Monthly Archives: December 2015
Blue Goose on Top
Snow Geese (one Blue), Bosque del Apache NWR, Socorro NM
I spent a lot of time, relatively speaking, at Bosque del Apache attempting flight shots. It is a lot of fun…a bit of challenge…but with the proper settings on your camera, it is quite possible to have enough success to make it satisfying. I experimented all week with settings, and finally resorted to Target finding Auto Focus and Shutter Preferred Auto Exposure. That seemed to work best. This group of Snow Geese, with one Blue variety at the top of the frame, was taken when a large group of geese were in the process of moving down the refuge a few fields. There were geese in the air continuously for close to an hour. I got lots of practice. 🙂
Nikon P610 at 1440mm equivalent field of view. 1/800th @ ISO 100 @ f8.2. Processed in Lightroom.
Sunset through Beach Rose. Happy Sunday!
Sunset through beach rose, Kennebunk ME
“If your eye is generous, your whole being is full of light!” Jesus
The Beach Rose, in December, going on for Christmas, looks brittle and broken…a tangled mass of hairy, thorny stems without much redeeming beauty…but put it in front of the setting sun, and suddenly it is alive again, and full of light. It is all a matter of perspective…of attitude. I find it interesting that these two words, which name the physical relationships between objects, have come to also mean our mental, or even spiritual relationship to the world around us. Perspective names the effect of distance on the apparent relative size of objects between us and the visual horizon…and attitude, in its physical sense, names the angle of incline of objects relative to a plane (a ship on the sea has an attitude measured in degrees, relative to the sea). In the mental/spiritual sense, when we say we have perspective on something…we mean we are viewing it in right relationship to the really important things in our life. If someone says you need an attitude adjustment, they mean that that you need to change your “slant” toward the world. Instead of measuring it in degrees, we say there are bad attitudes and good attitudes…cheerful attitudes and sour attitudes. It is a matter of how you are holding yourself in relation to the world.
The generous eye, the eye that both open to let in the beauty and wonder of the world around us, and open wide enough to let the light within illuminate the beauty and wonder without…which is really saying the same thing twice…determines both our perspective and our attitude.
You can choose how you see the tangled mass of Beach Rose stems. At least at sunset, when the light is shinning in your eyes.
Happy Sunday! And a blessed season, as we approach the celebration of the rising, the birth, of Jesus, son of God and son of man…who taught us to look with generous eyes, and whose light fills our whole beings.
Nubble Light, Winter Sky.
Nubble Light, Cape Neddick Maine.
I was coming up the coast from a abortive search for Snowy Owls on the beaches of New Hampshire and could not resist, despite the intermittent cold December rain, swinging out along the coast to see how Nubble Light was doing. They had the Christmas wreath up on the pump-house and a stiff wind was blowing the flag out. The light was dull enough so the beacon was lit and showing as it turned its circuit out to sea. The sea was steel gray reflecting green. Somber, but attractive in its own way.
In-camera HDR. Sony HX90V at 24mm equivalent field of view. Nominal exposure: 1/500th @ ISO 80 @ f3.5. Processed in Lightroom.
Evoking Cranes in the Dawn
Sandhill Cranes before dawn. Bosque del Apache NWR, Socorro NM
This is, to my eye, an “evocative” image…it evokes the experience of watching the Sandhill Cranes taking flight in the pre-dawn light at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge more than it “portrays” it. High ISO, low shutter speed, and a rapid pan with the birds in flight leads to an impressionistic background…water (including the two cranes standing) and landscape suggested rather than detailed…stripped down to a basic layering of color and texture. The relatively sharp cranes are laid over the background, but even they have a bit of the motion blur. Overall it looks more like a painting than a photograph. Generally I do not like that…but here, I think, it works. This would stand up to a fairly large print…and viewed from normal viewing distance, it would be quite striking on the wall. Evocative!
Nikon P900 at 400mm equivalent field of view. 1/60th @ ISO 560 @ f5. Processed and cropped slightly at the bottom for composition in Lightroom.
