Monthly Archives: March 2012
3/11/2012: Point Loma Lights, Happy Sunday!
Last Sunday I was in San Diego, covering the final day of the San Diego Birding and Nature Festival in Mission Bay Park. In the morning I made my yearly trek out the length of Point Loma to Cabrillo National Monument. Cabrillo sits high above San Diego Bay, at the tip of the point that forms the northern and the western boundary. Off one side of the point you see the full reach of downtown San Diego, and off the other you see, on a clear day, well out to sea beyond the Coronado islands.
The old light is on the grounds of the Monument, perched at the top of the point, where it must have been visible about as far out to sea as any light in North America.
It was not, however, overly helpful to ships trying to avoid the rocks off the very tip of Point Loma, and it was replaced long ago with a taller light right on the shore at the base of the point.
To me, the Coast Guard Reservation on Point Loma, seen here in a moderate telephoto shot from the top of the point, is about as tropical as you can get on US soil.
There is a small museum in the outbuilding of the old lighthouse, an its primary display is a duplicate of the huge focusing lens enclosure for the light itself. These 6 foot tall lenses are what made the light effective at such great distances, and are certainly testaments to the glass and lens-makers art.
The color you see here is light refracting through the various concentric lens surfaces ground into the single massive piece of glass.
And for the Sunday thought: I live right diagonally across on the other coast from San Diego, but we are just as caught up in the romance of lighthouses in Maine as they are in California…maybe more-so. I live right up the road from “The Lighthouse Shop” which caters to lighthouse aficionados traveling up historic Route 1, and, through their catalog and web-site, all over the world. I am pretty certain if I stopped by there would be a model of the Point Loma lights, or a post-card at the least.
And, of course, the lighthouse appeals to more than our sense of romance. In any community in the US you will find at least one (generally non-denominational) church that has taken the name of Lighthouse. And I don’t think it is the sense of warning that speaks to our spirits…though every lighthouse was primarily a warning device…so much as it is the sense of home, fellowship, safety. The lighthouse warns of the last dangerous passage this side of home, this side of land and safety, but it is home we hear…home that holds our hope and our joy.
And there is the sense in which each one of us is called to be a lighthouse…our bodies temples of light…our faces focusing lenses which beam home, fellowship, safety so brightly that we can be seen far across the seas of self that separate us, through the storms of self no matter how they rage.
Ah…but you are thinking I am getting caught up in the romance of the lights again…stretching the metaphor. I am certain I am not.
3/10/2012: Bougainvillea Photopaints
Over on Google+ where I am active ( +Stephen Ingraham) there is quite a large group of photographer/artists who are expressing their visions of the world by creating painterly renderings of photographs. Quite a few of them use Pixelbender within PhotoShop. I use Dynamic Auto Painter 64x Pro, which is a program that attempts to mimic the effects of different classic painters by analyzing your photograph down to basic shapes and colors and applying the master’s brush methods to recreate it as a painting. It is a fascinating program to watch work, as it builds your image from a bare canvas, one brush stroke at a time.
I also do some finger-painting on my Xoom’s touch screen, using PicsArt Studio to selectively apply various effects with my finger tip, and then PS Touch to add a texture layer or to do final processing.
My offering today is a gallery of examples based on the same photograph…a sprig of bougainvillea against a terra-cotta brick wall at Mission Bay in San Diego. This is a shot that I actually took with painterly processing in mind. I liked the color and texture contrast as a photograph…but I was definitely thinking of it as a painting when I pressed the shutter release. The original looks like this.
The first image (at the top) is done in the style of Van Gogh. Following, we have the same same photograph rendered after a Matisse’s Lily Pond, followed by the same pic again, this time rendered after a work of Cezanne.
Finally we have the same pic again, finger-painted on the Xoom using various effects in PicsArt Studio, with a photo-texture layer (macro of a pocket handkerchief) overlaid in PS Touch.
Clearly, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so what do you think? I will chime back in if comments warrant it 🙂
3/9/2012: Anna’s at Famosa Slough
Famosa Slough, the small wetlands between the San Diego River channel and Point Lomo in San Diego, which I have visited several times here in the past week or so, is a great place for urban waders, ducks, gulls, bushtits, and, as it turns out, kingfishers, but it is also an excellent place to find Anna’s Hummingbirds. I have never been there when there weren’t several working the edges of the marsh from high perches in the small trees. On every visit I try to find one facing the sun so I can get the gorget lit…but I have had no success so far. They seem to resolutely face the other way, probably because that is the marsh side where the bugs fly, and probably because they find it easier to hunt without the sun in their eyes.
The Anna’s, by the way, is one of the few, if not the only, hummingbird that sings. You can hear their buzzy song at Famosa Slough most days.
The first two shots are taken from different sides of the tree. 1) I am facing north, and 2) is facing south, so the bird, in both cases has its back to the sun.
I was able to catch this interesting, if imperfect, shot of the fanned tail from underneath.
