Dave

I had dinner tonight with Dave.

Shrimp Boats at Dock in Tarpon Springs

Shrimp boats at the dock

Last Sunday on my bike ride I visited the Sponge Docks in Tarpon Springs. This is one of my regular rides and I like looking at the boats early in the day before all of the tourists arrive. On this ride I took the above picture of all of the shrimp boats in dock that morning. I thought it was odd to see so many of them in port all at once. I was used to seeing a few every time I rode by but this morning there were more than usual.

I didn’t think much of it until I ran into a local fisherman and I asked him about it. Was I surprised at his answer. He told me that shrimp are only active at night. During the day they burrow into the sea bottom to hide from creditors. They only come out when it is dark and they can’t be seen. It just so happens that Sunday morning was the end of the full moon for April. The shrimp boats all come in to restock during the full moon because the shrimp stay hidden until it gets dark again at night. Boy you can learn something new everyday.

Santa Fe Cityscape

Cityscape of Santa Fe

This is a cityscape I took of Santa Fe this week from the elevated site of Ft Marcy. I have taken many cityscapes before but Santa Fe is quite unique.

Santa Fe is the capital of the State of New Mexico. It is the oldest capital city in the US and has a population of 69,000 people. Santa Fe is unique because it has managed to keep out modern sprawl and retain its old world appearance. This was made possible by the city leaders over 100 years ago when they decided to restrict any new or remodeled building to retain the Spanish Pueblo Revival Style. Later this was amended to include the Spanish Territorial Style. What this has resulted in is a city with low buildings, flat roofs, narrow roads, and a central town plaza.

Pueblo Revival

As you look at the panorama above it is hard to see any of the buildings. If you zoom in and look closely you will see the houses and buildings are nestled in among the trees. You can even see the round State Capital if you look on the left of the image. Look to the right and you can see the flat-roofed houses built into the side of the hills. You never get the feeling you are in a large city when you visit Santa Fe.

Win Some Lose Some

Moon over Longs Peak

I got up early this mooring to take pictures of the moon setting over Longs Peak. I had done all of my planning, had the camera ready, and got up early enough to be in position at just the right time. I used The Photographer’s Ephemeris website to plot the course of the full moon, the time of moonset and sunrise, and the location I needed to be in to get the moon over Longs Peak. The ideal plan works when moonset takes place just as the sun is rising. I was in position early and all set up well in advance of sunrise. I got some good shots of the moon but just at sunrise the clouds came up over Longs Peak. You can just see the glow of the moon behind the clouds right next to Longs Peak in the picture above. Oh well, I guess I will have to start planning for the next full moon.

This mooring was a special event, as I mentioned in my last post, with a total eclipse of the moon. I made the shot below from our patio just before I left for the moonset picture. It is much the same as the Blood Moon picture I took in Florida last April but you will notice that the light side of the moon is on the opposite side. This is not quite the full eclipse as the clouds covered that for me too.

Sometimes you have to settle for what you can get on a photo experience. I shot this image below as I was waiting for sunrise. The location was good as you can just make out the mountains in the background and the lights from Longmont on the left.

Moon over Longmont

Blood Moon

Blood Moon

Set your alarm clocks Wednesday morning. The second Blood Moon of the year will be visible in North America.

The full eclipse will start at 6:25 a.m. EDT and last until 7:24 a.m, according to NASA.

Full lunar eclipses are often called “blood moons” because of the reddish tint they adopt as sunsets and sunrises seen from Earth reflect onto the surface of the moon.

Because this eclipse will happen two days after a lunar perigee, which is the point when the moon is nearest to Earth, NASA says the moon will appear 5.3 percent larger than the previous “blood moon,” which occurred on April 15.

This eclipse marks the second in a series of four lunar eclipses in a row, known as a “tetrad.” We’ll experience just eight tetrads this century, according to the Washington Post, and we won’t experience the next tetrad until around 2032 or 2033.

Check out The Photographer’s Ephemeris to find out when the full moon will be setting at sunrise in your area. You will be able to get a good shot of the moon with details in the foreground and background lit by the ambient light from the sun rising. If you check things out you can get some good results. The image below was shot last November here in Longmont.

Moonset on Longs Peak

Autumn

The weather here on the Front Range of Colorado has changed this week. Fall is in the air. The leaves have just started to turn down here on the plains but it is cooler and wetter so fall is officially here.

Pumpkin Patch

It has been a good growing season for pumpkins this year and you can see we have a bumper crop. This pumpkin patch is just down the street from where we live here in Longmont. Yesterday, October 1st, was their first day of operation. A lot of care had been taken to get everything just right. It had rained just before I took this picture and I thought the clouds might add something to the scene.

Pumpkin Wagon

This wagon was loaded with pumpkins and setting out in front of the barn. I took this picture from a low angle and then processed it as a modified fisheye in Photoshop. I call this “modified” because it is done with the Free Transform Tool and you do not get the full effect of a fisheye lens. It still makes for an interesting picture.

Long’s Peak

As I said earlier the weather has turned colder down here on the plains. Up in the mountains it has gotten a lot cooler. The rain we got here yesterday was snow in the mountains. After being mostly gray for the summer the mountains on the Front Range are now a dazzling white-capped. This is Long’s Peak in the background which Longmont is named after. I expect there is even more snow on the mountains today.

