Another Beautiful Sign of Spring

This morning I slept in late. Yesterday was a tough day and I think my body just needed to sleep. I tried some bird photography in the backyard but the light was far too harsh. We are heading closer to summer and the window of good light in which you can photograph gets considerably shorter. Especially if you sleep in! In packing up my gear I glanced over at our ferns. They are busting out with the new growth of spring. They have beautiful fiddleheads which will slowly uncoil to become the fronds of the plant. They are called fiddleheads from its resemblance to the coiled head of a fiddle. I just love the cool spiral pattern. Blessings to all, chris Camera Equipment Used- Canon 7D, 100 mm Macro Lens, Manfrotto 055XPROB Tripod with a Manfrotto/Bogen 3055 ballhead. Camera Settings- AV Mode,ISO 400,F 8.0 at 1/30th of a sec.

One Frosty Morning

The inland valleys in Mendocino County for the past couple of weeks have been dropping into the twenties. Combine that with clear nights and you get some great frost in the morning. Not what a lot of gardeners want to hear but it's great for photography. Annika and I went in search of frost along Willits Creek over the weekend and we found it in abundance. This morning I got around to catching up on processing some of the images from our adventure. God bless, chris

Splash of Color

Today was one of those days where I got a lot done but not necessarily on the things I needed too. Over the past week I have been spotting the Mountain Quail covey in my backyard. As many of you know I am determined to capture a excellent image of one.Today with that in mind I sat in the photoblind for about an hour early this morning and then later on sat in the blind for about two hours in the afternoon. During all that time I didn't hear or see any quail. I did manage to add many images to my abundant collection of Western Gray and Douglas Tree Squirrel collection. OH MY! I gave up around three o'clock and went in search of something different. I walked down to the end of our road and back. On the return trip a splash of color caught my eye.There was a Bracken Fern illuminated by the late afternoon sun and just glowing with possibilities. I photographed it from several angles before I found the best one. The problem with the best one was that there was a branch from a bush blocking it. I solved that problem by setting the timer on my camera and running over to the bush and pulling the branch out of the way when the shutter released. After a few laps back and forth I had an image I really liked.The quail can wait for another day. God's love and blessings, chris

Evenings Last light

The last few days have been spent sporadically building a new deck on the back of our house. These things sometimes just catch you by surprise. About week ago I walked out onto the back deck and it felt squishy. If that sounds like an odd description for walking on a deck it is. So I pulled up one of the boards and found the joist holding it up was completely rotted all the way through. The more boards I pulled up the more dry rot I found. Time for a new deck! Ouch.
So today as the sun was going down I realized I hadn't taken a single image all day long. I walked out into the front yard and I saw a fern that was silhouetted by some of the last rays of the setting sun. it was a perfect image for the ending of today.

God's blessings to all,

chris