Tag Archives: infrared

St. Johns sunrise, and a ride 'round Viera

December 24, 2011INSIDE FLORIDA, St. Johns River, Viera Wetlandsbirds, black and white, Caracara, cloud, Great Blue Heron, infrared, landscape, nest, sunrise, wildlifeEd Rosack

Happy Holidays!

I had a rare mid-week day off last Wednesday and decided to spend the morning making photographs.

First up was a site I’ve driven by many times and always said “That looks like a great place for a photo”. It’s the boat ramp off of Highway 50 where it crosses the St. Johns river. I was there before dawn and had a good time watching the sun come up and the clouds evolve. And yes, it is a good place for a photo.

Dawn on the St. Johns River at the Highway 50 boat ramp

Next, I drove over to Viera Wetlands. I haven’t been there recently and wanted to see what’s going on.

Palms, clouds, and marsh at Viera Wetlands

There are a lot of the usual birds around: Herons, Egrets, Ibis, Anhingas, Coots, Grebes, Limpkins, Ospreys, Cormorants, a Caracarra, a Hawk, Gulls, etc. I also saw a lot of winter visitors there, including Kingfishers, Mergansers, Caspian Terns, Tree Swallows, and Northern Shovelers. By the way, another good place to find out what’s going on is the Viera Wetlands group on Flickr. I usually check it before I go so I’ll know what to watch for when I get there. Other folks are seeing Northern Harriers, Loggerhead Shrikes, Horned Grebes, American Kestrels, and many more.

Caracara with prey

The Great Blue Herons are all busy courting and building nests. This is a wonderful time to get some action shots, especially of these birds in flight. If you watch one of the couples for a while, you’ll likely see the male leave repeatedly to gather nesting material. They tend to leave and return from the same direction and this gives you a big advantage when setting up to take flight photos.

Great Blue Heron pair

You can see other photos I’ve made at Viera Wetlands in this set on Flickr. If you get some spare time over the holiday break, this would a good place to spend it.

Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Now – go make some photos!
©2011, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved

The year in review: My favorite 2011 Photos

December 19, 2011VARIOUSAntiques, Arlington National Cemetery, Barred Owl, birds, black and white, Bobcat, BPWD, cemetery, Deer, Eastern Meadowlark, Florida Scrub Jay, infrared, landscape, macro, Mount Blue Sky, Mountain Goat, Mt. Evans, people, reviews, Scrub Ridge Trail, sunrise, watch, wildlifeEd Rosack

I hope that all of you, your families, and your friends have a joyful and happy holiday season!

Photographer Jim Goldstein has an annual tradition of organizing a “best photos of the year” listing. So it’s a good time to put together my own third annual “Favorite photos of the year” post. You can revisit 2009 here, and 2010 here.

Again in 2011, I’ve been blessed with a huge amount of photo opportunities. The 2011 folder on my hard drive takes up about 178 GB of space. Wow – good thing storage is so cheap now days! I’m still using the following system to rate my photos. The numbers in parentheses are the counts for 2011 .

1 star – The photo is interesting (262)
2 stars – The photo is worth showing to others (400)
3 stars – The photo is the best of (or one of the best of ) any given photo shoot (81)
4 stars – My favorite photo of a year (1)
5 stars – My favorite photo ever (none, I’m not done making photos yet!)

Photos without stars are seconds or not so good versions of other photos. I usually keep them, but they probably won’t get any more attention. I’ve been using this system consistently, and it seems to work for me. I’ve reviewed my 2011 photos and selected what I think are my best. Of course, this is all subjective and my opinion only. Feel free to disagree, but I hope you’ll enjoy looking at the ones I’ve picked.

You can click on each of these to go to Flickr and see a larger version. Or you can click this link to go to the set on Flickr.

Here we go. I have 3 mammals, 3 birds, 2 landscapes, and 3 miscellaneous subjects …

November: Bobcat in Tree, Circle B Bar Reserve. I’ve seen Bobcats in the wild before, but I’ve never been able to take a good photo of one. We saw this one resting up on a branch and it posed for a while. In this image, I think it was trying to figure out how to get through the crowd of humans at the base of the tree. More info: https://edrosack.com/2011/11/24/landscapes-and-bobcat-at-the-circle-b-bar-reserve/

July: Baby mountain goat, Mt. Evans summit, Colorado. There were several families of mountain goats on the way up and at the summit. This little one posed for me so I could frame him against the out of focus mountains in the background. It’s amazing to watch them scramble from rock to rock and never slip. More info: https://edrosack.com/2011/07/10/mount-evans-redux/

September: Young deer at Viera Wetlands. View large and check out the eyebrows and whiskers! More info: https://edrosack.com/2011/09/04/late-afternoon-at-viera-wetlands/

