The Cormorant, the Dragonfly, and the Bee: Res

Showing posts with label Res. Show all posts

Sunday, November 7, 2021

Fall Day at the Res

The photos below were taken on October 31 (Halloween!) during my walk around the Res. None of the subjects were particularly close to me, however my (600mm equivalent) telephoto zoom lens brings them in *much* closer for our enjoyment.

As part of my photography exploration, I challenge myself to bring only one lens sometimes. I used to occasionally regret not having a wider lens when I only have my telephoto and vice versa. Now, I choose to see the world through the lens I have with me.

Floating leaf peepers

Streaming Network

Mixture Far Above

The leaves really do look this red.

Colorized

Colorized Too

Mid-Gust Drama

Water Carpet

Do You Mind? I'm Eating

Not a "black swan", ... a "grey swan" maybe?

Swan of a Different Color

Red Back Atcha

Bicolored Leaves

Leaves Above the Fray

This last set of three are variations on a similar theme.

Fall on Glass

Artist's Palette

Towards Open Water

Thursday, October 14, 2021

First Fall Photos

While September 22 was the first official day of autumn this year, the leaves in my area begin to show their colors several weeks later than that. Mid-October is generally when the colors begin to show in earnest.

Sometimes temps are not even particularly chilly yet. I took these photos in lovely 72 degree weather, two days ago, during yet another walk around the Res. (Have you figured out that I walk around the Res. a lot?)

As you can plainly see, the leaves are definitely beginning to turn their wonderful fall colors.

This is a glorious time of year to be in New England.

All photos are taken with my cell phone.

Reflecting Life

Here is a wider panorama.

Mirror Trees

Scene from the Edge

Though they are quite tiny in this next photo, those are cormorants on logs in the "center" of the image. I often see them relaxing atop those logs. The natural wide angle view of my cell phone is a little deceiving in that the cormorants are actually much closer to me than the furthermost trees seen in the photo, which are just beyond the reservoir dam.

Cormorants Blissfully Basking

Yellow Leaf Zone

Roots and Leaves Discuss

Saturday, October 9, 2021

Natural Triptych

This is a photo of a small body of water that sits adjacent to the reservoir I walk around. The walking path itself is atop the land which divides the two.

As I was walking by on this particular day, I noticed how extremely green the water appeared. I wondered if it was an algae bloom. My research found that some algae blooms are harmful and others not. Regardless, the striking color caught my eye and I grabbed a photo with my cell phone.

Natural Triptych

Monday, October 4, 2021

Diverse Impressions

As I review my photos taken over different days, sometimes I feel the need to share just a few, even if they're not necessarily related to one another.

Perhaps a photo that speaks to me will speak to you as well.

Here's a cell phone shot taken of one of my favorite sections of the walk around the Res. Whenever I'm there, I feel like the trees are inviting me to walk among them.

Trees Show the Way

Back home, in our garden, bees get speckled with pollen on them as they go about their business.

Pollinator - Top View

Pollinator - Side View

This lily looks a whole lot better than it smells. We had a blossom from this plant inside for a few days, but the smell became a bit strong! Certain lilies are best enjoyed outdoors.

Lily Life

Monday, September 13, 2021

Stepped Spillway

I've walked around the Ashland Reservoir hundreds of times, yet I only just learned the "correct" name and reason for the physical structure used for the water to leave the reservoir. It is properly called a "stepped spillway".

Furthermore, because of the shape and location of the dam used to create this particular reservoir, the designers chose to create a stepped spillway that also turns around a gentle curve to give the water a path to flow out of the reservoir. What I hadn't thought about - and thank you, Wikipedia, for this observation - is the reason for the steps, as opposed to a smooth incline, aka chute. It is to help dissipate all the "kinetic energy of the descending water." "Failure to dissipate the water's energy can lead to scouring and erosion at the dam's toe (base). This can cause spillway damage and undermine the dam's stability." Quoted phrases are from these two articles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spillway and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stepped_spillway.

On a recent walk, I noticed the spillway flow to be quite loud and dramatic, since we'd just had several days of rain. I've got one still photo, and one video below, both taken with my cell phone, to show the power of the descending water.

Roaring Spillway

Since I'm usually a still photographer, I had fun taking and post-processing the video below. I used the "slow motion" mode setting on my cell phone to take the video, then post-processed it with Blackmagic Design's excellent DaVinci Resolve software to perform essentially two modifications: add a "ramped" speed change during the clip, and remove a non-kid friendly word written on the stone on the side.

