A Walk In A Welcome Rain. April 23, 2012
Posted by littlebangtheory in Art and Nature.Tags: Canon 24mm TS-EII f/3.5L lens, etherial forest views, hemlocls, Monroe, moss, orange jelly fungus, rain, Raycroft Overlook, Singh-Ray graduated ND filters, tilt-shift phoyography
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It’s been dry here, bone dry, all of the last two months. The ground is dust, the river is dry, the green shoots of Spring wilt as they emerge.
It ain’t right, I tell ya.
But last night we had a glorious inch of rain, trailing off to showers and drizzle as today progressed. And while I’m not usually inclined to take a hike while it’s raining, this time was different, a blessing, and I got an early enough start to catch the last of the showers up on a ridge in Rowe, near the Raycroft Overlook.
I won’t say I packed lightly – camera and tripod, a pack full of lenses, and my rain set-up: a wooden stake tripod, big-ass hammer, two bungee cords and an umbrella. ‘Cause I’m high-tech, you know.
Anyway, I drove as far out toward the Overlook as my oversized beast would take me without risking disaster, then loaded up and hiked onward to where the ridge narrowed to a rib of forest slicing through the fog and mist hiding the valley far below.
It was as magical as it always is in the mist – the last time I was here in these conditions, a big black bear loped by between me and the misty void, and though my vulnerability in that moment was clear, I wished it would happen again.
But it didn’t, and as I made my way through the hemlock forest I kept my senses open for a reason to set up the camera and umbrella.
I found this, a moss covered log so vibrant it startled me, cloaked in green velvet and sporting some newly emergent Orange jelly fungus (Dacrymyces palmatus ):
This is from Elliot, with about five degrees of tilt (!) and a hand-held three-stop ND graduated filter, which was the primary reason I needed the umbrella. Little bugger doesn’t take kindly to getting wet.
I took a dozen shots, playing with composition and laying the plane of sharp focus in artsy ways, but none of them were more compelling than this simple early take, so that’s what I’m sharing here.
A Walk In The Rain. June 20, 2009
Posted by littlebangtheory in Art and Nature, Love and Death.Tags: CCC, clouds, clover, daisies, mullien, railroad, Raycroft Overlook
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Got rained out of work on Thursday, so I took a walk along the railroad tracks near the Hoosac Tunnel. It was a strange mix of natural beauty and post-industrial destruction, with the cleansing rain putting the best face on the scene as softly furred mullein and optimistic daisies reclaimed an abandoned rail:
Sometimes the two plants seemed to be conspiring in their effort to affirm the power of beauty to confound our headlong rush toward its dissolution:
Then I took a drive up into the clouds to see what was happening up above.
The air was heavy with blowing fog, and every surface was bathed in fine beads of glistening dew. I parked at the end of a woods road and made the short hike out to the Raycroft Overlook, a CCC Work Camp project which is itself being reclaimed be the inexorable processes of nature.
The walk along the narrow ridge was magical, with the northern slope dropping steeply off into the clouds:
…to the old stonework vantage point from which the Deerfield river can usually be seen a thousand feet below:
On this day the “river view” dissolved into the clouds, leaving only the insistent red clover under foot to demand its mountainside back from us arrogant interlopers:
Wrapped in a raincoat and photographing under an umbrella, I was lost in the surreality of the feeling of helming this great stone ship through the swirling clouds. The experience was cleansing, and convinced me to venture out into the rain more regularly.
I hope you enjoyed these.
Little Bang Theory 