As Long As There Are Mountains......

Beautiful!

It looks a bit whiter that it did last month.

Photo Contest Worthy!!!! Kyla you MUST put that second one in. It looks like an apparition, a vision! Magic is afoot.

I agree, the 2nd one is a winner! Let's use it on our own calendar, too.

sigh beautious sigh

well, thank you, but, even with those wires in?

I am not sure if I am going to get it together for contest deadline actually as I have so much else going on right now....... but anyway this picture too I can't decide if worth saving, I took six that evening and this is one of the three best, you've seen the other two. Something about the colors on this one:





This message was edited Oct 30, 2009 8:40 PM

That is nice. Post it to the contest and see what happens.

Why not? Those pesky wires and cell phone towers are All Over the Place! I have to scope out where I can get a view with the fewest wires and how long it takes me to get there.

I like them both. The colors are quite nice on the second one.

I'm not sure exactly how much photoshop altering is allowed in the photo contest but I think removing a power line or dirt speck is a less than obvious enhancement. One of the photos I submitted originally had a hideous orange pole near the center of the photo but touch up tool works wonders on those little problems. I think as long as you're not adding something that wasn't originally in the photo or totally changing the color a little touch up here and there is no big deal.

well, I did try to take the wires out of another shot and I am just not very good with the tool yet, ended up with a smudge I couldn't get rid of, so if I do manage to submit anything it will be a raw photo with no fiddlin'.

;-)

Here is this morning's offering, BTW:

I didn't use the clone stamp or healing bandage tools, as far as I remember. Didn't enhance colors but did adjust lighting and cropped a bit from time to time. It might be cool to have a category for "fun in photoshop". Although it might be too difficult to reproduce in D.G. or on a calender. I don't know about the technical aspects of that. Last year I noticed a few photos that I thought were pretty obviously "shopped up". Doesn't mean I didn't like the pictures. There is a thread in Photos for that. Mostly it is people using templates and cut and paste and frames. It takes time to get good at that stuff and time to get good at taking pictures in camera. And here I sit yacking away!

Seems to me there are a LOT of photos that are color enhanced. Too many flowers that have much more saturated and bright colors than exist in real life.

In our contest you mean?

Well, I just did it, entered stuff. I even entered one that's very fuzzy and out of focus but I like it.

we shall see.

Now on to the next project. ;-)

BTW, that last mountain picture I posted up here, there was a rainbow in that cloud, and I can see it nicely in my email but not in the forums post. oh well.

Wonder how I got such a big space up there. Maybe I can edit it. I don't know how I did that and can't seem to edit it. Sorry.

This message was edited Oct 31, 2009 3:28 PM

I like the last one Kyla. The sunset under a cloud layer is always a beautiful shot. The new blanket on Shasta is also a welcome site. You must live on the NW corner of Shasta. Am I right? Having sunset at 6pm down your way is interesting. We lose daylight up here in Wrangell around 3:30 already.
This is Mt Edgcombe in Sitka. Summer

I down loaded a video by mistake. Here is a jpg

And now in Nov.

You know you are far north and up high in this picture. I took this in May in Denali park.

I over came fear here by pedaling my bike past this sow and cub in the park at Denali. I had a 30 mile ride to the end of the road (snow) and camped there below the big mountain. Then returned the next day to sleep under the sun. It was May end and the sun only went down for about 2 hours of dusk.

Oops again.

Kyla, you're just going to have to call the power company and get them to move those darned lines because they're in your shot.

Ah, fond memories sofer. One summer we climbed up Edgecombe and the grasses and plants on the upper slope were so slick from the rain that we decided to slide on the way back down (on purpose). The seat of my shorts had a permanent purple stain from the squished crow berries I slid over.

that sounds like fun!

I should have thought about that with the power company long ago, but now as I am moving anyway, well, I guess the lines can stay.

Oh, I thought you had moved into your new place already. How's the view of the mountain from the new abode?

I am in process of moving. Internet gets put in on Friday the 13th. Yes and mail goes over there on the 14th and the phone that Monday after....... so I hope to be in there by then myself but am taking it day by day.

The view of the mountain is hidden by trees mostly, except in a couple spots, until you get out on the main road over there, and there it is absolutely stunning splendid. I am going to go rock and mountain picture crazy, probably, once the moving activity settles down a bit. And truly, it will be nice to have some shade!!!

The new garden is kind of a weird scene, but I am saving those stories til I have some time to focus.

