Happy New Year and a Slow Start to 2020

Canon EOS 6D Mark II & Canon 24-105 mm f/3.5 - f/5.6 Lens, ISO 400, f/11 @ 1/320 sec Manual exposure

I hope everyone had a happy holiday and a great start to the new year. I have been trying my best to get out and photograph wildlife, but it has been extremely slow to start the new year. I would normally be photographing bald eagles by now, but I am not seeing many in this area. It has been very warm this year and the lakes are not frozen over yet. I feel like I have seen increased numbers lately but they have to much free range with all the open water. Hopefully, soon it will get a little colder and I will be able to get some great photos of them. Speaking of bald eagles, I have planned a trip next weekend to Maryland in the hope to photograph some. I look forward to updating about that upcoming trip in a little over a week.

Canon EOS 6D Mark II & Canon 24-105 mm f/3.5 - f/5.6 Lens, ISO 50, f/11 @ 15 sec. Manual exposure

Over the holiday, since I was not having much luck with wildlife I did spend an early morning at the Bashakill Wetlands in Wurtsboro, NY. I arrived well before sunrise and I decided to test out some of my new equipment. I was taking some long exposure landscape photographs using my new Cokin Neutral Density filters kit. I like them so far. I have not had too many opportunities to use them but they are very simple to use. I had one photo from the trip that I liked. I decided to put the photo into black and white because of the long exposure. I feel that it looked great that way. The 15-second exposure made the water very reflective and the grasses are reflected quite well in the water. Also the clouds got smooth because of the long exposure. I just loved the way the photo turned out. It was something that I had never been able to do before, and it turned out well. I look forward to trying more long exposure daylight photos soon.

Canon EOS 6D Mark II & Canon 24-105 mm f/3.5 - f/5.6 Lens, ISO 160, f/11 @ 1/320 sec. Manual exposure

I also decided that I would go through some of my old photographs from my trip to Alaska earlier this year. I discovered a new way to touch them up and I was experimenting a bit with Photoscape X. I love the way I was able to touch them up. I feel the one photo that I made into a high contrast black and white was almost like an Ansel Adams photograph. It was taken in British Columbia on the Yukon Suspension Bridge. I love it, and I hope everyone enjoys it. I also touched up another photograph that I had not posted before and I like the way it came out. It was when the cruise ship was approaching the Dawes Glacier and we were heading into an ice field, which gave the foreground water some interest. I hope to go through some more and hope that I can find some other interesting photographs.

I will be leaving for my trip on Friday and I am looking forward to it. I can't wait to spend the whole weekend photographing with a friend. Until Next Time.

Alaska Time-lapse Video

During my last post I had mentioned that I had been working on putting together a video of some time-lapse that I had taken on my trip in Alaska.  I finally put them together and got them uploaded.  It took much longer than anticipated, but I am very happy with the result.

Ultimately, I decided that I should not be posting videos on my person account.  So I created a YouTube brand account where I could post everything related to my wildlife photography blog.  I decided to keep the name the same as my blog: Aaron Smith Wildlife Photography.  I had to re-upload my previous video to the new account and upload the new one as well.  From now on I will post all my videos on the new channel.

The new video is a compilation of time-lapses that I took on the cruise ship in Alaska.  I had taken a few time-lapse sequences in the evenings when we were leaving port cities.  Because it was a moving ship, they seem much faster than the previous video I had taken.  You can also see when the ship speed was changing and also some movement up and down due wave action.  So, the time-lapse's were very different than my previous time-lapse when the camera was completely still.

I had planned on doing some wildlife photography during last weekend but I did not really get many photographs.  Then this week came and went like a whirlwind, and I took a trip to Maryland to see my sister.  So I have not had to much time to photograph anything.  But while I was in Maryland I did visit a historic gardens area and there were more butterflies their than I have ever seen in one place.  I did not have a lot of time once we arrived but I am hopeful that I captured a few good shots.  There were also a lot of beautiful flowers and plenty of bees.  I am hoping to post more about those photographs once I get a chance to look them over on my computer.

I hope everyone enjoys the time-lapse sequences from my trip.  Until Next Time.             

Preparing for my Alaska Trip

I have not had much free time lately to take many photographs. I have been busy preparing for my trip to Alaska, and doing a lot of spring work on my bonsai and seedlings. So far only my Japanese Black Pine seedlings have germinated. I am concerned that my Japanese maple and Tamarack seeds have failed. I am still praying that they will germinate, but it is not looking good. I have also purchased two small Japanese Maples trees in the last couple of weeks. One is an “Orido Nishiki” Japanese maple and the other is an “Emperor One” Japanese maple. I re-potted them into slightly nicer pots with my bonsai soil mix. My plan is to let them grow vigorously for the next year and then decide what I want to do with them. My plan right now is to propagate them via air layering or soft cuttings that way I have more trees to work with. Also, then I will not have to start from seeds. Which takes substantially longer than starting from cuttings or air layering's. My biggest concern was leaving my trees during my trip. I really did not have anyone reliable to water them. So, I went to the store and purchased a water hose timer, and a sprinkler head. I tested the system last night and it seemed to work well for what I have. All the trees had adequate water from it. My only concern is that with fluctuating temperatures it is hard to judge how often they need to be watered while I’m away. So hopefully I will not overwater or underwater them. I do have someone to check on them in case the water system fails, but hopefully everything will be ok. I have no plans of using this system except while I am away.

Besides my trees taking up a lot of my time lately, I have been purchasing a lot of new equipment and necessities for my trip.  I will try and post about all the new equipment that I purchased, and I might review some of it after the trip.  I think Alaska will be able to put everything to the test.

Today I did take a trip out to the Bashakill.  I believe that I probably had a couple of usable photographs from the trip but I am not going to have the time to post them before I leave tomorrow.  Once I am back from Alaska in about 10 days I will do my best to post those photographs, and all the photographs from my trip.  I am really excited about this trip and I cannot wait to share all the photographs.  Until next time.