It's never the photographer's fault

On Saturday I went for a walk at Beaver Lake Nature Center with my friend M, who is a fellow artist and photographer.  It was a great day fun-wise - we had an absolutely grand time.  I always love getting to spend time with someone else who looks at the world from an artist's perspective.  Plus, M has a great sense of humor and picks on me fairly ruthlessly, and I very much enjoy the bantering.  He's good company, in lots of ways.

Sadly, it turned out to be one of my worst photography days in a long, long time.

The lighting was very strange, with a bright blue sky but lots of thick, fluffy clouds that significantly diminished the amount of light.  Once again, I struggled with some of the limitations of my camera, getting supremely grainy shots when I turned up the ISO high enough for the light conditions, and getting a lot of shots that were badly underexposed.  At least, I'm going to blame the camera, because it's just not possible the problems were my fault.  (ha!)

Anywho, among the many, many shots I took, here are the few I like.

We spent a lot of time fiddling around, trying to get some unusual and super artistic shots of all sorts of things.  Nearly all of my experiments failed miserably, but it was fun anyway.  I did like this shot that M took with my camera, though.  It sort of feels like that's how the tree looks to that little vine trying to climb it... if the vine is very near-sighted.

One of the problems with getting better as a photographer is that my standards get higher and higher.  I'm getting pickier about what I like and don't like, photos I would once have thought were fine are no longer making me happy.  I guess, all things considered, that's a good problem to have.

We met quite a number of flying buggy friends in the course of the day, most of whom were decidedly uncooperative about being photographed.  I managed to get a few holding still long enough to snap a picture, though.  But photographing bugs always just makes me want a macro lens.  I want to capture all the weird lenses of their eyes, the scales on their wings, the hairs on their legs, their exoskeletal joints.  Some day...

I looooove dragon flies.  They always remind me of a wonderful weekend I spent with my best girlfriend, many years ago now, camping at St. Regis canoe area in the Adirondacks.  It was a lovely hot summery weekend, and we spent much of our time swimming.  Whenever we stood still in the water, the dragon flies would commence massive territorial wars over us.   Apparently our shoulders were prime sunning spots for them.  Their aerial acrobatics positively astonish me - for heaven's sake, they can hover.  They come in an incredible array of iridescent colors.  And as if they weren't just plain cool enough already, they also eat mosquitoes.  Oh yes, I do love dragon flies.

Finally, I'll throw in some shots of a trio of turtles we found sunning themselves on logs.  If you look closely, you can see their silly webbed feet streeeeetched out, presumably to catch as much of the sun as possible.  So cute.  (You really have to look hard at that second one - the guy on the left has his back leg hanging.  Once again, major lighting problems).

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Sunflowers and Cameras

A local restaurant, the Inn Between, has a sunflower maze this year.  Although we missed the peak of the blooming (should have gone last weekend), a stroll through the maze today was still lovely.  Adding to the charm of the experience is that the Inn also has a whole bunch of bee hives, so all those lovely yellow sunflowers were filled with lovely yellow bees, including their honey bees, but also every other variety of bee you can think of that would be attracted to flowers.  Thought I'd share some shots.

Sunflowers are so photogenic.

The flowers were remarkably hard to photograph against the bright sky, so this was actually an excellent opportunity for me to play with some of the settings on my camera.  The lighting was highly variable, too, because a thunder storm was rolling in with lots of dark clouds.  I had mixed results, but a few things worked pretty well.  I love learning new things about this camera, and it's hard to believe that after this long I'm still learning about it constantly.

Okay.  That's enough of those.  I can only post so many shots of sunflowers before losing everyone's interest.

Did I mention that I am, yet again, hankering after a new camera?  Yes, I have officially found quite a number of situations where I am irritated with the limitations of my Nikon D70.  I bought it used last year, and can resell it for the exact same amount I bought it for through my favorite camera store.  That would make it like a free year-long camera loan, right?  (I can almost hear my best girlfriend laughing at me as she reads this... she's always told me "Holly, you can justify anything."  She's right - it's a particular talent of mine.)

Anywho, I do love this camera, and therefore am going to stick with Nikon and just move up their line a step or two.  Next I think will be a D90.  I want more megapixels (twice as many), more focal points, and a few other features that should make a big difference.  The same limitations of the D70 keep bothering me again and again, and it turns out that they are exactly the things the D90 improves upon.  Mind you, what I really want is a Nikon D700 (can you say "full frame"?  It makes my mouth water just to think about).  But holy Hannah, I'm a long way from being able to afford it.  So, if my camera guru can get in the 1 year old used D90 that she thinks is coming in, I think I'm going to snap it up.

