Main Photo Site and Galleries

Western grebes diving on Klamath Lake



Western grebe at Stoney Point on Klamath Lake. Click above to see larger.




Western grebe diving. Click above for larger view.




Western grebe and baby. Click above for big view.
 

Western grebe diving, black and white front view.

The four photos above were taken within a few minutes of one another in late afternoon from the pier at Stoney Point on the northwest shore of Klamath Lake in southern Oregon. Which is best?


I think it's easily the fourth image. Why?


The first image is a sharp and colorful but the bird isn't doing anything. Anyone with a telephoto could (or has) get this shot. 


The second image is strong. It has color and action. 


The third shot. It looks like the baby is telling mom to do something -- go this way, I'm hungry, etc. A better view of an eye on either bird would make this stronger.  


The fourth photo is best. It's a different shot of a fairly common bird. There are several nice elements. The stretched out neck. The radiating water. The black and white. The reflection. The glassy and reflective water. It just works.  


Funny thing is that I wanted it to be a color shot. But the sun was at a tough angle, sort of behind the bird and the neck was shaded. I couldn't recover enough detail of the neck in processing without introducing a lot of digital noise. So I converted the image to black-and-white and discovered it works perfectly well that way. 


I shot all four images with my Nikon D5100 and the Nikon 70-300mm telephoto lens at 300mm. On the fourth photo, the settings were: 1/500th shutter speed, f/10 and ISO 100. I shot the photo in RAW and processed in Lightroom 4. 


Prints and digital downloads of this image are available from my SmugMug site, which uses a very good print lab (Bay Photo) and my prices are very reasonable because I'm a hobbyist and not a full-time pro. An 8 x 12 print with a metallic finish (which I prefer) of the above photo is $10.95 plus shipping. People tend to buy my photos as gifts for others and to decorate second homes and condos; SmugMug also offers framing and ready-to-hang mounts. I appreciate your patronage and pump any money made back into my photography and maintaining my web presence. Thanks! 


Here is my SmugMug homepage. Pick your poison and follow me on TwitterFacebook and/or Google+.


Related posts you may dig: Common murres at Yaquina Head, Oregon ducks at Hosmer Lake, Upper Klamath Canoe Trail.


--S.H.


The above photo is ©Steve Hymon and may not be used on the internet or elsewhere without my advanced written permission. All rights reserved.

Siletz Bay sunset



Click above to see a larger version on my SmugMug site please! 

Sunset over Siletz Bay, taken earlier this month on my sojourn to Oregon. I have a few other photos taken the same evening, but (for now) I like this one best as it combines all the elements into one image: the sunset, deep blue water, sand, pier, viewfinder and kayaker. 

Camera & Settings: Nikon D5100, Nikon DX 10-24 lens at 14mm, 1/320 shutter, f/8, ISO 200. Handheld camera and shot in RAW and processed in Lightroom 4. I used the onOne "Graduated ND .5 stop" preset, added some vignetting as well as a few other adjustments to bring out some detail in the shadows. 


Prints and digital downloads of this image are available from my SmugMug site, which uses a very good print lab (Bay Photo) and my prices are very reasonable because I'm a hobbyist and not a full-time pro. An 8 x 12 print with a metallic finish (which I prefer) of the above photo is $10.95 plus shipping. People tend to buy my photos as gifts for others and to decorate second homes and condos; SmugMug also offers framing and ready-to-hang mounts. I appreciate your patronage and pump any money made back into my photography and maintaining my web presence. Thanks! 


Here is my SmugMug homepage. Pick your poison and follow me on Twitter, Facebook and/or Google+.

Related posts you may dig: Oregon light houses, Oregon coast near Gold Beach and Common murres at Yaquina Head.


--S.H.


The above photo is ©Steve Hymon and may not be used on the internet or elsewhere without my advanced written permission. All rights reserved.


Dodger Stadium


Nice night at the ol' ball yard. Reds beat the Dodgers; I grew up in Cincy and remain loyal to the hometown team. 

