Well, I think we have two things to celebrate. First, our liberation, maybe forever, from the tyranny of Standard time. Second, the First Day of Spring. Hip, hip, hooray on both counts. Walks are longer. Light is better. The birds are singing. I’d like to share a photography that I took last weekend at Cape Hedge Beach in Rockport, MA of a “sea turtle.”
Continuing on the theme of the wonderful photographic subjects to be found on Cape Hedge Beach, Figure 1 is an image that I took of granite “pebbles” or stone strewn along the beach. As I have mentioned before these come from a mountain of stones from the huge refuse pile that came from ship ballast deposited there by returning ships, ready to take the next load of granite around the world. Where did these stones come from? They are mute, but what stories could they tell?
These are of such wonderful variety that you can start your walk with a view like “today I am going to find the most perfect red pebble” or a basalt stone with “the largest possible inclusion.” You just have to be careful not to get caught on the beach as darkness falls, you are ever drawn to the sunset, or the tide comes in.
“The winds, the sea, and the moving tides are what they are. If there is wonder and beauty and majesty in them, science will discover these qualities… If there is poetry in my book about the sea, it is not because I deliberately put it there, but because no one could write truthfully about the sea and leave out the poetry.”
― Rachel Carson
Beaches seem to present an infinite variety of subjects for photographs: stones (preferably wet), sand, water, waves, skies, fragments of seaweed, water patterns in the sand, sea foam, and, of course sunsets! At Cape Hedge I never seem to become tired of the subjects put before me. Every day is different. Every turn of the head reveals something new.
As I have said here is the Avalonian terrain and your mind is immediately carried to “The Mists of Avalaon” by the abundant sea foam. The igneous rocks, of course, come in varied form, both plutonic and volcanic. And there are also metamorphic forms to delight.
Figure 1 shows a prominent outcropping of basalt. Here made all the more beautiful by water.
“I have called on the Goddess and found her within myself”
― Marion Zimmer Bradley, The Mists of Avalon
It may seem that all I do in Rockport on Cape Ann is photograph the sunsets and sunrises. That is because such is the case. This passed Thursday was the best sunset that I have encountered so far at Cape Hedge Beach – remarkably tropical in appearance for New England during a cold and grey January. So at the risk of sounding redundant, I am posting Figure 1. There is no need for poetry, I think. The sunrises and sunsets are the poetry of the Earth.
I am warm in my office but, in mind, I keep returning in winter to Cape Hedge Beach and the subdued mixed colors of sky, sea, and sand. These are the glories of winter in New England, and yes perhaps a bit overstated for effect in Figure 1. I took this image a few weeks back near the Yule and New Year.
Now we may mark the coming of the light. I have always reckoned February 3 in Massachusetts as the day when you can leave the office at five pm and still drive home before the there is complete darkest. That date is two weeks off and the light, and the world waxes after that!
I know, I know, it’s another sunrise photograph. I, at least, never tire of the dawn. But actually today there is a point to be made. I was looking out at the predawn sky last weekend and noted the waves or ripples at the plane where the clouds join the clear sky above. It is the meeting place of two air layers, where the flow in the two layers meet and induce turbulence and cause these ripples or waves. The phenomenon is referred to as the Kelvin-Helmhotz instability. The name, of course, refers to two great 19th century physicists, who first explained it: William Thompson, First Lord Kelvin (British) and Hermann von Helmholyz (German).
Fluid dynamics predicts that such instabilities will form and transition to turbulent flow where fluids, in this case air layers, of different densities meet and move at different velocities. This is the same phenomenon that causes similar patterns in the atmosphere of planetary gas giants, for instance the Great Red Spot of Jupiter. Please click on the link. It falls under copyright but is amazing.
Canon T2i with EF 100- 400 mm f/4.0-5.6 L IS USM lens at 320mm, Aperture Priority AE mode , 1/1600th sec at f/7.1 with no exposure compensation.
Among the great wonders of the world are: sunsets, solar eclipses, and new babies’ smiles! To which I would add the cool, silver, crescent, moon. Last Friday the moon was especially glorious and I decided for a lark to take a photograph with my big birding lens. The result is Figure 1.
Technically I tried spot metering on the crescent but that was way too bright. So I shifted to M or manual mode. “Oh no! Terror,” you say. But it’s actually kind of easy. Remember the Ansel Adams rule 1/(the ISO) at f/16. That’s a good place to start. But didn’t quite work out. That lens is happiest (sharpest) at f/7.1; so you might have expected a three stop faster exposure of 1/4800th of a second. In fact, the best, not saturated, image was at 1/800 th sec at f/7.1. Rules were made to be broken, and I am pretty happy with the results, even with the sharpness compromised by a slight haze and the performance of the lens fully extended.
So I am calling this photograph Selene. Selene is the Greek goddess of the moon. “No,” you say “that should be Artemis.” While they are both moon goddesses, Selene is the personification of the moon itself. “No,” you say, “that should be Luna. Same thing, Luna is the Roman name for Selene, which is the Greek name.
I am partial to “Selene,” because the name reminds me of the word serene, and truly, there is nothing more serene than seeing a crescent Selene hang in an inky winter’s sky just after sunset. I remember looking at the crescent moon as a youth, in my Junior Astronomy days, and the glory and beauty have never left me. You begin to understand the human need to personify everything that is beautiful in nature.
Canon T2i with EF 100-40 mm f/4-5.6L IS USM lens at 400 mm ISO 1600 Manual M Mode 1/800 th sec at f/7.1.
A sure sign of winter in the Northeast is the arrival of the charming little dark-eyed juncos (Junco hyemalis) with their grey upper bodies and white underbellies. I have read that penguins employ this strategy so that they match the sky from below and the depths from above. What’s the deal here?
For me the juncos are a reminder of my youth in New York City. I remember watching them on cold winter days pecking away for seeds and crumbs on the ground – hard cold pavement. Perhaps because of their contrasting stark shades of white and grey they were more beautiful than the native sparrows.
It is hard to believe that the junco considers New England a more hospitable place to winter than Canada and Alaska, where they go to breed in summer. It is the biological paradigm that “everything is relative!” Figure 1 shows one that I encountered at the Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge in about the same spot, where I photographed the bluebird of my last blog.
Canon T2i with EF 100-40 mm f/4-5.6L IS USM lens at 260 mmISO 1600 Aperture Priority AE Mode 1/640 th sec at f/5.6 with no exposure compensation.
Well, it’s the second day of the New Year and I am afraid that we are going to have to face the bad news – nothing much has changed! Hmm! Like I said, we need to remain hopeful as in
― Alexander Pope, “An Essay on Man”
Back when the weather was better we had gone exploring at Plum Beach in Gloucester, MA. This is a small beach, a good place to teach children how to swim and to view the sunset over the water, a rarity on the East Coast. I was drawn to this old ram-shackle barn. There is a genre of photograph that is perfect for the Facebook Users Group “Life After Humans.”
Time is rarely kind to building, especially wood buildings, and to humans. It conjures up another poem, this one my Shelley.
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings;
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
— Percy Shelley, “Ozymandias”