Garnered Images

“World’s use is cold, world’s love is vain, world’s cruelty is bitter bane;
but is not the fruit of pain.”
(Elizabeth Barrett Browning)

It’s cold.  Bitterly, bloody cold.  Of course, it is winter so cold is to be expected; far be it from me to complain.  It does, however, make for some, shall we say, thrilling forrays to capture its beauty in photographs.

I broke down this year and invested in new, very heavy-duty winter boots.  Hunting boots from Danner, with 1,000 gram Thinsulate, to be exact.  They are a thing of beauty and I love them.  But even they were no match for this latest arctic blast.  They got a real test when we took a trip to the local nature preserve after the first in the series of snowstorms came through; an hour and a half in the sub-zero morning, my feet had had enough.  Running and skiing don’t compare to standing around in deep snow so even these extreme boots are going to be stuffed with heated socks or something the next time we go out in such deadly weather.

Despite the cold toes, I was still thrilled to get out.  There wasn’t much going on there in terms of wildlife, but I enjoyed shooting some landscapes of the snowy river, and the stretch of white-capped teasels was good practice shooting white-on-white.

We weren’t seeing much of the hawks during this time; most all the furred and small, feathered wilds were sticking very close to home.  The red-tail did show up early in the week, and though very close to the patio I managed to nail it in the heartbeat it took for it to launch and then disappear behind one of the big pine trees.  I had the camera set for a stick-picking shot and was actually very surprised to have gotten only wing blur here.

When sub-zero temperatures grip, the brief moments of intermittent sunshine begin to create fantasies of ice as the snow slowly melts off the roofs of the houses.  Often, this light would come late in the afternoon, affording me the chance to indulge my artsy-fartsy eye and try to capture some of what is my personal favorite in Nature’s bag of breathtaking tricks.

And what would Winter be without a visit from the Travel Gnome?  In drag.

As I write this particular piece, the bitter cold snap continues and I continue to chronicle the lengthing icicles, both on houses and furry tails.  It occurs to me once again that living where there are four, real seasons is one reason that I’m never bored or at a loss for ideas to continue to work on my photography.  I know that to some people, ice may be just ice, squirrels or hawks may be just squirrels or hawks, but as the natural cycle moves ’round its annual wheel, it provides a never-ending rotation of unique players, and each is worthy of attention.

And I’m both grateful and most often simply excited to be able to do this.

“Art doesn’t just happen by accident. It is about pulling out new tricks and trying new things.”
(Nicholas Meyer)

Returning to work after taking a real, true break over the holidays combined with our wonky weather again limits the time I can spend working on my photography.  But I am bound and determined to put in more reasonable hours at the office this year and to continue to shoot every day.

Last week began with thoughts about the latest DGrin challenge and some bits of slantingly bright late afternoon light across the fireplace mantle reminded me of a still life I’d once considered but put on the “backup shot” list in favor of then-easily-accessible subjects.  Now, with scant shooting time during daylight hours and a wide open challenge theme, it seemed a good time to at least try it.

My camera will meld multiple images together to create just one so I decided to use that little tool to take this shot.   It’s a marvelous way to create images of fireworks but now each image had to fall onto exactly the same spot in each frame so it was a bit of work for me to get everything locked down solidly since my normal shooting style, even with the tripod, is to have everything very loose so I can move fast. 

After a couple of tries, I got it.  I also attempted using HDR post-processing to achieve the same effect since I’ve been wanting to play with that, but liked the in-camera merge much better.

It’s pretty and I got the light I wanted, yet I wasn’t entirely sure about the second candle (on the left) so decided to restage and reshoot the next day using only one.  After contemplating the results, during post-processing I carefully turned the reflection in the mirror into black and white in order to create a more specific focal point in the scene and help inject a sense of drama.

Nice and clear and nicely brooding.  But I wasn’t sold on either one for the contest.  The next day, a return to grey and gloomy daylight, I decided to once again try some HDR post-processing on a rather mundane, wee bit of perspective out in the backyard.  Once again, I didn’t like the results but I did like one of the images and again chose to do a bit of additional post-processing to desaturate parts of the image.  It’s a technique I like a lot but don’t use often unless, as especially in this case, it adds to the story element of what would be an otherwise bland and rather nondescript photograph.