Bosque Dawn
Snow Geese and Sandhill Cranes, Bosque del Apache NWR, Socorro NM
There is a somewhat famous photograph by another photographer called “Bosque Dawn”. If you go to Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge you will see it…far faded from its native glory these days…on a billboard on the way out of the refuge on the left a mile or so before you get to San Antonio. When it first went up, years ago, it was impressive! This shot is nothing like it actually…but it catches some of the unique atmosphere of Bosque del Apache at dawn in November when the Geese and the Cranes are in. As you can see this is just at dawn. The sun is already touching the tops of the mountains behind on the left, but it has not reached the birds on the water. There is a dawn glow in sky, reflected subtly in the water. And the Geese are on the wing. They had settled in this pond with the Cranes (who had been there all night) for a few moments on their way out of the refuge (or further down the refuge) for the day…and to give the gathered photographers a treat. I was there leading one of my Point and Shoot Nature Photography workshops, and enjoying every moment of it.
Nikon P900 at 135mm equivalent field of view. Shutter preferred. 1/250th @ ISO 140 @ f4. Processed in Lightroom.
Wings! Greater Black-backed Gull
Greater Black-backed Gull, Pond at Fortune’s Rocks, Maine.
The gulls were restless yesterday in the ponds behind the beach at Fortune’s Rocks, just south of Biddeford Pool Maine. They were mostly big gulls…Greater Black-backed (like this one) and Herring. Every few moments one of them would do the whole standing-on-the-water thing with its wings out and water flying everywhere. I caught a few in action. This shot is not perfect…but it catches the action and the effect.
I am always amazed when I get a photo that shows the articulation of the wings this way. I tend to think, knowing no better, of birds’ wings like airplane wings…flat and rigid…sticking out at the sides…only birds move them up and down. Of course that is totally wrong. The bird’s wing is more like a sail, shaped by the wind and need to support the bird in powered flight, in a glide, in take off, and in landing. And a very sophisticated sail at that…one that can be cupped to assume complex curves to suit the moment. Look at the power in this gull’s wings!
Nikon P900 at 2000mm equivalent field of view. 1/500th @ ISO 125 @ f6.5. Processed and cropped just slightly in Lightroom.
Geese Away!
Snow Geese (and a few Ross’), Bosque del Apache NWR, Socorro NM
We return, this morning, to Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge and the Festival of the Cranes. Snow Geese (and a few Ross’ undoubtedly) taking off in mass for another field. It is hard to capture the effect without the sound of hundreds of wings beating and dozens of geese calling. 🙂
Nikon P900 at 800mm equivalent field of view. Shutter preferred. 1/640th @ ISO 100 @ f7.1. Processed in Lightroom.
Red Again
Red Squirrel. the yard in Kennebunk, ME
I can’t resist posting another Red Squirrel pic. (See yesterday’s Generous Eye post.) He was back on the deck yesterday for a half hour or so, entertaining us again. When I open the big glass sliding door out to the deck when there is a Gray Squirrel at the feeders, it scampers as fast as it can go…especially now that my war against feeder raiders is well known among the neighborhood squirrels. Often just looking out the door is enough to send the squirrel flying. The Red is completely different…sort of the chickadee among squirrels. It stops what it is doing to look at me, but then just goes on about its business. This shot was taken with the squirrel on the deck rail about 8 feet from the deck door. I had to open the door, and poke the camera out to take it, but the squirrel just sat there and looked at me while I got into shooting position. I took a dozen shots before he decided to go back to the feeders for one last snack before scampering off the deck and into the yard next door. Talk about bold!
Since the squirrel was well inside the minimum focus on the Nikon P900, I had to run to the bedroom for my P610. This uncropped image was taken at, as I say, about 8 feet…at 1440mm equivalent field of view. 1/250th @ ISO 280 @ f6.5. Processed in Lightroom.
A First! Red Squirrel in the yard. Happy Sunday!
