Elk Lake

From Photo of the day 2011

I was finally able to get my dog out and about again on Wednesday after 2+ weeks house rest. She cut her foot while we were out hawking, so things have been a bit slow for me. Anyways, got her out to Elk Lake outside of Victoria for about an hour and a half, I had just got off work and the light was lovely. Took the camera in case I found something and took a bunch of shots. This one is shot from the Beaver lake side of the park looking across to "The Center of the Universe" observatory. Just the lighting and shadows made it work. I added a bit of warming colour temperature and highlights in Picasa.

From Photo of the day 2011

I also found this guy - a juvenile red-tailed hawk. I accidentally spooked him from a closer perch out of the sun before I could get a shot off, but he conveniently landed in the light on a higher perch. Made the angle a little funny, and he was a bit put out with me (as you can see in his expression) but looked pretty good all the same. This one is the last one I got before he got annoyed enough with me staring at him to take off somewhere else. I had a few of him in flight but all the branches were in the way or he was out of focus. Cropped this and Sharpened in Picasa.

Hooded

From BCFA for sale

My sister complained I don't post enough on here, so this one was unplanned.

I finished up this hood this week to enter in the NAFEX.net hoodmaking contest. I needed some pictures of it on a bird so I got Fowler to model it for me. I had him stand on the gate of my deck and shot it with a relatively large aperture to blur the background. I wasn't really looking for an artistic shot but I like how it came out - the hood looks good on him and the picture is sharp. Straight out of the camera.

A new year

From Photo of the day 2011

So this one takes the "official" photo of the day title. And to think I wasn't going to take the shot but for prompting from my friend. A vivid sunset taken from my friends helicopter hangar after we got back in from flying. I had another with the whole helicopter in the shot but liked how the main blade in this one led one's eye into the sunset rather than out of it. I played with the fill light a tad to bring out a bit more of the sky, which lead me to just touch up the shadows to hide the pixeling that shows up in barely exposed kinds of shadows.

From Photo of the day 2011

And this takes second place. My friend and I flew his gyrfalcon, Tula, before we took off flying in the helicopter before dark. She is sitting on her lure (fake duck) which she just piled out of the sky for. I really like her posture and the exposure was just right so that her back was visible without burning the sunlit breast feathers. I took some with the sun behind me but the grass in the background and the harsher shadows were more distracting. I could easily print this off to paint from - who knows, I might. This shot is straight from the camera.