Category Archives: Photography

Trees Deciding They’ve Had Enough

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So it’s all awesome and wonderful living under the big, shady, green trees on the edge of the lake. Or, it is until they come down. In the lake. And you have to get them out.

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It’s a perfectly clear afternoon (albeit there had been heavy rain on the previous day), blue sky, no wind, quiet and peaceful. Then 2 large pine tree trunks, without any warning, begin falling toward the lake. The tree is what is called a combinant tree. It has two trunks coming out of the same root body.

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At first there was hardly any noise. Then gunshot loud cracking sounds as the falling pines land on and take with them a beautiful 10″ Maple.

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Now I don’t mind too much losing the 2 pine tree trunks, other than the expense involved to get them out of the lake. But the loss of that gorgeous hardwood Maple tree just breaks my heart. The violence and volume of the cracking noises it made as those 2 pine tree trunks took it down is something you can’t un-hear. The poor thing was fighting hard for it’s life all the way down, as it was nevertheless relentlessly broken.

That’s enough drama for a while, Mother Nature.

Nobody Eludes Me for Nine Years!

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Easily the most skittish of the animals on the lake, this guy will flee in panic if a human comes outside, even on the far side of the lake. Up until now the only shots I have been able to get of him have been thru window glass from inside the house.

But no more! I got him! I saw him coming and managed to sneak into hiding and wait until he stalked by right in front of me.

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He is a Great Blue Heron (Wikipedia) and frequently hunts around the edge of our lake. I have been trying to get an up-close out of doors shot of this guy for like 9 years now. With an average life span of 15 years in the wild, it’s possible that this could be the very same guy who has been frustrating me all of this time.

Redemption.

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Capturing a Moment In Time

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I have always looked at photography, among other things, as capturing a moment in time. One point of time, frozen forever, viewed as I saw it, and framed for others to see as I would like them to see it.

I recently resuscitated my Imacon Flextight Photo scanner and have been going back over some points of time that I have frozen from years past. This is one of those moments, taken back in the early 1980’s in Piedmont Park, Atlanta Georgia. Obviously triumphant at having finished the Peachtree Road Race, this woman absolutely radiates happiness as she collects her race commemorating t-shirt at the finish line. It’s a point in time 30 years past now, but do you think she remembers this moment in her life?

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Hungry Hawk Hunts

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After all the brutal cold, ice, and snow around here, this big guy (click on the picture for a larger image) showed up today on the first sunny afternoon. He is a Red Shoulder Hawk, hungry and paying close attention to where his next meal may come from. Funny thing how the forest gets real quiet and empty when he’s around. I’ve seen him get squirrels, snakes, fish from the lake, and of course, other birds. Now if only that list included Canadian Geese. In spite of his predatory behavior, he is one of my favorite animals. If I could come back as a bird, he is what I would be.

Infrared Digital Photography

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I recently bought a IR760 filter to use on my Nikon D200 camera, as I’ve developed an interest in taking infrared digital photographs. This filter mostly allows only infrared wave length light to pass thru it and be recorded by the camera’s sensor.

With some trial and error, and long exposure times, I managed to get this shot of the lake in full 1PM afternoon sunlight.

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Most digital cameras have a built-in filtering function to block infrared wave length light. That’s because for ‘normal’ light images, infrared light will damage the quality of the photograph. So with an un-modified digital camera, you are somewhat fighting one thing to achieve another. You are trying to collect and use infrared wave length light, while your camera is trying to block those same wave lengths of light.

Unfortunately for my infrared photography, the Nikon D200 is known to have a very effective block of those ‘un-wanted’ infrared light waves. This results in very little infrared getting to the camera sensor, and correspondingly long exposure times. Not ideal.

So I’m thinking I will eventually get another camera body – modified especially for infrared ability. The modification involves removing the built-in filtering block on infrared light.

More equipment to carry. More expense.

It never ends, does it.

They’re back…

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In my last missive I mentioned the frogs on the lake. Every year they make their presence known again earlier, and in colder weather, than we ever would have supposed.

True to form, on February 24th I started hearing the small noises that the baby frogs make as they begin to sound off around the lake. Also true to form, it was 35 degrees the next two days, and I could not believe those little frogs were surviving in that cold. But survive they do. Even thrive. Every year.

By the middle of the summer, they will be so loud that they are the dominant sound out here at night. Even with the air conditioning on, and everything closed up tight, you can still hear them from inside the house.

The picture shows a fully grown adult frog in our garden. It was taken last fall when he was sluggish and allowed me to get close to him. He is about 6 inches long. For scale, that is a full size pine cone off to his left.

As I said before, you would certainly never know frogs are in any kind of environmental trouble if you were listening at this lake in the summer. I only wish they were doing as well everywhere else.

Foggy Winter Morning – Honey Lake

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This winter morning the water is so flat and reflective that it’s hard to tell where the shoreline stops and the lake water begins. There are no Canadian Geese (Birdicus Annoyicus) honking around in the water. There are no foxes trotting around the lake. I don’t see the doe with 2 fawns standing by the shore either. No hawks are flying overhead. Nary a beaver nor an otter grace the lake today. It’s just dead quiet out here, with the silvery storm light refracting in the fog to take all the harshness out of the light.

I don’t hear any bullfrog sounds. During the spring and summer, they call to each other back and forth across the lake, I suppose with challenges to fight, and maybe invitations to hookup. And you’d certainly never know frogs are in any kind of environmental trouble if you were listening at this lake in the summer. But soon we will hear their calls again while it is still yet freezing weather here in Georgia. Every year we are always surprised at how early the frogs appear again. How do they stand that freezing cold when they are still so small?

Then there is the otter and beaver(s) which visit us. I’ve been wondering: How does an otter, and a pair of beaver, make their way safely to this lake in the middle of our residential area? The two small feeder streams flowing into this lake go underground 1000 feet or so north by east from here. The animals have to come from downstream of us. The dam spillway outflow stream is very small, at the most 2 to 3 feet across and less than a foot deep. The nearest lake south that the outflow stream flows into is about 1/2 mile away. So how can they suddenly appear here on this lake with fox, dogs, and people surrounding them while getting here?

And speaking of things we don’t know: Is Honey Lake really even the name of this lake? It appears on many maps that I’ve seen, but is never named. The Honey Lake name comes from long time residents of the neighborhood, who in turn have had that information handed down to them from other more elderly local area residents. Allegedly, 55 or more years ago, this was a stocked fish camp lake that folks came up to in order to get away from the city. With the size of the fish pulled out of this lake, I believe that is true. And I guess Honey Lake sounds as good as any other name to me.

That’s enough wondering for now. Back to enjoying the view, and the peace and quiet.

Penny’s Diner in Morrill, Nebraska, USA

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There I was, ‘heads down’ driving from Glacier National Park in Montana thru Morrill Nebraska to points east. In a blink I drove right past this flashy, luminescent, silvery, art-deco looking diner straight out of Americana.

Now, the landscape and scenery had been pretty flat and routine for what seemed a long time along that route, so the diner really jumped out at me.

Of course I had to turn around and go back to take a few photographs.

Thoughts of the waitress serving me a piece of hot, home made apple pie ran through my mind. With a slice of cheese on it, and a scoop or 2 of vanilla ice cream, I was big time waxing nostalgic for the good old days. But, being in make-time travel mode, I thought my thoughts, shot my shots, and jumped right back on the road again.

Yeah, all right, it did take a little bit of the romanticism out of it when I later googled Penny’s Diner and found out that it is a commercial franchise chain and not a small entrepreneurial throwback.

But hey! I wish now that I HAD gone in for that piece of apple pie….