During a light rain, this foam on the North Branch River produced a wonderful abstraction. I'm glad I was able to capture it with my point and shoot camera.

From the North Branch of the Contoocook River in New Hampshire. I wanted to experiment using long exposures with moving water. Looks like I need some neutral density filters to exceed one second exposure times. This was a lot of fun though.

This is the Ernst family. They were kind enough share their holiday with us this year. There was much talk of photography since Fred is the owner of a new D90 camera. To show our appreciation, I dusted off some portrait skills and did their family portrait. It is easy with such attractive subjects.

May you all have a wonderful day with family and friends in celebration of gratitude. To all those who must do work, render service or protect us from harm today, we thank you.

And what it tells me may not be the best advice. . .

................. ...... ........................BAM!



Here's a fun camera technique that allows you to achieve an amazing motion effect. The non-manipulated image is below. This effect is achieved not with my trusty Lensbaby, but with a zoom lens and a slow shutter speed. That's all! I used my 18 - 55mm kit lens for this shot. First you'll have to select a shutter speed that will allow you to record the motion. Try something like 1/8 or 1/4 of a second. Adjust your f-stop accordingly for the correct exposure or use shutter priority exposure mode. While exposing the image turn your zoom ring smoothly either in or out while pressing the shutter. Start the zoom just before you press the shutter and continue to turn the zoom ring after the shutter closes. Starting before and ending after the exposure assures you that there are smooth zoom streaks during the exposure. You can use a tripod, but It is not necessary at these shutter speeds. I was able to make this exposure hand held. Go ahead and experiment with different motions and speeds. You will come up with your own unique and interesting effects.

When I visited the site of one of Andrew Wyeth's most famous works, I was deeply moved as I viewed the interior and walked the grounds. Many images were recorded that day as I tried to capture what I was feeling. Our Canon PowerShot A40, a two megapixel point and shoot camera was used to record the images. From that experience, the seed was sown for reentry back to my abandoned craft. Upon subsequent viewings, I've experienced disappointed that I have not evoked the same feelings I had during the visit. As I start to convert these images into black and white, the feelings have begun to return.

Since I am going to a birding club meeting this evening, I'd thought share picture from an avian event I witnessed a couple of years ago. This happened one snowy day very shortly after I took possession my new digital SLR camera. I noticed a dark flash and a commotion in the front yard. A pigeon size bird then flew off into a nearby tree. I grabbed my camera and went out to investigate. There were feathers an bits of frozen blood in the snow where the altercation had taken place. An unfortunate tufted titmouse had become prey. I noticed where the predator had perched and started taking pictures.

Over a hundred shots in strong contrasty light had been taken. They captured this sharp shinned hawk enjoying the spoils of the hunt. This image is heavily cropped and taken at a low resolution. I know better now how to get better results, but thankfully, the automatic modes still managed to document the event.

It is sometimes hard to believe the diversity of landscape in my own back yard. This is very close to my home, as is Ravenswood noted in recent posts.

More from the beauty of autumn. These leaves also have a compliment their visual beauty. The texture of the leaves is like velvet. A pleasure to touch.

SeaWorld 2004, taken with our first digital camera, a Canon A40. I love the blue tones in this shot.

This is a spanish moss draped tree from Devil's Millhopper State Park in Gainesville Florida.

Yesterday morning, on a long post "fall back" time change walk, a photographic opportunity presented itself. Before leaving home, I made a conscious decision not to bring my digital SLR camera, so as not to stop every two minutes and struggle with knobs and dials. We were accompanied by our neighbor Renee and her dog Zeke. Holding up Zeke's woodland explorations would be out of the question. The camera choice for the walk was the GPS equipped iPhone 3G. The GPS is a nice feature to navigate this stretch of woods which seems to have too many trails that cross and change direction with no logic. I humored myself with the thought that at least the phone had a camera of sorts. This is the older 3G sans "s". I long for the newer "s" model which has a better camera. While walking I remembered to do one important thing, clean the lens. It can get covered with fingerprints far too easily.

