Tuesday, January 17, 2006

Almost Like Film

Just before leaving on vacation, we journeyed up to the Skagit River valley hoping to see lots of Bald Eagles. That's about a four hour drive from home. However, the weather was overcast and raining and the Skagit River was close to flooding. Flood warnings had been issued for many areas near the Cascade mountains that day. We saw perhaps a dozen eagles, all huddling in trees waiting for the weather to improve. Lower water in the river would probably have made the salmon more available too! We did see some swans in a field, probably early arrivals for the season.

It was cold, wet, and uncomfortable but provided an opportunity to experiment with my new Tokina 12-24mm f/4.0 zoom lens. The lens performed admirably. I processed the images to look like some of the vibrant color slide film that was more common when I was younger. This seemed to be a nice antidote to the day.