Need better curtains

Al Denelsbeck

I was out on the back deck firing up the grill tonight and checked out the various plants that share that space. One of the hydrangeas showed something grumpy (or at least, I’m wildly interpreting it that way.)

hydrangea bush with hidden occupant
No, I’m not really expecting you to spot it easily at this distance, I just did this one for context, though it’s there if you look close. But even I was ‘closer’ than this when I spotted it, not to mention knowing to look closely because I’d seen it on the same bush a few days previously. That’s a clue, if you know your species, because a) it’s daylight, and b) this says the species tends to return to the same general location.

I’m going to take up more space so you don’t jump to the next image too fast. You can see two other plants in the frame: a peach tree above and slightly right, though technically that’s not on the deck itself but the ground below it, and a small but wonderfully dense Japanese maple above to the left. That one in particular is less than a meter across, perhaps slightly shorter, and has the thickest canopy of any tree that I’ve seen. Itself, it may have harbored countless occupants that I could never spot, except that the leaves are too small to be comfortable for the species in question for this post.

Okay, we’ll go in closer now.

hydrangea bush with hidden occupant
Shouldn’t be too hard now, though you can easily imagine that, were you not specifically looking for things of this nature, you could be standing right next to it and miss it entirely. Which is the goal, really – it’s why they have such coloration, and know to hold very still, though in many cases I suspect it’s simply because they can’t be bothered.

Closer yet.

hydrangea bush with hidden green treefrog Dryophytes cinereus
Okay, now you’ve surely seen the little green treefrog (Dryophytes cinereus) that was mostly sheltered from the sun during its daytime snooze. It was the early evening sunlight peeking through at just the right angle that made me get my camera, that kind of ‘slip through the cracks in the blinds’ form of sunlight that makes you realize how thin your eyelids really are. Too early to be awake, but unable to sleep in the glare, the treefrog was likely just sitting there stewing irritably. Or am I letting my imagination and anthropocentrism color things?

green treefrog Dryophytes cinereus under hydrangea leaves
Aw, dammit, it’s going to tomorrow – gotta not do these so late at night. But I was also out getting some other images just a short while back, ones that belong in another post, so that will be along shortly too. Anyway, change ‘tonight’ to ‘last night’ because this posts after midnight… or will it?

Tripod holes 26

Al Denelsbeck

Blue Ridge Mountains at Green Knob Overlook on Blue Ridge Parkway
N 35°43’3.71″ W 82°13’21.89″ Google Earth location

Back when I was trying to locate Crabtree Falls, I stumbled across this location on the map (Green Knob Overlook) and instantly recognized it; comparing Street View with my photo produces an exact match. Many years back I was doing my second trip along the Blue Ridge Parkway north of Asheville, NC, and stopped at an overlook to do a few frames. Not the best of conditions, since the day was pretty close to overcast, and as I stood there I watched the fog come boiling up through the valleys immediately below me. It was quite memorable, because you typically don’t see fog move like this, if at all. The Parkway was cut along the side of the mountain and immediately behind me, opposite this view, rose a steep mountainside. The wind suddenly started to pick up, blowing a bank of fog up over where I stood, and then I watched it also come boiling down the mountain face behind me in a quite dramatic and foreboding manner. In moments I was completely enveloped and visibility dropped down to a dozen meters or so. Abruptly I realized this was not fog but an actual raincloud – not like there’s a lot of difference, but I was high enough up in the mountains that ‘cloud’ was actually more appropriate. I could feel the humidity in the air and the dropping temperature and took the hint: within a minute, I had the cameras and tripod in the car just as the first raindrops fell, and by the time I was leaving the parking area it was rapidly becoming a deluge. This did, in fact, continue for the next hour and I cut my trip short, knowing I would get no more decent opportunities within the mountains.

