Cisco Fishing at Bear Lake

Bonneville Cisco are a small fish found only in Bear Lake, and fishing for them with dip nets is done nowhere else in the world.  I left home in the dark this morning for the 45 minute drive to Cisco Beach in Utah.  It was snowing lightly, so the light was not very good for photography.

There were quite a few people there when we
arrived.  Cisco can only be caught for a couple of weeks around January when they gather around the shoreline rocks to spawn.

The lake is frozen this year so we needed to chop holes with an ax.  Years when the lake doesn't freeze, people wear boots or waders and stand in the lake with their dip nets.

In this photo, my friend Bill watches his son, Ben, catch some fish.  In back, my neighbor, Dan, brings more fish onto the ice.  The ice was thin where we cut our holes because it had shifted around, opening cracks which then refroze.  The lake ice was still roaring and cracking as it continued to move with the wind and currents..

We all caught our limits of 30 fish.  I cleaned half of them to eat, and the other half will be used for bait to catch lake trout.  Cisco don't taste as good as trout to me, but aren't bad battered and fried.

I was glad to have the chance to participate in this unique activity.

Pine Creek, Wyoming

Pine Creek, Wyoming, is one of my favorite locations for winter photography.  Linda and I went there with our neighbors, Connie and Larry Hymas, today to see what our frigid weather had created. We had a good lunch at Blondie's in Cokeville then headed for the creek.

Pine Creek is in a deep canyon that gets very little sun during the winter.  The sunlight in this photo was striking high on the canyon wall and reflecting in the creek.

Deep in the canyon, the light shifts toward blue, so sometimes photos are much more pleasant in black and white.  Droplets of water splash onto rocks and freeze quickly, then more droplets add to the ice until fantastic, delicate formations are created.  Some of these formations hang over the waterfalls that created them.

The moving water of the creek brushes against snow covered branches and creates ice plates that spread over the water's surface.  All of these delicate ice formations disappear very quickly when there is a day or two with temperatures above freezing.

There are a lot of small cascades along the creek, and this is the largest waterfall with a drop of about ten feet.

When a big tree falls across the creek, the tangle of snow covered limbs tells an interesting nature story.

A frosted tree and a waterfall make a nice winter scene.  Just a little wind would destroy this delicate frost.

To take these photos, I used a tripod and set the ISO to 100, which is as low as it will go on my camera. This allowed me to use slow shutter speeds to blur the moving water in the creeks and waterfalls.  It was very cold, so I kept an extra battery in an inside pocket.  High boots were needed to climb down banks and through deep snow. I have trouble using gloves with camera controls, so I had to stop to warm my hands frequently.

We had a great time with Connie and Larry, who are active members of our camera club.  I can't wait to see their photos.

Bald Eagles

It has been very cold here, minus 20 degrees F two nights ago.  Today was overcast with light snow, so it warmed up to about plus 10 degrees F.  Much more comfortable, but the little bit of light was completely flat.

I discovered four bald eagles near Ovid, Idaho with a small kill.

Two left as soon as I stopped my truck, but the other two took turns pushing each other off the kill.

The eagle on the ground defended itself from the aerial attack, but would usually be pushed away.

There didn't seem to be any hard feelings.  The eagle that had been pushed off the kill would wait awhile then try again.  Meanwhile, the magpies all waited for leftovers.

These photos were taken with an ancient Sigma 170-500 lens from the cab of my truck.  The heavy lens was hand held, braced on a Puffin Pad, which is a soft base that hooks onto the truck window.  The old lens lacks contrast in conditions as dark and flat as these, so some adjustments were made in Photoshop Elements.

Brian and Laura's Wedding

My son, Brian, married Laura Montano on December 28, 2012.  Linda and I flew to Tucson for the wedding.

This photo of the wedding party shows Laura's daughters, Kim and Melanie, Laura, Brian, Owen Rosner, and Ed Chang.

Kim and Melanie enjoy a moment with their Mother, now Laura Walker

Ed Chang, Brian, and best man Owen Rosner have been friends since high school.

Laura and Brian are with Reverend Hicks, who performed the wedding at the River Of Life Baptist Church in Tucson.




Owen delighted everyone with his Best Man's speech.

I wish Brian and Laura a long, happy, loving marriage.  Brian waited a long time before he found the right woman for him.  I welcome Laura, her daughters, and the rest of her family, and hope that our families will blend together nicely.  It was fun spending time with Owen and Ed too.

Linda and I stayed with Merry and Lou Lewis in their gorgeous home in Tucson, and I want to thank them for their hospitality.  I have known Merry since high school and it is wonderful that our friendship has continued all these years.

