New York Hiking, Skiing, Climbing and Paddling
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Any time I get an opportunity to visit Yosemite National Park High Country, I stop to admire Beautiful Tenaya Lake. It is somewhat remote from the vehicles and crowds that swarm the Yosemite Valley Floor, leaving one with a sense of freshness and renewal.
Caught between immense granite domes and clear Sierra Nevada sky, Tenaya Lake is the largest lake in Yosemite National Park. The Lake was named after Chief Tenaya, who was the last chief of the Yosemite Indians.
The lake is located between Yosemite Valley and Tuolumne Meadows. The surface of Tenaya Lake has an elevation of 8,150 feet. The lake basin was formed by glacial action, which left a backdrop of light granite rocks, whose beauty was well known to the Native Americans.
(iPhone 13 Pro Max, 1/5000 @ f/1.5, ISO 50, edited to taste)
Switzerland, May 2021
My best photos are here: www.lacerta-bilineata.com/ticino-best-photos-of-southern-...
My latest ANIMAL VIDEO (warning, it's a bit shocking): www.youtube.com/watch?v=4T2-Xszz7FI
You find a selection of my 80 BEST PHOTOS (mostly not yet on Flickr) here: www.lacerta-bilineata.com/western-green-lizard-lacerta-bi... (the website exists in ESPAÑOL, FRANÇAIS, ITALIANO, ENGLISH, DEUTSCH)
ABOUT THE PHOTO:
So this photo is a bit of a novelty for me - at least here on Flickr, but it's also a journey back in time in a sense. I've always loved b/w and sepia photography; already as a very young teenager I would go out into the woods with an old Pentax Spotmatic (which I had nicked from my father) whenever it was a foggy day to shoot b/w compositions of sunbeams cutting through the ghostlike trees.
I used films with a sensitivity of at least 1600 (for those of you who remember what that means 😉 ), and the resulting photos had an incredibly fine grain which I loved; I blew them up to the size of posters and hung them on the walls of my teenage man-cave next to Hendrix, Jim Morrison and Slash.
But then I abandoned photography altogether for 20 years, and when I finally picked up a camera again, it was one of the digital kind. Now neither film nor grain played any role in my photographic endeavours - let alone b/w compositions: because the reason I fell in love with shooting pictures once more was the rare and incredibly colorful lizard species that had chosen my garden as its habitat.
It's this species - the Lacerta bilineata aka the western green lizard - that my photo website www.lacerta-bilineata.com/ and also my Flickr gallery are dedicated to, but I've since expanded that theme a bit so that it now comprises the whole Lacerta bilineata habitat, which is to say my garden and its immediate surroundings and all the flora and fauna I find in it.
I like that my gallery and the website have this clear theme, because in order to rise to the challenge of portraying all aspects of a very specific little eco system (which also happens to be my home of sorts), it forces me to constantly explore it from fresh angles, and I keep discovering fascinating new motives as my photographic journey continues.
Which brings me to the horse pasture you see in this photo. This playground for happy horsies lies just outside my garden, and it normally only interests me insofar as my green reptile friends claim parts of it as their territory, and I very much prefer it to be horseless (which it thankfully often is).
Not that the horses bother the reptiles - the lizards don't mind them one bit, and I've even seen them jump from the safety of the fly honeysuckle shrub which the pasture borders on right between the deadly looking hooves of the horses to forage for snails, without any sign of fear or even respect.
No, the reason I have a very conflicted relationship with those horses is that they are mighty cute and that there's usually also foals. The sight of those beautiful, happy animals jumping around and frolicking (it's a huge pasture and you can tell the horses really love it) is irresistible: and that inevitably attracts what in the entire universe is known as the most destructive anti-matter and ultimate undoing of any nature photographer: other humans.
Unlike with the horses, the lizards ARE indeed very much bothered by specimens of loud, unpredictable Homo sapiens sapiens - which makes those (and by extension also the horses) the cryptonite of this here reptile photographer. It's not the horses' fault, I know that, but that doesn't change a thing. I'm just telling you how it is (and some of you might have read about the traumatic events I had to endure to get a particular photo - if not, read at your own risk here: www.flickr.com/photos/191055893@N07/51405389883/in/datepo... - which clearly demonstrated that even when it's entirely horseless, that pasture is still a threat for artistic endeavours).
But back to the photo. So one morning during my vacation back in May I got up quite early. It had rained all night, and now the fog was creeping up from the valley below to our village just as the sky cleared up and the morning sun started to shine through the trees.
