As these are pretty common flowers (apart from the columbine, which I shot a few weeks ago) I'm not including them in the elusive category. Popular and ubiquitous or not though, I can't resist them. Wait!!! How did that last one get in there?? Heh.
Before I head out today in quest for more wildflowers, I'll share a couple more favorite spots. First is Senter Falls on Cold Brook. Why the heck they're called that, I don't know. I suspect my friend Mike made it up. It's a relatively popular location for local photographers and I've shot it several times.... Continue Reading →
The Piscataquog is my favorite river. I know, weird, huh? It's an important waterway not only for people, but for many animals and plants that thrive in the ancient glacial habitats along its course. It has 3 branches (north, middle and south), runs for 57 miles with little interruption and its name translates from a... Continue Reading →
Because the forecast called for overcast skies with a minimal chance of rain, I decided to take a ride over to one of my favorite little conservation areas to see if the brook was flowing and if there might be any wildflowers about. Pulpit Rock is about 20 minutes away and, while small, gave me... Continue Reading →
They aren't showy or rare, but I couldn't resist the artful arrangement of leaves in the early morning sun. I have shot them before, but not with a flower closed like this. I think it adds a tiny bit of the unexpected. Some tension maybe and makes you imagine the days to come.
If you hang around this blog you'll quickly realize I love the woods. Forests of all stripes and ecologies fascinate and enchant me. Mostly I look for the small scenes and tiny things that are often overlooked. This year I want to also try to show the larger view of why I hang out in... Continue Reading →
Do you remember me stalking a plant that wasn't blooming and me not knowing what it was? Well today was my lucky day and I finally found it blooming. It's columbine! Yay!! Another one I'd never shot before. I don't remember even seeing it outside of books. Sa-weet. The light was really spectacular, but... Continue Reading →
"It looked like I had another chance at the twenty dollars." - Philip Marlowe, The Little Sister There's never a bad time for Raymond Chandler now is there? When I went to see if another flower was blooming, I found that the hepatica still were and this line from my favorite Chandler came into my... Continue Reading →
My photographic journey with this flower has been an interesting one. Despite the long hours I spend in the woods and my quest for wildflowers to photograph, I'd never seen these beauties except in the photographs of others. A photographer acquaintance of mine even refused to disclose the location of the flowers a couple years... Continue Reading →
Phew. A second trip got me what I wanted. Hepatica in bloom. The wind though was relentless and the light harsh, so my photographic options were somewhat limited, but I got a couple that I'm happy with. This first one is the same group of flowers in the trail that I shot on my first... Continue Reading →
In the event that I get crap out of the camera tomorrow, here's what I shot today. All three were shot with my old Olympus 90mm. It's round-lobed hepatica, a very early riser in the spring wildflower pantheon. And one I've never shot before. The name refers to the leaves which are quite distinctive and... Continue Reading →
By now most of you have caught on that this isn't a technical photography blog, but that I'm not above putting out a little know-how if I think it could be useful. With wildflower season approaching, I think you flower shooters will like this one - purple flowers looking blue and how to fix it!... Continue Reading →
One of my favorite things about the woods is finding the unexpected. Around here conservation land usually has a past, meaning it hasn't always been conservation land. A lot of it has been logged, farmed, lived on, mined and used for lots of other things, often yielding up its secrets decades later. This bridge isn't... Continue Reading →
Earlier today I took a quick stroll around the yard, looking at this and that, checking on things that might be emerging. It's not officially spring, but it sure feels like it out there. We've got spring peepers peeping already and I saw a garter snake around the 10th. Amazing. Anyway, on my quick stroll... Continue Reading →
How they're longing for some color. Even more than usual for this time of year. See, we've basically had a snowless winter. It hasn't snowed with accumulation since Halloween. The extended brown stick season has sapped my enthusiasm and induced the need for color in a big way. So, without further ado - See what... Continue Reading →
to paraphrase Robert Burns. Sorry, Bob. With all the tools at our disposal now like Photographer's Ephemeris and just plain Google maps, we can really get a handle on a location, the light and how best to showcase both. In our minds we envision the photographs we want to take. We move the pin all... Continue Reading →
Do you fuel your fire or let it go out? Today I went with a friend to shoot the sunrise. I know this lake fairly well and know how few places there are with compelling or even just plain usable foreground elements. It's always a tough shoot unless you have a lot of time or... Continue Reading →
Winter is a great time for showing us things we might ordinarily not see at all. I have no idea how many times I've passed this house, but I'm sure it's dozens. Finally the other day I noticed it. I had to laugh though because it's about 50 feet from the edge of a pretty... Continue Reading →
Another reason I'm fascinated with Indian Pipe wildflowers is because they over-winter and I can photograph them in January!
OMG am I a lazy blogger or what? Nothing like waiting until the end of January to post about my best work of the previous year. I guess I picked a bad time to disconnect from the photography world for a bit huh? When I began sorting images into a best of collection in Lightroom,... Continue Reading →
The immortal last words of McManus (The Usual Suspects) perfectly describe what's happening with this picture on flickr - I put it up a few hours ago and it's had a hundred views coming from an unknown source. The Unknown source gag is something that frustrates the crap out of me with flickr. I've put... Continue Reading →
The other day I decided to walk in the common land at the end of the road. It's woods and has a couple of old roads running through it and it was logged sometime in the past. There are some trails, one in particular runs to the back of a nearby horse stable and gets... Continue Reading →
From this morning. I couldn't resist the patterns or the light.
There's a little spot of geography about 40 minutes west of my house that has created a whole bunch of waterfalls. If you've been following the blog, you've seen them - Tucker Falls, Lower Purgatory Falls, Senter Falls and Garwin Falls most recently. I think I've said that Purgatory brook has three sets of falls... Continue Reading →
This year we've had so much rain that the waterfalls are still flowing mightily. Strange for this time of year when most streams, rivers and brooks are quite low. Makes for some fantastic photography though and of course I was out there. This is Mill Brook. Yeah, original huh? There is still a semi-active mill... Continue Reading →
