Monday, February 29, 2016

2/29/16

Well, I should be posting something fun and clever for this extra day in the year but I've got nothing.  :-)  I do have this bird photo that I was trying to get an ID on over on Google +.  I saw this bird in Yellowstone National Park in the Mammoth Hot Springs area.  This image is cropped quite a bit to show detail so I could hopefully get an ID.  I loved it's long wings and tail and blue color.


Sunday, February 28, 2016

2/28/16

Feels like late spring out there today instead of late winter.  Posting a bit late today for a Sunday.  My image today is still steamy but a bit different for me.  This is a 2 shot panorama from Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone National Park.  It is a rather alien and somewhat desolate area but also beautiful with the terracing and colors caused but the mineral deposits from the hot springs.  Best viewed large by clicking on it.  There's a bit of steam at the very top center where the hot water if bubbling out and over the sides.


Saturday, February 27, 2016

2/27/16

Another lovely day in store.  My car has never been this clean this long.  I thought sure I would make it rain at least if not snow.  :-)  My sister-in-law got me a lovely gift of 3 months of flower bulbs in an arrangement for Christmas.  This month is Tulips and they are now blooming.  I shot some photos of them yesterday and this is one of them that I liked quite a lot.  I shot this macro against a white background and it only has a bit of slight tweaking to it to bring out detail and true color.


Friday, February 26, 2016

2/26/16

Well, more normal temps today with that morning temp of about 20F.  This is an image from last Spring of something I hope does not start to bloom and then get frozen out.  This is an image of a Honey Bee flying in for some Apricot blossom goodness.  The bees were sure enjoying these blossoms and I saw my first butterfly of the past year on them as well.



Thursday, February 25, 2016

2/25/16

Kind of a cloudy day though the morning started out clear.  Decided to share something bright and calming due to the wacky, busy day I had.  This is a couple of Skipper butterflies that visited the Marigolds this past Autumn.  These were about the only thing blooming at the time and they almost always had some type of butterfly or Skipper on them.


Wednesday, February 24, 2016

2/24/16

I'm on vacation today so posting early.  Had a day to use or lose so catching up on some stuff at home and smoking a brisket.  Hope it turns out well, wish me luck.  Anyway, my image for today goes back into the archives and the trip to Yellowstone National Park.  There were several waterfalls to see there and this one was a bit different of any I have ever seen.  This one is called Wraith Falls and the water came down the wide rock sort of rippled surface which provided a type of slide that kept the water wide and thin over the surface.  Made it more difficult to photograph and also with the bright sun right on it at the time.  I think I did OK with it.  :-)


Tuesday, February 23, 2016

2/23/16

I had a crazy day today.  I needed something nice and soothing to look at and think about.  I decided on this view of some lovely, happy Sunflowers in the Badlands of South Dakota.  I took this photo on our trip their to the National Park this past summer.


Monday, February 22, 2016

2/22/16

Cooling off a bit but still very nice.  I have all kinds of flowers coming up.  Daffodils, tulips and crocus.  Way too early.  Today's image is actually from last winter.  I need to get out this year and try to see if I can spot them.  I saw 4 in a tree last Friday but did not have a camera with me.  Sigh.  Anyway, these two Bald Eagles were hanging out in a tree near Milford Lake.


Sunday, February 21, 2016

2/21/16

It's been so crazy to have t-shirt weather in February.  Supposed to start cooling off today to more normal weather.  My image for today goes back to a late summer day at the railroad I help at outside Topeka, Kansas.  These are the two 12 inch scale locomotives that we run most.  They were just cleaned and moved out of the way to work on some other things so I decided to take a photo of them.  They are sitting beside a couple of actual railroad buildings that were moved in to make the area look more authentically railroad.


Saturday, February 20, 2016

2/20/16

Almost seems like it should be May at least with the weather we are having, 70s F.  Tomorrow I think it is supposed to drop some.  For the image today, I have never been a morning person.  Some days though, I am glad to be up to see beautiful views like this.  I saw this lovely and colorful sunrise on my way to work this week and detoured a bit out of my way to take this photo.  This is looking over the Smoky Hill River just south of Junction City, Kansas.


