St. Regis River Shoreline

Yesterday afternoon I walked down to the bridge at the bottom of the hill I live on and took several photos of the ice on the river. Above is my favorite of the half dozen or so that I took. It is the ice and snow on the water (left) and the shoreline (right). I'm getting quite a collection of photos taken from the bridge and a fair number of the bridge itself. I'm particularly fond of the ever changing abstract patterns of ice in the winter and the collection reflects that.

Snowy Morning

We got a bit more snow last night and through the morning. Only an inch or two but it made the world prettier after the recent thaw that left dwindled and dirty snow banks. On the way home from some errands in Potsdam I pulled over to photograph this tree in a farm field. As a boy growing up in the country they were very familiar to me. They grew in many farm pastures. Livestock left them alone because of the thorns and farmers rarely bothered to cut them in fields they weren't plowing. We always referred to them as Thorn Apple trees.

I have photographed some of this one's kin before. They are quite attractive with snow on them. I'm fond of trees for their aesthetic qualities and can identify quite a few common ones but am by no means an expert so this morning I decided to find out if 'Thorn Apple' was indeed what they are and did some research. I was surprised to learn that Thorn Apples are varieties of Hawthorn. I had never heard anyone refer to them as such, and (for reasons I cannot explain) I had always thought Hawthorns were a Southern and/or British Isles species. I also learned that there are several varieties. I'll have to look at them more closely in other seasons.

Snowshoeing Again

Another snowshoe trip on the Stone Valley Trails, this one the NE section by Brown's Bridge. The river along this portion is flat and the trail is on a bank with trees between it and the water. I thought the line of open water seen through the young saplings was a nice abstract composition.

Non-photo Blogs

A few posts back I said I would list the non-photography blogs that I follow for those who might be interested. The first is a local Public Radio blog "The In Box".  I am aware that some of my friends on the right will see a left bias in the Public Radio connection but the guy who writes most frequently on this blog, Brian Mann, is a self described Republican and the blog is a pretty good (and fair) mix of view points from NCPR's staff. While it mostly deals with local and regional issues it gets into larger issues as well.

It has been proposed by some passionate bloggers that the Internet with its blogs, Facebook, You Tube, etc. will bring about greater democracy because information is no longer controlled by the major news organizations. Without getting into the history of abuses of major news organizations (which I concede) I see a danger in totally unfettered access to publish whatever one thinks via the 'net. I would not even hazard a guess at the number of blogs out there and it is growing daily. If you did come up with a number it would be wrong by the time you wrote it down. How does one sort out which blogs to follow, which passionate writer to believe? I follow two sites "FactCheck.Org" and "PolitiFact.com" to help sort things out. Both sites involve researching and verifying whether something is true or false. Politifact has an amusing scale (the truth-o-meter) that they apply. Although it isn't a blog or something you can subscribe to, for the really outrageous emails that get circulated "Snopes.com" is a good source to sort out truth from fiction. In the end the old adage to believe half of what you see and none of what you hear applies. In my own experience a commentator's objectivity is inversely proportional to their passion. That includes me.

Among other things I am an amateur genealogist and I subscribe to "The Genealogue". It is an interesting mix of oddities that appeal to genealogists.

The last on my list is just for amusement. I am rather fond of maps and "Strange Maps" is just what its name suggests, old, odd, unusual and occasionally silly maps.

Cold Morning

It was 0ºF when I stepped out the door to fetch the morning paper from the tube by the driveway. The snow crunched underfoot, the low sun cast long blue shadows and sparkled off the fresh layer of flakes that had fallen in the night. The rabbit and the squirrels had already been checking beneath the bird feeders for seed that had been rejected by the birds. We've had much colder mornings in winters past but 0º is cold enough for me. It need not try to match past performances.

Regular readers may notice a change in the name of the blog, formerly Random Ramblings, I have changed it to  North Country Ramblings. I'm considering adding an archive gallery of just the photos separate from the posts which will continue to be available in the current format.

Snowshoeing the Stone Valley Trail

I've taken you to Stone Valley before, first in the spring to see Bloodroot blooms by the trailhead on the East side. I've even photographed this particular view before in autumn. Today I went snowshoeing on the West side of the river which, like most rivers in this area, flows North toward the St. Lawrence. I was surprised at how much the river was frozen and snowed over already this winter. I went downstream shooting as I went but shot the above photo on the return trip. I was first attracted to the white pine with the crooked top and came out of the woods onto the riverbank for a better view, Then I saw the water flowing out at the end of the open pool but it was too far right relative to the tree so I photographed them separately before moving along the shore upstream. When I reached this spot where I could see the open patches of river as it meandered toward me I knew I had found 'the spot'. Taken with a Canon G10 on aperture priority, 1/40th sec. f/8, RAW format.

