Category: Photography

The Dicken’s Fair

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Copyright © 2012 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved.

The Great Dickens Fair
The Great Dickens Fair

I had the pleasure of spending the day with several friends at the Dickens Fair in Daly City, CA yesterday. We arrived when it opened and stayed until closing time.

The Chimney Sweep above is one of the first characters we saw after we checked in our coats, and umbrellas.  He and his colleague  were very funny, friendly, and lovely.

Isn’t his costume terrific!

The two gents below were in a Portrait studio having their photo taken when I spied them through the window. They didn’t smile for the camera back then.

Two Gents posing

There were plenty of shops carrying Art, crafts, and wares throughout the streets of Dickens London…Whispers from the Past,

Whispers from the PastNutcrackers,

NutcrackersGlitz and Glamor-High fashion

Womens Head Dress

Undergarments… These are Live Mannequins. Each lady posed for 30 minutes then was replaced by a new live mannequin.

Live Mannequin Window Display

Corsets on display at Dark Garden

…and a Food & Drink. At the Pub of course!

Pub
Pub

It was a lovely way to spend a rainy, and windy Saturday. The shows were all beautifully performed and were hilarious. I have a lot more photos to go through, and more keepers than I thought I’d have. The venue was very poorly lit  from a photographers point of view, and made it quite challenging getting a sharp, well-lit photo.

If you haven’t been to the Dickens Fair I recommend it.  I have to thank my friend May for getting a group of us together to go. Thanks May! ( I hope you can see May’s  Dickens Fair photos, they’re really good. Click the link! )

Nikon D700| Nikkor 85mm f1.8 AF-D| Nikon SB600

 

 

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The Warrior of Pelt and Bone

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The Warrior of Pelt and Bone, originally uploaded by dmzajac2004-.

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

He was a drummer/musician at the West Valley 25th Annual Pow Wow. I wish I knew more about him. I didn’t have a chance to talk to him. He was resplendent, ominous, and intriging, and I had a dozen questions in my mind I wanted to ask him.

Nikon D700| Nikkor 80-200@ 135mm| f4.5| 1/1000 sec| ISO 800| Manual Priority| Hand-held

Moonrise in Yosemite National Park

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

Please click on photo to view  it larger, and then if you’d like to view  it on black once in the larger screen mode press L on your keyboard. It looks better I think.

My flickr contact Lynne said she’d like to see this in Black and white. That got me thinking about it, and then I began to play. Finally I’ve come up with something I like. What do you think Woman?

Single frame; Nikon D700: Nikkor 80-200mm @200mm| f10| 1/200 sec| ISO200| Manual Priority| Tripod w/cable release

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Post Thanksgiving Repast Hike

Posted in California, hikes, Holidays, Landscapes, Nature, PhotographyTagged , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Copyright © 2012 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved.

All of us were feeling heavy and a bit groggy from the Thanksgiving Feast so we decided to hike up to Mission Peak to shake it off, and keep a tradition going. When my son comes home for the holidays we come up here at least once together. This time my husband came along too. The light was gorgeous at the top when we arrived.

It was a lovely afternoon, sunny, and warm, and it didn’t get chilly or windy until we were near the top. I didn’t outdo any records making it up here this time. The rich food of the day before and not hiking for a few weeks paid its toll.

Near the trail-head there were several Magpies hanging around. Here is one landing on a post along the trail. I think these birds are pretty, but they gross me out!

There are quite a few new calves up here now, and I saw a pretty big Red-Tail Hawk hanging around looking for something to eat near the top. There were also quite a few other people making this trek.

Calf with Caramel Ears

We stayed long enough to snap a photo, and head down. We wanted to get down before dark; we almost did.

Nikon D700| Nikkor 28-105@35mm| Manual Priority| Hand-held

Red-Tailed Hawk: light morph

Posted in Birds, California, Nature, Photography, WildlifeTagged , , , , , , , , 4 Comments

Copyright © 2012 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved.

Several friends and I went out to Central CA to a National Wildlife Refuge to see if any Sandhill Cranes or Snow Geese had arrived and photograph them.

While on the auto-tour we spotted this Red-tailed Hawk on a post. We had a good vantage point to photograph it so we all started framing and firing our cameras which spooked him.

It was just what we hoped for. We all got some really nice shots of him taking off, and flying low in the marsh grass.

Lift off!

 

Wings up…

 

Downward flap

I needed  help identifying this Red-tail. My National Geographic bird book isn’t very clear on the Light and Dark Morphs. Thanks to my friend Dali for I.D.ing it for me. Since then I’ve purchased a new bird guide-book:  Stokes Field Guide to the Birds of North America. Between the two books I hope to be able to ID birds more easily.

Nikon D300s| Nikkor 80-200@ 200mm + Tamron 1.4x Teleconverter| f7.1| 1/2000sec| ISO 640| Manual Priority| Hand-held

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Moonrise Yosemite National Park

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

I’ve switched to Birding photography mode of late and forgot about this photo shoot until Lori Hibbett asked me about my photo.

Last year several friends and I went up to Yosemite to try to capture the Moonrise behind Half Dome, but at the 11th hour the clouds moved in and obscured the top of Half Dome and dashed our hopes of making that shot.
A few of us tried it again this year with better weather. Thanks to the brilliant calculations of our friend Rico we knew when the Moon would be rising and where, unfortunately he wasn’t able to join us for this attempt. So here’s a big shout out to Rico: THANK YOU RICO for the brain work, and for sharing your findings. Also, a shout out to Dali for driving. Thank you for getting us there and back again safely!
Steven– as always your company and conversation is fun and interesting!

Single frame; Nikon D700: Nikkor 80-200mm @200mm| f10| 1/200 sec| ISO200| Manual Priority| Tripod w/cable release

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Sunrise hues and Sandhill Cranes

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

The Sandhill Cranes are making their winter migration  from the North to the Pacific Fly-way in California’s Central Valley.  Lodi,CA was having its annual Sandhill Crane festival over the week-end of Nov. 3-4, 2012. Several friends and I went. We had a great time and spotted some great birds in addition to the Cranes. I took this photo the morning of the 4th just after the sun rose. We got up early, and drove out to the country to see the “Fly-out”. The Cranes spent the night in the fields where we were, but they spend the day in other fields where they’ll graze on corn.

My ears were filled with the sounds of honking Cranes, and geese, quacking ducks, and periodically the sounds of hundreds of wings as flocks of birds lifted off. It was an amazing morning to be alive.

Nikon D300s| Nikkor 80-200@80mm|f5.6| 1/3200| ISO 200| Manual Priority| Hand-held

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