Posts in Category: abstract
Ice Bells on the Mousam
Along the Mousam River at Roger’s Pond, Kennebunk Maine
I told the story of finding these ice bells along the Mousam River in yesterday’s Year Poem. (https://plus.google.com/u/0/+StephenIngraham/posts/Ec4WMeWA9xQ) . This set formed off and existing shelf of ice attached to a log just the right height above the stream. Though I understand the physics of the ice bell, I am not at all sure I understand the physics of this shelf and ice bell formation. ?? It is certainly beautiful with the sun shining through it!
In camera HDR. Sony HX90V at 514mm equivalent field of view. 1/250th @ ISO 125 @ f6.3. Processed and cropped slightly for composition in Lightroom.
Winter Still Life With Fern
Laudholm Farms, Wells Maine
Another shot from my photoprowl to Laudholm Farms in search of winter. I think this is actually Cinnamon Fern…or what winter has left of it. I like the delicate shapes and textures of the fern, especially in contrast to the surface of the snow.
Sony HX90V at 110mm equivalent field of view. In-camera HDR. Nominal exposure: 1/200th @ ISO 80 @ f6.3. Processed in Lightroom.
A picture about nothing. Happy Sunday!
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
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.
Winter hat
Fungi growing on a birch stump. Laudholm Farms, Wells Maine
I have walked right by this rather amazing cap of fungi growing on a birch stump at Laudholm Farms hundreds of times. Of course, in summer, it is somewhat hidden by the brush around the base of the tree…still I am surprised that I did not find it before this. The December light the other day helped. The low angle illuminated things not ordinarily seen. This cap is old enough to have picked up some algae. Unlike its role in lichen, with is a compound organism, I think the algae here is just in symbiotic relationship with the fungus. What caught my eye, and what is still of primary interest to me in the image, is the texture of the fungi. The tiny hair like structures on the surface caught the light and made the fungus glisten. And then there is the form of the thing. I find it fascinating.
Sony HX90V at 24mm equivalent field of view. In-camera HDR. Nominal exposure: 1/250th @ ISO 80 @ f5.6. (Program shift used to increase depth of field.). Processed in Lightroom.
Christmas Edition: 12/24/2015
Merry Christmas
We have this Christmas cactus that has faithfully bloomed twice a year for the past 5 years at least. It blooms just before and through Christmas, and then it blooms again, just before and through Easter. We don’t do anything special to it. It just does it. I take pictures of the blooms each year, both seasons. It is certainly a faithful reminder of the miracle of Jesus…the great gift of God to us in the Son of God and Son of Man, who came so that we could believe, and choose life and love. As I post this Christmas Eve (or coming up to it), I am thinking of the day tomorrow, when our family, and families all around the world, will celebrate both life and love by gathering, by exchanging gifts…in their worship and their fellowship together. Christ is born! And, for those of us who choose, that makes all the difference.
This is my Christmas post. I will joining in the celebration tomorrow. Have a very Merry Christmas, and I will see you all on the 26th.
Sunset through Beach Rose. Happy Sunday!
Sunset through beach rose, Kennebunk ME
“If your eye is generous, your whole being is full of light!” Jesus
The Beach Rose, in December, going on for Christmas, looks brittle and broken…a tangled mass of hairy, thorny stems without much redeeming beauty…but put it in front of the setting sun, and suddenly it is alive again, and full of light. It is all a matter of perspective…of attitude. I find it interesting that these two words, which name the physical relationships between objects, have come to also mean our mental, or even spiritual relationship to the world around us. Perspective names the effect of distance on the apparent relative size of objects between us and the visual horizon…and attitude, in its physical sense, names the angle of incline of objects relative to a plane (a ship on the sea has an attitude measured in degrees, relative to the sea). In the mental/spiritual sense, when we say we have perspective on something…we mean we are viewing it in right relationship to the really important things in our life. If someone says you need an attitude adjustment, they mean that that you need to change your “slant” toward the world. Instead of measuring it in degrees, we say there are bad attitudes and good attitudes…cheerful attitudes and sour attitudes. It is a matter of how you are holding yourself in relation to the world.
The generous eye, the eye that both open to let in the beauty and wonder of the world around us, and open wide enough to let the light within illuminate the beauty and wonder without…which is really saying the same thing twice…determines both our perspective and our attitude.
You can choose how you see the tangled mass of Beach Rose stems. At least at sunset, when the light is shinning in your eyes.
Happy Sunday! And a blessed season, as we approach the celebration of the rising, the birth, of Jesus, son of God and son of man…who taught us to look with generous eyes, and whose light fills our whole beings.
Evoking Cranes in the Dawn
Sandhill Cranes before dawn. Bosque del Apache NWR, Socorro NM
This is, to my eye, an “evocative” image…it evokes the experience of watching the Sandhill Cranes taking flight in the pre-dawn light at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge more than it “portrays” it. High ISO, low shutter speed, and a rapid pan with the birds in flight leads to an impressionistic background…water (including the two cranes standing) and landscape suggested rather than detailed…stripped down to a basic layering of color and texture. The relatively sharp cranes are laid over the background, but even they have a bit of the motion blur. Overall it looks more like a painting than a photograph. Generally I do not like that…but here, I think, it works. This would stand up to a fairly large print…and viewed from normal viewing distance, it would be quite striking on the wall. Evocative!
Nikon P900 at 400mm equivalent field of view. 1/60th @ ISO 560 @ f5. Processed and cropped slightly at the bottom for composition in Lightroom.
Geese Away!
Snow Geese (and a few Ross’), Bosque del Apache NWR, Socorro NM
We return, this morning, to Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge and the Festival of the Cranes. Snow Geese (and a few Ross’ undoubtedly) taking off in mass for another field. It is hard to capture the effect without the sound of hundreds of wings beating and dozens of geese calling. 🙂
Nikon P900 at 800mm equivalent field of view. Shutter preferred. 1/640th @ ISO 100 @ f7.1. Processed in Lightroom.
December Tapestry
Mix of fallen leaves, Kennebunk Bridle Path, Kennebunk ME
No December snow yet here in southern Maine, and none in the forecast. The advantage of course is that we are getting to see the oak and other fall leaves weather and begin to decompose. 🙂 For some obscure reason this combination of leaves and grasses…the colors, the textures, the shapes…caught my eye and I circled around it for a few moments finding the angle. Yes, it would make a great jig-saw puzzle, but I find it attractive enough to grace any wall…or to make a wonderful screen saver image.
Sony HX90V in-camera HDR at 90mm equivalent field of view. Nominal exposure: 1/100th @ ISO 100 @ f5. Processed in Lightroom.