Update: July 2013

It's been quite a while since I last posted.

Among other things, I recently upgraded my camera. My trusty Panasonic's light sensor (CCP) finally started to fail after five and a half years of loyal service. I'm now shooting on an Olympus SP 810. It's only been a few days, but I'm excited about the things I'll be able to do with this new piece.

Of course, equipment is just one piece of photography; the bigger part to capturing great shots is just plain dumb luck.

Sometimes Only Video Will Do

From condors to eagles, the world is watching our avian friends rear their young.

Now the Great Blue Herons have joined the action.

Given my history with herons, you can imagine how excited I am about this latest addition to the fledgling feeds.

Watch live streaming video from cornellherons at livestream.com

The Shots: Giraffe Eyelash

Paired with my affection for aquariums is a zeal for zoos.


On my recent trip to Chicago, I found myself free of scheduled obligations on a sunny Sunday afternoon.  I was meeting a friend for dinner that evening up in her neighborhood near Lincoln Park, so it seemed logical to spend the day at the Lincoln Park Zoo.


On all my previous trips to Chicago, I'd never made it to the zoo.  Now, having been, I can't imagine not going every time I'm there.


The African Journey occupies most of the northern end of the park, with both exterior and interior habitats (for some reason, the polar bears are up here as well, while the lions are more towards the center by the entrances, an arrangement that only now just strikes me as odd).  In the interior habitat, somewhere between the spoonbills and the meerkats, there is an observation area for the giraffes.


Creatures of ridiculous beauty, giraffes are incredibly fun to photograph: between the interesting angles of their bodies and the expressiveness of their faces, they have so many details to capture.


On this particular day, one of the giraffes was making a meal for herself out of the moss growing along a rocky outcrop adjacent to the observation window.  I attempted to capture an action shot of sorts, trying to catch her tongue as it crept through the nooks and crannies in search of a snack, but nothing quite came out as I'd hoped.


As she bent to drink from an elevated fountain immediately outside the glass barrier, I received something even better:

The Series: Duke

Each year for Thanksgiving, I travel to South Carolina to meet family & friends for a weekend of food, cards, and some much needed down time.  Our hosts have a beautiful Chow Chow named Duke, who reigns over the yard like a queen.  With the equally beautiful weather, I spent some time outside with Duke & my camera:

The Collections: New Additions

New photos have been added to Architecture, Fauna, Nature, People, and Place.  Please use the links to the right to explore at your leisure.

The Sites: Fearrington Village

Fearrington Village is a community nestled in north eastern Chatham County that boasts fine dining, local artists, and - perhaps their most famous residents - a herd of Belted Galloway cattle.  


After having driven past it countless times, I finally had the opportunity to visit twice in as many days, which gave me a chance to get up close & personal with the locals:

The Tips: Perspective

In life as well as in art, perspective is a very valuable thing.

Framing & your zoom lens are two of the most powerful tools in your arsenal for taking great photos.  Sometimes it's best just to try and capture the scene in front of you as is, such as a landscape or a wider architectural shot or a skyline.

Blue Ridge Mountains; near Asheville, NC

Venus flytraps; Chapel Hill, NC

Other times, zooming in can shift the entire dynamic of the photo, where you can make the big seem small, the small seem big, or highlight the details that would otherwise be overlooked.

Riverfront Bench; Elizabeth City, NC

When I was a kid, I used to get a magazine where the back cover was an extremely zoomed photo of something; the puzzle was to guess what it was.  It was usually something innocuous, like a zipper or the wing of a bird, but it was my favorite part.  I'd like to think those puzzles helped lay the groundwork for my photography style, as I get really excited about finding those minor details that pack major visual punch.


Shifting your framing & employing your zoom can help make a good picture a great picture.  You may also need to be a little adventurous with your positioning: could that picture be better if you climbed up/over something or crouched under to peer through something else?  (Of course, be sure that you are always keeping an eye on your own safety, as well as honoring laws & regulations!)  Walk around your subjects if you can; you may find your own photo puzzle.

