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joedecker.bsky.social
Joe (they/he)
@joedecker.bsky.social
560 followers 380 following 790 posts
Smithsonian-exhibited nature photographer. Polartropic. Perturbagenic. Descriptivist. Bayesian. Erdős 4. “God Hates Shrimp” creator. Enby. They/he.
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joedecker.bsky.social
Fire and Sky. I'd forgotten how much I liked this one.

#PPortfolioOnBSky 214
A landscape photograph of a thermal feature at Yellowstone, bright orange slashing through a mostly brown thermal terrace bottom, further from the viewer reflections make it apparent that the entire scene is covered with water, as the bottom of the spring fades into reflected partly cloudy sky.
November 23, 2025 at 2:23 AM
joedecker.bsky.social
Sometimes the mist forms just where you need it.

(And sometimes you have to wait for that a while, of course.)

#PPortfolioOnBSky 212
A landscape photograph of a cascade of water falling form the right into the bottom center along a sloped bit of rock. Near the water, the rock is carved into a bright orange gash. Further back the rock is obscured by mist, but a few trees appear above the mist upper-left.
November 20, 2025 at 5:10 PM
joedecker.bsky.social
The thermal landscapes are so surreal.....

#PPortfolioOnBSky 210
A landscape photograph of several dead tree snags, largely in bright white and black, on ground with white (bottom left), orange-brown (through the upper-left to lower-right diagonal), a brilliant blue pond behind the orange, and more white ground and the bases of white tree snags behind.
November 18, 2025 at 1:50 AM
joedecker.bsky.social
I guess you could call that stone, and almost yellow.

(It's a spring in the fall.)

#PPortfolioOnBSky 209
A photograph of a spring from Yellowstone, a mostly white formation rises a foot or two above the ground leading at the top to a blue-green bubbling, steaming pool. On the side facing the viewer streaks of orange and brown curve away down and away.
November 12, 2025 at 1:30 AM
joedecker.bsky.social
I mean, some of the stone is kinda yellow.

#PPortfolioOnBSky 208
An almost abstract image of a wall of a steep sandstone valley, in pale yellows, pinks and oranges. Most of the wall are smooth runs down the steep walls but across the middle-top a series of browner rock formations seem to pop out from the wall. near the bottom right of the image a small bare burnt tree snag remains standing.
November 10, 2025 at 4:28 AM
joedecker.bsky.social
Fisherman's Cone, Yellowstone. I remember making use of what was a very limited area of color in the sunrise.

#PPortfolioOnBSky 207
A square format landscape photograph of a lake at sunrise, with a rock vent coming out of the water in the foreground, a bit of steam coming up at the top of the conical vent. The water is somewhat with brown coloration near the vent. In the background you can see a thin line of hills at the horizon, and in the sky predawn colors in the clouds, oranges pinks and purples.
November 9, 2025 at 6:22 AM
joedecker.bsky.social
I've long enjoyed this shot from Grand Tetons, but part of that was just a craft realization (that 2013-level tech allowed me to deal with levels of contrast and hold detail that I couldn't before.). Still, pretty pleasing.

#PPortfolioOnBSky 205
A color photograph of a stream, blue water and foam, cascading over rocks, surrounded by pine trees, with direct sunlight and moderately sharp/clear shadows.
October 31, 2025 at 3:41 AM
joedecker.bsky.social
Pretty much the same location as the last image, a matter of a few minutes earlier, a change in direction and a change in focal length, entirely different mood. Also Oxbow Bend.

#PPortfolioOnBSky 204
A landscape image of frost-covered bushes foreground, a river and inlet with a thin layer of fog and a larger cloud above, tall trees (pines?) middle ground right and on mountains in the background, a clear periwinkle pre-dawn sky.
October 29, 2025 at 3:46 PM
joedecker.bsky.social
I mean, sometimes the classic shots are classic for a reason.

#PPortfolioOnBSky 203
A color landscape photograph, the sky (before sunrise) is yellow and pink with pastel purple and blue near the horizon. A river or lake S-curves through the photo, smooth and reflective. The near bank has bush with autumn yellows, the far bank has frost-covered bushes near the shore and pine trees behind. Near the horizon as the S curve converges in the distance, a mountain with some snow and its reflection are visible.
October 24, 2025 at 2:43 AM
joedecker.bsky.social
A bit more Mono lake, some nice cloud forms and colors.

#PPortfolioOnBSky 202
A photograph of a lakeshore, the lake is smooth and reflective, the sky is blue with a wide soft band of pastel peach cloud across it, the foreground is mostly water but a peninsula into the lake comes in from the left & left bottom and extends most of the way across the picture, with tufa formations and bushes on it.
October 22, 2025 at 3:27 PM
joedecker.bsky.social
Not the geology people think of when they think of the Mono Basin (more the Alabama Hills, 100 miles or so south), but it's there at Rattlesnake Gulch, NW side of the basin. (The Aeolian Buttes to the SW also have some of this character.)

