Turtlehead With Spider

A friend told me that there were some Cardinal Flowers in bloom on the Stone Valley Trails which are just at the bottom of the hill from our new house. I've been so  busy with the move, painting, sorting, moving, throwing out, etc. that I hadn't been down to the trails since moving. Yesterday in the evening I rectified that with a short hike. I did find some Cardinal Flowers but I also found several Turtlehead plants including this one with a spider lurking on the underside of one of the leaves. While I was setting up to photograph another a bee landed on it but just then a breeze came up and set the plant swaying from side to side. By the time it stopped the bee had gone. Rotten luck. I like getting photos of flowers while bees are gathering nectar. On the Turtleheads though you'd have to catch the bee when it first lands. They go right down inside the bloom and out of sight to get the nectar.

Canon 7D processed mainly in Lightroom 4 with some additional sharpening in Photoshop CS 5.

Van Gogh Exhibit

We went up to Ottawa today to see the Van Gogh exhibit that continues through Sept. 3rd. I saw the announcement when it went up in May and vowed to go but just now got around to it. Van Gogh is among my favorite artists, not the top but right up there. I couldn't help, while standing in line to get tickets and then to see the work, but think about his struggles. He sold only two paintings in his lifetime, and those sold for a pittance. He survived because his brother supported him.

The exhibit was excellent and I recommend it if you can manage to go. Ottawa is only two hours North of me and is the closest large city to where I live. I really ought to make an effort to get up there more often. Unfortunately the "open border" between the US and Canada isn't as open these days but if you have all your papers it's still manageable. I do miss the way it used to be though with lighter handed officialdom and no guns.

The photo is one of a handful I made with a Canon G11. Art galleries aren't fond of people taking photographs so I didn't take the 7D. It has been manipulated in Lightroom, Photoshop and Postworkshop.

Childwold Church Again

I've been meaning to go back to photograph this church again and this evening I did. When I first stumbled upon it coming home from an earlier trip to the mountains I didn't have my wide angle lens or my tripod with me. I wanted the wide angle lens for some interior photos and the tripod to do some HDR images. Earlier plans to go back were delayed by some storm damage that has now been repaired.

This is the last of the images from this evening. I started around 5:45 and did the interior shots then went to eat and came back around sunset to get this view. Some may dismiss it as cliche but I wanted to highlight the side windows and the architecture. I thought shooting after the outside light was lower than the interior light was the best way to do that and I'm happy with the result.

Canon 7D, five frame HDR. I cloned out some electrical wires and picnic tables in the far side yard. As always you are free to copy the image for your computer desktop. An other uses require my permission.

Another View

Another of the photos I made yesterday of Mossy Cascade falls, a detail of the center section. The clouds were moving fast and I managed to catch a moment when the sunlight was on the center.  Canon 7D again (the only camera I took yesterday) and the 18-135mm EFS lens.

Kirk Tuck posted a link on his blog today that is worth watching even at an hour and 20 minutes http://vimeo.com/34608191 . I may have to watch it a second time. There are some interesting observations and thoughts about the state of art today and where it is going in the future.

Mossy Cascade Revisited

After weeks of work cleaning out the old house and having a three day sale of "stuff" I needed a day off and went down to the Adirondacks for some R&R. I hadn't been back to Mossy Cascade in Keene Valley since hurricane Irene had created all the flooding last year and had massively altered the Cascade Mt. waterfall. I wondered how Mossy Cascade had fared.

On the way I stopped at the farmers market at the Keene airfield where I ran into someone I had met when doing craft fairs around home. He gave me the low down on the farmers market which I might do next year. There were some very high quality crafts there along with the produce.

At Mossy Cascade the falls themselves are unchanged by the flooding but the creek bed below the falls did experience some significant erosion. The trail to the falls from where it departs from the Hopkins Mt. trail is a bit trickier than it used to be with probably 50% of the old path washed out. It never was a great trail anyway but it's a bit more difficult now. The blessing is that it is a short trail.

The above photo is the 'standard' view, the one everyone takes although I shot three vertical frames with the Canon 7D with the 18-135 lens at 18mm, then merged them into a large (25MP) square composition. I took a few other views that I hadn't tried before.

Heading back I noticed a sign "ART IN THE BARN" on a small bridge that goes to a private road. The sign said it was open 9-4 and since it was 3:30 I indulged my curiosity. It was a nice little gallery. There were some excellent pastels of local scenes that I recognized.

