Turkey Point Lighthouse

Turkey Point Lighthouse, MD

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I always get excited on days when there is a sunny blue sky that is  scattered big puffy clouds.  These are the ingredients for a potential good sunset.  These were the conditions on February 18th, 2011.  So I collected my camera equipment and my dog, Sparky, and hopped in the car.  The destination was Turkey Point out near North East, Maryland.  Why name a town after a direction I don't know, it must lead to a lot of confusion...

I took the back roads from my house to avoid the toll at the Susquehanna River crossing.  When I got to the Conowingo Dam I of course stopped into the lot for a touch of eagle watching.  This time of year there are not too many eagles hanging around Conowingo because they are all paired up and perfecting their nests before the eggs arrive.

I knew there was a lighthouse out on Turkey Point but in reality I was hoping to get some great long exposure shots of the water as it lapped in on a rocky beach.  Turns out Turkey Point is up on a cliff, likely 100 foot cliff.  There were one or two spots where you could probably make it down the hill (getting back up is another matter) but the beach was made up of large rocks, a man made beach to stop erosion.  Not exactly pretty.  So me and Sparky headed back the trail to the lighthouse.  

We saw signs for a spot on the trail called "Hawk Fields".  I readied my 500mm lens and crept out of the woods as to not scare all the hawks.  Of course there were no hawks to be seen.  In fact, that field was strangely empty of any birds.  So on we hiked.  After about a mile we arrived at the lighthouse on the point.  I kept out the 500mm lens hoping for some sailboats to pass by, but again there were none to be seen.  In the end I plopped down on a bench and waited for sunset while keeping an eye out for passing boats.  The only boat to pass was a barge, a big ugly barge.

The clouds started to dissipate as the sun set lower.  Luckily there were still a few around when the sun lit up the western sky.  In the end the only wildlife I saw was a bunch of seagulls and a black rat snake sunning itself.  I got lucky that the clouds were still around at sunset and gave me a real nice show.  It is always wise to go into an area with an idea of what to look for for a great shot.  It is also wise to not force a shot but take what is given.

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Sandy Point State Park At Dawn

On March 17th I woke up early with a desire to chase the sunrise.  I have been wanting a sunrise over the Chesapeake Bay.  I decided to try out a new location and after a bit of 3am research I settled on trying Sandy Point State Park by the base of the bay bridge.  I have been over the bay bridge many times but have never stopped at the park.

So the photo dog and I headed out from my house at 4:45am in order to make the drive and to get breakfast on the run (sometimes I think the only reason I get early is McDonald's breakfast).  We finally arrived at McDonalds after a brief detour to a phantom McDonalds on the grounds of the Naval Academy (my normally infallible GPS let me down).  As we arrived for breakfast the sky was already beginning to lighten in the east.  Luckily we were on the bay side of Annapolis and we were making great time.

We finally arrived at the gates of the park at 6:35am only to find our next problem.  A sign that said the park opened for general use at 7:00am and was only open early for fishermen and boaters.  So a dilemma...  do I wait and miss the beginning of the sunrise or do I go in early and send Sparky into the water after a fish so that I count as a fisherman?  I chose the latter.  I paid my money and crept quietly into the park.  I parked my car right next to another car, a fisherman I supposed.  I grabbed my camera, tripod, and dog and headed across the exposed grounds and made for the beach.  I finally arrived at the beach without drawing any attention.  I sat down on the sand looking out into the water feeling quite uninspired.  I actually thought about just not taking any pictures and simply enjoying being alive as only watching a sunset can make you feel.  But as the sky began to turn colors it sparked my creativity.

I began moving around finding the right scattering of rocks to take the first picture.  I used a 5 second exposure to get the soft water around the rocks while not over exposing the brightening sky.  Next I moved on to a jetty as the sky and water turned a pinkish purple color.  I had to use the Neutral Density Filter to extend my shutter speed to 30 seconds to get the soft effects on the water.  I also had to use the Graduated Neutral Density Filter to keep the sky from burning out.  Believe it or not the pink color is natural, it was not enhanced by the use of any color filters.  Finally the sun broke the horizon and it became time to line up the disk of the sun with the Sandy Point Shoal Lighthouse.  I pulled out the 500mm lens to get this shot of the lighthouse and the sun.  This image was taken with no filters and ended up being 1/3200 second to keep the sun from bleeding into the surrounding pixels and creating a white mess instead of a crisp white circle.

In the course of moving around and lining up the lighthouse I found out who had the other car that I had parked next to.  Turned out I had a fellow photographer shooting the morning!  And I also came to realize that he had already claimed one of the best spots for shooting.  Luckily it was a big beach and there were plenty of things to make interesting foregrounds besides the long narrow rock jetty that arched right at the lighthouse.  I will get that picture next time...

Blue Heron In Winter

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Blue herons are one of the few wading birds to stick around the Mid Atlantic during the winter.  It uses its long, sharp beak to spear all types of prey.  In fact, they are known to choke on food that is too big for them... they have no sense of what can actually fit down their throats.  I have seen them eat huge bullfrogs, and once a mid sized muskrat.  I am not sure if it managed to get the muskrat down, I think it was a young one, but to even try takes a bit of crazy.

I also always think of a story I was told about a Blue Heron that set up shop in someones backyard.  The homeowner had a small pond stocked with koi.  Within a few days this one heron had completely eaten all the koi.  Expensive koi.  The homeowner was understandably slightly afraid of the heron.  The average wing span of an adult can be up to 6.5 feet!  Thats a big bird!  They often tuck themselves into small balls like the one pictured here, so their size is very deceptive. 

