Posts in Category: foliage
10/12/2011: Old Falls Pond, West Kennebunk ME
I have quite a few images of this pond, mostly in the fall when it really comes to life. I would have preferred some clouds in the sky…but I took this on my last day home before a week away, and by the time I see it again, the leaves may be completely off the trees. We shall see, but for now this is my Old Falls Pond pic of the year. The UFO above the tree line on the left is actually, if you look closely, a leaf.
Canon SX40HS at 24mm equivalent field of view. f7.1 @ 1/160th @ ISO 125. Program with program shift for the smaller aperture, and iContrast.
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness.
10/10/2011: Oh me of little faith…fall comes to Southern Maine
I forget what a difference 24 hours can make. It is like someone pulled the stopper out of the color bottle overnight. We woke this morning to sudden fall. Still a bit muted by best year standards, but full-on fall color none the less. The leaf-peepers who reserved for Columbus Day weekend foliage are not going to be disappointed after all. 🙂
This is my favorite bow in the river at Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge. I have several panoramas of this view, but I could not resist another yesterday with the color. To do it justice you need to see it larger. Click the image to open to it your full monitor width on WideEyedInWonder.
It is three shots stitched and blended in Photoshop Elements, and then processed in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness. (I have my WideEyedInWonder site set to a maximum of 4000 pixels wide, but the original is about 8,000 pixels wide.)
Each shot, Canon SX40HS at 24mm equivalent field of view. Nominal exposure, f4 @ 1/800th @ ISO 200. Program, with My Color set to Vivid. (My Color is a Canon feature that applies various processing presets, among them: sepia, b&w, vivid, vivid blue, vivid green, etc. There is a Vivid mode under the scene modes, but that is over-the-top in most situations. Super-saturated. See yesterday’s post. Vivid in My Color, however, just perks the image up enough to bring out the fall color nicely.)
And here is a closer view of the center of the image above. About 37mm equivalent field of view, f4 @ 1/640th @ ISO 125. Program, with My Color set to Vivid. Processed in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness and cropped for composition. Again, you can see it larger by clicking the image and using the size controls (if needed) across the top of the window.
10/9/2011: The year there was no fall, Kennebunk ME
Happy Columbus Day Weekend Sunday!
Columbus Day weekend is, traditionally, the height of the fall foliage season in Maine and New England. It is impossible to find accommodations unless you reserve well in advance. I don’t know how other areas of New England are faring this year, but it is pretty dull season in Maine so far. We have had no hard frost, and the trees are hanging on to their green. Only uniquely exposed trees have turned. This scene, my favorite place for fall foliage shots, is a mere shadow of its normal self a year ago, two years ago, three years ago…within my memory. Maybe the leaves will still turn…just late…but the most exposed trees have already started dropping leaves. They just turned brown and fell. Our yard, well shaded by maples, is littered with brown leaves. Not a good sign.
This image was taken using the Vivid mode on the Canon SX40IS…the saturation is over the top for most scenes, but here it brings out every last bit of fall color. For comparison, here is the scene in normal program mode from this year and an HDR shot from last year on 10/3/2010.
Keep in mind that the shot on the left is pretty much what the eye sees this year, and the shot on the right was a week earlier last year.
Folks who reserved early and came north for the foliage show this Columbus Day are going to underwhelmed.
Canon SX40is at 24mm equivalent field of view. Main shot, f4 @ 1/500 @ ISO 100. Vivid mode. Comparison shot f4 @ 1/800th @ ISO 160. Program. Last year’s shot with Canon SX20is at 28mm equivalent.
All processed in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness. Not much processing at all on the Vivid mode shot.
And for the Sunday thought: The seasons come and the seasons go, without fail, but how they come and how they go, and the shape of the actual days that make them, well, that is anything but certain. We make our plans, but ultimately we can not know, beyond the most general outlines, what will come. No two falls are the same. And this is good. It teaches us that no matter what comes, it is up to us how we respond. A photographer, a nature photographer, is bound to look for the beauty in every season and to make the most of it. And isn’t that the best course for every human being? If we meet every day, in every season, with gratitude and appreciation, then, though the seasons are different year to year, each comes as a blessing, with its own unique beauty…and while we may remember and compare, we will live without regrets. Even if we did reserve a motel room in Maine for Columbus Day Weekend 🙂
10/8/2011: Virginia Frost
Ah yes…a touch of winter in old Virginia already. Did a bit of fotoprowl before work on Thursday, just a few moments around the industrial estate where our office is located in Chester VA. I could not resist the frost n the barberry hedge leaves…both as a sign of the season (unusually cold for VA this past week), and as an abstract design and texture study…gotta love what the low sun does with the frost crystals.
For this shot I backed away and framed using the 840mm equivalent field of view on the Canon SX40is from about 8 feet. f5.8 @ 1/250 @ ISO 125. Program.
