Thinking It Over

On of my more cerebral older cousins at Atlanta Zoo.

Chillin'

Last October, I took Mom down to Atlanta to visit my Cousins Brian and Lisa and their new baby Max. They live close to the Atlanta zoo, always worth a visit.

While at the zoo, I snapped this photo of one of my other young cousins, chillin' in a hammock.

Under the Bridge

At Druid Ridge, a convoy of ducks sails under the old bridge and into the small stream that feeds the pond.

Through a little Googling, I found that the white "AFLAC" ducks are called Pekin Duck or (in the USA) Long Island Duck. They developed in China centuries ago. When you have roast duck or duck eggs, it's most likely that you're eating one of these quackers.

After hanging around these guys, I've really grown to like them. I think I'll stick to chicken.

Formation Splashdown

These Canada geese are part of a flock that arrived here years ago on a tourist visa while migrating South and decided to stay. For some reason, USCIS doesn't seem to be interested in doing anything about it.

They don't do much but waddle around, eat, poop, and kvetch loudly ... but every once in a while, a flight of them will take off, circle around to the main road, and come back for a water landing. When they do, you can get some good photos.

Laid-Back Mallard

This is one kool katchke!

Scowling Goose

In contrast to the ducks, who always appear to be smiling, these geese at Druid Ridge pond seem to be perpetually annoyed. This one is giving me a real stink-eye.

Blue Heron on Far Bank

Druid Ridge Cemetery in Pikesville is a nice place to visit on a sunny Sunday morning - well, not the dead people's part, but the large duck pond on the edge of the grounds.

The pond has a large permanent population of various kinds of ducks and geese. Like much of the mid-Atlantic, formerly migratory Canada geese have made a permanent home here.

If you get here early enough, you may luck out and spot a blue heron who also makes his home here.

This place is only about a half-mile from my mom's place, so I've been bringing my camera whenever I go to see her, in case I have a few minutes to stop and see my feathered friends.

Rocky Mountain Mall

Although this scene may look as if it's taken from the background video for a karoke version of Rocky Mountain High, the actual location is what amounts to a large strip mall just west of Annapolis.

This ties in nicely with yesterday's backyard photography post. The point is that you don't have to travel to exotic locations to make compelling images.

This photo came about as I stopped by my bank to make a deposit early last Saturday morning before heading to City Dock to play around with my new Tamron 18-270mm superzoom lens. As I pulled into a parking space, I noticed how the low morning sun lit up the red-tipped grass planted in the divider between the bank's parking lot and that of Fudrucker's next door.

Shooting from slightly above the grass and at the long end of the zoom's range, the shallow depth of field makes it look as if the grass goes on forever.

In fact, here is what the scene looks like to the casual observer

Lovely, isn't it?

Well yeah, it is, if you look beyond the superficial.

Great photos are everywhere, and as Dorothy said, there's no place like home.

Backlit Backyard Leaves

Last Thursday after work, I went out of my way to go shooting in a fancy-schmantzy neighborhood of Baltimore. When I came home and got out of my car, I happened to notice some beautiful backlighting on some on these hostas at the side of our house.

After all was said and done, this was the only good photo of the day. I wouldn't say at all that the special trip to that fancy neighborhood was a waste, but it's funny how I found the best image right in my backyard.

Ginkgo Fan

Yes, you could say I'm a ginkgo fan.

I never really noticed their elegant, fan-shaped leaves until I worked in Towson some years ago on a three-month contract. It was fall, and Pennsylvania Avenue in greater downtown Towson is graced with quite a few ginkgo trees. Even then, I didn't notice the leaves until they started to turn color and fall.

The ginkgo tree, Ginkgo biloba, is itself quite intersting. Among plants, it is sui generis, being the only species in the genus Ginkgo, which is the only member of the family Ginkgoaceae, in turn the only family in the order Ginkgoaceae, itself the only member of the class Ginkgoopsida, which is, you guessed it, the only member of the phylum Ginkgophyta.

Even among trees, ginkgos are especially long-lived and have been around longer than any other species - over 200 million years.

For this photo, I made use of a photographic axiom I learned years ago:

"Get close... then get closer."

The macro mode of my digicam (Canon A620) let me "get closer," and some nice late-afternoon sidelighting contributed to make a dramatic image.

Fallen Ginkgo

These ginkgo leaves actually fell a few feet away onto some unattractive concrete pavement. I thought they'd look much better on this nice brick-paved portion of the sidewalk.

I waited until the sun was low in the western sky, grabbed a handful of ginkgo, and dropped them on the brick.

Gravity and air resistance did a pretty nice job of arranging them. All I had to do was compose and snap.

Leaf on 21st Street

Our wonderful Israeli cousins Tammy and Itzik were in Washington this past week, and we drove to DC to pick them up at their hotel and spend the day with them. Mindful of the dictum, "it always pays to schlepp one's camera, I grabbed my Adorama Slinger as I headed out from home.

With the exception of our recent Shutterbug Excursions outing to Great Falls, I hadn't taken any decent fall foliage photos... and no fall close-ups or macros at all. But after I dropped my gang off at the hotel and parked my car around the block on 21st Street, I found this classic autumn leaf laying around in the curb. Moving it to the nicely-bricked sidewalk, I saw this ready-made frame and snapped a few shots.

This may have to do for Fall 2008. The leaves are still colorful on the trees, but there aren't too many left.

Patowmack Reflection

Shutterbug Excursions 11/1/2008 Greet Falls Meetup: Here's a section of the Patowmack Canal, a project encouraged by George Washington as part of his dream to link the coastal plain to the Ohio River Valley via the Potomac River. The old canal lies within the Great Falls National Park.

Great Falls

Over the last 30 years or so, I've crossed into Virginia many times via US 495 and the Cabin John Bridge, never realizing that there's spectacular natural landmark not five miles off of the Interstate.

Upstream on the Potomac from the Cabin John, just far enough to be out of sight from the bridge, are the Great Falls of the Potomac. The river drops 76 feet in less than a mile through rock-strewn rapids and several waterfalls. Just above the falls, the Potomac is almost 1000 feet wide, but it narrows to as little as 60 feet as it rushes through Mather Gorge, a short distance below the falls.

I visited Great Falls for the first time yesterday, along with my crew from the Shutterbug Excursions meetup.com group.
The group had to cancel its planned Skyline Drive photo meetup last week because of bad weather, but it turned out that fall foliage was closer to it's peak yesterday anyway. And the weather couldn't have been more perfect and comfortable - sunny and about 65F.

This photo is from the lookout point closest to the visitors center, looking across the Potomac to the Maryland side. The ancient, high-walled cliffs are a result of the Potomac carving a deeper path to the sea following the drop in ocean levels after the last ice age.

Doo, Doo, Doo Lookin' Out My Front Door!

I opened my front door one night and there she was, already having spun a pictorially perfect composition - must have known a photographer lived there.

I just used flash to illuminate spider and web, while leaving the nighttime front yard dark.

In Photoshop, I applied a reverse B&W gradient map (the small gray areas are tree leaves that barely left any shadow detail in the original.)

That's it - no cropping even!