Bath Time at Webster Pond

A Canada Goose (Branta canadensis) taking his bath time seriously.  I watched him for over half an hour and he was still going at it when I left.

Canada Goose (Branta canadensis) bathing himself at Webster Pond south of Syracuse, New York.

Canada Goose (Branta canadensis) bathing himself at Webster Pond south of Syracuse, New York. Nikon D700/80-400VR, 1/1250s, f/5.6, ISO 720, EV 0, 400mm focal length.

Reminded me of this idiom from A League of Their Own when Jimmy Dugan (played by Tom Hanks) says, “Well, anything worth doing is worth doing right.”  I’ll leave it up to the reader to find out what he was referring to. 😉  Idioms are the subject of Karma’s October Photo Hunt challenge.  I have two I will use and am still in search of a third.  Anyone have a suggestion?

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View 198: Indian Summer

Indian summer is a meteorological phenomenon that occurs in the autumn. It is defined as a period of above normal temperatures after a killing frost.  Those conditions fit the period of weather here in upstate New York perfectly the last few days.  With autumn colors starting to be displayed, I visited the LaFayette Apple Festival over the weekend.

An autumn scene near LaFayette, New York.

An autumn scene near LaFayette, New York. Nikon D700/28-300VR, 1/125s, f/10, ISO 200, EV +0.3, 28mm focal length.

Another reason for being at the Festival was to photograph the Apple Run consisting of a Family Fun Run, 5K and 15K running events.  It was a beautiful day for a run through the valley. If you are looking for photos from the Apple Run, CLICK HERE.

Apple Run 2011 runners enjoying an Indian Summer day near LaFayette, New York.

Apple Run 2011 runners enjoying an Indian Summer day near LaFayette, New York. Nikon D700/28-300VR, 1/125s, f/16, ISO 360, EV +0.3, 100mm focal length.

This stretch of weather is going to continue for most of the week. Got to enjoy it while I can!

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Kaaterskill Falls in the Catskill Mountains

Kaaterskill Falls in the Catskill Mountains Park of New York state.
Kaaterskill Falls in the Catskill Mountains near Catskill, New York. This waterfall is right off of Route 23A between Catskill and Hunter Mountain. There is a parking area nearby and you walk down to these falls along the road. Not the safest trek but manageable.

The water is brown from runoff from an overnight rain and mudslides.  A quarter mile down the road from here is a temporary traffic light for a one lane stretch where half the road has caved in. All effects from Hurricane Irene in late August.

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Assignment 15 Recap

Competition is an interesting thing.  For people, it’s mostly about having a good time pitting themselves in some way against other people to see how they stack up.  As we’ll see, for other living things on this planet, competition can be a life and death struggle.

So, let’s get right to it.

Teresita joins us for the first time by way of Robin’s blog to show us a running boy competing for his school.  She mentions she was experimenting with her camera.  Her experiment in panning came out with just enough sharpness on the subject with blurring in the background and arms and legs to show the speed of the runner.

If anything this assignment did, it got Karma to visit her state fair for the first time in a decade. 🙂  She found, as I did, a diversity of competitions at the Big E and probably ate some fried foods along the way, too.

My downstate blogging mate, Debbie, drummed up a bit of high school soccer (that’s football to my European readers) competition by photographing a couple of hard fought matches. Good action and intensity was shown by the girls.

Dawn shared with us a running event from start to finish.  Having done some of these myself, she did an excellent job of showing us not only the competition but the feelings of such an event.  Maybe next year we’ll see Dawn out there!

How can I say Michaela’s submission is cheating?  I, too, loved playing with my race car sets (oh, I went through a few of them) when I was young.  Of course, it’s competition.  Especially since it got Dad to play, too!