The Blue Ridge Parkway meanders all over the place, constrained by the terrain, and I didn’t even consider trying to locate the spot where I got the photos – and then happened across it by accident, and confirmed it for this post. You really should go to Street View, turn to face the rising mountain opposite the parking area, and imagine a billowing cloud of grey rolling directly down that face towards you. While I had done some video of the cloud coming up from the valley below, I had put that camera away before the bank came down the mountain face – no great loss, because what I had for video at that time was the Canon Pro 90 and the quality was execrable, which is why I’m not uploading those clips for this.

But if you’re after mountain photos, the exact location really doesn’t matter a whole lot; if you’re anywhere near this spot, as long as conditions are good you should be able to find plenty of scenic views. Curiously, I’ve done too few trips out there and my ‘Mountain’ stock folder is disturbingly spare – I really should work on this.

A break

Al Denelsbeck

sunset breaking through trees at Jordan lake
After three days of near-solid rain, including a horrendous downpour while we were getting dinner last night, the sky suddenly cleared, mostly, and I went down to Jordan Lake out of curiosity, mainly to see how much higher the water level was. Surprisingly, it barely appeared higher at all, so either they kicked out the stops down at the dam end, or most of the water in the area hadn’t yet drained to the lake – perhaps both. But while there, I shot a few frames of opportunity. Above, I played with the angles to get the sun peeking past the tree, and for one frame, I slowly leaned out until the sun just made it past the trunk – it was weird because the shadow line was so distinct, my left eye was catching the light before it was appearing to my right eye through the viewfinder.

Below, a great blue heron (Ardea herodias herodias) took a prominent perch.

great blue heron Ardea herodias herodias perched atop broken dead trunk
These trunks, by the way, are the same ones that opened this post exactly a year ago, but this is the first time that I’ve ever seen a heron chose to perch there. I’m glad I caught this when I did, because it didn’t last long.

Sunset actually turned out halfway decent – not fabulous, but better than normal.

multi-layered clouds catching post-sunset light
The post-storm clouds, the patches of humid fog rising from the trees in places, and the low light angle made a complicated mix of colors while there really wasn’t much red at all, but hey, it’s the best I’ve seen in a while. A little later on as the details started to fade, i did a small experiment with the foreground and flash.

buttonbush Cephalanthus occidentalis in foreground of sunset colors over Jordan Lake
Despite dropping the flash exposure down a bit, the buttonbush (Cephalanthus occidentalis) was still a little too bright, so I burned it a bit darker in GIMP. This was shot blind, by the way, roughly aiming the camera held out at arm’s length without framing through the viewfinder. As you might imagine, this is hit-or-miss, but I’m getting better at it.

And finally, a very weird-looking curiosity.

post-sunset clouds over Jordan Lake with specific lighting
I had the camera set for increased contrast and saturation, which unfortunately was too much for this frame, so I adjusted it back down in post. This was exactly how the cloud looked, only a portion of it catching the sun behind me (well below the horizon now) while the rest remained in shade. I get the irresistible impression of a long exposure with lightning illuminating the cloud from within, because I have plenty of images like that, but no, this is just what you could see from the lakeshore.

I know I’ve been to Jordan Lake too much, and have been trying to expand to other places, but scheduling and weather have not been supportive of that. It’ll change shortly.

Any falconers out there?

Al Denelsbeck

It’s occurring to me that it would be a lot easier to run experiments on photographic and camera options if I had subjects that performed consistently and when I needed them to. I can’t even get the cats to do this (no duh,) so it certainly isn’t going to occur with the raptors. Were there a bigger market among nature photographers (or, you know, if we actually got paid a decent amount,) I’d suggest someone start a business of trained hawks to perform on command, or perhaps even start it myself.

