Waking Up Early on the Feast of Stephen

Dougan Creek Confluence, December 26, 2009
Dougan Creek Campground, Washington
Nikon D80, Tokina 12-24mm (AT-X 124 II) f/4.0 @ f/22.0, 1/2s, ISO 100
Developed in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2.6

On Boxing Day (aka the Feast of St. Stephen), Erik and I got up early to look for photos at sunrise. We made a slight miscalculation in that the time given for sunrise is when the sun actually breaks the horizon, which is significantly after the best light. Regardless, we were down in the canyon and well hidden from direct light.

Dougan Falls is up the Washougal River from my parents' house. The campground is now closed, but it's a short, pretty drive up to the falls. Clambering around on the slime-covered rocks below the falls is treacherous even in warm weather, and the windy at-freezing temperatures we found on Saturday caused us to use much extra caution when moving our tripods along the icy river bank.

This scene is found downstream from Dougan Falls, where Dougan Creek meets the Washougal River. I abandoned Erik for a while and clambered through the brush, looking for a better angle up river towards the falls. To my surprise I found Dougan Creek. You never know what you're going to find on St. Stephen's Day. (No old men gathering firewood, though.)

Deck the Phones

Here's a holiday treat for you folks. I took a few of my photos from winters past and cropped them into photos sized for use as a smart phone background image. The size is 320x480, the right size for my Palm Pre (and coincidentally the iPhone).




I'll dispense with the full image statistics this time. Suffice to say they were all taken with my D80 and processed with Lightroom. The first two were from December 2008, the last one is from December 2007. If memory serves, first and last were taken with the 50mm and the center one was the wide end of the 18-200mm.

I'm not wholly satisfied with the middle one; I think it's a bit too blue. I might fix that before I use it on my phone. Right now I've got the first one as the background on my Pre, and the ringtone is a cute little intro to "Jingle Bells" from a Mormon Tabernacle Choir album.

'Tis the season.

Spotlight on Green

Posing Lizard, July 1, 2009
Kiahuna Plantation Resort, Po'ipu, Hawaii
Nikon D80, Nikkor 18-200 f/3.5-5.6 @ f/5.6, 1/500s, ISO 400
Developed in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2.5

Ah, Hawai'i. I'm not through with you yet. I still have many photos of you in my catalog left to develop and publish.

This little guy wasn't camera shy. We found him while walking around the gardens at our resort, Kiahuna Plantation. The wife's sharp eyes caught him first, nestled in the leaves of a bush. I'm sure he's some sort of common lizard that Hawaiian residents sick the cats onto, but for us he was quite charming.