Mushrooms
-click to enlarge-
I made this photo in a favourite local park – Campbell Valley Regional Park in Langley, British Columbia. There is not much in the way of wide open scenery here, but it is a great place to focus on smaller things such as mushrooms, wildflowers and occasionally birds. If you have read my previous mushroom posts over on Google+ it will come to you as no surprise that I have not identified this species of mushroom.
I would normally shoot something like this with my macro lens, but in this case I was not going to be able to get close to this log at all without destroying a lot of underbrush, so I setup my tripod on the trail and used my 70-200mm lens to “get closer”. I am not against placing items in a scene, but for this particular photo I did not place the Maple leaf – it was already laying there. I do have another version of this photo without the leaf, but I believe the above composition is stronger with the leaf in place.
Tags: british columbia, campbell valley park, Canon EF 70-200mm f/4 L IS USM, fall, fall color, fall colour, maple leaf, moss, mushrooms
Posted in Photography | No Comments »
Great Blue Heron
(
Ardea herodias)
-click to enlarge-
This is Part II in my series of posts on searching for Bald Eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) to photograph in the Fraser Valley this Winter – Part I was also at the Lower Stave River.
The Bald Eagles are not the only species here for the Salmon. A lot of gulls were around, and a few Great Blue Herons (Ardea herodias) too. Herons always seem to make good subjects. They are wary but quite easy to photograph compared to some other species. This Heron was one of the first subjects I photographed with my new Canon 1.4x EF Extender II on my 70-200mm f/4 IS lens. The combo works very nicely!
Bald Eagle
(
Haliaeetus leucocephalus)
-click to enlarge-
At the Lower Stave River I camped out a few locations that looked as though they might be likely Bald Eagle feeding spots (lots of salmon carcasses). Unfortunately I was not able to photograph any Eagles at these locations – perhaps my presence stuck out. I did manage to wait long enough to have one land in front of me but when I raised my camera (slowly) to make a photograph – they flew away into a nearby tree (the image on the right).
Stay tuned for Part III – this time at the Harrison River…
Tags: ardea herodias, bald eagle, british columbia, Canon 1.4, Canon EF 70-200mm f/4 L IS USM, EF Extender II, great blue heron, haliaeetus leucocephalus, harbour seal, herons, lower stave river, mission, phoca vitulina
Posted in Photography | No Comments »
Table Mountain
-click to enlarge-
This is a photo I made in late September of Table Mountain in the Mount Baker Wilderness. This was along the Bagley Lakes Trail – and was one of the first short hikes I’d done in the area other than walking along the ridge near Artist Point. Being late September I was expecting that there would be few (if any) wildflowers and the Fall colours would be well on their way to starting in the various Vaccinium bushes etc. Everything was still green and the wildflowers were either just past, or still going strong (as was the case for the Lupines). I went hiking there 2 weeks later – and there STILL were hardly any leaves turning. I am curious to see what this year brings for Summer and Fall weather.
Tags: bagley lakes, bagley lakes trail, forests, mount baker wilderness, mount baker-snoqualmie national forest, mountains, subalpine fir, table mountain
Posted in Photography | No Comments »
Mycena Mushrooms
-click to enlarge-
While failing to find good Fall colours this year I did manage to find a lot of great mushrooms. The trouble is, I have a hard time identifying them. I am great with native plants (Washington State and British Columbia), but just awful with Fungi. I do think this group can be narrowed down to the Genus Mycena (which contains over 500 species). Experts tell me for real identification I’d need detailed photos of the underside and perhaps even spores to look at under the microscope! Drives me nuts not to have a species pinned down, but I think I’m going to have to let it go this time!
For this photo I tried a few angles but concluded the only way to get a nice shot would be to lay down on the ground – and it worked!
Tags: british columbia, Fraser Valley, mushrooms, mycena
Posted in Photography | 1 Comment »
Bald Eagle
(
Haliaeetus leucocephalus)
-click to enlarge-
Every Fall there are a considerable amount of Salmon that spawn in the various tributaries of the Fraser River. After spawning, the dead Salmon become great food for Bald Eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) and other species. There are many locations I visit every year in order to see the Salmon spawn including the Harrison River, Weaver Creek and the Lower Stave River in Mission, British Columbia. There aren’t usually many Eagles near Weaver Creek, but the Harrison and Stave Rivers are usually pretty good places to look for Eagles indulging in the Salmon feast.
The photo above illustrates the one situation where adult Bald Eagles don’t seem all that afraid of someone approaching. I guess they know that people can’t climb trees quickly. I have seen a number of Eagles nearby feeding on Salmon on the ground – but as soon as they see you they take off. Those in the trees do not do this, but a bird up in a tree is not always a very interesting photo. This was the best Eagle photo I made on my first trip to the Lower Stave – but not exactly what I was after.
