Posts in Category: afternoon light

A picture about nothing. Happy Sunday!

White Birch, Laudholm Farms, Wells Maine

White Birch, Laudholm Farms, Wells Maine

“If your eye is generous, your whole being is full of light!” Jesus

On my photoprowl out to the snowy fields and forest a few afternoons ago, I was on the boardwalk at the Wells National Estuarine Research Center at Laudholm Farms in Wells, looking for whatever spoke to me of winter. It was early afternoon and the light was already almost horizontal, but where, in the days before the snow, it seemed to pick out the warmth and texture of the world…now it cast blue shadows and drew the detail sharp. The contrast between the texture of the bark on this birch, standing a foot from the boardwalk, and the fine grained texture of the snow behind it caught my eye. There was something in the shadows, the way they lay across the snow and behind the birch, that added interest, and the little shattered stump, so pointy, fell in place as an accent. It was the matter of seconds to lift the camera, already set for great depth of field, frame, placing the diagonal just so, and shoot. In-camera HDR and processing in Lightroom brought up the shadows on the trunk and in the snow to make them look natural, subtly molding the surfaces the textures where they fell.

And still it is a picture of nothing in particular. It is a composition about composition…an image about imagery. I could look at it forever. I am tempted to make a really large print of it and hang it where my eye could discover it again, sometimes, in passing, and pause to see what is new in it. It would make a great picture for the wall of a doctor’s office. 🙂

It is, so to speak, a playground for the generous eye…inviting vision…inviting the light inside to come out and play. I think it brings the spirit to the surface, so it fills the eye, brimming like water in a spring. I think it wakes the wonder that is the life of our souls and tempts us to touch what is eternal in us and in the world. Ah, but it is just a picture, you say…a picture of nothing in particular. Yes, I say, and that is what is so wonderful about it! But it takes a generous eye to see. Happy Sunday!

Solstice Light in Forest

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Wells National Estuarine Research Center at Laudholm Farms, Wells Maine

I have never been so aware of the light as I am these weeks in December, just at the solstice. Our odd weather maybe is helping…as I am out, and further out, than I generally am at this time of year. The light, even at noon, is just skimming the earth…coming in a such a low angle that it illuminates things I do not normally see, and turns the mundane magical. Take this random pile of tree sections beside the trail at Laudholm Farms. I suspect they are piled and waiting for staff to come and haul them out, but the solstice light turns them into a study in shape and texture, color and form. On any other day I would have passed right by…but in this light I was stopped in my tracks and forced to record the scene.

Of course, this morning we have 7-8 inches of fresh snow on the ground…so everything will be very different today!

In-camera HDR. Sony HX90V at 24mm equivalent field of view. 1/60th @ ISO 80 @ f5. Program shift for greater depth of field. Processed in Lightroom.

Greater Yellowlegs in the Autumn Afternoon

Greater Yellowlegs. Kennebunk Bridle Path, Kennebunk ME

I waited patiently yesterday for some light…for a bit of sun to break through the overcast…before risking a photoprowl. It is hunting season, and though Sunday hunting is banned in Maine, I never really feel safe in the woods until the guns are put back in their cases in early December. Fortunately, I am in Texas and New Mexico for more than 2 full weeks in November…so I generally have lots of pics to post anyway.

This is a Greater Yellowlegs, in the marsh pools along the Bridle Trail in an isolated section of Rachel Carson NWR, in Kennebunk Maine. The late afternoon light makes the image warm, makes the shadows long, and picks out the detail in the plumage. Nikon P900 (back from repair!) at 2000mm equivalent field of view. 1/500th @ ISO 320 @ f6.5. Processed in Lightroom.

Hairy Autumn

Hairy Woodpecker, The Yard, Kennebunk ME

I am on my way to Cape May New Jersey today for the Cape May Autumn Bird Festival, so this is an early post. I tend to avoid feeder shots, but sometimes I just can not resist. This Hairy Woodpecker posed on the feeder pole against the afternoon light on the Maple leaves just once too often, and I had to do it. 🙂

Nikon P610 at 1440mm equivalent field of view. 1/200th @ ISO 400 @ f6.5. Processed in Topaz Denoise and Lightroom.

 

Full Stretch!

Great Blue Heron, Back Creek Marsh, Kennebunk ME

I went to Rachel Carson NWR headquarters yesterday afternoon, after the rains passed, but while there was still drama in the sky. It was lovely. The fall foliage is just about at peak, and the colors as patches of sun crossed the forest and marsh, were warm and inviting. On the way back I stopped at our local semi-private beach, and Back Creek Marsh which is behind the dunes. When I parked, there were two Great Blue Herons hunting the marsh…one on either side of the access road…one backlit and one full-lit by the low afternoon sun. I took a bunch of pictures and then a young friend walked up and we got talking. When I turned, by chance, to Heron on the sunny side of the road, it had worked its way much closer and I shot off another series of exposures. I had the camera to my eye when the Heron decided to raise its wings…and then to strike this pose. I am not sure what it was doing. It would be impossible to strike from this position, and the wings are not shading the water for better vision through the surface, as they would be if this were a Reddish Egret umbrella fishing for instance. The Heron held the pose for several seconds and then relaxed. Who knows?

