Land-o-goshen, that one’s done!

Al Denelsbeck

juvenile Chinese mantis Tenodera sinensis on azalea budYou ever do one of those projects big enough that there’s no real “Done!” feeling? You know, there are enough details to miss, enough functions to check, that you’re never sure you got them all, and there’s no real point when you’re completely confident that you’ve finished? That’s how I feel about website updates.

And yet, I will still come in here and say, “Okay, check it out!” and simply deal with any issues as they’re found. So, feel free to go peruse the updated image galleries in the main part of the site – I’m not even sure how many I’ve added, to be honest, but nearly all galleries have been expanded; the exceptions are The River gallery, because I haven’t been back to the Indian River Lagoon in Florida since 2005, the Sets gallery, and the In The Tank gallery, because the one addition I would have made to that went into Insects & Macro instead, which got very expanded to reflect the increased amount of efforts I’ve been concentrating in that direction. Even the Tips & Tricks gallery got that new page on cropping images (with video because, hey, you know me – always ready to broaden my horizons. Or something. It might be my vocabulary of expletives.)

Okay, I just counted, because I wanted to know myself: 56 new pages, 57 if you count the cropping page which went up a couple of weeks ago, and even more photos than that because a few of those pages had multiples. But that was more than I imagined. The image seen here, by the way, was one of quite a few that I passed on – this one mostly because I already have enough mantis photos, and the ones that I added this time around were stronger. There’s a surprising amount of thought that goes into such a project: which ones are strongest, which seem too much like the others, how do they balance in the galleries, is there a good variety, is there too much of one color, and on and on. This is on top of the writeups I do for each page, not to mention all of the tags, links, and meta-data that has to be included. Suffice to say I’ve been working on this, off and on, for months.

And there were a few of the old pages pulled down too, ones that no longer passed muster. Sometimes I look at photos from years past and, not really cringe, but definitely find them lacking in appeal anymore. There’s this faint underlying aura of embarrassment, kind of a, “Why is this even on the site?” thing – not too strong, but I’m definitely happy to replace them. Yet, I think that’s the kind of thing that anyone should be feeling if they’re progressing in their skills and efforts; it’s a mark of improvement, isn’t it? Dog only knows what I’ll feel if I start tearing into the slide files with the same thing in mind – they could probably stand it.

But anyway, that’s one major project down, by far the biggest. I’ve still got several more on the burners, though I’m not sure any of them will be reflected here in any way. I may be able to get back into more regular posting now.

And to that, we add “blue”

Al Denelsbeck

super clear sky over snowy pond
Now, here’s one significant advantage North Carolina winters have over New York. New York will be largely overcast and grey throughout the winter months, I mean like almost constantly, and the tendency is, if the sun does actually appear, it’s because a pressure system (don’t ask me whether high or low) moved in and dropped the temperatures like a bitch. But here in NC, it’s fairly common to have brilliantly clear sunny days almost immediately following a storm, and it does make for better shooting conditions.

snow-laden longneedle pine conesIn fact, while the temperature was lower this morning than it was during the storm yesterday, the sun was doing more than its part and got a head start on melting this all off, but it’s got a long ways to go. Notably though, when I was out in the direct sunlight, I actually started getting a bit hot, and I think I may have picked up a little color today; granted, only on my face, but that’s all anyone’s going to see of me for a few months anyway. I can save a little on the spray-tan.

It was also a damn sight easier to keep the equipment dry, but one still had to be wary of sudden tiny avalanches as the heavy loads broke free of branches and came cascading down, usually without any warning whatsoever. There was still no breeze, so generally the collapses occurred at random, though occasionally when disturbed by a bird.

Speaking of birds, the geese and ducks from yesterday were nowhere to be seen, which is just as well, since the pond had frozen solid by this point. And not even skatingly so; it was partially from accumulated snow and so not terribly smooth, and I’m sure not very thick at all. It likely wouldn’t have supported the weight of an average dog, much less a person. But I wasn’t interested in skating anyway (and in fact, haven’t ice-skated since I was five, which pretty much means “never” since you couldn’t call what I did “skating.”)

bright sun over frozen pond
snow cascading off of trees right into cameraIt should be obvious that I under-exposed the above image, by 1 1/3 stops, in order to keep the sun’s glare from overpowering the sky, and I touched out a little bit of lens flare too – nothing very serious. More curious is the warped starburst around the sun, which I’m guessing is an artifact of the aspherical lens.

Not far away, I got caught in one of those snow showers, and quickly pointed the camera directly into it – made for a dramatic photo that illustrates the conditions, but of course I had to clean a lot of snow off the camera and lens, and out of the lens hood. Still not half as bad as the deluge yesterday (can I use the word “deluge” when referring to snow? Somebody call Merriam-Webster and see if it only applies to liquid water.) But yeah, Douglas Adams’ advice applies extremely well to nature photographers: always keep a towel handy. And don’t take the disposable rain ponchos out of your bag for any reason.

