05-18-09 Incipience, Too

By Scott Shephard

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Incipience means "beginning to happen or develop." When you live in a state like South Dakota, where spring comes late, there is something very special about buds and flowers that are about to bloom. In this case, we are looking at the white flowering crab apple tree right outside our front door. Blooms in this phase are ephemeral - you may find them in the morning, leave and return later to find that they have flowered. This says something about the transitions we and our families make in life, too, doesn't it?

Canon 5DII 1/250s f/2.8 ISO400 100mm

05-15-09 Incipience

By Scott Shephard

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I wandered out into the yard and found these hostas just beginning to unfurl their green and white leaves.

Canon 5DII 1/125s f/3.5 ISO400 100mm

05-10-09 Lunar Eclipse

By Scott Shephard

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The moon looks like a crescent moon but it is actually a lunar eclipse. My wife and I had driven east of Watertown to find a clear view of the night sky. By the time the moon was partially eclipsed, it had grown fairly dark. Thus, in this shot I am using an ISO setting that I tend to avoid. I had taken a few shots of the moon but then drove to a place where I could get something interesting in the foreground. The snow capped trees were perfect.

Canon 5D 1/80s f/6.3 ISO1000 195mm

05-09-09 Green Abstraction

This is close-up of one of the many plants growing in the back yard of the house we stayed at on the Big Island in 2006.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License

05-07-09 A Perfect Sunday Afternoon

To say that the Missouri River dams in South Dakota have changed the face of the river is an understatement. In the attempt to tame the river and tap its potential for irrigation and power, towns and burial burial sites were submerged and the original landscape of the "real" river was lost forever.

But just below the dams, I imagine that the River looks as close to what it might have looked like before the US Army Corps of Engineers brought in their heavy equipment. I also think that what you are seeing in this photo isn't significantly different from what the Lewis and Clark Expedition might have seen in 1803, when they made their way up-river.

They would have been blessed, as I was, to experience the quite calm of a Sunday afternoon on the Missouri River. View on Panoramio to see its geographical setting.

Canon 5DII 1/400s f/13.0 ISO250 45mm

05-06-09 Missouri River Bluffs

Though you can't see the Missouri River in this shot, you would if you walked up the hill you see in the background. This particular area is near the famous "Al's Oasis" restaurant in Central South Dakota. The evening before this picture was taken stormy weather moved through. But the morning dawned clear and bright.

View on Panoramio Compare to "A Different Season"

Canon 5DII 1/80s f/13.0 ISO320 82mm

05-02-09 Starfish Cactus - Hawaii

This photo was taken with a macro lens, which allows the camera to get within inches of the subject. The actual cactus is hard to see in this photo and the flower itself is less than 1" across. When my son, Jon, who lives in Hawaii, saw the photo, he said I was lucky to get this photo since they don't bloom very often. I wish I hadn't cut the tips off the ends of the star - I need to go back to Hawaii to get it right!

Canon 5D 1/30s f/10.0 ISO250 100mm

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License

05-01-09 Japanese Garden

This serene lake is part of a beautiful garden outside of Kyoto, Japan. We visited Japan in 2004 and as I browsed through photos I had taken, I had the reaction I often have when viewing older digital photos: I want to go back and re-photograph the areas we visited. But this desire isn't because I have a better camera or a better lens, but because I think I have a little better eye and also because I'm sure I missed some great shots.

I have many strong memories of Japan but one of the oddest involves the camera I was traveling with - a Canon 1D Mark II, which was considered a state-of-the-art dslr in 2004. The Japanese are gracious and friendly people but many were especially friendly when they saw my camera. They would walk up to me and, though they couldn't speak my language, would point to my camera, smile and shake their head in an affirmative way. The Japanese love quality electronics - especially electronics made in Japan.

Canon 1DII 1/160s f/6.3 ISO400 115mm

04-28-09 Mysterious Path

By Scott Shephard

IMG_5323 POTD

Here's one of the 75,000 photos that I can distinctly remember taking. And it is, like many of my photos, a bit of an accident. I had been taking photos along Iron Creek in the Black Hills and was walking back to my truck. There had been a brief rain shower, which left the vegetation wet and shiny. And then the sun came out and almost as an afterthought I took a picture or two of the trail looking back towards the sun.

Without the sun, there would be no bright highlight on the trail and the little pine trees and the birch trees wouldn't be rimmed by back lighting. In the viewfinder, I didn't see this - it was only when I viewed the photo on the computer screen that I saw how interesting the lighting made this picture.

Discolosure: this photo is enhanced with a Photoshop filter called "Midnight." Altered reality? This isn't photojournalism - it's an art form and I guess you'd called "Midnight" "artistic license."

Canon 5D 1/30s f/6.3 ISO125 60mm

04-26-09 Fog and Tree

This was a marginal day for "fun" photography because it was raining an cold. But I had felt obligated to get a few more fall shots before driving back to the warmth of our cabin. Heading home, I passed this almost barren oak tree with a misty backdrop and stopped to take a few pictures through the half-opened window of my truck.

Canon 5D 1/200s f/2.8 ISO400 160mm (Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L IS)

04-25-09 Lakeside Path - Croatia

One of the more photogenic places I have been in Europe is a national park in Croatia called Plitvice Lakes. This park consists of 16 lakes of various sizes connected by cascading waterfalls. Because of the high calcium content of the water in the lakes, the lake bottoms are milky white and the water is a milky blue-green.

In this photo one of the many winding paths leads through a tunnel of trees along the shoreline of one of the lakes . My friend and I started our park tour very early and we almost had the park to ourselves. Two hours later, the paths were crawling with tourists and, as I've thought before, I felt that Europe would be a lot more pleasant if it weren't for the tourists. But wait! I'm a tourist, too, aren't I?

Canon 5D 1/50s f/4.0 ISO500 105mm

04-23-09 Snow Melt

It has been a wet winter in the Black Hills, which has left the reservoirs full and the creeks running high. I normally take a few photos at Iron Creek near our cabin when I am staying in the Hills. But when I drove to my favorite photo location on Iron Creek, I found that the creek was really too high for me to find a good vantage point from which to photograph. So instead I went looking for another creek.

This photo was taken at the Grizzly Bear camp ground near Mt. Rushmore. In summer this creek is usually just a gurgling brook. The day I visited warm weather and the ensuing snow melt left it running full. If you wonder how the water is made to look white, the answer is: a slow shutter speed. In this case the shutter was left open for 8 seconds.

Canon 5DII 8s f/22.0 ISO100 60mm (Canon 24-105mm f/4.0L)