Monthly Archives: March 2012
3/22/2012: Spring Question Mark, The Yard, Kennebunk ME
Yesterday, being the first day of spring, on my lunch break I went out into our yard to look for signs of spring. We live in the tidal zone along a river about 2 miles inland from the sea, and our spring is delayed up to two weeks from those who live even a mile further inland. Our crocus are just pushing up the first green sprigs…just up the street they are in full bloom. We get payback in the fall, when, baring an early snowstorm, our warm days linger a bit longer, with 5 degree warmer temperatures than our inland neighbors.
I took shots of the crocus and the buds of the maple flowers, still little hard red balls on the branch tips, and was surprised by a butterfly flitting round the yard. It would fly a short hop and then sit with the sun on its spread wings, evidently building up energy for the next hop. I chased it down for a pic.
It is a Question Mark, and despite how common they are in New England, only my third conscious sighting. When I got the image on the computer screen for processing, I saw pretty clearly how worn the critter was. This is not a spring butterfly…so I looked up the Question Mark’s life cycle. In addition to the fact that the Question Mark feeds mostly on rotting fruits and vegetables, and carrion, in preference to flowers, which is interesting enough in itself, I found that there is a summer flight, and a winter flight (which actually flies in the fall). The winter flight over-winters in hibernation in sheltered nooks and crannies (an assumption since no one sees them), and emerges in the spring to lay the eggs that will become the summer flight. This winter flight specimen was evidently tempted out of its nook by the first day of spring.
Canon SX40HS at 1680mm equivalent (840mm optical plus 2x digital tel-extender). f5.8 @ 1/640th @ ISO 100. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
3/20/2012: That’s Mister Herring Gull to you! San Diego CA
Herring Gulls are, of course, easy. They stand on the shore of almost any larger body of water in the United States (and well beyond)…under picnic tables and grills, along tide lines, in parking lots…and they are fearless. All gulls are bullies, but the Herring Gull is the bully of the bunch, so secure in its dominance that it is relatively easy to approach. Indeed, if you stand still and look like you might harbor french fries it is quite likely to approach you.
This classic portrait was taken on in one of the park areas of Mission Bay Park in San Diego, just north of the Dana Hotel and Marina. I like the eye, and the bokeh.
Canon SX40HS at 1240mm equivalent field of view (840 optical plus 1.5x digital tel-extender function). f5.8 @ 1/640th @ ISO 100. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
And a second shot, with 2x DTE for 1680mm equivalent.
And finally the 3/4 shot.
3/19/2012: Total Turtle, The Goshen Center, Cape May Bird Observatory
It was not a great weekend for photography in Cape May New Jersey this past weekend. Watery sun inland and fog along the coast, and it is definetly still that awkward season between winter and true spring…trees just budding, birds moving and singing certainly, but not in Cape May spring numbers…either of species or individuals. Still a walk around the grounds of the Goshen Center of CMBO turned up a few things of interest, starting with the resident turtle in the tiny pond.
Canon SX40HS at 1680mm equivalent (840mm optical plus 2x digital tel-extender function). Program with iContrast and -1/3EV exposure compensation. All three f5.8 @ 1/125th @ ISO 100.
Processed with Photo Enhance Pro on the Xoom tablet.
3/18/2012: Feather Found, Lake Champlain. Happy Sunday!
We walked along the shore of Lake Champlain as far as North Beach which is right below Burlington College where my daughter is a student. We sat there on blocks of marble at the edge of the sand and the girls talked…sister talk and mom talk…and I messed about framing the beach, and leaves in the litter, too lazy to get up and really go look for a picture. From where I sat on my block I eventually noticed, deep in the leaf litter, a strange smooth banded shape. I suspected a feather, and so it turned out to be when we finally got up to climb the sharp bluff to the college grounds above. I dug it out of the leaves and set it up on a rock for its portrait. Of course, out of its safe nest in the leaves the wind wanted to blow it away and it would not sit still for a shot. I would flip it to its good side and the wind would flip it back. After several tries on the bare surface of the rock, which I wanted for texture contrast , I had to let it blow to an edge, where it rested, at least right side up, and take the shot. The little round of acorn top was an unplanned bonus, as was the diagonal where sand meets rock.
Canon SX40HS at 1680mm equivalent field of view (840mm optical zoom plus 2x digital tel-extender function). I am finding this combination useful for tel-macros as well as more conventional long shots. Program with iContrast and -1/3EV exposure compensation. f5.8 @ 1/125th @ ISO 100.
Processed on Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
And for the Sunday thought. This is one of those much ado about nothing shots…just a little found still life…a study in form and texture and light. A happy accident…except that I don’t ascribe to the theory of accidents. Where others might tend to see chance, I see intention. Not fate, mind you…but conscious, intelligent, living intention…moving in time as I do, one second at a time, but with the perspective of eternity where every second contains all the seconds…where every instant is all, and every found feather placed by hand and wind where rock meets sand contains the universe. Within the limits of my perspective, and tempted to count every second against some unknown store…my attotment so to speak…I cooperate with that intention, and, at my best, resist the temptation to count, and simply live within the moment I am given, with shared intent. That attitude allows me, often enough, to find a feather along the Champlain shore, to pick it and place it, to chase it where the wind puts it, to frame it…and to share it with you.