And then, not far from that, I pointed the camera straight up to take advantage of the branches framing that sky. Once again, none of this is ice, or even adhering to the branches very well; just a liberal coating that has so-far remained undisturbed. In fact, right there at the top of the opening, you can see another little cloud of snow breaking away from the branches.

clear blue sky framed by snow-covered branches
All of that was well and good, and opportunities for more compelling landscape pics than I normally get around here, but the real captures were yet to come. Rounding the pond and passing by a small dead stump, I started hearing the taps of a (I thought) woodpecker, and could tell from the direction that they had to be coming from that very stump, not four meters away. I still had the wide-angle lens attached, and though I didn’t see any sign of the bird yet, I started switching to the longer lens. Before I had fully completed this operation, the noisemaker appeared from a very subtle opening near the top of the trunk and watched me suspiciously.

brown-headed nuthatch Sitta pusilla watching warily from hollow trunkThat’s a brown-headed nuthatch (Sitta pusilla,) a bird that I’ve never seen in the wild, though I’d handled one during my wildlife rehab days. It was, apparently, doing some work on its nesting hollow, which is quite gratifying to see since this is within easy access and visibility (if not exactly at the best sun angle.) I had the chance for just one frame before it hopped from the opening and flew up high in a nearby tree, and I knew it wasn’t likely to come back down while I stood there, so I quietly moved on. My intention was to return a couple of minutes later to see if I could get a few more images of it, and I amused myself with more landscape pics before I made my way back, getting the 100-300 L lens affixed before I came into range, and watching the opening carefully. My efforts paid off nicely.

brown-headed nuthatch Sitta pusilla in profile at nest opening
The bird wasn’t missing the sounds of the camera as I was firing off my shots, but I was remaining motionless and it didn’t seem to be making the connection between the sounds and this unmoving person nearby, looking around in all directions while I loaded the memory card.

brown-headed nuthatch Sitta pusilla still not sure what to make of the situation

brown-headed nuthatch Sitta pusilla hanging upside-down from nearby branch
It even hopped up to a nearby bush and hung upside-down in the wonderfully gravity-defying way of nuthatches, before returning to its nest hollow; I hadn’t moved. It disappeared into its hollow and re-emerged a couple of times, curious but never so alarmed that it felt the need to fly away, and even flashed its telltale pale head spot. I can, unfortunately, relate.

(mostly) brown-headed nuthatch Sitta pusilla showing identifying white mark on back of head
After, really, quite a few frames, I moved on while it was inside its hollow again. We’ll have to see what happens – whether it finds a mate and if eggs are laid, but it would be nice to be able to check on some young in the spring, and with luck I’ve got a little head start on habituating them to humans nearby.

Now, remember how I said yesterday that it would be better to have bright light on the snow-covered berries? Of course you do; I’m being insulting. Those berries sit right alongside the entrance to the pond area, so naturally I was checking them out. On entry, the sun wasn’t quite high enough to throw light onto them, so I saved them for when I was about to leave. As I approached however, I could see another bird sitting nearby, and it soon revealed itself as a mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos.) I had to go for this particular pose, since it wasn’t turning to face me – or at least, not aligning its body in my direction anyway. I’m not sure what motives to ascribe to this.

mockingbird Mimus polyglottos being rude
I fired off a few frames and watched to see if it would do anything interesting before I moved on to the berries, and the bird was more than obliging, and again not too concerned with my presence; there’s even a chance it was the same one I’d photographed about two weeks ago, since the shooting locations were only about 75 meters apart, well within a territorial range. And my patience paid off, because the bird popped down to a cluster of berries and started picking out a couple.

mockingbird Mimus polyglottos selecting a choice berry
And I just kept the frames firing.

mockingbird Mimus polyglottos with berry
No, I don’t know what kind of berries these are, and I would have thought they’d have been polished off long ago, but perhaps there’s something about freezing temperatures.

mockingbird Mimus polyglottos starting to swallow berry

mockingbird Mimus polyglottos with berry almost gone
And there it goes.

mockingbird Mimus polyglottos and no more berry
Ya gotta appreciate it when your subject is so cooperative. I waited around a little longer, but after two berries, the mockingbird seemed to think I was now a little too threatening and went back to the wire to keep an eye on me.

And yes, I did not neglect the berries myself. It only took three attempts over two weeks time.

unidentified berries with snow cap, bright light, and blue sky

The color of the day is “white”

Al Denelsbeck

voluminous snow around pond
We did not escape the clutches of the storm that passed across the country, though it did arrive a bit later than anticipated; I had the IP camera set up to run a time-lapse overnight, which captured nothing but rain. Instead, it turned to snow around 9 AM and continued all through daylight hours, which is a good amount for any location, but what we call “slammed” in NC. Thankfully, the pond is within easy trudging distance, so I was still able to get some pics without contemplating any driving.

