At the Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge the summer drought has been rather severe! The great marsh is reduced to dampness and the little stream that cuts across it. The water birds are congregating unnaturally. There are clusters of egrets and herons. TC spotted a pair of glossy ibises the other evening. She also saw a great blue heron catch and attempt to gobble down a rather large northern water snake. The event ended in regurgitation!

At the other end of the food chain, the frogs are clustered into what pools remain. In Figure1 an American Bullfrog (Lithobates catesbeianus) stares out at me pleafully. “It is not easy being green!”

BUT… One is certainly reminded nostalgically of Mark Twain’s “Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” “You never see a frog so modest and straightforward as he was, for all he was so gifted.“

It has been a hot and very dry summer, at this point a major drought for the Northeast. I have been taking a lot of photographs and not writing. Time to share some of these. Figure 1 is an image of a beautiful monarch butterfly., shown here dining on the nectar of its favorite flower, the swamp milkweed. Soon these butterflies will begin their migration from the north and central US and southern Canada to Florida and Mexico, a distance of thousands of miles. Last month the monarchs were officially declared endangered. it has been estimated, sadly, that their population has dropped between 20% and 90%. What greater symbol of summer than these majestic, long distance fliers? For my generation they represent all the trappings of an idyllic summer. For the next generation they may become a rare sight, a symbol of what was once and is no more.

Canon T2i with EF 100-400 mm f 4.5-5.6 US ISM lens at 180 mm, Aperture ISO 1600 Priority AE Mode 1/640 th sec at f/7.1 with no exposure compensation

Last week while on the Massachusetts North Shore we took a trip up to Plum Island and Newburyport – always favorite places. One of the cool attractions is the Purple Martins. Modernistic nesting boxes are located by the main parking lot and there is always a cadre of bird photographers there. I of course, had to join them! It is difficult shooting. But I was particularly happy with this shot of a martin turning in midair. You can anthropomorphize and make out the strain in his face. I can tell you everything that is wrong with this photograph but love it just the same.

Figure 1 – Canon T2i withEF 100-400 mm f/4.5-5.6 L IS USM lens at 190 mm ISO 1600 Aperture Priority AE Mode 1/4000 th sec at f/7.1 with no exposure compensation and pattern metering. (c) DE Wolf 2022

TC and I have returned from Rockport, MA content in our week and happy to be back at work! I am also happy with many of the photographs that I took on the trip and have a few more to share. It is always important to be both a photographer and a participant – not to hide behind the camera.

I’d like to share today, an image that I tool from Bearskin Neck looking out at monstrous, perhaps threatening, clouds on the horizon. I love the glory and I love the pastels!

The Mexican holiday “Day of the Dead” or “Día de los Muertos“is famous for macabre brightly decorated skull figures. The one in a store window in Figure 1 is called La Calavera Catrina, which refers to José Guadalupe Posada’s depiction of a “fine” lady in fancy hat and clothing of the early 20th century. Significantly, the holiday is meant to revere and honor the departed.

The dead are in a sense all around us, in their own nether world, or is it we in ours. They are not quite in site, only felt, buried in reflections and memories of a now fully written story. I usually hate the reflection in storefront windows that destroy and distort the photograph. But here, symbolically it was exactly what I wanted

I am spending a very relaxing week on the Massachusetts North Shore with TC and my camera and like every photo-fool I am snapping photographs of every beautiful flower that I see. Todays, Figure 1, is a macrophotograph of a Sempervivum tectorum, a so-called “hen and chicken” that I found in a flower box on Bearskin Neck in Rockport, MA. This is one of my favorites a kind of antediluvian delight. This one was madly blowing in the ocean breeze and I kept maneuvering to quiet it down with my hand as a shield.

TC and I got up at 4:30 am this morning to watch the summer’s solstice sunrise from the Granite Pier. It was such a beautiful sight. As a scientist, I attach no great cosmic significance to the sun reaching its apex. Yet bathed in the orange rays emanating from a fiery orb on the horizon we are equally bathed in all the traditions of the ancient Britons. We are born again into our myths. And while we believe no metaphysical forces are released, we are simultaneously aware of the forces of the tides (the moon was high above our right shoulders), the winds, and the waves. Wisely, the birds are driven into a frenzy, and we are left to wonder!

Following on yesterday’s theme of flower photography, I offer Figure 1 taken at Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge of a bumble bee on a milkweed blossom. Bees always add to flower pictures, even if they destroy the symmetry. The iPhone is fabulous for close-up. But you see the problem in both this and yesterday’s image. The sharpness does not hold against reasonable blow-up. It certainly does not rival some of the absolutely glorious work of the macrophotographers whom I follow. I am a firm believer that sharpness is everything. But still a reasonable image if you don’t push it too hard.

It is early summer and everyone who isn’t photographing themselves is photographing flowers – and, of course, the flowers are beautiful this time of year. Still flower photography has always perplexed me. There ever seems to be something of a cheat in color. I mean the color of flowers can be quite overpowering and modern cameras, the cell-phone prime among them – elevate color to all the vividness that it can possibly possess. Of course, there are people who excel at flower photography. And I admire those who have a natural pastel palette. As for myself, I am always torn between the flower for color’s sake and the flower as a proclaimer of symmetry. I am constantly experimenting with it, and have grown fond of photographing flowers at night by flash where the darkness of the background creates a wonderful emphasis.

Today I decided on the symmetry end of things and processed the glorious peony of Figure 1 in black and white, actually duotone. It was originally white with a touch of red in the center. So it appealed to me as an example of tone-on-tone and what can be created from it.