Happy Halloween!
Holidays
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Oct 312009
I get a text message last night from a friend asking me if I want to share some time with some big time NYC birders. Of course I say yes, but unfortunately my random cold I got the day before decides to flare up and make things much worse for me. So I passed on the early morning get together. Determined; later in the day as the sun began to get lower in the sky I set out to nab at least one photograph of this bird. The Cackling Goose is a sub-species of the more common seen Canada Goose. There has been controversy about the possible sub-species of the Canada goose for quite sometime.
You can see a difference here with the larger brethren to the left and right. The Cackling goose toward the center of the image has a shorter beak, rounder head, overall paler breast and shorter overall in size and neck length. Finding them is nothing simple. It took me at least 30min to find one. There are supposed to be two of them in the area. One of the trinomial nomenclature Branta hutchinsii hutchinsii and the other Branta hutchinsii minima. Minimia has a darker breast, rounder head, and purplish sheen. Hopefully if they stick around long enough more images can be made.
As it comes to an end
Photography
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Oct 262009
I hope everyone had a great time at the PhotoPlus Expo. I sure did; meeting new people, getting great offers and enjoying the abundance of free seminars on the floor. Sony had this neat little electric car setup that I had a ball with. A great tool to practice your panning technique. As the cars would buzz around the track i would lower my shutter speed by stopping down my aperture severely. The representative next to me said I should up my ISO to freeze the shot. Which baffled me as he meant it literally and not as a selling point to show off low noise. We here like to be creative and go that extra mile, thank you. Haha.
The one non-show image I came away with was during the trip to the show. Ridding the Staten Island Ferry toward the city of Manhattan.
A simple tonal contrast filter in color efex pro 3.0 and a black point.
Photoplus Expo in NYC!
Updates
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Oct 192009
Hey Everybody,
I wanted to let you know that the Photoplus Expo is starting this Thursday to the general public and running until Sunday. It’s an awesome place to be; in the world of photography. Tons of great companies from all across the spectrum, gear to try out and deals to be had! I’m attending as usual and B&H is putting out free attendance codes in case anyone was looking for one here it is “BHCARD” All the best!
UPDATE: I will be tweeting and twitpic-ing from the show tomorrow so feel free to tweet me or better yet request me. I normally keep the twitter account private, but I am making it public for the show. Sending a request to add me is the best bet for long term communique though. Tweet ya there! (I know; corny) Haha.
OOPS; forgot my username: ‘StillNature’ 
communique
Fall is making its move.
Photography
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Oct 152009
This past weekend we decided to head on up and see how Harriman State park was during the fall. Unfortunately it seems that they are draining or at least lowering the water level of the park. It’s to fix CR-106 to my knowledge, but of all times to do it…. kill all my plans. Well in the spirit of making lemonade out of lemons we headed to the Catskill Mountains. Boy were we glad we did! The color up there is just now approaching the middle to high range. Still waiting on peak color.
As I tried to go to Kaaterskill Falls again I got snuffed by all the tourists there. The parking situation was absolutely horrendous. People were parking on the drainage ditches on the side of the road. And the way back was all the way up a very steep hill. Driving by that I quickly decided to take another vantage point. I think going early during the week will get me better access all around. This is the top plunge before the water does a dual cascade of 260 feet in total.
The scenic look out is just awesome from atop the falls. Unfortunately though in this vista there were more then a handful of houses dotting the landscape. Sad that the view for a few spoils the view for many. However I used Nikon Captures spot healing to cure that. Waiting for the right amount of sunlight to shine through the clouds was absolutely crucial. Also the contrast of dark and light was exactly what I was looking for.
This is a small pre-falls before the big plunge. The light coming through the leaves above had to be captured. Waiting on the blue sky and white clouds through the tree tops was tough. I didn’t want too much highlight for the viewer to think I just wasn’t watching my exposure :-p.
Doing a bit of research lead me to this treat along the way. It doesn’t come with any sort of name to my knowledge. It’s a small freshwater type marsh where a red-breasted merganser and a bunch of mallards were hanging out. The way the sun poking through the clouds so starkly painted the landscape made me hit the brakes hard for this one. Waiting about 10-15min got me the shot I wanted. A fantastic way to end a day.
I promise you there were no magic tricks for these photographs. After seeking out the right light or waiting for it I just did a few in camera tweaks and a black point (minus the healing brush.) In camera I chose a cloudy white balance to really punch the colors up and also put it in vivid mode. Stopping down and underexposing just a tad (-.3) to further saturate and there you have it. Now make sure to check The Foliage Network website out and get your foliage report before you head out the door. Updated 2x a week by fall lovers like you!
