Winter Fog

This has been a cold foggy winter with some hoarfrost and beautiful soft light.  I showcased hoarfrost in my January 28, 2014 post, so this time I will show a few photos of the fog that creates the frost.

December 21, 2019 started out as a very foggy morning here in Montpelier, Idaho.  It was just 10 degrees (F), so I had to psych myself up to grab my camera, bundle up, and go outside before the sun appeared over the eastern hills.

I didn’t have to go far.  The cemetery and adjacent golf course are nearby where the fog was rolling in.  The sun barely appeared through the fog over the snowed-in golf course.

Naturally fog and a cemetery work well together to create an eerie atmosphere.  The subdued light and extreme cold tend to create blue light.  I converted some of these images to black and white to present more neutral tones.

There are fields on the north side of the cemetery where this fence and the irrigation lines in the first photo seemed to stretch into infinity.

Here are some tips for taking photos in these cold damp conditions.  Batteries die in the cold so I keep one in an inside pocket or in my fairly warm truck.  Don’t keep your vehicle too warm because cold lenses will fog up when you get in out of the cold.  Try not to change lenses or your cold camera mirror can fog up.  Fingers get painfully cold in a hurry so I use warm mittens with fold-off finger covers.  I hope this helps your winter photo adventures.

Please respect my copyright and do not use my photos for any purpose without permission, and probably a small payment.

Living Nativity

It has been a long time since I posted anything to this blog.  Some problems kept us from getting out much, but we hope to do better soon.

This is the story of a living nativity staged every year just before Christmas in Montpelier, Idaho.  Over the years it has been presented in various locations around town, and I think this year at Wells Stock Park near the National Oregon California Trail Center is the best one yet.

Joseph led a donkey with Mary riding through the snow.  A manger was set up under a tree and the wise men visited Joseph, Mary, and the baby Jesus while shepherds looked on.  There were even two camels.

It was a cold day just a few hours after a big snowstorm, and a local caterer, David Ream, supplied homemade donuts and hot chocolate.  David has been instrumental in putting this event together over the years.  Despite the cold, a good crowd listened to him tell the story of the baby Jesus’ birth in the manger.  There was live music and kids scrambled to have their pictures taken with the animals.

It isn’t every day we see camels in the snow in Montpelier.  They were very friendly, but “Dude” snacked on the pine trees around the Oregon Trail center.

  The community is grateful to Jeral and Jenine Williams for bringing the animals from Pine Tree Dairy in Idaho Falls every winter.  This year, the roads were terrible, but they still made it.

This sort of event helps us remember what Christmas is really about.  We can forget the commercialism and stress for a little while and reflect on the birth of Christ.

I hope you enjoy the photos and story, but please remember that my photos are copyrighted and must not be used without permission.

Sun Dog

A sun dog is an atmospheric phenomenon that creates patches of light about 22° to the side of the sun.  Usually we see them on cold clear mornings here in the Bear Lake Valley, but this one showed up in the middle of a misty afternoon.

Suns dogs, or parhelia, are created by sunlight refracting through icy clouds of hexagonal crystals.  I was out looking for photo opportunities with Bruce Grayum when we saw this one from a back road near Georgetown, Idaho.  The cows didn’t seem impressed by the huge apparition in the sky near their pasture, but they did provide scale to show the size the sun dog.

It was a cold day, 9° F as we continued to explore.  We stopped at the bridge over the Bear River on the Nounan road and saw the sun dog again, but this time no clear sky was visible at all.  I liked the reflected light in the river.
Sometimes the arcs of light form a complete halo around the sun, and some have faint rainbows of color like this one.  Photographing them can be tricky because the camera must be pointed directly at the sun.  A clean lens is needed to prevent flares, and there is danger of getting a burned retina.  If your camera has it, live view might be a good option.

Our last stop was along Creamery Lane between Georgetown and Nounan where the sun dog appeared in icy mist over a winter landscape of drifts and sagebrush.  Shooting into the sun causes the lens to stop down, darkening the photo, but if the exposure is lengthened, the sun dog seems to blend with the sky and disappear.  I think the darkened exposure presents an other-worldly appearance anyway.

Why are they called “sun dogs”?  No one knows for sure, but the term has been around since the 1600’s and the origin seems to be lost in time.  Some say it is because the "dogs" follow the sun around.

I hope you like this post, but please do not use my copyrighted photos without permission.

White-faced Ibis

Bear Lake National Wildlife Refuge in southeast Idaho is home to about 5000 white-faced ibis in the spring.  The birds breed in colonies in the bulrushes, and the refuge has one of the largest nesting colonies.

