Most Viewed Photography Blogs (166)

The day before we had the huge snow storm here in New Jersey, I went to a park in Somerset, NJ,
that I had not been to in a couple of years. Unfortunately, they are currently dredging their 2 larger
ponds. There's little water and cranes are digging up the mud.
So, although there are usually a significant amount of waterfowl and other water related mammals,
there was next to nothing that day there. Near the parking lot, there was one mockingbird, who
was apparently too cold to fly away. Thus, I he patiently posed for me.

I did spot one great blue heron. But, he just looked angry that his feeding pond was a horrible mess.
Nonetheless, I ventured around the current huge mud pit to get some photos of him on the sunny side of him instead of from across the huge muck depository.

On the way there I encountered a herd of 11 deer, who initially ran away from me, but didn't run far at all.
Several years ago, I was essentially functionally part of their herd. I accomplished that with frequent visits
and the initial visits were literally running through the woods to catch up with them repeatedly,
while letting them get comfortable with my presence gradually. I would never get too close to violate
their personal space. But, I convinced them, they they could not shake me from catching up to them
and when they ate leaves I would act like I was eating leaves. Little by little they accepted me and
would not run away from me when I approached and gradually allowed me to get closer.

Years ago I got lots of great pictures of them. But, it has been several years. So, I was not surprised,
that they may have forgotten me. However, they didn't run far from me and when I encountered them again on my way to the great blue heron, they did not run again, despite me not running initially after them.
I got within 15 yards of them. There was the matriarch, who is the boss of the herd, and she paid little
attention to me, so the others did the same. There were a few yearlings, male and female fawn from earlier in the year and 7 does from earlier years.

There was one young doe, who I figure was almost 2 years old. She became very curious about me.
If I could read her mind (which I can't), it was something like, "that's a human. Why isn't the herd
running away ???" So, she slowly intentionally walked up to me, sort of acting like it wasn't me
she was curious about, but a leaf here and a branch there, without taking her big brown eyes off of me
and getting progressively closer. At one point she was standing perhaps 10 feet from me.
So, despite it being in the forest, I took a lot of photos of her while softly speaking to her.

After this encounter, I walked away and found the heron again and took a couple photos of that bird.
However, the heron was partially hidden by brush on it's sunny side. So, those shots were less satisfying.

When I went to walk back to the car, I encountered the deer herd again. They did not run away at all
and again, the same doe came walking up to me and stood only 10 feet away. I thanked her for being such a lovely wild model, and left very pleased, that perhaps the herd may have somewhat remembered me after about 2 years.

There are 3 other herds that are closer to me, that know me well. I see them frequently and vice versa.
But, this Somerset herd was the first one that I attempted to become a herd member and successfully achieved that. I successfully applied what I had learned to the other herds.

Here are some photos from that day, including one of the mockingbird, a mallard drake in a stream that ran off of one of the lakes, and one of the heron.
The rest are of the doe I mentioned, which I named Curiousity.

July has been a busy month for me. Lots of personal and business goals to accomplish. I made a do-list a while back and misplaced it, so I'm only responding to immediate concerns and the long-term goals are nearly forgotten. Before the pandemic, I lost more than 10 pounds with nightly walks and doing training to start a new job. Being home for 8+ weeks and the weight came back. We were getting rain nearly every afternoon/evening and that interrupted my schedule of walks.
Unless it's something mandatory, like taxes and bills, nearly everything else is on hold.
With the exception of a pulmonologist (for asthma) I pushed back on doctors, dentists and testing. Some of that is catching up on me and I'm doing blood work this month. Dentist is postponed. I dislike the idea of being in an open space with my mouth open for 30 minutes!

Talking to my brother tonight, he reminded me I drifted away from one of my projects... scanning old photos. Last month, I found an old sepia photo of a young guy playing guitar. Sometimes my parents would write on the back of the photo who the person (or people in a group shot) were. This one had some black paper stuck to the back so I know it was once part of my parents photo album. Many old photos were damaged years ago. Stored in luggage in the back part of a room addition where a roof leak damaged many old things. I salvaged whatever I could.

If you've had something that was water damaged and stayed wet for a long period of time, that smell of mold/mildew is something that doesn't escape the memory. I had to toss out old Hollywood moviestar magazines my grandmother collected that were damaged by water. Lots of times I'll visit a clients house and remark to them "Do you have a roof leak?" most are surprised as they are unaware of the odor in their own house. A few have come back to me with thanks as they called a roofer after my comment and did have a leak unknown to them.

Although, we weren't able to identify who the guitarist was. His faded photograph will stay in the collection of family friends.

First of all, here's some background music to click on to listen to while you enjoy the rest of the blog;



A week ago I presented a dozen photos to my local photo club to rave reviews.
All 12 were taken the day after Halloween.
Here's 4 of those for your viewing pleasure.

The far shore of a local lake;



This dead tree was modified for Halloween and was quite impressive at about 40 feet tall;


I walked along a stream off of the lake and saw this
for you to.....reflect upon. :)



This was a couple in an inflatable canoe with another lake shore as a foliage backdrop;



Happy Trails to you.

The moon followed me home last night. Very bright and lots of spots where it peeked through the clouds. I stopped to shoot a few pictures but my cellphone camera is very limited especially for distant night images. Obviously the focus and contrast are lacking, but you get the idea of proportion. By 11pm the moon was overhead and lit up the entire sky.

