Mountain Pond Spring

On my trip into the Adirondacks yesterday I stopped by Mountain Pond, a favorite spot of mine all the way back to my high school days. I remember when there were camps on its shores. It was state land but back then people could lease sites from the state. They weren't supposed to build permanent camps so they would build cabins that had walls and floors with windows and doors but used a canvas roof. That made them a tent technically so they weren't violating the leases. A lot of people were very upset when the state changed the policy, canceled their leases to make private use of the public lands and they had to tear down their camps. Today there are only camp sites where you can set up a tent or park your camper and there are no "facilities", electric, water hookups and the like. There are a couple of privies but that's it. I've never camped there but I rarely go South into the mountains without stopping by and have found many good photographs like the one above on my repeated visits. No grand mountains or fabulous sunsets on glistening lakes. Just peaceful scenes of nature. Later in the summer there will be loons swimming and calling to one another. There will wildflowers on the shores. Sometimes that is enough.

As always, be sure to click on the image above for an enlarged view. More of my photos can be found using the links at the upper left.

Mountain Day

I went to the Adirondacks today to do some photography. It had been too long since my last trip. The sun came and went as did the rain, but it was a good day to be out and about in the mountains. The photo is Roaring Brook Falls which came be seen from a turnout on Rt. 73 near St. Huberts. The wind was blowing pretty hard so there is some blurring (probably not noticeable in the small web size copy) but the light was great.

Crabapple Blossoms

Like last year, the crabapple tree is loaded with blooms but last year when I stood under it it was literally buzzing with bees, honey bees and bumble bees. This year I have not managed to spot more than 2-3 bumble bees at a time around the tree. That is not a good sign.

In Flight Black & White

 

Yesterday I posted some new B&W images to Picasaweb (Link). They are photos taken from the plane while flying from Chicago to Syracuse when we returned from Texas. The plane windows were dirty as usual with streaks and spots. I've never had the good fortune to be on a commercial flight that had clean windows. At 24,000 feet the haze made the view flat and very blue but I could see some interesting patterns in the landscape so I shot a number of views. After loading them into the computer I used Lightroom and Photoshop to increase the contrast and reduce the detail in order to accentuate the patterns. I particularly liked the contrast between the organic forms of the landscape and the geometric  patterns imposed by humans. A lot of my photos are composed based  on patterns but I don't usually push them this far so that the pattern takes over. Most of the land forms are distinct enough that I was able to find them on Google Earth by following the flight path. The one above is on the Eastern side of Lake St. Clair.

Just a reminder that prints of my photos are for sale. I charge $35 plus postage for a nominal "X" by 9.75 inch print matted to 11X14. "X" varies with the aspect ration of the original and 9.75 inches is the long side whether vertical or horizontal. I don't usually sell framed prints by mail due to breakage potential. 11X14 is a standard frame size and is readily available. I can print larger sizes on request. If you want a larger print send me an email stating what image and size you'd like and whether or not you'd like it matted. I'll quote a price. For really big prints it might be more efficient to send them rolled in a tube and let you get them matted and framed locally but the choice is yours.

P.S. If you live in NY state I have to charge 7% sales tax. Personally I think art should be exempt like food but I don't make the rules.

You Can Count On It

I'm working for the Census doing followup on addresses that did not respond. Now I should point out that one of the reasons I took the job was because no one in the little hamlet where I live got a Census form to return including me. I'm told by the Census people that the Postal Service returned them all as "undeliverable" but the clerk in the PO tells me she never got any to deliver.  Anyway I know that there are lots of homes here that need to be visited but the Census has me assigned to a team that is canvassing residences that are 9-30 miles from here. When I observed that I'd rather be working in my own community I was told "But you'll be getting mileage" (50¢ per mile). I guess that means they'll be paying mileage to someone from 20 miles away to come here and do what I could do on foot for no mileage. I learned today that isn't unique. The Postal clerk told me this morning of a friend in another community who also is doing Census work several miles from her own area. It seems like a strange way to do the job in a time when the country is staying afloat on credit from China.