January: Barred Owl watches photographers. More info: https://edrosack.com/2011/01/30/catching-up/

December: Eastern Meadowlark, Blackpoint Wild Life Drive. More info: https://edrosack.com/2011/12/17/merritt-island-scouting-report-saturday-december-10/

June: Florida Scrub Jay watches us. One or two birds in this Scrub Jay family were real posers. And one of those was a “dive bomber”. It flew at our heads a few times trying to discourage us. More info: https://edrosack.com/2011/06/19/a-summertime-visit-to-minwr-blackpoint-and-scrub-ridge-trail/

November: Sunrise at the Circle B Bar Reserve. More info: https://edrosack.com/2011/11/24/landscapes-and-bobcat-at-the-circle-b-bar-reserve/

December: It was a little cloudy this morning. Blackpoint Wild Life Drive. I’ve enjoyed playing with an Infrared modified Olympus EPL-1 camera. More info: https://edrosack.com/2011/12/17/merritt-island-scouting-report-saturday-december-10/

March: Tomb of the unknowns, Arlington National Cemetery. I’d never been to Arlington before this trip. As a US Navy Veteran and a patriot, I have to admit it made a huge impression on me. More info: https://edrosack.com/2011/03/19/washington-dc/

December: Flavia, in color. American Photo Model Shoot, Orlando, 12/3/11. My first time photographing models was a real learning experience. More info: https://edrosack.com/2011/12/09/orlando-american-photo-model-shoot-workshop-december-2011/

June: My Grandfather’s Pocket-watch. After the Orlando Watch Company repaired it, it’s working fine. This is a 1921 Elgin pocket-watch, marked Wadsworth Referee 20 year 5069868. More info: https://edrosack.com/2011/06/25/grandfathers-pocket-watch/

I hope you’ve had a great photo 2011 too. Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Now – go make some more photos!
©2011, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved

Merritt Island Scouting Report – Saturday, December 10

December 17, 2011INSIDE FLORIDA, Merritt Island NWRAmerican Avocet, birds, black and white, BPWD, Eastern Meadowlark, Horned Grebe, infrared, landscapeEd Rosack

Lutfi, Kevn M., and I set off for Viera Wetlands last Saturday, but on the way we kept passing through light rain showers. Since it’d rained off and on for the past week, we worried they’d close the area to cars, so we switched destinations and decided to visit Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge instead of Viera.

We got to East Gator Creek Road in time for sunrise, but the cloud cover was too dense for any blog worthy photos. After sunrise, the gloomy light made bird photography difficult too – it was a good thing I brought my flash along to help. We’d seen some reports of Horned Grebes at MINWR on Flickr, and sure enough one showed up almost right away. She wasn’t shy and swam right up to us.

Horned Grebe Female – My first photo of one. MINWR has been very productive for me as a source of “life birds”. These are winter visitors. Hopefully I can sight a male in breeding colors later this season.

Next we went over to Black Point Wildlife Drive.

It was a little cloudy that morning: Infra-red capture can really bring out the details and contrast in a somewhat gloomy scene.

Unlike some previous trips to BPWD, there are huge numbers of birds there now. It’s a great time to visit – The water levels are high and the winter visitors have started to arrive!

Eastern Meadowlark – another life bird for me. These are year round residents in Florida, but I hadn’t photographed one before.

We saw large flocks of Coots, Pintails, and many Grebes. There were a variety of shorebirds too. We saw Reddish Egrets, Belted Kinfishers, Great Blue Herons, Tri-Colored Herons, Little Egrets, Little Blue Herons, Snowy Egrets, Great Egrets, Anhingas, Savanah Sparrows, Lesser Yellowlegs, Green Wing Teals, Eastern Meadowlarks, American Avocets and others. There were also many spoonbills flying around (but none seemed to want to land near us).

Follow the leader: American Avocets, winter plumage – not my first sighting of these, but one of my best photos of them. These are also winter visitors to Florida.

Before heading home, we went by the MINWR Visitor’s Center to check on the Painted Buntings. Unfortunately, there weren’t any around this time – although the rangers told us they’d seen them that morning.

If you’ve wanted to visit MINWR, now’s a great time. For a preview of some of the things you might see, take a look at my MINWR set on Flickr.

Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Now – go make some photos!
©2011, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved

Thanksgiving in Wisconsin

December 2, 2011Wisconsinbirds, black and white, infrared, Lake Michigan, submarine, travelEd Rosack

I just wanted to let you know that I haven’t forgotten about you. I apologize for the irregular posting, but I’ve been busy with little time for photography or blogging over the last week or two.

