The Coy Pond

Old car just after sunset

Wildfire using standard 18-55mm lens

Wildfire using zoom lens and 5 second exposure.

My proud star trail photo from last year! This year's attempt was a sad failure. Boo!

Well my goal this year was to improve upon my prized star trail photo from last year (see last photo), but alas it was not to be. I waited every day in the 5 nights that we spent in Bishop in May for an opportunity. Overcast skies and rain ruined my chances then. One of the reasons I wanted to go back this July was for some more chances for star trail photos and I was rewarded on Saturday night (7/18) with the opportunity. But alas I didn’t compose the picture right, and didn’t paint enough light into the photo to light up the car, and it was not to be. Way too dark (I won’t expose you to my miserable result) (And when the shutter is open for an hour, and drains down your battery, you don’t get a second chance…at least if you want any sleep.)

What we did get was a good glimpse at a wildfire.  Christy and I spotted two fires, one big and one small, caused by lightning strikes as we drove back to my parents home from town. The fact that there is so much open space makes it possible to see a fire from 20 miles away or more. It was fairly surreal to see. That night while waiting for my star trial photo to expose, the big fire was growing before my eyes. I think that I will blame the smoke for ruining my shot, not the fact that it wasn’t properly exposed. The big fire burned 3500 acres I think (or possibly 35000) and took more than a week to put out. The little fire was out very quickly, and probably burned less than one.

Anyway I was happy to get at least one good shot from that fateful night, it just wasn’t the one I expected. I hope you enjoy!

It's dangerous to play Peek-a-Boo with a lobster, but our little boy is fearless

Peek-a-Boo!!

After Peek-a-Boo the little boy makes a funny face for the camera.

"Enough funny business and excitement. Now I am serene."

On July 5th, Christy, Jarrod and I went out to brunch with some friends who were in town who we had not seen in a long time. The brunch was at a beachside restaurant in Malibu. We were early and they were late, and we had to wait a long time to get seated. So what better thing is there to do for a little boy when the pager that we were given was a little lobster…(they also had live lobsters in a tank in the waiting area). Jarrod had some fun waiting for us to get a table, he was a ham posing for us and playing cute games of peek-a-boo. The restaurant had peanuts in the shell that he thankfully ignored. Hope you enjoy a few of the pics.

View of Little Lakes Valley from Rock Creek

Pinecones with mountains in background

Paintbrush with 1st lake in foreground

More paintbrush

2nd Lake with mountains in background

Blue butterfly!

A profile shot

Matilija Poppies are Christy's favorites

Last weekend Christy and I took our last trip out of town before baby Cecily makes her debut. I originally had an entire week off for a large adventure up in the Sierras, but that was before I knew about the little girl’s coming. Anyway the trip morphed into a fun long weekend trip. In May my dad and I took a short hike up into Little Lakes Valley, up above Rock Creek Lake. I decided I wanted to go back on this trip. And was rewarded with some beautiful scenery, though I did not count on all of the mosquitoes. The mosquitoes were so bad, it almost made this hike a liability, especially since I forgot the bug spray. I should have known better since the hike is nicknamed “Mosquito Flat”

Little Lakes Valley is really high, it starts at 10,300 feet and then goes up about 500 feet or so, with the peaks all around at 13,000 feet. So the elevation is high, and spring is late, basically in July. The place bursts with wildflowers during this time. Lots of Penstamon, paintbrush, aster, and a lot of others. Driving up the road to get there I had to pull off a couple of times to take some photos of roadside flowers. Little lakes valley, pretty well describes it. The creek runs up the valley creating many little lakes, separated by small rises and meadows. It’s a pretty amazing place, God touched.

Off the roadside on the way home a caught a view of a whole field of Matilija poppies. Christy loves these flowers. She says they look like fried eggs. They are big and happy. I have only seen them in recently burned areas up in the Sierras. So maybe they are a sign of new life coming back. Anyway I hope you enjoy.

Our little boy loves my new flash

I knew he was special, but I didn't realize how special he was.

