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Backyard Bobcats

Naptime

Yesterday I walked past a window in my house and out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of a small bobcat sleeping in the garden. We’re in the hottest part of summer and this kitty had found a shady, cool spot to hang out on a 100º plus day. I grabbed my iphone to catch some video and snapshots. I was only a couple of feet away on the other side of the windowpane, but the bobcat had no idea I was there.

I consider myself to be extraordinarily fortunate to live in a riparian area that creates a wildlife corridor for Arizona’s desert creatures. Bobcats are frequent visitors. I often see them strolling along our driveway, or lapping water out of the fountain, completely relaxed in what they surely consider their own private estate. Presumably, they offer some semblance of rodent control as well!

Below are a few shots I’ve captured of our resident felines over the years. Usually I don’t have my ‘big’ camera with me when I happen to spot one, but occasionally I luck out. I just thought I’d share my enjoyment of these beautiful creatures while my recent encounter was fresh in my mind.

Click photo to play slideshow.

Posted by Carol in Arizona

Horse Show Pan Blurs

I’m at a horse show this week, so it seems appropriate to feature equestrian-themed images. I’m having fun playing around with pan blurs – a camera setting where the shutter speed is set to slow. When I’m trying to freeze action I set my camera at 1/2000 second. For pan blurs I slow it down to 1/30 second. This causes all motion to be blurred. The challenge is to ‘pan’ the camera to follow the subject, trying to capture something significant sharp and in focus even as the rest of the image is blurred and streaked from the movement of the camera as it follows the horse and rider.

The successes are few and far between! I might take a thousand images at high speed and discard all but a handful. Below is an example of a fail, to give you an idea. And even when I successfully catch the focus, the position of the subject matters as well. There is no pleasure in viewing an awkward gesture, in focus or not!

Here is the same horse, in the same class – one of the few successes among the many throwaways. The camera autofocus locked in on his head and neck, plus the rider – just enough to give the photo a focal point of clarity while everything else blurs, adding to the impression of motion and speed.

Show jumping is a colorful sport, with brightly painted jumps and gaily waving flags to frame the horse/rider combinations. As a result, in post-processing, I like to amp up the saturation to add to the artistry of the finished image. This one has been added to my online portfolio.

Posted by Carol in California

ShoutOut Arizona Magazine Article

Meet Carol Parker | Photographic Artist

I am excited that ShoutOut Arizona Magazine released a feature story about my photography online. This week I thought I’d share it with you. Click on the link below to read the entire article. I hope you enjoy this peek into my background and motivation!

Posted by Carol in Arizona

A Celebration of Dolphins

Last Thursday was National Dolphin Day. I’ve been pretty busy fulfilling orders for my Mother’s Day sale but I had time to post this image on Facebook and it got a lot of attention. I thought it would be fun to share some more information about this rather unique shot.

I’m quite proud of this photograph. It was awarded a prize in an exhibition held at the San Diego Museum of Art a few years ago.

We were sailing off the coast of Southern California early one morning, embarking on a passage north to spend the summer in British Columbia. I was perched on the bow of the boat, legs hanging over the side but with one arm wrapped securely around a stanchion for safety, shooting straight down at a pod of dolphins that were riding the boat’s bow wave.

With the rising sun low in the sky to port, the starboard side of the boat’s hull was in deep shadow, which enabled me to capture a clean image with no glare. The result is so abstract that often viewers guess at the subject matter! What you see is the back of a dolphin rising to the surface, dorsal fin just breaking clear of the water as bubbles from his exhaled breath cascade down his back. 

This is a true SOC (straight out of camera) image. I love to put my personal touch on my photographs back in my digital darkroom, but there was literally nothing I could do to improve on this image.

Here’s another shot I captured the same morning. These are Pacific white-sided dolphins, abundant off the west coast of North America as well as other parts of the world. Luckily for me, they are renowned for their fondness of riding the bow waves of boats!

Posted by Carol in California

Bragging About my Sister

“Sunset Silhouette © Patty Hosmer, HoofPrints Fine Art Photography

I did NOT take this photo!