Canon SD100HS behind the 30x eyepiece on the ZEISS DiaScope 65FL spotting scope. All at just about 3000mm equivalent field of view and f8. 1) and 2) 1/100th @ ISO 100. 3) 1/200th @ ISO 100. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
3/8/2012: Bushtits in the bush. Famosa Slough, San Diego CA
Bushtits are not easy to photograph. They are hyper-active and they feed, most often, deep in the bush. Then too, I don’t encounter them much, even in my travels, so they are always a treat. These individuals were part of a small flock that was literally attacking a bush at the south end of Famosa Slough in San Diego. For a few moments there they were all over, or rather all through, the bush.
The only hope with a bird like this, in a chance encounter, is to shoot bursts of shots (the Canon SX40HS manages something between 3 and 4 frames per second) and hope for the best…that is, select the best later.
These shots are all uncropped at 1240mm equivalent field of view (840mm optical plus 1.5x digital tel-extender).
The final shot, though I barely managed to keep the Bushtits in the frame, has, I think, a tension about it that is consistent with the hyper-active subjects.
Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. Because of the rapidly changing light the ISO and shutter speed were all over the place, from 1/640th at ISO 400 (1) to 1/250th at ISO 125 (2).
Processed for intensity, clarity, and sharpness in Lightroom.
3/7/2012: La Famous La Jolla Ground Squirrel
Leaving the Children’s Pool at La Jolla, where I had enjoyed an hour of watching and photographing, and videoing, the seal pups with their mothers (see Seal Love from last Saturday) I walked up on this Ground Squirrel sitting on the top of the hedge that separates the sidewalk from the rocks of the sea cliff. I stopped, not 8 feet from it, and fumbled my camera out, thinking all the time that it would be off before I got a shot. It just sat there. It sat there while I took as many pics as I wanted. It sat there while a group of tourists came up and asked me what I was doing. It was still sitting there when I walked on. Squirrely! Or rather, most un-squirrely.
And a bit of googling this morning tells me that I was shooting a celebrity unknowing. It appears the La Jolla Ground Squirrels are famous. There are lots of pics of them on Facebook. They have featured on Google+. They have several YouTube videos. They do not have their own wiki entry yet, sharing the glory with the general population of California Ground Squirrels, but it is clearly only a matter of time.
Canon SX40HS, Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. I appear to have had the camera in 1.5x digital tel-extender. I am not certain if that was intentional or not, but it did keep the shutter speed high. 1) 370mm equivalent field of view, f5 @ 1/500th @ ISO 100. 2) 126mm, f4 @ 1/1250 @ ISO 100. 3) 1134mm, f5.8 @ 1/500th @ ISO 100.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
3/6/2012: Nothing like an Egret for Elegance, Famosa Slough
On Saturday, on my way out to Point Lomos and Cabrillo National Monument, I was crossing Famosa Slough, and thinking, of course, of digiscoping the Kingfisher there in high wind on Wednesday, when it occurred to me to stop and see if it was still hanging out on the pilings on this windless Saturday morning. There would be hummingbirds at any rate, and it seemed like a good idea. I could always go to Cabrillo on Sunday.
The Kingfisher was faithful…right there on the pilings where the Slough channel passes under West Point Lomos Drive, and there were hummingbirds too, but this shot is one of those serendipitous, too-good-to-pass-up, opportunities that happen when you are busy doing something else. I was set up on the Kingfisher with my digiscoping rig, moving from one vantage to another, when this Snowy Egret squawked and flopped down into the water trapped against the road embankment. Down went the tripod and scope, and up came the Canon SX40HS. I got off a few shots, first at full optical zoom, and then at 2x digital tel-extender. The bird was just tall enough to be in full light against the dark water in the shadow of the bank. I could not have planned it better if I had actually planned it. In less a 60 seconds (90 max) the bird had moved in under the shadow of the bank and the moment was over…but I am left with this intimate study of the form and texture of the living bird…studio perfect.
Canon SX40HS in Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. f8 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 100. 1680mm equivalent field of view.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
3/5/2012: Handsom and We Know It. Sea Lions. La Jolla CA
Sea Lions are big, loud, and very full of themselves, or so it seems to this casual observer. Though these shots look like the might have been taken at the zoo. I assure you these are real wild Sea Lions from the rocks below Scripps Park in La Jolla California.
All taken with the Canon SX40HS in Program with iContrast and -1/3EV exposure compensation. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Short and sweet today as I am composing this at the airport on my way home 🙂
3/4/2012: Pelican Glory. Happy Sunday!
Besides seals and sea lions, you go to La Jolla in March for breeding plumage Brown Pelicans. I have never been sure what part of the Brown Pelican is brown. Certainly the predominate color, in all seasons, to my eye is a lovely silver gray. And in breeding plumage the bird is spectacular, with its cream or white cap, rich brown neck (there it is, but I can’t believe they named the bird after its neck), and vivid red and rust pouch skin boarded in pure white, all set off by the silver plumage of the body. And that does not cover the pink eyelid, and the old ivory tooth on the end of the bill. This is not a brown bird. (So, okay, if you catch one standing up tall, you can see, under the silver mantle of the wings, the brown lower belly and under tail…but, come on folks, this should be the Silver Pelican at the very least.)
