Coming To An End

The day ended with a bright sky with just some whispers of clouds after several days of gray skies and plenty of wind.  In approximately less than a month we have had a tornado touch down within a 1/2 mile of our home.  A gentleman took a ride in his pickup after dropping his wife off at a restaurant yesterday.  He remembers nothing but the lift off.  Took him a 100 yards or so before bouncing him on the top and then slamming him up against a building.  His truck, built Ford tough.

Hate to Repeat but........

This is the second posting of the new fountains in our ponds but I wanted to to try out the Tonika 14-16mm f/2.8 lens at night.  I plan on getting close some evening at getting shots through the mist if the wind is right and possibly work with the natural lighting of sunsets and darkness.  Maybe I will be able to get a moon shot with the fountains in the foreground.

New Fountain Installed

We have an addition to our ponds in the way of some fountains.  Hopefully they will serve the purpose of helping to keep the ponds clean and nice looking.  Seems like the wildlife are getting accustomed to them although they do give them a wide berth.  I hoping to get some good evening or morning shots through the sprays, maybe even a rising moon would be nice.  We'll see what I can do.

Great Day

Great day today....bright sun, a slight breeze and near the 80 degree mark.  We had visitors to the pond, which is pretty normal of except for the Heron.  He will show more sporadically.  We have a new aeration fountain in the pond that doesn't seem to bother any of the wildlife except for the geese, maybe.  The company that takes care of treating the ponds sprayed the perimeter grass, let it go and it will take over, hence the fallish color.

Off Color

It's a Blue Herron.  I just decided I wanted to pull the color and then tint it.  Nothing spectacular or special.  This one fishes here quite often.  He caught one just after I took this but it was too big.

Fire in the Sky

This post may have gone out to some before but I took it down after I saw it on my iPad.  It was totally messed up, somehow it got tied into the previous posting.  At any rate I am simply reposting it again.  The plant is a flowering Cherry Tree.

This is me just trying to get use to taking pictures of objects that have background lighting that is pretty intense.  It doesn't get much more intense with the late sun dead in the middle of the picture.

Reflections in Both Directions

I'm not sure what I was trying to take a picture of but I was using the window as a means of steadying the camera.  I wanted to keep the ISO as low as possible in a night shot.  What I got in return was a terrible, not savable picture that has since been deleted, however, this image was available and interesting.  I have the outdoors as well as the indoors at the same time.  How did I do this you ask....gonna tell you anyway even if you don't ask.  As I was taking the picture my wife, not knowing what I was doing, came into the room and turned the desk light on.  This illuminated the room so that a file cabinet can be seen, just the corner of the bookcase can be seen and the Madison Scout drummer images on the shirt I was wearing are even fairly clear.  If I didn't know better it almost looks as if I am playing a horn, pffsst.....not me.....percussion all the way.  At the same time you can see the outdoors, the street lights and roads are lit up as well as the shadow of a tree on the bank of the pond.  It's even clear enough that the algae that is floating is visible.  To the right of the street light  in the middle of the lens are a series of 5 dots of light that is caused by the double pain glass...it is the tower lights just a tad more the the right off in the distance.  Lastly, I really like my right hand supporting the lens...nanu-nanu, shazbot! beam me up Scotty.

Golden Hour

Golden hour is that special lighting and color photographers like to use.  It is just before sunset and similar to the blue hour which is in the mornings.  Neither of these two times prevail very long, minutes as opposed to, maybe all day.  You can watch the sun go up or down during this time and think you can see it move.  During the day the sun just sits there, anchored in one spot it seems, until you walk away for an hour or so and then look at it again.

Nice thing about these special hours is the lighting and what you can see differently.  Here are some shots from last night.  I little surprise was the addition of our first hatching of little Mallard ducks.  This hen had 10.  We haven't seen them yet today.  She's taken them to another pond or hiding in the taller grass.  The males bothered them when they showed up last night.

A fly taking a break
   
Ten new neighbors.

Gnats flying everywhere above a  cherry tree,                        

                                          

Moon rising from behind the trees.  This one is sometimes called the spring moon I believe.

Before and After....

You just have to love Adobe's Lightroom.  Other than the watermark this was totally done in LR(cc) or as a stand alone LR6.

I'm no expert by any means but I do believe this is pretty good for someone that isn't trained in photography.  I'm not even sure what type of photography I like or do best.  I tend to do more landscape but I like macro, however, I feel like I'm leaning towards more of an impressionist.  I like to try to save badly take photos, something I have no trouble in having plenty of.


Before

                                                                         

After