Lynn and I visited Mike and Sara for Thanksgiving and Mary joined us, so we had a very nice family holiday. Wisconsin was different from Florida. The day we left it was sunny with a high in the 80s. In Wisconsin, it was overcast with a temperature in the 40s, and because it’s so much farther north, the sun set at 4:15pm – making the days shorter than at home.

One thing that was hard to ignore was all the geese – they were everywhere, and you could frequently hear them honking even while inside. This surprised me, since I thought they all migrated south for the winter. When I researched this, it turns out that many do stay in Wisconsin year round. I wonder what they eat and how they stay warm when the snow gets heavy?

Fox River shoreline near Kaukona, Wisconsin; Canada Geese in the distance

Mike drove us over to Manitowic on Lake Michigan where we went through the Wisconsin Maritime Museum. It was interesting to learn that the shipyard here made submarines during WW II. They moved to the Gulf via the Mississippi River.

Shipbuilding scene, at the Wisconsin Maritime Museum; Manitowic, Wisconsin

There’s a WW II diesel boat that you can tour.

The USS Cobia, SS 245, at the Wisconsin Maritime Museum; Manitowic, Wisconsin

The “Christmas Tree” aboard the submarine USS Cobia: the red and green lights on this panel show the status of hull openings

On the way home, I convinced Mike to stop and let me make a photo of this scene.

Lake Michigan Shoreline; Manitowic, Wisconsin

Here’s one previous post I wrote about Wisconsin. And you can see other photos from Wisconsin in this set on Flickr.

In some other news, the Fotobug podcast interviewed me last night. We talked about my trip to the Circle B Bar Reserve a couple of weeks ago and the bobcat photo I made. It’s supposed to come out this Sunday afternoon (December 4, 2011) and I’ll post a link to the episode when it goes up.

Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Now – go make some photos!
©2011, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved

Landscapes and Bobcat at the Circle B Bar Reserve

November 24, 2011Circle B Bar Reserve, INSIDE FLORIDAblack and white, Bobcat, Flowers, infrared, landscape, Marigold, sunrise, wildlifeEd Rosack

Last weekend, I went over to the Circle B Bar Reserve in Lakeland, Florida with Kevin M., Lutfi E., and Frank B. I almost didn’t go – we checked Flickr for new photos from the area and didn’t see much being posted. But I remembered seeing yellow flowers blooming there at this time last year and wanted to see them again.

Early morning at the Circle B Bar Reserve – The yellow flowers are Burr Marigolds. These are all over the Circle B Bar in mid to late November.

Sunrise sure does happen early since the time changed. We met at 5:15am to drive over and arrived just as it started to get light. I find it very hard to predict how sunrise will look. Weather and clouds can shift over the time / distance of the drive. But this morning turned out nice and I managed to make a good image or two.

Sunrise at the Circle B Bar Reserve

The bird population was a bit disappointing. We saw the usual suspects, including Anhingas, Cormorants, Woodstorks, Ospreys, Herons, Egrets, Coots, Moorhens, and Whistling Ducks. I attempted a few bird photos, but none came out blog worthy. Here’s a landscape that includes a few birds:

Tree and Woodstorks

So – I didn’t see any new birds or make any great bird photos, but I did make some landscapes I like. Enough to count the trip as a success. And then…

A jogger came by us and told us about “a Bobcat up in tree about 300 yards away on the right past a palm tree”. That got my photo adrenalin going! I’ve seen Bobcats in the wild three times or so. In one case at dusk I was able to get a single underexposed, blurry photo before it moved off a trail at Orlando Wetlands. In my experience they take a look at you and then they’re gone. You only have a few seconds to make the photo. So this situation sounded exciting.

We took off down the trail – and Frank and I walked right by it! Lucky for us, Kevin was trailing us, saw it and called us back. It was very well camouflaged and it sure helped to have multiple sets of eyes searching. There was no one around at first. The Bobcat looked healthy, and appeared to be resting and watching from about 35 – 40 feet up. I was really happy that I had my long lens and flash with me. It was backlit against the sky and a real tough exposure without flash. We made some photos and moved on down the trail. When we returned, there was a crowd gathered and it was pretty famous on Flickr the next day! Judging from the photos in the Circle B Bar Flickr pool, it’s a good place to see Bobcats.

Bobcat in Tree, Circle B Bar – I’ve seen Bobcats in the wild before, but I’ve never been able to take a good photo of one. We saw this one resting up on a branch and it posed for a while. In this image, I think it was trying to figure out how to get through the crowd of humans at the base of the tree.

So the moral of this story is: You won’t make any good photos if you don’t get up and get out there. You’ll never know what you could have seen if you don’t make the effort to go out and see it. You may be surprised and if you are, I hope you’re ready!

