Cloudy Sky

Clouds
(Canon 1D mark III, 70-200mm lens)

It's been storming on and off for several days now and is expected to continue through the end of the weekend.

With all the moisture in the ground we should see skies like this most of July.

Boxley Valley

Shack in Boxley Valley
(Canon 1D Mark III, 300mm lens)

I went on a scouting drive through Harrison, south on 43, east on 16, then north on scenic highway 7 back to Harrison. The weather was rainy but the drive was still incredible. Several times along the route the views were as if I was flying by in an airplane.

Highway 43 just south of Ponca enters Boxley Valley. The valley contains several nineteenth century buildings and is included in the National Historic Register.

The valley is also home to a herd of about 500 elk that graze along the Buffalo National River. To my knowledge it is the only elk herd in Arkansas. At the elk information station the ranger told me they were looking into the possibility of splitting the herd with some going to the Ouachita mountains.

Hyundai Sunset Final Image

Hyundai Sunset HDR
(Canon 5d, 24-105mm lens, Photomatiks HDR)

After playing with the Photomatix demo on a few of my HDR photos I purchased the bundled version from HDRSoft.

I also reprocessed a print-ready version of the Hyundai Sunset photograph taken several nights ago. I feel it more closely matches what I saw that evening. If you compare it to the previous post I think you will appreciate the difference.

Dixie the Doxy!

Delightful doxy shots of daffy Dixie that adoring Debbie desires from down under!

Enjoy - or should I say G-Day!

Rabbit Hunting

Well the Canon 1D Mark III arrived today. Thank you Faith for an awesome Fathers Day gift!

We took the dogs out to do a little rabbit hunting. Needless to say, the rabbit is doing fine but the dogs are tired.

Lake Superior Rocks!

Lake Superior Rocks
(Canon 5d, 24mm lens)

Here is a landscape crop of the "Lake Superior Rocks!" photograph with enough resolution to make it suitable for desktop wallpaper.

Enjoy!

Post a comment if you use it.

Bunchberry Ground Cover

Bunchberry Detail
(Canon 5d, 24-105mm lens)

These bunchberry flowers covered large areas of underbrush almost everywhere I went along the north coast of Lake Superior. At first glance they reminded me of dogwood blossoms. In fact, they are in the dogwood family and produce a bright red, edible berry later in the summer.

I thought the broken light in this patch of blooms made them especially artistic.

Lake Superior Shots added to Online Gallery

The Lake Superior photographs from my trip last week have been added to the gallery site.

Click here to view the Lake Superior Portfolio or here to view the entire gallery site.

Great Sunsets

Hyundai Dealership HDR
(Canon 5d, 24-105mm lens, Photomatiks HDR)

Great sunsets like this never seem to happen while we are travelling! I'm sure that is the curse of every landscape photographer. Full time photographers spend as much as 9 months of the year in the field so their chances of catching a great sunset in a beautiful location are much greater than us part timers.

Could you imaging this sunset at the Tetons or Eastern Sierra Mountains? It would have even been spectacular at Lake Superior where I was last week. Well, I was not in any of those locations this evening. This Hyundai dealership just opened directly north of our office building and I couldn't resist getting some kind of photograph with this sunset. If I give them a print do you think they will give me a car? :) I have a version with our office building, but the angle was not as pleasing as this shot.

This image is a High Dynamic Range (HDR) composite of three different pictures assembled with a demo version of Photomatix. It seems to be much easier to get realistic HDR images with this tool than the standard Photoshop HDR tools so I may purchase a copy. You can download a demo version from the HDR Soft website.

Zoe Elizabeth Cooley

(Steven Thetford Photography)

Shameless gloating over my granddaughter Zoe Elizabeth Cooley - and parents of course!

Sunset on Split Rock

Sunset on Split Rock
(Canon 5d, 24-105mm lens, HDR)

Made it back home to Arkansas. Enjoy a final sunset photograph from Split Rock State Park.

