It's no secret that I love photographing ferns. The logarithmic patterns of their fronds have a mathematical and orderly quality to them, but they are often jumbled together in the most chaotic sections of the forest understory. This tension between order and chaos can work well in a photograph.
Late Spring/early Summer is my favorite time to photograph ferns. They are a fresh vibrant green and the pollen, and pine needles, and stray leaves haven't fallen on them and lodged in between their blades. They are clean and green. I've been curating my Summer photos and I expect a couple fern photos will make the cut.
This one here in this photo looked like it was trying to reach out and catch the sun. I worked on some wide angle photos with this fern in the foreground, but ended up preferring the portrait showcasing the two-faced profile of the fern, half in the light, half in the dark.
Tags: Green Fern Nature Landscape Hiking Spring
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Thank heavens! Mike is finally showing us some of his photography from this Fall!
Nope.
Sorry.
It's a fakeout.
I'm a troll. I can't help myself. This isn't from Fall. It's from last Spring along the Kanc when the trees were budding and the early leaves were glowing.
I am excited about some of the photos I have been making this Fall, but they are a long way off from being posted. I think I still have a couple more Spring photos I still need to get off my chest and I'm in the process of curating my Summer work (which I am excited to share), so it's going to be a while before I get the Fall foliage work out there. In the meantime, please feel free to enjoy these Spring colors which look like they could be Fall colors. Also, shout out to Nick Becker for his helpful feedback and his suggestion on cropping this photo to re-work the composition.
Tags: Birch Trees Spring Kancamagus Nature Hiking Landscape New Hampshire
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A couple hours in the car and a couple miles down the trail and you can find yourself on another planet. There’s something about driving North on Interstate 93 that changes my outlook. And it seems like any thoughts about work or emails can’t survive higher up than one thousand feet, because when I am climbing up a mountain they are the furthest things from my mind. And when you make it to the summit, it’s tough to believe this is all so close to home and free of charge. You don’t need to travel far to get into another state of mind. It’s a beautiful thing.
Tags: Mount Major Nature Hiking New Hampshire New England
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Fall in New England is incredible, but it can also be overwhelming. There is so much to photograph in so little time. And these past two weeks have been something else. The foliage has been really nice. I can't drive to work without passing by at least a dozen compositions that would be excellent to photograph if not for the fact that I'd need to stand in the middle of a busy highway to do so. I made it up north to the White Mountains for two long hikes this October, traverses of the Franconia Ridge and the Moats, and got to catch some really nice foliage. From the Moats, I even caught a glimpse of the elusive "snowliage" when Mount Washington peaked its snowy cap through the clouds. If that weren't enough, I saw a lenticular cloud and the aurora borealis. There has certainly not been a shortage of subjects to photograph.
Therein lies the rub. With so many things drawing your attention, what do you choose to photograph? How do you focus and make a meaningful photograph? It's tough to not freak out with so many subjects competing for your attention. Photography has always been just about exclusion as much as inclusion. What you choose not to photograph and not to include in the frame is in many cases more important than what you do include. It's the only way to bring order to the chaos and deliver a message or idea. But with so much chaos out in life, is it fair to try to reign it all in? Maybe a little chaos is necessary. That's why I like this photo here from last Spring. Like life, it's probably 80% chaos, but I think the crown of the tree brings enough structure to tie it all together.
Tags: Spring Buds Nature Landscape Trees Hiking White Mountains New Hampshire
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Fall is in the air and vibrant leaf photos are on social media, so I offer you all a seasonably opposite perspective: a photo from spring of shadows of leaves.
I have been working on photos like this for some time now, where I find an interesting texture or pattern for the background with a shadow or reflection cast on it as the main subject.The effect creates a double-exposure-esque image in a single photo. Here, I found some side lit tree bark and nearby leaves. This is a recipe I have been looking for since the leaves sprouted in spring. It's more difficult to find an image like this than you would think, because if the leaves are too far away, the shadow will not have crisp edges, and the sun needs to be low in the sky to cast the shadow sideways and to create texture in the bark. I like this photo, but I don't think I'm done with the idea yet.
Tags: Shadow Leaves Spring Bark Nature Hiking
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