Language, Use & Abuse

Our daughter brought to my attention an article about Lake Superior University's banned words list for 2014. I am in total agreement with their inclusion of "curated". In 2014 it became popular for some photographers to say they curated a specific body of their work rather than saying "I edited the shoot from my trip to (fill in the blank). At first I took it as a random oddity when I saw such references by photographers but then it started popping up all over the place.

Curators do more then simply select works to form a collection. According to UltimateHistoryProject.com "A curator collects, cares for, researches, and interprets a collection, and organizes displays and exhibitions."

Note the parts about caring for, researching and interpreting. On the other hand what I and other photographers do is "edit". From the Bureau of Labor Statistics "Photo editors often work for a website, newspaper, magazine or book publisher. They're typically responsible for selecting, editing, positioning and publishing photos to accompany the text of a publication. Photo editors also might supervise staff photographers, give photo assignments and make sure that others complete their work on time."

When we review a shoot and select which photos to keep and which to toss, which to digitally edit in Photoshop and print or post to our blog we are editors, not curators. I get why photographers latched onto curate. Who wouldn't prefer the image of a sophisticated expert working in a museum environment to the stereotypical image of a newspaper editor (insert image of an older partially bald chubby guy wearing a rumpled shirt with the sleeves rolled up and his tie loosened). I really do get it, but let's be honest with ourselves. We're editors of our own work, not curators. Curating our work is the job of those who find and preserve it after we are gone.

While editing my photos from my last trip to the Paul Smiths VIC I selected these, at top and below, to publish in this post. Both were shot on the way home in twilight along Rt 458.

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Holiday Greetings

It's that time of year again. I'm listening to Christmas music while editing a group of photos I made yesterday on my first snowshoe outing of the season. I went down to the Adirondacks (it's south from where I live) to use the trails at the Paul Smiths VIC where I will be showing work in late January and early February. I was going to show old work but I may show some of what I shot yesterday.

On the way down there was snow stuck to all the trees from shortly past St Regis Falls to around McCollums. Unfortunately it had fallen off most of the trees at the lower elevation of the VIC and the light was harsh but I got several photos that I was able to digitally embellish to recreate the 'feel'.

I went first on the Boreal Life Trail which is my favorite in the spring and summer. The photo above is of the boardwalk/bog bridge where it leaves to woods to enter the bog. I turned and looked back toward the woods to catch the sun gleaming through the trees.

This one is a bridge across Barnum Brook on the Barnum Brook Trail. There are several of these bridges over the brook as the trail follows and crosses the brook twice and a third on the Heron Marsh Trail. Again the sun peeking through the trees appealed to me along withe patterns of the branches and the bend in the bridge.

This last photo was made on the Boreal Life Trail. It is a "Charlie Brown" sort of tree that stuck up through the snow about 16-18 inches. I didn't apply any digital effects to it, just a 'straight' shot of a young tree struggling for survival. I wished it well just as I wish all my followers well. May you have a great holiday and may next year be your best ever.

All photos made with a Canon 7D. The RAW files were processed in Lightroom 5 and  Photoshop.

All photos are copyrighted. Please honor my copyright and do not repost without permission. If you want to share them, share the URL to this page. If you click on the title of the post it will take you to a page with a URL to just this post. Copy that and send it to your friends.

Being Painterly

My favorite filters are the Topaz set. I started buying them when Fo2Pix folded and the BUZZ 3 filters were no longer available. Topaz picked up the gauntlet and created a similar filter in their Simplifier filter. They went on to create a number of other useful filters which I use frequently but the Simplifier filter remains my favorite of the bunch.

What it does is average the tone and hue of groups of pixels so that you get patches of color and tone. How big the patches are, what range of  tone/hue is averaged, is adjustable with a slider control. With the original BUZZ 3 filter that control went so far that you could end up with a rectangle of one solid color. Topaz Simplifier doesn't have that range of control but who really wants to reduce their images to a single tone & hue anyway. Simplifier goes farther than I'm likely to ever want it to.

Today's photos all use (moderately) Topaz Simplifier in honor of two things. First, two of my images are in the 2015 Fine Arts Up North calendar. Both images made use of the Simplifier filter (along with other digital modifications). You can buy a copy of the calendar by contacting the Arts Council at this link. I don't get anything from sales but it supports our arts community.

The second reason for today's all Simplifier collection is that this was the last day of the Plein Air Festival in Potsdam. I'm not a painter (in recent years at least) but I went out in search of subject matter in the local community rather than running off to the mountains as I usually do and most of the subjects I found seemed best suited to this treatment which many people tell me makes the images look like paintings. Indeed massing tone and hue is exactly what painters do.

