European starling – Sturnus vulgaris

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Figure 1 - European Starling, Fresh Pond Reservation, Cambridge, Massachusetts. (c) DE Wolf 2015

Figure 1 – European Starling, Fresh Pond Reservation, Cambridge, Massachusetts. (c) DE Wolf 2015

Hmm! The starling is another one of those Rodney Dangerfield bird species that, like the American robin, whose Latin name is turdus migratorius and who “don’t get no respect.”  The European starling’s Latin name is Sturnus vulgaris. I mean really? Sure they are aggressive and can wipe out a bird feeder in minutes. But they gotta eat too! How would you like to go through life with the last name “vulgaris?” They are the black clouds of birds that flock and delight us in winter. And as I hope Figure 1 reveals. they are in fact quite beautiful in their iridescence (Jacob’s amazing dream coat for sure) and delicate spots.

The story of the starling in America is one of literary origin. They are an introduced species. Some sixty starlings were released in 1890 into New York’s Central Park by Eugene Schieffelin, who was president of the American Acclimatization Society, which tried to introduce every bird species mentioned in the works of William Shakespeare into North America. A Today such behavior would not be encouraged. Around the same time, the Portland Song Bird Club released thirty-five pairs in Portland, Oregon. The west coast birds disappeared by 1902. But the tenacious east coast birds have followed the American western migration swelling in number and distribution. Today it is estimated that there are 150 million European starlings distributed from southern Canada and Alaska to Central America.  This includes Portland, Oregon and it includes the Fresh Pond Reservation in Massachusetts. I found this beautiful example in the grass by the Water pump house.

“The king forbade my tongue to speak of Mortimer.  But I will find him when he is asleep, and in his ear I’ll holler ‘Mortimer!’ Nay I’ll have a starling shall be taught to speak nothing but Mortimer, and give it to him to keep his anger still in motion.”

Henry the Fourth, Part I

William Shakespeare

Canon T2i with EF70-200mm f/4L USM lens at 184 mm, ISO 1600, Aperture Priority AE Mode, 1/1000th sec at f/7.1 with no exposure compensation.

Aspiration and the texture of weathered wood

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Figure 1 - Aspirations and the texture of weathered wood, Glacken Slope, Fresh Pond Reservation, Cambridge, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2015.

Figure 1 – Aspirations and the texture of weathered wood, Glacken Slope, Fresh Pond Reservation, Cambridge, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2015.

It is probably time to take a break from bird photographs. So I thought that today I would share an image that I took it a few weeks ago along the Glacken Slope. It is simply a picture of weathered wood, a study in texture and dynamic range. For photographers of my generation, it represents the aspiration, usually unfulfilled, to produce a photograph worthy of the Group f/64. Ah well…

“Hope springs eternal in the human breast;

Man never is but always to be blest.”

Alexander Pope (1688-1744) “An Essay on Man“

Canon T2i with EF70-200mm f/4L USM lens at 149 mm, ISO 1600, Aperture Priority AE Mode 1/400th sec at f/11.0 with -1 exposure compensation

Gadwall duck – Anas strepera

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Figure 1 - Gadwall ducks, Fresh Pond Reservation, Cambridge, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2015.

Figure 1 – Gadwall ducks, Fresh Pond Reservation, Cambridge, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2015.

Slowly, the ducks are returning to Fresh Pond.  So far this summer there have been mostly Canada geese (Branta Canadensis). But then last week there was the beautiful black duck (Anas rubripes) that I photographed and then this past Tuesday I was walking along the path and spotted a group of Gadwall ducks (Anas strepera) swimming against an active pond with great determination.  The Gadwall is not that common in Massachusetts. So I guess that I should be cautious about my identification. And I welcome correction from readers. What the guide books do say, is that if you see a group of “mallards” (Anas platyrhynchos) without any green heads (characteristic of males) then they are probably gadwalls as opposed to a group of female mallards. Figure 1 is an attempt to photograph them.  The image does not meet my usual standards of sharpness, although the middle duck, the one I was focusing on, came out reasonable sharply.  But the back-lighting of a cloudy sky just didn’t give me what I wanted.

I have been pondering this image quite a bit. While sacrificed in sharpness, I really like the stop action.  There is to my eye a real sense of motion against both wave and a strong head wind. The image seems almost to be a watercolor with subtle pastels, and that is in its own right very pleasing. So I’ll leave it as an experiment and let you decide.

 

Canon T2i with EF70-200mm f/4L USM lens at 184 mm, ISO 1600, Aperture Priority AE Mode, 1/3200th sec at f/7.1 with +1 exposure compensation

Camera equipment saves lives

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It isn’t often that you hear about photography equipment saving lives.  It was a theme in Jurassic Park III when the graduate student and photographer, Billy Brennan, is saved from the raptors by his lucky pack back/camera bag. But in real life not so much.  By the way I love movies where the scientist is the hero! But now we have it stranger than truth … This past week the Johns family from Texas was saved by a selfie stick and the whole event was recorded by the video camera that was attached to the stick.

