Posts in Category: Maine
You have snow in your needles :)
Pine tree, Day Brook Pond, Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area, W Kennebunk Maine
After a wet snow, ending in fairly heavy rain, I did not expect the snow to last into yesterday, but I woke to temperatures in the teens and bright sun on a snow covered landscape. Photoprowl! It was up in the mid 20s by the time I got out, but the sun was still shinning and the snow, with a hard crust from the rain, glistened everywhere. I knew the rain had washed all the snow away on the coast, so I headed inland just on the chance that someone with a heavier 4 wheel drive vehicle had been into the pull-offs on the Kennebunk Plains. And someone had indeed driven into the Day Brook Pond parking all the way, and left such a good trail that I felt safe trusting the Ford hybrid to it. It might be my last chance to walk into Day Brook this winter, if we get much more snow.
This little pine is on the edge of the pond. I looked up as I passed it, and could not resist the sun coming through on the burdened branches.
Sony RX10iii at 62mm equivalent field of view. In-camera HDR. Processed in Polarr on my Android tablet.
Hairy Woodpecker
Hairy Woodpecker, back deck feeding station, Kennebunk Maine
Yet another shot from my mixed feeding flock experience on the back deck last week. The Hairy Woodpecker is a size bigger than the more common (in our yard) Downy, with a correspondingly heavier beak. This specimen was on the rail of deck, looking up longingly at the suet feeder. 🙂
Sony RX10iii at 600mm equivalent field of view. Program Mode. 1/250th @ ISO 100 @ f4. Processed in Polarr on my Android tablet. There was a large green feeder pole running up through the image just to the right of the end of the bird’s beak, decorated with worn strips of Duck Tape no less…which I was able to remove entirely using Handy Photo. It worked so well that I really did not have to tell you that…but there you go…full disclosure. 🙂
Crabapples in winter…
Crabapples, Kennebunk Bridle Path, Kennebunk Maine
I found these Crabapples still hanging in a tree along the Kennebunk Bridle Path down by the lower reaches of the Mousam River, a half mile in from the sea. They, and the red berries of Winterberry (Bog Holly) and the few remaining Beach Rose hips, inspired yesterday’s Day Poem.
Down by the Mousam River in its last
mile run to the sea, on a cold, snowless,
December day (snow in the forecast
after mid-night), ice in the drainage, ice
smooth on the marsh pools, the world
done in browns and grays…mostly
texture in the slanting winter light…
the red of winterberries (bog holly),
beach plums, withered crab apples,
startles the eye, arrests the attention,
forms the color axis around which the
winter landscape and the dull sky turns.
In this image, I like the apples, of course…the delicate shadings of the red…but it would not be the image it is without the background…the bokeh. I played with angles until I got the effect I wanted. I have a slightly closer view, but I like the context the bare branches give this image.
Sony RX10iii at 407mm equivalent field of view. Program Mode. 1/60th @ ISO 125 @ f8 (program shift). Processed in Polarr on my Android tablet.
Titmouse. Happy Sunday!
Tufted Titmouse, back deck feeding station, Kennebunk Maine
“If your eye is generous, your whole being is full of light!” Jesus
Yet another shot from my productive moments with the mixed feeding flock at the back deck feeding station the other day. The Tufted Titmouse is the Eastern and New England variety of the Titmouse clan, and a common bird at our feeders all year long. Titmice are perky birds at the worst of times…alert, apparently cheerful, and active. The crest helps with the impression, but there is no disguising the attitude. This bird, small as it is, appears ready to take on whatever comes…confident and hopeful at the same time.
Jesus, as he is recorded in the Bible, only rarely used wildlife in his teachings. But he did use birds…as an example of the attitude toward life we, as children of God, should adopt. And it is exactly the Titmouse brand of confidence and hope, cheerful expectation, that Jesus taught his deciples to value. We should, he said, take a lesson from the birds, who do not worry, but have a cheerful expectation that God will take care of them. He is not teaching, so much, about birds, or about us, but about God. God takes care of the birds. Surely God will take care of God’s sons and daughters…of the children made in God’s image. That is something we can believe, absolutely. It can, and should be, the ground for confidence and hope to take us through our days without anxiety or worry.
Easily said, and so hard to do! So, today, when you find yourself challenged by all that does not seem to be going well…or dwelling on the potential for disaster this year, and every year, displays…turn your inner, and most generous eye, on the Titmouse. Remember this image, and this attitude. I sincerely hope it will ease your way, and make the day more enjoyable. Happy Sunday!
Chickadee, dee, dee…
Chickadee, back deck feeding station, Kennebunk Maine
This is another shot from my productive session with the feeding station on our back deck the other day. The Chickadees, of course, are totally fearless, and will land on the station while I am actually out on the deck. This is only slightly less than full frame at 600mm equivalent field of view. I especially like the bright eye on this bird, and the natural feather detail.
Sony RX10iii. Program Mode. 1/160th @ ISO 100 @ f4. Processed in Snapseed on my Android tablet. Distracting branch in upper right corner removed in Handy Photo.
Downy Woodpecker in winter…
Downy Woodpecker, back deck feeding station, Kennebunk Maine
Yesterday’s Day Poem was about a mixed feeding flock that came to the back deck feeding station at noon.