That honor belongs to my photographer sister Patty Hosmer, who recently was awarded an amazing “3rd Place – Honor of Distinction” in the 15th Annual International Color Awards photography competition. This is a worldwide photography contest that drew 7,000 entries from more than 38 countries in the professional division that she entered. What an incredible achievement to place in the Top Three! This same image also won 1st Place in the professional division of the Silhouettes Category.

Another of Patty’s award-winning photographs is this beautiful Western Lifestyle image “Gathering With God’s Rays” which won Best in Competition in the Calgary Stampeded’s 2017 Photo Competition. Patty and I traveled together to Calgary during the Stampede to accept her prize.

“Gathering With God’s Rays” © Patty Hosmer, HoofPrints Fine Art Photography

Patty was taking beautiful photographs before I ever got started. As a matter of fact, I bought my first professional camera gear from Patty when she was making the switch from Nikon to Canon. It’s fun to share our passion with each other, from ideas to editing techniques. Best of all, we have traveled worldwide together taking advantage of exciting photo workshops.

Our very first joint venture was to Prague in the Czech Republic way back in 2007. Since then we have shared adventures to Africa’s Masai Mara Game Reserve in Kenya, the Katmai Wilderness in Alaska, an Icelandic Horse Farm in Iceland, Bosque del Apache Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico, Kauai and the Big Island in Hawaii, Mammoth in California, Photoshop World in Las Vegas, and next summer we have plans to travel to France to photograph the beautiful white horses of the Camargue.

© Patty Hosmer, HoofPrints Fine Art Photography

Patty is a lifelong horse person, a trait she and I both inherited from our mother who was an avid horsewoman all her life. Here we are at ages 9 (Patty) and 11 (me) at the Barrington Horse Show in Illinois.

© June Fallaw

Patty started her equine photography career specializing in champion Quarter Horses on the show circuit. Her in-depth knowledge of horse behavior and conformation helps her produce superior equine portraiture. From horses her business expanded to include portraits of girls with their horses, and eventually to high school senior portraits taken in natural surroundings. Even to this day, I always invite her to photography my own horses because she has such a good eye for best showcasing their quality. This is a head shot of my Holsteiner stallion Clintord I.

“Head Portrait of Clintord” © Patty Hosmer, HoofPrints Fine Art Photography

These days Patty is an avid Welsh Corgi fancier as well, competing her homebred dogs in both conformation and agility with great success. Of course Corgi portraiture is another of her talents!

© Patty Hosmer, HoofPrints Fine Art Photography

If you’d like to see more of Patty’s work, you can check out her website hoofprintsfineart.com or follow her on Facebook at facebook.com/hfprints

Posted by Carol in Arizona

Sonoran Spring

The scent of spring is in the air here in the desert southwest. Our daytime highs are headed into the 80s and maybe even a few low 90s (but it’s a dry heat!) this week and next . We never know – a week ago our nighttime temps were in the 30s and last year it snowed right about now.

Seasoned desert dwellers know to judge the true arrival of consistently warm weather by observing the mesquite trees. These hardy natives only leaf out when all threat of frost has passed. In contrast, cottonwood trees offer an early harbinger of spring – they start to bud in February and by now they are fully crowned with new green leaves.

The image above is a favorite of mine. I have it framed and hanging in my home. The pink flowers are Mexican primroses. They bloom enthusiastically every year, showing their pink faces for at least a month before subsiding into nondescript ground cover until the next spring. This was an exceptionally good season for them and my backyard was filled with billows of pink.

To capture this image, I slipped out of the house at dawn. Stretching out flat on the ground on my stomach, I placed my wide-angle lens as close as possible to the flowers while still maintaining focus. Visions of rattlesnakes lurking in the ground cover definitely danced through my head. The mesquite tree in the distance and the glimpse of our Catalina mountain range on the horizon add environmental context to this wildflower portrait.