The biggest challenge was keeping the equipment dry; it was a sub-freezing equivalent of a downpour. I wouldn’t call it a ‘blizzard’ myself, having grown up in central NY and seeing what that really means, plus there was no wind at all. But the snow accumulated in seconds, literally, and I had to keep drying off the camera and lenses.

Canada geese Grus canadensis in freezing pond with snow-covered backs
The Canada geese (Grus canadensis) seemed to be bearing up stoically under their shawls of snow – not very active and not looking happy, but coping. Shooting across the pond with the 100-300 L, the density of the falling snow can be seen easily.

The pond, almost rid of the ice a few days before, was gradually starting to freeze over, the snow becoming slush on the surface, which the waterfowl were cutting paths through, little channels of open water that they followed mostly single-file. During my animal rescue days, I’d gone out a couple of times to free domestic geese that didn’t have sense enough not to roost on the ice, thawing a small patch before it refroze and pinned their feathers, and thus them, to the ice surface; the wild geese apparently know not to do this, but I can’t look at them sitting in the middle of the thickening slush and feel comfortable with it.

mallard ducks Anas platyrhynchos following channel through slush
The funny thing was, with the air as still as it was and the temperature sitting just below freezing, it wasn’t half as uncomfortable as some of the days in the past couple of weeks, though you did have to be wary of snow dropping from branches down the back of your neck, and I was in a constant battle to keep it out of the camera bags. The Girlfriend and The Sprog accompanied me out there, so I can present an exciting action shot of yours truly, which at least shows off the snow piling onto my chapeau – I’m glad I had the foresight to double up with the broad brim hat and not just use the wool cap.

The author looking intrepid. Or something
But, admittedly, it was a losing battle, and before too long I called it quits solely because the camera equipment was getting too wet and I was afraid of moisture seeping into the electronics. We headed back and I quickly dried off the stuff and put it in front of a fan to help evaporate anything else away, letting the bags dry thoroughly as well. But I did have the chance to revisit an earlier shot and do something a little more along the lines that I’d envisioned. A bit brighter light would have been nice, but that wasn’t going to happen today. So it goes.

snow piling on unidentified berries
Maybe, if I get my shit together, I’ll be back with some macro snowflake images. We’ll see how it goes.

So what did 2017 hold?

Al Denelsbeck

Of course, with the replacement of a small stack of bound pages with kitten pictures on our walls and the practice of crossing out the incorrect date on our checks (neither of which actually occurs anymore,) it is time to examine the previous twelve months and try to figure out what went wrong, just so we can feel better about what the next twelve months might hold. And since I’m too self-absorbed to pay any attention to “world events” and nonsense like that, we’ll be doing this from the perspective of the blog itself – what else could you possibly need?

Let’s start with the ol’ tag roundup – I won’t be explaining this again, so see here or here or here if you need to, but otherwise we’ll go straight into some of the [really, there’s a] shitload of one-time-only tags that have been used. And we won’t be sticking to 2017, because reasons. I will say that the featuring of so many of Jim Kramer’s images last year produced a lot all by themselves, and if those below aren’t enough, feel free to click on the James L. Kramer tag to see even more.

more goddamn dew-covered webs – Not to be confused with more goddamn spiders in dew-covered webs. Shut up – let’s see you shoot something new and unique every. Damn. Time.

save a spot on the wall anyway – One day. One day.

you shouldn’t buy any of this except for the names – I’ve been called all of them – Granted, most of them were from my school days, but it’s the only part that’s not a lie.

etiquette demands smaller trees always go to the left – Also, “only dumbasses make that mistake.” A little guide for your composition.

interfering with the natural order in heinous ways – I’m sure someone out there is in total agreement.

Mongolian Cluster Fuck – Also, “seriously what the hell New Jersey.” Apparently I forgot I could put punctuation in tags. But check out that last illustration, at the very least.

she noticed – I’m betting it’s never been described this way before.

Look! Nipple bumps! – What? No, there’s not a theme going, piss off.

spellcheck doesn’t like “Batlizard” – Who programs these dictionaries anyway?

dammit Jim I’m a photographer not an entomologist – Also, “creepy creepy creepy.” And not that Jim – c’mon, don’t make me explain pop culture references.

Cleveland 2024: This time it’s personal – Will we fare better then? We’ll just have to see…

or maybe a bacon flute – Not even going to try to explain it.

the leaf’s even hand-painted construction paper – Shamelessly revealing a nature photography secret.

not only that but I’m a libertarian – Nobody’s even reading this, so…

leave a comment and I’ll send you a print – Safe to say I didn’t have to send out any prints. But say the magic word and maybe you’ll still get one.

