Posts in Category: Samsung Galaxy S4
Wood Lily in the Sun (bonus!)
Can you stand another Wood Lily? Yesterday, after posting my Wood Lilies in the morning, I began to regret not having seen them in full sun. For one thing, more light would give me greater depth of field, and, with the length of the petals and the tall anthers, that would be a good thing :). For another it would bring out the vibrant color of the blooms. Of course I would have to deal with harsher shadows…but…all in all more light light on the Wood Lilies seemed a thing to be desired. So I got on my scooter at lunch time and took a run out to where I had seen them on Sunday.
Of course, they were all gone. Ah well…next year.
But then, as I found some dragonflies to keep me busy, I was still there when two birders drove up, looking for the specialties of the area. In the course of the conversation, I mentioned photographing the the Wood Lilies and my disappointment that they were gone. “Oh there’s lots of them over on the other side of the road.” They described where to look, and I did, and they were, indeed, lots of them…several stands of 30 or more plants…and those were just the ones I found.
I like this shot for the two lilies, for the depth, and for the tiny Green Metallic Bee down at the base of the petal on the far right. 🙂 Of course I did not see the bee until this morning when selecting an image to post. But any Green Metallic Bee is a bonus not to be passed by. Or that’s what I think. (If you want a good look at the bee…click here for the Google+ lightbox. When it opens, place your pointer over the bee, and rotate the mouse wheel forward. The image will zoom in. You can get an even larger view by clicking on the upper right corner of the image to open it in full screen mode and doing the same zoom trick. It requires a delicate touch to do with a two finger drag on a trackpad, but it can be done.)
Samsung Smart Camera WB250F. Macro Mode. 34mm equivalent field of view. Â f3.4 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 100. Processed in PicSay Pro on the Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphone.
So much depends on a few reeds in dappled water…
I am not sure why, but this little snippet from Roger’s Pond in Kennebunk Maine has a very oriental feeling to it. At the same time it reminds me of William Carlos Williams Red Wheelbarrow poem.
so much depends
upon
the red wheelbarrow
glazed with rain water
beside the white
chickens
There is that sense of much depending on the close observation of a fragment of reality: here the reeds standing in the dappled water among the distorted shadows of the trees around the pond. It is a very simple composition…but there is a lot more to it, somehow.
Samsung Smart Camera WB250F in Rich Tone (HDR) mode. 41mm equivalent field of view. Nominally f3.6 @ 1/1225 @ ISO 100. Processed in PicSay Pro on the Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphone.
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.
Mind-bending in Kennebunk
Sweep Panorama is a very strange thing. This is a about a 180 degree view of the dam on the Mousam River in Kennebunk Maine, taken from the middle of the bridge over the river. The dam is, of course, a straight line in reality, and the railing is both straight and continuous. I have attempted this pano with conventional stitched panorama techniques and it is next to impossible. The buildings on the left, in particular, never match up in any two shots. Sweep panorama renders what is perpendicular to the motion of the camera very well, as it records one thin line at a time…and the distortions in the other dimension are interesting. On the camera itself, you can view the panorama as a sweep, which is also interesting. Someone needs to create a panorama viewer for the computer. 🙂
Samsung WB250F in Panorama Mode. Processed in PicSay Pro on the Samsung Galaxy S4.
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.
Rose, with Transient
With our very strange weather here in Maine this spring/summer, only one of our roses is blooming, and so far it has produced only one flower. But what a flower! It even survived the last three days of heavy rain. Not only beautiful, but strong. I think, on closer look, the transient of the title (on the left) might be a mosquito…any port in a storm…I will grant even a mosquito that. Especially after three days of heavy rain.
This is an Rich Tone / HDR shot from my Samsung Galaxy S4’s excellent camera, as I was walking around the yard seeing what the storms had left standing. It was processed on the phone with PicSay Pro.
Prairie Grasses
Somewhere out towards Chase Lake National Wildlife Refuge from Carrington North Dakota, we stopped here in the early light to look for Upland Sandpipers and whatever else we could find. This is not native prairie grasses…it is a mixture of timothy and blue, but that does not diminish the beauty of the prairie morning.
Samsung Galaxy S4 in Rich Tone / HDR mode. Processed in PicSay Pro on the phone.
Wide on the Prairie
The folks at Chase Lake National Wildlife Refuge are justly proud to have been chosen for one of 20 NEON sites spread across the country. NEON is the National Ecological Observatory Network which has ambitious plans to collect ecological data across a broad spectrum, and across the whole continent to help with future policy decisions. See the informative article on Wiki.
This was taken on a stormy North Dakota day from the newly built installation on a ridge overlooking the native and reseeded prairies of Chase Lake. The raised metal boardwalk is to avoid human contact with the soil, which might effect some of their measurements. The image itself is a sweep panorama with the Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphone camera. Processed on the phone with PicSay Pro.
Chase Lake National Wildlife Refuge. Stormy Morning. Happy Sunday!
When you are at a Birding Festival like Potholes and Prairies in North Dakota, you take the weather the day provides. It is not always ideal for birding, or, in this case…the Prairie Ramble…a walk on several sections of unbroken prairie. It is what is it is.Â
And there is beauty in every day and every weather. This is the view from the Headquarters Building at Chase Lake, from under the overhanging branches on the lawn. Samsung Galaxy S4 in Rich Tone/HDR mode. Processed on the phone with PicSay Pro and then tweaked in Lightroom.
And for the Sunday Thought: Well, you have it already. There is beauty in every day, in every weather, and in every place. Part of the beauty is “out there”, and part is “in here”…in the eye that sees and the mind that frames, in the hands that hold the camera, and press the keys on the computer (in the phone or  the laptop). Beauty calls to beauty. Beauty appreciates beauty. Beauty creates beauty. And I will never believe that any beauty is, or even can be, an accident. Beauty flows from the spirit. Beauty is the spirit. The spirit is beauty. Oh, not that way! The spirit embodies as beauty. Happy Sunday!
Prairie Ramble. Potholes and Prairies.
There is no where like the high drift prairies of North Dakota. Yesterday we took a ramble on the prairie. The Prairie Ramble field trip at the Potholes and Prairies Birding Festival. This is the School Sections at Chase National Wildlife Refuge…a square mile of unbroken prairie which has been grazed regularly (a good thing as we learned from the Chase NWR Manager during the trip…grazing is needed for the health of native prairie plants and wildlife, especially in the absence of regular prairie fires).
Samsung Galaxy S4 in Rich Tone/HDR mode. Processed in PicSayPro, and then finally in Lightroom.