Spring in east TN

Daffodils in bloom

Spring is here. According to the calendar and to the flowers and trees in my town. Living in east TN has its advantages. Winter is not bad, but we have winter. Spring comes early. Summer is comfortable. Fall is beautiful. Cost of living is great. People are fantastic.  Ok, enough raving about my neck of the woods.

I was out and about, and driving down the street my eye was caught by these Daffodils. 2 houses down from my house. Right there in plain sight. But it took me going out and looking for spring flowers to see them. The light was right with a nice background. I spent over an hour shooting different combinations of these flowers. This image is an HDR of three images combine with NIK HDR EFEX Pro software. NIK gives such great results and a whole range of expression in your HDR image. I find that auto bracketing 1 stop and usually 3-5shots works. I set the camera to Aperature priority so only the shutter speed changes in the brackets. Then choose the 3 or 5 images in LightRoom and to to Export with NIK HDR Efex and NIK opens all the images and starts working on them.

The image was not chosen to make any jealous that we already have spring weather, but if that’s the way you feel, come on down for a visit..

South Rio Grande Valley

Star Trails Cozad Ranch

South Rio Grande Valley, Texas. Home to cactus, cattle, oil wells and some of the best birding in the United states. I just returned from the NANPA Summit where some of the best nature photographers in the world congregated. For all of you who didn’t get a chance to come, we missed you. The Summit was a great mix of keynotes (Jack Dykinga, Daniel Beltra, Michelle Westmoreland) and a wonderful look at the Rio Grande Valley by MC Kathy Adams Clark. Breakouts were excitedly received with lots of talk about what people learned. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to attend to as many breakouts as I had wanted because of scheduled and impromptu meetings. Photography for me was prior to the Summit with my visit to Cozad Ranch and my friend Johnny Cozad and then to Steve Bentsen’s ranch to shoot with Richard Day, Walt Anderson and Don Carter. We found out that Richard and I are chigger magnets and I have the scars to prove it. My post Summit shooting was one afternoon that found 3 of us (yeah, you thought I wouldn’t mention you, huh, Jerry and you, Trish) wandering along the border, looking for the “Wall” that now separates the US from Mexico. Found out it is more like a sieve than a wall. We did come to appreciate the enormous task given to our Army to help the Border Patrol in protecting our borders.

While I was out at Johnny Cozad’s, I shot star trails and have been experimenting with combining shorter exposures into 1 longer exposure. A 1-4 hour exposure was easy to do with film (ok, relatively) but that long with digital capture just doesn’t do well because of noise and heat build up for a long exposure. I am playing with 4 minute exposures and multiples and then combining them in Adobe Photoshop CS5 Extended. Thanks to Harold Davis who shared learning this from Russell Brown.. I am still not completely excited because my technique allowed tiny gaps between trails. I will work on this technique and report back here with capture information and Photoshop procedure..

If you interested in learning more about NANPA, then go to our site and see what all we do, what our mission statement is, and what benefits there are for nature photographers.

NANPA Summit Pros

NANPA Summit is now going on in McAllen, TX. Jack Dykinga, Daniel Beltra, Michelle Westmoreland, Kathy Adams Clark, Jeff Foote, Jerry Monkman ( my roommate), Rob Sheppard, and many more. All here sharing, catching up on ventures and lives. Seeing others great work, sharing with high school and college students, meeting with editors, meeting with equipment and software vendors. This is THE meeting where our pros come together.

South Rio Grande Valley

Rio Grande Valley. Bird Paradise. I am here for NANPA (North American Nature Photography Association) Summit in McAllen, TX and decided to come a little early to visit friends and shoot. I spent 2 days visiting one on my best friends, Johnny Cozad on his ranch. Our friendship started in 2004 when I shot and placed 2nd in the Valley Land Fund contest.
His ranch is superb and the hospitality even better. This Audubon Oriole was taken a couple of days ago just behind Johnny’s house. If you would like to see more or contact Johnny for shooting times and dates, go to www.cozadranch.com .  I will be posting more about the area and the NANPA Summit. Stayed tuned.