About thirty minutes after the sun had set I was packing up my cameras and tripods getting ready to go, but I didn't want to leave. I was the only person on the beach and the restful voices of nightfall at the seashore were hard to walk away from. Sometimes we hear the whisper of Earth’s rhythms and we get a sense of how big and how old and how unique this place is. So I set up for one more picture, a long exposure across the water to the clouds and the fading light of another day.
Monte
Thirty-two years ago today Jenny and I waited in line until someone called our number and we got married at the county courthouse in San Antonio, Texas. The years have blown by and our kids are all grown-up and doing well. Now it's back to being just the two of us and it still feels like we're just a couple of kids having fun together.
I took this picture of a group of people on a beach a few minutes from my home. I'm not posting the picture to be critical of them ... because I have no idea what they are doing. The scene made me wonder, in general terms, about the role of "believing" in the development of human culture.
Our human nature is such that we are quick, maybe even desperate, to believe in things that are sometimes truly unbelievable. But it seems to me that this is not an evolutionary flaw - merely a trait that can work for or against us that must have had real selective advantages for our ancestors because it is still with us today.
Shared common beliefs allow large groups of people to collaborate on big projects like building functional communities. A central component of our modern global economy is our collective willingness to believe in the concept of money. You have two chickens and you are willing to give them to me in exchange for a few pieces of colorful paper with pictures and numbers drawn on them. This kind of transaction has not always been a workable idea in human societies.
But shared common beliefs can also be used as a tool to get otherwise good people to do terrible things. How do we distinguish between what makes sense to believe in and what doesn't? It is a question that leads to a clash between advocates of critical thinking and those people inclined to simply take a leap of faith because it "feels right". A clash that too often turns violent.
The debate will only end when there are no people left to argue about it.
And so it goes.
Monte
Several reports today that the eggs have hatched and that the cygnets have been seen by a few observers. I was at the nest at 16:30 and stayed for about 90-minutes. When I first arrived the nest appeared abandoned and the swans were gone. I waited more than 30-minutes before Marie and Pierre came leisurely swimming from around a corner at the far side of the pond and eventually came back to the nest.
Pierre climbed up on the nest and started adding sticks and leaves to it while Marie swam around looking somewhat confused. Her wings were elevated, as this photograph shows, and they stayed that way the whole time I watched her. After a while they left the nest without ever actually sitting on it and never attempted to uncover eggs - that seem to be gone now. They swam around the far side of the pond and then disappeared around the corner again.
One woman told me she had seen a cygnet under Marie's wing and I think it's possible that she has one or more cygnets tucked under those elevated wings.
Monte
Just got a focus rail to use with my macro lens to get better close-up shots. The focus rail allows me to take several images of an object and then "stack" them in photoshop so that the entire object is in focus. Normally with a close-up shot the depth of field is so shallow that only a small part of the subject is in focus and the rest is blurred.
For this particular image (which is only my fourth attempt with using the focus rail) I shot 44 photographs of the rosebud and then used photoshop to blend them into a single image that is pretty much in focus from front to back. The rail is used to make very small adjustments in the position of the camera relative to the subject by moving it incrementally closer by tiny fractions of an inch with each turn of the adjustment screw.
Monte
It was a fun day at the nest. I met several new people who told me about their experiences watching the swans.
I've been going to the nest around 6:00 in the evening, which is not a good time for taking pictures because the late afternoon sun reflects harshly off the bright white feathers of the swans and the bike path fence casts dark shadows across the nest. But it's a time of day when people out for a walk are in a more relaxed and reflective mood and often want to linger and talk about the birds. Conversations feel easy and there is a real sense of connecting with strangers.
I'm starting work on the fourth video and hope to have it out by the end of the week.
Monte
Just a quick update: there are still no hatchlings as of Friday evening, June 19 at 1900 hrs.
This is Pierre.
