My online journal where I share my interests in photography, nature, coffee life, journaling, fountain pens, bicycling, spirituality and asking deep questions.
“Creativity takes courage. ” ― Henri Matisse
I can’t count how many mistakes I’ve made in life and also in my photography. Hopefully I will make many more as I continue this journey. Strange, in photography, I’ve never thought of my mistakes as requiring courage.
… well, actually it was at 98% full. I can’t tell. Anyway I headed up to Horestooth Reservoir and setup on the dam for an attempt at the moonrise last night. About a half hour before I left the wind picked. Dang it! So, I pulled on my ski bibs and discovered they had shrunk around the waist while hanging in my closet for the past 3 years. Embarrassing. With a bit of wiggling I got them on but couldn’t button them. Now I’m laughing at myself. It had warmed up to 28 degrees but with the wind it was colder. I shot for maybe 15 minutes, and that was enough cold for me. By the time I got back in the car my toes and fingers ached, my nose was running, the tight ski pants were uncomfortable and did not keep the wind out. And, with the wind blowing it was difficult to get a sharp image. I liked this one the best and that’s what counts. Hope everyone has a good weekend.
“The two hardest tests on the spiritual road are the patience to wait for the right moment and the courage not to be disappointed with what we encounter.” ― Paulo Coelho
“Why is patience so important?”
“Because it makes us pay attention.”
― Paulo Coelho
As the years of practice increase the patience to sit behind a tripod and watch the sun rise or set also increases. I attribute the increase to spending more time in nature; she is our teacher of patience.
I am on my way back to Colorodao. I made a quick trip down to Phoenix to celebrate my mothers 29th birthday (for the umpteenth time), yesterday. I suspect the airport will be crawling with strange people other than me. Maybe I’ll get to see a witch fly by on her broom. Happy Halloween to everyone. Don’t eat too much candy. 🙂
A sudden itch to go camping came upon me on Wednesday afternoon. So, I packed up the car and hit the road. Headed in the general direction of the Poudre Canyon looking for an open campsite in the high country. With the fall colors beginning I thought a Thursday and Friday night venture would not be as crowded. I was right on that but surprised to find very few people up there. With no one up there I pretty much had the pick of my choice. I settled on Sleeping Elephant campsite which has about 15 sites, all of them open. I selected number 12, paid my $13 and setup my tent. The birds and chipmunks were immediately talking about the intruder into their space, Not to be unfriendly I starting up a conversation with them. I told them I came up for some quiet and would do my best not to bother them. Seemed to work. The first image is my campsite and the second is an image of Elephant mountain from which they got the name for the campground.
I’ve been playing more with the HDR software to see what I can do with it. This is one image of three exposures, metered and plus and minus one stop. It is only the layered image then back to Lightroom and a tweaking of contrast and tone. One aspect of this is finding the detail in the moon. Hope everyone had a good Christmas season and ate as much as I did. 🙂
I’d walked farther than I thought so it was taking me longer to get back to the car than I expected. Looking at my watch, I had about 15 minutes before they closed the gate to the refuge. But, just as I climbed up the slope to the car I saw the moon just starting to rise above the lake. There was no way I could let this opportunity pass. So, within five minutes I took a few images of the moonrise, while a doe stood off to my left and a raccoon scurried along the waters edge and I made it before they closed the gate.