Conowingo Dam

Yesterday I made my first trip of the year to Conowingo. I timed my arrival to be about 6:15AM, thinking that was overkill and I would arrive WAY early. I got one of the final few parking spots. I dressed with four layers and a cap and gloves to keep warm. I should have brought a balaclava. OK, even after this many trips I was underprepared.

Last year was a bust because of high water levels. I've been watching the water discharge reports and the water level is way down. So I went to my favorite spot at the water's edge. I like this spot because it's less crowded, provides unobstructed views of the water and fishing action, and it's a great low perspective on eagles as they catch fish. I was there only an hour or so before the alarms sounded and the water started rising, inundating my spot. I had to retreat up onto the rocks. This left my tripod unusable because, even though I could set it up, there was no room to move behind it to follow action. I spent the rest of the day shooting handheld. Which meant my hands got cold, even with gloves on. About 10:30, the wind picked way up, raising a chop on the water and making me even more cold. Choppy water means less fishing. I went home.

Overall, I'm not happy with my results. Here are a few photos from the day.

Lens Coat is Popular

Along the Fence

Low Pass

Staring at Me

Contrast against the Rocks on the Island

Lessons from the day:

• Take more warm clothing. I can always take it off if I'm hot but I'll shiver (like yesterday) if it's colder than expected.
• Check exposure settings more frequently. I had a timer set to remind me very 20-30 minutes, but I failed to think about ISO when I checked, so I wound up blowing the best shots out.

Rocket Launch

This past weekend my wife and I went to Chincoteague to watch a rocket launch.

The Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport, aka MARS, has a couple of launches per year, usually to the International Space Station. These are unmanned resupply missions. We've gone twice before to watch a launch. The first time was perfect: it was a night launch and we had beautiful weather. We arrived in town and were directed to the school parking lot. There, we caught a bus to the circle in town near the causeway that leads to Assateague Island. We, along with hundreds of other people, watched the launch that took place miles away. We had a great view over the coastal swamp and open water. The second trip was a bust. We stayed overnight, set up in frigid cold to watch, and the launch was scrubbed seconds before the target time.

This time the launch went on schedule. We got there a couple of hours early, parked on the causeway, and waited. It was chilly and sunny and clear. It was really cool to see the launch. The delay in hearing it was just as I remembered from the first launch that I witnessed. The pad is several miles away from the viewing area; it took time for the sound to reach us. The rocket was nearly out of sight before we heard the launch.

I'm disappointed with the pictures. It was hazy at ground level so sharp pictures were impossible. Even after it climbed I had a hard time getting sharp photos; it was just too far away. But I'll post them anyway.

Here's a shot just after liftoff, with the steam from the water that cools the pad creating a cloud on the left.

Just After Liftoff

 High in the sky, here you can see the two plumes from the two rocket motors. I darkened this one in post-processing to show the flames.

Plume

 The exhaust left a cloud that hung in the air for a little while.

Smoky Trail

Nearly out of sight, it looked like an airplane with a contrail.

Approaching Main Engine Cutoff

So I learned a few things. First, the advice I found on shooting this event said to underexpose a couple of stops because the rocket motors put out a lot of light. That turned out to be the correct advice. I also read that manual mode, f8, ISO 200, 1/1000 are good exposure settings. That also turned out right. I set up on a tripod with a gimbal head. Worked great. What will I do differently, if I ever do this again?

• Focus on infinity, tape the focus ring, forget about trying to focus. It's all happening at infinity. Forget the focus button, which I kept pushing out of habit.
• Have a second camera with a 70-200 lens ready to shoot the smoky trail. My 500mm lens was too much for that and I could only get part of it at a time.

Lincoln Memorial at Dawn

The Lincoln Memorial is in Washington DC. It sits at the western end of the capitol mall. I've passed it hundreds of times on the way to/from business in DC. It's a cool spot to visit because it's an impressive building with an impressive statue and it's right next to the Korean War Memorial and Vietnam War Memorial. It's like a 3-for-1 in a single trip.

Lincoln Memorial

I haven't tried to photograph it much. There's always a crowd and I don't like a lot of people in my photos. I've lived nearby for a long time; I've had lots of time to photograph the monuments; I'm just not interested. There are millions of photos taken of them all the time. There's nothing new.

Well, actually there is something new. I admire the work of David Coleman (https://cherryblossomwatch.com/photography-tips/) and Pete Souza (https://www.petesouza.com/). Both of them have photos online that show the Lincoln statue in beautiful dawn sunlight. The sun lights the statue this way only around the equinoxes, that is, for a few days before/after the first day of Spring and Fall. And you need perfect weather conditions: no clouds in the east at dawn. The memorial is oriented with the opening to the chamber facing east, and the pillars usually cast shadows on the statue. But this time of year there's an unobstructed shaft of light shining right on Lincoln at dawn.

