“A good snapshot keeps a moment from running away.” ― Eudora Welty
Copyright © 2013-2014 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved.
Here’s one from my archives; from a trip to Yellowstone National Park in September 2013. I woke up to snow on this morning. On the way to Lamar Valley we spotted a herd of Buffalo grazing near the road so we pulled over to take photos. It was just one of many delightful sights on this day.
Nikon D300s| AF-S Nikkor 300mm f4@ f5| 1/320s| ISO 2000| Manual Priority| Matrix Metering| Hand-held
Copyright © 2014 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved.
I ventured North-east to look for Wildflowers then went into Yosemite National Park to photograph the river, and waterfalls, but couldn’t be in the park and not go up to Tunnel View. I swung by here earlier in the day to see how it looked and thought it would be a good place to shoot the sunset since the clouds were getting thicker by the hour and by 3PM Half Dome was covered in clouds.
I made two images up here a cool version using my Singh Ray LB Color filter then removed the filter and made the warmer image you see here. I’ll share the cooler image soon since I like them both.
This is all the color we got this evening. More clouds rolled in obscuring the sun and blocking any more color. By 7:40pm I was in Pearl (my car) with the heater on thawing out my very cold fingers still hoping the color would come. There were only 3 photographers set up waiting and hoping outside on the observation deck; everyone else had left. Shortly after that all the color faded completely and He-Man and I headed home relaxed, and very content.
Nikon D700| AF-S Nikkor 17-35mm @ f11| 1/30s| ISO 200| Manual Priority| Matrix Met| tripod
Copyright © 2014 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved.
The Lion Fish shows us how to do it.
This is an image I made while at the Monterey Bay Aquarium last Saturday. I think he looks lovely in this royal blue watery background. I am going to look for these patterns, and colors to add to my wardrobe this summer.
Nikon D700| AF-S Nikkor 50mm f/1.8@ f4| 1/320s| ISO 2000| Matrix Metering| Hand-held
Copyright © 2014 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved
Since it was supposed to be a rainy Saturday my friend Dali and I headed to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. We met early at a favorite coffee shop then drove a little over an hour south to get there just before the Aquarium opened. We anticipated a big crowd; it being a Saturday, and rainy. There was already a line to purchase tickets when we arrived.
We headed straight for the Jellyfish tanks since those are very popular, but we got side-tracked by the scuba-divers in the BIG tanks. They were cleaning the glass, and both little and big kids found them fun to watch.
…and now for some fish!
There are two Octopi here. This top one is the smaller of the two. They’re both pretty large.
This bottom one is enormous!
This Stingray came out of the deep blue and looked so graceful and hypnotic swimming through the tank.
Finally we got to the Jellyfish! I have a lot of Jellyfish images to go through, but here’s one of my favorites.
By noon the Aquarium was pretty crowded, so we headed to the cafe for lunch. I didn’t take any foodie images, but I did take a photo of the entrance to the Cafe. I liked the lines, and color contrast.
Then we went back upstairs to find some animals and fish we missed earlier. I’ll be working on those images soon, but here’s one gem we found. Isn’t it pretty!
It was a tricky venue to shoot because most the tanks were dark and back-lit. In addition to that the lights in the halls and galleries were pointing into the tanks which caused reflections of the bulbs, and glare on the tank glass, also there were reflections of the people, and the room on the glass. To clean up the images I cloned out some of the light reflections, and the worst of the muck that was floating in the tanks.
I used a Nikon D700 with a AF-S Nikkor 50mm f/1.8G lens, and to keep the shutter speed up my ISO varied between 1000-2500. I used a little noise reduction in a few of these images.
It had been many years since my last visit. I really shouldn’t wait so long between visits.
Copyright © 2014 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved.
I took this image in September 2012 while on a Cruise.
