jon-rista

Its been quite some time since I last hauled my camera out for anything more than a few shots of the moon. My time has been consumed by my day job and fixing up little things around my home (latest project involves sanding down my deck and refinishing it with new stain and seal. Not an easy job!)  But, fall is arriving, and the Elk Rut of 2011 is picking up steam. The bulls are huge this year in Rocky Mountain National Park. Some of them appear almost as large as a full grown bull Bison, which is rather startling. Its good to see a lot of healthy elk, though. This past Labor Day weekend, I managed to capture a number of great shots of the el

Earlier today, I went to submit a new piece of art, and encountered a popup asking me to agree to a new license agreement. The agreement was titled Submission Policy, and as I read Section 3, I become fairly concerned. The subitems in bold below are of most concern, as they essentially do the following: 1. In item B, Take the right to use MY work in any publication, in any media, known now or invented in the future...WITHOUT ROYALTY to me, the artist. * While I understand the need for DA to protect themselves in relation to displaying my art on DeviantArt.com, I in no way intend to give them royalty-free right to use my work in ANY form of

I recently had the great pleasure of photographing the total lunar eclipse that occurred this solstice. I can remember seeing numerous partial eclipses, some that came close to totality but not fully total in the areas I've lived. It was pretty amazing seeing such a thing in person, and even more amazing to have the chance to photograph the event...and one occurring on the winter solstice, no less. (As I hear it, such a thing has not occurred here in the US for some 380 years!) Just as amazing as it was to photograph the eclipse, I've been astounded by its reception here. In a matter of a couple days, it has become my most popular work here,