Posts in Category: river
Ice bells on willow wands…
ice bell, Mousam River at Roger’s Pond, Kennebunk, Maine
For those who were mystified by my reference to “ice bells on willow wands” last week, here is an ice bell on a willow wand. When willows grow close enough to the stream-bed so that they dip their branches or tender shoots in the water, and when it gets cold enough (it was 3 degrees when I took this photo), and when the willow is placed just so, so that the current can keep dipping it under. and when it is just stiff enough to keep popping back up…well, then ice bells form at and just above the surface of the water. We are deep in the polar vortex at the moment. It was 10 below last night…just the weather for ice bells to form on the Mousam River. Unfortunately the water is still high from the rain we had last week, and the willows where I go to photograph ice bells have been cut back away from the water (to accommodate the fly-fishers), so the crop so far this year has been meager. I was blessed to find this one. I will check again today, and I might even look for a more likely spot (though access to the river is limited here.)
Sony RX10iii at 600mm equivalent field of view. 1/250th @ f4 @ ISO 400. Cropped and processed in Polarr on my Surface Pro 3.
Reflections in a flood tide…
Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge Headquarters, Wells Maine.
This week’s Supermoon (the last for this year) caused exceptionally high tides all along the coast here in southern Maine. This is Branch Brook at Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge in Wells Maine, a good mile inland from the sea. All about color and clouds and reflections.
Sony RX10iii at 24mm equivalent field of view. In-camera HDR. Nominal exposure: 1/1000th @ f4 @ ISO 100. Processed in Polarr on my Android tablet.
Avant Guard
Ice along the Mousam River at Roger’s Pond.
So, due to the press of time (I am posting during a layover in DC) this is going to be both the Pic for Today and my Day 6 Nature Photography Challenge on Facebook. 🙂 And keeping to my theme, it is a challenging image. Ice gets into all kinds of strange shapes, given the right weather! This is along the Mousam River at Roger’s Pond in Kennebunk Maine. It is a ground level macro shot, taken with the LCD flipped out.
Sony HX90V. In-camera HDR. Processed in Lightroom.
Flyfishing in the snow…
Mousam River at Roger’s Pond, Kennebunk Maine
When I got to Roger’s Pond, in search of the elusive Kennebunk Eagles (elusive at least this year so far), this fisherman was just getting out of his car, and beginning to suit up. From the look of his gear, I suspect it was all brand new…Christmas presents even…and from the look of him when he got into the water, I suspect he is freshly outfitted for a new hobby. Then too, the river was unusually high with a flood tide…as high as I have ever seen it at Roger’s Pond which is generally a third of a mile above the tidal effect…and I have serious doubts as to the mood of the fish on this particular morning. And then, of course, it was snowing. Not that a little thing like snow stops the flyfishers on the Mousam.
Sony HX90V in Superior Auto. 62mm equivalent field of view. 1/80th @ ISO 80 @ f4.5. Processed in Lightroom.
Gull in Glory! Happy Sunday!I
Herring Gull, Mousam River at Roger’s Pond, Kennebunk Maine
“If your eye is generous, your whole being is full of light!” Jesus
I will admit to having a prejudice when it comes to Herring Gulls. Their behavior makes them hard to love. They are bullies: aggressive egg and chick eating, catch stealing, beach hogging, bullies. And yet I have to remind myself that their “bulliness” is in my eye as much, maybe more than, in their nature. They are what they are. They do what they do to survive, as any creature must. In order to see their beauty, I have to be unusually generous of eye. I have to withhold judgement, especially judgement by my own, very human, standards. And, really, withholding is not enough. To be truly generous I need to bypass judgement at its root…to see them, not with my human eye, but with the eye of the spirit…the creative eye of the creator who creates with love.
This image, taken along the Mousam River in Kennebunk, helps. The gull was standing on a snow covered rock in mid-stream, while the rushing rapids behind him threw sparkling droplets into the air. It is certainly the bird in all its glory, and I am just generous enough to see the beauty.
May the Good God grant us all, somewhere in our lives, such a rock to stand on…that even the least generous might sometimes see our beauty. Happy Sunday!
Drawn in ice…
Mousam River at Roger’s Pond, Kennebunk Maine
While looking for ice bells along the Mousam, I could not ignore the sheet ice at the edge of the river. I should say that the Mousam at Roger’s Pond is a long stretch of rapids…the last long stretch before the long slow slide to the sea. The river freezes right up to Roger’s Pond, and above the rapids and the dam in Kennebunk for miles. It is a popular spot for fly-fishermen year round. So the ice at the edge of the river is sculpted…or drawn in this case…by the rapidly moving water. I always find the forms that frozen water can take fascinating. The regularity, and the symmetry of the patterns speaks of an inherent order in the water that is certainly not evident when it is tumbling down the rapids of the river. (There is a poem in that sentence if I can let it out!).
Sony HX90V at 200mm equivalent field of view. 1/200th @ ISO 400 @ f6.3. Processed in Lightroom.
Ice Bells on the Mousam
Along the Mousam River at Roger’s Pond, Kennebunk Maine
I told the story of finding these ice bells along the Mousam River in yesterday’s Year Poem. (https://plus.google.com/u/0/+StephenIngraham/posts/Ec4WMeWA9xQ) . This set formed off and existing shelf of ice attached to a log just the right height above the stream. Though I understand the physics of the ice bell, I am not at all sure I understand the physics of this shelf and ice bell formation. ?? It is certainly beautiful with the sun shining through it!
In camera HDR. Sony HX90V at 514mm equivalent field of view. 1/250th @ ISO 125 @ f6.3. Processed and cropped slightly for composition in Lightroom.