I suppose it’s a good thing that my personal photography preference leans towards documentary instead of fine art; at this point I was starting to feel a little unfulfilled and antsy.  But I needn’t have worried; whoever it is that seems to think documenting the hawks and squirrels in the ‘hood is my prime directive decided to shift my jealously-guarded shooting time back to feathers and fur and so it was that on the one truly gloriously-lit morning of the week I ended up with some really beautiful photos of our local red-tailed hawk. 

This promptly became my choice for the contest.  It would eventually have some of the upper branches cloned out so as to simplify the focal point but to find every bit of clarity of which Matilda is capable ringing through delights me to the point of feeling vindicated in my persistent efforts to harness her considerable powers over the last year and a half.

Then the weather turned on us with a vengeance.  Another big storm began to brew and as if in some sort of pathetic consolation, the pace at work also picked up, pushing my Muse temporarily off to the side.  No sign of hawks, no time to wait for the furballs to perform any kind of unusual antics; I was left with just our very small and now very bleak landscape and to reflect it, went to black and white.

All day on Friday the snow came down.  First in fits and starts, then a steady stream of flakes accompanied by bitter cold.  The hawks continued to remain absent, but the furballs were out and foraging earnestly in case they’d have to hole up for a day or two.  Bob had dumped the last of the small gourds into the garden, and the weather apparently signalled the squirrels it was time to open them.  This provided me with some great photo ops, of course, but to my surprise, a crop of one photo down to an unintended focal point left me with what has surplanted the red-tailed hawk as my final choice for the challenge:

I could nitpick this image from a purely technical perspective, yet even when all the nits are summed up they do not seem to override its unique quality and subtle air of charming unexpectedness.  More snow and a cooperative model allowed a reshoot the next day and I got what I was after originally:

Although technically superior, the same emotional appeal seems to be lacking.  It doesn’t seem to tell a compelling story or perhaps it is simply missing the vague sense of urgency as is contained in the accidental version.  And it’s not just me.  The “accident” has received an unusually large number of (positive) comments from the daily photo community.

Who’da thunk it?

“This whole world is wild at heart and weird on top.”
(David Lynch)

An unusual year came to an unusual end.  Since I’m on vacation and, finally, for once actually behaving as if I’m on vacation, I slept in later than is the norm on New Year’s Eve and casually padded into the kitchen to get my first cup of coffee.  I took one sip, and then decided to take a peek out back.  I don’t know what possessed me to do so other than perhaps instinct, but I was rewarded with the sight of the young red-tailed hawk perched in a rather fine position in the big maple tree of the backyard next door.  And it was a splendidly clear morning with warm, early light beaming down brightly.

There was nothing else to do except grab Matilda and position her next to the window in order to guarantee getting at least one good shot since that early in the day the hawks are usually actively hunting and my stepping outside is cause for them to move on in search of more readily accessible prey.  And to be honest, the angle from the window was perhaps better than I’d get outside since the hawk was sitting amidst a lot of sticks.

I opened the window and fired away.  The hawk was undisturbed by this so having at least a good daily photo I donned my best Southpark attire and headed outside to try for more (and maybe even better).  It was worth the effort.  Turns out the hawk wasn’t going anywhere and I was able to get a great vantage point on it and snag some excellent shots using low ISO and a perfect f-stop.

My original intention and what would be my daily photo was catching the red-tail in the middle of a blink:

It seemed so serendipitious since it was, after all, New Year’s Eve and 2008 had blown past in what seemed the blink of an eye.  But I was unprepared for what happened next.  I thought the hawk was about to launch into flight so steadied the camera.  Instead of flying off, however, it looked to be only trying to empty its crop:

And sure enough, emptying its crop was its intention, all right.  However, it didn’t warn me it was about to empty the contents of its stomach, too!

Only one word came to mind.  Ick!!!  And then, just like any properly goofy youngster, it shamelessly let out what looked for all intents and purposes like one big, final belch:

With such a show, I was half surprised I didn’t actually hear something.  Of course, the hawk was then quite pleased with itself and I’m sure that getting rid of the undigestible bits of whatever it had eaten did feel much better.  I considered going next door to examine the pellet and see if I could determine what it had eaten, but it was cold, I didn’t want to bother my neighbor, and part of me was afraid I’d find it had feasted on one of the furballs so decided to postpone such exploration until later.

