AKs Clicks

American Goldfinch
This was my first time spotting this beauty and I wondered what this pretty bird was, til I got home and googled it. While I watched and waited for the bird to span wings, or take off, it didnt happen. As soon as moved lens away, it flew away (and I missed action). Such a beauty.'

Dancing in the sun - Red winged blackbird

Stars and city lights - Seattle Skyline

Nature's paintbrush - Northern lights over Palouse Falls

Aurora Borealis, also known as northern lights, put on a rare and epic show on Friday night (2024-05-10/11). I happened to be at Palouse Falls state park. I shot over a thousand pictures in 3 hours and created a few time lapse to show activity. Here is a dozen of those 1k frames, showing some of the most interesting variations.

Night Glow - Walla Walla Balloon Stampede 2024

Light bomb - exploding over Palouse Falls
Historical northern lights display, 5/11/2024 11:12:13.
Single frame, no filter, f/2.8, 6 sec, iso 3200, Rokinon 12mm on Nikon Z8

Solar eclipse 2024 - How many stars you count?

This single frame shot, taken at 12:03 PM, almost in the middle of totality for us, is processed to bring out details of moon.
You do see other stars int he frame as well, more noticeable at the boundary. If you look at a bigger screen with right brightness, you can count several actually.
How many do you see in total? I can count about a dozen total.

Technical details: f/8, 1/4s, ISO 100, 460mm on DX crop (effective 690mm), Tamron 150-600mm on Nikon Z8. All manual settings.

Lucky streak - A moment from last summer. Looking forward to this one.

Phases - Solar Eclipse 2024
In this composite, you se partial eclipse in top and bottom row, showing transition from min to max cover and then from max to min. You also see a bunch of sunspots, if you look closely.
Middle row shows phases in totality.
Prominence, the first shot, shows plasma structures on the surface of sun, looking like eruptions or flares. These plasma structures, sometime stick around for days. Imagine the size of these arcs or loop like structures that are visible (thanks to reduced light) from earth.
Second and third shot, show totality in perspective. The expansion of corona, waving through space, and a highlighted moon disk.
Fourth shot is what is commonly known as Baily's beads. This is on the verge of totality, where you have to bring filters back on within seconds.
Fifth shot shows the crown of what is called Diamond Ring. It means that eclipse is back to partial and filter should go back on immediately.

The whole story - Solar Eclipse 2024

Dark side of moon - Solar Eclipse 2024
This single shot frame has heavily processed center to bring out some details of moon. It is amazing how much details the cameras are able to capture these days. This is when the corona was at brightest, moon completely covering sun's disk, and sun's light escaping from behind the moon.

Flares and eruptions - Solar Eclipse 2024

What better time to zoom in to that bright, burning, erupting star than when it is behind the moon. A series of calculated exposures, giving you a glimpse into some of flares erupting from the surface, escaping on the sides of the moon disk in front of it.

Edit: apparently these are plasma structures on surface and not active flares. Still pretty cool.

Ring transitions - solar eclipse 2024
Filter went back on, immediately after last one.

Diamond Ring - Solar Eclipse 2024

Got a chance to watch and shoot the solar eclipse again after 7 years.. A lot of USA got weather in the way but I fortunately ended up at right ace at right time.
What an experience.

September sunset on Maligne Lake - Jasper National Park Canada

To bring this beautiful print to your walls, or license a digital copy, go to https://www.aksclicks.gallery/shop/home?token=-nSgBUd3b0244vksxszc_g~~

Bald eagle in flight - a close up

Winthrop Balloon Festival - Balloons and landscapes round up

This are some of my favorite comps from Sunday 3/3/24. Now, if you are a balloon company, or a pilot, or can identify one, please comment on that specific picture, mentioning specific balloon if there are more than one, and their association to a pilot, sponsor or a company. Let's give cheers to these awesome people.
Edit: Thanks community. I have captioned all balloons now with your help. I welcome any corrections still. Keep shoutouts coming.
Also, if you are a balloon pilot or company, and need a specific image for commercial or free personal use, in higher quality for prints or electronics, I may have special rates for you (or even free). Just let me know what you need and what would be the purpose of that image for you.
Again, thanks a lot to all pilots, crews, companies and sponsors, to give us this glimpse to colors in our skies.

Note: Please look at these images on bigger screens to truly admire what you can see.

Launch site - Winthrop Balloon festival 2024

I spent some time, watching them fire up and prep for launch, just before they went up. Once they started going up, I left the site behind Winthrop Inn and went looking for a better vantage point to compress balloons with some pretty landscapes. More of those coming soon.

In these you also see two of the newest balloons from Seattle Ballooning firing up, right in front of the field and then ready to go up.

One of the new balloons from Seattle Ballooning - Winthrop Balloons Festival 2024

This is one of the very first balloons in this area, manufactured by one of the biggest balloons manufacturer of the world, Kubicek Balloons, owned and operated by our very own Seattle Ballooning. This balloon was huge.

I took this using 600mm on dx frame, compacting landscape with balloon.

Winthrop Balloon Festival closeups

This is Tyee another Snohomish Balloon Rides's balloon piloted by Dwayne Osborne

Winthrop balloon festival 2024

Drove 10 hours today for Winthrop balloon festival to catch a glimpse of my favourite event in WA. To my surprise, Winthrop was very different. I am used to seeing balloon on all white landscapes and mountains at this festival. Oh well!
I tried to take some pictures. Here is one. I will be sharing more soon.
If you know balloon, pilot or company, feel free to tag/mention them. They color our sky and I love them. They deserve all the credit. I just take pictures.

Blue Jay - swooping a piece of the bread

What you dont see, cropped here, is hand off of which this guy swooped the piece of bread. But this is more clearer of close ups, involving much less crop and processing.

In flight - A blue jay

Shot this Blue Jay last year, across the border. This is a close crop of a shot taken at 600mm on a DX. so, some details is lost in noise removal resulting from close crop.

Continuing with memories - A Trillium Lake sunrise in August 2023

Bixby Creek bridge - Big Sur, CA

Taken last year, around this time, but never got to process or share it. These days I have time to look at old pics. Expect more shares coming in.

yanhif - yet another northern harrier in flight

I think this was the last shot of my long loved D500 before I bid farewell to it. Taken about a week ago.

yabeif - yet another bald eagle in flight

Snoqualmie falls - In the afternoon light on a partly cloudy day. Taken 02/22/23.