Here are two images I recently took of a woman in Punta Mita, Mexico. She was super guarded at first and was really surprised I wanted to take her picture. The image on the left was the first image I took and the image on the right was the final. I got two completely different expressions...
Craters Of The Moon
We obviously received new snow today... I took advantage of the white and drove out to Craters Of The Moon where I knew I could also find a little black. Winds were at a minimum 25 to 30 mph. I walked a couple of miles as the only road that bisects Craters is closed to cars and is covered in snow. Pretty soon that road will be groomed for Nordic skiing.
In all but one of the images above, I used the channel mixer and dodge and burn brush in Photoshop CS5. I dodged the highlights and burned the darkest tones. That's it. The channel mixer is a fantastic tool as you can modify tones through color. Want to darken a jet-blue sky? Use the blue channel. It's helpful to have a histogram up to make sure your blacks are black and your whites are white as no computer screen tells the truth like a histogram.
Rising Rainbow
Below is an older image I had never touched prior to today. It's of a Silver Creek Rainbow just after a take.
Fly Fishing Photography Prints
Still looking for a great gift for someone or something for yourself? How about a print? I have had many inquiries over the last week or so and have included print prices in this post. All prints are made on archival, museum quality, fine art papers. If you need help selecting a print for someone else, feel free to email me.
Here is a size & price list:
6" X 9" Print: $80.00
10" X 15" Print: $125.00
16" X 24" Print: $220.00
24" X 36" Print: $315.00
Email me at: ndprice@cox.net to order or with any questions. Print prices do not include shipping or sales tax.
Punta Mita, Mexico
Just got back from a trip down to Punta Mita and put together a dozen or so images. Punta Mita is about 45 miles north of Puerto Vallarta and still has the small village charm. We were some of the very few gringos down there. Click on any of the images below to see a larger version.
Bull Moose
This moose was stuck in my back yard last night. Somehow got over the fence but couldn't get out... Anyway, I noticed him by my sliding glass window on the back deck around 6 am. He was surprisingly calm for the predicament he was in. I opened our back gate and a few minutes later he wandered out. The image is after he set himself free.
Nikon D3s & Nikon 35mm ƒ2 lens
Image Details: ƒ2, 1/13th sec, 12,800 iso
Rising Rainbow Big Wood River
Well, The Big Wood River essentially doubled in volume--reaching approx 390 cfs from 180 cfs--and has since dropped back to 251 cfs. Below is another "rising" image taken before the water came up on The Big Wood River.
Nikon D3s and Nikon Micro 105mm lens
Streamers, Storm & Silver Creek
We are in the middle of a relatively warm and super wet storm here. Above 7,000 feet we are expected to get around four feet of snow. Below about 5,700 feet it's been all rain so far and down around Picabo today there was heavy rain for a short period and broken stormy skies for the remainder. Below are images shot today on Silver Creek. It's streamer time down there. Cloudy days are usually better. Today was just OK but the wild skies and weather made up for it. We spent about two hours on the water.
Nikon D3s and Nikon 14-24 ƒ2.8 lens
Rainbow & Foam
Here's a subtle shot of a rainbow cruising through foam on the Big Wood River taken a couple of days ago. Nikon D3s and Nikon 105 Micro lens.
Rainbow Trout Cruising Through Foam On Idaho's Big Wood River
Final Day On The Silver Creek Preserve
Today was the final day of the fishing season upstream of the highway 20 bridge on Silver Creek. That includes the Nature Conservancy section and the Double R reaches. Fishing does stay open downstream of the highway 20 bridge through February. The streamer fishing on this section can be stellar on warmer cloudy days...
A late season rainbow released yesterday on the Silver Creek Preserve, Idaho. A few Baetis here and there and lots of spooky hard to approach fish. Nikon D3s and Nikon 14-24 ƒ2.8 lens
A November Baetis. Nikon D3s and Nikon 105 Micro lens plus extension tubes. Converted from RAW using NIK's Silver Effex Pro 2.
Dragonfly
OK, it's the time of year I generally go back through my images to mainly delete the garbage and get it off my hard drive and to make sure images are properly keyworded. I occasionally find an image or two I like though. Here's one of a dragonfly taken on Silver Creek. Nikon D200 & Nikon Micro 105 lens.
