Posts in Category: abstract
Good Morning Sky Thanksgiving!
Pre-dawn sky over the yard, Thanksgiving.
Happy Thanksgiving! Like most of the north-east, we got snow yesterday and into this Thanksgiving morning. We woke to trees heavy and ground covered. I got 3/4s of the driveway snowblown with our electric blower before the power went out. I fear there might be a lot of undercooked turkeys today 🙂
Being out, I could not resist the sky as the sun rose. The top frame is a sweep panorama. The bottom frames are in-camera HDRs. Sony HX400V. Processed in Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet (finally back from repair). Assembled in Phototastic.
I am posting this, by the way, on the mobile hotspot I use for travel. Make do!
We have a lot to be thankful for today. In particular I am thankful to see this Thanksgiving (as a heart attack survivor). I am thankful for enough health and vigor to get out this morning with the snowblower! And for family: the ones who gather, and the ones who are spread, literally, from coast to coast this morning. And for the goodness of life. For snow heavy on the trees. For dawn light in the sky. And, hopefully, for the power coming back on soon. 🙂
Curtain of Starlings
Starlings panic at Bosque del Apache NWR
While watching the Snow Geese rise in a full blown panic, I could not help but notice the “mini-panic” in the large flock of Starlings feeding in the foreground. It looked like a curtain of living birds. 🙂
Sony HX400V in Sports Mode. 1200mm equivalent field of view. 1/640th @ ISO 200 @ f6.3. Â Processed in Lightroom on my Windows tablet.
Snow Storm!!!
Snow Geese (and Ross’ Geese). Bosque del Apache NWR
This is this year’s mandatory Snow Geese panic shot from Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge and the Festival of the Cranes. Appropriately it was our last afternoon tour of the loop around the refuge.  In the morning I had filmed the best panic I have seen at Bosque ever…but I did not get any stills, so I was really hoping for this shot in the afternoon. (video at Snow Storm.)
Sony HX400V in Sports Mode. 1/250th @ ISO 160 @ f6.3. 1200mm equivalent field of view. Processed in Lightroom.
Cranes against the Sunset. Happy Sunday!
 Sandhill Cranes. Bosque del Apache NWR
Yesterday promised to provide one of those amazing Bosque del Apache sunsets…there were just enough clouds along the horizon to light up as the sun sank behind the mountains. We set up at the ponds along Route 1 to watch the Sandhill Cranes fly in for the night, and to wait for the sky. Bosque performed as expected. This is a classic Bosque del Apache shot, with the Cranes framed against the flaming sky. There were probably 100 other photographers lined up along the dyke by the ponds trying for this, or a very similar, shot. And that was just yesterday. Hundreds of thousands of images of Sandhill Cranes against the sunset have been taken at Bosque over the years. I have taken quite a few myself 🙂 Still, that does not keep me from trying again every chance I get. There is a beauty and a wonder that persists…that is just as intense the 100th time you experience it as was the first. A beauty and a wonder so rich and rewarding that you are compelled to try to capture and share it every time. Or at least I am. Moments like these put us in touch with both who we really are, and, as I see it, with the loving creator of all that is (including us). They are bridge moments…open window moments…moments of profound connection with all that is and to the meaning…the message being written…the life being lived. Beauty, wonder, and meaning written large and bold in Cranes against the sunset at Bosque del Apache. Happy Sunday!
Sony HX400V in Sports Mode. Processed in Lightroom.
Snow in Mid-America (from 30,000 feet)
Flying across Middle-America after snow.
I could not resist taking a few images with my Samsung Galaxy S4 out the window of our airplane as we cruised 30,000 feet above the unusual snowy landscape of Mid-America. The snow covered the country on our path from DC to Pheonix essentially from the Appalachians to the Rockies, making for a unique view. Besides the snow on the ground, it was a particularly clear day. There were a few clouds close to the ground, but I had a pretty much unobstructed view. Too compelling to resist!
The images were auto-uploaded to my Google+ account and then downloaded to my Window tablet for processing in Lightroom and assembly in Phototastic.
Feathered Eyelids! Happy Sunday.
Common Paraque, Estero Llano Grande SP World Birding Center
I mean, maybe others already knew, but I certainly did not know that the Paraque has feathered eyelids. Makes me wonder how many other birds might have tiny feathers on their lids? This specimen is the faithful Common Paraque that roosts beside the Alligator Lake trail at Estero Llano Grande State Park World Birding Center south of Weslaco Texas, and has roosted in the same spot for at least the past 6 years. It is perhaps the most photographed Paraque in the world 🙂 But that, of course, does not stop me from photographing it again on every trip. Who can resist? This year the lighting was just right for this really tight telephoto shot…tight enough to show the feathers on its eyelids. (That will now probably become a “saying.” “He was close enough to see the feathers on her eyelids!” Etc.)
