Posts in Category: bog
9/30/2011: New Boardwalk at Saco Heath
Another view of the new boardwalk and the first fall foliage at Saco heath. This one has much stronger composition than yesterday’s, but the sky is less well exposed. Strong sun just out of the frame made the clouds very bright, and a balanced exposure was impossible without HDR treatment, and a challenge even then. Still this works for me. I like the curve of the variegated boardwalk and the way it disappears into the forest, and I like the tree leaning in from the left. The clouds at center are nicely textured and the sky so blue…over the touch of red maple leaves.
The new boardwalk is a project of the Nature Conservancy. The boardwalk has been deteriorating rapidly the past few years, and this summer they evidently decided it was past repair. The new boardwalk is Wood-Composite, good for the environment, and considerably more durable…not to mention slightly psychedelic.
Nikon Coolpix P500 at 23mm equivalent field of view, f5 @ 1/800th @ ISO 160. Program with Active D-Lighting.
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness.
9/29/2011: First of Fall on Saco Heath
I spent a few hours at Saco Heath recently. Fall is coming. The maples along the edge of the heath have felt the change in day-length most strongly and, with the slightly cooler transition temperatures along the edge, have responded. Green chlorophyll is dying. The red chlorophyll is becoming dominant. This is the beginning of the fall foliage show in New England.
This is a 3 shot HDR, with the center shifted .7 EV toward the dark side, tone mapped in Photomatix Pro, and final processed for Clarity and Sharpness in Lightroom. I prefer subtle HDR. If you notice the effect, then, in my opinion, it is too much already. Every time I revisit HDR I have to learn the lesson over again. My first efforts are always over cooked. This is a second pass…and I think I got it just about right 🙂
Nikon Coolpix P500 at 23mm equivalent, f6.3 @ 1/800th @ ISO 160 for the nominal exposure.
And for fun…here is another shot from the same day.
6/10/2011: Pitcher Plant in Bloom
Continuing what appears to be developing into a theme: something different in the way of flowers. The Pitcher Plant is one of a very few carnivorous plants world-wide, and, as far as I know, the only one to grow in Maine. It is restricted to the few peat bogs that remain in odd corners. I am privileged to live about 15 miles from one of those corners: Saco Heath, and I try to visit it several times a year. June is mandatory as the Rhodora are in bloom, making a brave pink show over the upland sections of the bog. Due to my travel schedule this year, I missed the main bloom of the Rhodora, but I managed to catch the Pitcher Plants in full cry. I counted about 30 in bloom, that I could see from the boardwalk. I am certain there were more out of sight. They grow at the very edges of the raised areas that support the Jack Pine and Rhodora in the bog.
What we have above is a view of the flower from underneath, close up, and looking almost straight up. (This is when I appreciate the flip out LCD on the Nikon most.) Below you will see a more conventional view, showing the pitcher part of the plant and the intense maroon of the top of the flower.
The pitcher collects a bit of water, in which insects drown and decompose, providing essential nutrients to the plant in this nutrient poor environment. I told you it was different.
And here is a more conventional close up of the flower.
Nikon Coolpix P500. 1) Close Up Scene Mode, 32mm equivalent field of view, f3.7 @ 1/320th @ ISO 160. 2) 190mm equivalent, f5.5 @ 1/200th @ ISO 160, Program mode, 3) Close Up Scene, 32mm equivalent, f3.7 @ 1/200th @ ISO 160.
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness. Some color temperature adjustment.
1/15/2011: boardwalk in the snow
When this first posts tomorrow morning, I will be, most likely, at Newark Airport, between flights, on my way to Las Vegas (working trip…which is the only way you will ever get to Las Vegas!).
This is Saco Heath again…the boardwalk under snow. There is as much snow on either side, but the blueberry and rhodora bushes hide it well. We got another 16 inches or so the day before yesterday, so it might look different now. :).
Canon SX20IS at 28mm equivalent, f4 @ 1/800th @ ISO 80. Snow Mode. The camera was resting on my glove on the snow and I used the flip out LCD to frame.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity and clarity.
1/14/2011: You can’t keep a good moss down!
The boggy fir forest that surrounds Saco Heath is always an interesting place. The water there must be on the warm side, perhaps from the peat decomposition, because despite several inches of snow covering the forest floor, there were these little bare patches of moist moss showing in odd spots. The contrast of bright green with the snow and old oak leaves is what caught my eye here. Then it was just a matter of framing it.
Canon SX20IS at 360mm equivalent, f5 @ 1/400th @ ISO 160. Snow Mode.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity and clarity.
1/13/2011: Trailing Pine in Snow
Another from our short visit to Saco Heath last Sunday. We always called this trailing pine, but a look to Google identifies it as Ground Pine, a clubmoss, and a member of the fern family. It has a long horizontal growth below ground, and sends up these vertical branches every 6 to 12 inches. Here a single vertical is isolated against the snow.
