November frost
As November nears its close of another year, I am reminded again of the change in focus of subject matter that happens this time of year. Color is certainly scarce now in Michigan. Deciduous trees are mostly bare, and many plants show their signs of drying up awaiting the weight of winter snow to bring them to the ground. Subject matter doesn’t exactly jump out and slap you in the face now like it does in the peak of fall color. It takes a bit more of a careful eye to see the interesting things that are still around.
Frosty mornings are becoming more frequent. We haven’t had too many mornings yet that have dipped below freezing yet, but this morning was one of them. Open areas had a good bit of frost and I noticed fog in the air on the pre-dawn dog walk. I felt inspired to get out the camera today for first light.
The woods near my home are a bit of a graphical mess as I have mentioned before – thorny thickets and tangled poison ivy vines everywhere, fallen trees scattered about. Even with the simplifying nature of fog, it can be difficult to do many scenics. So I turned to macro photography, looking for interesting elements that caught my eye. The frost pattern on this leaf was one of them. So many questions come to mind when I see something like this. Why did the frost form in this way? The leaf appears exactly as I found it lying on the ground. Why did other leaves right next to it have no frost at all? Isn’t it interesting that the frost pattern is in the shape of a tree, or a branch?
Curls of Goldenrod
Then I spotted the curly nature of drying goldenrod stalks and their leaves. Quite interesting graphically, so I photographed them. I don’t normally pay much attention to goldenrod stalks when they are showing their vibrant greens because the shapes don’t seem as interesting. “Dead” things sometimes make better subjects – go figure!
I didn’t make it very far into the woods. I probably made most of the images this morning within an area of 20 square feet. Such is the case with macro and exploring details on a November morning. The closer you look, the more you discover. Certainly when I see these images, I think November.
The images in this post were processed by Adobe Lightroom 2, luminosity masks in Photoshop CS3, and use of the Topaz Detail plugin. Original captures made with a Nikon D700 and a Nikkor 200 mm micro (macro) lens at ISO 400.
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Fall Aspens in Denali
It is somewhat ironic that I am writing this post as a following to my last one that reviewed a Photoshop plugin, but I think there are some important points to be made . It seems every year we have new terms to add to the modern photography dictionary. It seems every year there is a new software upgrade or new tools available that want to convince us that our photography will be so much better for it. New printers, new pixels, new lenses, etc, etc. The newest widget isn’t new to photography doing digital. Film fads, newer, mo’ betta lenses, tripods, papers, etc., have been evolving for a long, long time.
With digital however, tools evolve much more rapidly, and certainly the internet contributes to the communication. I am just as guilty as the next person to be sucked into some of it, or at the very least, want to try it for myself. Photographers, after all, tend to love gear and we all want the best image quality we can obtain. (more…)
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Lounging at the sandbar
I previously wrote about a nice Photoshop plugin from Topaz Labs called Topaz Adjust in these posts. It remains one of those plugins that I tend to use as a playground to explore possibilities. Sometimes it works for a particular image, sometimes I don’t care for the effects for that particular shot. It’s a tool like anything else. I have now had the opportunity to work on a few of my Alaska bear images with one of their newer plugins called Topaz Detail. (more…)
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Bears in landscape
I suppose it is only natural that one feels quite small when in some place with so many grand features as Alaska. You can get these feelings pretty much no matter where you are at however. Just look up into a star filled sky or even that large tree in the neighborhood. I think it is helpful that we have these reminders when we may be thinking of ourselves as masters of the universe. Nature has more than one way of keeping us humble. I think relationships of size also make for interesting studies in photography.
I pulled two images from my trip where size and relationships obviously play an important role in each. It is interesting how our minds begin to process the visual ques in each of them. We may often think of brown bears as being these large ferocious predators. In the context of a larger landscape, they appear quite small, and almost insignificant. The bears are a mother and a spring cub – obviously different in size between the two.
Wading moose
Alaska was the first time I have successfully photographed moose. We have them in the upper peninsula of Michigan, but I have never had much luck finding them. This is another animal that you don’t have much impression of how big they actually are until seeing one close. As I understand it, Alaska is home to some of the biggest moose, often standing over 7 feet tall at the shoulder. I didn’t get a chance to get a tape measure out for this big guy, but I would estimate him to be at least that tall. So contrary to the bears above, the moose fills the frame here obviously communicating something entirely different as far as size. The monster rack helps a bit. :-) Then again, I photographed this moose from a boat at eye level, and since a large part of his height is underwater – I thought it was an interesting play on height perception.
Dichotomies of size can be found all around us, and I find photography an extremely effective medium in exploring them.
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Well, it is good to know some animals show genuine concern for the welfare of wildlife photographers. Those long days in the field, traveling to remote regions with so many weight limits imposed that there is little room left for food. Take note – you may not go hungry after all. Fortunately the rules concerning feeding of wildlife do not apply the other way around!
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