View from La Romieu

Yesterday I showed you the doorway to a flight of narrow stairs. Well, I DID climb (and descend) those horrible stairs, and I was rewarded with this view, about half way up. (The mesh around the top spoiled my pictures, but the view was incredible.) It's really beautiful countryside.

Wordless Wednesday - Surfer's Paradise

(Here I practiced straightening the horizon.)

Wordless Wednesday: Sunset over Lake Astotin

0.4sec, f/2.8, exposure bias -2/3, ISO 80, focal length 5.2mm

Rainbow!

These were all taken of the same rainbow. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to find my polarizing lens (stupid move!) until the rainbow was nearly gone, so I didn't get to experiment with that nearly as much as I would have liked. These are all with just a regular UV filter that is always on my camera.

The left part of the rainbow. It really stands out against the dark clouds.

I thought about cropping this, but then decided to show it with all it's warts! Those warts are... two tips from my umbrella, creeping in to the top of the frame. I had my umbrella out to protect the lens from getting spotty, but as I didn't have a tripod, sometimes it was hard to balance everything at once - and this was the result. Aside from that, I LOVE this picture. The rainbow enters and exits the image at pretty much the same height on each side. Yay!

And for balance, here is the right side of the rainbow.

All were taken with a bit of zoom to cut out roof tops and so on. There was in fact a bit of a double rainbow at one point, but the second one was so faint, I don't know if I caught it at all. It was still beautiful to see!

Sunset

Another 30 Day Challenge was to get a sunset. I played around with the settings and such, but in the end, letting the camera do its own thing on the "sunset" setting was the best.

While I was attentive to the time I needed to head outside at, I neglected to think of where I would take this picture, so the colours are there, but the view is somewhat less than interesting. It wouldn't be bad if not for the power lines. I think the dark frame on three sides really makes the oranges stand out. Regardless, here is a non-challenge picture of a much more spectacular view.

Imagine the colours if I had known about the sunset setting! Hawaiian sunsets (at least the ones I saw) seem to be very pink, while the ones at home are often very orange. I wonder if that has anything to do with altitude.

Yes, this picture breaks the rule of thirds "law", which I didn't know about at the time, but I think it really works. I love the frame of the dark foliage, particularly the little fringe at the top. I would not change the composition of this one, except perhaps to straighten the horizon just a hair - I took this free-hand.

Lake Abraham

1 picture looks so lonely, so here's a second, very different photo to keep it company.

This is a view out over Lake Abraham. A beautiful day all around.