Day... 2?

On NPS 1, in the fall of 2009, DMA and I couldn't make it to the east side of Yellowstone due to a wild fire. So, for this trip, we made it a point to make the Yellowstone Canyon our first destination. All I can say is So.... Beautiful! We arrived at sunset to scout out a spot & started night shooting! The pic below was taken at around 9:30 pm; I thought that I captured airplane trail in the sky, but after taking a closer look, it turns out to actually be a star trail! The cliffside is illuminated by moonlight. Pretty cool, eh? Sunrise was wonderful. It was misty, and cold, and it just felt amazing to be perched so high and be able to watch the canyon walls emerge from the darkness.

Nothing like a nice sunrise, eh? The picture below is my unedited, "before" shot...

... and this is my attempt to make the sunrise pop a bit. Aaaah... thats more like what I remember!

After the night of sleeping in the car & frigid morning, we found some warm coffee. yum.

We continued our journey around the canyon & found some rapids. I, of course, focused on the smallest part of the scene... the spray coming from the crashing water.

Oh, and then I looked up and noticed these glorious sun rays...

By high noon we were on the other side of the canyon... what a difference lighting makes! This view of the falls is so contrasty and sharp compared to dreamy softness of the sunrise.

On NPS 1, we also couldn't make it to the north side of Yellowstone Lake, so, guess where we went next.... yup. Yellowstone Lake. The image below is of the Abyss Pool... or actually, I think it is Black Pool, even though it isn't black. The colors are beyond amazing. Who knew bacteria could be so... pretty?

My memory is a bit fuzzy... I think after this point we headed into West Yellowstone... home of the BEST bison burger (check out Bullwinkles if you are ever in the area!)

Man, I love the NPS trips... looking forward to continuing the edits of my other pics from the trip!

NPS 3: Roadside Tranquility

Day one... packed up the Sentra & hit the open road... Montana bound!

Oh wait... dude, where's my wallet?

In typical lori fashion, I left it in the KFC/Pizza Hut/Whatever-placed-we-stopped-at's bathroom. So, instead of a quick Day One drive to Montana, dma and I spent Day One of NPS 3 backtracking to the Tri-Cities. OH MY!!! Well, we made the best of things & had a nice drive around the Palouse. Or maybe I took these while I was blissfully unaware of my lost wallet when I took these pictures? Or maybe these were taken the *next* day, after my lost wallet was safe & sound? (note to self... stop being so vague & edit in a timely manner, damn it! 7 1/2 months is too long!)

So, anyway, sometime back in August, on the way to Yellowstone for NPS 3, DMA and I stopped at this spot to take some pics. (Thats my little Sentra.... aaaah yeah). I was captivated by these whispy weeds...

Tranquil, yes?

Along the way, we also stopped at Palouse Falls. I took a few pictures of the nearby flora and fauna (insectna?)

We also found a random, side of the road cemetary. We stopped in for a stroll & to pay our respects. The line of trees in the photo below outline the perimeter of the cemetary.

I think it was the *next* day that we made it to Yellowstone. We found a lookout that was a bit overgrown, but had some cool artifacts!! (can you hear the wind whistling? Old West style...)

The picture of the stream below is still in progress. This is what I have so far, but I am a little bit stumped on how I want to edit it. So far, I have only cropped in & removed a few dust spots. Hmmm, we'll see if I stumble upon some inspiration soon!

And our final destination: the Yellowsone Canyon. We arrived just at sunset & ended up car camping in the parking lot. It was cold, bitterly bitterly cold, but the morning sunrise was completly worth it. Hopefully I will be able to edit those soon, too!

Thanks for taking a look! Hope all is well in your neck of the woods ;)

Nighty Night

August... I remember you.

Warm, sunny days, and warm, breezy evenings. The sun set pretty late, but it was just so nice to sit outside and enjoy the view. In preparation for NPS 3, dma and I spent a few nights out startrailing. I discovered that my D200 has pretty crummy battery life. d-ang! As with any learning experience, I had a lot of duds ;) But, the pics below turned out all right. The first one is from Rattlesnake Lake & the others are from an outing somewhere along Highway 2 with both dma AND the butcher. Good times. Good, good times.

thanks for taking a look!

August!

Ok... first round of pics from... August! These from a wonderful, sunny, stoll through the Deception Pass area.

Gulz are staaating to plaaaay

Variations of a Sunset in D major

How DO you capture the beauty of a sunset? Can a picture really bring out the wonder, the vibrant yet soothing colors painted in the sky? How can a photo express the calming breeze and centering, yet forceful crash of the waves? Instead of trying to balance all these elements in one frame, I tried to take a different look at the sunset this evening. This first picture is my starting point, a pretty much straight-on shot of the setting sun. The other pictures are variations of this view... zoomed, unfocused & with some movement.

Alright... one down! Thanks for taking a look & stay tuned for pics from NPS 3: the great adventure to Yellowstone & Glacier National Parks!!!!

Stanwood Surprise

Good news... I think this is my last post of pictures from July. Time for August! yay-yers.

Well, this little spot is located just outside the town of Stanwood, I think it is along the Pioneer Highway. I have seen it quite a few times, and knew that dma would love to explore its crumbly structure. So, while we were up north for the Silvana Fair, we stopped by for a little shoot...