On Monday, before all the rains came, I went back down to the lake to see what I could see, and potentially try out some new ideas. Naturally, the osprey and eagles weren’t being as cooperative as they could be, though I still managed a few acceptable frames. Like this distant bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) circling lazily overhead that nevertheless appeared to question my presence.

adult bald eagle Haliaeetus leucocephalus circling overhead with head cocked at photographer
The eagle only got marginally closer, yet never displayed any indication of actively hunting, but then again, the osprey (Pandion haliaetus) weren’t doing all that much either. Someplace not too far off, someone was burning off a significant amount of wood, judging from the pall of smoke that occasionally drifted over the lake surface, and I believe this particular frame suffered a little because of it.

What I was hoping to get were a few good dives from the osprey, or really anything else that wanted to pretend it was an osprey, so I could see if some changes that I’d made actually improved things. It wasn’t a good time for this, apparently, and I saw just a few in the space of a couple hours, with only a handful of dives in there. One, I almost missed. The sky had cleared of all bird life and the camera was resting on my knees when abruptly, fairly close by, I found an osprey had swept in without any circling whatsoever and was already showing signs of having seen a fish, these being the dropping talons and the sharper banking.

osprey Pandion haliaetus banking in preparation to a stoop
With luck that I don’t think I’ve ever had before, the osprey was not too far off and facing almost directly towards me as it spotted the fish. Come to think of it, maybe if I could find just a fish trainer? That could work, though it might be a lot of effort for trainees that keep disappearing.

osprey Pandion haliaetus in head-on position entering stoop
There was very little hesitation as the osprey entered the stoop (the dive after prey,) and I endeavored to track it down. The lighting was a bit hazy so the colors weren’t as bright as I would have liked, but see all that above.

osprey Pandion haliaetus with wings tucked in stoop
Definitely accelerating now – look at how cupped the wings are.

osprey Pandion haliaetus extending glide slightly in stoop
I can only assume the fish began moving off, perhaps having spotted the bird bearing down, because in a split-second the osprey stretched out slightly to extend its glide. I say this more from viewing the photos afterward, because I was only trying to keep the bird in the frame as the camera cranked out three frames a second.

I still blew it, both in tracking and in running an experiment. One of the changes that I made was to assign a function to a button under my thumb, one that shut off autofocus as it was held – this is intended to prevent the AF from suddenly grabbing the background as the diving birds cross the horizon line. However, not only was the osprey too close for this to have a lot of affect, it was coming towards me, so shutting off autofocus would only guarantee that focus was off – better to take my chances. Still, I failed to keep the bird centered as it entered the water, and the splashdown was 90% out of the frame, but what I got was motion-blurred a little anyway. However, I was back on as the osprey emerged back up from its brief total submergence.

osprey Pandion haliaetus emerging from water after unsuccessful dive for a fish
This is only slightly cropped from the full frame, to give you an idea of the proximity, and looked perfectly sharp in the viewfinder, but I’ve been burned on that before – it’s hard to tell as the action is going on and everything’s changing, plus the resolution of the little image in the viewfinder isn’t anywhere close to the actual image. Neither is the LCD on the camera back, so checking it onsite remains meaningless. I was prepared to find that focus wasn’t quite on for this frame, and very pleased to be wrong this time. That’s the secret to a happy life: maintain low expectations.

But we need to go in closer on this frame.

closer crop of soaking wet osprey Pandion haliaetus emerging from water
Can you tell from this that the osprey missed the fish? No, of course you can’t, because birds don’t really change expression, but it would be easy to believe this anyway, and the osprey did emerge empty-taloned, which was more the average for the day while I was out there. So from an experimental standpoint, I didn’t have a lot of luck, but if you count the results instead, well, okay then.

That kind of day

Al Denelsbeck

slightly wet pansy Viola x Wittrockiana blossom
Today is the summer solstice, the longest period of daylight in the calendar year, as well as World Humanist Day – but I’m not posting about either of these (or much of anything, really.) It’s been raining for two days straight, which we’ve needed, which is a horribly adult thing to say – pathetic all around. But this means I’ve done very little photography, only some of that for a halfway-decent reason. Mostly though, I’ve just been neglecting the blogohedron. Some semi-recent photos will be coming up shortly, so for now I’m featuring two images from yesterday, between the wets, and recognizing the holidays in the lamest way possible.

