Nichol's Ledge

This Fall seems to be all about new discoveries. I really should start a book or at least a list of favorite places in Vermont. I finally made it to Woodbury and Nichols Ledge today and was not disappointed. The colors are definitely past peak now (at least in the northern parts of the state), and morning light would have been better. But no complaining about a sunny, mid seventy degree day in the middle of October! Just splendid...


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Turtlehead Pond (II)

Since Saturday was an overcast day, my photos included very little or no sky at all. I just wanted to follow up and give the "big picture" (panorama incl. blue sky) from the same pond as shot today. What a difference in foliage just a few days make...


Turtlehead Pond Pano

Shortlived Foliage Season 2017

A very dry second half of Summer 2017, together with windy and rainy conditions on the Columbus Day weekend will probably shorten the Vermont Foliage Season this year. After our photo tour on Saturday under overcast skies, Sunday was partly sunny again. We decided to explore the local Preston Pond area in Bolton. It features a few beaver ponds and a beautiful outlook, called Libby's Look. Thanks to the high dynamic range sensor of my SLR and the editing capabilities of Lightroom, even the backlighting conditions in late afternoon resulted in good photos from the top. Instead of the all too common broad view of colorful trees, I played with reflections, abstracts, camera movement and sunstars. Oh what glorious colors and photographic opportunities nature provides!


Preston Pond Loop Abstract


Sunstar


Libby's Look

Preston Pond Reflections (I)


Preston Pond Reflections (II)

Barn Series

These are a few shots back from late winter/early spring of 2016. The little bit of snow we had this winter is gone, but the blue skies make photography interesting despite the drab ground colors.

The farm with the silos can be found on the Lake Champlain Islands along the West Shore Road in Alburg, while the other barn photos were taken right here in Westford during some of our local walks along Huntley Road and Cambridge Road.

Red and Blue make for a good combination, despite the missing white :-)

Green River Reservoir, More on Lightroom

Dead Tree (Green River Reservoir, VT)

Dead Tree II (Green River Reservoir, VT)
The photos above have been taken on Green River Reservoir last fall. We had the luck of hitting peak foliage season there with perfect weather for the last three years now. Again, this is my "old postcard" look achieved with Topaz "Glow".

I have to write a bit more about Lightroom: I am really positively surprised by that tool. I still find the Library/Development module a bit more clunky than the Apple Aperture solution, but once you get used to it, working with it is just as easy. So far, I have been reading just one book on the tool, but there are countless videos on YouTube that not only explain the mechanics, but also give great advice on workflow. You can find some cool plugins (like this LR/Blog for posting photos to a blog). The only one I am missing from the Aperture world is "Border FX". Of course, you can do all these things with Photoshop, but I prefer simple, intuitive solutions.

On Tioga Road

Tenaya Lake View (Yosemite National Park, Tioga Road)
This is one of my favorite spots on Tioga Road through Yosemite National Park: The view towards Tenaya Lake. I went to California in August 2016 and took a trip to the Eastern Sierra with Thomas. This shot was taken on the way from the Bay Area to Mammoth Lake where we spent the first night.

The effect on this image has been accomplished with my go-to tool, Topaz Labs "Glow". I developed my own preset which I call "Old Postcard Look". I am sure you will see more photos developed with it...

Burlington Waterfront

OK. It is December, but winter is nowhere to be found this year. While going through my photos from the past year, I stumbled across this January scene taken next to the Burlington Fishing Pier. Now THIS is winter! It was a Sunday afternoon, so the photo was taken against the sun. I took three exposures back then and just now developed them with my new HDR tool, Aurora HDR (by macphun and Trey Ratcliff). I am getting a hang of it and will probably do most of my HDR work with this one from now on...

For this particular scene, I selected a rather dreamy preset and went from there.

Late Afternoon at the Lake

While working on my annual Calendar project, I stumbled across this image that I took while on tour with Alex this spring. It was a perfect early May day, lots of sun and an amazing sunset at the Burlington Waterfront. I am sure you will see more photos from that outing, but here is a first one: The Burlington breakwater with the southern lighthouse in a dreamy late afternoon sun.

The original photo was rather uninspiring (colorless), so I took the challenge making this into a meaningful image: Topaz Adjust and Simplify to the rescue...

Summer Evening in Westford

August has been dry and rather warm this year. It's September as I am posting this, but the photo is from August, only a few days old. There is a barn down the road from us with haybales in front. I have been driving by every day, but last week I had to get there with my camera in the evening light to take photos.

Here is the result after some 'Topaz' post processing that brings out the hazy mood of that warm late summer day even better (you can click onto the image above to get a higher resolution one).

For those of you who do not know yet: I am using some photo editing plugins from Topaz Labs (Adjust, Simplify, DeNoise, ...). One of my favorite settings in "Adjust" is called 'faded glory'. I used this one on the barn photo and tweaked a few things here and there. Although I hardly noticed them at exposure time, I especially like the goldenrods in the foreground.