~Upstream and Down~

I recently took a road trip to Conowingo Dam in Maryland to photograph the eagles that soar in to scoop up the fish that pass through the gates when the water is released. The experience was wonderful--although it made me realize what a novice I am at bird photography. I definitely would love to go back and try again with the experience gained from the mistakes I made, including (inadvertently) setting my camera to a “back button” focus setting that I don’t use...and thus not being able to focus well... Grrr. (Thanks, Hunt’s Camera in Hanover, for figuring out my mistake within five minutes...once I was home.)   Such is life, right? Taking pix is like fishing: you don’t always make the catch. EAGLES don’t always make the catch!  The One That Got Away~   But here’s the thing...this trip was awesome! And not just because of the phot...

I’m not a bird photographer, although that doesn’t mean I don’t like to shoot good images of birds. I do! But when I get good shots, I attribute it to luck--being in the right place at the right time—rather than a natural birder’s patience. Real bird photographers—and I know many--have far more patience than I was born with. They’re willing to stand and wait for a long time, often in the freezing wind and cold or scalding summer sun, in hopes of seeing a bird that has been known to make sporadic appearances. I’ll go and check out the place a bird is known to be, always hopeful for a sighting, but if it’s not a lucky day, I’ll shift my focus to what ever else I can photograph. I just can’t seem to settle down and wait. Not sure why…but I just can’t. I want to keep moving. Today, shortly after we’d arrived at Sachuest Point National Wildlife Refuge, Bruce and I learned that the snowy owl had been spotted napping in a tree. We’d never have noticed her had not all lens...

I spent the last day of 2011 with a group of photographers, taking pictures in Saint Anthony of Padua Church in New Bedford.  The ornate interior, decorated for the Christmas season, was beautiful. Gleaming floors and polished wooden pews reflected color and light from stained glass windows and detailed carvings.   Despite the color and detail available to shoot, I found myself drawn to the light that played through the rails of the drab stairway leading to the second and third levels of the church. The stairs were off to the side of the foyer, easily overlooked by anyone intent upon entering the splendid sanctuary.  Probably those who trudge up to the choir loft, which looks out over the gleaming center aisle in the nave,  don’t give the stairs a second thought, but they are as necessary as the marble columns that support the arched ceiling.   A friend who saw my photos called the stairs “grungy and worn and burnished with age.” And ...

Sometimes it’s fun to photograph something different, something playful,  to take a break from  landscapes and sunsets, as much as I love them. Fun to shoot something I could never do on my own.  So I was happy to have the opportunity through the Plymouth Digital Photographer ’s club to do just that.  Roy Marshall, a member of two local camera clubs, did the prep work, setting up a sophisticated system that relies on perfect timing, with strobes designed to flash in time to catch the split-second of action--in this case,  a splash of colored water. Roy partially filled three brandy snifters with colored water and set them on a platform. About twenty of us stood behind our cameras, which were perched on tripods, and focused on the glasses. Then Roy pulled the platform up a short incline, and lights were turned out.    In this pitch-blackness, we clicked open camera shutters, using "bulb mode," which allowed the shutter to stay open until release...

Recently I had the privilege of going with a group of photographers to a bird banding station in Plymouth— Manomet Center ForConservation Sciences.   In the roughly forty years the center has been operating, the center has banded more than 350, 000 birds. The coastal acres are thickly wooded. Fine mesh nets edge trails and capture low flying birds. Volunteers check the nets hourly and gently extricate any birds that have become entangled, then band them and send them on their way.  Because the staff knew we were coming—twenty of us with our cameras—they had held onto a few birds for us to photograph up close.  What became quickly apparent was the personality of each species. Some are cooperative and preen for the camera, some are flighty and flustered at being the center of attention, some peck at the handler, and others resort to unusual postures, like the blue jay who bent its head at a ninety degree angle to its body and stuck his beak in the air, resis...

Sometimes a thing can be right in front of you, but you just don’t notice it for some reason—too busy, too distracted, or maybe there is something else that catches your eye instead. I’ve driven by this willow countless times in the past thirty years… and never once noticed it—not enough to have it register ... as anything special, anyway. Just an ordinary weeping willow among others on the edge of a lake. If I saw it at all, I looked beyond it at the view of the sparkling lake, reflecting the life on its shores, the island in the middle, and of course, jet skis, motorboats, and kids fishing on the banks. But in the midst of a recent snowstorm that was busy erasing all familiar landmarks--including the lake--the tree stood alone against a background of white. I saw it—really SAW it--for the first time. How had I never noticed this tree with its delicate, graceful branches spread protectively over its two small companions? Despite the fact that it was snowing heavily, and plows...