And, once you get by the colors, the variety of textures in the feathers is just as interesting. You have fur like feathers on the head and neck, fine silver feathers like course shaggy hair over the upper chest and wings, and only a few conventional feathers showing in the spread wings and tail.
Spectacular bird.
And their habit of nesting in colonies, and traveling in squads hugging the crests of waves and riding thermals along cliffs…their plunge diving as they feed…all very hard to ignore. This is one great bird.
All these shots with the Canon SX40HS, in Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. 1) and 4) at 1680mm (840mm optical equivalent field of view plus 2x digital tel-extender). 2) and 3) at 840mm optical.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
And for the Sunday thought: people who live with Brown Pelicans year round, and know them in all seasons, are often surprised, in my experience, when they see a close up of one in breeding plumage. Even when they see them in flight, which is always a miracle of grace, they don’t look closely, and they don’t marvel at the way these huge birds ride the wind. They are just pelicans. Brown Pelicans. “We have lots of those in California.” (Or Florida, or Texas, or where ever.)
Me, every time I see them, which is not so often as I would like, I have to stand and stare. I can watch them riding up the beach and over the waves for hours in any season, just to see how they do it. And, in breeding plumage? To be honest, I sometimes don’t get up to La Jolla on my March trip to San Diego, even though it is only 20 minutes from the hotel where I stay, and even though I have been there often enough to know what I am missing, and, this morning, I am wondering why. I would hate to think I am loosing any of my ability to see these birds as they are…full of glory…and shouting glory to anyone with eyes to see and spiritual ears to hear. I would hate to think I am getting full or fat or spiritually lazy or whatever you get when you think you have seen enough Brown Pelicans in breeding plumage.
Never enough please.
3/3/2012: Seal Love, La Jolla CA
I spent a few morning hours yesterday at Scripps Park in La Jolla California. In a relatively short stretch of spectacular coastline, you have breeding plumage Brown Pelicans, Cormorants, Sea Lions, and Seals. Oh, and of course gulls. Lots of gulls. For the patient, scanning the sea from the heights of the cliffs often turns up pelagic species, or a passing pod of Gray Whales. Since my time was limited, I concentrated on the easy stuff…Pelicans, Sea Lions, and Seals.
At the south end of Scripps Park (just beyond the south end of park proper in fact) is a sheltered beach with a massive curving sea wall that is known locally as Children’s Beach. In March it is closed to humans, since the Harbor Seals have begun to use it as a pupping beach. Yesterday there were probably 50 adult female seals lolling on the beach or swimming in the sheltered cove, and at least that many pups of various ages. Many of the pups were in the water with their mothers…but the mother’s seemed intent on herding them up onto the beach. Not an easy task with the very active pups, who seemed equally intent on getting by their mothers and into the water again. Kids. What can you do?
Other pups were nursing. If you look closely here you can see the mother’s teat were the pup is attached.
Observing (and photographing) the seals from the top of the cliff that forms the inland side of the cove, it is impossible not to get an impression of affection between the mother’s and the pups. Much of what they do looks speciously like play or cuddling. I know we are not supposed to project human emotions onto other species, but until someone proves otherwise, I am going to remain convinced that what I was seeing on Children’s Beach in La Jolla was seal love…a mother’s love for her pup…and a pup’s love for its mother.
I have some video of the seal pups at play in the water that I will post when I get it processed.
One last shot. Note that the pup’s head is resting on it’s mother’s spread flipper.
All shots with the Canon SX40HS out near the long end of the zoom (840mm equivalent). The nursing close-up with 2x digital tel-extender added for 1680mm equivalent. All hand held.
Processed in Lightroom for Intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
3/2/2012: Bird of Paradise, San Diego CA
I have only ever been to San Diego in February or March so I can’t testify to anything beyond a very narrow window in the spring, but for me San Diego will always mean Bird of Paradise flowers. A quick look at wiki tells me they are native to South Africa, but here on Mission Bay, and I suspect everywhere in San Diego, they burst out of their big banana like leaves…bold, brash, beautiful and abundant. They are colorful in any light, but with low sun behind them, they simply glow. They burn almost too bright to effectively capture.
I photograph them every visit. These were literally at the foot of the hotel stairs I go down every morning, on a little island between the hotel and the parking lot. My room faces east and my first morning in San Diego, the early sun was full on the flowers on my way out to the car and some errands. A common planting for Bird of Paradise is up against a building, so this isolated stand with access to every side provided a unique opportunity. It took me a half hour to get by this plant 🙂 and I took way too many pictures, from full on portraits, to abstract macros where the light captured in the petals (or bracts or whatever they are) becomes the subject.
All shots with the Canon SX40HS either at full telephoto or full wide and macro. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and vibrance (though they would not take a lot of added vibrance before the orange blocked up).
And I am certain that next year, come my March visit to San Diego, I will photograph them again!