Iowa Barns

Copyright Nathan Montgomery, 2008

Today, I joined my father-in-law and my sister-in-law's husband for a few hours photographing barns near Dubuque, Iowa. I didn't get any great images but I did have a great time.

In my opinion, the best of these images is the first, and really, it should've been an excellent shot. I think I did a nice job of framing the image. Unfortunately, I did a terrible job focusing it. As I've mentioned here before, I am a big believer in manual focusing- this time, it burnt me. I really don't know what happened.

I've got another week off here, and then, my life is going to get especially busy. I'm hopeful that I'll get at least one more chance to get out for photography in the next week and at least occasionally after that.

Eagle on the Mississippi River Bluff

Copyright Nathan Montgomery, 2008

Today, I spent an hour or so on the banks of the Mississippi River with Stephanie and her dad. The weather warmed to a balmy 37 degrees, which gave us a chance to enjoy the outdoors before a heavy early afternoon fog settled in.

We pulled out our Canons and tried to take some shots of the many eagles taking advantage of a rare break in the ice just below the lock in Dubuque. Overall, my efforts were a monumental failure- even maxing out the zoom on my borrowed 100-300mm lens left me not nearly as tight on the eagles as I wanted to be. As a result, this image is heavily cropped, which cost me a lot of sharpness. Those who have their browsers set to a large view format may be fairly disappointed with this image- the resolution just isn't there to get any bigger than about 4x6.

Yates Mill

Copyright Nathan Montgomery, 2008

This images come from Yates Mill, just outside of Raleigh. It's a subject worthy of a photographer's attention. I actually think that there are a number of good shots for the taking on the premises. Unfortunately, I didn't nail any of them on my visit, but I got enough of a taste to want to try my luck again sometime soon.

Puffin

Images Copyright Nathan Montgomery, 2008

For the last two pictures from the zoo trip, we leave the mammals and make our way to the Horned Puffin, Fratercula corinculata.

I alays enjoy the puffins at the zoo. Unfortunately, they are in an indoor facility on a light cycle coordinated with the Arctic Circle or somewhere thereabouts. As a result, in addition to the normal challenge of shooting through fiberglass, I had to deal with really low light. To take these images, I maxed out my sensor sensitivity, setting the ISO to 1600. Then, I opened up my aperture as far as it would go, and I went with the longest shutter exposure (1/100 sec) I could without getting movement in the image. Even then, I needed to add some light in Photoshop.

The final result are probably better technical feats than artistic ones, but I think both are okay shot anyway.

Chimp

Copyright Nathan Montgomery, 2008

The subject here is a 33-year old male chimpanzee. He was sitting perhaps four feet from me, on the opposite side of a clear fiberglass wall. I took several shots of him. Unfortunately, most have a distracting reflection that distracts quite a bit from the shot. As for this particular picture, if I had the chance to retake the image, I might frame it slightly differently, but overall, I like the shot. It's probably my favorite picture from the zoo trip.

Gorilla

Copyright Nathan Montgomery, 2008

This is a second of the three gorillas at the North Carolina Zoo. Unlike the male in the previous post, she and the other female were especially cooperative subjects. I think I took around 30 shots of them altogether, and I am decently satisfied with many of them.

In terms of the mechanics of the image, again, it was taken through fiberglass. I should credit a borrowed lens from my cousin for this and all of the other images posted. The lens that came with my camera is a great option for a lot of pictures, but the 100-300mm from John gave me some options that I wouldn't have had without it.

As for the decision to go black and white with this image, more than anything, it's because of the leaf that she's holding. I think it looks better in grayscale.

Silverback

Copyright Nathan Montgomery, 2008

This image will be the first of three pictures I'll post from the primate exhibits at the NC Zoo. This massive male silverback was a tough subject. The picture was taken through fiberglass, and to the most part, he spent his time with his back to me. Of the six pictures I'll post from our zoo trip, this one is my least favorite.

Arctic Fox

Copyright Nathan Montgomery, 2008

With the fall semester some 24 hours in my rearview mirror, today I had the chance to spend some quality time with the new camera. Steph and I took a day trip to the NC Zoo. It was a beautiful 70 degree day in the Carolinas, and the animals were the most active we'd ever seen them. I took about 200 pictures, of which only six made the cut for posting on this blog. If you're keeping score at home, that puts my success rate- even with a nice, new camera- at 3%.

