Full Moon Setting

Once again I have been delinquent about posting. The truth is I haven't been doing a lot of photography. Here in NNY we are in what is commonly known as 'mud season', after the snow melts but before the greens of spring start. Generally speaking the landscape is rather dismal. I did shoot this photo of the full moon  setting one morning shortly after the "Blood Moon" eclipse which we couldn't see here due to overcast. The sun is just peeking over the horizon behind me, enough to lend a lavender hue to the clouds which are mostly still in the Earth's shadow. Dawn and dusk photos of the moon are easier than night time ones because the sky and moon are closer in tone. The moon of course is in full daylight, only about one stop less bright than full sun exposure of subjects on Earth.

The weather is promising spring so hopefully I'll be getting more photos to post soon. If you wish to share this post and/or photo please point your friends here. Do not repost without permission.

Endless Winter

Long time, no post. This has been a tough winter and I haven't been doing a lot of photography. Today is the 3rd day of 'official' spring and the photo above of our old apple tree is the view we had this morning. The good news is that the snow stopped early in the afternoon and 5-6" short of the 7 PM and 8" that was forecast for last night and today combined. It was a strange day. In the photo the wind is driving the snow right to left which is South to North. A few minutes later I was looking out a window on the opposite side of the house and it was also blowing right to left but that is North to South. Another few minutes and it was coming straight down.

I hope this is the last serious snow storm. We had one earlier in the week that dropped about a foot of snow, the most in one storm all winter. Like this one the wind swirled it around a lot  and it sculpted some interesting waves in the driveway that I couldn't resist photographing before plowing them away.

All the photos were made with a Canon G11, shot in RAW mode and processed in Lightroom 5.

As always, if you wish to share the photos please respect my copyright and share the URL of this site. Do not repost without permission. Thank you.

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.

Please respect my copyright and share by directing others to the URL of this page. Do not repost without my express permission. Thank you for being honest.

The Smell of Snow

Today started off sunny but in the afternoon the storm that clobbered the mid-west started moving in. Around 4 PM it was coming down hard and I shot some 'cheater' images from the cover of the porch and out various windows. This one was made through the window in the laundry room, a clump of white birches that is attractive in almost any season but it looked especially nice in the falling snow which greyed out the forest across the field behind it.

This snow is wet and heavy. The first bit that fell immediately turned to slush. When I got up this morning the snow that fell last night was like tiny snow balls, round clusters not much more than 1/16th inch in diameter. The Eskimos have different words for different kinds of snow and anyone who lives in an area like this that gets frequent snow can tell you that there are different smells to different snowfalls too. This one smelled like spring, the kind of snowfall we get when the maple sap begins to run. The kind of snowfall that both reminds me that it is still winter but also promises spring.

Canon SX50.

Our Woods

As recently as the Thursday before Christmas we had no snow, then it started. We had a first storm with a lot of wet heavy snow, that was followed by one with even more soft fluffy snow, followed by yet more soft snow. I've shoveled more snow in the last 10 days than all of last winter which admittedly wasn't much of a winter. It was still snowing lightly this morning and we cleaned up the latest 3". Finally this afternoon the sun broke through and I decided to break out my snowshoes. Snowshoeing is hard work too, especially breaking trail, but it is way more fun than shoveling.

I checked the depth in the back field using my hiking pole. I always take one pole when snowshoeing. If you trip and fall it makes getting back up easier. The snow in the field behind the house is now 26" deep. I continued on into our woods. We don't own much woods, 1½ to 2 acres worth, but it's nice having your own woods to hang out in. Walking through I spotted this young beech with the sun shining from behind. Arrayed in golden leaves and a mantle of snow it was ready to have its portrait taken. Shot with a Canon G11.

Season's Greetings

I wondered if we would have a white Christmas. The local weather forecast as late as Wednesday said it was doubtful but it started snowing Thursday evening and hasn't quit. It will be very white. At the rate it's snowing we'll certainly have more than a foot (may be there already) and the NOAA site says it will continue for another 12 hours. We're warm and have lots of food in the fridge. I hope everyone else has the same good fortune.

