As a mountain I have tremendous presence.  I like being respected and inspiring, but did you ever want to go off by yourself and just chill out for a while?  Obviously I can chill; I just can’t do it out.  I can’t go anywhere without someone asking, “Aren’t you . . .”

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I’ll have to take it back.  I don’t know what I was thinking when I bought a see-through dress.  I’m just not that kind of shrub.  I’ll have to wear the white evening gown to the Deciduous Ball this evening.

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Oh, it’s going to be so close!  If I can land on the mailbox, I’ll have a starring role in this production and not just be one of the thousands of extras.

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I’m in trouble now.  It’s getting late and it’s snowing hard.  She told me to meet her at the feeder at 4:30, but I must have tuned her out when she said what feeder.  When she starts yelling at me, I’ll use my standard defense: “Yes, Dear, but did you tell me when I was listening?“

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As the Sun, I do the best landscape lighting in the entire solar system.  Spring, summer, and fall are the seasons of my best work, while in winter I don’t have much to work with unless it snows.  Lighting the results of an ice storm, however, gives me a rare chance for a masterpiece.  I’ve submitted a photo of this to a National Geographic competition.  I can make things very difficult for them if I don’t win.

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A blurred piece of farm equipment beyond the barbed wire fence.

Hiding ~

If you read this dear, which I doubt you will today…..but maybe tomorrow, I’m thinking about you. Hope you ALL have a great Tuesday! It is Tuesday, right? ♥♥♥

Is there anything more beautiful than a snow-covered pine?  I’m speaking categorically, of course, the category being trees.  I don’t want to muddy the waters by comparisons to a beautiful painting or an exquisite piece of music.  And we’d get into a real conundrum if we throw in abstract concepts such as “love” or “loyalty.”  Let’s keep this simple, OK?  Just tell me I’m gorgeous.

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Hey, Urnie, it’s Benchly.  I have a question that maybe you can answer.  Why do they call it a “blanket” of snow.  I’m freezing.

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THEY’VE DONE IT AGAIN!  They didn’t put my cover on before the first snow, so instead of being a respectable, hard-working patio table, I’m starting off 2013 looking like a silly outdoor cake stand! 

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Strbske Pleso - High Tatras - Slovakia – Pouva

Strbske Pleso Winter

Štrbské pleso is a picturesque mountain lake of glacial origin and a top tourist destination in the High Tatras, Slovakia. It is the second largest glacial lake on the Slovak side of the High Tatras, after Hincovo pleso. Maximum depth is 20 meters. It is on the municipal lands of the village of Štrba, after which Štrbské pleso (“Lake Štrba”) is now named. The word pleso (“tarn”) is applied only to mountain lakes. The locals used to call it “the puddle” or “pond” (mláka) in the past.

It is the second largest glacial lake on the Slovak side of the High Tatras, after Hincovo pleso to which it loses by 0.8 acres (3,200 m2). It is fed by underground springs and has no visible outflow stream. Its surface remains frozen for around 155 days per year.

Foggy Morning – Pehorka River Moscow – Sergey Rumyantsev

What if I drew a dead nature painting in June?

see also: http://dieblumenkohlrezepte.wordpress.com/frozen/

I tried to approach the owl today – hoping to get a better photograph. It’s completely open here, so I have little to no cover. I take a few steps, stop, point and click. The distance between us gradually decreases after the third repetition. Until this point the owl watches me but remains still. I notice the owl ruffle it’s feathers ever so slightly. I read the cue – too late -  it takes flight. Graceful, effortless and silent, large wings extended, the owl disappears behind a small abandoned house. It has flown to a tree a little further from me – but not far. It’s windy, cold and the batteries in the camera are dead. I reload the spare batteries I’m carrying; with gloves off my fingers are numb. A north wind is blowing, I’m cold and decide to walk home. After only a few steps I turn to see the owl back in the previous tree – looking at me. I laugh out loud. It is a game, all too easy for the owl.

