December

With the winter solstice, full moon, lunar eclipse last night, and a cold running through the office… no wonder I’m feeling under the weather today.  Sorry I didn’t get any photographs of the big event, but it was amazing to see none the less.  I hope you too woke up long enough to witness one of nature’s wonders last night.  I’m hoping we get some snowfall soon so I’m able to add to my winter images… it’s harder to find exciting material to photograph in the ‘brown’ of winter in Pennsylvania.  December has always been the hardest month for me to be inspired by the season… no ice, no water, always overcast, no contrasts… just shades of brown.

Yes, the mahonia are in bloom and some of the other winter bloomers are hoping for warmer days and sunshine.  But as a photographer, this is the time of year I find new trees, new forms and dances among the bare branches.  I add them to my mental database, watch and ponder the best conditions to capture their grace.  The only thing keeping me inside lately is the strong winds we’ve had almost every day this month.  But with the shortest day of the year now behind us, we have longer days, brighter light and maybe a little snow to look forward to for the rest of the winter.  December is restorative…  time to enjoy the quietness of this time of year and let the creative process slow and wander.  For it’s during these times we can more easily reflect and embrace what is truly important to each of us as human beings and as artists.

aging gracefully

I’ve just started going through my images from my trip west to Death Valley, the Eastern Sierras, and Yosemite.  So I’ll have lots of images to share in the coming weeks and on my website which I plan to update by the end of the year.  But out of the many amazing experiences I had during this photographic journey, one of the highlights for me was visiting the ancient Great Basin Bristlecone Pines  (Pinus longaeva) protected in the Inyo National Forest growing on dolomitic soils in the White Mountains of California.

In 1957, Dr. Edmund P. Schulman dated the oldest tree in the grove to be 4,723 years old; “Methuselah” remains today the world’s oldest known living tree.  It was discovered later that another tree had reached 4,950 years; but unfortunately, its age was discovered only after it was cut by a student as a research object.  Today all the trees in the two groves are protected and the identity of the oldest tree is kept a secret.

Our GPS located us at 10,500ft when we stopped at the side of the road between the Schulman and Patriarch Groves; the altitude was giving me a massive headache and our small group of photographers decided not to push ourselves to the 11,500+ elevation since we started the morning at only 4,000ft.  So we lugged our gear and our oxygen deprived bodies up a 45 degree slope to a small group of ancient bristlecones where we spent the remaining 2.5+ hours photographing well into the twilight hours.

The light at that altitude is something to experience.  For this image I used some newly acquired skills that I learned from Jack Dykinga at the Barnbaum, Dusard, Dykinga Death Valley Photographic Workshop.  I used my Nikon 24mm f/3.5 PC-E lens to capture 5 vertical images that I later stitched together in Photoshop CS5.  This technique allowed me to get below this twisted giant and share what I saw from a different perspective.

I’ve always admired trees… just the nature of being in one place their whole life, exposed to whatever nature throws at them.  And these ancient trees have certainly aged gracefully.

moss

Every day during the last month, I’ve walk by this beautiful tree… a moss covered oak growing along a quiet road.  The first time I saw it, I knew I had to photograph it.  And I also knew that I needed some rain to enliven the multicolored moss and lichens on its buttress.  And tonight it rained.  A beautiful soft rain perfect for capturing the mood of the tree.  This is my first attempt at a panorama, but not my last… and certainly not my last study of this marvelous tree.  Please click on the image above to view it larger rather than simply the thumbnail on this post.