I hope you have a great 2009! Here is a nice little one to get the new year started in fit and proper form!

I took this when I unexpectedly ended up spending a sunset alone. I was supposed to take an ATV over to another bluff to meet a bunch of paleontologists with whom I had spent the day unearthing a Hadrosaur from some Cretaceous mudstone formation. My forearms had never been so tired in my life after holding that hammer and pick for what seemed like endless hours of nerve-wracking excavation! After getting hopelessly lost on my ATV and having some mechanical troubles, I ended up near the border of Canada. Luckily, I had my camera equipment, so I slipped on my iPod and set up for the right moment.

Yesterday I updated my HDR Tutorial, and you might have noticed a shot from Lightroom with the five originals from this below the New York Times Square photo (which is a good one for the New Year!). Anyway, I thought I would share it because sometimes the other photographers that come here like to see the originals before they have been run through my algorithms… [edit: actually, looking at it closer, it is a “slightly” different perspective…taken about 20 seconds earlier… but, well, you get the idea… just picture it shifted over about 3 feet!]