Haunting Memories

077a1124dxopps9gradmapnikThe year was 1974 and both my good friend and I were totally enchanted by Martha’s Vineyard, and for good measure, Chappaquiddick Island. Remember, the movie Jaws was recently released, so images of adventure and the sea ran rampant with our generation.

We had the good fortune to be able to take a short trip to the Vineyard in early fall. We disembarked in Vineyard Haven and proceeded to rent bikes to see the Island. As luck would have it we rode along the sea bike trail between Vineyard Haven and Edgartown. Both of us were overcome with the land and sea scapes. When we arrived in Edgartown we decided to take the Chappy Ferry across the channel. As memory would have it, we rode to the very end of the rode on Chappy until we hit a dirt rode and then we walked our bikes. Then the vista of the sea and beach met our eyes. The vision was seared into my memory and I always wanted to relive it. A desolate and sun drenched stretch of land and sea.

Fast forward to 2015 when my wife and I decide to visit Chappy. This is a photo I took along the “road” where our cottage stood. The location was hauntingly familiar, for, I believe, it was the same vision that came before me 41 years earlier.

The photo was taken on a Canon 5 DS, 70-200mm f/4 lens, @ 70 mm, f/4.5, 1/640, ISO 1000. Post processing occurred with DxO Optic Pro, Adobe Camera Raw, Perfect PhotoSuite 9, a gradient map, and Nik Color Efex Pro 2.

Shooting Like Liberty Valence

077A0654PPS9B&WruggedBordersRusselLiberty Valence was a gun slinger, and according to lyrics to the song made famous by Gene Pitney (writers: Hal David, Burt F. Bachrach, Burt Bachrach): “…the point of the gun was the only law that Liberty understood.  When it came to shooting straight and fast, he was mighty good.”

I’m finding that in sports and wildlife photography “straight and fast” are especially rewarding. So far in using my new Canon Eos 5 Ds, it was in game practice at the Patriots summer training camp, and more recently in following the pursuits of Ospreys in catching fish in my neighborhood (Occupessatuxet Cove, RI). Verily, I must say that the 5 Ds was quite responsive, i.e., fast. Since all shooting so far has been by hand held method (not tripod), I’d also have to say the 5 Ds was “straight” (i.e., steady).

The photo of this post was taken after the Osprey was perched a while on a branch back-lit by the sun on an overcast day. The camera was able to catch the energy released by the osprey, most easily seen in the wings and powerful talons. However, something was missing, and the easiest fix was to frame the subject and this “energy release”. This was done in Perfect Photo Suite 9 Borders (specifically, Russel). Oh yes, prior to the Borders being added, I tranformed the photo to b & w in PPS9 Black & White module (Rugged).

Ignore the Noise

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This photo is of Patriot’s Training Camp at the beginning of August, 2015. It was taken with my new Canon Eos 5 Ds. I had set the Exposure Compensation to -1 to allow for the bright sun usually present during camp in the middle of summer. This was a mistake since I had a polarizer filter on and for some reason this made all of my shots under-exposed more than I would have liked. Nonetheless, I corrected for this error in Photoshop Camera Raw processing.

I had not had much opportunity for using my new 5 Ds since it was an extremely hot and humid summer, and there was not much opportunity to get to shoot in optimal conditions, or even conditions where shooting out doors would yield some success. I was in New Hampshire in mid August and would have liked to have taken some night photos of the galaxy, but unfortunately it was overcast.

The last several months living in New England was surreal, due to the so-called Deflategate imposed on the New England Patriots and Roger Goodell and the NFL. True to form and as everyone with an ounce of intelligence had know this whole affair against the Patriots and specifically Tom Brady was a witch hunt; and as expected was proven to be so after being brought before the Federal Judge on appeal.

So, this photo is an apt description of how not only to deal with real life but also the game of football. That is, Bill Belichick is fond of using the phrase of “Ignore the noise” to have his team focus on the true elements of the game and not superfluous creations (viz. Goodell and the NFL). I tried to describe this phenomenon photographically by showing how the football mind might see the game action unfold amid the chaos of the practice field. This was accomplished with Perfect Photo Suite 9, using their Black & White module (cyanotype, specifically) for the “background” and leaving the foreground subjects RGB.