Posts in Category: forest
12/27/2010: Snow on the Little
As I post this snow-storm image from last week, we are in the middle of our first real blizzard of the winter in Maine. It is not light enough to see the damage yet, but the wind is howling around the house and there is snow stuck in the window screens. It is not scheduled to pass off until late afternoon. Should be interesting. 10-18 inches of snow. Watch this space!
This shot, however was during a much more gentle storm, as you can see from the snow built up on the branches. This is one of my favorite views at Rachel Carson NWR, where the Little River makes it’s classic “S” bend on its way to the sea. It is an all weather view, just as attractive here in the snow with snow closing the horizon, as it is in full summer with a dramatic sky.
Canon SX20IS at 28mm equivalent, f2.8 @ 1/200th @ ISO 80. Landscape program.
Processed in Lightrooom for intensity and clarity, and adjusted for brightness.
12/25/2010: Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas! May joy find you today!
Walking down paths at Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge Headquarters during a snowstorm, where mine were the first footprints, I discovered that someone with a Christmas spirit had been there before me (and before the snow). I was blessed. I am hoping you will be too, especially on this most blessed of days (or on the day we celebrate such a blessing).
Canon SX20IS at 28mm equivalent, f2.8 @ 1/250 @ ISO 80. Landscape mode.
I did my usual processing for intensity and clarity in Lightroom, but I wanted the wreath to stand out more than it did in the original exposure. I boosted the saturation and the luminance of of the greens and yellows using the spot HSL control, but even then the wreath was too dark. I resorted to the local adjustments brush, with which I painted over the green of the wreath, increasing brightness, contrast, and clarity. And all of that just to present something closer to the feeling of the place, so that you can, hopefully share in it. 🙂
Merry Christmas!
12/24/2010: Snow Fall!
A small pond, falling snow, burdened evergreens…a classic winter shot for this, the day before Christmas. Even the patterns on the snow and ice seem to be saying something extra here. I have this shot in both color and b&w, and, honestly, you can’t tell which is which without close study. It was just that kind of day (and I have been waiting for one for what seems like forever this year).
Canon SX20IS at 170mm equivalent, f4.5 @ 1/125th @ ISO 200. Landscape mode.
Processed for intensity and clarity in Lightroom. It took much more than usual Fill Light, and then I converted it to b&w using the “look 3” filter.
This is the color version.
It will repay (they both will) a look at a lager size by clicking the image to open my WideEyedInWonder gallery and adjusting the size to your monitor if necessary. For this version I used the selective HSL controls to boost both the saturation and the luminance of the green, yellow, and aqua channels. You can’t see the result much here, but in larger views it does bring up the evergreens so you can actually tell it is a color image. 🙂
11/7/2010: in the frame now, happy Sunday!
I woke this Sunday morning from a dream of worship…that in itself is odd…though I do have a few of those dreams each year, and I suppose Sunday morning is appropriate for one…but before I was fully awake this post formed, and now, up and at the computer, all I have to do is build what I saw.
At my best as a photographer I am only a frame and an instant.
I am a frame. All I do is point the frame of the camera’s rectangular view at the world. Today I use the zoom on the camera to change the size of the frame…make it bigger and more inclusive, more grand…or smaller and more particular, more intimate. I can move in close for a true macro of lichen, or add magnification by shooting through a spotting scope for portraits of sparrows. I can zoom out to wide-angle for the sunrise. I can even stitch frames together into the larger frame of a panorama. But whatever I do, it is still a frame…a little rectangle imposed on reality. The frame says “This is what I see. Look!” I am a frame.
I am an instant. I control when I push the shutter button. I choose the instant, and it is only an instant…a fraction of a second, when the camera records, for better or worse, whatever is in the frame. Even if I shoot a burst of images, as I often do when digiscoping birds, I still have to pick the one instant out of all those instants that I want to show the world. The instant says “This is what I see now. Look” I am an instant.
