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Scott Kissinger @scottkiss.bsky.social · 5h

Zinnias at the Longmont Farmers Market, from McConnell and Sons out of Lafayette. Shot down into the bucket at 40mm and f/8 with the exposure pulled back two thirds of a stop. Scarlets and crimsons go flat the moment the red channel runs out, and nothing comes back. #Zinnias #CutFlowers

A white five-gallon bucket of cut zinnias sits at a market stall, packed with blooms in scarlet, deep crimson, coral, orange, magenta, pale pink and yellow. Each flower carries a ring of small cream and yellow star-shaped florets at its center, layered petals radiating out behind them. Beyond the bucket, sprays of deep blue and pale cream filler flowers sit out of focus, and a red plastic bucket stands at the right on pale concrete.

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Scott Kissinger @scottkiss.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

More orchids from Denver Botanic Gardens. 105mm Micro at f/8, which meant ISO 6400 in low interior light. Worth it... anything wider leaves half the lip out of focus. Every bloom on the spray has a different arrangement of the same blotching. #Orchids #Macro

A spray of orchids fills a square frame against near black. The petals and sepals are yellow-green heavily blotched with dark maroon, splayed outward like a star, and the broad ruffled lip below is white patterned with deep red in an irregular map of blotches. A small pale column sits at the center of the flower. More blooms recede above and to the right, softening into the dark.

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Scott Kissinger @scottkiss.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Gomphrena at Denver Botanic Gardens, 105mm Micro at f/11. The magenta isn't petals, it's bracts. The actual flowers are the tiny white and yellow structures between them, a few millimeters each. You don't see them at all walking past the plant. #Macro #Flowers

A cluster of spiky magenta flower heads fills the center of the frame against a dark green background. Each head is built from narrow pointed bracts, with tiny yellow star-shaped stamens and small white florets emerging from between them. A second cluster sits out of focus at the left edge, and the background falls away into soft dark green and purple.

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Scott Kissinger @scottkiss.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

In the conservatory at Denver Botanic Gardens. 105mm Micro at f/4.5, worked against the dark of the planting behind so the orchids sit on black. The palm frond in the corner is the one bright thing that isn't a flower. #Orchids #Macro

A spray of pale purple orchids fills the right and center of a square frame against a dark background. The blooms have broad rounded petals in lavender with deeper magenta toward the throat, and small speckled lips at their centers. More flowers trail off to the left and downward, some turned away and partly in shadow. A bright green fan-shaped palm frond crosses the upper left corner, its segments catching light.

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Scott Kissinger @scottkiss.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Another table at Rocky Mountain Fresh, Longmont Farmers Market. Shot low and close at 40mm and f4 so the yellow runs from the bottom of the frame back into the onions. Spaghetti squash and onions together is a September table...two months earlier none of this is there. #HarvestSeason #FarmersMarket

Bright yellow spaghetti squash fill the foreground of a market table, stems still attached, stacked several deep. Behind them sits a bank of onions in white, pale gold and deep copper, with dark green acorn squash at the left edge and eggplant further back. A pink hand-printed sign reads Spaghetti Squash, two dollars a pound, grown by Rocky Mountain Fresh in Longmont. Beyond the table, rows of peppers and leafy greens blur into the background, with shoppers moving past under the tent.

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Scott Kissinger @scottkiss.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Rocky Mountain Fresh at the Longmont Farmers Market isn't only produce... they run a whole table of cactus and succulents. 40mm at f/4, two thirds under, which dropped everything around the pot into shadow. The ribs only read because the light skims across them. #Cactus #Succulents

A small globular cactus sits in a terracotta pot, seen from slightly above. Its blue-green body is divided into deep vertical ribs, each ridge lined with dense golden and cream spines that curve outward and catch the light. A tuft of woolly orange new growth crowns the top. Other potted cacti and succulents fall away into darkness around it, and the pot rim curves across the lower part of the frame.