Plus I dislike Dodger Stadium. It's basically a parking lot with a little green in the middle. 

Photo was taken with iPhone5 and the VSCOcam app. 

--S.H.

Gold Line & the Los Angeles River



I took this one for work about 7:25 a.m. on Thursday morning -- a little less than 90 minutes after sunrise and pretty much perfect light for this scene of the Gold Line crossing the un-beautiful Los Angeles River. 

Most of my own photos tend to make me naseuous, but I'm actually digging this one for its composition. I really like the different lines in the photo. What's making me ill this time around is that the photo looks for too digital to my eye -- and I really didn't do much processing. Thoughts, blog readers?

Camera & Settings: Nikon D5100, Nikon DX 35mm 1.8 lens, 1/200 shutter speed, f/11, ISO 200. Shot as a jpeg and processed in Lightroom 4. 

Here's my SmugMug site. Me on Twitter. Blog archives should be on one of the tabs at right but have a habit of vanishing for no known reason (thanks Google!). If not there, here's blog home page and feel free to scroll about. 

--S.H.

This photo is ©Steve Hymon and may not be used elsewhere without advanced written permission. All rights reserved.

Misery Ridge Trail




Click above to see larger on my SmugMug site please. 

This is the beginning of the Misery Ridge Trail at Smith Rock State Park in Oregon. It was taken from the first viewpoint that most visitors probably encounter and my hunch is I'm not the first one to use a telephoto to focus on the switchbacks. 

But the photo works anyway because it tells a story of sorts. There's the engineering of the switchbacks and the tiny hikers next to the giant boulders provide scale, suggesting this really is a big and miserable hill that must be climbed (and it is). 

Camera & Settings: Nikon D5100, Nikon 70-300mm telephoto lens at 140mm, 1/125th shutter, f/16, ISO 100. I shot the photo in RAW and processed in Lightroom 4, using the onOne cooling and vignette filters. I also bumped up the saturation and clarity a bit. 


Here's my SmugMug site. Me on Twitter. Blog archives should be on one of the tabs at right but have a habit of vanishing for no known reason (thanks Google!). If not there, here's blog home page and feel free to scroll about. 

--S.H.

This photo is ©Steve Hymon and may not be used elsewhere without advanced written permission. All rights reserved.

Green Lakes trail wildlflowers



Click above to see larger on my SmugMug site. 

Wildflowers along the Green Lakes Trail in the Three Sisters Wilderness of the Deschutes National Forest. I was trying to focus on one flower/color and then fill out the frame with the other flowers and colors. 

Almost worked! There's too little going on in the top left part of the frame. I suppose I could photoshop a flower in there, but that makes me feel skeezy. Oh well. 

The purple flowers are (I believe) shooting stars, the red ones are paintbrush and the yellow ones basalmroot. 

Camera & Settings: Nikon D5100, Nikon DX 35mm 1.8 lens, 1/2000th shutter speed, f/2.8, ISO 160. Camera was handheld, photo was shot in RAW and processed in Lightroom. 

Here's my SmugMug site. Me on Twitter. Blog archives should be on one of the tabs at right but have a habit of vanishing for no known reason (thanks Google!). If not there, here's blog home page and feel free to scroll about. 

--S.H.

This photo is ©Steve Hymon and may not be used elsewhere without advanced written permission. All rights reserved.



Kayaking on Hosmer Lake



Click above to see larger on my SmugMug site. 

As for the photo, nothing fancy here -- just nice shot in great light of a kayak on Hosmer Lake in the Deschutes National Forest in Oregon. That's Mt. Bachelor dead ahead, a dormant volcano. It last erupted 8,000 to 10,000 years ago, so says Wikipedia. 

Hosmer is a great place to paddle, btw, because no motorboats are allowed. Same place I took pics of the duck and the baby duck. I also have a similar shot of the above one, but taken with my iPhone. The iPhone shot isn't bad, but the above one makes me glad I also have a DSLR: 



Here's my SmugMug site. Me on Twitter. Blog archives should be on one of the tabs at right but have a habit of vanishing for no known reason (thanks Google!). If so, here's blog home page and feel free to scroll about. 

