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...who would think a boy and bear would be well accepted anywhere...well, the bear was wild and I didn't see it dance, but I did see and photograph it eating huckleberries and mountain ash berries, walking down the trail, startling Sally which amused Bronka, and then stopping about ten feet from the trail to curl up under a bush to take a nap. Sally's website with lots of information about Mount RainierThis was one of a few cubs I photographed in the Paradise meadows last autumn. I spent about an hour with this guy including waiting twenty minutes while it snoozed. The cub acted as if there were no people present as it never seemed to look at or acknowledge their presence. A little later, a coyote came down the trail and it also ignored me except that it did step off the trail when it passed. It was in a hunting mode with a vole or mouse on it's mind. Luckily for these animals, they had evidently not been habituated to people feeding them which is really bad for wildlife because they then depend on humans for food and lose their ability to forage. Peace ps ...it's just amazing how fair people can be... (do you know this song?) Tags: -print available-, animals, autumn, mount rainier, people pics, trail, wa
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'last week, I went to a getMETAsmart event put on by The Stock Artists Alliance at Seattle Pacific Univ. If your photography of any value - any kind of value... you need to know this stuff. The presentation was excellent. I'm changing some things I'm doing and will be adding more... ad hoc quid pro quo so little time so much to know... and on my ferry ride home aboard the WA State Ferry Kitsap, I recorded this as well as many others. That boat has a strange vibration to it different than the others I noticed it when the camera was at my eye and me rising up slightly on my toes to dampen most of the inherent vibration transferred through the deck... actually exchanging vibration for muscle motion... (and depending on how much coffee and time on the feet... no alcohol involved but it might have helped steady or not) and it also seems to move through the water differently... it's flow, I mean... (or it may have been someone that steers differently)... </tangent>
Seattle spring night from the ferry Kitsap enroute to Bremerton
©2009 Ed BookCamera Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II lens 24mm exposure 1/4 sec @ f/4 ISO 3200 key things here are the very slow for hand held camera at age 61 62 on a moving ferry and it's compensation of using an image stabilized lens and very wide (for full frame sensor) lens.... I also rose up on the balls of my feet and leaned against a bulkhead (nautical name for 'wall"). Because I was using such a wide angle lens my position wasn't nearly as far as it appears in the image. I was close enough that I was looking up at the buildings. You can see the slight tilting of the tall buildings due to perspective distortion from pointing the camera upward. Peace Tags: -print available-, metadata, motion, nautical, night, puget sound, wa
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Western Sword Fern (Polystichum munitum)
©2009 Ed BookI was out for a walk in the forest and found some interesting Sword Ferns filling the forest understory. The sky was clear so some bits of sunlight were getting through to the forest floor which clipped the highlights of any images made showing sunlit surfaces. ('clipping the highlights refers to areas where the light is so bright that the pixels there record white with no details. It's okay for specular highlights to clip (specular highlights are spots of light that are usually pin point reflections of the sun as in a drop of water or shiny metal surface in sunlight) because the eye expects them but broader light areas being clipped cause the eye to be uncomfortable... too bright to look at is the feeling the viewer gets. I was in a deep canyon in late afternoon but the sun was still shining down into the understory blasting clipping at me here and there resulting in unusable exposures. On thing I teach my students is that when there is some attribute of imagemaking that is preventing you from making your intended image, then use that attribute in your favor and if possible exaggerate that factor. (for example, if the wind is moving your subject too much to get a sharp image, then, exaggerate the motion to use it to make your image. In this case, I got low to the ground with the fern between me and the sun to record the fronds backlighted and glowing with light. more fernsPeace Tags: -print available-, forest, green, kitsap peninsula, plant, wa
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Pacific Madrona (Arbutis Menziesii) The Pacific Madrona, native to the Pacific Northwest coastal lowlands, is an evergreen broad-leafed hardwood tree that is scattered about the forests and shores of our Kitsap Peninsula in Puget Sound. The leaves are thick, oval shaped, and leather-like and linger for a few seasons. The habit (structure) of the tree is sinuous with undulations in the main trunk and branches.
The bark produces some of the chlorophyll needed to feed it and in doing so, it changes during the spring-summer seasons. Starting out green, as it produces chlorophyll, it gradually changes to yellow-green and then to orange and finally orange-red before peeling to reveal a new smooth green layer. In these photos, you can see the smooth new underlayer and peeling upper layers of the bark.
