Author: Kathleen

“A photography arrests the flow of time in which the event photographed once existed”

John Berger

I saw the above sentence reading a book by John Berger called “Another Way of Telling”. It reminded me immediately of this photograph which I took a couple of weeks ago, reviewed, and couldn’t get out of my head.

The bird flew back and forth in the trees and bushes near the water. I couldn’t get too close due to dense vegetation, nor could I get a good focus on the bird. I used both my camera and binoculars, but he moved too fast. I photographed this brief stop with the camera after which the bird moved so fast to the next perch my mind and eye could never have registered what the camera captured.

I am so glad it did. The beauty of the bird stopping for a moment, the shine and patterns on the feathers, and the pose as it apparently looks for its next perch catch my attention. I made a few guesses as to its species, but for this instance they really don’t matter. The whole experience of watching it, and the camera enabling me to see this very brief moment matter.

That is what we do in a lot of our photography. We capture and freeze a part of a second of life, and that life immediately continues on.

Our photography workshop on Saturday went very well. We discussed the various basic settings on digital cameras, and how to use those settings. We found through our hikes, classes, and workshops that many people use only the AUTO setting on their SLR so we run this workshop once a year for those who want to take the next steps, but have questions of what does what.

One question in particular stayed with me: “Is using post-processing cheating?”. By post processing we mean using Photoshop, Elements, or any of of the other programs to edit, crop, adjust settings, color, etc.

The answer is: No. In the film days, photographers did cropping, color or light adjustments, and ‘repairs’ in the darkroom. In addition, many used the processing to achieve special effects. By using a digital camera and digital program, you replicate what they did, and a whole lot more. When shooting in RAW, you will have to use a computer program. JPEG and other formats do some ‘interpreting’ when you take your shot, RAW does not.

On the other hand, getting it right in the camera (focus, settings, angle, composition, light) remains the way to get the absolute best photograph. I have heard people say that they can “just fix it on the computer”. Maybe, maybe not. Karl and I once sat through a presentation by a photographer who over sharpened every image. It was obvious to us, and to others in the room. As it was nature photography, in addition to being obvious the over sharpening often made the bird or animal look fake or just not right.

Photo editing software also opens up creative realms like photo artistry. I attended an exhibition of a photo artist and she made significant changes, combining photographs, etc. to create multimedia type artwork. Some of this was done in a darkroom in the film days but it can be done by everyone now and to a greater extent.

Be aware that many contests, commission work, etc. have very clear rules on which enhancements you may use. For our nature photography, we work to get it right in the camera, but we do use cropping and adjustments where needed. If I have to adjust a photograph too much I don’t use it or re-shoot it, but that is me.

 

I enjoy a variety of subjects for my photography. But I always come back around to nature, especially birds. A wonderful photographer we knew, who passed away a few years ago, often kidded us that when it came to photography, we were “for the birds”.

Wet, cold weather delayed our Christmas Day walk to a Boxing Day/St. Stephen’s Day walk. We went to a local park, discovered they cleared the back hiking loop, and meandered along the path occasionally stepping just off-trail to avoid the large mud puddles from two days of rain. The birds appreciated the break in the weather too. We heard and saw them, in front of us, overhead, and of course usually hid in the foliage allowing us only the occasional glimpse of movement before flying away.

The Pine Warbler, above, went from tree to bush to tree. I followed with my feet and the zoom lens, staying far enough away as to avoid disturbing his hunt for food. At times like that I remember the old days of film. The many near misses to get the above photograph meant money spent at that time.

The Red-bellied woodpecker inched up the snag ahead of me. I shot just as I saw the head, and several other shots including ones of the other two joining in on the snag. Viewing all of them later, I still like the first one, with the head just peeking up and the catch light in the eye.

We often tell people that with nature photography, even if none of the shots taken end up something to keep, at least you enjoyed a walk outside!

I am really looking forward to 2020. It just feels like it will be a very good year.

About the photograph: With two cats who love to jump and climb, open flames on surfaces within range are not a good idea. I do my best with other types of light.

Karl and I camped at Stephen Foster Folk Culture Center State Park in White Spring, FL last week. For years we attended their annual Festival of Lights, then skipped a year or two due to changes they made. We decided to try again. It changed again, and we loved it.