The Johnses were swimming off the coast of Nantucket in Massachusetts, when they got caught in a riptide. You probably thought that this was going to be a story about sharks, since sharks have been nibbling on people up and down the East coast this summer.  Derrick Johns used the stick to pull his daughter Erynn 16 towards the shore where a good Samaritan pull her in the rest of the way. Pretty scary stuff!  But as selfie sticks have developed a bad press and are banned from many locations, it may be time to reconsider them as life saving devices. How about a selfie stick defibrillator combination?

Evelyn Nesbit – the world’s first supermodel

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Figure 1 - Photograph of Evelyn Nesbit by Sarony 1902. From the Wikipedia and in the public domain in the United States because of its age.

Figure 1 – Photograph of Evelyn Nesbit by Sarony 1902. From the Wikipedia and in the public domain in the United States because of its age.

Continuing on the theme of sexism and imagery, I was reading the other day an article in BBC Culture by Lindsay Baker about “Evelyn Nesbitt – the World’s First Supermodel.” We have discussed the fashion industry in this blog several times. But the fact remains that there is, indeed must be, a symbiotic relationship between an exploitative industry and the models themselves. The problem is that for a young neophyte in the game the money and the power are all on one side of the relationship. Of course, there needed to be a first and it is not surprising that the first occurred as soon as photography became a potent force in advertising.

Florenced Evelyn Nesbit (1884 – 1967), was known professionally as Evelyn Nesbit, was a popular American chorus girl and artists’ mode. At the turn of the 20th century the figure and face of Evelyn Nesbit was everywhere. Beyond mass circulation newspaper and magazine advertisements, she was to be found on souvenir items and calendars. She was indeed the world’s first supermodel, defining the meaning of the term and profession. She was a cultural celebrity and she posed for a several of the leading, and mainstream, artists of the day including: James Carroll Beckwith, Frederick S. Church, and notably Charles Dana Gibson, who made her the quintessential “Gibson Girl“.

It is odd to me that I have read the story of Nesbitt so many times in different contexts. She caught the eye of architect – socialite Stanford White, who first gained the family’s trust then sexually assaulted Evelyn while she was unconscious. In one of the sensational trials (Papers of the day called it “The Trial of the Century”) of the era Nesbit’s jealous husband, multi-millionaire Harry Kendall Thaw, shot and murdered Stanford White on the rooftop theatre of Madison Square Garden on the evening of June 25, 1906. Think that you’ve heard this story before? Evelyn Nesbit figures as a character in the musical “Ragtime,” and was played in the movie version by Lady Cora herself, Elizabeth McGovern.

By today’s standard Nesbit’s portraits are tame. She was always fully clothed when photographed. But the key point was the undercurrent, the suggestion that there was something more, something erotic lurking beneath the surface. One could argue, in our era of explicit sexuality, that this mystery is lost and as such the image diminished. The subtlety is lost!

Women’s World Cup – mixed messages

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For Americans Sunday night was a big deal. We are proud of the United States Women’s Soccer team and their winning the World Cup – proud to be Americans. It’s good to win right? And from a photography/image point of view it was a field day. From Carli Lloyd’s “Hat Trick” on, it was a visual feast.  There is a big movement in the US to put a woman on a significant piece of currency.  Here’s one suggestion that I found on the web.  So congratulations to our Women’s Team. They are simply amazing!  They make us proud – not that they are going to earn what men earrn, but just saying “proud”. It also made me proud to see Amy Wambach kissing her wife after the victory, now officially her wife in all fifty states. That makes me proud of my country! Things kept getting better and better until the awards ceremony, when a bevy of beautiful women in sleek black dresses, revealing décolletage and high heels paraded out as official medal bearers. Now there’s a mixed message, if I ever saw one. What was FIFA thinking? Same old same old, I’m afraid.

The vernal pool

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Figure 1 - The vernal pool by Black's Nook, Fresh Pond Reservation, Cambridge, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2015.

Figure 1 – The vernal pool by Black’s Nook, Fresh Pond Reservation, Cambridge, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2015.

Off of Black’s Nook there is a vernal pool. Vernal pools are little wet spots that teem with life but whose depth and degree of inundation change over the course of the seasons. Most vernal pools will dry up completely periodically.  This one I have yet to see completely dry, but am convinced that the right summer drought would do it. What makes vernal pools unique is the variability of nutrients, salts, and acidity as the pool has more or less water. The term “vernal” comes from the assumption that it is at its highest water level in spring and summer..

That is a very technical definition. In another sense these are mysterious secretive places that require a bit of focus and concentration to see all of the life they contain.  In the case of Black Nook’s pool that is hard because it is in a protected part of the forest and you can only view from a respectable distance.I have observed it through the seasons: frozen in winter, surrounded by melting snow in spring, and now intensely green with vegetation in the heart of summer – shades of Vivaldi for sure. It was the greenness that brought it to my attention on this particular day. It was a verdant celebration, a microenvironment of rich emerald color that was tricky in its own way to photograph. I am drawn to this kind of lush greenness, I think because it reminds me of a panorama in the American Museum of Natural History of my youth depecting the Jurassic era. I am sure that the depiction does not meet modern interpretation, but it is engrained. So “Welcome to Jurassic Park!”

