Lost And Found. June 4, 2012
Posted by littlebangtheory in Art and Nature.Tags: Canon 24mm f/3.5L TS-E II, catch and release area, Daryl Benson, deerfield river, Elliot, fishing, fly fishing, reverse graduated neutral density filters, Singh-Ray graduated filters, spinning lure, tilt-shift photography
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The Deerfield river is widely known as a great trout fishing venue. It’s fast and cold and relatively clean in the reaches here and above, and has rebounded from it’s Irene Make-Over with astonishing speed. The section immediately above Charlemont is a catch-and-release area, no bait-fishermen please, and as such is a popular float-fishing destination for several fly-fishing outfitters.
The cardinal rule of Catch-and-Release is DO NO HARM so that returned fish survive and thrive.
So it’s a little bit karmic that this trebble-hook spinner, decidedly not kind to fish (and frequently fatal) was lost among the logs and rocks just above town:
I hope it was his last one, and that its parting ended someone’s day of fun.
This is from Elliot, tripod-mounted within a foot of the rocks (yes, I was lying down on the job!) Eight degrees of tilt, with a hand-held reverse-graduated ND filter.
TMI for most of you, but food for “inquiring minds…”
A Visit To The Bridge… May 18, 2012
Posted by littlebangtheory in Art and Nature.Tags: alliums, azaleas, Bridge of Flowers, bush peony, Canon 24mm f/3.5L TS-E II, lupines, Shelburne Falls, tilt-shift photography, wisteria
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…of Flowers, of course!
I’ve been photographing here for enough years so that I now seldom bring my camera when visiting. Our town’s art spaces and galleries are full of images from here, some magnificent, some pretty OK. And frankly, I’m not looking for a place in that queue.
But still, whenever I’m in town I find the short walk across the Bridge of Flowers to be irresistible, and if I don’t have my camera with me I regret it.
So the challenge becomes to take a photo I haven’t before, to see things a bit differently.
Enter Elliot, and the prospect of limiting the area of sharp focus rather than increasing it. It’s counter-intuitive for me, as I usually try to extend my depth of field in my landscapes, but the distinctly non-planar landscape of The Bridge demands a somewhat different approach.
Well, enough words, and on to the images from yesterday, some more pronouncedly limiting focus, some laying a plane across petal-tops. All the result of my undying love of The Bridge.
The depending blossoms of Solomon’s Seal:
A blossom on a bush peony which would easily fill both of my hands:
Alliums, thigh-high and beaming:
Azaleas (at the far end of the A’s):
A sprig of blue lupines:
…all taken on a breezy day, with a great deal of effort expended to counteract that fact, except for in this image of wind-whipped wisteria wound around a bit of superstructure:
I courted both the stasis of the woody vines and the kinetics of the dancing leaves, and am happy with the take-away.
All of these were hand-held, experiments as it were in tilt-shift photography, and encourage me to get back there with a tripod and attempt to do it right. A more deliberate approach might yet yield fresh images.