This is naturally one of the pansies (Viola x Wittrockiana) that The Girlfriend put into the front planters, which are now also hosting the regular balloon flowers and the decorative sweet potato vines, as long as I can keep the damn deer from them. I wandered around shooting a few frames while things were damp, but on unloading realized that a few of them I could do better, though this wasn’t one of those chosen to be revisited. Still, while out there a bit later on, I decided to fire off another frame in case the conditions seemed better, only this time there was an addition.

pansy Viola x Wittrockiana blossom with raindrops and crab spider Thomisidae
I checked, and there was not the faintest sign of the crab spider (genus Thomisidae) in the earlier frames, but it hadn’t been that long since the rain had stopped, so it was probably still well under cover. There is a difference of three hours between these images, but you can see that only some of the raindrops have disappeared – it was that kind of day yesterday, still is today, and will remain so for a while yet.

Meanwhile, a friend has slammed down a challenge: two images that indicate, “True,” and, “False,” without emphasis on the primary colors of red, green, or blue, without being too creepy, or vague, or really, overly specific. This has had me picking through the stock folders for a while now. But I like the challenge – the question remains as to whether I’m up to it or not.

Tripod holes 25

Al Denelsbeck

moon through branches of tree laden with Spanish moss
N 28° 8’18.14″ W 80°37’49.41″ Google Earth location

This one’s precise – not of where I was standing, because the angle isn’t perfectly recalled, but certainly of the tree itself, which is still there despite this image being taken in 2003, I believe. I was cruising around at night on my bicycle looking for good subjects for B&W film and realized that I could frame the moon within the limbs of this tree. I was working with an Olympus OM-10, partially because it was light and easy to carry on the bike, partially because I could leave it loaded with Ilford Delta 400 while shooting weddings with my workhorse Canon, but this meant only guessing at the exposure and not even knowing how close I was until I unrolled the negatives from the developing reels. Yes, I was doing my own developing too (which I really need to get back into again,) and this was a little problematic in Florida during the summer months; the ideal chemical temperature for film developing is 20°C, but since the water lines weren’t buried very deep the water would come out of the tap at 25°C. I could either try to maintain an ice-cube bath at the proper temperature, pretty tricky for the half-hour that it takes to develop a roll of negatives, or adjust the development times, knowing that contrast would be altered.

I don’t recall which I did for this, but it came out just fine regardless, and the guess at exposure time was perfect. The sidelighting on the tree and mosses, clearly not from the moon, was actually from the floodlights of the old school that owned the property, which would have produced an ugly amber color cast had it been on color film – here it just adds texture.

While I’m not fond of picking favorites or even qualifying photos in this manner, I think this is probably the best true B&W image that I’ve shot – it’s not a huge selection, after all. But this also throws down the gauntlet – gotta dig out the film cameras again…

Two bugs and a bird

Al Denelsbeck

On an outing the other day, I captured very little of interest, but I can throw down a couple of frames anyway. I initially went back down to Jordan Lake in an attempt to repeat my luck of a couple weeks ago, but that failed miserably. So while poking around, I snagged a few images of vague appeal. Boy, just selling the excitement, aren’t I?

painted lady butterfly Vanessa cardui feeding from buttonbush Cephalanthus occidentalis blossom
This was not at all the way to go about it, but I was too lazy to change lenses, plus the fact that in the time it would have taken, the butterfly might have left, plus the fact that I still wanted to be ready for osprey and eagles, so this was shot with the Tamron 150-600 lens – I can’t complain. This is a painted lady butterfly (Vanessa cardui) feeding from the recognizable blossoms of a buttonbush (Cephalanthus occidentalis.) I shouldn’t tell you this, but I trust you: the synchronicity of the butterfly’s wings and the leaves of the bush wasn’t actually noticed at the time, though I cropped the frame to emphasize this here. But how well does the long lens perform as a macro? Let’s go in closer on that same frame and see.

