James Hill Photography - Efland, NC - jmhphoto.com

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James Hill > 20100309-5214

Budding Blueberry Bliss

Some very tiny, almost microscopic, buds emerging on the blueberry bushes out front. Nothing too exciting, yet. But another little sign that spring is well on it's way. I was so concentrated on getting the beautiful blur in the background that I only checked the center of the frame for sharpness and didn't realize I'd lost focus on both ends of the branch.

Shot with the 70-200 f2.8 and 63mm of extension tubes. Looks like I'm back to my springtime pseudo-macro setup for a while. Tiny natural things entice me.

James Hill > 20100309-5257

Two generations await depart from one American Beech.

depart [dɪˈpɑːt]
vb (mainly intr)
1. to go away; leave - as in, dropping an old leaf
2. to start out; set forth - as in, unfurling a new leaf

Forced, I know, but so is/was my point of view.

At least I didn't go with, 'Spring forth and leaf behind' or 'New beginnings take point and leave faded remnants in the wind' or anything with, 'our nearly departed' in it. ;-)

James Hill > 20100309-5288

Gnarled and gangly twisted twins of a winter wood.

I was going to post another passably pretty, eye-catching photo tonight. One which would selectively present a slightly surreal and isolated view of some small natural detail which surrounds me this time of year, but which would have purposely shown the subject completely out of context just by it's composition.

Then I ran across someone's critique of a beginner's image on a unrelated website. The critique made me pause, not because the photo was lacking, but rather the critic was. The image itself was of a scene similar to what's above, albeit a much better composed decomposition. The so-called critique was based on the viewer's idea of what a pleasing woodland scene should look like, which sounded sort of manufactured or fairytale-like by his description. (I.e. no distracting "dead stuff" all around.) No effort was made to notice or appreciate the photographer's clearly voiced connection to the space shown, and no suggestion on how to better highlight the intended subject was made. In short, it was not a critique but merely a statement of dislike by someone who doubtlessly has spent very little time in the woods. So, as an act of solidarity to another woodsman and budding nature photographer, I'm posting a clearly cluttered composition of scattered woodland debris and deciduous decay. Take THAT finicky fellow enthralled exclusively by photographs of impossibly fake fairytale forests. ;-)

BTW, the two vines intertwining before you are possibly older than I am (without doubt, better grounded) and have stretched far and wide in the canopy above. Many of the downed trees littering the floor probably gave early rise to the twining twosome, and sadly, did so to their own detriment. I plan to remove the few lingering dead limbs leaning in the pair's portal, as it would make a great place to sit and watch (and smell) spring invade the hillside. Maybe I'll shoot a SP once my perch is prepped for occupancy.

James Hill > 20100309-5141

Temps in the low 70s, a gentle breeze, and a warm sun. What a great day to open all the windows and air out the cabin. Forecast is the same for tomorrow. I think the bedroom window will stay cracked all night, provided the geese behave themselves through the night.

Shot this lone daffy at sunset, or my sunset at least. The trees hide the sun a couple hours before true sunset. There still aren't any clusters of blooming daffys yet. Evey group of scattered plantings has at most one bloom and most haven't made it that far yet. At least the insects are starting to move, so maybe I won't wear out the shutter completely on daffodils. I mean there's really only so many ways to shoot them. :)

James Hill > 20100308-5101

Chaos theory - belief that by repeatedly shouting misinformation, half truths, myths, lies, urban legends, and harebrained ignorance, one can confuse a considerable portion of a population into not only believing, but perpetuating and acting on said nonsense, endlessly.

This found subject is another sure sign that spring is approaching and it won't be too long until winter coats are discarded until fall. It should be easy enough to guess, given my history. This was found in the same area I found the demised turtle, so my hunch is that I've stumbled on a significant resting place here. Some critters just stay longer than others.

James Hill > 20100223-4850

Carpe diem quam minime credula postero –
"Seize the day, trusting as little as possible in the future"

"If my character is flawed by a few minor faults, but is otherwise decent and moral, if you can point out only a few scattered blemishes on an otherwise immaculate surface, if no one can accuse me of greed, or of prurience, or of profligacy, if I live a virtuous life, free of defilement (pardon, for a moment, my self-praise), and if I am to my friends a good friend," then that is satisfaction enough.

Shamelessly borrowed and adulterated from Horace's Satires.

It was laundry day and I didn't find my soiled linens to be all that interesting a subject. :D

James Hill > Back-off!

:D

James Hill > 20090228-0051

Since I seem to be running into nothing but contrasting opposites this week, here's another daffy; opposite from yesterday's group of brilliant color against a black background. And speaking of yesterday's shot, not five minutes after I uploaded it, I found a similar frame that I really liked much better. Oh well.

I've uploaded several different poses and daffy looks to my Flowering Plants gallery. (Link goes to the 'better' version of yesterday's shot.) Boy, I hadn't been in the flower gallery in a long while, and I'll warn you that a trip is likely to induce incredible yearnings for spring. It did for me.