Of course, I much prefer Nye’s race car submission as she took her camera and family out to the old Hickory Motor Speedway in North Carolina.  As a fan of NASCAR for years, I have seen several big time racers make it big after starting their careers at Hickory. Nye mixed in action shots, photos of the winners and, as always, a lovely portrait of her daughter, this time sporting fashionable ear protection. 😀

Truels shares with us a football match (that’s soccer to my United States readers) with some great facial expressions from the competitors.  I bet he found it easier to photograph this game with his new dSLR camera, too.

While I could have used some of the competition photos I took at my state’s fair, I knew of an annual competition which was upcoming at local festival featuring kids, grease, poles, bell ringing and a time clock I thought would be much more fun and very unique to photograph.

In the natural world, competition is fierce just to stay alive.  If you are a tree, light is your main source of energy and Amy-Lynn shows and tells us how trees have adapted to make sure they win in their game of life.

Normally I get one or two late entries.  They are posted a few hours or within a day.  However, Barabara came in three days late!  If it was not about cake and rice krispie treats, I might not have allowed it. 😉

I want to thank all of you for participating in this assignment. I enjoyed seeing what each of you choose to use in showing competition.  Concepts can be hard to photograph.

The skill you are all showing these days is phenomenal from showing motion, using macro, story telling photography, use of photo essays and so on.  We have all come a long ways in the last three years since I started these assignments.  I have learned so much from each of you.  Thanks, again, and I hope you’ll all join in this November for the last one for 2011.

Oh, almost last.  I have not forgotten about the Four Seasons assignment which is due on the 28th of December.

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View 197: Covered Bridges of Ulster County

This past weekend I visited the Catskills Mountains with a few goals in mind.  One was to locate and photograph a couple of covered bridges.  Covered bridges are remnants of a time past when horse and buggies needed safe ways to cross rivers and streams back in the 1800’s.

Ulster county in the state of New York is the home to a half dozen covered bridges.  It was also one of the counties hit hard by Hurricane Irene in late August.  Getting to the bridge locations turned into an adventure because many roads and bridges are still closed.  The photo below of Perrine’s Bridge shows rivers are still running very high in the region and full of run-off and other debris.

Perrine's Bridge in Ulster County, New York on October 1, 2011.

Perrine's Bridge in Ulster County, New York on October 1, 2011. Nikon D700/28-300VR, f/16, ISO 1600, EV +0.3, 28mm focal length.

Your eyes do not deceive you, the bridge is leaning.  The bridge was restored back in 1970, it is still a 167 year old structure built of wood and some warping has occurred. Most of the bridge’s park which runs along the river is still under water.  I could see the tops of picnic tables and grills. Compare the river’s water level here with a picture of the bridge taken during winter.

The second bridge took a bit of work in both finding directions and the actual travel. The Tappan Bridge (sometimes called the Kittle Bridge) did not have a park or other nearby location I could use to calculate driving directions to.  I had to use map coordinates in my iPhone’s map app to get them.

The road to the Tappan Bridge had been washed out in several places and one of the modern bridges was destroyed.  Work crews had restored all the washed out areas with either stone or new asphalt and the missing bridge was replaced by a temporary one a few feet from the old span.  With the gloomy clouds and misting rain, it was a drive fitting the month of October.

Tappan Bridge in Ulster County on October 1, 2011.

Tappan Bridge in Ulster County on October 1, 2011. Nikon D700/28-300VR, 1/60s, f/4, ISO 1250, EV +0.3, 40mm focal length.

As you can see above, the Tappen Bridge has taken a beating from the hurricane enraged stream of a month ago which normally runs eight feet below it.  It had been gated and posted since these photos were taken. Wood planks are missing from the sides and a tree branch or trunk had slammed into the side facing upstream. The future of this bridge which was built back in 1870 does not look good.  However, it did fare better than some of the modern bridges which were wiped out.

The rain, low clouds and lack of Sun did not give me much of an opportunity to photograph the fall colors.  In fact, though the I Love NY website said the Catskills were around mid-peak, there was not a lot of color present.  I will have to go looking next weekend to meet that goal.

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