Sky And Clouds And The Pacific

A black and white from about 36,000 feet of clouds and shadows over the Pacific. Image taken with the iPhone 4 and edited with the tilt/shift generator.

Fencing A River

Unfortunately the image below represents a pretty common sight on many navigable Western rivers wherein the public is allowed yet intimidated and led to believe otherwise. 

 

Abby Grosvenor Art

Here are 3 new pieces of work by Abby Grosvenor which I recently took photos of.  Her work will be shown at Hallway Gallery (http://www.hallwaygallery.com) in Bellevue, Washington.

 

Title:  One On Paper

Dimensions:  36" X 48" (unframed)  Monotype

 

Title:  Lowering Sky

Dimensions:  36" X 48"

 

 

Title:  October Country 2

Dimensions:  18" X 24"

Happy New Year

It was 2 degrees when I took these two shots of bikes hanging from an outside wall. I used an iPhone camera and the tilt/shift generator application.

Winter Smoke

As I write this I realize this is the greatest hiatus I have taken from this blog since I started it in May.  I have still been shooting though and I have been on the river too since I last posted here.  Midges have been pasted to the winter-white snow along the banks of the Wood river.  More than I typically see this time of year.  Highs though are supposed to be in the teens and even colder over the next few days and I suspect the bug activity will become a bit dormant until the warmer winter temps return.

A frequent reader of this blog recently sent me a link to a site called, "OmmWriter."  It's a word processor unlike any other.  I am using it to write this.  I downloaded it and paid for it prior to trying it for free.  I believe, although not entirely certain, that to date it only works on a Mac platform.  The cost is $4.11 and it is certainly worth more than that.  Simply put, it makes me want to write.  www.ommwriter.com

I am a short story reader and have a few favorite collections of stories.  One of which is Anthony Doerr's collection, "The Shell Collector."  To me it's up there with Cheever's entire collection and Tobias Wolff's, "The Night In Question."  In any event, Doerr's new collection, "Memory Wall" is fantastic.  Read it...

Below are a few black and white images captured yesterday as our storm was passing and winds were picking up and peeling snow off trees and ridgetops.  Winter smoke...

 

 

River Rock & Snow & Good Midge Fishing Too

Snow covered river rock and shadows converted to black and white...  and good dry fly fishing on the Wood if you are willing to forsake a day of skiing.  Plenty of midges on the water from roughly 11-2 and fish looking for them as well.  It is worth the trip out there and you are likely to find solitude on a river that is often quite crowded.

 

 

Induce or Deduce? It's What Fishing Is All About.

Generally it starts in the car.  Probably on my way over Trail Creek Summit with a couple of passengers.  We all have coffee and it's a mid-July morning.  The conversation is far from fishing and a word triggers me.  I hear it over an engaged point.  Something about wolf reintroduction and hunting and elk etc.  Someone says they deduced a fact.  And I say with a little grin, "No kidding?  How'd you deduce or induce that?" The two passengers have no idea that this interesting conversation on wolves is about to swiftly convert to an esoteric talk on what exactly is inducing versus deducing. These are often my favorite guide trip moments.  I usually don't know how someone will respond, but I'm curious.  In my rearview mirror I can see a passenger whip out his phone.  He's trying to find the dictionary application.  I tell him to reach under his seat and feel for a soft bound dictionary.  No cell service where we are.

45 minutes later we are pulling into the fishing spot and still highly engaged in the induce vs. deduce conversation.  I love it.  We have all learned something I deduce, and the passenger in my car had no idea when much earlier talking about wolves what kind of crazy conversation he would induce.

 

What I hope to convey is rather than who makes any word choice mistake, it's the conversation about off-the-wall or not often discussed topics that often makes for a better than average day on the water.

 

Here are a few long exposures.  I had a little fun with my headlamp in the first image.  I narrowed the beam on the foreground rock and water...