Processed in Lighroom for Intensity, Clarity, and Sharpness. (just as a note: I am finding the Canon SX40is takes much less processing than the Nikon P500.)
10/2/2011: Still life with water, Happy Sunday!
Happy Sunday!
On my visit to Saco Heath a week ago, the day started overcast. The sun did not break out until I had already passed through the forest part of the trail. I found interesting fungi along the way, and the subdued light and persistent damp made for kind of “fall in the rain forest” mood. Still after sunny couple of hours on the heath I was hoping the sun would persist on the way back through the forest to the car…and that it might waken more lively colors along the path.
This is just a little random collection of leaves, moss, and water to one side or the other of one of boardwalk sections through the forest. We have had a lot rain this late summer/early fall, and the wetter portions of the forest are brim full. The boardwalks were definitely needed. I take a lot of these found still life shots, especially in the fall, attempting to find significant patterns by framing them carefully. They are primarily exercises in composition…which is one thing I value about the long zooms on the bridge cameras that I choose to use. Generally I can set the frame just as I want it, simply by zooming in or out. In this case I took some care to include just enough of the decaying branch to ground the bottom of the frame. And since the floating red leaf is what catches the eye first, I put it at one of the rule of thirds power points within the frame.
Don’t get me wrong. I did not stand and study, figure and plan. I just pulled up above this scatter of leaves along the branch, saw a possibility, put the frame around it, zoomed until it looked right to me, and squeezed off the shot. I do keep the rule of thirds grid turned on in my finder as a compositional reminder, and I am certainly conscious of the composition as I frame and zoom, but it is not in the forefront of my mind. I shoot more by eye than by mind. I see the image and capture it…I don’t plan the image and make it. That is just me of course. Your method may be quite different.
Nikon Coolpix P500 at 176mm equivalent field of view, f5 @ 1/30th @ ISO 200. Program with Active D-Lighting.
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness.
So I am thinking this Sunday morning, about creativity. I read an article this week on the psychology and personality of creativity. It was one of those wiki type things that is more a digest of what other people think and have said (minus the need for footnotes and proper attribution :) ), with no real original thought or even a recognizable thesis…but still it got me thinking. As usual the idea of inspiration came into it. And as usual some pains were taken to explain the moment of inspiration as a sudden convergence of experience and experiment that yields an unexpected result…or something of that sort…anything to avoid the notion that some greater creative spirit at large in the world occasionally touches those with open minds and willing hearts with quite unearned bursts of liberating vision…as though for a second we are allowed to see through to the underlying reality where everything makes sense and is as it should be, and bring just a fragment of that vision back with us to apply to whatever problem or process is in hand.
Taking a picture for instance.
And as usual, the idea that creative genius and madness are closely linked…that the creative person walks a fine line with the balance of the mind…was presented as more or less historical fact. That has me thinking about gratitude. Thankfulness. I suspect…I do not know but I do suspect…that gratitude is a key element in the creative personality in maintaining the balance of the mind. You have to be thankful for every insight…for every inspiration…for every gift of vision that comes from that spirit of creativity greater than yourself. If you are not genuinely thankful…it you take those sudden convergences of experience and experiment as something that belongs to you, that you deserve or have earned…well, I have a strong feeling that that way lies madness.
And, as is not usual in these Sunday ramblings, that is a lot of weight to hang on a found still-life, a few leaves scattered in moss and water, over a decaying branch, along the boardwalk at Saco Heath. I scroll back up to look again at the image. Yup. Still thankful. So maybe it does work.
9/30/2011: New Boardwalk at Saco Heath
Another view of the new boardwalk and the first fall foliage at Saco heath. This one has much stronger composition than yesterday’s, but the sky is less well exposed. Strong sun just out of the frame made the clouds very bright, and a balanced exposure was impossible without HDR treatment, and a challenge even then. Still this works for me. I like the curve of the variegated boardwalk and the way it disappears into the forest, and I like the tree leaning in from the left. The clouds at center are nicely textured and the sky so blue…over the touch of red maple leaves.
The new boardwalk is a project of the Nature Conservancy. The boardwalk has been deteriorating rapidly the past few years, and this summer they evidently decided it was past repair. The new boardwalk is Wood-Composite, good for the environment, and considerably more durable…not to mention slightly psychedelic.
Nikon Coolpix P500 at 23mm equivalent field of view, f5 @ 1/800th @ ISO 160. Program with Active D-Lighting.
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness.
9/29/2011: First of Fall on Saco Heath
I spent a few hours at Saco Heath recently. Fall is coming. The maples along the edge of the heath have felt the change in day-length most strongly and, with the slightly cooler transition temperatures along the edge, have responded. Green chlorophyll is dying. The red chlorophyll is becoming dominant. This is the beginning of the fall foliage show in New England.
