Something extra

When I go hiking and looking for pictures, animals and lovely scenery are usually on the top of my list of things to shoot. But no matter how great my “big” landscape images may come out, I always tend to feelĀ  something is missing unless I find that little extra something as well. What it might be varies from trip […]

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Birds and squirrels

I really enjoy hiking alone, but I’m also aware that I need to pay attention to my surroundings and not make assumptions about safety. The places I tend to explore are generally quite safe — but it is the outdoors, and sometimes the unexpected happens. So I’m always alert and cautious about meeting up with potentially aggressive wildlife or humans. […]

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Bird is the word

Lately I’m really enjoying using my Sigma 150-600mm zoom lens to zero in on the local birds. It’s become a bit of a personal challenge to shoot as many different types as possible, especially those I never realized were all around me. But even when that fails, it can still be fun to capture familiar birds like Acorn woodpeckers or […]

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Memory Monday, Week 137

Some of my very favorite old family slides are the ones dating from the 1950s and 1960s; even if I don’t have very much information about where they were shot, it’s great to see vintage cars and places that may have completely changed over the decades since the photos were taken. And of course it’s wonderful to see my parents […]

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Plastic, rubber, and rust

It can be pretty entertaining to find odd little things lying lost or discarded while hiking around the lakebed at Folsom. It may be some object that’s fairly easy to identify — like the various pairs of sunglasses lost overboard by summertime boaters; and then there are the mysterious pieces, old and new. Are they of historical interest or just […]

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Valley of giants

Walking around in the barren landscape created by the seasonal low water level at Folsom Lake, I feel a little overwhelmed by the sheer number of massive granite boulders scattered everywhere. I’ve never gotten too interested in geology, but I can’t help wondering about the forces that formed these stone giants and how they ended up in their present positions. […]

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Plenty of tweets

It’s getting to be that time of year again — the time when the weather starts warming up (at least on certain days) and I start getting outside more often and hearing more birds in the trees. Spotting them can be a different story, though, and capturing them with my camera is yet another challenge. The final difficulty can be […]

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Looking closer

This area of Folsom Lake is still new to me although I’ve been out there a few times in the past month. There’s always plenty to explore, but when I start to feel like there’s nothing new to shoot, it helps me to slow down and focus on the details that I missed before. And I often get a surprise […]

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