Posts in Category: afternoon light
Northern Blazing Star on Goldenrod
Northern Blazing Star in the foreground, Goldenrod in the back. Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area, Maine
As though the Northern Blazing Star were not purple enough already, I found spots on the Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area where it was growing in association with Goldenrod. I made several attempts to capture the effect. 🙂 The Blazing Star is, as predicted, doing well this year.
Sony HX90V in-camera HDR at about 300mm equivalent field of view. 1/500th @ ISO 80 @ f6.3. Processed and cropped slightly for composition in Lightroom.
Walker Point
Walker Point, Cape Arundel, Kennebunkport ME
Walker Point is one of the major tourist attractions in Kennebunkport, and has been since the first Bush administration. It is the summer home of the Walker family, including Barbara Walker Bush, and 2 presidents, husband and son, have spent summers there. It has been the site of international meetings of heads of states, and too may Presidential Lobster Boils to count. There is significant security presence at the land end of the point, but the town has built a small parking area, done some landscaping, and installed a plaque in honor of the first President Bush. The thing is, it was already a popular spot, with informal parking along the margin, before George Bush was elected, as it overlooks Blowing Cave…a natural coastal feature that booms and shoots spray high into the air whenever the tide is just right.
This is about as classic a view as you can get, whether you count the Walker/Bush connection or not. The house on the point, the rugged rocks in the foreground, the arching sky with decorative cloud wisps overhead, and the three masted schooner passing the point. Romantic!
Sony HX90V in-camera HDR. Nominal exposure: 1/500th @ ISO 80 @ f6.3. Processed in Lightroom.
Aldrich House Cat
Cat at the Aldrich House, Strawberry Banke, Portsmouth NH
My wife, Carol, and I celebrated our 32nd wedding anniversary yesterday with, among other things, a visit to Strawberry Banke Museum in Portsmouth NH. Strawberry Bank is a living history museum founded in 1958 to preserve the original settlement/neighborhood that became the city of Portsmouth. It contains several colonial homes, now renovated and furnished to look as they did in the settlement period, a Revolutionary War Tavern, a fully stocked World War 2 corner store, and examples of homes from eras right up through the 50s. Costumed Roleplayers are stationed in some of the homes, and uniformed interpreters in others…and there are daily demonstrations of household tasks and crafts. The grounds are lovely, mostly because of the preserved and restored lawn gardens…both ornamental and practical.
One of the homes there was actually already a museum when Strawberry Banke was founded. The Aldrich Home was the home of Thomas Baily Aldrich for a few years in his late teens, when he was sent to live with his grandfather. Thomas Baily Aldrich was a respected poet, novelist, and travel writer of the late 1800s, and editor of the Atlantic Monthly for 9 years. A contemporary and friend of Mark Twain and other respected writers of the time, after his death his wife (who Twain considered an “empty headed clothes horse”), bought his grandfather’s house and had it renovated to look like she envisioned it from Aldrich’s most famous book, The Story of a Bad Boy, which was set in and round that house. She got it mostly wrong…but she tried. The book itself, while not well known today, is often cited as a precursor to and an influence on Twain’s Huck Fin. To bring this long story to a close, among Mrs. Aldrich’s efforts is a formal memorial garden for her husband on the grounds…and this cat is a current resident of the garden. I could not resist trying the HDR Painting Picture Effect on the Sony HX90V on the cat, the lilies, and the fence. It is somehow very suitable for the house, the people, and the time. 🙂
Camera as above. Processed in Lightroom.
Wood Lily Time!
Wood Lilies. Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area, Maine
If Wood Lilies bloomed in banks like Day Lilies, they would dominate the landscape of southern Maine for a few weeks in July. As it is, blooming as single flowers widely scattered over acres of open sand-plain, just peaking up above the blueberries…or in the shady edges of forests or in groves of trees along ponds among the ferns…a plant here and a plant there…so you have to seek them out…they still have to rank among the most beautiful native flowers of our northern area. I have been looking for them for a week now…and yesterday they were in full bloom where I had seen nothing only days before. I know a few spots, in the Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area, that seem to be reliable for them, and all but one of those spots had flowers. They will only last a week or so…by mid-July they will be gone.
