Monthly Archives: December 2008
12/9/2008
Nubble Light: Cape Neddick ME
Nubble Light is one of the most popular tourist attractions in southern Maine. On a sunny day in the summer, you often have to circle the small parking lot for 30 minutes or more to catch a space open, and you have to work really hard to get a shot of the light, on its own little island off-shore, without people in the foreground.
That is why I worked my way down to the very edge of the channel that separated Cape Neddick from the Nubble.
It was an all but perfect day. A few big white puffy clouds behind the light would have been nice, but I was happy with the really amazing waves chasing each other up the channel and crashing against the rocks with huge gouts of spray.
I took 100s of shots, trying to capture a wave at it’s most photogenic, against the lighthouse and its rock as backdrop. Persistence almost always pays off. It did here.
Sony DSC H9. F5.6 @ 1/800 @ ISO 100. Programed Auto. Full wide angle (31mm equiv.) on the zoom.
In Lightroom, I applied some Recovery to bring out detail in the white mass of the wave, and to darken the sky. Added Clarity and Vibrance (which made the blue sky deeper and the red building really pop), and used the Sharpen Landscape preset.
With a subject like this, and such a day, it is then just a matter of timing (and a willingness to scramble around on exposed rock that trembles with every smashing wave).
It is from the Around Home Gallery.
12/8/2008
Coronado National Monument: AZ
Coronado National Monument, south of Sierra Vista AZ, right on the Mexican border, is one of those little, lightly visited gems of the National Park Service. We visited twice in our 7 days in Sierra Vista, and on both trips had the visitor’s center to ourselves. We saw no other hikers either day on extensive hikes on the wonderful trails. This is a view from the actual monument, a short steep climb up from a parking lot at the top of the long, well graded road that runs up and over a high pass. Ours was the only car in the parking lot. We are looking north west here, along the west side of the Huachucas, on the other side of the pass. Mexico is right behind us.
It was a stormy day in the valleys around Sierra Vista, and there was a good deal of moisture…some haze…in the air, and that effected the shot. This kind of haze, however, is a natural part of the scene during the August monsoon in Arizona, and, to me, does not detract from the view.
Taken at the wide end of the zoom (31mm equiv.) of the Sony H9. F5.6 @ 1/640th @ ISO 80. Programed Auto.
In Lightroom, I did try to deal somewhat with the haze. Recovery was used, along with Clarity and Vibrance, and I reduced the luminosity of the blue color band (the most scattered by haze). Sharpen Landscape preset.
Some have criticized this shot as having no center of attention. What caught my eye, and still catches it, is the play of light and shadow over the foothills and mountains: the great dark mass of rock overhanging the slopes.
From the Cochise County Gallery.
12/7/2008
New Year's Day Sunset, with Figure: Parson's Beach, Kennebunk ME
12/6/2008
New Year Sunset Tree: Parson's Beach, Kennebunk ME
White snow, orange sunset. Shot at moderate telephoto, 125 mm equiv., to set the tree and bushes against the sky. Pretty straight-forward. Programed Auto. F5.0 @ 1/500 @ ISO 100. Exposed for the sky, so it required post-processing to bring up the foreground. Mainly a lot of Fill Light in Lightroom. My standard added Clarity and Vibrance. Landscape Sharpen preset. Some noise reduction to compensate for the Fill Light. I had to desaturate the blue channel in Saturation/Luminance/Hue controls to control excessive blue in the snow.
12/5/2008
Margrett Todd Morning: Bar Harbor ME
12/4/2008
Bamburg Castle, Nothumbia UK
My 4 day trip to Scotland and back through Northumbia was one of the most amazing photographic journeys I have ever taken. A friend and I drove (he drove, I rode) 1400 miles in what amounted to 3 days, as we spent one full day on the islands of North Uist, Benbecula, and South Uist in the Hebrides. The last day, on the way back to Manchester and my flight home, we came down the coast of the North Sea, past a series of amazing castles. The was the last one of the day, and by far the largest. Bamburg Castle. We drove up a side road along the tops of the dunes to get this view back at the Castle. There was some sea mist, mixed with intermittent rain, but we caught the castle in a rare moment of English sun.
The mist provides a soft and distant look to the castle, while the grasses in the foreground are sharp and clear. I like the contrast. We spent maybe 15 minutes at this spot, and I tried a variety of angles, most without the immediate foreground.
Sony H50. F5.6 @ 1/500 @ ISO 100. Programed Auto.
In Lightroom, I used Recovery to pull detail out of the clouds. You can see that the whitest of the clouds is still a bit burned out as the sensor reached the clipping point. Still, a darker exposure would have been hard on the foreground. Added Clarity and Vibrance, and used the Sharpen Landscape preset. For this shot, I also adjusted the contrast slightly, trying to cope with the haze.
This is from the Scotland Gallery.
12/3/2008
Snowy Little River Marsh: Kennebunk ME
We get some interesting weather in Southern Maine, especially in winter, and I have a growing set of images around the topic. This was an amazing New Year’s Day snowfall that fell overnight with no wind blowing. The world was magical the next morning, and, even though it was still snowing and the roads were slick, I went out to see what I might find. This is a little marsh along the Little River where it crosses Route 9 east of Kennebunk, about 3 miles from my home.
In the heavy gray light, I looked for some hint of color, but capturing the color was a difficult exposure issue. Again, I mostly rely on the exceptional metering of the Sony H series cameras (H9 here). The camera does a better job of balancing difficult exposures than I could do.
This was framed at about a 65 mm equivilent setting on the zoom. One of the advantages of a long zoom is, of course, the ability to frame a scene in camera, just as you want it. Even then, this image was cropped in post-processing to eliminate some of the reedy foreground. F5.6 @ 1/400 @ ISO 100.
In Lightroom, I used a good amount of Recovery to bring up detail in the show, and added a little Clarity and Vibrance. Vibrance brought out a little more color in both the trees and the brown of the cattails…the cattails, in this case, adding some interest to the foreground. Sharpen Landscape preset.
From the Winter Weather Gallery.
12/2/2008
Trial Lake, Utah with Marsh Marigolds
I visited the mountains around Salt Lake City for the American Birding Association Convention in July of this year. We saw a lot of great birds, but, for me the most amazing part of the trip was the wildflowers. Everywhere we went in the mountains we found the meadows in bloom. This is Trial Lake, at about 10,500 feet in the Uinta Mountains to the west of Salt Lake City. The flowers are Marsh Marigold, growing in a boggy area where a stream trickled down to the lake.
I had a difficult choice in framing here. I wanted a carpet of flowers in the foreground with the mountain (Wilson Peak) dominating the background, but the tall tree on the left was an issue. I tried shots with the full tree, but that made the peak too distant, and I tried zooming in and cropping out the tree, but that left me with a compressed and unsatisfying spread of flowers. This was a compromise, with the tree cut off, but…
Sony H50 at about 31mm equiv. F5.6 @ 1/500th @ ISO 100. Programed Auto.
The image required very little Lightroom processing. A touch of Clarity and Vibrance, and the Sharpen Landscapes preset.
From the Utah Vistas Gallery.
12/1/2008
Margrett Todd Emerging: Bar Harbor ME
11/30/2008
Abstract: Pollin on Water: Rachel Carson NWR