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.
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).
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.
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.
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
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.
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:
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…
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.
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