Another View

I think this is the third year I have photographed this lilly and this morning when I took my tripod and camera out to the garden, my goal was to try to see this beautiful plant in a way I hadn't seen it before.I have said before that photographers have the power to define reality by framing the field of view in ways that the human eye and brain don't. Thus, we can show the "big picture" in a way that makes it interesting and we can move in close to show things that people wouldn't normally look at. This photo is an example of this, I think.When I took this photo, I stopped looking at the whole flower and instead looked at its parts, its lines and it colors. I also looked at how these parts related to the background. To me an important compositional element is the way the edges of the leaves define the green space in the middle.Is it a good photo? I'm not sure that I could ever answer that question about one of my pictures. All I know is that I feel I met my goal of giving people a new way to look at the stargazer lilly.

One Good Tern. . .

. . . deserves another, as the saying goes.The birds in this photo are least terns, whose nesting habitat, according to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, "is found . . . on sandy beaches along the southern coasts of the United States and up the major river systems far into the interior of the continent."Certainly, Lake Oahe counts as "far into the interior", though they also nest along the Missouri River as far north and west as Montana. On Lake Oahe, they can be found standing along remote shorelines, floating peacefully on the water or resting on the rubber tire breakwaters at Spring Creek. Occasionally, their rest is interrupted by sailor/photographers who like to motor close to the tires just to watch the birds take flight.Lewis and Clark observed these birds and wrote about them in their journals. They even took two specimens for their collection. The birds were dead, of course, though I guess you could say the same about Lewis and Clark these days. . . .Living least terns go south in the winter, along with other South Dakota snowbirds. Where do they go? Mexico and South Padre Island are possibilities. But not Phoenix or Sun City.

Another Sunrise

The sun comes up every day, of course. In my life, there have been close to 21,000 sunrises and sunsets. On a small fraction of those 21,000 days I have been out with my camera. And on those rare days that I have my camera, it is rarer still to have the luck of good timing and photogenic skies.But this was one one of those mornings.

Not From Around Here

Here's a thought: this bird is related to the common sparrows that are plentiful in South Dakota. The evolutionary difference between this colorful bird and a sparrow is the environment their ancestors developed in. In the case of the sparrow, there is plenty of brown.In the case of this Mexican bird, though, the tropics have much more color, such as Hawaiian shirts and colorful bikinis. It's all about blending in . . .

I'm Back From Therapy

The prescription was a week of sailing on Lake Oahe and I gladly complied. My ailment? Nothing really, given that I have a good life.But being on my boat for a week is my meager excuse for ignoring my "Photo A Day" blog. I should have called it "A Photo Once and A While."(Thanks, Alexis, for scolding me into action.)Oh, and what you are looking at is birds in flight. And, as astute observers might notice, I have applied my favorite new Photoshop process, which is top secret for the time being.[smugbuy gallery="http://scottshephardphoto.smugmug.com/Fine-Art-Photography/Fine-Art/21122937_fHW9Lh"]

The Forest Primeval

This was taken early in the morning on the day we left beautiful Lake Bohinj in Slovenia. It was damp and quiet when I stepped out of the car to take this photo and the only sounds were or a few birds who were already up and working. And the drip of night rain from the branches and leaves of the trees.

Purple & Green

I haven't posted a flower photo for a while so here you go. . .

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.

Sunrise - July 4, 2011 (Looking West)

Generally, the western sky isn't what gets our attention at sunrise. But on this morning, from one of my favorite locations in South the Dakota, what I saw when I looked west was worth capturing.If you knew what to look for in this photo, you would be able to find Harney Peak, which is the highest peak in the US east of the Rocky Mountains. Mount Rushmore is also visible on the far right.I'll show you the view east tomorrow.

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

A Miniature Forest

I was walking away from another flower shoot when I noticed the way the early sunlight was bathing this "grove" of incipient lillies. And so I had to take a few photos. The dew, incidentally, is real - I didn't not have to spray it on.

Third In An Informal Series

This is another tulip shot, this time in my neighbor's yard. I love the beautiful deep purple of these flowers.Here's the first one I posted a few days ago.And here's the other one.