Since they grow so widely spaced, you are tempted (or at least I am) to photograph every one you find…I came back yesterday with hundreds of images. The colors are so intense…from a bright orange to a red-orange to a orange-red…and, in most blossoms, with spots that are purplish in the shade and the bright yellow base of each petal where it forms a tube that collects pollen and water that attracts bugs of all kinds. The open petal base adds to the elegance of the flower.
These two flowers are on the single largest plant I have yet seen, with the promise of a full head of flowers over the next few days. I will go back today to see if the others opened. It will be quite a display when they do. Most plants produce only a single flower, with a few yielding two.
Sony HX90V at 34mm equivalent and macro focus. 1/1250th @ ISO 80 @ f4. Processed in Lightroom.
If you want to be overwhelmed by Wood Lilies, visit my gallery of yesterday’s shots here.
May Wildflower Smorgasbord
Rachel Carson NWR Headquarters Trail
I took a turn around the trail at the Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge headquarters yesterday afternoon, looking mainly for spring wildflowers. We have a later-than-normal spring this year in Maine, and flowers that are normally blooming the first week in May are just now coming into flower. Here we have, top left clockwise around the outside, Wood Violet, Star Flower, Geranium, Two-bead Lily, Painted Trillium, and Pink Lady Slipper. The inset is Spring Beauty, with Wood Violet in the background.
Nikon P900 in Close Up Mode. Mostly at about 100mm equivalent field of view. Auto exposures. Processed in Lightroom and assembled in Coolage. Coolage makes this kind of panel relatively easy to assemble.
Nubble Light
Nubble Light, Cape Neddick ME
On the way home from Easter Dinner at the relatives in York, we stopped for a moment at Nubble Light (well, we detoured to Nubble Light) so I could take a few shots. Nubble Light is one of my standard test subjects when I get a new camera…and it is one of my favorite “scenic” places to photograph along the southern Maine coast. I mean…well maintained romantic lighthouse, crashing surf, blue green sea, a few clouds in the sky…what more could you ask? And here the gull adds to the composition. 🙂
Nikon P900 at 24mm. Landscape Mode. 1/1600th @ f2.8 @ ISO 100. Processed in Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.
Feather from afar
Goose Feather caught in Beach Rose at our local beach.
The other day at the beach, there were many goose feathers caught in the Beach Rose on the dunes and along the road in. I later found the goose on the beach. There was something elegant about the forms of the white feathers hanging from thorns. This shot was an experiment. It was taken at 4000mm equivalent from about 16 feet. It uses the Nikon’s Dynamic Fine Zoom feature…and the extreme distance effectively separates the feather from its otherwise busy background. DFZ preserves a satisfying (if not critical) amount of detail.
Nikon P900. 1/1250th @ ISO 100 @ f6.5. Processed in Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.
Fluffed Goldfinch
American Goldfinch
We may still have 3 feet of snow in the yard, but the Goldfinches are coming into summer color, so spring must be creeping up on Southern Maine. This Goldfinch was at the feeder, and then popped up to a branch overhead. It is “fluffed” or “puffed”…with its breast feathers standing out from the body. Birds fluff for several reasons. On particularly cold mornings you will see them perched and fluffed before the sun comes up or just after. The additional air trapped in the fluffed feathers acts as insulation to keep them warm through the night. They might also fluff in the first sun of the day…sitting directly in sun…in which case the spread features allow the sun to get in closer to their bodes and warm them faster. Occasionally on a particularly hot day they might fluff for exactly the opposite reasons. Finally, they fluff to allow the sun in were it can kill feather mites when they reach troublesome levels, as they might after a long cold Maine winter. It was not particularly cold when this images was taken, so I suspect the mite cause for this bird.
The image was cropped slightly for composition, but it shows the incredible detail possible at 2000mm equivalent field of view with the new Nikon P900 superzoom bridge camera…at least in good light. You should view it a full screen. 1/500th @ ISO 220 @ f6.5. Processed in Topaz Denoise (it did not really need it, but Topaz is a new toy today) and Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.
Back Creek. Happy Sunday!