Texas Wildflower

I have no idea what this is but it is very unusual. When I get home I'll look it up in my flower books. I like the stars within stars.
Later: According to my Wildflowers of Texas book it is Antelope Horn, a member of the Milkweed family.

Blue Bonnets in the background. I forget what the red one is named. Another to look up when we get home.
Later: This one is Texas Paintbrush.

Not a wildflower but a wild creature. In this photo he's trying to scare me because I'm too close for his taste. I wasn't frightened by his display but it made a great photo.

Visiting

We are in Texas visiting our son and daughter-in-law. Quite a difference in climate. Diane just got a call from her sister saying it is snowing in Woodstock, Ontario and a friend in the Adirondacks wrote yesterday to say it was snowing there. Here there are roses. The backyard has red and pink roses. The one above (against a cedar tree trunk) is a bloom on  a tree rose that is about 8 feet tall. Out front there is a yellow rose.

One of my aims on this visit is to shoot some wild flowers. It shouldn't be too hard. Apparently this is the height of wildflower season and they are all over. I will post a photo or two later in the visit. Meanwhile, if you're among those up North, look at the rose above and ignore the snow.

Bloodroot Revisited

Today I went back to Stone Valley to check on the bloodroot. They still were not open so I walked down the trail for a while and photographed some other things, waterfalls, rock textures and the like. While I was walking the trail the sun broke through and when I got back by the bloodroot patches at the trail's start the blooms were beginning to open.

I posted some bloodroot photos last year in May and because I am photographing very close with extension tubes the pictures make them look large. For those who have never seen them I should mention that the actual bloom is only 1 to 1¼ inches across. The leaf (one per plant) comes up on a separate stem from the blossom and is folded around the bud and bud stem. They unfold later. It gets its name from the red sap that comes from the stem if you pick it, which you shouldn't do. Like trillium they are endangered plants. I found this one peeking out from under a log.

Early Spring

Just a quick post to add a photo of some Bloodroot at Stone Valley. I heard on the radio yesterday that they were up but none were actually open this morning. I shot a few photos of buds and will check on them again on the weekend.

Would Ansel Adams Like Digital Photography?

That question has arisen repeatedly over the years in my discussions with fellow photographers. I've always held that he'd not only like it, he'd be on the leading edge of digital just as he was with chemical photography in its day. In an interview that Jim Hughes conducted with Ansel in 1979, when digital was still mostly theoretical, Ansel pretty much confirmed what I have always thought. He'd love it. Read excepts from the interview on today's T.O.P. blog post entitled "Ansel Redux".

Mystery No More

I planted my peas today. I have been finding crocus in places where I don't recall planting any and today I found 7 in the vegetable garden where I know I didn't plant any. At the same time the ones I did plant aren't coming up. I attribute it to our farmer chipmunks. Every year we have clumps of sunflowers, a dozen or more seeds in a tight cluster, pop up in odd places throughout the garden. The chipmunks gather up seeds beneath the feeders then dash off with their cheeks bulging to stash them. Apparently they are burying them in the garden. In past years this activity has been limited to sunflower seeds but now the crocus that I planted in the bed by the front gate are missing but there are crocus in the raised garden beds. As a further tip off, one of the relocated crocus was right next to a chipmunk burrow. I've marked them with bamboo stakes and after they've stopped blooming I'll move them back to the flower bed and scatter some moth balls around them. Moth balls deter rabbits. I'm hoping that will work for chipmunks too.

The Way We Weren't

In this morning’s local paper (Watertown Daily Times) there was an article from the Washington Post about the anger of some over the health care law and it quoted one of the opponents, Hugh Pearson of Bakersfield, who expressed a desire to return to life the way he remembers it in the 1950s. He remembers the America of the ‘50s as an “Ozzie & Harriet” and “Leave it to Beaver” existence. “Now we have MTV, expose-yourself stuff, and we have no morality left, not even by legislators” he said. Apparently He'd like to go back to the '50s.