Through The Viewfinder

Photographers, here is a technique that will give you a chance to make fun and unique digital images using that old film camera that has been unused for years. It is popularly known as TtV (Through the Viewfinder). You will need an old twin lens camera with a large viewfinder on top.

This is a TtV photo. I cropped the image to frame it with a little bit of the camera around the viewfinder. Most images I have seen from other photographers have a black border around the viewfinder, but that is personal preference.




The technique is very simple. Put the twin lens camera on a tripod, point it at the subject (which will be reversed in the viewfinder) and photograph it from above with your digital camera.

Focusing can be tricky. The image in the viewfinder probably won't be very sharp, and you will need to chose between focusing on the camera or on the image. Stop down to get greater depth of field.

This Kodak Duaflex camera was used for these photos. The camera was given to me by an old friend, and a very fine photographer, Barry Bruce, who passed away in his 90's a few years ago. Our Sharp Shooters Camera Club once had a meeting that featured a CD of his amazing images.

It was nice to put Barry's old camera back to work.

Central Oregon Coast

Linda and I try to get to the Oregon coast every couple of years to enjoy the salt water and seafood.  Last month we spent a week exploring the central coast area from Newport to Tillamook.  The weather wasn't very good most of the time, so we had to spend more time working on the seafood and a little less on scenery.  Nevertheless, we enjoyed the beauty of the coast.

We had rain and fog at Newport, but enjoyed the best oysters on the coast at Local Ocean, right across the street from this harbor.

I think the mist added to the atmospheric effect of this beachcomber photo in Oceanside.

Probably the best meal of the trip was at Fathoms restaurant in Lincoln City.  The steamer clams were wonderful, the service excellent, the atmosphere relaxing, and the view incomparable.  The restaurant is located in the Inn At Spanish Head, which is built on the side of a cliff overlooking the ocean.  When you go to this restaurant, you enter on the 9th floor and go up to the 10th floor. Hotel guests go down the cliff in an elevator to get to their rooms on lower floors.

Depoe Bay is a special treat for photographers if you get there on a clear day after a storm. There is a blowhole locally called a "spouting horn".  Big storms create huge waves that blast through a tunnel and out a hole, creating a 50 foot plume of water.  From a photographer's standpoint, you can go north, stay dry, and photograph this blast of water.  Or, you can go south, get drenched from the spray, wait for the blast of water to subside a little, and photograph the rainbow.  I got completely soaked taking this photo.



More Lincoln City restaurant recommendations include Blackfish Cafe, Kyllo's, and Mo's in the Taft district.  All had good seafood, and Kyllo's and Mo's had nice views.  Mo's isn't as comfortable as the others because of bench seating, but they are all good.

Pacific City had amazingly reflective sand, and cars were allowed to park on the beach.  It looked like a good opportunity to get stuck.

The Oregon coast gets plenty of rain, so there are lots of places just a couple of miles inland that have mossy trees, trails through green leafy passages, and picturesque creeks.  We went to Munson Creek Falls and found all of these things.  The falls were nice, but I really enjoyed finding the little things, like these sycamore leaves on a rock in the creek.  Munson Creek is just outside Tillamook. If you are in that area, don't miss the tour of the Tillamook Cheese Factory.  To complete our culinary review, the ice cream cones at the factory are really, really good, but plan to wait in line.  Now, about that diet. . . 

Oregon Coast Panorama

Linda and I need to see salt water and taste fresh seafood once in a while, so we drove to the Oregon coast last month. We rented a condo on Siletz Bay in Lincoln City and ate plenty of seafood, but photography was tough because of terrible weather. After reviewing my photos, I noticed that a lot of them looked better cropped to near-panoramic proportions.

Photography was difficult in the fog and occasionally heavy rain, so some of our photos attempted to capture the stormy mood.  There was little of interest in the foreground sand and blank sky of the beachcomber photo, so cropping to emphasize the center of the photo seemed to be the answer.

When we finally got some sunshine, the storm had churned up huge waves, and the wind was blowing the tops off. Faint rainbows appeared in some of the spray on these waves at Boiler Bay.  Cropping helped the viewer's eye go to the center of interest.

Sunset didn't have much color, so cropping this photo of Siletz Bay was a good way to de-emphasize the sky and create a peaceful mood.  The photo was taken from the balcony of our rented condo.

This flock of birds was also photographed from our balcony, when it was pretty dark, using a fairly long exposure to create a feeling of movement.
When reviewing your photos it is important to realize that the proportions of the image created by your camera might not be the best proportions for every photo you take.  Don't be afraid to crop out unwanted elements to make a panorama, a square, or a photo with some other proportions.