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Archive for the ‘Landscape’ Category

The early morning sunlight was spectacular yesterday as it streamed through the trees at Huntley Meadows Park. I tried to capture this phenomenon as a kind of mini-landscape by using my telephoto lens and framing it just as you see in this image. It is a little unusual for me not to crop an image at all, but by composing it this way, I was able to include those elements that I found the most interesting, the light and shadows of the trees, and left out the things that I found less interesting such as the sky. I did include a little strip of grass in the foreground so that the image is not completely abstract.

early morning trees

When I first arrived at the park, the sun had barely risen and there was a lot of ground fog, which made the woods look really mysterious and a little spooky. One of my viewers on Facebook said the image looked like it could be the setting for the witches in Macbeth. The second image was a lot tougher to capture, because of the lack of light and my desire to capture a sense of the fog that was clinging to the ground. There is a slight blur to the image, which would normally be a shortcoming in a photo, but I think it works ok with an image like this one.

early morning trees

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

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I don’t often shoot landscape images, but I was so taken with the stark beauty of the ice-covered world that I encountered on New Year’s Day at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge that I decided that I should attempt to capture a sense of the moment. I used the wide-angle capabilities of my Canon SX50 superzoom camera in the first two images below and shot the third one with the Tamron 150-600mm lens, the lens that I use on my Canon 50D for a significant number of my the photos featured on this blog.

icescape

icescape

icescape

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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How did you spend your New Year’s Day? When I arrived yesterday at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge, the sun had just risen. I was a bit shocked to see four other cars in the parking lot, given that it was only 7:30 in the morning. I trudged about the refuge all day (and have a bunch of photos to sort through) and as I departed at 6:00 pm, the full moon was rising.

It was a long, tiring day, but I can’t think of anything I would rather have been doing to start off the new year.  Just for fun, I’m also including the view from inside my car as I got ready to step out into the crisp morning air. I am not sure it was actually 5 degrees outside ( minus 15 degrees C), but that was what my car showed as the outside temperature. Eventually it “warmed up” to about 24 degrees (minus 5 C) during the day, though the occasional gusts of wind made it feel colder.

sunrise

moonrise

cold

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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The view from my hotel room in Vienna seems to be mostly of ongoing construction work, but this morning it featured a touch of color as the sun slowly began to rise. A nice highlight was the sliver of a crescent moon still visible in the sky.

Vienna

Vienna

vienna

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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I am in Vienna, Austria for a brief work trip and had a chance to stop by the Christmas Market in front of the Rathaus (City Hall). Even on a Monday afternoon, the market was crowded with shoppers. The market is noisy, busy, and a bit gaudy, but despite all of the commercialization, I could still feel the spirit of Christmas.

As the big sign in front of the market states in German, “Merry Christmas.”

Vienna Christmas Market 2017

Vienna Christmas Market 2017

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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As I drove through the gates at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge this past Friday, a thick fog (or mist) was hanging low over the fields. The sun was just beginning to rise and it was still pretty dark. Although my goal for the day was to photograph birds, I decided to make an attempt at capturing the feeling of the moment and quickly realized the difficulty of that task—it’s a real challenge to capture the delicate nuances of light and shadows and the subtle shades of the rising sun when there is so little available light.

I felt a bit uncomfortable as I was shooting these images, a clear indication that I was way outside of my comfort zone, but I think it is good to try new approaches and subjects in order for me to keep on growing and learning as a photographer.

 

misty morning

autumn mist

autumn path

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

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I was facing almost directly east in the early morning hours at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge and the colors of the rising sun filtering through the trees made it look like the woods were ablaze. Fortunately, they were not.

sunlight

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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As the early morning light began to filter through the trees and the mist was rising, I was filled with an overwhelming sense of tranquility last Friday at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge. Was there any way that I could possibly capture that feeling in an image?

