Hayes Farm Park and Trescott Ridge Wetlands

On Wednesday I led a photo walk at the Hayes Farm Park and Trescott Ridge Wetlands.  We visited the King Bird Sanctuary along the way. It was a beautiful spring day. The blooms on the trees were a bit past peak — missed that by about a week.  You can see photos I took in the King Bird Sanctuary four days earlier by clicking HERE.

I gave a few photo tips before the walk started. I have also included other photo tips and suggestions in the Blog.

One of the tips I started with was, if the sky is blank and uninteresting consider minimizing or eliminating the sky in your photos. Many “landscape” photos can be much better without the sky. But not this day — the clouds were beautiful.  I made the above photo shortly before people started arriving.

Here is a photo I took right next to the parking area at the Etna Library. It nicely illustrated using color contrast in photos — here the complimentary colors of red/purple and green.

As we walked through the area we found some interrupted ferns. “Interrupted” describes the gap in the middle of the blade left by the fertile portions after they wither and eventually fall off. This photo nicely illustrates tonal contrast.  There is only one hue (color) in the photo. The image is carried by the difference in tones between the dark fertile spore-bearing pinnae and the lighter sterile fronds.

I took two photos to show the effect of sun on flower photos.  Most photos of flowers are better on overcast days.  For this example, Gail simply held my hat so as to shade the flower. 

 

When we got to a nice grouping of mushrooms that were growing on some wood chips, I carefully shaded them with my body when I took the photo.

A dandelion provided an example of aperture on depth of field.

 

I took a photo of a wild strawberry flower putting it slightly off-center.

Near the end of the walk a few of us took a short detour to see a huge yellow birch. I photographed it backlit by the afternoon sun.

As the walk was nearing its end we found a crab spider had captured a wasp on a Golden Alexander wildflower. These flowers are attractive to many kinds of insects seeking pollen or nectar, especially short-tongued bees, wasps, flies, and beetles. It is a member of the Carrot family.

I took out my macro lens to make the photo below — actually not specifically a macro lens but my small LX7 camera that can focus to less than a half inch. If you study the photo you can see the two eyes of the spider on either side of one of the wings of the wasp.

I had decided in advance to walk home after the workshop. My wife was in the library with another group, and we only brought one car to save a parking space for both groups. On my way up King Road I took a pair of photos that illustrate a tip I gave at the beginning of the photo walk. Be sure to take both horizontal and vertical photos — don’t get stuck just using your camera in the easier-to-hold landscape mode. If you have both you can later decide which you like better. If you have only one then the decision is easier, but perhaps not as rewarding.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There was also a beautiful stone wall that I could use to illustrate another tip. What is it? Does this stone wall look long?

One way to make a subject like this look longer is to not show the ends. Showing the ends limit the length of the wall.

A nice cluster of white birch gave me a chance to illustrate some of the tricks to convey the feeling of three-dimensions in two-dimensional photos. An obvious one is to have some object in front of others. Another way is to use size contrast as I did here with the trees.

Since the group had walked down from the King Bird Sanctuary into a bit of the Trescott Ridge Wetlands on a very sunny day — not a good time for photography in a forest — my wife and I hiked through this area to Woodcock Lane Thursday morning before the rain started. The photo below illustrates using diagonal lines in your compositions.

A fern fiddle-head gave me another chance to play with tonal contrast and depth of field, f/5.6 in this case.

Two minutes later I took the photo below at f/18 to get a lot of depth of field. Too many photographers shoot only on Auto which often sets the camera lens at f/5.6. And too many photographers who are just beginning to use Aperture Priority leave their camera set to f/5.6.  In both of these cases deep depth of field cannot be captured.

I hope these simple photo lessons were helpful. And do visit the Hayes Farm Park and Trescott Ridge Wetlands sometime. There are normally plenty of parking spaces in the library parking lot.

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