Monte
Today I was at the nest around 1600 and stayed until 1730 photographing the swans. A cheerful woman stopped and told me that earlier in the day one of the eggs had fallen out of the nest. It was back in the nest by the time I arrived, but how it got out and how it got back in remain mysteries. Maybe in the next few days I will meet somebody else that knows the details of the story.
I liked this photo of Marie and Pierre together at the nest. This was taken shortly after Marie returned from swimming and eating dinner while Pierre was guarding the nest. Pierre always hangs around after she gets back until she has gotten settled in the nest then he swims off to the other side of the pond.
Monte
Tim, my friend and all-around fixer-upper-guy, was working in my garden and found this orange frog. The two of us gently maneuvered the frog into a place where I could take some photos. The frog responded by peeing on us. I managed to get a few shots before the frog left for a better neighborhood.
Monte
I've been planting flowers in pots on our patio this past week. Today I planted a Dogwood tree in the front yard. Just as I was finishing the job it occurred to me that I should've recorded a time-lapse video of myself while planting the tree. I briefly considered digging the tree up and starting over just so I could time-lapse the event. I didn't do that, but the feeling of a lost opportunity is still lingering.
Later in the day, very near sunset, I noticed these Chive blossoms reflected in the birdbath. Below is a version of the picture that might have been painted by an Impressionist painter.
Monte
I have a GoPro camera and when I set it up I always have to look right at the front of it to make sure I turned it on correctly. So, all of my GoPro videos begin with a close-up photograph of me.
Today I was hoping to capture a picture of a squirrel that eats from the bird feeder by hanging upside-down from it. All I got this time was this wide-angle distortion of me.
I also watched a short film on Van Gogh while waiting for the squirrel, hence the inspiration for the impressionist background.
Monte
I noticed this purple flower poking up through the dead leaves while walking Bevo (my dog who is half maltese and half toy poodle - 8 pounds of danger) this morning. A neighbor told me it's a hyacinth and I believe her because she works for a landscaping company. Anyway, I made a mental note to come back and take a photograph, which I plainly did.
I walked up the street with my camera on a tripod and set-up to take the shot. While doing this a soccer mom, who I don't know, and her daughter pulled up next to me in a car. The soccer mom demanded to know where I lived and accused me of "looking suspicious". Really? I'm a middle-aged man with a camera on a tripod and for nine years I've been walking my poodle through our neighborhood twice a day - and I look suspicious!?
She told me to have a nice day once she was convinced that I do live in the neighborhood and I was only out taking pictures of flowers - and I said the same thing back to her. I'd probably get kicked off of Facebook for writing what I wanted to tell her to do.
Almost every day when I'm out with my camera, and various pieces of motorized gear, people come up to me and ask about the camera gear. They are very nice and seem genuinely interested in the equipment and the idea of photography. But, sometimes I encounter people who appear to have a real paranoia about other people with cameras. I guess this is not completely ridiculous, but think about the fact that just about everybody is walking around with a cell phone, which means that just about everybody is walking around with a camera. Cameras are all over the place.
We do live in a dangerous world, and there are a lot of bad people up to no good. But, you probably shouldn't go outdoors if middle-aged men who walk an eight-pound poodle through your neighborhood every day for nine years and have a geeky camera bag strapped around their waist and use a camera with a motor on a tripod to take pictures of flowers make you suspicious.
But, now that I write this description of myself I can see how some people might find me very suspicious, or at least a little peculiar.
Monte
Photographing at Woods Hole last night. I put my tripod on a wooden dock across Eel pond from these buildings while it was still light outside. My plan was to take pictures of the scene as the sun set and the sky darkened without moving the camera so that I would have a series of images identical in content but different in ambient light. I thought I could then blend the photographs together in photoshop to create an image that would reveal stars and buildings at the same time. It was a reasonable plan, but very few stars ever appeared in the sky behind the buildings because the light from the buildings washed-out the view of the sky.
Isn't it interesting how we still talk in terms of the sun "rising" and "setting", which implies that we continue to think of ourselves as being at the center of the solar system and the universe. It's human nature, I guess, to believe that everything is about us and for us.
