Monthly Archives: August 2011
8/21/2011: Purple Vervain
Happy Sunday. I am not sure if Vervain is classed as a wildflower or as a weed, but it certainly makes an attractive show along the shores of Plains Pond at the edge of the Kennebunk Plains. Plains Pond was evidently once considerably larger. The damn seems well broken, but it is still an interesting place…a wide, somewhat marshy, spot in Cold Brook as it flows down into the Mousam River.
This is a different kind of macro…taking advantage of the wide angle macro mode on the Coolpix to frame the tiny flowers against the backdrop of the pond and the pines behind.
Nikon Coolpix P500 at 32mm equivalent field of view, Close-Up mode, f3.7 @ 1/800th @ ISO 160.
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness.
And for the Sunday thought: well, obviously, one man’s weed is another man’s wildflower, and the setting is all important. Put this where I have commonly seen it…in cracks in asphalt sidewalks or pushing up through paved driveways…and it certainly is a weed, no matter how pretty the tiny flowers are. Out here a pond-side, it’s beauty is enough to make it precious. The eye of spirit sees it the same in either setting, of course. Wide eyed in wonder is the way to see the world.
8/20/2011: Bee in Blazing Star Heaven
Back to the Kennebunk Plains for more Blazing Star action. Of course the bloom of Blazing Star attracts bees from whatever a reasonable bee-flight around is. Their buzz is the music of the Plains this season.
Nikon Coolpix P500 at 176mm equivalent field of view, f5.4 @ 1/100th @ ISO 160. Close-Up mode.
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness. Cropped for composition.
8/19/2011: Autumn Meadowhawk (I think)
I am still very much learning my dragonflies. I think this is an Autumn Meadowhawk…though it is not yet autumn and this was taken at streamside…not in a meadow. Still…
This is the other common Odanata at Emmons Preserve in late summer.
Nikon Coolpix P500 at 620mm equivalent field of view (absolute max on Close-Up mode on the Coolpix), f5.7 @ 1/160 @ ISO 160.
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness. Cropped for scale.
8/18/2011: Ebony Jewelwings
As I mentioned in a previous post, on a recent explore at Emmons Preserve in Kennebunkport, the Ebony Jewelwings were super abundant and super active. We have two males and a female here, the males resting from the incessant aerial combat over the stream.
Nikon Coolpix P500 at 500mm equivalent field of view, f5.7 @ 1/320th @ ISO 160. Close-Up mode. This is a full-frame, uncropped shot.
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness.
8/17/2011: Experiment in Form and Color
When this posts, I will be somewhere between London England and Rutland Water, up on the edge of the Midlands where they hold the Great British Birding Fair each year. My internet connections over the next few days will be sporadic and totally out of sync with most people who read this bog, so I am preparing a few posts ahead and scheduling them. I may, if I get a super shot in England (it is a working trip and time will be very limited), replace one the scheduled posts with something more spontaneous, but we will just have to see about that.
This is one of a series of experiments…it started out as a photograph, but it is not that anymore. I have manipulated it in PicSay Pro on my Xoom Android Honeycomb tablet…in a process most akin to digital doodling. The original is along side here. PicSay Pro allows you to mirror, twist, squeeze, and otherwise distort your image, as well as to apply a wide range of effects from Lomo to HDR to Gritty to Glow. I did not keep track of the particular set I used on this image beyond the obvious mirror. Like I say, it is closer to doodling than to any thoughtful or intentional process.
You can see a growing set of these at my Experiments gallery on Wide Eyed In Wonder.
8/16/2011: Monarch and Blazing Star
Driving back through the Plains from my excursion to Plains Pond last Saturday, I caught a butterfly in the Northern Blazing Star out of the corner of my eye. It was headed away from me, but I pulled up, grabbed the camera, zoomed out, pointed it out the open window of the car and got off one shot. The contrast in color is pretty dramatic here, and the telephoto end of the zoom throws the background into pleasing bokeh. Cropped from the right for composition.
Nikon Coolpix P500 at 538mm equivalent field of view, f5.7 @ 1/320th @ ISO 160. Program with Active D-Lighting.
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness.
