Monthly Archives: April 2011
4/10/2011: Spring will not be denied!
Nothing like a Crocus in the clear light of early spring in Maine. They burst out of the ground and unfold to such brightness, while the grass is still brown and the trees are still bare, pushing last year’s leaf litter right out of the way. This snail’s eye view turns two emerging buds into colossuses of crocus color, commanding their horizon.
And just a few yards away we find one in full bloom, newly opened, and quite full of itself…brazenly flashing that impossible bright burning orange reproductive apparatus, shouting to be noticed. No, the Crocus is not to be denied…any more than the spring it heralds…leading the charging army of blooms, buds, new leaves and shoots, that will sweep southern Maine, willy nilly, into the new season.
Canon SX20IS, 28mm equivalent field of view and Super-macro mode. f4 and f5.7 @ 1/500th @ ISO 80. Processed for intensity and clarity in Lightroom. (And very thankful I am for the flip out LCD that allows for shots like the first without getting down on my stomach!)
Looking back, I see that both the Crocus and Easter were considerably earlier last year. Easter is an accident of the calendar, but the crocus are delayed, by a full week, by late spring snows. Still the feeling of spring is finally in the air in Maine, and Easter is fast approaching. A season of hope, both in nature and in the spirit…a putting off of the old dead shell of the world and a putting on of new born glory. Like the impatient Crocus, spring, in nature, and rebirth in the spirit, will neither be denied. Happy Sunday!
4/9/2011: Upriver Mousam Panorama
This is just two 28mm equivalent images stitched, but I guess it still qualifies as a panorama. We are looking up the Mousam from the Route 9 bridge in Kennebunk on a day with amazing clouds and a spring snow on the ground. It is interesting to me that, being familiar with the seasons in Southern Maine, I could never mistake this for a winter shot, despite the snow. The quality of the light, and its angle, marks this as somewhere very near the equinox…as indeed it was. April 4, the first weekend April. The only strange part is that I had to pull off through a line of huge snowballs pushed up by the plough to take the shot. Likely, but only possibly, the last snow of this season.
I really like the quality of the light and its variations across the surface of the water.
Canon SX20IS. Two 28mm equivalent field of view exposures, f4 @ 1/640th @ ISO 80, Landscape Mode, stitched in PhotoShop Elements 9’s panorama tool, and processed for intensity and clarity in Lightroom. There was a telephone pole at the left, which I cropped out, so it is not quite the width of the two exposures.
This is a rare panorama with waves in that the blend where the exposures meet actually works, managing to pass for a eddy in the current.
4/8/2011: Landing feathers (on Fridays)
Back to Bosque de Apache for Feathers on Friday. One of most impressive aspects of any visit to Bosque is the number of geese and cranes in the air at any given time. It also represents one of the greatest photographic challenges. Sometimes there will be 35-100 long lens photographers parked along a field where the geese and cranes are active, all standing behind their massive lenses and tripods, all hoping for the great flight shot, and practicing on the flying birds. You can almost smell the memory cards burning, and you most certainly can hear the electronic snicka, snicka, snicka of the motor drives going constantly as a undercurrent in the sound of the geese.
This year I did a lot of experimentation with my SX20IS and Sports Mode. The IS20 does not have a rapid burst mode. It shoots about .6 frames per second, which is, when faced with flying geese or cranes, slow, slow, slow. Even so, with the camera on continuous shooting and Sports Mode, and by concentrating on shots I thought I might actually make, landing birds and gliding cranes, I probably got as many keepers as the long lens guys next to me…just maybe not as feather pinning sharp. Still I had fun.
And you have to admit, even a mediocre shot of a Goose in landing mode is impressive! (But then, maybe that’s just me.)
Canon SX20IS at 560mm equivalent field of view, 1) f8 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 400 and 2) f8 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 400. (What Sports Mode does in the Canon is interesting…it chooses both a fast shutter speed (to freeze action) and a small aperture (to increase depth of field and make it easier on the auto focus) and adjusts the ISO to compensate. Not a bad plan for birds in flight.)
Processed for clarity and sharpness in Lightroom.
And the bonus shot, just for fun.
4/7/2011: Saco Bay
I was feeling the old theme was a bit too busy, and it seemed to have some display problems at certain page widths on certain browsers, so…something new for today. 🙂
And this is Saco Bay, taken from East Point in Biddeford Pool, Maine, looking back along the course of the Saco River northeast of the pool itself, between the point and Wood Island. A classic early spring Maine scape featuring some interesting clouds.
Canon SX20IS at 28mm equivalent field of view, f4.0 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 80. Landscape Mode. Tipped up for metering to bias for the sky.
Processed for intensity and clarity in Lightroom. (see page link above for processing details.)
4/6/2011: Snow Geese, Wings on Wednesday
For Wings on Wednesday, a brief return to Bosque del Apace National Wildlife Refuge from last November. I have lots of shots of geese in flight from each trip to Bosque (who can resist?), but this one, with the geese set off by the fall foliage of the cottonwood behind and the natural pattern drawing the eye to the center, is among my favorites.
