09-27-13 Change of Seasons, Alaska

Yesterday's post is a broader view of what you would see from the Safari Endeavor, the Un-Cruise ship we lived on for our week in Alaska. Today's post shows what you might see if you were lucky enough to move into the apparently dense forest of spruce trees. This photo was not taken on this neat little island but it wasn't taken far from this spot.

Fall in moving in to our part of the world but, as you can see, it arrives even earlier in Alaska, given that this photo was taken in late August. If I paid more attention to our guides and less to my photography, I could tell you the name of this plant, which is apparently one to be avoided because of its serrated leaves. But it's looking pretty photogenic here.

Canon 5DIII 1/125s f/4.5 ISO400 100mm

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06-01-13 Ready To Bloom

For a person who thrives on warm weather and sunshine, June is an important month. The grass is pretty green by now, the days are incredibly long and there is the promise of summer.

The iris pictured here is, of course, a symbol of all of that. . .

05-31-13 Different Seasons

The last time I had pondered my favorite little stone bird, he/she was standing in fallen leaves. On this ocassion it is standing stoicly in fallen flower petals from the same tree.

We have had a cooler than normal spring here in South Dakota and I'm wondering if that is why our flowering crabapple trees were so loaded with blooms. When the flower petals fell, they literally piled up in drifts.

05-21-13 Variations On A Theme

I took several photos of my wife's pink tulips. One was posted yesterday, as you may have noticed. And today I post another version. This one adopts an unusual point of view and but I remove the color. There is something a bit perverse about taking color away from a scene but black and white photographs require/allow us to see things that may be lost in the color versions. Anyway, this one has a bit of a eerie feel to it, if you ask me. But for now, I kind of like it.

05-20-13 Bird's Eye View

I am hung up on flowers, obviously. And I am also once again compelled to comment on the power of the photographer's point of view. The conventional view of flower is from the side and from a short distance. The tulip becomes something quite different when you view it from the top at close range.

This is one of my wife's beautiful flowers, incidentally. I'll admit that I did wander into the neighbor's yard again today. But the pink tulips called me back home. . . .

05-19-13 My Neighbor's Tulips II

Well, here they are: my neighbor's purples tulips Water droplets from morning dew or from a spray bottle? I'll never tell.

Canon 5DIII 1/80s f/7.1 ISO400 100mm

05-14-13 Finally!

I call this post "Finally!" because after what seems like and endless winter and cold spring, it finally feels like summer. And my wife's daffodils are celebrating the occasion by blooming.

This photo, incidentally, started out as a completely different concept. In the failing light of a beautiful day, I noticed the heads of these daffodils bobbing in the gusty wind. And I thought this would be a perfect time to try dragging the shutter, a process that uses camera flash and a fairly slow shutter speed. I took 5 or six using this technique but didn't really like any of them.

So instead, I put the camera as close to the ground as I could and tried to focus on on a single daffodil. After I took the photo, I noticed the camera was seeing a very interesting deep, blue bokeh in the out-of-focus boughs of the a pine tree behind the garden. And so I ended up with this photo. I will probably try the dragging the flash thing another time.

05-01-13 Cathedral

If you were lured to this post because you thought you were going to see a beautiful church, I apologize. But there is something dome-like in these trees that arch over the snow-covered ground and that's what inspired today's title

To be honest, I posted this photo mainly so I could post a link to a short video I made a little bit after I took the picture. So you should watch it.

Where am I? The photo was taken in the "front yard" of our family cabin in the Black Hills of South Dakota. The snow was still falling when I took this and altogether we got between 10 and 12 inches. And it was beautiful. . . The video was filmed with a GoPro Hero 3 stuck to the front of a 4 wheeler. Why is the video black and white? The white balance kept shifting on me. (I'm still learning how to use a GoPro.)

If you go to the YouTube site, you'll be able to watch this is glorious 1080p HD. Look for the gear icon on the bottom right. . .

04-29-13 Rite of Spring

By Scott Shephard

2013 04-29 Rite of Spring by Scott Shephard

I would be the first to say that my crocus photo is nothing to write home to Mom about. But these flowers are significant to me for two reasons: first, they are the first flowers to appear in my wife's garden this spring. And given that we have endured a fairly long winter here in South Dakota, even little yellow flowers are cause for celebration.

The other reason is that this photo is one of about 240 photos of the same subject over a two hour period that I took as part of a time lapse study. This was my first effort at this kind of photography and though I don't know that I have the patience to do it often, I am happy with my first attempt. Here's the exciting YouTube video, soon to go viral, no doubt. Incidentally, the two hours have been compressed into 14 seconds.

This short video is really a composite of over 240 still frames taken over a two hour period. It is my first attempt at a time lapse video.

04-25-13 Whose Woods These Are . . .

Here's another photo from the snowy walk I made with my friend Dennis N. This was taken a little bit before the one from yesterday. And what stopped me in my tracks were Dennis' tracks.

As with almost all of the photos I took on this outing, this is an HDR photo. I think that HDR is one way to preserve detail in snow, which would normally be fairly non-descript in its pure white form.

The title? It's the first line of Frost's famous poem "Stopping By the Woods on a Snowy Evening":

Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village, though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near Between the woods and frozen lake The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake To ask if there is some mistake. The only other sound's the sweep Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.

04-24-13 Ready To Fall (HDR)

When I saw these leaves a couple of days ago on a photo walk in the Norbeck Wildlife Preserves along Iron Creek in the Black Hills, I was intrigued that they had hung on for the whole winter. Most leaves drop in the fall, of course. But these high marks for persistence.

The other intriguing feature is that if you look closely, you can see that tiny buds are starting to form and I'm guessing that is a week or so the old leaves will drop and the new ones will debut. Sadly, I won't be there to witness it, since I live 8 hours away from this scene.

And now for shameless commerce: If you would like to join me this summer is the Black Hills for a Photo Adventures, check this out. But hurry, registration is very limited.

04-03-13 A Good Wind

As the last snow melts and as the temperatures warm into the 50s, is hard not to start thinking of summer. And for me summer equals sailing. And so today I went looking for something that evokes warmer weather. In two more months, maybe I'll be on my boat on amazing Lake Oahe. . .