A UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter pilot returns from a mission.
I’ve always liked doing environmental portraits that border on candid shots. This weekend I had the opportunity to do a little shooting at the National Guard heliport in Phoenix and caught this image of a Blackhawk pilot after a flight with the Medical Detachment.
The Susquehanna River near Apalachin, NY
Our visit to New York state brought us to the banks of the Susquehanna River where surface ice was starting to form. This was a beautiful clear day, just warm enough that the frozen mist on the tree branches was just starting to melt in the sun, giving everything a jeweled look.
Fly out surveying her yard
With all the excitement caused by the new puppy, it’s been important to make sure Fly gets some attention as well. As Whiskey got older and had more problems, she got the bulk of the attention. We don’t want Fly getting depressed about Trix since she already misses her bossy buddy Whiskey.
I’ve never been one to do year end retrospectives, but I thought I’d give it a try this year.
Tony Bennett, an Anna’s Hummingbird that hangs out in our back yard
In January we spent time getting to know one of our resident hummingbirds. We’ve since named him “Tony Bennett” since he comes out and sings to us in the morning when we exercise the dogs.
Trix and Fly getting to know each other.
The new puppy around the house is Trix, a 10 month old Border Collie/Australian Shepard mix. Lots of energy and self centered like only a puppy can be. Fly gets along with her well, although she has had to explain to Trix about keeping to her own food bowl. Trix, on the other hand, doesn’t understand why everyone doesn’t want to play with her 23 hours per day. She’ll start pestering Fly who will just get up and walk away when she’s not interested.
A Siberian Tiger watching from the brush.
Most of us think of taking a photograph of a person as capturing that person in a moment in time. It can range from a snapshot to a carefully crafted portrait. When a photographer wants to tell a story, they’ll frequently use a model. We see it all the time in advertising as well as in fine art photography. Not all models are people – there are animal models as well. Just as with people they may be featured in advertising, entertainment, or sometimes just as a study.
Landscape in Kalispell, Montana
We recently spent a few days in Montana, the first time I’ve been there. It’s an absolutely beautiful place. We’re going to need to arrange a landscape trip.
It’s a bit sad around the house today, we just had to say good bye to Whiskey, our border collie for the last 14 years. She was a loving but timid soul, leery of large animals. As a puppy her first reaction to seeing a horse was to slip the leash and run home. We won’t even talk about what she thought about cows. This photo was taken last year and does a nice job of showing how pretty she was. She’s been a sweet heart and was able to stay active with us to the very end. Sadly, her kidneys started to fail and there was little we could do. We’ll miss her.
A White Winged Dove dives off a branch for some quick airspeed
In the helicopter world there are two kinds of take off profiles – altitude over airspeed where you are trying to clear an obstacle and airspeed over altitude where you gain flying speed before gaining any height. It takes less power to do airspeed over altitude and as such that’s the preferred method, situation permitting. It also makes sense for birds, though as quick as they are you seldom notice it. Several doves in a nearby pine tree were being skittish and I was trying to get some pictures of them lighting and leaving the tree. I caught this one almost by accident. I could see him ready to leave and hit the shutter as he stretched out, catching him in his dive. He’s a split second away from flapping his wings to level off.
The street outside our front door
We do have wet weather once in a while in the southwest. Usually we get all of our rain for the year in a short period, aided by whatever storms happen to be moving our way from the Pacific Ocean. By the time they get to us they’ve normally lost much of the energy they started with and break up into smaller thunderstorms moving north through the deserts. This year hurricane Odile brought quite the storm our way. As you can see from the aftermath we had a little street flooding.
Phil Ryan Photography 