I went to three parks in Potsdam, Lehman Park, Ives Park and the small one on Fall Island. Afterward I drove to Canton to visit Heritage Park which I hadn't visited before. The photo above is from the parking area at Heritage Park and is my favorite of the day.  The one below is from Lehman Park.

The next was made in Ives Park. The wind gusts were quite strong and I wanted to capture the blowing leaves of a large willow on the bank of the Racquette River.

Then come two wildflower photos from the Fall Island park, a Thistle and a Black Eyed Susan.

Finally a photo of some Plantation Lilies by the foundation of the church on Fall Island. This is a repeat subject from many, many years ago. I originally photographed it on the 1st roll of film I shot in a used Fuji GX 645 folding camera. That was a great little camera that produced amazing negatives.

If you click directly on an image you will get a larger view. I took more photos but this mix represents all the sites I visited. I hope you enjoy seeing them and please remember that they are copyrighted. As always, if you want to share them with others, give your friends the URL to this page, Do not repost them elsewhere without my express permission.

Petzval!

This past winter I bought a Petzval lens reproduction from Lomography through a crowdsource project they ran. There were some delays and when the lens came it came minus several of the bonuses Lomography promised. Two of the missing bonuses were of no consequence to me (a camera strap and a canvas bag) but I also did not receive the special shape Waterhouse Stop set that was promised and that I did care about. Despite writing to Lomography, both through the crowdsource site and directly however have produced no result. I still do not have the promised special shaped stops. I would think twice before dealing with Lomography again.

The lens is well made with a nice brass finish, modified from the original design to fit directly on modern Canon or Nikon cameras (mine is the Canon version) and produces images with pleasant depth of field as well as fall off of sharpness toward the corners which gives a vintage look to the images. It is quite sharp in the center and overall sharpness increases with smaller stops since you are only using the center of the lens. Operation is strictly manual. The Waterhouse Stops simply drop into a slot in the lens barrel. Since the opening is perfectly round, unlike a variable diaphragm which works on movable leaves, the out of focus areas are pleasantly blurred. The camera controls the shutter speed and focusing is achieved via a rack and pinion on the bottom of the lens. The lens was promoted as a portrait lens and it is undoubtedly good for that but I bought it primarily to use for flower photos. Photographing individual or small groups or flowers shares a lot in common with portraiture as this group of images demonstrates

I wish the Waterhouse Stops fit a touch more snuggly or had some mechanism to hold them in place other than just gravity. Working in the field I'm concerned about dropping and losing one of them. I've tried using a hair band to hold the stop in the slot when I turn the camera on its side but I'm not entirely happy with that solution. Also the suede case Lomography  provided for the lens and set of stops is virtually useless. It is awkward to get the lens into the case which is a poor fit. The case is a flat rectangle that opens via an overlap down the middle of one side and the stops are simply put into a pocket on the inside of the case. I can see that I will have to make my own case for the stops, something with slots for each stop rather than dumping them together in one too large pocket. I'd prefer that they be sorted by f/stop for ease of selection. I'll probably end up buying a Neoprene pouch, a round one, like the lens, to store the lens in.

This group was shot in the field behind my house, Spotted Knapweed above and below are two images of Yellow Daisies, a cluster of Butter and Eggs, a Rough Fruited Cinquefoil and a Plantation Lily that is in one of our flower beds. I converted the last to B&W because I thought that suited it best.

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Another Season Begins

I went canoeing in the Adirondacks on Saturday. I hadn't been out in my canoe in the last two summers and vowed not to miss another season. I started on Mountain Pond on Rt 30 but the wind was pretty strong down the length of the pond and was a headwind on my return to where I had put in.  I wanted to paddle more but decided I needed a more protected body of water so for my second excursion I went to Church Pond in Paul Smiths.

There was some headwind as I set out but it was less strong, or so I thought as I had less trouble paddling into it. Church Pond is somewhat smaller than Mountain Pond but is linked to Little Osgood Pond by a canal that was dug by Paul Smith. There is another canal from Little Osgood to Osgood Pond which by some standards could be called a lake. I have never understood the pond vs lake naming in the Adirondacks. It is so capricious that it must have been a matter of whim by the person naming the body of water. It does not seem to bear any relationship to relative size.