New Work, Old Subject

I took a day to go to the mountains yesterday. My day did not go as planned but I've learned over the years not to plan too firmly and to roll with whatever happens. Besides, any day in the mountains is a good day for me. From our new house I usually would take a different route than I used to (shorter from here) but I was going to town anyway and from there it was about the same either way so I decided to revisit old haunts. Above is Mountain Pond on Rt. 30, a place I used to stop almost every time I went to the Adirondacks. The light was very nice on this group of shoreline rocks so here it is.

The woods are very dry. The DEC has issued a "high fire danger" warning. I noted that water levels on several ponds/lakes were down as much as a foot. Quite a change from my lean-to adoption trip when the water levels were a little high.

I decided to revisit Cascade Mt. Falls. A friend and I went there last year to make a series of photos one of which I posted on the blog and others that I put on Flickr. After that visit torrential rains from hurricane Irene flooded a lot of areas in the Adirondacks and caused landslides along some mountainside brooks including the one by Cascade Lakes. I wanted to see how the falls had changed. Answer: Dramatically!

There was a large slide on the mountainside above the falls where the brook used to run among trees. All the debris coming down the mountainside stripped the trees and vegetation that had bordered the falls leaving this wide bare swath of rock.

The damage was even more dramatic below. There used to be a shallow pool a the base of the falls which was made by an old dam that once captured the water for a hotel that was on the bit of land between Cascade Lakes. The slide took out the remains of the dam and carved a deep ravine where a shallow brook once ran through the woods below the falls. The amount and size of rocks that the slide moved is mind boggling. It will be a long time before this spot is as "scenic" as it once was.

Both photos were made with a Canon 7D and an 18-135mm lens. The falls are a three (horizontal) frame stitch. I discovered I didn't have my wide angle lens when I set up to make that photo so I had to improvise..

SNOW!

After having almost no snow all winter we were dusted by about ¾" Wednesday night. The Adirondacks (South of us) got 3-4 inches and I decided it was time to go wandering and photographing again. It's a strange addiction that I have, this need to go rambling about in the woods and mountains photographing the moods of nature. An addiction it is though and perhaps my camera, like the fisherman's pole, is really just an excuse to be there, taking it all in. Excuse or not, I hope that my images will be pleasant reminder of my wanderings if and when age renders me no longer able to go such places. In the meantime I hope that they are a revealing window for those currently not able (for whatever reason) to experience these places.

Although the snow stopped in the morning on Thursday at home, it continued off and on all day down South in the mountains. The view above was made during a brief break in passing snow squalls. A thin spot in the clouds allowed a faint bit of sunlight to strike the snow that had accumulated on the evergreens of this island group making them the brightest spots in a relatively dark landscape. If it were a clear day you would see Whiteface Mt. in the background. Yesterday however, it was totally obscured by the low hanging clouds.

As a bit of balance against my asocial nature I'll add an urban photo taken on the main street in Saranac Lake, as urban as the Adirondacks get anyway and as urban as I like it. I don't often photograph people but lately I'd been seeing scenes that are representative of "the human condition", the moods of our particular subset of nature (see also the photo in the prior post). I spotted that tree against the red and green building as I pulled out of a parking lot. I had to drive quite a way up the street before finding a parking place to walk back to shoot it. Snow was coming down fat, wet, and hard. I arrived back at the vantage point for the photo just in time to catch this lady between the tree and lamppost. After she passed I shot another frame with no one in it, the way I envisioned the photo when I first decided to park the truck and go back, but that one doesn't work as well. It's nice but without the lady it seems empty. It was purely a stroke of luck that she was wearing a red coat and carrying a green bag, echoing the building she is passing.

Un-winter Tree

We are having what some locals are calling an un-winter this year. Sort of like an un-birthday I suppose in that it feels as unreal as Alice's Adventure. Normally we'd have lots of snow by now and January is usually the coldest month of the year. We have had some real cold, down to zero and even a bit below but it has quickly bounced back up each time and overall we are enjoying above average temperatures for this time of year.