The whole time I was taking pictures, I had visions of how awesome they would be in black & white. Imagine my surprise when, as I was editing them, they just seemed better in color. Interesting. There was one of the entry way did look pretty cool in black & white, and it turned out to be my only black & white from the day. Interesting.

Not a bad summer evening, eh?

Purple Muse

Is it Friday yet??

More importantly, are these pictures really from July?

yep.

I just had *too* much fun this summer, including this little evening stroll around the Seattle Center. DMA and I went there because I heard they were going to re-do the Fun Forest rides... but we were too late! The log ride, the viking ship, the horrible orbitron are GONE!

There were still interesting sights to be seen! Reflections & flowers... my favorites!

Reflections
These are a few variations of the reflection of the Space Needle in the EMP. I love the swirls and twisted patterns.

Purple Muse

aaah, my favorite.

Of all the flowers in the world, something about the hydrangea deeply resonates with me; they are my favorite. They remind me of my great-grandmother and my very early years of childhood. To the six year old me, my great-grandmother's little backyard was a little bit magical. She had hydrangeas, snowballs, bluebells, crumbly old cement sidewalks and money plants (my other favorite... actually, I don't even know if they are called money plants... ok, I just googled it... they are actually called Annual Honesty, and HERE is a link to a fabulous photo on someone's flikr page) (hehe.. maybe I'll use Annual Honesty as the name of my photography company?)

Anyway, my muse for the day was a random lacetop hydrangea plant. This is what it looks like:

And here are my suped up edited, veryvery pretty variations...

Hey, thanks for taking a look at my blog!

In peace,

Lori

Sequim Sunrise

Oh yeah.... more pics from July!

A little bit after dma and I enjoyed the radiant sunset in Sequim, we headed back to the same spot to catch the sunrise. It was a pretty crazy trip... we took a midnight ferry, followed a random road looking for a lake, eventually catching a little bit of sleep in the parking lot of a veterinarian's office. Gotta do what you gotta do!

First Frame

Back in 2008, my friend Cole & I took a photography lesson up on Mt. Ranier with Randall Hodges. One of the insights from that day was to use your first picture of the day as a benchmark. He figures that you can only improve on your first image. I often forget this helpful tip while I am out in the field, but it resonates with me all the time while I am editing. For this post, I figured I would show my "first frame" from the Sequim Sunrise. Its messy, but you can see the simple, natural beauty of the area.

Lens Babe-ya

I really couldn't get a good grasp on the landscape this morning. Not sure why; just wasn't really clicking with me. I completely enjoyed the shoot, and dropped a bunch of frames, but, like my "first frame" they all seemed messy & disorganized to me. disorganized in a blah way. so, I figured I would just bump up the chaos & shoot with my lensbaby. I kinda dig it.

With all those wildflowers in easy proximity, I HAD to take some close-ups!

Doesn't the picture below look a little bit like a monster? It looks like it is taunting you, in French, to try to mess with it! almost like it is saying... I will keeeel you.

So, with only a few winks of sleep what did we do next... head to the Olympic National Park!! The wildflowers were insane here.

I

was

in

heaven.

It didn't take long for us to mutually agree that we were crazy. no sleep. very little food. very, very little water & a hike in the hot summer sun? So, this last pic is one for inspiration... a future hike! (um, once the snow melts, eh?)

Thanks for stopping by & for humoring me with my super old pictures!

Sequim Sunset

This is another round of pictures from last summer. Will I ever catch up on my editing? I *almost* gave up my effort to keep them (mostly) in order, opting instead to concentrate on 2011 pictures. DMA and I are out ALL THE TIME taking pictures (ok, ok, just about every weekend for me!!) and I have adopted a mental "jpeg diet." I try to only take a few pictures while we are out, and have a very discriminating eye. I don't like it. I want the freedom of snapsnap snapsnapsnap "Ooo pretty!" snapsnap "wow" snapsnap snap "sweet." Instead, I am scanning, scanning, scanning, always looking for the "perfect" frame, in order to weed out the junk frames and stay true to my "jpeg diet." The spark is gone. And, when combined with the damp, bitter cold of winter, photography lately has been exhausting for me.

Today, I wondered if it would be better to skip past these old frames? I wondered if I should just start with my glorious New Years Day photos from the Oregon Coast??? I dunno, I just couldn't do it. Is the Virgo in me? The First-Born tendencies? My darned stubborn inner stive for order?

Who knows?

All I know is that these pics were taken in Sequim back in July. I **finally** made the trek out there to see the lavendar fields only to have my dreamy illusions of wide, open rolling fields of purple shattered. Maybe we went to the wrong area of town, but the parts we saw were small & they had a bunch of stupid white tents. oh grr. Oh well... per usual, dma and I made up our own agenda and just wandered. We found a true gem though: a park overlooking the peaceful warm summer sunset.

I selected just a few of my very favorite pictures from this day to edit. The two of the path below are a toss up... I can't decide if I like the wide angle, or the zoomed & cropped version better. its a puzzlement.



I love waves, well, actually just about any moving water. I set up my tripod & took quite a few frames of the wooshing waves below (oh btw, the park was on cliff!). I cropped in & warmed up this frame an itsy bitsy teeny tiny bit.

And, at last, the blazing sun.

What a beautiful day! I can't wait for summer... how 'bout you?