Posts in Category: spring
4/7/2011: Saco Bay
I was feeling the old theme was a bit too busy, and it seemed to have some display problems at certain page widths on certain browsers, so…something new for today. 🙂
And this is Saco Bay, taken from East Point in Biddeford Pool, Maine, looking back along the course of the Saco River northeast of the pool itself, between the point and Wood Island. A classic early spring Maine scape featuring some interesting clouds.
Canon SX20IS at 28mm equivalent field of view, f4.0 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 80. Landscape Mode. Tipped up for metering to bias for the sky.
Processed for intensity and clarity in Lightroom. (see page link above for processing details.)
4/4/2011: Spring Light on the Bascom
This is the Bascom River above the main pool at Emmons Preserve in Kennbunkport Maine. Emmons, as I have detailed here before, is a little preserve set aside for public use, with a short loop trail beside the stream, several pools, some minor waterfalls and rapids, etc. Altogether a wonderful little patch that I always enjoy visiting. Here, the real feature is the clear, crisp light of early spring, the reflections in the water, and the symmetry of the narrows. There is really nothing there…but it is a pleasing…an inviting nothing.
Canon SX20IS zoomed out to 85mm equivalent field of view for framing, f4 @ 1/125 @ ISO 100. Landscape Mode.
Processed for intensity and clarity in Lightroom (see the processing link at the left).
4/2/2011: Pool Panorama, Emmons Preserve
For Scenery on Saturday, another panorama from Emmons Preserve in Kennebunkport Maine…this time a somewhat more conventional one. A sweep of the middle pool along the main run of the Baston River through the preserve. With no leaves on the trees the light actually reaches the water in early spring. This is a very different place during summer. Because of the level of detail here, this will benefit from a larger view. Click the image and it should open on a page resized for your monitor.
Three 28mm equivalent captures with the Canon SX20IS handheld. Stitched in PhotoShop Elements Panorama tool, processed for intensity and clarity in Lightroom. f8 @ 1/100th @ ISO 80. Landscape Mode.
4/1/2011: Coulda Fooled Me
So, okay, the title has nothing much to do with the image, but, given the date, I could not resist. I have photographed this display in other seasons, but in the harsh light of early spring in Southern Maine, it has a particular vividness…somewhat emphasized in processing. These are, of course, lobster pot (trap) buoys or floats, which Lobstermen worldwide have used since the dawn of lobstering (or maybe just after…along about when there were two boats in the water) to distinguish one man’s trap from another’s (and, of course, to keep the rope on the surface). They are displayed on the stair leading up to entrance to the Ramp Bar and Grill at the Pier 77 Restaurant in Cape Porpoise Maine.
Canon SX20IS at about 250mm equivalent field of view, f5.0 @ 1/500th @ ISO 80, Landscape Mode.
Processed in Lightroom for more than usual intensity and clarity.
3/29/2011: Cape Porpoise, ME
If you stand on the fishing pier at Cape Porpoise, Maine and look back down the harbor toward town, this is what you see. Certainly one of the classic Maine fishing village vistas, with the white church steeple and the white clapboard houses, the lobster boats floating on a ultra-blue sea under a spring blue sky. And, in this hard spring light, if you turn right around and look out to sea, you are confronted by the Goat Island Light on the stone ledge that guards the entrance to the harbor and the extensive shallows.
All together classic for Maine. These views make Cape Porpoise, otherwise a sort of sleepy neighbor to far more touristy Kennebunk and Kennebunkport, just about as well visited in the summer. It is still spring here, and I was all but alone out there last Saturday. And look what they all missed!
Canon SX20IS at 1) 125mm equivalent field of view @ f4.5 @ 1/640th @ ISO 80, Landscape Mode, and 2) 150mm equivalent @ f4.5 @ 1/1250 @ ISO 80, Landscape Mode.
Processed for intensity and clarity in Lightroom.
3/26/2011: Beach Panorama
For Scenery on Saturday, this is another three shot Panorama, this time the ocean side of the dunes at Parson’s Beach in Kennebunk Maine. It will benefit from the largest view you can manage, and should open automatically to the width of your monitor if you click the image. I am really liking what the cylindrical stitching does in PhotoShop Elements 9. The view is expansive and yet natural looking…as opposed to what I have done before which always looks to me like a horizontal slice out of a normal image. This is, imho, unmistakably a panorama.
And, of course, the image itself has a lot of interest, beginning with the amazing clouds, the expanse of sand, the tiny people further up the beach, and the cluster of houses on the right. It is not the usual view of the beach, taken, as it is, looking more or less inland, but I like it.