Just outside the refuge I came across lots of birds flying in and landing in the deep grass of a hay field.  They eat aquatic insects, earthworms, larvae, and so on, and often find food in damp soil.  I’m not sure why they were gathering in this field.

It was fun watching them glide in and disappear after they landed.  They just kept coming, and every once in awhile a few would poke their heads up to see what I was doing.

I have no idea how many were hiding there, but they tend to congregate in huge colonies.  I was lucky to be able to watch these interesting birds.

Please remember to ask for permission to use my copyrighted photos.  They are available for a small fee.

Millions of Wildflowers

There are foothills in the Bear Lake Valley that always have a lot of spring wildflowers, but this year is exceptional.  Linda and I were invited to a wedding at a beautiful house on 300 acres high in the foothills and were amazed at the view and the mass of wildflowers.  The owners graciously invited us to return for photos, and we went back twice.

Most of the flowers are arrowleaf balsamroot, a showy, large flower.  Many acres of the hillside are a mass of yellow because of these flowers.

This area had several varieties of lupine mixed with the arrowleaf balsamroot.

Here are two of the many variations of lupine.

Patches of blue camas were a surprise because they are usually found in wetlands.  When I went back a couple of days later many of them were drying out.

We continued higher up the hill on our second visit.  The mass of yellow flowers disappeared and were replaced by scattered Indian paintbrush.  It is remarkable how the elevation change made such a difference.  It has been a beautiful spring.

Please respect my copyright and do not use these photos for any purpose without permission.  Thanks.

Trumpeter Swans Nesting

I haven’t been able to get out much lately, so this is my first post in a long time.  I went with Bruce Grayum to Bear Lake National Wildlife Refuge and saw quite a bit of wildlife, including a few trumpeter swans.  They are the world’s largest waterfowl, and were very rare here just a few years ago.  Now there are several nesting pairs in the refuge, and they can be seen in several places in the valley.

There was one pair preparing to nest on an island in the biggest pond along the auto tour route.  We could see the female dragging reeds into a pile for the nest.

Soon she left the nest and swam out to the male, then both took off and flew close to where we were watching.  Because of there size, trumpeter swans need a long runway for takeoff.

The two swam together, often bobbing their heads, which is flirtatious behavior in the swan world.

They were beautiful to watch swimming together and I hope we will be able to see baby swans soon.

Thank you for viewing these photos.  Please do not use them for any reason without my permission.

Museum of Clean Gallery

The Museum of Clean is a quirky, fun, family oriented museum in Pocatello, Idaho.  They have such diverse displays as antique pre-electric vacuum cleaners, the world's first motorized vacuum cleaner (which was horse-drawn), a chimney sweep exhibit, and a replica of Noah’s Ark in a state-of-the-art 74,000 square foot building.  They also have an art gallery which includes a rotating display by local artists.

Don Aslett is the founder of the museum.  He has written 40 books and completed over 6000 seminars, workshops, and TV filmings all about “clean.”  I spoke to him when I visited the museum a few months ago, and he said he would like to have Linda and me exhibit there.  I had forgotten all about it, when one day I got a phone call inviting us to hang our photos in November 2017.

So, Linda and I hung 24 photos in the art gallery at the museum for the month of November.  A few are shown here.  I would like to thank Don Aslett for the opportunity, and Museum director Brad Kisling for all his help getting us set up.  He could not have been friendlier or more helpful.  Just about everyone should enjoy a visit to this very unusual museum.
www.museumofclean.com

As usual, our photos are copyrighted and cannot be used without our permission.

St Charles Canyon, Idaho

This has been a strange year for fall color.  It seems that wherever I went I was too early, or too late, or the color just never got very good.  The one exception was St Charles Canyon, just a few miles from home.  I went there on a cold, stormy day with Bruce Gregory and Stephen Johnson who were visiting from California.

The mountain maples were incredible.  They had an amazing variety of colors ranging from yellow to red.  Most of the aspens hadn’t changed yet, so there was some green in the mix as well.

Blue Pond Spring is one of the most beautiful spots in St Charles Canyon, but moose have been known to chase people away from here.  On this rainy day, I had the pond to myself and enjoyed the willow reflections.

Some of the maples were yellow, making nice substitutes for the still green aspens.  They made a beautiful background for the white bark of this aspen.

The green aspen leaves contrasted with the brilliant maples, especially the red ones.

Raindrops looked great on incredibly red mountain maple leaves.

As we left the canyon we stopped to photograph one last scene where a line of maples climbed the canyon wall to the top.  I think the wet stormy weather had a lot to do with the amazing color, and St Charles Canyon was the best we saw this year.