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Scott Kissinger @scottkiss.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Shortening chains on the new camper. Afterward I laid the cut-off links out on the bench and they looked like something. Open C shapes and hooks on one side, two intact runs on the other. Same stock, two states of the same object. #StillLife #Minimalism

Several galvanized steel chain links lie on a scratched black surface. Most have split open into C and hook shapes with rough, cut ends, scattered across the left side of the frame. On the right, two short intact chain segments of three closed links each remain joined, with raised grade markings stamped into the metal.

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Scott Kissinger @scottkiss.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Denver Botanic Gardens on a Saturday afternoon, out with the 105mm Micro. Shot straight down into the bed at f/14... losing the horizon loses the scale, so this reads as pattern rather than a plant. Knocked the greenery down in the edit and let the yellow carry it. #MacroPhotography #Denver

A dense mat of small yellow daisy-like flowers spreads across the frame, each bloom carrying a ring of bright yellow petals around a raised green center. Dark green oval leaves fill the spaces between them, and tight green buds sit among the open flowers. A large dark textured leaf from a neighboring plant occupies the upper right corner, and the whole bed falls into deep shadow toward the edges.

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Scott Kissinger @scottkiss.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Fourth booth from that Saturday at the Longmont Farmers Market. Crooked Roots Farm, out of Longmont. 40mm at f/8, exposure held back. Near-black eggplants have no detail to give you, so the highlights along the skins are the only thing describing their shape. #Eggplant #FarmersMarket

Eggplants fill the foreground of a market table, glossy near-black globes piled against slender ones striped in purple and cream. Behind them sit red and golden beets with their stems trimmed, a hand-lettered sign reading BEETS $5 propped against a burlap sack. Baskets of long red chiles line the back of the table, and a second hand-lettered eggplant sign sits at the lower right edge of the black produce crate.

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Scott Kissinger @scottkiss.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Cloud Gate in Millennium Park, Chicago, on a February morning. Same morning as the reflection shot from last week, but the other way around... 95mm from behind the balustrade, working through the bare branches instead of stepping around them. #CloudGate #Chicago

A large polished stainless steel sculpture sits in a plaza with snow across its upper curve, reflecting a wide fisheye view of the Chicago skyline, blue sky and scattered cloud along its lower half. Bare winter branches cross the frame in front of it from both sides, and a tall pale office tower rises behind. A stone balustrade runs across the bottom of the image with snow caught along its rail, and a few people in winter coats stand near the base of the sculpture.

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Scott Kissinger @scottkiss.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Chaco Canyon, New Mexico. 30mm, focused on the far opening so the nearest doorway falls away and the masonry reads as a frame. Chaco was a regional center for ancestral Pueblo people from roughly 850 to 1250 CE, and remains a sacred place across the Southwest. #ChacoCanyon #NewMexico

A view through a sequence of aligned stone doorways in an ancestral Pueblo wall. The nearest doorway fills the frame and sits out of focus, its coursed sandstone blocks and heavy lintel softened to shape and texture. Deeper openings step back through shadow, and the farthest one frames a bright rectangle of the world outside: a flat of grass and low shrubs, a banded sandstone cliff beyond it, and white clouds stacked over a distant mesa.

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Scott Kissinger @scottkiss.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

No matter how you think the election in November will go, either for or against your preferred candidates or ballot initiatives…get out and vote.

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Scott Kissinger @scottkiss.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Charlotte Amalie harbor, St. Thomas. Same evening as the cloud photo from a couple of weeks back, and this is what we were waiting for. Metered for the brightest part of the sky, so the hills, the boat and the shoreline all dropped to silhouette. #StThomas #Caribbean

The sun sits low behind a tall bank of cloud, its light spilling out around the cloud edge in bright gold and laying a long shimmering column down the water below. A catamaran rides at anchor in silhouette at the left, its mast and rigging drawn as thin dark lines against the glowing sky. Low hills run across the middle of the frame in shadow, with a few pale buildings visible along the shoreline beneath them. The foreground is dark rippled water.

