Sunrise - July 4, 2011 (Looking East)

Any experienced sunrise observer knows that often the most glorious part of the sunrise is what you see just before the sun comes up, especially if clouds are present as they were on this morning. I have found that you have only a few minutes before the clouds loose their red rims from the insipient sun.

Elemental

The Pre-Socratic Greek philosophers spent considerable time pondering the nature of the universe. One, whose name was Empedocles, said simply that everything can be reduced to four elements: air, earth, fire and water.Of all of these, my camera is most often drawn to the latter. Maybe that's why I return again and again to Iron Creek when I am in the Black Hills. I was just out walking along the creek when I found this photo. I figured I had enough of Iron Creek, though it's not often that the rocks are wet and the creek is running high so late in June.Canon 5DII 2.5s f/11.0 ISO200 32mm

Iron Creek

I'm back at Iron Creek again, but this time with my cell phone camera and Instapaper.I made a short video of this place, which you can view here. The video was made with my iPhone and then edited and published (via ATT 3G) with my iPad 2. The movie needs more editing but it is testament to how fairly simple tools allow for creation and publication in the field (or in this case, in the woods).

584 and Counting

Here are some statistics about this blog: Since February, "A Photo A Day" has had 9561 unique hits and 42,119 total hits. On any given day, some of my viewers visit because they know about this blog. But I also get visitors using Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc. to search for things like "flying geese," "amazing flowers," "mycenae," "Thad Titze," "southern most point Hawaii," and "Japanese school girls." Those searches were all charted from yesterday's hits. Every time I look at the search terms that got people to my site, I am humored and mystified. And sometimes chagrinned. (Japanese school girls!!!????). (Thad may be mystified by being subject of a Google search but I'm not. He's going to be famous some day. And here's the post that made my blog.)I have also posted 584 day's worth of photos and that's what got me started on this post on statistics today. Being pretty right brained, I keep no master list of what I have posted. Thus, I rely on memory to keep from repeating myself. I can actually recall almost all of the photos I post, though I often can't remember the specific photo I posted on any given day. My wife, who looks at the photos late in the day, will say "Nice photo today." And I will often say, "What's the photo?"And today I don't know if I have posted this particular photo before. I can tell you that the very first "A Photo A Day" photo was taken from this very spot. I visit this spot as often as I can, both "really" and "virtually." I tend to go alone but today I am taking you. Thanks for coming along.

Magical

This is from a few years ago. The original photo is fairly mundane and though I don't like to manipulate a photo too much with Photoshop affects, I'm guilty of doing it here.

Electric

This is from one of my favorite spots in the Black Hills - Lakota Lake. I have taken other photos of backlit leaves here and I have found that getting to this spot just after the sun comes up gives me the best photo opportunities. In fall, oak leaves are not particularly striking. But with the right light they are much more interesting. Maybe that's true of anything we photograph.

Bambi Twins

It's easy to shoot wildlife photos when the wildlife wanders into your front yard. In this case the front yard is at our cabin in the Black HIlls. They were lured there by the cracked corn that had been thrown on the grass.If you study the spots on the fawns, incidentally, you will discover that the deer are not identical twins, though I'm guessing that human twins wouldn't necessarily have the exact same skin blemishes, would they? Maybe it's the same for deer.

Variations On A Theme

Once, a while back when I thought that I should try to make some money from my photography, I started to make a set of photo greeting cards. This was one of them. I may have posted this aspen grove before but not with the Photoshop filters. Frankly, I use very little "effects" in my photography. I suppose I still think like I'm shooting film and I try to create the effects with the camera.My "card project" is dormant. The aspen grove is flourishing.

Another Try

I've decided that I will try to take a photo of this spot on Iron Creek every year. I probably shouldn't post it here, though, because they all look the same. This shot is a little further upstream from the other Iron Creek shot I posted quite a while ago.Anyway, there was plenty of water coming through the creek on the day I took this. It makes it easier to get the blurred water look that you see in this photo.

Look For the Light

By Scott Shephard

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The one thing I have gotten better at in my photography is looking for the sometimes subtle play of light in a scene. And sometimes the camera sees this much better than I do. I believe that the reason for this is that cameras record contrast better. Contrast is the difference between bright and dark and the human eye's remarkable range helps us ignore these differences.

When I saw this grove of aspen trees near our cabin, I found it interesting. But the camera saw much more than I. These days, I take more photos of things that may at first seem un-photogenic because I know that the camera will help me look more closely.

09-2509 Aspen Trees - Another View

This is the same grove as the previous photo of aspens but a different view and treatment.

08-27-09 Mother and Child

These two were part of a crew of "panhandling jackasses" working the crowd in Custer State Park. Donkeys are not regal animals but how can you not think that this couple isn't photogenic? I like the white hooves of the little one. In a few short years he'll be sticking his hairy muzzle through open car windows and eating Fritos out of tourists' hands. What a life!

Canon 5D 1/200s f/6.3 ISO320 130mm