And Now for Something Completely Different!!!

Can you believe the two pictured below are my dentist and his assistant???

Wow!!! Talk about alter egos......

At Carpathian Dental, they take Halloween seriously!!!

It's always a rush photo shoot at Carpathian Dental because I only have about 10 minutes to get everything I need before they have to get back inside and go to work!!!  And it was dark and threatening rain outside!! But I wish that I had more time today because there is so much I could do with a Devil and Angel theme..... Thank you all for a fun morning at Carpathian Dental!!

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.....

Autumn is by far the most wonderful time of the year for a landscape and wildlife photographer. The animals are active, the scenery is beautiful and the bugs are gone!!!

Cleared for Landing...

I had the pleasure the last two weeks to do some wildfowl shooting at Chenango Valley State Park. I was also able to borrow the new Nikon 200-500 lens for a day to see if it could measure up to the Tamron and Sigma alternatives. I was able to use a Sigma a while back but I was not overly impressed with it. My friend Ron Meeker has the Tammy and he does very well with it, so I was interested to see if Nikon could compete in this arena. One day is really not enough to make an informed opinion on a lens like this, but I was impressed enough to want to take a second look! The images below were taken at Lily Lake, the small lake behind the main lake at CVSP. The lake is small enough that you can cover a good portion of water from one vantage point. And the big advantage is that the birds are used to seeing walkers and hikers all summer so they are a bit less skittish than wild birds. All in all the weather was beautiful, the birds were cooperative, and I even got a couple keepers! I can't think of a better way to spend a day of my life!!!       Click on images to enlarge.

Southbound.....


Night Moves.......

I know it's been a while since my last post but I am finally getting my butt in gear!!
Dave and I shot the Chris Thater memorial races again this year and once again we had a blast! The big difference this year was that I shot the Pro class at night. I tried it last year with my D300 but that camera just couldn't shoot at ISO's over 1600, and I needed to shoot at ISO 4000 to get a fast enough shutter speed.  I was shooting with my new D810 and I had no idea how it would perform. But I'll let you be the judge!

And finally to answer a frequent question about the races I can show you that yes, they definitely DO crash!!!!

OUCH!!!!!

More to come......
Click on the images to enlarge

Runnin' Out Of Time......

What a bummer!!! We're at the end of the vacation...... you know that feeling you get when you want it to last forever? If only it was that easy!
I have posted a new gallery with some of my favorites on my gallery page. I will be adding to it in the days to come, but I hope you will all take a look and give me some honest criticism of the work. It is the honest opinions of my friends that keeps me on my toes!

See you all soon......

 

Beautiful!!!

Yesterday was supposed to be a trip to Naples Botanical Gardens and the Naples Zoo, but we never made it to the zoo because it was too sunny and hot!!
The Botanical Gardens for a photographer is definitely a case of sensory overload! There is so much to see and photograph you don’t know where to start. But for us it was the new Orchid garden. Mel and I are both Orchid lovers and the new garden they recently completed didn’t disappoint us!

The only downside to the botanical gardens is that on most days they don’t open until 9 am. So as a photographer you have a limited amount of good light unless it is a cloudy day. Which in our case it turned out to be a bright sunny day! So what did we do you ask? Why we went back to the beach and had cocktails of course!!!

In the Asian Garden area....

And of course there are the obligatory sunset photos……………………..

Fire in the Sky...

And that seagull is NOT photoshopped in!

As always, more to come! Click on the photos to enlarge....

Road Trip

We took a field trip this morning and went to two places we had never been before. We started out by heading north to the Sarasota area to visit the Myakka River State Park. As the name implies it is set on the banks of the Myakka River. It is a beautiful park with many photo ops, not just birds. I was lucky enough to get fairly close to a doe and her fawn while I was there. The doe knew I was there but she was not particularly afraid of me. As long as I didn’t make any sudden moves I was okay. And the little fawn was so cute!!

Isn't she cute?

Oh Mom!!!

We ate a picnic lunch at the park and headed to our next destination which was the Venice Rookery. This small rookery is situated right in the heart of a commercial area in Venice itself. It appears that the Audubon Society bought the small area of land and the town just built in around it. But it doesn’t seem to bother the birds! There was a small pond there and in the middle was an equally small patch of Mangroves, which was absolutely loaded with birds!! As you can see from the pictures it was like an apartment complex for birds. They all nested very close to each other. I can’t believe there weren’t more fights! And they were in all stages of rearing their young ones, from newborn chick to almost fully fledged ones! Unfortunately we got there at about noon, so the light and the pics are not the best! I will certainly be back here!

Feed me Mom!!!

I need some elbow room!

Click on the pics to enlarge.....

Gettin' Lucky......

This particular day did not start out very well. It was raining at dawn, so I waited until the shower blew over. I knew that I was late as I hustled up the beach to one of my favorite, and closest, shooting spots. We stay on Bonita Beach and this spot is where Big Hickory Island and Little Hickory Island meet. It’s a 15 minute walk from my back door. There is a river that flows between them and empties into the Gulf. Where the river meets the Gulf is usually a very reliable spot for birdlife. But for some reason this year it has not been so good. Until this morning when I was lucky enough to get a few decent pics of birds.

