My commute nowadays is a short walk through the woods behind our house. The light is hopeful and other creatures have created more beautiful structures than I ever could. 10 minutes of serenity and I’m ready for whatever the day holds in store for me.
Not many photo opportunities when you’re quarantined, except the view out the window. But what a nice view it is:
Last night it snowed lightly and I captured these images before the snow melted.
iPhone, Hipstamatic app
iPhone, Hipstamatic app
Walked to the Mall after work on Friday and captured these photos. A wonderful time to be in DC, except this year it’s unseasonably cold. Nevertheless, the water’s edge was packed with tourists (i.e. camera-toting) and locals (i.e. picnicking).
Playing with a few new filters/lenses of the Hipstamatic app and a cut-off tree in our forest:
What one can find in a wet forest if you keep your eyes close to the ground:
iPhone
Captured these leaves with frozen drops of rain on a recent walk in the neighborhood, using my umbrella to ensure a uniform background. The second shot reminded me of stalactites in a cave.
Canon 5D Mark II, EF 100mm f/2.8 macro lens
As seen from our backyard porch. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
Captured these while driving through Yellowstone National Park last weekend:
Found this floating near our town beach after a storm:
Canon Powershot G12
I used Snapseed’s new double exposure feature to create this scene, which combines two different views from the Clinton town beach:
iPhone, edited with Snapseed
Caught this scene on a recent hike through the Connecticut woods:
Canon Powershot G12
Saw this hawk looking for prey at sunrise behind our house. Here are two different takes on that scene, both shot with my iPhone, but one with the Hipstamatic app.
Top of a pillar of the wooden bridge that connects to our town beach in Clinton, captured after the first frost of winter:
iPhone, edited in Adobe Lightroom
I discovered lots of interesting gnarled trees and their roots hugging the boulders strewn around Smuggler’s Notch near Stowe. Click on any picture to see them in slideshow format.
Canon 5d Mark II, EFL 16-24mm
B&W conversion in Adobe Lightroom
More scenes from our brief visit to Vermont:
This lonely tree is in the marshland behind our house.
Walking through the Vermont woods, I was struck by the beautiful birch tree bark everywhere. Click on any picture to see them as full screen slideshow.
Canon 5D Mark II, EFL 24-70mm f/2.8
Hundreds of acres of forest in Yellowstone Park were destroyed in massive fires in 1988, requiring over 9,000 firefighters and affecting almost 800,000 acres of forest (bigger than Rhode Island). The remnants of that destruction can still be seen:
Canon 7D, 10-24mm
ISO 400
f/20
1/160 sec
Seems utterly plausible that Batman could swoop through this scene, doesn’t it?
Canon Powershot G12
edited with Nik Silver Efex 2
Captured in Costa Rica’s Arenal National Park.
Canon 7D, EF 70-200mm f/2.8L
ISO 400
f/29
1/200 sec
Canon 7D, EF-S 10-22mm
ISO 200
10mm
f/3.5
1/1600 sec
Edited in Silver Efex Pro
This lovely spot outside our house is even quieter in winter, when the snow smothers all sounds.
Canon 7D, EF10-22mm f/3.5-4.5
ISO 200
f/4.5
1/1250 sec
Not sure what kind of tree this is, but I loved this twisted, gnarled, lonely pine tree near Lone Mountain in Montana.
Canon 7D, EF40mm f/2.8
ISO 400
f/11
1/640 sec
Playing around with the double exposure setting of the Hipstamatic app on my iPhone, I composed this picture of our dog and the fall trees:
Some impressions I captured on today’s walk through the neighborhood.
Found a lovely piece of wood stranded on our beach, with some lovely textures:
The river near our house always offers some great vistas when the water is calm. These 2 shots were from last week. I hope we’ll see some leaves on these trees soon…
A hazy and foggy morning created some good opportunities to isolate this tree from the background (which is usually a green marsh).
Canon Powershot G12
ISO 100
f/8
1/500th sec
+1/3 exposure
Because I look forward to shooting green and colorful landscapes again. Until then, black&white will have to suffice.
Canon 7D, EF 24-70mm f/2.8
ISO 125
f/8
1/1000 sec
B&W conversion with Silver Efex Pro
I love old pine trees in winter. These were captured in Stowe, VT and Big Sky, MT.
iphone Hipstamatic
lens: Lucifer IV
film: Blackeys B&W
A brief trip to Washington, DC, gave me a chance to see the famous Cherry Blossom Season:
This tree has a commanding presence in our neighborhood. Can’t wait for the leaves to return this spring.
iphone Hipstamatic, adjusted with Snapseed
Winter wonderland along I-89 in Vermont:
Canon EOS 7D, EF 24-70mm f/2.8L
ISO 100
F/14
1/60 sec
Fresh snow, a setting sun, plus some fiddling with various filters, and voila: a different take on the typical sunset.
Vermont forest in winter – even now there are lots of colors in the forest.
This one was a double exposure experiment:
iphone Hipstamatic
lens: Helga Viking
film: Kodot XGrizzled
Spotted this lovely barn on a walk through the snowy forest in Vermont:
Canon EOS 7D
ISO 200
f/7.1
HDR
The frosted forests of Vermont would have made the perfect setting for the ice princess in the Chronicles of Narnia.
All photos taken with iPhone Hipstamatic
Details of a recent morning walk:
I shot these while walking our dog on a crisp morning. Even in black&white, nature is gorgeous:
Canon EOS 7D, 24-7omm EF f/2.8, B&W conversion with SilverEfex
Now that the leaves are down, I just need to post one more shot that reflects how I felt when watching the leaves turn in Vermont: a veritable EXPLOSION of color!
Canon EOS 7D, 24-70mm
ISO 100
f/20
1/15
multiple focal lengths
Only in the fall, when all the leaves are down, do you start noticing some of the other, equally beautiful things of the forest: mushrooms, bark, fungi.
Driving along Highway 100 in Vermont, I came across too many photo opportunities to ask my wife to stop for every single one of them. Still, I managed to take advantage of a few, catching the peak season of the famous Vermont Foliage:
I haven’t even been here for 24 hours, and already my camera is bursting with colorful shots of the fall foliage. And according to the foliage report, this isn’t even peak season yet! Stay tuned for more.
Canon EOS 7D, 70-200mm
ISO 200
Yes, the name for a group of monkeys really is a ‘barrel.’ About 30 were thrashing through the canopy above us this morning at 6:30 in the Arenal Volcano National Park, but these two rested long enough to capture them.
Canon EOS 7D, EF70-200mm f/2.8 with 2x converter
ISO 1000
330mm
f/5.6
1/125 sec
