Out of the House

Today was a pleasant day out of the house. My friend Frank took me to Sweetwater Reserve - a duck lovers paradise. I brought along a pile of equipment (I should say Frank brought along a pile of my equipment since he hauled it into the reserve for me as to not tire me out.) So here are a few obligatory shots of DUCKS (I hate ducks!) and then on to something a little more interesting (for me at least.)

I spent some time setting up for a couple of portraits - trying to over power the sun with a couple of speedlights. Here are the results. The first one is probably the only self portrait I've done in over 5 years.

A couple IR images of Frank and the setup.

And an unretouched image of how it was done.

Red Hills

Spent a few minutes at Saguaro National Monument West this afternoon. The Red Hills Visitor center has a magnificent set of arched ceiling beams on the back porch that - at certain times of the year and certain times of the day - present some amazing shadows.

The mountain upon which Kitt Peak National Observatory resides - seen in Infrared light.

The reflection of the porch in the giftshop windows.

If you take the image below . . .

and perform a little transformation trick called "Magic Circle" . . .

You get this . . .

Desert Heat

In infrared light the landscape takes on an ethereal quality I deeply appreciate. I hope you do too. The images below were taken with a camera sensitive to IR light and I used it to capture a couple panoramas out in Saquaro National Park West this afternoon.

Red light, Rodents, Raptors and Red Wings

Another outing at Sweetwater Water Treatment Plant today with my student. He got a new "Better Beamer" and had to try it out. I took along my infrared modified camera for some IR shots. Here are some images from the session . . .

Red Desert

Saguaro National Monument West in the infrared.