The first few are of a Reddish Egret who was fishing for breakfast. He was a crazy little guy and he made himself look really scary when he was pursuing a fish! I have seen this behavior before, but never this pronounced! This little guy was nuts!!
And the other smaller birds are called Willets. They are cute little birds and they are usually not too skittish towards photographers if you approach them slowly.

Zeroing In...

This is my scary face....

Calming Down...

Then Mel and I went on a scouting mission to find a new place to shoot. We had heard about a place on Marco Island called Tigertail Beach. Now Marco Island is about as developed an island as I have ever seen. There are very few open places, with some of the most expensive real estate in the country. This is millionaire country! But in the middle of all this is a county park with a beautiful lagoon, which the birds seem to enjoy as much as the people! I was very lucky to get this picture of a flying Reddish Egret. Usually my bird in flight pictures come out as blurry as everyone else’s!

Click on the pics to enlarge.
More to come......

Florida Dreamin'.....

I will be taking a trip to Florida soon, so I thought what better way to prepare than to look at some recent Florida pictures!

I am lucky enough to have a friend down there right now who is busy filling up his memory cards with great wildlife pictures!! Ron and I became acquainted when he joined Two Rivers Photo Club, and we share a friendly photographic rivalry. I think it will be interesting to see how much our styles are alike and at the same time, different. I'll let Ron take it from here:

"I visited Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary last week and ran into a photographer who showed me the location of an owl’s nest in a tree cavity.  Although there was no action at the time, he explained that there were 2 young owls in the nest and that I should check back when I could.  This morning I was back there early and took some images of one of the young owls standing at the entrance to the nest waiting for mom or dad to come back with some food." 

Have you seen my Mom?

How the heck did we get up here?

How the heck did we get up here?

"I also got some shots of an adult elsewhere at Corkscrew today, but I did not get to witness adults feeding the young at the nest.  As always, there were plenty of other birds to see today and even a couple of racoons.  Nonetheless, I felt the owls stole the show today."

I want to thank Ron for teasing me with his terrific Owl pics!!! I will be sure to return the favor in a few weeks! I think the club needs to do a field trip to Florida!



Cat Shooting 101.....

I knew this was going to be interesting and boy was I right! My friend Pete Kofira and I volunteered for something we had never done before: cat shooting. Now before you get visions of General Tso's chicken in your head, we were shooting with a camera.
We volunteered our photographic services down at Stray Haven in Waverly. Stray Haven is  a small, not-for-profit animal shelter organization serving all of Tioga County, NY and our neighboring counties. They receive no operational funding from the state or county level or other charitable agencies and rely totally on adoptions and some very generous donors to keep their doors open.
We thought we could help out by taking animal portraits for them. "How hard could that be, we said? Piece of cake, we said. Nothing to it, we said."
How could we have been so wrong?

Click to enlarge

Photographing cats is a very simple process. You put the cat on a table in front of a backdrop, give it some instruction so the cat knows what to do and the the cat proceeds to do whatever the Hell it wants to!
We were fortunate to have the help of a very capable volunteer named Linda otherwise we would have been in big trouble.
After about two hours of negotiations with the cats, they let us take pictures of a few of them. And we had a great time! What you see here is the result of some hard work and a lot of luck!
And now Pete can add 'Cat Wrangler' to his resume......

So if you can find the time or the money, Stray Haven can surely use your help! Donations of food and supplies are also greatly appreciated! And it's amazing how good you will feel after a visit with the animals at the shelter! To learn more about Stray Haven Animal Shelter, click the link or call (607) 565-2859. Or better yet, visit them at 194 Shepard Road Waverly NY 14892.

Turning The Page....

Thank God that 2014 is over!! I am hoping that this year is an improvement over last year! Since many of you have been asking, I am happy to report that I am all finished with surgery, chemo, and radiation. I am now trying to recover from the damage that the actual treatments did!
 And I want you all to know that I appreciate all of the kindness you have shown me during the last 9 months. It really helped!

But That's really not what this post is about. What I really want to talk about is my new D810. What a camera!! I am only scratching the surface with this camera but I can already see that it is a quantum leap over my D300. And I loved my D300! Below is a pic taken at the Syracuse Zoo. It was cropped at probably 200%, but look at how sharp and how much detail is still there, without noise!

Cold Comfort

This next pic is also along the same lines. It is a very heavy crop of a Spectacled Bear at the zoo, but it still retains excellent detail and sharpness.
 

You lookin' at me?

Now don't get me wrong, it's not a miracle camera. If you are lazy with your shot discipline and think you can get away with poor technique, you will be very disappointed. But this is a good thing, because it makes you work on and improve your technique. And I can use all the help I can get!
I think I'm going to like this camera...... More to come!

Merry Christmas To Me!!!!