Harbour Seal
(
Phoca vitulina)
-click to enlarge-
The first time I visited the Lower Stave River this year was in early December. Standing near a swiftly flowing channel below the Dam, there was suddenly a surge of water moving upstream – this confused me initially. I couldn’t think what would be large enough to create it. Suddenly a lot of Salmon started leaping out of the water, a few flopped up onto the bank and this big Harbour Seal (Phoca vitulina) surged out of the water, caught one of the Salmon, and continued up stream with the fish hanging from its mouth. I was so shocked that I failed to do anything but stand there… a video or a few photographs would have been awesome. When I finally came to my senses I did make a photograph of the back of the seals head, but this is all I gathered from the encounter. VERY cool to see though – I never expected a Harbour Seal that far upstream, this far inland. I presume it ventured up the Fraser River and the Salmon were a meal well worth the trip.
Stay tuned for Part II!
Tags: bald eagle, british columbia, Canon 1.4x EF Extender II, Canon EF 70-200mm f/4 L IS USM, haliaeetus leucocephalus, harbour seal, lower stave river, mission, phoca vitulina
Posted in Photography | No Comments »
2012 Wall Calendar Cover
-click to enlarge-
My 2012 calendar is still available and is now an additional 25% off through January 6th. Just use the code ONEMORETHING at checkout through January 6th!!
My 2012 wall calendar is now on sale! I have put together some of my favourite images made this year into this 11″x17″ (28cm x 43cm) calendar. Included are 13 photographs (1 for each month and the cover) of landscape and nature scenes from British Columbia and Washington State. There are two versions of this calendar – one with Canadian holidays and one with US holidays.
You can view a full preview and purchase this calendar through the links below (be sure to choose the correct version!)
US Version: http://www.lulu.com/product/calendar/2012-nature-calendar—us-holidays/18699671
Canadian Version: http://www.lulu.com/product/calendar/2012-nature-calendar—cdn-holidays/18699957
Tags: calendar
Posted in Photography | No Comments »
Mount Shuksan Alpenglow
It is always tough to narrow down a years worth of images into a list of the “best”. I did this last year and I think it is a valuable exercise. Jim Goldstein of JMG Galleries creates a list of everyone’s top 10 images each year. I made my first top 10 last year. This years list has fewer landscape and more wildlife photos. This is partly due to my not getting out to shoot as many landscapes as last year, and partly due to my backlog in image editing.
You can click on each of the following images to go to the blog post that may tell a bit more about the location and how I made the photograph.
In no particular order my “Best of 2011″…
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: apis mellifera, ardea herodias, black-capped chickadee, buddleja, capilano river, chilliwack river, eureka falls, glaucidium gnoma, great blue heron, honey bee, mount baker wilderness, mount shuksan, mt. shuksan, northern pygmy-owl, oncorhynchus nerka, owl, pitt river, pitt-addington wildlife management area, Poecile atricapillus, sockeye salmon, stanley park
Posted in Photography | 21 Comments »
Spawning Sockeye
(Oncorhynchus nerka)
-click to enlarge-
Last year I attempted to photograph spawning salmon in Weaver Creek in very late October. Most of the run had already finished, so there were a few salmon around but not many. This year I managed to get the timing a bit better, the run was late, and while I was there in late October again, there were plenty of salmon to photograph. This photograph is of two male Sockeye Salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka) “treading water” on their way upstream in Weaver Creek.
One of the things I quickly realized when photographing salmon like this is that its just not that easy to make a good photo. Last year I tried photographing salmon in this location and was somewhat disappointed with the results. It was immediately obvious to me when processing those images that my expectations of what would be possible were way too high. The water distorts so much of the salmon shapes that some of my original ideas were not possible. This year returning I had thought about it a bit more and came up with this composition that I had planned. Salmon in the water like this are relatively easy to come by so I was left looking for a nice color reflection to give the scene something interesting. I think it works nicely.
Tags: abstract, oncorhynchus nerka, sockeye salmon, spawning, weaver creek
Posted in Photography | No Comments »
Mount Shuksan and the Nooksack River
-click to enlarge-
One of the downsides of having a lot of backlog in my photo editing is that I tend to forget what I have. I purposefully wait a while in order to process my images, just so that I am somewhat subjective in terms of images that deserve scrutiny and those that don’t. I often have initial expectations that were not met when I review the images too soon, and sometimes that clouds what is really there. At least for me. I do occasionally go back over images that did not leap out at me during a first pass – sometimes I find something I really like. Sometimes this is due to my perception of the image changing and sometimes I have learned some new post processing skills that open the photo to new potential.
This photo is another example of this phenomenon. I initially passed over it but this weekend viewed it again, and knew how I wanted to process it. I have many photos of Mount Shuksan, but this one is a bit different. This was not taken from Picture Lake, Artist Point or any of my usual places. This is along the North Fork of the Nooksack River (which later flows over Nooksack Falls) at the bottom of the hill near the Shuksan Campground.
Tags: mount baker wilderness, mount baker-snoqualmie national forest, mount shuksan, mountains, mt. shuksan, nooksack river, north fork nooksack river, rivers
Posted in Photography | 4 Comments »