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Scott Kissinger @scottkiss.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Third booth from the same Saturday at the Longmont Farmers Market, and the one I didn't expect. Red Cedar Sheep & Wool, out of Niwot, with Colorado wool from their own sheep and llamas. I worked along the length of the table and let the far end go soft. #Yarn #FiberArts

Skeins of yarn are arranged along a market table and propped against wooden crates. In the foreground sit twists in cream, pale yellow, coral and deep rust, with a hand-written tag noting plant dyes and worsted weight. A row of undyed gray and white skeins fills the middle of the image, with deep reds and burgundies behind them, and the crate tops above hold greens, teals and a marled black and white. Low sun rakes across the crate faces and lights the wood from the side.

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Scott Kissinger @scottkiss.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Second booth from the same Saturday at the Longmont Farmers Market. Cottontail Farm, a small flower and pumpkin operation here in Longmont. 40mm at f/8, two thirds under so the yellows held their saturation and the shaded booth behind fell away. #Sunflowers #FarmersMarket

Bouquets of cut sunflowers stand wrapped in brown kraft paper in black buckets on a market table. The nearest bloom faces the camera, its yellow petals deepening to dark mahogany at the base to form a ring around a near-black center. Behind it sit plainer yellow blooms with dark centers, mixed with broad green leaves. A second wrapped bunch blurs out at the upper left, and the table beneath is covered in dark teal cloth.

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Scott Kissinger @scottkiss.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Chaco Canyon, northwestern New Mexico, in April. Caught this walking between pueblos. 31mm wide open, in close on the deadwood and the one green shrub, letting the canyon wall behind go soft. Up close the ground there is mostly bleached wood and dry stems. #ChacoCanyon #NewMexico

A weathered gray branch runs diagonally across the lower left of the image, its surface split into deep lengthwise grooves and worn smooth at the edges. A small shrub with narrow needle-like green leaves grows just to its right, holding sharp focus against a soft background. Beyond them a flat of pale dry grasses and low gray-green shrubs runs back toward a sandstone cliff face in warm orange and cream, thrown well out of focus across the top. A few small purple flowers show near the lower right.

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Scott Kissinger @scottkiss.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

After a stormy day on St. John, we walked down from Estate Lindholm to Honeymoon Beach. No road to it... you walk the Lind Point Trail in or come by boat. 59mm at f/13, a tenth of a second, handheld. Waves blur, rock stays put. #StJohn #LongExposure

$Dark rock outcrops rise from a sand beach across the right and center of the image, their surfaces studded with embedded pale stones and split by deep vertical fractures. Incoming surf has been smoothed by a long exposure into white mist washing around their bases. Pale turquoise water fills the left and deepens toward a low green island on the horizon, with a larger hazy headland beyond it. Overcast gray sky covers the upper half, and leafy branches hang in from the upper right corner.$

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Scott Kissinger @scottkiss.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Cloud Gate in Millennium Park, Chicago, in February. Snow had collected on the sculpture and the melt was running down in narrow channels, so the reflection came apart into vertical strips. That's me in it with the camera up. #CloudGate #Chicago

A large curved mirrored surface fills the image, reflecting a winter city scene stretched and bent by the curve. The photographer stands reflected at the center in a dark hooded coat, camera raised to his face, on a snow-edged plaza. Behind him a stone balustrade runs across the image, with snow-covered ground, bare trees, street banners on lamp posts, and a row of buildings along the avenue beyond. Vertical lines of water and ice run down the reflective surface, breaking the reflection into ribbons.

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Scott Kissinger @scottkiss.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Outside the gates to Valles Caldera, New Mexico. The gates lock at night, so outside is where you shoot from. A stack of exposures with the Jeep in it... the paint and windshield pick up the stars along with the sky. Ambient light only, no painting. #Astrophotography #NewMexico

A dense field of stars fills a deep blue night sky above a dark landscape. A Jeep Wrangler sits at lower right, facing the camera, its blue paint and windshield faintly lit and catching points of starlight. Two pine trees stand in silhouette beside it, and low hills and open grassland run across the bottom of the image. Wooden fence posts and a small sign are visible at lower left.