Three exposures from the Canon SX20IS handheld. F4 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 80. Landscape Mode.
Stitched and cropped in PhotoShop Elements 9 using the cylindrical mode. Processed for intensity and clarity in Lightroom.
3/23/2011: Low down on the beach
I really like a camera with a rotating LCD. I like to be able to get down low for shots like this without kneeling in the wet sand, or snow, or straining my aging knees in any situation. And for me, the “on the ground” point of view often adds enough impact to the shot to make it worth the effort. Here the sky reflections in the wet sand and pooled water add to the effect.
This Parson’s Beach, about 2 miles from my front door, on the ocean side of the dunes from the past two days’ shots. Great Hill on the other side of the Mousam, and Lords Point in Kennebunk sticking out beyond. If you view it large enough you will see Cape Arundel on the horizon.
Canon SX20IS at 28mm equivalent field of view. f4 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 80. Landscape Mode.
Processed for intensity and clarity in Lightroom. I also used the Distortion tool to flatten the horizon and correct for some vertical perspective distortion from the low angle.
3/21/2011: Spring Snow
Another shot from the spring snow on Saturday. Catching the effect of falling snow in a still image is a challenge, but this is about as close as I have come. The snow was atypical, and easier…big flakes, falling slowly. Zooming in the image turns abstract.
This is my favorite of the series, but I suspect I would have to explain what it is to many people. To see it in motion, skip down to the video at the bottom.
Canon SX20IS. 1) 140mm equivalent field of view, f4.5 @ 1/160th @ ISO 800. 2) 240mm equivalent, f5 @ 1/100th @ ISO 800. Sports Mode to catch the motion for both.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity and clarity.
And here is a short video…not great quality due the the low light, but it gives you an idea of the effect.
3/20/2011: All in a day. Happy Sunday
Happy Sunday!
We woke to freezing rain yesterday, which, by full daylight turned to huge feathery wet flakes of snow. Not totally welcome as the last of the 3 plus feet of compacted snow from winter is just about gone from the backyard, and we are all (I think I speak for the general population here) getting a bit eager for spring in Southern Maine. It showed pretty heavily through noon, lightly covered any bare ground, and clung to bushes and trees and standing grasses.
This shot is out the window of the car at Parson’s Beach and gives a good sense of the density of the falling snow. In the dim light, I used Sports Mode, to force the ISO higher and the shutter speed faster, to catch the flakes, as much as possible, in mid-air.
And this shot was taken at about 3:15 that same afternoon, from just about exactly the same spot, looking the other way. The sky had cleared, the snow on the ground had melted away, and the sun had a touch of spring, even summery, warmth that made me, for one, hopeful.
And that is early spring in Maine…the most inconstant of seasons: Winter and seeming summer in a single day.
Both with the Canon SX20IS. 1) 160mm equivalent field of view, f4.5 @ 1/800th @ ISO 400. Sports Mode. 2) 28mm equivalent field of view, f4 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 80. Landscape Mode (biased for the sky by tipping the camera up and locking exposure…then processed for the foreground in Lightroom).
And being Sunday: certainly there must be a spiritual lesson in the rapid alteration of the season and the mood from morning to afternoon of a single day. Of course, the day itself is rare enough for record…in it we see the change that is spring happening in such an unmistakable way, in such an exaggerated way, that we can not miss it…so that the day becomes a parable for seasonality and, in a way, in this season, for the hope associated with the coming of spring. I know it makes me feel like throwing off care, like embracing a hopeful turn of mind, like renewing my trust. On a day like this I am reminded: Though dark may cloud the morning, I know who wins the day. And that is true in any season. It is just hard to miss on such a day.
5/28/2010
Rhododendron
We only have one Rhododendron bush in our yard…which is far below par for southern Maine. We have, over the years, planted several more, but none of them took. So maybe we enjoy our single bush all the more. This is an open shade shot, early in the am. I used the Super-macro setting which locks the lens at 28mm equivalent, and exposure lock and program shift to put the f-stop at 5.6 for greater depth of field. (The lens was just about touching the forward reaching stamen.) That put me at 1/20th of a second for exposure, but the Canon’s Optical Image Stabilization handled it well, even sans-tripod.
And if I tell you it was at ISO 80, and Programmed auto, that is all the technical data already.
A touch of Fill Light to compensate for Blackpoint right for extended contrast, added Clarity and just a tiny amount of Vibrance. Sharpen landscape preset. Auto White Balance to remove the blue tinge of deep shadow.
From The Yard, Kennebunk ME.