I woke up early to catch the sunrise then I watched us pull into the harbor, and finally dock in port. The Captain and Crew did what I thought was an amazing job of docking the Freedom of the Seas; an enormous ship! We pulled in backwards or in reverse and basically paralleled parked that baby behind a Disney Cruise ship and the end of the pier, and floating next to dock were lots of sailboats anchored near the docking lane like these in the image. It really was the most memorable docking in my life to date. The sunrise was quite beautiful too.
Nikon D700| AF-S Nikkor 17-35mm @ f8| 1/10s| ISO 200| Manual Priority| Matrix Met| Tripod-taken from the balcony of my cabin
Copyright © 2013 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved.
I took this on day 2 of my Yellowstone – Grand Tetons Trip. Usually, I would have been here an hour before sunrise waiting to see if the magic would happen. We got a late start departing from the Inn on this morning, and by the time we parked and I found this composition to shoot the sun was already cresting the mountains. . The clouds started to take on color, and the mountain peaks glowed that wonderful pink and gold we call Alpine Glow.
The river was still, the reflections crisp, and there was a fine mist hanging low over the water. Even though there were at least 75 other photographers lined up around this bend it was quiet, peaceful, and so beautiful.
Arriving at a destination just in time find my composition, set up my equipment, then have all the elements of nature come together to make it all worth while just doesn’t happen to me often. This was magical! A morning I’ll remember forever.
Fall color is in full swing there. You see some of that on the right side of the bank. I was so happy to see and photograph a little Fall Color. I don’t know if I’ll be able to make it to the Eastern Sierras this year.
If you’re finally old enough to go on a Road Scholar Trip I would do it! I had a great time, and met lovely people. I’m looking forward to my next Road Scholar trip.
Nikon D700| Nikkor 17-35@ f10| 1/8sec| ISO 200| Manual Priority| Matrix Metering| Tripod
The Mesquite Dunes and Amargosa Range, originally uploaded by CircadianReflections Photography.
Via Flickr:
Copyright 2013 Deborah M Zajac. All Rights Reserved.
This is from my May trip to Death Valley. It was windy most the time I was there the first two days, but on this evening the winds subsided a little, and the sky was blue so He-Man and I struck out across the flat toward the Dunes. I stopped a few times along the way to capture vistas of the dunes and mountains behind them.
There was sand in the air and blowing off the dunes. You can kind of see that on the dune in the sunlight on the bottom left if you look around the edges around it. It gave the image a softness I like. I also liked the shadows and light on the dunes and mountains.
I rented the new Nikkor 80-400mm G for this trip and I used it to take this photo.
Someday I’d like to upgrade my 70-300mm VR with this lens.
I’m also trying out On One Perfect Suite 7 Premium. I’m a week into the 30 day trial. I’ve used Perfect Portrait quite a bit, and Perfect effects, and focal point.
I haven’t been able to figure out how to access Perfect Layers from LR yet so I sent OnOne customer service an email asking them how to do that. I’ve heard from them this afternoon, so I’ll try it tomorrow.
I’m not really skilled in Lightroom either, but with Adobe’s new Creative Cloud scheme that requires a monthly fee I’m looking into different software to do the layering development work I need.
So far I like Perfect Portrait, and Effects a lot. The presets are really nice and you can fine tune them. On this photo I used Tonal Contrast, and in the Landscape Preset Folder I used Fall Enhancer. In Lightroom I tweaked the highlights, shadows, exposure, clarity, and did a little dodging and burning. Then to finish up I went into CS6 to add my watermark, and resize the photo for the web. I know…I need to figure out how to do this Lightroom. I think it’s possible.
For help with the techniques and “how to’s” in Lightroom I’m using the book by Scott Kelby called the Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 book for Digital Photographers, and John Davenport’s Youtube.com Let’s Edit series. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfmccqzrt18
I’ll let you know how I like Perfect Layers in the coming days.
Nikon D300s| Nikkor 80-400mm at 112m| Circular Polarizer| Tripod
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