Here you will find all of the images to date from my Year of Photos challenge. While the primary distribution of the photos is via email, I wanted to make them accessible to those that may have joined the list late and even those that have not joined it yet.
Click on any of the images below to open up that month’s collection of images. Once inside click on any of the individual images to start a full-screen slideshow of that month’s photos.
Enjoy!
Chris
September
Spring in Colorado brings a lot of different types of waterfowl that use the lakes and marshes in the area as their breeding ground. The gent in this photo is a blue-winged teal. The blue of his wings is hidden in this shot, but in flight, it is quite striking. He is being shadowed by one of the gaggle of goslings from the other day. It turns out there was 18 in total, although only 17 were visible in the shot I posted. I counted the full group in another photo in the series when they were all afloat, a fuzzy golden armada. You see a lot of mixed species on the water, especially in the more protected but smaller ponds as there just isn't enough room for everyone to do their own thing.
For this shot, I tried to give what I call a faires eye view of these delicate yellow and white flowers. They were about half the size of a US penny, and I love the variegated color and the fact the distribution of the white is uneven between the petals of the bloom. It just gives it a sort of unkempt look that matches the area of long grass in the park where I took the shot. This one was captured quite late in the day as Ireland has very long days in late May. Sunset on this day was nearly 940 PM (May 28, 2014) and the low angle of the sun gives you what photographers and painters call the golden hours for over two hours. I especially appreciated the long days as I was on a work trip and not off until after 5. If I had traveled in the fall or winter, there would have been very few photos brought back.
One of the fascinating things about Ireland, at least to someone who has grown up in a desert, is how wet it was. Everything was soaked, and there were growing things everywhere, even in the rocks. These little flowers were growing out of the top of a granite block wall (same stuff as the sidewalk slabs) which are very common in Cork. This wasn't the only such example of plants growing on structures, but I thought it was much more photogenic than the moss growing on the slate roofs of the buildings 🙂
Today's photo is of what we would call a convenience shop in the US, although none here would ever claim to be selling gourmet food. I like this shot as it is a moment in time of daily life for one thing, and for the other, it reminds me of the shop in the photo from 6/30/18 along the Mysore highway in India. In both, I am looking across a busy street into a shop with a Coca-Cola sign that is selling ice cream. Although this shop lacks the community hub feel and the goats, it still is the same general thing in a very different place. I like the fact that the more I travel, the easier I find it to see the similarities between the locations and their people if I just take the time to look.
Today I begin a series of photos from a trip to the emerald isle of Ireland. I take the camera pretty much everywhere I go and when work decided to send me to Ireland along it went. I was based in Cork for my time there but traveled all around the republic during my time there. Today's shot is of a street sign embedded in the sidewalk in downtown Cork. They had these at all the intersections, and I liked the shot because of it spoke to a lot of what I saw in Ireland in that it wasn't just the street name, but rather a cityscape of old Cork showing the river Lee and the old fortifications. You can also see the sidewalks are natural stone which much of the municipal infrastructure and buildings are. All in all, it is a very Cork and Irish photo.
Today we have a pair of what I believe are ducks, and perhaps the same type and a male/female pair. That is all I have on this as I haven't been able to find them in my normal resources to give them a formal name. I am guessing we have some domestic ducks either loose or cross-bred with wild ones, but I genuinely don't know. I liked the coloring and the motion and the different beak colors, so I took the shot. Sometimes that is as good as it gets.
Today's image is a semi-repeat as we had another of a bold male mallard a few weeks ago, but I thought there was a lesson to be learned about photography from it, so I am including it. The photo itself is pretty good, close with sharp detail. It was taken too close to noon so there is a lack of contrast compared to what you would get in the morning or evening hours, but that is not the issue I have with it. Where I went wrong on this one was the composition, I just pulled in too close on this one and as a result, cut off the top of his head in the reflection. This kind of mistake can make the difference between a great shot and one for the discard pile as there is nothing you can do to fix it. If you crop more from the bottom, it only makes it worse, and you can't back out to show all the reflection and a nice border of clear water because this was the zoom when it was taken. So as a reminder to myself and a lesson to those that have read this far, make sure you are fully aware of the entirety of the impact of the subject before you push the shutter release.
As a reminder of just how quickly things can change in Colorado, I offer today's photo which was taken only four days after the one from yesterday with the snow and the disgruntled finches. When snow comes in after a prolonged warm spell, it really doesn't have that big of an effect on the plants (unless it is heavy enough to break branches that are covered in leaves). So the overall impact as far as I see it is a bunch of mini-springs following brief winters which tends to make you appreciate spring even more.