This first subject is the Arctic Fox. Truth be told, I made some mistakes in this image. The depth of field is too narrow, meaning that the fur beginning at about the ears isn't focused. I realized my error early in the sequence of shots and changed the aperture for better focusing. However, the fox never gave me such a nice look at its eyes again. Hence, I'm left to compromise based on the pictures I got. Even if this picture is a bit technically flawed, the subject was too good not to post if.

Credit goes to my mom, visiting from Illinois, for the matting on this image. She chose a variation on my normal black and white scheme, stealing this slate gray tone from some pixels on the log in the image.

What's in a Name?

On his recent visit to this blog, Jack Graham commented that a name change might be in order.

"Lucky Shots" implies a shotgun approach to photography. Point the camera enough places and snap enough shots and, by chance, eventually something good has to come from it. It's akin to the old adage about enough monkeys with enough typewriters eventually being able to reproduce all the works of Shakespeare. In fact, when I first started taking pictures, my strategy wasn't all that different from that. I'd take 100 shots to get 1 or 2 okay images.

Part of that was just the equipment. My first real foray into photography came on a trip to Colorado in 2005. I took hundreds of shots on an old Olympus digital with somewhere in the neighborhood of 3 megapixels of resolution. It was a point-and-shoot in every way, which lends itself to a 1-in-100 type of strategy.

Later that year, my family (parents, in-laws, and wife) bought me a transitional camera, a Kodak P712 that gave me all sorts of new capabilities and really changed the way I took pictures. The P712 let me do things that the Olympus didn't.

Then, last Spring, I got my hands on my father-in-law's Canon Rebel XTi, and my wife sent me to a photography workshop to learn how to use it. With that, photography went from being a hobby to a passion, and my shots stopped being "lucky" and started being thoughtful and planned and, on occasion, even artistic. That's not to say that they are great images, but the process is definitely different.

The change didn't go unnoticed, and recently, my family bought me another new camera, the first DSLR of my own. Soon, I hope to start posting images taken with this treasured addition to my camera bag, and with it's help, I hope that my pictures will become less-and-less "lucky" and more-and-more "earned."

Jack Graham on getting sharp images

Jack Graham, the photographer who taught the course I took last summer, just posted an exceptional article on shooting sharp images. Definitely worth checking out. (I was relieved that no pictures of me and my tripod appeared in his tripod critique!)

Defining the subject

Since I don't have as much time as I'd like to get out to take pictures these days, I thought I'd add a semi-regular feature on good photography advice I've picked up in the last few years.

The first tip I'll offer is probably the most important. It comes to me from David Middleton by way of Jack Graham, who taught the photography workshop I did last summer. Middleton says "A bad photograph is a a paragraph, a good photograph is a sentence, and a great photograph is a phrase."

When I go back and look at the pictures I took when I first started, they are all paragraphs. I'd see something I liked here, but then, I'd also try to incorporate this other thing over here and maybe something else over there. The problem? There's no clear subject in that type of photography, and good photography almost always has a defined subject.

Orange Lilly- Updated

Copyright Nathan Montgomery, 2008

Here's the latest addition to my collection. I bought this lilly today to be the centerpiece at our Thanksgiving meal, and then, I took it out to the backyard for some modeling before its big day.

(I changed the posted picture to a different shot with the stamen in better focus. This one is processed with Photoshop.)

Website Update

I've updated the photography page on our personal website. Now, all of my favorite images are together in one easy to browse location.

Mill on the Eno River

Copyright Nathan Montgomery, 2008

My cousin John moved to Durham about 3 months ago. He's a really talented photographer, who has a portfolio worth dreaming about. He really likes taking shots of old mills, and fortunate for him, North Carolina has a lot of mills. Until he got here, I wasn't big on photographing structures. I've taken a few shots of light houses and things like that, but mills honestly weren't on my radar. Well, he's got me hooked. This mill is at a city park on the north side of Durham. There are a number of 1900-era structures on the site, but for my money, this still-functional mill is the crown jewel of them all.

