Posts in Category: abstract
First Day Lilies
Day Lily, The Yard, Kennebunk ME
It is one of the mysteries of our life here on Brown Street in Kennebunk is that our Day Lilies bloom a good two weeks after Day Lilies both up and down the street from us. We might live in a tidal trough…just slightly depressed enough so that the tide blows and draws the breath of our cold sea, two miles downriver, right through our yard. And it might be the shade of our big maples and oaks, that make our yard, our whole neighborhood, look like unbroken forest from the air (easily verified with Google Earth). And it might be when they were planted, or the particular variety, or something in our soil, or…
Whatever it is, I have to wait patiently to photograph my own lilies weeks after they have appeared even 10 houses away. Sigh. 🙂
But when they do bloom, one whole side of the yard are double blooms. Instead of a single, simple, swirl of petals around the anthers, there are two…the outer fairly normal, and the inner smaller and more ornate. Again…who knows why? Close in like this, it looks almost like an abstract of itself.
Sony HX90V macro at about 35mm equivalent field of view. 1/160th @ ISO 80 @ f4. Processed in Lightroom.
Blueberry Art. Happy Sunday!
Blueberries, Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area, Maine. Illustration Picture Effect.
Last Sunday I posed a very studied and classical composition of a Wood Lily, and talked about how, as an image, it drew attention to the artist behind the photo as much as to the subject…and how that made it different from most of the images I take. It was a celebration of the act of creation, as well as a celebration of creation itself…of my small part in the ongoing act of creation, and well as what the creator of all as done. Now, if you think about it, every photograph I take is both…but not so obviously, or so consciously, so.
This “photograph” of low bush Blueberries on the Kennebunk Plains takes the concept even further. Here I used an in-camera Picture Effect to intentionally render the image to look like a drawing…clearly an artifact…rather than a photograph. Though it was taken with a camera, and recorded pretty much just as appears here on the SD card…it is intentionally un-photo-like. The image is simplified to basic shapes and tones, so that the pattern becomes as important as, actually more important than, the subject…the blueberries. If it went any further it would be abstract…as it is it balances on the line between abstract and real, tipped just toward reality. It demands to be looked at as an image, an artifact, a rendering…not as blueberries in the field. And, I think it is beautiful. Striking. Arresting. It rewards your attention. It, itself, not the blueberries.
But, of course, I can not, and do not, take any more credit for this creation than I do in any of my work. Actually, my only creative decision was to play with the settings on the camera…the software in the camera…written by engineers who never saw these blueberries, and certainly never envisioned this image, did all the work. The creator of all still put the blueberries in the field, and, I have to believe, inspired the software engineers in their creative play…so that I could play with the camera. No matter what else I did, I am still only pointing and saying “look at what the loving God has created.” If anything, this image makes me smile…it is fun in way a straight photograph would not be…it is playful. And I like that about it. Because, of course, I appreciate the sense of play that infuses the work of the creator of all in everything I see, in all my experience…and that only inspires even greater love…providing evidence of the playful love of the creator of all. Play is creative love in action. Always! Happy Sunday!
Wood Lily Glory. Happy Sunday!
Wood Lily, Day Brook Pond, Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area, ME
The area near Day Brook Pond on the Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area has not been burned for several years now so the Wood Lilies are much taller, and more of them produce a full head of 3 flowers. This plant was growing right at the edge of the forest at the west end of the pond, in partial shade much of the day. While I did find several heads of three flowers in bloom out in the full sun of the plain, these were blooming out of sequence. I suspect that today all three are open. Still, as a study of shape and texture and how the light molds the world we see, these lilies are just right. I reached out with the zoom on the camera to frame them from a distance, and isolate them against the out of focus foliage of the trees behind, which only emphasizes the basic forms more, and allows them to balance within the frame.
This is an “artistic shot”…carefully conceived, composed, and photographed for itself, as an image, rather than just as a capture of a slice of reality to share. It draws attention to itself, as an artifact, while most of my photos act simply as a window frame, through which I show you a bit of the world I see. In that sense it is more creative than most…which are more simply records of creation. There is more of me in it…my vision…my little portion of the one creative spirit. Mostly I show you bits of the world that might make you clap…in this shot you can hear me clapping. 🙂 It is a celebration of creating as much as creation.
