Yearly Archives: 2014

Sometimes green is best

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Figure 1 - Leaf in the Olbrich Botanical Gardens, Madison, WI. (c) DE Wolf 2014.

Figure 1 – Leaf in the Olbrich Botanical Gardens, Madison, WI. (c) DE Wolf 2014.

In photography two things often surprise me.  The first, is that many times, when I open the RAW format of an image that I have destined to be black and white, how the color can already be almost monotone.  This is probably the unassuming quality of RAW format.  It assumes very little about what you are trying to do.  The second, is diametrically opposed to the first.  It is the moment when I start to convert the image to grey scale and suddenly it is as if someone has put on the brakes.  The image demands, or at least is highly enhanced by, color.

Such is the case of the leaf image of Figure 1.  I took it inside the green house of the Olbrich Botanical Gardens in Madison, WI earlier this month.  I had conceived a black and white photograph focusing on texture and form.  But the greens of the leaf itself and the contrasting blue tones of the bokeh behind it were just too appealing to be dismissed out of hand.  And the other point about this image is that it was taken in a very flat overcast light.  The greenhouse was actually quite dark and demanded a high ISO.  But the illumination is beautifully even and still manages to accentuate the veins in the leaf. I have learned to low this kind of light and do not fear an overcast day.

I begin to question Kermit the Frog’s song “It’s not easy being green.”  Green is so easy on the eyes and speaks volumes about the essense of life.  It is so easy to be seduced by green; so perhaps the better song to sing is “Greensleaves.”

As i revisit the lyrics I am captured by the phrase: “Your vows you’ve broken, like my heart, Oh, why did you so enrapture me? Now I remain in a world apart,But my heart remains in captivity.” Green houses are in a sense meant to deny death or to deny, at least the season. Here we have a green and vibrant tropical leaf, stolen in a sense from its real world,  held captive in a place that isolates it from a cold Midwestern winter, a place where it is always spring.

Canon T2i with EF70-200mm f/4L USM at 98 mm, ISO 1600, Aperture-priority AE mode 1/160th sec at f/6.3 no exposure compensation.

October nor’easter and makimono

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October nor'easter, Cambridge, MA. IPhone photograph. (c) DE Wolf 2014.

October nor’easter, Cambridge, MA. IPhone photograph. (c) DE Wolf 2014.

The Boston area is currently experiencing an October nor’easter.  A nor’easter is a storm that moves up the coast and lingers, churning over the ocean.  Since it is turning counterclockwise winds come in from the northeast and dump huge amounts of precipitation.  This is a four day storm and so far has dumped 3 inches of rain, which is a lot better than the 30 inches of snow, which is what it would be in January.  Anyway, eat your hearts out California!

But coming in October, it does have the effect of ravaging the remaining foliage, accelerating us into November.  Today after four hours contemplating the details of the electron transfer chain of oxidative phosphorylation (again this is what us geeks do), I found myself in need of two things: a cold wet blast of rain and wind in the face and makimono for lunch.  The two were fortunately tied together, and I headed off to the local Japanese restaurant for lunch.

It was then that I recognized an important point.  The beauty of autumn is not just colorful leaves on trees, but wet leaves on the sidewalk in a rain storm, and even the fossilike impressions left by these leaves on the pavement.  So I captured the image of Figure 1 with my IPhone on my walk back to the office and am left with the sense that I have captured the true experience of an October nor’easter.

Photographic First Number 14 – the first photograph of a solar eclipse

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First photograph of a solar eclipse July 18, 1851. From the Wikipediacommons and in the public domain.

First photograph of a solar eclipse July 18, 1851. From the Wikipediacommons and in the public domain.

Some of you are going to have the priveledge today of seeing a partial solar eclipse.  Unfortunately, those of us in New England have to be happy with the fall foliage this time.  The fall foliage is BTW being ripped from the trees by a violent noreaster – another New England phenomenon. This got me wondering the proverbial question, who was the first person to photograph a solar eclipse.  The honor appears, according to the Wikipedia, to go to daguerreotypist Berkowski who took the photograph of Figure 1 on July 28, 1851 at the Royal Observatory in Königsberg, Prussia (now Kalinigrad in Russia).

Now, I say appears because the Wikipedia entry for Berkowski contains the cryptic phrase “the first correctly exposed photograph of the solar corona,” suggesting that someone else tried first. A small 6 cm refracting telescope was attached to the 15.8 cm Fraunhofer heliometer and an 84-second exposure was taken shortly after the beginning of totality.

The problem with solar eclipses being that you don’t get retakes. I photographed one back in 1971.  It was amazing and what I remember is all the preparation and then nonstop shooting.  You have this desire to just look and say wow!

Solar eclipse are not however, mere curiosities.  The eclipse of 1919 was famous for the demonstration that light paths are bent in a gravitational field, in this case that of the Sun.  See Figure 2. This was a demonstration of Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity.