My afternoon at the Eno

Copyright Nathan Montgomery, 2008

Eno River State Park is the type of place that is beautiful but not photographable... at least for me. It's the nicest park within 75 miles of our place. There are rapids, rocky cliffs, suspension bridges, and more, but I've been disappointed with almost every picture I've ever taken there. Until yesterday. From November 15 to September 15, I tend to think that reflections are tempting but often disappointing subjects. However, the reflection of peak foliage on glass water is really lovely. Fall colors make photography so much easier. Throw on your circular polarizer, find some pretty trees and a little water, and boom, you've got a shot that an amateur like me can be happy with.

Completing the seasons

Copyright Nathan Montgomery, 2008

It's been a crazy few weeks, and even though I have a very long to-do list, I decided to take this afternoon off to take a few pictures. I hit three really nice local spots for taking pictures- UNC's campus, Eno River State Park, and Durham's West Point on the Eno Park. I got one decent image from each location, starting with this shot of UNC's Old Well. Visitors to "Lucky Shots" are no stranger to this Chapel Hill landmark. It's a great subject in Spring, but this year, I've tried to capture it at some atypical times of year.

Fall colors are about to peak in the North Carolina Piedmont, and I had hight hopes that this tree would be a golden yellow when I showed up today after my Pulmonology Final Exam. Unfortunately, it was a little rustier than I wanted, but it still a shot I've never taken before.

Tomorrow, I'll post a picture from Eno River State Park.

Light and shadows

Copyright Nathan Montgomery, 2008

One last shot from the trip to the mountains a few weeks ago. The leaf is really a fantastic subject (the veins, in particular). I just wasn't there at the right time of day. The shadows are obviously painfully harsh, and there was really no way around overexposing parts of the image. No doubt, this isn't the type of picture you put near the front of your portfolio. It's a C image at best.

That said, I still think it has some redeeming characteristics. I like to work a shot- it's a lot of fun to go some place ordinary and to try to find a shot that is a jaw dropper. This isn't a jaw dropper, but I do think it's a nice example of how you can find an interesting shot if you look hard enough.

Vet School Calendar Contest

Last week, my dad asked me what ever happened with the vet school calendar submissions. Here's an update. Last year, I got 2 of 3 images I submitted into the calendar. This year, I only got 1 of 4, which must mean that I am regressing as a photographer!!!

The shot that got in was the shot I considered most likely to get in- "Aslan's Portrait", a picture I took at the North Carolina zoo in August.



A second shot, "Pasture Princess", was an "honorable mention" selection, which basically just means it didn't get in.



Hopefully, I'll take some shots this next year that I can submit. However, I don't do much animal photography. As a result, I'm thinking that I'll focus my efforts instead on trying to get something into my favorite magazine, Our State North Carolina. I'm 0 for 1 on past submissions there, but I just recently submitted my second shot, and I'll submit some more for their annual reader's photo contest.

Reflections on Sunday morning

Copyright Nathan Montgomery, 2008

There are a lot elements that I like in this picture. I like the fall colors, I like the reflection, and I really like the fly fisherman near the middle of the image. There are always things that I see in an image and wish I'd done differently. For instance here, I wish I could walk on water so that I had been about half as far from the fisherman, and then he is also a little out of focus. It's fine for this size of an image, but I'd want to use a different version of the shot for anything larger. But really, altogether, I think it turned out nicely. If you'd like to see a larger version, here's something a little bigger.

We really lucked out with the pictures at this location. I think I took 40 pictures of this fisherman. When we pulled out our gear, he was actually fishing further downstream, behind us here, at a location that wasn't particularly scenic. However, as we were setting up, he walked right into this scene, and I couldn't be happier that he did so.

This concludes the photo journal from the fall colors trip. My father-in-law's camera is back in Iowa (thanks Dave!), I don't have a lot of time for photography, and post-fall colors, NC is marginal for photography anyway. That all adds up to this site probably being slow until at least Thanksgiving.

Graveyard Fields

Copyright Nathan Montgomery, 2008

I took this picture at Graveyard Fields on the Blue Ridge Parkway, a few miles south of Mt. Pisgah, which is itself maybe 20 miles south of Asheville, NC.

I've been to the NC mountains four times for fall colors. This year and 2006 were the two best years I've seen. In 2006, basically all of the deciduous trees in the mountains changed to golden yellows and oranges all at once, regardless of elevation. It made for absolutely stunning vistas. This year, the color is a bit more spotty, but there are more deep reds than I've ever seen before. This shot came from the most striking location we saw all weekend.