The Vistas of Naughtiness – You gotta admit it has more class. Let’s start a petition.

no it’s not a stretch shut up – That one kinda ties in with…

for realsies this time – Because this really is a holiday. Not a widely accepted one, true, but it’s authentic. And then there’s…

I said on the solstice I would do this – That was this post, and I kept my promise. Though, granted, I had a tendency to forget about it, sometimes until it was technically too late. Which resulted in a rather interesting list of holidays for 2017. We had:

  • National Coincidence Day, February 11

  • National Contrition Day, February 12

  • National Fishing Spider Day, March 18

  • National Do It Thrice Day, April 30

  • National “What The Fuck Did I Just Eat?” Day, May 30 (which has perhaps the best blog title I’ve ever written – at least it’s vying for that spot with ‘Booger Nights‘)

  • International Feature A Photo Series From The Previous Month Day, June 24

  • National Treat A Nature Photographer To Dinner Day, July 28 (yeah, thanks for that, everyone)

  • National Miss An Astronomical Event Because of Shitty Conditions Again Day, Aug 12 (curiously, this was intended as kinda-foreshadowing of chasing the total solar eclipse later on in the month, for which I, at least, had excellent conditions.)

  • International Dive Into a Gas Giant Day, Sept 15

  • National Celebrate A Holiday From Earlier In The Year Day, Sept 24

  • International Time Warp Day, October 6

  • Annual Make Up A Bogus Holiday Day, November 30 (unfortunately, I missed this one.)

  • Kill Three Birds With One Stone Day, December 31

    • Naturally, you shouldn’t neglect the tags on any of those, either.

    So now we’ll feature an image from each of the previous 12 months, along with my top choice post(s) from each. Of course this isn’t saying much, but hey, whaddya want? Should I pick the worst posts? Or perhaps the posts with the most egregious grammar mistakes? Hell, if I made them, I probably couldn’t spot them, so I’ll leave that one up to you…

    January
    We’ll go with Nothing too serious, for a couple of images from the dead season and some editing tricks on another. Which means the featured image is going to look familiar; January didn’t exactly have a busy shooting schedule. But can you find what I added into the deep fog?

    deep sunrise fog across field
    February
    unidentified early blossomsThis month’s pick is again applicable, because it’s Podcast: What to do in the winter. And don’t ask me what kind of blossoms these are, because I don’t know, but they were at the nearby pond.

    March
    See, this is why I don’t often rate things, or pick the bestest and all that: I often find it hard to choose, or want to define criteria. So I’m going to go with I’m back baby!, but only by the tiniest margin over Friday color revisited, which probably appeals to a broader range of people because it doesn’t have a snake appearing ready to strike within it (the snake was most likely fast asleep, and anyway it’s a freaking photo so what’s the big deal?) For the feature photo, we have some double-crested cormorants wheeling overhead at sunset.

    double-crested cormorants Phalacrocorax auritus against sunset sky colors
    April
    Hands down, the post has to be Too cool, part 35: A modicum of success, for some really close pics and even video, something I’ve been wanting to incorporate into my macro work for a while. Such examples will be increasing in number, trust me.

    For the image, one that’s been sitting in the blog folder waiting for me to feature it, because from the moment I saw the scene I was thinking, “That’s one damn strong spider.”

    spiderweb in stretched fence
    May
    Another dilemma: do I feature Various and sundry, the middle entry of three regarding the enormously productive trip to North Topsail Beach, or do I promote Doctor Domoore for its reflections on a changing attitude towards wildlife and our considerations of it? I’ll have to get back to you on this one.

    There were plenty of choices for the feature image, too, but I’m going with a pair of unidentified juvenile katydids playing peek-a-boo on a flower, one of the very few true insect images taken during that beach trip. See? I can branch out a little.

    unidentified juvenile katydids on unidentified flower and really did you need this description for all the good it did?
    June
    juvenile black-and-yellow argiope Argiope aurantia in webFill frogs is my choice, but the scoring system remains my secret. Meanwhile, the photo is of a juvenile black-and-yellow argiope (Argiope aurantia,) whereas an adult can be seen here. I have no photos of this one as an adult, because it disappeared soon afterward, one of the reasons the pic simply stayed in my blog folder. I’m guessing that the camouflage didn’t really work this time around.

    July
    It’ll be Eclectic and farraginous, showing astonishing breadth of subject matter – you didn’t imagine I had it in me, I know, much less such a command of vocabulary. The photo really needs no description, except for the species of dragonfly and I’m too lazy to look it up so there. And yes, those are raindrops, a brief summer shower.

    unidentified reddish dragonfly on stump against blue water
    August
    Flip a coin: Heads, it’s Podcast: Yeah, me too, and tails it’s About time to get out of the water. No cheating.

    [“Tails,” did you catch that? Oh, the depths!]

    Image-wise, we have a skipper butterfly posed fetchingly on a leaf, and if you’ve seen my cropping video you understand why it’s framed this way. You might, by some remote and freaky chance, agree.

    unidentified skipper butterfly on leaf
    September
    They are if I say so features a fine collection of strong images, and by ‘fine’ we’re talking ‘very small’ and by ‘strong’ we’re referring to things like cheese that’s been left out all week, because I’d hate for you to get the wrong impressions.