This weather doesn't make for good winter photographs though. There is little snow and where there is snow under trees it is littered with twigs and limbs from the ice storm and wind. I went to town today and came home past this tree which I have photographed several times before. Since the last time I took its picture the town highway department cut all the shrubs that had been growing around it. In the process they broke a couple of limbs (a large one hanging on the left side of the trunk and the little one hanging off the end of a limb on the right) leaving it looking lonesome and forlorn. Coupled with the bare field and overcast sky I decided it needed to be rendered in black and white.

I'm fond of trees. They are a favorite subject, especially trees with character and this one definitely has character. Stunted with broken limbs, galls and missing strips of bark it continues to sprout leaves every spring. It reminds me of another tree, now gone (and I never got a good photo of it - darn) that continued to leave out every spring despite a gaping hole through it's middle. There was one narrow strip of bark up one side and that was enough, like some people I've known who keep going in spite of everything.

Lingering Ice

We  had two mornings of freezing rain followed by about 5 inches of snow and now we are "enjoying" sub-zero temperatures. It was minus 18º F early this morning, By the time I went out to fill the bird feeders and make some photos of the sun illuminating the ice on the trees we were having a -5º heat wave. The belated advent of winter here has been good for photography though. I went out yesterday on a photo exploration and fond several good subjects. The results are posted at https://picasaweb.google.com/113942839858347342814/IceSnowJanuary142012.

The trees in the photo above are in my side yard. The wind last night knocked off the snow but it is so cold that the ice is still hanging on. That will change in the next couple of days. The forecast is for rising temperatures with a Tuesday high around 38-40º. Maybe I'll go snowshoeing this afternoon while it's still winter. The way this winter is going, who knows if I'll get another chance.

Ice Storm

We haven't had much winter weather this year until last night. Normally we'd have snow in late November or early December. Occasionally we've had snow as early as Halloween that stayed all winter. So far this winter I've shoveled once and it wasn't really necessary then, only an inch and a half. Last night and this morning the weather was more like we'd expect in January, freezing rain followed by snow. All the schools were closed because of a half inch of ice on everything but when the snow arrived it was pretty.

The freezing rain made a lot of folks around here nervous though, a kind of PTSD from the ice storm of '98, five days of freezing rain that took out the power across Northern NY, New England and Quebec for anywhere from a week to a month or more. We were lucky and had our power back after only 7 days. Some communities in Quebec were without power for nearly 6 weeks.

I didn't take many photos back then. When I left for work in the morning it was dark and when I got home at night it was getting dark. When I wasn't working we were spending our time surviving, melting snow on the wood stove for water, living by candlelight, staying warm. Today I could afford the time to admire the ice on the trees. I'm retired so I had nowhere to go. The photo is from my side yard looking back at a neighbor's shed.

Tree With Galls - Spring

Back in March I created a collage of photos depicting a tree on the Hatch Road that has been a frequent subject for my camera. After making the collage I decided that I should make a version in each season. This morning I awoke to a dense fog and the leaves are starting to unfold, perfect conditions for the spring version, so I dashed out before breakfast to shoot it.

Lazy Blogger

The title is me chastising myself. I've been goofing off on posting. Spring finally seems to have come to stay in the North Country. Friday I went to Lampson Falls and the Tooley Pond Rd. to check out the waterfalls and spring flowers. I posted a bunch of photos to Flickr. I've started using Flickr for photos and will be weening off Picasaweb because I don't like Picasaweb's policy of allowing anyone to buy prints through commercial print services without even asking the owner of the photos. Crass commercial person that I am, I'd like to be the one selling prints of my photos. I will leave some things there that I intend to be public.

The trillium were out in force along the Tooley Pond Rd. but so were the black flies. I had to wave my hat in front of the lens madly just before making an exposure to disperse the clouds of black flies and I came home well bitten. All in all it was a good day though with a mix of sun and clouds. We've now settled in to clouds and rain through Thursday if the forecast is right.

