It's My Nature » Nature Photography

Sunrise Solitude

Ed — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 23:35:06 +0000

In a recent post, Why No People?, I attempted to answer the question why there are so seldom any people in my images. What it all comes down to is that I like the personal feeling that my images represent to me. It is me at one with nature. I am alone in my world. No intrusions from anyone else… even if there are other people around. And often there are. A boater here. A fisherman there. But I can let them intrude upon my world and the representation of it in the images I create.

Yesterday morning (Saturday) I made my way to the fishing pier (hardly a pier at all) on Lake Nockamixon (Nockamixon State Park, Bucks County, PA) well before sunrise. I had scouted the area out on a previous trip and knew that it would be a good place to capture sunrise and, importantly to me, a different place from the marina area which I have visited so often this summer. I went out to the tip of the small finger of land jutting into the lake and set up. I had hit a window so to speak. The guys who had been fishing all night were in the process of leaving and the day fishermen hadn’t arrived yet. I would have the spot to myself.

I ended up making a series of 14 5-image HDR composites as the sky progressed toward sunrise. Here is a small sampling of the images.

Sunrise Solitude #4

Sunrise Solitude #6

Sunrise Solitude #9

Sunrise Solitude #13

Here’s hoping you’ve enjoyed this little visit into my world!

Coneflower Meets Macro

Ed — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 21:48:16 +0000

The ebb and flow of our photographic lives always seems to have us moving from subject to subject, from technique to technique, from favorite lens to favorite lens as time moves incessantly forward. The past couple of years (prior to this one) I tended to do a lot more macro and flower photography. This year not so much as my attention has turned more to landscapes and sunrises and such.

I found myself at home today, not really feeling well but getting bored of sleeping the day away. So I one point I grabbed my Canon 30D, put on a Sigma 70 mm macro lens and ventured out into the backyard for a little while. Nothing fancy. No tripod. Just the camera, the backyard and me. In the back corner (of a small backyard) behind the (very small) made-made pond, in amongst the native shrubs and wildflowers was a small stand of purple coneflowers that looked like they could be fun to work with.

So I did. All images were shot handheld at f/2.8. I shot wide open because I was really looking to create some soft images with very soft backgrounds. For the third image, I purposefully took the entire image out-of-focus in-camera in order to create an entirely soft image. Images of that type aren’t to everyone’s liking but hey, I like it and that’s what counts!

“Coneflower #1″

“Coneflower #2″

“Coneflower #3 – Perchance to Dream”

Why no people?

Ed — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 00:34:30 +0000

Why aren’t there any people in my images? That is a question that I was recently asked.

Truth be told, it’s not that I don’t ever have people in my images but it is extremely rare. And I will go to great lengths to work around people and keep my images people-free. Sometimes my work has been criticized for it. Some want to see a person walking along that beach or a boat out on that lake… something to provide a visual anchor point for the image. But one person’s anchor point is another’s distraction and I find such elements to be a visual distraction. And a boat anchor around my neck. So I simply avoid them. After all, whose vision is it anyway? It’s my vision and people seldom have a place in it.

Freeman Patterson is photographer, writer, teacher who I have never met but admire greatly. He said “The camera always points both ways. In expressing your subject, you also express yourself.” I guess I really believe that to be true. In my work, I strive to capture the essence, the spirit of my subject be that a sunrise, a flower, a landscape or whatever. But at the same time, I feel I am sharing a part of me with you the viewer. Through my work, you can learn about me – who I am, what I like, what I am like, what really makes me tick…

I tend to be a loner. I know many people but really have few friends. (Sometimes while pondering my own mortality I wonder, will anyone show up at my funeral… will the many people I know care enough to show up or just those few friends?) I tend to shy away from group activities. I seldom go on a group shoot with my club preferring instead to go out by myself or with just my wife. I love sunrises because it is quiet, peaceful and I can be alone – just me and my subject. No other people around. No boats out on the water. It’s as if I exist in my own world. It’s as if I stepped into this scene and I am the first person to do so. It is a wonderful feeling. And it represents who I am. What I think. What I feel about the world around me.

And when there are people around, I feel like they are intruding upon the world I am trying to capture… my world. So I do the only thing I can. I eliminate them. Sometimes it’s not easy. Try getting a wide angle image inside the Conservatory at Longwood Gardens with no people in it. But I’ve done it because seldom are people part of my creative vision.

And when people are in my images, they are there because they communicate the same sense of solitude that I seek out in my work. One need look no further than an image I entitled “Fishing the Fog”.

I write this for the sole reason of giving you, the viewer of my art, a glimpse into what makes Ed Vatza tick… and why there are no people in my images… like in these two from Lake Nockamixon (Nockamixon State Park, Bucks County, PA).

