Tag Archives: tree

Save the sequoias

The news about the fires in Yosemite National Park has me concerned.  If you never been there, you might not understand why.  Isn’t it just a bunch of rock and trees?  I guess that’s true.

It took me to age 36 to get to a National Park.  Yosemite was my first.  I wish I had gone there sooner, as it changed who I am.

If you’ve never been there and seen the giant sequoias, you might not understand.  Unfortunately photos can’t begin to relay the enormity and grandeur of these monster trees.  At 200-300 feet tall, and hundreds to thousands of years old, it really puts one in their place in time and space.

Wait, stop, think…yes…thousands of years old.  These have survived much of history as we believe we know it.

We learned when we were there that fire actually helps the trees survive.  Fire causes the cones to open, spreading seeds for new trees to grow.  They say the fires won’t hurt the trees, but one can’t help to worry for them.  If you haven’t seen these, please add them to your bucket list.  I suspect they will change you too.

Photos below from September 11-13, 2007. (Click to enlarge photos/open slideshow.)

 

It’s little wonder how fires can start in California when it looks like this.  This was taken a ways west of Yosemite Valley.

The entrance to Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias.

With the rental car for perspective.

Some sequoia cones.

These trees look like they’ve survived a fire or two.

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Photo of the day 2/23/2012 – “Untitled”

“Untitled”
I have tens of thousands of photos that have been virtually piling up from years of travels. Kelli wanted to take some of them and hang them on her wall. Here’s one she picked out.

I have to admit I wasn’t too thrilled with it at first because the original just looked flat and unlifelike. But if you’ve been to this area of Yellowstone, you know it doesn’t even look lifelike when you are standing there.

So I took my novice photo processing skills and gave it a whirl. I think it’s OK for my level of processing ability. No, I didn’t add the rainbow; it appears for about 15 minutes a day if the sun is out.

Lower Yellowstone Falls, Yellowstone National Park
Wyoming
May 31, 2009

Original
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Processed
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Photo of the day 1/6/2012 – “Untitled”

“Untitled”

Today I dug up a photo of a couple years ago that I probably overlooked before because the tree in the foreground was way too dark.  So I learned a little about dodging today to lighten it up.  I also adjusted the colors a bit (probably too much) to bring it to life.

Lower Lily Pad Lake
Frisco, Colorado
September 20, 2008

 

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Photo of the day 1/5/2012 – “Untitled”

“Untitled”

I’m not totally excited how this photo turned out, but since it got me to learn some functions of Photoshop I hadn’t used before, I’ll take it.  What you don’t see is a ton of branches from the scraggly tree in the neighbors yard.  A few remain, and the retouching work isn’t close to great, but I accomplished my goal today so I move on.

In the backyard, WI
June 13, 2011

 

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Photo of the day 12/27/2011 – “Untitled”

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My first star-trail photo.

I wish I had framed this better, but I really didn’t expect this to turn out at all.  It was merely a test shot as I had not ever taken a long exposure like this.  I had no idea what I needed for exposure, ISO, or anything, especially considering the trees would catch some light from the porch light.  3007 seconds, ISO 1000, f8

Up north, WI
November 21, 2011 10:20 PM

 

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My First Time-Lapse

I got to try out my new, nifty, camera timer for the first time a few weeks ago while out hunting.  Among other things, it allows me to program how many pictures to take and how often to take them, in order to be able to make them in to a time-lapse video.

I really didn’t plan this out; I only came up with the idea of shooting this location about 30 minutes before I did it.  I didn’t have a lot of time to pick the best angle or check the sensor for dirt as I needed to get out in the woods for the last 90 minutes of hunting.

In the first few seconds, you’ll see me walking out to my hunting stand.  About 25 seconds in to it, you can see deer run across the field, and if you watch close in the last few seconds, you can see the blur of me and another hunter walking out.  We’re blurred because of the long shutter speeds needed to expose a photo at dusk.

This is 704 photos taken over 2 hours and 5 minutes.  Camera: Canon 30D

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