The photo is Veratrum Viride AKA Indian Poke, Indian Hellebore, False Hellebore or Green False Hellebore. The color version is on Flickr but I thought it was a good candidate for B&W.

Stone Valley Trails

I did a return trip to Stone Valley Trails this morning. The river was running very high and downstream it has flooded the trail in places. At this location there would normally be only a small side stream flowing amongst the trees, but with the river in flood stage it has overwhelmed the woods. I was struck by the wave patterns from water crashing around trees as well as the fact that the trees are able to stand up to such a force. 'Rooted' indeed.

Weather or Not...

A friend and I went down to the Adirondacks today to climb Owl's Head Peak, a small subsidiary summit that rises from the slopes of Cascade Mountain on the Keene Valley side. It is a favorite location of mine and photos from there have appeared many times before in these posts but this was the first time I have climbed it in winter.

On the way into Saranac Lake we encountered what was probably the best scene of the day on the high flats by Gabriels, NY, a view of Whiteface Mountain against the early morning sky with dark clouds approaching. We grabbed a few shots before continuing on. Only moments later the summit of Whiteface was in the lowering clouds.

Although the experience on Owl's Head was enjoyable, we had some of the worst photography conditions I have worked in, wind, rain, wind, sleet, wind, snow, and did I mention the wind? It howled through so that we couldn't leave cameras on tripods to stand of their own accord. We had to physically hold them down. At times the gusts were so strong they nearly knocked us off our feet. And then there was the changing light. If you weren't positioned and ready to shoot, you missed the photo because the light we wanted seemed to last only a second or two before moving on with the wind. Fortunately the temperature was mild. Had it been 10º like it was last Friday it would have been impossible. Despite the difficulties I thoroughly enjoyed the outing. Yeah, I know. Photographers are strange.

A Day in the Adirondacks

I took a drive down to Lake Placid today (the Adirondack Park is South from here) and hit some of my favorite photo haunts along the way. I started under clouds, went through snow flurries, back to cloudy, on to sunny, back to cloudy, to fairly heavy snow and back to clouds by the time I got home. Typical NNY weather. I shot 157 photos along the way including a series of the rapidly changing sky over Barnum Pond. I think this is the best one of those. I haven't entirely made up my mind but it is tentatively number one so it gets posted.

Canon 7D, RAW, aperture priority, ISO 100, 1/125 sec, @ f/16

Addendum: A series of photos from the drive/snowshoe day above can be seen here. If the link doesn't work for you, copy and paste the following URL into the address field of your browser .

Not A Nice Day

All the schools are closed. We are getting a mix of snow flakes and mini snow pellets. The wind is blowing and it is only 8º F. Even at that the worst of the storm is apparently South of us. I won't be breaking out the snow blower until much later. We aren't going anywhere and whatever I did to clear it now wouldn't last.

Frosty Morning

The thermometer at my house this morning read -30F.  The radio said that it was -38F in some places near here. That's the coldest we've seen in several years. I drove Diane to work and coming back across the Racquette River in Potsdam I saw this frost and mist as I crossed the bridge from Fall Island. Whoever left those tracks trusts ice farther than I would but they do add an interesting element to the photo.

Warm Fingers All Day

It was a chilly morning and only got up to about 15º today. My first job was to clear the 3" of snow that fell yesterday & last night.  I put some Hot Hands (dry chemical packets that generate heat) into my gloves to keep my hands warm while running the snow blower. Two hours later I had cleared the driveway, walks and the walkway on the bridge over the river. I put out seed for the birds. They need all the help they can get this time of year. After lunch and some indoor chores I went to the State Forest to do some snowshoeing. The Hot Hands were still warm so I threw them into my mittens. As I was coming out the last stretch I met two women just starting with their dogs who were cavorting and generally enjoying the outing. The older woman was already having problems with her fingers getting cold so I pulled the Hot Hands out of my mits and put them in her mits. Then I came home to some homemade peanut butter fudge and hot tuna casserole with biscuits. Life is good.

The photo was taken with the Canon G10. It has been modified in a Topaz filter to protect the identities of the innocent and because I like the effect.