Kitchen sink, huh?

My 60 pound Lab was so scared of the wind he decided to jump on the kitchen counter. I was hoping he would have done the dishes while he was up there!

Weekend

Snow

Trees

Took a Road trip to Utah this weekend. This is a shot from Duck Creek. I took a lot of Panoramas in Bryce, I will be posting those soon.

Hey doll!

Dolls vs. BBQ

This project started out nice and pretty then it got a little nutty. My favorite is the dolls-ka-bob!

Pinhole Photography Day

Sunday is Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day. Pinhole cameras are really cool and have nearly limitless depth of field.

Does anybody have a darkroom anymore?

Handheld Pano

I was sitting on the wall at Zabriskie Point and decided to try a handheld panorama. This is a Photoshop stitch of nine pictures. It encompasses a view of around 200 degrees.

I imported the raw files into the photomerge feature and let it do its thing. This is my first panorama and I'm impressed with the ease of the process. After the import I only did normal photo editing and cropping. The merge didn't seem to have any problem with parallax distortion.

Interesting, Blogspot reduced the image from 5223 x 800 to 1600 x 245.

Death Valley Wildflowers - 2010

I have finally gotten to the wildflowers! The whole point of this trip to Death Valley.

I love when there are big blooms in the valley. Areas that are normally just dirt and rock are covered in color. It is a sight to behold. I need to work on my closeup and macro photography but this tour started in Titus Canyon.


It seems I wasn't the only one looking at the wildflowers.



As I passed by Ubehebe Crater on my way to Racetrack Playa the ground was carpeted in purple. These flowers were low to the ground and very small. The flowers were about a quarter inch in diameter. That's a lot of blossoms to cover so much ground.




In the same area the cactus were also in bloom. They always put out a spectacular flower.



The area around Badwater is covered in yellow.


I will survive!

This lonely flower had laid claim to its own piece of Death Valley. Just look at the ground around the plant and you can see what most people see when the visit the park. There is nothing else growing near this survior.


I have no idea what this odd little plant is, besides being another survivor.


The predominate color in the valley was yellow. Red, orange, white and purple were a rare find and very striking when spotted.




Here is an interesting plant. The leaves felt rubbery and moist. I only saw a few of them groing along a short strech of road on the way up to Dante's Peak.






The Sun begins to dip below the mountains at the end of my adventure.


It was a wonderful two days in the desert.

Critters

On the way through Titus Canyon I ran into this ornery critter. It was stretched out across the road sunning and I tried to coax it out of harms way. This only made it mad and it coiled up and started hissing.

Anybody know what type of snake this is?

(Nikon D60, ISO 110, 70 mm, f/5.6, 1/500 sec)
(Nikon D60, ISO 200, 2`0 mm, f/5.6, 1/800 sec)
Later I ran into a rather fat Desert Igauna that liked to pose for the camera.

(Nikon D60, ISO 200, 210 mm, f/5.6, 1/1000 sec)
(Nikon D60, ISO 200, 210 mm, f/5.6, 1/1250 sec)
The pupfish of Salt Creek seemed to be thriving. (If it can be considered thriving when your entire habitat consists of a single, small creek.) The males were vigorously defending the better nesting sites in the shallow water.

(Nikon D60, ISO 200, 70 mm, f/5.6, 1/500 sec)
(Nikon D60, ISO 200, 210 mm, f/5.6, 1/800 sec)
Finally on Dante's Peek I ran into a horned lizard that mugged for the camera. I didn't have my long lens with me and was surprised when it let me get about two feet away for this shot. Enough was enough when the next camera showed up and the lizard skittered away into the nearby shrubs.

(Nikon D60, ISO 200, 70 mm, f/5, 1/400 sec)
It was a good weekend in Death Valley and I haven't even gotten to the wildflowers yet. :^)

Fire Pit

A Day at Death Valley