Friday, February 19, 2016

2/19/16

Wow, that wind last night was crazy strong and a bit scary at times.  I thought there would be all kinds of branches down but there were only a couple very small ones.  Today's image I am sharing because of the lovely bokeh in it.  It's Friday's Are Bokehlicious over on Google + and this photo fit right in.  I had taken it last autumn for my B&W project I was doing and never used it.  Glad I didn't as I like the colors in it as well.


Thursday, February 18, 2016

2/18/16

Well, quite the warm and windy day today.  Crazy weather we are having.  Very weird to be able to work in gardens in the middle of February.  My image today comes from a trip to southwestern Colorado.  I got to visit Mesa Verde which was such an interesting place.  The cliff dwellings were very cool.  I got lucky with this image as it was in-between groups where you get to go up close and there were only a couple of people in view which I decided to remove.  :-)  


Wednesday, February 17, 2016

2/17/16

Another lovely day today.  I've been working in the archives of images and this one is from a trip to West Virginia a while back.  This is an image of Blackwater falls in Blackwater State Park, a quite lovely area.


Tuesday, February 16, 2016

2/16/16

What lovely weather we are having.  I washed my car yesterday.  If that doesn't make it rain or snow, I don't know what will.  :-)  I had a wacky day and needed something lovely to think about so I decided on this image to share.  This is a Clouded Sulphur butterfly on my Autumn Sedum from this past year.  These yellow butterflies are difficult to capture.  They rarely sit still but I got lucky.


Monday, February 15, 2016

2/15/16

I don't share a lot of black and white here.  I think people generally enjoy a color image more but as I mentioned, I like to get back to my roots now and then and when I started with serious photography back in college and took classes on it I did B&W and even developed my own film and prints.  Digital makes everything so much easier now.  I took this image of my Hibiscus a couple of weeks ago when it was blooming.  I bring it in the house to over winter and it blooms every now and then.  I was playing around with the image yesterday and I liked how this turned out with a High Key effect.  So I'm sharing it today.  :-)


Sunday, February 14, 2016

2/14/16

Happy Valentine's Day if you celebrate!  Since it's a special day I am sharing the railroad I love to visit most, the Cumbres & Toltec in southeastern Colorado and into New Mexico.  This is an old image from the very first visit there.  This was taken the day after riding the train when I was chasing it for photos.  I got very lucky that they decided to do a double header this day for half of the trip.  When they reach the top of this hill it is climbing they are at Windy Point and the trip has been pretty much all uphill.  The rest of the trip will be downhill and the extra locomotive uncoupled and headed back to Chama, New Mexico while the main train went on to Antonito, Colorado.  I thought it worked very well with a B&W treatment as well.  I like to get back to my B&W roots now and then.


Saturday, February 13, 2016

2/13/16

It's cold and dreary out so dreaming of Spring.  This is an image of some new tulips that I had planted in the autumn of 2014 and enjoyed last spring.  There were a variety of colors and I planted the bulbs randomly so it was interesting to see how the colors emerged and that at times there were like ones together like these lovely purple ones.  Looking forward to seeing how they bloom this spring as well.  


Friday, February 12, 2016

2/12/16

Winter is back temperature-wise and dreary out as well.  Because of that I am dreaming of Spring.  This is an image I was able to capture of a Honey Bee visiting the Apricot tree blossoms in my neighbor's yard.  I hope that there will be blossoms and apricots this year but I am worried with the weird weather they will get frozen out.  I have a feeling we will have our cold weather late even though there are signs of spring already like my Daffodils starting to emerge.  I liked this image also due to the blossoms making a lovely bokeh.


Thursday, February 11, 2016

2/11/16

Well, starting out to be a dreary day after such a lovely one yesterday where I even worked outside in the yard for a while.  This actually is more what it should be like, spoiled by days yesterday.  I have a day off today because of some vacation I had to use up so posting early.  I captured this macro of a Praying Mantis looking at me this past Autumn.  He seemed to be living in this Hibiscus plant because it was getting cold at night and I would take the plant in for the evening and he ended up in the kitchen a couple of times.  He never caused any problems but I didn't want the cat to harm him so we would take him outside and he would be on this plant again the next day.  Not sure what Mantis do over winter but last I saw him he was down beside the house.


