Suffolk Art Show

A local, small art museum holds an annual juried photography show. A friend of mine convinced me to submit some photos last year. I managed to get one of three selected. It was actually my least favorite of the three I submitted but perhaps the most "artistic." It was this rather graphical crushed bike on a bridge in Amsterdam.

Dutch Transportation

This year I came up with three more to submit and again one was selected. After seeing the show, I'm kind of surprised that I got any in as the jurist had quite a different artistic eye than I do. I was not impressed with many of the selections that got in but I guess that is the nature of art. Most of my interaction with photographers are people who focus on nature and landscape photography. Much of this show is more fine art and graphical photography. So it is definitely interesting seeing how others approach photography.

Perhaps the most interesting submission was a small box with three glass panes in it. Each pane had a portion of a picture of a flock of birds departing a tree. There was a small light in the back that lit the scene. It gave an interesting 3D impression.

Below are my submissions with the top one being the one selected.

Lupines on Hurricane Ridge

Rainy Afternoon

Northern Gannets

Early Spring Visitors

Today, the first day of daylight savings time, we have a few uncommon visitors to the yard. I was out taking test shots with my new Canon 7D when I heard some shorebirds approaching. They were only making single peek calls but as they flew overhead I saw that they were Killdeer. They landed in a muddy spot in the marsh and started feeding. Finally they gave their classic kill-deer call. I switched lens and called my wife back to see them. Luckily they stayed for quite some time. Really too far to photograph except for identification purposes. We've had Killdeer over the marsh before but this is the first time I remember seeing them land. And four at once!

We then saw a Tree Swallow, first-of-season, and Laughing Gull, also first-of-season. The Tree Swallow is new for our yard list. Probably a bookkeeping error as we both think we have seen them before here. We ended up with 28 species including two immature Bald Eagles that seemed to be fighting for the same wind. they were slowing rising on a thermal over the creek but once seemed to purposely run into the other occasionally. We also saw a Double-crested Cormorant swimming in the creek. Again,  I don't remember seeing one swimming in the creek right here.

Good way to call Spring closer.

A Fun time with fungis

I have always really like fungus and mushrooms.  When I was a Boy Scout and did a lot of hiking, tree fungi were one of the few things that I learned to identify (not that I remember anything besides Chicken of the Forest).  There is something about their colors and sudden appearance that attracts me.  I have often tried taking pictures but usually without much success.  Sure, once in a while something good will come out of my attempt but most of the time they end up blah.

A few weeks ago my wife and I were at the local botanical gardens and there was a photo show of mushrooms.  Again, only one or two really stood out as good photographs.  And there are some good photographers in that group.  As we talked about it we came up with a couple of reasons why it is so hard to get beautiful photographs of fungus.

First, while they can be striking, they are usually not the most attractive of subjects.  That immediately puts the photography in a tough situation.  You have to turn something kind of ugly, or real ugly in some cases, into something people would enjoy viewing.

Second, mushrooms usually grow in deep under stories where the light isn't good.  OK, where the light sucks.  And a lot of mushrooms don't stand out all that much from their surroundings.

And finally, they are really low to the ground.  It is hard to get that low and then not have leaves, grass, twigs, etc. get into distracting positions.

But, when you do get a good shot, it can really be something.  So here are a few of my favorites.

In this case I took advantage of all of the similar colors, placed the mushroom over in the corner and avoided distractions of trying to separate the mushroom from the leave litter.

In this case I was able to get quite close with a macro set-up (extension tube and lens) and just focus on the ribs. This again removed any distractions sticking up in the background.  I think the shallow depth of field really focuses the attention on the mushroom.

For this one I moved a few of the fallen twigs that were poking up.  The mushroom is on a rise from the trail so I could get down to it's level with my tripod. And I like the repeated slope of the mushroom cap and the moss behind it.

This one helped out by lifting the distracting element and made it an intricate part of the image.  The little sprig of grass is beside the mushroom so it adds a sense of scale instead of being distracting.  The the humor of the mushroom lifting the twig offsets any other technical problems.

And finally, my all-time favorite mushroom picture. My wife and I saw this while hiking in the Shenandoah Mountains last year. These mushrooms were growing out of the side of a bank at about waist level.  Easy to get to there level   My wife let me borrow her macro lens so I could get in really close.  they are probably no more than 1/4 inch tall.

Check out the other bloggers at Macro Monday and Our World Tuesday.