The Photographers thread: Show us your stuff!!

[Matt]

Yes! I had hied over to the local camera emporium B&H the day before (Sunday morning) and queued up for some of the last eclipse glasses to be had in New York City. They only came in five-packs, so I had four extra pairs to share with my colleagues in my office. My appreciative boss sent around an e-mail saying anyone whose schedule allowed it (some people work on public service desks) should take the opportunity to go outside and take a look. In our location, the peak time was about 2:45, which I arranged to coincide with my lunch hour. I got the following shot on my phone by pure happenstance:



You're seeing an office tower just south of the Library, where I was standing on the wide plaza off  Fifth Avenue with a whole mob of other eclipse gazers. When I snapped this picture, the sun was slipping in and out of light cloud cover. You see the actual partially veiled sun at the upper right corner of the tower ... but look on the facade. That crescent spot is a reflection of the sun's reflection, about 70% eclipsed.

I had no idea I had captured that until a couple of days later when I was looking back through my photos.

Wow, it's spectacular! What a very cool and unique shot of the eclipse. You should find somewhere to send that, to whatever publication publishes photos of it. It's just such a cool perspective.

[Jed Cooper]

I thought I'd share some images I captured with my iPad today.  My finger got into one, but not bad.  A rainy day at home in Salem, New Hampshire.  View around the property.  The Toyota RAV4 used to belong to my dad.





















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[Matt]

Brian, did you move from Boston? iPads must have better cameras on them than they used to. My iPad (2nd Gen) has the worst camera of any device I've ever owned with a camera.

[Jed Cooper]

Yeah, I've had some major changes the past couple of years.  I moved to Salem, New Hampshire last April.  Home on short-term disability: left knee surgery so no work until October.  New Hampshire is nice. I like it here.


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[Matt]

New Hampshire is nice for skiing. Get that knee better and get out there and take some photos. It's beautiful out there.

[KC]

Lots of trees up there, I see.

[KC]

I thought I'd share some images I captured with my iPad today.  My finger got into one, but not bad. 

That's why they call it digital photography, I guess.

[Matt]

That's why they call it digital photography, I guess.

 

[Jed Cooper]

Sunny Salem Sunday


















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[Matt]

Here's some more pics from Alaska.  So, we're on a 60 passenger ship, much smaller than regular cruise ships, and the reason I wanted to go on this type of ship was for photographing whales. I had seen the humpbacks in Hawaii in January, and left feeling really discouraged that I hadn't gotten a good opportunity to photograph the whales. So, I followed them to Alaska where they migrate in the summer. I have to say that although I got better photos this time, I still feel discouraged because I didn't get a magnificent shot. And that's now my life goal. I'm probably going to keep following humpbacks around the world until I get a shot that I'm satisfied with. And I like that goal a lot, because I'll see some fantastic things trying to achieve it.

Anyway, here's the best shot I got:



Not bad, but not stunning. But, I did get to watch two whales swimming together and diving for about an hour, and that was breathtaking.

This is the same dive, just a half a second later:



Here's a whale diving, in sequence:

First you see them arch their back (and after watching them a bit, you start to get excited when you see this because you know you're about to get a tail sighting):



They lift their tail:



The back of their tail flips up:



The underside of their tail sinks into the water after them:



Here's a shot of the two together. I believe it's a mother and her calf.




One more shot:



And just to break up the monotony, another shot of the sun trying to fight its way through the clouds.



We'd see a lot more whales later this night at dusk, but I don't think I got any decent photos -- it was too dark, and they were far away, but I'll post something later anyway even if it's not that good.

[KC]

Thanks, Matt! Looking forward to more whale pix from around the world!

[Matt]

Here's a few more from Alaska.

This one is the base of Baird Glacier, at Thomas Bay.



Tongass National Forest around Ford's Terror:







It was low tide, and the shoreline was just chock-full of mussels for as far as you could see.

[KC]

It was low tide, and the shoreline was just chock-full of mussels for as far as you could see.

Mussel Beach!

Lovely, Matt. Thanks!

[Matt]

Mussel Beach!

  I should have seen that coming!

[Matt]

This batch of photos is from the Endicott Arm area. This first photo was taken on a gray/dreary morning and the photo was too flat, but such beautiful scenery. I needed to make it a B/W photo to give it a little bit of pop



This is approaching Dawes Glacier, and the silt water was perfect for catching the reflection of the mountains and clouds:



A little later in the day, and there was enough light to see some color:





This is a little cave in Dawes Glacier, which partially collapsed from a calving while we were nearby. You can see from this image how tall these glaciers are -- there's a small boat on the bottom left:



Dawes Glacier again, that little cave from the photo above is on the far left side of the glacier:

[KC]

Spectacular! It's great that you got the boat in the picture showing the cave. It's hard to get a sense of scale in landscape photos sometimes.

[Matt]

So, a few more from Alaska. These are more photos from the same day as the first bear photos I posted. We counted fourteen bears in this area, four of which were cubs, and these families fished and lived together in harmony. It was an amazing thing to witness these bears fishing, and from what I can tell -- the females were fishing, and then taking it back to the shoreline where the cubs were waiting for dinner, and they'd eat together. 

This first photo will explain why there were so many bears in this area -- the salmon were plentiful and leaping out of the water.





This cub doesn't yet have that deadly stare in his eyes like the father we saw earlier:




Speaking of the father -- here he is, and I think that's the same cub:




These are all brown bears (Grizzly Bears), but they almost look like two different breeds. This seems to be a female bear, and she has a totally different look from the father bear.  I had my camera on her for a while -- she kept dunking her head under and coming up empty. I knew it was just a matter of time, and then she came up with this:



And then took her catch to share with her cubs:





That's her on the bottom left of the last photo... and as you can see, plenty more bears are wanting to get in on that salmon-eating action.

[KC]

Wow, those are terrific, Matt! How close were you to the action?

[Matt]

I was on land on the other side of the stream from them. I would guess the stream was about 30 yards wide. At the closest, maybe 15 yards from the action -- they never came more than halfway across the stream.  This photo shows a non-zoomed look at the scene where you can get a better idea of the distance between the camera and subject:

[Matt]

I spent a few days on foot in Juneau and it was soggy, foggy, rainy and dreary day and night. They do what they can to make the main strip in downtown Juneau colorful for the tourists.



This is inside the touristy-Red Dog Saloon, where you can order an Alaskan Reindeer Sausage sandwich and of course some Alaskan Ale, which I've been looking for since coming home.



One of the more interesting land excursions in Juneau is The Shrine of St. Thérèse , where you'll find some really gorgeous grounds owned and maintained by the Roman Catholic Church:






All these images are from the grounds around The Shrine of St. Thérèse.









I think one more post will wrap up my Alaskan trip.