David's Images of the Day Photoblog
Views of the land around the world
The leaves on the Japanese maple tree have faded from bright red to brown. Yesterday, some birds found the newly renovated bird bath. They will have to wait until next spring for me to install the solar-powered fountain. The three inquisitive but wary does looked on as I was taking pictures of the statue on the bird bath. Now that it is hunting season, the deer know that they need to stay within 400 feet of a house in order to stay safe.
I looked outside just after waking up to see the eastern sky starting to explode with colors. I ran outside with the first camera I could find with a wide-angle lens to capture the moment. The display didn’t last that long. I was so absorbed viewing the display, and taking pictures that I didn’t notice that an inquisitive young doe walked right up to me. When I finally noticed the deer, I think I was more startled than she was.
Ten years ago, I arrived in Hawaii to attend a photography workshop with Thom Hogan. It was hard to believe the day before I was in Arapaho National Wildlife Refuge in northern Colorado. At that time, I had only been taking pictures with a DSLR camera for just over one year. Soon after getting the camera, I found Thom’s web site which became a very helpful resource as I was learning to use the camera (much more useful than the Nikon manual provided with the camera). I purchased his guides for the D200 (and subsequently the guides for all of the new Nikon cameras I have used. These guides are by far the best resource for understanding the capabilities of the Nikon digital cameras. I saw a note in Thom’s web site that there was a late opening for his Hawaii workshop over Thanksgiving week. I signed up right away since I knew that there was a lot more that I needed to learn to become a better photographer. The first evening in Hawaii, we went down to the beach for sunset. I took these two pictures of boats with the sun setting behind them. Little did I know, it would become a contest between some friends on a Semester at Sea voyage to get images of boats or ships in front of the setting sun.
The sky was clear so I put a couple of cameras out with wide-angle lenses to try to capture some Leonid meteor trails.
Night sky view from the back of the house. Light from the moon lit up the chimney and the newly installed solar panels on the roof. Also some light clouds moved in during the shoot. The north star isn’t exactly due north. Composite of 130 images taken with a Nikon D810a camera and 14-24 mm f/2.8 lens (ISO 200, 14 mm, f/8, 300 sec).
