Perfect winter conditions with an aurora at the Bruarfoss in Iceland: A shot I wanted for some years and I finally took it a week ago.

Tags:   bruarfoss Iceland aurora northern light blue water

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PHOTO OF THE DAY

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Mount St Helens, Washington, USA by Max Foster

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The Grand Canyon and the Milky way are two of the greatest wonders to behold, but rarely are the two in frame together, especially for the milky way arch since the major divide of the Grand Canyon spans from east to west. For years, I studied multiple locations along the Grand Canyon and made trips to scout out these areas and simulate what the Milky way would look like across these locations. Finally, I stumbled upon a picture by Zachary Gertsch of the Colorado river bend that looked like it would be the perfect spot to be able to capture the Grand Canyon and the Milky way arch together. Finally, I was able to capture the picture I had dreamed of for years.

This picture was stitched by using two rows of panoramics. The milky way and the foreground pictures were taken within moments of each other without the camera or tripod moving.

Milky Way: 20 sec, ISO 6400, f/1.8, full frame
Foreground: 135 sec, ISO 1600, f/1.8

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A trio of sandhill cranes ponders the jig one of their colleagues has just danced after rousing from their night in the pond. My guess is the jovial one was relishing the lack of ice on the surface, and anticipating the ease of escaping their terrestrial refuge for a flight to the nearby fields.

I'm hoping this photo will make it into my contacts feeds- my last post apparently did not, and I've noticed that periodically several of my contacts contributions have not made it into my feed. I hope Flickr figures out the bugs soon.

Tags:   Sandhill Cranes Grus canadensis Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge dawn New Mexico

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The light wasn't ideal for landscape photography - far from it. So when we hiked into Bear Beach and the imaginatively named "Rock on a Pillar", I was disappointed. Flat white sky. Very difficult.

Shots in the opposite direction, where dark green forest encroached on the beach, were fine, but views toward Juan de Fuca Strait meant dealing with a featureless sky and distant haze. I chose this POV and crop to minimize the amount of white in the frame. I didn't want to come home with nothing but shots of beach rocks and logs. And considering this was January, we didn't complain, because it wasn't raining. This part of the west coast gets a lot of winter rain.

Photographed at Bear Beach, in Juan de Fuca Provincial Park, Vancouver Island, BC (Canada). Don't use this image on websites, blogs, or other media without explicit permission ©2015 James R. Page - all rights reserved.

Tags:   landscape square beach shore shoreline tide tidal white sky not raining! winter wild nature Rock on a Pillar Bear Beach Juan de Fuca Provincial Park Vancouver Island BC British Columbia Canada copyrighted James R. Page 2015 naturesquare

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