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Scott Kissinger @scottkiss.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Outside Eagar, Arizona, driving to the 2024 Miata Reunion at Sonoma. I take the southern route on purpose so I can drive US 191... 460 curves over about 120 miles. This was a pull-off with fog still sitting in the valleys and ridge after ridge going pale behind it. #CoronadoTrail #Arizona

Ranks of forested ridges recede into pale blue haze under a clear sky. A dark, tree-covered slope fills the foreground, giving way to successively fainter ridgelines, with a long flat-topped range along the distant horizon. A band of low fog fills the valley in the middle distance, and a small contrail marks the sky at upper right.

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Scott Kissinger @scottkiss.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Longmont Farmers Market on a Saturday morning, at the Rough & Ready Farm table. Worked in close and shallow at 40mm so one bunch of radishes carried it and the rest of the table went to color. Small woman-owned Longmont farm, growing chemical-free since 2020. #FarmersMarket #Longmont

Bunches of radishes lie on a market table, their roots shading from white at the base to deep pink and red at the shoulders, with fine pale root tails tangling across one another. Bright green leafy tops fill the left side of the image. Behind them, softened out of focus, sit more bundled greens and a heaped pile of orange carrots. Only the nearest bunch holds sharp focus.

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Scott Kissinger @scottkiss.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

April 2020, the night before the largest supermoon of that year. Shot from the back deck with the old D3400 and the 55-300 at 300mm, five stops under after a lot of testing. Better for not being quite full... a dead-full moon is lit straight on and goes flat. #Moon #Astrophotography

A nearly full moon hangs alone against a completely black sky, filling a small part of the image. Its surface shows grey maria and bright cratered highlands in sharp detail, with the crater rays of the southern highlands clearly visible. A narrow band along the left edge falls into shadow, and the terminator there picks out relief along the rim.

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Scott Kissinger @scottkiss.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

October 2018, the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta. You're allowed on the launch field during inflation, a few feet from burners throwing flame straight up. So instead of the sky full of balloons, I lined one up behind a firing burner and shot through the heat distortion. #BalloonFiesta #Albuquerque

A tall column of orange flame erupts from a hot air balloon burner in the foreground, filling the center of the image against a soft pink and grey dawn sky. Beyond the flame, a checkered balloon in yellow, orange, blue and green floats aloft, its edges rippling in the heat distortion. Several inflated balloons in bright stripes and checks crowd the lower portion of the image, one lettered in dark type. The steel burner and its yellow frame sit at the bottom.

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Scott Kissinger @scottkiss.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

July 2019, the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center in West Yellowstone, Montana. This grizzly is standing in the pond playing with an enrichment toy. The Center takes in bears that can't survive in the wild, usually because they got acclimated to people. #GrizzlyBear #Montana

A grizzly bear stands upright in shallow water, facing right with its head tipped back, holding a small plastic object to its mouth with both front paws. Water streams from its wet fur. Behind it, a grass enclosure runs back to a tall wire fence and trees, with a second dark bear lying down in the distance. Rocks and concrete edging line the pond in the foreground.

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Scott Kissinger @scottkiss.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Rural Hartsel, Colorado. We were out there for remote camping and dark skies and came across this on a fence line at the edge of somebody's land. Someone went to the trouble of a proper cast plaque on a proper post to commemorate a spot where nothing occurred. #Hartsel #Colorado

A weathered wooden post stands in dry golden grassland under a deep blue sky, with a black cast plaque mounted on a cross-piece. The plaque reads "AT THIS VERY LOCATION ON APRIL 12, 1861 ABSOLUTELY NOTHING HAPPENED" in white block letters. A green metal gate rail runs across the lower right, and a dirt two-track leads away toward a forested hill in the distance.

