Stargazing

Canyonlands is one of the best places in Utah--
make that the American southwest--
to view stars.
Dry weather, open spaces, high elevation,
and above all very little light pollution.
We were lucky enough to be out there during new moon phase,
which gave us optimal star gazing.
The milky way showed up very clearly,
along with every constellation in the spring sky.
My camera isn't very well suited for night photos,
since the maximum shutter opening is 15 seconds,
but I did get this terrific horizon view
of Airport Tower and a shining evening planet
(Venus, I think)
with the last glow of post-sunset light.

Fives

I have a ranking system for my photographs.
One is dreadful- I only keep these if they are old sentimental pictures.
Two is bad- I only keep these if they are for study purposes
(for example, a building in Europe I am researching).
Three is fine. Most of my photos are threes.
There's nothing wrong with a three, but there's nothing special either.
A four is a good photo-- very nice, good light, good expression, etc.
A five means "I would enter this in a photo contest."
I am rigorous with my self-ranking,
and I rarely give out fives.
It has to be a pretty spectacular photo to get a five.
But on my last trip to Canyonlands,
I got several fives.
All of the above are 'fives'
and were taken shortly after sunrise
at Musselman Arch on the White Rim Road
(I got up way before dawn to drive out there,
so I am pleased that my efforts paid off!!)

Learning New Photoshop Tricks

I'm taking a free mini class on campus on photoshop,
and learning to manipulate layers and masks.
I have always avoided this before
(it seemed too headache-inducing)
but I think I am going to want to learn to play with this.
Observe my rose, for example.
(The original photo is not mine,
though I've photographed similar settings.)
This was an exercise in mask making and selecting,
so that we could make a black and white background
but with selected color bits.
I expect this could be quite fun to twiddle with.
I have a HUGE stock of flower photos...

Christmas Day

Driving home from my sister's,
the light was just perfect on the American Fork temple.
What a beautiful Christmas Day sight!

Camera Fiends

The students on this study abroad are camera fiends.
I thought *I* wanted to take tons of pictures...
but they are constantly slowing *me* down.
(Mostly they want to take pictures of each other,
which takes a great deal more time than photographing buildings.)
But the bright side,
is that someone is always willing to snap a few of me,
so here I am at the Colosseum:

Natural Spotlight

As we came around the corner of one of the slots,
the light fell in such a perfect way
I had each of the kids take turns for a 'glamor photo.'

Compensation photo

Though the light was wrong for optimal landscape pictures,
I did get a good expression and pose from my parents in this setting.

Opportunities gained and lost

I love this mountain.
And with the blossoming trees in the foreground, it made a terrific scene.
However, the midday light was flat.
(Fine for photographing backlit tulips,
not so good for mountains.)
Alas, we could not stay until good evening light.
I was battling a headache and so I didn't go out again in the evening.
As if to mock me, from my window I saw perfect alpenglow on Timp,
when I was lying down battling my migraine.
Ah well! One can't get every photo opp in the world!

Our Photogenic Group

Dad has wanted to go to Monument Valley for years.
It was fun to see him so involved.
Dad, Joe and I were the main photographers in the group.
But even those who weren't shutterbugs seemed to have a good time.
Ted & Caleb sat in the back and talked about math for the entire 3.5 hour tour...

Our tour vehicle was a pickup with what I think was a sawed-off converted schoolbus attached to it. It was tolerably comfortable, but then I personally like bouncy dirt roads. (Dad doesn't, but even he thought it was worth it, to go out into Monument Valley).

We got ONE group photo.
It's in Joe's camera (his sensor is better than mine).
This was the prep photo that I set up so that our guide would get the whole group (including me).
I don't know where the dog came from. But he sure liked the boys.

Evening in Monument Valley

Our trip into Monument Valley on a jeep tour had a mixture of cloud and sun.
Above: one of the Mittens formations, in nice evening light.
Below: John Ford Point (with Navajo 'cowboy') under clouds.