--S.H.

This photo is ©Steve Hymon and may not be used elsewhere without advanced written permission. All rights reserved.

Mmmm coffee


Happy Sunday morning. Taken with VSCOcam app and iPhone5. 

--S.H.

Oregon Lighthouses







Well, you know.... no one has ever traveled to the Oregon coast and taken photos of the light houses before. In that spirit, here are my humble contributions to the genre. Above at Yaquina Head Lighthouse (top) and Heceta Head Lighthouse. Click above to see larger versions at my SmugMug site. 

Here's the thing. Both of the above are extremely popular tourist destinations and neither are easy to shoot because of the hordes of annoying tourists getting in the way (this is presuming I don't annoy anyone, nor do I get in the way of their crappy photos). 

Yaquina Head is a little easier because there's a pathway on the south side of the lighthouse that allows for some angles in which it's possible to not see an RV-stuffed parking lot and sidewalk. 

Heceta Head is tougher. You can walk the half-mile path to the light house, but then you're right below the thing -- really too close to get any perspective. You'll probably find the best shots are farther away -- the above was taken on a roadside pullout. 

What I did wrong: I visited both in the middle of the day when the light was bland. The light is probably fantastic early in the morning before too many people show up or very cool when there's a lot of clouds and a good sunset. If I lived nearby, I'd also plan a visit during a storm for more dramatic shots. Also, in the top photo, there's no ocean. I had it in other photos -- here's one that fails to move the wood, so to speak -- but thought the above one best. 

Camera & Settings for Yaquina Lighthouse: Nikon D5100, Nikon DX 35mm 1.8 lens, 1/500th shutter speed, f/8, ISO 100. Shot in RAW and processed in Lightroom. I wanted the photo to appear aged and used a couple of onOne presets to mute some of the blue. 

Camera & Settings for Heceta Head Lighthouse: Nikon D5100, Nikon 70-300mm lens at 70mm, 1/125th, f/16, ISO 100. Show in RAW and processed in Lightroom. 

My SmugMug site with many other pics and my portfolio -- you can buy very affordable prints there! And me on Twitter although no one ever follows me. Blog archives can be seen by clicking on that black box at far right; I can't figure out how to make it easier to see, thanks to the techidiots at Google. 

Recent posts you may dig: Oregon ducks, the wild south Oregon coast and wild rose, desaturated

--S.H.

The above photos are ©Steve Hymon and may not be used elsewhere without my advanced written permission. All rights reserved. 

Oregon coast near Gold Beach



A nice slice of the southern Oregon coast, just feet away from Highway 101 south of Gold Beach (here's a map). I shot this about 75 minutes before sunset -- the light on the grass in the foreground was brilliant and was hoping to frame the grass against the rocks and the sea. 

In hindsight, I probably should have tried to get a little higher to show more of the green grass behind the yellow grass. I took this photo standing on my knees directly in front of the yellow grass. For better or worse, the wide-angle lens I used made the rocks seem smaller. I fret perhaps there's too much sky in the photo. 

If you're in the area, it's a great place to shoot with a lot of different photo possibilities. 

Camera & Settings: Nikon D5100, Nikon DX 10-24 wide-angle lens at 18mm, shutter speed 1/100th, f/16 and ISO 100. I shot in RAW and processed the photo in Lightroom 4. I didn't do much, although I changed the color of the highlights using the split toning tool. I also muted the blue a bit -- the original photo was showing some slight banding due to the brilliant blue in the sky (I think). 
Here's my SmugMug siteMe on Twitter.
--S.H.

This photo is ©Steve Hymon and may not be used elsewhere without advanced written permission. All rights reserved.

Common murres at Yaquina Head, Oregon


Click on either photo to see a larger version on my SmugMug site -- you really get an appreciation for the number of birds packed into such a small space. 

