“I Will Live In Montana…” (Capt. Borodin)
“I will live in Montana. And I will marry a round American woman and raise rabbits, and she will cook them for me. And I will have a pickup truck… maybe even a “recreational vehicle.” And drive from state to state. Do they let you do that?”, Captain Borodin, Hunt For Red October.
I always think of that quote when I think of Montana. It cracks me up. I thought I’d post a few more of my favorite pictures from our summer Montana trip. A very friendly horse and some very green fields with a background of snow-capped mountains at sunrise.
Both images were processed with a series of curves adjustment layers to balance out various areas of the image. Nothing fancy…
Green Fields At Sunrise In Montana 60mm, f/13, 1/20s, ISO 100
No Actual Birds Were Harmed In The Making Of These Memories…
Shells
Went shooting with my girls this weekend at a friend’s house in Fredericksburg (see this pic for the awesome sunrise view we had on Father’s Day). Later that evening I remarked, “Wow, we shot a lot of clays today”. I quickly corrected myself, however, amending my statement to “Well, we THREW a lot of clays today”. We have fun regardless of how well we shoot on a given day. Lots of memories come out of these events.
I managed to shoot about 40 rounds out of the 12 gauge before I got tired of the kick then I switched to the 20 gauge (we had three 20s out there) and went through another 50-ish. The girls and friends went through their share as well and we ended up with quite a pile of spent shells, part of which you see in the pic above. We also shot plenty of rounds out of a 9mm Glock, a .22 Ruger pistol, and a couple .22 rifles.
The pic above was created by tonemapping three exposures, the darkest of which just helped bring down the metal reflections a bit. I blended in a bit here and there from the original exposures and parts from a layer processed with the “photo pop” preset in Topaz Adjust. Added a curves adjustment, a slight levels adjustment (brought in more blacks), and a bit of sharpening to all that and voila…there it is.