Some who read this may wonder why I find the owl fascinating. Picture an expansive, frozen landscape where signs of life are scarce. A large solitary owl appears one day and no matter how harsh the weather, it steadfastly sits, watches and waits. The owl and I have no means of communication, however we are both aware of each other. We are alive in this place, at this time. I’m grateful to witness this beautiful creature.  There is something in the owl’s gaze that holds me.

Here are a few of the photographs I captured while hiking the mountain.

Don’t forget to check out my web page at UniqueCaptures.com

I jumped on the computer and took a look to see what I could find on Google Earth. If you are a landscape photographer and have not used google to scout out your shooting location I will advise that you start. It’s a good starting point to find a location and check the sunrise, lighting angle, time of light contact. I took a look over the Carmi Mountain and found two locations that I thought would be good shoot locations. 5:19 in the truck and heading down the road to check out my two google locations.

As I was traveling to the small reservoir I noticed that the temperature had dropped to -14c and had to turn off the heat and open the windows to allow my equipment to equalize. I was maybe a little early. Sunrise was happening at 7:00am today and I was about 25 minutes early (thankfully) and was shocked at how cold it was once I got out of the truck! I walked along the blocked off service road in snow that was about 14” deep. I will admit that I did not walk very far. I thought that the water would be in liquid form and I could be able to get a sunrise and reflection on the lake. I was not happy with the shoot location and knew that if I stayed I would be disappointed. The following 2 shots are not converted to black and white. It was just a blahhhhh location. (I will go back in 2 months)

Within 5 minutes I had gladly hopped back into the truck and was off to the second location. It only took maybe 10 minutes and I was at there. Before I even stopped the truck I know I was going to get a few workable sots. I still had 15+/- minutes before the official sunrise. I was pumped about the amount of color in the sky and wished I had more light for my first shot but that’s just the luck part of landscape photography. (light or color but rarely both)

Before the light was right

As the sun climbed up the bright colors dried up and the clouds became less interesting.  I started to search out an alternative to the hopeful sunrise. As much as I’m ready for the snow to bugger off and spring to arrive I had a fun time trudging around in the snow. I spotted an interesting triangular shaped outcropping of rock and headed down toward a possible shoot location. I quickly found myself in snow around 30” deep. I had stopped too assess the situation and saw a little outcropping of rocks that were fully exposed over the hillside. Sadly I chose to capture the rocks and turned back. I’ve put the triangle rocks in my notebook and will have a future update when it’s safe to access the location.

Rocks rocks rocks

While walking back to the truck I came upon a natural clump of rocks and sticks. I noticed that the sky was offering up a little color and took advantage. I took three shots and stacked them to capture a full depth of field. It worked out well but I wish I had made five shots. (I may head back tomorrow before the race)

Rocks and sticks

This final shot will be adding to my collection. The colorful detail and amazing striations cut throughout the rock in contrast to the muted blank snow makes for an interesting and captivating photograph.

Rocks in snow

I’m looking forward to comments and any questions. If you liked this post please help me out and click share below.

(wicked chicken wraps for anyone curious

I had the alarm set for 6:10am. Well …at 6:10 and 15 seconds I was getting the subtle nudge in the rib cage telling me to wake up. ya ya ya SNOOZE… 6:15 BUZZZZZZZ & I spring to life and get dressed in layer knowing that I was going to get some great shots in the cold. Yes, layers. I have a new understanding of layer in this cold. I does not take much of a hike when you have on a t-shirt, a couple long sleeve sweaters and a Carhartt winter coat to start to melt. It’s cold as heck at my front porch but that can change quickly. Anyhow…… you are here for the photos and not my ramble’n on.

Functioning on less than 4 hours was going to make the morning a little tougher. Tim’s Coffee in hand I headed out and arrive at the first parking turn in at Yellow Lake. I already had my shooting location picked out and was not even thinking about stopping at this spot but the setting moon over the hillside had me think I should snag a quick one before continuing down the road.