The Festival of Lights goes on most of December, with Silent Nights some nights which mean just the lights are available and Holiday Nights, which include Santa, a snow machine, the Gingerbread Village with the store open, craft cabins open, free popcorn and free hot chocolate. And, of course, the lights. We attended Sunday for the first time, and saw cars streaming in and parking, and families walking everywhere. We made our way through the wonderfully lit pathways, with creative light displays everywhere we looked. We commented to a ranger on the number of people, and she smiled and said “You should have been here last night, we had even more then”.

We bought some food at the North Pole Cafe and sat at a picnic table to eat and people watch. Suddenly at 6:30 the snow machine came on, and children ran yelling from everywhere in the area, all focusing on the snow. For those in northern climates, Florida rarely sees snow so this is a magic sight to the kids.

We continued to walk around, visiting the model train exhibit which takes up an entire room and should not be missed. Santa visits with children in another room of the same building.

We celebrate several holidays during this short, festive season, including a very personal one, our wedding anniversary.

Happy holidays and best of the season to everyone!

I spent a lot of time trying the closer focus on the Canon 100 – 400mm lens. Most of the shots didn’t work at first, it took some time to get used to just what I could and couldn’t do, but experimenting is half the fun.

I shot this wasp several times. I really liked that I could effectively blur the background. It worked on this hooverfly too.

This one took a long time. The breeze seems to come along just as I focus. I did change my angle on this one several times not only to get the shot but the blurred background.

This Katydid is softer than I would like, but the colors are incredible. I had only seen katydids that were mostly solid green before. I had no idea there were so many different species until I tried to identify this one.

It is almost the end of 2019 already. Rather than setting goals for photography each year as I did before we semi-retired the business, I’ve tried to keep a little more casual this past year. I guess you could say I decide on some general directions. Time to think about that for 2020.

I spent some time in NYC during my business years, and spent some evenings reading and drinking coffee in the local Starbucks. We rarely ever did that at home. Our local natural foods store moved from a strip mall plaza to the downtown area of the nearby small town. Lately we shop there early once a week, and then have coffee either out on the sidewalk or just inside the window waiting for the farmer’s market to open.

Still inspired by the street photography lecture of weeks before, I decided to try some through the window shots. Oh, the temperatures were a bit low for Florida or we would have been sitting outside.

Then I remembered the maxim that street photography should have people. No one came into my frame during as we drank our coffee (regular for Karl, Cappuccino for me). so I took a couple with moving cars. Since self driving cars are still a California phenomena I can be sure this one had a driver. Does that count? I don’t know. Personally I like the other one!

I like to visit beaches on cold days, especially just before or after a storm. I encounter few if any other people, sometimes a person fishing, someone like me walking the beach, or the last time one intrepid soul watching the waves and reading. The shot above shows true solitude.

When the northern cold front dipped into the Florida park at which we camped this last time, even I found the beach too cold. I took short walks when that happened. Karl came once, and chose to remain in the warm car in the sun the second time.

I had not seen the Ghost Crabs much this trip, so when I spotted some smaller holes in the sand with marks around them I stood and waited. This small one finally came out to look around. These crabs get quite a bit larger, but I only saw one bigger one this time, scurrying across the road to avoid the car.

I looked especially at the water line to find what the waves and storm bring ashore. I found a lot of single shells, but only this one empty bivalve. It disappeared with the next wave.With mostly overcast skies, and the colors of the water, sand, and sky, most of my shots ended up an interesting monochromatic study. I changed settings frequently on the camera, playing with shutter speed more than usual.

 

Happy  Thanksgiving!

This particular turkey resides in a nature preserve, so will not end up on anyone’s dinner table as the traditional main course for the day.

We spent nearly a week on St. George Island, FL camping. We love falling asleep to the sound of the waves on the beach, and waking to walk to the beach and watch the sunrise. Since we drove the entire day before, we woke later than we planned the first day and really walked fast to get to the beach for the main event. As we crossed the road and walked the path, I stopped for this shot of the beginnings of sunrise behind the dune.

We spent time walking around and watching as the colors in the sky changed, and the top crescent made its way into view. Usually by that time on other trips several people join us. This time another couple came just as the sun rose, took a quick photo, and left. No one else made their way down to enjoy the daily spectacle. Karl took this shot as the sun came up.

We walked back slowly, anticipating another cup of coffee at the RV. As we walked down the entrance road to the campsite, I noticed that the still golden light of the sun illuminated this downed and dying tree making the colors look almost surreal.

We were glad we made the extra effort to see that first sunrise. We woke to very cold weather and rain the following morning, and clouds the next morning.