04.28.2017 Return of the Red Wake Robin

This time while lying on the ground with the Venus Optics Laowa 15mm macro.

AKA Red Trillium-Trillium erectum, this one, and a few others, lived up to the species name by standing erect.  Most often they droop as you see in the two behind, which offers the added bonus of neck cricks.       🙂

The hardest part of using this lens, aside from all manual operation (good thing I am old enough to remember when they were all that way), is keeping the tripod legs which need to be splayed out flat out of the image.

04.27.2017 Return to Amethyst Brook

But what part?  Amethyst Brook offers so many possibilities as it meanders several miles from Pelham to Amherst.  In this case it is also a return to this exact spot that I shot back in 2011.  Back then I straddled the slot cascade to get a similar angle.  A few years older and wiser, this time I wore boots so I could stand in the water.    🙂

04.26.2017 Oh, just another spectacular beginning to a day

It’s getting harder and harder to get out of the house in time for sunrise.  Bentley requires some quality sit with time in the morning or he wakes Mary Beth up when I leave, so that takes up a half hour in my recliner.  Worse ways to start the day but not exactly a get up and go beginning.  But Mary Beth needs her sleep and I need my breakfast.  So it’s getting a little harder to get out by 5.  Should I just get up earlier or have a Kind Bar or two as I drive to whatever destination and have a full breakfast late morning.  Maybe I should stop at a Sugar Shack and have some pancakes or waffles with maple syrup or creme.   🙂

After luring you in with a title suggesting something about a sunrise, I guess I should post an image, eh?Once again I’m a little time reversed as this is sunrise in New Salem over North Quabbin on the 17th before I drove back to Pelham for yesterday’s waterfall images.

04.25.2017 Dunlop Brook Waterfall after some nice rain.

We’ve been having some nice rainfalls lately, today included, and that is making for good water photography.  I may have mentioned before that this spot is within earshot of a somewhat well traveled road, but the combination of early morning and rushing water pretty much “silenced” the sound of traffic.

From Monday the 17th.

You can always tell my favorite by the drop shadow mat.    🙂

I finally replaced my stone-age vintage iPhone with a “6” and made a video here also.

I had the opportunity to submit a small portfolio for review to be included in a gallery’s showings next year.  But as I got into making the prints, it seemed that my profile wasn’t up to snuff for the B&W entries (I kept getting a green cast) so I am passing for this time.  I have since purchased a Color Munki which has given me a good new profile and my first color print came out pretty close to how I wanted it.  You will hear folks claiming that they can get a print to match their display on the first try.  Not so if you are fussy about the color, detail, and luminance. Anyway, next up is the monochrome test print.

04.03.2017 Quabbin Observation Tower at Sunrise

I had big plans for today…shoot sunrise, wander along a full rushing stream and take a hike in Quabbin.  But a combination of sore back and Bentley wanting to go out at midnight keeping me awake for a few hours afterward, changed that.  Naps are good though.

So, instead of sharing something new, bright, and shiny, here’s a couple of images from last October 30.

As the sun rose
and shortly after

The back is no big deal.  A little R&R made it much better.  But the midnight beagle is another story.  I hope it won’t get to be a habit.  But I dare not refuse him, especially after he broke into a what we thought was a locked cabinet and ate one or two cups of sunflower seeds.  Most seem to have passed through him today.  Tonight will tell.

Very odd.  When I loaded both images into the media library they would not work when clicked in preview.  But after I deleted them and added them one at a time while writing the post they work.

04.01.2017 Scaly Chanterelle and an Orange Chanteuse.

Lots of good April Fool’s stuff going around, but that’s not in my wheelhouse, as they say, so I’ll just post something more summery on this snowy, slushy April 1st.

Turbinellus kauffmanii fka Gomphus kauffmanii fka Cantharellus kauffmanii-Kauffman’s Scaly Chantarelle with Notophthalmus viridescens-Red Eft (juvenile eastern newt), from a hot and steamy July day in 2008 at Chesterfield Gorge, MA with a host of mosquitoes buzzing about…not sure if that or sleet is the better day…but no newts around currently.    🙂

03.27.2017 Dunlop Brook

Dunlop Brook runs through Romer Woods, a 141 acre parcel that was recently protected for Amherst’s water supply. Robert Romer sold it to the town for a nice reduced price to maintain the water quality and see it protected into the future. It includes a small  cemetery where some of his relatives are buried.  I think it is his intention to rest there as well.

My posted image yesterday was of Amethyst Brook, which is nearby to the site…two of several nice brooks in this area.

I don’t often do swirls as I am not a fan of foamy water, a side-effect of tannins, but this was mostly a bubbles incident so I took advantage of the trapped water.I have only visited this location the one time, but am eager to see what flowers and small wildlife might be seen here come April and May and June, etc.      🙂