Predawn surprise

I took a three shots of the moon setting and was off again heading for the opposite end of the lake. I knew where I wanted to be at sunrise and had time. I was a tick early and knew that I had about 40 minutes before the sun would actually start to touch down in the valley. At the far end of the lake I was not happy with the location and knew that I would need to move to capture the best shot at this time of year. (I will return to the far end later in the year)  The moon was still cool but that’s not what I came out here to shoot….now what? My shot looking back over the lake was not going to cut it and clearly not what I had hoped for…..

Far end of Yellow Lake

So what the heck do I have for choices. Move on to another location all together or find a location near this spot that I can get a good shot from.  Driving to another location did not sound like a good plan at all. I knew what I had to do and I will tell you all right now I WAS NOT FRICKEN HAPPY ABOUT IT AT ALL! I do not like being on a frozen lake! For those of you that don’t know, Yellow lake is a well-known ice fishing location for the guys that like fishing all year round. I am not one of those guys!! Standing on the ice make my guts churn and freaks the !@#$ me out. My mind starts to run wild and I feel panic setting in. ….. this shot is from the middle of the lake…. I hope you enjoy it
Please remember this is shot in the dark, before sunrise!

Yellow Moon Setting (Link goes to Flicker for bigger view)

I hung out for a bit to capture one without moon. The neat thing was that the further down the moon went the greater the gathering of clouds. This one and the following shot are just moments before run rise.

Cotton candy in them there hills

Yellow Lake Sunrise (Link goes to Flicker for bigger view)

So I got my shots from the middle of the lake  and I’m getting off the damn ice right fricken quick.

….ahhhh that’s better.

The image to the left was a nice surprise after getting to the shore and had me thinking that the far end might not have been as bad a shot at I thought. I will never know…..

I’m sitting here typing away and realize that it’s 10:15 and I need to spend some time with Sharie before we go off to dreamland.

So that means I will share one last image with you but this is where the story ends…. In a few days I will tell ya about the adventures of Summerland. I tried a new style of picture and the results are positive. This one it very cool and the image off flicker does no justice….

Sunny Mountain Morning (Link goes to Flicker for bigger view)

Drop me a comment below and let me know if you like the picture and story. Find me on facebook here: http://on.fb.me/photosbysh

-S-

It’s not the time to go out and get the shot. Heck no, that is the fun part. I could do it all day from morning to-night. I would have a lot of poorly lit shots but I would still be shooting. It’s the downloading to the computer, the review of each and every photo. I look at every square centimeter of the photo at 1:1 scale. (Full size) I’m looking for dust in the shot or any part of the image that will stop me from keeping it. I have been told I’m too picky and could keep many more of the photos. Maybe…. I don’t know?

It would be fun to hook up with a photographer that is in this area and have a shooting partner. I’ve seen this on other peoples blog and it might be interesting and educational. Perhaps I might find that I should continue to shoot alone.

I want to share the following pic that I shot on Nov 23 when it was cold as heck and I jumped out for a morning of winter shooting. As stated before, I love the black and white shots hope that someone out there appreciates them too.

I crawled out of bed this yesterday with the hopes of traveling toward Peachland and capturing the sunrise over Penticton from Antler beach. I have a bunch of awesome photos of the sunrise and will post them in a few days. With sunrise at 7:50 I had hours to burn before anyone would be up at home so I snuck into Hardee Falls to see if the falls were frozen. The falls did have some ice but for the most part the water was flowing. The fresh snow made for some dramatic contrast and knew I was looking at the great black and white and just had to find the angle. I shot this one in color and planned to do the B&W conversion with photoshop cs5 software later.

Below is the original shot in color and labeled as #1. The conversion to B&W required no fiddling and would have been perfectly happy. However, my sweetheart looked over my shoulder while I had the color file open and told me she loved the shot and would like to see it in our living room. It figures… she likes it in color. (enough so to add in our living room:-)

So the final image of #3 has a little color kept at the bottom. I removed most of the blue from the color portion to blend the foreground snow covered rocks with the black and white area. In addition I bumped up the saturation in the still water area to enhance the color effect. This is a new technique for me and the results are interesting. I have a larger version below. This print will be available in our gallery or online up to 42″ tall.

