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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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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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an almost mature Bald Eagle
at Big Beef Creek on the Hood Canal
Puget Sound, Washington©2008 Ed BookHelp, my lens is too long and the bird is too close. I didn't have time to take the 1.4X teleconverter off the 500mm lens for this guy. Although this bird looks like a mature, it was still replacing it's immature and ragged feathers. An adult bald eagle wouldn't have approached as close as this guy did, demonstrating a foolish carelessness that may entail a steep cost if it doesn't become much more wary of largest adversary, man. Canon D1s Mk II with 500mm f/4 'L' Image Stabilized lens and Canon 1.4X teleconverter, ISO 400, 1000sec exposure @ f/6.3 (image cropped to about 1/3 full framePeace Tags: -print available-, animals, bird, clouds, kitsap peninsula, puget sound, sky, wa
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immature Bald Eagle (Aquila Haliaeetus leucocephalus) practices aerial acrobatics©2008 Ed BookToday low tide on the Hood Canal was a minus 2.5 so I went down with my long lens to see what I could record of the Bald Eagles that surely would be feeding on trapped fish as the outgoing tide isolated them in the shallows. I was in luck with a bright day (fast shutter speeds with fairly low ISO) and a contingent of at least a dozen eagles. Most of them were immature with about half of their fledgling feathers replaced with adult plumage. Still displaying adolescent, foolish, clumsy, behavior and flying ineptitude, they're learning though and don't pass by any opportunities for practice. There were a few of us there burning in the sun but anxious to record anything we were fortunate to find. I chatted with a new friend and watched patiently as the eagles sat forever and then launched when we weren't ready playing us. Photographing eagles isn't easy with the long lens (Canon 500mm f/4 'L' Image Stabilized with 1.4X teleconverter giving an effective focal length of 700mm on the full size sensor Canon EOS 1Ds MkII camera). Making photographs consisted of standing with hands on the gimbaled-tripod-mounted camera ready to react and hoping that I could follow the bird's motion. If the focus point shifted off the bird, the lens would quickly shift focus to infinity and the bird would become a blur if even visible. I would have to get the blur lined up with the focusing square to again bring the bird into focus all the while the bird was moving. Concentration was the key and exhausting after a couple hours. I managed to record about 12GB of images and am importing them into Photoshop Lightroom as I type. Working in my office today with two computers, four monitors, ten hard drives all pumping out heat on this probably one of the hottest days of the year. If there's interest, I'll post more from today. Peace Tags: -print available-, animals, bird, blue, kitsap peninsula, puget sound, sky, wa
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working on something different a little while ' call it refreshing the palette. I've been optimizing and printing images for my 'featured artist' show next month at the Silverdale Fine Arts gallery ... all new prints and in one theme... I'm quite busy getting everything ready... more about it soon. 
Hood Canal and the Olympic Mountains, Washington©2006 Ed BookI made this image about a mile from our home on Nika Trail a couple years ago and just picked it at random to optimize before checking back into my project. (no, the theme of the collection of images isn't landscape) I'll bet some who keep up with what I post could guess... a subject that's gotten good reviews herebouts on LJ. Peace Tags: -print available-, kitsap peninsula, landscape, mountains, olympic mountains, puget sound, sky, sunset, wa, waterflow
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Christmas Eve morning 2007 moonset
over Mt Constance in the Olympic Mountains
from our home on Nika Trail on the Kitsap Peninsula in Puget Sound©2007 Ed BookPeace Tags: -print available-, alpenglo, blue, clouds, landscape, moon, mountains, olympic mountains, pink, puget sound, sky, snow, wa, winter
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 ©2005 Ed BookEureka Dunes at the south end of the remote Eureka Valley of Death Valley National Park, California
Peace Tags: -print available-, blue, california, death valley, desert, intimate landscape, landscape, sand dunes, sky, surreal, white
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 ©2007 Ed Book a couple weeks ago while I was out on Puyallup Ridge after sunset, I set up my Canon EOS 1Ds MkII camera on a tripod and framed in on Mt Rainier and the sky. For this composition, I made about forty thirty-second exposures using a remote release cord so as not to move the camera. In Photoshop, I imported all the individual exposures into one file in register and changed the blend mode of all layers except the bottom to 'lighten'. Peace Tags: -print available-, landscape, mount rainier, mount tahoma trails, mountains, nature events, night, pattern, sky, snow, surreal, wa, winter
