Posts in Category: foliage
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.
Fall Impression
Autumn in New England is full of these spontaneous tapestries…accidental abstracts. These trees were across Day Brook Pond from each other, clearly effected by their position on the shore, where I have to assume the pond was just wide enough to catch and hold a pocket of colder air. Moderate tele on the zoom to compress, and Program Shift to deepen the field, puts the color in the same plain of focus, and framing the image adds the intention which lifts this from accident to art. 🙂 Okay, so that is a bit over-the-top, but fall color always brings out the poet in me.
Sony HX400V at 122mm equivalent field of view. Nominal exposure: ISO 80 @ 1/125th @ f6.3. In-camera HDR. Processed in Lighroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.
Fall is Coming!
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When I was out by Day Brook Pond I could not miss the first touches of fall color. I have seen a few other patches of exposed forest edge that are beginning to turn, and the temperature this morning is hovering right around the freezing mark…but we are still a few weeks out from true fall color in Southern Maine. This branch, isolated against the dark surface of the pond, is a real reminder, though, that fall is certainly coming, and coming fast.
Sony HX400V. 285mm equivalent field of view. ISO 80 @ 1/400th @ f5. Processed in Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.
The Pearl
I love macros, and I sometimes remember to take them 🙂 There is a definite discipline about looking closely enough to even see the possibilities. I find it takes and effort to shift my focus to macro, and, once there, an equal effort to shift out again, so my macros come in bunches. (I am not speaking of the camera focus here, but my internal vision’s focus.) This was a macro morning, with fresh ice on the trees.
One of my tests of any walk-around-camera, for me, has to be how well it does macro. The Sony NEX 3NL with the 16-50mm zoom can be tricked into being quite a satisfying macro machine. You just have to use macro mode, and Clear Image Zoom. That gives you something above 1 to 1 macro, and the results are pretty good. This pearl of ice was actually quite a bit smaller than you are seeing it, if you are looking at the image on anything bigger than a phone. 🙂
Sony NEX 3NL. 16-50mm zoom. Macro mode. 75mm equivalent plus 2x Clear Image Zoom. ISO 200 @ 1/160th @ f6.3. Processed in Snapseed on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014.
Icy Needles
We had just enough freezing rain yesterday to say so. Actually it rained on top of our snow for several hours, and just a short drive north of us there was significant ice build-up, but Kennebunk, or at least Brown Street, missed the worst of it. Rather than a solid sheath of ice, we had a granular coating, probably retaining the structure of the snow chystals, and clear frozen drops at the ends of things, like these pine needles. Icy needles. 🙂
Sony NEX 3NL with 16-50mm zoom. Macro mode at 75x equivalent. 2x Clear Image zoom. Processed in Snapseed on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014.
Fan Palm. Happy Sunday!
For us northerners (or at least for me), there is nothing more emblematic of being in the south-land, in the sub-tropics, in Mediterranean climes, than the Palm tree. I feel it in, say, San Diego, but it is especially evident (again, to me) in the forest understory of fan palms in the dappled winter sun filtered through live oak draped in hanging fern. (Of course, in the Southeastern sub-tropics, there is sweet tea too 🙂
This is an HDR treatment, to emphasize what the light is doing with the palm. Sony NEX 3NL with 16-50mm zoom. 70mm equivalent field of view. ISO 200 @ 1/80th @ f6.3. Processed in Snapseed on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014.
And for the Sunday Thought. I am always reminded, when I see palms, of the Palm Story Sunday, and how much of the visual imagery of the Bible we northerners can so early miss. The land where Jesus walked is Mediterranean, and as he was fully man, it had to have gotten into his thought. It certainly influenced the words and images the Gospel story is told in. How different would the Bible be, not in its essential truths, but in the telling, if it had been written in England…or, say, Maine? Not that it would matter. Still, the imagery of the Bible is an exotic to me, upstate New York born and bred, and New Englander by choice, as the Fan Palms in the understory, in the filtered winter light of a live oak glade.
