The friday blog part one

Someone asked me what I.C.M stood for and at the same time, pointed out that it could be shorthand for I see them. I hadn't really thought about it, but i thought that was pretty cool. I.C.M. stands for Invisible Copper Mine.  Last year I went to hang out with some friends up in Alaska (shout out to john and jean) and shoot the heck outta the place, while i was up there we spent a day at Denali, which was just way to cool!  Mere mortals can't just drive into the place you have to take one of the many buses in, they have some that you  get on and when you see someplace you want to roam around in they stop and let you off. Another is the 13 hour 90 mile bus, kind of an overview sort of thing. They stop about every 2 hours, hit the facilities and get a stretch, then off you go,  they also stop for wildlife you can't get off the bus, so the windows come down and for us shooters we just shot thru the window. I got some pretty cool stuff, here's the thing, however, only 25 percent of visitors to Denali ever get to see Mt Mckinley and that, my friends  is due to weather. I can tell you that i was not one of the 25 percent. The only reason i know it's there is because of pictures taken by reliable sources, otherwise i would certainly think it's just a model, something they did for the tourists. The bus driver said things like "Mt. Mckinley is off to your left in the fog and clouds, trust me it's there." so i just went along with her, she was driving afterall. On this particular day the bus driver needed something to talk about so she would point out the location of copper mines, her comment would be ," across the valley folks, there is an old copper mine, you cant see it because of the fog and clouds" then we'd travel what i thought was 100 feet and she would point out yet another invisible copper mine so there ya go.This sounds bad but it's not, a visit to Denali is something everybody ought to do, the weather can be trash for a while but it clears, if you go, ask the bus driver to point out those copper mines. Don't go away the friday blog continues.      

Reformed location snob.

Yesterday I went to a county park in my neighborhood, mostly just to walk around, but of course I took a camera with me. In this park is an eagles nest sitting on a creek, this creek is my favorite place to paddle. Ive been shooting at these eagles for 5 years or so with mediocre results, sometimes not even reaching the lofty goal of mediocrity staying at the level of "that's a great picture of tail feathers". On this particular day, however, everything lined up and I got the best eagle picture I've ever shot. This picture wasn't shot from my kayak where i had to paddle a distance, fight current, (actually tidal flow) which can be moving as fast as 3 miles per hour and all sorts of things that factor into stability issues. No, I shot this on a dock with a cup of coffee sitting on the rail. The challenge was pulling the picture off and nothing else. I started thinking, I have skipped shooting in places just because i thought it was to easy, here in the nations oldest we have the alligator farm, it's an amazing place and it's also a rookery, birds all over the place, but i've never wanted to go there with a camera because of the absolute lack of suffering involved. The same thinking has influenced the way I  look at this park. To  make this image i drove a quarter mile, walked 150 yards on Paved trailes (the park is wheel chair acesable) and stood on the dock sipping coffee and staring at the tree where the eagles nest is. The tree next to the eagle tree has blue heron nests in it, so i was looking at them when the adult eagle came in with a food delivery for the ugly babies.  At the range that happened there wasn't a picture there. 15 minutes later the adult launched and flew right past me. Ok so here is my point, this nature stuff or photography in general can happen anywhere, and me, well i'm now a reformed location snob, didn't even take 12 steps, just one eagle, flying at high speed.
I have a post tommorow as well, so expect to see that. The eagle photo is below.
Thanks for reading. Lets go shoot!

 

Wahington Oaks State Park

Washington Oaks (flagler county fl) is one of my favorite places for shooting in general, the park is split by A1A. On one side, the formal gardens and nature trails and on the other, the beach with an outcropping of coquina. On the garden side I've captured images of owls, snowy egrets during mating season, and squirrels playing with oranges (that's funny stuff) as well as a full range of  flowers and plants. Across  A1A on the beach side we get ospreys fishing, pellicans, sandpipers, and the rocks. The coquina rocks are a great background or a subject all to themselves, at sunrise or sunset they almost glow yellow and there are some pretty cool formations made by erosion. If you're ever in this part of the world, head to washington oaks.

 
The osprey here is a story all by itself. Ospreys are all over the place you see them on bridges and telephone poles, but I wanted my osprey out of the urban environment. The problem is that on the way to wash oaks there is a small bbq joint called smokin d's, so i would stop for a brisket sandwich and take it with me. Once I got to the beach I'd sit down and eat. Usually, just about the time i'd get really into this sandwich, I'd hear the osprey calling and then in a matter of seconds he'd be overflying me no less than mach 2! It's surprisingly difficult to take a picture (yeah yeah make an image) with a brisket sandwich. The bird would then pull a 3g turn and i wouldn't see him for the rest of the day. I did this for about a week till i finally decided to eat later.Two reasons it took so long for me to figure that out: smokin d's is that good, and I'm apparently a little slow, Anyway the bird came in, I was lookin at him lookin at me this time, I think you can actually see a little surprise in the birds eye.
here are the links to my on line portfolios.
http://www.photoshopuser.com/members/portfolios/view/main/1226823      
www.wix.com/nrasnick/neil-rasnick
here is a link to a friends alaska portfolio he's really good, check it out
johnsanborn.photoshelter.com/gallery-list
Thats it for today, thanks for reading! lets go shoot! 

first post

Recently, or maybe not, my favorite cousin started a blog. I've been after her to blog more and then it occured to me that maybe I needed to put up or shut up.This will be a nature photography blog, with some wedding stuff thrown in when I get that part going.  So I'll post as i get things to talk about, feel free to come back and see whats going on.

A little about me, I'm almost 50 I've been shooting for 27 years. I started this as a hobby when the U.S. Air Force sent me to Holland. My mom wanted pictures, so i got some advice from a friend and picked up my first slr (pentax k1000) Ive been hooked ever since. I went back to school in 2007 for commercial art, leaning heavily in the direction of printing. I listen to Jazz and Classic Rock (Miles Davis and Carlos Santana), I'm a flat water kayaker and I can become one with the couch when the weather gets bad, and now I'm a blogger.