Yesterday (6th May), inspired by Jeff Goulden and Mike Smith on Fstoppers, I shot my first panorama on a camera (having tried without much luck shooting panoramas on my phone). It was hurried, playful, non-serious. Fun! Both Jeff and Mike suggested shooting panoramas handheld would work, and that’s what I tried. As Mike said, just … More Playing, Part II
Taking a shot with real vivid color and playing with it in Photoshop… OM-D E-M1 Mark II #getolympus, #lisatomphotography, #olympusphotography
Until recently, a huge frustration in shooting the bright moon and its dimmer context was this— I could 1) brighten the whole image in order to make the context visible, washing out the features of the moon, 2) dim the moon and make the context even less visible, or 3) use a brush to change … More Moonset in the Mountains 17March2022
Star Trails Over San Francisco Peaks Another photo from my pre-dawn photo-walk yesterday (2/17/22) morning…another shot at night photography (pun intended). What I am attempting is to minimize noise while maximizing light on my subject— the peaks and the stars above them. This involves the following settings— ISO 1000, f/2.8 at .50s, shot on my … More Night Photography
I confess— I’m a super early riser. So this photo was taken at 4:45 today (February 17, 2022). My fingers were cold. My face was cold. The temperature was roughly 15F at that time. All that aside, I wanted to take a walk and I was looking for a particular scenario to photograph— the moon, … More Snowy pre-dawn morning
If you live in Arizona—or in many spots in the Old or the New World!— you can easily see Queen butterflies and Doris Longwing butterflies. But, if you are in Arizona (or any place other than Central America or the Amazon), you are only likely to see the latter, however, in a special place called … More A Tale of Two Butterflies: One Native, One Exotic (Queen and Doris Longwing)
In early December I posted a series of photos illustrating “parallelism in nature”. The term refers to pattern or “patternment.” Parallelism is the key to poetry as a tradition around the world. Rhyme is parallelism. Meter or rhythm is parallelism. Patterns involving repetition exemplify parallelism. And it is seen in nature as well as poetry. … More More Parallelism in Nature: Geology
.I found that, as often with sunsets, it is not the hot white globe, even in setting, that is most compelling to me as a photographic subject, but the aftermath especially on a cloudy morning. The photo below can best be viewed, and is available for sale, on SmugMug
Once upon a time, in the days of film cameras, photographers struggled against “grainy” shots. “Noise” is the equivalent in the era of digital photography. If you blow up one of your photos you might be surprised to see irregular blotches throughout. Blurriness is a different problem. Blurriness is caused by camera jiggle or movement … More Noise, one of the enemies of clarity in photos—and, a solution!
It’s been a frightfully warm winter, but not so warm as to completely melt the ice on our fair city’s beloved municipal pond near a couple of our public schools. Frances Short was an “educator and city councilperson” in Flagstaff. (For more information, click here.) The pond and its immediate environs are home to waterfowl … More Waterfowl on Frances Short Pond (Flagstaff)
One of my favorite places in Flagstaff is Frances Short Pond. It is a hotspot for members of the Order Odonata— dragonflies and damselflies like the one below, which is, I believe, a “bluet.” But now the show I promised—a shaky video of two orange dragonflies and their mid-air mating dance. The still photos on … More Dragonflies mating mid-air
The other day, I came in from a photographic moment down on my knees in the front yard. This put my legs in direct contact with a pile of dead plant matter. So I should have seen this coming— a hitchhiker apparently crawled onto my blue jeans. So it was not until I came inside … More Hitchhiker butterfly
Anywhere you see hawks you are likely to see them being chased by smaller birds and not just chasing after them. The following photos (some of which are links to wilcephotos.com) tell two stories. The first story consists of a single photograph of what we might expect to be most common—a bigger, more carnivorous bird … More Hawks: Chasing and Being Chased
On a recent trip to the wonderful Sedona Wetlands Preserve, described in a previous post on this blog, I shot video footage of a fascinating group behavior by ducks, specifically Northern Shovelers. Shovelers are “dabbling” or surface-feeding ducks. The species has evolved a collaborative feeding strategy. Swimming in what John Andrew Eastman calls a “pinwheel” … More The Ducks That Swim in Circles
If you have never heard of Curve-Billed Thrashers, you probably don’t live in or near a desert. But if you google “default desert bird” you’ll see a lot of text etc. devoted to Thrashers. Unfortunately, the phrase “default desert bird,” with or without proper attribution is a misquote. At least Wikipedia rightly cites Dunne as the … More What Wikipedia calls the “default desert bird”
outdoorswithcamera 