Back At Iron Creek (HDR)
I make a photographic pilgrimage to this place in the Black Hills of South Dakota two or three times a year. I have taken countless pictures here but in 2009, when the photos for today’s post were taken, I was experimenting with high dynamic range photography. HDR photos are often two or more photos that [...]
Majestic, Too
It looks like I’m in to looking up trees’ trunks given this and yesterday’s post. And I guess I am. . . This is a tree that our family named “Big Boy” over three decades ago. It lives on our cabin’s property line in the Black Hills. It was old all those years ago so [...]
Black Hills Gold
I was waiting for for a traffic light to change at a road construction site on the road between Hill City and Keystone. I rolled down the window and snapped this photo just as the light turned green. I’m a nature paparazzi.
The Same Old Stream
Yes, it’s Iron Creek again, which I call “the same old stream” in this post, though this capture tends to feature the same old rocks more than the stream. Frankly, I was surprised to see so much water flowing through the creek this late in the season (October 9). But even though there was pretty [...]
From Another Era
We happened to be driving from the Hill City, SD, back to our cabin and we encountered the second to last run of the Hill City to Keystone 1880 train. It wasn’t a great day for photos as it was raining pretty hard but It was a good chance to try to get a photo [...]
The Mighty Acorn
Of course, the saying is, “From tiny acorns mighty oaks do grow.” Or something like that. But when you get down on your belly and point a macro lens at them, they seem plenty big.
Sunrise – July 4, 2011 (Looking East)
Any experienced sunrise observer knows that often the most glorious part of the sunrise is what you see just before the sun comes up, especially if clouds are present as they were on this morning. I have found that you have only a few minutes before the clouds loose their red rims from the insipient [...]
Elemental
The Pre-Socratic Greek philosophers spent considerable time pondering the nature of the universe. One, whose name was Empedocles, said simply that everything can be reduced to four elements: air, earth, fire and water. Of all of these, my camera is most often drawn to the latter. Maybe that’s why I return again and again to [...]
Iron Creek
I’m back at Iron Creek again, but this time with my cell phone camera and Instapaper. I made a short video of this place, which you can view here. The video was made with my iPhone and then edited and published (via ATT 3G) with my iPad 2. The movie needs more editing but it [...]
584 and Counting
Here are some statistics about this blog: Since February, “A Photo A Day” has had 9561 unique hits and 42,119 total hits. On any given day, some of my viewers visit because they know about this blog. But I also get visitors using Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc. to search for things like “flying geese,” “amazing [...]
Magical
This is from a few years ago. The original photo is fairly mundane and though I don’t like to manipulate a photo too much with Photoshop affects, I’m guilty of doing it here.
Electric
This is from one of my favorite spots in the Black Hills – Lakota Lake. I have taken other photos of backlit leaves here and I have found that getting to this spot just after the sun comes up gives me the best photo opportunities. In fall, oak leaves are not particularly striking. But with [...]
Bambi Twins
It’s easy to shoot wildlife photos when the wildlife wanders into your front yard. In this case the front yard is at our cabin in the Black HIlls. They were lured there by the cracked corn that had been thrown on the grass. If you study the spots on the fawns, incidentally, you will discover [...]
Variations On A Theme
Once, a while back when I thought that I should try to make some money from my photography, I started to make a set of photo greeting cards. This was one of them. I may have posted this aspen grove before but not with the Photoshop filters. Frankly, I use very little “effects” in my [...]
Another Try
I’ve decided that I will try to take a photo of this spot on Iron Creek every year. I probably shouldn’t post it here, though, because they all look the same. This shot is a little further upstream from the other Iron Creek shot I posted quite a while ago. Anyway, there was plenty of [...]
Look For the Light
The one thing I have gotten better at in my photography is looking for the sometimes subtle play of light in a scene. And sometimes the camera sees this much better than I do. I believe that the reason for this is that cameras record contrast better. Contrast is the difference between bright and dark [...]
Aspen Trees – Another View
This is the same grove as the previous photo of aspens but a different view and treatment.
Mother and Child
These two were part of a crew of “panhandling jackasses” working the crowd in Custer State Park. Donkeys are not regal animals but how can you not think that this couple isn’t photogenic? I like the white hooves of the little one. In a few short years he’ll be sticking his hairy muzzle through open [...]
Morning Reflection
I was done taking pictures on this particular morning and was heading back to our cabin. As I drove down the road along a small lake, I noticed a single deer along a path that paralleled the road. I thought, “I may have my next ‘Picture of the Day.’” My concern was that if I [...]
Yet Another Mt. Rushmore Photo!
To honor Independence Day. . . (Though if you look closely, there is a little snow under Teddy’s chin.)
Mysterious Path
Here’s one of the 75,000 photos that I can distinctly remember taking. And it is, like many of my photos, a bit of an accident. I had been taking photos along Iron Creek in the Black Hills and was walking back to my truck. There had been a brief rain shower, which left the vegetation [...]
Fog and Tree
This was a marginal day for “fun” photography because it was raining an cold. But I had felt obligated to get a few more fall shots before driving back to the warmth of our cabin. Heading home, I passed this almost barren oak tree with a misty backdrop and stopped to take a few pictures [...]
Before the Fall
One oak leaf back lit by the morning sun – it doesn’t get much simpler than this. Since I was shooting into the sun, the challenge was to find shade for the lens to avoid lens flare. From the sunny side, this leaf looked dull. But with the sun shining through it, the leaf came [...]
Take A Leap (02)
This photo was taken on Battle Creek at what is called “the Hippy Hole” or “Big Falls,” near Rockerville, SD. My friend, Scott, and I were staying at our family’s Black Hills cabin for a few days and decided to try to find this spot. Though it was somewhat difficult to get to, it was [...]
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