No April is complete without a visit to...

Duck Egg County Park

Everywhere the spring plants were poking up through the leaves due to the warm temperatures we'd had. I imagine the rain we had helped the plants burst forth also.

Blood Roots

 Dutchman Breeches

Hepatica

No fancy photowork here, just trying to document the flowers for comparison to their emergence in the last few years. 
Conclusion.

Weeks early!

False Rue Anemone with Blood Root in the way!

In the last few years I've found the Dutchman's Breeches and other flowers pictured here between the end of April and the start of May.

What I found most fun was using the 850nm filter which really only allows the camera to record in IR black and white. That means foliage is white and water is black!

I think it is wickedly cool.

The pines are white and the dead grasses are reflecting light. The water absorbs most of the IR light-waves and appear black which is pretty startling.

Lone Trout fisherman walking along the trail 

around the smaller of the two ponds.

The trees and trout fisherman reflecting in the water was really a neat catch.

The white areas are where the grass is turning green and leaves are budding in the trees. 

I like it.

Pretty wild looking and a different twist on black and white.

Today was boring. I reset several steel posts and built a lot for Sven and the Pony to do some trimming. 

Black and White and chasing light

I had about an hour to myself yesterday afternoon and I decided that since my arms still ached from using the dull scythe I would just take Charlie for a walk to check the mail and then take a side trip through the neighbor's woods.

I have a whetstone coming in the mail just to cure that dull implement!

I just took my converted Infrared camera with the filter that takes black and white images.
So what is so different with that filter? Green shows up as white in the 850nm spectrum of light and blue shows as black.

The late afternoon sun shone on the leaves making them bright. The clouds were dissipating and they too show up white. However the sky looks dark where the clouds are not drifting through.

Charlie shows up as a dark spot but he happened to walk into a little bit of sunshine. After getting the mail at the top of the hill we crossed over into the woods and followed the 4 wheeler trail back down.

In the heavy canopy of trees I had to hunt for sunlight shining through. I liked the pattern of leaf shadows on the tree trunk.

This is probably one of my favorite shots. A green mossy rock clump with a sunlit edge. The green adds some whiteness to the shot and the sun highlights the edges of the mossy rock.
I could do this better I think if I used a different aperture than what I did. But I was experimenting and learning.
This just gives me an excuse to go out and try this again!

I wanted to 'find' a trail that would be highlighted by green leaves. I found
this deer trail by following Charlie and ducking through low branches.
This is close to what I wanted to accomplish in my mind, but I'd like
to find a longer single track trail that curved.

I tried to 'shoot' both ways... and ...

I sort of like the appearance of the dirt track between the undergrowth.

I'll be doing more of this for a bit until I understand what is the best light and way to photograph with this light spectrum.

I have read the hints and tutorials, but nothing is more informative than going out and practicing, making mistakes, and making discoveries.

Color my world.

Oh not the song!

I recieved my 550nm filter on Monday and have trying it out in all sorts of lighting circumstances with the full spectrum conversion on my Olympus camera.

Infrared Photography let's me explore a different light spectrum than what the human eye can see.
Our eyes see green from the reflection of light. All of our colors are seen that way.
Okay, that is not a scientific explanation, but it is the best I can do in layman's terms.

Different spectrums allow the camera to see light reflected differently. The above shots appeal to the kid in me who still believes that a person should be able to color their art in any way they want to.
How fun is it that the leaves and grass turn out red?

Another question.
How will these look in the fall? As the chlorophyll is no longer produced in the trees, the absorption/refection of light will change too.

We see leaves as green because of the absorption by chlorophyll of the red and blue light wavelengths.

Okay. Enough of that.
If you want to read more about Infrared Light and Photography here is the Link:
Introduction to Infrared Photography.

All I know, is that I am having a blast.

Here is a shot with a 665nm filter.

665nm Filter unedited version

The light was poor and I took my white balance off from the dirt at my feet. A storm was coming in quickly so I had to work fast. I call this tree my Lolipop tree...well for obvious reasons. I thought it would be interesting to take the same shot with different filters.
Same shot now edited with what is called a Channel Swap of Red and Blue:

Last night I pulled out my Hoya R72 filter and put it on a different lens. White balance changed according to the grass at my feet.

I did a quick channel swap with this filter and got the shot above. I was really excited as to how the sky appeared behind the tree. To my normal eye it was blue but the clouds were not distinct like they are in IR.

I could have probably pulled some more yellow into the foliage of the trees, but I really like the way it turned out.

Then another shot with the 720nm filter on the Canon ELPH pocket camera that was converted. Same tree, morning light and fog.

The shot above is still one of my all time favorites. So otherworldly and dream like.

The twisted tree, yesterday with the Hoya R72. Again, the pale blue just appeals to me.

Then a few more experiments in the 550nm filter from my hike in the woods with Charlie and Sven. I found that in shady areas the shots would work for black and white conversion, but not very well for wild colors.

I did however have some luck with the elements, of sky, leaves, water, and grass.

For me, the wild colors are exciting and fun.

Oh I still do regular photography. I still love it.
But I have so much fun exploring the non visible spectrum.

This morning in fact I found out that little tiny Charlie could follow me on my bike.
I have to wait for him, but he sure was up for the pre dawn bike ride this morning! 
So many smells!

And for the parting shots.

IR 850nm. Used for stark black and white photography.

I took these on Monday night as the storm blew in.

Last word.
Many of my shots this week didn't turn out. I was simply experimenting with angles.
Can I shoot towards the sun? Not well.
Can I shoot at 90 degrees? Not so bad.
Shady? Good for black and white contrast.
Water reflections? Neat, but not always.
Overcast? Less color.
White Balance? Adjust often and know which color to balance off from. 665nm, 550nm balance off from grey, but you can use concrete or sometimes in my case..light colored dirt.
The higher ones? White Balance off from foliage.

What will happen in the winter? Ahhh, at least there are pine trees for the green!

Monday Night Storms

Monday was a pretty good day.

Of course there was the whole struggle thing of getting Rich to PT, but I set a personal record in CrossFit so I was still pretty happy about that.

Most of the day was spent doing yard work and then as the storms approached, I grabbed the refurbished IR camera and decided to give it a whirl.

Since the storm was slow moving, I thought I'd try out a couple of filters to see what I could come up with.

This one is a bit wild and crazy. Normally this filter would produce a yellowish cast to the foliage when channel swapped, but I took it further.

When the sun disappeared and things started to get dreary, I thought I'd try out the 850nm filter. In filter speak...this filter strictly shoots in black and white with the foliage become white.
I really liked the results even with the poor light.

I love the threatening sky again the white foliage.

So I walked to the south end of the pastures and took another shot back towards the house.

With that done I decided it was time to get inside.

The severe storm was a Watch so I neglected to move the mower and 4 wheeler to the shed.

Silly me. Never believe the weather people.

This happened as the storm blew in. The tree was uprooted and came down.

I worked all day yesterday on 'limbing' it out.

No real damage had been done. But the Grill was killed. The grill needed replacing a long time ago, but ..someone kept limping it along. I guess I am relieved about that.

My argument for getting rid of those older trees on the West side of the house, just got stronger I think.