Tomorrow, I'll post my last shot from the fall colors photography trip.

Brilliant Reds

Copyright Nathan Montgomery, 2008

The reds were particularly impressive in the mountains this year, and these trees were the reddest of the reds we saw. We encountered them along NC Hwy. 215, just a few miles south of the Blue Ridge Parkway. We parked at a safe spot along the road and then walked back down the mountain side to take this shot. Heavy brush along the roadside meant that only a narrow window was open to capture these trees on the mountainside on the opposite side of the valley.

The key to this shot- and in my mind, the key to most shots- is the circular polarizer. It makes colors pop. Never leave home without one!

I don't think that this is a great shot photographically speaking, but I think it's nice from the perspective that you can really see just how nice the reds were this year. To that end, I've posted another version that is a little bit more artistic, as it has a more defined subject, but doesn't do quite as good of a job of showing what the mountains of southwest NC looked like this year.

There is a sad side to this picture- I inadvertently changed my ISO setting prior to taking the pictures at this location. Instead of shooting ISO 100, I shot ISO 800. It added some grain to my image, and consequently, I won't be able to blow this picture up much higher than 5x7.

Devil's Courthouse

Copyright Nathan Montgomery, 2008

I took this picture on the Blue Ridge Parkway, south of Asheville, NC at a popular mountaintop called Devil's Courthouse. If you ever get a chance to drive the parkway, this stop at milepost 422.4 is a must. The hike to the top is a bit strenuous (i.e. it's straight up), but at the top, you can see four states (NC, SC, Tennessee, and Georgia).

As for the picture, I'm pleased with it. The dead trees and yellow leaves make for nice foreground, and a stone face always gives a mountaintop character.

One last comment- historically, I've uploaded my files for this blog to my personal web space and then linked to the images. For technical reasons, right now I'm uploading them straight to blogger. I feel like it's creating some issues with my images (i.e. the colors are more dramatic when I view the images in GIMP or Adobe than at this site). I'll try to get it worked out in the next few days.

Another shot from Looking Glass Falls

Copyright Nathan Montgomery, 2008

I had planned to post just the last three waterfall shots from last weekend. However, after revisiting my images, I like this version of Looking Glass Falls as well.

Blueridge Parkway fall colors coming next week.

Looking Glass Falls (updated)

Copyright Nathan Montgomery, 2008

Looking Glass Falls was the one waterfall we visisted last weekend that I had actually been to before. I've actually been there several times. In fact, when we were there in May 2007 with our friends Natalie and Bernardo, I took a shot from this very location, sans the fall color.

One comment about the manipulation of this image- as happy as I am with GIMP, this is one place where I miss Photoshop. I haven't figured out yet how to lighten up harsh shadows in GIMP, something that is pretty easy in Photoshop. The log in the foreground here has some really nice character, but you lose it in the shadows.

This picture concludes the waterfall portion of this slideshow of pictures I took last weekend. Up next will be fall colors from the Blue Ridge Parkway.

(Those who don't like the placement of the tree in this image, might prefer an alternative framing. The major problem here is that the focus isn't quite right, meaning that I could never blow this picture up as big as the on posted.)

Middle Falls

Copyright Nathan Montgomery, 2008

I took this picture in Dupont State Forest, near the North Carolina and South Carolina state line. Incidentally, Dupont State Forest is often the site of the national trail marathon championships, but that's a subject for another hobby.

Middle Falls is one third of Triple Falls. Along with Linville Falls near Boone, I think that Triple Falls is the nicest waterfall in North Carolina. The movie Last of the Mohicans was shot in this area, and the landscape really is lovely.

This shot's greatest shortcoming is the white sky. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to wait for a clearing, but certainly, it's the kind of flaw that separates an okay shot from a better shot.

Preview of coming attractions

Copyright Nathan Montgomery, 2008

Here's one of the shots I took this weekend on my cousin and my fall colors/NC waterfalls photography road trip. When we stopped to take this shot, we thought we were photographing Catawba Falls, but in fact, we were photographing a pair of falls downstream of the named cascade. Nevertheless, it's an interesting location. The upper right of this picture is actually an old dam. The water escapes through a hole in the upper left.

