365 Photos: Week 52 The Last Week

May 15-20, 2013

The final week of the 365 Photo Project was crazy. From the sun and sand of Puerto Vallarta to the snow(!) of Anchorage. It was quite a finish to the project.

Tuesday, we went on a dolphin watching and snorkeling trip. We went out to the Marieta Islands. We were told it is the Galapagos of Mexico. It was awesome scenery and pretty good snorkeling. I can’t say my underwater pictures were all that great. However, I did get this dolphin shot.

I’m pretty proud of this one. If you keep your finger on the shutter long enough and capture enough frames, you will get lucky!

The final full day in PV took us to the beach for some final rays. We spent the evening walking around the old town part of PV. We went to a beach bar and had a beer while we watched the sun go down. I took a bunch of shots. There was a guy fishing and he was throwing fish into the air for the frigate birds. He was doing it for me so I could get some shots. I got this one.

How lucky was this! I really love this shot. The colors are great, although I did have to do some processing to get them to come out. I like how it is framed. It is one of my favorite shots from my 365 Days.

Later we had dinner and a nearby table ordered Mexican coffees.

I’d never seen this done before. What a lot of work! But it was so cool. I was glad I had my nifty fifty with me to capture these low light shots.

Ah, the final day in PV. We got up early, had breakfast and did some trinket shopping. There was this glass place that had this wonderful reflector.

Here is Evan looking on through the reflector.

Then I saw this guy on a burro and took a couple of shots.

He was quite nice, and even came over to us to get a less candid shot with Evan. Then he politely demanded some pesos. We obliged. He did cross the street to get a picture with us. It was just like being in Times Square when those costumed characters want money for photos.

Then we returned home to this.

Yeah, it was snow. On May 17. No one was happy about this. It did melt, but it snowed a lot over night. This is what May 18 looked like!

The snow was all more or less gone by Sunday. Winter would not let go.

As I was nearing completion of the project, I wish I could say I was filled with a sense of creativity and urgency to have amazing final shots. I can’t. That’s why I took a picture of this bird house.

It was the best I could do. Notice there are some buds on the trees. It’s May 19th!

The last shot of the week, the penultimate shot of the project was to remind me that new life is coming.

These are Iris popping up from the ground. A new beginning as I bring this project to a close.

If you want to see the final post of the project, which as done on the final day of the project back in May, check it out here.

How does one bring something like this to an end? It’s rather unceremonious to just end it. But it also seems fitting.

365 Photos: Week 49 Time with Dads

April 23-29, 2013

It is nearing July, as I look back on the waning weeks of my 365 Photo Project. I’m realizing that I miss doing it. There was a sensibility and way of looking at the world that I have put away.

But that is not the reason for this entry.

Week 49 saw time with both of our dads. Not much of a theme, I grant you.

Tuesday shows a Choke-Cherry tree in the park in downtown Anchorage.

When I took the shot, I would have told you there would be leaves and flowers on this tree in a month. There wasn’t. We had late season snow in May. Those pictures will come. Notice the snow and ice still in the park from the late season snow we had already had.

Spring was trying to take hold in Anchorage in late April.

These little purple flowers were one of the first signs of plant life I saw. Not sure what they are, but there were on the west side of a building where sun is getting to be abundant.

My brother and father made an appearance in Anchorage from Fairbanks. This was time with dads number one.

I like this shot of him in the lamp light of our house. You can also see some of the waning daylight in the window behind him. This was taken late in the evening, around 10-11. You can also see how the light is rally making a comeback.

Moose are a common enough sight in Anchorage. And for some reason it was very important that I get a moose shot for the project. And I can’t believe I went nearly the whole year before seeing a moose on the loose.

This little guy was on the street of our house. Kind of a small one. No cow around, so I imagine he was recently let go by his mom. As we drove past him, I shot a picture with my iPhone, and the moose tried to stick his head in our car. That was exciting! This was shot with my long lens for the safety of my front lawn.

We had an early birthday party for Ernie, Evan’s dad. This was time with dads number two.

He loves his riverboat, so we had a local bakery fashion a cake in the shape of his boat. It was a really cool cake.

I’ve become fascinated with stop motion photography. While watching some videos on Vimeo, I noticed there are iPhone apps that help you create stop motion videos. And there are free ones!

This shot was taken of me taking a stop motion video of the sunset. The app I was using is called iMotion HD. It’s a very cool app and so easy to use. I plan to post the video of my first video.

I found myself still shooting late in the evening, so this was another sunset shot in our home.

It’s not one of my favorites, but I like the new perspective on the same scene through a mirror. Looking back, I wish I’d done a mirror series. Ideas for a new 52 week series, I suppose.

Costa Rica: Fish, Turtles and Spiders! Oh My!

Wildlife in Costa Rica

While traveling in Costa Rica in late November and early December, I saw lots of wildlife.  This is the wildlife series I shot.  You can see my earlier sunset series here.  A complete gallery of the trip are at the end of the post.