Figure 1 - From the report of Sir Arthur Eddington on the expedition to the island of Principe (off the west coast of Africa) - demonstrating the bending of light in a gravitational field. From the Wikipediacommons and in the public domain.

Figure 1 – From the report of Sir Arthur Eddington on the expedition to the island of Principe (off the west coast of Africa) – demonstrating the bending of light in a gravitational field. From the Wikipediacommons and in the public domain.

Breaking the sound barrier

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Breaking the sound barrier

Figure 1 – An F/A-18 breaking the sound barrier. Image released by the USN with ID 990707-N-6483G-001 and taken by Ensign John Gay.

I was watching a piece on the news the other night about photographing jets breaking the “sound barrier” and in a geekish physicist sort of way I found this really cool.  So I thought I would share one of these images with you.  Figure 1 was taken by Ensign John Gay of the U.S. Navy in 1999 and shows an F/A-18 breaking the sound barrier.  When a plane punches through the sound barrier, that is when it reaches a speed of equal to the speed of sound, or Mach 1, it creates a shock wave perpendicular to its direction of flight.  What you are seeing here is that shock wave and the jet appears to be breaking through it– very cool!

The term “sound barrier” is a misnomer.  Early on as planes approached this speed pilots had trouble controlling the aircraft against the turbulence and instabilities that the physics demands and thought that ity might be a physical barrier, forbidden by the laws of physics.  This, of course, turned out not to be the case. And hence we dream of traveling faster than “warp 1” or the speed of light.  We shall see, or someone may.

The history of “breaking the sound barrier” is intriguing.  However, on October 14, 1947 in the Bell X-1 Chuck Yeager (of “The Right Stuff” fame) was credited with being the first man to break the sound barrier in level flight at an altitude of 45,000ft.

Interestingly, when you crack a bullwhip.  The snapping sound that you hear is the shock wave created as the tip reaches the speed of sound. But let’s not stop there.  It is, in fact believed based on computer models of biomechanics, that as early as 150 million years ago certain long tailed dinosaurs such as Apatosaurus and Diplodocus may have been able to flick their tails at supersonic velocities.  Now that would have been an intimidating sound!

Embden geese – Anser anser domesticus

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Figure 1 - Embden geese, Morton Park, Wellesley, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2014.

Figure 1 – Embden geese, Morton Park, Wellesley, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2014.

This past weekend was the absolute peak foliage weekend.  Unfortunately the weather was less than obliging.  Sunday was cold and a bit damp.  Still the colors were magnificent, and I took a short trip through the woods at Morton Park in Wellesley, MA.  The geese were out in force and the water dark and leaf covered.  I was hand-holding my 200 mm lens again but the geese were close and cooperating; so I got the feather, eye, and beak detail that I was looking for.

The result is Figure 1.  these are Embden Geese, the common domesticated geese, Anser anser domesticus.  Their proud heritage of domestication is well documented and quite ancient as shown by Darwin.  While these particular specimens are doomed to little more than the laughter of children, their cousins elsewhere are pretty likely to find themselves on a dinner plate or stuffing a ski parka.

These two were quite friendly and just a bit erked that I was not providing them with any bread crumbs.  You can see from the picture that they were both talking loudly to me.

Canon T2i with   EF70-200mm f/4L USM Lens at 176 mm, ISO 1600, M Evaluative Metering Mode, 1/800th sec at F/8.0.

2014 CBRE Urban Photography Awards

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The 2014 CBRE Urban Photography Awards have been announced.  As one might expect, the awards carry with them all of the ambiguity that the word “urban” carries with it.  Cities are brilliant monuments to human achievement and creativity.  On the other hand they often grow at the expense of the “unseen,” of the crawlers.

This year’s top winner is Marius Vieth for his image “Mask of Society,” so beautifully composed.  The chaos of a modern city, how they verge on being unlivable, is captured in Carlos da Costa Branco’s picture of a traffic policeman dancing in the street in Lisbon.  I love the vague expression on the face of the woman in the car behind him.This was the winner of the Europe, Middle East and Africa prize.

The Asia Pacific award went to Ly Hoang Long for his picture of workers mending nets in a factory in Bac Lieu in Vietnam.  Here the ambiguity begins.  It is my favorite.  The dominance of the cobalt blue and the composition are just stunning.  But the immensity of the task at hand seems daunting, and the faces of the workers buried beneath their hats are hidden.  They are nameless. And speaking of hidden, a disturbingly gorgeous work is that of Sarah Scarborough winner of the 13 to 15 year old category.  It was taken in Venice and is  called “A Distant Silhouette.”

Ms. Scarborough’s picture completes the path to ambiguity for us.  It is truly and richly in the tradition of Jacob Riis’ “Children Sleeping in Mulberry Street.” and John Thompson’s “The Crawlers.”  The descent into Hades is completed by Sujan Sarkar’s image of an Indian sewer worker.  In the end the words that come to mind: “Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch’entrate.“*

* (“Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.“) Durante degli Alighieri (1265-1321)  La divina commedia, Canto III, line 9.

