Posts in Category: forest
Falls on the Batson. Happy Sunday!
I went to Emmons Preserve, and down the trail to the falls on the Batson River in particular, to look for Ebony Jewelwings…the darting, dancing, electric sometimes blue, sometimes metalic green, set-winged Damselflies that prefer rapid water…but of course the rapid waters have their own attraction. The place is beautiful…almost other-worldly…elven…with the still shadowed pools connected by falling runs of peat-brown water, the moss and rocks, the dappled light through the covering trees…a feast for the senses. I try, again and again, to capture it…but the true essence of the place is very difficult to catch.
This is a three exposure in-camera HDR with the exposures separated by 6 EV, with the Sony NEX 5T and the ZEISS Touit 12mm f2.8. I put the camera right down at water level and only inches from the falling water. Nominal exposure, as determined by the Program, was ISO 100 @ f4 @ 1/60th. The file was further processed for HDR effect in Snapseed on my tablet. And it is getting there. It is satisfyingly close to the visual impression…or at least to the emotional impression…of the place.
And for the Sunday Thought: there are lots of places, like the falls on the Batson River, that have such a rich emotional impact…such a rich spiritual impact…that any attempt at photography is bound to fall short. That does not, and should not, keep us from trying. We reach, and in reaching, pay homage to the creative spirit of love that shapes both the beauty of the world, and our sense of beauty. Like the Ebony Jewelwings, we dance…our intention dances above the falling water of creation…and we take pleasure in the dance…as we were made to do. Such beauty can not be caught and held…but it can be pointed to…celebrated in the beautiful gesture of the attempt.
Canada Mayflower
The Canada Mayflower, despite it’s being almost June now, and despite its name, is just coming into full flower the past few days. This is a bed of the tiny white flowers at Emmons Preserve in Kennebunkport ME. The flowers, close up, have an odd look, with the long white stamens just about overpowering the petals.
Main shot, Sony NEX 5T with the ZEISS Touit 12mm f2.8. Inset, Sony NEX 3N with the ZEISS Touit 50mm macro. Main shot is an in-camera HDR, processed in Snapseed for further HDR effect. Inset is processed in Snapseed, both on my tablet.
Mourning Cloak
While at Emmons Preserve in Kennebunkport over the weekend hunting early dragonflies, I was visited by a Mourning Cloak butterfly. Litterally. It came down the path and flew around my head several times. I think it even settled on my hat for a second. But, of course, it was off through the trees before I could get a shot of it. On the way back to car, after shooting some HDR at the stream-side on the Batson River, I had my eye out for it, and, sure enough, it’s shadow crossed my line of sight just about where I had encountered it before. This time it did settle in full sun, and I was able to work my way close enough for some decent shots.
This individual is well worn already this spring, which leads me to think it is a butterfly that overwintered. Mourning Cloaks, according the the experts, hibernate in clusters in tree cavities and under loose bark, and live a full 11 to 12 months, so the bugs we see in the spring are last summer’s flight, just weakening from their long winter’s nap. It gives them the jump on true migrants in the north.
Olympus OM-D E-M10 with 75-300mm zoom. 600mm equivalent. Shutter preferred. 1 /640th @ ISO 640 @ f6.7. Processed in Snapseed on my tablet.
Emmons Preserve HDR
As I have said before, the stream-side forest at Emmons Preserve in Kennebunkport is one of the most challenging photographic subjects I have ever encountered. The range of light and shadow, the moving water with its own bright highlights, and the blue sky behind the trees…it is simply too much for conventional photographic methods.
My new Sony NEX 5T has a very sophisticated HDR program built in. It will take three exposures and combine them, but you can also set the difference between exposures and control the center point of the three using EV compensation. It is also very fast…so fast you do not need a tripod. This is an in-camera HDR with 6 EV between exposures, centered on minus 1 EV. I then gave it additional HDR processing in Snapseed on my tablet. And for all that it looks like nothing special. It looks like the scene looked to the naked eye. But, of course, that was my goal. I wanted to faithfully capture the ambiance of the stream-side forest, with its full range of light and shadow, realistic highlights and accurate color in the water, and blue sky behind the trees. I like it.
Camera and processing as above. ZEISS Touit 12mm f2.8.
Sing Prothonatory Sing! Happy Sunday!
My encounter with this bold male Prothonatory Warbler was certainly one of the highlights of The Biggest Week in American Birding for me. I posted another extreme close-up a few days ago. The bird landed within 4 feet of me, right at the shortest focus of my lens. This is a full frame, uncropped shot. It does not get any better than that!