The stump above is along the shore of Church Pond on the side toward St John's of the Wilderness (http://jims-ramblings.blogspot.com/2009/08/st-johns-of-wilderness.html). It was the new evergreen growing on the side of the stump that first caught my eye. Upon closer inspection I decided to include the whole stump and surroundings. I especially liked the reflections on the ripples in the water. The image was converted to B&W in Lightroom based on a preset that I created. I tend to tweak all presets taking into account the individual image and this was no exception.

After paddling the length of Church Pond I came to the canal where I found a second interesting stump. Photographing this one was a challenge from the canoe. The canal is completely under the shade of the surrounding trees and a canoe is not a very stable platform. I managed a sufficiently short shutter speed (exposing for the shadows) by raising the ISO and opening the diaphragm to f/8, helped along undoubtedly by the image stabilization in my Canon 7D. The version above has a modified Lightroom Infrared preset applied to it. I did away with the negative clarity in the preset and added some sharpening, also a touch of burning in on the upper stump.

I wasn't able to navigate the second canal to Osgood from Little Osgood because of blow down across the narrow channel. Perhaps another day. On the return trip I stopped to photograph the lean-to and dock that are adjacent the canal in Church Pond. Again I used the modified LR Infrared preset. Returning to the dock where I had put in I had a tailwind but noticed a distinct current flowing in the opposite direction. That may well account for the relative ease of paddling into the wind when I first set out. It was a good start to a new season of paddling and hiking in the Adirondacks.

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Snow!

We had our first heavy snowfall of winter last night and this morning. It isn't actually winter yet according to the calendar but mother nature isn't much for calendars. She prefers to be spontaneous. As I age I have mixed feelings about winter. For one thing it's a lot of work in the cold. I spent several hours today clearing 7-8 inches of snow off our driveways and paths to the barn & bird feeders. It was cold enough that even with Hot Hands in my gloves my fingers got cold.

Snow does simplify things visually and the longer I photograph the more I like simple uncluttered images. Before I started my snow removal project I went out in the yard with my camera. This is a shrub that grows by one corner of the front porch. The snow caps on the dry flower heads were appealing to me and I made several exposures. This one is the best with a nice clean background of snow as well as the crown of snow on each flower head.

Canon 7D with 18-135mm EFs lens. Please do not re-post or use the photo without permission. Share by giving the URL to this page.

First Snow

We had our first real snow of the winter last night and today. There have been a couple of half-hearted attempts previously, one resulting in a dusting that didn't last but this is the first that required clearing the driveway. The forecast was for 8" to a foot but we ended up with only 4" by late afternoon and that was more slush than snow since the precipitation was a mix of snow and rain.

Of course I'm a sucker for snow on trees and two of our apple trees still retain part of the bumper crop of apples from this summer. The combination makes for great subject matter, a contrast of seasons, the color of apples against the monochrome of winter. I was after the overall impression so I added a digital filter to emphasize the pattern and color while reducing unnecessary detail.

I'll be reviewing a couple of books on portrait photographers soon. I have to finish reading the second book so it will be at least a day or so. Stay tuned.

Update 11/28/2013 Thanksgiving Day bonus photo.

Canon 7D, Photoshop and Topaz filters.

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A Mini Exploration

I went to Catamount Lodge today to a workshop and arrived early. I had never been there before. There is a very nice small stream flowing through the woods between the highway and the lodge. Because I was early I decided to poke around for a few minutes looking for photo possibilities. I found some in the stream including the photo above. I have made a number of images in this vein of the years, images that look below the surface of water but including surface detail and reflections of the sky above.

Photographed with a Canon 7D and an 18-135mm EFs lens. Please respect my copyright and do not re-post elsewhere. To share refer to the URL of this page.

Wild about Wildflowers

I wandered out into my back field this evening to look for wild flowers. The first that I encountered was this Queen Ann's Lace. I shot a couple of frames before this but I particularly liked the way the cluster of blossoms seemed to flow downward when seen from this angle. It is very suggestive of lace on the front of a lady's dress.

Canon 7D on a tripod with an EFs 18-135mm and and extension tube. Processed to B&W in NIK SE2 and duotoned in Photoshop CC.

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Climbing Mountains

I'm going to repeat my final 46er climb up Whiteface on Wednesday, the 20th anniversary of my completing the 46. I've been walking several miles/day in preparation but the hills around here, while steep for this area, are no comparison to climbing a mountain so I decided to climb Azure today because, for a "little" mountain it is a stiff climb. It was miserably hot and humid. By the time I reached the summit the front of my shirt was totally sweated out. I looked like someone had hit me with a garden hose. There was a decent breeze on top though and I got cooled down after a bit of time taking photos on the summit.