Canon T2i with EF70-200mm f/4L USM lens at 98 mm, ISO 1600, Aperture Priority AE Mode, 1/500 sec at f/10 with -1 exposure compensation. My camera is usually set forr bird photograph f/7.1 and central spot metering.  Here I went to f/10.0 and multispot metering to increase the depth of field.  These carpets of algae and plant matter I find overwhelm the exposure and it is necessary to cut back a stop if you want green instead of saturated white.

American black duck (hen) -Anas rubripes

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Figure 1 - American black duck )hen). Fresh Pond Reservation, Cambridge, MA by the Glacken Field. (c) DE Wolf 2015.

Figure 1 – American black duck )hen). Fresh Pond Reservation, Cambridge, MA by the Glacken Field. (c) DE Wolf 2015.

I spotted this lone American black duck hen gliding quietly from behind a chain-link fence and a thicket of trees.  I walked quickly forward to find a place, where the trees would not obstruct my photograph and positioned the camera carefully so as to look through the fence and then I waited. Ducks are, in general, pretty wary even if protected from people. Here I got one of the most enjoyable aspects of bird photography, that moment when the bird notices you, turns her head, and watches you inquisitively.

I will admit to some confusion about identification.  The dark bill throws me. But I assume that this is the olive color that the guidebooks speak about for females. In English we make the distinction of the darkness of the feathers in this duck species.  It is a black duck. Taxonomists were clearly more concerned about the color of the feet.  Her formal Latin name means ruddy-footed duck, and indeed as she turned away from me these reddish feet were clearly visible.

Canon T2i with EF70-200mm f/4L USM lens at 200 mm, ISO 1600, Aperture Priority AE Mode, 1/2500 sec at f/7.1 with no exposure compensation.

Independence Day 2015

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Figure 1 - Indian Cavalryman handing rations to a Christian girl during the First World War. In the public domain in the United States.

Figure 1 – Indian Cavalryman handing rations to a Christian girl during the First World War. In the public domain in the United States.

Today is Independence Day in the United States and we celebrate it as John Adams anticipated in a letter to his wife Abigail over two centuries ago:

“The second [sic] day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games,sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forevermore.“

I am always moved by this day and plan to celebrate it with friends watching the local parade: the cub scouts, brownies, and girl scouts and, of course, the minutemen. The American Revolution was profound in many ways. Its roots date back to Runnymede five hundred years earlier.  It was arguably the first war against imperialism, and in that context, one can argue that the death knell of European imperialism was sounded on August 15, 1947 with the lowering of the Union Jack and the raising of the Indian flag at the Lahore Gate of the Red Fort in Delhi, India. Well maybe not so much or not so fast. In many respects imperialism still thrives in the world. Yet there is continuity and forward motion.

I read yesterday a sobering account of the Indians who fought for the English during World War I and then were forgotten by both the English and their own countrymen. This essay is by Shashi Tharoor is a former minister in India’s Congress party and a former UN diplomat.  It contains many wonderful photographs (like that of Figure 1) of the Indian Army in this war, who out of duty fought to preserve the very empire that oppressed them And they expected that victory would lead to an independent India – not so fast.

Tharoor makes the point that The Great War “also involved soldiers from faraway lands that had little to do with Europe’s bitter traditional hatreds.” The role and sacrifices of Australians, New Zealanders, Canadians and South Africans have been celebrated for some time in books and novels, and even rendered immortal on celluloid in award-winning films like Gallipoli. Of the 1.3 million Indian troops who served in the conflict, however, you hear very little.”  In part, this is because, to the Europeans, only white lives mattered. Fortunately, we have no more of that sentiment.

Profoundly and, I think, significantly Tharoor points out that “the great British poet Wilfred Owen (author of the greatest anti-war poem in the English language, Dulce et Decorum Est) was to return to the front to give his life in the futile First World War, he recited [Rabindranath] Tagore’s* Parting Words to his mother as his last goodbye. When he was so tragically and pointlessly killed, Owen’s mother found Tagore’s poem copied out in her son’s hand in his diary:

When I go from hence

let this be my parting word,

that what I have seen is unsurpassable.

I have tasted of the hidden honey of this lotus

that expands on the ocean of light,

and thus am I blessed

—let this be my parting word.

In this playhouse of infinite forms

I have had my play

and here have I caught sight of him that is formless.

My whole body and my limbs

have thrilled with his touch who is beyond touch;

and if the end comes here, let it come

– let this be my parting word.”

Let us think of this on Independence Day. Let us think of free men and women on the Fourth of July, and let us think most deeply of those who are not yet free.