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Storm at the Stage – @ Rob Hanson Photography

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One of our favorite places to spend our vacation time is in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. We drop our tent in a campground located a bit to the right of this frame, and spend as much time as possible hiking the hills.

The weather doesn’t always cooperate.

I know that there’s merit in climbing a mountain in almost any weather, but as the years go by I see less and less sense in spending the day going up, only to not see a thing. I’ll leave that for the younger ones…

When the weather turns foul – as it frequently does in the mountains in autumn – we retreat to a certain spot along the road, where we can sit in the warm truck, watching the clouds rolling over the peaks, while plotting the next day’s adventures… weather permitting.

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Initially, I wasn’t sure what to do with this image as there was no distinct subject in the full frame that came out of the camera. I found that cropping it as a 2:1 panoramic did the trick. HDR from seven exposures +/-1EV, HDR Express, 32 Float, and Photomatix for the base, Nik and OnOne for the embellishments in Photoshop.

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Click on the image to see it larger in a new window on my Animals Gallery.

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Hint: Not what you think.

An amorous bull moose makes advances on a cow near Pinkham Notch, New Hampshire. This is a rather unusual sight, as the autumn rut & breeding usually take place deep in the woods, far away from populated areas.

We actually found this pair in the parking lot of the Pinkham Notch AMC (Appalachian Mountain Club.) I grabbed the camera out of the back of the truck, and followed the pair at a safe distance as they crossed the road into the Lost Pond area. The cow was feeding on the aquatic vegetation, but the bull had other things on his mind. Although he made several attempts, the cow spurned his initial advances, preferring to take him deeper into the woods before mating.  Can’t blame her… by that time, about a dozen vehicles had stopped, which is typical when moose are near the road.

Each of us were willing voyeurs to the event.  What struck me as odd was that right after the bull’s best attempt, a woman dressed in rather garish hiking garb said loudly, “Well! That isn’t the picture I wanted to get!”  Um, lady… If you’re reading this, just what did you expect to happen?

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This image is just about SOOC (straight out of the camera.) While I tried to do some tonemapping on it, nothing was better than the original RAW file. I did a little cropping, sharpening, and then used NIK’s Darken/Lighten Center filter to bring the eye towards the moose, then a bit of NIK’s Vignette Blur filter to knock back some of the foliage on the left.

It was kind of refreshing to stray away from HDR, actually.  I think I’ll try that more often. ;^)