The photo is of a glacial erratic that sits on a ledge overlooking a steep drop off into a valley with several ponds. I decided to process it as a B&W in NIK Silver Efex 2 and then I toned it in Photoshop using the Duotone mode before converting it back to RGB. The only file format that recognizes Duotone is PSD and that's no good for emailing or posting to the web. I've been leaning toward B&W for some time now, a return to my roots I guess, and it worked well for this image.

There are a few more color images below. All were made using a Canon 7D with an 18-135 EFs lens. All are copyrighted. Please do not repost without permission.

More Wildflowers

More flowers from my back field. These are Maiden Pinks. I first spotted them while driving the tractor and from that height they looked like a pink version of Blue Eyed Grass. The blooms are a similar size and there are no obvious leaves off the sides of the stems. Upon closer inspection though there are significant differences aside from the color. Photographing flowers this small on a breezy day is a challenge. I'm laying down in the field with the tripod legs spread out horizontally, I get the distance, framing and focus just right and just as I'm ready to trip the shutter a breeze makes the flower bob wildly in and out of the frame. Patience! It settles down and I refocus, perhaps readjust the framing too and try again. Sometimes it takes several tries. Occasionally I discover after getting the images into the computer that they are all slightly blurred but it works often enough and I keep doing it because I like the results when it works.

The Rough Bedstraw was another new wildflower out in the field yesterday (the white flower mixed in with Blue Eyed Grass below) and on the way into the house I photographed the Chives blooms (bottom photo). They aren't wildflowers but I like any flowers.

All were made with a Canon 7D, 18-135mm EFs lens and extension tubes. The images are copyrighted. If you wish to share them with others please respect my copyright and refer them to the URL here. Do not repost without permission.

Some mornings...

One of Diane's Clivia plants. The stalk of blooms is just emerging from the base. Those nubs in the "V" below the single bloom are other buds. The stalk will push the entire flower head upward and in a few days there will be 6-8 blooms above the leaves. Some chilly spring mornings I feel like this, wanting to emerge but still hesitating between the covers. I had another photo I considered posting today, one of the ice from the freezing rain we had on Friday but I felt this one was more hopeful. Given everyone's impatience with lingering winter I thought hopeful was the better choice.

Canon 7d using a monopod for enough steadiness to allow a smaller f/stop (f/11). Natural light on our livingroom windowsill. Processed in Lightroom 4 with some local sharpening and a border added in Photoshop CS6. Remember that if you click on the image you will see a larger version.

Lensbaby Composer Pro Review

I returned the Lensbaby today and as promised here is a review of my experience with it. I rented the lens, a Lensbaby Composer Pro with the Sweet 35mm optic, from LensRentals.com. This is not going to be a review of LensRentals but I want to make clear that my comments are not influenced by either Lensbaby or Lens Rentals. Neither knew I planned to write a blog post about it nor was I given any consideration by either. I used the lens on my Canon 7D. I have already posted a couple of images in the prior two posts. 

The Lensbaby is a fully manual lens. It is unique in that it has a ball mechanism between the body mount and the optic allowing you to tilt it up, down or at any angle. It focuses sharply in the center but blurs progressively away from the "sweet spot". As you stop down the blurring effect is decreased. The only auto feature on your camera that will work with it is the TTL light meter. You have to focus manually and adjust the aperture manually.When you change the f/stop you may have to change the shutter speed manually to get correct exposure. Using it in Av (aperture value) mode I found that the camera usually, but not always, compensated correctly for f/stop changes. You also have to position of the "sweet Spot" manually, the area of sharp focus. That's where I ran into problems. I could see that there was a sharper area when looking through the view finder but I found it difficult  to position it precisely where I wanted because the blurring around the sweet spot did not appear (to me) as pronounced in the viewfinder as it did in the final image. Unfortunately the focus indicators on the 7D did not flash when focus was achieved. That would have helped both with getting correct focus and in determining exactly where the center of the sweet spot was. Sometimes I nailed it but others I missed as in the case of the image below of Robert who works in the local Arts Council gallery.

I wanted the center of the sweet spot in the area of his right eye and nose but instead it is centered on his right temple. I did better with Suzy (below)...

and even got good focus on her eyes. I shot several of Beka (the Arts Council director, below) but had trouble getting good focus on her eyes. They look pretty good in this small image but if you look at the full sized file her eyes aren't as sharp as I'd like.The plane of focus is about a half inch to an inch back of where it should have been and like in the photo of Robert the sweet spot is centered too far to the left (her right).

