Good Morning...

Sometimes the mornings are the best.
I listen to the birds, and Charlie and I have the gravel roads to ourselves.

Rarely do we have traffic anyway...but...

somehow an empty road and a tiny dog makes things look bigger and the possibilities ....
endless...

Enjoy your day.

A bit of Infrared Fun ~ Sunny Days vs. Cloudy Days in the Creek

Shooting with an infrared filter opens up some wonderful possibilites on a bright sunny day. The shadows are more intense, the greens are 'white' and true IR photography is sometimes a lot more interesting that what I've taken here. 

[By truer, I mean cameras that have been converted to Infared.]

However, I am just dabbling in it.

The end result of this shot wasn't that fantastic. But it was a good experiment.

I wondered what the bright sunlight on the rocks would do with the cold water of the creek running through it.
The unedited version looks rather strange.

However I think I got lucky with this one. It turned out pretty cool.
In my opinion of course.
I can see the rocks just below the surface of the water and reflections of the rocks also.

I should have taken another shot without the filter and seen what difference it made, but I didn't. I was pressed for time that day.

I used a bit of extra editing in this next shot, I wanted to accentuate the rays of light.

This is more in line of how I 'see' parts of the creek bottom. It is beautiful and mysterious all at once.

The next day was heavily overcast which is perfect for normal water photography.

This shot is from further away and I used a polarizing filter to cut some of the water reflections so I could catch the rocks. I like this shot but feel that I actually enhanced it a bit too much. In retrospect, it should be toned down a bit.

This is more what I was going for. A nice long exposure which softens the water but allows the mind to imagine the motion. The rocks below are just visible enough so that we know there is a rocky bottom.

And then just for fun...

One must add something that doesn't belong.

IR Photography ~ No you shouldn't do that!

Well I decided to read instructions and try out some IR photography again.

IR is for bright sunny days with lots of blue skies and green leaves.

The colors are really quite different when using an Infrared Filter.

The above shot is from last summer on a hot day. The leaves are white, the blue sky is dark and the clouds are bright.
Heat reflection is what changes to white.

However I like to use the filter on items that aren't typical for IR photography.

Like animals.

A Gaggle of mules resting near the water tank. The exposure was 1/4 second at 1000 ISO with an IR filter on it.

Mica resting up near the equipment/training shed.

On these two shots, I let the pinkish colors come through. However, IR photography makes for fantastic black and white shots.

However the shutter speed is much slower so it isn't that great for shooting live subjects.
But I had to try.

Below.
WhoDunnit resting in the sun.

And then as it is meant to be used on a landscape.

The greens are white, anything that is warmed by the sun reflects a white color.

And there are always the long exposures that allow for interesting effects like this shot at Jersey Valley last fall. The sun lit up a small section of trees and the reflections were awesome.

But what the heck, if you don't experiment, you don't find new avenues of expression.