Superior Beach

Rock Detail - Superior Beach
(Canon 5d, 24mm tse lens)

Superior Beach Cove
(Canon 5d, 24mm tse lens)

The sign on the trail said Superior Beach but there was no sand. On one end the pebbles were so tiny it felt like walking on sand. The further I walked around the small cove the larger the pebbles got until they were about the size of basketballs. To bad it hadn't been raining, with all the different colored rocks they would have looked awesome if the whole cove was wet.

I'm headed home today, the quick trip to Minnesota was great fun. The North Shore Drive is very beautiful. Next time I'll drag someone with me so we can explore the canoe wilderness.

In addition to some great scenery, I saw a lot of wildlife. I did not have time to photograph most, but here is the list:

1. Deer (several with fawns)
   
2. Moose
3. Mink
4. Beaver
5. Loon
6. Grey Wolf
7. Red Fox

A Camping We Will Go...

Logistically it didn't work out for me to enter the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. You really need two people because you have to carry the canoe and all your stuff between the lakes in the wilderness. I decided I would just take the canoe to the Superior National Forest where the lakes were vehicle accessible.

Since it was a two hour drive from where the RV is parked I decided to camp out.

Oh Brother!!! It has been a while since I have been camping in a tent. Things have changed a little since then:

1. The bugs have had a few generations to multiply. I started putting up the tent (thank goodness it was still light) and the mosquitoes swarmed me immediately. Faith went with me to get a bunch of bug repellent clothes before she left. I doused everything else with bug spray; otherwise I might have fled the area.
   
2. Tents have improved a lot! I pulled the thing out of its bag and it was like the alien machines in War of The Worlds with Tom Cruise. Metal tentacles went all over the place then quickly snapped together to make a backbone for the tent. No strings, thanks for helping me pick this out Liz!
3. The air mattress isn't an air mattress any more. It is this self-expanding thermal pad that is about as thick as a beach towel. I probably needed two or three of these things. Thanks for helping me pick that out Liz :(
4. The bug repellent clothes really work. Congress should pass a law that all outdoor clothes be bug repellent. For all the critters hovering around I didn't get a single bite, chigger or tick.
   

I was giving myself all kinds of reasons to pack this stuff back up and head for the comfortable RV. I hung around and paddled the whole length of the lake in my canoe. It was awesome; at the other end of the lake it was secluded and very beautiful. There was a single pair of Loons swimming around that area of the lake. It was the first time I heard their call in the wild.

On the way back to my campsite I paddled next to a Beaver for about 300 yards. I didn't know this, but when they get ready to swim under water they slap the water with their tail. I guess it gives them leverage for the dive but the loud slap was surprise.

No alarm clock needed. The birds started jamming at 4am, long before sunrise.

Shovel Point

View From Shovel Point
(Canon 5d, 24-105mm lens)

The time to Shovel Point took a little less than estimated so even though I left a little late there was plenty of time. Traveling at 3:30 in the morning there is not much traffic to slow you down. Perfectly clear skies again, but it works in this shot. The warm sunrise light makes this image seem almost surreal.

I do research before I go on a trip, it helps to see what others have done and makes it easier to find great locations. I sometimes try to re-create some of the better shots I see during my research. It is amazing how much you can learn about composition and technique when you see what others have done to make a location photograph very dramatically.

The inspiration for this photograph came from a book by Greg Ryan and Sally Beyer called "Minnesota - Simply Beautiful".

Scouting Shovel Point

Shovel Point HDR
(Canon 5d, 24mm tse lens)

I scouted Shovel Point for a dawn shoot. It is a 45 minute drive from where I am camped and another 45 minute hike. It starts to get light at 4:30 so I need to leave by 3, good luck with that! Once I take some photographs here tomorrow I will head to Ely, MN and see about canoing in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness for a few days. If that doesn't seem practical I will just canoe in one or two of the lakes north of Ely to see if I can scope some wildlife photographs.

Todays image is a High Dynamic Range or HDR photograph taken while I was scouting this location. There can be such a large difference between the light in the sky and the objects on the ground that my camera is unable to capture it all. HDR is a technique where you take two or more pictures with different exposures and combine them into one that is properly exposed. HDR images can be tricky to work with, but I think this one looks very natural.

Split Rock Lighthouse

Here are a few of the photographs taken this evening at the Split Rock Lighthouse state park.