Coming home on the Santa Clara Rd. I drove through a downpour while in sunshine. It was a strange feeling to be running the wipers in sunshine and the rain was coming down so hard that it bounced off the pavement making the road disappear in a grey ribbon of mist. It was a very good day to be in the mountains.

Darkroom Goodbye

No photo to offer my readers today, just thoughts. I spent the day clearing out the bathroom/darkroom in our old house. I haven't actually made any prints in it for probably 7 or 8 years. It had become more of  a store room during that time gathering all sorts of non-photographic "stuff". All the same it was a bit depressing to pack up the enlarger along with all the other paraphernalia. My darkrooms have always been makeshift affairs. In college I covered all the windows of our apartment with black plastic and worked at night to produce news photos for a local chain of papers. I finally quit when after 2½ years I figured out that I was netting all of 40¢ per hour between travel, shooting and printing minus expenses.

This latest darkroom was in a former (and now renewed) bathroom in an upstairs apartment that we chose not to rent out. I had at last acquired some decent equipment (a couple of pieces were better than decent) just about the time digital came on the scene. Although I still occasionally shoot B&W medium format film, I scan it and print digitally these days. In my estimation there is no reason whatever to shoot color film any more except perhaps to burn through any you have stashed in your freezer. The best color film scan can't match a good RAW file, it's not even close.

In spite of that, shutting down the darkroom formally was a bit of a downer for me. I have a lot of pleasant memories of working late into the night in my make-do darkrooms. For those who have never done it (and there seem to be a lot of you now) darkroom work has a very different quality than editing photos in the computer. Lest anyone feel ire at that, I'm using the word "quality" to mean a difference in kind rather than implying that one or the other is of greater value. I spent most my time in darkroom work doing it alone or in the company of my wife who assisted me with it in college. Printing in the darkroom was a withdrawal from the world to a darkened space, almost like retreating to a cave to meditate on and perfect the images. And once your got it right for any given photo, your job was to repeat it as many times as you needed to make the required number of prints, each exposed, dodged and burned to match the others as closely as possible.

No typing a number into a dialog and clicking the "Print" button to run off a batch while you grab a cola. Instead we had a direct and visceral communion with each print, handling each sheet of paper, pulling it from its light tight box and wrapper, placing it in the easel, making the exposure, watching it appear in the developer, following it through the wash and drying process. I was doing a lot of split filter printing on multi-contrast paper with separate dodging and burning to each of the two exposures for each print.

Perhaps those years in the darkroom are why I am sometimes uncomfortable with the relative ease of editing and printing digitally, a nagging feeling that I am relying too much on the software, the keyboard/mouse/stylus creating a barrier to the tactile relationship with each print that was intrinsic to the wet darkroom. Those of you who began photography after the digital revolution or who never printed your own work will never be thus troubled but for those with a past of chemical stained clothes and fingers there is a  lingering sense that we are somehow cheating when we print digitally, a sense that it isn't really us and our skill producing the final image.

An Old Friend

I have been driving by and frequently photographing this tree for years. I think its days are numbered though. Most of the leaves you see in the photo are a vine that is using the tree for support. The actual number of leaves on the tree is down significantly from last year and I'm wondering if it will leave out at all next year.The roots get the energy to carry a tree through the winter from photosynthesis in the leaves through the summer. With this few leaves the tree may be winter killed.

Despite all the times I've photographed it, pondered its persistence in spite of being "challenged", and generally appreciated it aesthetically, today was the first time I attempted to identify it. I took my tree guides with me and as near as I can tell it is a Black Walnut although there is a chance it might be a Butternut. I could only go by the leaves and they are both sparse and somewhat stunted so they might not exactly fit the standard shown in my tree identification books.

As a result of our move I soon won't be going by it frequently if at all. I'll miss it like an old friend and wish our parting could have come with it in better health.

Acres of Sky

Our new place has an open meadow in back of the house that gives some great views of the sky. We were surrounded by trees at the old place which was nice because we were in town and the trees gave a sense of privacy to the one acre lot. Here I'm enjoying watching the sky, especially around sunset and the twilight just after sunset as in this view. The former owners used to brush hog the field but I like it as a natural meadow with wildflowers. I mowed the meandering path to the woods. I'll leave the rest. If something starts to grow back there that I don't want I'll cut it individually rather than mow everything as a preventative measure. Come August 11 I plan to park a lawn chair out in the meadow with the back reclined as far as it will go so that I can go out at night and watch the Perseids. I hope it will be clear that night.