Another of my favorite spring subjects are the vibrant blooms of the Santa Rita Prickly Pear cactus. The contrast between the profuse yellow flowers and the lavender paddles of the cacti always catches my eye. I have spent hours circling a clumb of cactus trying for close-up compositions. Predictably, I have come away with multiple minuscule needles embedded in my fingers and hands as a result of brushing up too close.

Still I’m hopeful that the chilly winter temps are done for now. I’m in a spring mood!

Posted by Carol in Arizona

Love Song

I thought I’d share how an image can progress from a mundane photo to a print-worthy work of art. And to celebrate the successful creation of my new release, I’m offering ‘Love Song’ at a deep discount in an introductory Flash Sale!

A few weeks ago I went on a day trip to Whitewater Draw in southeastern Arizona, only a couple of hours from my home. Sandhill cranes in the tens of thousands are wintering there. They roost in the shallow ponds at night for safety from predators and fly out at sunrise to nearby fields to forage. They return to the ponds midday when the light for photography is harsh and unappealing.

Due to our ongoing drought, the water level was low and the shoreline had receded from the designated observation areas. I used a big 200-600mm zoom to catch the action, but everything was pretty far off in the distance. Here’s the shot I captured, straight from my camera. Not too inspiring, huh?

Sandhill cranes mate for life and they keep the bond strong throughout the year by performing courtship displays, not only during the breeding season but all year around. In the far distance I could see this pair dancing, spreading their wings, strutting, and raising their voices in vocalization. I clicked the shutter and grabbed what I could, but by no means could this be called a masterful ‘in camera’ capture!

The first thing to do was look for a crop to highlight the intended subject matter and eliminate the distractions. The saving grace that makes this possible is the fact that my professional camera is capable of taking high resolution images which allows for such a severe crop without pixellating the image. I tried both horizontal and vertical crops, tweaking until I finally settled on this for starters. But again, the background was an uninspiring muddy brown and still included bits and pieces of neighboring cranes.

Some enhancements in Photoshop eliminated the distractions and brightened and sharpened the details. But it still was not an image to write home about.

Back again in Photoshop, the final step was to merge the subject cranes with an artistic textural background, using digital brush strokes to blend, strengthen or soften the effect as needed. I chose this particular background for the soft complementary colors and the spattered white space that helps to frame the romantic duo and erase the last vestiges of neighboring birds.

Posted by Carol in Arizona

Day Trip to Whitewater Draw

Feb 10, 2022

A fun outing last week to Whitewater Draw, not far from home. Whitewater Draw is a wildlife area managed by the Arizona Game & Fish Department. It covers approximately 600 acres of wetlands and riparian habitat and features a large lake. Located only a couple of hours from Tucson, and close to Tombstone and Bisbee, it makes for an entertaining day trip.

Sandhill Cranes in the tens of thousands spend the winter there. The cranes take wing at sunrise, leaving the ponds to forage for food in nearby fields. They return to the water midday to spend the night in safety from predators. Other waterfowl including ducks, geese, herons, egrets and shorebirds are also attracted to the shallow waters and wetlands.

The site amenities are minimal but include gravel parking lots, picnic tables, signed trails, and benches and viewing platforms by the lake shore. Dogs on leash are allowed. We visited on a Tuesday and it was not at all crowded – just scattered small groups of folks enjoying the sights and sounds of nature.

My visit was a casual foray just to check things out. If I had been serious about photography, I would have arrived the evening before, camped overnight, and set my alarm clock to wake pre-dawn to photograph the cranes taking off at sunrise. Still, even though this was just a scouting expedition, I didn’t leave my camera at home.

The cloudy skies were to my benefit, canceling out harsh midday shadows. I was happy with the images I captured that day. I’m still looking through my files for the keepers, but here are a couple I thought were print-worthy.

Be sure to click on the video at the top of this post to hear the sound of thousands of cranes socializing. 

SYNCHRONIZED FOR SPLASHDOWN
Sandhill Cranes glide down for a water landing at the Whitewater Draw Wildlife Area in southeastern Arizona. It’s fascinating to see their ability to synchronize wingstrokes in flight.
FORAGING IN THE MUD
I like the pose of this bird, with his lifted foot encased in mud and his eyes intently focused in search of a meal.
Posted by Carol in Arizona

Coming Out of Hibernation

 

Did you miss me?