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Scott Kissinger @scottkiss.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

January 2019, Sayulita, Mexico. Sitting at a restaurant near the plaza, looking up and out at the papel picado strung over the street. Everything under the roof went to shadow and the paper kept all the color. Shot on my phone. #Sayulita #Mexico

Looking up and out from beneath a shaded patio roof, rows of colorful papel picado stretch across a bright blue sky. The cut-paper flags are green, yellow, orange, purple, white and blue, strung in parallel lines above the street. A clay tile roof and dark wooden beams frame the top of the image, with a small security camera mounted beneath them. A row of black spiked metalwork runs along a railing at right, and a thatched roof and pale building stand beyond. The foreground under the roof falls into deep shadow.

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Scott Kissinger @scottkiss.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

April 2019, near Moab. We were headed out to hike a slot canyon and I got this in the parking lot before we'd walked anywhere. Tree against a completely clear sky, and I wasn't going to leave it. Old D3400 with the 18-55 kit lens. #Moab #Utah

A lone tree with a thick, twisting trunk and bright green spring foliage stands against a deep, cloudless blue sky. The trunk splits low into two leaning limbs, one reaching up and left, the other spreading right. Behind and below, eroded red and tan desert slopes fall away, with pale layered rock ledges along the horizon and low scrub across the ground.

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Scott Kissinger @scottkiss.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

March 2019, out for a morning run around Sloans Lake in Denver. The sun came up behind downtown and that was the end of the run for a minute. Skyline in silhouette, sky gone orange, lake flat enough to hand the whole thing back. Shot on my phone, which is what you have on a run. #Denver #Sunrise

A city skyline stands in dark silhouette across the far shore of a still lake, backlit by an intense orange sunrise. The sun sits just above the horizon to the right of the tallest buildings, and thin clouds streak the orange sky above. The lake surface reflects the skyline and the orange light almost unbroken. Bare branches hang into the top of the image, and a dark grassy bank runs across the bottom.

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Scott Kissinger @scottkiss.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

October 2019, driving home from the Miata Reunion at Laguna Seca, we stopped in Cambria and caught this over the Pacific. Old D3400. Sun going down into flat water with a thin band of cloud at the horizon. This one hangs on acrylic at home. #Cambria #PacificCoast

The sun sits low over a calm ocean, a small bright disc just above a thin dark band of cloud stretched along the horizon. The sky grades from deep orange near the sun to pale gold overhead. A column of light runs down the water toward the foreground, broken into small glittering ripples, and dark patches of kelp or reef show through the surface. A pale rock breaks the water at the lower right.

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Scott Kissinger @scottkiss.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Early morning at Moonscape Overlook on the rim above Blue Valley, out past Hanksville, Utah. Pale gray Mancos shale badlands below, Henry Mountains holding snow on the southern horizon. A panorama stitched from iPhone shots on a March camping trip. #MoonscapeOverlook #Utah

A wide panorama looks out from a cliff edge over a vast expanse of pale gray eroded badlands cut by deep drainage channels. Layered sandstone cliffs frame both edges of the image, the one at right lit warm orange by low sun. The sun sits just above the horizon near the center, casting an orange band across the distant flats. A snow-capped mountain range rises along the right horizon under a pale, clear sky.

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Scott Kissinger @scottkiss.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Further along the Navajo Loop at Bryce Canyon. I put the sun behind a broken snag rather than out in open sky, which keeps the star tight and lets the hoodoos hold their color. 24mm at f/14... nine aperture blades doubling up into eighteen points. #BryceCanyon #Sunstar

A low, wide view looks up a slope of orange hoodoo formations under a blue sky scattered with small white clouds. The sun sits directly behind a broken, weathered tree trunk near the center of the image and flares into a pointed starburst at the edge of the wood. Pines and bare standing snags rise along the slope, a pale dirt trail switchbacks up through the middle distance, and a dark tree trunk crosses the upper left corner. A thin contrail runs across the sky above.