I'm sure the problems are mine not the lens. For starters my eyes aren't what they once were (oh, to be 20 again). I have floaters and other minor impairments which aren't a serious visual problem but may be contributing to my difficulty getting precise manual focus. At least that's my excuse. Where the sweet spot is properly placed and focused the lens is very sharp in that central area. I just had difficulty controlling it. Probably with practice I could improve my 'good' frames ratio but in the short time I had the lens I probably got less than 1 in 5 frames on average where it was in focus on the spot I wanted. Stopping down improved the focus (blurred areas were blurred less and the sweet spot was relatively larger) but it was also harder to place because it was less distinct.

I shot a few macros in the studio and noticed an interesting phenomenon in the highlights, a haloing effect on the pin heads as the image became more blurred at the edges. It only happened on this shot of a novelty pin sculpture thing.

So does the 'thumbs up' mean I'm going to rush out and buy a Lensbaby? No. It's an interesting lens and I might buy (or rent again) one at some point in the future but it doesn't fit well into my usual landscape photography. I could use one for flower photos (see the 2 prior posts). I shoot quite a lot of those. It is interesting for portraits which I plan to start doing more but there are other lenses I'd like more so acquiring one of these will be somewhere down the list. If you are younger than I with excellent vision and you like the effect this can be a really fun lens though. It does get a thumbs up from me but with the caution that if you aren't practiced shooting in manual mode with manual focus or your vision makes manual focus a problem, you will have a learning curve with this lens. Even if you are the tilt feature will take some getting used to.

Please to not repost these photos or any portion of this review without my permission.

Philadelphia Flower Show

We went on a bus tour Thursday to the Philadelphia Flower show. From a photographer's perspective it was a bit disappointing. The lighting in the exhibit area was on the harsh side, bright lights against a black ceiling, not at all diffused like natural light in a garden would be. Ironically the lighting in the vendors area was much better (more even) but I took no photos there. Some vendors had "No Photos" signs posted and I didn't ask the others. The photo above was up high, part of a larger display of arrangements. The background is black because it is the ceiling. I managed to find a viewpoint that didn't include any of the lights behind the arrangement.

I liked the pattern in this cacti and made a closeup of it from above. The trick with this photo was keep my shadow off the cacti while shooting from above.

The arrangement below was quite spectacular and made me think of the Mad Hatter's tea party. He and the Hare should be sitting in those chairs. And where is the chair for Alice?

For the last photo today here is a detail of a garden sculpture made from copper pipe and fittings. Overall it was about 5-6' tall in the shape of an egg. Given the price of copper these days I'd hesitate to put that in my garden. Someone would be likely to cart it off to sell for scrap. If you look closely you can see someone peering through from the other side (upper right).

I have two other sets of photos I'll post over the next couple of days, one of the National Park area and some general shots of downtown Philadelphia. As always the photos are here for you to enjoy but they are copyrighted so please play nice and respect my work, don't re-post it elsewhere. If you want to share them with your friends use the Facebook sharing link (upper left of this page) or copy and paste the URL in an email to them so that they can see them here.

Merry Christmas

I really should have saved yesterday's photo for today but this one will do. I made this photo yesterday too. It is the same sugar shack I ran a photo of a short time ago.

Between the horror of the school shooting in Connecticut and then yesterday's shooting of firemen responding to a fire in Webster, NY along with all the other turmoil in the world this is a Christmas of very mixed feelings. On one local blog that I follow some comments expressed the view that evil is in firmly charge and that good has lost. I confess to feeling some dismay at the state of the world myself.

I do not believe in a God who magically impregnates women any more than I believe there is a real Santa Claus living at the North Pole. We know for a fact that the designation of Dec. 25th as the birth of Jesus (not even his real name) was an arbitrary decision made several hundred years after the fact and that has only a one in 365 chance of being the right date, but it is what the various traditions symbolize that is important, (re)birth and renewal.

 There are not a lot of things I 'believe', things that I accept without proof, but one thing I do believe it is that the triumph of good is inevitable, it is programmed into creation by whatever power brought forth the universe and sustains it moment to moment. I believe that system and human nature are 'rigged' for good in the end. At this point in the year when the ancients saw the day shrinking and figuratively dying, it begins to lengthen again, to rise anew. They created holidays to mark the rebirth of the sun, the beginning of a new cycle of nature. That is what we celebrate, that no matter what we humans do, good or evil, the cycle goes on, life begins anew.