Now where did I put my winter coat? Oh, I guess it doesn’t matter because we are leaving for Florida soon.

Brainard Lake

Brainard Lake

Brainard Lake is the namesake of the Brainard Lake Recreation Area which is located about 30 miles northwest of Boulder, CO in the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains. The lake is created by the snowmelt from the Continental Divide which is just west of the lake. This is a high altitude lake as it resides at over 10,000 feet in elevation.

For the past six years that I have spent the summers in Colorado I have visited the lake many times hoping to get just the right picture. What I would consider the “right” picture is one with the reflection of the sky and the surrounding mountains in a crystal clear lake. Over these six years I have visited Brainard Lake two or three times each summer looking for that picture. It seems that every time I go the wind is blowing and the lake is beautiful but no reflections. This summer I have already been to the lake twice with the same negative results.

Last Thursday was a crystal clear day on the Front Range and I took advantage of it to try for some fall foliage pictures. Of course I stopped by Brainard Lake. The above picture is the result. The only thing missing from the picture are some puffy white clouds in the sky and reflection. I am tempted to fire up Photoshop and correct the situation but somehow that just doesn’t seem right.

This panorama is made from 8 single images which I shot vertically and stitched together in Photoshop CC 2014. I used a tripod and shot in the manual mode. I measured the exposure on in the Aperture setting of the camera and then switched to manual and dropped the exposure one f/stop. I used my Sony a7 full frame camera with the 28-70 mm lens. The sequence was shot in the RAW format, at f/11, 1/160 of a second, and ISO 160.

The question now is will I return to Brainard Lake and look for those puffy white clouds on the perfect day? Maybe I will just call this good and visit the area for other photo opts.

Moonset Painting

Moonset

I created this picture from a landscape that I took last year as the moon was setting over Longs Peak just at sunrise. The picture was a good picture to start but I thought I would create something worth framing. I had a spare 20 X 30 inch frame handy so I thought I would make a three pane image for the picture. The first thing I did was to flip the backing sheet in the frame to use as a mat. i converted my image to an oil painting using the Oil Paint Filter in Photoshop CC (last year’s version of Photoshop.) Then I carefully used my junior high math to figure out what size to make is pane. I had to upscale the original image because it was only 19 X 13 inches. Photoshop CC does and excellent job of enlarging images. I had to use my eye and math skills to decide exactly where to crop the three parts of the image to make it fit. I eyeballed each pane on the mat and put it all together.

The cardboard mat matches our wall color very well. The above image is a representation of what the final product looked like. I hung the picture in my bathroom so I could admire it everyday. Karen says it is like you are looking out a window. These are the kinds of projects I work on when I have an extra hour to kill because my pal Rolf wants to go for a bike ride at 10 AM instead of 8:30 AM. Maybe I should stay home and work on projects more in the mornings.

iOS 8

IOS 8 Wednesday, Sept 17

iOS 8

Apple is updating the operating systems for iPhones, iPads, and iPods on Wednesday, September 17. Apple is calling this, “The biggest iOS release ever.” If you are purchasing a new iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus this week then you will automatically receive the new operating system.

What if you are going keep your old iPhone? Or just want to upgrade your iPad or iPod? Then iOS 8 will be something you want to look into. iOS 8 will work on iPhones back to the 4S and iPads back to iPad 2. So if you have a relatively new iPhone or iPad then you may want to look at the new features in iOS 8.

iOS 8 will allow your iPhone to do about 90 percent of what the new iPhone 6 will do for a cost of zero. Your older phone will not have NFC, better battery life, the new faster processors, or the new image stabilized camera. But it will have a lot of new features.

Here is a quick rundown of some of the new features with iOS 8.

New Photos App

New organization and editing tools to better manage your pictures.

Messages

Add voice and current video, and location to messages

Keyboard

New smart keyboard that offers suggestions based on content.

Family Sharing

Share purchases from iTunes with family members.

iCloud Drive

Use iCloud as another disk drive to share work across platforms.

Health

Store and share training and health information with professionals.

Connect Devices

Answer your phone on your Mac or iPad.

These are just a few of the new features and simple examples of each. If you want more information on iOS 8 go to www.apple.com and check out everything.

When you upgrade to iOS 8 it will be just like getting a new device free.

iPhone 6

iPhone 6

The new iPhone 6’s went on sale last night at 1 PM MDT. I set my alarm and got up ready to strike. The Apple Store website was down for over two hours after the launch of the new phones. I went back to bet and woke myself up at about 3:30 AM and the store was up and running. I pre-ordered a regular size iPhone six in gray and silver with 64 GB of memory.

I opted to pick the phone up at the Apple Store in Boulder next Friday, September 19, the day the phones go on sale. I need to go to the store because I need assistance in setting up the phone. I have two phones on my family plan. One that I use and one that my wife, Karen, uses. I have it arranged that they upgrade in different years. That way I am able to upgrade one of the phones each year for the lower cost. With the trade in value of my old phone I generally break even. Which means I basically get a new phone each year for free. The problem is that this year it is Karen’s number which is eligible for the upgrade so I have to purchase the phone and then switch it to my number. It is worth the hassle to have a new phone each year. Karen is happy with my hand-me-down phones.