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The Christmas star! Well, that's what people were calling it, anyway. I don't have a telescope, so I did the best I could with the cameras and lenses that I do have. This was taken the day before the actual conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn; the atmospheric turbulence and surface wind where I was on the day of the conjunction made it impossible to get photos any sharper than this. For the camera folks, this was taken with a Canon M6 Mark II with a Canon 500mm f/4L lens and 2X teleconverter, giving a 1600mm effective focal length. And it's heavily cropped. Only brightness and contrast were adjusted. Happy New Year, y'all! 
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Yes, I'm still alive! I just haven't been online much lately! Photography has taken a back seat the last several months as I spend time with my other hobbies, but I'm finally getting around to going through all the photos that I've taken in the last few years. One memorable event last summer was being a wedding photographer for the first time! While I learned quite a bit in the process, I was pleased with the results - and I think the bride and groom were, too! I plan to post the full album soon, but here's one that I think is fun.  The sand at White Sands National Monument is made of gypsum, giving it an unusually light color. Gypsum crystals don't retain solar energy like typical silica sand does, so it often stays relatively cool, even on hot summer days. On winter days, though, the sun does very little to warm the sand. Add a little moisture from recent precipitation, and it gets super frigid! To avoid filling my shoes with sand during this winter adventure, I opted to go barefoot. I didn't want to miss the rapidly approaching sunset, so I rushed out onto the dunes, hoping that my feet would get used to the numbingly cold sand; they never did. This was one of the more physically painful photos that I've taken in a while, but the sunset was worth it. White Sands National Monument - New Mexico  Rain, rain, go away; I'll take your photo anyway!  After seeing a recent forecast for decent aurora in northern British Columbia, I spent a few hours on Google Maps, searching for a lakeside campground with clear views to the north. The hope was to catch a photograph of the northern lights reflecting on still water. A lot of things had to come together to make that happen, but I figured the adventure was worth it. I selected a few lakes and bumped along some forest service roads until I found the perfect spot. Fortune upon me, I had the place all to myself - except for the mosquitoes and black flies. As the sky darkened, the wind died down to a calm, and the bugs subsided. Only the calls of loons and owls broke the silence. Then the aurora appeared in the northern sky. I took dozens of photos while the lights danced in the sky over the next few hours. As if part of some kind of coordinated light show, some clouds accented the moving lights as I captured this image.  I had this campground all to myself - as I photographed the aurora! Coming soon...  Vancouver is quite the scenic city, despite how frustrating it can be to drive through. I was fortunate enough to stay with some good friends who live in a place with an amazing view of the city skyline. As the brief summer night fell upon the city, the crush of humanity became even more apparent with the twinkling lights filling the windows. Realizing that the rising sun would bring a warm glow to the massive collage of glass and steel buildings, I set an alarm to wake me in time to catch this image, shortly before the city woke up for another long summer day.  I always enjoy cypress trees along the California coast, especially when they line roadways. I was glad to have some cloudcover to soften the lighting for this shot.  Ya see those colors in the sky? That's the boundary between night and day in our atmosphere, also known as the Belt of Venus. It's something I never noticed until I moved to California and started spending time away from the city. It doesn't last long, but in the right conditions, these colors can be quite vibrant and defined around sunrise and sunset. After I woke up in darkness on that frosty morning in the White Mountains of California, I drove up to a spot that offered a mostly unobstructed view of the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. This vista is 9,000 feet above sea level, but the thin air didn't stop me from running up to the view point with a few cameras, trying to catch the earth's shadow before it disappeared for the day. This photo is part of a series that will become digitally stitched into a high-resolution panorama. Stay tuned! For anyone wondering, I did not alter the colors.  |
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