    Meanwhile, a student outing netted this long-jawed orb weaver (genus Tetragnatha, and I’m leaning towards T. elongata but they’re hard to tell apart,) quite vicious-looking but very timid and very common around water sources. Their abdominal patterns can be remarkably detailed for something that relies on camouflage to avoid being eaten.

    long-jawed orb weaver Tetragnatha possibly Tetragnatha elongata in profile on leaf
    October
    We’ll stick to my typical subject matter, and go with Macro photography, part 11: The lengths, the lengths, which even has a brief video clip to illustrate why you should leave this up to the professionals and pick something more relaxing, like ice-road driving. The same month featured a couple of posts on WWII aircraft, like the feature image, so perhaps you’ll want to argue my choice. Go ahead and try.

    fuselage of Boeing B-17G "909" of Collings Foundation
    November
    curious autumn coloration on saplingToo cool, part 36: Better than a lava lamp features a computer-generated video illustration of air currents across the hemisphere, which is fascinating, and very little input from me so there you go. And my fall shooting was extremely limited this past year but I thought this little grab shot was cool. Big fat hairy deal, I know.

    December
    And to close off, we’ll go with a long-winded philosophical post, because there haven’t been many recently and I don’t want you to think I’m getting soft. So go read The measure of humankind cover to cover, or don’t, and try to bluff your way through an essay about it – you should know by now that never works. Yet it still might be a useful perspective on our goals so give it a shot. You can always come back and tell me I’m full of shit.

    For the final image, we’ll get this closeup of a herring gull (Larus argentatus) cruising past overhead and managing not to poop on me somehow. I was shocked too.

    closeup of herring gull Larus argentatus in flight overhead
    And that wraps up the year-end retrospective. Join us again next January to see what you missed by not coming here regularly. And enjoy the next year but, you know, only the next 348 days – I’m not wishing you benefits beyond that point.

    The camera’s getting rusty

    Al Denelsbeck

    early evening fog over pond
    Yeah, that title’s a reference, not to the humidity as you might expect from the opening photo here, but to the general lack of use that my photo equipment has been seeing of late. However, I still managed to get a few pics recently, and a trip to the butterfly house is on the agenda this month.

    So, jumping in the car the other evening, I looked out at the pond across the street and saw that it was entirely socked in with fog, due to the sudden change in temperatures. I trotted back in and grabbed my camera, and even in that brief delay some of the fog had dissipated, but there was still enough for a few hurried shots before I had to be someplace, and that’s one of them above.

    mist and rain drops on cedar leaves against foggy pondThe next morning the fog came in again, so I did a little bit longer session then. The conditions were a little misty and there was even a brief and very light rain, nothing that would penetrate the camera bag much less force me back indoors, but it added some more humidity to the shots that I was taking, so, good! I won’t include a lot of exposition here, since I’m still busy with two big projects (both of which you’ll hear about when I finish them,) so I’ll throw them up here just to prove that I’m still alive, my version of holding a current newspaper I suppose. Ask you grandmother what a newspaper was…

    heavy mist drops on unidentified leaves
    dew and spiderwebs on unidentified berriesI was shooting handheld with no flash in some fairly low light, so doing the extreme macro stuff was going to be difficult, but I still managed to capture a little bit of the scene in one of the hanging drops, above. I had to be very careful when doing some of these, because going in close to the subject meant a high likelihood of bumping a branch, and even if it wasn’t a branch on the same plant as the subject, the two plants might still be in contact and could thus share the vibrations, which would likely dislodge any nice hanging drops. This happened more than once, despite my efforts, so you will just have to imagine the breathtaking images that I never captured due to my clumsiness.

    Meanwhile, I find it interesting how quickly the spiders can rally from the bitter cold that we had recently and have new webs out as soon as it gets warmer. And it got quite warm, like no-jacket-at-all weather, before the temperature began dropping again (it’s hovering just above freezing as I type this mid-morning.)

    I still have no idea what kind of berries these are, but it’s the same plant as the leaves above, so if you know what they are, feel free to laugh at me derisively. Or you can just tell me – that works too. Meanwhile, you did catch the splash of color that another branch added into the background, didn’t you? I framed it that way on purpose so I’m hoping it helped the composition.

    a pair of mallards Anas platyrhynchos and a male hooded merganser Lophodytes cucullatus cruising through fog
    This pair of mallards (Anas platyrhynchos) and a male hooded merganser (Lophodytes cucullatus, in the rear) were on the opposite side of the pond from me, shot through the fog with the 100-300 L, so this was as good as it was getting in those conditions. Still, I was pleased to see a pair of mergansers – the female was trailing too far back for good framing – and here’s hoping they decide to nest there this spring.

