Figure 1 – Peeling Bark at Black’ Nook, Fresh Pond Reserve, Cambridge, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2015.

Last Friday I took a break from photographing birds to capture the texture of peeling bark on the trunk of a venerable tree at Fresh Pond.  Actually, this particular tree is long gone and reduced to being the post that holds a birdhouse high above the ground by Black’s Nook. For me this is the defining black and white subject – contrasting texture between the bark and the smooth wood, which in turn creates a contrast between a diffuse and a specular reflection.

Taking this photograph actually screwed me up.  I find that when photographing birds it is important to have your camera preset, just in case.  That means ISO set to 1600, spot center metering, and F/7.1 (for this lens).  A short while later I came upon a beautiful pair of Baltimore orioles and started taking pictures.  I couldn’t figure out why they weren’t coming out in focus and only after realized that I was set on the distributed metering appropriate to the tree.  Arg!! another of lifes little lessons.

It continues to be a great spring in Cambridge.  On Thursday I saw my first green heron high in a tree survey they nook.  I took a couple of images but these are almost certain to be too distant for a decent shot.  Then on Friday I spooked one of the herons when I stepped onto the observation deck on Black’s Nook and this sent him flying in that characteristic pterodactyl style that makes you think “welcome to Jurassic Park.” I stood a while to admire his flight.”  It is oh so humbling when you realize for just how many years birds have been flying like this.

Canon T2i with EF70-200mm f/4L USM at 94 mm, ISO 200, Aperture Priority AE mode, 1/125th sec at f/6.3 with no exposure compensation.

Figure 1 – Gray catbird, Fresh Pond Reserve, Cambridge, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2015.

Arguably – all right very arguable-  for the cat lover the ultimate bird is the gray catbird, which fills the forest and urban parks with it meowing sound.  Actually, you would never fool either me or my cat with this, but let’s pretend.  The name catbird seems an oxymoron for someone brought up with the world view of Sylvester and Tweetie Pie – “I  taut I saw a puddy cat.”   Well, all that I can say to this is “Sufferin succotash.”  In the canine world the order of things is preserved.  There are not dogbirds, no woods filled with avian barking.  There are however, as there should be, bird dogs.

I will confess that I have always had a certain fondness for this unpretentious gray bird. And I have always been pleasantly amused by their feline screeching. Last Friday I sought out a group that was inhabiting the woods between Fresh Pond and the golf course.  I took several photographs, but in the end was most please by the photograph of Figure 1 which shows a chirping, or is it meowing, catbird from below looking up into a pleasing early spring canopy.

Canon T2i with EF70-200mm f/4L USM lens at 200 mm, Aperture Priority AE mode, 1/1250th sec at f/7.1 with no exposure compensation.

Figure 1 – American robin, Fresh Pond Reserve, Cambridge, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2015.

he Shakers taught us that there is, or can be, beauty in simple, everyday things.  In the United States there is no bird, save perhaps the sparrow, that is more common than the American robin.  They are everywhere, paying quintessential homage to the saying that “the early bird catches the worm.”  And everywhere that you go the air is filled with their call.  Still if you stop and think about it the American robin, despite its inauspicious genus name of “Turdus,” is quite a beautiful bird.  Indeed, its orange breast can be so brilliant that it often is mistaken for a Baltimore oriole, of one our most dramatic birds.

I have been holding off photographing one. But yesterday I came upon this most handsome example on the path at Fresh Pond.  He struck a most characteristic pose, breast pushed forward regally like a soldier stnding at attention and he exposed the dramatic pattern around his eye. As the Shaker song goes: “‘Tis the gift to be simple,” and certainly “‘Tis the gift to be free, ’tis the gift to come down where we ought to be…” And if you analyze it, isn’t this why we photograph birds.  We admire their simplicity.  We admire their Darwinian resilience against a benign and often malignant nature. We admire their species specificity and complex instinctual behavior. Andm of course, we most of all admire them their freedom to fly.

Canon T2i with EF70-200mm f/4L USM lens at 180mm, ISO 1600, Aperture Priority AE Mode at 1/400th sec at f/7.1 with no exposure compensation.

Figure 1 – The smiling cat, (c) DE Wolf 2015.

I have been corresponding with a reader about the difficulty of photographing black (or black-faced) cats. It is indeed a challenge, although solvable.  The complexity is getting the cat to sit still Oh, of course, cats will readily sit quite still when they are fast asleep and that is most of the time. However, try to get them to open their eyes for the photograph and they give you this “get that camera out of my face” glare. And if you try to use flash, well after the first attempt they can shut their eyes faster than your camera can flash.

But if you are looking for a true feline challenge, try to get your cat to smile. There is, of course, the Chesire Cat of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, who is known for his distinctive mischievous grin. Chesire has the distinguishing ability to make his body disappear. The last thing to go is his iconic grin.  But Chesire is unfortunately purely fictional.  The closest we ever came to a true Chesire cat was Theodore Roosevelt. But I offer up Figure 1, which I took with my IPhone, to show that the thing can be done.

Figure 1 – Soap-dish on granite, Concord, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2015.

Figure 1 is not the kind of photograph that I usually do.  But last weekend I was at a local farm-stand and came upon a display of unique garden ornaments.  I was intrigued by this antique soap-dish and by the texture of the piece of granite that it was mounted upon.  The piece of soap is actually a granite pebble.  The grain size in igneous rocks are define by their rate of cooling.

