Portrait of the Photographer in Ivy

While I was poking around in the ferns and the ivy taking photographs, I happened to see my shadow on the ferns, cast by the late afternoon sun.  I think it was only my head, shoulders and the upraised arm holding the camera.  So I took a shot and liked the effect, and then backed up to include more of myself.  When I got to this spot I took several photographs, thinking that I had something here.  It's interesting, and something different.

 

Tiny Blue Ferns

Oh man, he's using that infrared camera again!  Can you make him stop please:   :-)  I decided to photograph some of the ferns that are scattered under the Japanese maple tree, and thought that they would look really interesting if I did the photographs in infrared.  So here you are!  These ferns are only about nine inches tall and I thought that the two of them were beautiful together, silhouetted against the dark ground.  The IR camera rendered this infrared image in a bluish tint, and I tried converting the photograph to black and white, and it lost something.  So I have left it blue, and that reminds me of a 19th century artist named Anna Adkins, who published the first book of photographs.  She made cyanotype images of plants, and the images looked like this.  Click here to see a story about her:  

Wow! This Looks Complicated...

Well, yes, in fact, it IS complicated!  This is the panel of the aircraft I am flying in my training.  It is a Cessna 172 R.  Those circles to the left are, on the left, from the top, Altimeter, Vertical Speed, Tachometer.  And the two circles to the right of those are indicators for the radios, are called CDI's - "Course Deviation Indicators."  Then in the middle is the "radio stack" with the audio panel at top, and then a Garmin GNX 375 WAAS GPS Navigator with ADS-B "Out"/"In" Transponder.  Whew, that's a mouthful.  So I am familiar with the other radios which have been in other aircraft I have flown, but the Garmin is a whole other animal!

It is kind of a jack of all trades, in that it is a GPS but it is also the Transponder and it has a LOT of functions.  I have no idea how it works just yet.  It is so complicated, that I have downloaded a simulator of this unit for my iPad, so I can practice with it on the ground before getting in the airplane.  I think it will be a while before I feel comfortable with all that it can do.  But that's the fun of doing all this training!

 

Magic Land

So once again, I took my infrared camera out for a stroll, to see what I could find.  Of course all of you will recognize one of my favorite scenes, which is the point down at Tappan Beach.  I just love how the IR camera creates "magic" when it takes a regular scene and makes it something completely different.  There is an old saying that photographers speak of:  "If you can't be creative, then use tricks!"

 

Clouds Earlier the Same Day

Here are three more photographs of the day with beautiful clouds.  You saw the last photo of the day, which I posted yesterday.  This photo was the first inkling that there might be some interesting photographs to be had.  I took this on Dunkin' day down at the beach.  Kind of looks like the end of the world.

About an hour later I came by the harbor again and things were still looking ominous.  Such powerful looking clouds, spanning the harbor.

Then I backed up and included the railing.  I liked the straight, bright railing as an accent to the random shapes of the clouds.  This was a day to be remembered for all of us cloud lovers!

 

The Beauty of the Sky

Today was a stunning day for cloud watching!  There were these amazing cumulus clouds coming and going overhead almost all day long.  I started photographing them at the beach on our Dunkin' day and then later in the day we went to a nearby nursery and when I got out of the car I saw this scene!  I am blown away by the beauty and subtlety of all the delicate gray tones in the clouds, and this IS a color photograph!

 

There's a House In Here

When you run out of creativity, then you need to use tricks.  So it was time for me to get out my infrared converted camera.  I didn't have to go far for this photograph.  It is a photograph of our neighbor's house, as seen from our bedroom.  The trees between us have grown thicker and thicker until we can barely see her house.  But in infrared this scene has a much different sense than a normal rendition would have.  I love that you can barely tell there is a house in there!