Wednesday, February 10, 2016

2/10/16

Turning out to be quite the wacky week.  Lovely day though.  This is from the archives and the trip to West Virginia.  This is Elekara Falls Number 104.  I was lucky during this trip that there had been rain and the falls were flowing quite nicely.  This is a bit of a long exposure.


Tuesday, February 9, 2016

2/9/16

So I felt like some color today.  We are in the dreary blah part of the year where everything is just brown.  This was something quite lovely and colorful I got to see late last summer.  I went to the Huff N Puff Hot Air Balloon Event in Topeka, Kansas.  This was their Balloon Glow Event where they got the balloons filled and lit up with the fire from them.  It was quite beautiful and neat to see when they choreographed the lighting of them to instruction and some music.  Just looking at them all glowing was quite nice. 


Monday, February 8, 2016

2/8/16

Today felt a bit more like winter, yesterday I was working outside which was weird for February.  My image for today is from the archives.  This is from a trip to Colorado and the Black Canyon of the Gunnison.  The canyon had some cool views and neat lines in the rock.  I thought it worked well as a B&W image especially because of it's name.  My favorite photographer, William Henry Jackson had photographed this area back in the day and it was neat to visit an area he had been.


Sunday, February 7, 2016

2/7/16

Well, some very nice days we are having now.  I can get used to a winter like this if I know it won't get worse at some point.  :-)  My photo today goes back to the trip to South Dakota and the Black Hills Central Railroad or 1880s Train even though there is not much 1880 about it.  :-)  We had ridden this train earlier in the day and at this point I was chasing it along it's route to get photos at different points, usually as it passed a crossing, which it did numerous times.  This was at a point where I was able to get a different vantage of it from down low.


Saturday, February 6, 2016

2/6/16

Well, looks like not much sign of winter for the next several days.  I hate this in-between time.  Too cold for things to grow yet not cold enough to really protect those things.  Could be an interesting Spring.  My image for today goes back a while to the trip to Yellowstone National Park.  I had shared an image similar to this not long after I got back taken at a bit later time but I always liked this one for the light. color and reflections so sharing it now.  It was a lovely sunset to see and seemed like it was only me and the duck in the water that were enjoying it at that moment.  :-)


Friday, February 5, 2016

2/5/16

Quite the busy day today, it's Friday and not supposed to be that way.  I am also dreaming of summer.  I took this a while back because this year something ate the buds off of the plant before it could even bloom, I think it was an evil Pack Rat.  I am going to move the plant to a more protected spot this Spring if it survives.  Anyway, this is a bloom on my Toad Lily plant that produces these interesting orchid like blooms.


Thursday, February 4, 2016

2/4/16

Some nice weather for the foreseeable future.  Hope that groundhog was right and we get an early spring and not a late winter. Anyway, I felt like a butterfly today.  I captured this a while back, has to be quite a while back because I did not plant Zinnias this past year.  Won't make that mistake again.  Butterflies like this Painted Beauty seem to quite enjoy them.


Wednesday, February 3, 2016

2/3/16

My image for today goes back to the trip to South Dakota this past summer which right now seems forever ago.  I took this on the Mickelson Trail during the 20 mile bike ride.  I chose this particular section of the trail because it had the waterfall and tunnels as I thought it would be interesting to see.  To take this shot I did a bit of a long exposure using a neutral density filter to darken things up since it was a bright day.  I was using the hubster's bike seat as a tripod as my bike doesn't have a kickstand.  I thought it turned out pretty well with the challenges taking it.


Tuesday, February 2, 2016

2/2/16

Happy Groundhog Day!  Well that was some snow storm we had, pfffffft.  We didn't even get much rain out of it.  Whatever.  Well, today's image is one that I took last fall of one of our Oak trees while it had lots of color to it.  We don't get much red here in this part of the world except for the Sumac but the oranges can be quite lovely.


Monday, February 1, 2016

2/1/16

Well, our snow chance basically fizzled out.  Sigh.  Just rain now so will be very sloppy out again.  My image for today is a Vesper Sparrow that I caught in the Mulberry tree outside the window.  At least that is what I think it is according to my birding books.  :-)