Monthly Archives: April 2012
4/20/2012: Redwoods!
My day driving through the Redwoods along the Avenue of the Giants was less than ideal. A misty rain fell most of the time, and the skies were white where they showed through the canopy…but still…REDWOODS.
There is nothing like the experience of standing in these groves of huge, ancient, trees. And the Avenue of the Giants takes you through grove after grove, for miles.
Of course it is next to impossible to capture anything like the experience with a camera. The lead shot, with the car for scale, just hints…and the next with road winding between massive trunks…adds a bit more…but really no image or set of images will convey the feeling of being there.
The last shot in this set is of the Founders Tree. 346 feet tall, 12.7 feet through at the base. Those branches you see are 190 feet off the ground. While this was once thought to be the tallest three in the forest, taller trees have since been measured a few miles away.
Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness. Some color temperature adjustment needed because of the dark day.
4/19/2012: Golden Gate, San Francisco CA
When I go to Godwitt Days in Arcata California, to save $1000 in airfare, I fly into San Francisco and drive the 7.5 hours to Arcata. I would not do it, of course, if it were not such a great drive.
I generally arrive at SFO mid-afternoon, and head up Rt. 101, which, if you know the route, takes you right through downtown SF and across the Golden Gate Bridge. I only go half way the first day, stopping in Ukiah. My GPS, attempting to avoid the worst of the traffic, sent me on a tour of parts of SF that I have not seen before, including the Presidio and the National Cemetery, and put me back on 101 within site of the bridge.
And of course, I had to stop at the vista on the far side of the bridge. I know it is very touristy thing to do, but, honestly, who could not? As usual (in my experience at least) there were low clouds rolling in from the sea…just touching the bridge…and stretching out over the city, but the vista and most of the bay were in sun.
I walked around, looking for angles and frames, trying to keep the real tourists out of my shots.
It was a delightful rest after the tension of driving through the city, and primed me for the rest of the trip north (good thing, since it was stop-and-go traffic to north of Santa Rosa and I did not get to Ukiah until after 7PM).
Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. 1) 24mm equivalent field of view. f4.5 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 125. 2) 24mm equivalent. f4 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 100. 3) 43mm equivalent. f4 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 200. 4) 175mm equivalent. f4.5 @ 1/300th @ ISO 100.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, sharpness, and clarity.
4/18/2012: Muskrat! Kennebunk ME
Though I am in Ukiah California as I write this, half way between San Francisco and Arcata, where I am headed for the Godwitt Days birding festival, I will drop back to last Saturday’s photo-prowl for a visit with our local wildlife. There is a little shallow pond that is formed where the rail-road tracks cross a marsh about a mile from our house, It is a good spot for migrant birds in spring. I often catch warblers there that I see no where else around Kennebunk. As it happens, Saturday was too early for any warbler action (though I did see two snipe) but I was surprised to find a pair of Muskrats in the pond. Visible Muskrats that is. I have always assumed they must live there as I see other signs, though no big nest. I suspect the pond has so much vegetation that the Muskrats don’t have to store much for the winter, or that their “lodge” is at the back of the pond where I can’t see it through the small trees and brush.
Seeing them right out in open water was a real treat!
My daughter said they were cute…until I showed her a picture on-line that showed the tail. 🙂 The tail is kind of creepy…but a great appendage for a semi-aquatic rat!
Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. 1) and 4) at 1680mm equivalent (840 optical plus 2x digital tel-extender function). f5.8 @ 1/200th. 1) ISO 100 and 4) ISO 160. 2) 24mm equivalent. f4 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 100. 3) 840mm equivalent. f5.8 @ 1/250th @ ISO 125.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
4/17/2012: Over Achiever
Of course I went to the beach to catch the awesome vistas of ocean and sky, but I could not resist this little tableau of achievement. Kind of a visual parable 🙂 Of course that is not what I saw in the shot at the time. I saw the texture of the stone, the shape of the snail shells, the pattern of their placement, and took the shot. Only now, in reflection, do I see the parable. It is all good.
