Lake Mildred 2011

Last Year on Rin's family's yearly camping trip to Lake Mildred I set out to shoot pictures for the 2010 Lake Mildred folio. I had shot about 4 pictures when suddenly my camera would fire. I turned it off and back on, still no luck. I started to look at the settings when i noticed batteries laying on the ground at my feet. The darn battery cover had broken off of the camera.

Distraught I wasn't able to think of the easy fix - a rubber band to hold the cover on - so last year there was no folio.

This passed Christmas I was finally able to treat myself to my dream camera and passed the old Fuji rubber band model down to my daughter, so armed with my new camera i went out to shoot more pictures. This year I mostly was stuck on the beauty found in nature, much of it small things. Having forgot my bellows at home my hopes for much macro work wasn't realized, but I still spent some belly time getting down amongst the grasses.

 

One thing in abundance to watch out for - Poison Oak!

Itsy Bitsy Spider

A vulture circles overhead searching for dinner.

Of course the dogs had fun running, chasing and wrestling at the dog beach.

The burn scar from a fire several years ago is beginning to heal.

   

      After a number of dry years the wet weather this winter has the spillway flowing.

Some artsy stuff...

Lake Mildred - 2009

This year our family migration to Lake Mildred fell early in the spring. Night time temperatures were in the 30's and since our camping trailer was having problems with the mechanism that lifts the top, we were forced to revert to the tent. Having laid dormant for about 8 years, none of our ThremaRest mattresses and other inflatable sleeping devices held air. Needless to say sleep was not in abundance!

The first series of photos were taken using a 2x closeup lens on front of my cameras standard zoom lens. I recently discovered my closeup lens set from an old Contax IIIa fit my current camera. (The Contax was stolen years ago and is irreplaceable.)
In some of the photos the lens to subject distance is less than 1 inch, in others up to about one foot when zoomed out. All photos were hand held - I forgot my tripod!

As usual, click the photos to enlarge.














Look for the spider in this one.





Here are some landscapes.





Of course the dogs came along too!

Lake Mildred - Oregon House, CA.

[click photos to enlarge]

All photos BB2