Back Creek, Kennebunk ME
We have had occasional moments this week when I could believe in Spring in Southern Maine. Yesterday, after a day of off-and-on snow, heavy at times, the sun crept out through thinning clouds and for an hour and it actually felt like spring might happen. I went to the beach 🙂 Today we are back in the teens, though there is no denying the growing strength of the sun.
This is Back Creek about two miles from our house, where it comes into the Mousam River behind the dunes at our closest beach. I have photographed this hundreds of times. The sky, of course, is never the same twice, and yesterday’s was irresistible.
Nikon P900 at 24mm equivalent field of view. f2.8 @ 1/1600th @ ISO 100. Processed in Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.
The Nikon is a new camera for me. I have not had it a week yet, and I am still in the learning and exploring mode…trying to determine how to get the best out if…and indeed, what its best might be. It is a process I have been through many times before of course. Cameras are complex machines, these days driven by complex programming, and no camera ever made was perfect…especially not perfect for the particular kind of photography I do…for the vision I am trying to catch and share. It always comes down to working with the strengths of the machine, and working around its weaknesses. Every so often you decide there is a new feature, or a combination of features, whether hardware or software, that your current camera does not have…or a job it is just not up to…and you begin to look at what has come out since. Or occasionally, a maker will leap out in front of the pack with a new feature or new programming that just has to be tried. That is what keeps camera companies in business, and photographers always saving up for the next purchase 🙂 For many photographers, the vision inside them wants out…and will work its way out…no matter what camera they have in their hands…but we are always looking for the camera that makes that easiest…and always aware of the limitations of our current tools. It is a perfect metaphor (well, “perfect” is always a stretch) for the way the spirit in us wants out…and is always working its way out through this machine we call our body and the programming that is our personality. God has a vision to express in each of us…a job or series of jobs to do. I have a feeling that God works with our strengths and around our weaknesses to get the job done, every day. The spirit will out. My will is that I would be a good enough tool so that the vision is clearly expressed…the job done…every day. Happy Sunday.
The Land of Enchantment. Happy Sunday!
Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks, NM
We are back in Maine, “The Pine Tree State”, from New Mexico, “The Land Of Enchantment.” On the whole I have to say that whoever came up with the New Mexico nickname did a better job of capturing the essence of the state than whoever came up with Maine’s. I mean, you can market “enchantment”…”pine trees” just does not have the same effect. Don’t get me wrong, Maine is home and I am happy to be home…but New Mexico was home for 12 years, and I can still appreciate the enchantment of the landscape, the culture, and the history. This is certainly an enchanted landscape from an enchanted place. We are back at Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument and here we see two of the three land forms that meet at the Monument. The eroded tuff cliffs in the foreground, and ancient volcanic mountains in the back. The third would be the open valley of the Rio Grande River which is out of the frame well to the left. And storm clouds…life-givers…moving in over all. Enchantment!
Sony WX220 at 25mm equivalent field of view. In-camera HDR. Nominal exposure: 1/320th @ ISO 100 @ f8. Processed in Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.
Of course, enchantment is a state of mind. All around you in New Mexico is the evidence of how fragile and wonderful life can be. For thousands of years…from pit dwellers to pueblos, to Navajo and Apache hunters, to the Spanish invaders, to the hunters turned shepherds and silversmiths, to the trading post merchants, cowboys, miners, farmers, and outlaws, to the atom chasers at Los Alamos and the artists of Santa Fe…humans have tried to make a life in this fantastic, wonderfully weathered, landscape…always poised on the edge…boom followed by bust…never quite waking from the dream. And the landscape weathers on, patient, ever changing and yet unchanged, rolling over and engulfing every change made by man. It is much the same everywhere, if you look behind the current facade, but some landscapes have almost been tamed. New Mexico, despite every effort of humanity, has not. The struggle and delicate balance…and the beauty of life on the edge…of the waking dream…is still very evident. Enchantment.
My spiritual forefathers lived in just such a landscape. The tribes of Israel herded sheep between the farming towns along the rivers. Jesus was born and lived his life among us in a place that shares this particular enchantment. For me, part of the magic of New Mexico is that I can feel something of the mindset that shaped the scriptures, that gave the words and images in which my spiritual reality was first expressed. Being there, in places like Tent Rocks, puts me into a spiritual perspective, and makes it easier to believe. This is good. Happy Sunday!