Many of you know that I rarely shoot landscape photos. I normally do not carry with me the kind of wide angle lens that is traditionally associated with landscape photography and instead carry a long telephoto zoom lens and a macro lens almost all of the time. The first two photos below were not cropped and were shot with the telephoto zoom lens set at 150mm, its widest setting. I have started carrying my Canon SX50 with me most of the time and this super zoom camera allowed me to get a much wider view and a greater depth of field.

I am not sure that any of these images adequately capture the feeling of the moment, but I wanted to share some of my different approaches in trying to capture the light, shadows, shapes, and colors of one early morning in the autumn.

early autumn morning

early autumn morning

early autumn morning

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

 

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Last weekend when I was staying outside of Roanoke for a wedding, I had the chance to walk a few miles of the Appalachian Trail. It was pretty awesome—now I have only about 2178 more miles to go to complete it.

Like most people, I had heard about the Appalachian Trail, but didn’t know much about it. Somehow I imagined that it was about as wide as a jeep and relatively smooth. My brief hike on the trail dispelled those notions. The trail is narrow, muddy, and steep, at least in those parts where I was walking.

I encountered the trail in Troutville, Virginia, a small town that is designated as an Appalachian Trail Community, where hikers can resupply along the way. Troutville marks a point on the trail where thru-hikers, those trying to complete the entire trail in a single year, will have completed about a third of the trail, assuming they started in Georgia.

It’s pretty exciting to think about hiking a 2200 mile trail, but it requires a lot of planning, training, and commitment. Generally thru-hikers spent five to seven months hiking on the trail, and quite a few people drop out along the way for many different reasons.

Appalachian Trail

Appalachian Trail

Appalachian Trail

Appalachian Trail

As I climbed a hill and came to a meadow, I noticed this small tent. Apparently a hiker decided this was a good spot to spend the night. You can see part of the trail, which is marked with white “blazes,” like the one on the wooden post.

Appalachian Trail
This was the scenic view from the top of one of several hills that I climbed during my short stint on the trail.
Appalachian Trail
 © Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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As I was exploring Jackson Miles Abbott Wetland Refuge last weekend, I spotted some Eastern Amberwing dragonflies (Perithemis tenera) flying low above the surface of the pond. One of them, a female, kept returning to a particular spot and would dip down and touch the water to deposit eggs. A male would periodically make an appearance and I couldn’t tell for sure if he was guarding the female or was trying to put the moves on her.

This is my favorite shot of the encounter. The dragonfly on the left is a male Eastern Amberwing and the one coming in from the right is a female. I thought about cropping the image in closer, but decided to keep it like this in order to retain the ripples and the reflection, elements that I really like.

 

Eastern Amberwing

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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I’d never before seen river barges, so it was pretty cool to watch these ones moving along the Ohio River in Wheeling, West Virginia during my brief trip there last month. I never realized that barges are pushed from behind rather than pulled from the front. How in the world are they able to steer?

barges

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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From a distance, it looks almost like they are drilling for oil in the center of Fort Benning, Georgia. Those towers, however, are not oil derricks, but are used for training soldiers who will become airborne-qualified. There are a series of towers of varying heights and as soldiers master their equipment and techniques, they are literally taken to greater heights.

In 1980 I was at Fort Benning for US Army Officer Candidate School (OCS), and I remember running on a track around those towers. During my Army career, I did not go through airborne training and I am happy to say that I have a perfect record—I have landed safely aboard every aircraft on which I have taken off.

I am currently at Fort Benning to celebrate my son’s graduation from OCS. Yesterday I had a chance to walk around the field on which the towers are located and to capture a variety of shots. Here are some of my favorites.

jump towers

jump tower

tower3_blog

jump tower

jump tower

jump tower

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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During my recent trip to Wheeling, West Virginia, I repeatedly encountered symbols of the town’s glorious past. Trains no longer run to the historic Baltimore and Ohio train station. The beautiful building has now been converted for use by West Virginia Northern Community College.