Resolve (Studio version) is used to create professional movies. Go to https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/davinciresolve and watch all the really cool trailers at the top of their web site. It's a very powerful tool to apply to my very low budget and limited resolution cell phone video. Nevertheless I'm hopeful you get the basic idea that the amount of water flow was impressive! And that slow motion turbulent water is kind of fun to watch:)

Warning: geeky stuff follows...

As mentioned, part of my video post-processing challenge was "removal" of a moving object. This involves cloning a different part of the scene over the portion to be removed, so that it appears the object is not present. After reviewing several YouTube instructional videos, I finally figured out how to do this. Resolve has a tab called "Fusion" which allows the user to design their processing steps using a map of connected nodes. Here is the Resolve Fusion node map I created to perform the "moving object removal" task. As you can see, this is not a simple operation. As I understand it, there's a more automated way to remove objects from videos in the non-free Studio version of the software, but that would take all the fun out of it:)

Sunday, June 27, 2021

Restful Res

We are so fortunate to live near the "res." I find that the local reservoir provides welcome peace and tranquility when I walk there. Here are some cell phone photos I recently took during one such outing.

Walking can be quite meditative in a location like this. It just takes an awareness of the present to notice;)

Water Dimples

Rock Islands

Res at Rest

Friday, October 9, 2020

October Leaves

In this post I've included foliage views seen during the same walk discussed in my previous post. I did not expect to see a lot of leaf color yet, as these photos were taken on October 1, and this turned out to be mostly true. However, the nice thing about foliage is that, sort of like micro-climates, there seem to always be rotating pockets of leaf color throughout the fall season. It's just a matter of where one looks.

Here is some of the color I found on that day!

Dancing Blues

Leaves Down 1

Leaves Down 2

High Flying Foliage

Foliage Fun

Deciduous Before Evergreen

Thursday, October 8, 2020

Great Blue

On a recent walk around the Ashland Reservoir, I came across a great blue heron standing tall on a rock. I've seen great blue heron's at the reservoir before, however past encounters were from large distances, and often only when the bird was in flight, and so the moments were short-lived.

On this occasion, the bird was still and quiet. As I walked closer to it along the shoreline, I was happy to see that my footsteps did not bother it. So much so, that I was able to sit down and change to my telephoto lens, and despite the delay, the bird hadn't moved at all. I was able to capture a few photos, and would have captured several more except that someone else came along the path with a dog that barked loudly and made some moves in the direction of the bird. Naturally, the great blue heron flew off, something it does majestically since it has a six foot wing span. I love dogs, but not that one:) The owner apologized to me; she'd not even seen the bird herself. I was upset with her dog, but I held my tongue, keeping my opinions to myself.

Because of my position behind some shore trees, the bird was completely hidden from my view when it flew off, so I was unable to get any photos of this dramatic bird in flight. I am comforted only by the fact that, even if I had a clear view, catching good photos of birds in flight is not something I've ever had much success with. Evidently, this was not to be my day to improve on my "in focus birds in flight" ratio.😞

Watchful Bird

Over the Shoulder Gaze

Portal to Great Blue

Here is the same photo cropped closer.

Great Blue in the Sun

Friday, February 7, 2020

Winter Res

One of the challenges for mid-winter photography is taking pictures on a gray day. In some respects, cloudy days can be beneficial for photos, reducing the harsh contrast that a sunny day might force. On this particular outing, the sun did manage to make a very subdued showing towards the end of my route.

As ice melts, the reservoir surface is constantly changing due to the ice patterns and the different ways winter light hits the surface.

Here a few glimpses of the res from this day.

Tree Reveal

Ice Melt

Res on Ice

Sunday, November 3, 2019

Autumn at the Res

During the same walking event of my last post, I took several other pictures, presented below. It's almost impossible for me to let the fall season pass without taking pictures of the local color. In my photos, I'm always striving for yet another way to capture the joy of the changing leaves.

From Above

At Water's Edge

Through the Y

While there were actually four cormorants on this rock, I slightly prefer this composition containing just three, mostly because the rightmost cormorant's head is nicely in the same line, and I can zoom in a little closer within the same frame. I had to wait to just the right moment to catch them all relaxing and not self-preening.

Let's All Look Left

For reference, here's a wider view. You can see that the lowest cormorant also enjoys looking left, while the rightmost one has become slightly distracted from the sun salutation.