Last Weekend In The White Mountains. February 9, 2010
Posted by littlebangtheory in Art and Nature.Tags: Mount Washington, Saco River, sunset, White Moun tains
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I spent last weekend in New Hampshire’s White Mountains, diggin’ the Mount Washington Valley Ice Festival, a yearly celebration of ice climbers and their craft.
I used to be part of that scene, back when I had rotator cuffs, and will post a little bit about that later.
But for now, here are some scenic shots from my trip.
Firstly, Mount Washington, as seen from the banks of the Saco River just outside of North Conway:
This is the highest point in the Northeast, and though it’s not much over 6,000 feet in elevation, it hosts some of the most extreme weather in the world, for many years holding the record for recorded wind speed at over 230 miles per hour.
That’s windy. I spent three weeks on Alaska’s Denali, and despite the fact that we hunkered down in some of the worst weather they’d had in a decade, it didn’t hold a candle to what I’d endured on numerous winter Mount Washington trips.
Anyway, here’s a Gizmo (my 400mm L-series lens) shot of sunset on the summit:
Taken from the same place, at about the same time.
Gawd, I loves me some Gizmo!
I was there with my photographic mentor Lizz, who had scoped out this spot on the banks of the Saco River. She was busy snagging images as I did the same:
There was plenty to see, from the grand scenic down to the details. Here’s one of a stranded ice chunk and a waning crescent moon:
The day ended with bitter winds which drove us to the pub for burgers and nachos, but not before I stopped to snag a quickie of the developing sunset:
The next day was spent in a slow retreat southward, with a couple of stops along the way for photography. Here’s a view eastward from Kankamagus Pass, of a snowstorm in the area I’d just left:
And another of a footbridge ove the Pemigewasset River:
All in all, it was a satisfactory trip, though I froze my butt off, did minimal climbing (more on that later,) and got only a few photos for my efforts.
Ruby Tuesday – A Suspicious Barn. February 8, 2010
Posted by littlebangtheory in Ruby Tuesday!.Tags: barn, Ruby Tuesday!, silo
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A big red barn glares suspiciously at a pair of ominously leaning silos:
Kind of a lightweight entry into the Ruby Tuesday meme, but that’s what I have this week.
For more compelling examples of Ruby in our daily lives, visit Mary over at Work of the Poet.
Up And Running! February 5, 2010
Posted by littlebangtheory in Uncategorized.Tags: thanks
6 comments
The phone’s back on, there’s oil in the tank, and I’m packing for a weekend at the North Conway Ice Climbing Festival!
Thank you all for your words of support, and I’ll see you when I get back.
Meanwhile, Back At The Laundromat… February 5, 2010
Posted by littlebangtheory in Art and Nature, Love and Death, macro photos.Tags: cacao tree, orchids, Smith College greenhouses, the names of things
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…I’m mooching a bit of wireless service, ’cause we’re still without phone/internet back at the Rolling J Farm.
It’s a bump in the road, but the road goes on.
So yesterday I went back to the Smith College greenhouses, and being a weekday morning there were very few people there. This meant I could bring in a tripod without being too much in the way.
Among the many rooms of botanical delights is a tropical room, where thirty-foot plants sport eight-foot leaves:
The humidity was so high in here that I had to repeatedly mop my lens!
There was a cool cacao tree, Theobroma cacao :
I found it interesting that the pods grow on the trunk and larger branches:
Other rooms with more temperate climates are filled with oranges, lemons and grapefruit:
Lots of cool foliage in here, including Black Elephant Ears, Alocasia cuprea :
A part of my goal was to re-shoot some of the plants I got this past weekend as well as others which weren’t suited to Ziggy, my 50mm macro lens. This time I had a pad and pen so I could actually let you nice folks know what you’re looking at.
Here’s another shot of what I had provisionally called a “red agave,” but is actually a bromeliad, “Elaine Earth Star” :
There were lots of lilies in here, including this Ovitatta, or Variegated Beet Lily:
And the orchids are in full bloom. This is one I shot earlier but now have a name for, Paphiopedilum mondial, or “Magnificum:”
And lastly, a pair of blossoms on the long trailer of a Phalaenopsis , or “Moth orchid:”
OK then, I’m off. Gotta go feed the wood stove!
Ruby Tuesday – More From The Greenhouses of Smith College! February 1, 2010
Posted by littlebangtheory in Ruby Tuesday!, macro photos.Tags: agave, greenhouses, mystery flower, Ruby Tuesday!, Smith College
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Here are a couple more shots from the Smith College greenhouses. The skies were dark and I was shooting hand-held, with high ISOs and long exposures, but a couple of things did come out:
This complex blossom has some ruby bits:
Sorry, I didn’t get its name.
And this little beauty, perhaps a red agave?
I’m hoping to get back there early in the day, maybe even tomorrow, with a tripod and bag of lenses; if I do, you’ll be the first to know.