    The ice still hadn’t quite completely cleared, so I lowered the camera with the 10-24 lens set to 10mm just above the ice and shot a few frames blindly, finding that I have no feel whatsoever for holding a camera level while vertical and out at arm’s reach. Yeah, I have dared to call myself an experienced photographer…

    remaining ice on foggy pond

    Eventually, something happens

    Al Denelsbeck

    I remarked in the podcast yesterday that we’d had some cold but boring weather recently, which is fairly typical for central North Carolina – it’s not a region that sees a lot of snow, but too far north for foliage to remain growing and green throughout the year. This means most of the winter sees grey and brown grasses and bare trees, and not a lot to photograph.

    Only hours after that, however, the threatened winter storm finally rolled in and deposited roughly 5 cm of snow within about an hour. One small upshot of this was, with the bitter temperatures that we’d had leading up to it, the snow didn’t melt in contact with surfaces; this meant it swept off of cars effortlessly, and didn’t get that underlying layer of slush on the roads that makes them so slippery. I had to drive that evening but didn’t have to face either a long session clearing the car nor any real difficulty on the roads. Granted, I was still taking it slow.

    So yesterday morning The Girlfriend and I got a brief chance to do some photos before a busy day, and checked out the nearby pond. We hadn’t seen it earlier, when I imagine the ice was nearly complete but clear; by this time, it had a healthy coating of snow, and the geese that were flying in seemed more than a little put-out that there was no water to be seen.

    ice and snow on local pond
    unidentified finch and bare limbs silhouetted against skyI’ve mentioned before, I’m not much of a songbird person, but there isn’t a lot else to photograph right now, and they were notably active around the pond. Most of them were reluctant to let me approach very closely, but I took what opportunities I could. Most of them were also trying their damnedest to remain within the thicket of branches at every opportunity, so nice portraits were difficult to obtain.

    The sky was inordinately clear, the wind was gusty, and the snow could be dislodged instantly, so there was still a lot blowing around, and on occasion it would whip off of the ice in curling waves or even tiny tornadoes, ‘snow devils’ if you will, very cool to watch but too brief for me to capture with the camera. Because of these conditions, the scenic images of snow on branches or berries or pine cones weren’t really available, it all having blown off long before. And since the snow had rolled in during the night, I wasn’t going to get them when it was coming down, either. So it goes.

    The sparrow below was one of many, but the only one out in the open enough to make a semi-decent image from. Like all of those that we saw, its feathers were fluffed out against the cold, creating nice insulating layers of air beneath. I’m tentatively identifying this as a chipping sparrow (Spizella passerina,) but there are several species that have similar markings and can at least pass through the area, so I’m not putting it in writing.

    sparrow, possibly chipping sparrow Spizella passerina, on bare branches looking suspicious
    Northern cardinal Cardinalis cardinalis feeding on dried berriesMeanwhile, this Northern cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) absolutely refused to adopt a striking pose or even peek out from behind the branches, but it wasn’t until I downloaded the pics and had a nice close look that I realized this was because it was feeding on some diminutive unidentified berries. Like I said, the patches of snow on branches were virtually gone, so no opportunity for a nice composition with the red cardinal, blue sky, white snow, and perhaps deep green pine needles (about the only use they can be put to.) But at least the light angle was decent. That’s not really enough to save the image, is it? Fine – be that way.

    The best luck I had was with a northern mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos, which is perhaps the most expressive scientific name I’ve come across.) Clearly not concerned about my stealthy approach and more than accommodating about letting the sun hit its eye, I got a wide variety of shots and a few different poses, but settled on the one below both for the catchlight in the eye and for the flakes of blowing snow that can be seen in the air behind it. And yes, those are some really early buds on the branches back there – the weeping cherry in our yard has them too, don’t ask me why.

    Northern mockingbird Mimus polyglottos giving nice profile with blowing snow behind
    Examining this photo, I was struck by the negligible grip the feet seemed to have on the branch, not at all in tune with what I’d expect from such a gusty day. But as I was writing this post, a potential reason behind this occurred to me: the bird just might be minimizing its contact with the branch because the branch is so cold, and it’s thus conserving the heat in its toes. Someone with a greater knowledge of bird habits can tell me how (im)plausible this is…

    And finally, a splash of brilliant color, with the barest hint of retained snow. I have no idea what kind of remarkably fecund berries these are, and they were in a neighbor’s yard so I was shooting from the road with a long lens, but I like the color and the shine. What I didn’t like was the telephone line cutting across the sky, out of focus in the background, so I crassly edited it out. Really, those damn things need to go.

    unidentified brilliant red-orange berries against rich blue sky

    Podcast: But anyway…

    Al Denelsbeck

    And so, things finally come to a culmination, or at least most things. I’ve been deeply involved in several projects, some of them offshoots of others, some of them needlessly, but here we are. I’ll let myself explain it orally. Or aurally. One of those is correct.