It was a wonderful afternoon to be in the woods with fat snowflakes falling periodically and lots of unbroken snow. I spent part of the morning shoveling again but for some reason, despite the frequent need to clear the walk & drive plus colder than average temperatures, I find myself really enjoying winter so far. I'll probably tire of it by mid-February but for now I'm even enjoying the snowshoveling.

Bunches of Snow, More Snow, Piled higher & Deeper

I got my PhD today. We woke up to 7½" of new snow and 6º F. I spent a couple of hours clearing the walks and driveway with shovel and snowblower then took the snowblower down to clear the pedestrian walk on the bridge. It is a county road which joins to town roads at the bridge but neither the county or the town seem to feel obliged to keep the walkway clear so it ends up being done by locals. I do it several times a winter but there have been times that it has been cleared before I got there so someone else (more than one someone?) pitches in. It is nice to have the walkway cleared because it is a one lane bridge (when they replaced the bridge a few years ago the highway folks proposed making it two lanes but we like it one lane) and I'd rather not walk in the roadway.

As if I hadn't had enough of snow I went snowshoeing on the trails in the Southville State Forest. Another snowshoer had been on part of the trails but I was breaking trail at least half of the time, sometimes in snow up to 16" deep. Tiring but fun. I got the photo above where the trail runs along the St. Regis River. This drift was along the shoreline and I liked the form with the contrasting reddish weeds sticking out of the snow. The snow BTW is forecast to continue through next Friday. I may get another PhD or two by week's end.

I decided to end the year by listing the blogs I follow. Most are photography blogs (surprise). I'll start with them.

I checked Guy Tal's blog frequently in the past and recently subscribed through Google Reader. Guy and I think a lot alike about photography and while I don't believe in only exposing myself to those opinions that I agree with I also think it doesn't hurt to know that I'm not alone in my views. Besides Guy takes some great photos that I enjoy looking at.

Another recent addition to my RRS feed that I had looked at occasionally is Kathleen Connally's photo blog A Walk Through Durham Township, Pennsylvania. She presents a very nice collection of photos of rural Pennsylvania. She doesn't seem to have any agenda except to show off the area where she lives and does so with affection and skill.

Absolutely Nothing is probably more portfolio than blog. Like Kathleen Connally, the photographer, Tristan Campbell puts the latest photo on the home page and then moves it to an archive as a new one replaces it. The photos are of England though. I'm a sucker for landscapes and these are good ones.

Chris Orwig's Flipside is a personal/professional blog where he posts his latest family photos along with some professional work. I first "met" Chris via Lynda.com where he has some tutorials. He is a photo instructor at Brooks Institute in Santa Barbara. On any given day you are as apt to see photos of his young daughters as you are a portrait of a renowned surfer.

David duChemin's PixelatedImage blog is often philosophical. He also has some interesting and inexpensive ebooks that he sells through his site and is the author of a couple of 'real' books as well which can be found on Amazon. David's work is more in the photojournalist/National Geographic tradition.

Scott Kelby's Photoshop Insider is for the techie in me. It keeps me up to date with Kelby Training & NAPP (Association of Photoshop Professionals) with some personal touches.

Jim Richardson's Working Photographer blog has a list of photographers he's jealous of. I find that hard to believe because I'm jealous of Jim Richardson. He does a lot of work with National Geographic and beautiful work it is.

TOP (The On-line Photographer) is an interesting mix of reviews, photography news and opinion. Mike Johnson has been writing for and editing photo magazines for many years and carries on in this eclectic blog.

Lastly PhotoPreneur is about making money from photography, something I don't do well and need to do better next year which just happens to start tomorrow.

If you follow this blog because of the photography perhaps one or more of the above might also interest you. I'll list the non-photo blogs I follow in a later post.

Happy New Year.

A Touch of PTSD

Those of us living in the Northeast are a bit nervous about freezing rain. Eleven years ago we had several days of it in a row in what became known as the Ice Storm of '98. We went without power for a week and were among the lucky ones. Some rural areas had no power for up to a month and areas of Quebec were without power for up to 6 weeks.

I well remember being afraid to walk out into the yard because the ice was breaking limbs from the maple trees which came down with a crash every few minutes. If you were hit by a falling 4" thick limb that would be bad enough but add an inch or more of ice and they were really dangerous. The 35 maples around my acre lost about 50% of their limbs in that storm and it took them about 10 years to recover. We lost a couple of them since the storm, in part I suspect because of what they suffered then.

We had freezing rain in the early hours of this morning. It wasn't nearly the scale of the Ice Storm of '98 but after an experience like that your mind jumps back and you hope it doesn't turn into another 3-4 day storm. This one was mild. Maybe ⅛" of ice. Enough to make everything slippery and a few things picturesque. The photo is of a vine on one of the garden trellises. We had a couple of different sorts of vines planted there and I'm not sure what this one was.