“Marina 5:20 am”

“Red Sails in the Sunrise”

Sunrise at the Jake (Jacobsburg State Park)

Ed — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 10:20:15 +0000

Those of you who have followed my blog for the past year or longer know that Barb and I will often head to Jacobsburg State Park (PA) since it is close (a 20 minute drive) and a great place for Barb to bird and me to photograph (particularly wildflowers this time of year).

This post is a testament to keeping your eyes and mind open and always looking for other opportunities along the way. And also a reminder to do your research whether you are going to be in your own backyard or a thousand miles away.

A couple of weeks back (on Father’s Day, if memory serves), Barb and I headed to Jacobsburg so she could look for the Yellow-breasted Chat and I could photograph some wildflowers. She came up empty but I did come away with several rather nice wildflower portraits that I really like. But as Barb looked and listened for the Chat, I started to do some nosing around an area of Jacobsburg that we don’t often to visit unless we are just hiking through. The more I looked, the more I liked what I was seeing – meadow up close, rolling hills, farmland, what passes for mountains in this area off on the horizon. It had the makings of a very nice bucolic landscape. What would really set it off though would be a sunrise or sunset.

A quick check of the map showed, much to my delight, that we were looking pretty much east. The sun should rise over the farmland.

So this past weekend we headed to Jacobsburg in search of a sunrise over the rolling hills and meadows. As we left the car at about 0440 you could see the beginnings of sunrise off to our left. As we walked straight into the meadow to the main trail, we turned… a sharp right. The sunrise was now at our back. As we twisted and turned through the meadow and woods, we eventually got turned around in the right direction and when we arrived at the spot we had scoped out before, the sunrise was beginning to unfold… right in front of us.

And a beautiful sunrise, it turned out to be!

5:17 am

5:21 am

5:23 am

5:40 am

Hope you enjoyed the sunrise!

Shooting Soft with the Lensbaby Soft Focus Optic

Ed — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 00:15:21 +0000

I’m sure many of you visiting my website and blog are already familiar with the Lensbaby lenses and their interchangeable optic system and accessories packages.Likewise I am also sure that there are some of you who are not familiar with the lens. For those of you who aren’t, the Lensbaby is a selective focus lens with a focal length of 50mm. In it’s most basic form, the selective focus sweet spot can be moved around the focal plane by simply “bending” the lens. Yes, the lens actual can be bent to the left, to the right, up, down and anywhere in between. It really gives the photographer an opportunity to play around, be creative and try some new things. Yes, it is fun to play with the Lensbaby but it is not a toy. Interchangeable optics include double glass (the highest quality), single glass, plastic (think Holga toy camera), fisheye, soft focus, wide angle and I know I have missed a few. Accessories include, among other things, a set of macro lenses that can be added to other Lensbaby optics except for the fisheye. For more information on the Lensbaby, visit their website at www.lensbaby.com.

There is so much you can do with the Lensbaby. I happen to use the Lensbaby Composer with the double glass optic quite often. Sometimes I like to add a macro lens to it. And I really love the vignetting one gets with the fisheye optic particularly when used with a full frame camera like my Canon 5D Mark II. But of all the optional optics, I have found the soft focus optic the most difficult for me to come to terms with. I will use it and then end up doing things, almost unconsciously, in processing to try to bring the sharpness back into the image instead of just going with the flow and basking in the softness. So I often tend to shy away from using the soft focus optic. But every so often, I force myself to leave everything else behind and use it. That’s what I did this past weekend.

MY local club, the Lehigh Valley Photography Club, held a group photo shoot at Jacobsburg State Park (PA). I had just done some straight macro shooting in the meadows there the week before so I decided the time was right to go out there with just my Canon 50D and the Lensbaby Composer w/ Soft Focus optic.

Here are a couple of images, soft as they should be, from this past Saturday’s shoot.

“Daylily”

“Meadow of Yellow”

Morning at Jacobsburg

Ed — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 16:54:37 +0000

It struck me that it has been a while since I had visited one of my favorite local wildflower locations – the meadows at Jacobsburg State Park in Northampton County, PA. And even worse, it had been a long time since I got out and actually worked some wildflowers anywhere. So I decided to rectify that situation yesterday morning. Barb and I headed out to Jacobsburg, she to search for the elusive Yellow-breasted Chat and me to find some wildflowers to shoot. As I guess it should be on Father’s Day, I found the flowers but, alas, she came up empty on the Chat.

Anyway, here is a sampling of images from meadows at Jacobsburg. Hope you enjoy them.

Wild Blue Flax

Yellow Goatsbeard

Bumblebee on Thistle

Leatherwing Beetle on Daisies

For You Bird Lovers Out There

Ed — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 00:53:50 +0000

I was busy most of the weekend doing mounting, matting and framing for my upcoming exhibit which begins tomorrow (June 15) at Sagra Bistro (640 Main Street, Hellertown, PA). Doing it all by yourself is time-consuming but, at the same time, rewarding. I’ll feel even better when I have everything up tomorrow afternoon.