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Scott Kissinger @scottkiss.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

Last one from the Great Colorado Air Show in 2021. Same five Super Hornets as earlier in the week, half a minute later, but shot straight into the sun this time. The aircraft drop to silhouette and the five smoke trails do the rest. #BlueAngels #Aviation

Five F/A-18 Super Hornets fly in a stepped diagonal formation, rendered as dark silhouettes against a deep blue sky. Each aircraft trails a white smoke line, and the five parallel trails run off toward the upper right where the sun washes the corner of the image in pale glare. A soft band of flare crosses the right side.

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Scott Kissinger @scottkiss.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Milky Way just outside Valles Caldera National Preserve, New Mexico. Moonless, pre-dawn, rented Sigma 20mm at f/1.8 and ISO 6400. A stack of five short exposures, tried as an alternative to a long exposure. Worked okay. Long exposures have served me better since. #MilkyWay #Astrophotography

The Milky Way arcs across a dense field of stars in a dark night sky, its central band running from the upper left down toward the lower right where the brighter galactic core sits low above the horizon. Dust lanes show as darker shapes against the star clouds. A ragged line of conifers stands in full silhouette along the bottom of the image, and a faint pale glow rises along the right edge near the horizon.

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Scott Kissinger @scottkiss.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Last one from the Boulder County Fair. Same ride I posted a couple of weeks back, caught part-way up in its tilt instead of flat and low. 40mm at f/8, 1/13 of a second, exposed well under the ambient so the sky stayed black and the LEDs carried it. #BoulderCountyFair #MotionBlur

A large amusement ride fills the upper portion of the image against a black sky, its tilted circular canopy edged with dense rows of blue LED panels. Rotation has smeared the lights into long horizontal streaks, with warmer amber trails running beneath the canopy and clusters of blue and white panels blurred across the underside. At lower right, a booth lit in pink and yellow reads PURCHASE WRISTBANDS, and the illuminated arch of another ride stands beyond it. A second ride structure with red and green lights sits at the left edge.

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Scott Kissinger @scottkiss.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas. Walking the edge of the bay last October, out for evening light and waiting on the sunset when the cumulus started stacking over the ridge. 120mm to pull the structure in tight, metered for the highlights so the ridge went to silhouette. #StThomas #Caribbean

Tall cumulus clouds build across a deep blue sky, their upper surfaces lit warm gold while their bases fall into gray shadow. A dark ridgeline runs along the lower right of the image with a slender tower on its crest and a few scattered structures on the slope below. Silhouetted tree foliage frames the right edge of the image in near black.

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Scott Kissinger @scottkiss.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

A weathered tree on a bare hillside above the Navajo Loop at Bryce Canyon. I got low and close at 39mm so the trunk read against open sky rather than the canyon, then metered for the sunlit wood. That drove the sky to deep blue and held the texture in the stripped bark. #BryceCanyon #Utah

A gnarled, largely bare tree grows out of a steep slope of orange-red eroded soil, its twisted trunk leaning left against a deep blue sky. Bark has stripped away in patches to expose smooth pale gray wood beneath, and bare branches with short knobby twigs spread from the upper trunk. A low green shrub with small rounded leaves grows along the ridge to the right, and exposed roots run across the surface of the slope below.

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Scott Kissinger @scottkiss.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

The Blue Angels at the Great Colorado Air Show in Loveland, October 2021. Their first season on the F/A-18 Super Hornet after 35 years on the legacy jet. Shot on my old D3400 with the kit lens at 55mm, 1/1600 to freeze the formation and hold the smoke trails. #BlueAngels #Aviation

Five blue and gold F/A-18 Super Hornets fly in a stepped diagonal formation across a deep blue sky, seen from below and behind. Each aircraft trails a white smoke line, and the five parallel trails run from the lower right corner up toward the jets. A thick bank of dispersing white smoke fills the upper left of the image where earlier passes have drifted.

