Monthly Archives: December 2011
12/11/2011: Dawn Church, Happy Sunday
Coming out of the hotel to catch the shuttle to Wildcater Ranch one morning last week in Graham Texas, I looked to the east and was taken with the dawn light behind this lighted steeple, and with the silhouettes of the trees. I framed it several different ways, but this was the keeper.
Canon SX40HS at 250mm equivalent field of view, f5 @ 1/40th @ ISO 800. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation.
Processed in Lightroom for Intensity and Sharpness.
And for the Sunday thought: Photography is all about catching the play of light and shadow. Note that it is not “light and darkness”…it is definitely light and shadow. We are creatures of light. Light is our reality. Darkness is simply the absence of light. It has no substance of its own, and it always flees at the first hint of light. Every photograph is a record of the light that stuck the film or the sensor…producing a chemical change or a charge that is then rendered into an image of reality. Shadow is only the record of where the light did not reach.
Or taking a word from another tradition: “The light of the world has come into the world, and it utterly defeats the darkness.” That is the promise and that is the reality we celebrate this season. So happy Sunday…and an early Merry Christmas, from a dawn in Graham Texas.
12/10/2011: North Texas Meadowlark
As I mentioned, I am in North Texas for a few days (headed home today), helping with a training for ZEISS Sports Optics, which was held at Wildcater Ranch near Graham. Yesterday afternoon, after most folks packed up and headed back to Dallas and home, I had some time to do a little birding on the high bluff where the ranch restaurant and conference center is located. It is early winter here (they had snow on the ground when we arrived) but I found an interesting mix of birds…Cardinals, Cedar Waxwings, Juncos, Eastern Bluebirds, Yellow-rumped Warblers, and Goldfinches prominent among them.
The meadowlarks were alternating between feeding on the ground and perching high, in trees and on the power line that crossed by path. I could not catch them on the ground, but I managed a few shots when they went up high.
And I can’t resist putting in this chance shot…the last in a sequence. This is a crop for composition.
Canon SX40HS at 840mm optical zoom plus 2x digital tel-converter for 1680mm equivalent. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation.
Processed in Lightroom for Intensity and Sharpness. (Some additional local sharpening on the last shot.)
2/9/2011: Bosque del Apache Scenic
One of the things I love about Bosque in November is the light. It is great on the birds and it is great on the mountains and the fields that line the Rio Grande. I always come back with 1000s of bird shots…and at least a few scenics. This was taken early one morning from the backside of the driving loop looking to the west. The Rio Grande is behind me.
Canon SX40HS at 24mm equivalent. Program with iContradt and -1/3EV exposure compensation.
Processed in Lightroom for Intensity and Sharpness.
12/8/2011: Prickly Pear, Arroyo Colorado WBC
By an odd coincidence (I don’t actually believe in coincidence, but it makes a neat shorthand for “I have not yet figured out why”) I am back in Texas for the second time in less than a month. North Texas this time. Graham, in fact, which according to the brochure in the hotel lobby, is The Gem of North Texas. Eventually you will see the sunset pics I took last night from the high bluff south of town, but for today, to keep it in Texas, I will return to the Rio Grande Valley and Arroyo Colorado World Birding Center in Harlingen Texas. I popped out there after setting up my booth at the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival last month. Bird life, as I detailed in another post, was sparse (totally the wrong time of day), but there were dragonflies, and some very interesting light effects on the forest of tree-like prickly pear cactus. As I was working the area, I zoomed in on this tight composition of a single pad. I love the way the light is caught in the spines, and the receding planes of focus behind the pad in the foreground…and the general geometry of the curves.
Canon SX40HS at 840mm equivalent field of view. f5.8 @ 1/400th @ ISO 200. Program with iContrast and –1/3ED exposure compensation.
Processed in Lightroom for Intensity and Sharpness.
12/7/2011: More Sandhills, Bosque del Apache NWR
While we are on the subject of Sandhill Cranes…
There were only about 5000 Cranes down yet while we were at Bosque in November. Only is completely relative. Even 100 Cranes in a corn field is impressive. While shooting these I was switching back and forth between my point and shoot behind the ZEISS DiaScope and my Canon SX40HS, using the superzoom for flight shots and the digiscoping rig for portraits. These are all digiscoped shots.
Canon SD100HS behind the Vario eyepiece on a ZEISS DiaScope 65FL for focal lengths ranging from 1200mm to 4000mm equivalents.
Processed in Lightroom for Intensity and Sharpness.
12/6/2011: Cranes in Early Sun, Bisque del Apache NWR
I posted a sequence from this same morning a few days ago, taken as the sun was rising behind a bank of cloud on the horizon. Eventually the sun got up above the clouds and spread across the empondment and the birds. It was, as is often the case in New Mexico in November, a clear crisp light with a good deal of warmth to it. It made the Sandholl Cranes look particularly alive.
