Dawn unfolding her light across the mountains. There is something magical about the way that Alpine glow can reach across the span of a valley and warm, and fill me with inner peace and harmony. In these moments when nothing else exists but me, nature, and God…it’s euphoria.
Nikon D300s| Nikkor 18mm ai-s| f22| 1/13sec| ISO 400| Manual Mode| Tripod| Cable Release
Taken from Cloud’s Rest, Yosemite National Park. The Sawtooth Mountain Range is to the right.
This beautiful room called Garden’s Court in the Palace Hotel in San Francisco was originally conceived of as the hotel’s carriage entrance – “a gateway to the splendors and remarkable innovations within.”
~The Palace Hotel-History
Today you can have Breakfast, Lunch Mon-Sat, Sunday Brunch, and Sat. afternoon Tea in this gorgeous room. They have a lunch tour I’m checking into. I’d love to do it.
Wildlife photographers know all too well how hard it is to get a great photo of their subject. It takes long hours of studying their behavior, and being familiar with their territory.
In this edition Rainey Shuler dedicated bird photographer tells us how her experience, persistence and patience paid off in this story of the Pied-billed Grebes.
Photograph by Rainey Shuler
Pied-billed Grebe Nest-2009
CR: Tell us about this location.
Rainey: The location is at the Struve Slough in Watsonville, CA which has a lovely walking path for viewing many types of birds including nesting Pied-billed Grebes and American Coots. You can also find Bitterns, Great Egrets, Snowy Egrets, Osprey, Kingfishers, Double-crested Cormorants, Black-crowned Night Herons, Green Herons and many other birds there depending on the season.
We had spotted this Mama and 7 eggs around mid May, 2009. It was close enough to the shore that I was able to sit on a chair with my camera mounted on a Tripod and chronicle the whole story. I would go there almost every day around 5-6:00 p.m. in the afternoon. I chronicled the entire family; first one chick, then two, until 5 eggs hatched. As long as the last two eggs remained in the nest the parents would not give up on trying to incubate those remaining eggs…it wasn’t until June 20th that the last of the two eggs disappeared into the slough and at that time the entire family left the site, which was four days after I took this shot.
CR: How difficult was this to capture?
Rainey: The most difficulty in getting a shot like this is just having enough patience to wait and capture certain moments. I spent approximately 2 hours just sitting and waiting for special moments to occur and during times like this I can end up shooting 200-500 shots to get just the right moment. Of course exposure can be difficult with these dark colored birds on a foggy day so the right ISO and shutter speed is very important.
CR: How did you expose for this shot?
Rainey: I used a Canon Rebel XTi and a 100-400mm lens with a UV filter. For this shot in the late afternoon I had to increase my ISO to 800 and set the shutter speed at 1000 to capture any action. I chose an aperture of f6.3. I used a tripod and natural light.
I had the pleasure of hiking with the “Wednesday Hiking Group” today. I haven’t hiked with them in a really long time due to work. Today I didn’t have work scheduled so I met them.
The group split into two groups at 3.25miles. The Rabbits took a shorter route that would loop them back and give them a 6.5mile hike, and the Big Dogs continued on to complete a 10.85mile hike.
There were 5 Big Dogs, and I’m happy to say I was one of them. On the way back we took the Bayview Trail for a bit and there beside it was some wild Foxglove. I’ve never seen it in the wild before. It was a lovely surprise.
Foxglove Photograph by Deborah M. Zajac
Foxglove’
Foxglove Photograph by Deborah M. Zajac
A little later we saw some pretty Pacific Pea.
Pacific Pea Photography by Deborah M. Zajac
The fog hung thick in the Santa Cruz Mountain Range today, and several times we got rained on. It was definitely the place to hike on hot sunny day in the valley.
It was great seeing some old friends, and meeting new people today. I hope it’s not long before I can hike with the group again. There was another neat surprise during this hike I’ll share soon!
I’ve made my Hike Stats public if you’d like to see them, and the route map go here.
I wish there wasn’t parking allowed here, but with so few parking spots in the city…
One takes the shot!
This was a fun day. Downhill Dali and I went up to shoot a few of the cities cathedrals, this, and we wrapped up the day at Baker Beach where I discovered lots of naked, pink men hang out. LOL!
Only in the city!
Here’s a link to Prometheus Reflects – one shot I took while at Baker Beach
T, DD, G, and I went to Brunch at Absinthe Brasserie, and Bar in San Francisco before heading to downtown to photograph Union Square, and then meet-up with our Night group for some Night photography.
I had the Croc Monsieur. It was delicious. Toasted levain bread, with thin sliced Black Forest ham, smothered in melted Gruyère, some Dijon mustard, béchamel, mixed greens.
The restaurant opened at 11:00am we there a few minutes after 11 and there was already a 30-40 minute wait for walk-ins. We ate at the bar.
Circadianreflections Blog 
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