Scenes from a Colorado overflight

Posted on 23 April, 2016 by Eric

We recently did a bit of family travel — on our way from Denver to Phoenix, we were fortunate enough to have relatively clear skies and a late afternoon flight. Perfect for some aerial twilight photography of various spots in Colorado and the four corners region of the U.S.

First up for you, Colorado Springs (top of frame) seen over the snow covered Rampart Reservoir, not far west of town.

Colorado Springs is one of those places I normally see while driving through (in this case, on I-25) — from that perspective, the mountains form a wall to the west of the city. But from above, the fact that the mountains are essentially a (tall) rumpled plateau is much more evident.

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Spirits of the Ancestors

Posted on 8 March, 2016 by Eric

A muted, somewhat ghostly shot for you — from Upper Antelope Canyon in Arizona:

A few things to note if you want to visit either Upper or Lower Antelope Canyon for photography:

Only the upper canyon has nice, wide alcoves like this; also, it’s easier for people with mobility issues to move in, thanks to its relatively-wide sandy floor.
You need to move fast (and get a little assistance from your guide) to get a shot of an alcove that doesn’t have other people in it — this is particularly true for the upper canyon.
It helps to visit the upper canyon in the winter — you can see light rays in various places in Summer, and since this is well-publicized, the place is even more crowded then.
The upper canyon has a two-way pedestrian flow (as opposed to the lower canyon, which has an entrance on one end and an exit on the other), so there can be jostling as people try to go their separate ways.

The Super Blood Moon

Posted on 4 October, 2015 by Eric

I don’t know why it took me so long to post it, but here’s my favorite among the shots I took of last Sunday’s supermoon lunar eclipse (near the deepest part of the eclipse):

We didn’t have time to run off anywhere for a unique local point of interest in the frame, I shot this straight off the deck over our garage. Still, I like it — even with (maybe because of) the traces of clouds below the moon. The clouds swept through just after the eclipse started, and I was afraid they’d ruin the whole show, but they moved out just in time.

Thor’s Hammer

Posted on 5 August, 2015 by Eric

A particularly photogenic “hoodoo,” Thor’s Hammer is one of the marquis sights at Bryce Canyon National Park, in Utah:

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Just fast enough

Posted on 20 June, 2015 by Eric

Dinosaur National Monument includes a very nice driving tour of some historic sites — including ancient petroglyphs. I was hiking along a short trail to see one of the petroglyph sites, when I came around a corner and came face-to-face with this little guy:

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Indoor peak

Posted on 3 May, 2015 by Eric

On our trip to Iceland this January, we got to see a new perspective on a subject we’ve had earlier experiences with — lava tubes. Formed when lava flows crusted over and subsequently drained, we’ve walked through some in Hawaii — but never previously seen one in a colder clime.

So this is what happens near the Arctic Circle where there’s a lava tube “skylight” (localized collapse of the tube’s ceiling). Continue reading →

The Olympus 40-150mm f/2.8 lens for butterfly photography — a user experience review

Posted on 16 February, 2015 by Eric

Some months back I purchased an Olympus 40-150mm f/2.8 lens (officially, the M. Zuiko Digital ED 40-150mm F2.8 Pro lens) and MC-14 1.4x teleconverter for my E-M1 body. I’d given them some exercise on a road trip previously, but when an opportunity came up for a “Tripod Session” at a local butterfly pavilion, I thought I could give them a real workout on the facility’s residents.

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Convoluted

Posted on 13 January, 2015 by Eric

An HDR view from Upper Antelope Canyon, near Page (Arizona), converted to black and white:

I’ll be posting a longer comparison of Upper to Lower Antelope Canyon at a later date. For now, let’s just say that a walk through the Upper Canyon is a crowded experience — even in the “off-season,” even on a “Photo Tour.” So taking shots facing the sky is a good plan. In any case, the canyon is a unique experience, and always a reliable source of geological abstracts.

The many faces of Church Rock

Posted on 4 January, 2015 by Eric

Over the holidays, my family took an old-school road trip down to Arizona to visit relatives. Along the way, we came across an interesting geological feature that I’d never even heard of before — an old, eroded bit of volcanic material called Church Rock:

Located 10 miles east of Kayenta, Church Rock (nicknamed after its supposed resemblance to a cathedral from some angles) is part of a whole string of interesting geological features in this part of the country. On the far horizon, you can see the chisel-shaped tip of Agathla Peak, in Monument Valley. I think the line-up of features makes a good composition, although something like a 16:9 crop would reduce the impact of the foreground nicely.

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Aspen turning — some post processing experimentation

Posted on 26 September, 2014 by Eric

Recently, Topaz Software released the latest in their line of plugin and post processing software — Impression. The idea is that this software (which you can run stand-alone, or as a Photoshop plugin) can turn a photograph into something resembling a painting. And you can choose from approximations to any of a number of painting styles, with lots of things to tweak. It’s available at a discount through the end of the month, so I thought I should download it and a trial code and give it a spin.

My raw material was this shot of aspen trees turning — I took it last weekend down in the San Juan mountains thinking it’d make nice wallpaper for my various gadgets. Starting off with one of Impression’s “Van Gogh” presets and tweaking a bit, I rendered the original into this:

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