First in the series were the fish.  I bought a Canon D10 right before we left.  I had experimented with my dad’s in Hawaii a couple year ago.  I was excited to try again.  Here are a few shots I got with it while snorkeling.

I do not remember the names of any of these fish.  Most of these images did require a little processing.  The water tended to be pretty murky most mornings.

Often there were schools of fishes on the reefs.  I like how this one came out.

I was fascinated with the puffer fish.  I was determined to get at least one good shot.  Here’s the best one I got.  I have many, many out of focus and blurry images in addition to this one.  The camera performed reasonably well, but did have a short delay, and was tougher in the lower light.  I did like that it had an underwater setting.

I could probably make a separate entry just on the turtles.  Seeing a turtle arribata was an amazing experience. We were up at 4:00 AM to be at the beach by 5:00 before the sun came up to see all the turtles coming ashore to lay eggs.  These were the Olive Ridley turtles and are the only ones to lay eggs in a group.  There were hundreds of them.

This was just as the sun was coming up. Notice all the vultures and the turtles in the coming daylight.  It was chaos and carnage on the beach as the turtles were moving up and down the beach.  The birds were taking the eggs as fast as the turtles could lay them.  It is amazing to think that any baby turtles actually get to the ocean.

We did give a little assistance at one point and helped a group of babies down closer to the ocean.  You are not supposed to put them directly in the water because they need time for their lungs to strengthen in the run from the nest to the ocean.

As turtles dug nests to lay eggs, they would often dig up nests from previous arribatas.

As you can see, eggs would fly in all directions as they dug out the new nest.

And there were really a lot of turtles climbing all over the beach.

I don’t think lesbianism runs in the turtle world, but hard to know.  All the turtles on the beach were females, because only females come to lay eggs.

There were lots of awesome views of the turtles as they crawled around the beach.

Here’s one more picture of Evan with a turtle.  Again, notice the birds all around.

Other wildlife included Pizotes that were everywhere on the grounds of the Four Seasons.  We saw them on the golf course as we were eating dinner.  The also apparently liked the pool.

This little guy has been rooting around in the garbage before I got this picture.  The staff was not amused.

I don’t know why, but I was absolutely fascinated with this dog and pig that were with these kids who were playing in the tidal pool.  The dog and pig did appear to like each other.

When the kids left the pool to go home, the dog and pig followed obediently.

We did finally see some howler monkeys.  We certainly heard them!  A whole family of them climbed out of the trees and hung out in the area between the pool and the beach at the Four Seasons.

We did get out into the jungle areas and see some more exotic wildlife.  The iguanas were gorgeous.

And big.

The next two are not so much the wild life, but animals we got to see that were work animals.

This is me on a horse for the first time in 35 years, I would guess.  It was a beautiful experience to ride along the beach like this.

Then there were the oxen and the carts.

The cart was beautifully crafted.  The are quite famous in Costa Rica.

Finally, there were the birds.

I like the composition of this one.  The light could be a little better.  I was using a borrowed 70-200mm lens and it was awesome.  The image stabilization came in quite handy too.

The light at the end of the day made for great shots.

This image of the bird on one leg might be my favorite bird picture from the trip.

Lastly there were the spiders.  One night at dinner, someone noticed a tarantula in the dining room!  Everyone was quite calm about it.  Later, as we walked to our room, there was another one crawling across the path!  We were told that was rare.

I caught this little guy from a boat with the long lens.  I guess this was the female. The male is the smaller one and is likely to be dinner sometime soon.

Here’s the complete portfolio of the Costa Rica Trip.

365 Photos: Week 28 Costa Rica Vacation

November 27 – December 2, 2012

Week 28, as I write this, seems a lifetime ago.  It was filled with the fun from our Costa Rica Vacation.

Because if the diversity of images, I chose more images than seven this week.  The choice was made in large part to capture the diversity of activity we did while in Costa Rica.

Tuesday’s image was of some fishing boats in the little bay of San Juanillo.  After lunch, we drove to this little bay to be in the water.  The bay was part of the little village, and fishing appeared to be a large part of the village life. I took many shots of fish heads, the buildings, the people, and the water.  There were some lovely sunset shots, but I was really fascinated with the boats and getting good shots.  This would be theme for much of the trip.

Perhaps the best part of the whole trip was waking up at 4:30 in the morning to go down to Ostional to see a turtle arribata.  The Olive Ridley Sea Turtle is apparently the only species of turtle who lay eggs in groups.  All other sea turtle lay solitary.  So during a new moon, they use the beach in Ostinal to lay eggs.  It was AMAZING.  I’ve never seen anything like it.  Hundreds of turtles were coming out of the ocean and crawling up the beach.  Tiny baby turtles were coming out of the sand and running back to the sea.  Vultures were picking at eggs and babies.  It was beautiful.  It was chaos.  It was the circle of life.

The turtles come at night, so you either have to go at sundown or sunrise in hopes of seeing anything.  This is one of the best images I got during the trip.  There are others in my previous post. I highly recommend this experience to anyone who loves nature and wildlife.