A quick comment on the photo. I no longer have access to Photoshop. However, my father-in-law has introduced me to a free program called GIMP that is absolutely fantastic. It has most of the capabilities of Photoshop, and for those that it lacks, I just use the Adobe Elements program that came with my PC. I'm very happy with the result, shown here.

Finally, I'd simply remark that this is the first waterfall I have photographed since my class in Oregon. I was very happy with the pictures I took out there, but I worried that my success was largely a function of having an instructor over my shoulder. Hence, I like this picture for a lot of reasons but one is that it reassures me that I did take home some helpful lessons from the class (not just nice photographs).

Pictures coming soon!!!

In August, my cousin moved to Durham from the Pacific Northwest. Unlike me, he's a legitimate photographer, who has shown in galleries in the Tacoma area. This weekend, we went to the NC mountains for a weekend of shooting waterfalls and fall colors. He took this shot of me, when I was shooting what we thought was Catawba Falls, but actually proved to be just a little waterfall downstream of it.

I'm having some technical issues that will prevent me from posting pictures for a few days, but they should be coming later this week or early next week. I am cautiously optimistic that I managed to take some pretty decent shots, so make sure to check back in for updates.

Postcards, etc.

I haven't had time to take any pictures lately, but I did recently receive an order of postcards featuring several of my favorite pictures. I'm ordering through Walmart, which does a surprisingly nice job with photo products. If all goes well, I'm going to start making greeting cards from my pictures as well. So, consider this fair warning- you know what to expect your next anniversary, birthday, etc. card to look like.

Bugle in the garden

Copyright Nathan Montgomery, 2008

For my final shot from our trip to the zoo, I switch from the animal to the plant kingdom. Several of these flowers were growing near the entrance to the zoological park, and on our way out, Stephanie was nice enough to let me play around with photographing them for about 10 minutes. I am a big fan of a flower with an intricate stamen. It's always a focusing challenge, especially without a tripod, as was the case with this shot.

Another big cat

Copyright Nathan Montgomery, 2008

Here's another picture from our visit to the zoo, this one of an American bobcat. I took the picture through fiberglass, which makes for some odd reflections (note the double branch in the upper left). It's just average, but with classes starting, I'm not likely to get much time to photograph, so I can't be too picky.

Aslan's Portrait

Copyright Nathan Montgomery, 2008

It's not often that I really like a picture that I take. I have almost 5000 images on my computer and backup hard drive, and of those, there may be 50 that I would call good and probably no more than 10 that I am really quite happy with. Having just taken this picture a few hours ago, I'm not ready to put it in that top tier. My opinions on pictures tend to mature with time, and already, I can tell you that this shot has some technical issues (for instance, it's not sharp at all).

All of that said, I really like this photograph. I took it at the North Carolina Zoological Park in Asheboro, as Stephanie and I spent our last day together before classes start. The lions are always most active just after the gates open, so we always make sure to leave our place early enough to be some of the first visitors to view their exhibit. This morning, the male was kind enough to look right at us for about 20 seconds while standing in the shade and out of the spotty light found in most of the exhibit at 9 AM (ideally, portraits are front lit, but I'll take shadowless shade over spotty light any day of the week). I had just enough time to get two shots of him staring right into my camera. The first was underexposed, but this, the second shot, was exactly what I wanted.

And that's why I'm really happy with the image. Some will criticize it as a boring, bullseyed portrait, but that's what I wanted- a picture of a lion staring right at me. There are some imperfections due to the limitations of what I had to work with (low light meant ISO setting that added some grain, no tripod cost some sharpness, etc.), but even so, this is the rare shot where I couldn't be much happier with the shot I took, all things considered.

Princess of the Pasture

Copyright Nathan Montgomery, 2008

This is the fourth shot that I plan to submit for the Vet School photo contest. I took it at about 12,000 feet, on a mountainside above the small city of Keylong in northern India. Two young brothers- neither probably older than 10 or 11- were leading this and several other cows high into the mountains for a day of grazing

Indian cows are simply beautiful animals. Their eyes, in particular, are striking. I can't help but think that we might similarly revere our cattle if they looked like the Indian variety.