Blue herons, like all wading birds have patience that I can only dream about.  They will sit still while standing or slowly walk around with baby steps in a body of water or right on shore waiting for a fish or other prey to wander too close.  Then it strikes.  As for me, I get impatient when my two hot pockets take 4 minutes in a microwave.  And it really makes me irritated when the Taco Bell drive through has more than 2 cars in line.  

Butterfly Wing Art #1

Butterfly Wing Art #1

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Nature produces the most beautiful art.  Photography only hopes to catch a portion of the natural beauty.  This is a close up of a butterfly wing.  Butterflies are some of the most beautiful and graceful animals on the planet.  Their wings are veritable canvases on which nature has painted a masterpiece.

Make sure you take time to look around and notice the art all around you.  Of course it helps if you fill your house with beautiful photography for those times when you are stuck indoors... :) 

Winter Doldrums Ramblings...

Small falls in Patapsco State Park, MD
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I'm posting a picture taken back in late summer / early autumn today to remind us that warm days will soon be back upon us.  Days where we can kick off our shoes and wade into a local creek and play near waterfalls.  Where we can see green plants instead of yellow plants.

Right now we are still deep in the winter doldrums where everyday is either cloudy or perfectly clear.  We seem to be missing those days with big puffy clouds that tend to lead to great sunsets. 

It is often though that sunny days are best for photography, but this just isn't so.  Think about the most dramatic nature and landscape pictures you can think of and what do you see?  Foggy days with trees hidden in the mist?  Epic sunsets with clouds lit up every color imaginable?  I'll tell you what you don't see, you definitely don't see a touristy type attraction shot at midday with a flat blue sky in the background.  Those are called snapshots and they usually fail to set themselves apart from the pack.

The job of the photographer is to get up early and to be out at sunset ("the golden hours") and hike or kayak off the beaten path to show you what you missed when you followed the trails set out by the park service or even worse, paved by the park service.  Next time you find yourself wanting to take a picture that can stand out from everyone else's vacation and weekend pictures try taking a few steps off the beaten path.  Look for a new angle.  If you see a crowd of people in one spot looking and snapping pictures, walk away from them and find a vantage point that is different, not worse, but different.

Immature Red Shouldered Hawk And The Art Of The Draw

Immature Red Shouldered Hawk
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On a bright winters day I took a long trek to the local wildlife park.  Ok, it was a zoo.  But until I make it on safari I will have to work my skills on captive animals.  Besides, the animals there are very pretty as well.  Anyway, I was at the wildlife park and had already been to the far east and photographed a giant panda.   I started walking down a hill towards the big cats while lugging my tripod with my long lens on it.  This setup weighs a ton so my first instinct is to simply pack the camera and lens back into my pack.  I decided to just carry it this trip.

This would turn out to be very very fortunate.  I was passing a frog pond (with no frogs, at least on the surface, perhaps they were down below buried in the mud) when a form caught my eye in the tree.  I swung around and saw a bird in the tree, a big bird.  First I thought it was a plastic joke, but not taking any chances I threw open my tripod and took aim.  After a frame or two I realized I was dealing with a live bird.  

Here I was in a downtown urban area and I find myself 12 feet from a wild unbanded hawk.  This is the closest I have been to a hawk breaking the record of about 20 feet at Conowingo, Maryland.  Turns out this is an Immature Red Shouldered Hawk, a species I have never seen in person.  Now I was so close that if I zoomed in to 500mm I got the view you see above, half a hawk (not that I was complaining, it was a great portrait opportunity!).  I kept shooting and recomposing for about 25 frames.  Then the hawk decided not only were there no frogs or koi in this pond, but that I was quite an annoying person (see the glare he gave me below...).  The whole encounter lasted maybe a minute.  Had I not had my camera at the ready I would have gotten nothing but a very disappointing story.

The moral of the tale?  Always carry a camera and know how to use it.  And set it for action before you head out.  If my camera were in my pack, or set up for taking portraits of my dog the night before I would have gotten nothing.  If I didn't know ever nook and cranny of both my lens and my camera I might have fumbled the shot and gotten nothing.  Learn your equipment and keep your head on a swivel and you never know what you may catch!

Immature Red Shouldered Hawk
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To see more of Benjamin's work visit http://www.dajdesignsphotography.com/

Bald Eagles and The Nest Building Time Of Year

Bald Eagles Share The Work
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So its that time of year again.  Time for the bald eagles to separate themselves and return to their annual nesting sites.  Then comes time to fix up any damage the summer and fall storms have done.  Its also the time of the year for trekking to the Conowingo area on the Susquehanna River to watch the eagles.

So up I headed to Conowingo and set myself up at one of the easiest nests to photograph.  I spent many hours standing on the ground looking up into the nest last year.  This was my first trip up this year and I was greeted by two old friends who were busy sprucing up the nest.

It was great fun watching them, they would fuss around the nest rearranging sticks for reasons completely lost on the rest of us.  Then one or both eagles would fly off in random directions and land in nearby trees and start trying to break off branches.  It is actually quite funny watching a creature with no hands, only a beak trying to break branches.  It looks like they are going to fall out of the tree canopy.  I am still working on why they feel the need for fresh sticks as opposed to the myriad of branches that are down everywhere from the ice storm.  Best I can figure is the sticks on the ground stand a chance of being soaked thus bringing the possibility of mold and mildew into the nest.  The only flaw in that thinking is the nest is out in the open and gets rained on.

Returning to the nest with a prize!

This year I decided to audition a video camera for the job of sidekick to my photo camera.  Here is a clip of the eagles working on the nest.  At the end of the video they are looking up watching a vulture fly uncomfortably close to the nest.  A little closer (or if it was an eagle) the female would have taken flight and shown the offending party off.