall color, to officially welcome autumn! Well, it wasn’t really promised per se, it was more sort of vaguely hinted at. But that’s as good as a promise in my book! (Probably explains why I’m habitually disappointed by everyone around me.)
This picture of course comes from my favorite fall-color hike: the Merritt Lake Trail, which is along Highway 2 a little ways east of Stevens Pass. If there are any east-coasters reading this that find themselves stranded here in the Pacific Northwest and missing the colors found in the sea of deciduous trees out there, they should totally check this trail out. At least the first couple miles of it anyway. Most of the forest out here is of course coniferous, which means you don’t get any fall color. But you can find pockets that are spectacular. Specifically, there’s a lot of color in the lowlands, there tends to be a lot of oaks and such along rivers in the mountains, and here and there you’ll find random pockets of color like along this trail. Also, the little bushes and such at higher elevations tend to have some nice color displays, but you have to work a little bit more to get to those.
As far as when to go, that depends on your target. The high country is probably showing some really nice color *right now*, and potentially for the next couple weeks. The mid-country (like this trail) shows some really nice color in early/mid October usually (this picture was taken on October 11 last year, although the year before it wasn’t quite this far along that early), and the lowlands tend to peak around the end of October, maybe into the beginning of November. It’s of course tough to know how things are looking up there until you’re actually out there, so it can be a real bummer if you guess wrong, and aim too high or low. (Yeah, been there, believe me – last year in fact, I thought it was still high-country time, so I did a hike up at Mt. Rainier, but instead of seeing any fall color I ended up just hiking around in 3-6 inches of snow the whole day. Still awesome in its own way, but not quite what I had in mind.) I’m actually super curious to see what’s going on this year. Since the weather’s been so atypical all summer long, I have no clue when all the different colors will come out. They’re predicting about a day and a half of decent weather this weekend though, so I’m hopefully going to find out. My absolute fear is that this nice weather will land too soon, and nothing will be changing yet. We’ll see.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8 lens. 1/250s, f/5.0, ISO 100. Focal length: 37mm.
Popularity: 14%
July 29, 2010 – Mediocre Image Thursday
Posted by Dave in Colorado, Fall Color, Picture of the Day on July 29, 2010
Fall color along Gold Camp Road
Thursday, July 29, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=681
Hey everyone! I’m going to start a new weekly feature here at Dave’s Picture of the Day. Every Thursday, I’m going to post a picture that’s totally, absolutely, horrendously mediocre. This is of course different from every other day because on Thursdays I’ll actually be calling them out as such. Exciting! I’ve got a ton of images that are mostly okay, as in they’re mostly in focus and such, but they just… don’t quite do it for me. They just aren’t quite interesting enough, or whatever.
So, today we’re going to kick it all off with this one! This was taken along Gold Camp Road, which is a dirt road that takes you from Colorado Springs out to Cripple Creek. Or, the other way around, if that’s your thing. There’s of course also a highway route that’s longer but much faster, but that one is not included in today’s picture. Only one route at a time, that’s what I always say. Why does it get the dubious honor of being the first image selected for mediocre-image-Thursday? Meh, I dunno. It’s got some nice elements, the nice bright yellow tree, all the detail in it. But the tree is sort of awkwardly placed. And the background isn’t really that interesting. It’s not a total train-wreck though, it definitely reminds me of when I was there, which can be a useful thing, if you’re trying to help yourself remember when you were somewhere. But it doesn’t really do a good job of reminding *you* when I was there, because you weren’t there.
Stay tuned, next week’s Thursday special will be even more not awesome!
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel XT, Canon 18-55mm kit lens. 1/125s, f/5.6, ISO 100. Focal length: 21mm.
Popularity: 18%
July 8, 2010 – Aspen Leaves
Posted by Dave in Colorado, Fall Color, Picture of the Day on July 8, 2010
Aspen Leaves
Thursday, July 8, 2010
http://davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=674
Another late/short post today. Sorry about that! These are aspen leaves in the fall, in Colorado.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel XT, Quantaray 70-300mm lens. 1/320s, f/9.0, ISO 100. Focal length: 183mm.
Popularity: 14%
July 2, 2010 – Skagit Valley Tulip Festival
Posted by Dave in Flowers, Picture of the Day, Washington State on July 2, 2010
Skagit Valley Tulip Festival
Friday, July 2, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1470
Umm, is anybody actually there? I figure by waiting until late in the afternoon on the Friday before a holiday weekend, I’ve already lost my entire U.S. audience. Well, whatever, they don’t know what they’re missing. Me and the rest of you guys can do without them.
Here’s another picture from this year’s Skagit Valley Tulip Festival. I found myself playing around with the boundary between tulips of two different colors. Some shots came out pretty well, others, not so much. I found that, in general, I was happiest with those where the very last row of the tulips of the color in front were in focus. I definitely played around with other focus points, and some of them definitely worked out okay, but “in general” (with big air-quotes), this is what tended to work the best. (Other things I tried were: focusing somewhere near the middle of the color in the foreground, focusing at the extreme front, and focusing on the closer flowers in the color that was further away – similar to the idea of focusing on the back of the front color, but definitely different.)
For this picture in particular, I was using my really old Quantaray telephoto lens. To review, that’s the first lens I ever bought to go with a digital camera. It’s passable, but it’s definitely not the best lens I’ve ever seen. But this all comes back to the idea that it’s really hard to find a “really good” telephoto lens that isn’t tremendously huge and doesn’t weigh several pounds. Obviously, there are those huge Canon lenses, the white-ish ones, that are all metal, and are a foot and a half long and like 6 inches in diameter. Those things are fantastic. But a) they’re not anything that resembles cheap, and 2) they’re HUGE, so the idea of taking them hiking is laughable. And recently I saw a reasonably-sized Canon lens that got decent reviews, but it was I think close to 1000 dollars, which is well more than I want to pay for a lens in that range. So this one isn’t that great, but any of the reasonably-priced, reasonably-sized alternatives aren’t quite enough of an improvement to justify the price. With the caveat that, I actually DID replace it recently, with the Canon 55-250, which also got what I’d call “reasonably” (I’m loving that word today) good reviews, and was in the realm of decently affordable. After using it for awhile, it’s.. fine. It’s not blowing me away, but it’s got image stabilization which is nice, so I guess it’ll do for now.
In other news, some random, totally awesome guy with fantastic taste put little old me in the list of his 5 favorite blogs. Neat!
Have a great holiday everyone. Or, if you’re not American, have a great Friday and Saturday, and at least a passable Sunday!
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Quantaray 70-300mm lens. 1/800s, f/7.1, ISO 100. Focal length: 248mm.
Popularity: 14%
June 10, 2010 – Yellow Flower
Posted by Dave in Flowers, Picture of the Day on June 10, 2010
Yellow flower
Thursday, June 10, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=941
Hey guys. Quick (and late) post today. This is some kind of yellow flower that I found in the Washington Park Arboretum here in Seattle awhile ago. Not much else to say about it really. So, I’ll stop there.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel XT, Tamron 28-300mm VC lens. 1/320s, f/5.6, ISO 200. Focal length: 154mm.
Popularity: 12%