There was never any question about whether it should be in color or black and white.  This was a monochrome abstraction from the get-go. I played briefly with toning but the image demanded pure blacks and whites. And I enjoyed having the option to switch from my usual ISO 1600 for bird photography to a more thoughtful, compose carefully ISO 100.  Indeed, I am always intrigued by the process of composition.  You take your first image and then you progressively see details.  I suppose that there are others who thoughtfully always get it right the first time, and I’ve always tipped my hat to large format photographers, who are ever thoughtful and skilled.

Canon T2i with EF70-200mm f/4L USM lens at 78 mm, ISO 100, Aperture priority AE mode 1/1250 th sec at f/5.6 with -1 exposure compensation.

Figure 1 -Female red-winged blackbird, Fresh Pond Reserve, Cambridge, MA, May 2015. (c) DE Wolf 2015.

Last week I made several attempts to get a decent photograph of a red-winged blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus).  When the background lighting is harsh this become like photographing a black cat.  It is hard to see the eyes or any kind of facial feature.  So this is still an act in progress – a photographic learning experience.  I have been experimenting with using fill-flask for these kinds of situations.

But in the meantime I discovered this beautiful female red-wing.  The females look nothing like the males. Indeed they look noting like their names no red wings. I happily and greedily snapped away as she nibbled on the cattails, in search I suspect of nesting materials, although maybe lunch.

Canon T2i with EF70-200mm f/4L USM lens at 145 mm, ISO 1600, Aperture AE priority mode,1/4000th sec at f/7.1 with no exposure compensation.

Figure 1 – Portrait of Donna, (c) DE Wolf 2015.

Hati and Skoll Gallery is pleased to announce that David and his friend and fellow photographer Donna Griffiths are featured on this week’s “The Swap.”
“The Swap” is an ongoing portrait project with a simple concept. Two photographers pair together and take portraits of one another. The portraits are currently on the home page of “The Swap” and the accompanying write-up is to be found on the “The Swap’s” blog page.

David and Donna decided to take a formal head shot approach to their portraits and to make them complementary in the sense that they are both sepia toned black and whites and have a similar but not identical pose to them.  They used classic Vermeer side lighting, as much as a gray February day in New England would allow, and then filled with a frontal diffuse flash.  The whole process was an exciting learning experience.  You can learn a lot from another photographer when you collaborate in this manner.  That, after all, is the whole point of “The Swap.”

Since they decided to use black and white images, we include here, as Figure 1, a portrait from the project by David of Donna in color. More of Donna’s work can be found at her website.

Figure 1 – tree stump on the water, Fresh Pond Reserve, Cambridge, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2015.

A magical aspect of modern digital photography is that you may start with a preconceived notion of a photograph: is it a black and white or a color image for instance, only to see that transformed when you go to process the picture.  There is a kind of leap of faith when you commit to grey-scale from color. Of course, you can still recover it.  I took Figure 1 with the an intense motivation towards black and white.  It was to be a study in contrast, form, and dynamic range. And, indeed, in the first attempt I took it over to black and white.  But i quickly fell in love with the intensity of warm light on the log, with the blueness of the water, and the reflections of sky light in the little waves that I had  preserved by choosing a shutter speed of 1/2500th sec.  I suspect that it has another life in black and white, but will leave that for another day.

Canon T2i with EF70-200mm f/4L USM at 70 mm (through a chain-link fence I may add), ISO 1600, Aperture-Priority AE Mode 1/2500th sec at F/7.1 with no exposure compensation.

Figure 1 – Yellow rumped warbler, Fresh Pond Reserve, Cambridge, MA, April 23, 2015, (c) DE Wolf 2015.

On Thursday (April 22) and Friday (April 23) I saw my first warblers of the year at Fresh Pond Reserve. Warblers are not necessarily closely related to one another.  The name means one who warbles, a singer or songster.  And it is for their songs that bird lovers so anxiously await them each spring.  They can be a challenge to the photographer as they move quickly and like to hide in bushes and scrub.  I have decided that the best way to go after photographs of small birds is to use my 70 to 200 mm which is highly mobile and doesn’t interfere with my walks, but that invariably requires a lot of cropping, which can sacrifice resolution. So it is a challenge, but a fun one.

I am quite pleased with the way that Figure 1 of a yellow rumped warbler – Setophaga coronata – came out.  He gave in to patience and due diligence on my part.  He was against the dreaded white sky.  But fortunately, there were some blotches of blue, so ultimately pleasing.

On the other hand I remain dissatisfied with Figure 2, which shows a palm warbler – Setophaga palmarum.  He was just too fast and too hidden to get a really good shot at.  This will have to do as my species example until I get a better one.  I compromised by not cropping too tightly, in that way to retain a reasonable level of sharpness.

Figure 2 – Palm warbler, Fresh Pond Reserve, Cambridge, MA, April 22, 2015. (c) DE Wolf 2015.

Figure 1 – Canon T2i with EF70-200mm f/4L USM lens hand-held at 81 mm, ISO 1600, Aperture-Priority AE mode at 1/3200th sec at f/9.0 with +1 exposure compensation.

Figure 2 – Canon T2i with EF70-200mm f/4L USM lens hand-held at 200 mm, ISO 1600, Aperture-Priority AE mode at 1/2000th sec at f/9.0 with no exposure compensation.