Ice Fall

I drive by this scene every day. It is on the side of a busy highway. (If there is such a thing in 
vermont) Not much room to pull over so I kept on driving by thinking I should stop and 
snap that. We don't have much of anything that resembles Winter here in Vermont. The trees are bare and a few spots of snow. This ice fall is a testament to the time of year it really is. I finally risked my life and stopped. It was twilight so I had to set my camera for low light. The first shot was at 1/160 sec at f/28, Focal length at 18mm ISO at 800. The second shot was 1/80sec at f/28, Focal length at 55mm ISO at 100. The two images were shot maybe ten minutes apart just at sunset. I was fascinated by the blue ice that showed up in my pictures that I did not see with my naked eye. I did tweak the contrast in the second image in Lightroom 3 and the blue popped out more. I did not like the noise I saw in high resolution so I have to start taking more low light images and figure out the right ISO to get the shot with less noise. I love a challenge. If you are driving South down Rt 30 in Southern Vermont towards Brattleboro....you will see this amazing ice fall! One of the very few signs that winter is here sitting with all her beauty wrapped in ice on the side of a road .

A Rose is a Rose

I have always been a die hard Apple Aperture

user for many years. Lately I have been very frustrated with the lag in time it takes to edit one image.  Sometimes ten minutes! It uses a lot of ram. So today I changed my "apple ways" and deleted aperture from my laptop. I researched for a few days before this decision and I went with Adobe Lightroom 3. I have been playing with it all day! The speed of this photo editor is amazing. The image on the top is edited with aperture and the image below is Lightroom 3. I found I had so much more control and an easier interface. It didn't take me long to find my way through the adjustments and tools. I won't be going back to aperture. For the price ($149) half price on adobe site until march 5th compared to $200. for Aperture on the Apple site. You get a lot more for your money. In my opinion. I try hard to set my camera when taking pictures to get the best possible image with the least amount of post editing. However that is not always the case. This is where Lightroom 3 will be my new best friend. Making a simple capture of a rose into a fun piece of art. Now I know a rose is a rose but there are seemingly no limits to what you can do with an image of one in Lightroom 3. 

On the Fence

 You would not think that one broken down fence would be such a hub of bird activity.
Behind the Diner I used to own such a fence existed. I used to put day old muffins on it to attract them. Then on my break I would go out with my camera. In one summer I took over 5000 pictures of just birds on this fence. Every kind of bird. Mostly these twelve sparrows that waited each morning for the muffins. One of my dear customers called them the 12 bandits. The woodpecker and the mocking bird were regulars as well. I had to learn to be fast with the focus ring. I still love to bird watch. I spent last Summer stalking a pair of bald eagles not far from my house. They are much tougher to get a capture of then my friends from the fence. I never really did get a good one. It takes a lot of patience to just sit and wait sometimes for hours. Much like fishing sometimes you get a good one sometimes nothing. But it is always worth it.