Category: Nikon

A Road Trip Adventure

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Meet James,

Copyright © 2010 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved.

Story teller, Good Samaritan, and my Guardian Angel in time of need.
While traveling to from Salt Lake City to Arches National Park on Nov. 6, 2010 I had a problem with my rental car about 2 hours south of SLC. I pulled over at the first gas station I saw. It had a light on inside the store, but the door said closed. Theresa my friend knocked on the door because she saw a man inside. He came out and verified what I thought- the gas tank or line was leaking. He invited us into the store to call the rental company and to keep warm. We left SLC at 5AM and it was only about 6:40AM when I pulled into the Tesoro Service Station.
I called the rental company and while on the phone I heard James(the man at the gas station) tell Theresa the station doesn’t open until 8:30AM and he rarely goes in early.
The rental car co. was going to set me up with a “tow exchange” and they needed to know my location.
I gave them the address. The woman on the phone with me needed a zip code so she could find me on the map. James said, ” We don’t have one. Soldier Summit is 30 miles south of Spanish Fork on Hwy 6.”  We were surprised by this, but the woman on the phone looked on the map again and Soldier Summit wasn’t on her map.
Fortunately, I was at the only Tesoro Service Station within miles so the tow truck driver wouldn’t have a problem finding me. She got all the paper work started and told me it would take a minimum of 4 hours to  get the replacement car out to me. After I hung up and told Theresa and James it would be awhile before they got a car out here James said, ” That was the smoothest I’ve seen a call to a rental company for help go, and I’ve had 11 tows out of here this year.”

James we discovered is also an amateur photographer. When we told him where we were going to Arches to take photos he got goose-bumps! He pulled out a big black 2 inch binder fully loaded with photographs he took. There were also old photos of the town his mother took. Each photo had a great story to go with it.
He also likes to tell jokes. Like this one- When giving back change to a customer I heard him ask this when he handed him his change. ” Do you see this quarter? That’s a WY quarter. See this horse? What kind of horse do you think this is? Appaloosa, Mustang, Palomino?”
When the customer replied, ” I have no idea.” James said, ” It’s a Quarter Horse!”

Copyright © 2010 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved.

This is the gas station where I waited for a replacement rental car.
It’s located 30 miles south of Spanish Fork, Utah in Soldier Summit Utah.
After sitting in the store chatting with James the store keeper, and visiting with a few of the customers the sun came out and I said I’d go out and photograph the Old Jailhouse and make Lemonade out of lemons. I was photographing the station and Theresa said she named this station Tesoro Arch since we couldn’t be in Arches National Park we would call this Tesoro Arch. I loved it!
Can you tell there is nothing much out here. There is a house on the hill behind the station, and that’s about it.

Copyright © 2010 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved.

This was my rental car. She’s leaking gas. Can you see the little puddle by the back right tire? James put some kitty litter like stuff on the puddle once before I took this photo. Poor thing.

Here’s another view of the gas station. It really was lonely out here!

This is “Guy”

Copyright © 2010 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved.

This gentleman came into the station and I was fascinated with him. He had that …”je ne sais quoi”. James, had said “Hi, Guy!” when he came in, but we learned that wasn’t his real name. James always says “Hi Guy” and he says Hi back so it’s stuck.

I asked him if I could take his photo and he said, “Sure!”
While I was snapping my shutter I asked him what he did for a living to get him talking to keep me relaxed. You know I’m not a “people photographer”, and Guy was relaxed!  He said he retired from the mine and then my phone rang! I stopped photographing him to take the call as it was from the tow company that was bringing me a replacement car. I didn’t get a chance to talk to him anymore after that because he left just as I hung up the phone.
An American Cowboy. Isn’t his mustache great!

Here’s a plaque just in front of the old Jailhouse that tells the story of how the town got its name:

Copyright © 2010 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved.
It says:
Soldier Summit
On Sept. 11, 1776, Two Franciscan priests Father Escalante, and Father Dominguez entered what is now the state of Utah, and several weeks later camped in a mountain pass. It is believed that the Fathers gave the pass its first name. Calling it Grassy Pass.
The name was changed to Soldier Pass when Johnson’s army at Camp Floyd was ordered east in 1861.
About 40 officers and enlisted men from the southern states were given permission to leave the US Army and go south to join the Confederate Army.  They arrived at Grassy Pass in a blizzard. Six or seven men and a fourteen year old boy were frozen to death and were buried by a spring near the summit of the pass.  The Rio Grande Railroad Company in 1880 named the pass Soldier Summit in its first time table.
~Castle Valley Center-Handicapped School. Nov. 1, 1990

The tow truck with the replacement car arrived by 10:20ish. After loading the new car, and saying farewell and Thank you to James we were on the road again headed to Arches National Park by 10:50ishAM.