I do not fill the frame, I can only point it. I do not create the instant. I can only choose it. But in those two choices is all the power of photography.
The rest is just technique.
This is what I see now. Look!
I don’t of course, know what you see when you look at one of my photographs. I can hope that if I have done my job, you will see something that captures your attention…maybe even something that stirs your soul, that moves within you and touches places that need touching. At best, looking at what I see might open your eyes to something you would not otherwise have seen. It might change the way you see the world. That is the power of photography at its best.
I took pictures for a long time before I knew what I was looking for…what fills my frames and draws me to the instants I choose. Interestingly enough, the actual photographs did not change much, if at all. One day I knew why as well as what and when.
And that brings us full circle. As I have said, I am sure, on more than one Sunday in the past, my why is worship. What fills my frame in the ever-changing now is always some aspect of the beauty…the awe-full beauty, the intimate splendor, the wonderful power, the amazing compassion…of the Creator God displayed in the creation. Every picture is a celebration of that in God and that in me that brings the world to being through love. I frame those instants, from macro to panorama, when I am most aware of God. That is worship. That is my why.
So, this is what I see, now. Look.
10/28/2010: second helping of fall
One of the advantages of my travel schedule is that I get to experience extended springs and falls. Just as the foliage show is over in Maine, the last week in October, I always travel to Cape May, New Jersey, and, most years, the foliage in South Jersey is just at peak. Next month, just before Thanksgiving I will be in the Rio Grande valley in New Mexico. Fall is more variable in New Mexico than it is in New England, but about 3 out of 5 years, my visit catches the cottonwoods along the Rio Grande at their golden best. Spring is even more stretched for me, beginning in January in Florida, Feburary in Southern California, etc. I even occasionally catch Arizona’s second spring in August. 🙂
This is, according to my map, Ludlum’s Pond. Route 347, just north of where it comes back into 47 in Dennis, crosses the west end of it, and I have stopped several times on the way from Philadelphia to Cape May to photograph the foliage. This year the weather was chancy…with rain, thundershowers, and even a tornado warning in effect…but when I passed by the pond, it was no more than heavy overcast and a kind of watery light. With an HDR treatment, the weather actually shows the foliage to better advantage than full sun would have. Good thing, since that is all I had to work with.
HDR, in this kind of light, allows for a richly textured sky, while keeping enough light on the foliage and reflections to make for a very satisfying image. IMHO.
Canon SX20IS zoomed to about 48mm field of view for framing. Three exposures, auto bracketed, with the center moved down 2/3s EV. ISO 160.
Exposures blended and tone-mapped in Photomatix. My tone mapping in Photomatix is never extreme because I know I am going to do final processing in Lightroom: A bit of Recovery for the sky, some Fill Light, Blackpoint right, added Clarity and a touch of Vibrance, and Sharpen narrow edges preset.
And here is a more open, wider angle view, of the other shore. Another three exposure HDR.
10/25/2010: old falls on the Mousam
Old Falls and an old fall combine in this HDR shot of the Mousam River in West Kennebunk Maine. This is right across the road from Old Falls Pond of a few days ago, but here the ravages of wind and rain and late October are more obvious. Now we just hunker down and wait for snow. 🙂
If you click the image above you will see a different view of the larger shot. If you just click the Info button on the right a panel will drop down with full exif data.
Canon SX20IS at 28mm equivalent, three exposures auto bracketed around a center shifted –2/3 EV. ISO 160.
Blended and tone-mapped in Photomatix. Processed for Fill Light, Blackpoint, Clarity, Vibrance, and Sharpen in Lightroom.
10/19/2010: otter cove with Birch
Otter Cove is a deep tidal inlet between on Mount Desert Island in Maine. The Park loop road crosses it on a causeway bridge about 1/3 of the way in, producing what looks like a lake on landside at high tide, and leaving a landlocked mud fat at low tide. Most of our days on our last visit in September were misty, rainy affairs, with distances fading off into fog. I did a lot of experimentation with HDR to see if I could capture the effect of the vivid foreground, the few early bright fall trees, and the persistent fog, but this is a straight on Landscape program shot.