And just as I did when I was a teenager I grabbed my camera and ran out to photograph this beautiful mood of ghostlike trees and sunbeams cutting through the mist. There had already been such a day a week earlier (which is when I took this photo: www.flickr.com/photos/191055893@N07/51543603732/in/datepo... ), but this time, the horses were also there.
Because of our slightly strained relationship I only took this one photo of them (I now wish I had taken more: talk about missed opportunities), and otherwise concentrated on the landscape. It was only later when I went through all the photos on my computer that I realized that I actually really liked those horses, even despite the whole composition being such a cliché. And I realized another thing: when I drained the photo of all the color, I liked it even better - because there was almost a bit of grain in it, like in the photos from my youth.
Since then I have experimented quite a bit with b/w and sepia compositions (some of which I will upload here eventually I guess), but this photo here is the first one that helped me rediscover my old passion. I hope you like it even though it builds quite a stark contrast with the rest of my tiny - and very colorful - gallery. But in the spirit of showing you the whole Lacerta bilineata habitat (and also in the spirit of expanding my gallery a bit beyond lizards and insects), I think it's not such a bad fit.
As always, many greetings to all of you, have a wonderful day and don't hesitate to let me know what you think 😊
This juvenile is very different from the others.
He has always eyes closed
He is all white
He always stay hidden (very hard to do few photos)
This is the first Albino Nutria that I have ever seen.
Saddly the only opportunity I had to see this animal was during a bad end of afternoon.
(_DSC0089_DxO-2048N_2 )
Description in English and Dutch
Mr. Monster was taking a leisurely stroll along the canal in Kinderdijk, admiring the magnificent reflections of the clouds in the water. As he stopped to take in the breathtaking view, he began to dream away to the past and found himself learning about the incredible history of water management and windmills in the Unesco area. He was transported back to a time of innovation and discovery, when Dutch engineers perfected the art of controlling the water and safeguarding their land from the ever-present threat of flooding. He saw the development of the windmills from their early days to the 19th century, when they were used to pump water to and from the canals. As he continued to take in the scenery, Mr. Monster knew that he had been granted a unique opportunity to learn about the history of the area and all that it entailed.
Nederlands
Toen Marco een aantal jaren geleden tijdens zijn wandeling in Kinderdijk stopte om een aantal foto's te maken van het prachtige landschap, werd hij betoverd door de schoonheid van de weerspiegeling van de wolken op het water. Starend naar de wolken droomde hij weg naar het verleden en begon daar te leren over de geschiedenis van waterbeheer en molens in het Unesco-gebied. Hij werd meegenomen naar een tijd van innovatie en ontdekking, toen Nederlandse ingenieurs de kunst van waterbeheersing perfectioneerden en het land beschermden tegen de voortdurende dreiging van overstromingen. Hij zag de ontwikkeling van de molens vanaf hun vroege dagen tot de 19e eeuw, toen ze werden gebruikt om water naar en van de kanalen te pompen. Marco wist dat hij een unieke kans had gekregen om de geschiedenis van het gebied te leren kennen en alles wat daarbij kwam kijken.
This gorgeous giant swallowtail was hanging out on the firebush soaking up some rays when I spotted him through the window. I took a couple of snaps and went out to see if I could get a shot from outside but alas he was already gone.
I hope your day is filled with incredible opportunities and you are able to take full advantage of them. Happy snapping.
Poor Roy decided not to go shooting with me on this night......Sorry, you missed out!
GPS is not the exact spot of the shot.
*** Comments disabled for this image ***
Opportunities are like sunrises. If you wait too long, you miss them. ~ William Arthur Ward
Sorry to bother you once again with this most-photographed scene on my stream. But once in a while I need to go to this beautiful place to shoot. This time it was really challenging because of many many mosquitos around. So probably this will be the one and only image of that pond this year :-)
Happy Sunday, dear friends!
LUCKY OPPORTUNITY to photograph one of these Slim and Savage predators, active by day and night, it relentlessly tracks down its prey by scent. It often kills prey more than twice its size, biting deeply into the neck.
Captured at Elmley Nature Reserve in Kent.
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THANK YOU for your visit and friendship. Please leave a comment, and I will try to do the same for your latest posting.
Keep safe and well, God bless
............Tomx
St-Antoine-de-Tilly (Québec)
Tant espérée
Je tente, depuis plusieurs années (12 ans), de les attirer dans ma région en installant des nichoirs un peu partout au lac Delage. Elles viennent rendre visite, mais elles ne demeurent pas. Elles ont nichées que 2 années au tout début. Gros mystère!
