|
|
|
|
Greetings,
Well. Here we are. 2025.
This month: Sydney is one year old; photographing surf; upcoming trip info; and some favorites from 2024. All this and more! Read on.
|
|
Sydney is one year old!
Sydney the labradoodle just turned one. To be honest, I don’t remember our Bailey being so energetic, playful and, painfully affectionate. Syd gets a little excited.
Of course, most of my memories of Bailey come from her grown up years. But I still remember her forest zoomies whenever we went on our walks in the woods. I miss that. And I miss those woods since much of it was clear cut. Sigh.
Syd likes birds (chasing them). She likes the beach (and chasing the birds). She likes the neighbors. And she really likes it when either Tracy or I return from being gone, even if we’ve only been gone to another room for a few minutes.
The first two pictures are from just after Syd joined the family. This last one was on her birthday last week.
|
|
Surf’s up!
You’ve seen those pictures capturing breaking waves or silky shapes swirling around rocks. Generally, those are all taken using longer shutter speeds to capture the movement of water. Maybe it’s a dramatic crashing wave best shown at 1/15 of a second. Or incoming surf at a half second, or receding surf at over one second. Or those ethereal, foggy surface images made with 20 or 30 second, or even longer, shutter speeds.
 Each situation is different and depends greatly on how fast the water is moving and what you’re trying to accomplish. And all of that is controlled by the shutter speed you choose.
To accomplish this, I’m particularly partial to the Maven Filters Dark CPL (Circular Polarizer) filters, which are neutral density filters with a built-in circular polarizer.
Even better, if you stack the Maven Linear Polarizer (LPL) on a Dark CPL or their regular CPL, you end up with a variable neutral density filter that’s relatively thin and doesn’t exhibit the X-shaped artifacts that other variable ND filters do.
Being able to easily fine tune the shutter speed by way of varying the density of the filter rather than needing to compromise by using a smaller aperture opening means I can choose the best aperture for the scene and stick with it.
Jump on over to the Maven site for more information and to buy (affiliate link).
|
|
New Maven products on the way
Speaking of Maven Filters, there are some new and exciting filters and other products on the way. The Phase 3 Kickstarter is coming soon, and I’ll pass that information on to you as soon as I get the go ahead. The Kickstarter is a great way to get these great filters at a reduced price.
|
|
Space still available in upcoming trips
It's close to last call time for the Humpback whales bubble-net feeding tour in Sitka.This one is coming up at the end of March and is a tour full of wildlife excitement and incredible scenery. This tour is limited to five.
I have a few spaces remaining in my Olympic National Park workshop May 13-18. This is a great opportunity for forest, stream, and waterfall photography. We may see wildlife, like Roosevelt Elk. And we'll have plenty of opportunities at seascape photography on the many wild beaches of Olympic. This workshop is limited to just seven.
The Palouse is on many a photographer's bucket list. Graphic landscapes, old barns and buildings, old trucks, the occasional and elusive Palouse moose...These and more await.
A moose you ask? Yep. There are moose in the Palouse. I've seen one on three different occasions. That's three moose in nearly 30 years of visiting the Palouse. That's pretty elusive. But not impossible. I have space in my June 17-22 workshop, limited to just seven. You should join me for this possible moose viewing event.
|
|
Bandon in October
 I'm thinking of setting up a photo tour to Bandon, OR for this October. According to the locals, October produces the best sunsets, and paired with those classic sea stacks, that would be hard to beat.
And there's also Shore Acres State Park and its sandstone cliffs and crashing waves.
I'm thinking of the third or fourth week of October and may even try to combine it with a stop at Silver Falls State Park near Salem.
This trip would be limited to six or seven. Let me know if you'd be interested.
|
|
Faroe Islands 2026
I had to cancel this year's scheduled tour to the Faroe Islands, but I'm going to try again in 2026. This trip would be in late July or early August.
This picturesque archipelago of volcanic islands situated in the North Atlantic Ocean between Iceland and Norway harbors many hidden gems for landscape and nature photography. From lush valleys and striking mountain peaks soaring high above the sea to waterfalls plunging directly from sheer cliffs into the tumultuous ocean below, this rugged and wild region has it all.
This tour will be limited to six people. If there is enough interest, I'll try to schedule a second tour.
As always, let me know if you're interested.
|
|
A few favorites from 2024
It was a busy year on the home front, so I didn’t get out as much to photograph as usual. In 2024 we sold our next-door property to a great couple, Mark and Roz, who will be great neighbors (Mark’s a builder and they’ve just begun building their new house). And because we sold that property, that meant I needed to build a new fence. Fortunately, I got a little help from our new neighbors on that project.
We also got a small RV so I had to create a space to park it, which involved widening our driveway, extending an existing fence, and adding a gate.
And we replaced our deck with composite (thanks again to Mark and Roz who lent their building expertise to that project).
And to top it all off, we added a covered outdoor living space on the deck (thanks again Mark and Roz and my brother Randy for helping out). Whew!! That was a lot, and that was glossing over some of it too.
Anyway, here are a few images I especially liked over the past year (minus the Sydney pictures).
While searching for bubble-net feeding Humpback whales, we often find fishing boats going after herring. These boats are often accompanied by bald eagles.
On Rialto Beach in Olympic National Park. More and more I've been using focus stacking when normal hyperfocal focusing won't do the job.
Also in Olympic National Park, the Ancient Groves Trail late in the afternoon glow. I've been visiting this area more and more over the last few years.
I've photographed color versions of this scene in the Palouse numerous times in the past. But in 2024, I bought the Maven IR720 infrared filter and began experimenting. And the Palouse is a prime place to explore infrared photography.
 Over the Thanksgiving weekend, my wife and I and Sydney the dog stayed at Cape Lookout State Park on the Oregon Coast in our RV.
I made this image using my new iPhone 16 Pro. Up until this time, I had a phone with only one lens. I really like having the wide angle capability because I'm a wide angle kind of guy.
It's not a spectacular image by any means, but it was fun to have a phone camera that will allow me to get my foreground on!
I've photographed this location in daylight many times. And once (before this) at night with limited success due to cloud cover. This year I managed to get back here at night and with a pretty good aurora display to go along with it. I have several versions of this with differing aurora. I still need to process some of them.
Another from Olympic. Ruby Beach, to be specific. I wanted to do something with these rocks and the late light, but those footprints...I usually try to avoid scenes with footprints. But these prints are part of the beach story and fit well with the rocks. At first, it wasn't working for me in the regular 2x3 landscape format. There was just too much "stuff."
Then I reminded myself of what made me like the scene: the rocks and the footprints. So I set the aspect ratio of my Z8 to square, making it possible to eliminate all the stuff that detracted from what I liked.
|
|
|
That's all for now. Hope you all had a great holiday season and that 2025 is good to us all.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