Canon SX40HS at 840mm equivalent field of view. Program with iContrast and – 1/3EV exposure compensation. f5.8 @ 1 /800th @ ISO 100.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
4/16/2012: Garter Snake, Wonder Brook Park
I mentioned in yesterday’s post that I had walked up on a Garter Snake on the Wonder Brook trails. We don’t, (or at least I don’t) see many snakes in Maine. I am sure they are here, all around us, but my encounters over the past 17 years can be counted on the fingers of both hands, with a couple of fingers left over. This specimen was abut 2 feet long. It is most likely the Common Garter Snake, which you can see, in one of its sub-species, pretty much anywhere in the US except the desert Southwest.
When I first saw it its head was buried under the pine needles which obscure part of the body in these shots. I thought it might be dead, so I touched it with the tip of my hiking stick and, very much alive, it slithered out to this position, which it held while I took all the pics I wanted.
The close ups were taken at 1680mm equivalent field of view (840mm optical plus 2x digital tel-extender function on the Canon SX40HS) so I was no where near as close as it might look. After a few shots from above, I moved off the side of the trail and got down lower, using the flip out LCD on the Canon, to get the side on views from about 5 feet. I especially like the eye…that big pupil and the metalic copper iris…very striking. If you look closely in either of the closest shots you will see me, reflected in the pupil.
The last shot is at the normal long end of the zoom, without the 2x digital extender function.
Like I said, the snake was so cooperative, I got all the shots I could want…then I stepped over it and went on down the trail.
Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. 1) 1600mm equivalent. f5.8 @ 1/200th @ ISO 250. 2) 300mm equivalent. f5 @ 1/200th @ ISO 160. 3) 1680mm equivalent. f5.8 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 400. 4) 800mm. f5.8 @ 1/320th@ ISO 200. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
4/15/2012: Wonder Brook Park, Kennebunk ME, Happy Sunday
Happy Sunday. I have lived in Kennebunk 17 years, and I have passed the sign for Wonder Brook Park probably thousands of times. It is, after all, still in the village proper, on Summer Street, which is the main route between Kennebunk and Kennebunkport, and the beaches. It is an unassuming sign that simply says “Wonder Brook Park, Hiking Trails.” I have wondered from time to time what Wonder Brook is all about, and I think we even set out to explore it one afternoon 17 years ago, but got rained out. Yesterday, as part of my Saturday photo-prowl, I decided it was high time for Wonder Brook Park.
I had ulterior motives. Last weekend, at Emmon’s Preserve, I saw more Trout Lily plants, not yet in flower, than I have ever seen in the Maine woods, and I was looking for a place closer to home where I could check to see how they were advancing. I would like to catch the bloom if possible. My instinct was sound. The trails at Wonder Brook lead out through a relatively old pine forest (with some of the biggest Pines I have seen in Maine, like the multi-trunked giant above), caught in an angle between Wonder Brook itself and the Kennebunk River, and, here too, the Trout Lilies were thick on the ground, though nowhere near blooming.
The trails themselves are well marked and maintained, with little bridges over the many streams that feed into Wonder Brook, and split-log walks in the wet places. After about a mile, you come to an overlook on a tidal section of the Kennebunk River (where I saw a Belted Kingfisher), and then the trail turns north along the bluff over the river, providing some views through the trees of the rocky run above the tide’s reach.
I was also on the lookout for birds. I have been following the radar images of the migration and a small wave of birds was promised for Southern Maine this weekend. Evidently it had not crested over Kennebunk by noon yesterday. I saw the Kingfisher, a few Robins, Chickadees, and Titmice…but that was it. I did walk up on a Common Gartersnake crossing the path, who posed nicely for me.
Wonder Brook is amalgamation of Kennebunk Land Trust properties, set aside under conservation easements. I am always impressed at the efforts local Land Trusts in Maine make to open these properties to public enjoyment. The Wonder Brook trail system, with at least 5 miles of trails on various loops, clearly took considerable resources to construct, and must still take considerable resources to maintain.
Personally, I was delighted to find this pocket experience of the Southern Maine woods right here, right in Kennebunk, only a few miles from my front door. Now that I have found it, I am certain to return on a regular basis. I need to catch those Trout Lilies in bloom for one thing.
