Fall River Heritage State Park and Battleship Cove

This blog is different than my usual blog.  It is not about the natural area around us and the creatures that inhabited, but about an interesting location to go and visit.  It is the Fall River Heritage State Park, which is on the shoreline of the Taunton River in Fall River, Massachusetts.  Surrounding this 8 1/2 acre park Is Battleship Cove, which is the largest collection of decommissioned warships in the world.  The center of battleship Cove is the battleship USS Massachusetts. 

It also includes the USS Joseph P.  Kennedy, Junior.,  USS Lionfish, PT Boats, USS Fall River and the Hiddensee.
There is also a restored 1920s carousel from the, Lincoln Park amusement park.
We arrive prior to sunset, noting that there were clouds in the sky and hoping for a colorful sunset.  However, no colorful sunset, but was able to obtain multiple pictures of the area.  Most of my pictures were 3 picture bracket's and and I edit the pictures, utilizing NIK software, mainly HDR Efex Pro, color Efex Pro 4, VIVEZA and  also used Topaz software Star Effects.  The main post processing was performed in Light Room 4.

Allens Pond Sunrise

As the days get longer, in order to capture the sunrise, we need to wake up earlier, so this morning my grandson and I left before 5 AM in order to be at Allens Pond Massachusetts Audubon Sanctuary, prior to sunrise.  I knew was going to be an interesting sunrise, because we had intermittent broken clouds in the sky.
The sky, when we arrived, was different shades of blue and white with a reddish pink color at the horizon line.  The first 2 pictures below are views over the field toward the horizon, and the next was over the marsh and Allens Pond.

View across the field



View across the marsh and pond

 I then made a 3 picture stitched panorama looking over the beach toward the east, where the sun would rise.


Beach and sunrise panorama



I then obtained a series of photographs as the sun rose up over the horizon and went behind  the clouds which showed the different changes in the color and texture of the sky. 

Utilizing a 3 picture bracket,  I processed the pictures in NIK HDR Efex Pro.
If you get up early and watch the sunrise will never know what you will see, because each sunrise is different depending on the weather conditions and the clouds.

Fulton Texas Marina

The second day, we divided into 2 separate groups. One group would travel by boat to the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge to locate and photograph The Whooping Cranes, while my group would start off early in the morning and cross the street to the Fulton Marina and photograph the Bay and the Marina and hopefully if clouds would clear photograph the sunrise. However, it was a dreary morning, with some drizzle and rain, therefore no sunrise. The Marina itself lent itself to some great photographs of the shrimp and fishing boats.

There was also Boat-tailed Grackles and the ubiquitous Laughing Gulls present  at the marina.

 
Off to the side of the Marina in a grassy field was an old car, which had grass and weeds growing through it and which led itself to an HDR.

February 1, and it feels like spring

It is February 1, 2012 and here in Southeastern Massachusetts, the temperature is 50°.  When I left this morning to travel to gooseberry to take the sunrise pictures today the temperature was in the mid-30’s and when I arrived at gooseberry, the temperature already had risen to 48°.




There was some rain and showers forecasted for a little more later in the morning.  The sky was mainly covered with clouds.
Looking over the bay toward the Elizabeth Islands, which is the location that the sun will rise,on the horizon the sky was clear.
I decided this morning that I would take my pictures as sets of HDR.  I photograph the scenes with either 3 or 5 different sets with the exposures spread being one EV between each picture.  I've merged the images and processed them in NIK HDR Efex Pro.

One of the pictures, I processed both in color and in black and white in HDR Efex Pro.  Personally, I like both of them for different reasons, but you make up your own mind.

My final pictures were taken at the beginning of the Allens Pond Sanctuary beach at the corner of E. Beach Rd. and Horseneck road.

Snow Scenics at Duxbury Beach

We just had the first significant snowstorm since October, at which time I was in Philadelphia.  We average about 3 to 4 inches and it all occurred during the night.  In the morning I travel down to Duxbury beach in another attempt to photograph the snowy owl.  While traveling down the beach, I noticed how beautiful their area was with the snow cover, so I decided to stop and photograph the beauty of the scenes.
These first scenics were taken just prior to sunrise and the blue color accentuates the coldness of the scene.



The next scenic was taken with my 300 mm lens of Gurnet Light with the snow on it. I processed this image as a tone-mapped image in NIK HDR and then utilize NIK Color Efex Pro to help highlight the snow.




After the Sun came up, looking down the road, I like the pattern of the tire tracks, my shadow and the person in red in the distance.
Another single tone-mapped image of my favorite tree on the beach, I utilized my wide-angle lens for this picture and I went low to give it the depth that I wanted.








My final picture is a gnarled old cypress.  I really would love to have gotten the snowy owl on this tree.

Sea Fog, Scenics at Duxbury Beach

Today I met 2 friends on Duxbury beach, to see if they could obtain better photographs of the snowy owl.  We were there at low tide, and despite numerous trips up and down the beach road the snowy owl was seen only once extremely far out over the marsh.  However, photographically wise, the day was not a loss.  The scenics were great.

First on the way to the beach, prior to sunrise, I obtained this picture on PowerPoint road, looking toward the dawn on the horizon.  Just after sunrise. 

 

This photograph was taken across the marsh grass with the clouds highlighted by the Sun. 

The final pictures were taken over the ocean, where there was sea fog over the water.  Sea fog or sea smoke occurs when cold air passes over the warmer water.  Today the temperature was 11°F with the wind bringing it down to around 0° wind-chill.

The photographs of the beach, ocean clouds and the fog were created by 3 and 5 image HDR's in NIK HDR Efex Pro and then I utilized Color Efex Pro 4, for adjustments