Tag Archives: camera

Embracing New Adventures

They are packing and are moving to Cedaredge with me.

The end of this year and the beginning of the new year brings many adventurous changes in my life and hopefully for yours. I’ve always told friends that the only fear I have is remaining the same tomorrow as I am today. Perhaps, this is why I’ve been a risk-taker my entire life.

I’m moving very soon from Grand Junction, Colorado to my new mountain home in Cedaredge, Colorado where the Grand Mesa’s southern slopes meet the Uncompahgre and Gunnison River valleys. The charming mountain town offers friendly neighbors, orchards, and access to dozens of trout lakes. I love that the town has only one traffic signal and just a few historic downtown blocks of diverse small businesses.

Late fall brings bushels of apples on the town’s many trees. The large apple tree in my backyard brings dozens of deer to nibble on the apples. I look forward to connecting with them and taking some photographs to share. This past October, I attended the annual Applefest held at the Cedaredge Town’s Park within walking distance from my new home. Applefest brings over 20,000 people and it is free to attend. I had an amazing time visiting the over 200 vendors, wonderful music, and tasting the delicious food.

Cedaredge genuinely feels like stepping into a Hallmark movie with a sense of community, natural beautiful surroundings, and a wonderful quality of life. Yes, I know, I’m a hopeless romantic, and I do enjoy the Hallmark Christmas movies this time of year. I can believe in experiencing the magic of Christmas. Seriously, wouldn’t you want to have this pleasure? Moving to Cedaredge means I can have the pleasure all year long.  I believe in sharing community with compassion. Today I arranged to volunteer as a server for the Cedaredge Christmas dinner this year. Over 300 people are expected. The cost is a donation but not required. The dinner location is within walking distance of my new home.

Just 15 minutes or so from the town on the Grand Mesa Scenic Byways there are old-growth forests, aspens, meadows and 300 beautiful lakes that lead to the Grand Mesa mountain. I’m planning on taking countless color digital and black and white film photographs of wildlife and nature throughout the four seasons to share. This is one of the reasons I wanted to move to Cedaredge.

One immediate change is that I am honoring my values and principles and I am closing out my Facebook accounts effective today. For a while now, I have been concerned about the direction the Facebook company is moving. From the company’s reactions rather than responses to the community’s trust concerns, I do not believe that Facebook will institute necessary positive changes anytime soon. Nevertheless, I’ll share on this blog, the same positive posts I have on Facebook.

I am encouraging my supportive friends on Facebook to connect and follow me by registering on this blog. You’ll receive an email notice every time I share a new post on the blog. You can now view photographs that I have frequently posted on FB for many years on my photography website at Stephen Bruno Photography. My newest photographs are in the Recent Photo Shoot gallery. The benefit is rather than a select few images I’ve posted on Facebook, you can now see many more images from my photo shoot.

Next year is the time I plan to publish several novels, nonfiction books and poetry, and short stories that I’ve been working on for an eternity. Well, at least it seems that way. I know that I have more wrinkles, less hair, and more bags under my eyes than when I began these books. The beautiful charming mountain atmosphere, wild critters, and friendly people can contribute to my creativity and productivity.

To love means loving the unlovable. To forgive means pardoning the unpardonable. Faith means believing the unbelievable. Hope means hoping when everything seems hopeless.

~Gilbert K. Chesterton 1874-1936, British Author

Appeasing My Empirical Interests Resulted in Serendipity

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When I was in high school, I spent some of my weekends appeasing my empirical interests by undertaking thought-provoking science experiments. Included in the research; I tied a small lightweight cardboard box filled with scientific instruments for measuring ambient temperature, pressure, humidity, and other atmospheric properties to the bottom of several small balloons filled with helium gas.

Walking out into an empty church parking lot, near my home, I carefully released the balloons and cardboard box. I knew that animals may mistake balloon debris for food, ingesting the material, blocking their stomach or intestines leading to starvation. Therefore, I kept the balloons tethered to a very long line and not floating free. After sufficient time for the instruments to gather the information, I retrieved the balloons and cardboard box by pulling on the line and bringing it back to the ground.

When it was colder I used a PEACOCK brand lighter fuel hand-warmer which used a lighter fluid that reacts with a platinum catalyst to release heat by oxidation reactions. It generated heat for about 12 to 24 hours to keep me warm while launching and retrieving the balloons, especially at night.

One day I remembered reading that in 1962, John Glenn thrust into space on board the Friendship 7, America’s first manned spacecraft to orbit the earth, with a specially modified Minolta Hi-Matic camera. I decided to get more sophisticated by adding a camera that had a self-timer to my experiments.  This way, I could take photographs of the city and countryside from a high altitude.