The Red-bellied Woodpecker at the back
deck feeder sent me scurrying for my
camera. We don’t see them often, though
they are obviously around. Of course
it was just flying off when I got back,
but still, it was the harbinger of a large
mixed feeding flock, and I stood, propped
up in the open back door, and shot birds
for 15 minutes as they came and went.Hairy and Downy Woodpeckers, Chick-
adees and Titmice, a Nuthatch, and several
Jays (who would not come close while I
stood there). Even a lone and lonely Junco,
apparently desperate for feathered company.I stood until I heard the furnace kick in,
and noticed my ears were getting cold.By then it was mostly Chickadees and
Titmice anyway…and I never did see
that Red-bellied Woodpecker again.
This is one of the Downy Woodpeckers and one of the resulting images 🙂 It is this kind of image that I was hoping for when I built and rebuilt the feeding station.
Sony RX10iii at 600mm equivalent field of view. Program Mode. 1/250th @ ISO 125 @ f4. Processed in Snapseed on my Android tablet.
Heron in the winter…
Great Blue Heron, Mousam River at Roger’s Pond, Kennebunk, Maine
The other day, with our first snow on the ground, I went to Roger’s Pond, a little park on the Mousam River, to look for ice bells on the willow wands at the water’s edge. The Willows evidently had a hard summer, as there were not nearly as many as I remembered, and the water was probably still too warm. No ice bells. There was, however, this lone Great Blue Heron sitting on a snow covered rock in mid-stream in the early December light. A tricky exposure to say the least…attempting to get good feather detail without blowing out the white snow. I dialed the Exposure Compensation down to -1 EV and hoped for the best. I already had DRO (Dynamic Range Optimization) set to maximum. With a bit of highlight recovery in Snapseed, it is about as good as I could have hoped for.
Sony RX10iii at 600mm equivalent field of view. Program Mode adjusted as above. 1/640th @ ISO 100 @ f4. Processed in Snapseed on my Android tablet. Cropped for scale.
Winter pond…
Fernald Brook Pond #2, Kennebunk Maine.
If you follow my work at all, you will recognize this pond as one of my favorite locations around home…in any and all seasons. Here, at the beginning of winter, with first ice. It was a difficult exposure, with the sky too bright and the landscape in shadow, but worth the effort.
Sony RX10iii in-camera HDR. Nominal exposure: 1/500th @ ISO 100 @ f4. Processed for a somewhat high key effect in Snapseed on my Android tablet.
Winter flag over the bog…
Grass head, The Bog at the National Estuarine Research Reserve at Laudholm Farm, Wells Maine
The subtle colors with glints of reflected light in the emerging peat bog at Laudholm Farm (Wells National Estuarine Research Reserve in Wells Maine) form and interesting backdrop for this dried grass head growing up through what looks like it might have been Meadowsweet. One corner of a wet field at Laudholm is slowly turning into a bog, or remains a bog, while the rest of the field dries out. I am not sure which way it is going. In early winter, yesterday when Carol and I visited, it is just an empty stretch of boardwalk, but this little still-life caught my eye.
Sony RX10iii in-camera HDR. 234mm equivalent field of view. Nominal exposure: 1/250th @ f4 @ ISO 100. Processed in Snapseed on my Android tablet.
Found on the forest floor. Happy Sunday!
Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge, Wells Maine
“If your eye is generous, your whole being is full of light!” Jesus
Photography is essentially the art of putting the world in frames. All the technical stuff matters…exposure, white balance, focus, image quality, etc…but it does not matter nearly as much as what is and is not inside the frame, and how the elements inside the frame work together to fill the frame. The frame is our focused attention…it says “look at this and see what I am seeing.” The only talent a photographer has is his or her vision…the rest is skill, and can be learned with enough teaching and practice…but the ability to see what needs framing, and how it fills a frame…that is the gift that sets the photographer apart from the casual snapshot shooter. (And the world being what it is, even those who consider themselves casual snapshot shooters may have the gift, and many who consider themselves very skilled in the techniques of photography may, apparently, lack it.) It is a gift…it can be developed like any talent…but it can not be acquired or learned.
Dr. Suzuki, creator of a well known system of music education, believed that musical talent is a gift that is given to all children, and that it only needs to be developed from an early age, to allow every person to enjoy and to make beautiful music. To him, hearing music is equivalent to seeing beauty…to seeing how the world fills the frame of our attention…and the skill of actually playing an instrument can be taught and learned. It only requires practice.
I believe photography is the same. Everyone, as part of his or her birthright, has the ability to see beauty, to appreciate the harmony and energy of the world, and if given a frame can place it effectively it to say “look at this and see what I am seeing”. Being a man of faith, I believe that gift is part of our birthright as children of God…part of the “created in God’s image” truth that can and should shape our lives. It is part of the generous eye…part of the light within us. And, again, looking with a generous eye, I see evidence of the gift of God at work in people around me, whether they are aware of it or not, in every effective photograph. Whether on Facebook, or Google+, or Instagram (or wherever you look) the digital stream today is full of images that testify to the light within us.
It is a common complaint among “skilled photographers” that today, anyone with a phone thinks they are a phtographer. Isn’t it rather, that today everyone has a frame, and more and more people are discovering that if they put it around the the things they see and value, others can share that value. And isn’t that something to celebrate…and to enjoy?
I saw this apparently random arrangement of sticks and leaves on the forest floor, on a wet fall day. The textures, the colors, the angles formed by the white birch branches caught my eye, so I took the frame of my camera and put it around what I saw, being careful to fill the frame so that you could see what I saw. That is my only gift. And now it my gift to you. Happy Sunday!