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Ashland sunset
Had some interesting clouds the other day so I decided to head over to the other side of the freeway with my camera, new ultra wide-angle lens, and tripod to see what kind of sunset would be offered up. It was a good one!
Southern Oregon University Women's Volleyball
I took this on 9/10/11. Next home game for the Lady Raiders is 9/23. I’m hoping the lens I have purchased since I took today’s photo (Nikon 80-200mm f/2.8D) will allow me to take a shot like this with less blur. I took this with settings of f/4.5 and 1/200 of a second (ISO 1600) with my 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 Nikkor lens in poor, indoor, gymnasium lighting. With my new lens I should be able to do something like f/2.8 and 1/320 with better results. Stay tuned.
Elizabethan stage at OSF enjoying the sunset
Even though I live in a “theater town” I must admit that I am easily bored by play going. Tourists come to Ashland and watch five or more plays on their mini-vacations. I have a tough time making it through a single performance a year. Such was the case a couple weeks ago when we went to see “The Pirates of Penzance.” Everyone in the audience seemed to love this musical. After the first few minutes I was longing to be anywhere else.
The best part, by far, of this experience for me was watching the sunset behind the Elizabethan Stage. The stars then came out, and the Big Dipper was perfectly framed (from my seat) by the opening in the theater.
Mt. McLoughlin and Ashland from Wagner Butte
Wildflowers attract bees as well as butterflies
Wagner Butte Trail
As I mentioned before, I didn’t bring enough water. I had about 6 oz. left for the way down and nothing left after a mile or two of the five plus miles down. I was a bit worried that I may start cramping up and not be able to make it back to my car so I didn’t stop to take many photos on the way down.
This was unfortunate as the light was much better as you can see in the above photo, one of the few I took on the way down. Instead of a bright sun overhead, the sun was frequently obscured by clouds and/or at a much more interesting angle for photography. Next time I climb Wagner Butte I’ll either head up in the early morning, while it is still dark with a headlamp, or bring a headlamp and leave later in the day so as to come down during the sunset.
Tons of bugs attack me on Wagner Butte - Mt. Ashland in the background
Also mentioned in a prior post, there were thousands of bugs at the top of Wagner Butte circling around what appeared to be a rusted kitchen sink. I didn’t get close enough to inspect so as to avoid the bugs. Instead, I went around the edges of the butte taking photos and hoping not to catch the bugs’ attention. That worked for about a minute and then they spotted me. Immediately I was swarmed by a zillion bugs. I fired off the above photo (all of the little black things in it are flying insects), and quickly got off the butte. They left me alone at that point. Thank goodness as I didn’t want to have to share the rest of my walk back down the mountain with them.
View of Pilot Rock and Mount Ashland from the top of Wagner Butte
The top photo today is about as wide a picture as you can get from the top of Wagner Butte. I had my ultra wide-angle lens on my Nikon D7000 and shot this at 10mm. Pilot Rock and Mt. Ashland look very far away, but they wouldn’t if I was shooting at, say, 50mm or even 24mm.
Most days in Ashland’s summer feature no clouds at all. The sky usually isn’t this blue either as forest fires in Northern California or Southern Oregon tend to give the sky a gray haze. However, I got pretty lucky on this day to have bluer than normal skies and some clouds as an added bonus. About 3 hours after I took the above photo we had a brief thunder and lightning storm.
Wagner Butte, Jackson County, Oregon
The foundation for the lookout that was here until the 1970s is all that remains on Wagner Butte. There looked to be a rusted sink or something too. I didn’t get too close to it as there was a tornado of bugs swirling above.
Medford is in this direction, a bit to the right.
When I returned from Copenhagen a month ago there was a couple of baby deer frequently hanging out in my backyard (as there are every year). But they were several weeks old at least.
The one pictured above I caught sight of a few weeks later and it looked much younger, maybe born within the prior few days. You can’t really tell how small it was without some comparison so here is another picture of the fawn with its not-very-large mother for perspective.
Sunset facing Medford from the top of Mt. Ashland
The lights in the distance are in Medford. I took this photo from the top of Mt. Ashland in late August. There aren’t many days in the year when you can get to the top of Mt. Ashland in a car (because of snow).
For a reverse view (from Medford during the day), a couple months earlier, check out this pic.
Wildflowers and distant mountain ranges from Mt. Ashland
I have posted quite a few photos with Mt. Ashland in the background. Today’s pic is a little different as I took it last night while walking to the top of Mt. Ashland while looking south (into California mostly). The mountainside was covered in wild flowers. I couldn’t see all of the mountain ranges in the distance a few minutes before with the bright, summer sun. But as soon as the sun began to set, everything came into focus. It was that magical 10 minutes of the day that happens only at dawn or dusk.
Regenerating, burned trees on Ashland's Grizzly Peak
Today’s photo is more than a couple years old. I’m excited to head back up Grizzly Peak soon to see how the trees are doing now that additional time has passed since the East Antelope Fire of 2003.
Snow in Ashland, Oregon
Ashland is hot this time of year, compared to Scandinavia (where I’ve been the past six weeks) anyway. So when this winter photo showed up as my desktop background today it felt kind of refreshing.