You can view other photos I’ve made at the Circle B Bar in this set on Flickr.

Oh, and have a Happy Thanksgiving. Even with all the problems we have in the economy, country, world, and our personal lives – we can each find many things to be grateful for.

The National Mall in Washington D.C.

November 19, 2011Must do list, Washington D.C.black and white, infrared, landscape, travelEd Rosack

I had another opportunity to fly up to Reagan Airport early last Sunday for a business trip, and spend a few hours in downtown Washington D.C. on the National Mall.

The Washington Monument in infrared

I brought my Olympus cameras, including my IR modified E-PL1. I’m really enjoying the way it lets me see things differently. So much so that I have to be careful not to over use it.

I also brought an app I discovered for my iPhone: The NPS National Mall and Memorial Parks app is very useful – I highly recommend it if you travel to Washington D.C. And it’s free! (Update, October 2020: Doesn’t seem to be available now.)

Using the app, I followed the “4 hour tour” and saw several memorials that I haven’t been to, including the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, the Korean War Memorial, and the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial. I also went by the Jefferson, Lincoln, and Vietnam War Memorials and of course – the Washington Monument.

Breadline and fall color, Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial – Washington, DC. The inscription reads:

“The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much, it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”

I was talking about my visit with my friend Patrick and he said something that really resonated with me: These memorials are named in honor of our famous founding fathers, or events from our history. But when you visit them, one thing you notice is that at each there are words / thoughts written in the stones that make up each monument. And it’s really these ideas that we should remember. Maybe a periodic tour of the monuments along with a test on every inscription should be required for members of congress.

I was also surprised by how much color remained in the foliage – quite pretty. And I was grateful that the weather was so different from my last visit. This time it was partly cloudy and cool – very good walking weather.

And just because I can’t resist, here’s one more IR photo. This one’s a false color image of a small Japanese Pagoda located near the Roosevelt Memorial.

Japanese pagoda on the west side of the Tidal Basin, Washington, DC. Given to Washington DC city commissioner Renah Camalier by Yokohama Mayor Ryozo Hiranuma in 1957 and subsequently donated to the city. This pagoda may be from the Kamakura period (1192–1333).

You can see other photos I’ve made in Washington D.C. in this set on Flickr.

Two life birds today at MINWR!

November 5, 2011INSIDE FLORIDA, Merritt Island NWRbirds, black and white, BPWD, infrared, Painted Bunting, Peacock's Pocket, White Crowned SparrowEd Rosack

Well, the weather report for this morning was clear, cool and windy – but whoever arranges the weather didn’t pay attention. They got the cool and windy part right, but it was very cloudy on the east coast with occasional light rain. We persevered and ended up having a great time at the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge.

We arrived a bit before sunrise and had time to scout new locations along Peacock’s Pocket Road. I brought an Olympus E-PL1 camera that I had converted to Infra Red by LifePixel. I’ve dabbled in IR before – both film and digital, but this is my first experience with a modified digital camera and I think I’m going to like it. Here’s a sample:

Somewhere along Peacock’s Pocket Road – In the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. Infra Red capture, converted to B&W

Our next stop was the MINWR Visitor’s Center. Painted Buntings migrate to the Refuge in the winter and are often seen there. Sure enough, there was one – and I was able to get a photo, although the light was very poor. These are amazingly colorful little birds!

Painted Bunting – At the MINWR Visitor’s Center. My first sighting and photo of one.

While there we also saw another bird that I didn’t recognize. It turns out this is a White Crowned Sparrow and they’re supposedly quite rare in Florida. My second life bird of the day!

White Crowned Sparrow – Sighted at the MINWR Visitor’s Center even though both iBird and Peterson’s guides say this bird isn’t found in Florida. My first sighting and photo of one.

Before heading home via Cracker Barrel, we also took a turn round Black Point Wildlife Drive. All together, we saw a large variety of birds: Ospreys, a Bald Eagle, Great Blue Herons, Tri-Color Herons, Snowy Egrets, Great Egrets, Reddish Egrets, Belted Kingfishers, Coots, Grebes, Grackles, Vultures, Anhingas, Cormorants, Moorhens, Painted Buntings, White Crowned Sparrows, Wood Storks, a Raccoon, and more. Another wonderful visit to MINWR!

You can see more of my photos in this MINWR set on Flickr.

Central Florida Photo Ops

What and where they are and how to photograph them.

Tag Archives: infrared

The year in review: My favorite 2011 Photos

Merritt Island Scouting Report – Saturday, December 10

Thanksgiving in Wisconsin

Landscapes and Bobcat at the Circle B Bar Reserve

The National Mall in Washington D.C.

Two life birds today at MINWR!