Of course, the reason the sun appears to rise and set is that Earth is rotating on its axis as it orbits around the sun. It does look as if the sun and the stars and the moon go around us from our perspective on the ground. The fact that the moon really does go around us only adds to the confusion. It's impossible not to be astonished when thinking about how much people have figured out about nature.
Monte
Moonset over Buzzards Bay - without all the ice!
I was out yesterday morning (April 6) intending to do a time-lapse video of the full moon setting over the bay, but it didn't go well. It was a really beautiful scene and I managed to do just about everything wrong setting up my camera to shoot the time-lapse. All I got for my efforts is this jpeg photograph taken with my iPhone. My "real camera" was being used in the failed time-lapse so the iPhone was my only other option to take this picture. But, the iPhone camera is surprisingly good.
This photo was taken about 30 minutes after the sun rose behind me and about 30 minutes before the moon set. Unfortunately, long before the moon sank beneath the horizon it disappeared into the bank of purple haze you see in the picture.
Overall, the morning was another experience for the "lessons learned" folder.
Monte
ˈkrakˌpät informal
noun 1. an eccentric or foolish person.
I often feel that other people may see similarities between me and this pot.
Monte
I was out last night in Woods Hole trying to do night photography. It's not easy to do, and it's even harder for me because I can't seem to ever remember to bring my flashlight. Last night was the nearest I've gotten so far; I put batteries in the flashlight, but left it on my desk! There is so much gear to organize that I am always arriving "in the field" missing at least one important thing.
It's also (as you can plainly tell from these images) very difficult to focus a camera in the dark.
I'm always disappointed with the images I get, but I feel like there is some very small progress in my efforts. Perhaps the best part of photography is that it gets me outside at times that I have not typically gone outside and thus I am seeing a lot of things for the first time. For example, I have never seen the moon rising over Vineyard Sound in the twelve years that I've lived here - until last night when I went specifically to photograph it happening.
Monte
Ice and snow are still on the ground and in the water of the harbor, but the temperature is rising and melting is happening. I was out at the West Falmouth harbor yesterday a few different times. In the morning the temperature was 22 degrees F, but by late afternoon it had warmed up to around 32.
I went back to the harbor for sunset hoping to get a good time-lapse video. I struggle with time-lapse when the light is changing rapidly, i.e. sunrise or sunset. The video I shot is mediocre, but I thought this picture was okay. I especially liked the fleeting glow of the fading sun on the front of the beach house at the bottom right corner.
Monte
The "Selfie". Is it narcissism, loneliness, or simply the desire to take a picture with people in it coupled with the abhorrence of begging one's friends and family to pose for a picture and the inevitable groaning and complaining that ensues? It's actually a lot easier to take pictures of oneself than it is to take pictures of other people. Selfies are a big fad these days. There is even an upcoming workshop in self-portraiture at the New England School of Photography - maybe I should sign up for it?
Monte
I finally decided to end my bid for being the only person without a mobile phone. It wasn't because I suddenly felt the need to make phone calls while shopping for groceries or driving my car. The current phones offer all sorts of benefits for photography and video work.
I took this picture with my new iPhone 6 plus using an app called camera plus.
Monte
Up early again this morning before sunrise hoping to photograph the moon setting over the frozen Buzzard’s Bay. I remembered to bring my headlamp, but not the batteries for it. I was literally shooting in the dark; and it was pretty cold (around 24 degrees Fahrenheit).
The clouds are blurry because of the long exposure times of 20 - 30 seconds. Notice the stars in the sky. The bright flare on the left side is the moon.
I just finished reading a book about Astrobiology, so I couldn’t help wondering about life elsewhere in our universe while I was taking these pictures of the pre-dawn sky. There’s probably lots of simple life, like single-celled microbes, on other worlds. There's probably less life in the form of small multicellular creatures or plants. And I lean toward the view of the Rare Earth crowd in thinking that complex, multicellular life intelligent enough to make digital cameras must be quite unusual.
Monte