    Walkabout podcast – But anyway…

    The first and foremost thing that I have to include is the link to the new page that I added on cropping images. And the reason that this took so long is that it’s a video, and not a casual one at that. I mean, music and dissolves and everything! Now I can add Producer and Director to my résumé.

    crop example of ruby-throated hummingbird Archilochus colubris at salvia blossom
    The other major project, which I completed just a couple of days before my deadline, was re-recording the first generation of podcasts, dating from 2012 and 2013. Those had just been audio versions of posts and not off-the-cuff like the current versions, but they had also been done with shitty equipment and I personally found them painful to listen to anymore, so just out of this frustration/embarrassment (frustrassment?) I redid them with the setup I’m using now, and they sound so much better. You can find them at the ‘Podcast’ link just beneath the banner image above, or by clicking here. I will note that the first few ‘casts from the new format, started in mid 2016, still suffer from bad equipment – they’re kind of stream-of-consciousness and not really conducive to being redone, so they’re gonna stay that way.

    I cannot recommend Audacity enough for audio work – a wonderfully versatile and easy to use program, and it’s open-source so it’s free.

    HitFilm is the package that I used for this particular video, and it seems to work pretty damn well, though so far I only have the one project that I’ve done with it – we’ll have to see if it holds up as well over time.

    By the way, I mention early on that the weather “wasn’t even producing snow” and was thus too boring to be shooting in. That changed only eight hours later, so there might be something to show for it soon. Which is my way of obligating myself to get out, shoot something, and post about it. We’ll see how well this works shortly, I guess.

    P.S. Oh, yeah – I mentioned the previous collection of podcast fuckups in there, and they can be found here. I imagine it’s pretty clear that I have no lineage to Puritans in any way whatsoever…

    Now just a moment…

    Al Denelsbeck

    bridge to Haw River island by James L Kramer
    Jim Kramer dropped me an email yesterday when I couldn’t act on it (which I’ll expand upon shortly) with a bunch of photos, and as he noted, they had been taken exactly 12 years earlier on December 31st, 2005. You might recognize the one above, or at least the bridge therein, as the same one I featured a couple weeks back as a Sunday slide entry. Had I known which date I’d taken that one, I could have posted it as yesterday’s Sunday slide and done a little “12 years ago today” thing because we all know how fascinating and meaningful such things are.

    Except– … wait. Something isn’t right here. If you use that link [why aren’t you clicking on these right away dammit? Why do you think I go through all the effort to provide them?] you’ll notice that they’re definitely different times of the year. Which confuses me, because I was positive, up until only minutes ago (of course, everything is ‘only minutes ago’ unless it’s ‘only seconds ago,’) that we’d only made one trip out there. I’m pretty proud of my ability to remember trips and shooting locales, and this is certainly a distinct area, but Jim has managed to collapse this whole worldview and make me question my sanity. So yeah, happy new year to you too you little bastard.

    Now, I know I’d gone back once since then without him, only to find the entire area closed off and posted with signs long before the bridge – or so I remember, but who the hell knows now? Someone’s probably going to show up with pics from last year showing me partying out on the island with Tom Cruise or something…

    Meanwhile, have a few more of his images.

    small torrent in Haw River by James L Kramer
    During this trip, I was doing a little B&W work, and have not only those negatives, I have a few scans of them on my computer. And yes, unlike the slides and negatives, those scans have an origin date like the timestamps on Jim’s digital images – but those origin dates only reflect when I did the scan, which could have been some time after I actually took the frames. I know (I think?) I scanned a few of the monochrome images very soon afterward because I had an immediate use for them, but I had no reason then to check the date, because of course I took them all at the same time. Shit anyway.

    sweeping, sharp-edged rocks in Haw River by James L Kramer
    leaf in tiny reflecting pool in hollow of rock, Haw RiverOne of the more notable traits of some of the rocks in the river, southeast of the bridge, was their curious nature: sharp-edged and quite hard, apparently, but seemingly shaped by the water with some very fluid curves to them. I remember (or not) being suspicious of their shapes, not really believing the water had done that, yet not being sure what was responsible for it. But while there, I got the fartistic image (I believe) at right that I’ve used here before. And I’m almost positive that the very spot was virtually right behind me in the pic below that Jim took without my express permission or knowledge. I’m pretty sure that the camera (a Canon Pro 90 IS, my first digital) is braced against my knee for a slow exposure to capture the running water, and is one of at least two bodies that I had with me, another being the Elan IIe loaded with monochrome film. I would have believed that I had one more with me, the EOS 3 loaded with slide film, but of course that’s a huge question now isn’t it?