Let's get back said photographic opportunity shall we. . . Early in the walk this beautiful collection of lichen and moss encrusted on a large rock presented itself. I took one shot and was thoroughly satisfied. Upon return home, the image was post processed in less than five minutes and submitted to the blog album. The many colors, textures and shadows make a wonderful natural collage that I really enjoy. I hope you enjoy it too.

I took a walk in the woods today to try my hand at some macro photography. It was a beautiful fall day with lots of vibrant colors and textures. Take a look over at my photo album to see the rest of the pictures.

We went out to celebrate the Memorial Day holiday with my family and to take in the annual sporting spectacular. These pictures are more about the adaptation of my photography workflow than anything else. Hopefully this new process will allow me to be more "agile" in getting my photos sorted and published from now on. There are plenty more things I have to publish. The pictures are now in the photo album for you to enjoy.

Due to the overwhelming influence from this gentleman. I decided to buy a LensBaby 3G. Today was my first set of experiments with it. Since the 3G and Nikon do not play well I have to use a hand held light meter to get the right exposure. Today was a dark overcast day with pretty even lighting. It was also late in the day. I went extreme for the aperture and shot with it wide open for maximum distortion. The shutter speed was between 1/160 and 1/60 for ISO 100. Since changing the aperture requires the changing of iris discs, I made exposure adjustments with the shutter speed. Take a look and see what you think. I have a LensBaby section in the photo album. I hope to play more with the aperture discs on a brighter day or when I have more time to play using a tripod. So far I think this thing is pretty cool.

I've already been asked how the picture from the last post was done. I used some basic techniques and Photoshop to make it look half way normal. Double lighting and a curved background are the basics. The background is a piece of white 1/8" foam I had from fly tying. Close proximity to the light source also softens shadows considerably. I did so many things wrong. The exposure should have been calculated with a grey card. White balance was off by a mile. The arrangement could have been more symmetrical. I can go on and on. Dusting the cobwebs off my brain, plus adjusting to digital media rather than film, and owning no macro lens, all posed challenges. I've stated before that photography is a process of elimination. You learn to eliminate all the things that do not work until you come up with a formula for success. The huge bonus using digital media is that I went from nothing to published in about an hour. My minute abilities with Lightroom and Photoshop got me to results that I could at lease publish during the high pressure of NaBloPoMo.

The power went out today and there was no PB & J in the house.
We went to lunch on the waterfront so someone else could cook.


The wet and heavy snow broke many tree limbs.
The cedar in the front yard bent like a lily in bloom.



The snow stuck to everything.



The pungent smell of the traps was startling in the pristine whiteness.

Percé Rock by Eric Myers

Eric got published! This was the wonderful news I got this morning. It is documented here. I hurried to see him and the actual book. The book his picture is in is beautiful and full of interesting pictures and illustrations. It is titled Canada Rocks: The Geologic Journey by Nick Eyles and Andrew Miall, Published by Fitzhenry & Whiteside, Markham, ON Canada. Eric has worked very hard on his photography and it shows. This is one of my favorites. He also has an excellent blog and he inspired his brother Keith to chronicle his tour of America by motorcycle with a blog. The published photograph is from a previous trip Eric and his brother took to Canada. They are both motorcycle enthusiasts. So much so that Keith started a business called Moto-Maps. He makes compact flip chart type maps of planned routes for motorcycle touring. It is a great idea and the maps are very popular. While they travel, they take lots of pictures and video and post to their blogs quite frequently. I've lived vacariously through them as they travel around on two wheels getting bugs in their teeth. I don't know how vicarious it is, because the simple fact is, I don't have the guts to drive around at high speeds in something that does not surround me in steel.

Hats off to Eric. This reinforces the idea that you should always tag your photos!