Yeah, I know it's been a few months since my last post but you need to cut me some slack! I've been busy! We went on a 15 day Panama Canal cruise for our 30th Anniversary (I'll post some pics soon!), and a week ago I finally pulled the trigger on a new camera. No it's not the D400 that I have been waiting 3 years for, but the new Nikon D810.
I also know that for 3 years I have been saying that I didn't want a full frame camera, that I didn't want to sacrifice the "reach" of a DX size sensor. Or that I didn't want to be forced to buy new lenses for the FX sensor. But..... I got damn sick and tired of waiting for Nikon to put out another pro caliber DX camera! Or if they would ever do it.

 

D3S_1054-0600.jpg

So I did my research and when Nikon put them on sale just before Christmas, I decided it was either now or never. And you know that God hates a coward. So I pushed the "order" button and the rest is history. Since the package arrived it has done nothing but rain and snow so pictures are a bit limited. (I did get a nice Macro of the lint in my navel though.) But I promise I will be getting out over the holidays and I will put the camera through it's paces. Plus the club has the January Zoo trip coming up so I should be able to get at least one keeper! And I will post them as I get them. That's all for now kids....

Rain and Shine at the Pow Wow...

It wasn't exactly the weather we were hoping for. A steady heavy drizzle isn't my first choice for taking pictures but that's what we were given on Saturday. So what did we do? We said the heck with it, let's come back tomorrow! Our small group of photo club members was rewarded on Sunday with brilliant sunshine, warm temperatures, and wonderful performances at the first annual Pow Wow held at the Portal Institute outside of Susquehanna, PA.

My main reason for coming to the Pow Wow was to see the Aztec Dancers. I had seen most of the dancers from the Northeast before, but I had never seen an Aztec dance before, so I was very much looking forward to it. And I was not disappointed!


Aztec Dancer

As a matter of fact, all the dancers were very good, with many dancers coming from the Lakota nation. But most of the Northeast nations were well represented at the Pow Wow. All of us from the photo club were very impressed and plan on coming back next year, as we found out they are going to make this an annual event.

For more information about the Pow Wow, visit the Portal Institute. And plan to come down and see what the Portal Institute has to offer. From the Binghamton area, it is a very pleasant drive through some beautiful country. I imagine once the leaves begin changing, the scenery will be spectacular!


Another Fast Weekend At The Thater....

I had a chance to photograph the Chris Thater races again this last weekend with my friends Mary Lou and Dave. For thirty years the event has been held at Rec Park on the west side, but this year the organizers moved it to downtown. For those that don't know, Chris Thater was a young man who was hit and killed by a drunk driver. The race is named in his honor and is run by the Broome County Stop DWI program. And this is not just some local race. This is part of the national USA Cycling program and pro riders from all over the world compete here every year.

 

Saturday started out promising, but quickly went downhill. A light drizzle set in and it didn't let up until early evening. Which made for poor photo ops and even trickier racing on slick pavement as evidenced by several crashes on Saturday.

Thankfully, Sunday turned out to be a beautiful day. And the racers did not disappoint. The races were all very fast and competitive. If you ever think that you might like to try your hand at this type of shooting, by all means come down and give it a try. It's free and there are so many spots to shoot from that you are not going to bother anyone. You'll be surprised at how much fun it is! And how difficult it is.

Recharging The Batteries....

I think I may need to explain the rather odd title to this post. It seems like around this time every year, my internal photography battery starts running a little low. The snow is basically gone, the landscape is a rather ugly shade of gray and brown, and the weather is less than pleasant. So I usually look forward to the Two Rivers Photography Club Teach-In to get my photographic juices flowing again and I surely wasn't disappointed this year!!

The speaker for this year's seminar was Mr. Mark Bowie. Mark is a well known landscape photographer from Massachusetts. But the interesting thing about Mark's photography is that he is addicted to showing us what the world looks like at night. Long after the sun goes down, a different landscape emerges and Mark is a master of capturing the natural beauty of the night.

Rollins Pond State Campground - Photo courtesy of Mark Bowie - All rights reserved

Rollins Pond State Campground - Photo courtesy of Mark Bowie - All rights reserved

Mark is a very easygoing, genuinely nice person. And he is a very good speaker and teacher! And of course the day went by way too fast. The Teach-In was a success and it seemed like everyone enjoyed themselves and they got their batteries recharged too!!! Thanks Mark!
Mark also conducts workshops and photo tours, both by himself and in conjunction with the Adirondack Photography Institute. If you are interested you can contact him at markbowie.com

Trying something new.....

It's late Winter, nothing much going on photographically (unlike my friend Ron who is down in Naples Fl shooting like crazy), and I need something to get the juices flowing again. So I tried to stretch my horizons a little with some different techniques.

This first pic is from Assateague Island in Virginia. I tried to make it look like an old, faded, worn print by adding a texture and a slight color tint to it. Let me know what you think.....

Click photo to enlarge...

Better Days Behind Me.....

The next pic is one you may have seen before, but I changed the look a little bit. I cropped it to make it look like a pano and desaturated and softened it to give the print a dreamy, surreal feel. Drop me a line and let me know if you like it. Click photo to enlarge...

Hero.....