Watch some pictures of my life and some random stuff.

With new tires on my bike, thanks to my awesome neighbour, I headed out early this morning to the dike for a short ride. With the advent of the May long weekend, everyone is heading out to campgrounds and various and sundry places.

As flood warnings are prevalent along the rivers from as far north as my daughter right down to where I live, many of the campsites are under water already, and if not, very close to it.

I noted the other morning that I'm able to use a higher gear to pedal and put that down to increasing muscle. Yay! So off I go to the dike, riding by newly mown hayfields, dotted with huge white plastic wrapped bales like giant marshmallows. It's overcast again today, but as with the previous couple of days, it's high clouds and will burn off. The sun is already peeking through areas, and it's one of those lovely spring mornings where it's warm enough to wear shorts and a t-shirt, but cool enough to be refreshing.

Not much wildlife, or for that matter, any signs of life along the dike. The river is slowly making it's way closer and closer, and an incline that I used to walk down to wander into the river bed, almost half way across the river, (about 2km) is now completely under water. As it's still quite a ways from the dike, I'm still comfortable riding it, so far.

I love taking my bike out and being able to spontaneously take a different path or road. This morning instead of following the road home, I took a sharp right to find out where the country road led. Surprisingly, it led to an old building with faded lettering of 'Scott's Meat' - an abattoir I'd presume. The paved road turned into a gravel road and curved back to the dike.

Riding towards the dike, a huge dairy barn was below the dike on my right, the cows still quiet in the early morning. On my left, an overfull slough was creeping through the grass and bush, it's green stillness reflecting the trees and overgrowth. A closed metal farm gate prevented me from going further, birds landing briefly on it before disappearing into the mass of wild bush. An American Goldfinch (wonder if he has a visa? lol) landed on the farm gate, and luckily I already had my camera out with the zoom lens on it.



Pedalling back the way I came, an abandoned shed sits right next to the train tracks, and I wonder what animals it used to house.



Back at home, I'm excited today, as I'm heading across the border to a wonderful area for photography and to check out a new bike. As the price here was rather exorbitant, I couldn't justify buying a new one. Until a good friend and accountant advised me that as my photography is a business, the bike is part of how I take photos and therefore a business expense. Yes!!

Man, I love that woman! lol. The bike will need to be ordered in, and take about a week, but I can wait. In the meantime, with transportation as our next assignment, I'm thinking I'll head down to North Bend on Tuesday and take photos of the ancient trains.



Enjoy the day! (Doing the happy dance at having my bike back)

For a while now, I wanted to try the Photo Lab services at the Walgreens pharmacy.
They offer poster sized 16" x 20" enlargements for $30.

I need to find the right picture frame first so I can crop the images according to the border. They have the ability to do borderless prints, but I would crop the image to allow for a frame if that is what I decide on.

Typically, they advertise prints in an hour. They have one lab about 2 miles from my office and I talked to one of the technicians who told me when they aren't busy, they can do prints in 10-15 minutes.

If you have photos on your cellphone, you can plug it into their system for preview and download. I declined wanting to connect my phone to a device that can capture the 4,000+ images contained there, instead I'll save the images to a blank memory stick so ONLY those photos will be read by their computer.

My favorite type of photography is wild animals.
It can be very challenging to get close enough with the right light angle,
with the exact camera setting to best display their subtle colors and patterns,
and to also get them to be comfortable enough to get them in normal behavior, ignoring me.
I find it quite challenging and that's part of the reason I enjoy it most, as well as
being as one with nature.

But, I've done lots of different types of photography.
Indeed, weddings, real estate, and other types of photography are a lot easier
and pay more too. Thus, I do that sort of thing also.
Indeed, I will be doing some weddings again this summer.

Of course, I can't show you photos of people that I have photographed
without them signing a release form.
Otherwise one opens themself up to possible litigation.

But, there's no problem in that regard with wild animals nor
inanimate objects. They generally don't have attorneys willing to take a photographer to court.

I remember many decades ago one winter going around my neighborhood at the time
and photographing the holiday lights put on front lawns or roofs.
They came out alright and I guess it was somewhat fun at the time.

A couple of weeks ago I got the idea to again photograph holiday lights, but in a totally different way.
What I did is to set the shutter speed to be long 1/2 second to 2 seconds and have the background dark.
Then, I simply moved the lens, so that the lights became trails over the time set,
I tried several different lens motions. Here are 5 of those photos.
Let me know if you like any. I plan on using them for something else.
More on that another day.

Photography didn’t become commonplace until the 1840s, which means there aren’t very many photographs of people born before the 1770s. One of the surviving portraits before that time, however, is of a man from Maine who served in the Revolutionary War and reportedly lived into his 100s. He may be the earliest-born person to have ever been photographed.

Conrad Heyer, born in Waldoboro in 1749, was photographed in 1852 at the whopping age of 103. The image — a daguerreotype, the earliest widely available form of photography — is believed to be the earliest-born American to be photographed alive, though some historians dispute that. It also may be that Heyer was not only the earliest-born American — he may be the earliest born person, period, as other photographs of earlier-born people have yet to be discovered.

Or suggest your own caption for the following photo, if you like.
Or just enjoy the inventive suggestions of others.

Here's the photo;




No mention of other CS members.