Three photos on Flickr

I spent a great day in the Alabama Hills during a recent trip to Vegas. Absolutely fell in love with this area. Can't believe I've not been here before. The arrangement of crazy Alabama Hills rock formations against the backdrop of the incredible Eastern Sierra mountains is just total eye candy for me. I never realized how close it was to Vegas and/or LA.

After a bit of sunrise shooting followed by a fantastic breakfast at the Mount Whitney restaurant (best home fries ever!), I went for a drive around the hills to familiarize myself better with the area. There were some clouds starting to decend over the Sierras so I pulled over and stuck the 70-200mm on my camera to do some handheld closeups of the cloud covered mountains.

As I was shooting I heard the unmistakable roar of jet fighters and spotted a pair of them streaking across the valley towards the mountains. Managed to catch one as it was ascending over the mountain range. I also happened to catch a pair of birds startled by the noise flying through the frame. I'll confess here that I didn't actually catch these together in the same frame at the same time, so this is in fact a composite but it was a pretty simple job to merge the two pictures. Not something I do very often but since both shots were real and taken within seconds on the same spot I didn't feel too guilty for blending them together. As to the jet I'm not an expert but I'm guessing an F/18 from nearby Naval Air Weapons Station at China Lake.

Now I'm super excited to go back and visit this area again and take more time exploring. Not sure when that might be in these troubled times.

Three Jars by Xavier J. Peg

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Strobist: AB1600 with gridded 60 X30 softbox camera right. Triggered by Cybersync.

Three Shires Head by cattan2011

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Three Shires Head

Three Moody Sisters by Travis Klingler (SivArt)

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The Three Sisters peak in the Canadian Rockies were nearly covered in a moody sky this day. But dress them up in black and white, and they look and feel so much better

three there by polykhromist

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lens used - helios 44-2 58mm

Three Mariners by Martin Litchfield

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Scarborough

Three Dogs by Foxy Belle

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Lucretia and Thing enjoy hanging with the dogs around the fireplace in the evening.

Blythe a Day: Three Dog Night

This fireplace was a garage sale dream! The seller barely had anything left, but this was sitting there on a table waiting for me. I have been wanting to make a fireplace like this for Blythe - can't beat finding one for $2! It was a wall hanging originally. I added some brick scrapbook paper. I may repaint it when I get around to it.

Doll: Silent Lucretia Blythe

Robe: Ebay

Dogs: Barbie 1980s

Chair: Sindy ($1 from a doll show)

Fireplace: $2 garage sale last week

Phone: flea market find

Fire: made by me from hot glue, sticks, and a votive

Floor: made by me

black bench: thrift store find repainted

Walls: wrapping paper from the thrift store

Red wooden cabinet: garage sale find repainted

Lantern: Hobby Lobby