Please respect copyright laws, and do not use my photos without permission.  I will give permission to use photos for educational and charitable purposes, but charge a small fee for personal use.

Bear Lake County Fair - After Dark

The Bear Lake County Fair in Montpelier, Idaho is always a wonderful event.  There are rodeos, entertainment, food booths, animals, rides, craft displays, and of course a big photography display.  But after dark the fair really comes to life, and the lights are a great opportunity for photographers.

Carnival photos are best just after sunset so there is a little light and color in the sky.  This Ferris wheel changes color, and if you change shutter speeds you can get anything from colorful spokes of light to a blurred circle in infinite variations.  This one was ½ second exposure.

This is the same Ferris wheel from the other side, with carnival game prizes in the corner.  This one was taken after the sky got totally dark, and the shutter speed was 1.3 seconds, resulting in an entirely different pattern.  To reduce camera shake, a tripod is a necessity and a remote shutter release or self timer also helps.  If your camera has image stabilization, turn it off while using the tripod.

This photo of entertainers Dave Anderson and Thatch Elmer was taken on the outdoor stage.  The lights were bright enough to take the photo without a tripod, but in order to pick up details in the light and shadow, three photos were bracketed two stops over and under normal, and combined in the computer using Photomatix Essentials.  The software did an amazing job removing blur caused by people moving.

This food booth photo on the midway was taken with a 2.5 second exposure.  It is fun to use these long exposures to blur moving people.  Everyone becomes anonymous using longer exposures.

Longer exposures can also be used to make abstract images.  This giant swing was exposed for 0.8 seconds, but as the dangling swings were being lowered I increased the exposure to 2.5 seconds to create the abstract image.

So, look for bright colors, movement, and lights to get unusual photos at the county fair.

Please note that my photos are copyrighted and must not be used without permission, and usually a small fee.

Bruneau Dunes State Park, Idaho

Bruneau Dunes State Park has become one of my favorite stopping places when traveling across Idaho. This year I used their excellent campground as a place to spend the night on my way to the John Day, Oregon area on my annual camping trip.

The spectacular dunes are a great place to take pictures when the sun gets low just before sunset.  People on top of this dune were sliding down the steep shadowed side as if it were snow.

One of the attractions is the 470 foot high largest single structured sand dune in North America.  There are a couple of ponds in the park that allow the rare opportunity to photograph dunes reflected in water, but this actually isn’t as good as it was several years ago because the beaches have become overgrown with trees and reeds.  Swimmers have kept a few passages open through the reeds.

The wind does amazing things with the sand.  What can cause such abrupt changes in the ripples?  The color of the sand changes from gray to rust as the sun gets low.

There are a few flowers on the dunes that cast long shadows in the afternoon light, like this nakedstem sunray.

The day ended with warm sunlight reflected in the lake from the big dune.  If you decide to photograph these dunes, I suggest putting your camera away until about an hour before sunset when the color gets richer and the shadows and ripples in the sand create wonderful patterns.

Please respect my copyright and do not use these photos without permission.  I often donate usage for charitable purposes, but will charge a small fee for personal or commercial use.

Shoshone Falls, Idaho

The Niagara of the West.  That’s  one name for Shoshone Falls, but Niagara Falls is “just” 167 feet high, and Shoshone Falls is 212 feet high, and 900 feet across.  Shoshone Falls is sort of a seasonal waterfall on the Snake River near Twin Falls, Idaho.  In the summer it usually has a vastly reduced flow because water upstream is diverted for irrigation, but in the spring it can be booming after a wet winter.  This year we had a huge snow pack, and the falls are roaring.

We visited the falls on a very windy day, and the spray was soaking the observation area of the beautiful city park.  Photography from the nearest observation areas was nearly impossible because the lens was wet as soon as the cover was removed, so this photo was taken a bit further away.  Even so, I had to wait for a moment when the mist was at a minimum and hurry to take the picture.

The mist and bright sun combined for wonderful rainbows.

The rainbow framed the Snake River Canyon when Linda and I returned the following morning.  We hoped that there would be less wind, therefore less mist, and drier conditions for photography.  Wrong, but at least we saw the rainbow from a different angle because we were so much earlier in the day.

If anything, the wind was worse, and instead of the observation area being soaked, the entire city park was drenched.   The best we could do was remove the lens cover, take a quick shot or two, and slap the cover back on.  Then find someplace dry to clean the lens.  Then try again. 

 Even seen through the mist, the power of these magnificent falls was astonishing.  If you go, try to be there between April and July during a wet year.

Please note that these photos are copyrighted and cannot be used without permission.  We usually request a small payment depending on usage.