One of the wonderful things about living in Colorado is the weather is a constant surprise. These little finches got caught off guard as the weather changed suddenly and we got snow on May 12th which covered up most of the things they eat. Luckily the recent warm weather (all the past ten photos were taken on May 10th) had heated up the concrete, so it didn't take the snow while the grass did. The dandelions had enough time to sprout, grow and go to seed before this unexpected snow hit. Lucky for the finches, this appears to be all they could find to eat today. It will get better for them soon as in the next couple of days it will be back up in the 70's. Springtime in the Rockies....
Today we have another photo of a dragonfly, but this time in a much wetter environment than previously. There are definite similarities (it is a dragonfly after all), but the color and other things are different. I have absolutely no idea what exact type of dragonfly this is (nor did I with the other) only that they are very cool and the wing detail is amazing as always. There is another crazy mosquito in this shot as well, perhaps a cousin to the guy from yesterday?
Sometimes you capture an image of something you don't expect, a bit of serendipity on the chip as it were. I was trying for a photo of the two barn swallows perched on the rail but for several reasons (taking it towards the sun, too much depth of field) it just didn't work out (for a good photo of one of the swallows with the light in the right direction click here). What did work out is the cameo of what I can only say is a suicidal mosquito, perhaps a kamikaze of his species, flying right in front of his natural enemy and doing a barrel roll while he does it. One can only wonder what was going through the mosquito's mind but he survived to fight another day as the swallow simply watched him fly on by.
Today we have another picture with another baby goose in the background. While the main focus of this one isn't the gosling, I like that its there because it helps give some scale to the solitary sandpiper. It really shows the difference in sizes that exist in the birds that frequent the lake as the sandpiper is fully grown and in breeding plumage and the gosling is far from it. They obviously aren't concerned about each other, but at some point, you have to wonder what the smaller birds think about the giants amongst them.
Today's photo is more about behavior than looks. In this case, three (one is just out of view to the right, I had too long a lens on to get them all from where I was) are three Wilson's phalaropes. These birds feed by spinning around in the water and disturbing things and catching what comes to the top. This unique feeding style produces some lovely concentric waves around each that reach out and interact with their neighbors. As someone who spends a lot of time around waterfowl, I can say this is not something you see every day, but I wish I saw it more often 🙂
We have seen several of the birds that like the open water, but there are also those that stick to the trees or reeds as well. This female red-winged blackbird is an example of a shy bird that likes to hang out off the beaten path. While this may not look like a blackbird of any type, she is as the red-wing blackbirds are dimorphic between male and females, much as the mallards are, with the male being flashier and the ladies having a nice camouflage pattern. It's a bit tougher to get a shot of the females as they are more prone to flying off as opposed to the fellas as we saw on September 1st.
Today's photo is of an avocet that has come to Colorado for the breeding season. We saw some of these earlier in California (maybe the same one, who knows?) but they looked quite a bit different as their heads were greyish white instead of the tan/orange plumage on the head you see here. This isn't the best photo as the sun had gone behind the clouds and he was a bit far away, and I had to crop the image quite a bit so he would show up but I wanted to follow up on the earlier image/story of the troubles I had identifying the avocet's February. Also, it adds to the roster of migratory birds we have seen and will continue to see over the next several days that visit this one small lake in northern Colorado. For someplace so far inland we sure do see a lot of shorebirds.
Much as the ducks did yesterday this male red-winged blackbird is betting that spring is here. This guy is so positive that spring is here that he is shouting about it. Time to start wooing the ladies (see here for a picture of a female) and getting with the nests and eggs. As you can see we don't have leaves even at this time so things get going a lot earlier than you might think.
We are now a bit later in the year, and the trees are blooming, and this bee is living it up. Its got pollen everywhere, and if an insect can look happy, this one does to me. This shot is also from 2014 where we had a very mild spring with no late freezes, and the fruit crops were a bit nuts. Of course, this guy and all the other pollinators had a lot to do with it as well as there were so many flowers, so little time.
Baby ducks are cute but think these little goslings are just a little bit more adorable. They look so determined as they march down the hill and into the pond. I count thirteen of them here (some are up to behind the reeds and you need to zoom in to see them) and I am not sure if this is one clutch being herded by a mom and dad or two mom's taking the kids for a swim. Either way, it looks like fun.
The owls are not the only birds with babies in the spring, the mother duck has six babies to keep her busy. The ice is gone and the sun is warm, even if the plants still aren't fully greened up yet. By this point, we are in early May and by the end of that month, the babies will be almost ready to be out on their own.