He was a wonderful host, and I’ll never forget his kindness for letting us hang out in the store to keep warm while we waited for the replacement car.
Thank you James for going to work early, for your hospitality, and for the photograph of the Sunrise across from your Deer Camp.

For additional history on Soldier Summit go here:
http://www.soldiersummit.com/soldier-summit-history

Autumn in the Eastern Sierras

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Copyright © 2010 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved.

This is near the “Tree Tunnel” off the road to North Lake and Bishop Creek I believe. While my companions were photographing the “tree tunnel”, and the creek a little further down I wandered up the trail and found a boulder out in the creek- really this was flowing like a river, and jumped over onto the boulder and set up my tripod to take this photograph.
It was easier jumping on the boulder getting out here than it was getting back…the gap seemed a lot smaller when I jumped out here- why does that always happen? I didn’t fall in! Phew!

Exposure and PP- I used my Hoya warming 81A filter for this scene. I wanted to bring out those lovely reds, oranges, and yellows. I also used my B&W 0.9 Neutral Density Filter to cut the glare of the water and slow it down just a wee bit.
Vibrance, clarity, levels, played with the color adjustment- but liked it the way it was shot originally, and a little sharpening, and resized.

When out taking photos I like to zero in on the little details too. Here’s a little bunch of Aspen leaves. I liked the reds, and greens, and the vein patterns.

“Go, sit upon the lofty hill,
And turn your eyes around,
Where waving woods and waters wild
Do hymn an autumn sound.
The summer sun is faint on them —
The summer flowers depart —
Sit still — as all transform’d to stone,
Except your musing heart.”

~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

“Come forth into the light of things, Let Nature be your teacher.” William Wordsworth

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Copyright © 2010 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved.

This is just one of many stops we made along the way to the Eastern Sierras with 2 friends to spend the week-end shooting Fall Color with Bill Wight and Mountain High Workshops. We were able to cross the mountains via Tioga Pass. We had feared the Pass would be closed due to a 2 day rain/snow storm that has passed through the area only days before. Fortunately the sun came out and the roads weren’t snowed under preventing a crossing.
This is a view of Lembert Dome, and the snow capped mountain peaks behind it. This dome is located in Tuolumne Meadows.
I was last here in June of this year and this whole meadow was covered in snow then.

I have lost some of the detail in the snow capped mountains. I shot two frames this was the -0- or middle frame. I suppose I should have taken another shot 1 stop under also then blended the two frames in post processing. However, I’m weak in Photoshop skills. I think in the future I will spot meter the snow capped mountains and work around that chimping and adjusting my EV compensation until I get better detail all over. It’s more satisfying for me to do that in the field than to try and do it in Photoshop later merging, blending, layering, masks and painting…bleh!!

This is the photo I’m happiest with for this stop. No more tweaking or worrying about those blown out mountains caps. I do love the detail in the tree trunks, and light filtering through this grove, the shadows on the trunks and in the mulch below came out well, and the golden meadow looks great with the sky. Overall I think I did a good job of capturing the dynamic range in this one frame.

PP- Recovery, vibrance, clarity, resized, levels and tried curves but that didn’t do anything good to the mountains snow caps.

Nikon D300s, Nikkor 17-35mm @ 19mm, f9, 1/100s, ISO 200

“Keep your face always toward the sunshine – and shadows will fall behind you.” Walt Whitman

Posted in California, Nikon, TravelTagged , 2 Comments

A few more photographs from my day at Elkhorn Slough in Moss Landing, CA.  The day was overcast, but once in a while the sun would peek out from behind a cloud, and when it did there were humans and animals alike out to soak up its warmth.  Like this Harbor Seal.

This Harbor Seal below has very pretty blue eyes, but I must admit I didn’t see that at first. What caught my attention first were those huge fingers!

Don’t you like way he’s surrounded by the other seals?  I feel like he’s loved and protected here.

This white seal pup was so cute! He watched the boat for sometime. A very curious seal with a wise looking face.

I rented the Nikkor 300mm f4 for this trip. It doesn’t have VR Nikon’s verbage for Vibration Reduction so I kept the shutter speed up all day.

I am very impressed with the performance of this lens. For being on a moving boat, trying to catch the scenes and wildlife as we sailed by it did very well. I like the isolation and colors it gave me, and I didn’t find that it hunted or had trouble locking onto the subject. I didn’t find it too heavy. Well,it is weighty, but not that much heavier than my 80-200mm f2.8, and the tripod collar worked very well on my tripod/ball-head combo. I purchased a universal plate that worked perfectly on the foot.

Renting this lens was a wonderful way for me to try the lens, and get some pretty neat photographs of this trip that I might not have been able to get otherwise. I will rent this lens again, and have started saving for it. I like it that much, and I have birding season coming up! I think this would a fabulous lens to have while at the Snow Goose festival this winter, and in my gear bag.

