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)

Turtlehead Pond

We (Thomas and myself) stumbled upon this little gem in the Marshfield Town Forest more or less by accident. On our quest for Foliage photos, we went along VT Rt. 2 on Saturday and stopped in Plainfield (Martin Covered Bridge) and Marshfield (amazing hillside colors). But then I found two small ponds on the map in the vicinity and we just went there. It turned out to be an amazing site. Even without blue sky, the view from the lower end of Turtlehead Pond with the cliff in the background was well worth the drive!

Turtlehead Pond (I)


Turtlehead Pond (II)


Turtlehead Pond (III)


Turtlehead Pond (IV)

Spider Webs

Late summer and Fall 2017 brought a lot of foggy mornings. And one day I finally managed to get out early enough before it all burned off. Equipped with rain gear and my camera, I ventured into the field southwest of out house. I was more interested in the dead trees, but ran into those perfect spider webs that caught my eye. No spiders at home in many, but still... the dew made for very nice images. The biggest challenge here: Just the slightest breeze can bring them out of focus...
Spider Web (I)


Spider Web (II)


Spider Web (III)

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.

Moss Glen Falls and my Switch to Adobe Lightroom

Moss Glenn Falls (VT 100, Granville)
This is the Moss Glen Falls along VT100 between Warren and Granville (there is another one north of Stowe). I am not sure how often I have taken photos of this place, but this one is (a) taken with my shiny new camera (Canon 5D Mark IV) as well as (b) developed with Adobe Lightroom (and again, a pinch of Topaz Glow).

After many years of using Apple's Aperture (I was one of the first adopters), I finally made the switch to Lightroom. It took a while to convince me, still hoping for Apple to turn the corner and make their "Photos" app into something meaningful after they gave up on Aperture a while ago. I loved the Aperture interface, and had so far not warmed up to Lightroom during initial trials. But after reading Jason Bradley's book and watching Thomas' use of the tool, I gave it a serious second chance and quickly got the hang of it. Long story short: Since August 2016, all my photos are managed and developed by Lightroom. And I believe the quality of results has improved quite a bit with that move.

I still have not decided how to handle my many photos, hidden inside Aperture's database. But I will keep my old Mac Mini at the last OS version that officially supports Aperture for the time being. More on my new computer hardware in a future post.

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.

Cascading Waterfall on New Haven River

Going through my 2014 photos, I discovered this little cascade photo that I took in May along the road from Bristol up to Lincoln along the New Haven River (and post processed the usual way with Topaz Adjust and Simplify). It was just a small tributary to the New Haven River. and I discovered it by chance while trying to take photos of the main river. It one was only a few feet tall and, of course, not marked in any map.

It shows that it is not just the big waterfalls that provide the most beautiful images. You have to explore, and more often than not, you discover little gems like this.

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...