Lake Mead

Ron NiebruggeLas Vegas, Nevada, Photos, Travel 4 Comments

Lake Mead, Lake Mead Recreation Area, Nevada.

Lake Mead, Lake Mead Recreation Area, Nevada.

Sunset on Lake Mead.  This lake has sure dropped a lot over the last decade.  As you can see we have moved to Southern Nevada and are photographing the areas around Lake Mead.

This was captured on a very windy night.  To get enough depth of field to put the entire scene in focus I would have needed an aperture of around f/16 – but that would have lead to a very slow shutter speed and the flowers would have been nothing but a blur in the heavy wind.

So this is actually two exposures – One at f/4 and 1/60th of a second in which I focused just on the flowers.  This became the foreground portion of the images.  The second at f/14 and 1/5th of a second with focus further back.  This became the background. The two images were then combined in Photoshop.

Both exposures were done at ISO 400 and had the same exposure value in that they had the same level of brightness, but this way I could have the flowers fairly sharp and the background.

Great Horned Owl Nest

Ron NiebruggeArizona, Phoenix, Photos, Travel 11 Comments

Great Horned Owl on a nest, McDowell Mountain Regional Park, near Phoenix, Arizona.

Great Horned Owl on a nest, McDowell Mountain Regional Park, near Phoenix, Arizona.

What doesn’t show in photos but does in video are two little white puff balls that popped up from time to time – newborn chicks.

As I was driving to this nest before sunrise the past Saturday morning the radio DJ was joking about how he clearly didn’t win the giant Mega Lottery because if he had, he wouldn’t be at work on the radio that morning.  I thought to myself that if I had won, I’m pretty sure I would have still be heading off in the morning with my camera to watch a nesting Great Horned Owl – I suppose that is a pretty good sign that you are doing what you love.

Arizona Wildflowers 2012

Ron NiebruggeArizona, Phoenix, Travel 10 Comments

Superstition Mountains, Superstitions Mountain State Park, Arizona.

Superstition Mountains, Superstitions Mountain State Park, Arizona.

A few people have asked me about the wildflower conditions in Arizona this year.  It is better then California, but it still isn’t very good.  But there is a bit of good news, but more on that later.

As we drove across the desert areas of California a couple of weeks ago, I didn’t even see wildflowers along the edges of the highway – a place you can almost always count on some color thanks to the concentrated water run-off.  Almost from the moment we past into Arizona we started seeing wildflowers, but unfortunately, they are largely found on the shoulder of the roadways.

There are a few flowers here and there especially in washes.  But, in areas where some years you could find thick fields of poppies, you might see a few dozen.  On hillsides that can be solid yellow with brittlebush, this year there are just a few patches.  One of the best places I have seen for brittlebush is on the hillsides of the Superstition Mountains.  Unfortunately even many of those blooms are cooked, and you have to really search to find some decent looking plants.  So far I haven’t seen a place that I would say is a must visit.

So what is the good news?  I have been seeing lots of cactus beginning to bloom and the large rainstorm that past through this area certainly can’t hurt – I think Fort McDowell received 3/4 of a inch about a week ago.  For exercise I have been mountain biking in McDowell Mountain Regional Park and over the past week I have seen a increase in the number of blooming cactus.  The same is true for areas of Tonto National Forest.  I found the above bloom last night at the Superstition Mountains – here blooming cactus was harder to find, as this was the only one I spotted.  But for flower fans, the beginning cactus bloom in some areas should be welcome news.

 

Salt River Sunset

Ron NiebruggeArizona, Phoenix, Photos, Travel 2 Comments

Salt River, Tonto National Forest, Arizona.

Salt River, Tonto National Forest, Arizona.

As unusual as it was to see snow in the desert as we did in Sedona last week – I find it almost equally unusual to find a river, and yet it really isn’t – there are a number of rivers that flow year around in the Arizona desert.

Snowy Sedona!

Ron NiebruggeArizona, Photos, Travel 8 Comments

Sedona, Arizona.

Sedona, Arizona.

A large winter storm passed through the West this past weekend hitting Arizona head on.  The ski areas in Northern Arizona received almost 5 feet of snow – I’m always surprised at how snowy parts of Arizona can be.

The same storm dumped 4 or 5 inches of snow on Sedona – a rare treat!  So, yesterday (Monday) morning we raced up there catching the end of the snow storm.  We hung around until after sunset capturing lots of images, videos and time-lapses – it really was beautiful!

It looked very different then it did during warmer visits:  Sedona, Arizona photos.

Moving Night Time-lapse

Ron NiebruggeAnza-Borrego, California, Travel, Video 13 Comments


I have been trying some new things here in Anza-Borrego including moving night time-lapses like you see here.  I know some of my late night efforts have been ruined by unexpected headlights 🙁   But, I have a feeling some might be working out.

Typically I will put these together once I’m home on a much faster computer, but wanted to assemble one while on the road just to see what is working and what isn’t, and since I did, I thought I would share it here.  So, I do have one question, what do you think of the airplanes passing by?  They look like shooting stars, but are planes.  If necessary, I could avoid them by going later at night and/or with some post processing effort.