Picture of the Day (Dial-up internet users enter at own risk!)

[Abomb36]

El Arco - Cabo San Lucas

 

[Abomb36]

El Arco 2 - Cabo San Lucas

 

[Karen G]

Thanks for those beautiful Cabo shots, Abomb.

 

[HatTrick]

Down to a Science...

Oahu

 

[Timeshare Von]

Just Back from Alaska

Pano (five shots stitched together) of Mt McKinley this past weekend.

 

[Timeshare Von]

Denali Road Lottery Weekend

So at the end of the season, the Nat'l Park Service conducts a lottery whereby 400 lucky people (for each of four days) are awarded a road pass to drive the Denali Rd on their own. Ordinarily visitors must ride the NPS shuttle bus (for a fee) during the season.

I was fortunate to have a road pass for Saturday and Monday, and made a ride-share arrangement for Sunday. It was a wonderful weekend with great weather (I camped inside the park at the TEK campground).

Here are a few photos highlighting my time in Denali Nat'l Park.

Bear wandering between the cars. She also had two cubs follow her.

Now that is one big bear head!

While the fall colors were past "peak" they were still very beautiful and vivid.

Arctic fox still in its "red" coat.

Dall Sheep up on the cliffside.

 

[Karen G]

Wow! What great shots!

 

[Makai Guy]

I'm jealous of your sunshine and blue skies at Denali. We didn't have much of either at our visit -- never saw the top of McKinley/Denali at all.

 

[cotraveller]

So at the end of the season, the Nat'l Park Service conducts a lottery whereby 400 lucky people (for each of four days) are awarded a road pass to drive the Denali Rd on their own. Ordinarily visitors must ride the NPS shuttle bus (for a fee) during the season.

Add me to the WOW! group. We were in Denali 18 years ago riding the NPS shuttle, a school bus on that visit. According to the driver the brown dot way up on the side of the mountain was a Grizzly Bear and the white dots were Dall sheep. Even with a 300mm telephoto it was difficult to pick out the animals in the pictures.

 

[T_R_Oglodyte]

While the fall colors were past "peak" they were still very beautiful and vivid.

Those are typical Denali colors for this time of year. These pics were taken the last week of September 2008.

 

[Timeshare Von]

Thanks everyone! Yes, it was very special to see "the mountain" just about every day I was there. I'd been to Denali NP around 5 or 6 times before this trip, over the past five years, and only got to see Mt McKinley twice before . . . once from Talkeetna (Aug 10) and another time from Willow (Mar 11) . . . but never from inside the park.

If you're interested in seeing some other photos from the trip, I have posted over on my Facebook page.

Enjoy!

ADDED PS with photos:

From Talkeetna Alaskan Lodge - Talkeetna, AK (Aug 10)

From Willow, AK (Mar 11)

 

[Timeshare Von]

Those are typical Denali colors for this time of year. These pics were taken the last week of September 2008.

Thanks for sharing those for perspective Steve. We were in Denali last year at the end of August and it was rainy and dreary, with the leaves at about peak . . . but no decent photos due to the lack of bright daylight. Your photos are very beautiful and highlight the great colors that occur there every fall.

 

[easyrider]

Oahu

What beach is this. Is this south east of Turtle Bay ?

 

[T_R_Oglodyte]

Thanks for sharing those for perspective Steve. We were in Denali last year at the end of August and it was rainy and dreary, with the leaves at about peak . . . but no decent photos due to the lack of bright daylight. Your photos are very beautiful and highlight the great colors that occur there every fall.

This is the photo from that trip that has generally received the most positive comments. I took this photo in the late afternoon, next to the bridge over the Jack River near Cantwell, just off the Parks Highway.

And this is a shot I grabbed at the end of the day, as I was coming back down the Parks Highway toward Anchorage.

I'm pretty sure I've previously posted these upthread, but since we're talking now about fall colors in Alaska and I posted these almost three years ago, I thought I''d bring them back.

 

[Timeshare Von]

While pretty, I must admit to having mixed feelings with the high amount of post-processing as HDR that these photos seem to have.

 

[HatTrick]

Is this south east of Turtle Bay ?

Yes, I believe it is.

 

[dmbrand]

We were in Lake Tahoe last week. Beautiful weather that week; hiked up to Eagle Lake to get this mirror image shot. If you turn the pic counter clockwise a quarter turn, there is an image of something. I thought it looked like a bat face.

 

[jerseyfinn]

We were in Lake Tahoe last week. Beautiful weather that week; hiked up to Eagle Lake to get this mirror image shot. If you turn the pic counter clockwise a quarter turn, there is an image of something. I thought it looked like a bat face.

There's always a reward for hiking up a trail and for you it's this image. You're right about the bat face, it's there looking you in the eye.

I notice your Packers logo. Greetings from Steeler nation . You guys are lookin' good thus far. Methinks the Steelers are gonna have a tough year as age & injuries make them look old. I wear my faded Steelers cap whenever we travel and it always gets a shoutout from someone. We're just finishing 2 weeks in Spain and I get a Steeler shout out from an Italian guy who is a Steeler fan and a poke from some Packer fans who live in Chicago. We find common cause with them by the fact that we live in Eagles country & we both know the fun of rooting for winners in enemy territory.

Barry

 

[T_R_Oglodyte]

Kalalau Valley from Pihea Trail

 

[HatTrick]

Jefferson's Monticello in Charlottesville, VA

 

[geoand]

I know that everyone's puter screen is different. Mine is a 52 inch Toshiba flat screen tv. This picture is amazingly 3 dimensional and this is not a 3d screen.

WOW!

Kalalau Valley from Pihea Trail

 

[T_R_Oglodyte]

I know that everyone's puter screen is different. Mine is a 52 inch Toshiba flat screen tv. This picture is amazingly 3 dimensional and this is not a 3d screen.

WOW!

I've noted that too, and I've wondered about it. That's a single exposure shot taken with a polarizing filter - no HDR and the only digital dark room work I did was apply a mild sharpening filter and adjust the contrast. I also adjusted the overall lighting levels, as the original photo was underexposed by about one f-stop to keep the clouds from blowing out to solid white.

That effect seems to happen frequently on my shots in Hawaii and when I get shots toward the ocean from about 2000 feet or more elevation. It also seems to be lighting specific - I have other shots of the Kalalau Valley, from similar vantage points and taken with the same camera and filters, that don't have that same effect. We were on our way to the Alakai Swamp when I took this shot, and the shots I took on the return don't have the same 3-D type of sense.

If I knew what it is that creates that effect, maybe I could get it more often.

****

BTW - for comparison here's a similar view, taken later as we were returning to our car late that same day as the shadows were lengthening shortly before sunset. I don't get the same sense of depth from this shot as I do from the former.

 

[heathpack]

Kalalau Valley from Pihea Trail

Where is this? I mean, which island?

 

[T_R_Oglodyte]

Where is this? I mean, which island?

This is on Kaua`i. You drive to the very end of the road at the top of Waimea Canyon, to the very last Kalalau Valley lookout where the paved road ends in parking lot and you climb a hill to the vista point. Proceeding on foot, you go past the vista point and then continue along the trail that follows the upper lip of Kalalau Valley. When you reach the far side of Kalalau Valley there's a junction where you connect with the trail network that goes through Waimea Canyon and into the Alakai Swamp.

If you're lucky, as we were this trip, you get clear skies at the top of Kalalau Valley.

 

[HatTrick]

Martin Luther King Memorial in Washington, DC