close up of painted lady butterfly Vanessa cardui feeding from buttonbush Cephalanthus occidentalis blossom
That’s not too shabby, that is – or isn’t; what’s the proper word there? Either way, I’m not going to make a habit of this, mostly because I have two good-performing macro lenses already that aren’t one quarter as unwieldy as the long Tamron, but it’s nice to know that its close-focus ability is more than acceptable.

Eventually I left there to check on two different osprey nests to see if there was evidence of the young having hatched, but on the way out I heard some nearby ‘muttering’ that I recognized, and immediately spotted this guy taking a perch in a narrow opening in the branches.

red-bellied woodpecker Melanerpes carolinus, possibly juvenile, perched on bare branch
I’m hesitant to switch away from the long lens too quickly, because that habit has stood me well before, and again here. This red-bellied woodpecker (Melanerpes carolinus) might well have been a juvenile, and I say that partially because its proportions didn’t seem quite like an adult, and partially because it was cackling softly with another in the immediate vicinity, who I caught only the barest glimpse of; I’ve had experience multiple times of woodpecker siblings hanging around together and gossiping softly. This one, at least, shows its namesake pinkish belly, one of the least visible traits for a species to be named after, but not as bad as double-crested cormorants.

Neither osprey nest showed signs that the young had hatched, though both appeared to be occupied, so I’m still biding my time. But while walking back from the second, I was passing a small field of wildflowers and shot another few frames of opportunity.

unidentified bug Hemipteran on unidentified aster
I did a brief search for both of these species, but there are too many variations of each, and too few details to pin anything down, within my sources at least. The flowers, almost certainly of the aster family, were no more than 15mm across, making the bug quite small in itself, but I can at least identify it as a True Bug (Hemiptera) because of the wings and proboscis. This was taken with one of those dedicated macro lenses, the Mamiya 80mm, but in difficult conditions, since the flowers were quite tall, over a meter, and thus swayed in the slightest breeze. Between that, and my attempts to hold still at the precise distance of sharp focus, it was largely hit-or-miss, trying to fire off frames as everything came together. Most of what I shot will be discarded, but this one is close enough, as a tighter crop shows:

unidentified bug Hemipteran on unidentified aster
Those are some fine markings there, continuing even onto the legs, though not helping it blend in with the aster at all. But you can imagine trying to succinctly (yet effectively) describe it in a search engine to determine the species; not worth any more time than I’ve already spent. I feel quite comfortable that your lack of certainty regarding the species will not be debilitating.

Sorting finds n+5, blurred bird edition

Al Denelsbeck

Scared up just a couple with the last big sort, and had a little bit of a theme going. What luck!

great blue heron Ardea herodias herodias shaking itself vigorously
While down at the Neuse River, three great blue herons (Ardea herodias herodias) were visible simultaneously at three different compass points, though most images of them were lackluster. This one, however, gained some action points when doing a quick shake to settle its feathers. No, it’s not missing a wing or anything – that’s the natural coloration around the wing joints.

For the end of month abstract last month, I featured two mallards (Anas platyrhynchos) captured while panning, and in going back through the images I realized that I did have a frame where all three of them were closer together, though I still liked the panning blur from the other one better.

2 male and 1 female mallards Anas platyrhynchos flying in close quarters during panning shot
Meanwhile, I mentioned in another post that, while I had numerous overhead passes from osprey (Pandion haliaetus,) somehow none of the frames that I captured while they were so positioned were actually sharp, so I’d passed on this one at the time, but then pulled it back out again because the dead-on stare from on high just had a small element of humor to it.

osprey Pandion haliaetus directly overhead and peering down at photographer, out of focus though
Osprey, like most if not all birds, cannot change expression, but this viewing angle makes the supra-orbital ridge, the ‘brow line’ above the eyes, about vanish and so we actually get an impression of surprise. Probably just an impression, because I’d been in plain sight for at least 20 minutes at this point so the osprey was simply glancing down at the sound of the shutter, perhaps getting its own curious pose from me as I craned backwards with the heavy lens (counterbalanced by the gut, though, so I was in no danger of going over backwards.)

