Block Creek – June 5 – 8, 2014

After my fourth trip to Block Creek one would think that I would have had enough. No! I’m ready to go back.  It is a beautiful piece of property so generously shared by the owners, Sharron and Larry Jay. The hospitality and warmth of the Jays certainly add to the enjoyment and Sharron is a wonderful cook.

This trip was organized and led by Kathy Adams Clark, so we had full days of shooting a variety of subjects. Kathy always finds something fun to learn. This time, I learned more about photographing hummingbirds with a complicated light set up to freeze action.

I go for the birds, but I always end up having fun with landscape and night photography too.

Landscapes

Night Photography

Ash-throated Flycatcher

My favorite image is the last one of the Ash-throated Flycatchers returning to the nest box. It was quite challenging to shoot, but with Larry’s help, I was able to get a few decent shots.

More Birds and Butterflies

Painterly Processing and Abstracts

Yes, I had to play around with some of the photos. I’m still trying to figure out how and when to add texture. I might have gone overboard on these, but it was fun anyway…

I’ve used the fisheye zoom lens to do star trails before, but this is the first time I’ve been able to use a full frame camera and zoom all the way out to 8mm to get the full circular fisheye image. This lens with the full frame camera is awesome to use. I have Kathy Clark to thank for selling me her 5D Mark II so I can use the lens to its fullest capability. I copied the image and dropped it on a more interesting background than the black one supplied by the camera. I’ll be trying this again! That specular highlight in the upper left – that’s a moon trail.