Posts in Category: tree
The Oaks are Last to Turn.
I was afraid this might happen. I was away from home for a week working in Alabama, and fall came and went while I was gone. I come back to Maine to find lots of leaves already on the ground and the oaks turning. Such is life.
On the other hand, the oaks this year are as intense as I have ever seen them. Some years they just slide from green to brown. This year they are blazing red. And never more so than in the low fall sun-light of a late afternoon. These are mostly in shade and they still glow.
Samsung Smart Camera WB800F in Rich Tone mode. Processed in Snapseed on the Nexus 7.
Early Fall
As I mentioned elsewhere yesterday, the first touch of Autumn color in our area is often seen at the ponds along Rt 9 that feed Back Creek. The cold deep water, the narrow opening of the ponds, and the exposure of the trees along the edge serve somehow to amplify the seasonal change. This is a three exposure HDR, handled automatically by the Samsung Smart Camera WB800F’s Rich Tone mode. And here is matter for Rich Tone if ever there were such 🙂
I glimpsed this particular view of the pond, not my usual head-on shot, as I was slowing the scooter down to stop, and walked back along the road to catch it.
Processed in Snapseed on the Nexus 7.
Leaf for Thursday
I love to look at what the bark of trees, especially mature trees, gets up to. The textures are fascinating, and never more so than in the burles, galls, and other “infections” that tree-kind is heir to. Somehow I suppress the knowledge that I am looking at disease, and I just enjoy the feast of form and texture. Here the single leaf, growing from the section of affected bark, adds the element of contrast that completes the composition, and the fact that the bark is wet from a recent shower deepens the texture.
Taken on the grounds of Lakeside Chautauqua in OH.
Samsung Smart Camera WB800F in macro mode. 28mm equivalent field of view. f2.8 @ 1/20th @ ISO 400. Program. Processed in Snapseed on the Nexus 7.
The Glory of Death by Vine
I have photographed this tree before…or attempted to. It is a challenge to capture anything like the effect of this totally vine shrouded tree. Sweep panorama on the Samsung Smart Camera WB800F comes as close as I have come. And the distortions are certainly interesting 🙂
The Vine Tree is across the street from the Hoover Auditorium at Lakeside Ohio, and is somewhat of a tourist attraction. As I was taking the picture, two ladies walked out of the cabin next door. “Don’t be fooled by its beauty,” one said. “It is killing the tree!”
And of course she is right. The vine will eventually suck the life out of the tree…but this is not a Strangler Fig Vine…it is some kind of Ivy…and I suspect it and the tree will have long season of coexistence. And it is beautiful in its way. Glorious even.
Processed in Lightroom. Click the image for a larger version.
Opening in the forest.
On my Sunday morning photoprowl, I discovered that the folks at the Kennebunkport Land Trust have installed all new signage at Emmon’s Preserve. The new trail maps alerted me to sections of the Preserve I never suspected existed, and trails I had, obviously, never walked. Well, there is a fix for that! 🙂
I picked a new trail, largely because it included what was labeled on the map as “the Batson River Bridge.” I like rivers and I like bridges. And the bridge was impressive: A long arch of shaped aluminum, very modern and very efficient, and just wide enough for two hikers to pass abreast. The trail on the other side of the Batson is called “The Learning Trail” and is a cooperative effort of the Land Trust and the Alternative Education Program at Kennebunk High School. It is a great trail, with lots of interpretative sings and its own website, which you can access via QR codes on each of the signs. How great is that!
This is the view down a little brook, complete with its own boardwalk, that makes an opening in the forest canopy about half way around the loop of trail. It is a vertical sweep panorama taken with the Samsung Smart Camera WB250F. I love the effect! Processed in Snapseed on the Nexus 7.
Trees by threes
This trio of popular trees along the Kennebunk Bridle Path caught my eye one day as I passed. I like the lichen on the bark, and the pattern the three make against the greenery. The 24mm equivalent lens provides the depth of field to shot close in to the front tree, and yet have the others in relative focus as well. It is all about composition, really.
Samsung Smart Camera WB250F. Program. -1/3EV exposure compensation. 24mm equivalent field of view. f3.2 @ 1/60th @ ISO 100. Processed on the Samsung Galaxy S4 in PicSay Pro.
