Posts in Category: autumn
The Unbearable Beauty of Fall. Happy Sunday!
The Unbearable Beauty of Fall
Sometimes nature is just unbearably beautiful…as though it were a leading a conspiracy to overload our senses and our hearts. Sometimes it is place, like the Grand Canyon, that overwhelms…sometimes it is a spectacle like the Snow Geese rising at dawn at Bosque del Apache…sometimes it is just an otherwise quiet corner of our neighborhood, like this narrowing of Day Brook Pond on the Kennebunk Plains. Almost always the season is a member of the conspiracy, and often the weather…though some places, like the Grand Canyon, are unbearably beautiful in all seasons and all weathers. The few clouds caught over the water here are the weather’s contribution…and of course the fall foliage is courtesy of the season. The birch lying in the water…beaver work…but certainly the beaver knew his part no better, or suspected how essential his role, than the leaves scattered across the water or the wind that scattered them.
It is Sunday, and of course the spirit is on my mind. The spirit, both small “s” as in our spirits, the spirits that animate each of us, and big “S” as in the Spirit of all, the Holy Spirit, the Creative and Loving Spirit that is the ground of all and in all, and which embraces all our spirits…both are essential parts of the conspiracy. In fact, when I attribute leadership to Nature, that is just shorthand for what is visible in the world of that Spirit, and what our spirits can recognize as Its workings in the world.
When confronted with such a conspiracy to overwhelm with beauty, it is all we can do to keep breathing…but that is all that is required of us…to breath, to be, to receive, to let the beauty engulf us and lift us up to become a willing participant in beauty…part of the conspiracy. We are compelled not just to witness but to celebrate, not just to celebrate but to give thanks. That is the truth of the unbearable beauty of fall.
Sony HX400V in camera HDR. 24mm equivalent. Processed in Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.
Fall Scatter
A found fall abstract. Nature throwing paint against a canvas. Very modern. Very moody. A wet day. A wet fall day.
Canon SX60HS. Vivid mode. About 50mm equivalent field of view. ISO 100 @ 1/40th @ f4. Processed in Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.
Color Pocket
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Continuing the theme of autumn color…which will very likely continue well into October :)…here is a little pocket of color along the edge of a pool were a small brook enters Old Falls Pond on the Mousam River. One of my readers informed me yesterday that the trees along the water’s edge are more susceptible to an early turn because the wood is saturated with water. Certainly that and the fact that cold air pools along edges and in little coves like this, accounts for much of the early color we are seeing in Southern Maine. I like the contrast here between the layers. Peat-brown water, green vegetation, golden cattails, and the greens, reds, and oranges of the small saplings.
Sony HX400V at 24mm equivalent field of view. In-camera HDR. Nominal exposure ISO 80 @ 1/250th @ f5. Processed in Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.
Fall Impression
Autumn in New England is full of these spontaneous tapestries…accidental abstracts. These trees were across Day Brook Pond from each other, clearly effected by their position on the shore, where I have to assume the pond was just wide enough to catch and hold a pocket of colder air. Moderate tele on the zoom to compress, and Program Shift to deepen the field, puts the color in the same plain of focus, and framing the image adds the intention which lifts this from accident to art. 🙂 Okay, so that is a bit over-the-top, but fall color always brings out the poet in me.
Sony HX400V at 122mm equivalent field of view. Nominal exposure: ISO 80 @ 1/125th @ f6.3. In-camera HDR. Processed in Lighroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.
Fall is Coming!
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When I was out by Day Brook Pond I could not miss the first touches of fall color. I have seen a few other patches of exposed forest edge that are beginning to turn, and the temperature this morning is hovering right around the freezing mark…but we are still a few weeks out from true fall color in Southern Maine. This branch, isolated against the dark surface of the pond, is a real reminder, though, that fall is certainly coming, and coming fast.
Sony HX400V. 285mm equivalent field of view. ISO 80 @ 1/400th @ f5. Processed in Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.
Sunlit Autumn Tapestry. Happy Sunday!
Yesterday I published (various places) a collage of similar photos…but they were taken just before the sun broke through and really lit the leaves. I did some color balance adjustment to warm the individual segments of the collage and the collage as a whole, but there is no substitute for direct sun when you are after color.
The image was taken from the 7th floor of the Marriott Long Island Convention Center, where they put me while I worked the New York State Ornithological Society Annual Meeting (for ZEISS). Right across the road from the Marriott is a Nassau County Nature Preserve, the last remnants of Hampstead Heath, and my window looked right down on it. It provided a uniquely colorful view in October, and a unexpected bonus for the trip. And, to frost the cake, the Marriott is one of the few hotels I have ever stayed in where you can actually open the thermopane windows, if only a crack. It was enough to get just the lens of the camera out far enough so I did not have dirty hotel glass between me and the scene. Bonus x2.
