A couple of weeks ago I ended up with an hour or so to wander around Fairhaven, where my studio is located, when a client failed to show up for an appointment.
I gave myself the assignment to photograph bricks. I ended up straying a bit from the theme and included a few other textures, but with all the brick in this old commercial neighborhood I was able to keep myself busy and come up with some interesting views of the subject. Continue reading
The Old Fairhaven Association, the business group for the neighborhood where my studio is located, hosts an annual Girls Night Out fundraising event each May. The money goes to the St. Joseph Hospital Cancer Research Center, part of our local hospital. There’s a small parade late in the afternoon, then a fun-filled evening of entertainment in the Fairhaven Pub & Martini Bar with a fashion show, comedy, and a bachelor auction.
Here’s a video slideshow with highlights from the 2011 event, held on May 12:
Prior to the event most of the bachelors came into my studio for a portrait to help promote the auction. The gals who won the bidding on each of these guys are going to have a great time on their dates. They’re all relaxed, easy-going, and ready with a smile.
I enjoyed the challenge of photographing the event, which is so very different from the more deliberate kind of photography I do most of the time. I shot with my Canon 5D Mark II at ISO 1600 with an on-camera fill flash with a small modifyier to soften the light. A little quick adjustment work in Lightroom, and then the slideshow was created in Animoto.
Natalie and I headed out to Lake Padden for a walk around the loop trail this afternoon. The rain had stopped before we left the house, but the sky had that leaden tone so common to winter days in the northwest.
The forest along the back side of the lake was lush and verdant. Conifers, Oregon-grape, salal, and ferns glistened with moisture. Mosses and lichens reveled in the life-giving rain.
And on the sunny side ducks swam, oblivious to the color of the sky or the temperature of the water.
All along the shore the red alders, Alnus rubra, leaned out over the water. Dangling catkins, waiting expectantly for the warmth to come within just a few weeks. For now they’re sealed up tight, clasping their pollen until it’s time to release it to the wind and the sticky female flowers on an adjacent tree.
Reflected here, a branch bowing low to the surface of the lake.
Nearly tame, Mallards and Coots feed on cast-off breadcrumbs tossed from the path by a human couple luring them close to their lens. They dance forward with each underhand throw, racing backward with unhealthy morsels. Repeating until the bag is empty.
Our jaunt complete, we experienced a little exercise on a drab day brightened by fresh air, earthy aromas, textured forest, and avian adventurers.
Back in the warmth of my office I processed these images from my Canon G12 in Adobe Lightroom and tossed them up to the web for you. It’s not yet spring, but not really winter either. Something of a nether season. As a passing walker said today, “Hiking season will be here soon.” Maybe it never left.
When you’re tiny and looking to get pollinated this early in the season you’ve gotta put on a show. At least that’s one way to look at this Common Filbert, Corylus avellana, blossom. All that feathery red stuff is part of the female flower. Dangling in the background are the long male catkins which soon will be releasing drifts of pollen to be carried across the void.
You can see other bits of red, more female blossoms, on other twigs here. That big fat bud at the base of the flower is actually the ovary. It’s going to turn into a tasty nut, fine food for a squirrel or human, later in the season.
Common Filbert is one of the first trees or shrubs to bloom around here. It’s actually an escapee from cultivation. Our native species, Beaked Hazelnut or Corylus cornuta, won’t start blooming until March. The two species look very much alike when they’re in flower. Actually, they’re hard to tell apart any time except when they’re in fruit. And then you have to beat the squirrels to them.
Here are the male flowers on the same plant. Each dangling catkin has many individual blossoms. Last year’s foliage is still on some of the branches, weathered to a nice shade of brown.
These photos were made this morning along the Whatcom Creek Trail in downtown Bellingham between Grand and Dupont. The trail has lots of nice native trees and shrubs, mostly planted in a restoration project about ten years ago. I also noticed swelling buds on the Indian Plum, another plant that blooms very early. But it’s going to be at least another week and maybe two before its flowers start to open.
I walk this route frequently on my way to the Post Office or other downtown errands. Today I just headed out to clear my head, carrying my Canon G12 in my pocket. I shot in the cold fog with natural light and used macro mode and manual focus to get close and keep my subject sharp. The trick was to set the focus as close as possible and then move the camera back and forth until the blossoms were sharp. Like most pocket cameras, the macro mode works best when the zoom is at its widest setting. That means camera position is critical to keep distracting elements out of the background.
