It's steelhead time on the Salmon River. The fish seem to be showing up between Stanley and Challis. The image below of the smallish hen was taken today. The water is still low and clear but the snow pack at lower elevations in the Stanley Basin is far below normal.
Lodgepole Forest. Winter
This was taken not far from the Harriman trail north of Ketchum, Idaho. Vertical lines and tunnel. 43˚ and the sound of spring was there in the warming snow collapsing under pressure from a boot and the level of the sun and mainly in how the trees reacted to the first warm wind and the lithe newer branches waved about about like happy arms waking up after falling asleep.
Fly Tying & Sun Valley Fly Fishing
It's fly tying madness here along with a strong dose of spring. Highs have already hit 50˚ plus around Hailey and on Thursday the high is forecast to be near 60˚ in Ketchum. The fly fishing on our local water has been and should continue to be stellar. It's midge madness on the Big Wood River and lots of midges and baetis on the Lower Big Lost River. This is certainly the best least crowded fishing of the year in this area and it should continue through March. This is--so far at least--an unusually warm March and hopefully that continues to translate into better than normal hatches, etc.
Trail Creek Road
This is a pretty stark image I took a few days ago on Trail Creek Road not far from HWY 93. The sheer openness and the single set of tire tracks and the spring-like color in the sage caught my eye.
Roughly 12 miles south of the above Trail Creek Road image, I took the shot below as the storm was starting to break. It's a similar horizon below but it has a fence line and telephone poles and a lack of snow on the ground...
Silver Creek. March
The Sun Valley area received about 7 new inches of much needed snow yesterday and I drove to Mackay. Below is an image I took, on my way home, in the late afternoon as the storm was starting to break. It was around 4 pm and I don't know if I can say I have ever seen more fish rising on this section of Silver Creek other than during brown drakes in early June. It was midge madness. Unfortunately fishing is closed at the moment on Silver Creek.
Desert Center Pivot
I drove over to the Big Lost River and Mackay yesterday. Drove north of Mackay too. By the Mackay Reservoir where there were still ice fishing huts and up to the East Fork of The Lost where there was about 5 inches of new snow and it was snowing hard and the visibility was maybe 500 feet.
Through The Windshield. An Idaho Junkyard
Here are a few of the images I converted to black and white from a recent trip to an Idaho Junkyard.
Junkyard Landscape Abstracts Part II
OK..., here are a few more abstracts. These images are of old rusty cars found at a junkyard. I originally thought most of my images from this shoot would be converted to black and white. I converted a few to black and white, but here are more in color:
Junkyard Landscape Abstracts
Here are two abstracts taken today at a junkyard.
Stocker Road
Below is an image taken yesterday of Stocker Road near the Silver Creek Preserve. It was midge madness on Silver Creek yesterday from Picabo all the way through the Nature Conservancy. Unfortunately Silver Creek--with the exception of a tiny section in the desert--is closed.
Ordinary Landscape Diptych
Here are two images taken of the same fire ring from almost the same spot using two different--albeit close--focal lengths. The color image portion of the diptych taken in the summer inspired me to start a project I call, Ordinary Landscapes. The location is Summit Creek, Idaho. The tracks going through the winter image are of coyotes.
A Field Near Picabo
Here's an image of a tilled field near Picabo, Idaho taken a couple of days ago. I converted the image from RAW to black and white in Photoshop CS6. I am including in this post a low-resolution image of the RAW file straight from the camera. Without making many changes/edits in Photoshop, you can see the latitude in shooting RAW--getting details out of the very bright/overexposed areas--and the enormous difference between the blah RAW image and the edited black and white image.
I also used the tilt function of the Nikon 24 pc-e lens to get the look of unlimited depth of field. I used--it's becoming a kinda fun term to use--the Scheimpflug Principle. The link takes you to The Luminous Landscape page for a good explanation...
Here's the low-resolution file of the RAW image straight from the camera:
Two Seasons Diptych
Two images and two seasons. Early summer and late winter. The same oxbow split in half. Two focal lengths. Silver Creek's East Oxbow:
South Fork of The Boise River
I shot over to the South Fork of The Boise yesterday and it dawned on me I hadn't fished it for at least two years. It's always a pleasure fishing a river/stream I don't know every single bend, pocket, riffle, etc. Didn't see many fish on the surface. In fact only saw fish rising in one spot. There were a good number of midges though and the nymphing was decent. The image below is of Keith getting in a little streamer time before the sun hit the water.
Silver Creek Panorama
Here's a pano taken yesterday at Silver Creek. The clouds that came in ended up providing about 3 new inches of snow. The pano below is comprised of 7 images and the resolution is 33.7 megapixels. It was shot with the Nikon D3s & Nikon 50mm ƒ1.8 lens. Click on the image to see it larger.
I love shooting from this particular spot on Silver Creek. The image above was shot with the Nikon 50mm ƒ1.8 lens and not a tilt/shift lens. I just upgraded from Adobe's CS5 to CS6 and one of the major new additions is a set of 3 blur filters including tilt/shift. While I do own and use Nikon's 24mm pc-e (tilt/shift) lens, this new set of filters is a lot of fun to play with.
Silver Creek, Idaho
If we didn't have calendars it would be hard to tell it's February here. The snowpack at lower elevations has dwindled. I fished Silver Creek today and it felt like a raw early April afternoon. Cumulus clouds pushed easterly and the wind scoured the thawing ground. Red-Winged Blackbirds by the dozens scurried about nervously in flocks near the willows. There were midges though despite the wind and a fish here and there thought it a good idea to steel one from the surface. I threw streamers and it was quite good. The 28th of February is the final day of the season on Silver Creek below the HGWY 20 Bridge.
Conifers, Fire Ring & Snow
Silver Creek Preserve Mid-Summer
Here are two images from last July that made it past my initial look. If you recall, it was smoky here last summer and on this particular night the smoke had mainly gone west and there was just a hint hanging in the atmosphere making the sky and clouds more palpable than normal and dust hung in the air like helium inflated dandelion seeds and there wasn't a lick of wind and a few fishermen made their way through the tall grass to a bend on the creek.
Richfield Canal
The Richfield Canal is a major diversion that begins at a large headgate about 4 miles below Magic Reservoir in Idaho. During the agricultural season it swells with water and for the rest of the year it is essentially dry. When the water is flowing there are also fish that get through the headgates. Due to the large volume of water the Richfield Canal calls for during the growing season, the Big Wood River below the diversion is often dewatered.
Ordinary Landscape
A personal project of mine has been working on what I have titled Ordinary Landscapes. So, just what is the criteria for an "Ordinary Landscape"? It's simple: It is taking something mundane or common or better yet, ordinary, and transforming that lack of distinctiveness into something simply extraordinary. As it is, many of my Ordinary Landscape images to date have been landscapes often with a subtle touch of the human element in and around where I live in Idaho, but really they can be of anything. Here are two recent Ordinary Landscapes: