Posts in Category: foliage
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.
The Texture of Fall
Maple Leaf. Kennebunk Maine
Full Fall has finally come to southern Maine. We are not yet at peak color, but it looks now like we might make it by Columbus Day…which would put us right back on schedule 🙂 Both of my Point and Shoots are malfunctioning at the moment (I actually canceled a trip to Panama, at least in part, because my workhorse cameras have gone lame…one is in the shop and the other will go in this week) so I am shooting with my Sony Alpha NEX 5t. I had forgotten what a nice camera it is. It certainly captures all the subtle texture and delicate color of this fallen leaf (if delicate is a work you can use to describe red).
This is an in-camera HDR at 63mm equivalent field of view using the 16-50mm zoom on the NEX. Nominal exposure was 1/80th @ ISO 320 @ f5.6. Processed in Lightroom.
October Marsh
Little River Marsh, Laudholm Farm, Wells ME
When October sends a gloomy day…you take gloomy day pictures. There is still a beauty to be had. The sky broods. The colors burn like late embers. I seem to be stuck in cliche mode, but you get the gist. This is from the observation deck on the boradwalk trail at the Well National Estuarine Research Center at Laudholm Farm in Wells, Maine.
Sony HX400V in-camera HDR. Processed in Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.
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.
A river runs through Maine too…
Mousam River at Roger’s Pond
Several, of course, but if you get the movie reference, this is one of the more popular fly fishing rivers and fly fishing spots in Southern Maine. It is the Mousam River at Roger’s Pond. There are fly fishermen here while the river is a narrow channel running through sheet ice, and they will be here until the snow blocks access to the stream. This shot combines the best of what the river and autumn in Maine have to offer.
It was not an easy shot. The sun on the water behind the fisherman made a conventional exposure impossible, and the motion of the fishermen made HDR problematic. I tried several shots to get this one in-camera HDR treatment. Even then it took more than my standard Lightroom processing.  55mm equivalent flied of view. Sony HX400V. Pretty much a classic: right off the cover of the Orvis catalog. 🙂
The way fall is supposed to be…
Old Falls Pond on the Mousam River
“Maine: the way life is supposed to be.” State motto. 🙂 Or at least what it says on the welcome sign on I95 when you cross the Kittery Bridge from New Hampshire. I have been waiting all fall so far for a sky like this over the foliage. Sky the way it is supposed to be. Fall the way it is supposed to be. I stood by this lake, Old Falls Pond on the Mousam River, for over an hour waiting for a spot of sunlight to break through and light the foliage, but I had to settle, in the end, for indirect light. Still, pretty good! And the sky is not devoid of interest. 😉
Sony HX400V at 24mm equivalent. In-camera HDR with the level set to 6 EV and -2/3rd EV exposure compensation. Processed in Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.
October Drama
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Yesterday was a dreary day, just on the edge of rain when it was not raining, and today we are promised thundershowers until mid-afternoon…but this is typical Maine fall weather…and not without its drama. Wonderful skies for a few moments here and there as the front passed over us. I kept my weather eye on all morning, and took the camera out when it seemed there might be something special in the offing. It is wonderful not having to watch the clock and work my photography around real work. Photography and writing are my real work now 🙂
This is the view back to Route 9 from the Kennebunk Bridle Path…which, again, I have photographed in all seasons and all weathers. I love the weathered posts, and the tree line, and, often, the sky. This is a more static composition than I favor…with the horizon too close to the middle…but I find that I can not sacrifice anything at the top or bottom. The shadow of the post needs room at the bottom, and that patch of blue sky at the top is essential. I will have to trust to the detailed cloud-scape to provide dramatic tension. I think it works.
Sony HX400V at 24mm equivalent field of view. In camera HDR. 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.