James Hill > 20090223-0075

A bunch of daffy drunk daffodils dancing in a bottle of discarded brew..

From what I hear, I believe they liked the beer. A dark stout, full flavored, a little chewy, but not bitter. At least it perked them up perty.

Actually these are a year old. Just one of the countless images I've shot but never taken the time to sort through properly. I went looking for daffys today but no dice. The few blooms were mangled and I wasn't in the mood for mangled today.

I remember disliking this set when I shot it. Somehow a year has changed my outlook on them and I do like it now. Next week, who knows. Maybe by then I'll have some new ones to shoot and discard for a year before I decide to like them too.

James Hill > CRW_4356

A more palatable view, but decidedly noxious nonetheless.

As a response to my own fungal fuming from yesterday, I dug out an old photo of a much more pleasing pack of mushrooms. Now these are what I'd call "Fresh Mushrooms." But I wouldn't recommend munching. They could very well have more serious side effects than a bitter aftertaste and pungent odor.

I know the presentation doesn't quite measure up to Paula's enchanting image from a few days ago, and the size of any one specimen here couldn't compare to the girth of that monster 'shroom, but there's safety and comfort in numbers, right? Besides, I shot this while I was supposed to be working. I didn't have time to wait around for the gnome to reappear from deep inside this forest of fungi. He would have added just the right magical mystical touch to my fairytale of an enchanted mushroom forest . ; )

James Hill > 20100301-5072

Decaying portrait of a fungus among us.
(It reminded me of a silly goose with a swollen head)
(you have to look closely)
(and hold your nose)
(and squint)
( :D )

[channeling Andy Rooney]
I like mushrooms. But I don't always get around to eating them before they go bad. The package always says 'Fresh Mushrooms', but I think that's deceiving. Once a mushroom's been picked, packed, shipped, stacked, shelved, and eventually sold, I'd hardy call the fungus fresh anymore. The world is full of deceptive words like that.

Here are some fun similarities between deceit and a mushroom: Both can be quite palatable when prepared judiciously and used in modest proportions. The more organic either are, the easier they are to enjoy and digest. (with less bitter aftertaste) They both can appear out of thin air and then grow rapidly on a pile of damp manure left alone in the dark. (No surprise there.) And both, when left unchecked too long, can leave a lingering stench; easy to track down, but quite capable of ruining one's day.

I was inspired to bring light and camera to this decaying fungal matter yesterday, after reading an unsolicited pile of manure emailed to me by a vain dear admirer; one with much to say but apparently no horse sense. The brief went on for ages without really telling me much truth on the meat of the matter. (Yet more deceptive appearances.) Instead, I think the author was intentionally deceiving me with misinformation. The email basically wasted my time. Time I could have spent eating mushrooms before they go bad. So thanks, my pseudonymous friend. Now I have a decaying bitter morsel of a mushroom to go with that steaming pile of decomposing fungus fodder you graciously sent me. I'll gladly add both to my compost heap out back.

Now, if you'll kindly turn off the email and return to ignoring me, that would be just great. :-)
[A.R.- OFF]

Be sure to tune in next week, to see what Andy photographs and fusses about next.

James Hill > 20100226-5049

Another shot of Drew from Friday night's outing to the Blue Bayou Club. Not much time to edit today, but I did place a few more images in a new gallery to get things rolling.

Thanks for all the comments on yesterday's shot. Stage lighting can be a bear for capturing color images. Every shadow gets it own unique color signature, often unflattering once viewed as a photo. What looked cool in person suddenly has an overwhelming ability to distract from the subject. Of course B&W can sometimes alleviate that uncomfortable kaleidoscope of multicolored facial features, but the blue tones felt a little more in tune with the setting than just a basic B&W capture. I'll mix it up and see what the Questells think. This shot is one of the better full color renditions.

James Hill > 20100226-4955

Singin' the blues of a long hard road... still ahead of him.

Drew Questell performed at the Blue Bayou Club last night. His dad asked me to come and shoot some photos. I'm glad, really glad, he did. The venue was small but the stage was well lit for a small club, and the stage was accessible from two sides, which is always nice. It's someplace I could shoot in for a long while and keep finding angles. Unfortunately, since the law states that minors have to be out of the club by 10pm, it was a short set. Too short; and not just for more snap time, the tunes were well worth an extended session.

Drew's a pretty amazing young musician, with a knack for knocking out older tunes of woe and sorrow normally sung by blues men greater than four times his age. Regardless of the gender gap, he had no problem sounding authentic and even less difficulty provoking the intimate crowd into applauding and cheering louder than I've witnessed for countless more veteran performers. Needless to say, it was a great night.

I'll update with a link to the new gallery after I finish processing.

James Hill > 20100219-4762-Edit

Slowly disintegrating evidence of a nearby litterbug.