The young hawk continued to pose prettily, looking at me in sweet innocence, as if to say, “I didn’t do anything weird, lady!”

By now, I’d filled the card on the camera so brought Matilda in and went upstairs to pull off the photographs.  While there, I took a peek out of one of the 2nd-floor windows and the unusual events of the morning were apparently not yet finished, for there, suddenly, on the other side of the big maple tree from the young red-tail, was perched the adult Cooper’s hawk!  It was most decidedly a very rare occurrence for both these predators to be sitting in the same tree so I raced downstairs and grabbed the other camera, mounted the next-largest lens onto it, and promptly flew back out the door.  By the time I got there, though, the young red-tail was taking off.  As I watched, an even rarer scene then began to unfold in front of my surprised eyes – the adult Cooper’s hawk chased the young red-tail out of its territory! 

I watched as the red-tail tried to maneuver through the trees; at first it seemed to be thinking simply reperching in another tree would be enough.  But red-tails are nowhere near as nimble as the Coop, who is by design adapted to chase and catch smaller birds as they attempt to tuck themselves inside the safety of branches, so with the Coop staying so close on its tail, after making effectively a large, deep circle through the neighboring backyards, the red-tail had no choice but to finally lift and head out towards more open space in order to get away.

The adult Cooper returned not long afterwards, giving me only a stick-picking ID kind of shot of it.  But to have seen it in fast flight, hard on the tail of the red-tail hawk was enough.  It was surely quite the spectacular ending to this rather incredible year of up-close-and-personal encounters with our urban raptors.

“In wisdom gathered over time I have found that every experience is a form of exploration.”
(Ansel Adams)

The 12 days of Christmas have now come and gone, and while most folks spent them hunting for stuff to put into boxes, I instead followed my plan to get out of my box as much as possible and have to say now that the figurative stretching felt really good.  Under an unusual blessing of deep snow that the more stereotypical cold Christmas Eve rains could not bring to a full surrender of a rare and true White Christmas, I found it both pleasingly challenging and somewhat frustrating to try to capture the holiday spirit.  Not only the technical challenges of shooting at night when the artic blast that overstayed its welcome like a bad guest caused everything to freeze within moments, but simply finding suitable subjects was hard; likely due to the horrible economic conditions there were far fewer displays of the seasonal revelry than in years past. 

But I think I managed to “make do” well enough.  My first attempt was to head out for a short walk in the bitter evening air to tackle a polar bear, one of a pair that graces the front steps of a house in the front of the Woods:

The next day the big, bad, wicked winter storm arrived in earnest and travel, even on foot, was a treacherous and foolhardy idea.  But I was lucky enough to snag the elusive adult Cooper’s hawk right in our own backyard:

A brief lull in the storm the next night allowed for a quick trip out to tackle one of the sights that was, in large part, the inspiration for my little project:

I ended up going back the next evening in order to catch all the lights turned on.  By this time, the single-digit temperature and a wind chill that pushed that temperature down into double negative digits required serious bundling up for the short walk.  It was a hoot, for it had been years since I’d ventured out resembling one of the kids on Southpark.  As an adult, even when out skiing in -20° weather my winter attire was more, shall we say, fashionably streamlined.  (The difference being, of course, your blood circulates a lot faster to keep you warm when you’re moving, unlike the stillness required to take photographs.  This also put a new pair of Really Serious winter boots on my list.) 