A Graceful Landing

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Last month I’d gone out with a friend of mine who is a Docent at a local Wildlife Refuge on a van tour he was giving at the Refuge.  The morning was gorgeous. The weather was perfect, and the group small. We weren’t setting our tripods up on top of each other, and Alex gave us plenty of time in each location that he had chosen for us.

There were lots of Great Egrets on the pond this particular morning. One of the first stops I shot this Egret coming in for a landing. The reflections were great on this pond this morning.

Copyright © 2010 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved

A little later I managed to capture this one I call “The Dance”.

I had taken my Nikkor 180mm f/2.8 AF-D prime lens and Tamron 1.4x Extender for this outing. I wasn’t very happy with the IQ (Image Quality) when I used the Extender with my 80-200mm f/2.8 Telephoto Zoom. I have read and heard that Primes perform much better with Extenders.

I have to say that is the case here. I am much happier with these results. For birding this is a great place to go. There were Avocets in their Winter plumage, stilts, Blue Herons, and sea gulls.  There is an island out here on the pond where White Pelicans come to rest too. I’ll share photos of those soon.

Thank you Alex for inviting me to come along!

A Milestone and a Whisk Passed

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The day before yesterday Baby Girl said she wanted to prepare dinner from start to finish. I was stunned, and thrilled that it actually happened! She wanted to cook.
Many years ago when she started Middle School I decided to spend the next 3 summers teaching her to cook. I was enthusiastic, and so excited to pass the whisk, and wooden spoon onto my daughter. I had visions of her going off to college with the confidence that in the kitchen at least there would be no test or final exam to prep for. It was a flop!
She was not interested in the least. She complained and stalled and made it so awful that I gave up the idea the first summer and vowed not to bring it up again. I would wait for the day she asked for help.

Many summers have passed, and she elected to stay home for college rather than go away. Finally the day arrived!
I answered with caution when she asked, “ What should I cook?” “What ever you’d like.” I replied trying not to sound too excited. When she said she had no clue. I offered her my very first cookbook. Betty Crocker- the one with the Orange cover. Now stained, notes written on nearly every page, and a quarter of the pages falling out. “This was my first cookbook. I got it when I was just 19 year old.  Look through the main dishes you may find something there.”
She took the book and with a shy smile began turning the pages. “Mom you really should get sheet protectors for these pages.” Baby Girl said as the page for Italian Spaghetti and Lasagna slid out of the book.  She read the page and said she’d like to try Spaghetti with the meat sauce with a question on her face. I said, “Great. Let’s see what we need!” Together we went through the list of ingredients, then the pantry and made a shopping list.
This morning we went to the market together and shopped. It was fun showing her how to pick a good bell pepper from an old one, and good onion, and she chose her own brand of pasta. We engaged the butcher to teach her the different grades of ground beef, and lingered over the cheese counter and talked about Romano and Parmesan.
We unpacked our purchases and planned what to prepare first. Opting for the brownies.  We went simple here and utilized Betty again. Baby Girl picked Fudge Brownie mix. She put it together with ease.

Copyright © 2010 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved.
Next I showed her how to chop the bell pepper, and onion, and to sharpen the knife, to stir, and blend, and smell the herbs as we went. She’s afraid of my gas stove and the noise it makes when it lights. So I turned on the burner for the sauce. One hurdle she’s not ready to jump.
She watched  the sauce simmer, carefully watching the time, and stirring it carefully. She got the water for pasta started so it would be finished when the sauce was then worried about getting the Garlic Bread started and in the oven so it too would be done on time.
Once the sauce was on she didn’t need me much. She was in the “zone”. It was fun to watch.
The sauce was wonderful, the pasta cooked just right, and the bread that came out a bit late was fattening, warm, and delicious-well worth the wait.

A milestone was crossed today, and a hurdle jumped. She turned on the burner for the pasta water without me. Middle school and so many summers later… I passed the whisk.

Copyright © 2010 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved.

Nikon D300s, Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8 AF-S, Sundisk Ultra SDHC Digital Film

“There is nothing more musical than a sunset. – the book of Nature. ” Claude Debussy

Posted in California, Landscapes, Nikon, TravelTagged , 5 Comments

Copyright © 2010 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved.

Another photograph from my Elkhorn Slough Meet-Up on the 18th.

At the end of the day myself and two friends found this beach to shoot the sunset. The sun set right here. This was the best light and color of the sunset. I’m so glad we were here in time for this. After the sun set there was no color at all…the day faded into night. With it we headed north for home.

PP- Recovery, vibrance, clarity, resized
Nikon D300s, Nikkor 17-35mm f2.8 @ 17mm, f13, 1/8s, ISO 200, Manual Mode