B&O Railroad

A prominent sign indicates the availability of the buildings of Marsh Wheeling Stogies. Could this possibly be a reference to cigars? As I did a little research, I learned that Mifflin M. Marsh began producing cigars in Wheeling in 1840. His cheap cigars were favored by the drivers of the Conestoga wagons that carried pioneers West and “stogies” are a shortened version of the wagon’s name. According to the website Archiving Wheeling, in 1877 almost 24 million cigars were sold in Wheeling. In 2001, the plant was closed after Marsh Wheeling was bought by National Cigar.

Marsh Wheeling Stogies

I suppose that Verizon now owns the Bell Telephone building in Wheeling, but Verizon is definitely not know for having buildings as interesting and beautiful as this one.

Bell Telephone

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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This past Thursday I made a quick trip to Wheeling, West Virginia and fell in love with the signs that had been painted long ago on the sides of some of the brick buildings in the downtown area. Here are a few of my favorite ones.

Wheeling

Wheeling

Wheeling

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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I love the mood of the early morning—there is such a sense of tranquility. Here is what what things looked like this morning at Huntley Meadows Park. The most obvious subject was a male Northern Pintail duck (Anas acuta), but I love the way that you can see other ducks and geese in the background.

Northern Pintail

Northern Pintail

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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I was happy yesterday to see that the big Christmas tree was still up at the Grand-Place, the historic center of Brussels. It lent some light and color to an otherwise cold, wet day.

I am always disappointed when I see Christmas trees cast aside immediately after Christmas. When I was growing up, it was traditional to wait at least until Epiphany, the celebration of the arrival of the Magi, though I seem to recall some of my neighbors keeping their Christmas tree and lights going for an even longer period of time.

The Grand-Place is always so much fun to visit. The buildings on each side of the square are all different and different elements attract my attention each time that I visit. In the first photo below, you can see the tall town hall in the background. The second image shows the building directly opposite the square from the town hall.

Brussels Christmas tree

Brussels Christmas tree

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

 

 

 

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Freezing rain has blanketed Brussels today, making footing treacherous, especially on the cobblestones in the center of the city. Needless to say, the outdoor cafes are not doing much business on a day like today.

I am in Brussels this week for work, so the photos that I post on this blog will be a bit different from my typical wildlife shots.

Brussels panorama

cafe in Brussels

 

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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It’s just starting to get light outside, the dawning of a new year. It’s time to hang new calendars and to try to remember 2017 on my checks. I’m not really into setting resolutions, but New Year’s Day is a good time to stop to reflect on the past year. Then it will be time to boldly step into the as yet uncharted territories of 2017,  certain only that there will be both challenges and opportunities—I hope that I will learn and grow irrespective of the circumstances,

Best wishes to all those who read and/or view my blog for a healthy and happy 2017.

I took these shots as the sun was rising early yesterday morning at Huntley Meadows Park for the final time in 2016. The treeline to the east blocked me from seeing the actual sunrise, but the colors were spectacular for a few brief moments.

sunrise

sunrise

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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My short trip to Vienna, Austria is rapidly coming to a close and I want to leave you with this image of the entrance to the outdoor Christmas market at the Rathaus (City Hall), the tall building in the background.

Best wishes to all for a “Frohe Weihnachten,” German for “Merry Christmas.”

Christmas 2016

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Nighttime in Vienna, Austria is incredible—there are so many beautiful buildings that are wonderfully illuminated. Capturing their beauty while hand holding my superzoom Canon SX50 is a bit of a challenge, but I try to stabilize myself by leaning against various poles, buildings, and other stationary objects.

This shot of a clock tower in one of the inner courtyards of the Hofburg Palace is my favorite image from yesterday evening while I was wandering around the city.

clock tower in Vienna, Austria

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Some photographers like to stay in one spot and let the action come to them, but most of the time I prefer to keep on the move, opportunistically scanning for subjects to shoot. There is one place, however, at Huntley Meadows Park that I will sometimes visit and simply sit for extended periods of time. It is a beaver pond in a secluded area of the park and I feel a sense of peace surround me whenever I am there.