Ring necked duck – Aythya collaris

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Figure 1 - Ring necked duck on Fresh Pond, Cambridge, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2014.

Figure 1 – Ring necked duck on Fresh Pond, Cambridge, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2014.

The rangers at Cambridge’s Fresh Pond Reservoir don’t make photographing the water fowl easy. Access to the pond is everywhere blocked by fences, and except in very limited places these fences are above my head. I am guessing that these fences were not around when Teddy Roosevelt skated on the pond!

As we’ve moved into fall the water birds, the ducks and geese, not to mention a few confused seagulls (You must take Madame Arkadina away from here; what I wanted to say was, that Constantine has shot himself. ), have started showing up in abundance; so the temptation to photograph them is pretty strong. It was strong enough that yesterday I not only tested the limits of my ability to hand-hold my 200 mm lens, but I also thought I would see if by putting the lens up to a hole in the fencing I could still get a decent picture. The answer to both questions turned out to be, yes, I can.

The quality of the light was amazing. A breeze was causing the water to ripple, which to my eye gave the image a sense at once of motion and stillness. The light was intensely specular, and the color of a powder blue sky was strongly reflected in the water.

My specific quarry was a ring necked duck (Aythya collaris). This bird was a bit farther off than really capturable at high resolution with the 200 mm lens. The eye is sharp as is the bill, but in general I only call it a complete success when I can see the details of the feathers. It was a situation that definitely calls for a longer lens. And the fact that I was hand-holding meant that I had to use a high (1600 IS) which added a lot of grain because I had to do some very serious cropping.

However, what I find appealing about the result is how much like a watercolor it looks. Hmm! I look at the picture and I cannot quite figure out if it was photographed or painted and it is that ambiguity that draws me to the image.

Canon T2i with EF70-200mm f/4L USM Lens at 200 mm, ISO 1600, Aperture-Priority AE Mode 1/1600th. sec at f/13.0 with no exposure compensation.

The equality of fall

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Figure 1 - Sumac, Cambridge, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2014.

Figure 1 – Sumac, Cambridge, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2014.

I have been facing the dawn each morning, driving through an amazing canopy of color and contemplating the subtle glow of the sunrise.  It truly gives one pause.  My lunchtime walks have been equally contemplative and chromatic.  The sequence of autumn is regal, and every few days some other tree takes center stage in the parade.  There is a certain equality about it.  In this regard nature is truly egalitarian.  The meanest of plants can suddenly come into their own and demand your eye.

The first example is the poison ivy.  It has been hiding, well not really as I am ever cautious of it, all summer.  But they other day it was the turn of the sumac bushes.  They had such an intense color that was so tropical in nature as they made the transition from green to red and yellow that I had to revisit them on a second day to be sure that I wasn’t insanely exaggerating the color of Figure 1.  Soon these too will fade and shed to become first matting underfoot and then next spring, after the winter snows, they will be so much mulch for a new botanical generation.  In the meanwhile I turn to other color.

Selina Gray – ‘Gen Lee’s Slaves Arlington Va’

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Stereo image of Selina Gray and two of her daughters. (from the US National Park Service).

Figure 1 – Stereo image of Selina Gray and two of her daughters. (from the US National Park Service).

The United States National Park Service has unveiled a rare piece of Americana.  It has acquired, due to the attentive eye of a volunteer, who spotted the photograph of Figure 1 on an Ebay auction.  It is an image of Selina Gray.  Selina Gray was a slave on the estate owned by Robert E. Lee called Arlington House. At the start of the Civil War, when the Lee’s fled Arlington, Mrs. Lee entrusted  her personal slave, Selina Norris Gray, the keys to the mansion and put her in charge of protecting the great house.

Significantly, Lee’s wife was a descendant of George Washington’s wife Martha Custis. Marauding Union soldiers stole numerous heirlooms belonging to George Washington that were stored in the house. Gray confronted the soldiers demanding that they  not touch any of Mrs. Lee’s things. She then complained to Union Gen. Irvin McDowell, and it was McDowell who had the remaining artifacts shipped to the Patent Office for safekeeping and posterity.

Gray was freed in December 1862, a stipulation of the will of Mary Lee’s father. Ms. Gray and her family ultimately bought land near Arlington, growing and selling vegetables for a living.  She died in 1907.

As rare as it is to know the names of subjects in 19th century photographs; it is particularly rare when these people were slaves, who were considered merely the property of others.  The photograph is believed to have been taken outside the slave quarters at Arlington House.  The photograph, a stereo pair, was simply marked on the back as “Gen Lee’s Slaves Arlington Va,” but Park Service historians were able to identify Selina Gray from another photograph in their collection.  As ever the picture is a rare glimpse.  We contemplate the clothing for a moment.  But then we become haunted by the reality of what a terrible moment world it was for these people.