Even cloudy and backlit can be potentially interesting,
though we weren't getting the Typical Postcard Views.

The road itself was beautiful.
I hope they never pave it.

Monument Valley Sunrise

Bird Views

The pink one is a roseate spoonbill
(Platalea ajaja)
but I couldn't find a sign identifying the scarlet one.

This colorful creature is a king vulture.
(Sarcoramphus papa)

We had good luck with owls, awake and alert.
This one, above, is a long-eared owl
(Asio otus).

And this stern-looking bird
is a burrowing owl
(Athene cunicularia).

Amur Leopard

waking up!

stretch...

settling in...

Posing.

At our zoo trip, most of the time the kids wanted to go see an animal, watch it for, oh, about 10 seconds, and then move on. For a lot of animals I don't mind too much but I am extremely fond of the big cats, and when the big cats are active I can watch for hours.
My camera was especially happy with the amur leopard, because I was photographing through relatively clean glass rather than those obnoxious wire fence nets. Also I had brought a decent zoom with me. So we stayed a little while to admire.

Airport Candid

This was so charming-
a candid view from the Oklahoma City airport.
The Amish gentleman was on my flight, too.
He was flying first class. (!)

Italian Supermarket

Various photos from"Conad", the local supermarket chain.
(For my sister, who loves European grocery stores.)

No Flash, No Tripod

Almost everywhere in Siena,
there are signs that read
"No flash no tripod."
(While this is moderately irksome,
the signs that read 'no photo' are worse--
and they are in a lot of the shops, too,
because apparently the sellers of knicknacks
don't want people taking home souvenirs unless they pay for them.)
Anyway, thankfully, most places are also fairly well lit,
so I can get moderately decent quality teaching photos.
(One of the things I hate about the 'no photo' policy
is when I see a perfect example of some iconographic scene
and would love to show it to my classes
but cannot take a photo
and of course they don't sell one, because the scene is too obscure,
and even if they did, it would be a poor quality postcard anyway.)
Thankfully, Wikimedia Commons has good files
that can be used for free
on many of the Really Big Stuff
like Duccio's "Maesta" or the Lorenzetti government frescoes.
And I have been able in many museums
to take some good details without flash or tripod.
Here are the Baptistery Font,
a Pieta by Vecchietta
and a detail of the Annunciation from the San Bernardino oratory.

Siena in the Rain

Like any city, Siena is less attractive in the rain.
However, the rain does provide some interesting alternate views.
I like this view of the Via di Diacetto,
complete with umbrella.
(There were lots of umbrellas out that day,
including mine--
I was very grateful I'd packed one!!)

Chipmunks Amok

The groom is the second oldest of 7 children,
and the bride the youngest of 11 children.
So there were a LOT of relatives waiting at the temple doors
(and these are just the ones who could come.)
Many of these were, as you can see, young children.
Now, I no longer feel about young children as I used to
(in my teens I found them about as charming as tarantulas)
but speaking as a photographer,
they are very hard to gather for group photos.
You can see one of the flower girls wanted her mom
and just would not be persuaded to pose.
They also tended to forget that we were on the temple grounds,
and would climb and slide and play around a lot,
and the adults were often too distracted or busy to stop them.
It is hard to wrangle a group that large,
but I did get one good photo with ALMOST everybody's face showing.

The Usual Poses

I mentioned "the usual poses"
in my last blog,
so here are a few samples.


This was my late-afternoon pick for temple views.
As you can see, the light is extremely nice,
and thanks to my dad's lovely Nikon,
the distortion on the spires is not too great.
But apparently One is No Longer Allowed
to photograph wedding parties on Temple Square itself.
A moment or so after we took this,
a security guard came along and asked us
(in the nicest possible way, of course)
to go take them elsewhere on the plaza.
So we went to the Bride Spot.

Not ideal for lighting, but still nice.
And then there were a few on the temple steps.
In the niches,

And then the steps proper.