Share this:

~

~

Yesterday, we learned the first lesson of How To Hide If You’re A Moose. Since our friend’s technique wasn’t very effective, he decided to try a new tactic – hiding behind a big pile of road sand.

I hated to tell the poor guy that it still wasn’t working very well. The antlers were a sure giveaway.

~

(Note: In all seriousness, we were just tracking the moose’s activity from a safe distance as he wandered around the location, browsing and looking at these two-legged creatures with idle curiosity. All moose images were taken with a 300mm lens.)

~

500px | Google+ | Follow on Twitter | Galleries & Prints

Share this:

~

While sweltering in the heat and humidity of summers in NC, I sometimes go back through my library of images to remind myself of what autumn in New England is like: Cool, serene, colorful, playful, usually clear, sometimes moist, always gorgeous.

One day in 2010, the weather was socked in, making summit attempts pointless. Really… why work that hard in order to see nothing? So, we decided to hike up to Arethusa Falls in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Along the way, we descended to Bemis Brook Falls, a worthy side trip.

During wet weather, you have to be very careful with your footing on these rocks. The algae can make them very slippery. Don’t ask me how I know this. 🙂

You can see a different view of these falls in portrait orientation here, if you’d like.

Share this:

The Drift

~
Some people trick out their cars or motorcycles. Others sink thousands into landscaping. Me? I like to dress out the kayak, mostly with safety bling and sandals. (The boat is a 2000 Perception Eclipse, Kevlar, composite bulkheads, a little over 17 feet. Susan has a similar version, but a bit smaller. And firecracker red.)

The other day – mid-November, mind you – the weather was forecast to be almost 80F, so we felt it was our responsibility to go out for a nice, long paddle trip. This spot is near Hammocks Beach State Park and Bear Island, one of our favorite destinations. Bear Island is separated from the mainland by a few miles, with a network of creeks flowing through rich marshlands, filled with Great Herons, Egrets, Pelicans, and a host of other shorebirds.

We worked our way upwind during the morning, with a nice wind-driven coast back to the landing in the afternoon — just the way it should be. Late in the afternoon, not wanting it to end too quickly, we beached up to take in the last warm rays of the setting sun.

~

This is a single-exposure image. I used it to test out several new product versions in the world of Photoshop Plug-Ins. (I have to wonder if these product uprgades were released just in time for Christmas?)

Flipping back and forth between Nik Color Efex Pro 4, Topaz Adjust 5, and OnOne Perfect Effects from Perfect Suite 6, I was struck by the architectural similarity between them.

There used to be a time when running a filter would return a single filter result in a layer (the old PhotoTools from OnOne excepted.) Now, in Adjust and Color Efex Pro, we have the ability to stack effects together, adjusting each to taste, without having to continually pop in and out of Photoshop (or Lightroom, or Aperture.) This is clearly a good approach, as all three companies have adopted this model.

Each plug-in set has different features, pre-sets, strengths and weaknesses, of course. Which one is best for your purposes is a matter of taste and convenience. But I must say, all of these companies are pouring on the steam to develop kickazz modules, and we as photographers benefit from that competition.

If there is any drawback to this, it comes from trying to decide which filters you need at a given time. Oh, the horror of too many options. 🙂

500px | Google+ | Follow on Twitter | Galleries

Share this:

All right. So I tonemapped a moose, okay?
~
Click on the image above to see him larger in a new window in the Animals Gallery.
We were concerned as we got toward the end of our trip, as we hadn’t seen a single moose in the two weeks we had been out. One morning, as we were having coffee and deciding whether to stay or to go, Susan said, “Look left!”

A mother moose and her yearling calf strolled through our campsite, between the truck and our chairs. They were so close that I didn’t dare get up for the camera until they had moved away a bit. We had heard about them frequenting the campground, but we never expected that they’d pay us such a personal visit.

Mother and baby browsed the trees in our site for a while, then moved out onto a grassy area, where the young one frolicked and then sat down for a bit of rest. We (and by then several other photogs) followed them around the camp at a respectful distance for about an hour, providing plenty of opportunity for images.

This image was taken from a single RAW file, tonemapped in Photomatix Pro 4. Although I did take a handheld bracket set, he moved just enough to cause ghosting, and none of the current HDR programs produced an acceptable result.

After using Imagenomic’s Noiseware to knock back some background noise, I used NIK Color Efex Pro filters to bring the eye toward the yearling, rather than risking getting lost in all the colorful foliage. This was done with the Darken/Lighten Center filter, and then dark Vignette knocked back to about 50% opacity.