Or is that littertree, or litter-tree or leaf litterer? My sources remain unclear on the decomposing matter.

Moving on, yet in a similar vain vein, I received one of those hokey email annoyances from a well intentioned but ill informed friend today. It was the typical chain letter form, pleading me to send it on to all my friends and anyone else I could possibly think to annoy. The email contained some very impressive, yet unattributed and very likely unauthorized, photos of different snow scenes. The gist of the email was that the "Eskimos" had over 100 words to describe snow, and that us lowly English speakers should stop to consider our misfortunes for only having one.

Balderdash, I say. Neither is true and both are easily debunked by simple thought. It continually amazes me that people will spend the effort to forward such nonsense endlessly around the globe, yet they can't type two words into a search box to actually learn something. Of course I did the only sensible thing left to do; I deleted the email, assigned a high spam ranking to the "friend" to ward off future annoyances, and then I submitted my query to the Google.

Interesting reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eskimo_words_for_snow
Apparently, even The New York Times fell prey and published a story perpetuating the idea in 1984. In their defense, Google wasn't around back then. : )

For those wanting to see a somewhat comical list of 100 Inuit words for snow: http://www.mendosa.com/snow.html

Thanks for the overwhelming response to yesterday's image. I actually didn't have strong feelings for the image and never expected it to garner such a response. It grew on me a little after seeing it some more today. My abstract images never sit as well with me as they seem to do with others. Strange that.

James Hill > 20100224-4872

~~Fogged and dreary rising;
the weather's disagreeable too.
Awake too late, eyes open, scrutinizing sleep.
Fatigued, not tired. Why? I haven't a clue.
Seldom works, that senseless habit, enumerating sheep.
Adding insult to injury, I believe I dreamt, a ewe?

What a bizarre way to begin one's day;
much less, stretched across two.

Weather guys preach prediction;
Nay, they ALERT, ADVISE, and WARN,
more wintry white stuff approaches.
Alas, my view only precipitates scorn.

Cold rain, go away!
To you, I've no more to say. ~~

As you can see, the white stuff did make an appearance, a brief, gray, and wet one; so I added my own touch of surreality, by boosting the color to the max. Would have needed a bigger box of Crayolas to get any more out of this one, the file was just too lax.

Thanks for the words on the box turtle carapace. I have another one waiting in the wings; still life insurance for a different rainy day. Donna asked, "So, just what DO turtles pine for?" I don't know, but I'm willing to wager it's not lying on their backs counting sheep, stars, or snowflakes. :D

Finally, as a few have undoubtedly noticed by now, I made a commitment to myself at the beginning of the year to expand my vocabulary and advance my creative(?) writing skills. Both had taken a turn for the worse quite some time ago, along with proper punctuation, grammar and, most critical, thought. Oddly enough, this world of brevity we now live in, with Facebook, Twitter, SmugMug, and so on, is where I happen to spend most of my writing time. It sort of goes against everything these sites were designed for; so excuse the long-winded captions, comments and silly prose. It's just my way of expanding what I knows. Of course I take none of this too seriously, just like my photos, and anything I put out is open to comment, criticism, or cajolery.

20100309-5214

Budding Blueberry Bliss

Some very tiny, almost microscopic, buds emerging on the blueberry bushes out front. Nothing too exciting, yet. But another little sign that spring is well on it's way. I was so concentrated on getting the beautiful blur in the background that I only checked the center of the frame for sharpness and didn't realize I'd lost focus on both ends of the branch.

Shot with the 70-200 f2.8 and 63mm of extension tubes. Looks like I'm back to my springtime pseudo-macro setup for a while. Tiny natural things entice me.

James Hill > 20100309-5214

Budding Blueberry Bliss

Some very tiny, almost microscopic, buds emerging on the blueberry bushes out front. Nothing too exciting, yet. But another little sign that spring is well on it's way. I was so concentrated on getting the beautiful blur in the background that I only checked the center of the frame for sharpness and didn't realize I'd lost focus on both ends of the branch.

Shot with the 70-200 f2.8 and 63mm of extension tubes. Looks like I'm back to my springtime pseudo-macro setup for a while. Tiny natural things entice me.

20100309-5214

Budding Blueberry Bliss

Some very tiny, almost microscopic, buds emerging on the blueberry bushes out front. Nothing too exciting, yet. But another little sign that spring is well on it's way. I was so concentrated on getting the beautiful blur in the background that I only checked the center of the frame for sharpness and didn't realize I'd lost focus on both ends of the branch.

Shot with the 70-200 f2.8 and 63mm of extension tubes. Looks like I'm back to my springtime pseudo-macro setup for a while. Tiny natural things entice me.

Camera: Canon (Canon Eos 10d) |

more details: exif |

original size: 2048px x 3072px |

Current: 300px x 450px |

Other sizes: S • Medium • L |

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Keywords: spring closeup winter buds blueberry transition

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