Tag: #Arizona

• Night Photography

  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…

  jwilce

  February 18, 2022

  #photography

  #Arizona, #nature, #northern Arizona, #photography, Flagstaff

• Snowy pre-dawn morning

  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,…

  jwilce

  February 17, 2022

  #digital cameras, #FlagstaffArizona, #moon, #Moonsets, #nightsky, #northern Arizona, #OlympusE-M1-Markii camera, #outdoor photography, #photoblog, #photography, #photonarratives, #technological improvement, #technology, Arizona, Moonsets, outdoor photography

  #Arizona, #Flagstaff, #Lunar photography, #moon, #nature, #Night photography, #northern Arizona, #photography, #Winter photography

• A Tale of Two Butterflies: One Native, One Exotic (Queen and Doris Longwing)

  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…

  jwilce

  December 18, 2021

  #photography

  #Arizona, #butterflyphotography, #olympusphotography, #wilcephotos.com

• More Parallelism in Nature: Geology

  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.…

  jwilce

  December 17, 2021

  #photography

  #Arizona, #nature, #photography

• Afterglow of moonset on morning of November 17

  .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

  jwilce

  November 17, 2021

  #digital cameras, #moon, #Moonsets, #photography

  #Arizona, #fineartphotography, #getolympus, #landscapephotography, #northern Arizona, #olympusphotography, #photography, #weatherphotogaphy, #wilcephotos.com

• Noise, one of the enemies of clarity in photos—and, a solution!

  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…

  jwilce

  October 21, 2021

  #photography

  #Arizona, #nature, #northern Arizona, #photography, post-processing software, Topaz Labs softare

• Waterfowl on Frances Short Pond (Flagstaff)

  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…

  jwilce

  December 28, 2017

  #bird photography, #digital cameras, #FlagstaffArizona, #northern Arizona, #outdoor photography, #photoblog, #photography, #wildlife photography, animal behavior, Arizona, bird photography, bird photos, outdoor photography, wildlife photography

  #Arizona, #birds, #publicspaces, coots, ducks, Flagstaff, mallards, municipal parks, waterfowl

• Dragonflies mating mid-air

  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…

  jwilce

  September 30, 2016

  #dragonflies, #FlagstaffArizona, #insects, #mating rituals, #northern Arizona, #outdoor photography, #photography, #photonarratives, #wildlife photography, #wings, animal behavior, Arizona, insect behavior, insect photography

  #Arizona, #insects, #nature, #parks, #photoblog, #photography, #wings, Flagstaff

• Hitchhiker butterfly

  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…

  jwilce

  September 30, 2016

  #butterflies, #FlagstaffArizona, #insects, #photography, #photonarratives, insect photography

  #Arizona, #insects, #photoblog, #photography, butterflies, Flagstaff

• Hawks: Chasing and Being Chased

  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…

  jwilce

  February 18, 2016

  #accipiters, #bird photography, #FlagstaffArizona, #hawks, #northern Arizona, #outdoor photography, #photoblog, #photography, #photonarratives, #raptors, Arizona

  #Arizona, #birds, #nature, #northern Arizona, #photography, #photonarratives

• The Ducks That Swim in Circles

  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”…

  jwilce

  January 2, 2016

  #photography, #wildlife photography, Arizona, bird photos

  #Arizona, #birds, #parks, #photography, #publicspaces

• What Wikipedia calls the “default desert bird”

  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…

  jwilce

  December 6, 2015

  #bird photography, #outdoor photography, #photography, #wildlife photography, Arizona, bird photography, bird photos

  #Arizona, #birds, #desertbirds, #DesertBotanicalGarden, #nature, #parks, #Phoenix, #photography

• Arizona Desert Botanical Garden 11/24

  The “DBG” is a source of endless pleasure, a space of glorious plants that attract equally wondrous birds and butterflies! Here are three shots from a recent visit. Stay tuned as I post more photos from this visit to the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, Arizona. Click here to visit my professional photography page and…

  jwilce

  November 26, 2015

  #bird photography, #photography, Arizona, outdoor photography

  #Arizona, #birds, #desertbirds, #DesertBotanicalGarden, #Phoenix, #photography

• Sunset in central Arizona

  Sunday October 18 was a stormy day in much of Arizona. As afternoon turned to evening, storm clouds were trying to hang in there but were beginning to break up. That led to an amazing sunset, at least from what we saw in central Arizona as we drove from Flagstaff to Phoenix.

  jwilce

  November 11, 2015

  #photography, #sunsets

  #Arizona, #colors

• How great to have an arboretum nearby

  It seems to me that supporting one’s local arboretum is a darned good idea, if one is lucky enough to have one. The Arboretum of Flagstaff is part of a network that includes the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix (dbg.org). That’s doubly convenient for us, since we travel to Phoenix from time to time. Four…

  jwilce

  October 17, 2015

  #butterflies, #colors, #dragonflies, #insects, #photography

  #Arizona, #DesertBotanicalGarden, #northern Arizona, Flagstaff, Odonata, The Arboretum at Flagstaff