epic surf movie

This is a 10-minute video about the kite surfers where I live on Cape Cod.  I've been photographing them for about three years and I continue to be fascinated by their skills and the various personalities.  They represent an informal organization of people from widely different walks-of-life that connect with each other via mobile phones and social media about when and where the surfing will be good.  One of them calls me to let me know so I can go and photograph them.

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Monte

new surfer

This is Jamie. I just met him today.  I'm sure I've seen him at the beach before (maybe even photographed him) but today was the first time I met him.  He's pretty good out there.

bella beard

Went to Chapoquoit today to take pictures of the surfers but there wasn't much wind.  Luckily there were plenty of dogs and I was able to get some photographs of this dog chasing tennis balls.

Monte

wissett

Out at Chapoquoit again this Sunday on a fabulous afternoon.  My neighbor, David, showed up with his dog, Sippewissett (Wissett for short).

I went out specifically to photograph dogs chasing tennis balls and thinking there would be a lot of them, but David and Wissett were the only ones that had a tennis ball.  It worked out in the end because Wissett was happy to oblige me.

Monte

a crappy picture

This shot has some technical blemishes beginning with poor focus, but there are some interesting elements.

I spotted the gull as it was flying directly toward me and thought I would try to photograph him from underneath as he flew over me, but he veered to the left of me at the last second. I was handholding what is the effective equivalent of a 630 mm lens and it's hard to keep something as small as a bird in the field of view with that tight zoom. So, this was an occasion when I thought it was better to be lucky than good.

F5.6 at 1/1600 of a second, ISO 180

Monte

the chase

Most of my time since midsummer has been spent overseeing a renovation project in our house.  I've missed a lot of great photography opportunities, especially in September and October.  Yesterday and today I made it out to Chapoquoit beach hoping to get some action shots.

I have a new teleconverter for Nikon lenses, the Nikon TC-14e III, which is a 1.4 x teleconverter (it effectively extends the focal length of a given lens 1.4 times).  For this photograph I was using the teleconverter on a Nikon 300 mm F4 PF prime lens.  Yesterday I was disappointed with the performance of the teleconverter - the images seemed a bit soft.  But today I went back and did a few things differently.  Mainly I used a faster shutter speed and went out earlier in the day so that there was really bright sunlight, and I was happier with the results.

I was hoping for surfers, but there weren't any.  There were, however, a lot of people and their dogs.What I like most about this picture is the close-up of the dog's eyes.Nikon 300 mm lenas with 1.4x teleconverter, F5.6 at 1/1600 of a second shot with burst rate of 10 fps.

Monte

kayla's dinner

When Hospice of the Western Reserve asked my son, Zach, and his wife, Alyssa, to help a young girl who wanted to learn to cook they jumped at the chance. Zach and Alyssa are both professional chefs in Cleveland, Ohio and love sharing their passion for food.

The experience was recorded by a local photographer named Eric Hanson who allowed Zach to send me hundreds of photographs and over an hour of video footage. From this I edited a 4-minute video attempting to tell the story.

After spending several days going through the images and video I was filled with admiration for the courage and optimistic spirit of Kayla, she is, as Alyssa says in the video, "such a sweet girl." I also found myself feeling quite proud of Zach and Alyssa for using their talents to spread kindness in the world.

first amendment rights

This is a local group of determined political activists that have gathered on the village green in my town every Saturday for the 14-years that I have lived here. They have protested wars and supported efforts to address climate change, but these days they are squarely focused on Donald Trump.

They're very pleasant people and they love interacting with the drivers that pass by. Most of the drivers give shouts of support. A very small number shout obscenities or give them the finger. When this happens they smile and wave back and laugh amongst themselves.

I took this photograph with an 8 mm fisheye lens on an Olympus EM1 MK2 camera.

Monte

hummingbird at 1/3200th of a second

Two days ago I saw, for the first time this summer, a hummingbird visiting the Bee Balm in my garden.  They must have been here earlier, but I hadn't seen them.  I didn't try to photograph them (I'm not sure that there is more than one) until today.  I took this photo with a shutter speed of 1/3200th of a second - and there is still some motion blur in the wings!