In the meantime, I did get out a little bit on Sunday morning. Barb and I went to Peace Valley Park in Bucks County, PA and found at least a dozen Great Blue Herons hanging around Lake Galena. One in particular was very cooperative and I was able to make several worthy images of him (her?). I also was able to “shoot” several others but none were as photogenic as this one.

“Preening”

“The Regal Look”

Hope you enjoy the images!

An Inside Look into the Life of a Nature Photographer: The Weekend in Review – Day 3, Monday (Memorial Day)

Ed — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 00:18:57 +0000

When we went to bed Sunday night we had no definitive plans for Monday. I awoke around 0330 and as I lay in bed, what to do became crystal clear. I thought back to Thursday, the day I made the sunrise abstracts. I set out that morning to make some vertical sunrise images at Lake Nockamixon (Nockamixon State Park, Bucks County, PA) and came away unhappy with all of them. They all had too much water and too little structure in the foreground. I ended up scrapping those images and only keeping the abstracts.

This morning was my opportunity to return to Nockamixon and right the wrong. It was my chance to make some vertical sunrise images that I would indeed be happy with. So I woke up Barb around 0400 and we were out and on our way by 0430. We made it to the marina before 0500 and I set up my 5D Mk II and 70-200 2.8L IS on the tripod down at water level making sure to include boats in the foreground with the sky and reflections off the water filling the background. Without belaboring the point, here is a sample of the images that I came away with that morning. I don’t usually fawn over my own images but I will say that I absolutely love the colors that I was able to capture in the sky (lavender, peach, yellow, orange, red) and in the reflection on the water.

I was done shooting by 0600 (actually before that) and we were ready to move on to Peace Valley Park, also in Bucks County, in search of some birds to photograph. However, things don’t always work out no matter how hard we try. And after about two hours at Lake Galena in Peace Valley, we gave up and headed out in search of breakfast. Breakfast is really my most favorite meal and I am always looking for new places to experience something a little exotic. This morning it was the “Back 2 the 50s Diner” in Dublin. My Buffalo Chicken omelet breakfast was followed by a brief return trip to Lake Nockamixon before returning home for a late morning nap.

And so ended this nature photographer’s three-day Memorial Day weekend. We never traveled farther than an hour from home but were able to photograph wildflowers, make abstracts, shoot sunrises and even delve into the soul of a fisherman as he peered into the fog. And we visited places like Bowman’s Hill Wildflower Preserve, walked along the Delaware Canal, hit the Delaware Water Gap and returned to Lake Nockamixon. One of my prevailing themes (and one that I am building seminars around) is “Making the Ordinary Extraordinary: Great Images from Your Own Backyard”. I hope you enjoyed this little foray around my (figurative) backyard and I hope you agree that I came away with some very nice images.

See ya down the road!

An Inside Look into the Life of a Nature Photographer: The Weekend in Review – Day 2, Sunday

Ed — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 22:44:42 +0000

Sunday was the day we chose for a return trip to the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area. I wanted to do some more scouting for the workshops I plan to offer there in 2011. (Keep an eye out this Fall for more details.) This was a trip that we had planned for each of the past three weekends only to have to cancel for one reason or another (weather twice and sick cat once). This Sunday it seemed it would come off without a hitch.

The alarm went off at 0315 and we were up and out of the house by 0400. As I loaded the gear into the hatch, I looked skyward and just smiled at the moon and stars filling the sky. The drive to Hidden Lake (our first stop for sunrise) was uneventful. Traffic was very light at that time of the morning and conditions were fine even though we passed through several short stretches of fog where the road crossed wetlands or streams. We arrived at Hidden Lake a few minutes before 0500 and I set out to set up along the banks of the lake while Barb decided she would stay in the car for now and watch for bears. (NOTE: When I returned to the car, she was sound asleep. So much for bears.) I set up with the Canon 5D Mark II and my 24-70mm f/2.8L lens mounted on my tripod and made my first images (for a 5-image HDR composite) at 0509. The second set of images for another 5-image HDR was made at 0511. That is the image I have posted below. By 0513, that little, itsy bitsy, tiny bit of fog you can see in the middle of the image, completely overtook the entire lake. We were socked in! There was no water. There were no trees. There was no ridge. There was no sky. Only fog… and the solitary fisherman to my immediate right who had settled in a couple of minutes earlier.

So there you go. Up at 0315. Out by 0400. Arrive before 0500. Shoot two HDR sequences. Fog. THE END. So here is the sunrise image I was able to come away with. I think it is a testament to quality over quantity. It’s not about how many images you make; it’s about making sure you’ve made good ones.

