Photographs by Frank

23 February 2013

Three Very Different Photos

Filed under: Garden Flowers,Landscapes — Frank @ 10:00 PM

The first photo was taken from the backyard last Sunday at sunset. The spectacular colors lasted for roughly five minutes. I am glad that I did not try to go find a better foreground!

The second photo was taken yesterday morning while I was out doing the weekly errands. The folks at the transfer station crush and bale the aluminum cans that are dropped off to be recycled. The bales are roughly 4 feet by 4 feet by 3 feet and weigh about 600 pounds. There is often a bale or two sitting near the dumpster where we deposit our trash. I have been pondering the photographic possibilities of these bales for some months now. Yesterday I had the Nikon V1 with me and business was slow, so I got the camera out with this result!

The third photo was made on our dining room table this afternoon. I had noticed the flowering Christmas cactus earlier in the day and used the nice soft window light to make this photo.

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The first two photos were made with my little camera (the Nikon V1).

Initially, I also picked up the V1 to use for the last photograph. I was interested in exploring how close I could get (with either lens) and I was interested if I could get a nice shallow depth of field with the flower in focus and an out of focus background; the latter is always a problem with a small sensor camera and proved so again in this case. Additionally neither lens was capable of focusing in close enough to fill the frame with the flower. The V1 is a nice camera but it is not macro capable! The last photo was made with my 90 mm macro lens on the “big gun”.

15 February 2013

A Day Off from Work

Filed under: Landscapes,Winter — Tags: , , , — Frank @ 5:00 PM

I had not planned on making photographs this past Tuesday. However, circumstances gave us some free time so Joan and I headed down to Sachuest NWR in Middletown, Rhode Island. We did not get quite that far. The nor’easter at the end of the previous week had washed out the road and knocked down the power lines along Sachuest Point Road. Thus the road was closed  about a mile or so before the refuge gate.

Instead, we parked at the small lot at the west end of Second Beach (along with all of the surfers) and had a nice walk down the beach. The wind was blowing steadily and the temperature was in the low 40s. The walk down the beach, with the wind at our backs, was slow and pleasant; we moved somewhat more rapidly on the return trip.

I had the  little camera* with me. There were some nice clouds and so I got some nice photographs. Actually, it was very hard to keep my focus on the dunes and the sky since there are always so many interesting “distractions” at one’s feet while walking a beach.

After our walk on the beach we had a late lunch and headed down to Sakonnet Point in Little Compton. Sachuest Point and Sakonnet Point are separated by roughly three miles (of water) as the crow flies. According to Google maps it is roughly 25 miles by road between the two spots… the RI coast is definitely convoluted!

The “orange door” photograph was made at Sakonnet Point; all of the others were made along Second Beach. The reflection in the window of the orange door is as I saw it; it was not “Photoshopped in”.

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*I am getting pretty good at remembering to take the Nikon 1 whenever I leave the house. I was certainly glad to have it with me last Tuesday! On the way back to Bridgewater from Little Compton we stopped at a Best Buy because our cordless phone in the house has been acting up. We found an adequate replacement and had already purchased it when, as we were headed towards the exit, Joan pointed out their display of the various Nikon 1 models… I ended up with the 30-110 mm lens for the Nikon 1 that I had been thinking about. I bet it will be a long time before Joan mentions a camera display to me again!!!!

3 February 2013

“Sky Farm” and Gregg Lake Ice

Filed under: Monadnock Region,Winter — Tags: — Frank @ 6:00 PM

Friday was a sunny and  mild-for-January day; the temperature was in the mid-20’s. There were enough clouds to make good landscape photographs possible*.

Thus, after lunch, Joan and I made the twenty minute drive to the Forest Society‘s High Five Reservation** in Deering. Making the short climb from the road to the top of the hill , we were rewarded with the usual spectacular views of the Contoocook valley. We headed back to the car by meandering through the essentially snow-less woods instead of taking the road directly back.

Saturday afternoon found us out for another hike on Gregg Lake. The thaw and rain early last week melted most of the snow on the lake which, upon refreezing resulted in a relatively smooth and hard ice surface.  There were many spots where the ice contained countless small bubbles. The patterns in and on the ices were fascinating. We were left wondering and postulating how the various defects in the ice came to be.

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Looking Northwest from Sky Farm #2 (a three frame panorama)

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*Skies make or break many landscapes. If you are going to include the sky in the frame it ought to be “interesting”.

**Located on Sky Farm Road, we seem to eschew the official name and call this wonderful spot “Sky Farm”.


	


	
















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