Photo Blog – Photography Blog for Niebrugge Images
Photo blog featuring outdoor, travel and nature photos.
From the monthly archives:
Tony Stewart
This was yesterday, just minutes before Tony “Smoke” Stewart qualified for Sunday’s Las Vegas NASCAR race. Given all the demands from media, fans etc., I got the feeling that finally sitting down in the driver seat was probably a welcome quiet escape; I was hoping to capture that in this photo. I used a bit of fill flash to help illuminate Tony inside the dark cockpit.
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An interesting rock, Valley of the Fire State Park, Nevada.
This seemed to have fallen from a cliff higher up – it sure had a unique shape and color!
Here are more photos of Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada.
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Janine on Sherbet Hill, Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada.
Well, I made the name Sherbet Hill up. I’m not sure if this amazing place has a name - as I have never seen a photo of this place, but I thought the name was fitting!
We meet up with some good friends from Seward recently, and I couldn’t wait to show them Valley of Fire, so we returned to the Park on Saturday. I hit a couple of familiar spots, and tried unsuccessfully to find the Desert Bighorn. We then decided to go for a nice hike. I pretty much picked a random spot, and went a random direction in a trail-less area to see what we could find. Well what was found is pictured above – I think it has to be one of the most unique and beautiful little places I have ever seen! It looked like someone had poured drums of paint down the side of this hill – words really don’t do it justice.
I have photos with and without Janine – I posted one with her in it for scale – in fact, I have all kinds of variations as there are pretty much an infinite number of possibilities here. It was fairly overcast – ideal conditions for this colorful landscape. I wish I had more time – I could spend weeks hiking this park, who knows what else it out there.
Take a look at more Valley of Fire photos
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Colorful sandstone, Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada.
The area around the White Domes is amazing. There is yellow and nearly white sandstone along with the red, and in areas where the colors mix, there are some wonderful combinations of color and patterns. You never know what surprises may await around the next corner, over the next rise, or even in the little nooks and crannies. I couldn’t believe how fast time flew by as Janine and I explored this area – I look forward to going back and wandering around even further.
See more Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada pictures.
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Fire Cave, Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada.
I have also seen this secret spot referred to as Windstone Arch. Whatever it is called, it is cool!
I’m always surprised at just how rich a glow is created when you have sun reflecting off red rock, onto more red rock. I actually had to desaturate this a bit, although my camera does seem to run a bit hot with reds. There is an endless number of areas worth exploring at Valley of Fire- numerous caves, arches, colorful sandstone, I’m surprised, but glad this area isn’t more popular.
See
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Desert Bighorn, Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada.
I have visited and written about Valley of the Fire State Park before, but I still forget what a wonderful gem this place is – Southern Utah gets all the red rock attention, but this place is really sweet.
I spent a fair amount of time with this guy – this was captured after sunset, I really prefer this time of day for these desert animals. Otherwise the sun is just too harsh.
I hope you don’t get too tired of photos from Valley of Fire, but I have a few I want to share over the next couple of days.
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A Toby Keith video sign reflecting in a rain puddle on a sidewalk along the Strip, Las Vegas, Nevada.
I rotated this image 180 degrees so that the reflection wouldn’t be upside down like it appeared to me on the sidewalk. I then flipped in horizontally so that what little text that did show would be readable.
A cold, rainy night was a perfect night for photography on the Las Vegas Strip. The streets and sidewalks glowed with wet reflected light, there were all kinds of fun reflections, and there were very few people!
For this image, I focused on the distant reflected image, and not on the much close sidewalk / puddle. I then used a wide aperture ( f /4 ) to limit my depth of field – I preferred having the sidewalk out of focus. I needed a tripod because of the 1/10 of a second shutter speed. I then shot over and over trying to capture something interesting on the constantly changing video screen.
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Fresh snow in Red Rock Canyon National Conservation area, near Las Vegas, Nevada.
It was really tough to leave Anza-Borrego with the way the wildflowers were developing. We are spending the last couple of weeks on this trip in Las Vegas – we have some commitments and need to pay the bills, but we are going to make some time for some fun with some Alaskan friends as well.
The sky began to light up during this sunrise, but then faded away - since I didn’t get great light, I may try converting this to black and white after I return to the office.
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A closeup of a Dune Evening Primrose, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California.
When it comes to macro close-ups of flowers, I’m no Michael Brown, but it is still a lot of fun – one could get lost for hours experimenting with the different lines, colors and textures found in just a single flower. Add to that, the different combinations of focal length and depth of field and the composition possibilities are nearly endless. I tend to prefer the broad landscapes, but it is kind of fun to enter the little macro world found at your feet.
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Desert Sand Verbena, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California.
This was captured at sunset last night.
