David's Images of the Day Photoblog
These images of Purple Crocuses Blooming were taken across the street from my home. Weather permitting I will try to get some macro images of the Snow Drops tomorrow. The Daffodils are only a week away from blooming.
After the Thunderstorm. View looking south after a late spring thunderstorm in New Jersey. The sky cleared and there was a view of the moon over a thunderhead being lit up by the setting sun.
Before leaving Green River for Cedar City, I made a stop at the nearby Crystal Geyser. The cold geyser is near an abandoned Air Force missile testing facility, and is right next to the Green River. The geyser is now accessible via a dirt road on Bureau of Land Management land. I was fortunate to arrive this time when the geyser erupted. The geyser is unique in that the water is cold, and powered by carbon dioxide — not heat. The geyser is the result of drilling for gas (petroleum) many years ago. When the place was under Air Force control, the geyser was off-limits for visits. The eruptions are irregular, and you need to be lucky or very patient to see an eruption happen. In this image there is someone meditating while the eruption occurred. The water coming out of the geyser rises over 20 feet in the air — and unlike Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park, the water from Crystal Geyser is cold to the touch. The water is mineral rich, and deposits building the crystalline Travertine terrace as the water flows to the river.
The Purple Crocuses have started blooming across the street. This is a good sign that spring is coming. In order to get a deeper depth of field (DOF) I took several images each with slightly different focus points, and then combined the images using Helicon Focus get the composite image. The focus range was just around the flowers, keeping the background leaves out of focus.
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On the second day of the Page Arizona Workshop with Winston Hall we started with a session in Upper Antelope Canyon. The upper and lower portions of Antelope Canyon are narrow slot canyons on the Navajo reservation near Page Arizona. The Upper canyon is all at ground level and thus easier to enter and exit without needing to climb ladders. The downside for photographers is that more people tour the Upper Canyon. We had a great guide that metered the passage of other tourist giving us time to compose and execute our images. The canyons are favorites for photographers because of the constantly changing light and textures. The canyons can be a challenge to photograph because of the wide range of light levels well beyond the capabilities of digital camera sensors. The light was a bit flatter in the Upper Canyon vs. the Lower Canyon yesterday. As such, I didn’t need to use HDR when processing the images.