My backyard is home to a small community of birds, insects, rabbits, squirrels, chipmunks and the occasional fox wandering through it.  To photograph the action I point my camera out the open back door next to my kitchen table where I can sit with a cup of coffee and listen to the birds chirping and squabbling at the feeder and the insects buzzing around the flowers while I wait for a picture to present itself.  I'm eavesdropping on a cycle of events that has been happening on this planet since long before I arrived and will continue long after I've gone.  Timeless.

Monte

take a break

I'm exhausted from trying to keep up with the news and so at a little past 5:00 PM today I put down the newspapers and left for Chapoquoit beach.  There were still some people there and at the risk of offending them I set up my big lens on a tripod and started shooting.

There was a young mother with two kids playing on the beach that I really wanted to photograph, but she wouldn't let me.  That sort of rejection rarely happens, but sometimes it does.  I try not to take it personally, but it did hurt my feelings when she hastily packed up her kids and left.  It seemed like she thought I was a creepy old man.  Oh well.

An apparent mother-daughter pair walked out near me and the daughter went straight out into the water and started doing headstands.  I thought this image captured the feeling of late afternoon at the beach.  They noticed me taking the pictures (it would've been impossible not to) so I gave them my card and offered to send them a copy if they want one.

The trip to the beach did help to ease my news-overdose-induced anxiety, but I'm already feeling the need to open up the New York Times app and see what happened while I was offline.  It's become an illness of our present era.

Monte

I'm exhausted from trying to keep up with the news and so at a little past 5:00 PM today I put down the newspapers and left for Chapoquoit beach.  There were still some people there and at the risk of offending them I set up my big lens on a tripod and started shooting.

There was a young mother with two kids playing on the beach that I really wanted to photograph, but she wouldn't let me.  That sort of rejection rarely happens, but sometimes it does.  I try not to take it personally, but it did hurt my feelings when she hastily packed up her kids and left.  It seemed like she thought I was a creepy old man.  Oh well.

An apparent mother-daughter pair walked out near me and the daughter went straight out into the water and started doing headstands.  I thought this image captured the feeling of late afternoon at the beach.  They noticed me taking the pictures (it would've been impossible not to) so I gave them my card and offered to send them a copy if they want one.

The trip to the beach did help to ease my news-overdose-induced anxiety, but I'm already feeling the need to open up the New York Times app and see what happened while I was offline.  It's become an illness of our present era.

Monte

bluefish and stripers

This boy was at Chapoquoit beach with another boy (his brother?) and an older man I assumed was his grandfather.  After photographing them for a while I asked what kind of fish they were trying to catch. "Bluefish and Stripers" replied the grandfather.

This shot was taken at 1/400th of a second, which was fast enough to freeze the action of the boy while giving the fishing rod a nice motion blur.

You might think it is a boring picture, but where else, besides Earth, could I have taken it?

It is a moment in the life of a boy at a beach on a small planet orbiting a single star in one of billions of galaxies in what might be one of many universes.  Was something similar happening at the same time somewhere else in our galaxy? Our universe? Another Universe?  Maybe.  Maybe not.

Earth is a planet with beaches, people, bluefish and stripers.  Humans have searched the skies for centuries but haven't yet found another planet like this one.  Earth is special.  It's a keeper.  We should take note.

Monte

reflections

I'm sure I've used the title "reflections" for a previous post, but I was so pleased with myself for capturing the reflection of this small boat and the two men, who appear to be having a good time, that I wanted to use it again.  To really "see" a scene is a talent that I have been slow to develop, and possibly I haven't developed it at all.  I have lots of photos in which I notice the reflection of the subject only after I have the image on my computer and discover it was there but I failed to capture it completely.

I did not see the reflection of these men when I spotted them coming across the harbor toward me, but I did see it while framing them through the viewfinder.  I was able to recompose the image to include the full reflection.  Hooray!  Happiness is largely in the small stuff of our lives.

Alas, what I didn't think of doing was to use my GoPro to capture video of the two men pulling up to the dock and unloading the contents of their dingy, which told more of the story of their day on the water.  When I saw the older of the two men using a rope to hoist the boat's motor up onto the dock I realized my mistake.