Or that is what I am thinking as I look at it this morning, and, to be honest, what struck me first when I saw it on my monitor yesterday. I said to my wife when I showed her the photo soon after processing it, “Now that is a beautiful photograph…not just a beautiful flower.” And I guess it is okay, once in a while, to call attention to what is creative in me…since I am under no illusions as to where that creativity comes from, or who it belongs to. There is only one creator…if I am privileged to occasionally be the instrument of creation, that can make me thankful…but never proud.
And my prayer for you today is that the good and loving God will make you, in some way large or small, the instrument of creation. Happy Sunday!
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.
Color Riot!
wooden / paper flowers in Santa Fe, NM
We are in Santa Fe New Mexico for a few days, visiting our daughter Anna who just started Grad School in Art Therapy at South Western University. We spent out first afternoon walking around the Plaza area and along Canyon Road, poking into shops and galleries. This riot of color was at an amazingly eclectic shop just off the Plaza. I am not certain if they are painted wood or paper, but the effect, in mass, is irresistible…or it is to me. (Someone suggested they might be corn husk.)
To be as unobtrusive in Sunday crowd of tourists I shot mostly with my little pocket Sony WX220, which is small enough so most people mistake it for a phone 🙂 I fit right in, and it produces images just as fine, within its range, as my superzoom! This is an in-camera HDR at the wide end of the zoom…25mm equivalent field of view.
Processed in Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.
Eye of Pelican!
Breeding plumage Brown Pelican, La Jolla CA.
I have a short list of “must get to” places when I am in San Diego for the San Diego Birding Festival each March. The cliffs at La Jolla are high on that list, and, if weather and time cooperate, are generally my first visit. Harbor Seals with pups at one end of the cliffs, Sea Lions (this year also with pups) at the other, and breeding plumage Brown Pelicans, Double-crested Cormorants, Brant’s Cormorant, a host of western gulls and a few terns, and generally a lot of ground Squirrels in between. It is a wildlife photographer’s dream. The birds can be quite close on the rocks the top of the cliffs…the Sea Lions are medium distance (except for the adolescent and pup nestled up in the shade of a bush right against the fence this year), and the seals are a good way away on Children’s Pool Beach (which is closed for the birthing season)…but all are close enough for some amazingly satisfying shots.
Like this shot of the Brown Pelican’s eye…need I say more. Sony HX400V at 1200mm equivalent field of view. Shutter preferred. 1/640th @ ISO 100 @ f6.3. Processed in Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.
When life gives you lemons…
Philadelphia Airport
Yesterday was scheduled to be a fairly long travel day…on my way to the San Diego Birding Festival. This shot was taken during my 3 hour lay-over in Philadelphia, before I knew just how long a day it was going to be. We were 2 hours late leaving Phili, due to machanical problems and a long line for de-icing, and then strong headwinds forced us down for an unscheduled fueling stop in Phoenix. The car rental center closed at mid-night and we did not make it, so I had to taxi to the hotel and did not get to bed until 1:45 Pacific Time…or just about when I would be waking up at home. I know, “poor me!” 🙁
I was thinking of you all on the way…and decided that with 3 hours in Philadelphia I should be able to find a photo for today’s Pic. I kept a low profile (cameras are suspect in today’s Orange Threat Level world) but I figured I could pass for a tourist 🙂 I like this shot for the color, and the contrast between action and repose.
It is an in-camera HDR with my “pocket” camera. I discovered, while in Honduras, that for people shots, I like a small pocket camera that I can always have with me. It is much less intimidating than my normal, almost DSLR sized, Point and Shoot. When I got back I ordered a Sony WX-220 and I am liking it a lot. Way more camera than a phone…but not much bigger…and certainly no more intimidating 🙂 This shot is at 25mm equivalent field of view.
Processed in Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.
Winter Trees. Happy Sunday!
