Dark Lit Hoodoo

Just a little On1 2020 magic and a photo that was shot in the mid day takes on a whole new look. LYLE

The Great Wash

This turned out to be one of the prettiest shots I took in Capitol Reef National Park. It is in the Great Wash, a slot canyon in the park. At this point the canyon walls were about 300' high and about 15' apart. What a cool feeling it is to walk through this area. The park ranger said if there is a rain fall of about 3/8" in the area it will become a flash flood in the canyon and they close it to hikers. It is about 1.3 miles long. LYLE

Suprise Arch

Prior to going to the Great Wash we asked the ranger at the visitor center if there were any arches in the area. He replied that there were not, it really surprised me when I saw this on the wall about half way into the slot canyon. LYLE

Sun Burst at The Great Wash

We hiked into a slot canyon called The Great Wash. Here the sun just peaks over a red rock mountain and makes a nice sun burst with the aperture set at f/22. Had to do a lot in ON1 to get the mountain so it wasn't just a big black image. LYLE

Red Rocks and Barn

This barn stands near the entrance to Capitol Reef. I really like the setting with the red rock wall and corral surrounding it. The wall behind makes the photo look like it isn't straight, but it is the wall that slopes. LYLE

Carol

Yes, I know, it is weird. She is one of my students at the Senior Center. Another student was trying to take a picture of her. So I took one. Then I worked it over in ON1 Photo RAW. I am sure not everyone, or even a few will like it. Maybe just me. LYLE

Nice Kitty

Remember the kitten in the tree? I way underexposed it, some work in ON1 Photo RAW was able to recover it. LYLE

Water Tower

This water tower is standing in Pioneer Village in Minden. It really energized me as I was looking for something to take a picture of. Some desaturation and a ghosting vignette gets this look. LYLE

Sunburst

I so enjoy going after some of the rather unusual looks in my photography. I liked this "sunburst" coming through the tree. LYLE

The Sand Pits

The Sand Pit just north of Holdrege is the subject here. Just a little tweaking in ON1 Photo RAW to get the look I was after. Kind of a minimalist look. LYLE

Little Cottonwood at night

This is the night shot (9:05pm) that I was telling you about. I shot it at ISO 1600, f/11, 38mm with a 24-120 lens on my D750. I then processed it in ON1 Photo RAW. LYLE

Winged Express

I shoot a burst of photos when I am shooting birds so I can capture just the right "pose". But when the pose was right the bird had risen up too high and I cut off it's head. So I took the body of the good shot and added the wings of the cropped off one to get this pose. Same bird in both shots and fractions of a second apart but it gave me what I wanted. LYLE

Balanced Duck

I have been struggling to get a bird in focus and looking good. This was shot with a 500mm lens, f/8, 1/4000 sec and the camera set to FX mode. It is not cropped, I was at about 50 feet from the bird. I only added a subtle vignette and sharpened the photo just a bit. LYLE

Icy Stream

These next few pictures were taken in the same canyon that you and I went shooting in when you were here. It is the Lake Blanch Trail in Big Cottonwood Canyon. Some winters it doesn't get cold enough to make all this happen, but this year it was down in the single digit area so I knew I would be able to get some nice shots. The golden tones are reflections from the canyon wall across the canyon which is a golden granite and faces south so it is in full sunlight. LYLE

Ice Cicles

I thought this was amazing the way the little rivulets of water froze into columns as it flowed below this fallen log. A slow shutter speed (1.3 sec) and 4 stop ND filter allows for a nice capture. LYLE

Figurines in Ice

The ice and flowing water make a great subject for photography, but it is always a very cold experience because the temperature has to stay below about 25d F to keep it frozen. Two days later we went up into another canyon and it was all gone. LYLE

Pelican Clan

I finally got my settings right so I could focus track with my camera, boy what a difference that makes for clarity. I shot about 440 photos of the Eagles and will throw out all but about 6 of them. Oh well, that is how it goes sometimes. The eagles are still here and the rangers feed them the first part of Feb so I will go back out to try to get a few better shots then. But the Pelicans were having a very social time drifting back and forth and feeding along the way. LYLE

Soft Landing

A Bald Eagle comes in for a landing on the ice at Farmington Bay just north of Salt Lake City. It scatters all of the gulls but the ducks seem undeterred by it's presence. It will sit there until it gets a chance to steal some food from somebody. LYLE

Blue Heron

 This Blue Heron was standing in a small flow of water along the dike I was driving along. As long as I stayed in the truck it was okay, so I just rolled the window down and took its picture with a 170-500 Sigma lens. LYLE