Flaming Wing; NC Zoo; Asheboro, NC

The Series: Great Blue Herons

Many Native American traditions believe in totem animals that provide spiritual guidance and lessons throughout our lives.  In this tradition, the Great Blue Heron stands for individuality, uniqueness, balance, and peace.

Herons seem to have a way of finding me.

Back in Davenport, we had a large pond out back that was home to the standard run of urban woodland creatures: squirrels, deer, raccoons, ducks, the occasional groundhog -- but we also had a heron nest that was used every year.  Though I moved away many years ago, my mother tells me that the herons are still there.

Last fall, I traveled through western North Carolina, starting with an afternoon sitting on an empty cove along the shores of Lake Norman.  As I read under the shade of the trees, I enjoyed the quiet, broken only by the occasional boat in the distance and the steady lapping of the water against the shore.

And then there it was.

I sat, still and silent, watching the heron wade in the shallows, catching minnows and whatever other small creatures were living there.  After about twenty minutes, it meandered off...and so did I.

That next spring, I was caught completely off guard by a heron on my roof.  These are the best shots I have of the creature, as I had the perfect combination of good lighting, clear blue sky, and a patient subject that somehow stayed still long enough for me to capture it in great detail.

 On a recent trip to DC, I was exploring the Jefferson Memorial as part of a segway safari (incidentally, a fabulously fun way to see the city).  As my friend and I made our way around the perimeter of the monument, I spotted another heron in the shallows of the Tidal Basin.  The fading evening light and the compressed timeframe made for a less than ideal shot, but the blurry edges of it almost captures the moment better: something fleeting and on the edge of your vision.

I've since seen my current resident heron flying overhead a few more times, once with a partner, so I imagine somewhere off in the grove of trees there are little heron chicks getting ready to make their first flights.  I can only hope they make another stop on my roof and that I'm there to witness it.

The Shot: Mantis Dance

It's about the little things.

While tending to my basil a few weeks ago, I came across a tiny praying mantis -- just a baby, but already in full attack mode, hunting for insects.  How it got all the way up to my deck, I haven't a clue.  I grabbed the camera and began to snap, adjusting my own distance to allow my macro setting to work best.

Incidentally, always wear a wrist strap or neck strap or some other means of attaching your camera to your body.  A multi-story drop is not ideal for your equipment.

As it turns out, basil is not only tasty, it's beautiful to photograph.  And it apparently provides a good starter home for one of my favorite insects.

Trying to move the pot to get a better angle only startled it -- even in a controlled environment, you can't control everything. 

It stuck around for a couple of weeks, growing a bit.  I haven't see it for awhile now; at first, I thought it was just hiding in the ever bushier leaves, but by now, I'm pretty sure it's gone off in search of better hunting grounds. 

The Sites: Elodie Farms

My good friend Ashley Memory recently completed her first novel, Naked & Hungry; with a publication date of November 1, 2011, you can imagine that she's in full promotion mode.

Her story follows a man who has renounced a material life to live in a cabin in the woods, getting back to nature, and living off his land (which, unfortunately, also turns out to be a hazardous waste dump, thereby providing the driving conflict for the tale).  With a nod to the themes of sustainable farming and environmental protectionism, plus a nod to his mother's pet goat Bermadean, Ashley will be partnering with Elodie Farms for an event on August 6.

This past weekend, Ashley and I took a Saturday afternoon to visit Elodie Farms and work out some additional details for her event.  While she was appropriately more focused on the event itself, I was drawn in by the pastoral setting of the farm and its pastures.

The goats are milked by hand.

Elodie Farms' main focus is artisan cheese and goats' milk (you can buy directly from the proprietor at the Durham Farmers' Market as well as other Triangle restaurants and stores), but they also maintain a vegetable garden, along with a flock of chickens and ducks.  It is local and sustainable farming combined with educational agritourism, overseen by Dave Artigues. 