We awoke the next morning to be greeted by some much-welcome sunshine.  The morning light was thrilling, energizing and brilliant but the wicked wind continued to blow fiercely, warning everyone to stay put.  So it was only brief forrays into the backyard for me.  And for the wild residents.  I found my littlest wild fox squirrel friend waiting patiently for me to arrive with her foodstuffs, trying her best to bravely soak in some of the sunshine as the driving wind beat at her with drifting snow:

The starlings have returned en masse and while their lack of manners at the feeders is the bane of my existence, they are beautiful birds and so one high up in the pine tree gulping snow became my daily photo:

As hard as I try to avoid going out during the last, frenzied holiday shopping days, errands could not be postponed forever, so I took full advantage of the early darkness for some daily shoots, using the partially-opened window of the Jeep as a makeshift tripod.  It is testament to why I so love my Wrangler that the engine runs so smoothly I could keep it on and therefore stay warm while shooting:

On Christmas Eve morn the frigid arctic front finally started to move on and the more normal Michigan holiday season rains finally began.  The red-tailed hawk had been making daily appearances and, after having to be content with mostly stick-picking, to my surprise it glided into the trees in our backyard and actually stayed put for a while.  I had to don a rain poncho and cover Matilda, but even so, by the time I finished the shoot, I was as sodden as the hawk with jeans wet nearly to my knees from standing and then jumping around in the snow.  (I’ll leave it to your imagination and likely one of Bob’s blogs to picture my attempts to encourage the hawk to move on when the squirrels and I had finally had our fill of its menacing presence.)

On Christmas Day I prepared a delectable herb-crusted pork roast, Bob cleaned while I set a festive holiday table then picked up my mother, and the three of us happily ate our Selves into a very merry little stupor.  After I took my mother home I stopped to take the last daily photograph on my list, as I’d planned it:

And so at last came the Morning After and The End:

Now that these self-made ”12 Days” are over, I look back and am very glad I set a goal with this project.  I feel as if I’ve accomplished something more with my photography, and certainly there has been learning with each day’s attempts.  Learning that will be put to good use in the days ahead.

Merry, indeed.

“Christmas time is here, by golly!
Disapproval would be folly.
Deck the halls with hunks of holly;
Brother, here we go again.”
(Tom Lehrer)

  
It often seems like the holidays become just another thing that must be multi-tasked and crossed off the never-ending to-do list.  But no matter how you celebrate the start of “officiellement l’hiver”, I believe it’s important to take a moment to remember why we haul out the lights and eat and drink our Selves into a stupor of merriment.

There’s a silly joke about true friends being the ones who bail you out of jail, or sit beside you laughing about how much fun was had getting there.  Though I understand and appreciate the humor and the sentiment behind it, such jesting at Christmas often sets off the echoes of a melancholy chord inside of me and I realize something.

Jail is not only a physical place, but it is also the chains we put around our hearts to shut out others. There is nothing worse than being exiled from the love of another person for it is a truth that the opposite of Love is not hate, but indifference. To be ignored, to be left alone, to be forgotten – this is perhaps our deepest fear.

Rudolph may have gone down in history, but it was because of his brightness that shone clearly through the winter’s darkness. Ok, so it was only his nose, but that shiny red nose is yet another small reminder that within ALL of us lie the seeds of the very same Light that was born in humble poverty yet grew to shine forth an eternal truth that has not dimmed even to this day. (Crooked politicians, lawyers, and most CEOs aside, of course.)

The message of this season has always been one of hope, and inherently contained within that hope is the wish for peace. The return of the Sun/Son, that which is crucial to our very survival, both physical and at the level of the heart, has always been a time of celebration. A time of recognition that when all is said and done, in the very deepest place inside every one of us we are all the same. No matter how you choose to see and express it, we are all Children of God and to return to the Light is to return to that innocence, that wonder, that joy of simply being.

“For unto us a child is born.”  Each year the wheel turns, and as the world continues to lay in sin and with error pining it reaches these Halcyon days; in particular the one day awaited with a never-ending, collective thrill of hope for Him to appear.

Him.

A child. A child sleeping in the night.

From within our self-made jails, from within those chains of fear we hope.

From within our self-made jails, from within those chains of fear we pray.

But that child is you. That child is me. With breaking of each new and glorious dawn of every Christmas Day the birth we celebrate is our own, for hope and its inner core of peace is not something that lives outside of us, it is who we are.

My wish for each and every one of you is that not only today, but every single day, you find within you the Light of Love we now celebrate and that it shine from you onto others as brightly as the star that guided those three, oh-so-wise men to kneel at the feet of He who would manifest all our potentials in one single, short lifetime.

Each one of you is a gift. A beautiful gift of hope whom angels greet with anthem sweet, the babe, the Sun…the peace. 

May you have a joyous, peace-filled holiday.