Thanks to Mary over at Work of the Poet for this Rubilicious meme!
The Smith College Greenhouses. January 31, 2010
Posted by littlebangtheory in Art and Nature.Tags: flowers, greenhouses, orchids, Smith College
5 comments
This time of year in Massachusetts can be pretty bleak. We have days on end when the sun doesn’t actually make it through the clouds and the weather, and the palette is nothing but gray.
So it’s really cool that there are places like the Smith College greenhouses. At this time of year they’re preparing for their spring “Bulb Show,” a lillie-fest that’s hard to beat.
But right now, their perennial collection goes on, and some of it is flowering as we speak.
Here are a few of the blossoms I passed as I wandered the 18 or so rooms of this beautiful subtropical oasis in a New England winter:
It’s a feast of primary colors, that one yellow, this one red:
And a blue one which I used to know the name of:
These were taken in the late afternoon, and as it was dependably gray, the light was pretty low and the (hand-held) exposures were long. The resulting “softness” of these shots might be deemed poor technique, but if you think of them as “flower porn,” you’ll appreciate the softening of the harsh reality of this dehumanizing trade.
Ahem. Just making fun of myself there.
And there were some more complicated flowers there too, both in form and in palette, like the orchids:
…some soft and gentle, others more assertive:
Pardon my anthropomorphism, but this is the most sexually explicit plant I have ever seen. It has a scrotum, a vagina, lots of pink bits, some short black hairs, and just when you were starting to think it was hot, a phalanx of warts of indeterminate origin.
Thankfully, the Greenhouse Credo constrains us to “Look, but don’t touch.”
Expect more photos from these greenhouses in the future; there’s a lot going on there, and it changes weekly.
The Wolf Moon. January 31, 2010
Posted by littlebangtheory in Art and Nature.Tags: Deerfield River valley, full moon, January, Moody Blues
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January’s full moon goes by an array of names, but the one most logically and consistently applied is the Wolf Moon. Hungry wolves, leaned and stressed by Winter’s dirth of prey, bayed in baleful choruses as the well-lit winter nights offered them yet another chance to find a meal. Aboriginal Americans took note, and kept their children close to home.
Because full moons work their magic on both the tides and the skies, the likelyhood of clouds and “weather” increases as the moon fills out. But winter, with its drier air, seems less prone to matching a full moon to a cloudy sky.
So here are a few lucky shots from this month’s full moon, acquired by catching the actual moonrise from way up in Florida:
…and dropping down into the Deerfield River valley for subsequent “risings,” as seen against different skylines:
These last two, taken after the sun’s afterglow had faded, remind me of the Moody Blues lyric:
“Cold hearted orb which rules the night
Robs the color from our sight.
Red is grey, and yellow, white;
and We decide which is right,
And which is an illusion.”
Namaste.
When This Was A Farm… January 28, 2010
Posted by littlebangtheory in Love and Death, Politics and Society.Tags: barns, corporate America, farms, globalization, the death of an era
9 comments
…I was a barn.
Yeah, really. Tall and proud, straight and true. Full of dairy cows, surrounded by pastures, not this scraggly forest you see here.
But that was then, and this is now. My people spent long hours trying to patch things up with wishes and prayers and sweat, and when the sun went down, more hours around the kitchen table, scratching at pads with short pencils, cipherin’, and always coming up short. There were arguments and tears, and lectures from the young’uns about government subsidies and Archer Danniels Midland, whoever that is.
And then the bankers came, and I closed my barn doors in an effort to shut out the pleading, but it didn’t help, and the bankers won, and my people left.
I’ve wondered what happened to them for some time now, but as far as I know, they just sort of disappeared.
I miss the old days.
The Death Of An American Icon. January 28, 2010
Posted by littlebangtheory in Love and Death, Politics and Society.Tags: A People's History of the United States, Howard Zinn
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Yesterday (Wednesday,) the day of President Obama’s first State of the Union address, saw the passing of a man who I consider to be one of the most important voices in the American Story.
Howard Zinn, father, educator, author and historian, died in California at the age of 89.
Dr. Zinn’s seminal work, A People’s History of The United States, earned him the respect and acclaim of social progressives the world over, and the unending ire of the power elite. In it, he dared to challenge the history of America as written by the victors of our many conflicts, casting instead common people as heroes and telling the story from their points of view.
He was an early and forcefully vocal critic of the Viet Nam “Conflict,” and in fact movingly posited that “There is no such thing as a just war.”
A professor of political science at Boston University since 1964, Zinn’s extensive body of writing, as well as his considerable library of lectures and interviews available through Alternative Radio.org, are eye-opening, thought provoking, and well worth seeking out for True Patriots with the courage to question the paradigms which have informed our ideas of politics and society since our earliest memories.
If there’s a Heaven, Howard Zinn is in it. Few have done more to promote social justice and decry the horrors of war than this brave and brilliant man.
Good night, Howard. A piece of my heart goes with you.