And for the Sunday thought. Well, I have to be thankful, when faced with a little gem like Wonder Brook, for spirit of conservation that moves people to set aside some land just to be…to be whatever it is and whatever it will be…with only enough human intrusion to keep people to a trail so the forest itself does not get trampled. I need to be able to get out in the woods, or to hike the Kennebunk Plains, or to walk along the little waterfalls of the Baston River at Emmon’s Preserve, or to stand on the rocks at Parson’s Park along the ocean in Kennebunkport. It is important. As important to me as church. I enjoy corporate worship, and I certainly find God in the praise of his people, but I also find my creator in the woods of Wonder Brook. I am pretty sure I need both to keep my faith a living faith.
And, with such thankful thoughts I am in a forgiving enough mood to overlook the tick I just found attached to my wrist. Another souvenir of my visit to Wonder Brook 🙂
4/14/2012: Early Birds in Kennebunk, Eastern Phoebe
It is easy to get impatient for the return of the birds in southern Maine, especially this year. I watch the migration reports, I see the posts from birding friends along the central flyway, and I know that the birds are already flooding north. But here on the East Coast, at least in Maine, we are still, mostly, waiting. So far only the earliest birds have arrived. Eastern Phoebes and Song Sparrows are already staking out nesting areas along the edge of the marsh behind the sea dunes, Robins are on lawns again, and the Titmice are singing along the Mousam River. We had a brief visit from a Downy Woodpecker in the maples behind the house. At my sister-in-laws pond, they have had Wood Ducks. I saw a Red-shouldered Hawk along the intestate on my way back from the Airport on Wednesday.
I will get out in a while to see what else I can find on this Saturday morning, but for now I will share a few Phoebes from a dull morning a few weeks ago.
Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. 1) 1260mm equivalent (840mm optical plus 1.5x digital tel-extender function). f5.8 @ 1/200th @ ISO 125. 2) and 3) at 1680mm equivalent (2x digital tel-extender function). 2) f5.8 @ 1/250th @ ISO 200. 3) f5.8 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 250.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
4/13/2012: Pines Against the Clouds, Kennebunk ME
This is another image of as close to nothing as you can get. I like the clouds and the sky, and I like the pattern of the trees. I like the symatry and the simplicity of the composition. And that is my only excuse. 🙂
Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast and – 1/3EV exposure compensation. 213mm equivalent field of view. f4.5 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 100. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
4/12/2012: Fishing the Mousam, Kennebunk ME
I made a brief stop at Roger’s Park along the Mousam River on my way back from a hardware store run yesterday afternoon, hoping to catch the towering sky above the run of the river or reflected in the skating pond. What I found there were fishermen. The rapids above the park attract fly-fishers, and the transition water between the rapids and the more open still reach below is a prime area for Alewive traps.
This is a somewhat classic fly-fisher shot, displaying the concentration of the sport. Fly-fishing is closer to fish-hunting than anything short of spear-fishing. It is a strange combination of talents in fact. There is nothing more graceful in sport than a well cast line…and then, once the fly hits the water, there is nothing more intense than the concentration of the play of the fly, hand on line, and eye on the prize.
Nothing could be more different than fishing for alewive (for more on the Alewive see the wiki). You deploy your trap (relatively sophisticated traps these days) and you go home and watch TV (or to your real job) until it is time to go back and check the traps.
Oh, and I did catch some clouds above the skating pond.
Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. 1) 190mm equivalent field of view. f4.5 @ 1/100th @ ISO 200. 2) 24mm. f5.6 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 320. 3) 120mm. f4.5 @ 1/100th @ ISO 125. 4) 24mm. f7.1 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 320.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
4/11/2012: Back Creek brim full: panorama
With Back Creek brim full and an amazing sky overhead, who could resist attempting a panorama? I never learn. Panoramas with anything but absolutely still water are always a challenge. Here even the ripples move enough between shots to cause the stiching software (the PhotoMerge module in PhotoShop Elements in this case) some problems. Still it did a good job. I love the sweep of water, with its distorted reflections, under that awesome sky.
Three exposures at 24mm equivalent field of view on the Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast and – 1/3EV exposure compensation. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.