Canon 7D. Three vertical frames stitched.

French Pond Rd. Again

Two photos for your pleasure. I've featured this house before, a detail of the front porch, back on May 24th. I liked this view of it as I was driving down the road this afternoon. There is a barn across the road that is falling/being torn down and I made the second photo of that.

Both were made using my Canon 7D with the 18-135mm lens. Conversion to B&W was done in Nik SE Pro 2 (top image) and in Lightroom 4 (bottom image). To share the photos with others, as always refer them to this page. Copying and re-posting elsewhere without permission is prohibited not to mention bad manners.

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..

New B&W eBook From Guy Tal

Guy Tal has come out with a new ebook on digital B&W. I was privileged to get a chance to review it before the release (today) and was impressed by its thoroughness. I have a lot of respect for Guy's vision and skill and in this 59 page ebook he lets us in on his working methods for B&W.

I should start by saying this is a book for those who are serious about B&W and their art. If you are looking for a guide with 10 quick and easy tips for better B&W, this book is not for you. If you are into using Lightroom and Photoshop to do conversions and want to step it up to the next level by studying how one of the best does it, you want this book. Although it is brief it isn't light reading and I'm sure you will learn something that benefits your work even if you are already an advanced digital photographer. The insight into his thought process and methods alone are worth studying. I recommend it highly.

The ebook can be purchased at http://guytalbooks.com/catalog_show_ebook.php?bid=4


or you can use the link in the left hand column to reach his ebook page.
The photo above is a page from the beginning of the book.

Pulling Weeds

Yesterday, while looking at a friend's flower garden, I found myself pulling her weeds. As a long time gardener it is a habit but as I think about it it is more than that. Many years ago I learned that when confronted with and feeling overwhelmed by problems and situations I found the best remedy is to pick one or more small things that you can actually do something about and focus on getting that done. The key of course is to recognize the things you can actually effect from those you can't. The benefit is that by focusing on what you can do, you both channel your attention away from the things you can't change and you shorten the list of things that are stressing you out.

Pulling weeds is that kind of activity. What needs to be done is simple and direct, identify the plants that don't belong and remove them. When you get done there is the reinforcement of seeing a weed free garden. Any simple chore will do the same if you approach it with focus. So can creative activities like photography. By really looking at the world around you, thinking about it in photographic terms, you step away from stresses and gain power, the power of creating something of beauty and value that you can share with others.

The photo was taken with my smart phone with processing in PostWorkShop3 and Photoshop CS5.

Yes, My Grapes Are Sour

A while back I entered Outdoor Photographer's 3rd Annual Great Outdoors  Photo Contest. I have received an email announcing the winners. I wasn't a winner or even an honorable mention. No surprise there. They had thousands of entries and they were good photos. So what's the sour grapes about? All the winners and honorable mentions were western landscapes. All of them. Every one. A look at the finalists reveals that all but (maybe) 7 are western landscapes. Even the maybe 7, one shot of tulips, several seashores and a couple of others, aren't clearly not western. Come on people. There are great landscapes all over this country. One reason I rarely buy or read OP anymore is that they seem stuck on a particular idea of outdoors and it usually involves the western US. Open request to OP: If you are going to publish outdoor images, could you show a little less bias toward one region?

The photo above was made in Northern NY about 20 miles from the Canadian border (as the crow flies). It was made with a Canon 10D and a 28-135mm lens on an overcast May evening after a rain.

Back to the River

I drove down to Clayton today to see the tall ship Fair Jeanne. There was also a tug boat at the dock and that became the subject of today's photo. It was a grungy working ship but there were some visually interesting details. The Fair Jeanne was a nice ship but more modern than the Lynx which I toured and later cruised on last year. I confess to being partial to the old wooden tall ships. It's purely a matter of aesthetics. Steel hulls and decking look out of place with tall ship rigging, at least to me they do.

The ships were there for a festival weekend that had way too many people for my taste and loud boat races that made wakes that rocked the 100 foot plus tall ship. The promos said there were food and wine booths but the only food booth I saw was pet treats. I did buy a bottle of North Country Red from the Thousand Island Winery booth.

I did find some images on the Fair Jeanne. The one I like best from there is also a detail, a photo of a brass cleat and some rope on the afterdeck.

 Both photos made with a Canon 7D and an 18-135mm lens.