Boardwalk Fishing

The boardwalk at the Hoover Mudflats is used for fishing, as you can see, as well as bird watching.  There are several osprey nesting stands set up that bird watchers with binoculars – or photographers with a zoom lens but not me this time – can view from the boardwalk.

The Sunrise, The Moon, The Palms and The Pool

One day we actually set our alarm to wake up in time for sunrise on the beach.  We had to walk past the hotel pool in order to get to the path to the beach when I saw this and knew I had to capture this wonderful moment.  It was the best sunrise of our stay as the other days the sky wasn’t as alive.  This is an example of high ISO when you are shooting hand held in a low light situation.  The ISO for this shot is 5K and while in the past this would’ve made one horribly noise filled image, today’s modern cameras can handle this and higher without too much damage to the image.  Some people even like a certain amount of noise in their images for that old film effect.  Plus, there are so many noise reduction programs and other ways to reduce noise in Photoshop and Lightroom.  What was important to me was capturing this oh so brief moment in time no matter what the ISO was.

It and the rest of the shots we took that morning were worth getting up at 5:30 in the morning on our vacation.  I will share the color version with you tomorrow.

Shot details:

F3.5 – ISO 5000 – 1/40 – 35mm – Canon 5D MarkIII

 

 

Still life: Calla Lilies in Black and White

A still life (plural: still lifes) is a work of art depicting mostly inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which may be either natural (food, flowers, dead animals, plants, rocks, or shells) or man-made (drinking glasses, books, vases, jewelry, coins, pipes, and so on).  wikipedia

One goal I set for myself this year was to work harder at my photography; read more, take lessons, get out of my comfort zone, etc.  Practice practice practice!   Recently I’ve been trying still life photography.  I believe I have the basics as far as the camera aspects are concerned, it’s just coming up with the subject matter that’s been giving me some trouble.  Here is one of my first attempts, a vase of calla lilies shot from above in monochrome.

Mohican Wildlife Weekend

This last weekend of April saw the 16th annual Mohican Wildlife Weekend.  What is that? I’m not quite sure I know either but we got caught up in it nonetheless.  You can read all about it here since I’m still not quite sure what it was all about but I did learn that it takes place in several different areas here in Ohio.  We went to the Ohio Bird Sanctuary to see and take photos of the birds there which happened to be one of the areas involved in the weekends events.

The birds were beautiful, I learned some new things about them, I could’ve sworn one crow said Ohio (or perhaps it was just Hi) and DH got really up close and personal with a Blue Jay.  Can you find the little Screech Owl, Laz,  sitting in this tree trunk? He blends in very well which you will see next.

 

Lenten Rose

The gardens here besides being filled with tulips and daffodils (many that may have been blown away by age and a recent rain storm) also have a great deal of these flowers in different colors.  This week I will be featuring the other blooms that are in season now at the Inniswood Metro Gardens.

 

Monochrome Macro

Not every image that is in color will work well in black and white – and vice versa – but sometimes when there is enough contrast, details and texture in the subject as with this tulip, it converts very well.  I did a tight 1:1 crop on this photo in order to fill the frame with just the tulip bloom and added a warming filter to cut back on some of the cool tones of the original black and white edit. Tomorrow I will show you this tulip in color and talk about (in my opinion) what comes through best/better in one edit as compared to the other.

 

Scenes from Town Square

The Village Green situated in Bar Harbor, Maine is the spot on Main Street where you can purchase a park pass to Arcadia and then take a shuttle bus to the park.  You can explore restaurants and shops, take a walking tour or just sit and watch the world go by.  It’s a beautiful little square in the middle of all the goings and comings on the nearby streets.  It was also pretty good for street photography.

How I wish the weather here was as nice as it was the day I captured this gentleman soaking up the sun on a warm September 2016 day.