This past Monday I was sitting on a log at that spot and was struck  by the beauty of the elements of the scene in front of me. I tried to capture some of those elements of the landscape with they 150-600mm zoom lens that was on my camera at that moment. I like the way that the telephoto lens provides an intimate landscape view, unlike the wide-angle view that I typically associate with landscapes.

telephoto landscape

telephoto landscape

telephoto landscape

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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During my trip to Maine at the end of October, I visited the pier at Old Orchard Beach. The pier is crawling with tourists during the summer, but was pretty much deserted this late in the year.

According to information on the pier’s websitethe original pier first opened to the public on July 2, 1898, offering entertainment of all types, including concerts, dancing, lectures, and a casino located at the very end of the pier. Since that time it has been destroyed by fires and storms and rebuilt multiple times.

I remember visiting the pier as a child when my family vacationed in the area. At that time the pier had a carnival-style atmosphere with games to play and lots of junk food, like french fries and saltwater taffy.

Over the past decade or two. an increasing number of condominiums have been built. Many of the arcades and amusement park rides have disappeared.

Fortunately I still managed to find a stand open nearby so that I could indulge in some fried dough, one of the local specialties that consists of a huge ball of dough, flattened and deep-fried and then doused in melted butter and powdered  sugar and cinnamon.

pier at Old Orchard Beach

pier at Old Orchard Beach

pier at Old Orchard Beach

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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I think that tonight is officially the “super moon,” but the weather forecasters predict that it will be cloudy. Knowing this, I went out last night (and again this morning) to get some shots of the almost super moon.

I learned a couple of things from this experience. First, it’s not too hard to get shots of the moon in the sky. If I am going to be shooting the moon with any regularity, I need to scout out some locations so that I can get shots of the moon rising over the mountains or over the water.

Secondly, I learned that the visible features on the moon change their apparent positions over the course of a single night. If I had had any basic lessons in astronomy, I would probably have known this already, but this revelation came to me when I was comparing the shots that I took last night with those that I took this morning. I took the first shot below at 8:02 pm (20:02 hrs) last night and the second shot at 5:38 this morning. When you compare the photos, you can see that distinctive land features are in different locations.

almost super moon

Moon at 8:02 in the evening of 13 November 2016

Moon 5:38 in the morning of 14 November 2016

Moon at 5:38 in the morning of 14 November 2016

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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The skies over Huntley Meadows Park were amazing around 3:00 (15:00 hrs) yesterday afternoon when a cold front was blowing in. When certain clouds were illuminated by the sun they were transformed into pastel shades of the rainbow. At times there were varying shades of orange, green, aqua, and purple.

I suspected that moisture in the clouds was responsible for the colors, but I had never seen anything like it and did not know what it was called. After searching about on the internet, I learned that this diffraction phenomenon, known as cloud iridescence, is caused by small water droplets or ice crystals individually scattering light. According to Wikipedia, ” If parts of clouds have small droplets or crystals of similar size, their cumulative effect is seen as colors. The cloud must be optically thin, so that most rays encounter only a single droplet. Iridescence is therefore mostly seen at cloud edges or in semi-transparent clouds, and newly forming clouds produce the brightest and most colorful iridescence.”

cloud iridescence

cloud iridescence

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Is it distracting to have a man-made object in an otherwise natural landscape? The ocean really inspired me during my recent short trip to Maine. I am amazed at the number of beautiful images that I was able to capture. I particularly like the colors and simple composition of a shot I took of a small river that rises and falls with the tide.

As I was working on the image, I noticed that there was a solitary warning sign in the upper left-hand corner that alerts folks to the dangers of the tides. I actually like the juxtaposition of this hard vertical line with the gentle curves of the image and the hazy coastline in the background. I began to wonder, however, if others would see the sign as a discordant element in the image, so I created a second version of the image without the sign.

Which image do you prefer, the one with the sign or the one without it?

Old Orchard Beach

O;d Orchard Beach

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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One of my favorite places in Ocean Park, Maine is a small covered bridge that leads into a grove of beautiful trees. The bride crosses a stream and is barely wide enough for two people to walk through side-by-side. It was dedicated in 1944 as a war memorial.

