Dean's Light Box

Day 18: Dusty Sunset

A cold front made its way through our little valley bringing plenty of dust, but no rain as yet.

Day 17: From Puegeot to Spad

EV: Will you buy me a plane?

Me: What do you mean?

EV: I mean a real-live plane, the kind you fly.

Me: I think those are pretty expensive

EV: No, I mean like a Spad.

Me: The World War 1 plane?

EV: Yeah, one of those.

Me: I'm not sure there are any of those around anymore, let's look it up on the Internet.

With her renewed passion for planes, Spads in particular, EV decided that rather than wait for her hesitant dad to buy her a Spad, a french-built World War 1 era fighter, that she'd instead convert her French-built tricycle into a Spad.

The tricycle is built like a tank--pure, thick steel.  We acquired it from one of our neighbors in Tucson. They acquired it from a neighbor when their daughters were younger.  We're not sure how many times this machine has been handed down but I'm guessing somewhere around five, at least.

Yes, that's complete with flaps on the wings (look at the base of the seat), a propeller, vertical stabilizer, and the brilliantly styled landing gear. You can learn more about the Spad here.

Day 16: Albion Basin 3

Albion Basin is one of my favorite places, if you hadn't noticed the theme developing.  This is from the week of adventure EV and I planned back in July.

This particular scene occurred at about 6:30 or 7:00 PM, about an hour before the sunset.  The mosquitoes were brutal but we had learned our lesson from recent experiences and wore long pants and sleeves.  Then the mosquitoes bit on our hands, necks, and faces.

But, we stayed healthy and it was all worth it.

Day 15: Hummingbird

Hummingbirds present a number of challenges when one attempts to photograph them.  When this little guy/gal came for a visit, I had lots of opportunities to have a go at it and this is where we landed.  Lots of room for improvement but since I wasn't really equipped to stop action with several carefully placed flash heads, I was delighted to at least "freeze" the motion of it's wings.

Day 14: Cecret Lake Panorama

Back in July, EV and I went to Albion Basin (better known as Alta Ski resort in the winter) and made the short hike up to Cecret Lake, a natural glacial lake.  The evening was pretty stunning.  I finally put together the panorama I took there since the additional RAM arrived last evening.  This consists of 7 high-dynamic range images:

 

Maximize your browser and click the image for a larger view.

Day 13: Cloud Study 1

I like clouds.  You probably already gathered that.  If you look at the larger version of this shot for long enough, you really can see creatures and other things. :)

Day 12: Moonset at Sunset

The moon was right on the tail of the sun at dusk:

Day 11: Exquisite Clouds

Exquisite clouds today, particularly between the cloud burst and various showers.

Day 10: Guardsman Panorama

Two weeks ago, when we made our little afternoon trip to Guardsman Pass, I took a series of shots to make a panorama.  However, I've found that Photoshop doesn't do so well with lots of large files when one has a mere 2 GB of RAM.  More specifically, it would stitch my 8 photos together and then the image would just disappear, and Photoshop would be staring back at me as if it had just started up and was waiting for me to open or create a new file.  Charming.

So, I upgraded to 64 bit Windows 7 and ordered up another 2 GB of RAM.

While waiting for the RAM to arrive, I decided to try saving the original files off as 8 bit instead of 16 bit.  It seems that gave Photoshop enough headroom while sacrificing some image quality and latitude for editing.  In practical terms, that means that the clouds are too dark and I couldn't dodge and burn as much.

Hopefully the extra RAM will open things up enough.  Or maybe I should buy that AutoPano Pro.

Then there's the issue of how to show a panorama online.  For now, open your browser as big as it will go and click on the image.  :)

Day 9: Rainbow

After one of the many storms earlier this summer, we spotted this in the front room where we eat dinner in the summer to stay a little cooler (the east side of the house):