Despite the North Carolina heat, this was a great setting to capture some wonderful shots.  I can't wait to return in August for another round:

Chickens having an afternoon snack

The kids come to say hello

The Cheese House

A wary LaMancha keeps her eye on me

The Collections: New Additions

New shots from a recent trip to Washington DC have been added to Architecture, Fauna, Flora, Food, People, and Place.  Please use the links to the right to peruse at your leisure.

The Sites: Western North Carolina

Rivers aren't the only thing I've had to redefine in North Carolina.

As you can imagine, the swamps of Florida and the wide flood plains of the Midwest never afforded me much exposure to mountains - anything over 20ft tall qualified in my book.  A few trips to Colorado during college took me from one extreme to the other, with 14,000 foot peaks soaring overhead with the same frequency as creeks flowed through my neighborhood.  

The Rockies are relatively younger mountains; they are still jagged, tall, and only just now beginning to show the wear and tear of erosion.  The Appalachians, on the other hand, are the veterans of geologic time.  Their tops are more rounded, their waterfalls more deeply carved, and their history more steeped in legend. 

Driving west on I-40 through North Carolina, you don't have much sense of your increasing elevation until you reach Burke County.  As you crest over a particular hill just west of Morganton, the Appalachians explode in undulating ridges toward the horizon.  It took my breath away the first time I made the trip; it did the same thing last fall when I returned; it will do it once again when I head back west this weekend.

Bunker Hill Covered Bridge; Hickory, NC

My first trip west was several years after moving here; it was a quick overnight business trip to Asheville - just enough to whet the appetite with a morning hike off the Blue Ridge Parkway.  My second trip started in Mooresville, from which I worked my way west through Hickory and Morganton before reaching Asheville once again. 

This time, I was able to spend more time in Asheville, exploring the downtown and the botanical gardens.  With such a rich culture of art, food, natural wonders, and history, this is a city which warrants an extended stay if you can do so.  

Pack Place; Asheville, NC

Crocus, NC Botanical Garden; Asheville, NC

Sunflower, NC Botanical Garden; Asheville, NC

North of Asheville, the Blue Ridge Parkway parallels I-40 for about 20 miles before turning further north towards Boone at NC-80 near Marion.  As the Parkway winds through the mountains, overlooks offer views of stunning landscapes, while the flora along the roadside offers refuge for comparatively smaller wonders:

Turkey Vultures over Licklog Ridge; Blue Ridge Parkway, NC

Monarch Butterflies; Blue Ridge Parkway, NC

Summit of Mt. Mitchell; Blue Ridge Parkway, NC

 Before reaching the turnoff for Marion, you reach the road to Mount Mitchell, the highest point east of the Mississippi River.  Here, you can look out across the vista, with guides pointing you towards Grandfather Mountain and Boone, visible from the summit.  

 Western North Carolina is vast and varied - I still haven't made it to Boone or to Transylvania County, where waterfalls dance down the from the peaks.  Linville Gorge - often referred to as the Grand Canyon of North Carolina - is one of only two wilderness gorges in the southern US.  The Appalachian Trail winds along the border with Tennessee.  Wildlife large and small make their home here.  Clearly, I have my work cut out for me.

The Sites: Redefining Rivers - From the Mississippi to the Eno

Mississippi River at Leech Park; Bettendorf, Iowa

Between the swamps of south Florida and the rivers of eastern Iowa, I'd always lived with water as an integral part of my landscape.  It was simply there: the canals and the rivers were as common as sidewalks and streets.


Moving to central North Carolina required me to adjust my thinking.  Here, bodies of water are more a destination than part of the scenery - where I used to walk along and across the Iowa River to get to class, now I have to drive a decent distance to specific access points for the local rivers and lakes.
  