This is a 3 shot HDR, with the center shifted .7 EV toward the dark side, tone mapped in Photomatix Pro, and final processed for Clarity and Sharpness in Lightroom. I prefer subtle HDR. If you notice the effect, then, in my opinion, it is too much already. Every time I revisit HDR I have to learn the lesson over again. My first efforts are always over cooked. This is a second pass…and I think I got it just about right 🙂
Nikon Coolpix P500 at 23mm equivalent, f6.3 @ 1/800th @ ISO 160 for the nominal exposure.
And for fun…here is another shot from the same day.
9/25/2011: Fotoprowl, The Yard. Happy Sunday!
Though it was raining heavily when I wrote yesterday’s post, by 10AM the rain had become light enough to get out for a Satruday fotoprowl. Fotoprowl®. I coined that word yesterday on Google+ in describing my adventure. Or I think I did 🙂 Someone may well have come up with it before me. Fotoprowl: an exploratory walk or ramble with camera in hand, intentionally hunting for images. I think it describes what many of us do. There comes a moment when the hunger for an image overtakes us, and we pick up the camera and head out the door…only thinking of destinations as we go…as likely places for pics…not setting out to see any particular thing or place, but going in search of whatever might make an image.
Yesterday I was headed for our back marsh and my pocket sanctuary along the Kennebunk Bridle Path, but it took me a half hour to get from the front door of the house to the car door. Now that the Japanese Beetles are gone, we are getting our first really good roses of the season. This giant pink was just begging for a pic.
And this yellow was growing right next to it, head hung over and still dripping from several days of rain, but still striking.
Then, only a few steps away, the tiny massed flowers of the Sedum caught my eye and the camera’s lens. The rain water still sitting in the flowers and the subtle light of an overcast day deepened the pinks toward red.
Then on the way to the car I looked up to see the first touches of fall color, literally touches, across the street. The flow of cooler air along the pavement touches the exposed leaves of Maples earlier than the season. And I have always suspected that the higher levels of carbon monoxide above the road have something to do with it too. Later in my fotoprowl, I found trees more fully touched, but I like the way the partial color here is framed against the pine needles.
And finally, reaching the car, I found that fall had gotten there before me.
I eventually did get in the car and get on with my fotoprowl behind the beach and along the Bridle Path…but that is a story for another day.
So what is the Sunday point? Those of us who have chosen photography as a way of celebrating the world around us…as our creative medium for sharing our vision…are driven by the creative urge to our occasional or habitual fotoprowls. That fact, simple as it is, never ceases to fill me with joy, and with a deep and abiding quiet satisfaction that is indistinguishable from deep gratitude. Not every fotoprowl results in a great image…in a image that takes on a life of its own…a true creative capture…but that does not diminish the satisfaction, or the gratitude. The satisfaction is in the prowl itself. We do not hunger so much for the image as for the hunt…for the state of mind…for the intentional openness and heightened awareness that is the essence of the prowl. In the fotoprowl, the photographer is fully alive. And that is why we do it…and what we are thankful for.
9/8/2011: Once Upon an English Golf Course
We will pop back to England, and my recent visit there, for today. Mallards in the early morning sun on one of the many ponds along the heavily designed water course that passes through Greetham Valley Golf Course were we stay while I am at the British Bird Fair. Mostly I really like the reflections of the greenery around the pond. This is a long zoom shot to isolate the birds. And it is cropped slightly for composition.
Nikon Coolpix P500 at 810mm equivalent field of view, f5.7 @ 1/200th @ ISO 160. Program with Active D-Lighting.
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness.
8/28/2011: Feather
Happy Sunday.
I am not sure what happened, but along the trail at Rutland Water I came upon a quantity of loose scattered feathers, like this pure white one, caught well above waist height in the dead foliage of a bush. I passed it by, but had to stop and return. The contrast in color and texture, the bold clean white curves against the clutter of background, was just too tempting.
It is a tricky exposure problem. Heavy recovery was needed in Lightroom to bring up the texture of the feather.
Nikon Coolpix P500 at 32mm equivalent field of view, f3.7 @ 1/640th @ ISO 160. Close Up mode.
Processed for Clarity, Sharpness, and highlights in Lightroom.
And for the Sunday thought…well it is a very simple image, after all, to hang any great spiritual truth on. There is the thought of the passing of whatever passed along the trail, supper for fox or Great Black-backed Gull, that left the scatter of feathers to catch our eye…bitter sweet. Or we might think of the wind that picked this feather up and hung it in the bush like an ornament, which would lead to our capacity, our propensity, to see it so…and to a kinship with who breaths the wind. But mostly it is a matter of being arrested, stopped, brought to witness, by the simplicity of a white feather caught in a bush. And, on a Sunday, or any other day, that just might be enough to be going on with.