Bull Elephant, Amboseli National Park
This is one of the many bulls I saw while in Amboseli National Park. Not the biggest, but still a very nice subject to photograph.
Bald Eagle, Alaska
Here is an old photo of a bald eagle with raised wings that I recently re-processed.
Update: The above photo wasn’t the correct re-processed photo. I just found the photo I meant to post in place of the above photo and re-processed it a bit more. Sometimes filing digital photos can lead to errors. I think the photo below is a little better. Comments welcome!
Coyote, Point Reyes National Seashore
Here is a photo I took in 2011 that I came across recently. I don’t know why I never put it on my website, but I just corrected that. It was taken at sunset in the ranching area of Point Reyes National Seashore.
Ranching? Yes, there is ranching in this unit of the national park system. The ranchers were all bought out by the Park Service between 1962 and 1978 and, to ease the move out of the Seashore, the Park Service gave them reservations of use and occupancy for 20 years. The last ones should have been out by 1998, but thanks to politics, they are still there and paying a rent for grazing and living there of often less than 10% of fair market value. The Park Service is required by law to collect fair market for any lands or buildings it leases.
Bald Eagle with Clipped Wings, Alaska
Long ago, I made several trips to Homer, Alaska, to photograph bald eagles. While I deleted many of them afterwards, I have a lot left that I’ve never done anything with. Here’s one of those photos. I probably deleted a lot of photos like this one then, but for some reason I hadn’t deleted this photo even though the wings were clipped. The other day I was going through those old images to see if there was one I would want to process or “post-process,” as they say. I chose this one thinking that I could possibly use the crop tool to build new wing tips given the improvements Adobe has made to Photoshop. So, after I darkened the sky a bit in Adobe Camera Raw and opened the image in Photoshop, I grabbed the crop tool, pulled the sides outward a bit, selected “Generative Expand,” and got the image below. A nice advancement in Photoshop, in my opinion.
I know there are some who don’t approve of such advancements in image processing, but I’m in favor of them for the most part. Nature photography doesn’t need to be limited to the documentary style necessary for news events as long as you don’t violate any rules, such as in photo contests. What I can’t stand though are images where it’s obvious someone started with a blank screen and just typed in words to create a scene that never existed. Lions seem to be very popular for that on Facebook. They are always so obvious. I’m waiting for someone to type something like: “Create three male lions standing side by side looking at the ‘camera’ with two more male lions standing side by side on the shoulders of the first three lions and looking at the ‘camera’ with a sixth male lion standing on the shoulders of the previous two male lions and also looking at the ‘camera,’ cheerleader style.”
Grizzly Bear, Yellowstone National Park
Here’s a photo of “Jam,” a female grizzly, in the Lake Butte Overlook area of Yellowstone. Her mother is called “Raspberry.” Raspberry has a new cub this year. I don’t know if the public has given her new cub a name.
Bald Eagle, Yellowstone National Park
I had just started my drive along the Old Yellowstone Trail when I saw this bald eagle perched on a large rock up ahead. The rock was right next to the road. I stopped well short of the bird and took some photos. I drove a little farther and photographed the bird again. Then I drove a little more and photographed the bird a third time. I was using an 800mm lens with a 1.4 tele-extender, so I didn’t need to get very close. At that point I was done. Time to drive past and, hopefully, not flush the bird. As I passed, I was happy to see it didn’t move.
Black Bear, Yellowstone National Park
As I was driving into Lamar Valley one afternoon in early June, there were some cars parked along the road where there is a large outcrop just on the other side of the Lamar River. I stopped and asked a fellow what they were looking at and he pointed out this cinnamon-phase black bear, which was presumably asleep. Someone said it might be dead because it hadn’t moved a muscle in the time that person had been watching it. It looked to me like it was in a natural sleeping position so I got my tripod out of the car and put my 800mm lens on it. The bear was over 100 yards away, which meant to me getting good quality photos was going to be iffy, especially with the high ISO conditions. It finally stirred and looked at us. After a while, it got up and walked away.