The birds are common murres. I shot the photo at the Yaquina Head light house on the Oregon coast. If you visit, walk out to the light house and look down. 

Here's a heavily cropped version of another photo: 


Camera & Settings: both photos were taken with my Nikon D5100 and a Nikon 70-300 telephoto lens. Nothing special about the settings otherwise -- I tried to use a high shutter speed to reduce camera shake because it was very breezy. 


Here's my SmugMug site. Me on Twitter.
--S.H.

This photo is ©Steve Hymon and may not be used elsewhere without advanced written permission. All rights reserved.

Oregon ducks

See larger here!

Freshly back from my big Oregon trip and starting to process photos from the Nikon. Got this one while kayaking in Hosmer Lake in the Deschutes National Forest.

A mallard and her ducklings swam in front of the kayak, so I tossed the telephoto lens on my camera and tried to get some shots isolating the mom and one or two of her babies. This one turned out best.

Camera & Settings: Nikon D5100, Nikon 70-300mm telephoto lens at 300mm, 1/400 shutter speed, f/8, ISO 125. I shot in RAW and processed in Lightroom, cropping away about 25 percent of the image to better focus on the ducks. Even with the telephoto lens, I had to keep my distance to get the shot.

Below is the second-best shot but that stick in the water on the lower left of the frame bugs me. The duckling was too far in front of the duck to get both in sharp focus without a tripod, which was impractical in a moving kayak with moving subjects. I wish I had drifted a little more right, which would have perhaps gotten that awful stick out of frame.

Here's my SmugMug site. Me on Twitter.


--S.H.

This photo is ©Steve Hymon and may not be used elsewhere without advanced written permission. All rights reserved.

 

Paul Bunyan and Babe


It's almost impossible to drive past these giant statues without stopping to take a pic. Should have had someone stand next to them for scale but it was getting dark and we had many more miles to drive. 

The statues are at a forest theme park outside Redwood National Park in NorCal. 

I always thought Paul Bunyan was cutting down the forests of Minnesota or Michigan--not the ancient old growth redwoods. Hmm. 

Camera & settings: iPhone 5 and VSCOcam app. 

--S.H.

Signs of the Oregon coast


Love the weathered look. 


The insect part was a lie. 


Nice beach. Rest of Lincoln City is a dump. 


Their clam chowder tasted like Chunky soup, btw. 

--S.H.


Oregon coast

 

This morning in Lincoln City. The temperature was 55 but felt like 35. Photo taken with iPhone5 and VSCOcam app.

--S.H.

 

Monkey Face at Smith Rock

No, it's not a penis! It's the big rock known as Monkey Face at Smith Rock State Park in Oregon. Hope it makes an appearance in a future Planet of the Apes flick.

Great park, btw. If you visit, take the Misery Ridge Trail. The views are worth the climb. Big-time rock climbing mecca. And, yes, people climb the Monkey Face despite some awful pitches beyond 90 degrees. Poopypants!

Photo taken with iPhone5 and VSCOcam app. Just posting stuff from phone until back in town to process pics from the Nikon.

--S.H.

This photo is copyright Steve Hymon and may not be used elsewhere without my advanced written permission.

 

Dorris, California

Taken on my drive north. Didn't have time to shoot -- a shame because the tiny town is photogenic in a rural decay way. Grabbed this one while pulling over to keep kayak from departing car roof in untimely fashion.

Photo taken with iPhone5 and the VSCOcam app.

Many more of my photos on my SmugMug site. Me on Twitter.

--S.H.

This photo is copyright Steve Hymon and may not be used elsewhere without my advanced written permission. All rights reserved.

 

Kayaking Hosmer Lake

 

Hosmer Lake in the Oregon Cascades; that's Mt. Bachelor at right. Photo taken with iPhone5 and the VSCOcam app.

Many more of my photos on my SmugMug site. Me on Twitter.

--S.H.

This photo is copyright Steve Hymon and may not be used elsewhere without my advanced written permission. All rights reserved.