A word on cropping here. This shot has only minimal cropping- the original shot was 4x6 format, and I've cropped here to 5x7. Otherwise, it's unchanged. Deciding how to crop was tricky. I cut off the cow's feet in the original photo. Some photographers would be troubled by that decision. Personally, I thought that the striking part of the animal was what I've shown here, and I thought a broader perspective de-emphasized what I hoped to emphasize. I also considered cropping the legs out entirely, but I really like the line marking the midline, projecting down the neck from the blue and yellow yarn towards the sternum. Compromises yet again.

Professional Pachyderm

Copyright Nathan Montgomery, 2008

This is the third of the four images I'm planning to submit for the NC State Vet School photo contest. I took it in Manali, a small city in northern India that the British called a "hill station", to denote it as a starting point for expeditions into the higher peaks of the greater and trans Himalayas.

Artistically, I am really quite happy with this shot. I like the subject, I like the framing (probably as good as one can hope to get on a crowded city street), and I love the young boy peering down at me from high on the elephant's back. Technically, on the other hand, the picture has some issues... most of which speak to the difficulty in capturing a moment on film. Take a closer look, and the young boy as well as the driver are not sharply in focus. Additionally, at larger magnifications, it becomes clear that the elephant was flapping its ear, leaving the top blurred.

How could I have avoided those problems? Well, the people aren't sharp because my aperture was too open. The ear is blurred because the shutter speed wasn't fast enough. My shutter speed was a rather pedestrian 1/50 sec. By cranking my ISO up from 100, even if only to 160 (the upper limit of what my camera can handle without getting grainy), I could've cut out some of the movement.

I guess that these technical issues speak to the importance of anticipating a shot. I didn't know that this shot was going to be there until an instant before I took the picture. On that timeline, you can't set the camera after you see the shot- you have to see the shot before it's there. I didn't, so I'm left with the shot I took, which has its strengths despite its flaws.

Carolina Crab

Copyright Nathan Montgomery, 2008

Here's one more shot from our week on the North Carolina coast.

Readers may recall that last year I submitted a few shots for an animal photo contest at the NC State Vet School. This is one of four shots that I plan to submit this year. Another is a hound photo I posted several months ago, and the other two, I'll post later this week.

Ready to Bloom

Copyright Nathan Montgomery, 2008

This is another flower shot that I took last week in Salvo. I actually took about two dozen shots of these flowers, but most were open blooms. Unfortunately, with the wind, I was stuck with an aperture setting that just wouldn't give me the depth of field I needed to get the long stamen in focus.

At the end of my time in the field, it occurred to me that these younger blooms were the ideal subjects, given the conditions. I do like the subject, but the one real flaw in the image is the background, which is a little too busy. I knew it was going to be a problem, so I grabbed a shingle that I found on the side of the road, and tried to use it to give me a solid background. It was a tricky maneuver, but my camera's 2-second shutter delay gave me just enough time to hit the trigger, get the shingle in place, and then hope that the wind didn't pick up in the interim. Unfortunately, when I got back to my computer, I realized that I'd put the shingle too close to the plant, and rather than getting the dark, blurry background I wanted, I had a picture of a plant that looked like it had a shingle behind it. So... I'm left with a busy natural background instead.

Outer Banks Wild Flowers

Copyright Nathan Montgomery, 2008

North Carolina's Outer Banks are a treasure unknown to most Americans. While some of our neighbors to the south have beaches more familiar to Tom in Topeka, I wouldn't trade our state's coastline for any in the continental U.S. 

We spent the last several days with good friends in one of North Carolina's really wonderful beach towns- Salvo. A lovely place to spend a week anyway, the border islands were made even more beautiful than usual this week by blooming wildflowers along the pristine beaches of Cape Hatteras National Seashore.

With sailing, swimming, biking, running, and so many other things on the agenda, I didn't spend a lot of time taking pictures this week. However, one morning, I did sneak away for about an hour to snap some shots of a field of wildflowers still wet from overnight thunderstorms. Strong winds off the sound made my work a bit challenging. I needed high ISO settings and wide open apertures to get the shutter speeds necessary to handle dancing flowers. The resulting short depths of field left me with a lot of blurry images, but a few shots had some redeeming qualities, including this one.