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This past week, I attended an Eddie Soloway workshop on Whidbey Island. It was a good experience for me with an excellent and insightful instructor and sharing and talented fellow students. I highly recommend Eddie's book One Thousand Moons with photographs that I can best describe as inspiring. (you know I make good recommendations)I returned home from Whidbey Island via the Keystone-Port Townsend ferry across Admiralty Inlet and then south on the Olympic Peninsula and across the Hood Canal floating bridge to my home here on the Kitsap Peninsula. Because of holiday traffic, I had to wait about three hours in the queue while three sailings whittled at the waiting line of cars, trucks, and motorhomes. I worked on my laptop, read, and dozed while I waited in the rain. This time of year, there is only one ferry on the run and I imagine that the weather caused it to fall a couple hours behind schedule in it's expected half hour crossing. I could have returned home from the other end of the state in the time it took to travel the sixty-some miles. Here's a photo I made a couple days ago looking out across the Strait of Juan de Fuca toward the Pacific of the USS Stennis. I think it's home ported in Everett but it could have been in the shipyard in Bremerton about a dozen miles from here. (I try to avoid Bremerton and the shipyard in particular so probably wouldn't have noticed if it had been there.) (many years ago, I served on one of these aircraft carriers as a nuclear reactor operator and crossed the Pacific a couple times as well as all over the South China Sea, Tonkin Gulf and Gulf of Cambodia.) 
USS Stennis in the Strait of Juan de Fuca ©2006 Ed Book Peace Tags: nautical, ocean, sky, sunset, whidbey island
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 ©2005 Ed Book all rights reserved Earlier today, Mt St Helens was putting out a steam flume from the lava dome. Mt Hood is lost in the haze to the left of Mt St Helens... I made this image a little while ago and now all light is lost in the sky save the glows from the cities: Seattle, Olympia, Vancouver, Portland, and Yakima... and now, I leave this mountaintop to drive down to cross the Nisqually River and then up the valley to Mt Rainier NP and Paradise... Peace ps 'wish Cookie was with me this trip Tags: -print available-, landscape, mount tahoma trails, mountains, panorama, sky, sunset
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 Blue Mountain is a magic place for me. Located on the northern edge of the Olympic Mountains, it's the ridge that towers above the spreading town of Sequim and the narrow coastal plain that borders the Straits of Juan de Fuca. One of the few accesses to Olympic National Park a road goes to the top. Seventeen miles and six thousand feet, the narrow dirt road climbs, first switchbacking through mature lowland forest then, higher, it sidlings the steep slope. When it breaks out above the forest, the deep tree carpeted canyon of Morse Creek and it's tributaries spreads out far below and the paved road to Hurricane Ridge is a slight scar on the slopes of Mt Angeles in the distance. On a shoulder of the mountain, sits Deer Park, a ranger station and campground. From here, the view is into the wilds of the park with the valleys of the Gray Wolf River, Cameron and Grand Creeks far below and many miles of rugged mountain wilderness beyond. The road turns and climbs through subalpine fir parkland and meadows to the top of the mountain. From this spot, the view is 360 degrees. To the north, Vancouver Island in Canada and the Straits of Georgia and San Juan Islands and the Canadian Coast Range. To the east is the Puget Sound and it's peninsulas and islands, the Cascade Range it's backdrop. To the south rises ridges of jagged rock, blanketed by snowfields, glaciers and alpine meadows with steep forests draping down to wild rivers. And to the west, more mountains and the Pacific Ocean beyond. The top of this mountain, accessible a few months, hibernates under deep snow the majority of the year. During the short summer, wildflowers color the meadows and deer approach unafraid, birds sing and the soul is refreshed. Even when clouds obscure the landscape, a walk through the meadows, is full of wonder. Cow Parsnip with it's foot across flowers and pungent aroma can be found in the moist areas beside subalpine fir. The sweet perfume is from lupine which paints blue the open areas. The chattering sound might be a groundsquirrel arguing with a grouse. Another grouse sits whoop whooping atop a boulder, drumming to advertise in the misty fog... The subalpine fir grows in protective groups called krumholtz and here and there are rock outcroppings splashed orange red and yellow with lichen. Then, often just as the sun is setting, the clouds swirl and clear and the grand landscape is revealed. This image was made at such a magical time when the thick clouds and fog were giving way to sunset and yielding to the star blanket which would replace it. Tags: forest, landscape, mountains, olympic mtns, sky
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edbook's journal
