I got up very early on Saturday for Burrowing Owls and again on  Sunday for a trip to Rocky Mountain National Park.  (Owls were great.  RMNP, not so much: animal total was 1 moose, a half-dozen mangy deer, and not a single elk.  Too windy to look for Pika and Marmots on top).  I’m way too tired for serious photo editing, so instead of working through my backlog of photos, I’ve been puttering around in my catalog of older images.

In the course of said puttering, I ran across this fairly-old image of  Leafy Aster.  I’ve always liked the texture of the center of the flower, but the flower petals are tad too worn to make for a really great image.  On a lark, I converted the image to monochrome.  Add a little dodging and burning, lots of contrast, a slight color tone, and voila.  The worn flower works much better in monochrome.

Potentially related posts:

1. Juvenile Red Fox
2. Monochrome Pelican Abstract
3. Monochrome Aspen Leaf

I’m slowly working through my collection of new American Pika (Ochotona princeps) images and ran across this one.   The pose makes this one for me.

Potentially related posts:

1. Pika with Salad
2. American Pika
3. Puttering on a Sleepy Sunday Afternoon

This cute little guy is an American Pika (Ochotona princeps) that I photographed last weekend on Mt. Evans.  This post is a little out of order (as is evidence from my last post, I’m still working through some spring shorebirds), but what the heck.  Cute pika, made even cuter by the mouthful of greens that he’s collecting for his winter haystack.  I spent quite some time watching this guy run from his foraging patch, to his burrow, and back.  Each time he’d pause for a split second on this rock, the only place on his route where I could photograph him in good light with a clean background.  (Sometimes he’d take a detour over my foot or between my tripod legs, but that’s another story).  This is among my favorite images from the trip, though I have many more pika shots to share in a later post.

The background on this image is not quite as clean as the image above, but it I really like the pose.

Potentially related posts:

1. American Pika
2. Another Pika
3. Shooting Cliches (and sometimes avoiding them) in Arches National Park

This is another image from the very productive local marsh.  Having never seen a white-faced ibis (Plegadis chihi) before, I was ecstatic to have the opportunity to photograph them at close range.  Though superficially a drab bird, there is a wonderful, understated iridescence in the wing feathers.  Be sure to click on the image for a larger version.

Potentially related posts:

1. Monte Vista
2. Cinnamon Teal
3. Duck Duck Gull

I captured this image on a business trip to Philly.  I was drawn to the great texture in the ivy, and captured a quick shot with my trust G9 (a fancy point-and-shoot).  In retrospect, I wish that  I’d had my “big” camera with the tripod to as to avoid some technical shortcomings from shooting with my hand-held  G9, but better an imperfect image than nothing.  I’m not sure whether I prefer the monochrome image above or the color image below.  Please let me know what you think in the comments.

Edit Aug. 16, 2010 to fix my previous failure to crop the images after performing a perspective correction in Lightroom.

Potentially related posts:

1. Trees in Morning Fog
2. Juvenile Red Fox
3. Rework

This Cinnamon Teal (Anas cyanoptera) is another image from my very productive local marsh.  I’ve never seen so many of these beautiful ducks in one spot.  Be sure to click on the image for a larger view — this looks much better big.

Potentially related posts:

1. Marsh Wren
2. White-Faced Ibis
3. Pintail Takeoff

For some reason I rarely make monochrome images deliberately, but I often stumble across a good monochrome candidate image while I’m doing something else.  Certainly true in this case.  This image is a doubly good candidate for monochrome – the fox pops from the background, and there’s a great range of tones in his face.  Equally importantly, there are lots of funky colors in the background, which are slightly distracting when the image is in color. Converted to monochrome, those problems vanish.

Potentially related posts:

1. Juvenile Red-Winged Blackbird
2. Red Foxes in Snow
3. Monochrome Pelican Abstract

I’m still working through my backlog of images – I’m up to April.  This is a juvenile Wilson’s Phalarope (Phalaropus tricolor) from the local marsh.  The reflection on the dark blue water make this image for me.  I wish the light angle was slightly better, but not much I could do about that without trespassing and going for a swim!

Potentially related posts:

1. Marsh Wren
2. Duck Duck Gull
3. Cinnamon Teal

I shot this semi-abstract image in my parking garage. I originally envisioned this as a monochrome image, but the colors really add something.

I’ve started assembling enough of these parking garage images that I’m contemplating a little parking garage abstract side project. I love “geometrical” images, and there is something especially satisfying in finding unintentional beauty in a utilitarian structure. Stay tuned . . .

Potentially related posts:

1. Windows
2. Monochrome Pelican Abstract

This is another favorite image from the local marsh, this time of a juvenile male Red-winged Blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus).  I originally thought that this was a female based on its brown plumage.  I’m told by expert birders, however, that this is  likely a juvenile male.  Once this bird molts he will have the black plumage more commonly associated with males of this species.  In any event, I really like the sense of action, bright, high-key background, and the sweet light on the bird.  As always, click on the image to enlarge it.

Potentially related posts:

1. Broad-tailed Hummingbird
2. Juvenile Red Fox
3. Duck Duck Gull