Of course, what I like here is the sharply defined birch and the brush underfoot, the touches of color on the sides of the inlet, the glisten of the light on the mud and water and the more colorful hill in the background shrouded in fog.
Canon SX20IS at 28mm equivalent. F4.0 @ 1/100th @ ISO 80. Landscape program. Processed in Lightroom using Recovery, Fill Light, Blackpoint, Clarity, Vibrance, and Sharpen. Cropped slightly for composition.
10/11/2010: color on the Mousam
Happy Columbus Day! In New England, Columbus day weekend is celebrated primarily by motel and restaurant owners, as the height of the short, but profitable, leaf peeping season. I am, of course, still in Georgia, though I am headed home today.
This is a week ago, right across the road from Old Falls Pond of yesterday’s post. This is the Mousam River above Old Falls, framed at the medium-tel end of the zoom on the Canon to catch a pocket of color and the reflections in the surface of the moving water. Sometimes less is more…or at least as much.
Here is the full scene.
Both shots are three exposure HDRs using autobracket shifted –2/3 EV on the Canon SX20IS. Exposures were blended and tone-mapped in Photomatix, and processed in Lightroom for using Fill Light, Blackpoint, Clarity and touch of Vibrance, and, of course, Sharpen narrow edges. One advantage of the HDR method, if you like the effect, is the automatic blurring of moving water, even at higher shutter speeds. The three different exposures catch the water, as in the falls here, in three slightly different positions and Photomatix, though it does a really good job of blending exposures, does produce some blur for the overlapping motion. A rapidly moving surf line, for instance, or foreground vegetation moving in a strong wind, is death to HDR. Here it actually, I think, adds to effectiveness of the image.
So I am looking forward to seeing what the foliage is like in Maine the day after Columbus Day…
10/1/2010: mushrooms of Quoddy head
I have always been fascinated by mushrooms and fungi (even more so than birch bark). On this foggy morning in the forest of Quoddy Head, with everything dripping with moisture, the colors of the mushrooms and their surroundings, whether moss or litter, were particularly rich, and the light so soft and molding that it brought out the strange shapes to good effect. Each one of these deserves a view at full size (click the image). I always try for more than a record shot…I am not illustrating a field guide. The mushrooms are an element of composition and the image as a whole must be of interest.
We have a variety of framings here: from the full tel-macro (560mm equivalent) of 1) to the super-macro at full wide (28mm equivalent) for 2), 3), and 5). All were shot on Programmed Auto and the ISO varies from 80 to 400. I used –2/3EV exposure compensation on all of them to preserve highlights in the dim light and dark surroundings.
Processed in Lighroom with a combination of Fill Light to open shadows, Blackpoint to increase color depth, Clarity and Vibrance and Sharpen.
9/29/2010: Birch
Birch bark has always fascinated me. As a boy I kept a collection one summer, of the best scraps I had found, pretending, if memory serves me right, that they represented some kind of wealth. This snippet is from a foggy morning at Quoddy Head State park, and you can see the moisture saturating the bark…in both the natural and the photographic sense. Backing away a bit…and a bit further
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You can see that even at these moderate distances you begin to see the effect of the fog…though it does not diminish the beauty of the birch.
Canon SX20IS at 1) 400mm equivalent @ f5.0 @ 1/30th @ ISO 200, 2) 170mm equivalent @ f4.5 @ 1/50th @ ISO 200, both in Landscape Program, and 3) 28mm equivalent @ f2.8 @ 1/125th @ ISO 160, Programmed Auto.
In Lightroom, a small amount of Recovery, some Fill Light and Blackpoint right, added Clarity and Vibrance, and Sharpen narrow edges preset.
From Quoddy Head and Lubec ME.