Chaumont Barrens - A Tradition

 

I have been traveling down to the Chaumont (pronounced sha-mo) Barrens Nature Preserve for several years now to see and photograph the wild flowers. It is the only place I know in NY that has Yellow Lady Slippers and Prairie Smoke. I have been told there are also Ram's Head Lady Slippers in the wooded area, but I've yet to spot any. The Barrens are an unusual environment with very thin soil over limestone. It is owned by The Nature Conservancy. There is a loop trail through the area that is about 2.1 miles long. There is a picnic area just off the parking lot with a picnic table, but you would need a strange body conformation to use it. When I tried to sit on the bench to eat the sandwich I had taken with me, the bench was so low that the tabletop was only about 2" below my chin. I ended up eating while standing. There weren't a lot of flowers this time. The window for spring flowers varies between the last week of May and the first week of June. The Prairie Smoke was just starting to bloom. Perhaps I was a bit early.

Dandelion gone to seed

Wild Geranium

Starry False Solomon's Seal

Yellow Lady Slippers

Blue Eyed Grass

Blue Eyed Grass Triplet (on one stem). I'd seen twin blooms before, but this triplet was a first for me.

A different angle on a Yellow Lady Slipper

Wild Phlox

The picnic area with the weird picnic table.

I prefer overcast or open shade for flower photos. Tuesday was a bright sunny day. For days like that, I carry a white umbrella. The two photos below illustrate why. Bright sun has the tendency to wash out color and detail. a white umbrella simulates open shade where the is no shade. The left photo is the bright sun view. The right one, taken seconds later, shows the effect of filtering the light through a white umbrella. The Columbine at the top of this post was in the natural shade of a copse of trees.

If you want to visit Chaumont Barrens, turn off I-81 at the Dexter exit when going through Watertown. I forget the number, but it is the middle one of 3 exits. Go all the way to the village of Chaumont (about 8 miles) and turn right at the gas station/Subway shop. Follow that road until you come to a left turn just after a small cemetery on the right. There is no sign directing you to the Preserve. You need to know where the turn is. The Preserve is on your left a half mile or so down that road. It is open from a half hour before sunrise until a half hour after sunset.

Apple Blossom Time

 

We have several crabapple and apple trees on our property, and every year when they bloom I shoot photos to post on Facebook, and elsewhere. I decided to do something a bit different this spring. I have seen images of trees and bushes that were combined from many photos shot 360° around an individual tree/shrub. I can't do that with my trees. There are too many obstacles and not enough open space. Also, the images I have seen were made on overcast days with even lighting. It was a bright sunny late afternoon when I finished mowing the lawn.

I tried a series of 4-5 images in an arc on one side of a couple of our trees. One was a very large crabapple, at least 30' across and just as high. I didn't like the result. The other was a small crabapple that we planted about 3 years ago. That's the one above. I don't know the details of how others got the results they wanted. This is what I did.

After importing the images into Lightroom, I highlighted each group and chose Edit>Open as layers in Photoshop. I then turned off the upper layers except for the bottom two. I reduced the opacity of the upper visible layer to 50% and used the Move tool to align the trunks in the layers. I also set the layer mode to Lighten. Then I turned on each layer above and did the same until all were visible. As the final step, I pressed Shift+Ctrl+lt+E to create a top layer that combined the lower layers.

The result still wasn't all I had in mind, so after saving the file in TIFF format, I went back to LR which is my preferred tool for editing that does not involve layers. I adjusted the brightness using the exposure, highlight & shadow sliders. The background didn't have the 'mystical' look that I wanted so I created a background mask (feathered) and turned both Texture & Clarity all the way down. The top of the tree was too light, so I brushed a mask over it (again feathered), reduced the highlight and shadow sliders but increased the whites slider until the base of the histogram touched the right-hand side.  

I'm happy with the result and I may try it again something it I encounter an appropriate subject.