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Scott Kissinger @scottkiss.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Top of the Navajo Loop in Bryce Canyon, early morning, first light working down into the amphitheater. I turned around and caught the other photographer at work. 27mm, slightly overexposed so the shadowed rock kept detail while the lit hoodoos held their color. #BryceCanyon #Hoodoos

A person stands with their back to the camera at the edge of a canyon overlook, wearing a dark knit beanie and insulated jacket with a gray Osprey Daylite daypack. They hold a phone up in both hands, photographing the view ahead. Below and beyond stretches a wide basin of orange and cream hoodoos catching early sunlight, with green conifers scattered through the formations and a pale cliff band along the far rim. The upper half of the image is blue sky streaked with thin, bright cloud.

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Scott Kissinger @scottkiss.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

Longmont's 2025 fireworks show, shot from a parking lot near downtown. 67mm, half a second at f/10, auto ISO running three stops under so the burst cores held their color instead of clipping to white. The pink smoke is lit by bursts going off outside the picture. #Fireworks #Longmont

A single firework bursts against a black night sky, its stars radiating outward in straight magenta and pink trails that brighten to white and gold near the center. Drifting smoke lit from within by other bursts fills the right side of the image in soft pink and purple, and a faint dotted trail runs downward from the burst toward the bottom of the image.

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Scott Kissinger @scottkiss.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

A golden-mantled ground squirrel at a pull-off on Trail Ridge Road, Rocky Mountain National Park. Not a chipmunk... the stripes stop at the shoulder and the face has a white eye-ring instead. 120mm wide open at f/4 to push the ridge behind into a wash of color. #RockyMountainNationalPark #Colorado

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Scott Kissinger @scottkiss.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Clayton Lake State Park in northeastern New Mexico, not long after sunrise. An overnight car-camping stop on the drive back to Colorado from Texas. 120mm at f/16, branches holding the near edge, and haze softening the sun into a disc instead of a hard point. #ClaytonLake #NewMexico

The sun sits low in a hazy orange sky above a lake, casting a bright column of light that runs down the water toward the foreground. A dark shoreline crosses the middle of the image in silhouette, with a small structure and a few trees breaking the ridgeline at left. Backlit tree branches fill the right side of the image in silhouette, and the water surface is broken into fine glittering ripples.

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Scott Kissinger @scottkiss.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

The flowers are my favorite thing about the chokecherry in our yard. They scent the whole neighborhood every spring. I took the 24-120mm out to see how close to macro I could get, then cropped hard. Depth of field goes razor thin... only one blossom's stamens held. #Chokecherry #SpringBlossoms

A close view of white chokecherry blossoms, each with five rounded petals and a spray of long stamens tipped in yellow. One blossom near the center is sharp while the surrounding flowers and green stems soften into blur, and the background dissolves into pale greens and blown-out highlights.

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Scott Kissinger @scottkiss.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

The Rockefeller Center tree, December 2024. Rather than fight the crowd at the rail I stayed well back and zoomed in to 46mm. Wide open at f/4, ISO 1600, handheld. Let the building behind go dark so the lights carried it. #RockefellerCenter #NewYorkCity

A large decorated Christmas tree fills the vertical image, densely wrapped in multicolored lights in blue, green, red, gold and white. A white illuminated star with many radiating spikes sits at the top. Behind the tree rises a dark high-rise facade with scattered lit office windows, and two American flags hang from poles at the lower left. The base of the tree meets a plaza with small structures and figures at the very bottom of the image.