Wells National Estuarine Research Center at Laudholm Farm, ME
Yesterday the temperature got up into the high teens so we threw our snowshoes in the trunk of the car and drove down to Laudholm Farm (The Wells National Estuarine Research Center) for a couple of hours. The Friends group there rents snowshoes so the trails are, by now, well packed and pretty easy going. We climbed the snowbank around the parking lot and headed out parallel to the woods that line the drive coming in. I was immediately struck by the shapes of the winter trees against the snow…certainly not skeletal, and not quite nude…but something very like both. The birch is one of my favorite trees at Laudholm…birches in general, and this particular majestic birch that lives along the boardwalk trail. I have photographed it now in every season. The birch shot is a vertical sweep panorama, sweeping the camera from fully over my head pointed straight up, down the trunk of the tree to the base…pretty tricky while standing on 5 feet of snow in snowshoes. 🙂
Sony HX400V, sweep panorama as above, and in-camera HDR for the other shots. Processed in Lightroom and assembled in Phototastic on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.
As I surmised after my first slog around the yard with them, I am really enjoying being able to get out into the snow covered landscape on my snowshoes. I have not gotten out as often as I might like, since the temperatures, often with significant wind chill, have not been inviting, but each experience has been both rewarding and refreshing. I am not very adventurous on them. I stick pretty much to the established trails and don’t do a lot of trail-breaking, but even so, they take me to places I just could not get to without them, and it has (again as I surmised) made a difference in my attitude toward this winter. The temperature might keep me housebound but the snow does not. This is good.
Because of course there is a stark, is might be so bold as to say, a spiritual, beauty to the winter landscape. Skeletal is wrong word for the trees exposed in winter because the trunks and branches are so obviously still alive, waiting, biding their time, resting even…and we don’t see skeletons until after death. There is nothing dead about winter trees. Naked comes close…since, at a stretch, they have shed their summer clothing of leaves…but that is not quite right either because the leaves are way more than clothing for the tree…they are way too alive…way too much the tree itself to be considered merely clothing. It is perhaps, as though we are seeing the spirit of the tree…the strong solid core that will burst out, in weeks, with new life. And we are seeing the spirit trees against the backdrop of landscape transformed and simplified by its blanket of snow…again as though the clean clear spirit of the land itself is exposed. We might have to bundle up in layers and strap snowshoes to our feet to get out, but if we bring our winter eyes we see the beauty…and is so alive! We see through to the spirit, and have reason to give thanks and praise to the creator, in this winter landscape. Happy Sunday!
The Physics of Ice?
Ice covered cobble at the beach.
I have been trying to get my head around the physics of this ice covered cobble, found on our local beach, yesterday. If you look closely you will see that the whole cobble, which was about the size of a grapefruit, is coated in a smooth shell of ice about 3/8 of an inch thick…very uniform…very tight. Though it appears clear at first glance, as though the stone had been dipped in poly-carbonate or liquid glass, looking even closer shows that the shell is made up of a lacework of tiny ice bubbles fused into the tight shell. This was not the only one. The stone had to be within a certain size range…not much bigger or smaller than this…and it had to be pretty much perfectly round and relatively smooth itself. As you see from the photo, other stones near this one were not effected the same way. I still can not imagine the mechanics of the process. It was very cold the night before…but, still, how did the receding tide produce this effect? (If you know the answer, feel free to post it in the comments.)
Sony HX400V at 45mm equivalent field of view and macro. In-camera HDR. Nominal exposure (Program shifted for greater depth of field) ISO 80 @ 1/1000th @ f6.3. For scale, the snow drift at the edge of the sand is at least 5.5 feet tall. 🙂
Egret Plumage
Great Egret, Gatorland Rookery, Orlando FL
Today we will drop back almost a month to my Space Coast Birding Festival trip.
The lovely breeding plumage of the Great Egret came close to killing off the bird. Back in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s the lady’s hat trade consumed Egrets by the thousands, and the carnage sparked one of the first spontaneous conservation movements in the US…one that lead directly, if eventually, to the protection of most non-game birds within our borders. So you might say that these lovely plumes did their part to save the birds…all the birds in the US.
There are few places where you can get as close to breeding Egrets as you can at the rookeries at Gatorland and St Augustine Alligator Farm in Florida. These commercial ventures, whether you think them hokey or educational, have, in their own way, helped to save the birds as well. Providing a protected, alligator infested, pool with big trees over and surrounding is simply an invitation to Egrets, Herons, Storks, and Spoonbills to come and nest…and they do. And because there are people there everyday, they get used to the people, and nest withing feet of the boardwalks. This shot is a telephoto macro taken from about 20 feet at 1200mm equivalent field of view. 1/1600th @ ISO 125 @ f6.3. Processed in Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.