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A flock of sandhill cranes roosts in backlit ground fog at sunrise, Bosque del Apache NWR, San Antonio, New Mexico.
Here’s another favorite image with the “fire in the mist” backlit ground fog. I like this one because of the wider perspective and sense of billowing fog. This looks best BIG. Be sure to click on the image for a larger version.
A flock of ducks takes flight into backlit fog, Bosque del Apache, NWR, San Antonio, New Mexico
I returned to Bosque del Apache NWR for the fifth time in December. Conditions this year were the coldest I have ever experienced in central New Mexico. It was around -7°F on the first morning, with heavy snow on the ground. But there was a huge silver, or rather golden lining in the cold temperatures. I was treated to four straight days of spectacular backlit ground fog. Overnight, the relatively warm open water sent billowing clouds of mist into the air. I carefully positioned myself so that the fog would be backlit by the rising sun. As you can see, the results are spectacular. Photographers call this “fire on the mist” for good reason. I have an (almost) embarrassingly large number of these photos, but I’m fairly sure that this is my favorite. Stay tuned for some more “fire on the mist” photos. Update: somehow, I lost the text of this blog post. I’ve restored it now. Sorry for any confusion. Finally. It took way, way longer than it should have. But I’ve finally culled more than 5,000 images from Bosque del Apache down to a handful of selects. Fortunately (given how long it took) I’m pleased with the final product. These are by far my strongest Bosque images. Indeed, I created a couple of images that rank among the best in my portfolio. As a sort of celebration of having finished, I created the video that headlines this post. I’ve been looking for a new, non-boring way to highlight my work. Looks like Animoto may be just the ticket. It’s easy. It looks great. Slideshows are usually so boring, but this keeps things interesting. There are only two real downsides: (1) Animoto gives no control over the way it assembles the final product. You click, wait, and hope. Mostly, this works fine. However, the software occasionally insists on cropping some images to a 4×3 aspect ratio. I couldn’t find any work around, no matter how many times I clicked the “remix video” button. (2) even though I’m using a paid version of Animoto, it insists on branding of embedded video. Please watch the video (it’s short) and let me know what you think in the comments. Below is a gallery of the images from the slideshow, in their full, un-Animoto’ed glory. Click on a thumbnail for a larger version and for links to purchase a print or greeting card, or license an image. (If you’re reading this through an RSS reader, the gallery will look much better if you click through to my website.)
I never quite get what I expect at Monte Vista National Wildlife Refuge, but I always seem to come away with something good. On my first visit, I was unexpectedly treated to backlit ground fog, leading to some of my all-time favorite images (samples here). Last year, no ground fog. Instead, I made a wonderful image of a roosting sandhill crane, though I never expected to get close enough to do so. (Cranes don’t like company when they’re asleep). This year was no exception. The biggest surprise was that my favorite image from the trip is of a road, not a bird. But another surprise was that my images came out much better than I initially expected. Indeed, I was a little bit bummed on the drive home, thinking that I’d wasted the weekend. This is not false modesty. Instead, I think, it is the result of four factors. First, I’ve spent a lot of time photographing sandhill cranes (Grus canadensis) already, and so it’s hard to make an image that really excites me. The flight image, below, is a good example. Three or four years I’d have been ecstatic to make such an image. These days I’m happy enough to capture a good flight image. But with lots of practice, it’s not that hard for me to capture these anymore, and I already have a stack of similar images.
Second, the lousy weather affected my mood and sense of photographic opportunities. It was horrendously windy and dusty. At one point, the wind was blowing so hard that I had trouble keeping my tripod upright. Photos are ultimately about emotion. An unpleasant and frustrating experience, I guess, makes one discount the emotional impact of a scene.
Third, I tried some challenging new techniques and I wasn’t sure that my experiments would result in any good images. The sun image at the top of this post is a good example. For a variety of reasons (including not wanting to burn a hole in my retina) these are somewhat of a “hold-down-the-shutter-and-hope” image. Likewise, flight images with the bird directly overhead, like the one above, are tough. The birds pass overhead very quickly (more so with the howling wind), and only a few images come out well.
Finally, as usual, Monte Vista was different than before. Not worse. Just different. For example, there was no ground fog, and indeed the pool where I photographed the lovely ground fog/mist was dry. My plans to make previsulalized images went out the window. Happily, I eventually overcame this change in plan. For example, instead of roosting overnight in the “ground fog pool”, birds roosted in different spot where they were illuminated by beautiful morning light. (Example above). And, there was great behavior on display this year. The cranes were “dancing” (really, fighting) like crazy (see below). Plus, I witnessed a huge crane “blastoff”, where thousands of cranes take to the sky at once. (One example is below; others are in the thumbnail gallery at bottom). Instead of coming away disappointed, I should have realized that these unexpected opportunities would serve as material for some nice images.
Here is a gallery of additional images; please click on a thumbnail for a larger view. (If you’re reading this from an RSS feed or by e-mail, this won’t look right. Long story. Please click through to my website to see this as intended. Sorry!)
See something you like? Please leave a comment. See something you really like? Please consider supporting my photography by purchasing a print. I got up very early on Christmas Eve to shoot at my favorite spot. It was so cold that I couldn’t find many animals to photograph, but the sun playing through the mist from Clear Creek more than made up for the lack of animate subjects. The first image is a straight-from-the camera image. The second is a monochrome image that I toned using a custom tone curve. I tent to prefer the first image, mostly because I think the composition is stronger, though (obviously) I liked the second enough to post it. Please post a comment and let me know which you prefer. I started a long blog post about my experience shooting at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge over the last three years, years, the difference between the conditions this year and last, the reasons why I made various images, etc. Then I realized that the post was ponderous and boring. Instead, here is a simple gallery of the best images from my trip this winter, plus a so-so quail image that I included for sentimental reasons. Hopefully the images can speak for themselves. (Click on a thumbnail for a larger view and for a slideshow). [SinglePic not found] After spending way, way too much time editing and tinkering with my images from Bosque, I have finally posted a collection of my favorite images from the trip. See the whole collection in the Bosque 2008 Gallery. If you enjoy the images, please let me know in the comments. I apologize for the derth of posts over the last couple of weeks — I was away shooting at Bosque, and then preoccupied with work and holiday shopping. In any event, I’ve finally had a chance to start seriously editing the 5000+ images that I captured at Bosque Del Apache earlier this month. Based on my initial review, I’m pretty sure that the image above is my favorite from the trip — and I made it about ten minutes after I set up on my very first day. The rest of the trip was somewhat anticlimactic. More images after the jump |
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