Cela fait un bon moment que j'attendais l'occasion de photographier cet oiseau. Lors d'une visite chez mon frère, je vois que son nichoir est occupé. Eureka! Voilà ma chance de capter cette belle hirondelle.
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So much hoped
I have been trying for a number of years (12 years) to attract them to my area by installing birdhouses everywhere in Lake Delage. They come to visit us, but they do not stay. They have nested only 2 times, many years ago. Big mystery!
It's been a while since I was waiting for the opportunity to photograph this bird. During a visit to my brother, I see that his birdhouse is occupied. Eureka! That's my chance to capture this beautiful swallow.
For many photographers, Corona is the opportunity to have fewer people in the picture without trickery. Shopping Mall in Bremerhaven.
Corona ist für viele Fotografen die Möglichkeit, ohne Trickserei weniger Menschen im Bild zu haben. Shopping Mall in Bremerhaven.
In Parkes, NSW, for the David Malin Awards, I was told the normal floodlighting on The Dish radio telescope would be turned off to allow a timelapse to be made for the CSIRO. I hadn't planned to shoot The Dish as many others already have, but without the excess lighting, and given I didn't find a better site I thought I should try. Sigma lens, processed in Lightroom.
Giraffa camelopardalis
The Entabeni Game Reserve:
Entabeni means 'place of the mountain', is a 220 km2 (85 sq mi) private reserve situated in the Waterberg in Limpopo Province in northern South Africa. The Entabeni Reserve is popular for safari trips because of the opportunity to see big game and a variety of birds and antelope species, as well as its scenery, and the fact that it is in a malaria-free zone.
The reserve is home to lions, African Bush Elephants, lion, South Africa giraffes, African leopards, South African cheetahs, South African warthogs, African buffalos, hippopotamus and other safari animals in a variety of habitats.
HBW!
Seascape bokeh!
Finally having an opportunity to test out the new 400 mm with and without tripod.
Explored October 15, #237.
I'm told this also made Front Page, but I didn't see it.
The pale chanting goshawk is an opportunistic raptor and eats a wide variety of prey including small mammals, lizards, birds, large insects and carrion. It has also been recorded predating upon Tent tortoise and Leopard tortoise hatchlings which are swallowed whole while the shell is still soft. There is some evidence of social hunting in breeding groups but solitary hunting is the norm. Pale chanting goshawks commonly associate with foraging Honey badgers and feed on organisms that are flushed by the Honey badger's feeding activity. This association increases the hunting opportunities and prey capture success of the pale chanting goshawk while the honey badger does not suffer any loss of foraging efficiency. (Wikipedia)
It is fun at this time of year to look for opportunities to photograph Monarchs on interesting flowers. I believe that this flower is a Red Ball Dahlia Tuber.
The sparrowhawk is surely one of the UK's most striking raptors.
Unfortunately this male's own strike was far from successful and his chosen prey had long since fled when I took this shot.
Sparrowhawk (Accipiter Nisus)
Adel Dam Nature Reserve
Many thanks to all those who take the time to comment on my photos. It is truly appreciated.
Created for Kreative People Treat This: 2022.09.15
www.flickr.com/groups/1752359@N21/discuss/72157721917323641/
Many thanks to brillianthues for the beautiful source below:
www.flickr.com/photos/brillianthues/52355320658/in/album-...
Top layer created in Wombo using my artwork as a source, mirrored two times; third layer is my own manipulated photo.
Thank you for your visit, faves, invites and kind comments!
Our guides, from Guilin Photography Tours, setup an opportunity to go into some peoples homes on our first day.
It's one thing to be walking around an ancient village but something else entirely to be invited into a home and photograph people within their surroundings.
This lady, to me, was absolutely beautiful both in her appearance and in spirit. So was so welcoming when we came in and was so willing to be a subject for our cameras.
This is one of my favourite moments from the trip and one of my favourite shots from the couple of weeks that I was in China.
My website: In the Moment Creations
Hope people are not getting bored of these!