The fact that it is digiscoped…taken through the eyepiece of the spotting scope with a small digital camera…adds to the magic. The relatively small real aperture of the system increases the number of geese in focus beyond what would be possible with a conventional lens at this image scale and distance.
Canon SD4000IS behind the 15-56x Vario Eyepiece on the ZEISS DisScope 65FL for the equivalent field of view of a 1800mm lens on a full frame DSLR, 1/200th second @ ISO 125, f8 effective (camera limited).
Processed for clarity and sharpness in Lightroom.
4/5/2011: Wood Island Light Panorama, etc.
This is a 4 shot panorama, taken from East Point in Biddeford Pool, Maine, looking up the coast past the Wood Island Light and well out to sea. It really must be viewed larger. Clicking on the image should open it to the width of your monitor.
And this is a closer view, at about 300mm equivalent field of view…as you can see there was a high wind and lots of moisture in the air, which limits the sharpness of the light at this distance. What you see beyond the light is Cape Elizabeth.
I am still experimenting with Panorama. I always forget that the sea is not still and any shot with waves is going to take some fixing. I had to go in with the clone tool in PhotoShop Elements 9 and do some creative wave adjustment…still, in a shot this large and expansive…most people will not notice. Since the level of the horizon in a shot this wide is critical, I did not use widest angle on the Canon’s zoom, which would have introduced some linier distortion in each shot. I find that normal lens (50mm or there abouts) stitches better when there is such an obvious horizon.
1) Canon SX20IS, four 62mm equivalent field of view shots, stitched in PSE 9’s Panorama tool using the Align Images setting. f4 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 80. 2) Canon SX20IS at 300mm equivalent field of view, f5 @ 1/800th @ ISO 80. Landscape Mode for both.
Both processed in Lightroom for intensity and clarity.
4/4/2011: Spring Light on the Bascom
This is the Bascom River above the main pool at Emmons Preserve in Kennbunkport Maine. Emmons, as I have detailed here before, is a little preserve set aside for public use, with a short loop trail beside the stream, several pools, some minor waterfalls and rapids, etc. Altogether a wonderful little patch that I always enjoy visiting. Here, the real feature is the clear, crisp light of early spring, the reflections in the water, and the symmetry of the narrows. There is really nothing there…but it is a pleasing…an inviting nothing.
Canon SX20IS zoomed out to 85mm equivalent field of view for framing, f4 @ 1/125 @ ISO 100. Landscape Mode.
Processed for intensity and clarity in Lightroom (see the processing link at the left).
4/3/2011: What is written in the ice?
Happy Sunday.
Patterns in the ice of shallow pools always catches my eye. I think they are formed by repeated melting and re-freezing, or perhaps by water that moves just slightly while freezing. Certainly there is some mixture of air and water caught in these interesting swirls. It always looks to me like someone has been writing there in the ice in some unknown script. I think of Palmer Method Penmanship…the elegant flowing hand of my grandparents…ink driven to words and sentences by the motions of the large muscles, so the thoughts flow across the pape.
Canon SX20IS. 1) and 2) 130mm equivalent field of view, f4.5 @ 1/250th @ ISO 80. 3) 95mm equivalent, f4 @ 1/250th @ ISO 80. Landscape Mode.
Processed for intensity and clarity and cropped for focus in Lightroom.
Being Sunday: I see words in the ice, but then I am a very wordy person. I see words. I can remember as far back as my early teens, catching sight of an interesting word somewhere my environment…on a sign, on a cereal box on the counter in the kitchen, on the soup can I just threw in the trash…in a book a seatmate on the bus was reading…and having it register in my mind so vividly that I felt compelled to go back over my movements and the scene around me to find where it was printed. This still happens to me 60 years later (only now they are airplane seatmates not buses). It happened yesterday, while out shopping.
You might say it happened when I saw the patterns in the ice…only there…the word being written is just off the tip of my tongue…just beyond thought. Words, the fact that we have language, makes us, in a very real sense, who we are. Because we not only see the world around us, but name it, we can change that world, for good or bad, in ways other creatures can not. Language is power. Words have power, but they are power as well. We recognize this on the deepest level.
God, in Jesus, is described as the living word. Like the words written the ice, God is a word always just off the tip of our tongues…just beyond thought. We recognize that something of great importance and beauty is written, being written, and we reach for the meaning, without ever quite getting there. That too defines us.
In a very real sense it is enough to know, to recognize, that truth and beauty are written, in the ice, or in a living person, even if we can’t quite read it. And, if you believe the promise, they are written in our long lost native tongue…and one day we will catch the thought.
4/2/2011: Pool Panorama, Emmons Preserve
For Scenery on Saturday, another panorama from Emmons Preserve in Kennebunkport Maine…this time a somewhat more conventional one. A sweep of the middle pool along the main run of the Baston River through the preserve. With no leaves on the trees the light actually reaches the water in early spring. This is a very different place during summer. Because of the level of detail here, this will benefit from a larger view. Click the image and it should open on a page resized for your monitor.
Three 28mm equivalent captures with the Canon SX20IS handheld. Stitched in PhotoShop Elements Panorama tool, processed for intensity and clarity in Lightroom. f8 @ 1/100th @ ISO 80. Landscape Mode.