Morning Blue Hour

I’ve always loved blue and have recently become a big fan of the hour before the sun comes up, when the sky and clouds are streaked with shades of blue.

Here are some driveway and across the street shots from yesterday.

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If you look closely, you’ll see a layer of fog between the far and near hills- I’m guessing over Watson Lake.

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Snowplow at Sunset

Arizona sunsets are amazing!

You can see the Thumb Butte ahead with our hill to the right (our house is off camera).

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Photography notes:  Unfortunately I only had my iPhone with me to capture this (and the snowplow was waiting for us to move, I think)- and I haven’t learned enough about iPhoneography to know how to capture the dynamic range of this scene. I would automatically bracket this scene on my big camera- and could have done it with the phone camera if I knew my controls better (on my to-do list. . .). I edited it on the computer, but I can’t help wondering what it would have looked like taken with my Nikon!

A White Christmas Dream Come True

We were dreaming of white Arizona Christmas as we checked the weather apps each day. As the weekend approached, the forecasts kept showing a snowflake for most of Christmas Eve day- and they were right. It rained in the late morning, quickly turning to sleet and then snow- heavy snow that lasted all afternoon. We ended up with about six or seven inches at our house, and it is still here. Beautiful!

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I posted this photo on Facebook- and then noticed the fire hydrant in the foreground, which I have since removed (fire hydrants and garbage cans are what cloning brushes are for!).  After I took this shot, I walked toward the tree- and fell against the curb, cracking my lens hood and banging my arm and knee. Happy to report that the only damage seems to have been to the lens hood (which is a replacement for the one I cracked in Montana. . .)- the camera and photographer are just fine!

Eklutna Lake- Two Ways

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Our son-in-law took us for a drive over to Eklutna Lake, which was not yet completely frozen. The icy shoreline proved irresistible to kids and dog who immediately were running and sliding and having a great time.

I realized I haven’t posted as many black and whites as usual- and I do love black and white. So I converted today’s image into a monochrome, although I think I like it better in color.

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Five

This row of trees seems to stand guard at the gap in the mountains at the nature center. In browsing through other photos of this area, I noticed everyone seems to take a photo of these same trees. They are somewhat ragtag and gawky looking, but there is just something about them!

At sunset, everything seemed to have a rosy glow.

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I did another edit in black and white, but couldn’t seem to get the effect I wanted. Then I added a teal color layer and a texture, which gives it a snowy look. Just playing!

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