Posts in Category: Pic of the Day
Winter Still Life With Fern
Laudholm Farms, Wells Maine
Another shot from my photoprowl to Laudholm Farms in search of winter. I think this is actually Cinnamon Fern…or what winter has left of it. I like the delicate shapes and textures of the fern, especially in contrast to the surface of the snow.
Sony HX90V at 110mm equivalent field of view. In-camera HDR. Nominal exposure: 1/200th @ ISO 80 @ f6.3. Processed in Lightroom.
Buddhist Red
Red Squirrel, The Yard, Kennebunk Maine
The Red Squirrel that lives in our backyard, and visits our deck frequently these days, is clearly a Buddhist monk. He has the pose and the posture down pat. He does not carry a begging bowl so he is evidently a cloistered monk (I think that might be a mixed metaphor, but I am not sure 🙂 A member of a monkestary? Clearly a sage presence.
Nikon P610 at 1440mm equivalent field of view. 1/250th @ ISO 140 @ f6.5. Processed in Lightroom. A feeder pole cropped out on the right.
Winter Drama
Back Creek and the Mousam River, Kennebunk Maine
Some people like a sunny, cloudless day. Not me. I like blue sky, but I like a few clouds for little drama…or a lot of clouds for a lot of drama 🙂 To me, the clouds make the landscape. This is the junction of Back Creek and the Mousam River, about 2 miles from our house. It is only 2 PM, but already the light has the slant of late evening. That’s winter in Maine. This is an 180 degree sweep of snowy marsh and winter sky. The little tuffs of marsh grass showing keep the eye busy in the lower half, and the clouds dominate the upper. The light is simply wonderful. The lone figure on the right gives scale.
Sweep Panorama mode. Auto exposure with -1/3EV. Sony HX90V. Processed in Lightroom.
A picture about nothing. Happy Sunday!
White Birch, Laudholm Farms, Wells Maine
“If your eye is generous, your whole being is full of light!” Jesus
On my photoprowl out to the snowy fields and forest a few afternoons ago, I was on the boardwalk at the Wells National Estuarine Research Center at Laudholm Farms in Wells, looking for whatever spoke to me of winter. It was early afternoon and the light was already almost horizontal, but where, in the days before the snow, it seemed to pick out the warmth and texture of the world…now it cast blue shadows and drew the detail sharp. The contrast between the texture of the bark on this birch, standing a foot from the boardwalk, and the fine grained texture of the snow behind it caught my eye. There was something in the shadows, the way they lay across the snow and behind the birch, that added interest, and the little shattered stump, so pointy, fell in place as an accent. It was the matter of seconds to lift the camera, already set for great depth of field, frame, placing the diagonal just so, and shoot. In-camera HDR and processing in Lightroom brought up the shadows on the trunk and in the snow to make them look natural, subtly molding the surfaces the textures where they fell.
And still it is a picture of nothing in particular. It is a composition about composition…an image about imagery. I could look at it forever. I am tempted to make a really large print of it and hang it where my eye could discover it again, sometimes, in passing, and pause to see what is new in it. It would make a great picture for the wall of a doctor’s office. 🙂
It is, so to speak, a playground for the generous eye…inviting vision…inviting the light inside to come out and play. I think it brings the spirit to the surface, so it fills the eye, brimming like water in a spring. I think it wakes the wonder that is the life of our souls and tempts us to touch what is eternal in us and in the world. Ah, but it is just a picture, you say…a picture of nothing in particular. Yes, I say, and that is what is so wonderful about it! But it takes a generous eye to see. Happy Sunday!
First bird of 2016: Pileated Woodpecker
Pileated Woodpecker, Roger’s Pond, Kennebunk Maine
On the first day of 2016 I went to look for the Kennebunk eagles at Roger’s Pond. No show. But while I was there I saw a largish bird fly low and into a dead tree just where the creek joins the river, at the turn of the loop around the pond. A while later I heard a knock. Knock! Pileated Woodpecker! This is only my third photo op in Maine, and I have not seen them much more often than that either. They are around…even around my house…and I hear them occasionally, but a good sighting is rare. Rare enough to make this an auspicious first bird for 2016!
This image is not what you might think at first glance. I used Coolage to assemble two images of the same bird, at different points as it circled the trunk, into a single image. Since Coolage blends edges and the trunk is an ideal object for a blend, it certainly looks like two Pileateds. It is not, trust me. I just wanted to give you two views of the bird. 🙂 And it does make a striking image. Or that is what I think.
Nikon P900 at 2000mm equivalent field of view. 1/250th @ ISO 400 @ f6.5. Processed in Lightroom and assembled in Coolage.
Red in his element… Happy New Year!
Red Squirrel, Wells National Estuarine Research Center at Laudholm Farms, Wells Maine
When it got up to 40 degrees early yesterday afternoon, I thought, “now or never.” You could almost watch the snow cover disappearing under the December sun. I needed to get out further than I had been, and find some snowy fields and forest while it lasted (oh, we will get more, but every boy must play in the first snow of the year 🙂 I decided on Laudholm Farms (Wells National Estuarine Research Center). When snow is on the ground you have to think about where parking will be plowed. Laudholm is always safe, and Rachel Carson NWR headquarters, but I wanted the open fields of Laudholm…and of course Laudholm has forest and marsh too.