The Littlest Christmas Tree

About 20 years ago Diane was working for Ames Dept Store and they gave each of their employees  an evergreen to plant. It was a single stem with needles, no side branches at all. We stuck it in the ground and it did nothing for about 2 or 3 years then it grew a few side branches (small ones) and then stalled again seemly a permanent dwarf. I moved it to the front of this flower bed a couple of years ago, intending it to be a temporary home but it seems to like this spot and has started to grow again so... I guess I'll be rearranging the flower bed to accommodate the tree as it grows. It seems a shame to disturb it again when it has found a home it likes. Today Diane suggested that we put some lights on it for the holidays. While we were out shopping I bought a string of 50 lights and strung them on it when we got home.

Bloom Where You Are Planted

Photographers, especially landscape photographers like me, often feel they have to go off someplace special to make photographs. Photographs of something iconic, the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Yosemite or the like. I used to tell my photo students to shoot what was around them and though I do make several trips each year an hour or so South to the Adirondacks I also spend a fair amount of time photographing the flowers in my own garden and the sights around the tiny hamlet where I live.

This morning, after several grey mornings in a row, the sun was brilliant but we left the cellular shades down because it was -6ºF and was projected to get up to only about 9º. The shades help retain heat. They also glow nicely as the sun shines through them and I was intrigued by this light on these objects in the livingroom.  As I looked at them and the light, I decided I wanted to make a photograph. It needed a square composition, so it is cropped, and the extremes of brightness required three exposures which I combined in Photomatix using the exposure blending option. I also added a pseudo film edge as a border.

As I'm sure is the case in most people's homes, all the objects have memories attached for Diane and I. The clock in the upper left came from our daughter. She bought it for herself but one of her cats insisted on jumping atop it and knocking it off the wall. I fixed it for her the first time it got broken but after it got knocked down again she gave it to us. The finial from the bottom is still broken and is behind the large cow next to the clear bottle. I bought the two bottles in an Adirondack antique shop while I was in college. The Buddha came from a visit to Diane's parents. Her father took us to a flea market that he occasionally did some work for. The owner, Pete, had a woman's hat on it and it was painted all black. We bought it (but not the hat) and I repainted it copper and gold. I also built the small stand for it. The plant is one of Diane's. If it were up to me to look after them they'd all be shriveled and dead because I'd forget to water them. The small bowl in front of the Buddha's stand holds shells and pebbles from Leo Carillo Beach in California which we visited one Thanksgiving when our son and daughter-in-law lived in Thousand Oaks. The blanket chest everything is on was inherited from my grandmother who inherited it from her parents. I think, though I'm not absolutely certain, that my great-grandfather built the chest.

The moral, if there is one, is that you need not go far to find subject matter.  Don't reserve your picture taking to special occasions. Use photography as a way to look more closely at the world around you every day.

Holiday E-Card Time

Best wishes to one and all regardless of the holiday you celebrate. The traditions of Christmas go back centuries before December 25th was adopted by the Roman Catholic church to represent the birthday of Jesus. The 25th of December was celebrated by early Romans as the rebirth of the sun after it "died" on the shortest day of the year. The traditions of gift giving and decorating homes with greenery in this season go back to even earlier times. Today we have several religious holidays clustered around the solstice and Christmas is a civil holiday as well as a religious one. So whatever your religion or beliefs, may you find joy in the beginning of another trek around the sun.

Shameless Commerce

I have created a series of four Adirondack posters which I am selling as archival prints. One of the series appears above. The others can be seen at either my Picasaweb galleries or my Photoshelter galleries. The price is $80/poster. They are signed on the face in ink and on the back in pencil with an ordinal number and the date. They would make a nice holiday gift for someone who loves the Adirondacks or just loves the outdoors. They can be mailed in a tube to your home. If you live in NY state I have to charge 7% sales tax. For the holidays I will absorb the postage. I take Paypal. You don't need a Paypal account and you can put it on your credit card. Email inquiries and orders here. Please put "Poster" in the subject line so your message gets through my spam filters.

Christmas Wish Lists

A friend asked what was on my ""Santa list", things I want for Christmas. My first response was that I didn't have a Santa list but upon more thought I decided there were things I'd like, things like world peace, an end to hunger, health care for all, a meaningful job for everyone who wants one. Those aren't in Santa's bag though.

There are things I'd like for myself too. I'd like to be in better physical condition, more like I was 18-24 months ago before I got off my regular diet and exercise routine. I'd like to have more people buy my prints which would result in me having more funds to pursue more photography.

The problem with all the above, not just the first group of wishes but the personal ones as well, is that they aren't things. They are conditions and conditions can't be given to you by anyone else. You have to create them for yourself or in the case of the first group contribute whatever you can to create them.

So my real Christmas wish is that we would all remember that the things we give and receive for the holiday, no matter which of the several holidays that fall around the winter solstice, are only symbols of our real desires for conditions that will only come about through our actions. Or as Gandhi said "Be the change you want to see in the world".