We're in a long string of no rain and few clouds. Perfect weather. It's the equinox. Perfect timing. I went to the Lincoln Memorial at dawn. I set up by the reflecting pool and shot toward the statue. Too many people in the way.

Then I went into the chamber and started shooting. It's so large that it's hard to get a flattering shot of the whole statue from that close, so I went for tight head shots.

My favorite is this silhouette showing the face in profile, illuminated by the golden light, with the dark unlit chamber wall as a background.

Quiet at the Refuge

My last two trips to the refuge have been pretty uneventful. I've seen a few deer and eagles but nothing I could get a good clear shot at. The ospreys are still there; I expect they'll be gone pretty soon. I wouldn't even bother with a blog post, except I got a lifer.

Common Yellowthroat

Not a lifer, this osprey stared at me as I walked below him/her. I always like those big yellow eyes.

Osprey

It was a pretty unrewarding trip, probably because of the time of year and the fact that there were lots of people in the refuge even at the early  morning time that I went. At least I got some exercise.

W&OD Trail

Normally I write this blog only about photography. But today I did something I've wanted to do for a long time and I want to write about it.

After several years of letting my bike gather dust, I decided to start riding again. I took a look at my old bike and decided that it was time to start over.

I did some research, asked some friends who ride, and settled on a model and bought it. Then I started the long slog to get into riding shape. Those first few rides were pretty short. After a month or so, I started exploring routes and settled on a regular 22 mile route from my home to a park at the mouth of the Occoquan River. Eleven miles out, same route back. And there's a big climb (big for me anyway) out of the park so I was getting some lung burning workouts. More importantly, I was getting into shape. I'm never going to be fast or ride for dozens of miles at a time, but I'm reaching my goal of exercising more.

It's Labor Day weekend; I decided it's time to do the long ride that I've wanted to do for a while. I put my bike in the car and drove to Purcellville. My wife drove away, leaving me there at the trail head for the W&OD trail. Because I started at dawn, I mostly had the trail to myself and even startled a family of deer. The miles flew by, probably at least partially because the trail descends from 600 feet toward sea level. I flew through Leesburg. I started running into traffic in Herndon: pedestrians, joggers, more bikers. Reston was crowded. So was Vienna. Finally I reached the other end of the trail in Shirlington after 45 miles of riding. From there I took the 4 Mile Trail to the Mount Vernon Trail next to the Potomac River. I rested for a while at Gravelly Point to watch airplanes, then rode to the Pentagon, where I had arranged for pickup.

My total mileage was 52.9, with breaks in Leesburg, Reston, Falls Church, and Gravelly Point. This is a personal record, exceeding my previous record by about 3 miles. Man it was fun, and I'm expecting to pay for it tomorrow with sore thighs and a painful ass. But it was absolutely worth it.

Maine

It's August, it's Maine time. I visited my in-laws' summer home on a pond in Maine. This "pond" is what I would call a lake; it's that big. The loons were not as plentiful as in previous years, with a maximum of only four at any one time. I was spoiled last time, with as many as 12 adults and a juvenile on the lake. Between laziness (I slept in a lot), rain, and overcast, my loon photography opportunities were poor. There wasn't even a juvenile this time. However, it wasn't a complete shutout.

Common Loon

It's always a challenge to: find them, paddle over to them without spooking them, get to the sunlit side of them, and be ready with the camera when they do something worth shooting. I always try to get the red eyes lit by the sun. When the sun is wrong, the eyes appear black. The loon above popped up from a dive right next to my kayak, showing the big beak and lines of water beads. At random times, a loon will spread its wings, stick its neck straight up, and shake it out, sending water drops flying. This is a really challenging exposure to get right, with the white belly and black head. I have to be careful to underexpose the whole shot so I avoid blowing the white belly out into a mass of white with no detail. This kind of shot also needs a little motion blur, so it's a fine line between a shutter speed that's fast enough for the lens and shaky kayak, but not so fast that there's no blur in the fast moving head.

Common Loon

The road between Stratton and Rangeley is popular with moose. Actually it's popular with people who look for moose. They (the moose) come out of the woods and wander through bogs and ditches looking for food. The time to go is dusk, which means it's a challenge to get good exposures. But I was able to get some keepers of this cow. Her calf was nearby but trotted into the woods before I could get the camera out. Mom stayed in sight for a while. I opened the sun roof and stood up in the (stopped) car to get several shots of this moose in the gloom. It was a challenge to get these shots with my 300mm lens. Opened all the way to f4, I didn't dare shoot slower than 1/320. I had to stay busy on the focus button as the moose moved around because f4 gives pretty shallow depth of field. Some of my shots have the nose or ears in focus, but not the eyes. Nevertheless, I continue to be really happy with the high ISO results I'm getting with this camera.