When I was out photographing yesterday in the silence that is winter I could feel the new beginning that the Christmas story stands for. Some of those in despair are sure that there is a 'war on Christmas' but, as I see it, they are too caught up in the details of the story to sense the message behind it. There probably wasn't really a stable or a star, those are symbols in a parable to remind us that hope comes from humility and often seems to shine in the far off distance. The Wise Men symbolize those who seek in spite of difficulties and those who would deceive them. I find my truth in nature. I hope that my photos bring your some sense of what I find there. Happy Holidays whatever belief you choose to follow. May you have a wonderful new year.

A Snowy Christmas Eve Morning

I had an early appointment this morning and drove into town through a snowy landscape that brought "Over the river and through the woods" to mind. Where I grew up we attended a one room country school and walked 1½ miles each way. This morning's drive took me back to winter mornings walking to school wrapped in the exquisite silence of winter with snow flakes fluttering down.

We seem to spend all our time surrounded with man made sound these days; TV, radio, even wearing MP3 players to constantly blast us with music while we do other things. I could not help but remember the joy of no sound at all on those winter mornings, snowflakes landing so softly that nothing disturbed the silence. I hope that you all make time for some silence this season, an opportunity to commune with nature and experience peace.

Our Woods

I mentioned a few days ago that when doing the layered effects in Photoshop and PostWorkShop the visual effect was largely lost when the image was sized down for presentation on the web. It is necessary to redo the same procedure on the size I intend to present it othrewise it simply appears to be a slightly fuzzy photo, the result of resizing mushing the pixels together and mangling the texture I had created in my layering process. This image has been processed to be seen at the size you will see if you click on the image above so be sure to check it out at that size.

It uses the same procedure I used on the prior one and I originally did it as a 16X20 print but I redid it to show here. Obviously the details on the 16X20 version and this one don't match exactly but it is closer than simply shrinking the big image. I like the effect of the texture. It looks sort of like a colored engraving to me.

Winds of Autumn

We're having a lot of wind here, both last night and today. I went out this morning and took a few photos including this one  looking across the meadow toward our small piece of woods. In just the couple of hours since shooting the original image the wind has knocked about half the leaves off the yellow/orange tree that is left of center.

It is a bit hard to tell in the small version here, even if you click on it to see it full size, but I have digitally modified it in both Photoshop and PostWorkShop. I used  the Topaz Simply filter in Photoshop to reduce detail and then layered over that  a version that I had modified in PostWorkShop with both watercolor and drawing layers. The full effect is visible on the large file which would print out at least 10"x15" but in reducing the image size for web use much of the effect is lost. To give an idea a cropped detail is below.

I find that when doing a lot of these special effects they only work well when reproduced at the size that the effect was originally applied to. If you shrink or stretch the size the effect loses its visual impact. I like this combination though. The overall visual effect matches what I visualized when I was shooting the photo.

Canon 7d with an 18-135mm EFs lens on a monopod.

Fall Color

Although dull color was forecast because of the dry summer the Adirondacks enjoyed some of the best autumn color I've seen in years, at least in the areas I frequent which are the NW corner of the park and the High Peaks area. I did two day trips in the last week. I'd like to have gotten out daily and covered ore of the park but gas prices are ridiculous so I stuck to areas I was familiar with.

The photo above is a waterfall adjacent the Wilmington Notch NYS Campground. It has no name that I'm aware of and the state does not promote it as It is a relatively dangerous place. The rock you see in the foreground is a point of land sticking out over the river that drops off at least 30 feet on three sides to the rocks and river below. You don't want to fall but it provides the best view of the falls if you can take the adrenaline that comes with standing there. The edge of the rock was only about 3-4 feet in front of me as I shot the two vertical frames that I stitched together to make this image. I've stood closer in the past but I bruised my left shin climbing Indian Pass on my last lean-to cleanup trip and it was still sore so I wasn't feeling steady enough to get too close and I thought the rock made a good foreground anyway (a juicy rationalization?). Whatever, that was as close as I dared get yesterday.

There is an album of 64 Adirondack Autumn photos on my Zenfolio galleries*. They were all made, as this one was, with a Canon 7D. Before anyone asks, yes the colors were that intense. Most have not had any added saturation. I did increase the local contrast with the "Clarity" control in Lightroom on many of them and that does heighten the impression of intensity but for the most part the saturation is what came out of the default conversion from RAW. It almost looks like it was shot with Kodachrome.