Angel's Breath in the Morning

This morning the fog has been drifting back and forth across the ridge top where I live. Whenever I see this I know it will make for great photography. I grabbed my camera and walked down our foggy road looking for images and I found some really nice ones of the crepuscular rays beaming into the forest. Crepuscular rays is just a fancy name for sun beams or as we like to call them, Angel's Breath. Crepuscular rays are caused by the scattering of light in sunlit areas from water droplets (fog), dust or other fine particles in the air. Whatever you want to call them they are pretty cool and make for some beautiful images of the forest. All images were created with a Canon 7D and a Canon 17-85mm lens. The exposures varied. May you have a blessed day, chris #TeamCanon,#canonbringit

Simple Story of the Red Bench

The red bench started out as a a light brown double bed. It was purchased by a young couple we knew over thirty years ago as a present to themselves for their wedding. Many years down the road when we were in need of a bed for Lenore's grandmother they heard of our need and graciously gave it to us. When Grandma died we kept it as a spare bed. Our son Jay came home from college and it was pressed into use in his bedroom. A month or so back when we were having our house painted and I went to move the bed to make room for painting. In sliding it across the floor I heard a loud crack and one corner of the bed sagged. A quick investigation revealed I had broken the frame of the bed beyond a simple repair. Not wanting to throw away the frame I decided to make it into a garden bench. I cut the bed rails up into seat length sections and screwed them down to the head and foot boards. Yesterday morning I completed the project by painting it a rich red color. Hopefully it will be in use for thirty or more years to come. Thank you Lord for these simple gifts. chris Image created with a Canon 7D and a Canon 17-85 mm lens at 30mm. AV mode, ISO 800, F 4.5 at 1/8th of a sec.

Quick Set Up

This has not been been my week for digging into a big photography project. There are just too many home projects pulling me away from it. This morning I erected a quick set up and photographed the Steller's Jays for about half an hour. This image was my favorite from the images I created. Jays are an underrated species! After I finished photography for the day it was on to some home projects. I'll post the finished product one one of my efforts tomorrow morning. God's love and blessings to all, chris image was created with Canon 7D and a Tamron 150-600mm lens.

Celestial UFO Landing (Not)

Today was a no photography day. We went to the big city of Santa Rosa to shop and to meet my cousins in Sebastopol for lunch. It was so nice to see them. When we arrived home Annika informed me that my lens was back from being repaired. I immediately unpacked the lens and walked down the road and photographed the suns going down over the Pacific Ocean. It always amazes me how the sun distorts so much due to the atmosphere. Tonight's sun looked like an alien ship landing. God's love and blessings to all, chris Image created with a handheld Canon 7D and a Tamron 150-600mm lens.

When the Stars Come Out at Night

Today was a busy day with home projects and no time for photography. This evening we went out for dinner and by the time we got home it was close to eleven P.M. Walking down the walkway into the house I looked up to see the Milky way and all its mysteries blazing overhead. I went inside and grabbed my camera and a wide angle lens and started making some images of it. These two were my favorite. One is a selfie no less! Both images were made with a Canon 7D and a Canon EFS 10-22mm wide angle lens. Manual mode, ISO 3200, F 4.5 at 30 seconds. Camera was supported on a Manfrotto XPROB tripod with a Bogen ballhead. God's light and love to all, chris

Dreams

When I was out at the coast recently the fog came creeping in as it often does. The timing was just right for a kayak to paddle by in the dwindling light. As soon as I saw it I knew it would make for a great silhouette. I waited for the kayaker to get closer to some rocks ahead of it for a nicer composition. The lack of light from the fog rendered everything into black and white even though this is a color image. This image was created with a Canon 7D and a Canon EF-S 17-85 mm lens at 85mm. Settings used were AV mode, ISO 400, F 18.0 at 1/2,500th of a sec. God's love and blessings have a great evening, chris

Mostly Foggy Day at the Coast

Lenore and I spent the day on the Mendocino Coast. We went for a bike ride on the Coastal Trail. We went down to Glass Beach. We finished the day off by going down into Noyo Harbor to Silvers at the Wharf for iced tea, steamed clams and a bowl of chowder. Lots of beautiful sights to see and photograph on the North Coast! God's light and love to all, chris all images created with a canon 7D and a Canon EF-s 17-85 mm lens.

Little City Lights

I love night photography. It is just so cool the way a camera renders car lights as a blur if you leave the shutter open during a long exposure. Cityscapes are just amazing. I love photographing San Francisco at night with the Golden Gate Bridge bridge or the Oakland Bay Bridge in the foreground. Today I had the urge to do some night photography. The problem is San Francisco is a two and a half hour drive south. Then I remembered that they were running trucks at night on the construction of the bypass of highway 101 around Willits. The truck lights would look great under the Willits Arch. I drove downtown and sure enough there was plenty of traffic under the arch for a great image.A perfect little cityscape. Image created with a Canon 7d and a Canon 17-85mm lens at 70mm. On a Manfrotto 3055 XPROB tripod. Camera settings used were AV mode,ISO 100,F 32.0 at 15 sec.