#PPortfolioOnBSky 201
Daytime color photograph of a landscape, four warm brown smooth granite rocks in the foreground, brown grasses and rocks behind including a peak of rocks in the mid-distance. Beyond that a smooth reflective lake near the top of the image, reflecting mountains and the rounded hills of the Mono-Inyo Craters, with a very pale blue, slightly clouded sky.
October 21, 2025 at 7:20 PM
joedecker.bsky.social
Right? 2012, fwiw. My favorite from the entire experience, even though only the tiniest bit of one of the baby hummers is visible, was this one:
Photograph of a backlit hummingbird atop a nest, beak down into the nest feeding the barely visible bit of the mouth of one of their babies. Green and black out of focus garden in background.
October 19, 2025 at 8:36 PM
joedecker.bsky.social
Back at the old place, I remember one year finding a hummingbird nest just outside the bedroom door to the backyard. An awkward spot to photograph and not intrude (stood on a dresser with the screen door cracked.) I got such joy from watching the whole process unfold.

#PPortfolioOnBSky 200
Two baby hummingbirds together in a small nest, each facing (viewer's) right), out of focus green leaves and such background.
October 19, 2025 at 7:20 PM
joedecker.bsky.social
Strokkur, a wonderful, frequently-erupting geyser from the field that gave us the word geyser.

#PPortfolioOnBSky 199
A black and white photograph of an erupting geyser, backlit against a cloudy sky. At ground level a circular wave pushes outward from the eruption.
October 12, 2025 at 6:20 PM
joedecker.bsky.social
Little Lakes Valley in the Eastern Sierra, I think perhaps Long Lake, near sunrise. Among many other things, I loved the way the shaded tree line resembled a seismograph trace.

#PPortfolioOnBSky 198
A color photograph of a lake (foreground) with trees along the lakeshore, a sunlit peak (left background) with a shaded line of trees near the shore, and a smaller shaded hill with trees (right background). The lake is smooth and reflective, the bottom half of the image is a near-perfect reflection of the top half.
October 11, 2025 at 6:54 AM
joedecker.bsky.social
Just another East Greenland fjord. Memorable to me in part because handheld in very late dusk.

#PPortfolioOnBSky 197
COlor photograph of a ford, water at the bottom of the image and up to the left, mountains across the far bank, a receding glacier between the first two peaks. The scene is somewhat blue and a bit dark, there are some clouds in the sky particularly to the left.
October 9, 2025 at 4:05 PM
joedecker.bsky.social
Occasionally I get the timing of BiF right.

Kern NWR

#PPortfolioOnBSky 196
Color photograph: A Blackbird, slightly blurred from motion, toward the upper-right corner of the image flying right and up, a bright red spot visible behind his head. Most of the image is out of focus landscape, warm-colored tall grasses nearer, layers of green and brown grasses separated by silver ponds between, trees furthest back against a grey sky.
October 9, 2025 at 12:02 AM
joedecker.bsky.social
Fascinating ripples and curves of frozen slush, blown by high winds, floating a pond. Near Vik, Iceland.

#PPortfolioOnBSky 195
A color photograph of a pond surface, the water's surface clearly visible for more or less a semi-circular area on the left side of the image. Ripples seem to emanate out from that circular arc, white on dark grey, they're dirty slush pushed across the surface of the pond by strong winds. Further from the water, the patterns fade into bands of different shades of grey with perhaps a slight green cast.
October 7, 2025 at 12:39 AM
joedecker.bsky.social
There were a lot of moments during my winter Iceland residency where snow transformed the landscape into abstracts, yet another example here.

#PPortfolioOnBSky 193
A color photograph of a deep, narrow river valley covered in snow, much of the image is white, where the ground comes through it is brown, where the ice-covered river is covered by more transparent ice there's a bit of blue.
October 6, 2025 at 2:57 AM
joedecker.bsky.social
And a little more winter Mývatn, just loved this little curl of lakeshore.

#PPortfolioOnBSky 192
A color photograph of a frozen-over lake in cool whites and steel blues. A curl of shore or island comes in from the right, brown, with a few bare plants visible. A few snow-covered hills are visible background, with clouds in a thin strip of sky at the top of the image.
October 4, 2025 at 3:24 PM
joedecker.bsky.social
‘Tis the season!
October 3, 2025 at 4:32 PM
joedecker.bsky.social
A cold morning at Hverir.
Two steam vents in warm light, pouring huge clouds of steam, filling the sky. The ground is only visible along the bottom of the image, a dark reddish brown with spots of ice visible.
October 3, 2025 at 2:29 AM
joedecker.bsky.social
Mmmm, steam. Near Hverir, Iceland.

#PPortfolioOnBSky 190
A snowy color landscape photograph of a stream zigzagging lower-left to more distant upper-right. The light is warm, the snow colored pastel periwinkle and bits of steam are illumitted in a soft pastel peach.
October 1, 2025 at 6:33 PM
joedecker.bsky.social
Not the usual view of Mývatn.

#PPortfolioOnBSky 189
A color photograph, square in format, of a frozen-over lake (taking up the bottom four-fifths of the image or so) with a rounded hill, blue sky and soft clouds in the background. The lake surface is patterned with shapes of transparent ice (reflecting warmer colors near the viewer, cooler colors further away) seemingly jigsawed out of a more opaque white surface.
September 29, 2025 at 4:33 AM
joedecker.bsky.social
A nice bit of pink in a sunset from Redwood National Park's Coastal Trail.

#PPortfolioOnBSky 188
A color photograph of a rocky coastline with seastacks, ocean to the right coast to the left, with warm light on the landscape and a pink cast to the clouds background.
September 27, 2025 at 4:49 AM