A Long Morning at Gooseberry

Milky Way panorama at Gooseberry

Saturday, we spent a long morning at Gooseberry, from 3:15 AM until 7:30 AM.  It was a very clear night, with a brisk wind blowing in the Milky Way rising out of the Southwest and continuing overhead toward the Northeast.  The Milky Way presented different opportunities to photograph from various positions.  In fact, in some of the photographs, we even captured meteors and satellites.

Milky Way at Gooseberry

Milky Way at Gooseberry

Milky Way at Gooseberry

A few clouds started drifting in and as we waited for dawn to break, I took pictures of astronomical, nautical and civil dawn and then finally the sunrise.  We had some good color, but, if there were more clouds.  I think we would had had better color.  At the time of astronomical dawn, I was able to photograph the Big Dipper, Cassiopeia and Polaris.

Astronomical Dawn with the Big Dipper, Cassiopeia and Polaris

Nautical Dawn

Civil Dawn

sunrise

After sunrise, I utilize the golden light to take some landscapes along with different birds in flight.  What really made it interesting was the number of common loons flying overhead, which present the great subjects to photograph.

Landscape In the Golden Light

Common Loon in the Golden Light

Common Grackle's in the Golden Light

A wedge of swans flew from West to East and I was able to get one picture with the wings of the swans almost up and down.

Wedge of Mute Swans

Yellow warblers were flitting around and presented great subjects to photograph in a flowering tree.

Yellow Warbler in a Flowering Tree

Common Yellowthroat

To process the Milky Way photographs.  I utilized Collier's suggestion in his new book that I recently reviewed. http://photobee1.blogspot.com/2015/05/colliers-guide-to-night-photography-in.html



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Sunrise at Allens Pond

Sunrise Allens Pond Panorama 6:34 AM

This morning I traveled out to Allens Pond Massachusetts Audubon sanctuary to capture the sunrise.  I utilized my Nikon D7100 and my Nikon 70-200 on a tripod to capture all the pictures this morning.  I wanted to show that you do not need a wide-angle lens to capture a good landscape and sunrise photograph.  Civil Dawn started at 6:33 AM, and my first panorama of the sky and color taken from Allens Pond and showing Buzzards Bay was at 6:34 AM.  Slowly the sky start to brighten and there was a lot of nice color in the East.  I took the second panorama at 6:54 AM, and they individual photograph at 6:55 AM.  By the time 7:00 AM came almost every bit of the color was gone from the sky and at sunrise, which occurred at 7:03 AM, there was just minimal color and the clouds were thick enough that you could not see the sun.  Eight excellent article about sunrise and sunset phenomena is located at http://www.weatherscapes.com/techniques.php?cat=optics&page=twilight

Sunrise Allens Pond Panorama 6:54 AM

Sunrise Allens Pond 6:55 AM

Sunrise Allens Pond 7:00 AM

Sunrise Allens Pond 7:03 AM

If people arrived just at sunrise.  They would've missed out on all the beautiful colors that occurred prior.  Also for sunset, some of the nicest colors can occur during the last half-hour after sunset.

What to Do When It's Raining

It is the Fourth of July and with a strong front coming through plus hurricane Arthur coming up the coast, it is pouring outside with flash flood warnings in effect.  Besides finishing up some things that I needed for the show tomorrow - Stone Barn Farm 786 E. Horseneck Rd. in Dartmouth , from 2 to 5 PM, I looked over some of my recent pictures and one picture hit my eye. A common tern, rising from the water.

The picture was taken on Plymouth beach, during the period of civil dawn when the birds were a silhouette and there was color on the water.  However, the photograph taken in RAW was very flat and did not represent what I had seen.  Utilizing light room and Photoshop, plus Topaz plug-ins of denoise, clarity and detail.  I was able to come up with to photograph that represented what I had seen.

Original

After processing