1/50 Shutter., this time gliding... which made the subject more stable for panning (wing flapping invariably causes body movement)
I find this sort of photography fun and challenging., and it creates the opportunity for something quite ordinary (a Heron flying past) to become something extraordinary in a photographic sense
I love this angle looking northeast toward downtown St. Paul. This photo took a long wait, as the glaciers probably moved faster than did this manifest trying to make a start down the Mankato Subdivision. This train left Hoffman Yard and slowly worked its way to under the Wabasha Street Bridge then stopped for 10 minutes. The train then moved the distance of two city blocks near Ontario Street then stopped. I figured there had to be opposing traffic or something causing them to be so hesitant. Sure enough, a long manifest was ending its journey on the Mankato Subdivision and coming into St. Paul. Another 30 minutes went by, perhaps to give traffic downtown a break - the first manifest occupied Chestnut Street for 15 minutes. Finally, this westbound finally moved onto the Mankato Subdivision and completed a glorious scene here viewed from the High Bridge. I estimate it took 1 hour and 30 minutes for this to get here from Hoffman Yard - a distance of only three miles away.
I thought I saw a person working on a farm in the footpath, but in fact it was someone waiting a photo opportunity.😆
農作業中の人がいる、と思ってシャッターを切ったのですが、その人は写真撮影中の人でした😆
Early this season (last Oct), the grasslands were quite active in the evening with many Harriers gently gliding and hunting in the area. We had some wonderful photo opportunities with these birds.
The White Pallid Harrier in this shot was perched in the grassland when an immature (Brownish plumage) attacked it. The White Pallid Harrier took flight and both tussled briefly in the air before flying away. I am not sure if this was a territorial attack or a friendly fight. There were around 25-30 harriers in the grasslands and few showed this kind of confrontation.
These are migratory birds from Central Asia that winter in India. They hunt the small birds like Larks, Pipits and reptiles like Lizards, Chameleons, frogs in the grasslands. The birds are sighted easily in the grasslands these days - around 15-20 of them and the numbers are slowly increasing. Due to the winter, the light fades pretty quickly. These Harriers converge to their roosting spots much earlier than usual and that is when we can get a reasonable estimate of their numbers.
Thanks in advance for your views and feedback. Much appreciated.
On my way to the city centre I noticed that the gate to the back yard of a shop was open with fairy lights sparkling, so I took the opportunity to quickly take a photo of the scene.
I can't resist fairy lights when I have mounted a vintage (or fast) lens onto one of my cameras ; ))
[ manual Ricoh XR Rikenon 50mm f1.4 on a Pentax K-70, stopped down a bit ]
Nature awaits him with her infinite variety; the discovery of distant lands, or opportunities no less Important or desired for, which may be just around the corner. Enjoyable walks await him, stimulating journeys; the priceless satisfaction whatever may be the outcomes of his photography, of a day well spent :-)
Camillo Semenzato
HFF! Climate Change Matters! Resist the Delusional Ignorant Orange Cockroach and his Cabinet of Stooges and Buffoons!
narcissus, daffodil, sarah p duke gardens, duke university, durham, north carolina
I recently had a wonderful opportunity to spend a few days photographing a few of the beautiful and ethereal cypress swamps in the southern US. This time of year is known for fall colours and for the mist hovering over the water. But nothing ever goes to plan. The day before I arrived, a great storm raged through and took down many of the leaves. And the weather was unseasonably warm, and without the cold air the mist mostly didn't materialize. But it was a magical experience all the same, and I loved the stillness, the sense of gothic mystery and the somber colour palette.
I've never photographed food so I thought I'd skip it this week. The more I thought about it, though, the more I realized that part of the magic of this group are the themes that drive you to attempt photographs that are outside your comfort zone. It also gave me the opportunity to try a new macro lens that I bought recently. A purchase largely influenced by this group. It was a short photo session because I was hungry and nothing could be better than a pulled pork barbecue sandwich in the summertime. HMM everyone!
RKO_6412. “Shall I…”
While trying to get some shots of the European Kestrel I came across this interesting situation. Obviously the Common Buzzard just killed -and was feasting on- a bird while this crow (?) was nearby waiting for the left overs. You can almost read the common buzzards thoughts......
I couldn't resist to upload this image as it was so interesting to watch.
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I know it is an iconic image and grossly overdone... but it is a cool view and it does taste so much better to get your own shot.
This is a 5 image HDR to properly expose the contrasted scene and then adjusted in Lightroom to match the drama as witnessed. My daughter and I set up 45 minutes early perched on rock overhang waithing for the sun to drop below the storm clouds that had just moistened the rock, increasing the contrast and saturation. It was the first time I planned and executed a shot based on the vision I could see in my mind's eye. It turned out better than I imagined.