Figure 1 – Fall on the pond at the Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge, Maynard, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2016.

A friend and reader wrote me yesterday in response to my photograph of the fall foliage at the Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge. She is traveling in Europe and asked me to save some of the fall color for her. Well i went off into the woods again this morning and well, Jane, I’m a little worried that I’m eating it all up!

It was a picture perfect [sic] day this morning. There was gorgeous long golden light, blue skies, and so many leaves falling that I even tried t capture the scene in a little video on my IPhone. You pass another walker and you greet them with a big smile. Well, I always do that, only here when you are not fighting mosquitos the act seem a little more sincere.

So this morning I found myself delighted by the image of Figure 1. I am starting to realize, to understand, that fall is more than vivid reds and yellows against crisp azure skies. There are also wonderful pastel tones, cyans and magentas, that seem to give the season a contrasting, complementing pallet.

Canon T2i with EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM lens at 100 mm, ISO 1600, Aperture Priority AE Mode 1/1250th sec at f/7.1 with -1 exposure compensation.

Figure 1 – October on the pond in a season of drought, Sudbury, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2016.

I went walking at the Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge for the first time, in a long time, yesterday. There seems to be a disagreement about where we are in terms of fall foliage. One point is clear, that the color this year in New England are going to be pretty pathetic, because of the past summer’s drought. Still there are a few spots of dramatic color, as in Figure 1. The drought itself is clearly visible on the pond, where the water levels are dangerously low. In many places where there should be water there are only reflective pools of mud.The geese are irritable and the sluice-way where the path crosses the water and bisects the pond is dry and there is no reason the walk across the make-shift wooden bridge.

I met an enthusiastic young fellow, who was walking on an adventure with his mother and brothers. He was so excited about the ammunition bunkers and explained to me, barely able to contain himself, about how the bunkers were locked and how there were bullets inside but no dead bodies. I told him about the history of the place and he said, “wow you know a lot about it.”The only actual war being waged was by a battalion of rangers and volunteers clearing the path of branches and pulling up invasive plant species.

Canon T2i with EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM lens at 100 mm, ISO 1600, Aperture Priority AE Mode at 1/2500th sec f/7.1 with -1 exposure compensation.

Figure 1 – Late summer harvest, Concord, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2016.

I was looking through some photographs over the last coupkle of months and came upon this one of the late summer harvest. I was troubled by the whiteness of the sky, but the addition of noise gives it some depth. When I took the photograph my thought was very much of a landscape painting. So here it is done up in an impressionist photopictorialism style. As we head now into autumn and winter, this is meant to capture the last glorious moments of summer, as if it were and old friend.

Fuji FinePixAX550, ISO 100, 1/60th sec at f/8.0 with no exposure compensation.

Figure 1 – Having your tarantula on a silver platter. Halloween, 2016. West Concord, MA. IPhone photograph. (c) DE Wolf 2016.

Well, we are deep into October, and you never know when you are going to encounter something delightfully frightening. As an example we have the ghoul of Figure1 serving up a silver platter of tarantula. He bears just a bit of a resemblance to the Harry Potter’s Gringotts Wizarding Bank. This is part of the great joy of a New England October. The air is crisp. The colors are emerging, there is apple cider and pumpkin pie, and Halloween is everywhere. We can, for a few moments, ignore the upcoming election and just be kids again.

Figure 1 – Ferns giving up their color in October. Wilmington Town Forest, Wilmington. MA. (c) DE Wolf 2016.

When we think of the changing seasons in the Northeast, we tend to think about crocus in the spring and maples in the fall. Both shout out their message of change with vivid color. But I have noticed that the ferns seem more solid in their prophecy, The start as fiddleheads, but wait until spring is firmly established before they fill the forest floors with chartreuse and delicate leaves, delightfully illuminated by the sun through the canopy. And then they hold the stage through summer, creating what is both a fairy land and a primordial landscape. It is always worth a few moments to stop and study them. Like a character in Jurassic Park, your look nervously about for the tiny but ferocious and pirhana-like Compsognathus longipes. And then when you reach autumn, as we have now, you watch as these intricate old friends turn yellow and then brown. They are soon to disappear, and where they stood proudly, is soon to be covered in snow.

Fuji FinePix AX550, ISO 200, 1/30th sec at f/3.3, with no exposure compensation.

Figure 1 – Patchwork in black and silver (c) DE Wolf 2016.

I was attracted the other day by this patchwork fabric. The pieces are black cloth and the lines are made of silver thread. The appeal to me was multiple. First, I love the metalic reflections. Second, I love the simplicity of the geometric. Third, I like the top lighting that accentuates the texture and enables you to create a photographic story, a tone-on-tone in black. And recognize that black is the lack of light; so it seems almost a contradiction to have tones of black. Are these shades of nothingness? Fourth, and finally, I am drawn to the randomness of the patchwork itself, which seems to challenge the perfect symmetry of the lines.

And needless-to-say I took this simple photograph with my IPhone. I am starting to master the trick of lining up the lines and edges with the IPhone while at the same time not tilting the camera and creating a warped image.

Get excited, everyone! It is October, and Halloween, my personal favorite, is right around the corner. So I am dusting of my Halloween gallery and adding a Frankenstein image to get everyone in the mood.

The great point about Halloween, in the United States, is that it has lost its religious connotation. It is about trick or treating children, costumes, and candy. Everyone has their favorite candies and there is a lot of trading after the trick or treat, and also a lot of mothers and fathers seizing their tithe by eminent domain.

1. Grouse camouflage

Grouse camouflage

2. Cardinal in flight

3. Embden Geese

4. Hooded Mergansers

5. Green Heron

6. Black Duck

7. Taking food back to the rookery

8. Osprey mother and chicks

9. Osprey landing

10. Common Tern

11. Take Off and Landing

12. Swans Courting

13. Blue Heron

Figure 1 – Harris the Eastern Box Turtle. (c) DE Wolf 2016.

My wife and I went to visit dear old friends this past weekend.  There is great comfort and ease to old friends, and I found myself looking into the face of their pet eastern box turtle (Terrapene carolina carolina), whose name is Harris, and whom I have known for nearly twenty years as well. I took his photograph (Figure 1) doing his best Jar Jar Binks imitation with my IPhone set in “Reptile Mode.”

“Harris finished up his lunch and strolled over to the sliding doors to sniff and peer out the screen. He was placed royally on a cushion to give him a better view, and he dreamed his reptilian dreams, perhaps of adventures in the woods or perhaps of lady turtles.  For Harris there is nothing quite as appealing as a female terrapin endowed with a sexy carapace.

Like all pampered pets, Harris has run and reign of the house; so it is important to shuffle and never raise your feet as you walk about. The next morning I found him behind the couch contentedly snuggling up to the WiFi router, watching the lights blink, and just perhaps phoning home to the mother planet.

Figure 1 – The wire basket, (c) DE Wolf 2016.

Here I am again trying to imitate Andre Kertesz’s great photograph “The Fork or La Fourchette,1928,” with my IPhone. It is the view that there is beauty in simplicity and utility, that there is glory to be found in the specular reflections off stainless steel, the play of its shadows, and the purity of a white background. For me it is this stainless steel double basket illuminated at an angle that produces odd shadows that intersect and seem at odds with the lines of the basket.