Ocean Park is a special place for my family. My parents went on their honeymoon there and eventually retired to the small community. Those of you who read this blog regularly know that I was recently in Maine. Unfortunately it was not for pleasure, but was in connection with what proved to be a fatal heart attack for one of my younger brothers.

The final image of these three is my favorite, because it serves as a kind of visual metaphor for me of the passing of my brother Patrick.

covered bridge

covered bridge

covered bridge

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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The sky was mostly clouded over as I made my way toward the beach in the early morning, but the dawn’s early light helped me to see the wooden pathway through the dune grass at Old Orchard Beach in Maine. Although I couldn’t see the sun itself, a reddish glow was reflected on the clouds and sometimes onto the water.

It was a fun challenge to try to capture the beautiful light in different ways, from the very realistic to the almost abstract.

dawn's early light

dawn's early light

dawn;s early light

 

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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I don’t often shoot landscapes (or seascapes), but the beauty of the ocean and the waves crashing on the shore inspired me to give it a shot. Normally I take photos with a macro lens or a telephoto zoom, but I was fortunate to have brought along a 24-105mm lens. Here are a few favorite images that I captured yesterday at Old Orchard Beach, Maine.

Old Orchard Beach

Old Orchard Beach

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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How do you capture the beauty of autumn? If you live in a location where there are broad expanses of trees full of brightly colored leaves, it would be pretty easy, I think. In Northern Virginia where I live, the colors tend to be muted and isolated. There are patches of colors here and there, but it seems like many of the leaves go straight from green to brown.

On some recent trips to Huntley Meadows Park, my favorite shooting location, I tried to capture some glimpses of the changing season using my telephoto zoom lens. The colors and patterns of the fall foliage turned into abstract patterns when viewed through a telephoto lens.

Here are some of my favorite shots as I focused in on the autumn foliage. I am also including a final image that attempts to capture the feeling of walking down a trail in the crisp morning air with fallen leaves crunching underfoot.

fall foliage

fall foliage

fall foliage

fall foliage

fall foliage

autumn trail

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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This Great Egret (Ardea alba) seemed to be trying to minimize energy expenditure in the heat as it flew low and slowly from one location to another part of Huntley Meadows Park. The recent extreme heat must be tough on many of the inhabitants of the park—temperatures yesterday soared to 101 degrees (38 degrees C) in the Washington D.C. area, a new record for the date.

I have a tendency to crop my images to emphasize the subject, but I took these shots at pretty long range and like the way that they give you a sense of the environment at my favorite marshland park.

Great Egret

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Normally I try to move in really close to my subjects using a telephoto or macro lens. Yesterday, however, I decided to try to “see” the world differently by using a wider lens (24-105mm) during a quick trip with my photography mentor Cindy Dyer to Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens in the Anacostia area of Washington D.C. to check out the water lilies and lotus flowers.

The trip was a spur-of-the-moment decision while we were eating lunch, so we knew that we would miss out on the soft early morning light that we both prefer. However, the weather was beautiful, with the temperatures and humidity less oppressive than in recent weeks, so we decided to brave the Washington D.C. area traffic to check out the park.

Cindy is no stranger to the park. Last year four of her images of water lilies from the park appeared on US postage stamps, which were so popular that half a billion were printed. Check out this link to see information about these stamps. Earlier this year, one of Cindy’s images of Sacred Lotuses at the park was on one of the 16 postage stamps issued to commemorate the centennial of the National Park Service. Check out this link for more information about that stamp.

Here are some of my images of Sacred Lotuses (Nelumbo nucifera) from yesterday as I tried to step back a bit and see the flowers as part of a larger landscape. Initially I struggled a bit as I kept focusing on details, but my mind and my eye grew accustomed to the idea that the lens was not going to let me get in close. Gradually I started to see things differently and to frame my photos accordingly.

Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens

Acres and acres of lotuses

Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens

Lotuses fading into the distance

Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens

Lotus and seed pod

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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