Cow Moose

I've always had trouble getting shots of kingfishers. They're pretty shy. I'd say that they are as shy as they are chatty. And they make a lot of noise. This one was busy claiming its territory as another kingfisher kept flying by, so this bird stayed unusually still, lucky for me. I happened to be close by in a kayak as this interaction took place and I was able to paddle quite close and grab my camera for this shot.

Kingfisher

 There were lots of cedar waxwings on an island in the lake. I was able to paddle close to this one. While kayaks are great for shooting swimming birds, sadly they're not so great for shooting birds above.

Cedar Waxwing

We went out moose hunting twice. And on the second trip, I was lucky enough to get some shots of this bull, also near Stratton. The evening was pretty dark. I had to punch the ISO way up and open to f4 and 1/320. Even then I had to punch this up in postprocessing to get a usable final product.

Bull Moose

This was my first time shooting moose since I got a good camera. The challenges are: finding them, getting good exposures in the gloom (dark animal, dim lighting), keeping good focus on the eyes while they wander among bushes and tall grass (autofocus kept choosing the lighter colored grass in the foreground). I've seen them plenty of times in Maine, just not in the last few years. It was nice to finally find a few of them and get some usable shots of these large, lumbering animals.

River Otters

I've been otherwise occupied so I haven't visited the refuge much this Summer. However, I did go last week on a brutally hot, humid morning with the usual Summer bugs harassing me as I walked. There wasn't much to shoot, so I came away mostly empty. But I did have only my second otter sighting there. A pair of them were darting into the road and back into the brush repeatedly. One appeared to be an adult, the other a juvenile. Finally they came out long enough for me to get some shots of this playful pair before they ran to the shore and dove in.

River Otters

Ride of the Patriots 2019

Memorial Day weekend in DC means Rolling Thunder. I've been seeing lots of motorcycles for several days leading up to the event. I made my plans to set up on a bridge over Interstate 66 to photograph the Ride of the Patriots, which is a group of riders who line up in Fairfax and who then ride to the Pentagon to join the Rolling Thunder riders. Well, I botched it:

1. I got there too late; the best spots on the bridge were taken and I had an obstructed view of the road as a result.
2. I somehow managed to get my camera into single focus mode and couldn't figure out how to get it into continuous focus mode. It's not obviously marked on the camera. No problem, I thought, I'll just look at the manual...
3. But I had left my phone in the car, and I'd lose my (bad) spot if I left to get my phone, on which I could read the camera manual.

OK, I had to improvise. I basically picked a spot on the road, then focused on that spot, then waited for motorcycles to enter the frame. I managed to get some keepers after all.

Nice Shirt

The ride is dominated by men. Almost all of the women in the ride were hanging on to a male rider. At least that's the way it has been in previous years, and this year was no exception. But, surprisingly large numbers of women rode this time. With thousands of bikes going by, I look for a few things that stand out to be worth shooting. Beards, tattoos, facial expressions, gestures, children, helmets, the rare female rider, ...

What a Beard!

Of course the cops were busy providing traffic control. So I guess you could say they were in the ride too.

Fairfax County's Finest

There are so many back seat riders using their phones, I wonder how many phones get dropped on the road during the ride...

Selfie?

Another theme this year was the number of smokers. There were lots of cigars, and a few cigarettes.

Got a light?

This guy's working on a painful sunburn. Maybe he burned his face riding to Fairfax the day before?

Red Face

This kid is hanging on to the flag and his rider, maybe his/her father? I saw lots of women riding as passengers, and a few children, and even a dog.

Hold on Tight!

I guess makeup was important for this rider. It seems most of the women riders show more skin than the men. Talk about skin abrasion if she falls.

Lipstick

And finally, here's a nice smile to end the series of photos:

Smile!

This year the riders did a poor job of keeping a consistent distance from the bike ahead, and consequently large gaps opened up. Toward the end of the ride, the motorcycles were going by really fast to close the gaps and it became hard to get good shots as they whizzed by. I eventually just put my camera down and watched the show.

The organization that organizes Rolling Thunder announced that this was the last one; they're not doing this anymore. Well, we'll see. Maybe the local chapters will figure out how to keep it going, maybe with smaller groups of riders. Or maybe the national chapter will settle their grievance with the Pentagon over costs and perceived sleights. But maybe this was my last chance to shoot these people and to hear the deep rumble of thousands of bikes.