Ebony Jewelwing again
Ebony Jewelwing. Batson River, Emmons Preserve, Kennebunkport ME
There were a few Ebony Jewelwings, all males, a week ago along the Batson River at Emmons Preserve (Kennebunkport Land Conservancy), but yesterday there were both males and females and they were thicker than the mosquitoes. 🙂 Of course, due to the mosquitoes it was hard to stand still long enough to photography them…but I came back with a number of keepers. This bold male perched repeatedly only a few feet from me.
Sony HX90V at 720mm equivalent field of view…with some Clear Image Zoom applied to bring it up to about 1000mm equivalent. 1/250th @ ISO 500 @ f6.4. Processed and cropped slightly in Lightroom.
Webhannet Falls. The Generous Eye. Happy Sunday!
Webhannet Falls, Wells Maine
At the south end of the village of Wells Maine the Webhannet River crosses deep under Route 1, and, tucked back off just off the road there is a little park built around the old bridge over the river…with a good view, in some seasons, of the falls. They call it the Bridge of the Flowers and it is maintained by the local Garden Club. The falls themselves mark the spot where, in 1640, Edmond Littlefield built the first waterpowered grist and saw mill near the original settlement that became Wells. You can see old stonework on either side of the river that must date from much later attempts to harness the falling water, but the falls have run free for many years now. The vast majority of tourists to the beaches of Wells and the rocky headlands of Ogunquit (not to mention shopping centers, gift shops, art galleries, restaurants, motels, and summer theaters) drive right by the falls without seeing them. I have stopped there a few dozen times in the past 20 years, when I remember, for pictures of the falls, and I have yet to see anyone else there. Most people do not know it is there.
And much to their loss, as it is a lovely spot in all seasons…worth, for anyone who takes the time to look, the 1 minute detour from Route 1.
When Jesus spoke the the words we talked about last Sunday: The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eye is “single, simple, generous” then your whole “being” will fill be filled with light…the concept of vision was significantly different than it is today. It was used, almost always, as we do when we say “that woman has real vision”. The eye was the lamp of the body because it shed light on the world around us…not because light came in through it. Jesus might have said “if your whole being is full of light then it will shine out through your eyes and the whole world will be good place.” He might have said “be generous in your vision”…”give your light freely to the world around you. and the world will be bright.”
In thinking about it over the past week, that idea of the “generous eye” has grown on my…and “generous” is essential to the idea of The Willing Eye. Maybe to the extent that it is a better name for this aspect of what I do. Be willing. at any rate, to be generous in what you see, generous in what you expect of the world around you, and generous in what you are willing to give to the world around you…and the world will be a good place, bright with beauty, rich with meaning…refreshing to the spirit and the soul. As it was intended to be. Happy Sunday!
Introducing The Willing Eye. Happy Sunday!
Batson River at Emmons Preserve, Kennebunkport Land Conservancy, ME
I love the little stretch of the Batson River (more a large brook) that passes through the Kennebunkport Land Conservancy’s Emmons Preserve. The meadows above the river behind the Headquarters building are a good spot for butterflies, dragonflies, and birds, and the shaded rapids and small falls and pools of the river as it passes through the forest are always a delight. This time of year, the Ebony Jewelwings dance over the rapids, and I am always attracted to the water where it tumbles down over a rocky bed between moss-grown banks, singing all the way. I have photographed this little run hundreds of times, but I am compelled to photograph it again on every visit.
This shot is an in-camera HDR with the new Sony HX90V, a camera I a trying out for just such scenic views and macros.
I have been thinking a lot, over the past week or so (inspired by a dream I had one night) about a name for the aspect of my photography that extends beyond the technical stuff and photographic inspiration of Point and Shoot Nature Photography (psnp.lightshedder.com). I am about to embark of a series of tours and workshops…group trips to photogenic locations…where I will attempt to help others to get the most out of their Point and Shoot cameras photographing nature…but there is more to my photography than that…more I have to share. There is a way of seeing…there is the underlying motivation for my photography…the act of seeing, celebrating, and sharing…that is a akin to worship…and that gets recorded often in these Sunday posts.
My smugmug gallery is called WideEyedInWonder, and the name is taken from one of my favorite sayings of Jesus: “The eye is the lamp of the body. Therefore if you eye is single, your whole body will be filled with light.” (I should warn you there is a little scripture lesson coming…but persevere!) In my favorite, non-literal, translation it reads “If you go through life wide eyed with wonder and belief, then your whole being will be filled with light.” That actually might come closer to what Jesus meant than the traditional translation. We have what he said already in translation…in Greek (which he certainly did not speak)…and the gospel writer used a word for what your eye needs to be that is translated several different ways in different contemporary texts. It could be “single” as in “single minded…focused on one thing.” (as the King James version has it) or it could be “simple, as in uncomplicated” (as several modern translations have it), or it could be “generous, as in giving and forgiving, open to the needs of others.” (which, oddly, no translator has used). Some modern translations say “if your eye is” “clear”, or “healthy”, or “sound.” I think it is a combination of the literal meanings of the Greek word…single, simple, generous…that inspired the “wide eyed in wonder and belief” translation. And the word translated “body” is definitely the Greek work that implies the whole being, body and soul.
However, Point and Shoot Nature Photography is already a long name for what I do. Wide Eyed In Wonder is another long name. I need something (or so the dream said), short and pithy, but something that still captures what the eye needs to be if we are to be filled with light, and if we are going to have light to share with the world. Single, simple, generous.
That is where “The Willing Eye” comes from. It means to me: willing to see, and to see good in all we see, willing to believe (to see the divine in all we see), willing to celebrate, willing to help, willing to share. It is a active seeing…a willful seeing…a vision that celebrates. The Willing Eye.
So it is with this photograph of the rapids on the Batson River. It is seen with The Willing Eye…and if fills my whole being with light…as I can only hope it does yours. Happy Sunday!