Tag Archives: photography

Good Hunting

Coyote on the Hunt

Up late last night so today’s trek got off to a late start. I was quite surprised to see this healthy looking coyote doing his part in the heat of the mid morning sun to keep the prairie dog population under control. I wasn’t very close but my big 400mm Canon brought him in well enough to get a decent image. I wanted to take the time to attach my 1.4x but he was on the move so I figured I had better get while the getting was good! Sure enough, it wasn’t long before I was noticed and the little prairie wolf was putting distance between us in a hurry!

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Elk on the Run

Sangre de Cristo Sunset

Not a huge morning for photography… But it was a fabulous morning for a hike with the big dog. I chose to tackle the high ridge again today because I know there is a herd of buck mule deer up there that have been eluding me for some time now. Unfortunately, today was no different. I was looking hard for the animals when we cleared the top of the ridge but didn’t see any sign that the beasties where there today. All of a sudden from behind a grove of trees I saw the backs of the deer as they high tailed it for the safety of the dense woods with no chance whatsoever of a picture.

It was a beautiful sunrise though, the distant mountains were obscured a bit by smokeMountain Wildflowers and haze but the effect on the nearer mountains created a nice effect. There was also a good crop of wildflowers blooming everywhere, probably what is tempting the mule deer herd so.

Finally as we neared the end of  our trek I noticed a herd of elk in the distance. I had hoped that they would stop and look at me, but they were definitely in a hurry to go somewhere! Seems every time I see elk these days they are on the run. I thought I was being quite stealthy and I don’t think they knew we were there but they were in a hurry

Elk Running in the Colorado High Country

anyway. I suppose they feel quite nervous out in the open and they were just trying to get to the safety of the wilderness as quickly as possible! I did get this shot of three of them going the other way and I’m thinking it has a good chance of being successful in the stock photograph world!

Perhaps I will outsmart the deer tomorrow… in the meantime I’m going to get a good meal in my belly!

Lazy Summer Day

Majestic Snowcapped Sangre de Cristo

Too tired and too hot to go anywhere or do anything major today… So I’m working on pictures from last winter to cool down 🙂 When I do a photo shoot I usually quickly process the very best to print and move on to the next photo shoot. This leaves literally hundreds of images in my queue of work to process. Eventually I have to get back to them and send the more ordinary ones off to stock agencies. Once in a while though, I discover one like this one that somehow slipped through my original editing that deserves a second look 🙂

This one I am uploading as wall art to to my website, I really like the heavy snow on the Sangre de Cristo and the clouds on the horizon. Also there are some clouds or fog drifting over the foothills, filling in the Arkansas River Valley with an awesome looking dreamy layer of mist. I just love looking at the Sangre when they do that!

I will probably get around to hanging some prints on the wall today as well. Anything to stay out of the hot sun outside!

Summer Doe

Cute Doe Mule DeerNot finding much wildlife these days, the sun comes up so early and it is already hot by 8:00 a.m. By this time most of the wildlife has retreated to the cool of the dense forest… and out of view for this photographer! There was one doe today, pausing to enjoy the lush mountain grass which has grown tall and green from all of the rain and snow we’ve had this year. She cast a wary eye in our direction but continued to feed between furtive glances. Each time I waited for her to look up before snapping a picture… pictures of an animal with it’s head in the grass make for a pretty boring subject. I was hoping a few more of the beautiful wildflowers would show brightly, but it is what it is.

Cute Doe Mule Deer

Beautiful Morning in the High Country

Deer in the Rockies

I have to say, it was a spectacular morning in the high country of Colorado today. Sun shining, not too hot, nice breeze 🙂 And the wildlife seemed to like it too, there were quite a few out feeding on the nice green mountain grass… thanks to all the rain we have been getting lately. I think I have heard somewhere recently that they have declared the drought “over” 🙂

Saw a beautiful buck up by the mines but he saw us first and vanished without a trace, with no chance at all for a picture 😦 Also saw this young buck and a doe mule deer that weren’t quite as skittish and then a rare treat with a couple of elk. The elk were on the move so this was the best shot I could get of them traveling in the other direction. At first I thought it was just a couple of cows but now on the computer I can see the lead animal is a big bull elk. Looks like his antlers are coming along nicely for the fall rut… only a couple of months

Deer in the Rockies

away!

The elk were too distant for a print so I haven’t uploaded that one to my website, but the deer can be found in the wildlife gallery as wall art on metal or acrylic sheets, stretched canvas and traditional framing and matting.

Elk Running in the Colorado High Country

Whitewater and a 10 Stop ND Filter

Borrowed a 10 stop ND filter from a buddy for the weekend to shoot the whitewater of the South Platte River in Eleven Mile Canyon again. Set out early in hopes of finding a bounty of wildlife in the canyon before all the people arrived, but came up empty with that effort 😦 The plan was to drive all the way to the end of the canyon in search of wildlife and then try out the ND on the way back down.

Eleven Mile Canyon and the South Platte River

On the way up the canyon I scouted out a few good spots where I thought an ND would work well and hit each one along the return trip. I will say this, using a 10 stop requires a lot of concentration! Fortunately I downloaded a neat little app for my phone the night before called simply “Exposure Calculator”.  To use it I just set my camera to A mode at f8 and ISO 100 to get an exposure reading  and plugged that info into the app as the  base exposure. Then for the new exposure I plugged in the same data and selected 10 as the ND factor and wala, the app gives me my new shutter speed 🙂

I forgot my cable release so in order to successfully execute a long exposure I set my drive mode to two second timer, camera to maunal exposure mode and lens to manual focus at the same focal length and focus as the shot prior to installing the 10 stop. I also switched over to live view mode to lock up the mirror and then took the shots. Playback showed that I indeed got the correct exposure and I could see that the water was smoothed out as expected 🙂

Satisfied that I had captured the scene,  I returned the camera to all the normal modes and continued down the river. Then of course I

Eleven Mile Canyon

repeated this entire process at each location, getting both motion blur and regular images of each spot. Very time consuming and the big dog didn’t appreciate all the standing around the tripod one bit 😦 Don’t think I would have the patience to do this all the time like I see some photographers on YouTube doing. But I do really like these two images and may actually get myself a 10 stop someday!

Of course these images and more are available on my website for purchase as wall art on glossy metal and acrylic sheets, stretched canvas and traditional framing and matting.  Tons of cool gift, household and tech items are also available with a picture, including, apparel, coffee mugs, phone battery chargers, phone cases,  blankets and more! Just click the link to visit the site!

Young Buck Mule Deer

Young Buck in the Colorado Rockies

Pretty uneventful trek this morning, unfortunately I awoke far too late to see much wildlife action. There was this one young buck at the summit though 🙂 Got a few captures before Big Dog noticed him… of course he was on his leash, but one good huff at the sight of the big buck and that was the end of it 😦 Don’t think I’ll bother to make a print of this one… his face was in the shade with the sun shining way too brightly on the background.