Author: circadianreflections

My name is Deborah Zajac. I'm a photographer living in Nevada at the base of the Eastern Sierras. I am a passionate nature, landscape, night/astro photographer. I shoot predominately in color and use Nikon Digital Cameras, and lenses. I hope you enjoy seeing some of the photos I've taken while on my travels. Please feel free to leave a comment I'd love to hear from you.

Autumn Impressions

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Autumn Impressions, originally uploaded by dmzajac2004-.

Via Flickr:
Copyright © 2012 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved.

Last fall while in the Eastern Sierras I tried this technique several times and just couldn’t get it right. I was determined to keep trying each time I found myself near a grove of trees.
This past week-end while out shooting Fall Color was the perfect time to give it another go. It took a few tries, but I got the look I was after.

I tried zooming too. Those came out pretty neat I’ll share those soon.
My favorite photographer that employes this technique is Eva Polak www.evapolak.com/autumn1.html

Nikon D700| Nikkor 80-200@ 80mm| f14| 1/15s| ISO 200| Manual Priority| Hand-held

 

Common Merganser

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Copyright © 2012 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved

I’m so excited!!! After first seeing this species from afar in May 2010 on a cold morning floating with its mate on the Merced River in Yosemite I’ve been hoping to see one and be close enough to get a good photo of one within my focal range. I did see a few this past Spring, but they were too far away for me to get a good photo of one.  Finally after all this time I saw 4 this past Sunday that were well within my range!!! Yes, I am doing the Happy Dance!

Stretch!

Nikon D700| Nikkor 80-200mm@200mm| Manual Priority| Hand-held

Nautical Twilight Lake Tahoe

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Nautical Twilight Lake Tahoe, originally uploaded by dmzajac2004-.

Via Flickr:
Copyright © 2012 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved.

Shortly after 6AM the sky was getting bluer as daylight was approaching and I knew the chance of seeing any more meteors was getting slimmer it was shortly after that thought that I saw the first plane of the day flying into my frame: it was time to change my settings for a sunrise photograph.

Nikon D700| Nikkor 17-35@35mm| f8| 211.0 seconds| ISO 200| Manual Priority| Tripod

Bacon wrapped Filet Mignon

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Copyright © 2012 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved

Image

After a full day of photographing Fall color in Hope Valley, California  7 of us stayed the night in South Lake Tahoe and planned to shoot in the area on Sunday too. We met for dinner at Riva Grill on the Lake. I was craving a steak after smelling the delicious hamburgers a camper was grilling for lunch at one of our stops, and at Sorenson’s Resort the aroma of grilled steak was perfuming the air when we all met there at 5PM.
So I ordered the bacon wrapped Filet Mignon, garlic mashed potatoes, and fresh steamed asparagus. The wine we shared was a 2010 Toasted Head Cabernet Sauvignon. I ate the whole filet and asparagus and left the mash potatoes. I did taste them…they were okay. The wine was great the company superb!

Nikon D700| Nikkor 17-35@20mm| f8| 1/200s| ISO 400| Manual Priority| SB600 1/2 power I think| hand-held…I don’t have a clue what I’m doing with my strobe!

 

2 Orionid Meteors streaking across the sky

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Via Flickr:
Copyright © 2012 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved.

I was up in the Sierras for the week-end with one of my Meet-Up groups doing some Fall Color photography before the storm that was due to hit on Monday and possibly wipe out all the leaves. Several of us stayed the night and planned to shoot in the area on Sunday as well.

We got up at 3:15AM on Sunday morning then drove out to a spot to catch the sunrise and a bit of the remaining dark sky in hopes of catching a Meteor from the Orionid Meteor shower that was peaking this week-end. Once we got there my companions elected to wait until the blue period before hiking down. So I went alone.

I hiked to a good spot and set up, but not too level I’m afraid and started shooting. I saw quite a few meteors streaking by. I thought I’d missed most of them fearing they were out of my field of view, but I was so thrilled when I uploaded my photos last night to find I had captured quite a few and I even got a shot of the pair I saw streaking by. It was magical and awesome watching the sky and seeing so many meteors streaking by.
It was worth getting up for.

Nikon D700| Nikkor 17-35@17mm| f 2.8| 25 seconds| ISO 3200| Manual Priority| Tripod|