The day began before sunrise, and also included a boat trip on Rio Nosara to see birds, crocodiles and other wildlife that ended at sunset.  Some of the wildlife was wild.

I was using a 50-200mm lens to get this, but we did get pretty close in the boat.  Notice there are two spiders.  Apparently the smaller one is a male.  She is likely to eat it.

Thursday we went horseback riding through the forest and out onto the beach.  It was a delightful two and a half hours made even more so by our guide, who is here with Evan.

After the horseback trip, we went to Samara for lunch.  As we were heading back to the car I snapped this shot I thought was cute.

I shot many things in Samara, but I really liked the look of this one. The street photography is much different in a little village than in a big city.  I asked her if it was ok, and she said yes.  I’ve found that I am getting more confidence when it comes to asking strangers to take pictures.  I still need more, but I am getting good when I see something I really like.

On Friday, I got a little indulgent with two shots.  They are of the same moment, but so some reason, I was overly fascinated with this pig, dog, and kids playing in the tidal pool with them.

I cannot explain my fascination with these animals or why I took so many pictures. It must have been because I’ve never seen a pig and a dog play on the beach and kids play with their pig in a tidal pool.  I took lots of pictures of all this, and at no time did I see an adult.  Things really are different in Costa Rica.  As the tide came in, I saw the kids leaving the beach with their pig and dog in tow.

On Saturday, we headed to the Four Seasons for the rest of our trip. At beach that night we saw the prettiest sunset of the whole trip.

I used the flash to fill in this shot.  I love the colors and everything about this shot.  We had been frolicking in the surf, hence Evan’s wet shirt look.  It was such a gorgeous sunset. And fast.  Near the equator like that, the sun goes straight down and then it gets dark.  Not at all like Alaska, where sunset last for over an hour.

On Sunday, we went snorkeling.

We bought a Canon D10 for the trip to take some underwater shots.  The first day was me getting used to the underwater features and the quirks of the camera.  I did get this fun shot of Evan underwater.  I do like the Canon D10 for this kind of work.  Also, it is great for being in out of doors places where there is lots of water.  More on that later.

Because I do love snorkeling do much, we went again on Monday.

I was getting better with the camera on the second day.  There is a bit of post processing to get the images sharper and more colorful.  The water was pretty murky when were out. But I like the way this puffer fish looks.

Because this day was jam packed with other activities, I do have three images total for Monday.  We took another boat ride and saw tons of wildlife.  The light was better this day than the previous boat ride.  I got a lovely picture of a crocodile and a bird.  Again, this was with the canon 50-200mm lens I borrowed for the trip.

I have more of Costa Rica for Week 29 before heading home.  That will be in the next post.

365 Photos: Week 10 My Summer Vacation Part 1

Week 10 was about going on vacation.

Summer in Alaska has been a mostly dreary affair, so getting out to Southern California was a treat. A 100+ degree treat, but a treat nonetheless.

Before setting out, the start of the week on Tuesday was at home. It was finally time to get a shot of the Fireweed across the street from our house. Fireweed is like the barometer of summer. The flowers bloom up the stalk. When the blooms reach the top, and the plant goes to seed, they produce a fluffy white seed. It looks like snow, and in Alaska, that means the real snow isn’t far behind. It is quite beautiful, and is one of the first plants to come back after a forest fire. The contrast of black, charred trees is beautiful with the fields of reddish, purplish fireweed.

Wednesday’s picture of my suitcase was a little indulgent, but I was working with my tripod and getting long exposures in low light.

Thursday’s shot in the airport with the early morning light has gotten quite a few comments on my Facebook page. I really like this shot. We were walking to the gate, the sun was coming up, and immediately pulled out my camera. I love the quality of light and reflection in this one.

We love to go to Palm Springs. Since we were last there in February, the city rented this fun Marilyn Monroe statue. It is really a nice addition to Palm Springs and the inherent camp and kitsch of the place. It seemed appropriate that I took this picture after getting a mani on Friday.

With it being 100+ degrees in Palm Springs, we took the Ariel Tram to the top on Saturday. From there you can hike to the top of San Jacinto. We did not. The weather was about 40 degrees cooler there. We did hike, and that was where I got the shot of the deer.

I have two shots for this day, and the second shows the quality of the light up there. We were nearly 10,000 feet above sea level. I was shooting with a polarizing filter, but even so, the sky was so blue.

Sunday put us on the road to Santa Barbara. Sunsets in Alaska are quite nice; however, our whacked out day light schedule has them changing all the time. I think the reason I love September so much is because that’s when the sun sets at a somewhat normal time. Regardless, I was so excited to shoot a sunset at the ocean. But! Santa Barbara is on a portion of the California Coast where the beach runs more west to east. And in the midst of summer, the sun sets in a more northerly position. So I didn’t get to shoot the sun setting into the ocean. But I did get this great shot while experimenting with my flash.

On Monday, we walked up and down State Street and then eventually made our way to the beach. I was taken with all the sail boats without their sails.

More vacation to come in Week 11!