Lots of New Pictures

I’m still trying to figure this “blog” thing out so bare with me. I had an extra day this last week to play with this so I uploaded a bunch of pictures. This blog seems to be the ideal place to explain some of my pictures posted on facebook so I hope all my “friends” will enjoy clicking through them. There are several albums split about 50/50 family and nature. Most of them are self explanatory and I have provided some titles and tags to help where I thought they might be appreciated. There are some classic shots of the family throughout the years and I will be adding to these albums occasionally as well as adding new albums. I have also posted some nature shots I have taken in the past. Most of the older shots were scanned and tweaked in Photoshop. Some were tweaked quite a bit, especially family photos, depending on the age and condition of the original.

The more recent digital photos were far less time consuming and easy to post. The loon album is all recent since I bought my Canon 30D. This has been a two year project that combines several of my interests- nature, kayaking, and photography. The loons are a great subject. They are elusive enough so that when I get a good close-up shot (usually with a 75-300mm zoom lens) I feel I have something special. It may not seem that these shots are unusual when looking through the album but these posted photos are some of the best I have managed over a two year period and literally thousands of shots. I have learned how to get fairly close with out disturbing the loons or chasing them off. They will usually dive and resurface a hundred yards away if one gets too close. Fifty yards can often be too close so I feel privileged to have been able to get so many intimate shots. The trick is to try and anticipate their movement (they are constantly on the move) and wait quietly. By doing this they have come too close to focus my lens on several occasions. The chicks can be quite curious and they are easier to get close to but this can cause the adults concern so it is best to let them come to you. As the shot of Nicole with her hand out shows, they can be curious. The mother was just a few yards outside of the frame and amazingly showed no concern as the chick came so close to Nicole that she finally had to pull her hand back as the chick would have paddled right into it. This is unusual behavior even for the chicks.

Grafton Pond, where these pictures were taken, is a protected pond and provides such a good site for loon upbringing that two pairs will usually use this site each year. This doubles my chances of finding some interesting activity to photograph and in fact I have never visited this pond when I did not get at least a few good shots. On several occasions I have filled my 4G flash card. Photographing from a rocking kayak with a long lens can be challenging but I have found that by setting my ISO to 400 I can get sharp pictures most of the time. It is far more difficult to position myself for good light direction, and without good light from the right direction this kind of photography becomes very difficult. Positioning a kayak close to a normally shy moving subject while attempting to photograph that subject with the best light is probably a comical sight to others watching but I don’t mind appearing comical if I am occasionally rewarded with a good shot.

I have tried to include photographs that show the mature loons activities and the chicks as they grow in their first year. It is easy to follow the growth of the chicks through the album. They progress from downy little brown fuzz balls to the gray and white juveniles. The black and white adults are in their mating plumage and they begin to loose some of their distinct coloring toward the fall. I hope you enjoy the photographs; I enjoyed taking them and will continue to do so next year.