Posts in Category: autumn
Ah autumn! Maine.
The leaves are turning. The leaves are falling. It is that time of year again. I found this leaf, fallen in just the right spot to catch some late afternoon sun shining through, along the shore of Old Falls Pond between Kennebunk and Sanford Maine. It was curled to stand just so…and I put the camera on macro mode and placed it practically on the ground for the shot.
Samsung Smart Camera WB800F. Processed in Snapseed on the Nexus 7.
Little Fall Soldier on the Forest Floor
I am always fascinated by the mushrooms of late summer and fall in our New England forests. Actually I am fascinated by mushrooms any time of year. 🙂 I found this bright specimen, which looks to me like a little soldier, along the Learning Trail at Emmon’s Preserve in Kennebunkport ME.
Samsung Smart Camera WB800F. Macro mode (28mm). f2.9 @ 1/45th @ ISO 100. Processed in Snapseed on the Nexus 7.
Coming on Fall at Old Falls Pond: Happy Sunday!
There are a few places locally that bring out the best in the autumn color. It is early yet, but this time of year is when the birding festival circuit heats up again and, this year, I have no weekends free at all in October, so I have been trying to fill myself with early fall color, just in case.
And there is no where more reliable for color than Old Falls Pond on the Mousam River. Add an autumn sky overhead to reflect in the water and frame the shot with a fringe of turning leaves and it is a sight to behold, and a joy to capture.
Samsung Smart Camera WB800F in Rich Tone Mode (HDR). Processed in Snapseed on the Nexus 7.
And for the Sunday Thought. Someone posted a slightly malicious comment on my new adventure over at gobirding.us overnight. Something about my having too much time on my hands since I was running too many boring and redundant blogs. This gentleman has posted similar, just slightly nasty, comments on this page in the past. Hurtful. Intended to hurt. I can generally roll on past them, and I will this one, but that too much time on my hands remark hits home…and not , probably, in the way the writer intended. I have never been more aware of just how little time I have on my hands. I am, for the first time in my life, seriously thinking about retirement, looking ahead and counting the years I might have left, and wondering how best to redeem them. What will I do when I can do what I want, at least to the extent my retirement budget allows? How many more falls will I be able to get out to photograph the autumn leaves? Etc.
I can not, of course, know, but I do know, in a way that is new to me (and as old as mankind) that they are limited. Finite. Numbered, perhaps in the single digits. I can, and do, of course, hope. I hope for lots more falls. I hope for the health to enjoy them…but one thing I know is that I do not have too much time on my hands.
And that is somehow an appropriate Sunday Thought, here in the autumn of the year. I would like to go out like a New England fall, full of bright color under amazing skies. I hope my work over at gobirding.us is just the early fall show, and that the real season of brilliance is still to come. And I have a faith, as well as a reasoned confidence based on all my experience in life so far, that my time is in the hands of one who has all the time there is.
So, today, I will do my best to enjoy and celebrate what is…today, the early fall color at Old Falls Pond, and the changing foliage framing an infinite sky. Happy Sunday!
Early Fall
As I mentioned elsewhere yesterday, the first touch of Autumn color in our area is often seen at the ponds along Rt 9 that feed Back Creek. The cold deep water, the narrow opening of the ponds, and the exposure of the trees along the edge serve somehow to amplify the seasonal change. This is a three exposure HDR, handled automatically by the Samsung Smart Camera WB800F’s Rich Tone mode. And here is matter for Rich Tone if ever there were such 🙂
I glimpsed this particular view of the pond, not my usual head-on shot, as I was slowing the scooter down to stop, and walked back along the road to catch it.
Processed in Snapseed on the Nexus 7.
The Glory of Death by Vine
I have photographed this tree before…or attempted to. It is a challenge to capture anything like the effect of this totally vine shrouded tree. Sweep panorama on the Samsung Smart Camera WB800F comes as close as I have come. And the distortions are certainly interesting 🙂
The Vine Tree is across the street from the Hoover Auditorium at Lakeside Ohio, and is somewhat of a tourist attraction. As I was taking the picture, two ladies walked out of the cabin next door. “Don’t be fooled by its beauty,” one said. “It is killing the tree!”