For bears, it’s time to think about hibernating, but for me – I’m just emerging from my self-imposed pandemic isolation.

My photography is oriented around travel adventures, so the last nearly two years put a serious crimp in my motivation. A trip to Scotland was postponed two years in a row (now rescheduled for June 2023). I also chickened out on a trip this year to Africa where vaccination rates are still abysmal. But for a brief time this summer things were looking promising and I took advantage of that window to squeeze in an Alaskan photo workshop with our intrepid leader Denise Ippolito of A Creative Adventure Photography. Denise does all the hard organizational work and all we have to do is show up for an amazing photography oriented experience! The showing up part can be a challenge however, as you will read shortly.

My photographer sister Patty Hosmer (HoofPrints Fine Art Photo) and I traveled together to the Katmai National Park and Preserve, a four million acre wilderness in southern Alaska. Alaskan brown bears fishing for salmon were the focus of the workshop. Sharing the experience with my sister was double the fun.

Just getting to the site is a challenge in itself. From Tucson we flew on Alaska Airlines to Seattle, connecting to a flight to Anchorage where we spent the night before boarding a third flight to King Salmon, Alaska. Never heard of it? Not surprising – King Salmon is a very small airport that services commercial fishermen, cannery workers and intrepid tourists in that order.

We spent another night’s layover in a rustic apartment in King Salmon. I think we had the last available rental in this very small town and we were lucky to have been offered the chance to share it with another workshop participant. Finally we boarded our fourth and final ride aboard a DeHavilland Beaver bush plane that carried us to our week’s lodging at ATA (Alaskan Trophy Adventures) Lodge.

The pilot strapped us in, told us “don’t touch anything” and took off, leveling off a mere thousand feet or so above the terrain on the 30 mile flight to the lodge. This afforded us a terrific aerial view of the unspoiled landscape and meandering waterways that constitute part of the Bristol Bay Watershed.

Bristol Bay has been in the news for the past few years due to controversy over the construction of the Pebble Mine – a massive undertaking that would destroy the pristine environment in the watershed, and also the thriving salmon fishery – the last one surviving in the world. This past season a record 64.5 million salmon were counted during the salmon run in Bristol Bay as the fish swim upstream from the ocean to the headlands where they spawn and die, but where a new generation hatches. Permits for the mine have been on-again, off-again, but currently the project has been squelched, hopefully forever.

Alaskan brown bears are the 2nd largest species of bear on the planet behind polar bears. Genetically identical to mainland grizzlies, they are bigger because they live in an environment with bountiful food supplies. Bears are omnivores and will eat anything from grass and berries on up the food chain. They even dig up clams on Katmai’s beaches. Salmon season in late July through September is their opportunity to really pack on the pounds before disappearing for months into winter hibernation. At nearby Brooks Falls there is an annual online Fat Bear contest in which hundreds of thousands of votes are cast for the chunkiest contenders. This year’s champion was a 25 year old bear named 480 Otis, who is now a four-time winner of the contest. Otis weighs more than 1,000 pounds and his success even at his advanced age can be attributed to his technique of sitting in the falls, apparently napping, but in fact sharply alert to the prospect of any salmon headed his way for an easy catch.

Our lodge was located on the Alagnak River, a designated Wild & Scenic River. Salmon season had already peaked at our location before we arrived. The biggest, strongest bears had moved on to better fishing grounds. The bears that remained worked hard to catch the few remaining fish. Sows led their small spring cubs on what must have been exhausting treks pacing up and down the well-worn paths for miles along the riverbank. Adolescent bears were especially active and prone to frequent head-first plunges into the shallow river in often futile efforts to pin down a salmon.