Hatteras Light

Copyright Nathan Montgomery, 2008

Hatteras Light is the tallest lighthouse in the United States and the tallest brick lighthouse in the world.  As one of North Carolina's most recognizable images, it's also probably been photographed more than any other structure in the state.  With over-photographed subjects, it's always tough to take a picture that isn't just a ho-hum image that every local has already seen a hundred times.

I spotted the location for this shot when we were on the Hatteras Light viewing platform with some friends earlier this week.  When we got back down all 240 steps, I worked my way through some brush (and caught some poison ivy in the process) to the spot, only to find that I didn't have an unencumbered view of the lighthouse.  I considered moving closer to exaggerate the distance between the two dead trees in the image, but then, I lost the perspective on the stump in the front and center of the frame.  Inevitably, like most photography for those of us who don't get hours to scout out locations, this shot became about compromises.  I think I succeeded in finding an unusual perspective on a familiar subject, even if it is a bit flawed photographically.

Bonus Shot: Man in Manali

Thank you to everyone who voted in the best shot of the India trip poll. The three images receiving votes were the three shots I would've called my favorite.

I hadn't planned to post any more shots from the trip, but this one isn't a bad shot, and I haven't had time yet to get out to shoot since returning to the U.S. Additionally, I'm out of town all next week, so this could be the only shot that gets posted for a while.

Last shot from India: Home in Tingriti

This home, fairly extravagant by Himalayan standards, was on the road that I ran and hiked on each morning from our Tingriti camp. On this day, I had actually hiked here in hopes of catching morning light on the town, which is behind me in this picture. Unfortunately, the light didn't cooperate. It was too cloudy to get the picture that I wanted, and having already hiked 35 minutes up the road, I decided to try to salvage the trip by finding something else to shoot. Mostly I just post it because I haven't posted any pictures of homes, here or on my other blog. This one has no shock value, since it was probably the nicest home I saw in India, which is probably best.

This will be the last picture I'll post from the trip. As I said before I began the blog slideshow, I'm not in love with the collection as a whole, but there were a few solid shots amongst the 10-12 I've posted. I've posted a poll question asking you to identify your favorite shot from the trip. I'll be interested in your feedback.

Lahauli Children

Copyright Nathan Montgomery, 2008

Two for the price of one today. Like many of the pictures I've posted, this picture was taken in Tingriti, as the village's children waited for a lunch provided by our clinic. I believe that she is the granddaughter of the women featured in the first picture I posted from the trip.

Copyright Nathan Montgomery, 2008

Although the shadows on this image are harsh and the background lighting distracting, I still like it. These two sisters, who lived in a tarp covered hut just above our campground in Sissu, were wonderful subjects.

Photographing people always feels like something of an invasion. I took one more shot of these sisters in better light but cut off the older girl's left foot in the image. Otherwise, it would have been a great picture. Perhaps I should've attempted a third shot, but I felt like I'd already taken more shots than I had the right to take. Take more and it would approach gawking.

Tomorrow, I'll post the last picture from the trip.

Land of the Clouds

Copyright Nathan Montgomery, 2008

For my final mountain photograph from the Himalayas, I'll post this shot taken in Tingriti. Like the picture I posted yesterday, this one has grown on me since I got home. It's a fairly simple shot taken at sunrise.

Imposing peaks

Copyright Nathan Montgomery, 2008

Almost a week ago, I said that I wouldn't be posting any more images of actual mountains, but it seems like any photographable worth the price of his memory cards should be able to take a few decent mountain shots in the Himalayas. As a result, I've gone back and picked the best of the mediocre. This was the view upstream from our campground in Sissu. If I had been really committed to getting a great shot, I would've hiked 2 miles upstream one morning to get an unencumbered view of the rocky peak, but I never made it a priority.

Even so, I think that this shot gives a fairly accurate pictures of what things are like the valleys of Lahaul- massive mountains rising up from the narrow valley floor with even larger mountains behind them.

Waterfall rainbow

Copyright Nathan Montgomery, 2008

Copyright Nathan Montgomery, 2008

I took these pictures from our campsite in the Himalayan village of Sissu. The stunning waterfall was situated just across a roaring mountain river from our campground. I woke each morning and took pictures of the waterfall, and around 6:30 each day, the sun would hit the mist and form a rainbow.

It's hard to get a sense of scale in a picture like this, but I'd estimate the waterfall as a 200-foot sheer drop. We hiked to the base of it our first evening in camp.