Lovely pics, Soferdig... I don't think I would have faced the fear of a bear as well as you. We had a baby bear wandering in our area this summer (by baby, I mean 200 - 300 lbs.), that was when we were having our summer barbeque and I was smoking brisket for the party... had to get up at 5 am to start the smoker and then carry a nice big slab of meat out onto it at 6 am... I was looking for the bear!!! (And sceeeered!).

I wish I had saved the link to an article I read just the other day, about a man who has studied Black Bears for 40 years. There were several short videos with the article, taken from a broadcast probably BBC or something. Anyway, he gets real close, and after 40 years of getting real close he has concluded there are some myths. Such as bears with cubs are vicious and will attack. Apparently that is just not so, probably unless someone human attacks first........ He kind of snuggles up to them, follows along with mama Bear and her babies, quite permitted by her to do this......... the guy is somewhere in New England I believe..

I hesitated to post this because I imagine there will be lots of stories saying it just ain't so, but it was such a cool story.......

Almost walked in to a black bear the summer before last up at Sugarite. It was quite exciting! There were pictures later but the moment was Way too close. The bear was ahead of us on a trail headed for the bird feeder at the visitor's center. Grizzly bears would be more disturbing, for sure. Kyla, I won't say it.

Sow bears attack often in Montana. The most common attack is sows with cubs. So I don't agree with the assumption that they are cute friends. Just watch the Timothy Treadwell story. Bears are at an equal with humans cariing weapons. So if I don't get home some time I disagree with the friendly bear thing.

I knew it.
;-)

Snorkle. Sofer, how will we know (if you don't get home) whether it was a defensive bear, a sunken boat, an Evel Knievel stunt, or you simply ascended to heaven???

Sofer, take pictures! And be careful.

Especially if you ascend into heaven.

I saw the Timothy Treadwell story, Into The Wild. I think going to live with the grizzlies was a really bad idea on his part. Also getting to know them up close and personal was even worse. I am not afraid of bears but I give them a wide berth. My DH came across a sow with cubs while hiking once and got quite a show. She sent them up a tree, then went up after them then audibly gnashed her teeth at him. He got the message and slowly backed away. Thank goodness he didn't decide to get to know them.

Too many stories like that. I saw one about a family that had Tigers (two of them) as pets. Very loving, very close. The Tigers attacked the 3-year-old one day. Changed their opinion about Tigers making good pets. I think some predators make fine pets, but only if smaller than the people in the house (and not neurotic inbreds).

Last year our animal control went to pick up two stray black labs and found instead two black panthers that had escaped from someone's house. The guy had been keeping them in a bedroom and fenced back yard. How do you take an animal that should be running around several square miles of jungle and keep it in a bedroom?

You wouldn't catch me keeping a tiger (except the 12 pound one who thinks he's king of the jungle.)

Saw your 12 pounder in the photo contest. He is a beauty. Great photo too.
I could not agree more about keeping jungle animals as pets. Poor animal control guy! What a fright!
Some years ago our local animal control got called to help a lady whose 20 some foot pet python had eaten her hand while she fed it a rabbit and she couldn't get her hand out. The animal control guy was freaked out by snakes as fate would have it. I don't remember how, but they saved the lady. I don't remember if the snake survived.
Being an animal control officer can be as dangerous as being a regular police officer! Here in town they are always having to move rattle snakes to the boondocks.

Animal control is a risky business.

Poacher control is the most dangerous job in the state, I believe. There is an infamous little town just north of Yellowstone Park called Jardine, and some of those folks really think law & order are for others, not them. Horn hunters mainly out for elk antlers, which can fetch quite a price on the black market.

Well I am up in Yakutat and it is beautiful. The beach is miles and miles long. I got here late and don't have my USB cable to down load the pictures so just here in my B&B enjoying the warm fire. I have a full day of work tomorrow and some surgery on thursday. So hope to get some pictures on Thursday. The shots from the jet were spectacular so wait on them to get downloaded tomorrow. Wow. I hear Mt St Elias is off to the north and east a little. I hope I get to get a clear shot. Right now lots of snow on the ground and kind of cold. Looking for a big blow of 75 knots tomorrow so no surfing to do during that. I am going out to the "Bone Yard" to surf. I hope that doesn't mean my bones. The surf looked quite big and there was no wind at all today. Anxious to see the territority. This is what Mt Saint Elias looks like from here.

Wow!