Yes dear... a little color just for you

A few month back I woke up really darn early and felt the need to head out and try to capture a few shots. I don’t know what made me wake before the sun or even why I felt the need to run out into the -17c weather but I’m glad I did. I will admit that I was excited to play with my new Canon 5d m2 but I could have stayed inside and shot picture of anything to learn the camera settings. I was the only person walking around Okanagan Lake that morning. There was a little bit of wind but not to bad…. ya right, it was frick’n cold!!

While shooting around the boat launch a bearded guy walked past me. Normally I would not have noticed anything but he was the only other person outside in this deep freeze. He walked past maybe 5 or so steps and then came back and told me that the ice buildup was really cool over by the Japanese gardens. Yip you guessed it. I finished my shot and headed off to see the cool ice buildup. I don’t believe I found what he saw. I got there and looked around for a bit but there really did not seem to be much that I wanted to shoot. I did however see that the marina looked interesting and headed down that way to capture a cool shot of the breakwater covered in a 1″ thick layer of ice.

I can recall standing there and looking out over the lake and thinking it was like a small piece of heaven.

You’re going deaf, Maple.  I didn’t say, “We had a NICE storm.”  I said, “We had an ICE storm!”

[Click on photo for 600x800 view. Scroll down Home Page for more photos!]

We finally were on our way.  There are only a few paved roads in Ulgi and outside town every road is a dirt road.  The roads were not too bad but with a fresh layer of snow and ice we only travelled at about 40-50 kph (25-35 mph).  As we climbed the road away from Ulgi, the mountains came up around us and were beautifully speckled in white snow.

About a 1/2 hour drive out of town we came to a quarantine check point.  Inside the small booth were some policemen and some health officials who examined our border permit and asked some medical questions to make sure that we were not carrying H1N1 flu virus.  After a brief stop and nature call, we were once again on our way.  I took the opportunity to shoot a pic of our Scooby-Doo mobile with the light smog of Ulgi in the background valley.

Even with the heater on, my feet were cold.  The knock off boots I bought were not insulating my feet well enough.  Later I remedied this problem by buying some Mongolian made leather snow boots.  As cold as it was inside the truck, I was amazed to see people walking to and from their flocks or farm houses.

I was very impressed with the striking colors; the contrast from the red or brown mountains, the white snow, the dried yellow grass, and grey, blue, green, and red rocks.  The entire car ride was a feast of color for the eyes.  As good as the photos may look, they did not come close to how beautiful the scenery looked to the naked eye.  And then there were the animals; yaks, cows, camels, sheep, goats, and horses.  The animals added a nice contrast to the color view and were entertaining to watch – especially the sheep as they ran for cover as we drove by:

This video has been moved to: http://www.scotttraveler.com/2009/11/08/drive-to-altai-village/

Most of the streams and lakes were partially frozen adding a beautiful look to the semi-Winter landscape.  Some of the mountains were red and others were brown, it seemed that the colors changed about every 10 miles.  I tried to capture photos that showed the wonderful color contrasts.

About 1/2 way through our journey I saw my first Mongolian horse rider.  He looked like a cowboy riding across Wyoming.

We passed herd after herd of sheep and goats…

Here, we had just cleared the mountain pass and began driving down the south side.

On the south side of the mountains surrounding Ulgi we were treated to a beautiful river view for 30 or 40 miles.  The roads were bumpy and rough, we never went too fast, especially in the snowy & icy conditions.

We spotted a lone motorcycle coming towards us; it was the first people we had seen in 2 hours.  I was surprised to see that the person on the back of the motorcycle was carrying a satellite dish on his back.

We passed one Kazakh village, it was hard to believe how people could live in such a remote area.  Water is drawn from a common well and solar power cells and (car) batteries are common.

We crossed dozens of bridges as the road crisscrossed the river in the river valley.  This was the largest of the bridges and Bataar called it the “Golden Gate Bridge.”

As we neared closer to Altai Village, some of the rock formations turned a deep marble blue and were a beautiful color contrast to the yellowing grass in the river valley.

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