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Scott Kissinger @scottkiss.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

A tiger at The Wild Animal Sanctuary in Keenesburg, Colorado, shot from the elevated walkway with a rented 180-600mm at 560mm. The grass was still fully dormant, which left the tiger as the only saturated thing out there. Rescued animal, open habitat, not a zoo. #Tiger #WildAnimalSanctuary

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Scott Kissinger @scottkiss.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

Bryce Canyon, working down the switchbacks of the Navajo Loop as the sun cleared the ridge above us. I spent that whole hike hunting for edges to hide the sun behind. Stopped down to f/18 for the starburst, metered for the sky, and let everything below go black. #BryceCanyon #Sunstar

A rocky ridgeline crosses the image on a diagonal in full silhouette against a clear sky grading from deep blue to pale gold at the horizon. The sun sits in a low notch as a starburst, with a short chain of flare artifacts trailing to the lower left. A bare, leafless tree stands silhouetted just left of the sun. The lower half of the image is solid black shadow.

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Scott Kissinger @scottkiss.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

Shot from across six lanes of highway on my walk in to the Boulder County Fair. Far enough back to hold the whole midway, and I stopped where the drop tower lined up inside the ring of the Fire Ball. Still light out, so I pulled the exposure down to hold the blue. #BoulderCountyFair #BlueHour

A large circular carnival ride stands outlined in red LEDs against a dark blue evening sky, its ring framing a tall drop tower lit in pink and green at the center. A Ferris wheel glows in blue, green, and magenta at the left edge, and more lit rides and booths fill the lower right. A "FIRE BALL" sign in red letters sits at the base of the ring, with a fairgrounds building and trees in shadow behind.

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Scott Kissinger @scottkiss.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

Another one from the Boulder County Fair. Walking the perimeter, playing with what a slow shutter does to ride lights. The Ferris wheel sits way back this time while the spinning ride up front pulls its lights into horizontal bands. #BoulderCountyFair #CarnivalLights

A spinning carnival ride fills the lower half of the frame, its blue and white lights drawn by a slow shutter into dense horizontal streaks across a broad drum shape. Behind it a Ferris wheel rises against a black night sky, outlined in green and blue LEDs with red gondolas. A lit "Beach Party" sign glows green at the right edge, with midway tents and scattered lights along the bottom.

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Scott Kissinger @scottkiss.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

A roadside waterfall on the way up to Sunrise at Mount Rainier, back in 2018. Old D3400, kit lens stopped all the way down to f/36 to force a slow enough shutter to smooth the water. Handheld, so the rocks and plants caught some of that blur too. #MountRainier #LongExposure

Water falls in a series of small drops over dark, wet rock, blurred to a silky white by a long exposure. Green plants and grasses crowd the left side of the frame, with fallen orange-brown branches and bare twigs draped across the rocks. Broad ribbed leaves grow near the center left, and moss and low growth fill the gaps between stones.

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Scott Kissinger @scottkiss.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

The Chrysler Building crown, shot from the Empire State Building observation deck on a December night in NYC. 120mm, wide open at f/4, ISO 6400, braced against the glass. Photographing the building that took the world's-tallest title away from it. #ChryslerBuilding #ArtDeco #NewYorkCity

The illuminated crown of the Chrysler Building rises through the center of a dark Manhattan skyline at night, its stainless steel arches picked out in rows of bright triangular windows tapering to a needle spire. Below, the tower's setbacks and windows glow white, while the surrounding city spreads out in a dense field of orange and white lights. The Queensboro Bridge crosses the middle right of the frame, with the East River and further bridges and city lights receding into the distance.

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Scott Kissinger @scottkiss.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

Went to the Boulder County Fair looking for the rides against a black sky. Quarter-second exposure, handheld, f/8 to keep the lights from blowing out. The spokes smear into thin triangles and the gondolas go soft, which was the whole point. #BoulderCountyFair #LongExposure

A large Ferris wheel glows against a black night sky, its spokes lined with blue, green, and white LED panels that streak into thin tapering shapes from the wheel's motion. The gondolas blur into soft red and blue smears around the rim. The support arms read Gondola Wheel in lit lettering. At the lower left, a carnival game booth lit with the word BALLOONS displays rows of stuffed prizes, and a crowd is silhouetted along the bottom of the frame.

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