Happy Sunday!
3/17/2012: Champlain Layers, Burlington VT
Another shot from our short trip to Burlington Vermont this week. Among the attractions of Burlington is a series of beaches and parks in towntown Burlington along the shore of Lake Champlain. This marina would be full in another season…it will in fact fill up quickly over the next 6-8 weeks, but for now it is a study in graphic design, with the lighthouse on its breakwater forming a middle ground and the layered mountains behind. It stretches the eye and challenges our sense of space but I think it works exactly because of that.
Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast and -1/3EV exposure compensation. 90mm equivalent field of view. f4 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 100.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity and sharpness.
3/16/2012: The Ice Plant Cometh. San Diego CA
The other unmissable flower in San Diego in March (in addition to the Bird of Paradise) is what I assume is a form of the invasive Ice Plant that has taken over the sandy soils of Southern California to the point that they have Ice Plant erratication programs in many areas (and signs that say “do not feed the Ice Plant :). Evidently this form is not yet on the environmental terror watch list as it is still planted by the city along highways and on parks. And it is brilliant in bloom. There never has been such a purple! In masses along the roadside or splayed across a bank it is eyecatching and breathtaking.
Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast and -1/3EV exposure compensation. 1) 24mm macro. f4 @ 1/500th @ ISO 125. 2) 130mm. f4.5 @ 1/500th @ ISO 200. 3) 840mm @ 1/200th @ ISO 160.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and brightness.
3/15/2012: Church Street, Burlington VT
On our short visit to Burlington Vermont, we took our daughter shoe shopping on Church Street. Church Street is an urban mall…a common feature these days of attempting to revitalize the downtown shopping districts in cities the size of Burlington. In New England they all share the closed to vehicle traffic and the brick street and sidewalk ambiance, as well as the trendy shops, art galleries, organic and exotic restaurants, and boutique coffee and tea houses. Burlington has also managed to attract a more main-stream mall mix, from Macy’s and Famous Shoes to Panara Breads and Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream. All in all it is one of the more vital revitalized downtowns that I have seen.
This shot is the very north end of the mall on a rainy morning. There is nothing like wet brick for atmosphere. It was taken with the 24mm equivalent end of the Canon SX40HS zoom, and then pulled back into plum with the distortion tools in Lightroom. The next two images, taken later in the morning when the sky was clearing, show just how powerful the Lightroom distortion tools are for architectural shots.
With the camera tipped up to frame the church, the vertical distortion makes for a crazy city scene. It seems shots like this, with untreated distortions, are pretty well accepted these days, and it does have a kind of wild appeal…but I think I prefer my buildings standing up straight.
This correction required both the vertical distortion slider (considerable) and the lens distortion slider (just a tiny bit)…and then a custom cropping to keep the walker’s feet in the frame. It is totally amazing what you can do in Lightroom!
1) 24mm equivalent, f4 @ 1/80th @ ISO 100. 2) and 3) 24mm equivalent, f4@ 1/1250th @ ISO 100. Program with iContrast and –1/3 EV exposure compensation.
Processed (in addition to the distortion corrections) in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
3/14/2012: Champlain Blue, Burlington VT
My wife, daughter number 5, and I took a brief overnighter to Burlington Vermont to visit daughter number 3, who attends Burlington College. By the time we got there the weather had closed in, but we still spent a few hours walking along the shore of Lake Champlain. The Adirondacks across the water were faded to blue on blue, or grey on grey, but the light was soft and lovely, and I had fun playing with simplified compositions.
Canon SX40HS at 84mm equivalent field of view. f5 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 100. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness. Lightroom 4 has changed many of the develop tools I used every day, and I am having to relearn to get the same effects.
3/13/2012: Lizard at Cabrillo National Monument.
The rocks and paths at Cabrillo were alive with lizards when I visited the Sunday before last. I am definitely not a herps person. It is not that I do not like them. I do. It is just that I don’t know much about them. A little Googling leads me to believe that all the various lizards I saw at Cabrillo, and they were various, were in fact Fence Lizards in various stages of being and of various sexes. I like the way this one clung to his rock in the hope that I, if I happened to be a predator (he seemed uncertain on that point even if I was not) would not be able to see him. I also like the bokeh … the way the lizard is isolated against the out of focus background. And the texture of the rock is interesting as well. Lots to like here 🙂
Canon SX40HS at 1240mm equivalent field of view (840mm optical plus 1.5x digital tel-extender). f5.8 @ 1/640th @ ISO 100. Program with iContrast and -1/3EV exposure compensation.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity and sharpness.
3/12/2012: Hop, skip and jump. Snowy Egret’s, Merritt Island NWR
Late one afternoon at Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, I found a pair of Snowy Egrets (well, maybe just two Snowys, I am not sure of their sexes) “hop and plunge” fishing. That is my term for it. From a standing stop, with a single flap of the wings, they were leaping into the air, somewhat horizontally, for several body lengths, and then plunging down on something in the water. I have seen a lot of different Egret and Heron feeding behavior but I had never seen anything quite like this. It was not, by the way, noticeably effective, as I never saw either Snowy catch anything, but it did look like fun.
Canon SX40HS at 840mm equivalent field of view. f5.8 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 200. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.