Posts in Category: foliage
Early Fall
As I mentioned elsewhere yesterday, the first touch of Autumn color in our area is often seen at the ponds along Rt 9 that feed Back Creek. The cold deep water, the narrow opening of the ponds, and the exposure of the trees along the edge serve somehow to amplify the seasonal change. This is a three exposure HDR, handled automatically by the Samsung Smart Camera WB800F’s Rich Tone mode. And here is matter for Rich Tone if ever there were such 🙂
I glimpsed this particular view of the pond, not my usual head-on shot, as I was slowing the scooter down to stop, and walked back along the road to catch it.
Processed in Snapseed on the Nexus 7.
Leaf for Thursday
I love to look at what the bark of trees, especially mature trees, gets up to. The textures are fascinating, and never more so than in the burles, galls, and other “infections” that tree-kind is heir to. Somehow I suppress the knowledge that I am looking at disease, and I just enjoy the feast of form and texture. Here the single leaf, growing from the section of affected bark, adds the element of contrast that completes the composition, and the fact that the bark is wet from a recent shower deepens the texture.
Taken on the grounds of Lakeside Chautauqua in OH.
Samsung Smart Camera WB800F in macro mode. 28mm equivalent field of view. f2.8 @ 1/20th @ ISO 400. Program. Processed in Snapseed on the Nexus 7.
The Glory of Death by Vine
I have photographed this tree before…or attempted to. It is a challenge to capture anything like the effect of this totally vine shrouded tree. Sweep panorama on the Samsung Smart Camera WB800F comes as close as I have come. And the distortions are certainly interesting 🙂
The Vine Tree is across the street from the Hoover Auditorium at Lakeside Ohio, and is somewhat of a tourist attraction. As I was taking the picture, two ladies walked out of the cabin next door. “Don’t be fooled by its beauty,” one said. “It is killing the tree!”
And of course she is right. The vine will eventually suck the life out of the tree…but this is not a Strangler Fig Vine…it is some kind of Ivy…and I suspect it and the tree will have long season of coexistence. And it is beautiful in its way. Glorious even.
Processed in Lightroom. Click the image for a larger version.
Wild Harvest
Wild grapes and crabapples along the boardwalk at Magee Marsh on the Lake Erie shore in OH, waiting for migrating birds to harvest them.
As an image it is all about form, color, and light. The apples and the gapes at the rule of thirds power-points anchor the otherwise somewhat chaotic composition. And I like the way the light wraps the round shape of the grapes and apples.
Samsung Smart Camera WB800F in macro mode. Processed in Snapseed on the Google Nexus 7.
Fall is coming…
The leaves that are falling now, in mid-September, are that dull brown of leaves that have died of simple old-age. The brilliance of frost killed leaves is still several weeks away. Still a little scene like this is a clear reminder that the summer is about to go out in its usual New England blaze of glory. That is a little of what I have captured here, but of course the image is really about the play of light over the various textures and the reflected patterns in the moving water. 🙂
Samsung Smart Camera WB250F in Rich Tone mode (in-camera HDR). Processed in Snapseed on the Nexus 7.
Decorated Leaf
The light was lovely by the time I got to the little pond by the office on Tuesday after work and the dragonflies were out in Virginia numbers…lots of Amberwings and more Blue Dashers than you see at three such ponds in Maine. On the other hand that was about it. There were a couple of Slaty Skimmers, but no other “large” flies. Still we takes what we can gets 🙂
This Blue Dasher posed nicely and I love the light in the leaves…in especially like how the dasher is cupped by the light.
Canon SX50HS. 1800mm equivalent field of view. Program with my usual modifications. Processed in PicSay Pro on the 2013 Nexus 7.
The Palms of Borrego Palm Canyon
The oasis a mile and a half up Borrego Palm Canyon attracts many thousands of visitors every year, and, of course, people have been drawn to the spring and the palms for as long as there have been people. In the desert, water, and reliable shade, will do that. These are the native California Fan Palm, with their trunks buried in massive sheaves of old fibrous fronds, now found only in scattered oases across the dryer regions of Southern California (and as ornamental plantings in dry regions nation- and world-wide). Palm Springs and Twenty-nine Palms probably have the largest remaining groves, but, according to the information that Anza Borrego Desert State Park provides, the Borrego Palm Canon oasis is the third largest remaining.