    Al Denelsbeck hunched over a photo in the making in the Haw River
    James L Kramer taking photo of mushroom, seen from below the capI could recognize the viewfinder of the Pro 90 IS in the image above, but also have the photo at left of Jim himself taken during that outing, where I used the flip-out LCD panel to do a very low angle shot from beneath a mushroom, aiming up at Jim. Whether he actually snapped a frame during this time or just posed obligingly I’m not sure, naturally. I am, in fact, including this photo just to get back at Jim a little bit because of what he did to me here. Ha! Didn’t remember me taking this photo, did you Jim? Ha!

    And yes, we both tended to look a little eccentric while out shooting – Jim in camo, and me with my beltpacks. Neither one of us gives a shit; it’s about functionality and comfort, not style. Suck it, Taylor Swift.

    But anyway, since it’s pretty clear at this point that I’m not going to get to the upcoming post while it’s still the first of the year, have a happy and prosperous and joyful and whatever-the-hell new year, which is distinctly different from yesterday because Julius Caesar, who couldn’t put things on the astronomical solstice or anything where it would make sense. Regardless, I encourage good things to happen in a completely worthless but perhaps still emotionally meaningful manner. Cheers!

    End of Sunday slide month… something

    Al Denelsbeck

    empty windows paired up in abandoned building
    And so we come to Sunday slide 53, which we could only accomplish because Sunday was the first day of the year and, accordingly, the last too. But that meant we’d also have to do an end-of-the-month abstract, and I thought about this as I scanned this slide a few months back. Was there a Sunday that also fell on the last day of the month, to use this abstract? Yes, there was just one opportunity remaining. And here we are.

    The photo came from a spot near the Haw River, where a channel had been diverted to feed a mill, now long abandoned because, hell, who needs easy natural power when you can use petroleum products!? But I suppose the reduced demand for ground wheat and flour and such played a part, what with all the vegan granola fruitdaddy people eating their grains straight off the stalk in the fields anymore. Regardless, the two windows lining up attracted my attention, with a subtle nod to the curious juxtaposition of weathered bricks and the smooth facade way in the back there. It’s not my normal subject matter, but I’ll grab shots like this when they strike me.

    But wait! Today, believe it or not, is Kill Three Birds With One Stone Day. So of course I’ve got my last Sunday Slide in, and the end-of-month abstract, but what else should I do with this post? The answer should be obvious, naturally: we’ll also observe Kill Three Birds With One Stone Day. I love it when it all comes together like this, not contrived or anything.

    Spot the six differences

    Al Denelsbeck

    two versions of sapling reflecting in still lake
    The image on the right, at least, you may have seen before – I believe I’ve used it twice on the blog. I stumbled across the version on the left while searching for some images for a present project, and it’s only two frames previous to the right one. Both of these are not cropped, by the way – I’m impressed that I managed to frame the two of them so closely together while clearly having moved the camera significantly in between. But we all know how easily impressed I am with myself (otherwise this site wouldn’t even exist.)

    Okay, if you’re trying to find five more differences, don’t bother – there was only one. Or one that I know of; if you found more, tell me, because there was only one change that I made intentionally between frames, and if there’s more then I’m really curious who else was screwing around out there. Not that it’s going to do me any good now, since it’s been twelve-and-a-half years since these were shot.

    But yes, that rock – I decided the composition would be stronger without that lower rock in there, and removed it carefully so as not to stir up too much silt – if I remember right, I waited a short while for the water to clear, and the time stamp tells me there was about 90 seconds between the frames, so no evidence of age-related incompetence yet (I thought I should qualify that.)

    I realize that a large number of viewers might react in horror over the prospect of interrupting the natural order in this way, and believe me, I debated about even posting this – there’s a distinct chance that it will make me a pariah in the community. Okay, more of a pariah. Okay, I don’t really belong to any community to begin with. Okay, the words you’re reading constitute the sum-total of my social interactions, period. But I can still agree how terrible it is that I interfered in this way, and I truly feel ashamed about it. If you’re reading these words, it means someone else came along and posted a draft that I had sitting in my blog folders because I never could admit to this on my own.

    As for the frame in between? I can find no sign of it, so apparently it didn’t pass muster and was discarded – I know, I know, I’m sorry, but it happens sometimes, even to me. Even seasoned professionals find events occur outside of their control, once in a great while.

    [Just because my conscience is making me, I feel obligated to point out that the ‘average’ keeper rate among professional photographers seems to fall around 25-33%, meaning they throw out two to three times as many photos as they keep. There’s a lot of variation, of course, but the message to anyone is, there is no such thing as always taking the photo that you wanted or intended.]

    While looking to see if I had that intervening frame someplace, I stirred up another set of images from the same trip, taken within a few dozen meters. On at least one occasion, I thought one might make an appropriate “greenery” image, until I realized that the thick and vibrant plants in this frame are almost entirely poison ivy (Toxicodendron radicans.) Not the message I wanted to send at the time, at least.

    lush and enthusiastic thicket of poison ivy Toxicodendron radicans

    1 … 188 189 190 191 192 … 325