Evening Light
If you enjoy the beach, here in Southern Maine, and you are a local, you go early or you go late. During the day, there are no parking spaces…they are all filled with folks from away who are trying determinedly to pack a full Maine experience into 6 days, and living out of a motel. It is great for the economy, of course. It just means we locals only see the beach and the dunes and the ocean at their best light 🙂
This was late: 6:47 PM according to the clock on my camera. The light is low and lovely. The Timothy Hay is ripe and ready for cutting (they had already started at the other end of the field). The avenue of maples along the road is standing, as they have for generations, sentry over the whole. And just enough clouds, out over the ocean, to give the sky a bit of interest. Lovely all together!
Samsung Smart Camera WB250F in Rich Tone (HDR) mode. 24mm equivalent field of view. Nominally f3.2 @ 1/250th @ ISO 100 (nominal because it is actually three exposures combined…I assume the recorded exif is for the “middle” exposure). Processed in PicSay Pro on the Samsung Galaxy S4.
The tallness of birches.
Panoramas are difficult at the best of times to display on a computer monitor or screen…just not enough real estate…and vertical panoramas are especially cramped. Still, when faced with a tall tree, what do you do? This is a vertical sweep panorama of an impressive pair of intertwined Paper Birch trees at Laudholm Farm and Wells National Estuarine Research Reserve. It is along the boardwalk through the wet forest behind the dunes and the marsh. The panorama certainly does not do the trees justice, but it captures the tall grace of them better than a normal shot ever could.
Samsung WB250F in Panorama Mode. Processed in PicSay Pro on the Samsung Galaxy S4. (If you have never used “sweep panorama” on a camera, it is actually very impressive. Unlike a normal panorama, which is several “flat” images stitched together, a sweep panorama is “painted” onto the sensor one thin line at a time as you move the camera. It produces a unique and interesting effect. And it dead easy!)
Trees at the Pond
I like these trees, and I like the way they frame the patch of pond and the trees and sky behind. I like it so well that I have taken this shot in most of the seasons when you can get to this place. It is right off the road, but they do not plow a way in in the winter, and it is unsafe to stop on the road and walk in. This is coming on for real summer in Maine. Our first sun, as it happens, in many days of rain…you can still see the mist hanging in the air over the pond.
This is the camera on the Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphone. Rich Tone / HDR mode. I then processed the image right on the phone with PicSay Pro…using sharpen and boost…but also a touch of Faux-HDR to open the shadows even more.
Carol in the aisle of birches: Happy Sunday!
This aisle of White Birch trees, all of an age, that runs along one side of Great Meadow in Acadia National Park, is one of my favorite views. In the right light it is simply beautiful. Add my beautiful wife, Carol, and frame with moderate telephoto on the zoom for some compression of the length of the aisle, and it makes a classic natural portrait. (The “true”, and much shorter, focal length of the small sensor camera I carry, provides the perspective of a telephoto shot, with the depth of field of wide shot. The effect is very pleasing, at least to my eye. It does not always work well for portraits, but it works here.)
Canon SX50HS. Program with iContrast and Auto Shadow Control. -1/3EV exposure compensation. 170mm equivalent field of view. f5 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 800. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
And for the Sunday Thought. Simply beautiful. It can have at least a couple of meanings.
“Simply” because no more complex or precise an a description of this particular beauty is required. It is beauty itself. The object being described is one of those which provides beauty with its meaning. Simply beautiful.
Or, “having the beauty of simplicity.” For most of us there is a beauty to simple things, things with combine economy with elegance…things which are not overworked, overly adorned, overly artificial (in the sense that the the artificial is more art and artifice than substance)…things that are close to natural. Simple things. Simple beauty. Simply beautiful.
It describes the image, the aisle of arcing birches in the morning sunlight, and my wife in equal measure. It describes the person. It describes the experience. And, if you will allow it, it describes the catching of the experience in this image. All three make me want to clap just once, or bow slightly in acknowledgement, or tip my hat in recognition. All together it makes me smile. It makes me want to kiss my wife, to sing a note of praise to the creator of such beauty, and it is what has kept a camera in my hand all these years, and what I attempt to catch in every image.
Simple beauty. Simply beautiful.
Happy Sunday!