Canon SX40HS. 1260mm,1680mm, and 72mm equivalents. Program with iContrast and -1/3EV exposure compensation.
Processed in Lightroom for Intensity and Sharpness.
12/5/2011: Cranes in Flight
One of the attractions of Bosque del Apache is the number of birds in flight on any given day. I have already chronicled the geese from this year’s visit in a post last week. Today we will take a look at the Sandhill Cranes. Sandhills are a truly prehistoric looking bird…especially in flight. Heavy bodied, with huge wings (spanning 8 feet), their flight is ponderous, and never more so than when they come in for landing. Still, there is a beauty and a grace common to any flying creature. They might be heavy, but they are still creatures of the air.
At Bosque they are often framed against the mountains or the cottonwoods, which adds to the effect.
And as the sun sets, the Cranes are moving to their night roosts in the ponds and provide spectacular silhouettes against the darkening sky.
Canon SX40HS at various settings between 700mm and 1260mm equivalents…in Programed auto, with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation.
Processed in Lightroom for Intensity and Sharpness.
12/4/2011: Happy Sunday! Sun Fire | Burning Bush
Hiking the Marsh Trail at Bosque del Apache, I looked up at the top of the loose conglomerate bluff at just the right spot and just the right moment to see this. It was late afternoon and the sun was getting low enough so the bluff cast a shadow across most of the trail, though the marsh itself was still in sun, and the light spilling over the bluff caught in the fine seed filaments of this plant (I am not sure what it was but I suspect, from the fine fibers, that it was Cliff Rose) and lit them up like the glowing wires of incandescent bulbs. I am sure it was a purely a diffraction effect…the seed fibers were fine enough to bend and focus light…they were not, of course, heated to incandescence themselves…but it certainly looked like I imagine Moses’s burning bush might have. I wonder what wonders I missed by not stopping to listen?
But then that question, apt as it is in logic of writing down my impressions, is not true to the experience. I actually experienced a wonder that goes well beyond questions of what I might have missed. I was, in fact, caught up in the act of wonder, and, simultaneously, busy trying to figure out how to record it so that I might, eventually, share it.
For me, that is what it means to be a photographer…and those are the moments I treasure…when I am caught up in wonder and fully engaged in making an image of it. I tend to favor cameras that do most of the work in those critical moments…auto exposure…auto focus…set-and-forget cameras that allow me to concentrate on framing what I am seeing effectively. I can think about that, about the framing and the composition, without losing the wonder. If I have to actually think about f-stops and shutter speeds and ISO values then I am in danger of getting separated from the wonder. And what fun would that be?
No, I need to be able to point and shoot…simple as that…so that when I see a burning bush I can share it with you without losing it myself.
And besides, what God is saying in most burning bushes is pretty simple. “I am here. I am with you. Trust and enjoy.” (We humans generally translate that into “Do not be afraid”, or sometimes “Trust and obey” but, believe me, it is “trust and enjoy” in the original language…the one you can only hear with the ears of the spirit.)
No, the burning bush on the top of the bluff spoke pretty clearly to me…and I hope I caught just a bit of the message for you.
Canon SX40HS (ultimate point and shoot) at 180mm equivalent field of view, f6.3 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 200. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation.
Processed in Lightroom for Intensity and Sharpness.
12/3/2011: Long-billed Thrasher, Edinburg Wetlands
Long-billed Thrashers are not elusive birds, but they are quick and spend a lot of time deep in brush, so they can be difficult to photograph. This is my best shot to date, taken at Edinburg Scenic Wetlands and World Birding Center in Edinburg Texas. In the past I have always tried to digiscope them…using a Point and Shoot behind the eyepiece of a spotting scope, and that is particularly difficult with this active bird. Now that I am carrying the Canon SX40HS with its long zoom and useful digital tel-converter, I have a better chance of grabbing a quick shot. This bird sat long enough for a few frames…and then was gone.
Canon SX40HS at full 840mm equivalent zoom, plus 1.5x digital converter, for 1260mm equivalent. f5.8 @ 1/320th @ ISO 200. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation.
Processed in Lightroom for Intensity and Sharpness.
And another from the same sequence.
12/2/2011: White-faced Ibis, Estero Llano Grande, TX
The small lake right off the observation deck of the Visitor Center at Estero Llano Grande State Park and World Birding Center near Weslaco TX is always good for dabbling ducks, grebes, herons, and ibii. Often you do not even need a super-long telephoto, but, of course, more reach makes for more intimate images. This shot of a White-faced Ibis was taken with the Canon SD100HS behind the 15-56x Vario eyepiece on the ZEISS DiaScope 65FL spotting scope for an 1250mm equivalent. The light was marginal, and there was a bit of mist in the air, but it is still a good portrait of an interesting bird.
1/100th @ ISO 100, f4 effective. Program.
Processed in Lightroom for Intensity and Sharpness.