Mr. Pearson’s comments brought me back to the 50s too but I don’t remember them the same as he did. I’m 65, a tad older than Hugh and I remember the 50s well. I remember poverty. Not everyone lived in nice middle class neighborhoods with a station wagon in the garage. I remember that people did “fool around” and get divorced. Although we didn’t know it at the time even “Ike” had a mistress. People lived together in the ‘50s without getting married. We had a neighbor who had a “live-in housekeeper”. I remember backroom abortions, with women dying from botched procedures. I remember being whacked with a ruler in grade school when I didn’t write my letters and numbers to look just like the ones posted on green cards over the blackboard. I remember being told that the Russians could drop a nuclear bomb at any time and that we needed a bomb shelter in the backyard to escape being vaporized. I remember during the McCarthy hearings the teacher reading a list of the sorts of things commie's say and telling us that if we hear Mom or Dad saying anything like that we should turn them in. I remember discrimination, not just toward blacks for whom there was a long list of epithets not just the “N” word. Italians, Irish, Polish, Jewish and native Americans all were treated to derogatory references, not to mention gays, women and Catholics. If you were anything but white, male, Anglo-Saxon and Protestant you were less than equal. The “Ozzie & Harriet “ life was a very closed community.

The 50s was a warm fuzzy time for those who were part of the minority that lived that existence but for the rest of America it was a very different time. It is easy to think of the “Ozzie & Harriet” existence being all of America in the 50s because that is what the media showed. TV was new and what it showed was the way we liked to think of ourselves and the country. The rest was ignored, the poverty, the discrimination, the hatred. We now live in a time when those things are not ignored. Get over the 50s you remember Hugh. For most people it really wasn’t like that.

Spring Has Sprung

I always count the real start of spring from when the earliest spring flowers bloom. It's a bit early this year and this flower is a surprise. It is one of two crocus I found in front of the fence (between the front fence and the road). The reason it is a surprise is that I don't recall ever planting crocus there. I moved that fence back from the road about 6 feet 9-10 years ago and I suppose it is possible that I had planted some inside the old fence line and forgotten about them but that would have been at least 15 years ago. So have they been blooming outside the fence all these years and I never noticed?  I can't imagine that they would have lain dormant that long.

The crocus and other spring flowers inside the fence aren't blooming yet. The crocus inside the fence hasn't even broken through the soil. They must think spring isn't here yet. BTW While photographing this one and it's cohort I spotted two more outside the fence that will be blooming in a few days.

Hold That Flower - A DIY Project

Someone posted a review of the Wimberly Plamp on Nature Photographer's Network's forums today. It is a clamp for holding a plant still when you are shooting a close up and the breeze keeps moving it. It struck me as a good idea but $36 seemed a bit stiff so I set about making my own.

I used AWG 12 electrical wire because it was what I had on hand. 8 or 10 gauge would be stronger and probably better for holding reflectors, gobos or shades. The clamp is one of a dozen I got at Big Lots 2-3 years ago in a package. I think I paid $5 for the dozen. The plant holder end is a wooden spring clothespin. I figured I didn't need as big a clamp on the plant holding end and the wood might be a little more 'friendly' to the plant than metal or plastic. One problem was that when I just taped the wire to the plastic spring clamp the weight of the wire would spin it under the tape so that it always drooped downward. I fixed that by feeding the wire through a hole that was already in the clamp handle (but you could make your own if your clamp didn't already have a hole) and then tightly winding the wire around the handle using pliers to make it snug. As you can see in the photo it now stays where I put it. I'll tape over it but I left the tape off for the photo. Alternatively you could attach the clamps with epoxy putty.

In this case it cost me nothing but time since I had all the parts but if you were to buy them I estimate the cost as follows:
Plastic clamp - about a dollar if you buy them singly, less if you buy a bunch (they're handy for other things too). Wooden clothespin - pennies. You can get a whole package at the Dollar Store. Wire - AWG 12 is between $1 and $2/foot for 2 wire with ground at building suppliers but there are 3 wires in the outer sheath, a black covered wire, a white covered wire and a bare wire so if you bought 2 feet you could make 3 of these. AWG 10 and 8 wire would cost more than 12 (like f/stops, smaller number = fatter wire and copper is expensive right now). The tape is black cloth tape similar to duct tape. I chose cloth because it doesn't stretch. It won't make Wimberly happy but I have my holder and my $36 (plus shipping + tax).