Samsung Smart Camera WB800F in Rich Tone mode. Processed in Snapseed on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014.
And for the Sunday thought. I never cease to be amazed at the subtle ways God has of blessing me…reminding me of the Creator’s essential good will for me, for all of us, and, I have to think, exercising some humor. I did not have high hopes for this trip. Ornithological meetings, in my experience, are not fertile ground for ZEISS, and who in their right mind would choose to spend an Autumn weekend on Long Island, 40 minutes out of the City? A much busier day than expected at the ZEISS booth on Friday, and then the sunset view out my hotel window, as enough to remind me that God is God, and God is good. Always. And then to look out before breakfast to the Tapestry across the street…to come back from breakfast and find the Tapestry sunlit…well, like I say, frosting on the cake. And me, being me, thinks “yeah, okay God, you got my back…even here on Long Island you put me good places.” I even grudge a thanks.
Well this is me, this Sunday morning, more than grudging! Thank you God.
Now you might be wondering, as I sometimes do, if is really that God puts me in good places, or if I have just developed the ability to see what I identify as God’s good in the the places I am? And to that I say “what does it matter?” I am convinced it does not at all. Either way, I see God’s action on my behalf at work…demonstrating undeserved love. And either way the evidence of God’s blessing continues to build in my life.
And while I am at it, here’s a thanks for what I take to be God’s will at work in those who preserved the little patch of Hampstead Heath across from the Marriott on Long Island. I certainly enjoy and appreciate it. God is God. God is good.
Even, apparently, on Long Island. 🙂
The View from the Marriott Long Island
I am working the NY State Ornithological Society Meeting, held this year at the Marriott Convention Center in Uniondale on Long Island. They put me on the 7th floor with a window that overlooks this view at the end of rainy, blustery day. And, wonder of wonders, the Marriott has windows that actually open…just enough to get the just the tip of the lens of my Samsung Smart Camera WB800F out the crack (and it is a very small lens). The tapestry of Autumn color under the sunset sky was too good to miss.
Camera as above. In Rich Tone mode (in-camera HDR). Processed in Snapseed on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014, using the new HDR scene effect, some Ambiance, Sharpening and Structure. I then opened the image in Photo Editor and applied some Perspective correction to pull the buildings more or less upright. The overall result is a bit painterly but, I think, interesting.
A different view of Cape May Lighthouse
For some reason I had never taken the loop of trail at Cape May Lighthouse State Park that goes North across the marshes to meet the road behind the dunes further up toward the Meadows. It is mostly boardwalk through the reeds and I am sure it is hopping with birds in the spring. In October, not so much, but it still provides a unique perspective on Cape May Lighthouse. This shot is all about leading lines and horizons, spiced with some rich detail from the weathered wood and the reeds. The subtle fall colors don’t hurt either. 🙂
Samsung Smart Camera WB800F in Rich Tone mode. Processed in Snapseed on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014.
Close Encounter of the Rabbit Kind
I was taking a turn on the boardwalk behind the Hawk Watch Platform at Cape May Lighthouse State Park when a young man with a digiscoping rig set up motioned me to join him. There in the tall grasses, a few feet from the boardwalk, a rabbit was doing its best to look like “oh nothing…just a shadow in the grass…move along…nothing to see here”. It was so close I do not know how the digiscoper was getting anything more than the eye in frame. This shot is at 1200mm equivalent. You can clearly see both of us humans reflected in the eye. Close encounter of the rabbit kind. 🙂
Canon SX50HS in Program with -1/3rd EV exposure compensation and iContrast. f6.5 @ 1/100th @ ISO 800. Processed in Snapseed on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014.
The living logic of trees…
I am pretty sure these are Persimmon trees. We don’t have them in Maine, but in Cape May NJ, in the little patch of forest behind the dunes at Cape May Lighthouse State Park, they are among the most common trees. In summer all you see is the green crown, but fall shows off the fantastic forms the limbs take, in their living reach for the sky and light. There is a logic all its own the the growth of trees, and something to be learned from observing them. Unfortunately their lifetimes are considerably longer than ours. We never see anything but the latest episode, and have to use our own logic to trace back to what might have come before…the the forces, internal and external, that shaped the tree we see. And, when considering trees, our logic has to be suspect. Trees have a living logic all their own.
Samsung Smart Camera WB800F in Rich Tone mode. Processed in Snapseed on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014.