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Sledding on Mt. Ashland
We headed up to Mt. Ashland last weekend not to ski but to sled. Normally, January is the height of the ski season but not this year. With little snow, the ski resort closed a few weeks back and won’t reopen until next week at the earliest.
The ski runs sit empty–even on a weekend in January. The sledding isn’t even ideal as there are rocks, bare spots, and the ground has more ice than snow on it. These two had a blast though.
I have always had problems photographing the moon. Even the fullest of moons are difficult to have, with details, in any photo of something else. Night photography frequently involves leaving the shutter open for a few seconds and then things get even worse. The moon ends up looking more like lens flare than the highlight of your photo.
A couple weeks back we had an eclipse. I didn’t stay up for it, even though the sky was clear, because it wasn’t scheduled to happen until 4 a.m. and by then I thought the moon may be behind a mountain if I tried to view it from home. Even if it wasn’t, it would have been on the non-window side of my house which meant I would have had to go outside in below freezing temperatures in order to get a peak. So, instead, I took this photo much earlier in the evening from inside my house.
Contrary to intuition, leaving your shutter open longer to photograph the moon is a bad idea. A fast shutter speed and low ISO are key to achieving any kind of detail. I shot this photo (which has been significantly cropped) at 200mm at f/2.8 with an exposure of just 1/2500 of a second.
Time to saddle up the sleigh. If Santa is missing any deer to guide his sleigh tomorrow night, he can find this one in my backyard all ready and rested to go.
Ashland High School Theatre
Today’s photo is of the exact same scene, from the exact same seat, as yesterday’s photo. The only difference is the lens. Yesterday’s was at 200mm and today’s is at 10mm. Yesterday’s pic was not cropped at all. Today’s photo has been cropped a bit to make it centered correctly and to eliminate some of the ceiling so the difference of 190mm is even more extreme then this.
A train cuts through the meadow during autumn in the Columbia River Gorge
Today’s photo is from the same location as yesterday’s pic. At 200mm and with a bit of a crop you can see that the details of the valley below are just as gorgeous as the wide-angle view.
I have marked the location of this scene with an X on the map below.
Just to the north of this location is Rooster Rock State Park which is supposedly a nude beach. It wasn’t part of our tour. 😉
Nick on bass for Atriarch
Tenguska opened for the band I really went to see on Thursday night, Atriarch.
Atriarch's magic box - inside are the tools of distortion which can transport the careful listener into another realm
Brooks lights the ancient oak, filling the place with smoke before blackening his eyes with the ashes
Lenny on vocals for Atriarch
Brooks on guitar and Maxamillion on drums -- the drums were the only instrument that sounded anything like "normal"
Atriarch put on an incredible show. I only hope it isn’t the last time I get to experience the atmosphere they are able to create with their live performance.
View from the giant boulders on the White Rabbit Trail on Thanksgiving Day 2011
We met up with some friends on Thanksgiving morning for a short hike (under a couple miles round trip I think) in the Siskiyou Mountains. The drive to the parking lot on Ashland Loop Road was spectacular. The valley was filled with fog, but as we neared the top of the road the sun began to eerily peer through the fog-surrounded trees. The scene looked like something out of a vampire movie. Unfortunately, I was driving, and there would have been a revolt had I pulled over to take pictures of the magical view.
We headed out on White Rabbit Trail (crowded on this day for once) until we came to the large boulders. The view below of the foggy valley was amazing. I was wishing that I had my ultra wide angle lens with me at the time. Alas, today’s photo is the best I could do at 18mm (on a DX).
Josi McDermott
I tried out a new lens this past Tuesday at the Southern Oregon University women’s basketball game. The Nikon 85mm f/1.4 D produced the above result at an aperture of 1.4 and a shutter speed of just 1/1250 of a second (an exposure time I’m not used to indoors with gym lighting). I didn’t even need to bump the ISO up very high to get that kind of shutter speed. This is at an ISO of 800. Needless to say, I’m very happy with the results. The isolation and sharpness of the subject, while leaving the background in a state of creamy bliss, is just what I was hoping for.
Click on the photo for an even larger view to see just how sharp Josi was captured.
Unlike the deer (about 200 of which live in town), we don’t see fox every day in Ashland. Seeing them is one thing, but getting them to hold still long enough for a photo is another.