Impressive as they are from a distance, when you get right up under them, they are truly amazing. These are big trees!
These shots are all at 24mm equivalent field of view, on the Canon SX50HS. Either Program with iContrast and Auto Shadow Fill, –1/3EV exposure compensation or In-Camera HDR Mode. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
67 Supersport at Laudholm Farms
Sunday afternoon my wife and I took a walk at Laudholm Farm (aka the Wells National Estuarine Research Center). It was one of those amazing fall days in Southern Maine when the sky conspired with the landscape to create drama wherever you looked. I have a bunch of interesting shots that you will likely see over the next few days, but this is the absolutely last shot I took there. We were back at the car and the sky and the touch of remaining fall color drew me up on the little berm that divides the parking lot in two. I leaned against a light post and took the 3 exposure HDR.
If it had been any other car in that corner of the parking lot it would have spoiled the shot…but the 67 Supersport (as identified by a car buff on the dpreview Canon forum) is just classy enough to actually add to the composition.
Canon SX50HS. Program with auto iContrast and Shadow Fill. HDR mode (takes 3 images and combines them in-camera). 24mm equivalent field of view. f5 @ 1/500th @ ISO 80.
Fall Fog, Fall Color: Happy Sunday!
Yesterday was one of those rainy, misty, foggy late fall days, when everything is wet, and the last colors of the season excel in depth, rather than brilliance. It brings out the colors of oak and elm and understory shrubs much better than a sunny day could, while the fog softens distance and keeps your eye in close.
Once the rain had stopped, I got out for a loop on the trail at the Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge headquarters down the road, just into Wells. I got there between banks of heavy fog, when the conditions were just right to capture the mood of the day.
Everything was still dripping wet, and any color burned against the foggy background.
With the fog-bound focus of my vision, details dominated, and foregrounds became the focus.
The maples with their sunlit brilliance had had their day…now the understory and oaks held sway.
I was experimenting with the Vivid setting on the Canon SX50HS, and, for this kind of day, it was perfect. It gave just enough extra emphasis to the colors so that I could produce an accurate visual effect in Lightroom…or maybe just do so with less processing.
All shots Canon SX50HS. Program with iContrast. Vivid Color Space. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness, with my hyper-real preset.
And for the Sunday Thought. Of course when fall comes we miss the high bright days of summer. Even in fall, the days we generally treasure, in New England, are the days of wide vistas, bright sun, blue skies with puffy white clouds, and the brilliant reds and oranges and yellows of the Maples. But a day like yesterday teaches that there is a different beauty in the fogs of later fall. There are fewer and less brilliant colors, but every color deepens and draws the eye, and smaller and more subtle details take on life.
It is good to remember that the same thing can happen in the spirit. We treasure the peek experiences…the days of wonderful light and high spiritual skies when we see the brilliance of truth spread round us as bright as autumn Maples. But there is something to be said for those days when a spiritual fog softens and deepens the light…forces us to look close and look deep, to see the patterns of truth and beauty in the foreground of our lives.
Those are good days too. I expect we just have to find our own “vivid” setting…which I suspect must be there, somewhere in our spiritual menus, for just such days. I found mine yesterday. I only hope I remember where it is the next time the fog rolls in.
Oak’s Autumn Song
Much as I like the boisterous autumn symphony of the maples as they turn, I find myself giving ear to the more subtle melodies of the oaks that follow. Oak leaves mostly never make it to the deep reds and bright yellows of the maples. You see the reddest color in leaves just as they begin to turn, while still mottled green. From there to a solid more-brown-than-orange is a short step…and they are very soon a deep old-brass brown. Even then, in the right light, they show a touch of warmth under the darker skin.
And of course, when the light is behind, as here, you do see (or hear, to extend the metaphor of the title) what the leaf is really capable of. The orange rings like a bell, a single clear note in the autumn air.
I stood well away from the leaf and famed tight with a longish zoom…gotta love that bokeh.
Canon SX50HS. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. About 700mm equivalent field of view. f5.8 @ 1/160th @ ISO 80. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.