My photographer friend David Perry blogged about Tiny, magenta girl-flowers about a year ago. Check out his take on sexy Corylus.
Oregon-grape is another shrub that can start blooming very early, although not all specimens are as early as this one along the same trail. In our back yard it will be at least a month before the Oregon-grape begins to blossom.
What have you seen blooming? My friend Janet Loughrey posted a series from Portland yesterday on her Facebook that included Crocus naturalized in a lawn. Some of my native plant society colleagues down in Oregon have been reporting first blooms of Grass Widows and Salt-and-Pepper Lomatium in the Columbia Gorge.
Gotta catch me a cab and head down to old Fairhaven town for a little Halloween fun.
Maybe I’ll grab a cup of Tony’s coffee and sit in the window watching all the fairies and goblins stroll by.
This holiday isn’t just for kids any more. Even older folks get into the spirit of dressing up, painting faces, and assuming an alter-ego for a day.
Loot bag? Check.
Best friend? Check.
Costume? Check.
A ride to Fairhaven from mom? Check.
Halloween trick-or-treating in Fairhaven Sunday afternoon was a mob scene with sidewalks crowded with hundreds of happy haunters. Check out more photos in the Fairhaven Halloween Gallery.
I felt a bit out of place wandering the streets with a camera but no costume. OK, so I was wearing clothes, but nothing special for the holiday. I hope you all had fun. I know I did.
Wow, where is the summer going? It seems like just yesterday that I joined with dozens of other Birchwood Garden Club members to visit three more unique and interesting Bellingham gardens on a warm summer evening in the golden sunset light. It’s actually been a couple of weeks, August 4 to be precise.
First up was Jennifer Wall’s garden, which is actually in the Birchwood neighborhood. She purchased the home, with an existing garden, a couple of years ago and has been on a journey of discovery to see what was there. Now she’s adding her own personal touches and style to the place. People were oohing and aahing over her plant choices and asking lots of “what’s this?” questions.
Then we caravaned down Chuckanut Drive to the edge of Mud Bay where we enjoyed Donna and Allen Buehler’s waterside garden and the view out over the bay at high tide. Lots of containers here, and outdoor entertaining spaces.
Finally, a few miles further down Chuckanut to a garden that backs up to Larrabee State Park. The Susan and Landry Corkery garden features an extensive collection of trees that blend with the native vegetation. Myriad paths twist, turn, and invite getting lost among the foliage. The Corkerys say they have 66 varieties of Maples, 50 Japanese Maples, 23 Magnolias, 8 Pines, 7 Oaks, and 275 Rhododendrons.
As usual on a garden tour, I just carried a pocket camera. This time is was my Canon S70, which provides more control and choices than the iPhone I carried on the July Birchwood tour. All of the images in the slideshow were processed through Adobe Lightroom and the show itself was produced in Animoto.
We finally got our first day of summer on July 7, right on schedule. It was the evening of the Birchwood Garden Club July members-only private garden tour, a delightful opportunity to visit four very nice Bellingham gardens. If you’re not a member of an active garden club, like Birchwood, you’re missing out on seeing gardens you otherwise wouldn’t get to see. Thank you, Sheri Lambert, for organizing the tour.
The four gardening families that welcomed us included Ira Penn and Dee Dee O’Connor, gardening on Alabama Hill; Lynette Jensen and Joan Wayne, each gardening on south hill; and garden designer Susann Schwiesow, gardening in Edgemore. Each garden is unique, appropriate to the site, representative of the personalities of the owners and designers, and a joy to explore. There were plant surprises and nice design elements in each garden.
As has become my custom on garden tours, I did all my photography with my iPhone 3G. This very sunny evening with strong contrast pointed out the limitations of the camera. Everything is completely automatic except for where you hold it to compose the image. Auto everything works pretty well in even light, but with bright highlights and deep shadows the camera tended to overexpose, washing out the bright spots and opening the shadows more than I like. Auto white balance doesn’t always know what to do with flowers and foliage, either. The tradeoff is that the camera is small, light, and already in my pocket.
I processed all the images in Adobe Lightroom 3, adjusting brightness and contrast, sometimes tweaking color balance, and applying a vignette to emphasize the center area. I spent less than a minute on each photo. I’ll be talking about the process and showing the technique in a program at the Garden Writers Association annual symposium in Dallas this September.
