Also Ran's

 So far I have posted four of the six photos I used in my final presentation for Beginning Digital. The two I am showing today are part of the pile of "also ran's", meaning they came close but didn't make the cut.

The first photo, to the left, is of a red-breasted nuthatch. This is one of those strange photos that I love but no one else gets excited about. Yes, I know it is a photo of the back side of a bird but it is such a classic nuthatch pose! I love the open space at the bottom but others find it too stark. I still think I will print it out at 16" x 20" and hang it on my wall.

The second photo is of a Sharp-shinned hawk in a tree in Lander on a very cold day. He is pretty fluffed up trying to stay warm. It is a beautiful bird but the branches were just too distracting for him to make the final six of the presentation.

Wyoming Winter Birds

Two final exams down and one to go before Christmas break!

Here are two more photos of birds that winter in Wyoming that I used for my final presentation in Beginning Digital.

To the left is a black-capped chickadee. They are so delicate and I loved the way this guy spread his tail, reflecting the shape of the bent branch above.

My prof was not happy with the fact that you can't distinguish the bird's eye but the truth is they are so black that I don't think even Ansel Adams could make them stand out from the "black cap".

This second photo shows three redpolls right outside my door. This one almost feels like cheating since I was out feeding llamas when they all showed up. I ran back in and grabbed the camera and took a few shots with this being my favorite of the bunch. Very little effort was expended! This photo has turned in to my Christmas card for 2011. 

Winter Raptors

 I have been preparing my final project photos for the last few weeks and am now getting ready to take my final exams this week.

For my Beginning Digital class I elected to present six images of bird species that winter in Wyoming. Things were going well and I was happy with my selections as I was getting them finalized last week. Then, on my way to classes on Wednesday I came across this bald eagle staring down at me from his high perch. He seemed quite content to let me take shot after shot and so I amended my final selection by dropping a finch and adding him to the mix.

Then, on Thursday, I met up with this regal looking golden eagle! He ignored me totally as I stood ten feet away and captured image after wonderful image. That day the photo of the nuthatch was scrapped so this guy could take his place. 

I will post the other images as well as a few that didn't make the cut in the next few days.

Let it Snow!

 In all the years I have lived here, this is only the second time I have been snowed in! With a driveway more than a mile long it is not an option to shovel the snow. The good news is that it is a weekend, the power is on and I have enough food to survive about a year. The temps are predicted to be in the 50's by early next week so I just have to wait until it all melts away.

In the meantime, it has been fun to try and capture images of all that whiteness. I got bundled up and hiked to the gate and back yesterday - not an easy task when the snow is up to your knees. Today I am committed to wrapping Christmas gifts so they can be delivered to family over Thanksgiving.

This was the scene just a few days ago as 

 this young mule deer lounged in the back yard. I mentioned that one of the differences between white tail and mule deer is the huge white tail of the white tail (duh!).  Another difference is in the size of the mule deer's ears. They are amazingly big. This gal has beautiful black accents on her ear edges, making them even more obvious.

Sharing the Trail

 On Friday I hauled Ken off to the Beartooths (it didn't take much persuading!) in a quest to capture more bird photos as well as to set the scene for another photo assignment, a self portrait.
A lucky situation was that the road between Pilot Creek and Cooke City was still open - a rare event for this time of year. The road is not plowed in the winter, which comes early at that elevation, so it is often impassable by the end of October. Not this year! We decided to spend Friday night in Cooke City and make one last foray into Yellowstone Park from the NE entrance this season.

As it was, it snowed heavily Friday night and so we were lucky to get back through on Saturday but I'm still glad we did it.

The beautiful fox above was spotted just outside the Park entrance. I got a couple shots - most pretty blurry - before he hightailed it into the woods.

 On the Beartooth hike on Friday we not only managed to find lots of birds but also found ourselves sharing the trail with a few other creatures. These grizzly tracks were very fresh - obviously made that morning - so he was close by.

The other animals we thrilled in watching from a safe distance away were the mountain goats. We saw two separate groups; one a twosome and the other with four in the herd. I will post those shots another day.

White Tail

One of the final assignments for my beginning photography class, due in mid-December, is to capture 6 images of birds that winter in Wyoming. (We got to choose our own topics.) This weekend I spent a little time walking through the brush beside a nearby creek searching for unsuspecting feathered friends to shoot. While there I surprised these two beauties. We rarely see white tail deer on our place as they prefer riparian areas. Mule deer are much more common to us and the two species seem to keep their distance. 

People who do not have a lot of deer nearby will often ask how to tell a white tail and a mulie apart. There are quite a few differences but the most obvious one is the feature that gives this species its name.

The little spike didn't wait around for his companion - he threw up his warning flag and took off!

Panorama

So today's lesson was about putting together panoramas from your landscape photos. What a blast! I have made pano's before but not through Photoshop which allows me to keep such resolution. I started with a combination of 7 photos from this weekend's hike in the Clark's Fork Canyon. It looks great but I decided to not post it here since it is more than 200MBs!

Instead I am posting a combo of two vertical shots of the canyon from above. It may not be the most beautiful shot but it points to the endless possibilities of using this technique. If I printed this out it would be 12" wide by 30" high.