And of course she is right. The vine will eventually suck the life out of the tree…but this is not a Strangler Fig Vine…it is some kind of Ivy…and I suspect it and the tree will have long season of coexistence. And it is beautiful in its way. Glorious even.
Processed in Lightroom. Click the image for a larger version.
Cabbage White on Aster
They have really huge Asters in Ohio! Especially compared to our New England asters. And I managed to catch a well worn Cabbage White in a rare moment of rest.Â
This is at the Midwest Birding Symposium near Lakeside OH. Samsung Smart Camera WB800F in macro mode. Processed in Snapseed on the Nexus 7.
Fall is coming…
The leaves that are falling now, in mid-September, are that dull brown of leaves that have died of simple old-age. The brilliance of frost killed leaves is still several weeks away. Still a little scene like this is a clear reminder that the summer is about to go out in its usual New England blaze of glory. That is a little of what I have captured here, but of course the image is really about the play of light over the various textures and the reflected patterns in the moving water. 🙂
Samsung Smart Camera WB250F in Rich Tone mode (in-camera HDR). Processed in Snapseed on the Nexus 7.
Early HDR: Bosque del Apache NWR
I woke up Sunday morning in Socorro to wet streets. It had evidently rained heavily during the night. The Rio Grande Valley and all of New Mexico certainly needs the rain. On the dive out to Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, the landscape, still under massive clouds, looked fresh washed…all the colors sharpened and deepened. It was especially effective on the browns and oranges of late fall.
I could not resist stopping at one of the wildlife viewing areas along the road into the refuge and setting up my hyper-light weight travel tripod for some HDRs. I like the tones in this one, the sweep of the clouds, and the leading lines of the two roads. It is looking straight north up the Rio Grande Valley.
Canon SX50HS. HDR Mode. (The camera takes three shots at three different exposures and combines them in-camera for a single extended range image. Hence the need for tripod.) 24mm equivalent field of view. f4 @ 1/250th @ ISO 80. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness using my new “soft-hyper” preset.
Bittersweet: Laudholm Farms
Bittersweet berries are part of the traditional New England fall/Thanksgiving table center piece. I don’t know enough about Bittersweet to know if this plant, found along the trails at Laudholm Farm (Wells National Estuarine Research Center) is American or Oriental Bittersweet. American is, as the name implies, the good Bittersweet…a native plant that is in danger of being pushed to extinction and hybridized out of existence by the invasive Chinese Bittersweet. As is so often the case, Chinese Bittersweet was intentionally introduced to the US and planted along thousands of miles of roadways and embankments to prevent soil erosion. That was before they knew how fast it would spread and how easily it hybridizes with American. Good idea? It turns out not.
By the way, the berries might look tempting, and are a fall treat for birds and rodents, but they are poisonous to man.
Canon SX50HS. Program with auto iContrast and Shadow Fill. 24mm macro, with 1.5x digital tel-converter for image scale and working distance. The berries are just over live size on my monitor. f4 @ 1/800th @ ISO 160. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
67 Supersport at Laudholm Farms
Sunday afternoon my wife and I took a walk at Laudholm Farm (aka the Wells National Estuarine Research Center). It was one of those amazing fall days in Southern Maine when the sky conspired with the landscape to create drama wherever you looked. I have a bunch of interesting shots that you will likely see over the next few days, but this is the absolutely last shot I took there. We were back at the car and the sky and the touch of remaining fall color drew me up on the little berm that divides the parking lot in two. I leaned against a light post and took the 3 exposure HDR.
If it had been any other car in that corner of the parking lot it would have spoiled the shot…but the 67 Supersport (as identified by a car buff on the dpreview Canon forum) is just classy enough to actually add to the composition.
Canon SX50HS. Program with auto iContrast and Shadow Fill. HDR mode (takes 3 images and combines them in-camera). 24mm equivalent field of view. f5 @ 1/500th @ ISO 80.