I made these images while photographing the old Seabeck cemetery about five miles from here. Seabeck, a timber mill town was one of the first Washington Territory settlements but after the mill burned and the hillsides stripped of the gigantic Douglas Fir, Western Hemlock, and Western Red Cedar forests it was left as a ghost town and is still a tiny village. peeling chlorophyll producing bark
Peace
Tags: -print available-, abstract, kitsap peninsula, macro, orange, tree, wa
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alpenglo in the Duckabush River valley rain forest - Olympic National Forest, WA USA Big Leaf Maple, Vine Maple, Stinging Nettles, moss Peace Tags: -print available-, alpenglo, forest, green, intimate landscape, olympic mountains, plants, trees, wa
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Sleeping Lady Mountain as seen from Leavenworth, Washington
Notice that the forest has burned. It was a big fire a few years ago that burned a beautiful forest including an area where I often visited to photograph lupine and Balsamroot flowers among the Ponderosa Pine. During the Reagan Administration, a lot of prime National Forest land was sold into private ownership including the banks of the wildly beautiful wild and scenic Icicle River before it could be designated and protected as a National Wild and Scenic River. Cabins were built among the giantic boulders along the shore and bridges to cabins on the other side of the river, and signs that said NO TRESSPASSING populated the once beautiful drive. When the forest burned, all the cabins went away to be replaced by bigger cabins and now fences were added with NO TRESSPASSING signs. Peace Tags: -print available-, blue, clouds, landscape, mountains, sky, wa
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 Snow Geese (Chen caerulescens) wintering at Fir Island on the Skagit River delta, Washington, USA.©2009 Ed Book Canon 1Ds MkII 500mm L IS lens with 2X teleconverter ISO 1000 1/320 sec @ f/16 Peace Tags: -print available-, animals, bird, nature events, pattern, puget sound, sky, surreal, wa, white
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 Snow Geese (Chen caerulescens) wintering at the Skagit River delta, Washington, USA©2009 Ed BookCanon 1Ds MkII - 500mm L IS lens with 2X teleconverter - ISO 1000 - 1/200 sec @ f/16 Peace Tags: -print available-, animals, bird, nature events, pattern, puget sound, sky, surreal, wa, white
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 Mount Tahoma Trails Association Pisten Bully 70 cross country ski trail grooming machine©2009 Ed BookHere's Jay getting ready to start grooming again with our ancient Pisten Bully gromming machine after a short break at Copper Creek hut for some tea. I was driving one of the Skidoo snowmobiles pulling a groomer because Jay had become proficient enough to groom without me along... and the old groomer passenger seat is sized like the passenger seat on some Harley's and the ancient machine seems to ride as rough and loud as a Harley of the same age. The skidoos are four stroke 1000cc and smoooth... Then, I parked the machine and skiied up the trail and back down... on my nicely groomed trail. We should have skiable snow until July so if you're at all inclined to get out in it, let me know and when I next go up there maybe I can have some company on the trail. Peace Tags: -print available-, clouds, mount tahoma trails, mtta, people pics, snow, wa, white, winter
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...and then, there are the drifts  wall of snow
 The Gifford Pinchot NF from High Hut©2008 Ed BookPeace ps we saw the first hummingbird of the season today Tags: -print available-, intimate landscape, landscape, mount tahoma trails, mountains, panorama, snow, trees, wa, white, winter
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 near the Puyallup Ridge Trail, Mount Tahoma Trails, Cascade Range, Washington, USA©2008 Ed BookIt gets to be a bit of a challenge when you have to be your own model. (the loneliness most) Peace Tags: -print available-, landscape, mount tahoma trails, mountains, panorama, snow, wa, white, winter
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 along the Puyallup Ridge ski trail - Mount Tahoma Trails, Washington, USA©2008 Ed BookPeace Tags: -print available-, clouds, forest, landscape, mount tahoma trails, mountains, panorama, sky, snow, trail, wa, waterflow, white, winter
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 (Quercus garryana) Garry Oak, Gray Oak, Oregon White Oak, White Oak, Post Oak, Brewer Oak, Shin Oak©2008 Ed BookPeace Tags: -print available-, autumn, forest, tree, wa
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