During several months the increasingly quite larger, now single authentic weather balloons, reached ever greater heights with more complex electronic equipment packages including cameras in a large wooden basket. I was in the process of locating and purchasing a huge weather balloon when I received a phone call from the Command Duty Officer at the Naval Air Station Los Alamitos, later renamed Los Alamitos Joint Forces Training Base / Los Alamitos Army Airfield.

Always interested in aviation, I thought this call was a to notify the surrounding community about an upcoming airshow provided by the NAS Los Alamitos. The officer invited me to a tour of the base, lunch at the mess hall officers club and a brief meeting with the base commander. Continue reading →

Supermoon Lunar Eclipse

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2015 © Stephen Bruno

I took this quick image in September 2015 of the “Supermoon Lunar Eclipse” turning red during total Lunar eclipse early this morning with a Nikon D4 and Sigma 50-500mm telephoto lens on a tripod. The color is exactly as I photographed the Moon. This was a challenging project given the darkness and photography equipment that I used and that I took this photograph on my deck with street lights around me. I was primarily wanting to show the actual color more than the details of the Moon. 

http://www.stephenbrunophotography.com/

Continuing Photography Adventures

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Great Horned Owl 2015 © Stephen Bruno

This is a wonderful time of year for amateur and professional photographers to photograph wildlife and nature. During my numerous walks and hikes along the many Northern Arizona trails and sometimes, bushwhacking, I observed much wildlife. Some of these are in plain sight and most of them require practiced observation. Sometimes, simply being present allows one to see wildlife. Frequently, I watch people who walk under around and nearby interesting wildlife. They do this without even noticing what was there. When it seems appropriate, I point out the wildlife.

Some of my knowledge and skills in wildlife photography is the result of watching predators searching and tracking prey. This combined with my naturalist curiosity and knowledge has led to many fascinating experiences and wonderful photography opportunities.

In the future, I will write a question and answer article about photographing wildlife and then, posting it on this blog. This will include questions posed to me over the years. Other questions are what I learned are essential for photographing wildlife.

I am taking names again for those of you, who want to learn how to find, track and photograph wildlife in Northern Arizona. The Field Wildlife Photography Workshop, based on my many professional years’ experience as a wildlife photographer, is on Saturday, March 28, 2015. It is $45 cash for about 4-5 hours not counting travel time. We can car pool if not in Prescott. The last time I recently took a couple of people out (not a workshop), we found and photographed a Bald Eagle, Great Blue Heron, and American Coots within the first hour. Please send me an e-mail to stephenbruno@yahoo.com. You can call 928 458-5737.

This week, I will be visiting Bearizona again to take more wildlife photography. I am looking forward to taking some creative and dramatic photographs of the wildlife. It is always wonderful when I can connect with and photograph their essence. I will upload the images on my photography website listed below and post a link on my Stephen Bruno Photography Facebook page.  Like and follow this Facebook page to receive notifications of future posts. Additionally, during the next few months, I will be photographing wildlife at the local Northern Arizona lakes, rivers and creeks. In the near future, I plan photography at the Grand Canyon. Most of these photography adventures I will do on my own and some, I open to others.

http://www.stephenbrunophotography.com/

Prescott Wildlife & Nature Photography Workshop

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Osprey 2014 © Stephen Bruno

I am confirming who is attending my Prescott Wildlife & Nature photography workshop held on Saturday, June 14, 2014, from 9 am – 1 pm at Lynx Lake

From this South Shore initial location, I can sometimes see the bald Eagle sitting atop a tall tree. Other times there may be a great blue heron or a snowy egret in the small lagoon. I have also photographed an osprey fishing in the same area.

A reminder that the fee is only $25 cash which you can pay the day of the workshop. As you know, I wanted to offer this workshop so that it is affordable to most anyone who wants to learn how to take wonderful pictures. This is much less than my all day photography workshops. You can click on my http://www.stephenbrunophotography.com/ link to view my portfolio to see the quality of photographs that you will learn to take.

This definitely is a hands-on workshop where we all will be photographing and discussing each shoot with different approaches, styles, and settings. I’ll post the images that I take on my photography website.

As I have shared before this is not primarily a technical workshop, I will show you how to use your specific camera to photograph wildlife up close without being too intrusive and how to take beautiful nature photography. I’ll share many photography tips that I have learned over the numerous years as a professional photographer.

Any camera will be fine. Bring the manual of your camera if you have one. Tripods are not necessary but feel free to bring one if you like.

Please confirm that you will be attending the workshop. Since the fee is so small I’m not asking for a deposit. Send me an e-mail at stephenbruno@yahoo.com.

I photographed this Osprey at the South Shore last year.

http://www.stephenbrunophotography.com/