And one not-so-blurred, damn sharp in fact, but it has a curious trait that I wanted to point out.

osprey Pandion haliaetus from underneath showing corneal distortion
Nothing seeming too remarkable, until you look close at the eyes and realize that you can make out the pupils even from this awkward vantage. And again, from 15-25 meters away as it cruised above the water looking for fish. But the focus is so short that the talons are blurred, if that makes you happier.

I’ve been back twice now, by the way, with virtually no activity either time, and evidence that the closest nest, at least, had not hatched yet. Just happened to get lucky with an extremely busy day, I guess.

To be improved upon

Al Denelsbeck

This is just an initial experiment, which admittedly came up promising, but I’m aiming for better.

conjunction of fake moon and superball planet
The beginnings of the idea have been kicking around in my head for ages, but then this variation came up just a few days ago, and I finally got the chance to pursue it. There’s been some faint color tweaking done to this frame, but otherwise it’s unaltered.

The most realistic-looking aspect, isn’t. The moon is actually one of those decorative self-illuminated orbs, about 18cm across, that I’ve had hanging over my desk at Walkabout Studios for a few years – they’re pretty cool, really. Its companion is – no, go ahead, guess. I’ll wait.

.

.

… Dum de dum de dum…

.

.

Give up? Or did you guess that it’s a superball? Which is correct – it’s semi-transparent, which made it perfect for this, and illuminated by a flashlight held just outside the frame. I did some others, with the light source actually underneath the superball and both bodies closer, but this one wins the post position. Both objects are perched atop light stands on our back deck, with me shooting straight down on them from the upper landing so the lightstands are hidden behind them from this perspective, but it was also done at night with no other lighting so they sat in darkness anyway. The superball is actually significantly closer to the camera, shooting at f22 for a high depth-of-field, but I’m going to try others with them closer to the same distance, which will make the ‘gas giant’ seem much further away.

I used the interior illumination of the moon ornament for these, but it’s a curious color register from the LEDs used and certain wavelengths of color seem absent, which makes tweaking the Curves kinda tricky. I could always try exterior illumination, possibly even doing moon phases, but it would have to be bright light and anyway wouldn’t work with this particular ornament, which is designed to look proper with its interior lighting and so the surface features aren’t true to the moon: to make the darker mares, the material has to be thicker and thus they aren’t smoother and flatter like the real satellite. However, I could probably print an accurate one…

We’ll see what pops up here later on. Aren’t you excited?

Tripod holes 24

Al Denelsbeck

boating couple on University Lake, Carrboro NC, backgrounded by sun's glare
N 35°53’41.45″ W 79° 5’35.46″ Google Earth location

Not long after moving to North Carolina in 1990, I was following some trails, really, quite some distance and found that they ended up at University Lake in Carrboro. I had my (not so) trusty Wittnauer Challenger in hand, a rangefinder with a fixed and so-so 50mm lens, looking for scenic opportunities, when I heard the rowers approaching. I found a decent gap in the trees and timed it as they passed through the center and the glitter trail, producing one of my earliest fartsy prints. Which, truth be told, I’m still fond of despite the thousands of photos taken since, and the commensurate (more or less, anyway) increase in skills. Many modern lenses would have taken the sunlight shining almost directly into the glass and rendered countless ghosts and flares, but this one just made it seem appropriate.

Know what’s scary? The young couple in the boat could have been married, divorced, remarried, and have not only kids, but grandkids since this photo was taken – who knows?

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