Red Squirrel, the yard, Kennebunk ME
“If your eye is generous, your whole being is full of light!” Jesus
I don’t have a lot of patience with squirrels around my bird feeders. They can finish a block of peanut-butter suet in a morning, depriving the birds of the treat. I do what I can to discourage them. They have learned to keep away from the seed, but they simply can not resist peanut-butter suet blocks. 🙁 We have the common Grey Squirrels in our yard…cute when encountered in the forest…not so cute on our deck with the feeders.
There are Red Squirrels in our corner of southern Maine. I have seen them along the Kennebunk Bridle Path, and in a few spots on the grounds of the Wells National Estuarine Research Center at Laudholm Farms just south of us in Wells. This summer they were pretty regular…I saw them on at least three separate visits…along the boardwalk through the Maple Swamp there. Even so, compared to the abundant (especially so this year) Grey Squirrels, they are pretty rare. I have never seen one in your yard…until yesterday that is. I came back from a trip to the store to find one gathering left-over seeds from the deck and the rails under the feeders.
I can’t speak for other folks, but I find the Red Squirrel much more attractive than the Grey. They are a size smaller, with little round heads and perky ears, and delicate shock of tail when compared to the dense brush of the Grey. And they seem to have more personality…or squirrelality…or however it needs to be said. They are fearless, curious, and somehow engaging. The Red Squirrel on the deck, even when I got my Nikon P900 and went around outside for some pics, went boldly about his business…but he kept running out to the end of the deck rail nearest me to sit and watch me as he ate his latest seed find. Even when he went for the seed feeders, he did on glom on like a Grey, wrapping the feeder in a squirrel coat and stuffing as many seeds in his cheek as is squirrelly possible…no, he made a lighting, leaping, raid…only touching the feeder long enough to grab a single seed. Just like most birds. And then, again, he would run out to sit up above me on the rail and nibble it until it was gone. After, he would sit, Buddha like on his behind, back feet tucked under, upright, with his front paws just touching above his belly, and contemplate me for a few moments before scampering off in search of another seed.
When he left the deck he did the same thing in the branches of the young maples that edge our yard. Instead of running away, he worked his way out on the branches until he was practically right above me, and sat and enjoyed a few seeds from his cheek pouch…spitting each one out and maneuvering it with his clever paws, so like hands, as he again nibbled it away. We had a good time there, for 20 minutes or so, he posing, and me taking pics…until he scampered away into the neighbor’s yard. (He came back an hour later and repeated the performance for my wife, two daughters, and a partner who had joined us for a Saturday lunch…providing another fifteen minuets of entertainment after the meal.)
I have read that Red Squirrels are actually more of a problem for humans than Greys. Perhaps because of their boldness, they are more likely to damage buildings and ornamental plants than Greys. Some college campuses have imported the Black variant of the Grey Squirrel (a slightly more aggressive variety) specifically to cut down the number of Reds. On the other hand, in the UK, where the invasive Grey Squirrel has lead to a drastic decline in Red Squirrel numbers, there is an active “save the Red Squirrel” campaign pretty much nation wide. Here in Maine, at least for me, a Red Squirrel is still a special treat.
Or, since it is Sunday, a blessing. The Red Squirrel visit filled me with joy…and delighted the family at lunch. Delighted! Filled us with light…or at least topped up our light supply. It was an “all creatures great and small” moment, when we felt generous toward all that lives. And I am still feeling generous this morning. So generous I think I will put out another block of peanut-butter suet for the Grays! God’s creatures, after all. And for that they can thank the Red Squirrel.
Happy Sunday!
December Tapestry
Mix of fallen leaves, Kennebunk Bridle Path, Kennebunk ME
No December snow yet here in southern Maine, and none in the forecast. The advantage of course is that we are getting to see the oak and other fall leaves weather and begin to decompose. 🙂 For some obscure reason this combination of leaves and grasses…the colors, the textures, the shapes…caught my eye and I circled around it for a few moments finding the angle. Yes, it would make a great jig-saw puzzle, but I find it attractive enough to grace any wall…or to make a wonderful screen saver image.
Sony HX90V in-camera HDR at 90mm equivalent field of view. Nominal exposure: 1/100th @ ISO 100 @ f5. Processed in Lightroom.