Sony HX400V at 1200mm equivalent field of view. Shutter preferred. 1/160th (testing the limits of the Sony image stabilization, but it was relatively dark in the paraque roost) @ISO 1000 @ f6.3. Processed in Lightroom on my Windows tablet.
Feathered eyelids. I am amazed. I am amused. Though I make light of it, the fact that the Paraque’s eyelids are feathered fills me with wonder and delight, and a great sense of thankfulness to see and be part of this astounding life…to be able to record and celebrate the details and the beauty. Thank you God. Happy Sunday!
This post is early, since I will be headed out to find more wonders as soon as the sun is up!
October Light in the Forest
Laudholm Farm, Wells ME
Yesterday was one of those clear-blue-sky October days in Southern Maine, just past peak foliage color, when the forest is full of drifting leaves and everything is hopping and popping. Birds and beasts are busy with the final collections for winter. The slant of the sun, and the trees dropping leaves already, bare limbs showing at the tips…there is a feeling of rush…not panic yet…but an unusual concentration, a compression of life that promises to get the most from this day. And, of course, it is all so beautiful!
This is a boardwalk at the Wells National Estuarine Research Center at Laudholm Farm in Wells Maine, just down the road from us. I think it catches the feeling pretty well.
Sony HX400V. In-camera HDR at 24mm equivalent field of view. Processed in Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.
Mt. Agamenticus Fall
Presidential Range from Mt. Agamenticus
Mount Agamenticus is the tallest mountain (well, really more of a hill, if you have ever seen a real mountain) in Southern Maine. It is only 692 feet, but it is so close to the coast and sea level that can seem much taller. It is the center of a unique Conservation Area…a coalition of state, federal, county, town, and private land owners and managers to protect the largest track of unbroken coastal forest between Acadia National Park in Maine and the Pine Barrens of New Jersey. The old ski lodge on the summit now houses a learning center and a conservation center. Trail development is on-going, and Mt. A has become a major resource for those studying the ecology of coastal forests. It has the one of the largest concentrations of vernal pools, including several floating kettle bogs, in the US, and supports endangered species that depend of wet springs. Yesterday, as we near the peak of fall foliage in Southern Maine, there were 30 or more cars in the parking at the trail head at the foot of the mountain, and another 40 or more in the parking at the summit. This is on a Friday morning. Clearly it is a popular destination for recreation in Southern Maine.
Many of those people, like me, had driven up to see the foliage. Like I say, not quite peak, but this is a good demonstration of a point I made a few days ago. Our mixed forest in Maine runs heavily to Oak and Pine, with Maples, for the most part, scattered thinly. We don’t get the solid hillsides of color they get in Vermont. In the image above, those are the Presidential Range mountains in New Hampshire on the horizon.
This is a moderate telephoto shot: about 130mm equivalent field of view, to compress the bands of color and bring the mountains closer. It is also an in-camera HDR. Sony HX400V. Processed in Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.
The Unbearable Beauty of Fall. Happy Sunday!
The Unbearable Beauty of Fall
Sometimes nature is just unbearably beautiful…as though it were a leading a conspiracy to overload our senses and our hearts. Sometimes it is place, like the Grand Canyon, that overwhelms…sometimes it is a spectacle like the Snow Geese rising at dawn at Bosque del Apache…sometimes it is just an otherwise quiet corner of our neighborhood, like this narrowing of Day Brook Pond on the Kennebunk Plains. Almost always the season is a member of the conspiracy, and often the weather…though some places, like the Grand Canyon, are unbearably beautiful in all seasons and all weathers. The few clouds caught over the water here are the weather’s contribution…and of course the fall foliage is courtesy of the season. The birch lying in the water…beaver work…but certainly the beaver knew his part no better, or suspected how essential his role, than the leaves scattered across the water or the wind that scattered them.
It is Sunday, and of course the spirit is on my mind. The spirit, both small “s” as in our spirits, the spirits that animate each of us, and big “S” as in the Spirit of all, the Holy Spirit, the Creative and Loving Spirit that is the ground of all and in all, and which embraces all our spirits…both are essential parts of the conspiracy. In fact, when I attribute leadership to Nature, that is just shorthand for what is visible in the world of that Spirit, and what our spirits can recognize as Its workings in the world.
When confronted with such a conspiracy to overwhelm with beauty, it is all we can do to keep breathing…but that is all that is required of us…to breath, to be, to receive, to let the beauty engulf us and lift us up to become a willing participant in beauty…part of the conspiracy. We are compelled not just to witness but to celebrate, not just to celebrate but to give thanks. That is the truth of the unbearable beauty of fall.
Sony HX400V in camera HDR. 24mm equivalent. Processed in Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.
Fall Scatter
A found fall abstract. Nature throwing paint against a canvas. Very modern. Very moody. A wet day. A wet fall day.
Canon SX60HS. Vivid mode. About 50mm equivalent field of view. ISO 100 @ 1/40th @ f4. Processed in Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.