Making photographic stories of spontaneous events that are unfolding in real time is another talent I have not mastered.  Thinking fast and anticipating how an event will play out is tricky.  That's why, I think, it is useful to keep returning to the same places to take photographs.  It helps me gain familiarity with my subjects and predict what might happen next and be ready to capture the action with my camera.

Monte

introductions

Out at Chapoquoit in the late afternoon today.  Lots of good people picture opportunities.  The beach was less crowded than I expected for Memorial day weekend, but it turned out to be just right.  There were people picnicking, fishing and walking with and without their dogs.

Jenny went with me and collected shells while I collected photographs.

The woman on the left of this picture is Mimi.  She noticed me taking pictures of her and started a conversation.  She turns out to be an artist, author, and a musician.  So many interesting people at the beach!

Monte

 

without a net

I walked onto Chapoquoit beach on an evening when there wasn't enough wind for the surfers and thought about bringing out my gear.  There were some people having picnics and others just out walking with their dog.  I was surprised at how out-of-place I felt without the surfers being there.  Setting up a camera with a big lens on a tripod looks reasonable when there are giant colorful kites flying back and forth across the shoreline.  I was sure it would look suspicious without the surfers.

When I finally did bring out the cameras this couple got up and started playing badminton without a net.  I took several pictures.

This one was not well-composed.  I don't like that I didn't get the woman from head-to-toe in the frame and I almost deleted it. But then I looked more closely at the shuttlecock captured a fraction of a second before its collision with the badminton racket.  It is 1/1600th of a second out of their whole life.  A frozen moment that wouldn't be remembered if my camera hadn't captured it. What would it mean to them if they could see it years from now?  What will their grandchildren think about them if they find this photograph, faded and forgotten, in a box in the back of a closet?

Of course, I'm making up a story about two people I don't know.  Maybe they aren't planning a life together.  Maybe they are brother and sister!  Maybe they just got married, but won't stay together long enough to have children or grandchildren.  I know as little about what the future holds for these two people as I do for myself.

Idyllic moments, like the one in this photograph, get scattered among all the other stressful and monotonous and unpredictable events of our lives.  We hope to have more of them. We plan for them.  But we can't escape the anxiety of knowing that, like this couple, we are living and playing without a net.

Monte

blue

This is "Blue," a dog at the beach.  I think he's a Weimaraner?  I took several shots of him chasing a tennis ball.  I like this picture because of the floppy ears.

dog chases ball

This is a dog-chases-ball story in four pictures and a few words. I was at Chapoquoit beach yesterday to photograph the surfers when these two nice women showed up with their cute little dog, Wolfie.

I got interested when they started throwing a tennis ball for Wolfie to chase, mostly because the tennis ball was almost as big as Wolfie's head.  I asked them if they would throw the tennis ball toward me so I could photograph Wolfie running for it and they happily agreed.  We did several "takes."  Here is a short series that I liked:

Picture # 1  The ball is tossed.

 

Picture # 2  Wolfie in a confident and determined pursuit.

 

 

Picture# 3  Wolfie dives for the ball and appears to trip on his sweater vest.

 

 

Not to worry.  Wolfie was unharmed and no less enthusiastic about chasing the ball.  We did a few more shots and he seemed delighted to be getting the attention.

In fairness, it looks like Wolfie has a problem with his right eye and that disability might account for his apparent clumsiness.

I like the photographs of the surfers wiping out as much, or more, than their spectacular jumps.  After my experience with Wolfie I'll be on the lookout for more dog face-plants on the beach.

 

 

 

And this series of photographs highlights a lesson from the beach:  We cannot soar without first surviving and learning from our failures.  Wiping out makes us better.

 

Monte

 

 

earth day and the march for science

My town of Falmouth was one of the more than 600 cities around the world that held a March For Science event on Earth Day, April 22, 2017.  I went and photographed the people and talked with as many as I could.  It was great fun and inspiring to see so many really smart people making the case for science in our society.

In the video I reference an article reprint in the Washington Post about the first Earth Day on April 23, 1970.  You can find that article here.

Monte