Staying engaged and curious can help you find beauty right under your nose.
Spring in your backyard
Vernal pools part 2
The snow is gone and the greening has begun - check out the pools as of April 19!
The toughest in the land
There's more to spring beauty than meets the eye. A quick post about one of the most successful wildflowers.
Ephemerally yours
What covers the forest floor only to disappear completely until next spring? Trout lily of course!
Bounty’s beginning
The winner in the first to bloom race is hepatica! One of my favorite wildflowers captured in my own yard.
Between
Mud season got you down? You can still make beautiful photographs if you find what's unique about this in-between season.
Elusive wildflowers – Part 16 – Clintonia
Bluebead lily is a common flower that I'm never on time for.
Elusive Wildflowers 15 – Nodding Trillium
In what will probably be my last New Hampshire wildflower season I find a rare beauty I've never shot in the wild.
While Rome burns
Ferns are one of my favorite subjects, especially in early spring when the fiddleheads are out!
Elusive Flora
So this isn't a wildflower, but I'm going to put it in my Elusive Wildflowers category because it's got to go somewhere. There is also some irony in this little story, too, and that's always fun. As I said in my last post, this will most likely be my final spring in New Hampshire. When... Continue Reading →
Stragglers
I don't know what's wrong with me that I just don't finish processing stuff before posting. I'm a nut. These are from the Mt. Foss sunset session. By now you know I have a fern habit and when I saw these I knew I had to try to work with them. I'm not 100% sold... Continue Reading →
After the rains
I took a day off this week to do some spring shooting. It ended up being a pretty perfect day. Overcast and not too hot and it didn't actually rain. It had just done though so the colors really popped. Yeah, I was pretty much surrounded by mosquitoes in the Musquash the whole time I... Continue Reading →
Luna Waxing
Yesterday on the return leg of a hike up some small mountains in southern NH, I spied this beauty on a striped maple. It's a rare and wondrous luna moth and the backlight was a bonus. Judging by the bushy and feathery antennae, it's probably a male. It had newly emerged from the cocoon and... Continue Reading →
Waterfalls and Wildflowers
Crazy, huh? Spring is so...springy. The two Ws are just irresistible - wildflowers and waterfalls. I've shot these particular falls before, but after a big storm knocked branches and whole trees down so the cascades were a mess. When I saw fellow photographer Jeff Newcomer's recent post about Garwin falls, I saw they were clear... Continue Reading →
The Sweet Spot
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 →
Elusive Wildflowers Part 3 – Wild Columbine
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 →
Elusive Wildflowers Part 2 – Bloodroot
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 →
Desert Visitor – me!
To many people the word desert conjures up images of dunes, rippling sand, cactus and brutal temperatures. While some of that might be true, many deserts are far from that. Their lushness and color just might surprise you. Even though I've never lived near one, I've always loved the desert. High desert especially. That's one... Continue Reading →
Spring Beauties
Back to your regularly scheduled program. More nature stuff. I am a bit bummed at the moment because I came upon a very active great blue heron rookery the other day and my old 300mm lens isn't up to the task. Most of my old legacy glass is still very good when paired with a... Continue Reading →
Out of My Head
Just a quick post of some more unusual shots I've taken lately. No, I haven't abandoned my hyper-literal, documentary style, but I had some fun and thought I'd share. It's sometimes VERY hard for me to see in abstract. My brain's not wired that way, but I sometimes go out of my head.
A Photographic Cliche – Wildflowers
I can't help myself. I'm a nature and outdoors photographer. That means I shoot a lot of wildflowers. Yeah, it's a cliche, but sometimes they are just so lovely I can't pass them by. This year I'm trying to capture the quality of light as well as the flowers themselves and so far it's been... Continue Reading →
Spring photography – not for the faint of heart
I have a love/hate relationship with spring. In the love category we have the fact that when a breeze hits your face it doesn't feel like it will freeze off. Also the twittery, fluttery birds all excited to be making more birds. Tree frogs. And the lovely green of the pale leaves as the trees... Continue Reading →
Smoke On the Water
Often when I post photos of moving water looking all smooth, silky or smoky I get comments asking how I achieve that result. So I decided to write this post using my latest batch of images to illustrate things (and give you a couple of Lightroom tips in the bargain). Don't say I never gave... Continue Reading →
