Va Va Bloom!

Brenda and I are spending over a month in the Hill Country of Texas during the latter part of March through April. We planned our trip to coincide with the spring wildflower bloom. Texas wildflowers: legendary, diverse, vast expanses of colour ranging from orange, magenta, blue, yellow and red.

Roadside oak tree and bluebonnets

The rainfall patterns in fall and winter are important factors that determine the quality of the spring bloom and we are fortunate this year to have had sufficient precipitation to promise an above average bloom. I feel fortunate, especially after experiencing the brutal winter in Northern Ontario this year. Texas has been in a protracted drought in recent years and the wildflower bloom has been less than optimum these past few years, the last good year occurring in 2010, according to noted wildflower photographer Gary Regner who lives in this area. Gary’s website and blog http://www.texaswildflowerpictures.com/update.htm is a great source of information and updates for the visiting photographer.

Ranch fence and Texas paintbrush

Oak trees and Texas wildflowers- paintbrush, phlox and bluebonnets

The pictures I present at this point have been harvested from areas south of San Antonio. We are still awaiting the full bloom in the Hill Country around Austin, Johnson City and Marble Falls but patches of colour are appearing every day as March slides into April with an expectation of a mid April peak.

Texas paintbrush and bluebonnets surrounding a cactus

Diverse patches of clourful flowers

The areas south of San Antonio are flatter with pastures and farmland dominating the scene. Travelling the country roads we find flowers in the roadside and in the fields beyond. When the sky is clear I can include the blue sky. When the light is soft and overcast I try to exclude the white sky, concentrating on more intimate scenes. Focus stacking technique is sometimes necessary to extend the range of sharpness near to far in these flat landscapes.

Texas wildflowers bloom on the grounds of a country residence

Bluebonnets and paintbrush with spring trees

The traffic at times is fearsome, especially on the major highways around Austin and San Antonio but the smaller side roads are well maintained, less heavily travelled with wide shoulders for safe pull-offs. With careful planning it has been possible to use secondary routes to avoid the bumper-to-bumper traffic in and out of the big cities.

Texas paintbrush and spring trees, Somerset TX

Texas bluebonnets and oak trees, near Somerset TX

Friday the Thirteenth

I suppose it is bad luck when the morning brings temperatures much lower than they should be for this time of the year. This morning I heard the news reader mention that the dreaded ‘Polar Vortex’ has returned. I took my iphone out on the deck this morning along with bird seed for some extremely fluffy chickadees, redpolls and pine grosbeaks. I stopped for a photo of our deck thermometer. It is the coldest morning of the year so far and January has come and gone.

The deck thermometer at sunrise 2015 02 13

But for me the photographic silver lining in this Friday the 13^th cloud is the potential for some good window frost photos from the back window of the garage. We have an unheated garage and the back window looks out on an expanse of snow covering the lawn. My woodshed casts a blue shadow for the first hour or so of morning after sunrise. In addition there is a band of dark spruce trees behind the lawn so I have a choice of backgrounds ranging from pale blue to dark. Sure enough the frost feathers had formed. I remember Dennis Fast lamenting that he has lost the opportunity to photograph the buildup of window-frost that occurs on cold mornings now that he has a newly renovated sunroom with more modern air-tight windows.

Garage window frost feathers. Blue shadowed snow background.

Garage window frost feathers. Spruce woodland background.

Achieving sharp macro photos is one of the biggest technical challenges for this project. I have to improvise a support for the camera and lens in the optimum position for these photos. I need to support the camera during exposures on a rather unstable wooden workbench. I found that a beanbag on a milk crate, shimmed if necessary to prevent wobble, works better than trying to set the legs of my tripod on the workbench. The micro lens has very limited depth of field, even at f22, so to achieve sharpness everywhere in the frame I need to position the camera and lens so that its sensor is absolutely parallel to the window frost. I use extra boards under the milk crate to add or subtract height depending on where I need to frame the frost, choosing the nicest swirls against a blue or dark background. The backgrounds are so distant that at f22 they remains soft.

Garage window frost feathers. Sometimes a 2-3 frame focus stack is needed if sharpness varies from top to bottom.

For my frost photography I use a 200mm micro Nikkor with or without a close-up diopter (for extra magnification) that can be attached in front of the lens. The D800 produces such large files that any one can be judiciously cropped if necessary and still produce a Tif of adequate size. I always shoot RAW with a manual exposure of about 0 to +1 depending on the background. I prefer manual White Balance that I can adjust afterwards too. I use my hand to dampen the camera into the bean bag. I use Mirror lockup and a cable release to further ensure sharp results. After each exposure I check the histogram and zoom to 100% on review to assess sharpness (there is a menu setting that activates a button for this action).