Nikon P610 at 1440mm equivalent field of view. 1/400th @ ISO 100 @ f6.5. Processed and cropped slightly for composition in Lightroom.

Reflected Glory

Fernald Brook Pond, Route 9, Kennebunk ME

If I live to be a hundred (and we stay in Maine) I imagine I will still be visiting this pond every fall to see what the color looks like in reflection. Sheltered as the pond is, it has to be blowing a gale before anything disturbs the mirror of the surface. This still autumn afternoon the trees are, if anything, even more brilliant in the polarized reflection in the pond.

Sony Alpha NEX 5t in-camera HDR. Nominal exposure 1/200th @ ISO 100 @ f9. Processed in Lightroom.

Fishing Old Falls Pond

Old Falls Pond on the Mousam River, West Kennebunk ME

Yes, fall is coming on strong now here in southern Maine. I drove out to the Kennebunk Plains and Day Brook Pond yesterday, and then around to Old Falls and Old Falls Pond on the Mousam River. There was a friendly fisherman at Old Falls Pond and I asked if I could include him in the view. He makes it a classic calendar or magazine cover shot. Maybe on the Post, painted by Norman Rockwell. 🙂

Sony Alpha NEX 5t with 16-50mm zoom @ 24mm equivalent field of view. In-camera HDR. Nominal exposure 1/320th @ ISO 100 @ f9. Processed in Lightroom.

Semipalmated Snack

Semi-palmated Plover, A Beach, Kennebunk ME

We have been taking after-dinner walks on the beach the past few days. It is still tourist season in Kennebunk, and even though our local beach is not strictly speaking a “public” beach, there is never any parking there from shortly after sunrise when the fishermen arrive, to just before sunset, when the tourists begin to go back to motels and out to supper. We time our visits according. 🙂 There are quite a few peeps and shore-birds coming through on migration right now. This is a Semi-palmated Plover, dispatching a little wormy thing it plucked from the surf. The light, only a half hour before an August sunset, is low, slanting, and warm.

This is a full frame, hand-held shot. Nikon P900 at 2000mm equivalent field of view. 1/500th @ ISO 250 @ f6.5. Processed in Lightroom.

Sandstone Bluffs Overlook on El Malpais

Sandstone Bluffs overlook at El Malpais National Monument, near Grants NM

Sandstone Bluffs overlook at El Malpais National Monument, near Grants NM

It does not seem possible that my daughter Sarah and I experienced the many kinds of beauty we saw yesterday in just one day. We picked up a car at the Albuquerque Sunport at noon…after some negotiation, a nice little Kia Soul…and drove and down across New Mexico into Arizona. Along the way we drove through El Malpais National Monument which consists of amazing stand stone mesas and bluffs and one of the largest (and most recent) lava flow fields in North America. We stopped at La Ventana Natural Arch, then drove the rest of the length of the Malpais, and on out across a volcanic plateau (complete with cinder cones) clothed, in this wet summer, in so much green that it looked like the Yorkshire Downs more than New Mexico. On the plateau we were caught in amazing cloud burst thunderstorms with veils and faucets of rain, were stunned by vast expanses of sunflowers filling low spots and turning the foothills yellow, caught a rainbow, and then drove out across Arizona and down one side of the Salt River Canyon and up the other. Sunset found us on the west rim of the canyon. Amazing day.

This is early in the trip, at Sandstone Bluffs Overlook in El Malpais National Monument. That is Mount Taylor on the horizon to the right, one of the youngest volcanoes in the US, and author of the black lava flows you see to the left. The intricately carved edge of the sandstone mesas dominates the view.

Sony HX90V in-camera HDR at 24mm equivalent field of view. Processed in Lightroom.

Cactus Garden

Native cactus, Arroyo Hondo Open Space, Santa Fe NM

My assignment for yesterday morning was to find somewhere to hike around Santa Fe. With the help of Google and the Trails Alliance of Santa Fe I found Arroyo Hondo Open Space. It is right at the east edge of the city, near the top of the first pass on 25 North. After some false starts due to my thinking I could find it without consulting the gps, we got there. There is a nice parking area (and even a portapody) and an extensive loop of trail through Pinion Juniper habitat with too many varieties of cactus to count. It must be glorious when in bloom. There were a few wildflowers still in bloom in August…and the views were amazing. They say on a clear day you can see Mt. Taylor, 90 miles to the west, and the views south and west over the Sandias are spectacular. On the other side of the hill you overlook Santa Fe, and the Santa Fe mountains rise to the North. All in all a great place to spend an afternoon (or morning…morning would be cooler in August 🙂

This little grouping of cacti and rocks looks like something a landscape gardener would have designed…and my compliments to the master gardener!

Sony HX90V in-camera HDR at 160mm equivalent field of view. 1/320th @ ISO 80 @ f5.6. Processed in Lightroom.