This photograph was taken last weekend at DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge, while the last bit of sun was just touching the upper clouds. This is the storm coming across the plains that brought the snow that I photographed in downtown Omaha. It came fast and pelted some cold snow across the lake making the walk back to my car nice and icy cold.
As a nature, landscape, and wildlife photographer, I have to be aware of the natural world around me. As such, I have learned things about weather, moon phases, migratory patterns, and species than I ever thought I would ever learn, a nice side reward of what I do.
Chilly DeSoto Sunrise
Today is the last chance to vote in the PCPhoto "Your Best Shot" 2nd annual contest. The above photo of Lake Helene at Rocky Mountain National Park is a finalist in the mix for the People's Choice. This is a shameless request for a vote for me.
While waiting for sunrise on Sprague Lake at Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado, this bull elk wandered out into the lake to cool off.
A combination of being ill with having the pre-spring muddy mess outside contributed to another review of the archives. As spring is just around the corner I went through the old season shots to see what I should be getting ready to shoot. I almost skipped over this old downtown Omaha file taken from the Gene Leahy Mall from 2006, but decided to give it another view. I had processed a vertical of this same shot about a year and a half ago and it didn't give the scene the sense of grandjuer I had witnessed. A new Photoshop version later and more experience with the tools allowed me to process this image more like the actual scene I witnessed. Yes, the godbeams and clouds were actually brilliantly like this, it was a very calm nice spring stroll through downtown. I only used a polarizer, I didn't even carry my tripod with me. Goes to show what you can capture when you make sure to have your camera with you.
After nearly a week of being closed, the arboretum opened and I took the opportunity to take a look around. It had been a fairly nice weekend with Saturday close to 60 degrees. The first part of Sunday was also nice, but then the temperature dove below freezing. This gave me another opportunity to look for ice that had thawed and refrozen which can create for some interesting natural patterns. For the most part, however, the ice and snow were scare and there was only a mucky muddy residue left. I did manage to find some nice rock patterns that continued below the ice in a small pond. In this image I particularly liked how the edge of the ice went around some of the rocks that poked above the surface.