I know I said that I was only going to do a series of three for the owl's and I am going to claim that I held to that, even though this is a related shot. There are, however no owls in this shot, simply an empty nest. This is an image I didn't think I had and one which I had hoped I had so I was very glad to find it during this dig through the back catalog. It's not a particularly good shot and wouldn't stand on its own, but it does help complete the story of a mother owl and her babies in the spring of 2014. I will be adding this one along with three other shots of the owl's that I have previously produced to make a series from hatching to the empty nest. As I mentioned yesterday, I hope its empty for all the right reasons.
This is the last of the mini-series of great horned owl shots, this one showing a much larger owlet and the trees much more filled out than in the past. At this point, the other owlet (never seen in this series) has fallen out of the nest and was taken to the local raptor rescue where I heard she was doing fine. This shot was taken three weeks after the first when either they hadn't hatched yet or were too little to see over the nest. I went back two weeks later, and the nest was empty, so hopefully, there were flying lessons somewhere in between.
Today's shot of the mother owl adds a few pieces, the primary one being the feisty little owlet who is screeching its brains out. Also putting in a guest appearance (limited time engagement) is a dead rabbit that you can see draped over the right side of the nest. At this point in the season, there is another owlet in the nest but not visible in this photo. As you can see, in the past week the tree is leafing out a bit as spring marches on. There will be even bigger changes in the next shot tomorrow.
Today begins a three photo series of previously unseen images of a great horned owl mother and her chick(s). I first saw the mother in early April of 2014 and over the next few weeks I went back once a week for five minutes or so and took some photos. I had put together a series of them at the time showing the progression but I haven't revisited the raw images since and I am pretty pleased with what I have found.
This image was taken when the mother was either still brooding on the eggs or if they had hatched, the chicks were too small to be seen. The tree is still bare of leaves but as you can see her plumage blends in well with the bare bark of the tree making it not a trivial matter so see her when passing by. We will see what she was guarding over the next couple of days.
This shot is one that I might not normally include as it is a bit rough (it was almost dark when I took it and I had to crank up the ISO a bunch so it is grainy) but it is of a black-crowned night heron. This is one of the bird species I saw in India but this time the shot was taken in Northglenn, CO. As I mentioned previously the only two species that I know of that live and thrive in both locations are this one and the cormorant and the cormorants are different varieties whereas the night heron is exactly the same. I am not sure how nearly 180° around the globe from each other you have the same species but in this case, it has happened. And I think that rates a picture of both.
Today's shot is from the same lake at approximately the same time as yesterday's shot of the mallard and again much of the interest in this shot is outside the main subject. The waves on the upper right of the goose are very tight and detailed and again the low angle of the light nicely highlights the crests while leaving the troughs darker providing very nice detail. And the turbulence right up front as she plows ahead looks like frozen crystal. The nice thing about this one is you have the lovely pattern in her feathers as a counterpoint to the waves which I think complement each other nicely.
There is a reason outdoor photography tends to focus on the morning and evening times (the golden hours) and that is simply because things look better in that type of lighting. It is also easier to get the photo without overexposing it since the sun isn't so strong. Today's shot is a great example of a pretty pedestrian shot that is boosted by the time of day and the lighting. What I really like about this one (and the one that will come tomorrow) is the way the light emphasizes the waves on the surface of the water that both this pretty lady and other birds have created on the surface of the still lake. The lights low angle really highlights the crests of the waves and you can clearly see how the ones she has made and the other existing waves are interacting. Very geometrical and very natural at the same time. There is a lot going on here besides the duck.
Today I start a short series of shots that are dealing with water and what you can do with it in terms of photography. Water can seem very clear and for the most part, you can capture that with a camera as I was nearly able to do with this shot of a koi sneaking up to the surface to see if the thing floating there is good to eat. There is just enough haze in the water and scattered light from the sun to keep the image from being crystal clear. That said the water is completely still and you can certainly see the fish. I am going to have to head up into the mountains I think where the running streams and trout in them might give me the type of shot I can see in my mind's eye but haven't quite captured.
Today's shot is of the blossoms coming out on our Forsythia bush (I think). To me, it's not spring until this bush flowers which it does very early in the season, usually well before the last of the winter storms. The flowers hold up pretty well though, even when covered in snow.
Birds aren't the only signs of spring, flowers and bees get in on the act as well. These crocus and lamb's ears (the mint colored fuzzy stuff) are early starters which have drawn the attention of a busy bee. I like the combination of the new life of spring coming up through last years leaves as the cycle continues.
Another mallard photo because I just can't resist the green. This fella decided to come over to the edge of the pond to see what I was up to and even turned his head so he could get a good look at the strange creature that was lurking just out of the water. It never ceases to amaze me how bold birds can be if you are just a little bit quiet and still. He did, however, leave the lady behind, so not too reckless after all.