The past few days sure have given us some crazy weather. It snowed VERY hard for almost two whole days, dropping roughly 20 inches of some of the wettest and heaviest snow that I've ever seen. Then today it was sunny and in the mid 40's. By midday most of the roadways were dry. One thing's for sure, we have a LOT of snow and it looks like the weather over the next week is going to be a little cooler so it's not going anywhere anytime soon!
Spending time with this fellow was so cool. We were deep in the desert in the middle of Vermilion Cliffs National Monument in Arizona and sat right beneath this small 8 to 10 foot tall tree while the raven preened itself and watched us curiously but without any sense of nervousness or alarm. It was one of the best moments of that trip.
I was looking through some photos from 2017 last night trying to find a particular shot for a client when I came across this owl photo that I never did anything with. I do remember the day well, it was hunting in a field just below the eagle monument at the Grand Portage Veteran's Memorial. I was able to get quite a few photos of it in various places around the field.
Another scene that I couldn't resist making a photo of while driving home from work last week. The muted colors of the clouds over Lake Superior and the soft textures of the sky and water really caught my eye.
While driving home from work last night, the view out the windshield revealed a dull, gray colorless sky. A glance in the side rearview mirror as I was heading up Mt. Josephine, however, revealed a pocket of colorful clouds illuminated by the setting sun. I just had to turn around and drive a half mile back to the overlook of Pigeon Point to capture this image.
Another cool piece of ice that we found on a recent hike along the Lake Superior shoreline. All these air pockets trapped inside this ice chunk were super interesting!
I haven't been out shooting the ice as much as I have in past years and the main reason for that is I sold my Nikon D750 and my new camera (a Nikon Z7 II) was on backorder for about a month. Well, the Z7 has arrived and I've been getting to know it a little these past couple of weeks. I really like the form factor compared to the D750. And, so far, I've been really impressed with the image quality. I haven't really challenged it yet with any low light shooting, but the daytime shots have been pretty great. I did miss having a full frame camera for a good chunk of the ice season, but there is still some good ice to be found. Such as this "Ice Castle" formation along the north shore of Lake Superior.