 

 

 

Winter River Photography

Here's a pano I took of the foot bridge on the Nature Conservancy section of Silver Creek two mornings ago.  It's a 72 mega pixel image.  There were plenty of midges on the water and a few fish taking them off the surface.

 

Low Light

I have been heading out to shoot lately either just before sunrise or after sunset.  The images below were taken after sunset on the Big Wood.  I put on my waders and placed the tripod in the river usually just in front of a small wave or riffle.  I used a 14-24 mm 2.8 lens.  It was a little tough as my lens consistently got splashed from waves.  I found MANY midges on the snowy river bank.  I was in Hailey.  The storm that dropped 13" of new snow has moved on and it's now sunny and about 21 degrees.  The highs all week are supposed to be near 30 which should make for a productive outing to the river if you are considering a little fishing. 

Here's a link to a photographer whose work is really outstanding:  http://www.davidburdeny.com/  David Burdeny is often up at Gilman Contemporary in Ketchum (http://www.gilmancontemporary.com/).

 

 

 

 

 

Moving Water & Falling Snow

So it is snowing again.  At the moment in Hailey it's 20 degrees and about an inch or two of new with 8" to 16" forecast to fall by tomorrow.  Town is still quiet but I cannot imagine that will last long.  The bug activity on the Big Wood River has been fluctuating much like the weather.  On the warmer days there have been enough bugs to get the fish up on the surface.  And on the colder days--highs below 20 degrees--there are better things to do.  If you have the chance to walk over the River Run bridge, take a moment and look upstream and to your right--river left--and watch the shallow water.  There are many fish sitting in 6 to 8 inches of water.  I see that spot as a barometer spot that is very easy to get to and observe.  While I am not likely to fish there, it certainly acts as an indicator as to whether or not fish will be feeding elsewhere on the Wood.

The images below I took this morning and range from 2.5 to 4 second exposures.  It was snowing quite hard when I took these shots on the Big Wood River.  I am hoping to get out tonight if it is still snowing to capture a few more falling snow and moving water shots...

 

 

 

 

A Silver Creek Morning

I shot down to Silver Creek this morning with nothing really in mind other than looking for an image or two.  It was pretty cold.  Around 6 degrees at sunrise.  There are a bunch of Trumpeter Swans on the Creek at the moment and I watched a coyote stalk abot two dozen of them near what I refer to as the East Oxbow.  The coyote was pretty sly as it walked along the bank of Silver Creek and acted as though the Swans were not there.  The thing was though, that it paced back and forth.  The coyote just didn't make eye contact with its quarry.  It was not, however, going to jump in the water and swim after a meal...  I never did see the coyote catch a prize. 

 

 

 

Sledding Day

Here are a few images from a sledding day about a week ago.  I used NIK'S Silver Effex Pro for the black and white conversion.  I have been working on picking a color channel within black and white and lightening or darkening that specific channel.  I worked on the blue channel in the images below...

 

 

 

 

Looking Back And Now

The two images below were both taken last June and for whatever reason slipped through the cracks and never garnered any of my attention.  To me, they both really speak of June on Silver Creek which is not my favorite fishing month there but is certainly the month for which I look forward to the most.  Green.  Ominous clouds.  Ephemeral weather.  Relatively uncrowded.  Cloud-loving and non-clockwork hatches.  Too early in the season for mosquitoes.  Wildflower extravaganza.  Occasional hair raising thunderstorms.

 

As it is, though, now, water is funnelling through the wet snow on my roof and pouring down on to a spring like slush.  It is December; mid-December.  It rained much of the night last night.  Snow is changing to rain and rain is changing to snow like an indecisive child on a run of mind changing furor.  The low tonight is anticipated to be around 10.  The wind will surely pick up.  The soaked ground will freeze and harden unevenly.  Perhaps I'll head out and try and capture a few images...

 

 East Oxbow.  June, 2010

 

Nature Conservancy.  June, 2010