We spent seven days, from 9 to 5 each and every day, cruising up and down the river in small open fishing boats that held a guide and two or three photographers. It was a bit on the chilly side but we were squished into multiple layers of clothing topped off by waterproof chest-high waders and boots, hats to keep our ears warm, and mosquito netting to protect our faces from the huge and voracious Alaskan mosquitoes! The skies were grey but somehow we never got rained on – a stroke of luck! I even managed to crack a rib trying to awkwardly exit one of the boats and instead falling flat on the shore, half in and half out of the boat, directly on top of my camera which I was trying to protect from the water.

Back ashore each evening in our rustic cabin, we peeled out of our waders, jackets, sweaters, boots, gloves and hats, and headed off to a hearty dinner in the main dining room of the lodge where we could compare bear sightings and enjoy gourmet cooking (with a heavy emphasis on salmon) and a much anticipated glass of wine. Then back to the cabin for some rushed photo processing before the generator shut down and we were subjected to a mandatory lights out.

One night we were even treated to the fringes of the largest earthquake to hit Alaska in 50 plus years – an 8.2 tremblor that struck some 250 miles away but gave the lodge a good wake-up shaking, cracking a plate glass window and tumbling waders to the floor from their wall hooks. It also did in the septic system for the ‘luxury’ lodge accommodations high on a hill, forcing those occupants to utilize an outhouse for the duration. Patty and I were obliviously happy down by the river in our cabin that featured indoor plumbing.

I took about 20,000 photographs in those seven days. My Sony a1 camera has a high-speed mode that can take 30 frames per second, which comes in handy when action is at its peak, but isn’t so much fun when it’s time to dig through the files looking for the keepers. I’ve been processing bear photographs for the past few months and posting favorites on my Facebook page. There is now a nice collection of these on my website that displays a variety of special moments in the lives of Alaskan brown bears, as well as some other Alaskan wildlife including bald eagles and a red fox that frequented our lodge for scraps. I love to capture intimate moments revealed by the behavior of wild animals as they go about their daily lives. I feel my new collection succeeds in portraying a collage of these small moments frozen in time by the camera’s lens.

Just this past weekend I finally got around to creating my 2022 Alaskan Bear calendar after taking votes on Facebook for crowd favorite images. And once I made one calendar, it was pretty easy to make more – so I can now offer eight different calendars featuring Alaskan bears, African wildlife, seascapes and the Sonoran desert all available for purchase. 

 

 

Posted by Carol in Alaska

Announcing a Monthly Free Print Giveaway!

Win this print. “White Water Lily”, 10″ x 15″ fine art paper print, digitally signed. Shipped for free worldwide to the winner. Winner to be announced May 1, 2020.

April 6, 2020

In these strange times, as we socially distance ourselves and hunker down in self-isolation, meanwhile the earth keeps on rotating and the seasons continue to come and go. Spring has arrived in full force here in Arizona. The temperatures are balmy, the wildflowers are blooming, and I saw the first waterlily blossom of the season show its face on our pond just this week. The cottonwood trees are fully leafed out, and the mesquite trees are thinking about it!

Speaking of cottonwood trees, a pair of Cooper’s hawks have a nest of youngsters in the tree right outside my kitchen window – but I can’t see them because of all those green leaves! I’m jealous of a photographer friend in Scottsdale who has a nest of red-tail hawks in the arms of a saguaro. He has a great view of the fledglings. Did you know a baby hawk is called an eyas? I didn’t – I had to look it up.

On my Facebook and Instagram pages I’ve been sharing some photos with a springtime theme, just to bring a little beauty into our lives. And that has inspired me to initiate a monthly free print giveaway. The free print for the month of April is “White Water Lily”.  Anyone who subscribes to this blog and is on my email list is automatically entered. So if you are reading this now in your email, know that you’re already in the drawing.

For anyone else who’d like to participate, just add your first name and email to this subscription page, and you’ll be entered for this drawing and future monthly giveaways as well! Share the good news with your friends!

Click below to enjoy a gallery of spring images. All are available for purchase over on my website if you decide you’d like to bring the outdoors into your home to brighten those four walls!

 

 

 

 

Posted by Carol in Arizona