It's strange how the mind works. There's a stream of subconscious memories flowing continuously beneath our radar that influences us think or do things for reasons we're often unaware of. When I downloaded this picture to my computer, my mind jumped back forty decades to when I was in college and worked as a cashier in J.M. Fields--a department store that has long since gone out of business. I had a reputation among the various department managers as someone who could restore order from chaos, as in: refolding and organizing a customer-mussed pile of baby clothes, rearranging cups, plates, and wine glasses on the shelves in the housewares department, and folding bras—some with cups big enough to fit my head—and organizing them by size. Not rocket science, but an inherently pleasurable task making things neat is. The long-ago praise from managers, so rare in jobs like that, still comes to mind when I'm organizing something--a kitchen cabinet, a sock drawer, a piece o...

In this fourth New England snowstorm--a beautiful one with snow falling gently and clinging to trees--I took my camera and braved the poorly plowed roads to capture the beauty in pixels. Feeling expansive, thinking of the nation poised to inaugurate a new president, I chose my wide-angle lens to shoot landscapes. I'm aware that my mood, my mindset, controls my photography. I was not in the mood today for close focus, certainly not the minute detail a macro lens allows, and I had already zoomed in on birds waiting in the tree by the driveway for their turn at the feeder. I wanted to think about the country while I focused on the beauty of the countryside. I don't know what the future holds. I listen to the president elect's words on the radio in my truck and think how he has not provided specifics, but he's fed hope to a hungry nation . . . a nourishing meal, as long as it lives up to its promise. I'm anxious for a breath of fresh air that a new administrati...

I woke early this morning, way too early for Saturday, the day I plan to catch up on my weekly sleep deficit. Monday through Friday I get up at 5:45. This time of year, the sun -- if it appears that day-- barely makes it to 20 degrees above the horizon by the time I get to work. The early winter sky is always beautiful, my small consolation prize for being conscious--barely-- before my biorhythms want me to be. But today, I figured I'd roll out after nine, at least, if I was lucky. I wasn't, as far as my sleep plans went. I'd gone to the bathroom, and plopped back into bed. But the view I'd seen out the window nagged: perfect light, snow still on the branches, grasses bowed and beautiful under crystal blankets. Go to sleep. It's only snow, I told myself. But it's beautiful, and you can take a nap later. Get up! That was me, too. When I argue with myself, I listen to the emotional side, not the logical. So I got up, grabbed the camera, and slipped out into the ...

I had a dream. Very weird. I was wandering in a field when I realized that birds, small ones, were somehow snapping off the flower heads of Queen Ann's Lace and flying off with them. It took great effort to lift off with the flowers in their beaks. The higher they flew, the bigger the flowers became, dwarfing the birds that struggled on against the laws of aerodynamics. There was something eerie about this, and I knew it needed to be recorded, captured for others to see. I didn't have my camera. And I was trying to decide if I had time to get it before the birds were gone. But in the optimistic way of dreams, I realized that I did have my old Sony point and shoot in my truck. By the time I pulled the camera out of its case and turned it on, there were only two birds in sight, very high and rapidly growing too far to see. The flowers they had in their beaks had grown to the size of Frisbees. I could hear the birds gasping, a chirping moan, and I knew they were struggling but de...

Yesterday was an A+ glowing autumn day. Instead of crashing on the couch after school, I decided to take my camera for a walk. But I wanted someplace different, so I hopped in the truck and headed for the nature trails at the college. Instead I followed the sunlight, and drove from one photo-op to another. A sign caught my eye--Stiles and Hart Brick Company-- and I did one of those break-slamming, squealing, last minute right turns. In the early 1900's, Stiles and Hart mined clay and produced bricks. Brick production stopped in 1938 when a hurricane damaged the buildings, but clay was mined until after WWII. That site is now a park. This sign led me to the new location of the business. The building was in beautiful spot on the Taunton River, perfect for picture taking, but it had signs: No trespassing. Stop at this point. I entered the office, camera hanging from my shoulder, and asked a man behind a desk if he'd allow me to take pictures on the property. "For who?"...

I did today what I swore I would not do for the whole summer. I got up early. I got up at the time my alarm goes off on school mornings-- 5:45 a.m.-- and I'd been awake long before that, having spent a tossy-turny night on a mattress that had been my parents'. My parents' mattress was newer than ours, so after my mother went to the assisted living home, I brought it home. Bruce could sleep on a bed of nails, and convincing him to spend "what?!" on a "Sleep Number" bed just wasn't going to happen. And maybe the mattress is not what's keeping me awake anyway. It could be hot flashes, or the cat that likes to groom my hair with her teeth several times a night, or Bruce's snoring, or . . . the mattress. This morning I reminded myself of a kid who can't be dragged out of bed on school mornings, but is up bright and early for Saturday morning cartoons. I put on a sweatshirt against the unseasonable chill, and took my camera and went for a wa...