Working inside the garage keeps me out of the wind but it is still very cold so I need to dress warmly and use gloves to handle the camera. I like the Freehands photography gloves with flip-back fingertips (held back with neat magnetic buttons). Once I finish I wrap the camera in a big plastic bag and let it warm up inside the house. In a few hours the beautiful frost feathers will sublimate off the window.

Interior window frost with rising sun @ -40C

Interior window frost with rising sun @ -40C

Christmas Images

Seasons greetings, Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas to one and all!

Christmas morning light on trees in the yard

After the family traditions on Christmas morning have been attended to there is sometimes an opportunity for me to do some nature photography, something that I always ask permission from the family before venturing forth, sometimes just on the deck, sometimes in the driveway, never too far from home nor for too long.

Christmas morning light and fresh snow on spruce trees

 

Christmas morning sunrise

Christmas is one of the quietest days of the year to be outside. The winter weather over the past 8 years- the time period from which these images were chosen- has been variable in the extreme. Cold days, El Nino warm days. Days with little snow but morning frost and days with beautiful fresh snow. This year is promising to be gloomy and wet but I am hoping the rain turns to snow in time.

A red fox lounging on a small roadside mound

 

A chickadee spreads its wings near the bird feeder

Through these past 8 years, when the conditions were excellent and the light was magical, I knew I had to forgo some of the family traditions and take time to make some pictures. Please enjoy these images made on a very special day.

Junction Creek snowfall 2012

Ice formations along Junction Creek

A dusting of snow on grasses along the driveway

Garden grasses

Tree shadows on snow drifts in the yard

An ice puddle at the edge of the lawn in an El Nino year

Santa Claus takes the kids for a ride

The Five-Day Black and White Challenge

My friend and professional Canadian photographer Mike Grandmaison was challenged by his editor Roy Ramsay to produce a black and white image each day for five days. Mike then passed along the challenge to me and others in his photography network. Pictures were uploaded to Facebook pages. You can see some other excellent efforts at ‪ http://on.fb.me/1tQ9EoK

Larch trees in autumn at dawn. Lively Ontario

Eroded landforms at Zabriskie Point. Death Valley National Park

I will preface my comments by admitting that while I enjoy black and white photographs I have never made any images on B&W film nor have I spent any time mastering B&W software techniques. So this indeed is an offering made by a ‘newbie’ to the greyscale game. That being said, B&W software is fairly easy to use, whether it is embedded in a Raw processor or is a third party stand-alone plug-in. I chose the Photoshop third party route, using Perfect Photo Suite by onOne Software. I found it easy to use, offering a robust set of features and adjustments together with pre-sets. I did not use any pre-sets for this assignment although there are plenty from which to choose.

 

Spring deciduous woodland with carpet of blooming trilliums

My main goal was to select images with good contrast that would feature elements of visual design, such as perspective, line, shape and texture, all created with variations of tonal contrast. I tried to retain shadow and highlight detail and I tried to select from a variety of subjects from my files, both close to home and abroad, landscape, abstract and wildlife.

 

Frost patterns on a windowpane

These first five images in this gallery represent my selects, followed by a short slide show of also-rans. What’s your favourite? Would you have chosen any from the ‘also-ran’ list to take the place of my 5-day picks?

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The Bones of the Earth

Grapevine Mountains badlands

We visited Death Valley this January, camping for five nights at Furnace Creek. With moderate temperatures in the winter this national park is a popular destination for tourists, especially on weekends therefore it is wise to make reservations ahead of time.

 

Eroded formations near Zabriskie Point

Eroded foothills of the Amargosa Range

Death Valley National Park is a landscape photography mecca. I was well prepared for my first visit since 1990, having purchased an excellent e-book guide for the park, as well as having drooled over many fine photos made by various other photographers in books and on-line over the years. The dry hills are fantastically eroded by wind and, ironically, rain. It’s one of the driest places on earth with very little vegetation. The valley floor has weird formations created from mineral laden water that flows into the valley but has nowhere to drain and quickly evaporates. Years ago the famed California photographer Galen Rowell made reference to ‘the bones of the earth exposed’ when describing an image he made in Death Valley.

 

Cottonball basin- salt and mud patterns caused by evapouration from an endorheic pond

As I drove the park roads (it is an enormous place to visit) I was immediately attracted to the brown hues in Death Valley, seen in eroded hills and mountain ranges, sand dunes, hardpan and in more intimate abstract images of the basins in the valley floor. Brown is a colour emblematic of earth hence the term ‘earth tones’ we often see referred to in home décor and fabric descriptions.

 

Mesquite Sand dunes- hardpan mud tiles

Mesquite Sand dunes- hardpan mud and sand

Photographers often search for more vibrant colour like red, orange and green. As I write this I bask in the warm glow of several hundred images made during the northern Ontario autumn, where reds, oranges and golds predominate. But in Death Valley I found that brown, while more restrained and less vivid, certainly symbolizes the ‘bones of the earth’ on display.