Lush Middle Himalayan Ridge

Copyright Nathan Montgomery, 2008

As much as I loved the middle Himalayas, I only took a single picture there that I'm willing to post on this blog. Being on the wet side of the mountains, this range gets a lot of rain- hence, the lush green ferns in this picture. Unfortunately, that means a lot of cloudy skies, especially in monsoon season. Typically, the mountain tops were hidden in the clouds, and as a result, my pictures there were pretty disappointing.

This shot, however, I like. I'd been wanting to take a picture of a soft ridgeline that curves out of one's field of view, with sky overhead. The ferns and tree provided very good subjects to feature, and the break in the clouds was critical.

The sunlight makes for some harsh shadows, but my options were limited. I took this picture in the middle of a nine hour hike, and I didn't have time to hang out in hope of catching better light. And even if I had, the odds of keeping any blue sky in the background would've been slim to none.

Fence in Tingriti

Copyright Nathan Montgomery, 2008

While stone walls are common throughout the Himalayas, barbed wire fences are relatively rare. This fence marked the boundary of the government-built but vacant hospital in Tingriti, and I suspect the choice of material represents the preference of the downstate government rather than local custom.

In any case, I like the image. There are nice leading lines, and I like using short depths of field on repetitive structures like this one. In that regard, it's a bit like the picture I took of steps in Portland. On the other hand, the fatal flaw of this shot is that I cut off the post that is the subject of the picture.

Himalayan Cactus

Copyright Nathan Montgomery, 2008

Our arrival in Sissu happened to coincide with the blooming of the Himalayan summer cactus. One morning, I spent 45 minutes photographing these impressive flowers. The plant itself is actually kind of strangly and not particularly attractive, but up close the blooms are quite beautiful.

Taking the shot was difficult because there is so much that has to be kept in focus here. A long depth of field (i.e. small aperture) is a must, because an out of focus spike really detracts from the image. Unfortunately, the single greatest limitation of my camera is that it's smallest aperture setting is F8, which normally would be only medium depth of field.

The one real unfortunate thing about taking a picture of cactus is that you tend to be in the desert. I'd prefer something other than the bland grayish background, but these things grow in sand, and the flower faces up. Hence, you've got to shoot from above onto the sand. There's no good way around it without throwing something in as false background, which perhaps I should've considered.

Doors in Tingriti

Copyright Nathan Montgomery, 2008

I took this shot in the remote village of Tingriti. It has been certified as Stephanie's favorite shot of the trip.

Often, especially when I'm rushed, I get stuck with the picture that I took rather than the picture that I wanted. By that, I mean that I see something when I look at the subject, and then the challenge is to set the exposure appropriately, frame it the right way, wait for the right light, etc. Here, I'm pretty happy with the technical aspects of the shot. I like the lighting, I like the framing, and because the subject is mostly gray, metering was easy and the exposure was exactly what I wanted.

Himalayan Sunrise

Copyright Nathan Montgomery, 2008

In a series of photos taken during a visit to the Himalayas, one expects to see a lot of pictures of mountains. After all, it's the world's grandest range.

But in fact, this may be the only landscape photo I'll post on this blog. My attempts to take pictures from our campsites and clinic locations proved largely frustrating. I may change my mind a few weeks from now, but as of today, this is the only picture I like where the mountains are featured prominently. Even then, the real subject here is the sky.

I took the shot just after 5:00 AM at our campsite in Tingriti. I purposefully underexposed the shot both to make the morning sky dark blue and to give the silhouette appearance to the mountains. The effect that exposure had on the clouds was really unintended, but I think it makes the shot.

Elder woman in Tingriti

Copyright Nathan Montgomery, 2008

In the many entries from my medical expedition to India on my other blog, I've mentioned that I wasn't thrilled with the opportunities I got for photography on the trip. I simply didn't get the chance to devote the time necessary to take thoughtful images. That said, I'm not too proud to post the best shots I did take, even if they aren't as good as I hoped they'd be. This may be my favorite image from the trip. I took this picture at Tingriti, a very remote village in the Himalayas. This woman and a child who I presume was her grand daughter were among my favorite subjects during the trip. I captured this shot just after a meal that our organization provided to the villagers.