Copyright © 2016 Deborah M. Zajac. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
I went for a short hike Sunday evening with friends, and found it super cold and windy up in the mountains above the valley floor. There were so many beautiful wildflowers up there, but it was so windy I only made a few images of flowers. Macro photography and wind just don’t play nice with each other.
Nothing to do then, but find a composition and wait for Golden Hour, and hope that the clouds that rolled in don’t block up the sun and we get some color.
My fingers got so cold I couldn’t feel the heat from my hand warmers, and I was having trouble feeling my shutter button. After Golden Hour myself and a friend called it and started back down the hill to the car. About halfway down the colors in the sky popped. I had to stop to photograph it.
I hiked down pretty fast after the sun sunk behind the mountains, and once in my car I cranked the heater as high as it would go, and waited for another friend who drove up with me. She and several others braved the cold and wind further up the trail.
I’m glad I didn’t hike back to the car earlier. I would have missed this!
Nikon Df| Nikkor 17-35mm| Delking Digital Film| Tripod| PS CC 2015 & On1 Photo 10| Single exposure
More to come…
Circadianreflections Blog 
Gorgeous sunset! I love when you think it’s fizzled and done, and then POOF, instant beauty. Like a glimpse into Heaven….. 🙂
Exactly! 🙂 Thank you so much for the lovely comment Donna!
Beautiful landscape image Deborah! I love the way the light is shining through the tree. Hanging in there certainly paid off!
Thank you so much Denise! I love that light too. It was very pretty.
so worth it!! Gorgeous!
Thank you so much Cybele!
Gorgeous composition and I love the way pink kisses the whole landscape! I like how each second of each sunset is unique. Glad you were there and had a warm car to go back to :-).
Thank you so much Myriam! Me too! It took a full half hour in the car with the heater on for my fingers to stop tingling and be thawed out! I really shouldn’t have forgotten my gloves!
Hope you will have some gloves on your next chilly, windy outing :-).
Me too! How’s your Hummingbird coming along? Mine isn’t going too well. I’ve started 3 times and messed each one up. Starting 4th attempt tonight.
Er, um, I seem to be on a “tomorrow” loop with the hummingbird. And of course tomorrow never comes :-D! I’m thinking of trying the crane on the bottle of Eden Shoyu. It has simple flat colours. Lucky number 4 for you?
A Crane would be awesome! I can’t wait to see it.
Lucky? I don’t know about that, but 4 is okay, and I will try again, and again, and again! 🙂 It’s a life long study this medium of watercolor. I sure hope I get better at it than I am at Piano, and French!
I decided to go for the hummingbird after all, but perhaps I will draw the crane after. I’m thinking it would be interesting to do a few preliminary hummingbird “studies”. I did a drawing in pen and ink and markers. And now I think I might try just pencil… to get a better idea of just the tones… and maybe try the 2B pencil I haven’t sharpened yet.
I’m really enjoying your watercolours – your successes, your descriptions of your learning journey and your enthusiasm for learning. Glad you will be keeping it up! It is pretty hard for one person to master painting, piano and multiple languages! Do you practice piano regularly? I took lessons when I was a kid but haven’t played in a very long time.
I’m a master of none! I don’t keep up the piano anymore. I run through scales every now and again, and break out my Christmas sheet music in October and play a few of my favorites, but that’s about it.
I’m glad you’re going to draw and work on a Hummingbird. I know it will be beautiful. I hope you like the 2B pencil. I use that one a lot. I just bought a Pentel 0.7 mechanical pencil for sketching. I can’t find my blade to sharpen my pencils, and I don’t dare use a regular sharpener on them. I’m getting lazy and thought the mechanical pencil would be nice and convenient to have.
I painted a 5th version of the Anna’s Hummingbird in my Mixed media Journal Friday night. The body is a little too thin, but I’m glad I got something done in journal too. It was more practice which can’t hurt!:)
I’m thinking about trying a Western Blue Bird next. I just saw a beautiful pair on Mother’s Day which gave me the idea.
I hope your week is off to a great start! TTYL!
Thank you so much for the Birthday wish Myriam! I really appreciate it. xx
🙂
Boy, this one is crying out to be a painting, Deborah! Gorgeous!
Thank you so much Laura! I had the same thought about this landscape. One day I may get good enough to paint something nice enough to share. 🙂
Deborah, even your impressions in an abstract piece would be wonderful! A nice in-between place to be while you’re honing your skills? Just a thought. I enjoy abstract landscapes way more than the real thing lol. I find landscapes really tough, particularly in watercolor. Love them, but they’re tough!
Thanks for the encouragement!
Thank you so much Cybele!
Spectacular shot!
Thank you so much Norm!
you are so dedicated to getting the perfect shot! This is a gorgeous photo, so relaxing and so full of life! So glad you captured this on your way down!xxx
Thank you so much Lynn! Me too!
just gorgeous!
That’s a beautiful photo Deborah. I love sunsets and I really like the unintended photos we discover after trying to do something else.
Thank you so much Dan! Me too! I like your expression of “unintended photos”, I call them Happy Accidents. I was lucky that gorgeous Mighty Oak was there where I was the moment the color popped.
Wow! What a great photo! Awesome sunset!
Thank you so much! It was very pretty. I’m glad I got to see it.