After The Flood

I like to think this shows the aftermath of high water as Dürer might have portrayed it. If he'd had a camera. Okay, and a computer. WHATEVER.

Please make sure to look at the larger version of this, because it's all about the details.

A Natural Mess

Sometimes a walk in the woods doesn't reveal any pattern of orderliness. Nature is frequently just plain messy, disorganized, and chaotic. My footfalls through the forrest caused large, extremely healthy-looking deer to bolt springily away through the underbrush. There was little classically photogenic to be found in the grey and brown trees of winter.

Yet this patch of water, with its tangle of downed branches and dead leaves floating, brought me to a standstill. This too is beautiful. We are meant to spend time in environments like these: our senses are tuned to the patterns of light and dark made by tree trunks in afternoon light, and mirror reflections sooth our minds.

In Memoriam

Shattered

Life leaves scars.

Some Photographic Challenges

It wasn't all blue skies in New Mexico, alas. Heavy overcast and ultra-flat lighting made it hard to do justice to the magnificent landscape at Tent Rock. These two pictures barely hint at the sheer presence of this landscape.

Standing in the Gap



Tent Rock 'Village'

What Winter Should Look Like

If we must have winter, it should look like this: sunny blue skies, bright white snow, large vistas. If I lived in Albuquerque, I would take up skiing again (or snowboarding, maybe). I haven't thrown myself down a mountain since I was teenager, but the chance to do it in weather like this would tempt me mightily. I don't mind a little nip in the air if the sun is shining. Of course, the bonus here at Sandia is that the temperature improves by 15 degrees at the bottom of the hill, and there are no snowdrifts to dig your car out of.

This image is a single exposure tone-mapped HDR. You might find it interesting to compare it to the version in the previous post.

Ancestor, Waiting

Suddenly, in the negative space of this image, I saw a standing figure wrapped in desert-striped weavings, patient and watchful. And, once seen, it became impossible to not see.

Heart of Stone

It is hard to make a photograph that really captures what it was I saw in this constellation of rocks. The bigger version (click on photo) does a better job of it than the small one.

Monumental

Despite overcast skies, we spent a wonderful hour and a half exploring Tent Rock park, located either inside or just adjacent to Cochiti Pueblo, not far from Los Alamos. If you're in the neighborhood, I highly recommend a visit. I hope to go back one day, when conditions are more favorable. It offers one fabulous photographic opportunity after another.

Steampunk Vines

I'm not sure whether I'll be able to post while I'm away in Albuquerque. Please enjoy the nature-artifice combo of this image in the meantime.

What February Feels Like

I'm going to Albuquerque on Thursday evening (assuming the next snowstorm doesn't shut down DCA). I'm looking foward to seeing my sister and her husband, and Bob who will be joining me from Las Vegas. I'm hoping for sunshine, too.

Thaw

I got out into the wide world, in my car even, twice in two days. I feel almost like a citizen of the universe again!

Just in time for more snow tomorrow.

A Bend in the River

It's snowing here. A lot. The first blizzard was dubbed "Snowpocalypse." I'm calling this one "Snowmaggedon."

Since I wasn't able to set foot out of my place today (and tomorrow's not looking so good either), you'll have to make do with another picture from my last visit to Great Falls.

A Little Video

While I was at Great Falls I shot a few brief clips in the camera's AVHCD Lite video format. Of course I forgot that vertical is still basically verboten in video (although I think it makes for very interesting moving pictures). Here's what they look like cobbled together hastily in iMovie.

What's interesting to me is that the water appears to be moving much more quickly in these images than I perceived it at the time. Video artifact or trick of the mind?

They Flee From Me

Most of the time, to be honest, the deer in these parts just stand around and look at you as if to say, "Yeah, and then what?" But these were gals, and a couple of them looked to be young, so they were a little less inclined to hold still and pose properly. Hence the less-than-stellar image quality (well, that, and the light was disappearing).

River Ice

I went back to Great Falls, this time on the Maryland side. The river was roaring, even higher than my last visit. There were fantastic turned-lathe banisters of icicles everywhere. I've never seen anything like them before.

One of the great things about shooting digital, is that you can take as many images as your SD card will hold.

One of the problems with shooting digital, is that you can shoot as many pictures as your SD card will hold.

I came home with over 200 images, and have barely begun the process of sorting through them and applying post-processing. But here's one that just stuns me.

Because it SNOWED today...

...we're going to have a little reader poll here at Something Beautiful.

I photographed these tree roots at Dumbarton Oaks the other day. One of these images was rendered in grayscale directly from the RAW file in Lightroom and then adjusted. The other was tweaked in Silver EFX.

Can you guess which is which?
And, in any case, which do you prefer?
(As always, please look at large versions rather than thumbnails to decide.)

A:


or

B:


I find that preferences in black & white vary tremendously, and that people are quite passionate about how they like their monochrome images structured. I await your responses with great interest!

Vine Growth Chart

This vine is ready for spring and another growth spurt.

A Winter Garden

Dumbarton Oaks garden is one of my favorite places in Washington. To be more accurate, it's one of my favorite places anywhere. For awhile, when I first moved to DC, I went there every fair-weather Sunday to sit on a bench and read the paper in beautiful surroundings.

I thought I remembered that the garden was off-limits to visitors from November to April. I either misrecalled or the policy has changed. I went waltzing in this afternoon; not only was it open, but nobody was taking admission fees either.

I intend to renew a more intimate acquaintance with this glorious spot.