 

20 Mule Team Canyon

Eroded foothills of the Amargosa Range Artists Drive with creosote shrubs

Please enjoy this selection of my images celebrating the colour brown as it is found in many of the landscape formations in Death Valley.

Mosaic Canyon

Cottonball Basin polygons at sunrise

near Mesquite Sand Dunes

Amargosa Range badlands

On and off the deck

 

A male ruby-throated hummingbird perches on a branch on our deck, near the nectar feeder

 

Brenda and I are about to hit the road again and I thought I had better get in a blog post before leaving for the Northwest Territories and Vancouver Island. We usually stay home for the summer, preferring to avoid the crowds, traffic and higher prices.

 

A male goldfinch forages among the goldenrods behind our lawn

Brenda enjoys her gardening and we tend a vegetable garden and milkweed patch that was finally visited by monarchs. It has been a cool summer thus far, perhaps following upon the very cold winter and its lingering effects. Blueberries were late this year but the crop was quite good in places. Nonetheless birds, small and large mammals, insects, snakes and spiders continue their seasonal rituals around our property.

 

Geranium flowers in a basket after a morning rain

During the summer I stay close to home with the camera too. Not surprisingly, if I am ready and the equipment is at hand there are photo opportunities awaiting in Brenda’s gardens, on the lawn and on the deck.

 

A moth rests on red flower petals, chilled by raindrops

Here is a collection of examples from the last couple of months. Please enjoy!

This red squirrel has mastered the art of  traversing the clothesline to venture out to a hanging seed feeder

It swiftly moves out to the seed feeder

Sheep laurel and birch near a blueberry patch behind the shed

Raindrops on fern fronds at the edge of the lawn

Swallowtail butterflies visit a patch of hawkweed I leave un-mowed on the lawn

Butterflies are attracted to Brenda’s flowers too

A patch of summer flowers photographed with camera movement during the exposure

After a bear left its ‘calling card’ on our lawn this chipmunk moved in and scavenged the seeds in the flop

Dip Snack!

Brenda and I are foreigners when it comes to wildlife encounters in the deep south. We’re used to blackflies and black bears but not cactus and venomous snakes. I suppose common sense should work well- stay on the path and stay alert, but inexperience can lead to potential trouble. While our main objective in South Texas was bird photography I did hope to supplement my species list with non avian subjects like tarantula, horned lizard, scorpion and/or rattlesnake, so long as things were done safely.

A tarantula photographed under controlled conditions at Hardy Jackson’s ranch

It was our fourth day of Sue Jarrett’s South Texas Birding Safari in Steve Bentsen and Hardy Jackson’s bird blinds. Steve is the guide and owner of Dos Venadas ranch and Hardy along with his mom Nora Nell run the Campos Viejos ranch. Both these ranches are beautifully set up for photographing birds and other critters that might visit their ponds. It was late in the day at Dos Venadas when we decided to start packing equipment to meet Steve in his ATV for the ride back to our vehicle. About an hour earlier we listened to green jays and other birds- at least five species- causing a raucous commotion in the tree beside our blind. I guessed they were annoyed at the presence of a potential predator such as a snake or an owl, but we could see nothing in the tree.

Bathing cardinals are highlights of the South Texas bird photography tours.

We did not look under the tree. Coiled under the tree beside the path out was an enormous diamondback rattlesnake. I was within a metre and about to walk right by her when I caught the movement of the snake pulling her head back. I froze. I gingerly stepped back and informed Brenda behind me what I had encountered. To my horror she approached me, flicking her tongue. Then she retreated to the coiled position. Once I felt out of danger I whipped out my iPhone to send a text message to Steve. After all there appeared to be a photo opportunity developing.

The snake alerted me to her presence near the path by pulling back her head

My text to Steve was intended to inform him of the coiled diamondback. In the excitement of the encounter I did not pay attention to the body of my text message before pressing Send. I thought I had typed “Big diamondback near the path by the hose. Coiled”

In his reply Steve queried “Dip Snack?”. Time for a head slap. The smart phone’s Auto Correct feature had changed ‘Diamondback’ to ‘Dip Snack’. Steve was wondering what I meant by a coiled dip snack. “Diamondback” I replied, this time making sure the iPhone did not override my spelling. “OK. Coming” he replied.

Steve (a practicing veternarian and experienced photographer/naturalist) figured the snake was female, one of the biggest that he has encountered. She was too large to handle with his snake tongs. Fortunately she was fairly docile and came back to the edge of the path so the rest of the participants could get some pictures in the fading light. She never displayed any aggression or tail rattling. Probably this was one of her regular ambush locales for nabbing unwary prey coming down the path to the small pond near the blind.

The snake crawled back to this position and the other tour photographers got some shots.

After all, we were warned by the birds.