Figure 1 – Basalt outcropping Cape Hedge Beach, Rockport, MA (c) DE Wolf 2022
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
Figure 1 – Sunset Cape Hedge Beach, Rockport MA, January 20, 2022 (c) DE Wolf 2022.
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.
Figure 1 – Winter sky, sea, and beach – Caped Hedge Beach, Rockport MA.
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!
Figure 1 – Kelvin Helmholtz instability, From Perkins Cove, Rockport, MA, (c) DE Wolf 2022
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.
Figure 1 – Old Barn, Plum Beach, Gloucester, MA (c) DE Wolf 2022.
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
“Hope springs eternal in the human breast; Man never Is, but always To be blest. ”
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.”
Figure 1 – The not yet fully formed face of the New Year (c) DE Wolf 2022
The New Year is like a phantom or ghost with a not yet fully formed face. Befitting to the New Year I woke up this morning to a very dense fog through which I could see essentially nothing and I starred quite a while wondering into that vague void. Yesterday we were walking along Cape Hedge Beach and I spotted the stone of Figure 1, which reminded me of Casper the Friendly Ghost. Whether the coming year will be friendly or unfriendly is TBD, to-be-determined.
“There was a Door to which I found no Key There was a Veil past which I could not see.”
Figure 1 – Cormorants leaving Cape Ann, October 19, 2021 (c) DE Wolf 2021
Happy New Year to all my friends and Readers. 2021 hangs as a big question mark still and the New Year an even bigger one. It struck me that A E Housman perhaps said it best in the Shropshire Lad (1896).
“Therefore, since the world has still
Much good, but much less good than ill,
And while the sun and moon endure
Luck’s a chance, but troubles sure,“
So, my friends, I’m going to recommend focusing on the positive for the coming year. Focus and remember that change, real change, is within our power.
I have, of course, been scanning my photographs for something appropriate and I want to share the image of Figure 1, which quite symbolic of the year’s last day, shows the cormorant beginning their migration in mid-October over Cape Ann.