One last bit about my camera... In spite of my issue with getting it into the right mode to follow objects while maintaining focus (and I've since read the manual and fixed that setting), I'm loving my new camera. I'm stunned by the high quality of the photographs, the ability to do aggressive cropping and still have a nice, sharp photo, and the fact that I've had it for a few months now and still haven't filled the buffer.

Joint Base Andrews Air Show 2019

It was bad weather for the air show this weekend. So bad that they cancelled the Sunday flying on Saturday. I knew the skies would be overcast, getting darker as the day progressed, and photography would be a challenge. But hey, I didn't get a new camera to sit at home. I didn't want to miss a chance to see the Thunderbirds and Blue Angels on the same day.

I arrived in time to see the Thunderbirds taxi out and take off. They did the high show, and disappeared into the clouds a few times. My photos are not my best capture of this team. I should have learned last time that 1/1600 is too slow to freeze the close passes. I saw the maneuver developing, tracked one plane, then fired away when they were about to pass each other. Note to self: read the previous blog post for this event next time to refresh my memory about lessons learned.

Head On Pass

 I was pleased with the new camera. Several times I fired away on continuous high. It tracked focus very well and never filled the buffer.

Mirror Image

 Of course number 5 spends a lot of time upside down.

Number 5

 After the Thunderbirds, there were a few other acts, of which the Mustang show was my favorite.

P-51 Mustang

When I was in high school, I lived near an Air Force Base that had a wing of A-7 Corsair aircraft. I saw them flying around all the time. Then the Air Force switched that wing's aircraft to the A-10. I recall the first time I saw one: it's really ugly. And slow. And did I mention ugly? Well, over time I began to appreciate it. It's relatively quiet. It flies gracefully and is highly maneuverable. And several times I was able to witness it firing the Gatling gun during demonstrations or just target practice. Now decades later, I saw it again, this time flying at the air show. It's not like the F-22 and F-15 demonstrations that I've seen in previous years at the show. It doesn't have the raw speed and noise that I can feel in my chest. There are no afterburners to kick its acceleration. In contrast, it flew quietly, mostly stayed right over the field, and made lots of close passes. And it's still ugly.

A-10 Warthog

Finally, the Blue Angels closed the flying out. I haven't seen them in a very long time and it was worth the wait for them at the end of the day's flying. I was disappointed that Fat Albert did not fly. But the jets put on a great show.

Blue Angel Solos Take Off

Note to self: higher shutter speed for the head on passes.

Head-On Pass

There were a few chances at an afterburner shot; sadly it seems I always had to shoot through the trailing heat haze.

Afterburner Photographed through Heat Haze

 And here's my favorite formation shot of the show.

In Tight

Mist forms in the low pressure above the lifting surfaces.

Vapor Forms Above the Wings

 And finally, here's an awful shot, but it shows the engines on afterburner. For many of their maneuvers, they turned smoke on, and with the light breeze it settled at ground level and I had to pass on many shots just because there was too much smoke to shoot through. I did take this one, shot through a thick cloud of air show smoke as they trailed their own smoky exhaust and exited on afterburner.

Afterburners Lit

It was a good show, even though they did the low show. Hoping for better skies next time.

Cherry Blossoms

Well, it's that time of year again. The cherry blossoms at the tidal basin are blooming. I hustled over after work one afternoon and got caught up in the crowds.

Cherry Blossoms and Crowds

 It was overcast all day, but some sunshine came through at times.

Washington Monument and Cherry Blossoms

 The Jefferson Memorial still looks pretty bad. The dark stuff is still growing on the roof and the area in the photo below where the people are walking regularly floods, leaving muddy pools to walk through even on the sidewalks.

Jefferson Memorial

 The blossoms were at peak, with most of the flowers in the white stage, and only a few trees into the pink phase.

Cherry Blossoms

Cherry Blossoms

 Back into the gloomy overcast, I got a hint of dramatic skies.

Washington Monument and Cherry Blossoms

There was a steady stream of helicopters flying over. I think every pilot wanted to buzz the basin. When I heard them coming, I quickly switched to a slower shutter speed to get a shot with blurred rotors. Marine One flew over twice, although I think it was a training flight, not a flight with the president aboard. So I guess it wasn't actually Marine One, but a VH-3D Sea King configured for the president's use.

VH-3D Sea King, Sometimes Called Marine One

 And here's another helicopter, this time a Blackhawk, also buzzing the crowd.

VH-60N Whitehawk

I wanted to go at dawn, but between work and driving my son around to his events and cloudy skies, I wasn't able to get the cool golden hour shots that I like. Maybe next year.