I have put the B&W version first today, but this is another case where I am not certain which one I like best. The B&W is processed in Lightroom, using the B&W Look 3 filter.
The B&W emphasizes, of course, form. The color plays on contrast. I like them both, but in this case I lean toward the color version. Color processed in Lightroom for intensity and clarity.
Canon SX20IS at about 400mm equivalent, f5.0 @ 1/200th @ ISO 200. Snow Mode.
1/12/2011: macro flora of the Heath
Certainly this is the only plant flowering in January at Saco Heath, and you have to look down in the cracks between the broken boards of the boardwalk to find it. Not that it is hard to find. That red really stands out, especially against the dusting of snow down there in the crack.
Canon SX20IS at 28mm equivalent and Super Macro, f2.8 @ 1/400th @ ISO 160, Programmed auto.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity and clarity.
10/2/2010: Peat bog!
Saco Heath is one of my favorite photographic destinations in Southern Maine. I have used several images from there as Pic of the Days and I have a gallery on Wide Eyed In Wonder dedicated to it. Saco Heath is a remnant peat bog…the southern-most in Maine, and, as such, provides a sample of an environment that I would otherwise not have access to.
While at Quoddy Head State Park last Saturday, I visited their peat bog…tiny compared to Saco Heath, but totally, awesomely alive. It is obvious, having seen the bog at Quoddy Head, how the bog at Saco Heath struggles for survival. Even in the fog, and even as fall comes on, the Quoddy bog is vibrant and beautiful. At a guess I would say there are more pitcher plants in a 3 yard square of Quoddy than there are in all of Saco. And the variety of mosses and lichens and stunted trees is simply amazing. Truly a beautiful little gem of a bog!
For today I preset the bog in the wide view. Tomorrow you will see some of the detail. The top shot shows a section where the moss still rules, and the second shot, from the back edge of the bog, shows how the trees have pushed out into the bog, where they live a life in miniature. The fog, in both cases, and imho, only adds to the atmosphere of the place.
Canon SX20IS at 28mm equivalent. Both at f4.0 @ 1/100th @ ISO 80 and Landscape program.
Recovery in Lightroom for the overexposed fog, some Fill Light and Blackpoint right, added Clarity and Vibrance, and Sharpen narrow edges preset. Since the fog in the distance was completely white and somewhat distracting, I used a Graduated Filter effect on both images to darken the sky, which had the added benefit of making the fog more transparent.
8/18/2010
Cotton Grass
(Still in Germany)
On the bog in August, about the only thing blooming (or looking like it is blooming), is the Cotton Grass. These tuffs of cottony fiber with their attendant spears dot the marsh and provide contrast with the blueberries that make up the mass of the surface vegetation. I got down low, using Macro on the SD4000IS for this shot (really missed the swing out LCD on the SX20IS!).
Canon SD4000IS at 28mm equivalent and macro. F2.8 @ 1/640th @ ISO 125. Programmed auto.
In Lightroom, Blackpoint right, added Clarity and Vibrance, and Sharpen narrow edges preset.
From Saco Heath.
8/15/2010
The Way is Narrow (but the view is wide)
Happy Sunday!
When this posts, I will actually be at London’s Heathrow Airport, waiting to catch an afternoon flight on to Frankfurt (work), and trying to stay awake after an all night transatlantic flight. Not my usual, or favorite, Sunday routine.
No this, from last Sunday, is much more like it. This is another shot from the stop my daughter and I made at Saco Heath (a different heath altogether than Heathrow) on the way back from her musical service at a local church. I told about the heath and my Photomatix HDR technique in the 8/13 post. This is the board walk I mentioned in that post, which more or less floats on the surface of the bog all the way across.
And, of course, being Sunday, there is a parable (a whole commentary really) about life in the Way in the title and the image. All I will say here, is that there are lots of signs at the heath adjuring visitors to say on the boardwalk for the sake of the fragile environment (not to mention their own well being), and though the path is narrow, and, you might think, severely limiting, it takes you through wonders you could not get near any other way, and provides vistas, like this one, that you would never get far enough into the bog to appreciate otherwise. And, to my eye, as in this image, even the path itself has its own beauty. You just have to look with the right eyes.
I will try to remember that at Heathrow!
Canon SD4000IS. Two exposures, by eye using the Exposure Compensation controls. ISO 125 @ f2.8 and 28mm equivalent. Images combined for HDR in Photomatix using the fusion mode. Blackpoint right, added Clarity and Vibrance, and sharpening in Lightroom. Cropped slightly from the left to trim an obtruding tree branch.
From Saco Heath.