Tag: rain

Is That It?

Our dog Ellie looks up at me with a light dusting of snow on her back as she stands in a muddy dog park at Irving Park in the Irvington neighborhood of Portland, Oregon on December 27, 2015. Original: _L1A4108.CR2

My wife and I wanted to see the new Star Wars movie so a couple of days after Christmas we drove up to a neighborhood movie theater. When we came out a good bit of snow was coming down, a rarity for this area, but I knew it wasn’t supposed to last long. And it didn’t, slowing down even during the short drive home.

I took Ellie to the dog park as soon as we got home, both because she loves the snow and because it reminds me of the day we decided to adopt a dog and later found the perfect one. Sadly though the snow had all but stopped and it was too warm and wet for it to stick to the ground. I couldn’t resist a picture of her looking up at me with a light dusting of snow on her back as she stood in the muddy dog park.

But she wasn’t lamenting the lack of snow but rather watching me to see when I would start running, as her favorite game is to run beside me and match my every move. This field used to be grass and clay which turned into a soupy mess the entire winter. Ellie would dance around, giving me her famous chop chop, encouraging me to run. I could never convince her that only one of us was built to run in that slop. But now that there is sand in the main part of the dog park, it not only drains much faster but also compacts nicely under your feet, so while you may get a bit dirty when it’s soaking wet you’ll maintain good footing while you run. My thanks to the parks department for that, it’s made a big difference in our winter walks.

📷: Canon 7D II | Sigma 17-50mm f/2.8
🗓️: December 27, 2015

A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall

A ring-necked duck swims in a heavy rain on Bull Lake

I was sitting next to Bull Lake for a while, watching a male bufflehead diving for food and photographing him whenever he swam close. I’ve been wanting to take more environmental portraits so when he moved a ways off I turned my lens to this distant ring-necked duck as the rain moved in. I was happy enough with the early pics but then the rain turned heavy and pounded the water in large drops. Ducks are built for the wet of course but even so I felt a bit sorry for him as the water exploded around him. The hard rain lasted only seconds, then he and the other ducks resumed their feeding.

If you’d like a closer view of what a ring-necked duck looks like, I took this picture almost a year earlier just one lake over. It was also raining, but only lightly.

The Deluge

A male northern shoveler feeds during a heavy downpour at Long Lake in Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge in Ridgefield, Washington on December 23, 2015. Original: _L1A7885.CR2

The rain here in the Northwest is frequent during the cooler months but it’s usually more drizzle than downpour, yet it has absolutely poured at times this month. I love photographing in the rain and am always a little disappointed when there’s a good strong shower but nothing to shoot. Fortunately I was already watching a group of shovelers feeding in Long Lake when a sudden deluge of large raindrops pounded the surface of the water. The ducks of course are built for wet weather and fed unabated, and soon enough the rain softened in intensity.

📷: Canon 7D II | Canon 500mm f/4L IS USM + 1.4x III
🗓️: December 23, 2015

Holes in the Earth

A hole dug by dogs in the dog park is partially filled with water

We finally got some much needed rain and I wanted to take a picture to celebrate it, but we also got high winds so I couldn’t take any macro pictures like last time. But when I took Ellie up to the dog park I saw this hole that had started to fill with water and it reminded me of another hole in the earth I like photographing, one from Yellowstone National Park (shown below). That one is one of the many geothermal features in the area and is filled with water from below, not above.

There are a few of these holes in the dog park, and since Ellie likes to run beside me in the park, I have to navigate around the holes so that neither one of us steps in one and twists an ankle (she watches me more than the way ahead, trusting me not to lead her astray). The parks folks fill them in occasionally but some dogs like to dig, so new holes always appear. They’ve been spreading sand at this end of the park the past few years and it’s a big help during the winter when rain is not hard to come by, as the sand drains well and it gives Ellie and I a safe area to run in. In the old days she’d still want to run out into the grass, but only one of us has a body built for running in such muddy circumstances, and these days even she isn’t quite as steady on her feet as age begins to take its toll.

I never imagined the dog park would remind me of my beloved Yellowstone so today’s visit made me smile almost as much as the goofball dog who waited patiently for me to take the picture, and of course expected a treat as her reward.

A geothermal feature filled with water in Yellowstone National Park

Water Slide

Raindrops cover the surface of the flowe of a black-and-blue salvia

After an unusually hot and dry summer, we got some much needed rain this weekend so I grabbed my macro lens for some pictures of the flowers and insects in our garden covered in raindrops. This is a close-up of one of the flowers of our black-and-blue salvia. I ended up with a sore back from standing or sitting in uncomfortable positions to get the macro shots that I wanted, I find it rather unfortunate that Canon didn’t put an articulating LCD on the back of the 7D Mark II, which I would use constantly for macro or pet photography.

I pre-ordered the Sony A7R II back when it was first announced and I need to decide in the next week or so if I should cancel the order. I would vastly prefer a mirrorless camera for macro work, and they have a stunning new macro lens for their system, but while the LCD tilts it isn’t fully articulated.

Dining on Wildflowers

A hoary marmot eats wildflowers on a rainy fall afternoon in Mount Rainier National Park

A hoary marmot eats wildflowers on a rainy fall afternoon in Mount Rainier National Park. The pouring rain reduced the crowds on the trails compared to the previous sunny day, but the marmot has to eat rain or shine, for a cool wet afternoon is nothing compared to the brutality of the coming winter that will drive it into hibernation.

Shake It Off

Raindrops coat the back of a sooty grouse

Water drops coat the back of a sooty grouse on a rainy afternoon, but it has shaken most of the water from its head. I wish Canon would build teleconverters into all of its telephoto lenses like they did with their 200-400mm lens, as it would be very helpful on days like this. I was photographing multiple grouse who were moving all around me as I sat on the trail, sometimes walking right up to me as they fed, but I was also keeping my eye on a marmot that was feeding nearby. I would have preferred to switch my teleconverter in and out as my subjects moved about, but given the heavy rain I was hesitant to take the lens off the camera.