Of course, that means I have to put off buying a mountain bike a little longer.  My husband is on the fence, as am I, about whether the bike or the camera should be a bigger priority.  Our friend M, who is also our trainer, just gives me one of his exasperated looks when I mention the camera, as he's rooting for the bike so I can join him and my husband on their rides.  Our other friend D is rooting for the camera.  That puts the votes thus far at an even tally, which isn't helping me decide.  I am accepting additional votes...

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Tidepools

I love tidepools.  I have for as long as I can remember.  They're so mysterious, and so chock full of cool things.

Although the coastline of Maine is rocky, there aren't a whole lot of opportunities for tide pooling around Cobscook Bay.  I think the explanation for that is that it's a bay, and tide pools need waves.  There are a few good tide pools on the Quoddy Head, though, so of course I spent a little time picking things out of them. Unfortunately, the rocks are wicked slippery, and with my good camera in my hand I didn't feel all that daring in my tide pool adventures this year.  Dunking it would really have ruined my day.

I did pick out a few neat critters and take a few shots that I liked though.

The seaweed is awesome.  I love seaweed.  There are seemingly zillions of different varieties, from fat plasticky kelp, to puffy little bumpy pods, to delicate frilly pink curly things.  Some are iridescent blue, some pink, lots are brown or green.  Sadly, I haven't taken the time to identify these yet.  I may still get around to it.  But even without identifications, I think they look cool.

I also love all the snails and barnacles.  Why is it that snails are so cute, yet slugs are sort of gross?

A few titchy starfish:

I also found some crabs skittering around, but given how much grief the one I picked up gave me, I couldn't manage to hold the camera with one hand and him with the other without getting my fingers pinched, HARD.  I therefore have no pictures of him, although the pinch marks have finally faded off my fingers.  Quite a defense mechanism.  I wonder how many pounds per square inch of force those little suckers generate?  Seriously impressive amounts.

Other things in the tide pools in Quoddy Head are sea urchins, anemones (which I can't help poking gently to make them suction onto my fingers), and even, if you're lucky, bitty lobsters.

Spouse and kids waiting patiently for me to stop poking in tide pools:

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Quoddy Head, Part 2

The woods at Quoddy Head are not like any other woods I have ever immersed myself in.  They are dark and quiet and mysterious, and have this faint whiff of fairy realm about them.  All the mist up there on that point makes everything so, so green.  Moss and lichen cover earth and rocks and trees.  There is little undergrowth other than the thick, lush moss.

Lots of little streams run through the woods, often in channels so overhung with moss that they are hard to spot.

The trails are thrillingly compelling.  How can anyone resist walking down all of them?

I spend much of my time there torn between darting quickly down the trails because I can't stand another minute of suspense about what will come next, and stopping dead in my tracks to appreciate some particularly appealing detail.  I stop for a whiff of balsam coming off the trees in the sun along the coast, or a patch of particularly soft moss, a delicate flitting in the trees above my head signifying the aerial presence of a bird, or the delicious gurgling of a wood thrush's song.  Most often I stop to photograph mushrooms.  Oh, the mushrooms!  Tiny etherial little beings.  I will do an entire post on them... at least one.

Most of the time you have no idea that you're near the coast.  The hush of the woods is so intense that you can't hear the crashing waves, even when the cliffs are quite near.  Then suddenly, there is a reminder of the ocean's presence, sitting beside the trail.  Or occasionally the trail will pop out onto a rocky cliff, leaving you blinking in the sunlight and disoriented by the contrast.

Then just as suddenly, the trail will return to the cool, quiet greenness.

Something about spending time in those woods makes me feel as though, if I stay there long enough, I will turn into a dryad or a bowtruckle*.  I can almost feel my limbs turning into angular wooden arms and legs, and am certain that if I leap upward with all my might I can land right in the branches of the trees.  When Lucy takes advantage of my spending a long time photographing a mushroom and falls asleep, I have a fleeting moment of fear that some fairy queen has put her to sleep with a spell, and she will have to stay there on her bed of moss for 100 years of enchanted sleep.

Even the delicate wood sorrel takes on a certain air of enchantment in the way it carpets an entire swath of the forest floor with its symmetrical leaves and delicate striped blossoms.

It's all so magical, that the woods of Quoddy Head have left a deep impression on me.  I shall think about those woods often, I am sure, and the memory of my few stolen days of grace there will be a source of solace for many years to come.

* For non-Harry Potter fans, a bowtruckle is a small wooden tree-guardian that lives in trees that are used for making magic wands.  They are made of bark and twigs, and live off woodlice and fairy eggs.

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