An Old Love

Back in the day, all I ever shot was black and white. I developed it myself. I printed it myself. In a darkroom. With all the stinky chemicals. Yes, I dodged and burned. I toned. My darkroom had no ventilation and no running water and was at the opposite end of my apartment from the bathroom (and the tub in which I washed the prints). Big, beautiful, 16" x 20" prints they were.

I was, if I may so, a very good printer. I had mad skillz. But after a few hours in the darkroom, my pee smelled like fixer for days. It's a wonder I still have my original liver.

So I don't really miss the darkroom, except for a vague, wistful nostalgia. And now, with the advent of shooting RAW and "developing" through post-processing in Lightroom, I feel that I'm returning to my roots albeit in a modern, digital way. But I'm nowhere near having mad skillz.

Yet.

In Knots

This is not technically a great photograph. And surely no one would imagine I'm in favor of plastic pollution in trees. But still: this was beautiful, blowing in the breeze.

Great Falls

Sure, I took pictures of the rapids. I'll probably post at least a couple of them here at some point. But I wanted to show you this one as an example of how sometimes even though you do everything technically "wrong," it works out anyway. (As usual, bigger is much better.)

Blue Grass

It was l'heure bleu. I had run out, camera in hand, as the sun broke through the clouds late in the afternoon. Five minutes later it dipped below a heavy bank on the horizon and the light fell quickly. I took many blurry pictures trying to find a compromise between ISO, aperture, and shutter speed.

I don't know what imparted a lavender-blue tinge to these weedy grasses, but they practically glowed in the twilight.

Mosscape

There's a whole world of beauty at our feet. I challenge you to go for a walk this afternoon. Take a watch with you and stop every five minutes and just look at what's on the ground nearby. Even if you expect to see ugliness, look carefully. You may be surprised. (As always, kindly embiggen the image.)

Rock Creek Sunset

I continue to experiment with HDR tools. This image combines four handheld exposures. The thumbnail version does not do this image justice... please enlarge!

Written on a Scroll of Brick

The calligraphy of a vine and the withered wisps of leaves seem like the last traces of an elegant writing system since abandoned. Or maybe it's a music score, in an unfamiliar notation, that has yet to be performed.

Wild Colored Grasses

I took some significant liberties with the tone-mapping in Photomatix, I'll admit it.

By the way, I re-sized and uploaded these files directly rather than use Blogger's uploading because the recompression was totally mucking up the color depth and contrast range in this image. I have noted this previously, but it was especially obvious with this one. It makes me wonder if I should go back and revisit some of my earlier posts. (Grrrr! More work for me will, however, mean better pictures for you.)

Winter Flowers

Yellow is the color that lasts through the frost and the snow, somehow persisting deep into winter. These buds are preserved in place, but winter is not mocked. The ice and the cold have the last word.

[Update: Re-uploaded images directly to avoid recompression color and contrast shift.]

There is still some color in the world…

It may be winter. It may be cold. But I found these red leaves and they made me glad.

Wall and Pipe

Post-processing madness! I shot this image in both RAW and JPEG. I tinkered with the RAW using my trial version of Lightroom, which of course I really have no informed idea how to use. The difference in color balance between the two versions couldn't have been more striking. And, of course, since I have no good memory of my perception of the color at the time of the exposure, ultimately I just have to go with the more pleasing/plausible version.

Out with the Old...

May your New Year's Eve be safe and fun! See you next year. (It just never gets old.)

Juniper

These look almost good enough to eat. Are they juniper berries? I gather that those get used to flavor gin… is that right?

Jewels in the Rain

The pattern of Fall and Winter so far has been: one day of sun, five days of miserable precipitation. Accordingly, today was unremittingly foggy and drizzly. Undaunted, I went forth in search of my daily quantum of beauty. And here it is.

Snowpocalypse

The snow was a pretty substantial inconvenience for everybody, but it's both lovely and fascinating from several miles up. Photo courtesy of NASA.

Almost Black & White

Daytime, Snow

A little mini-snowdrift in my window. The melting has already begun; I may venture forth this afternoon to dig out my car.

Nighttime, Snow

I went to entrance of my apartment building in my clogs, with a coat thrown over sweatpants and t-shirt. I leaned out the front door and took this picture. And that's just about enough of that!

Maple Snow

Washington is bracing for ten or more inches of snow. I prefer it when the flakes covering the ground are fallen maple leaves.

Not the Tropics

It's cold and relentlessly rainy, not a day for green. The steely profile of bamboo seems about right.

This Too Shall Pass

In Dupont Circle there's a grate covered with mass of vines; I think that it's a squash plant gone rogue. That would make this The Last Squash Blossom.

Bonus Pictures for a Rainy Day

Rain AND snow, in fact. But still, something beautiful to be found.

Symphony of Science

Okay, the autotune is funny, for sure. But I also like the message in this mashup.

Mossline

The lines of a labyrinth are actually a gap. In the gap, a miniature landscape of moss and other plants is thriving. Meditate on that!

Another Winter Wall

Yet another picture not taken today. You know why? Because: It's. Raining. Again. OMGWTFBBQRainbowponies!!!! Please make it stop with the rain already. Please.

Winter Foliage

I love that this plant already has its winter coat on.

On The Rail

Three birds between earth and heaven. These are from Atlantic City, about a month ago. I was looking through my photos and decided to bring them back for a bow.

Calligraphic Grasses

I can't read this writing, but I can appreciate the penmanship and the flourishes.