From Snow Mountain to Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument

On Friday of last week my view to the east changed. President Barack Obama designated the Berryessa Snow Mountain Wilderness Area as a national monument. This will make it one of the biggest parks in California. It is over 100 miles long stretching from Solano County in the south to Snow Mountain in the North. The area is home to an incredibly diverse amount of wildlife from Bald Eagles and Tule elk to a wide array of wildflowers and plants. I have witnessed the spring display of wildflowers in Bear Valley and it is second to none. Here is my image of Snow Mountain from my bedroom window. It is the taller peak in the background. It will be interesting to see how it is managed to meet the diverse needs of the people who currently use it. God's love and blessings to all, chris Image created with a Canon 7D and a Canon 100-400IS lens #TeamCanon

Touch of Velvet

All the Blacktail bucks in my area have their antlers almost fully grown now and they are covered in velvet. Come late August the velvet will start coming off in anticipation of when they will need their antlers for the fall rut. This morning I was on my way into town to drop off some bags to the Senior Thrift Store when I passed by a bachelor group that was in someones front yard. I stopped as one of the bucks was standing in a great spot right in front of a shaded area with dark house siding behind it. I immediately took advantage of this dark background by taking his portrait. The lighting was fabulous.! What a nice way to start my trip downtown. God's love and blessings to all, chris Image created with a Canon 7D and a Canon 100-400 IS lens at 400 mm. Camera was handheld and the camera settings used were. AV mode, ISO 400, F 5.6 at 1/160th of a sec. #TeamCanon, #canonbringit

Catching Up on the Birds

I'm getting caught up now that I can upload images directly to my main computer. Last week I had two great mornings with the birds out in my photoblind in the Little Lake Valley of Northern California. There were a lot of birds and I had a great time photographing them. Editing images isn't as much fun but it is a necessary part of photographic process. Here are my favorite four images from those two days. All these images were created with a Canon 7D and a Tamron 150-600 mm lens. I prefer shooting with a zoom lens over a straight telephoto lens because it makes bird images much, much easier to compose with. Especially when you are photographing from a photoblind and it is difficult to change your position relative to your subjects. The camera was on a tripod and was in AV mode with an ISO of 800. Shutter speeds and F stops varied. Enjoy the images and God's blessings to you, chris #TeamCanon Please check out, "Secrets of Backyard Bird Photography", on Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Backyard-Photography-Chris-Hansen/dp/1937538559

Free

This morning I felt free. With help from Michael the Technical Support Representative from Canon (Thank You) I was able to resolve the issues between my computer operating system and my camera uploading software so that I could once again upload images directly to my computer. I had a backlog of a weeks worth of photography to catch up on. The first images I uploaded were from the 4th of July. What better images to celebrate freedom than that? We went out to the Mendocino Coast that day and road bikes and played on the beach. Thank you Lord for gving us that freedom. Here are a few images from that day. God's love and blessings to all who have helped maintain that freedom, chrisAll images created with a Canon 7Dand a Canon 17-85 mm lens. Exposures varied.

Beautiful Birds

This morning I had a fantastic time photographing birds for close to three hours. The conditions were perfect! It was overcast and the lighting was really nice. Now I have a lot of bird images to process and I can't easily do it because of compatibility problems between software and the operating system on my computer. So here are a few images form this morning. I'll be taking some time off until next week to try and sort these issues out. God's love and blessings to all, chris All images created with a canon 7D and a Tamron 150-600mm lens. AV mode, ISO 800 #TeamCanon

Falling Dominoes or the Domino Effect

Today's blog could also be called trouble and trials come in threes or is it fours and possibly larger.. It all started when I found out that my new lens needed to be returned for warranty work. All of my mages taken with it of birds flying were coming out blurry and now I know why. It needs to have the firmware updated to correct this problem. My first problem was that in order to return the lens I needed to print out a return form. Therein lies a big problem. My printer has been slowly dying and now it wouldn't print. So I searched online and found a reasonably priced printer that could be picked up at an office supply store in the big city of Ukiah. I hooked up the new printer when I got home. Error message from the printer. "This printer is not compatible with this operating system it must be 10.6.8 or higher". I immediately checked my operating system and found that it was 10.3.8. So yes it wasn't high enough. The next step was to go online and download a new operating system. Which with my slow, slow internet connection took something like six hours with numerous disconnects to hinder the process. The following day I went to put the driver software into the computer and the disk sent with the printer kept being ejected and wouldn't mount. The next best course of action was to go online with my slow internet and download the driver. Which I did, success and I was able to print out the much needed form. I thought I was in the clear and went out and did some hummingbird photography. When I went to upload the images i found that they uploaded at the pace of a snail. Roughly one image every five minutes. Now I thought I needed to update my upload software. I went online and downloaded that and installed it on my computer. I blissfully figured all of my little problems must be solved. When I went to upload some images this morning I was notified mid process that my hard drive was full. Oh my what's going to be next? Here is an image from this morning of a male House Finch from my photoblind out in the Little Lake Valley. May you have a smooth day. God's love and blessings to all1 Image created with a Canon 7D and a Tamron 150-600mm at 329mm. AV mode, ISO 800, F 8.0 at 1/200th of a sec.

Chicory, Deer and Hummingbirds

I started off the morning by heading out to the Little Lake Valley to restock the bird feeders. It's been a long time since I have been out there. On the return trip I stopped to photograph the Chicory flowers that were growing in profusion in one the fields beside the road. Following that I looked for deer once I got up into the forest. I found a group of about a dozen deer that were feeding on fallen leaves. They were really chowing down on those leaves! When I arrived at home I went into the backyard and spent some time with the hummingbirds. One of the most easily photographed was one that was in moult and didn't have any tail feathers. I had a pretty nice morning. God's love and blessings to all, chris all images photographed with a Canon 7D. #TeamCanon