I got my fields and entered the forest going the wrong way on the boardwalk through the wet maple swamp. I heard a skittering off to my left and looked up to see this Red Squirrel in a pile of limbs from a downed tree. I have posted a few shots of the Red Squirrel that has been visiting our deck and feeders over the past few weeks…but here was Red in his element…snowy forest…tangle of limbs…scampering free. It looks to me as though he had dug up a tightly rolled fern with a core of snow. ?? He was, over the next few moments, intent of pulling it apart for some nutrient inside. A Red Squirrel on the deck under the feeders is cute (if you can ignore their destructive side), but a Red Squirrel where it belongs, deep in the forest, doing its thing…that is beautiful.
Nikon P900 at 2000mm equivalent field of view. 1/500th @ ISO 400 @ f6.5. Processed in Lightroom.
And may you, this coming year…find rolled up ferns full of nutrient on even the snowiest days…and my you be as beautiful and as vital as a Red Squirrel in his element each and every day. Okay, so if you have to, you can be cute a few days too! Happy New Year!
Kennebunk Eagle in the Snow
Bald Eagle, Roger’s Pond, Kennebunk ME
There are at least 2 Bald Eagles on the lower Mousam River this winter, ranging both north and south of Kennebunk. Once the river freezes they like to sit right at Roger’s Pond (picnic area and fishing access) where the rapids below the dam along Route One keep the river open. They fish the edge of the ice. With the unseasonably warm weather, there is no ice at all in the river, but I have heard from the dog walkers at Roger’s Pond that the Eagles are there off an on. I just have not managed to be there at the right time. Until yesterday! We had intermittent light flurries all day yesterday and it was snowing when I got to the pond. I almost missed the Eagle. I was most of the way around the pond before I saw it, half buried in one of the tall pines on the far side of the river. I had to walk back upstream further than I would have liked to find an open line of sight for some photos. Not the best light, and the camera focused on the snowflakes a few times, but here it is: Kennebunk Eagle in the Snow.
Nikon P900 at 2800mm equivalent field of view (with some Perfect Image digital zoom). 1/500th @ ISO 400 @ f6.5. Processed and cropped slightly for composition in Lightroom.
Solstice Light in Forest
Wells National Estuarine Research Center at Laudholm Farms, Wells Maine
I have never been so aware of the light as I am these weeks in December, just at the solstice. Our odd weather maybe is helping…as I am out, and further out, than I generally am at this time of year. The light, even at noon, is just skimming the earth…coming in a such a low angle that it illuminates things I do not normally see, and turns the mundane magical. Take this random pile of tree sections beside the trail at Laudholm Farms. I suspect they are piled and waiting for staff to come and haul them out, but the solstice light turns them into a study in shape and texture, color and form. On any other day I would have passed right by…but in this light I was stopped in my tracks and forced to record the scene.
Of course, this morning we have 7-8 inches of fresh snow on the ground…so everything will be very different today!
In-camera HDR. Sony HX90V at 24mm equivalent field of view. 1/60th @ ISO 80 @ f5. Program shift for greater depth of field. Processed in Lightroom.
Wet and Red
Red Squirrel, The Yard, Kennebunk ME
The Red Squirrel was back yesterday. He always seems to come on rainy, or at least overcast, days. He did figure out how to climb on to the feeder…not a good development as far as I am concerned. I could not grudge him the few seeds anyway, at least not yesterday, in the rain, when he looked so sad and miserable…ears flattened and beads of water in his fur. He may have been having some issues at other feeders too, since he was a lot less bold yesterday. He scampered off right quick when I opened the deck door. Or maybe he just knew that I feel differently about squirrels right on the feeder, than I do about squirrels on the deck. 🙂
Nikon P610 at 1440mm equivalent field of view. (Again, I had to run for the P610, as the squirrel was too close for the P900.) 1/100th @ ISO 400 @ f6.5. Processed in Lightroom.
Winter hat
Fungi growing on a birch stump. Laudholm Farms, Wells Maine
I have walked right by this rather amazing cap of fungi growing on a birch stump at Laudholm Farms hundreds of times. Of course, in summer, it is somewhat hidden by the brush around the base of the tree…still I am surprised that I did not find it before this. The December light the other day helped. The low angle illuminated things not ordinarily seen. This cap is old enough to have picked up some algae. Unlike its role in lichen, with is a compound organism, I think the algae here is just in symbiotic relationship with the fungus. What caught my eye, and what is still of primary interest to me in the image, is the texture of the fungi. The tiny hair like structures on the surface caught the light and made the fungus glisten. And then there is the form of the thing. I find it fascinating.
Sony HX90V at 24mm equivalent field of view. In-camera HDR. Nominal exposure: 1/250th @ ISO 80 @ f5.6. (Program shift used to increase depth of field.). Processed in Lightroom.