Posts in Category: river
12/22/2011: Winter and Water, Emmons Preserve
Winter is coming late to southern Maine this year. The ground is still bare here a few days before Christmas. We have had temperatures in the single digits at dawn this week…but the days warmed into the mid 30s. Not your grandfather’s December at all. (Though we still have time. They are predicting a few inches tonight into Friday. We shall see. Almost 40 degrees on Christmas??).
Anyway, I took a drive out to Emmons Preserve, figuring the cold would have at least created some ice sculpture and lace along the Batson River where it tumbles down over the ledges there. And it had. Except for the first shot, which had enough sun on it to light the moss within the shell of ice, I was shooting at ISO 800 along the late-afternoon shadowed rapids. Quality like this at high ISOs was simply not possible until this latest generation of super=zoom Point & Shoots.
Canon SX40HS in Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. 1) 147mm equivalent field of view, f4.5 @ 1/80th @ ISO 250. 2) 462mm equivalent, f5 @ 1/60th @ ISO 800. 3) 190mm equivalent, f4.5 @ 1/80th @ ISO 800.
Processed in Lightroom for Intensity and Sharpness.
10/19/2011: Incoming Tide, Back Creek
The swirl of the incoming tide forcing its way under the Back Creek bridge breaks the pattern of wind waves to give the foreground of this watery landscape interest. One of the highest tides I have seen here. And of course the sky and a great set of clouds builds the landscape up and out from the trees along the rule of thirds horizon. The fact that there is no direct sun on the foreground eases the exposure problem with the sky. Normally I would not have centered the clump of taller trees, but, with the tide swirls leading back, it works for me in this shot.
Canon SX40HS at 24mm equivalent field of view, f4.5 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 200. Program with iContrast and –1/3 EV exposure compensation.
Processed for Intensity and Sharpness in Lightroom.
10/14/2011: Mousam run in Fall Foliage
This is the run of the Mousam above Old Falls at this year’s leaf-peak this past Monday. Gotta celebrate it while it is here. By the time I get back to Maine on Sunday, this show will have packed its tents and moved on south.
Shots like this, if you are not going to get very wet and muddy, require the flip out LCD on some of today’s superzoom and advanced P&S cameras, so you can hold the camera right down on the ground to frame. I will never willingly buy another camera for my landscape efforts that does not have a good articulated LCD. For one thing I am well past the age when it is easy to get up, once you get down in the mud. 🙂
Canon SX40HS at 24mm equivalent field of view. f4 @ 1/400th @ ISO 160. Program with iContrast (dynamic range enhancement).
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness.
7/29/2011: Up the Mousam Evening
It had rained most of the day, but by evening all that was left was a dramatic sky. This is from the bridge on route 9 over the Mousam River, between Kennebunk and the sea, looking inland. I like the little arm of marsh in the foreground and the light overall.
Not an easy exposure. Active D-Lighting on the Nikon P500 brought the foreground up some, but I also used the in-camera post processing, Quick Retouch in this case, and then final processed in Lightroom. I tried an HDR but the greens came out too saturated. I actually prefer this.
Nikon Coolpix P500 at 22mm equivalent field of view, f4 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 160. As above, Program with Active D-Lighting.
7/27/2011: Down the creek, v 2.0
So my theory is, when you have a great scene…great sky…great view…why stop at just one image? With digital there is no penalty for taking lots of angles. This shot was taken 30 feet to the left of Saturday’s Down the Creek shot, and just across the road from Monday’s Up the creek.
While both Up the Creek and Down the Creek had only sky and water for a foreground, so the images floated free (so to speak) this shot is firmly anchored by the rocks on the left and right so that the ripples in the water catch the eye. The boat dock and the house draw the eye to the middle distance before it wanders back, down the right shore, between the sky and its reflection, to the buildings of Kennebunkport. My eye, as least, then continues around so that the whole image fills my view. This sweep of attention, I think, lends a dynamic and a tension to this image that Saturday’s lacked…not to say it is better for that…just a totally different feel. Not so serene. Not so peaceful. A bit edgier.
Nikon Coopix P500 at 23mm equivalent field of view, f3.4 @ 1/300th @ ISO 160. Program with Active D-Lighting.
Processed for Clarity, Sharpness, and impact in Lightroom.
7/25/2011: Up the creek behind the beach
If you remember Saturday’s Down the creek post, this shot is the same evening, from the same bridge, only looking up the creek, where it passes behind the houses that face Gooch’s Beach. Here again it is the quality of the light, and the reflections of the sky in the water that form the foundation of the composition. (This is a tidal creek and we are seeing it here brim full of tidal backflow…it shrinks to creek size at low tide.)