8/15/2011: High Summer Forest
The dappled light and shade of the forest at high summer afternoon in Southern Maine. This is the forest that edges the Kennebunk Plains, ferny and open. Not an old forest as it has grown up since 1947, the year Maine burned. In 1947 wildfires consumed hundreds of thousands of acres from one end of Maine to the other, and villages as well. If compared to a mature forest like those at Rachel Carson and Wells Reserve, which did not burn, the difference is immediately obvious.
But that is history. What attracts me here is the sandy track leading the eye deeper and deeper into the forest, and the play of light and shadow.
Nikon Coolpix P500 at 23mm equivalent field of view, f3.5 @ 1/160th @ ISO 160. Program with Active D-Lighting. The Active D-Lighting handled the range of shadow and shade just about perfectly, providing an exposure that I could easily tweak in Lightroom for a very realistic effect.
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness.
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8/14/2011: Blazing Star against the Sky
Happy Sunday!
I went back out to the Kennebunk Plains yesterday (see 8/7. 8/8, and 8/13) ostensibly to find Plains Pond which I had seen on the maps, but of course I got distracted again by the stands of Northern Blazing Star. Yesterday’s sky was much smaller than last Saturday’s, more homey and friendly somehow…but it still made a nice backdrop for this low angle shot of the Blazing Star. Something a bit different. Not a view you would see unless you intentionally bent down to ground level and looked up. (Which is why I won’t own a camera without an articulated LCD view 🙂
Nikon Coolpix P500 at 46mm equivalent field of view, f8 @ 1/500th @ ISO 160. Program with Active D-Lighting, –1/3EV exposure compensations, and program shift for the smaller aperture and greater depth of field.
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness.
And for the Sunday thought…it is not a view you would normally see…unless you bent down to ground level and looked up. And what a lot of spiritual truth there is in that! Sometimes, for the seeker, those are the two most important, and sometimes most difficult, directives. Get down to ground level. I am pretty sure that is what Jesus was talking about when he said you had to lose yourself, die to yourself, if you find yourself and live. Lose yourself, die to yourself, get down to ground level. The finding and the living parts are all in the look up, of course. And what do you see? Blazing Stars against a friendly sky. Beauty. Life. Possibility. Promise. Hope. And ultimately, love. Blazing Stars against a friendly sky.
Oh, and I did find the pond too, but that is a story for another day.
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8/13/2011: Prairie Sky (in Maine)
My post on Blazing Star early last week covered the providence of the Kennebunk Plains. I sometimes forget how special they are here in the east. A little bit of the great prairie…a pocket prairie so to speak…and right in my back yard. And like true prairie, they allow the clouds of summer full expression. This is the shot I drove out to the plains for before being distracted by the Blazing Stars and Calico Pennants. I included just enough of the Plains to give context.
Nikon Coolpix P500 at 53mm equivalent field of view. f8 @ 1/800th @ ISO 160. Program with Active D-Lighting.
Processed in Lightroom for Intensity, Clarity, and Sharpness.
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8/12/2011: Portland Horse Chestnut
One of the consequences of doing a Pic 4 Today blog is that you are forced to seize every opportunity to pick up your camera and go find something to photograph. I was stranded in a hotel for the morning in a rather seedy section of Portland Oregon (my bad, I made the reservation)…and it took some determination to shut down the internet and get out there. As it happens there was a tiny cemetery across the street from the hotel with some huge old trees. I took a dozen or more exposures and went back to the hotel, transfered the images via Eye-Fi card to my Xoom, and processed a few in PhotoEnhance Pro HD and PicSay Pro.
I liked the texture and the light coming through the extra large leaves of the Horse Chestnut. Selective focus kept the strongest pattern sharp and Active D-Lighting gave me a good exposure for processing. I also liked the big ugly fruit.
Nikon Coolpix P500 at 23mm equivalent field of view. f3.4 @ 1/320 @ ISO 320. Program with Active D-Lighting. Fruit at 410mm equivalent. f4 @ 1/320th @ ISO 160. Close Up mode.
Processed as above in PhotoEnhance Pro HD. Fruit in PicSay Pro.
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