To follow up on my Anza-Borrego wildflower forecast post from yesterday – the more I hike around, the more convinced I am that it will be an excellent wildflower year here. I found numerous desert lily plants and big patches of lupine plants both of which should be blooming within the next few weeks.
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Desert Sand Verbena, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California.
Well between Los Angeles, Orange County, San Diego and Vancouver – our last month has involved a lot of city photography. The final couple of weeks of this trip will be based in Las Vegas – with all this city time, we had to make a few days and return to our favorite quiet little desert location; Anza-Borrego Desert State Park.
This did give us a good chance to see how the wildflowers are progressing, and to share my finding here. In a word, it is shaping up to be a very good year for wildflowers! I guess that is more then a word, but you get the idea. If I had to pick one word, with due respect to Tony the Tiger, I would say they are going to be great!
We spent a month here last year beginning just about now, and it turned out to be a pretty good year. This year, most places are much greener then even last year, and as you can see by the above photo from this morning, there are areas already beginning to bloom. But don’t take my word for it, according to the Borrego Sun, naturalist Paul Johnson is predicting this years bloom to be better then last with the peak hitting around the end of the month of February. In addition, the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park website is predicting a “good to excellent bloom in the near future”.
We arrived here on Sunday just in time for another inch of rain – this most recent storm should help extend the season. We have commitments in Vegas, but I gotta admit, it is going to be really tough to not be here for this years peak. I may have to grab my tent and sneak back over here for a night!
The above photo was captured with a 100 mm macro lens. I added a 25 mm extension tube which allowed me to focus and move even closer to the small flowers. I then parked my truck in such a way to shade the flowers, and used a gold reflector to add a touch of warm light – not unlike what you might find at sunrise, although this was a couple hours after first light.
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Statue of Vancouver Olympic Logo
Inukshuk rock statues like this one found at the Whistler Olympic Park were the inspiration for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic logo.
We had 4 nights in the Vancouver / Whistler area. With fairly long travel days on either side of those nights, we were only left with 3 full days – so the trip was a whirlwind of activity. I don’t like to do photography that way over a long period of time, but I do enjoy it over short bursts like this trip was. Often it seems I’m most productive when I completely immerse myself into photography – even at the expense of sleep, meals, exercise etc.
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Whistler Olympic Park or Olympic Center
My favorite Olympic venue was the new Nordic sports Whistler Olympic Park. I’m probably biased because I’m such an avid cross-country skier, or maybe it was my favorite because the new facilities were so beautiful, and the remote mountainous setting was perfect for such sporting events.
These facilities are located in the Callaghan Valley about 15 kilometers from the Whistler Village. The Callaghan Valley is an undeveloped area full of wonderful large trees and surrounded by numerous snow covered mountain peaks. Along with cross-country skiing, this area will also host other Nordic events such as biathlon and ski jumping. Below is the new ski jumping hill.
Here are more of our Whistler photos.
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An Olympic hopeful training at the brand new Richmond Speed Skating Oval near Vancouver. This venue will be used for long track speed skating in next year’s winter games.
I thought this scene epitomizes the typical Olympic athlete’s life. Long hours of training by themselves in relative anonymity. It is kind of ironic, if he does make the Olympic team as expected, millions of people from around the world will one day watch him skate on this same ice surface. On this day, it was only Janine and I, along with his friendly girlfriend. [click to continue…]
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Whistler Village, Canada.
Whistler Village is a really cool little town. The majority of the hotels, shops and restaurants are connected by a pedestrian only walkway, and access to both mountains, Whistler and Blackcomb are readily available thanks to multiple gondolas or chairlifts that originate from the town. And if that wasn’t enough, the two mountains are also connected thanks to a new peak to peak tram that extends almost 3 miles across, and almost 1,500 feet above the valley floor! [click to continue…]
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Bobsleigh or Bobsled at the Whistler Sliding Centre, Canada
We were disappointed at first to learn that the brand new Whistler Sliding Centre was closed to the public during our stay here at Whistler. You see, there is a World Cup event being held here this weekend, and the various countries from around the world were here doing training runs this week. We made some inquiries, and fortunately we were able to obtain press passes to photograph the facility and the training – I gotta say, what an amazing treat to be able to stand just feet away as bobsleds zoomed by at over a hundred miles an hour! [click to continue…]
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Vancouver, Canada.
This will eventually be the left side of a panoramic of this cool skyline.
Here are more of our Vancouver Photos.
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Gastown Vancouver, Canada
This is a little street side cafe on a rainy night in the Gastown area of downtown, Vancouver. Fortunately when we arrived yesterday the weather was fairly nice, so we ran around like mad! Today, as you can see, it rained – but it did light up the streets nice.
Check out more of our Vancouver Canada photos.
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