The lightouse was lit at sundown and I didn't think anything about it until someone told me they only light it on special occasions like the anniversary of the sinking of the Edmond Fitzgerald.

Canon 2X Teleconverter

Moose in Cottontails
(Canon 1d Mk II, 500mm lens)

Moose in Cottontails
(Canon 1d Mk II, 500mm lens, 2X Teleconverter)

I saw this moose in a bog full of cottontails on the Gunflint trail (highway 12) in northern Minnesota. The crop size is exactly the same and shows how much more reach the 2X teleconverter gives you.

There are some down sides to using the teleconverter such as a little softer image and loss of two stops of light. These downsides are more than welcome when you just don't have enough lens to get the shot you want. In wildlife shooting it can mean the difference between getting a keeper shot and a bunch of throw aways because you just can't get close enough.

Pacific Grove

Pacific Sunset
(canon 5d, 17-40mm lens, 30 second exposure)

Pacific Grove, California lies between Monterey and Pebble Beach. For some reason all the yards are over-grown with sand plants and the homes are mere shacks compared to those in Pebble Beach. Even though the neighborhood looks a little tacky the homes still cost an arm and a leg. It really demonstrates the value placed on the awesome sunset views.

The dark clouds framing the top of this photograph along with repeating rocks in near silhouette give "Pacific Sunset" a somber mood. Silky smooth water caused by the long exposure kept the surf from becoming a distraction. I walked around about 15 minutes trying to position the camera to separate the rocks so they wouldn't look like one large blob of granite.

On the way to northeastern Minnesota today I stopped at the Mall of America to check out a new gallery by photographer Rodney Lough, Jr. He uses an 8x10 inch piece of film which yields an incredible amount of detail. Check out Rodney's online Wilderness Collections gallery.

Monterey Bay Aquarium

Monterey Harbor at Dawn
(Canon 5d, 24-105mm lens)

School
(Canon 5d, 70-200mm lens)

The Monterey Bay Aquarium is one of the premier aquariums in the country. It is built in a refurbished sardine packing plant on Cannery Row. The rich history of this harbor in downtown Monterey California really adds to the ambiance of the aquarium.

The aquarium features state of the art aquatic displays, an awesome high-tech theater room and several interactive exhibits. The sea otter exhibit alone is worth the time to visit.

In a round shaped room I looked up to see a donut shaped tank circling the cieling full of mackerel continually swimming in a counter-clockwise direction. After several failed shots trying to stop the motion of the mackerel I closed down the aperture for a little longer exposure then panned the camera while the shutter was opened. The photographs trying to stop the swimming fish were total failures, but I like the impressionistic look of this shot.

Fine Art Flower Photography

Wild Daisy and Clover
(Canon 5d camera, 180mm macro lens, aperture f32)

This photograph was inspired by Tony Sweet, one of my photographic heroes. An excellent photographer, teacher and author. His fine art photography series of books are incredible. Check out is work here.

I just finished an online fine art flower photography course taught by Tony and learned several creative techniques and new perspectives that will improve my flower photography. I'll never look at flower gardens or a patch of wild flowers the same since taking the class.

This daisy was growing wild in the weeds at the end of my driveway. The lens was just a few inches away from the daisy while the clover providing some blurred detail in the background was around 20 feet away.

Enough talk - just do it already!

Secret Beach
(Pfeiffer Burns State Park)

Welcome to our blog!


Sooner or later I had to quit making promises and do something so here it is. I'll post new images, travel updates, tips and occasionally include some of the techniques I use.

The California coast south of Monterey is one of those places so beautiful you have a hard time believing it's real. We planned a week there this spring and purchased just about every book published on the place. We were we really excited about all the great photos we were going to shoot.

I didn't spend much time thinking about the weather. After all, weather.com was predicting the perfect weather, even on the day we left for the coast. During the night we arrived, fog rolled in and the place was "socked in" for the first three days. Eventually things started to clear up and we got some decent light towards the end of our trip.

Later this week Faith is off to Australia for a visit. I'll be heading north for some canoing and photography in Minnesota and Michigan's UP.

Thanks for visiting.