Because the low sun was right there, just out of view in this shot, the only way to capture anything like the naked eye view this was HDR. I used the camera’s built in Backlight/HDR mode (which takes multiple exposures and stacks them for extended range), and adjusted the result in Lightroom. Though at first I dismissed the way too flat results of the in-camera processing, I am finding that with experience in processing them in Lighroom, it actually works pretty well…at least in some situations.
Nikon Coolpix P500 at 22mm equivalent, nominal exposure f3.4 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 160. Backlight/HDR mode.
Processed for intensity, Clarity, and Sharpness in Lightoom.
7/23/2011: Down the creek toward Kennebunkport
Though I have checked all my maps, including Google Earth, I can not find a name for this tidal creek that flows under Beach Avenue in Kennebunk and into the Kennebunk River near its mouth in Kennebunkport. Here, about an hour before sunset on a summer evening, the light, the clouds, the reflections in the water, and the expansive perspective of the 23mm equivalent zoom combine for an image that draws you in (imho) and invites you to stay a while. There is a lot going on here within the classic rule of thirds and leading lines composition.
Nikon Coolpix P500 at 23mm equivalent field of view, f3.4 @ 1/320th @ ISO 160. Program with Active D-Lighting (and it is in a shot like this that the ADL really shows its value).
Processed for Clarity and Sharpness in Lightroom. Some Recovery for the sky and clouds, some Fill Light to bring up the trees along the sides.
7/16/2011: Pool of Clouds in Evening Sun
The pool behind the bridge on Back Creek near where it flows into the Mousam River in Kennebunk, on a summer evening with the late sun across the marsh and the clouds caught.
Nikon Coolpix P500 at 31mm equivalent field of view. Backlight/HDR mode. Nominal exposure f3.7 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 160. Quick Retouch applied in camera.
Processed for Clarity, Sharpness, and Contrast in Lightroom.
6/4/2011: Upper Pool at Emmon’s Preserve
I have posted quite a few shots over the past two and a half years from Emmon’s Preserve, a little Kennebunkport Land Trust property on the Batson River. The Batson, despite its name, is actually something between a brook and a river. In August it might only be a trickle between moss covered stones, but other times its pools are full and its falls and rapids are wild, it is never, however, what I would call a river, even at its fullest.
This, in particular, is a shot I have taken often…I like the sculpted wood of the fallen tree…but I particularly like the quality of the light in this one. The Nikon’s Active D-Lighting renders scenes like this in a strikingly natural way, and the 22.5mm equivalent lens opens the view wonderfully. I love the depth. This is an image that draws me in. I could look at it for a long time.
Nikon Coolpix P500 at 22.5mm equivalent field of view, f3.4 @ 1/400th @ ISO 160. Program with Active-D Lighting (to extend dynamic range) and Vivid Image Optimization.
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness.
5/15/2011: After the Storm, Happy Sunday!
Happy Sunday!
I woke to a rainy Sunday morning this am, so this shot from last Saturday seems appropriate. We had a day of rain which finally broke up, late in the afternoon. I took a run down to the beach to see what the light was getting up to. The sky was not as dramatic as I had hoped, but in this shot, the foreground detail, I think, makes up for it.
This was an experiment in the Nikon Coolpix’s HDR mode…the camera took three shots and stacked them for an extended range. Results right out of the camera are almost always disappointingly flat…unless the scene is exactly as the authors of the software envisioned it…but some work in Lightroom can produce a very pleasant extended range effect…very natural compared to a lot of HDR you see. And, since the images are captured very fast (8 frames per second), shots of moving water like this one are possible.
Nikon Coolpix P500 at 31mm equivalent field of view, f3.7 @ 1/640th @ ISO 160. Backlight (HDR) mode.
And for rainy Sunday thoughts…well, my mind is certainly in rainy Sunday mode already…thoughts are slow and pleasantly lagging and I am ready for a nap after an hour up. I am not sure exactly why rainy Sundays are so much more conducive to sleepy repose than rainy Thursdays (to pick a day at random), but they are. The day of rest is deeply engrained in us, perhaps? Maybe even at the cellular level? In our genes?
This scene, with its peaceful motion (in the water), its subtle light, and its restful balance fits the day. There is a quiet that is deeper than the flesh, when the soul lays in wait, on the threshold of revelation, and feels no need of motion beyond the gentle swirl of life around it. Rainy Sunday quiet.