Mahogany Dun
Here's an image of a Mahogany Dun taken at Silver Creek earlier this Fall. For some reason I skipped over this image after uploading it. I like the simplicity in black and white. Shot with the Nikon D200 and Nikon Micro 105 plus extension tubes. Handheld.
Rising Rainbow
I cannot imagine someone watching me get the shot below. I laid stomach down on a rocky steep bank of the Big Wood River right in front of a foam eddy that frequently has a bunch of feeding fish. Today there were enough midges to get the fish going and a few of those fish came within inches of the bank I was awkwardly perched on. The fish came by in front of me so close I needed my macro 105 lens. The minimum focus on my 200 mm lens is about six feet which is far too long. Over about 45 minutes time I had two fish cruise through the foam within about five inches of my front element. Given the amount of foam in the eddy, the fish couldn't see me. I will certainly be heading back to this spot to try and get the perfect tail or fin slicing through the foam image...
Nikon D3s, Nikon Micro 105 lens
November Baetis
The images below were taken today on Silver Creek. Pretty warm at the Creek when I was there; about 44 degrees but windy. The baetis came off anyway and there were fish up on them. This particular baetis was about a size #18. For all of you wanting one more day on the Nature Conservancy section, this is the final week of the season. Everything on Silver Creek upstream of the Highway 20 Bridge will be closed starting December 1st.
I used the Nikon Micro 105 with an extension tube for these images. Between 12:15 and about 1:30 there were a lot of baetis.
Click on any of the images to view a larger version.
The fish were far more skittish today and did not let me get very close. I did manage to get a couple of frames just after a take or two.
Moose
A bull moose hung out in my neighbor's yard for much of the day today. He lounged and ate fallen apples. No dog had the guts to mess with him.
Gallatin River
Here's a three image panorama of the Gallatin River taken a couple of nights ago. It was converted from RAW to black and white using NIK's Silver Effex Pro 2. Click on the image to view the entire picture.
Nikon D3s, Nikon 24 pc-e lens
ƒ25, 1.3 seconds, iso 200
Yellowstone River
Below is a three image panorama of the Yellowstone River near Pray, Montana. It was taken using the tilt and shift function on the Nikon 24 pc-e lens. Putting together a panorama using a tilt/shift lens and utilizing the photomerge tool in Adobe's Photoshop is really painless. The file size increases as well. The image above is about 105 megabytes and 18 megapixels. I tilted the lens down about 1 degree to maximize the depth of field.
Wind, clouds and grass. Paradise Valley, Montana.
Wheel Line Motor Section
Here's an image taken near Gannett, Idaho. It's the motor section of a wheel line used for agriculture. This piece has been sitting solo since mid-October. The primary crops near Gannett and Picabo are barley and alfalfa. Certainly a symbol of anachronistic methods. Water and it's use has always been a fascinating issue for me. I will be posting all types of images related to water on this site.
I used the tilt function on the Nikon 24 pc-e lens to limit the depth of field on the two sides while maximizing the DOF in the middle part of the foreground all the way to infinity. The 24 pc-e lens is probably my favorite lens despite the manual focus.
I used Nik's Silver Effex Pro 2 to convert the RAW image to black and white. A favorite tool of mine within Silver Effex is the color filter. In the image above I selected blue to edit the sky and slightly adjusted the hue and hue strength sliders to darken the blues, ie the sky.
Nikon D3s, Nikon 24 pc-e lens
Launch of New Web Site
The image above is a recent favorite from my "rising" series. No polarizing filter used. Without the polarizing filter on I was able to capture the wild light and color in the water. I panned the baetis as it drifted into the feeding lane and then fired away...
As some of you may have noticed, I just launched this web site. It went live yesterday and adios to my old site. I am still ironing out a lot of details and will be adding many more images to the galleries and more content as well. One of the new features I like a lot is the ability to click on an image in a blog post--like the one above--and view it enlarged in a lightbox. The galleries within this site also look much better than my previous site and really function as they should...
I have used Squarespace 6 to design this site. It is far more compatible to photographers than its predecessor, Squarespace 5. There are far more features beneficial to photographers on 6 and it's user interface is far more intuitive. Although both are two completley different platforms, if you are looking to build a site, I highly recommend Squarespace 6.
Nikon D3s, Nikonƒ2.8 80-200 afs lens