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Severe Solar Storm Strikes!

3/24/2023

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When I moved to the Puget Sound region a decade ago, I had only seen the Aurora Borealis in photos, and considered it one of those once-in-a-lifetime awe-inspiring encounters that I would only experience vicariously. But, amazingly enough, the Northern Lights can be seen in Western Washington when certain conditions are met. When visible to the naked eye, they usually look like clouds at the horizon, most often white, but brighter than usual. Using long exposure on a camera with a tripod, photographers can capture the color of this magnetic disturbance in the atmosphere that our eyes can’t. And I've now "seen the light(s)"!

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Another Day in Paradise?

5/27/2021

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The eagle and its mate squabble over the great blue heron catch

​The wildest thing happened a week ago. I was making dinner in the kitchen, talking to my husband who was standing at the counter when we heard a tremendous amount of avian racket outside. Kevin looked out the living room window and saw a bald eagle take down a great blue heron mid-flight and land in the water. I ran out of the kitchen and we both watched through the windows as the eagle swam, using its wings to “freestyle” struggling to stay above water while it dragged the heron along underwater in its talons toward our beach.

My camera was upstairs, and once the eagle made it to shore, I ran to get it. I opened the bathroom window, popped out the screen and snapped a few hundred photos (sports mode) from there of the eagle eating its prey on the oyster bed just at the edge of our beach. I usually take wildlife photos through my windows since opening doors and windows almost always causes them to scatter, but I didn’t want glass in the way of this rare sight.

Great blue herons eat a fair number of critters eagles eat, and eagles usually only go for nestlings, though a local resident noted he’s been watching one pair of eagles hunt herons for the past few years, and they’re now teaching their juveniles to do so as well.

The eagle looked in my direction, but it stayed put, not wanting to leave its kill. Watching it stand atop the heron, and tear into it, spitting out feathers was like watching a nature documentary that spares nothing. When the eagle moved off as its mate approached, the heron sat up, and it was then that I realized the poor bird was alive while being consumed. Kevin, who was still in the living room watching, had to step away at this. But I kept on snapping, looking through my camera, thankful it served as a filter that gave me some distance as I became a documentarian of this disturbing yet fascinating moment in the circle of life. 

I usually photograph sunsets, mountains, rainbows, gorgeous watery reflections, and wildlife in attractive poses because I live in a place abundant with natural beauty. But there is another side to life in paradise that involves violence. Violence necessary for survival which I as a human carnivore can blithely ignore since others kill and butcher meat for me. My only struggle is in following recipes. 

I'm humbled and fortunate to have witnessed the food chain in action without even seeking it out. 

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Eagle standing atop the great blue heron it caught. If you'd like to see more photos of the kill (a bit graphic) download the file below.
bald_eagle_eating_a_great_blue_heron.pdf
File Size: 932 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File

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Photography Tips for Surviving the Summer of COVID-19

9/25/2020

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  1. Track the comet NEOWISE or the Milky Way. Use an app, such as PhotoPills, if you like.
  2. Sit outside after civil twilight has ended.
  3. Wear shorts, flip-flops and a short-sleeved T-shirt as the unusual heat lingers and licks your skin.
  4. Set up your tripod on the deck overlooking the water and winking lights across the bay.
  5. Turn on your camera, choosing manual mode and manual focus.
  6. Look through the viewfinder and turn the focus knob until the wavering lights blink like pointed Christmas tree baubles.
  7. Train your lens above the Olympic Mountains on the horizon.
  8. Set your lens as wide as possible, the F-stop as low as possible, and the ISO low, too.
  9. Experiment with exposure time: 10, 15, 20, 30, 45 seconds.
  10. Experiment with ISO: 400, 800, 1600, 3200, 6400.
  11. Sit in the silence of the camera at work, exposing for you what is beyond the ability of your naked eye to comprehend but is present none-the-less.
  12. Listen to the seals growl on the floating platform just offshore, and the rhythmic shirring of tires on asphalt as the occasional car travels down the road.
  13. Smell the brine of exposed oysters, beached eel grass, the whiff of the vacationers’ campfire on the other side of the overgrown lot next door.
  14. Sit and snap the shutter and stare and feel the infinitesimal scale of your existence amid the constellations, the galaxy, and the surprise interstellar visitor whose tail of fire, ice, and space dust streaks through consciousness as in this moment, the ego is blissfully napping and the soul is reunited with existential acceptance and unconditional love.
  15. It doesn’t matter that the images you expose can never reveal the depth of the truth that washes over you. It is the stillness and surety of belonging you most need to capture and store in the reservoir of your heart.
  16. The camera is simply a tool, like the breath in yoga, connecting you to the both/and inherent in everything.
  17. In 30 minutes, or 45, or 60, go back inside
  18. Load the memory card into your computer.
  19. Import your files.
  20. Click through them cropping, straightening, adjusting the light and shadows.
  21. Hope for a single image out of hundreds to carry from this night into the morning, a gift you might offer others cloistered in apartments while a virus runs amok. A tiny JPG flickering in a Facebook feed—a morsel of divine nourishment given to you and through you for the good of the world.
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    I began blogging about "This or Something Better" in 2011 when my husband and I were discerning what came next in our lives, which turned out to be relocating to Puget Sound from our Native California. My older posts can be found here.

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    Newsletters

    • WooHoo! I Made a Calendar 10/24
    • All My Favorite People Are Poets 09/24
    • Songs of the Night Sky 09/24
    • Hello September 09/24 
    • Stealth Solar Storm 08/24
    • Star Party Edition 07/24
    • East Village Edition 06/24
    • Dancing Auroras Overhead 05/24
    • National Poetry Month Wrap Up 04/24
    • Surprise, I Have a New Book 03/24
    • Happy Ashentine's Day 02/24
    • The Gift of Poemographs 01/24
    • A Recipe for Winter Warmth 01/24
    • Gifts for the Coming Year 12/23
    • Giving Thanks 11/23
    • A Cottage for Women Creatives 11/23
    • Gathering Light 10/23
    • Home by Another Road 10/23
    • P is for Photos, Poems, and Prose 09/23
    • To Stardust We Shall Return 09/23
    • Books by Day & Stars by Night 07/23
    • It's My Party 07/23
    • May Mashup 05/23
    • Poetry on the Move 04/23
    • My New Book Is Born 04/23
    • Severe Solar Storm Edition 03/23
    • Are We There Yet? 03/23
    • Let Me Change Your Life 12/22
    • Astronomical Wonders 09/22 
    • Finding Sustenance in this Season 03/22
    • Happy Holidays 12/21
    • Treats Not Tricks 10/21
    • Here in the Ember Months 09/21
    • Sizzling Summer Sights & Sounds 07/21
    • Memorial Day Update 05/21
    • Holy Week 03/21
    • March Madness 03/21
    • Solstice Greetings 12/20
    • The Gratitude Issue 11/20
    • Autumn Is Upon Us 09/20
    • Summer Sightings 07/20
    • What to do with this pain 05/20
    • New Anthology 05/20
    • Easter Edition 04/20
    • Sequestered Sunday 03/20
    • Keep Calm & Cloister On 03/20
    • February Feasting 02/20
    • Cathy's Autumn Update 11/19
    • Settle in to September 09/19
    • Coming Up! 08/19
    • A New Memoir in the Family 07/19
    • California Here I Come 06/19
    • Sky's the Limit 04/19
    • Spring Update 03/19
    • New Book 02/19
    • Fabulous February Literary Update 02/19
    • New Year News Letter 01/19
    • Winter Writing Update 12/18 
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