Saturday, October 29, 2011

Coyote

 Wow! If someone had told me two months ago what the last eight weeks would be like, I would have dove under the bed screaming and covered my head. I truly believe that was the busiest and most diverse episode in my life. I gave two lectures in different parts of the state, I attended several quilt shows, I sold my greeting cards in a vendor's booth, I traveled 1500 miles to attend a week of meetings, I lost my FIL to complications of aging, I participated in several Search and Rescue incidents including one that required more than two weeks of intense searching for a  missing hiker, I received my Wilderness First Responder re-certification, I had dinner with the governor at his residence in Cheyenne and I had an article published in a national quilting magazine. All this and much more took place while I was attending my college photography classes on a daily basis (although I will admit to playing hooky many times to accommodate the crazy schedule).

The insane pace is my first excuse for not posting for some time. The other excuse is one I totally did not expect - as I am taking more and more photographs for my classes, several things are taking place: 1) All my images are now being shot in RAW, meaning they are 25-30MB each. That means lots of editing and downsizing before I can post them on my blog. Most of my editing work is being done at the college on the Mac's; meaning I also have to figure out how to transfer them home to my desktop before use. 2) Many of the photos I am now taking are those required for school projects and are not those I would normally take for the blog. For instance, I have about a hundred shots of an egg. Yes, an egg. That was to teach us how to shoot portraits in different lighting situations. Fascinating for me but not, I suspect, for readers wanting to see pictures of wildlife!

I promise to try and do a better job. I may not be posting daily as before but I do intend to try and post at least twice a week going forward.

I am starting my revival with the two photos above of a coyote hunting rodents in Yellowstone. He was amazingly productive as he brought out mouse after mouse and consumed them before moving on to try again. The funny thing was that the bison seemed to be totally uncaring of the fact that this predator was strolling among them.