Sitting on the Dock on the Bay

Yep, we now have a dock that is actually in the water. Two of them in fact. A storm earlier this year left one of our existing docks landlocked and the other floated away, never to be found.

Freddy was first to notice the arrival.

Captain Ron and First Mate Jim arrived in a pontoon boat towing something.

Freddy had to check it out.

Then Captain Ron and First Mate Jim came back with another dock.

Freddy was so happy that he invited a friend to play on it.

Pretty soon the word got out and campers were jumping at the chance to see the new docks. Literally.

The boaters came by to see what the fuss was about.

And spread the good news to their friends. Yes, there is cell reception on the water.

There was much rejoicing.

We had several groups camp with us over the weekend. This was the largest.

A wonderful herd of campers that took over the new docks, much to the chagrin of the campers on The Point.

There was a smaller group from Europe that camped in cabins on either side of Freddy and me. He made sure they were safe, putting out any small fires caused by drifting embers.

And zealously guarded their picnic tables from birds and squirrels.

He is a good dog. Everybody loves Freddy.

The smallest group was the Ford Family, which wasn't fully complete as two of the nine kids couldn't make the trip. Freddy played some ball with them. Even occasionally giving it back.

He even filled in for the absent family members in the portrait.

With his ball. He is a very good dog.

Let us wrap up our final blog post here with some pretty sunset pictures and a final photo tip.

Yeah, that is site 128, the Osprey Nest. Can't beat it.

Beauty can also be found as you simply walk down a road. Nature has a certain symmetry if you look close enough.

Like this weed for example.

Nothing special, right? Wrong. Get close.

Amazing.

Last photo tip is about flowing water.

Flowing Water

So you have found a nice waterfall or river and you want your photos to look a bit more “artsy” than usual. The trick is a slower shutter speed. You want to show some movement not a static frozen image.

Below is a standard auto program photo of Madison Falls in Olympic National Park from June 2012.

The camera chose a shutter speed of 1/400 of a second. Kinda boring. Not what it looked like in person. I did not have my tripod with me so for the next shot I chose a shutter speed of 1/8 of a second.

Just set your camera to shutter priority and spin the dial. 1/8 is about the slowest I would do handheld and that is with a vibration reducing lens. See the difference?

That is closer to what it looked like to my eyes. How about a more extreme example? OK, I have one. 

When I was hiking some trails in Hillsborough River State Park in Florida  I came across their famed rapids (Hey, when the tallest mountain in South Florida is 86 feet you take what you can get). And I brought my tripod with me. This photo was shot at 1/500 of a second.

Next I put my camera on a tripod and changed the shutter speed to one second.

Big difference between the two. Maybe too much. But you get the idea. Experiment with the shutter speed and you will get results that will make your friends jealous. 

The last photo below is from Silver Falls State Park in Oregon this last summer. I broke my own rule and shot it at 1/2 second handheld, but I was bracing myself against a railing. 

The background is a little out of focus but the movement of South Falls is clearly shown.

That was from behind the waterfall. One of my favorite campgrounds.

Regards,

Greg and Freddy and the extremely hard working staff at Camp Coeur d'Alene.