Coming up next weekend is the Whatcom Horticultural Society’s 2010 Tour of Private Gardens. There are five gardens on this year’s tour. They’re all different and worth a visit if you’re in the area and interested in gardening. Since I take care of the WHS website I was on the pre-tour for volunteers yesterday and shot a series of images for a video slideshow.
Yesterday was the first really warm and sunny day we’ve had this spring. Not exactly the best light for photographing gardens, but sometimes a photographer’s just gotta deal with the conditions. I shot all of these with my Canon S70 pocket camera and then ran them through Adobe Lightroom to dodge, burn, and generally adjust the contrast a bit. The video was created with Animoto.
Details about the tour, including pricing, directions, and ticket sources, is on the Whatcom Horticultural Society tour web page.
Dirty Dan Harris is credited with being the founder of Fairhaven, one of the four communities on Bellingham Bay that merged in the early 20th century to form Bellingham. The fine citizens of Fairhaven celebrate this bit of history each April with a two-day festival of seafood, music, and all-around fun on the Fairhaven Village Green. I spent the day photographing. Here’s a quick video slideshow, with music by The Gallus Brothers who were performing live during the event.
You can see a handful of photos at a more leisurely pace over on the Fairhaven website.
It’s always fun to hang out at an event like this. I ran into lots of people I knew, and even recognized some of them. I’m a bit conspicuous with a big heavy camera and lens hanging from my neck. I shot a lot with my 70-200mm, using a little on-camera fill flash to put highlights in eyes and brighten things up a tad under the overcast skies.
If you haven’t been to Dirty Dan Days, put it on your calendar for next April if you don’t see this in time to get down there this (Sunday) afternoon for the chowder cookoff and piano race.
Here’s a video from Sunday, with lots of happy people enjoying the chowder cookoff, dancing in the sun to the Gallus Brothers, and the world’s only piano race.
I’ve put the photos from the videos online in two galleries for viewing at your own pace: Saturday photos and Sunday photos.
Natalie announced after lunch today that she wanted to go for a hike and suggested the Stimpson Family Nature Preserve near Lake Whatcom. We hadn’t been out there for a while and the 3-mile loop trail makes a nice walk on a wet day. The rain stopped and the sun came out so we had a pleasant early afternoon walk.
It’s still pretty early in the season, so not much fresh was coming up, but these evergreen sedges were thick in several of the pocket wetlands near the top of the ridge. If you’re a wetland specialist and know what they are, please leave a comment and let me know. I’m still pretty poor at identifying sedges.
One plant that had started to grow is Stinging Nettle, Urtica dioica. When they get just a little bigger it will be time to harvest some (but not from the Stimpson Preserve) and cook them up for a tasty spring vegetable. Some folks say you can eat them raw if you curl the leaves just right to avoid the little spines that inject a chemical soup that gives the plant its name, but I’ve never been successful at it. For details on the chemicals in nettle sting see Be Nice to Nettles Week.
Nettle sting lasts for a remarkably long time. Hours later as I write this my thumb still tingles from very lightly brushing against a single leaf this afternoon. Spores from the abundant Sword Fern will often take the sting away, but for some reason I didn’t think of that this afternoon and just put up with the annoyance.
Out near the trailhead where there was more sun the Indian Plum was starting to open, but I only noted flower buds and no open blossoms. Perhaps at lower elevations the first blossoms are out, but I haven’t seen them yet this spring. Skunk Cabbage was starting to grow in the wetlands, too, but it will be close to a month before it’s in full bloom. Maybe a little earlier this year since January and February have been so warm.
One of the first things you come across at the Stimpson Preserve is a large beaver pond, which is really a shallow marsh. There’s an overlook along the trail. This was the view today, with the sun backlighting the dry sedge foliage out in the water. Again, I don’t know the species.
I photographed today with my Canon S70 pocket camera. I braced it against a tree trunk and zoomed in for the brown sedges in the pond. For the nettle I used macro mode, wide angle, and came in close with the focus point set on the leaves at the top of the frame. The wet marsh at the top of the post was also a wide-angle shot, with the camera held as steady as I could for the 1/13 sec shutter speed in the dark woods. I would have liked to have a tripod for that one, but I almost never carry one with my little camera.