I think most of you know that I am a photo geek. So when I dropped my flash at the Oregon zoo a few months ago, and it stopped working,  I was really sad. My birthday was the perfect justification for an upgrade, so I spent a $200 on Ebay for my new flash, and so far it is working perfectly. The first couple of days that I had it,  I started playing with it. Jarrod fell in love with it, and wanted it really badly. He is reaching for it in this picture. When we got our new computer we bought the new Photoshop Elements for playing with photos and neither of us had used it before. Christy has been using photoshop for years, and she saw a lens flare on one of the menus. For you non-photo geeks, a lens flare is generally something that you want to avoid in your photos, since it means a bad reflection is hitting your lens (like the sun reflecting off of a chrome bumper right in your eyes). But the more we played with the lens flare, the funnier it looked. I think it is no surprise that our little boy has been wanting our phone for months. I thought he just wanted to talk to me, but maybe he was trying to “phone home”.

I'm not sure if this is a turtle or a tortoise, but it was big!

The red dragonfly was so much bigger than a normal purple one

All aboard

He almost looks like a fighter plane

This was number 2, the second that I saw on that day

Fluffy and prickly thistles

More thistles

This kind of reminds me of a streetlamp

Big thorns!

This is kind of like barbed wire on top of a fence

These are just some pretty flowers I saw blooming. I don't know their name.

Last Friday I had the day off. In the morning I was on kid patrol, but I wanted to take some photos in the afternoon. The problem of course is writer’s block (or photographer’s block). I couldn’t think of a new place to go that I could get to relatively quick and still be able to take some good shots. I have been struggling with this quite a bit. So I asked Christy, and we didn’t come up with a good answer. So rather reluctantly I headed out with my tripod and camera to El Dorado Park Nature Center. I have been going to El Dorado for over a year and taking photos there. It is some place that I go at least once a month if not twice. It is great, and I’ve gotten some great photos there, but it is so familiar. Last year about at this time I took some photos of thistles, which I thought were an unlikely subject, but ended up being one of my best photos  last year. So  anyway last week I went out and the thistles were out, but I didn’t bring my camera.

I went out with low expectations on Friday, but I was so impressed. On my trip I found not one but two red dragonflies. I saw one of them for the first time in May, but because of our hard drive on our other computer and the transfer process, I lost the photos. The dragonflies are amazingly striking and big. I kept my distance and used a zoom lens that was all the way zoomed at 300 mm. I also happened to see a regular dragonfly and it was about 1/2 to 1/3 the size. Though the length was maybe only 50% bigger.  My trip also involved a close sighting of a Red shouldered hawk (I wasn’t quick enough to get a photo though, booo!!), a large tortoise, a rabbit, another hawk perching up in a tree, and two large blue herons. I got some good shots of the thistles, seen above (and got sunburnt for my trouble). Anyway all told it was my best day at the park in months, and I was a little sad to leave to come home. Hope you enjoy the photos.

Reminds me of a simple bouquet

Lots of explosions! Nice!Patriotic colors!

Looks kind of like a lollipop

This looks like a spider on top of a melting ice cream cone. Maybe?

I could see this as a company logo. Maybe I could sell it?

Saturday of course was the 4th of July, and for most of the day I had to work. Work was alright, but no one likes working on a Saturday, and much less the 4th of July. A few days before the 4th I had an idea of photgraphing fireworks. For some reason I had never  thought about photographing a fireworks show until I got an e-mail this week with tips on how to do this. I thought this was a great idea and nothing that I’ve ever done. Also we live really close (about 1 mile away) from the military base that hosts an annual show.  No hassles or hours waiting to find parking, just a nice walk. It was so much fun. Not only being able to see the show (which was amazing), but capturing it on film added something to my satisfaction. 

For those photo buffs out there, I set my ISO to 200, the aperture to F8 and turned my shutter to bulb mode. The recommendation was to shoot the shots for 5 to 15 seconds depending on  how much you want going on. I put my camera on a tripod and hooked up my remote switch, so that I didn’t have to hold the shutter down  and move the camera while taking the shot. All of the fireworks came up from about the same place so I really didn’t have to move my camera much. I tried a couple of different positions for fun. Anyway it was really easy, and I was amazed at how much fun it was.

I think that firework shows are so cool, and that I forget how cool they are. It’s been a couple of years since I’ve seen one so the “Wow Factor!” was fresh. And it was even more so since I was taking really nice photos (well I think so, hope you do too).

Unfortunately Christy didn’t get to share in the fun! Someone had to stay home with the sleeping boy. But she is hooked on the Twilight books, and for a Saturday night fun, we rented the movie. She enjoyed it and didn’t feel that deprived, especially since she stopped to watch some of the show by stepping outside.

Anyway hope you enjoy!