Leaves on Thin Ice
I am not sure what I find so attractive about this shot? It is pretty simple. A scattering of rich brown leaves? A thin coat of ice over asphalt, showing some lacy patterning? The quality of the noon-day Virginia light?
Canon SX50HS. Program with – 1/3rd EV exposure compensation and iContrast. ISO 100 @ 1/200th @ f5.6. 210mm equivalent field of view. Processed in Snapseed on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014.
Frost
As I mentioned in the past few days, the snow we got on Thursday was light and fluffy at the end, followed by colder temperatures and frost before dawn the next day. This combination created some unique effects…like this mixture of frost and snow crystals on the leaves of Beach Rose on the dunes behind the the beach at the mouth of the Mousam River. I love the color of the leaves in the early sun, and the range of textures in the snow and frost.
Samsung Smart Camera WB800F. ISO 100 @ 1/500th @ f3.5. 22.4mm equivalent field of view. Processed in Snapseed on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014. Cropped slightly from the right and bottom for composition.
Sunlit Autumn Tapestry. Happy Sunday!
Yesterday I published (various places) a collage of similar photos…but they were taken just before the sun broke through and really lit the leaves. I did some color balance adjustment to warm the individual segments of the collage and the collage as a whole, but there is no substitute for direct sun when you are after color.
The image was taken from the 7th floor of the Marriott Long Island Convention Center, where they put me while I worked the New York State Ornithological Society Annual Meeting (for ZEISS). Right across the road from the Marriott is a Nassau County Nature Preserve, the last remnants of Hampstead Heath, and my window looked right down on it. It provided a uniquely colorful view in October, and a unexpected bonus for the trip. And, to frost the cake, the Marriott is one of the few hotels I have ever stayed in where you can actually open the thermopane windows, if only a crack. It was enough to get just the lens of the camera out far enough so I did not have dirty hotel glass between me and the scene. Bonus x2.
Samsung Smart Camera WB800F in Rich Tone mode. Processed in Snapseed on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014.
And for the Sunday thought. I never cease to be amazed at the subtle ways God has of blessing me…reminding me of the Creator’s essential good will for me, for all of us, and, I have to think, exercising some humor. I did not have high hopes for this trip. Ornithological meetings, in my experience, are not fertile ground for ZEISS, and who in their right mind would choose to spend an Autumn weekend on Long Island, 40 minutes out of the City? A much busier day than expected at the ZEISS booth on Friday, and then the sunset view out my hotel window, as enough to remind me that God is God, and God is good. Always. And then to look out before breakfast to the Tapestry across the street…to come back from breakfast and find the Tapestry sunlit…well, like I say, frosting on the cake. And me, being me, thinks “yeah, okay God, you got my back…even here on Long Island you put me good places.” I even grudge a thanks.
Well this is me, this Sunday morning, more than grudging! Thank you God.
Now you might be wondering, as I sometimes do, if is really that God puts me in good places, or if I have just developed the ability to see what I identify as God’s good in the the places I am? And to that I say “what does it matter?” I am convinced it does not at all. Either way, I see God’s action on my behalf at work…demonstrating undeserved love. And either way the evidence of God’s blessing continues to build in my life.
And while I am at it, here’s a thanks for what I take to be God’s will at work in those who preserved the little patch of Hampstead Heath across from the Marriott on Long Island. I certainly enjoy and appreciate it. God is God. God is good.
Even, apparently, on Long Island. 🙂
The View from the Marriott Long Island
I am working the NY State Ornithological Society Meeting, held this year at the Marriott Convention Center in Uniondale on Long Island. They put me on the 7th floor with a window that overlooks this view at the end of rainy, blustery day. And, wonder of wonders, the Marriott has windows that actually open…just enough to get the just the tip of the lens of my Samsung Smart Camera WB800F out the crack (and it is a very small lens). The tapestry of Autumn color under the sunset sky was too good to miss.
Camera as above. In Rich Tone mode (in-camera HDR). Processed in Snapseed on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014, using the new HDR scene effect, some Ambiance, Sharpening and Structure. I then opened the image in Photo Editor and applied some Perspective correction to pull the buildings more or less upright. The overall result is a bit painterly but, I think, interesting.