Now I’m not going to tell you that I just quietly packed my gear and left. Oh no! I don’t give up that easy. I stood there staring into the fog, hoping against hope that it would lift before sunrise and I could get a few more shots in. I chatted a bit with the fisherman as I waited. It was becoming cleared by the minute that this fog was not going to miraculously lift just because I wanted it to. So without moving the tripod, I pivoted the camera and lens and took aim at the fisherman, the only thing I could really see in the fog. And over the course of the next 10 minutes or so, I would make the occasional image. When I got home and took a closer look, I thought briefly about cropping in on the fisherman to make him the subject of the photograph but quickly gave up on that idea. This image is about the vastness of the fog not about the fisherman. Still as a long-time fly fisherman, I was taken by the intensity portrayed in the posture of this fellow as he seemed to be leaning into the fog. As much as I like the sunrise image above, this is probably my best image of the day.

The rest of morning in the Water Gap was spent scouting out locations for the workshops under the brightest blue skies I have seen in a long time. Absolutely cloudless.

What’s that saying… when God gives you lemons, make lemonade. Or as Jimmy Buffett is wont to say… and if God gives you limes, make margaritas!!

It’s not about quantity; it’s about quality!

We left the Water Gap before noon. As all the traffic was heading in, we were heading out. We got home in time for lunch and I was able to do some image processing before heading out to do a bit of grocery shopping in preparation for having our son and his soon-to-be fiance along with my mother over for cookout dinner.

And thus ended Day 2. Stay tuned tomorrow for Day 3, Monday, Memorial Day.

An Inside Look into the Life of a Nature Photographer: The Weekend in Review – Day 1, Saturday

Ed — Mon, 31 May 2010 22:46:09 +0000

I was contemplating what, from this weekend, I wanted to add to my blog. After thinking about it a while, I concluded why not take you through the entire weekend. So let’s start at the beginning, Saturday morning.

Saturday more was a “late” start for us. We were up at 0530 and out of the house at 0630 headed for Bowman’s Hill Wildflower Preserve. If you love wildflowers (and I do), Bowman’s Hill, just south of New Hope, PA is wonderful place to be. And this time of year, it is doubly good because they also have early morning bird walks on Saturday mornings. So my wife heads out on the guided bird walk (she has seen life birds her last two walks) and I wander about looking for wildflowers that just somehow speak to me. It funny (and a bit painful) but I always lug around my entire backpack arsenal of camera bodies, lenses, filters, teleconverters, extension tubes, etc. etc. And I always seem to use just a single camera body (this time the 50D), a single lens (my Sigma 150mm f/2.8 macro because to me wildflowers tend to beg for close-ups) and, of course, my tripod. And so it was on this day. As I said, I tend to look around for those special flowers as opposed to opening fire and shooting everything in sight. The entire morning, I only photographed five flowers. This Virginia Spiderwort image is an example of what I came away with on Saturday morning.

We stopped for breakfast/lunch at a favorite little roadside cafe and were home for the afternoon during which I processed images from the morning shoot. After dinner, we decided to head out for a ride. Barb always takes her binoculars and I have to take along at least a camera and lens. And that’s what I did. After dragging along the 30+ pounds of camera gear in the morning, I went out with just the 50D and 24-70 2.8L lens. I wasn’t looking for anything in particular. Heck, I didn’t even know where we were going at this point. And the 24-70 is my basic walkabout lens. We ended up at a small county park along the Delaware River just south of Easton, PA called Wy-Hit-Tuk (don’t ask; I have no idea what it means). We walked through the park and along the Delaware Canal towpath where I came across these stands of bright yellow flowers. I’m not even sure what they are but as soon as I saw them I knew I had to create an impressionistic abstract of them. The key to making any type of blur abstract is to lengthen the shutter speed so that you have time to move the camera. Sometimes that movement is a vertical pan, sometimes it is a horizontal swipe and sometimes it is just a slight little bounce or jiggle that creates the blur. I dropped the ISO to 100 because that will lengthen the shutter speed. I happened to be in AV mode so I stopped down to around f/18 which in combination with the ISO 100 gave me a shutter speed of 0.8 seconds and I was ready to shoot. (Note, it just just as easy, probably easier, to switch to TV mode and set the exposure of 0.8 sec and let the camera select aperture.) Then I started to shoot – handholding the camera and introducing slight little movements to get the effect I wanted. What effect? A Monet-like photo-impressionistic effect.

Upon returning home, I surveyed the images made (maybe a dozen), selected the few that I liked and processed them. And thus ended Saturday, Day 1 of the three-day Memorial Day weekend. Stay tuned for Day 2 (Delaware Water Gap) and Day 3 (Back to Nockamixon) coming to you tomorrow and Wednesday.