I did use Handy Photo’s retouching tools to remove a viney twig in the foreground that came right down across the bird’s neck. It was a good shot with the vine in, but it is better without it. 🙂
Olympus OM-D E-M10 with 75-300mm zoom. 600mm equivalent. Shutter preferred. 1/640th @ ISO 2000 @ f7.1. Processed in Snapseed and Handy Photo on my tablet.
And for the Sunday Thought: I seem to have featured a Prothonatory Warbler in last Sunday’s post as well. I have no excuse. I just think the Prothonatory is among the most attractive of Spring Warblers, and with their propensity to sing loudly and long from visible perches, they brighten any marshy forest and any spring day! They are such a cheerful bird. That might be anthropomorphsizing, but, then again, it might not. I can not escape the feeling, especially when the Prothonatory Warbler sings, that they are just full of, and bubbling over with, the joy of life. And honestly, why should we assume that they are any less capable of feeling joy than we are? Are we not all expressions of the one creative life that is living the universe around us into being? Okay, I know, that is a stretch from some of you…but it is an article of my faith, rooted in my experience of that life at work in me and around me…providing sufficient evidence so my answer to that question is, and always will be, resoundingly “yes!” We are all part of one life, and if that life contains so much joy for me, certainly the Warblers have their share!
And may you have yours today as well. Happy Sunday!
Avenue of the Giants
Switching gears from the Gulf Coast of Texas to the coast of Northern Californica, I am in Arcata CA for Godwit Days. I always fly to San Francisco (it is expensive to fly to Arcata) and drive half way up Rt 101, stay the night in Ukiah, and then drive up through the Redwood forests of Humboldt Redwoods State Park the next morning. My yearly dose of Redwoods. There is a road that parallels 101 called the Avenue of the Giants…which winds through the major Groves of the Park in the valley of the Eel River. Miles of huge trees and dappled light.
Sony NEX 3NL with 16-50mm zoom. 24mm equivalent. Processed in Snapseed on my tablet for HDR effect. Assembled in Pixlar Express.
Rainy Day at Winter’s End
On Sunday, it rained all day, sometimes hard, sometimes just a spattering, but always wet. There were aerial and coastal flood warnings from the National Weather Service office in Grey. But, at least in part, because I had only that morning written about finding the wonder in every season and every day, I forced myself to pick up my cameras and head out to see what I could see. If I can’t take my own good advice, well then it is not that good, is it? I took an umbrella, but the wind was blowing hard enough so that I knew I would mostly photograph what I could see from the car. I drove down to our local tidal marsh behind the dunes at the beach, and then down past the Rachel Carson NWR Headquarters to Laudholm Farm and the Wells National Estuarine Research Reserve, then back up the coast to sit at Mother’s Beach in Kennebunk and shoot gulls out the window of the car. I took a few scenics along the way, trying to capture the wet day/late winter/early spring atmosphere, and hoping for some interesting HDR effects.
This is along the road into Laudholm Farm, where it passes through a thick stand of second growth firs and pines. With the rain, the little brook that passes under the road in a culvert, was brim full. The wet leaves, blown in there from last year, the reflective water, the evergreens and patches of old snow, all framed against a background made soft by the water in the air…well, I liked it enough on the way in to pull over and get out of the car on the way back out, sheltering the camera for a couple of shots. HDR processing and some image tuning in Snapseed brings up the effect very nicely. Or that is what I think.
Sony NEX 3NL with 16-50mm zoom. 24mm equivalent. ISO 200 @ 1/160th @ f4.5. Processing as above.
Yes. This is Maine. That is Snow.
This winter it is: This is Maine. That is snow. This is a moment of morning sun after 10 inches of fresh snow overnight. It is just across the street from the house. By late afternoon we had another squall of wet clingy snow come through that dumped another inch and a half, so my first task of the day (right after finishing this post) is once again snow-blowing. 🙂
Sony NEX 3NL with 16-50mm zoom. 28mm equivalent. ISO 200 @ 1/100th @ f16. 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.
Winter Wood
This is another shot from my Friday exploration of the fresh snow fall. The loop of trail at the Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge Headquarters never disappoints. On this day, the woods were still, and the fresh snow was over everything…even piled on the branches of the baby Pines and the sapling Furs. The early light of mid-winter, with its long shadows and touch of warmth, keeps the scene from being frigid…and an HDR treatment brings up the vivid green of the evergreens and the rich browns of the tree-trunks. This is a winter where life is very possible…a winter a human can still enjoy 🙂
Samsung Smart Camera WB800F. ISO 100 @ 1/180th @ f3.2. 45mm equivalent field of view. Processed in Snapseed on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014.