Eno River at Cole Mill Road; Durham, NC

I've also had to redefine my ideas about what a river should be.  Where the Mississippi stretches and flows wide and deep, the Eno River meanders more narrowly, shallowly, and slowly, really only raging after a heavy rain.  The scale of the two rivers is vastly different and so is their character.  Where the Mississippi is big and bold, the Eno is quiet and quaint.  

Eno River at Pleasant Green; Orange County, NC

The quiet, removed quality of the Eno combined with the nature preservation efforts  of the North Carolina parks and wildlife agencies has given it an edge over the more developed rivers of my previous homes, however.  The river bluffs here are more often paralleled by hiking trails than thoroughfares, with the shallower depths enabling you to cross the river by fording it rather than relying on a suspension bridge.  It also makes for more opportunities for adventure among its tributary creeks, allowing you to explore off the beaten path to find the hidden gems that aren't often found along the larger waterways.


I've also had to adjust my expectations of wildlife along each river.  The Mississippi is home to nesting bald eagles, with visitors' bureaus and local businesses alike celebrating their annual migration.  The size of the river also enables it to support large flocks of mallards throughout the year.  

Mallard on the Mississippi; Bettendorf, IA

Here in North Carolina, the eagles tend to prefer the area lakes for their roosting while migrating Canadian Geese make themselves at home in neighborhood ponds.  The Eno's paths provide an opportunity to get friendly with more of its ground-dwelling residents, with turtles capitalizing on the lower water levels to climb out on branches and rocks to bask in the sun.

Turtles on the Eno

I admit that I spend a fair amount of time mourning my majestic, mammoth rivers: the Mississippi, the Iowa, the Cedar, and the Wapsipinicon (or the "Wapsi" as we call it) are testaments to the power of water on larger scales - and as the spring flood season approaches, those in their flood plains keep a wary eye on their levels.  Trips to Washington, New Bern and Elizabeth City bring on such nostalgia as I sit along the Pamlico, Neuse, Trent, Chowan, and Pasquotank Rivers, lamenting that there is no such waterfront where I live now.  But the Eno has taught me to appreciate the smaller scale.  In the end, what it boils down to is that a river is a river, no matter how small; the beauty of a river is that it always and yet never the same, which is really what draws me to them in the first place.

The Shot: Heron on the Roof

Sometimes you'll find shots in the most unexpected places.

While the deck of my previous residence was a frequent stop for local songbirds, most of the residents of my new neighborhood prefer the pine trees that line the creek behind my home.

I've suspected the creek was home to a Great Blue Heron for some time - I see it flying overhead every few weeks.  But this past weekend, I became substantially more sure that it's a resident rather than merely a frequent visitor.

My cat was out on the deck, as she often is on nice days, but instead of quietly observing her domain, she made quite a commotion.  I stepped outside, looked down along the levee, but saw nothing out of the ordinary.  It was only when I turned to go back indoors that I saw what caught her attention:

Great Blue Heron.  On my roof.  You just don't see that every day.

I stopped and stared for several moments.  This wasn't exactly an everyday occurrence.   

Be ready to be caught off guard.

Advances in cell phone cameras have provided many of us with a quick, at-the-ready way to capture those moments that crop up.  With the increase in mega-pixels, HDR options, and editing software, some of our mobile photos can hold their own with those of point-and-shoot digitals.  Of course, they have their limitations in zoom, filters, and aperture settings, but sometimes you have to make peace with the shot you can get, as waiting for the shot you want may cause you to lose the scene altogether.  I snapped a quick shot on my iPhone, whose zoom wasn't strong enough for the detail those feathers deserved.  The heron seemed comfortable on its perch, so I ventured back inside for my camera.

Get to know your equipment.

Keep your camera in a designated place.  Store it in a carrying case that is both protective and easily emptied.  Have your battery in a designated pouch.  Know the layout of your camera's hardware to install your battery quickly.

I came back outside to find the heron still atop the building, where it stood long enough to capture a few more shots before it took off on its next adventure: